by Gwen Moffat
‘And you?’ She turned to Pearl and saw slim fingers tighten on the wheel.
‘She’ll be all right,’ Pearl said. ‘She’s just playing up: like runaways, you know?’
‘She hasn’t gone far,’ Marge said.
‘She couldn’t; she’s on foot.’
Every comment carried an unspoken qualification, like: ‘Unless someone picked her up,’ or ‘She could have hitched.’ Miss Pink, reflecting that her experience was liable to suggest a sinister element more often than was justified, contracted her mind, withdrew antennae concerned with vibrations and allowed the morning dominance: sunshine, air and naked rock.
At the Harper home they found Maxine drying dishes and in a bad mood. ‘It wasn’t fair on the kid,’ she protested. ‘They shoulda took her with them; any normal father would. I was taken to see my Grandpa when he was dying. Ira’s not doing that kid any favours, trying to protect her. Now look what’s happened – and she was left in my charge!’
‘No one’s blaming you,’ Pearl said as the others murmured agreement. ‘You put your feet up, and I’ll make us a pot of coffee.’
On the other side of the living-room, beyond slatted blinds and screened French doors the valley trembled in the heat and the desert mountains were insubstantial as mist. ‘They have a good view,’ Marge said with a proprietorial air as Miss Pink, unable to resist, parted the slats and surveyed the scene. She turned, her face expressionless; a loop of the river came within a mile of the ranch.
‘Where’s Kristen?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure.’ Maxine subsided on a chintzy sofa, her face drawn with fatigue and worry. ‘They’re all riding, looking for her: Daryl and Jay and Kristen. They’ll be in different places.’
‘They searched the barns?’
‘I guess so, and we called everybody: Avril and the Voskers besides you guys, so they’ll be looking too. But where do you look? I mean, the professor said he’d go in the old grain store but she’d never go there, she’s scared of snakes. And I guess you looked in your place, Marge, and why should she be in an old barn anyways?’
‘I didn’t look in my barn,’ Marge said coldly. ‘I didn’t know she was missing until I went across to Pearl. No one called me.’
‘I did. You didn’t answer.’
‘Then I was across the road.’
Miss Pink coughed. They turned to her as Pearl came in with mugs on a tray. ‘Who saw her last?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Us, of course,’ Maxine said, ‘Daryl and me. We watched a game show and then we all went to bed. I saw her go in the guest-room – it’s the nursery really but there’s a bed besides the crib. That’s the last time I saw her.’
‘Did Daryl see her again?’ Marge asked sweetly. ‘Can he tell us more than you?’
Maxine’s jaw dropped. ‘What in hell are you suggesting?’
‘I’m not suggesting any—’
‘Certainly not,’ Miss Pink put in firmly. ‘Can you recall what she was doing yesterday?’
But the change of subject touched another nerve. ‘How can they expect me to watch her all the time?’ Maxine protested. ‘So she was here all morning, helping me, and we had something to eat and watched TV but you can’t expect a kid her age not to be bored with staying indoors, and she went up to her own home. Was I meant to stop her? She’s the boss’s daughter! Should I have locked her up?’
‘She only came to the village,’ Marge said comfortably.
‘I know. I saw her go by. On her bike.’ Maxine was frowning.
‘I saw her too.’ Marge pursed her lips.
‘Where?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘I told you! In the village of course. She went past my bedroom window. I was lining a drawer in my dresser and she went by.’ Again that disapproving look.
‘Is that when she came to my place?’ Pearl asked.
‘I wouldn’t know. I didn’t watch where she went. I don’t even know if she continued to your back entrance or turned down the street. It wasn’t my business.’
Pearl, thoughtful, her chin on her hands, said suddenly, ‘But this was the afternoon! It was hours later that she went missing.’
‘Is it possible’ – Miss Pink was diffident – ‘that her leaving was influenced by something that happened earlier, like meeting someone?’
‘If there were strangers in the village,’ Pearl said, ‘like a boy, or a family, they’d have been noticed.’
‘Not a stranger, but someone she knew who made a suggestion, put an idea into her mind.’ Silence. ‘Such as telling her it didn’t cost much to fly to Houston?’
