“How did the child seem to you?”
“Quiet. Very quiet. It was not good for her, being here like that.”
“What kind of book did the senora have?”
“A small book, but thick. Red. Like a diary.”
“Did you ever see her writing in it?”
“No. But sometimes, when I came to clean, it was lying beside her on the bed, closed, with a pen on top of it. It seemed to me that she had been writing before I arrived.”
“Always she took this book with her when she left the room?”
“Yes.”
“Did the senora tell you where she would be going after she left Taos?”
“No.”
“Did you see her leave, when she left for the last time?”
“Yes. I was crossing the courtyard when I saw her car. She waved to me. So did the little one.”
“Which way did the car go? North or south?” South was the direction Melissa would’ve taken to reach the commune in Palo Verde.
“North,” she said. “But often they went for breakfast at the McDonald’s. That is north of here. And they had not eaten yet, that day. Perhaps they went there.”
I nodded. “Is there anything else you can tell me, Senora Rodriques?” So far as I knew, Mrs. Rodriques was the last person to have seen Melissa and Winona before they disappeared.
She shook her head. “No. Will they be all right? She and the little one?”
“I hope so. I thank you very much.” I reached back and tugged out my wallet. “May I offer you something for your assistance?”
She took her hands from her pockets and waved them. “No, no. I want no money.”
“Senora, please. You have been of great help to me.”
“No, no. I wanted to help the senora only. And the child. Thank you very much, but no.”
I nodded. “As you wish. Do you intend to clean this room now?”
“You are leaving very soon?”
“Yes.”
“I will return. There is another I must clean first.”
“Very well. Thank you again, senora.”
“For nothing. I, too, hope that the senora and Mary are well.”
After she left, I put two twenties on the top of the dresser.
“The book,” Rita said. “The diary. Melissa was using it to write her account of what happened in Cureiro.”
I shrugged. “She told Juanita she’d be writing an account. So, yeah, probably.”
“And you checked the McDonald’s?”
“Yeah. One of the girls there remembered her from the picture, said she’d come in a couple of times for breakfast. But the girl couldn’t remember what days she’d been there. And naturally, she didn’t pay any attention to which direction Melissa took when she drove away. She was too busy.”
“Which is no doubt why Melissa ate there in the first place.”
I nodded.
We were sitting on the sofa again. Rita wore a white blouse this morning, and a blue skirt that, like the others, reached to her ankles. We were both drinking tea.
I said, “The woman from Albuquerque. The S and M queen. She couldn’t tell you anything useful?”
Rita shook her head. “She hasn’t seen Melissa for three years, and Melissa and Roy went to only a couple of meetings back then, before their divorce.”
“Meetings?”
She smiled. “Not orgies. The group down there is more of a discussion group. They sound a fairly sedate bunch. They have pot luck dinners once a month.”
“What do they bring? Chicken in Chains? Roast Beef Torquemada?”
“Joshua. You’re not very tolerant today.”
“I’m pissed off. I’ve run out of places to look and people to talk to. This is a mess, Rita. Stamworth, the Salvadoran, death squads. And now Melissa and Winona have vanished into thin air.” I drank some tea.
“Let’s put Melissa and Winona aside for the moment,” she said, “and deal with the others, one at a time. Starting with Stamworth. What do we know about him? When did he first show up?”
“Sometime toward the end of September. In L.A.”
“Before Cathryn was killed.”
“Right.”
“We don’t think he killed Cathryn.”
“I don’t, no. I think that was the Salvadoran.”
“And we don’t think that Stamworth’s really with the FBI.”
“No.”
“But we don’t know with whom he might actually be working.”
“No.”
“He showed up next here in Santa Fe, last week, just after Cathryn was killed. He talked to Deirdre Polk, Rebecca Carlson, and your friend Arnstead, at Juanita Carrera’s apartment.”
“Right.”
“We’re assuming that he knew about Polk and Carrera from Melissa’s phone bill.”
