Kate and Officer Brad Holmes stood by the side of the road, half a mile before the turn to Dudley. Cars and pickup trucks whizzed by. The air smelled of dust and creosote and gas fumes.
‘It wasn’t dark yet,’ Officer Holmes said. ‘Do you remember seeing any cars or trucks parked by the side of the road?’
‘No. Nothing. I mean, cars were passing me, but none of them were stopped. All I remember is hearing two bangs. I was listening to music during the first bang, but I disconnected it. There might have been three bangs; I just heard two.’
‘Someone mad at you?’ Officer Holmes asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe.’
She didn’t want to mention Harry Light. They might get in touch with him, ask questions – there was still a chance he wasn’t involved in any of this, didn’t even know where she lived now. It would be like disturbing a hornet’s nest. Besides, Malcolm knew. She was planning to trust Malcolm, at least for a while.
‘Couldn’t it just have been an accident?’ she said.
‘Anything’s possible, but two or three shots? Probably not. I guess it could have been someone on a dry drunk, just wanting to make someone pay, didn’t much care who. Anyway, whoever it was,’ he said, ‘is a damn good shooter.’ He paused. ‘Course, that’s if they were actually aiming at your tires.’
She started back to her house, but went to the Co-op instead.
‘Kate! Ka-Ka-Ka-Katie!’ said Windsong at the register, his face red and shiny with delight. ‘We missed you, Ka-Ka-Ka-Katie.’
Posey twirled on her toes. ‘Raspberries this week,’ she bubbled. ‘Raspberries! Organic and all!’
‘Sensimilla’s here too!’ Ryan said. ‘Big shipment in. Go round the back to collect. Ha ha. Good to have you back! Heard someone shot at your car. Bet it was one of those military survivalists who go around shooting at everyone all the time. This state is full of them!’
‘And Chico escaped,’ said Posey. ‘Good for him too!’
‘And don’t worry! Even if he did it, which we know he didn’t, you’re safe with us! Safe from the survivalists too,’ said Windsong. ‘We’ll take a bullet for you, Ka-Ka-Ka-Katie, if we have to.’
And in all that good cheer, for a moment she believed she was safe.
Safe and sound.
Dakota and Kate got four basil, mozzarella and Asiago cheese individual pizzas and two eclairs to go from the High Desert Market and went back to Dakota’s to eat them in her living room. Then they went online on Dakota’s laptop and read all the articles – not that many, really – about Anna Marie Romero’s disappearance.
‘Do you think Harry killed her?’ said Dakota in a hushed voice.
‘I don’t know. He had that gun in his bedside table drawer. And there was one time when I thought he was going to hit me. We went to the movies, I can’t even remember what we saw, but he was already in a bad mood, and afterwards he asked me what I thought of it – kind of aggressively, you know? – and I said, what did he think of it, ’cause he was so grouchy I just wanted to agree with him.’
‘Out loud? You said that last part about agreeing with him out loud?’
‘Yes. His face got red, and he kind of pulled his hand back in a fist, then he stopped himself.’
‘That’s it? Did he apologize later?’
‘No. And Malcolm told me he had some kind of misdemeanor charge from before – criminal damage, he said. But I just can’t see how this connects with the New Jersey stuff. It’s so far away from Harry.’
‘You know what? Maybe it was that what’s-her-name, the one that Rick was cheating on you with.’
‘Hannah?’
‘Sure. Maybe Rick was starting to regret losing you and Hannah got jealous. So she set things up to make you suffer.’
‘I don’t think she’s smart enough for that.’
They talked for a while more, then they rested, eating the eclairs and watching TV: some special on Africa – tragically beautiful black children, bellies swollen from starvation, looked out with enormous eyes in some dusty African village. Seeing the children made Kate cry. She sniffed, blew her nose.
‘God, you are so on edge, so stressed,’ said Dakota. ‘I worry about you.’
‘What good does that do, worrying about me?’ Kate’s voice rose. ‘Give me a break. Besides,’ she said, giggling, ‘I took time off to go to New Jersey to check in with myself, and look at me now!’
