by Gwen Moffat
Marge licked her lips. ‘What a peculiar question.’ The tone was too light, contrived. Miss Pink said nothing. ‘I’m not worried,’ Marge said.
‘You were bothered about Tammy yesterday afternoon. What she did, who she was with—’
‘She was alone—’
‘Well, when she rode past your bedroom window—’
‘Heavens, what have I done?’
‘Both you and Maxine: you didn’t like her being out alone.’
‘She always is. It was that dress. And heels four inches high: at her age!’
‘Not the red dress?’
‘You saw her in it? I forgot. Do you think it’s right? I tell you, if she’d been wearing that dress when she went missing I wouldn’t have been surprised one little bit!’ Miss Pink was silent for so long that Marge began to fidget. ‘If it had been a larger size I’d have thought it was an old dress of Pearl’s,’ she said.
‘It’s a tacky dress; Pearl is elegant.’ Miss Pink was neutral, stating facts, and Marge’s response was startling.
‘Elegant! You’re talking about my neighbour, Pearl Slocum?’
‘She has style.’
‘No doubt.’ Marge’s eyes were snapping. ‘In a certain way.’
‘Are you upset about Tammy – Tammy wearing that dress, or because she was in Pearl’s house yesterday afternoon?’ Miss Pink paused, thinking. ‘While Pearl was away,’ she added.
‘It’s what she was doing there!’ Marge had lost the last vestige of her serenity and was furiously angry.
‘She was eating—’ Miss Pink prompted.
‘And the rest. What I don’t understand’ – Marge started to speak rapidly – ‘is why she comes down here wearing that dress which in the normal way of things wouldn’t be seen outside of a brothel and she comes straight to Pearl on a hot Sunday afternoon, like a bitch coming home. How long was she there? What was she doing?’ Miss Pink was immobile. Marge’s shoulders dropped and she started to breathe deeply. After a while she said in a hollow tone, ‘I don’t feel so good. This heat. Old people are old-fashioned. That dress puts you in mind – well, it’s no dress for a little girl.’ She grimaced and blinked, as if trying to relax her facial muscles.
‘What could a little girl be doing in an empty house?’ Miss Pink was fully aware of how disingenuous was the question, but Marge rose to the bait.
‘How do you know it was empty?’
‘You’re suggesting she met someone there?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. You said the house was empty. I asked how you knew, is all. Of course,’ she added offhandedly, ‘Pearl is in a far better position to tell you who has the freedom of her house than me. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.’
She rose, wheezing with the effort and, as she passed, again serene with a smile on her lips, Miss Pink caught a strong smell of brandy, which told her something about Marge’s mood, but didn’t explain everything, by any means.
There was a note on the kitchen table: ‘Gone to Avril’s. I saddled the sorrel for you. Leave word which way you go. Pearl.’
Miss Pink changed into boots, walked across the corral, climbed through the rails, and paused on the bank of the creek. A narrow path descended the bank which was at an easy angle, with widely spaced trees and rampant undergrowth. A bronze butterfly wafted through the sunshine but no birds called. It was too hot.
She dropped down the path to the creek bed which was composed of varicoloured stones with pockets of mud, and water gleaming in the cracks where it was free of a spongy green scum. She started to move downstream, her feet scrunching the stones. Weeds had sprung up as the water level dropped but the depression seemed devoid of animal life except for insects – and tracks. On larger patches of mud there were the prints of a shod horse and of a riding-boot. She didn’t relate this last to the print in Slickrock Canyon because this must be Scott’s track made as he searched for Tammy, whereas the one in Slickrock was presumably Jay Gafford’s, and there was surely no connection between a print in a canyon five miles away and Tammy’s disappearance from the Markow ranch.
Shrieks stopped her in her tracks, and her heart continued to thud even when, a moment later, she knew it was only scrub jays shouting their alarm. She should have been prepared for that – and if she was so preoccupied that she could be shocked by jays, would she have noticed a diamondback in the shade of a clump of arrow-weed? She went on, edging round bushy plants like a nervous horse.