“Right.”
She sipped at her tea. “Next time we hear about him, he’s in Los Angeles, talking to you.”
“Right. On Tuesday night.”
“We don’t know how he knew about you.”
I shrugged. “Someone must’ve told him.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps one of the people you spoke to was being watched.”
“A stakeout?” Maybe. “And Stamforth, or someone working with him, gets the license number off the rental I was driving. And then gets my name from the rental company.”
She nodded. “Someone working with him, I should think. Stamworth was probably still here, in Santa Fe, while you were asking questions on Tuesday.”
“Why?”
“Because it was from here that Melissa sent her postcard to Cathryn. He would’ve known about the postcard from the Los Angeles police. Why return to Los Angeles unless you suddenly appear over there, asking questions?”
I nodded. “L.A. is only a few hours away. He could’ve flown there Tuesday night. But we still don’t know why Stamworth is looking for Melissa.”
“For the same reason, perhaps, that the Salvadoran is looking for her.”
“To kill her?” I finished off my tea.
“Not necessarily to kill her. To contain her, possibly. Possibly he’s learned about what Melissa saw in El Salvador. Possibly someone in the government, our government, felt that Melissa represented a possible embarrassment, and sent Stamworth to track her down.”
“But he was looking for her before Cathryn was killed. Before anyone knew where Melissa might be.”
She sipped her tea. “We’re assuming that Cathryn talked to someone about the card from Melissa. We don’t know for certain who that was or—”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” I said. “About who she talked to.”
She nodded. “Charles Hatfield. The man you talked to in Los Angeles. At Sanctuary.”
I looked at her. “Rita. I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
She smiled. “He knew Cathryn, he admitted that.”
“So did Edie Carpenter. And Chuck Arthur.”
“Each of them said they only met her once. Hatfield admitted to seeing her several times, around the Sanctuary offices. And if Cathryn were going to talk to anyone about receiving a postcard from Melissa, wouldn’t Hatfield be the obvious choice? He was the man Melissa worked for. He was—ostensibly, anyway—as dedicated as Melissa to the cause.”
“He was also a liar,” I said.
“In what way?”
“That phrase Melissa used in her card to Cathryn—‘The flower in the desert lives.’ He told me he’d never heard it, that it didn’t mean anything to him. Juanita Carrera told me last night that it was a standard phrase used by the death squads. They’ve even used it in letters sent to Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Hatfield had to know about it.”
“He probably lied, too, about receiving a message from Melissa. We know she sent at least two postcards toward the end of September, and probably both on the same day, the twenty-third. One to Cathryn, one to her mother.”
“And probably one to Edie Carpenter,” I said. “I think she was lying about
not hearing from Melissa.”
“And probably one to Hatfield.”
“But if Hatfield already had a postcard from Melissa, if he already knew she was in Santa Fe, or at least in New Mexico, it doesn’t matter whether Cathryn called him.”
“Of course it does. If all the card said was ‘The flower in the desert lives,’ then it didn’t tell Hatfield where Melissa might be. It told him only, from the postmark, that she was somewhere near Santa Fe.”
I nodded. “And there was a possibility that Cathryn might know more. So as soon as she called him, told him she’d heard from Melissa, she put herself in jeopardy.”
She nodded, sipped at her tea. “And let’s not forget that Maria Vasquez and Father Cisneros were killed because someone informed on Maria. Someone notified someone in El Salvador that Maria was leaving.”
“But if was Hatfield, why didn’t the death squad that went to Cisneros’s house pick up Melissa, too? They never searched the place.”
“Perhaps Hatfield never mentioned Melissa’s name. Perhaps he simply said that Maria Vasquez was preparing to leave.”
I shook my head, dubious. “I don’t know, Rita.”
“All right. We’ll forget about Hatfield informing on Melissa and Maria. For now. But you’ll admit that he’s most likely the one who informed on Cathryn.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He looks good for that. But why would he do it?”