Dakota giggled too. After a moment they both began to laugh. They laughed and laughed, egging each other on. Finally, they stopped. Kate wiped her eyes.
‘You need to find a – a – hobby,’ Dakota said.
‘That’s it,’ said Kate.
That set them off again.
Exhausted now, Kate and Dakota stared at the TV, where a gorgeous blonde celebrity in a safari outfit was holding one of the African babies and smiling for the camera.
The street light shone directly in on Kate as she tossed and turned in Dakota’s spare bedroom. Finally, late, close to morning, she fell asleep and dreamed of Africa, beautiful dark children in dusty villages, long green vistas and brilliant skies, and Windsong and Posey and Ryan were there, cooking up a big barbecue for all the starving children and smiling, but not for any camera.
THIRTY
Malcolm got back to Dudley just in time for lunch. He parked at El Serape and called Kate’s cellphone, thinking she might like to join him, but just got her voicemail. The restaurant was full of chattering people: lawyers from the courthouse across the street, tourists in bright tops and khakis, locals in faded casual clothes.
Lupita looked tired, dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes, but she smiled when she saw Malcolm, the savior, here to fix everything while she worked hard at El Serape for a few bucks and no benefits.
‘Any sign of Chico?’ he asked her.
Her smile faded, and her lips tightened. ‘No.’ She looked at him accusingly.
‘I’m sorry.’ Malcolm sat down at a window table. There was a little pause, as if to honor the missing Chico. ‘So, what’s good for lunch?’
She recommended the Senegalese peanut soup, one of Frank’s experiments – he’d gotten the recipe out of one of his wife’s women’s magazines.
The restaurant started to empty out and hardly anyone was left when she came back with his soup, so he gave her the run down on what he’d been doing. He left out the Kate stuff – he wasn’t sure if it was connected or if it was a separate case. That was the great puzzle right now, he thought.
‘So, what next?’ she said.
‘I got at least one lead. Dr Paul Sanger. An old friend of Wes and Carrie, and a friend of Polly Hampton – that’s Wes’s daughter. I’ll be heading to Tucson to talk to him – probably tomorrow.’ He’d looked up Dr Sanger already. He had an office in Tucson at a medical plaza off Oracle Road.
‘So how exactly does this Dr Sanger fit in?’
‘He was at Chico’s release hearing?’
‘He was? What did he look like?’
‘Anglo guy, mid thirties to mid forties. He wore black framed glasses.’
Lupita shrugged.
‘Rose couldn’t think of anyone who had it in for Wes and Carrie, but maybe he can.’
Lupita nodded.
‘And that’s just one aspect of the investigation. Sid, the bartender at the St Elmo, should be back in town now, and I’m going to show him Wes’s daughter’s picture. There’s a chance she was in town the day of the murders, which would be extremely interesting.’
‘Good,’ said Lupita decisively. ‘You did good. Now, eat, eat.’
He swallowed a spoonful of the soup. Then another. It was creamy and spicy – sweet potatoes, peanuts and coconut milk – and startlingly delicious, so good he felt guilty, enjoying it in front of Lupita whose beloved brother was accused of a double homicide and was now missing, all because he hadn’t fixed it for her yet.
‘By the way, there’s another hearing coming up,’ she said.
‘What kind?
’
‘Evidence hearing.’
‘Evidentiary?’
‘I guess. How can they do it without Chico?’
‘In absentia. It means in his absence.’
‘Oh.’ Lupita sat down across from him. ‘Is the soup good?’
‘It’s very, very good. My compliments to the chef.’
‘Listen.’
‘What?’
‘There’s something I want you to do for me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Go across the line to Mexico.’
Malcolm called Kate again on his way out of town – still no answer. He drove the five miles down to the border, passed the dance hall on this side of the line, the houses with their tiny gardens. He parked on the US side and walked across as the border guard waved him through. Suddenly, he was in Mexico. Liquor store on one corner, curio shop on the other. Narrow streets with adobe houses. Everything seemed softer, dustier than on the other side.