She had followed the creek for about two hundred yards when she came to a break in the vegetation on the right bank, the village side. Here old horse tracks were indented in dried mud and there were rails at the top of the bank. She climbed the slope and looked across an empty corral to a wall of bamboo. She had reached the Scott property.
She retreated to the creek and continued downstream for some distance. There were no more tracks, which was what one might expect. The Scotts’ was the last house east of the village and the creek bed was used by no one other than Kristen, except in abnormal circumstances, such as when people were looking for a missing child. She thought about this, loitering on the return, considering the other villagers. Michael Vosker could well come here because there would be birds to watch in the cool of evening, and small mammals and snakes, but no one else would be interested. She had been thinking of the dry creek as a thoroughfare but it was nothing of the kind, except for the animals which needed to come and go without attracting attention to themselves. Her pace quickened. She returned to Pearl’s house, ate a sandwich, mounted the sorrel and rode along the track to Las Mesas.
‘No, she didn’t come here, and I haven’t laid eyes on her for weeks. We’re isolated at this end; I got no idea what goes on in the village.’
Avril stood stiffly at her front door giving the effect of barring access to the house. Miss Pink said quietly, ‘People are concerned; she’s been missing for over twelve hours.’
‘So why come to me?’ In the face of the other’s cool regard Avril swallowed and her eyes shifted sideways. ‘I mean, if I haven’t seen her – I mean, what could it have to do with me – us?’ The last word was whispered, her eyes fixed on a point beyond Miss Pink who turned, but saw nothing more than the escarpment. ‘What are you afraid of?’ she asked curiously, turning back.
Avril gasped, then her face set. ‘I don’t believe this. You wouldn’t act like this where you come from. How dare you!’ She gave a furious laugh. ‘You’re forgetting your manners. You all make the same mistake, English tourists, you reckon ranchers – people owning thousands of acres – they’re no better’n farmers back home: lower class. Let me tell you: a rancher in this country is looked up to, they got their own clubs in town, they’re like – like gentry! This country was built on cattle ranching, it still depends on people like us, never mind the depression, we’re doing all right. I got eighty-five cows up on the mesas and I own all my land and my house, and that’s a sight more than you own, I’ll bet, with all your high and mighty airs.’
Miss Pink said pleasantly, ‘It’s an achievement to emigrate and work hard and end up with your own ranch. You can be proud of yourself. But suppose you tell me why you’re so upset about Tammy.’
‘You got no right to talk to me like that, coming here asking questions—’
‘I’m asking everyone about Tammy.’
‘Why?’
‘She has to be found.’
‘Why you? Why you poking your nose into something as don’t concern you? You got no right—’
‘A missing child concerns everyone. Including you.’
‘It don’t, it don’t, it’s got nothing to do with me!’ Her arms were clutched defensively across her chest. Her eyes wouldn’t remain still, darting from the escarpment to the visitor, rolling sideways as if she wanted to turn her head but daren’t.
‘Let’s sit down and have a cup of tea,’ Miss Pink suggested.
The eyes were still. Avril stared at the skyline. ‘I don’t know nothing,’ she mutte
red. Miss Pink took a step forward and the woman turned and walked along a passage to a neat kitchen. ‘Fill the kettle,’ Miss Pink ordered, and automatically Avril did so and switched it on. She took cups and saucers and a silver teapot from a cupboard, switched off the kettle, warmed the pot, switched on again, reached for a tea caddy.
‘Where can you buy loose tea?’ Miss Pink asked.
‘Safeway’s.’
‘And the teapot?’
‘I brought it from home last time I was over.’
Miss Pink drew out a chair and sat at the table. Avril made the tea and sat on the opposite side.
‘Of course it has nothing to do with you,’ Miss Pink said. ‘It’s not on your land.’
‘What are you on about?’ It was listless.
‘The marijuana.’
Avril showed no surprise. Her elbows were on the table, her chin on her fists. She stared at the teapot.
Miss Pink poured the tea. ‘Milk?’
‘In the fridge.’
‘You’re a narcotics agent,’ she said when Miss Pink sat down again. ‘I knew you weren’t a tourist. No one’d ever come here, there’s nothing to see.’ She sipped her tea and her expression sharpened. ‘I didn’t even know it was there. Like you said: Slickrock isn’t on my land.’