‘It costs a sight more than she could lay her hands on,’ Pearl said. ‘Unless she knew where there was some cash in her own home. Then how’d she get to the interstate? She wouldn’t walk, she’d have taken her bike, and her bike’s still here.’
Marge said reluctantly, ‘I guess I’ll go and look in my barn, not that I think she’s there for one moment; she’d have come to me for a bed, she wanted somewhere to sleep—’
‘What’s wrong with my home?’ Maxine asked angrily.
‘We have no idea why she left,’ Miss Pink put in. ‘All we can do is look everywhere. May we see your guest-room?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was the last place she was seen. By you.’ Miss Pink tore her eyes away from the girl, afraid that she would interpret the statement in a way that was extremely unpleasant.
‘Pearl can show you.’ She was ungracious but, fortunately, not discerning. She felt she was being blamed but as yet, only for irresponsibility. Miss Pink wondered how long it would be before someone suggested to her that something more sinister could be involved.
The guest-room was at one end of the mobile home. It was scarcely more than a cubicle and furnished only with a camp bed, a cot and a chest of drawers. There were windows on two sides and a built-in closet that contained winter clothes. The room was clean and neat except that the cot was piled with baby clothes and packages in gift wrapping which had probably been moved from the bed. The bed itself was unwrinkled and covered with a patchwork quilt. One window was open, nylon net moving in the draught. Miss Pink parted one set of curtains, lifted the next and saw that the screen was firmly in place. The second window was closed and unscreened but the bottom half lifted easily and with hardly a sound. ‘This was how she went,’ she said.
‘And closed it behind her.’ Pearl lowered her voice. ‘What you were asking in there, about meeting someone in the afternoon? Who did you have in mind?’
Miss Pink didn’t answer the question. What she did say was: ‘She must have left voluntarily, there was no sound of a struggle or a cry for help. That’s a good sign.’
They went back to the living-room. ‘Didn’t she have an overnight bag?’ she asked Maxine.
‘Yes, she took it. Did you discover anything?’ Maxine was sarcastic.
Miss Pink shook her head. ‘We’ll go up to the ranch house. Do you have a key?’
She wasn’t surprised to learn that the place wasn’t locked. Leaving Marge with Maxine they walked up to the main house. Pearl wanted to take her truck but Miss Pink said that if there was anything to be seen they could miss it if they were in a vehicle. On the track Pearl looked around her helplessly: at the corrals and barns, at the steers in the feed-lot. ‘You think the answer’s here,’ she said, and it was an accusation. ‘But she’s so young! I know these two guys, they’re not like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘They’re straight. Look—’ She stopped and Miss Pink halted and turned to face her. Behind Pearl was the mobile home and the distant jungle on the banks of the river. She frowned, her eyes on the trees, but she was listening. ‘Even suppose Jay wanted novelty,’ Pearl said, ‘and Daryl – with Maxine – er – inactive – no way would they touch the boss’s kid. It’s not just their jobs, it’s the penalty! Think of it: they’d get life! Besides, she’s not here, so how could it be either of them?’ Miss Pink had started to walk on. Pearl hesitated and then hurr
ied to catch up. She seized the other’s arm. ‘Why don’t you believe me? Come on, if you know something the rest of us don’t, we have a right to know.’ Her nails dug into Miss Pink’s flesh, she was losing control. ‘After all, you’re a stranger! What did you say?’ as Miss Pink muttered something. ‘I didn’t catch that.’
‘I said I don’t like the silence.’
Pearl glanced round wildly. ‘Of course it’s quiet, there’s no one about—’
‘I mean, there’s no sign or sound of her. Why doesn’t she contact someone?’
‘She doesn’t want to. She’s being naughty.’
‘I hope so.’
In the house they found Tammy’s room without difficulty: a young girl’s room that at first sight looked as if burglars had been there, tapes and clothes on the floor and bed, the bed itself, under the clutter, made up, not slept in since it was made. Pearl picked up a black sweatshirt with cartoon cats on the front. ‘The little bugger,’ she breathed, her gaze going to a pair of jeans. ‘Those don’t even fit her! She’s much smaller’n me.’
