Assumption

MY AMERICAN COUSIN

Ogden Walker looked out the tinted window of his little bullet-shaped trailer and tried to wake up fully. The shadows of the sage were still long and a few rangy rabbits were milling about. It was going to be a hot day and the bunnies were finding all they could eat before they had to seek shelter from the sun. Ogden wished he could have known what the weather would be by looking at the sky or by a smell on the wind or by noticing the behavior of hawks or ants, but instead he knew because the radio had told him. At least he knew how to switch on a radio. “Another hot one,” the crazy, joke-telling disc jockey had said, then added, “Chili tonight, hot tamale,” then howled with laughter before playing a novelty version of “Tea for Two,” a song that seemed already a novelty. He showered, dressed, and drank his morning tea-for-one while he sat on the wooden step outside his front and only door. He tossed the last of the drink out onto the ground, put his mug on the step by the door, and walked over and fell in behind the wheel of his rig. The county and the sheriff’s department had chosen to maintain its modest fleet of late-seventies Ford Broncos instead of buying new vehicles. At twenty years old, his truck still functioned moderately well and handled the ice and snow of winter especially well. The engine was a little temperamental in the summer. This hot morning it took a couple of key turns and a pumped gas pedal before the motor cranked over.

Ogden drove into Plata and parked in a diagonal space in front of the office. When he stepped inside he was greeted by the lanky desk officer, Felton.

“Good morning,” Ogden said.

“You’re half right,” Felton said.

“Late night?”

“I wish. My neighbor decided to go and get herself some peacocks.” He looked at Ogden. “You ever heard a peacock?”

Ogden shook his head.

“It’s a sound from hell. Sounds like somebody put a cat in a washing machine. She has six of them.”

Ogden tried to imagine it. “Sorry.”

“Fuck sorry. I don’t want your useless sympathy. I want you to come over and shoot the damn things.”

Ogden walked to his desk. “Why don’t you shoot them?”

“She’s my neighbor. Plus, she’s cute.”

“I see. Why don’t you ask her to move them to the far side of her property?”

Felton frowned. “They are on the far side of the property.”

“Oh.”

Bucky Paz stepped out of his office. “Ogden. Good, I’m glad you’re here. Come on in.”

Ogden walked past the big man into the room. There was a young woman sitting in the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk. He nodded hello to her and turned to face Bucky.

“Ogden, this is Caitlin Alison. Miss Alison, Deputy Walker.”

Ogden shook the woman’s hand. “Miss Alison.”

“Miss Alison here is trying to locate her cousin. She came all the way here from Ireland and can’t seem to find her.”

“What’s your cousin’s name?” Ogden asked.

“Fiona McDonough,” Bucky answered the question.

“She’s living here in Plata?”

“I don’t think so,” Caitlin said. “I don’t know. I sent letters to her general delivery to the post office in San Cristobal.”

“So, she’s up in the mountains somewhere.”

“Nobody seems to have heard of her,” Caitlin said. “I showed her picture around.”

“May I see it?”

Bucky took the photo from his desk and handed it to Ogden.

“Nobody’s seen her,” Caitlin said.

“Is Fiona from Ireland, too? Does she have an accent?”

“She’s from Minnesota. Born there. I guess she has a Minnesota accent.”

“Point taken,” Ogden said. “I hope my accent isn’t too hard on your ears. Does she have family there still?”

“Her mother.”

“Where in Minnesota?” Ogden asked.

“Minneapolis.”

Bucky shook Caitlin’s hand. “The deputy will find your cousin. He’s my best officer.”

Ogden offered Bucky a quizzical look that went ignored.

“Miss Alison, let’s take a ride.”

In the car, Ogden apologized. He pumped the gas pedal and turned the key again. “When it’s run for a while, it’s fine. There’s no air conditioner. You won’t notice it until about noon. That’s when you’ll start swearing.”

“You mean sweating?”

“No, I mean swearing.”

“I’ve been warned,” Caitlin said. “Please call me Caitlin.”

“Ogden.”

He drove them north. They crested a hill and he pointed at the view. “I never get tired of this. What’s your cousin doing here?”

“She wrote me that she wanted to live someplace beautiful for a while. And different.”

“She picked the right place.”

“She loves it here.”

Ogden nodded. “Is there a man in the picture?”

Caitlin said nothing.

“Or a woman? People sometimes go to a brand-new place to be alone. Most often there’s another person.”

“She didn’t mention anyone.”

Ogden nodded.

“I think she would have said if there was a man.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ogden said. “We’ll find her and you two can catch up and I can go back to chasing speeders.”

Ogden turned his attention to the road. He tried to formulate a strategy for when they reached the hamlet of San Cristobal. They’d go to the post office, of course, but after that? There was no town center. San Cristobal had only one small shop, a snack shop that sold a few curios, attached to a compound of rental cabins. It was not a wealthy place like Angel Fire or even Eagle Nest. It wasn’t trendy like Taos. There were a couple of houses on the road that led up to the D. H. Lawrence Ranch owned by the university, but not much else.

The post office was a long, narrow trailer with a ramped boardwalk that led from the gravel parking yard to the door set far off-center. A peeling decal of the USPS eagle was the only mark on the fiberglass outer wall.

“Everyone gets their mail general delivery up here,” Ogden said as they got out of the car.

Caitlin looked at him.

“They come here to collect their mail. No carriers.”

“I understand.”

They walked over the weathered boards to the door. Inside, a tall, thin man with a long gray ponytail stood poking through a pile of letters on a table. Ogden prided himself on knowing most people in the area, but he couldn’t remember this man’s face and so certainly couldn’t recall a name.

“How do,” the postman said.

Ogden nodded. “I’m Ogden Walker.” He shook the man’s hand.

“Lonzo Pickler.”

Ogden had never met him. He would have remembered a name like that.

“This is Caitlin Alison,” Ogden said. “Here all the way from Ireland, looking for her cousin.”

“Ma’am,” Pickler said.

“Her cousin’s name is Fiona McDonough.”

Lonzo listened and nodded. “Don’t know the name. And I would remember that name. My first wife was a Fiona.”

“Here’s her picture.” Ogden took the photo from Caitlin and handed it to the tall man. “Have you seen her?”

Lonzo shook his head.

“Caitlin here says she received some letters with a San Cristobal postmark.”

“That might be. But I haven’t seen this woman. The post box is outside. People mail stuff all the time and I don’t see them. I postmark a lot of letters.”

“I see,” Ogden said.

“Hey, Reba,” Lonzo called back into the office. “Come out here, please.”

Reba came around the corner. She was a round and short Taos Pueblo woman. Ogden had seen her around.

“Deputy,” Reba said.

Ogden nodded hello.

“Have you seen this woman around?” Lonzo showed Reba the photograph.

Reba looked at the image and then at Caitlin and Ogden. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Ogden took back the picture.

“Did she do something?” Reba asked.

“No, nothing like that,” Ogden said. “Her cousin’s just trying to find her.”

“She missing?”

Ogden could hear the rumors starting already. First it would be a little buzz at the Pueblo and in short order the whole town of Plata would be talking about the woman abducted by a serial killer.

“No,” Ogden said. “We’re just trying to find her because her cousin here lost her address.”

“Oh,” Reba said. She looked disappointed. “Like I said, maybe I seen her, I’m not sure.”

“You might check the Muddy,” Lonzo said.

Ogden thanked them both, then steered Caitlin back out into the bright and hotter day. “Well, that was a bust.”

“What is the Muddy?”

“The Muddy Cabins are down the road. There’s a little store there where all the locals go. Maggie Muddy, and that is her name, runs the place. She’s a bit of a nut, but she’s sweet.”

“Maggie Muddy,” Caitlin said.

“Her married name,” Ogden said.

Caitlin laughed. “And I suppose that her husband is named Marvin Muddy.”

