“I believe it’s legitimate for me to ask whether your resignation from the sheriff’s department was due in part to your failure to locate Mr. Osborne and the missing men.”
“It wasn’t, your Honor. I had personal reasons.” Valenzuela rubbed one side of his jaw as though it had begun to hurt. “Nobody likes to fail, naturally. If I’d found what I was looking for, I would have hesitated before going into another line of work.”
“Thank you, Mr. Valenzuela.” Judge Gallagher leaned back in his chair and recrossed his arms on his chest. “You may continue, Mr. Ford.”
“Has diligent search been proved to your Honor’s satisfaction?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Now, Mr. Valenzuela, during the six months you worked on the case you must have reached some conclusions about what happened to the ten missing men.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that they crossed the border, probably before they were even missed at the ranch and before the police knew a crime had been committed. The men had a truck and they had papers. Once they were back in their own country they were safe.”
“How safe?”
“Let’s put it in terms of figures,” Valenzuela said. “At that time Tijuana had a population exceeding two hundred thousand and a police force with only eighteen squad cars.”
“All vehicles are stopped at the border, aren’t they?”
“The Tijuana-San Diego border is said to be the busiest in the world, twenty million people a year. This averages out to fifty-four thousand a day, but in actual fact weekday traffic is much lighter and weekend traffic much heavier. Between a Friday afternoon and a Sunday night three hundred thousand people or more travel between the two countries. Numbers alone present a very serious problem to law enforcement agencies. There are also other factors. Mexican laws differ from U.S. laws, enforcement in many areas is inconsistent, bribery of officials is a general practice, policemen are few and usually poorly trained.”
“How much chance did you figure you had of locating the missing men once they’d crossed the border into their own country?”
“When I started out I thought there was some chance. As time went on, it became obvious there wasn’t any. The reasons have been mentioned—generalized corruption, overcrowding and understaffing at the border, lack of training, discipline and morale among Mexican police officers. Such statements aren’t going to make me very popular among certain people, but facts must be faced. I’m not inventing anything in order to justify my own failure in this case.”
“Your candor is appreciated, Mr. Valenzuela.”
“Not by everybody.”
Valenzuela’s smile appeared and disappeared so fast that Ford wasn’t quite sure he’d seen it and not at all sure it had been a smile. Perhaps it was merely a grimace indicating a twinge of pain in the head or stomach or conscience.
“One more item of interest, Mr. Valenzuela. There’s been considerable talk about the blood found on the floor of the mess hall. Between the mess hall and the bunkhouse there’s an area of blacktop. Was any blood found on it?”
“No, sir.”
“Near it?”
“No, sir.”
“What about the bunkhouse?”
“It was a mess, as the photographs in the file clearly indicate, but there were no bloodstains.”
“Was it possible to determine if anything had been taken from the bunkhouse?”
“Not that night. The following day a careful examination was made with Mr. Estivar present and it was discovered that three blankets were missing from one of the bunks, a striped flannelette, more like a double sheet, and two brown wool, army surplus.”
“Did you connect the fact that no bloodstains were found outside the mess hall with the fact that three blankets were missing from the bunkhouse?”
“Yes, sir. It seemed reasonable to assume that Mr. Osborne’s body had been wrapped in the blankets before it was removed from the mess hall.”
“Why three blankets? Why not two? Or one?”
“One or two probably wouldn’t have been adequate,” Valenzuela said. “A young man of Mr. Osborne’s height and weight carries between six and a half and seven quarts of blood in his system. Even if as much as two quarts were found on the floor of the mess hall, there would have been enough left to cause a lot of trouble for the other men.”
“You mean the other two men who were involved in the fight?”
“Yes, sir—O, who left the fight early, and B, who lost a considerable amount of blood.”
“Your previous evidence indicated that both of these men were small.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know Robert Osborne personally, Mr. Valenzuela?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How would you describe his physique?”
“He was tall, not heavy but well-muscled and strong.”
“Could two small men, both wounded, one of them quite badly, have been able to wrap Mr. Osborne’s body in blankets and carry it out to a vehicle?”
“I can’t give you a definite answer to that. Under special circumstances people can sometimes do things which ordinarily would be impossible for them.”
“Since you can’t give a definite answer, perhaps you will tell the court your opinion.”
“My opinion is that O, the man who was wounded slightly, went to get help from his friends.”
“And got it?”
“And got it.”
“Mr. Valenzuela, in California jurisprudence it is held that where absence from any cause other than death is inconsistent with the nature of the person absent, and the facts point to the reasonable conclusion that death has occurred, the court is justified in finding death as a fact. However, if the person at the time he was last seen was a fugitive from justice or was a bankrupt, or if from other causes it would be improbable that he would be heard from even if alive, then no inference of death will be drawn. That’s perfectly clear, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now as Mr. Osborne’s lawyer I can testify he was not a bankrupt. Was he a fugitive from justice, Mr. Valenzuela?”