“Who knows? Money, possibly. We don’t need motive, Joshua. We’re not a court of law. Let’s suppose it went something like this—Hatfield receives a postcard from Melissa sometime toward the end of September. Then Cathryn calls him and tells him that she’s heard from Melissa. Hatfield notifies someone in El Salvador, and they send up the two men you saw yesterday.”
She sipped at her tea. “Let’s suppose that someone in the American government learns about this. Learns that Melissa has been located somewhere near Santa Fe, and that the Salvadoran government is sending up an assassination team. There are Americans all over El Salvador. Military advisers. Intelligence agents. Maybe someone in the Salvadoran government leaked the plan to one of them.”
“But if someone in the American government wanted Melissa removed, why didn’t he just let the Salvadorans do it for him?”
“As I say, maybe they wanted only to contain her. Neutralize her somehow. Maybe they decided to find her before the Salvadorans tried to kill her. What if the Salvadorans botched the job? Then the American government would have not only the embarrassment of Melissa, but the further embarrassment of a foreign assassin attempting to kill an American citizen on American soil.”
“So they, whoever they are, send Stamford to L.A. And he gets there before the Salvadorans do, and he starts asking his questions.”
“And then Cathryn is killed, and the police find the New Mexico postcard, and Stamworth comes out here.”
“You’re always telling me that I’m too easily inclined toward speculation, Rita. Isn’t it pure speculation, all of this?”
“We’re trying to construct a scenario that accepts all the facts as we know them. And this scenario, as you like to put it”—she smiled—“it fits.”
“Maybe. One thing’s been bothering me. Why didn’t the Salvadorans take the postcard from Cathryn’s house, after they killed her? It was a lead to where Melissa might be.”
“From Hatfield’s point of view, and probably from the Salvadorans’, the postcard wasn’t important. If I’m right, Hatfield knew that there were at least two postcards, the one he’d received and the one Cathryn had received. He had no idea how many others Melissa had sent. There could’ve been twenty or thirty of them.”
“Why didn’t the Salvadorans go to Melissa’s mother? She got a postcard from Melissa.”
“But neither Hatfield nor the Salvadorans could know that. And Hatfield couldn’t contact her without drawing attention to himself. Neither could the Salvadorans. Melissa’s mother lives a relatively public life. And she has servants. Cathryn lived alone.”
I sat back. “Okay,” I said. “It fits. So what do we do about it?”
Rita had an idea.
Twenty-Seven
MR. HATFIELD?”
“Yes?”
“This is Joshua Croft.”
“Sorry?”
“Joshua Croft. From Santa Fe. I’ve been trying to locate Melissa Alonzo?” I looked down at Leroy’s little black box, beside the telephone. The green light was off. The line was tapped. But I’d already known that—I’d arranged for it myself.
“Yes, yes,” said Hatfield. “Of course. Croft. Good to hear from you. How are you?”
“Fine. I apologize for bothering you on a weekend.”
“Not at all, not at all. No rest for the wicked, eh? Back in New Mexico, are you? Had any luck with your quest?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have. I’ve heard from Melissa.”
“Good Lord. Have you indeed? Is she all right?”
“She seems to be.”
“Thanks heavens for that.” Hatfield was good. There was nothing in his voice but relief and pleasure.
But maybe that was all he felt. Maybe Rita and I were wrong.
“Where is she?” Hatfield asked me.
“She wouldn’t say. She’s nearby, here in Santa Fe, but she’s being cautious. That’s why I’m calling you. She won’t meet with me unless I can prove I’m who I say I am. I need something from you, a piece of information, anything. Something I can give to Melissa to show her that I’ve been in contact with you, and that you’re working with me on this. She trusts you. She’ll be calling me back at two thirty.”
There was a pause. Then: “Well, you know, old man, no offense, but I’m not entirely sure I should do that. After all, I’ve only your word myself that you are who you say you are.”
He was good. Or Rita and I were wrong.