“Was,” Ogden said. “But his name was Mickey Muddy, but of course everybody just called him Buddy Muddy. You know, you can’t make this shit up.”

“This is a colorful place.”

“So to speak.”

The Muddy was named for Buddy Muddy, but it also happened to be situated at the confluence of two arroyos. When it rained in the spring, it was a mess. But in the summer, it was lousy with wildflowers. The cabins were small wooden huts, painted brightly and scattered through a stand of cottonwoods.

“What a sweet-looking place,” Caitlin said.

“It is sweet.” Ogden parked next to the little store. The double screen doors were propped open by cast-iron cats.

“Maggie!” Ogden called out as they stood in the empty store. Refrigerated cabinets lined the far wall and tables in the middle of the room were covered with canned goods, bags of chips, beans, paper plates, and candies.

“Maybe she’s not here,” Caitlin said.

“She’s here. I don’t think she ever leaves.”

“Who’s there?” a woman said. She came through a door beside the refrigerator full of eggs and milk. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Ogden, Maggie.”

“Ogden? Ogden who?”

“Ogden Walker. Eva’s son.”

“Eva Walker? How is she?”

“She’s fine, Maggie.”

“I ain’t seen you in forever,” the old woman said. Her face was absurdly lined, her hair all gray and worn waist-long in a braid. “Is this your wife?”

“No, ma’am. This is Caitlin Alison. She’s from Ireland.”

“My husband’s mother was from Ireland,” Maggie said.

“Maggie, have you seen this woman?”

Caitlin showed Maggie the photograph.

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen her.” Maggie looked out her front doors as if expecting someone. “Everybody comes in here.”

“Did you talk to her at all?” Ogden asked.

“She’s my cousin,” Caitlin said. “Her name is Fiona.”

“Yes, I talked to her. I talked to her for a long time. Buddy talked to her, too.”

Ogden sighed and looked away. “When was this, Maggie?”

“Just the other day. Last week, maybe. She said she was from someplace.”

“Where?” Ogden asked.

“Someplace else. It made Buddy laugh.”

“Did she say where she was living?”

“My hollyhocks aren’t coming up they way they should. Oh, all the volunteers are sprouting up where I don’t want them, but the ones in my garden, no.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ogden said.

“Do you think my soil is too rich?” Maggie asked. “I used a new fertilizer.”

“It’s possible.” Ogden nodded to Caitlin. “Maggie, thanks for talking to us. We’ll be going now.”

“She said she was living up above Questa.”

“Thanks, Maggie.”

As they walked back to the truck, Caitlin asked, “Questa?”

“Might as well be Mars. Maggie’s out of her head. Buddy’s been dead for ten years.”

“I see.”

“I don’t have any better ideas, though.”

Ogden looked up at the intense midday sun.

“Is it far?” Caitlin asked. “Questa.”

“Not too far. But why would she come way down here to mail letters? There’s a post office up there, a bigger one. And why shop here?”

“Because it’s quaint?” Caitlin said.

Ogden shrugged.

“I don’t want to take up all of your day,” the woman said.

“I did promise my mother I’d do something for her. If you don’t mind, I’ll drive you to Questa tomorrow morning. I think it’s a wild-goose chase, but we should check it out.”

“That works for me.”

Ogden dropped Caitlin off at the office of El Pueblo Motel and told her he’d see her early the next day. He then drove to his mother’s house, where he found her washing the stray dog she’d taken in a couple of weeks ago.

“Fleas?” Ogden asked.

“Not anymore.”

“You ready to go pick out a new air conditioner?”

“Thanks for remembering. So, did you find the missing girl?”

Ogden made a decision to not look surprised. “There is no girl and she’s not missing.”

“You found her then.”

“No,” Ogden said.

“Son, that’s what folks around here call missing.”

His mother had a point, but it wasn’t a really a valid one. Ogden said nothing.

“I know, I know,” she said, waving her hand. “You’re not allowed to discuss an ongoing case.”

“There really is no case. So far no one is missing. Besides, I don’t have cases. I write tickets and stumble onto marijuana gardens. Now, let’s go get your air conditioner.”

“Okay. Don’t get your undies all twisted up.”

“And may I ask who informed you about the alleged missing person?”

“A bird told me.” She loved saying that or, I have my sources.

Ogden drove his mother to Manny’s Appliance Depot or MAD as the locals called it. Manny had one of the few billboards in town and most people hated it, if only for its sheer size. Everyone hated it but Manny and Blinky Ortiz, the sign maker. The billboard was a giant hand-painted portrait of Manny with microwave ovens for eyes and a deep freeze for a mouth. Blinky had painted the sign himself and along with it the mural on the side of the store. The mural depicted refrigerators dressed like Indians dancing around a huge, glowing-red convection oven. The scene was modeled after the local corn dance and most people were offended by it, but Blinky, being Native, claimed that every detail was accurate, except for the fact that the dancers were appliances.

Inside, Ogden and his mother were approached by Manny. Manny looked like a loud person. He was a big man in bright clothes, shiny shoes, with long strides and large gestures. But when he opened his mouth, the softest, almost sweet, voice came out. It wasn’t feminine, but it was easy on the ear.

“Hello, Deputy, Mrs. Walker,” he said. He prided himself on knowing the name of anyone who had ever bought anything from him.

“Hello, Manny,” Eva said. “I need an air conditioner. A good one that can run day and night.”

Ogden let his mother wander off with Manny. He would stay out of it, let her make her decision, then carry it home and install it and drive it back when she didn’t like it. Manny was honest and his shop was the only show in town. They could have driven down to Santa Fe, but they didn’t and wouldn’t. Ogden browsed the shelves of hand tools. He stopped and admired all of the saws, daydreamed about making cabinet furniture some day.

“Hey, Ogden.”

Ogden turned around to find Leon Newton, the county clerk. He was a tall, pale white man with an endearing comb-over. “Hello, Leon.”

“Looking at saws?”

“Yes. What brings you in here?”

“Nails. Need nails. I own a house. I always need nails.”

Ogden nodded.

“Anything interesting going on down at the sheriff’s office?”

Ogden shook his head. He picked up a Japanese handsaw.

“That’s beautiful,” Leon said.

“It is.”

“I heard you’re looking for a young woman.”

“You heard that?”

“The girl’s cousin told me,” Leon said. “She was in my office a little while ago. I love her accent.”

“What was she doing in your office?”

“Looking at maps. She said she thought the most detailed maps would be in my office. She was right, of course. She’s smart. I pointed her to the giant one. You know, the big one on the wall opposite the counter. She looked at it for a good long time.”

“She ask to see anything else?”

“Like what?”

Ogden shrugged.

“No, she just looked at the map.” Leon looked at the saw still in Ogden’s hands. “I work with wood, you know. When I’m not trying to hold my house together with nails. I build cabinets. When I need them anyway. Measure twice and cut once, that’s my rule. Still, it doesn’t always work. You like to work with your hands, Deputy?”

“When I get a chance.”

“I think I’m going to build myself a gazebo. A place to sit and watch the sun go down. That’s a big project, but I think I can do it.”

Ogden smiled. “That’s great, Leon. Listen, I’ve got to find my mother.”

“Tell her I said hello.”

“I’ll do that.”

As they drove home Ogden’s mother said, “Manny says this one has plenty of BTUs.”

“That’s a good thing. You wouldn’t want to have too few BTUs,” Ogden said.

“Laugh if you want, sonny, but I know where you’ll be on hot August nights.”

“Nursing my hernia at your house.”

“It’s a little big.”

Ogden nodded in agreement.

“You don’t have to set it up tonight,” she said.

“No, I don’t mind. It’s easier to do it all at once.”

“Suit yourself, but I thought you might like to go out or something.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go out.”