He walked past a church, a maquilladora. Came to the little plaza, with a statue of Álvaro Obregón, thirty-ninth president of Mexico, born in Sonora on February nineteenth, 1880. A grower of garbanzo beans, commander in the Revolution where he’d lost an arm, and president of the first stable regime since the Revolution began.
A salute to Álvaro Obregón. Where is a man like you now? Malcolm thought.
He turned down a side street, per Lupita’s instructions. She’d given him a little gift for Chico, a gold cross. He had it in his pocket.
‘To keep him safe,’ she said.
At the third house down he knocked on the blue painted wooden door. Knocked again.
After a while the door opened, and an old woman looked out. ‘Como?’
‘Pedro?’ Malcolm said. ‘Sta aqui?’
‘Si, si.’ She turned her head and bawled out in a surprisingly loud voice in English, as if Malcolm’s Spanish had not fooled her for one moment, ‘Pedro, someone here for you.’
A man came to the door, younger than the woman, bushy eyebrows, lean build. He held a big napkin, dabbing at his lips. ‘Hello, hello. You are—?’
‘Malcolm. Lupita sent—’
‘Si, si, si. Come in. Come in. I am Pedro, and this is Maria Claudia, my mother.’
Malcolm followed him in, through a little living room, Virgin of Guadaloupe on the wall, flat-screen TV, and out to a tiny patio with a wrought-iron table and chairs. He sat, Pedro sat. There was a silence. Into the silence a bird began to sing. Maria Claudia brought coffee, then sat on one of the wrought-iron chairs, a little away from the two men.
‘Thank you,’ Malcolm said to Maria Claudia. He took a few sips; it was dark and slightly bitter.
‘So,’ Pedro said, as if now they could begin.
Malcolm reached into his pocket and brought out the gold cross. He laid it on the wrought-iron table. ‘For Chico,’ he said, ‘from Lupita.’
Maria Claudia gave a half sob.
Pedro looked stern. He pushed the cross away from him, towards Malcolm. ‘I have told Lupita this several times. She doesn’t want to believe me. You must make her believe this. Chico is not here. He never came here. I have not seen Chico for several months. No one I have spoken to in Naco or Agua Prieta has seen him either.’
‘But she was so sure—’ Malcolm began.
‘Because she wanted to be,’ said Pedro. ‘Look, Chico isn’t coming here. Chico is not a Mexican. He was never a Mexican. Chico is an American. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Malcolm, ‘yes, I do.’
Driving back to Dudley, Malcolm was seized with a profound reluctance to go back to El Serape and tell Lupita what Pedro had said. Besides, according to Pedro, he’d already told her the same thing several times. He checked his watch. Only three, so she would definitely still be at the restaurant. He should stop in, tell her. Or maybe just text her. Yes. Texting her would be best.
Coward.
He drove to El Serape. Lupita was working the register, but no one was in line to pay. He told her what Pedro had told him.
‘But, listen, I’ll keep the cross, since I plan to keep on looking for him until I find him, okay?’ This, partly to calm her down. ‘Tell me something: who is Chico close to? I mean, in the arts community?’
‘Well—’ She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe the closest is Melody. She runs that Sail Rabbit Gallery.’ She lowered her voice. ‘We don’t get along, me and Melody. She’s kind of – I don’t know – phoney.’
‘Horrors,’ said Malcolm. ‘Well, gotta run.’
Malcolm got back in his car, drove to the Gulch. It was still early, and there was plenty of parking. He could kill two birds with one stone here. The Sail Rabbit Gallery was right down the street in one direction, and in the other direction was the St Elmo Bar and Sid the bartender. He thought he’d hit the Sail Rabbit Gallery first.
He got out of his truck. The air was dense and rich and smelled of licorice and tar and creosote. He walked into the Sail Rabbit Gallery. All along the walls hung Chico’s bright crucified dolls. The place was empty except for a pale woman with dense black hair and red-framed glasses at a desk near the back, doing something on a laptop. She didn’t look up when Malcolm walked in.
‘Afternoon!’ he said loudly.
She looked up then. ‘Hi! How are you today?’ Her voice was surprisingly sweet and archly accented.
‘Fine, thanks. Are you Melody, by any chance?’
‘I am. And you are—?’