“Mr. Hatfield,” I said, “I can provide you with the name of a lawyer here in Santa Fe who’ll verify what I told you in Los Angeles. I can also provide you the name of a high-ranking Santa Fe law enforcement official.”
“Well, look” he said. “Why don’t we just do this. Why don’t you tell Melissa to give me a jingle? That way, she and I can chat for a bit, I can get the lay of the land.”
“I suggested that. She wants to do it this way. I don’t know why.”
“Hmmm. Puts me in a bit of a spot, doesn’t it.” He was silent for a moment. “All right. You’re on, Croft. Got to think of Melissa, don’t we. Let’s see … Hmmm … Got it. Perfect thing. Tell her about Jorge Mirandez. Tell her that Jorge Mirandez’s second wife, Sophia, says hello.”
“She’ll know what that means?”
He chuckled. “Oh yes. Mexican chap. Brought his wife and kids over, applied for a residence visa. Week later, his other wife shows up, with another set of kids. Turns out he was a bigamist. Both wives knew about each other. Took turns watching the children. Extraordinary. Melissa handled the paperwork. She and I had a laugh or two. She’ll know what it means.”
“Fine. That’s exactly what I need. I’m very grateful, Mr. Hatfield.”
“Not at all. Glad to help. Wonderful news. Give Melissa my love, would you? Have her get in touch when she can.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks again.”
“Nothing. Bye now.”
“Goodbye.”
I hung up and turned to Hector Ramirez. “He bought it.”
Sitting across the room at the end of my sofa, Hector nodded. “A high-ranking law enforcement official? Who would that be, exactly?”
“You got promoted. When do the L.A. cops call you?”
He shrugged his heavy shoulders. He was in shirtsleeves again, a pale yellow shirt with thin gray pinstripes that matched his gray silk tie. “Soon as he makes a move,” he said.
“I hope the bastard doesn’t call from a pay phone.”
“He may not call them at all.”
“Right. Look on the bright side.”
“All we can do is wait, Josh.�
��
“Yeah. I know, Hector.”
I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes after one.
It was Sunday. Yesterday afternoon, Rita had persuaded Hector to arrange all this. He’d spent most of the evening trying to persuade Sergeant Bradley, in Los Angeles, to go along. Bradley had been reluctant; there was no real evidence linking Hatfield to Cathryn Bigelow’s death. But finally he’d agreed to look for a judge willing to sign a court order authorizing a one-day tap on Hatfield’s phone. He’d found one this morning.
Outside, the sun was shining. The air was warm. Most of the snow had melted, but water still dripped from the Russian olive by the window.
“Cards?” Hector suggested.
“Yeah. Sure.”
I got up from the leather chair, walked across to the bookcase, lifted the small wooden turntable that held the cards and the chips, carried it over to the coffee table, set it there. Hector slid out a deck, began shuffling the cards as I maneuvered the leather chair to the table.
He said, “The whites are fifties, the blues hundreds, and the reds five hundreds.”
“And you’re going to make good on your bets.”
“Got to,” he said. He smiled. “I’m a cop.”
The telephone rang.
I crossed the room, lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Sergeant Ramirez.” A gruff voice I didn’t recognize.
I brought the phone over to Hector, handed it to him, sat down in the chair.
“Ramirez,” he said into the speaker. He listened for a moment, then said, “Right … Right. Let me know.”
He hung up the receiver, set the phone on the end table, beside the two radio transceivers. “Hatfield just left his house. Driving. He didn’t make any calls.”
I frowned. “Terrific.”
Hector shrugged. “Someone’s on him now. We’ll see where he goes.”
“If he uses a pay phone, we won’t be able to nail him on this.”
“We’ll nail him,” Hector said. He spoke with the same certainty I’d heard in my own voice when I told people that I would find Melissa Alonzo. So far I hadn’t found her.
He slapped the deck to the table. “Cut.”
A Flower in the Desert Page 25