Ogden installed the machine and switched it on. After a few seconds of tepid air, the stream came out ice cold. “Well, this ought to do it.”

“Thanks.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go out.”

“That’s why you’re single, because you’re a smartass.”

“And who do you think I got that from?”

Ogden lived in a place where many, if not most, people still smoked and though there was no smoking allowed inside any restaurant, it only took fifteen nonsmoking smokers to make a place reek of cigarettes. It was this fact that he used to talk himself out of driving all the way home to get cleaned up before dropping in at the Blue Corn Café. He walked in and was called to the bar by his friends Rick and Manny. They had been the friends his father warned him to steer clear of when he was a teenager. They nearly got him killed the night before he left for the marines.

Manny and Rick had met Ogden at this very restaurant, the Blue Corn, to try to get him drunk before he took the train to California and Camp Pendleton. They’d failed to get him intoxicated, but they managed to persuade him to drive them north to Questa for a surprise. As he slid to a stop on the gravel yard outside a crummy barn, Ogden had a bad feeling. There were many cars and pickups already there.

“What is this?” Ogden asked. Then he saw a brown and white pit bull standing, barking in the bed of a truck. “Is this a dogfight?” He kicked the gravel. “Jesus Christ! You know I hate shit like this.”

“You gotta see it once,” Manny or Rick said.

“That’s not true,” Ogden said. He was arguing with them as they stood at the tall barn doors. “That’s just not true.” Behind Manny, Ogden caught glimpse of a brindle dog tearing into the side of a white dog. He turned away at the sight of blood and marched back toward his father’s old Jeep Cherokee. He ignored his friends’ pleas for him to come back, then their voices were gone and he knew they’d moved inside. As he passed by the brown and white dog in the back of the pickup, he found he just couldn’t leave her there. He untied the end of the rope attaching her to the truck and led her to his own car, put her in, and drove away. It was all quite surreal as he skidded onto the dirt road, the dog panting and staring forward through the windshield. He understood that he had taken the dog because he was trying to save it from fighting, he understood his act to be theft, yet he didn’t know what he was doing with it or what he was going to do with it. As he skated down the washboard road to the highway he began to grasp the full gravity of his moment of idiocy. This animal belonged to someone, an objectionable someone certainly, possibly a dangerous someone. He drove into Plata and under the lights of the gas station at the flashing signal at the north edge of town. He wanted to consider his options while he pumped his gas, but he could think of none. Then a Ford LTD station wagon filled with a family and a collie pulled up to the pump beside him. The pit bull went wild, barking and throwing himself into the closed passenger-side window, trying to get at and probably eat the collie. The children in the station wagon screamed and cried. The parents stared holes through Ogden as he crawled in behind the wheel and drove away. He was terrified of the dog himself, especially now, but the beast’s attention was focused away from him and so he could drive. As soon as the collie was removed from view, the pit bull became quiet, eerily quiet, staring once again out the front window. He drove all over, afraid of the dog and afraid the dog’s owner would find him. He spotted the car of a state trooper outside a dingy restaurant in Arroyo Hondo and did the only thing he could think of to he tied the dog to the door handle of the trooper’s car and drove away.

Ogden now looked at his so-called friends at the bar and said, “I hate both of you.”

“What’d we do?” Rick asked.

Ogden wondered what he was doing in the tavern at all. He could never last more than an hour, if that long. Just chatting briefly with Manny and Rick made him feel exhausted.

“Warren and his wife are over there,” Manny said.

Ogden looked and saw his fellow deputy sitting at a table at the window. He walked over. “This is what I like to see,” he said.

“What’s that?” Warren asked.

“Lovebirds out at night.”

“Well, it’s our anniversary,” Warren said.

“Happy anniversary,” Ogden said.

“You have fun babysitting today?” Warren asked.

“It is sort of babysitting, isn’t it?”

“A little bit,” Warren said.

“Well, you know, good foreign relations and all that.”

“So, you find her?”

“Not yet.” Ogden smiled at the couple. “Enjoy your evening.” He turned and walked back toward the bar, bumped into Caitlin.

“Deputy,” she said.

“I see you made it out.”

“It’s a beautiful night,” Caitlin said.

Ogden nodded. “Well, I’d better get home and water my bonsai.”

“Your bonsai?”

“Don’t have to walk it. Quieter than a cat. Still, it is my second. I killed my first one.”

“See you in the morning?”

“Pick you up at eight. Have fun.”

The next morning was surprisingly cool, perhaps because of the clear night. Clouds had rolled in and blocked out the sun and some rain was falling. The sage-covered flat ground outside Ogden’s trailer looked unusually glum, though the rain was much needed, as it was always much needed. Ogden drank some orange juice and then drove toward town.

Caitlin was standing outside the little registration office of the motel when Ogden rolled up. He leaned over, pushed open the passenger door, and she climbed in.

“Dreary morning,” she said. “It was difficult to get out of bed.”

“Not my bed. My mattress is lumpy and too soft.” Ogden drove out onto the highway and headed north.

“Why don’t you get a new one?” she asked.

“Then I might not get up.”

“Where again are we off to?”

“Questa. Red River.”

“May I tell you once more how much I appreciate your time,” Caitlin said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Besides, my boss told me to do it and so it’s my job. My boss tells me to water his garden, I water his garden. I like having a job. Not necessarily this job, but a job.”

“What would you rather be doing?”

“There’s the problem. I don’t know. What do you do back in Ireland? Where in Ireland are you from?”

“Galway. And I’m a librarian.”

“You mean like the public library?”

“Yes.”

“I know this is a stupid thing to say, but you don’t look like a librarian.”

“What’s a librarian look like?”

“I told you it was a stupid thing to say. I’d like to think I don’t look like a deputy sheriff, but I’m afraid I’m not so lucky.”

The rain came and it came hard. Ogden turned the wipers on fast and leaned a bit forward in his seat.

“Wow,” Caitlin said.

“We call this a drizzle in these parts.”

Just as quickly as the rain had come they were driving out of it. Ogden glanced in his mirror to see the edge of the shower behind them. “This will happen on and off today,” he told her.

Caitlin nodded. She looked out her window at the mountains. Ogden imagined her concern for her cousin.

Ogden drove past Questa and on up to Red River. His thought was that they would work their way back. Perhaps in that way hope might start to spiral away, but there might also be a feeling of zeroing in, however illusory. They asked questions at the little stores at either end of the village, showed Fiona’s photo to a gas station attendant and to the clerks in a couple of shops. They had no luck, so drove on down to Questa. Questa was a poor hamlet, not a ski resort like Red River, but a collection of rough adobes and one little restaurant with an attached market. Ogden and Caitlin sat down to lunch.

“This is some of the best food in these parts,” Ogden said. “The real deal.”

A teenage girl brought out a plastic basket of sopaipillas and some salsa. “I heard you were at the county clerk’s office.” Ogden hadn’t meant to wait so long to mention it, but he had forgotten about his chat with Leon. Now he worried that his question made him sound suspicious.

“I went to look at a detailed map. I had to do something.”

Ogden nodded. “See anything helpful?”

“No.”

“Maybe today we’ll find out something,” he said.

“What do you recommend?” Caitlin looked up at the menu on the wall above the counter.

“I like the caldillo, that’s a green chile stew. The enchiladas here are really good. You can’t go wrong.”

“I’ll try the stew.”

Ogden nodded.

The girl came back and stood by their table.

“Caldillo for both of us,” Ogden said. “Have you seen this woman?” Ogden handed the girl the photograph of Fiona.

The girl nodded. “She used to come in here.”

“She did?” Ogden said. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“She came in a few times. Always had the hamburger. Almost nobody has the hamburger. She drove an old blue Bug. I remember because I liked her car.”

“The last time you saw her?”