‘Those are your clothes?’
‘The shirt is, and – yes, the Levis are mine. I can’t believe it. I give her things she takes a fancy to but this shirt is new, and it cost a fortune. She just walked off with it. Ah, well.’ She threw it on the bed in disgust.
They searched the rest of the house even though Maxine had told them that Kristen had done so. ‘Kristen was expecting this,’ Miss Pink said in the living-room. ‘That business about Tammy being scared of the dark and so on, it was a cover for something else. She wanted Tammy at your place last night. We have to find her.’
‘We’re looking. What else can we do?’
‘I mean, find Kristen. She knows something about this.’
There was a pair of field-glasses on a sideboard. Taking them, Miss Pink went outside and studied the valley flats and the rim of the escarpment and the trail that led to Scorpion Canyon but there was no sign of the searchers. They walked back to the mobile home, picked up Marge and returned to the village. Marge went to her barn, Miss Pink walked down the street to the Voskers’ house. Marian met her at the door, her face expectant, then anxious.
‘You haven’t found her? Michael’s driving all the tracks between here and the interstate.’
‘Why there in particular?’
‘It’s something to do.’ She took Miss Pink to her living-room. ‘We can’t sit and do nothing. Clayton’s searching the creek and Fletcher Lloyd’s riding between Las Mesas and Pearl’s place. The ditches are overgrown.’
‘What’s the thinking behind that?’
‘Rattlers. Michael says that if she trod on a big diamondback, if she panicked – and she hates snakes – she could – er—’
‘Die of shock.’ Miss Pink was blunt. ‘True, but if she loathes snakes that much she wouldn’t go in the creek bed in the dark or in the early morning. But quite right,’ she conceded, ‘one has to look everywhere. What I came to ask you was, did you see anything of her yesterday afternoon – either you or Michael?’
‘Michael was out birding. No, I didn’t see her. But she was with Maxine last evening. What makes the afternoon important?’
‘She was here in the village. She could have said something, given a hint as to what she intended to do, even borrowed money to fly to Houston.’
‘Oh, you think she’s gone to her parents.’
‘If she has done, everything’s fine, and perhaps there’s nothing wrong if she’s only gone to Palomares, but we ought to know. It’s possible she told someone she was going to town and that person doesn’t know she’s missing, or that we think she’s missing.’
‘I never thought of it that way – but no—’ Marian shook her head decisively. ‘Everyone’s been contacted. They’d have said.’
‘No one’s been asked if they saw her – or spoke to her – yesterday afternoon. She may have said something that no one thought was important at the time. It may only have been a passing word in the street. She was on her bike. Marge saw her pass but didn’t see if she took the road to Las Mesas or came down this way. It was in the afternoon,’ she added vaguely.
‘I was on the porch after lunch. I didn’t see her.’
‘Isn’t the road screened by your acacias?’
‘Come and see for yourself.’
They went out on the porch where there were rocking-chairs and an iron table. The acacias screened the road to some extent but no one could have passed by the gate without being seen. ‘In a place like this,’ Marian said, ‘you’re more likely to hear people anyway, it’s so quiet, particularly on Sunday afternoon. I’d even have heard her tyres.’
‘You didn’t doze off in the heat?’
‘I may have cat-napped but I’ll swear I heard every sound. The jays were a trial, no one could sleep through their racket. There had to be an owl about, or maybe a snake robbing a nest. And Kristen – oh dear, Kristen! Always quarrelling with her father, no wonder poor Ada takes to her bed.’ Marian lowered her voice. ‘You don’t expect to retire to the country and have neighbours who act like it’s a ghetto.’
Miss Pink was thoughtful. ‘Tammy went to Pearl’s place,’ she mused. ‘She made herself a sandwich there. I wonder—’
‘She went on to Avril’s?’ Marian was intrigued.
‘Possibly. Where was your husband?’
‘I told you – birding: down on the river. He usually leaves his car at Clayton’s farm and then walks downstream. There’s a trail in the woodland. It’s one of his favourite places. Even now.’