‘No one’s land? But Lloyd’s in a different position, you could be held responsible for him.’
There was a tense silence. ‘I’m not responsible for what my hands get up to,’ Avril said tightly.
‘Not for Ramirez?’ Miss Pink mused.
Avril stared at her without subterfuge. ‘You reckon Ramirez was growing it?’
It was Miss Pink’s turn to be silent. Avril recovered some poise and said carelessly, ‘I’m not bothered who’s growing it; Lloyd, Ramirez, Gafford, you can’t involve me if it’s not on my land. What’s a few plants anyway? There’s far more people die of alcohol poisoning.’
‘I don’t think the grass is important either – unless there’s some connection with Tammy’s disappearance.’
‘How could there be? And why are you interested in Tammy? Oh, I get it: there is a connection.’
‘I’m not with Narcotics.’
‘You said – you tried to make me believe you were! What are you?’
Miss Pink put down her cup. ‘Which way did Lloyd go?’ Avril’s eyes were jumpy again. ‘Up to Badblood,’ Miss Pink stated. ‘Why would he think she went up there?’ Avril stared at the table. ‘Pearl too,’ Miss Pink murmured. ‘What sent her up there?’
‘Pearl Slocum didn’t go after him this time,’ Avril said viciously. ‘That makes a change. She went to the cabin out by Massacre Canyon.’
‘Why?’
‘She said as how we should look everywhere there was shelter. The kid wouldn’t have stayed out in the open at night, she said.’
‘Tammy wouldn’t walk to Massacre, it’s over six miles. Was she on a horse?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Why did Lloyd go up Badblood?’
‘I didn’t ask him. He’s a cheeky sod, that Lloyd; I’d sack him but it’s difficult to get experienced labour these days. He can do his job and he doesn’t drink but he’s a surly bugger when all’s said and done, no respect for who’s paying his wages. This time he never even gave an excuse like going to move the cows into Rastus. He acts like he owns the place. Even the horse he’s on is mine.’
‘You ride?’
‘I mean, I own it. I have three horses.’
‘But you don’t ride.’
‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of! I can go anywhere in a pick-up a horse can go.’
‘Not on the mesas, surely.’
‘I pay a man to do that.’
‘Did you send him up there yesterday?’
‘He took some salt up to the cows.’
‘On Sunday afternoon?’
‘Ranchers work all hours. Why, did you see him? I knew you were up there; I saw you pass.’
Through the open window came the sound of a horse’s hoofs. They looked up and saw a pinto turn in under the crossbar. Pearl pulled up at the hitching rail and slid down.
‘Nothing,’ she said, entering the kitchen. ‘No sign of her at the Massacre cabin. What about this end?’ Miss Pink shook her head. ‘What do we do now?’ Pearl asked. ‘I guess at some point we have to call Thelma and Ira. And what about the police?’
‘We can’t call the police before the parents are told,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Let’s go back to the Markow place. Kristen and the others must be back by now.’ She looked meaningly at Pearl and stood up. ‘You’ll let us know if Lloyd discovers anything,’ she said to Avril.
‘Lloyd’s gone up to Badblood,’ she said as they rode towards the village.
‘I know; Avril told me. Probably gone to look at that grass in Slickrock. He wouldn’t go down there yesterday with you there.’
‘I don’t see him going halves on the crop with Avril.’ Pearl stared in astonishment. ‘It crossed my mind,’ Miss Pink added. ‘She’s so hostile; she seemed to think I had something on her, she even thought I was from Narcotics. She knew about the grass.’
‘I told her that you found it, but she knew already – that it was there, I mean. Fletch must have told her.’
‘She’s not bothered about the grass itself.’ Miss Pink was following her own tack. ‘It’s not even on her land.’
They continued in silence for a few moments then: ‘It can’t be to do with Tammy,’ Pearl stated as if clinching an argument. ‘You must have stroked her fur the wrong way.’