The girl looked out the window at the gravel parking lot. “She didn’t come in. She drove up, parked for a while, then backed up and drove off. There was a man with her.”

“Did you ever see the man before?”

The girl shook her head.

“Can you describe the man?” Ogden asked.

“He didn’t get out,” she said. “I couldn’t really see him. He had a beard, I saw that.”

“Did anybody else who works here see her?”

“It’s just me and José and he never comes out of the kitchen.”

“Okay, thanks. What’s your name?”

“Olivia Mendez.”

“I’m Deputy Walker.” Ogden shook her hand. “Thanks again.”

“I’ll go put your order in.”

“One more thing,” Ogden said. “Did you notice which way she came from and which way she went when she left?”

“Yeah, she went up the dirt road toward the lake.”

“Thanks again,” Ogden said. He watched the girl walk away. “Well, what do you know about that?”

“This is great,” Caitlin said.

“There are only a few cabins between here and the lake.” Ogden looked out the window and observed the patches of fog floating in. The fog would be thicker up the mountain. “I hope we can see well enough to find them.”

After their meal, they drove up the muddy track that ran parallel to a swollen creek.

“Must have rained real hard last night,” Ogden said.

“And it’s starting up again,” Caitlin said, pointing at drops hitting the windshield.

“Shit. This road is bad enough right now.”

The rain fell harder as they slipped and slid their way up. It was difficult enough to see the road, much less anything set off into the woods like a cabin. Caitlin asked if they were wasting their time.

“Possibly,” Ogden said.

Ogden drove slowly, so they could see better and so he could keep his rig on the road. He hit the brake and fishtailed to a stop.

“What is it?” Caitlin asked.

“Look,” Ogden said. He nodded to the west side of the road. “In that thicket.”

Caitlin looked.

“A blue Volkswagen,” Ogden said.

The rain fell harder as they climbed out and walked toward the car. There was a cabin beyond it. The chimney was smokeless and the front door was ajar. When they stood under the overhang, at the door Ogden had a bad feeling. The rain pounded loudly on the metal roof. He knocked as hard as he could. Then he called out. “Hello, the house,” he said. He knocked while he pushed open the door.

Ogden saw the feet first, a woman’s sneakers. He pushed quickly into the room. The woman was lying near the cold wood stove, facedown, her left arm twisted behind her back so that the back of her hand was on her butt. There was blood under her middle, spreading across the floor and into the bricks under the stove.

“Oh my god,” Caitlin said.

Ogden fell to his knees beside the woman and turned her over. He put his fingers to her neck.

“That’s not Fiona,” Caitlin said.

“What?”

“That’s not Fiona.”

“She’s alive,” Ogden said. “She’s been shot.”

“Oh god.”

“I’ve got to go call for help.” Ogden looked at the injured woman. By the time the medics made it up that muddy road the woman might be dead. No helicopter was going to fly in this weather, even if there was a place to land, which there wasn’t. He stood there, trying to make a quick decision. Should he move her and meet the ambulance at the road? He looked at the wound to her side. She’d lost a lot of blood. “We’re taking her,” he said. “Get the door.”

Ogden picked up the woman and carried her cradled in his arms through the rain to his rig, where he laid her across the backseat. Caitlin sat in the back with her, holding the woman’s head in her lap.

Ogden called in. “Felton, get me an ambulance to the Questa Lake road. I’ve got a woman who’s been shot.”

“Who’s been shot?” Felton asked.

“The ambulance, Felton.”

“On it.”

Ogden tried to get down the mountain as fast as he could, without letting his adrenaline push him to drive and slide into trouble. The rain let up a bit, but the track was truly a mess. He drove with his tires on the center ridge to avoid getting sucked into the mud of the ruts.

“She’s still breathing?” Ogden asked.

“I think so.”

“Do you recognize her?”

“No.” Caitlin was shaking. “Is she going to die?”

“Felton,” Ogden spoke into the radio, again. “Felton, where’s that ambulance?”

“They’re on the way,” Felton said. “Where are you?”

“Still on my way down the mountain. Another ten minutes, I think.”

“Copy that. I’ll let them know,” Felton said.

“Keep pressure on her wound,” Ogden said.

“She won’t stop bleeding.”

Ogden didn’t say anything, but attended to his driving. The rain was letting up even more and though the fog was thicker, it was in patches so he could see well enough. He thought about the volume of blood and the way the wound looked. The woman could not have been shot too long ago, yet they’d passed no vehicles on the way up. Was the shooter on the way up the mountain? Or still near the cabin?

There was an anxious moment as Ogden rounded the last bend and saw the gravel yard of the little restaurant but no ambulance, but then the paramedics rolled in, red light flashing in the fog.

They had the woman out of the rig and in the back of the ambulance in a matter of minutes. Bucky pulled into the yard just after the medics. One of the medics asked Ogden if he knew the woman’s name or anything about her and Ogden said he did not. Then they rolled away, siren screaming. They had wanted the helicopter, but there would be no flying today.

Bucky walked to Caitlin under the overhang of the restaurant boardwalk. “You okay?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“What about you?” Bucky asked Ogden.

“I think so. How’d you get here so fast?”

“I was down in San Cristobal.”

“We found her in a cabin almost to the lake. I’ll be driving back up there now,” Ogden said.

“Wait for Warren. He’s on his way.” Bucky turned to Caitlin. “Young lady, I’ll take you back to town. You can give me your statement and we’ll get you dry and warmed up.”

Caitlin looked at Ogden. She didn’t want to ride back with the sheriff. Ogden understood. People often wanted to remain with the person with whom they’d experienced something profound or frightening. He nodded to her, letting her know it was okay. He looked to the highway for Warren Fragua’s rig.

“See you back at the office, Ogden,” the sheriff said.

Ogden watched them walk through the now light rain and get into Bucky’s car. He stepped inside the restaurant and looked back through the window as they rolled away.

“Can I get some coffee?” he asked the teenager.

The girl was standing beside the register with the cook. “Was that the girl you were looking for?” she asked.

“No.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Ogden said.

“I’ll get the coffee.”

It took Fragua another five minutes and then the two men were traveling up the slick road in Ogden’s Bronco. The rain had stopped and the fog had thinned considerably.

“No idea who she is?” Warren asked.

“None.”

“All I know is I didn’t drive by anyone on my way up and nobody’s driven down since.”

“How’s the girl?”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“How’s the boy?”

“You mean me?” Ogden asked.

“Yes, you.”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“I hate guns,” Warren said.

“That’s because you’ve got a brain.”

“Did you notice anything strange when you were in there?” Warren asked.

“Other than the bleeding woman? Nothing. I didn’t even think that I might be in danger until I was headed down the mountain.”

Half an hour up the trail Ogden spotted the blue Bug again. He parked beside it. The men got out and examined the car. Ogden put his hand on the hood; it was cold. He looked under the car and saw that the ground was soaked underneath.

“This spot look flat to you?” Ogden asked.

“Pretty flat.”

This time Ogden approached the cabin with his weapon drawn. Warren had his pistol out as well and they came at the structure wide from either side. The front door was open just as Ogden had left it. They stepped inside.

“Everything looks normal,” Ogden said. “Right down to the big puddle of human blood on the floor.”

“Did you look in this back room?” Warren pointed to a curtain hanging in a doorway.

“Didn’t even see it.”

Warren moved the fabric aside with his pistol and peeked in. “Just a bed.”

“Made or unmade?” Ogden asked.

“No bedding at all.”

“Well, let’s see if we can figure out who’d been living here.”

“I’ll call down and see if Bucky can find out who owns this place.” Warren left and went back to the truck.

Ogden poked around near the sink and cabinets. There were dirty dishes stacked on the counter, two plates and a couple of forks. The residue of eggs and some kind of meat was not dried hard. He sniffed the plastic cups, no alcohol.