‘You mean, in the heat of the day?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean – since Veronica.’
‘Is that where they found her?’
‘Oh no, miles downstream; the river was high and it swept her down, but that’s where she’d have gone in the water: from their own property. It was the only place she knew. They didn’t allow her out on her own.’
‘How did she get away that time?’
‘She walked.’
‘Someone saw her?’
‘No, but she must have done; she couldn’t drive and she didn’t take a horse or a bicycle.’ There was a long silence. ‘It sounds like history repeating itself, doesn’t it?’ Marian said uneasily.
Chapter 9
‘I think Tammy went to town,’ Ada said, ‘to Palomares. She called some friends and they came and fetched her. She walked down the road to meet them.’
Miss Pink considered this. She was in a room which was gloomy in contrast with the bright patio. When Ada had called to her to come in from the veranda, she hadn’t been able to see the woman until she moved. She was sitting in an armchair wearing a sombre dressing-gown. Only her face was discernible and that was shadowed.
‘Would you like me to turn on a light?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Please don’t.’ Ada laughed apologetically. ‘I’m sensitive about my appearance. I should be dressed but I didn’t get around to it yet. I must have done too much at the fiesta, although I did enjoy myself. I think Pearl had fun too. You should have come.’
‘Another time. Tell me, did your husband see anything of Tammy yesterday?’
‘No, he would have said.’ There was a faint movement of the lips, like a grimace; Miss Pink wondered if the woman was in pain. ‘He’s worried,’ she said. ‘He’s thinking of snakebite, you see.’
‘Is he still searching the creek?’
‘No. He’s gone to the Markow place, see if he can be of any assistance there.’
Miss Pink was surprised. ‘We didn’t pass him. We came down from there.’
‘That’s where he said he was going.’ Ada sounded tired. ‘Did you see Kristen?’
‘No, the three of them: Kristen, Daryl and Jay, are out searching. We talked to Maxine. She’s worried because she feels Tammy was her responsibility.’
Ada nodded. ‘She mustn’t take on; she has to think of the baby.’
‘It’s Tammy who’s being irresponsible.’
‘They don’t think – and she’s very young. Her folks should have taken her with them.’
‘I must go back and see if there have been any developments. May I go out the back way?’
Ada stared. ‘Of course. Was there something you wanted?’
‘I’d like to walk up the creek.’
‘Oh no, don’t do that. There are rattlesnakes.’
‘I thought people used the creek as a trail.’
‘On horseback, not on foot. That’s what Scott was worried about: that Tammy trod on one of those big old diamondbacks. They’re deadly poisonous, you’d never stand a chance.’ She stopped short. ‘There, I don’t want to alarm you. Most likely you’ll never see one in the heat of the day but there are boulders and burrows where they lay up—’
‘That’s all right.’ Miss Pink was reassuring. ‘I’ll go home by way of the street, the last thing I want is to meet a rattlesnake.’
She walked up the street, past the two unoccupied houses – stopping to study each one – and the old grain store on the opposite side of the road. She’d forgotten to ask Marian if Michael had found anything in the building but of course he hadn’t or she would have said.
Beyond the grain store was Marge’s house: an L-shaped adobe on a corner lot with a weedy drive running from the street to her barn. Miss Pink turned aside and walked along the end wall of the house to find the patio on her right beyond a sagging fence. Marge was on her back porch watering fuchsias in pots. At the sound of Miss Pink’s voice a fat grey poodle appeared, yapping hysterically. Marge shouted at the dog to no effect and directed the visitor to a gap in the fence. For the sake of quiet Miss Pink, who detested small poodles, gave the animal her attention, a proceeding which Marge observed with approval and then offered tea. Miss Pink declined, admired the fuchsias and remarked casually, ‘No one saw Tammy yesterday afternoon.’
‘Come and sit down,’ Marge said, and subsided on a garden chair. She sighed heavily. ‘Another hot day,’ she breathed, fanning her flushed face and staring at the barn.
‘What’s worrying you?’ Miss Pink asked.