‘I asked her if she’d seen Tammy, of course, but she was hostile before I arrived, or frightened; I mean, before she opened the door, and she fought so hard to distance herself from Tammy that it was obvious, as if she were disengaging herself from some other situation. In doing that she appeared to be callous about Tammy but she didn’t care. Something else is more important to her.’
Pearl grinned. ‘A time like this people’s skeletons start to rattle in their closets. She was very rude about you when I called earlier: new money, she said, jumped up. Back home you’d be a cleaner.’
‘How curious.’ Miss Pink was fascinated. ‘Could it be the mix of two cultures? Upwardly mobile people are usually proud of their achievements; does she think she’s sneaked in by the back door, or that other people think that of her? So what?’ Miss Pink shook herself and the sorrel laid back his ears. ‘It’s immaterial how she worked her way up, what puzzles me is why she was scared when she opened her door.’
‘If it’s not the grass and it’s nothing to do with Tammy, and if you made it clear you knew about her background and didn’t care, what else could it be? Maybe she has a lover?’
‘Lloyd?’
‘Of course not! Didn’t you realise? Fletch took a shine to me.’ She laughed. ‘But it sure ain’t physical. I’m just a mother-figure.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘It’s certainly not sex. Poor Fletch, if he ever touched me it was by accident. Times I wonder if he’s gay.’
‘Really? How interesting.’
‘You say the weirdest things.’
‘But – oh, never mind. Did you see anyone else on your ride – besides Avril?’
‘No, did you? Where is everyone? You were going to the Voskers when we came back from Maxine’s.’
Miss Pink told her about her visits to Marian Vosker, to Ada and to Marge. ‘Fruitless,’ she commented, ‘so far as last night is concerned, and we still don’t know where she went yesterday afternoon. Those women swear it wasn’t to their houses – Ada was with you anyway, but she says Tammy didn’t go to the Scotts, so after Marge saw her pass we know nothing more except that she came in your kitchen and had something to eat.’
‘I guess she came to see me and forgot I’d gone to the fiesta, if she ever knew.’
‘Wait a minute.’ The sorrel halted. The pinto stopped and turned. ‘Was that where she was going, in the red frock and the high heels?’
; ‘What! She was wearing that rag? I thought Kristen took it off of her. You think she went to Palomares: rode to the interstate and hitched to town? But she was at the Harpers’ in the evening so she came back safely. You don’t think she met someone there, at the fiesta – oh my God, is that what you’re thinking?’
‘We have to find Kristen,’ Miss Pink said grimly. ‘As quick as we can.’
The sorrel leapt away and the pinto followed. They slowed at Pearl’s place only because the horses wanted to turn in there, but the riders pushed them on and they didn’t check again until they saw a solitary horseman riding towards them on the Markow track.
‘Clayton Scott,’ Pearl grunted but Miss Pink had already recognised the horse. ‘Any news?’ Pearl called as they drew near.
He shook his head. ‘This is a bad business. We have to contact Ira; I don’t think there’s any question of it now.’
‘We were just wondering if she could have gone to the fiesta,’ Pearl said eagerly. ‘She was dressed up, you see; Marge saw her go by in the afternoon, and she didn’t visit with anyone so she has to have gone down the street to the interstate, and she was on her bike.’
He eyed her speculatively. ‘She was back at Maxine’s last evening.’
‘She went and came back. But she coulda met someone there at the fiesta and he brought her back and then she went out again at night and met him outside the village.’
He was staring at her. ‘Do you realise what you’re saying?’ He shifted to Miss Pink. ‘Do you, ma’am? This is a little child!’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘You mean, like a schoolfriend?’ he asked, with a glimmer of hope.
‘We hadn’t got that far, Clayton.’ Pearl was embarrassed. ‘We only just thought of the fiesta angle because of the clothes she was wearing, like party things.’
‘I don’t like it.’ He shook his head. ‘I would prefer to think she’s just being mischievous because she couldn’t go to Texas: deliberately stirring up a hornets’ nest. I’m praying she’s holed up somewhere. I’m sure she is. Maybe she did meet a schoolfriend, even called one to come and fetch her, another little girl maybe.’
‘Little girls don’t have cars, Clayton.’ If he was trying to reassure them he was failing miserably.