He moved over to the long table against the far wall. One of the panes of the window on that wall was cracked, a corner broken out. It looked like old damage.

Warren came back in. “Bucky’s checking on it. Anything?”

“Not yet. I’m going to see if there are any clothes in the bedroom.”

In the bedroom Ogden found a couple of pairs of women’s jeans and a stack of T-shirts. Then he heard a rumble. “Hey, Warren, you hear that?” he asked, stepping back into the main room of the cabin.

“Yeah,” Warren said.

“Shit,” Ogden said running to the door. He got there just as a white van raced by on the muddy road. “Jesus. Warren.”

The men ran to the Bronco and climbed in. Ogden tried to start the engine, but it decided to be uncooperative. “Christ!”

“Just give it a second,” Warren said. Warren got on the radio and told Felton that a white van was about to hit the highway.

Ogden tried again and the engine turned over. He slammed it into reverse and turned around, fishtailing as he turned onto the rutted lane. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said. “We’ll never catch up.”

The Bronco bounced and slipped. Warren put a palm on the ceiling to keep from banging around. When they got down to the restaurant parking lot there was no sign of the van. Ogden skidded to a stop on the gravel and ran into the restaurant.

“Did you see a white van?” he asked the teenager.

“No,” she said.

“Just now?”

“Didn’t see a van.”

Ogden walked back out. Warren was out and looking up and down the highway. Ogden kicked the truck on the front quarter-panel. “Piece of shit,” he said.

Warren ate some piñon nuts, looked up at the sky. “White van, no plate read. Only about a thousand white vans in this county.”

“Did you see anything special about it?”

“No. It was fast.”

“It wasn’t empty,” Ogden said. “It would have skidded out somewhere in that mud if it was empty.”

“That’s probably right. What now?”

“It’s time for me to call Fiona McDonough’s parents in Minnesota. I’m not simply helping a tourist anymore. Of course I only have the tourist’s word that the victim is not Fiona McDonough.”

“The messier things get,” Warren said.

“The messier things get,” Ogden finished.

“So are we driving back up to finish looking around?”

Ogden nodded. “No choice. The state guys will show at some points to take prints. Like that’s going to help anything.”

“You never know. Let’s do it so we can get it done,” Warren said.

Back at the cabin, Ogden left his rig parked across the road. No one would drive by this time. It was a bit of closing the barn door after the cow was out, but he had to do it. They sifted through the cabin again and found little sign that anyone was actually living there. The ashes in the stove were long cold and there were few of them. Dust was on most things, including the floor, but there had been traffic.

“A meeting place?” Warren asked.

“Could be.” Ogden went into the back room. He looked at the bed. “A nookie nest?”

“A bit out of the way. But I guess that’s the point. Married man? Girlfriend going to tell, bang.”

“Pretty disgusting. The mattress is clear of dust. Lots of traffic around the bed.”

“True.”

“Whose place is this? These magazines are six years old.”

“Like my bathroom,” Warren said.

“Newsweek, Time, Southwest Fly Fishing. What do you say we drive up to the lake? For the hell of it.”

“Why not?”

They drove the track all the way to the lake and as they expected with all the mud and mess there was no one there. Warren pointed out the fishing had been off for years, said the locals blamed it on the tailings from the Moly mine.

“Probably true,” Ogden said. “At least it’s closed now.”

“Too little too late.”

Ogden sat in the driver’s seat with the door open. He called in and got Felton on the radio. “You got any word on that woman?”

“She’s not dead, but she’d not good. That’s what they’re telling us. They wanted to move her to Santa Fe, but they didn’t think she’d make the helicopter ride.”

“Is Caitlin there?”

“Left a few minutes ago. Sheriff drove her to her motel.”

“Thanks. Out.”

“Very good. You remembered to say out,” Warren said.

“Crisis and all that.”

Ogden and Fragua drove back down the mountain. No other cars had found their way up to the cabin. Ogden wondered if the state police would send a crime scene team up as early as tomorrow. He didn’t think they would turn up anything useful, but it was a matter of principle and procedure. There had been a crime, a woman had been shot, maybe to death, and somebody ought to find it urgent enough to drive up from Santa Fe. It wasn’t far.

It was near dusk when Ogden parked in front of the sheriff’s station. Warren parked beside him. They walked inside and found Bucky there waiting.

“Well, it’s a murder investigation now,” Paz said. “She died fifteen minutes ago.”

“Any identification?” Ogden asked.

“None. Felton is going through all the missing persons reports from the state, Colorado, and Arizona.”

“I’ll call Texas,” Warren said.

“Do you know how many people go missing every day?” Felton said. “It’s a lot more than you’d think. I mean missing the official twenty-four hours.”

“I need to call Minnesota,” Ogden said. “Where’s Caitlin?”

“I drove her back to her motel,” Paz said.

“Bucky, did you ever get a look at her ID?”

Paz paused to look out the window. “Never thought to ask,” he said. “Funny about that. What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. All I know is I need to call Fiona McDonough’s family and get some sense of what’s going on. That blue Bug is the car that Olivia Mendez saw Fiona driving.”

“Drive on over and get the numbers right now. And check her damn ID. I feel like a big fat fool. I really do hate this job.” Paz walked back into his office and shut the door.

Ogden drove directly to the motel. He stopped at the desk and asked for Caitlin’s room number.

“She was in unit seven,” the clerk said.

“What do you mean was?” he asked.

“I mean she was in unit seven and now she ain’t,” the short, balding man said. He stroked the tabby cat that slept on the counter. “She checked out.”

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

Ogden looked out the window at the street.

“Drove off with her boyfriend.”

“What boyfriend?”

“You’re not a very good detective, are you? She left with the guy she come with. Been here the whole time.”

“What does he look like?” Ogden asked.

“Normal enough looking fellow. About your height. White guy. Light brown hair. Blue eyes.”

“Did they leave in a car?”

“They did.”

“Can you describe it?” Ogden asked.

“Light blue Honda Civic. Tan interior.”

Ogden was writing everything down now. “Anything else?”

The clerk looked at his desk. “California plate, 5QTH769. I think it was a rental.”

“Thanks.” Ogden turned to leave.

“Did I mention he had only one hand?”

Ogden shook his head. “No, you failed to mention that. Which one did he have?”

“The left one.”

“Was the rest of him there?” Ogden asked.

“Far as I could see.”

“Did he have a prosthetic of any kind? A hook?”

“Nope. His nub was covered with a sock.”

“A sock.”

“A white tube sock,” the clerk said, nodding.

“Any other little details you want to share with me before I start out again?”

“That’s it.”

Bucky Paz couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He shook his head the whole time Ogden was speaking. Warren Fragua stood at the window and peered out at the night. His stomach growled.

“I’ll second that,” Paz said. The sheriff looked at Ogden. “Felton is out there checking the plate. It’s not your fault, Ogden. It’s mine. Never try to be a nice guy; that’s the lesson here.”

Felton came into office. “The motel man was right, the license plate was from a rental car,” he said. “The plate came from a place called Dave Delmonte’s Rent-a-Ride in San Juan Capistrano, California. Except that the car with that plate is suppose to be a yellow Ford Focus.”

Paz twirled around in his office chair. “Probably got a trunk full of plates. Okay, Felton, call Minnesota and see what you can dig up on Fiona McDonough.

“And,” Felton said, “the Volkswagen is registered to a Christopher Banks in Santa Fe.”

“The cabin?” Ogden asked.

“Owned by a retired doctor in Dallas, named Douglass. His wife told me he hasn’t been up there in seven years.”

“You believe her?” Paz asked.

Felton nodded. “She says he’s had a couple of strokes.”

“Did you ask her if they ever let anybody use the cabin?” Ogden asked.

“I did and she said they didn’t.”