“No, sir.”
“Was there, to your knowledge, any other cause, or causes, which would prevent Mr. Osborne from getting in touch with his relatives and friends?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Can you think of any reason at all why an inference of death should not be drawn?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Valenzuela. I have no more questions.”
As Valenzuela left the stand the court clerk rose to announce the usual afternoon recess of fifteen minutes. Ford asked that it be extended by half an hour to let him prepare his summary, and after some discussion the extra time was granted.
The bailiff once again opened the doors. He was getting bored and weary. Dead people took up a great deal of his time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
like an animal that had sensed danger in its sleep, Mrs. Osborne awakened abruptly and completely. Her opening eyes were alert, ready to spot an enemy, her voice distinct, ready to challenge one: “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t answer your phone,” Devon said, turning from the window. “I came out to see why. The front door was unlocked, so I walked in.”
“To check up on me.”
“Yes.”
“As if I were some doddering old fool.”
“No. Mr. Ford suggested I find out why you didn’t return to court this afternoon. He thought he’d made it clear that you were expected to testify.”
“He made it quite clear.” Mrs. Osborne sat up on the bed, running her fingers along her chin and cheeks and forehead like a blind woman reacquainting herself with her own face. “I don’t al
ways do what’s expected of me, especially when I think it’s wrong. I couldn’t stop the hearing but at least I could keep from playing a part in it.”
“And you feel that’s a victory?”
“It was the best I could do at the moment.”
“At the moment,” Devon repeated. “Then you have something else in mind?”
“Yes.”
“Such as a new reward?”
“So you saw the paper on my desk. Well, I was going to tell you anyway.” She stood up, holding the collar of the blue robe tight against her throat as if to protect a vulnerable place. “Naturally you disapprove. But it’s too late. I’ve already arranged for the first ad in the paper.”
“It seems like a useless gesture.”
“Ten thousand dollars is more than a gesture. It’s a good solid chunk of reality.”
“Only if it buys something,” Devon said. “And there’s nothing to buy. The other reward didn’t bring in a single usable piece of information.”
“This second one will be different. For instance, I’m going to arrange for a much wider distribution of reward posters. And the posters themselves will be redesigned. This time we’ll use at least two pictures of Robert, full face and profile—you can help me choose—and the wording will be kept very simple and direct so that the meaning will get across even in the smaller Mexican villages where hardly anyone is literate.” She let out a sudden little laugh, almost like a schoolgirl’s giggle. “Why, I feel better already just talking about it. It always cheers me up to take positive action on my own instead of waiting for other people to make the decisions. I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee to celebrate. You’ll have some, won’t you, dear?”
She left the room without waiting for an answer, and after a brief hesitation Devon followed her out into the kitchen. Mrs. Osborne poured water into the percolator and measured the coffee with a plastic scoop, humming to herself in a loud nervous monotone intended to cover up awkward silences, discourage awkward questions. It was like the piano playing Estivar had told Devon about during the noon recess: “She’d start playing to cover up, a piece with good firm chords like ‘March of the Toreadors’ . . . ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ . . . Bang bang bang . . . Sometimes I swear I can hear the sound of that piano, though it isn’t even there any more, I helped the movers take it out of the house myself.”
Suddenly the humming stopped and Mrs. Osborne turned, frowning, from the window. “I don’t see your car in the driveway. How did you get here?”
“Leo brought me.”
“Oh.”
“He had no trouble finding the place,” Devon said in a careful voice. “Apparently he’d been here before.”
“I sent for him two or three weeks ago to discuss a personal matter.”
“Ruth.”
“He told you, then.”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Osborne sat down at the table across from Devon, one corner of her mouth hooked in an iron smile. “He probably repeated that ugly story about Ruth and Robert.”
“Yes.”
“Of course you didn’t believe it. Why, Robert could have had dozens of girls, young, pretty, rich. It’s unthinkable that he’d have bothered with a woman like Ruth who had nothing. It simply doesn’t make sense, does it?”
Devon said, “No,” because it was expected of her. She no longer knew what to believe, what made sense and what didn’t. Each new piece of information cast a shadow instead of a light; Robert was gradually disappearing into darkness, and the months they had spent together were losing their outlines, changing shape like clouds on a stormy day.
The coffee had begun to percolate and for a time its cheerful bubbling was the only sound in the room.
Then Mrs. Osborne spoke again: “After she died, the gossips had a field day, of course. The funny thing was, they didn’t blame Leo for neglecting his wife, or Ruth for seeking the company of another man. They blamed Robert.”
“Why?”
“Because he was young and vulnerable.”
“That’s not reason enough.”