‘Name’s Malcolm, Malcolm MacGregor. I’m an investigator working for Chico’s attorney, Stuart Ross?’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh, oh.’ She stood up and came around the desk. She wore a red and black flowered mini dress, leggings and lace-up gladiator sandals. She held out her hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’
They shook.
Behind the red framed glasses, her eyes were warm yet somehow guarded. ‘Have they found Chico yet?’
‘No, they have not. Lupita said you were close to him, so I was wondering—’
‘That Lupita.’ Melody sighed. ‘I really like her and all, but she’s so bossy.’
‘Be that as it may, I was wondering if you had any idea where he might be.’
‘I don’t.’ Melody shook her head from side to side sadly. ‘I wish I did, but I really really don’t.’
Malcolm took out his card. ‘Well, if you ever do, could you give me a call? I’m on his side, you know.’
Melody smiled dreamily. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
He left the Sail Rabbit Gallery and strolled down Brewery Gulch, headed for the St Elmo Bar. In broad daylight the whole street was somehow faded. The regulars, who always hung out on the sidewalk and the street in front of the St Elmo, looked faded too. He went inside and sat at the end of the bar close to the door.
The sun streamed in through the small front windows in gold streaks but failed to penetrate very far. Eric Church was singing ‘Springsteen’ on the jukebox, his twangy country voice full of long ago summers.
Sid came moseying down, shaved head agleam, still smiling at something one of the regulars had said to him. ‘Sam Adams again?’
‘You got it.’ Malcolm waited until Sid came back with the beer, then he said, ‘You okay about taking a look at something?’
‘Sure thing.’
Malcolm had his cellphone out and ready. ‘Remember the blonde you told me about, who was talking to Chico that night?’
Sid nodded.
‘This her?’
Sid took the phone, held it up for the best light. He looked at it for a moment or so, taking a good look, then he handed it back. ‘Nope. Not even close.’
‘Damn,’ said Malcolm, ‘damn, damn, damn.’
He left the bar, called Kate’s cellphone again, but got the same old voicemail. In a way the whole trip back east seemed unreal, an illusion that hadn’t really happened. Had she stayed with Dakota last night? Was Harry Light really connected to what was going on with Kate? Simple enough, Malcolm was thinkin
g: check and see where Harry Light was the night Kate’s tires were blown out, where he was the night Kate arrived in New Jersey. Unless, of course, he’d hired someone to do the dirty work. Maybe an ex-con, like he’d been speculating, or maybe even some former student, who thought Harry Light was a genius and obeyed his every command.
Or Harry had nothing to do with any of this.
But he’d sent out feelers, done what he could for the moment, and as if in answer to his thoughts his cellphone chimed. An unfamiliar number.
‘Malcolm here. Hello?’
‘Hey, Mac, Dan here.’
‘Dan—?’
‘Dan Piper. The investigator. Anna Marie Romero.’
‘Of course,’ Malcolm said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Thought you’d be interested in knowing this – Anna Marie’s mom, Cecilia?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I spoke with her, and she’ll be happy to talk to you. She’s coming to see relatives in Phoenix today. She gave me a number where you can call her once she arrives – sometime, say, after seven tonight. A landline, not a cell. She’s got a cell, but she doesn’t want to get called on it.’
‘Interesting,’ said Malcolm. ‘And why doesn’t she want to get called on her cell?’
‘Like you said, interesting.’
He got off the phone, stared down the street at nothing. Why did Cecilia not want to get called on her cell? Because then there would be a record? What was she afraid of? Or who?
And then Kate called.
THIRTY-ONE
‘Cindy and I were married twelve, thirteen years. I met her when I was eighteen and she was seventeen,’ Malcolm said. ‘We were both freshmen at ASU.’
‘ASU?’ Kate asked.
‘Arizona State University. It’s in Mesa. She was from LA, actually. I thought she was wonderful: funny and sophisticated and unavailable. She had lots of guys after her. I was sort of her fallback guy, the one she confided in about her problems, which, back then, weren’t especially serious. She’d had one bout of depression in high school, but she talked about it like it was a one-time thing.’
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