“Okay, Ogden, you see what you can dig up on Caitlin Alison. Check the Irish consulate, the State Department, Google her.”

“Well, good luck on that,” Ogden said. “Might as well run a check on Princess Leia.”

Felton left the room.

Bucky stood and came around the desk, sat his wide bottom on the edge of it, pounded his thigh with a fist. “I’m a fat old man who doesn’t like mysteries. You two can’t stop me from eating a cheesecake in the next hour, but you can go figure this out and help me sleep at night. So, get out there and show me how smart you are.”

“No pressure,” Fragua said.

“A shitload of pressure,” the sheriff said.

Warren followed Ogden out and to the front door. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back up to that cabin,” Ogden said. “I’m going to turn it upside down and see what I can find.”

“Don’t mess it up for the lab guys.”

Ogden shook his head. “You know better than I do that they won’t find anything.”

“Want me to come with you?” Warren asked.

Ogden shook his head. “One of us ought to get some rest. Besides, you’ve got a wife and a kid. I’ve got a dog and a bonsai. Which reminds me, will you stop by and feed my dog?”

“You got it. Purina and one of your power bars, right?”

“Just the Purina.”

Ogden drove through the dark back to Questa, past the now-deserted diner where he’d had lunch with Caitlin or whatever her name was, and up the treacherous dirt lane, which was at least somewhat less muddy by now. Had it not been for the reflective tape he and Fragua had left stretched all around he might not have found the cabin in the dark. He grabbed his flashlight and went first to the blue Bug. He looked at the flathead screwdriver all by itself in the glove box, then at the folded blue tarp and spare in the forward boot. He wore gloves and found himself trying to disturb things as little as possible, in deference to science. He peeked under the mat on the driver’s side; there was none on the passenger side. There was dried mud on the backseat. He shone his light on it. It was white clay.

Inside the house, he was even more lost. Everything was like it should be in a cabin that had been forgotten for seven years. It was a nice enough place, he thought, wondered how much the old man in Texas might want for it. Especially now that it had been the scene of a homicide. He looked through the cupboards, the medicine cabinet, the closet that didn’t have a door but a blanket stapled to a dowel. There was nothing in the closet but some fishing gear, including a vintage Gary Howells bamboo rod. For a second Ogden toyed with the idea that people were killing over the rod. He put it all back and walked around the cabin again, trying to stay on his own tracks, again in deference to the techs who would be coming up at some point. He went back outside into the muggy dark. His flashlight was less useful out there, the beam diffusing into the trees and mist. He walked the perimeter of the house, then widened his circle until he was weaving through the fir trees. About twenty meters, back into the trees directly behind the cabin, he found a woman’s black and tan leather handbag.

The bag contained a hairbrush, a set of house keys, a car key for a Volkswagen, and a vinyl wallet complete with twenty-seven dollars and an Illinois driver’s license. The name on the license was Carla Reynolds. The picture on the license looked nothing like the woman whom he found, who had just died, but in fact looked very much like the photograph of Fiona McDonough that Caitlin Alison had waved in his face. The key did fit the Bug parked in front of the cabin.

As Ogden drove down the mountain he told everything to Paz over the radio.

The sheriff listened, but said nothing

“Did you get any of that, Bucky?” Ogden asked.

“I got all of it. Do you believe in luck?”

“Not really. Why?”

“Well, your blue Honda Civic showed up on the side of the road with a blown water pump.”

“Where?”

“Camel Rock.”

It was midnight when Ogden drove back through Plata on his way to Camel Rock on the other side of the pass. He’d decided that today was easily one of the worst in his life, a mix of embarrassment, failure, and shame. Fear would have been on the list had he known enough to feel it; instead, he was simply mad. He was exhausted, but he was not sleepy. The road seemed exceedingly long, but he was acutely aware of every curve, every set of headlights that flashed past him, and every set of taillights he passed.

Ogden exited the freeway and swung around past the casino. Under the absurdly bright lights of a Valero gas station, Ogden saw a state trooper’s car. The blue light on his roof was idle and the trooper was leaning on the front fender drinking a soda through a straw. Ogden parked beside him and got out.

“So, you had yourselves a murder up there,” the man said.

“Seems so. Did you find anything?”

“I was waiting on you before I opened it up. The way I see it, this is a part of your crime scene.” The trooper gestured that the car was all Ogden’s.

Ogden opened the driver’s side door and shone his light around. He sat behind the wheel. The seat was pulled up close, so Caitlin must have been the driver. He looked at the dash, opened the glove box and found it empty, except for some paper napkins and a service manual. He came out and put the beam on the partially raised hood. “You said it was the water pump?” Ogden asked.

The trooper pointed at the ground under the car. There was a pool in a depression of the concrete.

“I suppose you’re right.” Ogden knelt and looked at the mixture of coolant and water as if it might tell him something. He stood. “Let’s pop the trunk,” he said.

“Let’s use the key,” the trooper said. “It was still in the ignition.” He tossed the keys to Ogden.

“Okay,” Ogden said. He walked to the back of the car.

“What’s wrong?” the trooper asked.

“Oh, just everything.” Ogden opened the trunk.

“That’s not good,” the trooper said.

“That’s kind of the definition of not good,” Ogden said. He moved the hair from the face of the bound woman.

“You know her?”

“Her name is Caitlin Alison. Well, at least that’s what she told me and the sheriff.”

Ogden looked across the parking lot at the lights of the casino. Maybe there was a one-armed bandit with a one-handed killer sitting at it. He watched as the trooper called the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. This one would be their case. A good thing, Ogden thought. He didn’t want to investigate the murder he had, much less another one. But he would do just that. Both of them, tied together as they were. He imagined the man with one hand was well on his way to Albuquerque in the back of a pickup or in the passenger seat of a big rig, or lying dead someplace himself. Still, the casino was close enough he could see it. He wouldn’t bet that the man was there, but he had to look.

He walked over to the trooper. “Listen, I’m going to go up there and look around for the guy who was with her.”

“I don’t think you need to be here,” the trooper said. “They’ll know where to find you.”

“Sadly,” Ogden said.

The trooper laughed.

Ogden walked across the lot of the casino. It was a sad casino, he thought, as if someplace there was a casino that was not sad. It was only a few years old, but poorly designed; shoddy building made it look old, run down, even at night with the abundance of neon lighting masking the scars and flaws. There were consistent jobs for locals there, but no prosperity. He walked passed a couple of men who might or might not have been guarding the big double doors. He stepped up to them and looked at the beers in their hands.

“You guys work here?” Ogden asked.

“I do,” the shorter of the two said. He looked at Ogden’s uniform, seemed to know he was from another county.

“Did a guy come through here with only one hand? White guy, brown hair, my size.”

“You see a guy with one hand?” he asked his friend.

The friend shook his head.

“I have to say,” the man said, “I don’t really look at hands.”

“You should,” Ogden said. “That’s where people usually hold their guns.”

The men laughed.

“I’m going in to look around,” Ogden said.

“Look all you want.”

Inside, the harsh lights did nothing but highlight the sagging spirit of the place, the human drainage, as his father had called it. He wandered through the aisles of slot machines, the cigarette smoke, the sour smell of alcohol wafting from half-empty plastic cups and stale clothing, out of pores. Ogden looked at hands. He had never really looked at hands before either. They were all so different and everyone had two of them, except for two Indian Korean War vets; one had one hook, the other had two. He stopped by the security office and knocked. A round woman opened the door.

“Do you have cameras at the entrances?”

“Yes.”

“You think I can take a look at the last four hours of tape?”

The woman laughed. “We only keep two hours of tape before we loop it through again.”

“Okay, can I see that?” he asked.

“If the cameras worked, I’d let you take the tapes home and watch in your living room.”

“Oh.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“This is security?”

“Yeah. What are you looking for?”

“A man with one hand,” Ogden said.