“His very existence was reason enough for some people. Wherever Robert and I went, we stepped into the midst of whispers. The phone would ring and there’d be no one on the line, just the sound of breathing. Letters arrived, unsigned. I finally called the Sheriff’s office and they sent Valenzuela out to the ranch to discuss the situation. Well, we talked but there was no communication. He was carrying around in his mind a picture of Robert as the neighborhood seducer and destroyer of women, and I couldn’t shake it loose. He’s been prejudiced against Robert right from the beginning, that’s why he never really tried to find him. He didn’t want to. Oh, he put on a good show, taking all those trips to the labor camps and into Mexico. It fooled his superiors for a while but they caught on eventually and fired him.”
“I heard that he quit because he got married again and his new wife didn’t like him being in police work.”
“Nonsense. He’d never have given up the power of such a job, let alone his seniority and his pension, for the sake of some little tramp.”
“How do you know she was a little tramp? She might—”
“Word gets around. Valenzuela was fired. I heard it on the valley grapevine as well as the Mexicans’ parra grande.”
“I talked to him this afternoon,” Devon said. “He apologized for the way things have turned out. He seemed very sincere. I can’t believe he didn’t do his best to find Robert.”
“Can’t you . . . ? How do you take your coffee?”
“Black, please.”
“I’m afraid it’s rather weak.”
“That’s all right.”
Mrs. Osborne poured the coffee, her hand steady. “What else did he have to say? Surely he didn’t just walk up to you and tell you he was sorry.”
“He said the case is over.”
“As far as he’s concerned it’s been over for a long time.”
“No. He meant that I—you and I—shouldn’t go on hoping.”
“Well, his advice was wasted on both of us, wasn’t it? You never really started hoping, and I don’t intend to stop.”
“I know that,” Devon said. “I saw the cartons.”
“Cartons?”
“In the bedroom closet. The ones you told me you were going to take to the Salvation Army.”
“I made no promise. I agreed to take them because I didn’t want to argue with you. You were so anxious to get them out of the house. It seemed the natural move to make, bringing them here instead of giving them away to strangers. Some of the things in the cartons were very personal. His glasses.” Her voice tripped over the word, fell, rose again. “How could you do that, Devon—give away his glasses?”
“They might help someone to see. Robert would have approved.”
“It saddened me terribly to think of a stranger wearing Robert’s glasses, perhaps using them to see ugliness Robert would never have seen because he was such a good boy. No, I couldn’t bear it. I put his glasses away for safekeeping.”
“What are you going to do with the rest of his stuff?”
“I thought I’d fix up the front bedroom, just the way his room was at the ranch, with the kind of things boys like— college pennants on the walls, and surfing posters and, of course, the maps. Did Robert ever show you his old maps?”
“No.”
“My sister sent them to him for his birthday one year. They were framed copies of early medieval maps showing the world as it was presumed to be then, flat and surrounded by water. At the edge of one map there was a notice saying that further areas were unknown and uninhabitable because of the sun’s heat. Another said simply, ‘Beyond this point are monsters.’ The phrase appealed to Robert. He printed a sign and taped it outside his door: BEYOND THIS POINT ARE MON
STERS. Dulzura hated the sign and wouldn’t go past it because she believed in monsters, probably still does. She refused to clean Robert’s room unless I stood in the doorway to protect her, just in case. Dulzura’s lucky. The rest of us have monsters too, but we must call them by other names, or pretend they don’t exist . . . The world of Robert’s maps was nice and flat and simple. It had areas for people and areas for monsters. What a shock it is to discover the world is round and the areas merge and nothing separates the monsters and ourselves; that we are all whirling around in space together and there isn’t even a graceful way of falling off. Knowledge can be a dreadful thing.”
Devon sipped the coffee. It was like hot water, slightly colored, barely scented. “How old was Robert when he was given the maps?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Jaime’s age?”
“A little more than that, I think.”
“Fifteen, then.”
“Yes, I remember now, it was the year he grew. He’d been rather small until then, not much taller than the Estivar boys, and he suddenly started to grow.”
He was fifteen, Devon thought. It was the year of his father’s death and she sent him away to school. He never really came back. She’s still waiting for his return to a room decorated with school pennants and surfing posters and a warning sign on the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
for the last time that day the bailiff announced that court was in session, and Ford addressed the bench:
“Your Honor, I would like at this time to summarize the events which led to the filing of the petition by Devon Suellen Osborne alleging that her husband, Robert Kirkpatrick Osborne, met his death on the night of October thirteen, 1967, and asking the court to declare him officially dead and to appoint her as administrator of his estate. Nine witnesses have been heard. Their testimony has given us a fairly complete picture of Robert Osborne.
“Robert Osborne was a young man of twenty-four, happily married, in good health and spirits, and planning for the future, both the very near future—he was driving into San Diego that morning to pick up a new tennis racket, attend a growers’ luncheon, visit his mother, and so on—and the distant future—his wife was expecting a child. He was the sole owner of a ranch. It would never have made him a millionaire but it was operating in the black and he had only himself and his wife to support, his mother having inherited money from her sister. The troubles in his life were minor, mainly concerned with the management of the ranch, the difficulty of getting adequate help at harvest time, and so on.
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