“About your size?” the woman said.

“Yes,” Ogden said, incredulously.

She looked at the clock. “He came in about two hours ago.”

“Is he still here?”

“He might be,” she said.

“Might be?”

“Well, I’m the only one that stares at those damn monitors and since I’m standing over here having this little conversation with you, I ain’t exactly watching the monitors, am I? So, who knows who walked out that door?”

“I see. Where was he the last place you saw him and when?” Ogden looked back at the gallery.

“I watch them enter, I watch them exit.”

“No one watches the tables?”

“This ain’t Las Vegas.”

“I’m going to look around, thanks.”

The woman disappeared and left Ogden staring at the door. He turned and walked back through the aisles of slot machines to the restrooms. The man was in the building or had just left it or had left it awhile ago; Ogden trusted the security woman’s eyes. He was on edge now. His fingers were twitching. He went into the men’s room and washed his face. He waited long enough to count an even number of hands and then left. He went back to the entrance and looked out at the parking lot. The guard was still there.

“I’ve got twenty dollars for you if you help me search this place for a guy with one hand.”

“Okay.”

The twitching fingers were short-lived as two turns through the casino yielded nothing. The man had slipped out. Ogden had no idea which way to go. Had he boarded a bus, hitched a ride, gotten into a car with someone he knew? None of his guesses really mattered; all that mattered was that the man was good and gone and Ogden didn’t know where to search.

He walked back to the blue Honda. It was now an involved crime scene. The whole gas station was taped off and cops were everywhere. Ogden told the lead investigator all he knew while he watched the coroner pull out Caitlin’s body. The photographers recorded every angle of the scene. No one had seen the car abandoned; it had merely been sitting there too long. Ogden told the Santa Fe County deputy about the man with one hand and she wrote it down and said thanks. Ogden climbed back into his rig and drove north toward home.

The lab techs from the State Police had done their jobs at both scenes. The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department shared all they had with Ogden. Nothing usually comes to not much of anything and so it was. There were some hairs found at both scenes, a few were not from the victims, but there was not enough for a DNA match even if they had had a sample from a suspect. As usual, fingerprints offered no help. All the blood in the cabin was from the first woman and all the blood in the car, backseat, and trunk was from the second. Ogden took this hollow news along with his hollow belly upstream, driving slowly through the pass. He stopped at an overlook and stared at the gorge as it snaked north through the dark. It was nine and he still hadn’t slept.

“So, what now?” Eva Walker asked. She put a bowl of green chili and some tortillas in front of him.

“I don’t know. I keep telling all of you that I’m not cut out for this work.”

“Pshaw.”

He looked up from the food he hadn’t touched. “Pshaw? You haven’t said that for a long time.”

“Trying it out again. Shame about that young woman.”

“I guess,” Ogden said. “I’m thinking she was no Girl Scout.”

“Still,” his mother said.

“Still.”

“So, what now?” she repeated.

He looked at her. “I think that whatever reason brought those people here is still here. I don’t think they found what they were looking for. They didn’t find Fiona McDonough — rather, Carla Reynolds.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

The old woman nodded. “You need a nap.”

“I need a nap.”

Ogden walked into what had been his bedroom growing up and stretched out across the single bed. He looked over at the table where he had tied flies when he was a boy, remembered how he’s struggled with the feathers and hair when he was learning. As difficult as it all was, he knew it would come, that he would get it. But none of this business with the bodies and the one-handed man and the missing cousin would ever come to make sense. This, he believed. He did believe, however, that whatever Caitlin, dead or not, and the man with one hand had come to find was somewhere up that mountain road. If it was important enough to kill for, it was important enough to return for. He shut his eyes and drifted off quickly.

Ogden walked into the station the next morning.

“You look like shit,” Felton said.

“I feel like shit,” Ogden said.

Bucky Paz stepped into view. “Ogden, come in here.”

Ogden followed the fat man into his office.

“Sit down. Santa Fe got an ID on the woman in the car. Her name was Carol Barelli.”

“I take it she wasn’t Irish.”

“Nope. She was Denverish. She was picked up for prostitution up there once. Still no ID on the woman in the cabin.”

“Anything on Carla Reynolds?”

“Last known address was in Chicago. The cops there checked out the address. No one there by that name.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“Caitlin was a hooker, eh?”

“One of those on the Craig’s List.”

“Craig’s List. Guess I’m going on Craig’s List.”

Ogden sat down in front of the computer on his desk.

Felton looked over. “You on the computer? Who died?”

“A bunch of people,” Ogden said.

Ogden stared at the computer screen. “What is Craig’s List?” he asked. “I typed it in and nothing came up.”

“It’s one word,” Felton said. “No apostrophe. Haven’t you ever bought anything online?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

“That’s where I found my car. Got a great deal. What are you looking for?”

“A prostitute.” The page came up and Ogden stared at it. He found the Denver site. He looked in the section of women seeking men and men seeking women, but that just turned out to be people in various stages of loneliness or desperation seeking friends or dates. Then he saw the word “adult” under the heading “services.” There he found not-so-veiled advertisements for prostitutes. Listings with headings like “Curl Your Toes” and “Hot to Trot” and “Your Place in Twenty Minutes” and “Cum on My Face.” Many had pictures of fairly rough-looking women, some looking like addicts, some worse, and pictures of extremely young-looking Asian women. He looked through them all, one at a time. He grew sadder with each face he saw. The rough ones looked sad enough and he could see the futures of the young ones. He was completely and thoroughly depressed by mid-morning. Then he saw the face of Carla Reynolds. The heading read, “Giving Two Heads is Better Than One.” She was posed beside another woman who was holding the camera to take their picture in a mirror. The ad said that their names were Destiny and Petra. Carol Barelli seemed to be the one called Destiny, best he could tell. There was a phone number and no address. Ogden looked around the office, feeling dirty, feeling stupid for feeling dirty, feeling silly for finding himself embarrassed to dial the number. But he did. A woman answered.

“I’m calling for Petra,” Ogden said. He asked for Petra because he believed Destiny to be dead.

“You want to make an appointment?”

“No, I would like to talk to Petra.”

The woman hung up.

“You never have had any luck with women,” Felton said.

Ogden stood and walked to Bucky’s open door. “Sheriff, I think I need to drive up to Denver.”

Bucky Paz studied his desktop. “You want to take Warren with you?”

Ogden shook his head.

“Okay, go ahead.”

Ogden stopped by his mother’s house and told her he’d be gone for a few days. Her house was frigid. “What’s going on in here?”

“I’ve got the damn thing on the lowest setting,” she said about the air conditioner. “And it’s turning the place into an icebox. I want to take it back.”

Ogden leaned over to the look at the control panel. “Well, you do have the fan on low, but you’ve got it set to its coldest.” He adjusted the knob.

“Thanks.” She led the way into the kitchen. “You want to eat before you go?”

“I’m okay.”

“Two young girls. How awful. Is that why you’re going up to Denver?”

“Yes, to see if there’s anything to find out.”

“I made some scones. They’re plain, but they’ll be good road food. Want a thermos of coffee, too?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“You’ll be careful, son?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Four scones enough?”

“That’s great.”

Warren Fragua pulled into Ogden’s yard while he was setting his bag in the back of his pickup. “I hear you’re driving all the way up to Denver for a hooker.”

“I heard that’s where they keep them.”

“I’d offer to go, but, well, you know.”

“Your wife doesn’t approve of you looking for hookers. Doesn’t she know it’s the twenty-first century?”

“She’s a prude.”

Ogden fell in behind the wheel.

“Give a call if you need help,” Warren said.

Ogden nodded.

Ogden drove north out of town and stayed on that road until he came to Interstate 25. It was only a five-hour drive, but he felt like shit by the time he arrived. It was just becoming fully dark at nine o’clock and it was starting to rain. He checked into a Motel 6, stretched out on the bed, and fell asleep for what felt like the first time in weeks.

The next morning he grabbed some of what passed for breakfast at the Waffle House next door and then drove to the Denver Police Department. It was a big city and everyone moved like it was. Still, it was Denver and his cowboy appearance didn’t seem odd to anyone. He stepped up to the desk and asked if he could speak to someone in Vice.

“What, you get rolled by some hooker and her pimp?” the man at the counter said.

“No.” Ogden showed the man his badge. “I’m just the lowly chump deputy from a Podunk little county in New Mexico that got sent up here to find something out about a murdered woman. A woman who was arrested here for prostitution last year.” Ogden felt he’d diffused what contempt or simple ridicule the man might have directed at him with the words chump and Podunk.

The man studied Ogden briefly. “Vice is down that hall. You’ll see it written on the door.”

“Thanks.”

Ogden did find the door and he walked in. A woman detective was seated on the edge of a desk, just hanging up the phone. She was tall, what his mother would have called a horsy woman. She wore her sidearm, a.38 special, butt facing forward on her right side. “What do you want?” she asked.

Ogden introduced himself and noted that she was even less impressed with him than he was with himself. He went on. “We’ve had two murders and I’m here to see if I can find out something about one Carol Barelli.”

“Destiny,” the cop said. “How does she fit into your case?”

“She’s one of the dead people,” Ogden said.

The cop whistled, shook her head.

“You knew her?” Ogden asked.

“Picked her up a few times. Busted her once. She was an alright kid. Smart.”

“Maybe,” Ogden said.

“I’m Detective Hailey Barry,” the woman said. She reached up and shook Ogden’s hand. “Don’t even mention my name.”

“What about your name?”

The woman cocked her head and looked at Ogden. “Halle Berry, the actress?”

“Listen, Detective, I find pot growers and throw sticks for my dog. I don’t know much about movies. I just found out about Craigslist this morning.”

Detective Barry smiled briefly. “So, what happened to poor Carol Barelli.”

“Shot. I believe by a man with one hand. Do you know of anybody with one hand?”

“Sounds like you got yourself a mystery.”

“Could you ask around a little for me? And do you know anyone called Petra? Another hooker, worked with Carol.”

“No.”

Ogden showed her the picture he’d printed from Craigslist.

“Don’t know her.”

“Do you have an address for Carol Barelli?” Ogden asked.

Barry sighed and looked at her computer screen, typed a bit. “I’ve got one here, but I’m sure it won’t do you any good.”

“Mind if I take a look at her arrest report?”

“You sure ask for a lot.”

“Sorry.”

Barry turned the screen so Ogden could see it. He wrote down the address and read quickly through the report. There was nothing that struck him as unusual. “Well, you were right about her being smart,” Ogden said.

“Very bright.”

“I didn’t have her pegged for a hooker.”

“Drugs,” the detective said.

Ogden nodded.

“She really wasn’t like the rest of them,” Barry said. “I shouldn’t say that. She was a lot like the rest of them.”

“You know anything about a guy with one hand?”

“Yes, he’s a drug dealer. They call him, if you can believe it, One Hand.”

“Know where I can find him?”

“No. I’ve never seen him. He’s never been busted here in Denver as far as I know.” Barry pushed herself away from her desk and looked at the ceiling.

“Also, I just wanted to let you know that I’m in town and I’ll be asking some questions, probably pretty clumsily. I don’t mean to step on toes.”

Barry nodded. “Mind if I ask where you’re going next?”

“I guess I’m going to find myself a hooker.”

Ogden used his cell phone that he always refused to use at home. He was sitting in his truck in the police parking lot. He called the number from the Craigslist ad.

“You want to make an appointment?” the woman asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gave him the address.

He looked up the address in his Thomas Guide and drove the twenty minutes across town. The neighborhood was slightly industrial and the address he’d been given had a small sign that read NO PAIN CLINIC. There was NO PARKING posted on the street, so he drove around the corner. It was just before ten. It seemed an odd time to call on a hooker, but the woman had answered the phone.

There was a buzzer button, but there was no knob or handle on the outer wrought-iron door. The inner wooden door opened. A middle-aged Asian woman looked at Ogden, opened the metal door, and let him in. She didn’t speak, but led him by the hand through a dim room with a couple of sofas and into a room with what might have been a bed or a massage table pushed against the far wall.

“What do you want? Thirty minute, one hour?” the woman asked. She was anywhere from thirty to fifty, with a wide, almost pretty face and hair that was dyed light brown and streaked with a strange red. She wore a light blue smock over sweatpants.

“Thirty minutes,” Ogden said. “I just want to talk.”

“What?”

“Talk.”

“Wait here.” She left quickly.

Just as quickly, a younger woman came in. She was also Asian, pretty, with dark hair pulled back tight. She was dressed like the first woman. “Cindy don’t understand English good,” the woman said.

“I just need to talk to you for a minute,” Ogden said.

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“No, I Mama.”

“I want to see Petra.”

The woman stared blankly at him.

“Destiny,” he said.

Her expression changed slightly.

“I’m looking for a white girl.”

At first Ogden thought she was offended or angry. He could feel her tensing up, like a horse on the muscle. Then she laughed. “Oh, you want white girl.”

“Yes,” Ogden said.

“You don’t want white girl. You pick the girl you want. I bring in, you pick.”

“Do you know a white girl named Destiny?”

“No, no Desny.”

“Carol? Do you have any white girls?”

The woman’s feelings now appeared hurt. She walked out without a word. Ogden sat on the bed and waited. After about ten minutes, ten long minutes, a white woman walked into the room. She was not Petra and she looked none too happy to be there. She looked as if she’d just been roused and told there was a man there to fuck her. She ran a hand through her stringy blond hair and looked at Ogden with weak, blue-green eyes sunk deep into her face.

“Okay,” she said, “what do you want?”

“What’s your name?”

“Shelly.”

“All I want is some information.”

“What? Are you a cop?”

“I am.”

“Ain’t no money changed hands.”

“I’m not interested in arresting you. I’m looking for someone who goes by the name of Petra.”

“What do you want with her? I mean, even if I did know her.”

“Listen, I’m not even a cop from around here. I’m from New Mexico. I’m just looking to ask Petra a couple of questions.”

“She’s not here.”

Ogden nodded. This was at least information. “Do you know where she is?”

“She used to live a few blocks from here. We was never friends. She shared some dope with me once.”

Ogden nodded.

“Do you remember the address?”

She shook her head.

“Can you describe the house, the building?”

“It was big and square and it had windows, like a building, you know. Yellow, it was yellow, hard to miss all that yellow. It’s on a really busy corner and there’s a big cyclone fence with wire on top down the street side.”

“You ever see a man around with one hand?”

“You mean One Hand?”

Ogden smiled. “Yeah, One Hand.”

The woman was either suddenly nervous or needed a fix of whatever fixed her, but she withdrew. “I’ve heard of him.”

“Is he a pimp?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’ve seen him.”

“Maybe. I don’t remember. Why do you want Petra?”

“She’s a friend of Destiny. Are you a friend of Destiny? Do you know Destiny?” Ogden did what he could to appear nonthreatening. He remained seated. He avoided prolonged contact with the woman’s eyes, looking instead at her shoulders or hair.

“I know Destiny. What’s going on?”

“Destiny’s dead.”

“Oh, fuck, man.”

“She was killed in New Mexico. I’m trying to find out who killed her.” He pulled a copy of Carla Reynolds’s driver’s license from his pocket. “Do you know this woman?”

Shelly shook her head.

“How well did you know Destiny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you do drugs with her?”

The woman said nothing.

“Thank you,” Ogden said. He didn’t want to scare her any more than he already had. He might need to talk to her again.