Assumption

~ ~ ~

Ogden sat in his pickup outside the Marotta house. The family dog was sniffing the ground below his window. He opened the door and gave the animal a rub. Fragua had been back to the house and said that they were doing okay. He walked up to the door and knocked.

Mr. Marotta answered. His eyes were tired and it took him a few seconds to recognize Ogden’s uniform.

“Buenas tardes,” Ogden said. “Mind if I come in?”

The man stepped back and let Ogden in. He pointed to his daughter. “Siga a su habitación.”

Mrs. Marotta came and stood beside her husband. She gestured for Ogden to sit. He did, on a stuffed armchair. The woman sat on the edge of the sofa. Mr. Marotta remained standing.

“We haven’t found José,” Ogden said. “But I need to ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”

“Okay,” said Mr. Marotta.

“Do you know if your son used drugs?”

They shook their heads. Ogden couldn’t tell if they were saying he didn’t use drugs or that they didn’t know he was using or whether they were simply dismayed at the news.

“I found a lot of money in a shoe box in his closet. Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” Mr. Marotta said.

“Was he hanging around with anyone you didn’t know? Anyone you did know that made you worry?”

“No one.”

Ogden could hear the daughter crying in the other room.

“He started going away a lot,” Mrs. Marotta said.

“Do you know where?” Ogden asked.

She shook her head.

“Did he seem worried or scared?”

They shrugged.

Ogden stood. “Thank you for your time.”

It was early Monday and Ogden was driving north. The weather had turned hard cold again. He turned onto the kidney-busting dirt road to Niebla Canyon. A battered pickup rattled by him and the two men in it gave him a good looking over. He’d never seen them before. He tried to read the plate, but couldn’t. He stopped at the trailhead parking area. The county had indeed put a sign that warned of vandals. Ogden had never seen one like it. Bright yellow with big red letters, it read BEWARE OF VANDALS. It had supposedly gone up a week or so earlier. He then wondered why the vandals had spared the sign. He looked at the only other sign there, one that said PARKING. It was dented from birdshot and punctuated with bullet holes. It was ventilated just like every other sign along the highways and dirt roads up here. But not this sign.

At the office, Ogden did the small amount of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk. Then he sat for a long time just staring at his doodles on a sheet of paper. He’d drawn rows of evenly spaced dots and had connected them with straight lines. He was tapping the grid with his pencil when the phone rang.

It was his mother. “Guess who’s here?” she asked.

“I’m at work, Ma. Okay, I’ll guess. Weather Wally.”

“Jenny’s here. She came back to pack up her mother’s house.” Ogden heard her slap a sloppy hand over the receiver. “Can you stay for lunch?” Then to Ogden, “We’ll see you here for lunch.” She didn’t wait for a response, but hung up.

Ogden leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Felton came in. Ogden could hear his awkward gait.

“Oh Lord,” Felton said. “Another rough night for poor ol’ Deputy Dawg.”

“How are you, Felton?”

“Fine as frog’s hair. What about you? You don’t look good. What’d I tell you about them women and staying out late. Maybe I should be telling them about you, right?”

“I suppose.” Ogden got up and walked over to the rack, put on his coat, grabbed his hat. “I’m going out on patrol. Do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Tell Bucky I might be out of touch for a while.”

“You want me to tell him why? Or you want him to worry about it all day?”

“I want him to worry.”

“You got it, sport.”

Ogden sat across from Jenny at his mother’s round kitchen table. Eva Walker sat between them. He looked at the impressive spread of food. There was a variety of sandwiches, a bowl of carefully carved-out cantaloupe and honeydew melon balls, chicken wings, and sliced avocado. He smiled.

“What?” his mother asked.

“Nothing, Ma.” Ogden looked at Jenny. “So, how are things in Santa Fe?” He took a half of an egg salad sandwich and put it on his plate. The sun came through the window and hit Ogden’s eyes. He stood and pulled the blinds.

“The sun shouldn’t shine on such cold days,” Eva Walker said.

“Why is that?” Ogden asked.

“It’s like a con or something. Cold days should be gray so you’re not tricked into going outside.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” he asked.

“I like being out on cold days,” Jenny said. “Even the gloomy, overcast ones.”

Ogden ate a few bites. “I wish I could tell you something new about the case,” he said.

After a pause, Jenny said, “I’ve got a new job. I left the copy shop and now I’m in a bookstore. It’s not a great bookstore, but it’s better than the copy shop.”

“I’m glad,” Eva Walker said. “Better to be around books.”

“And,” Jenny said, “someone wants to buy my mother’s land from me. I don’t even know where it is, but this man wants to buy it.”

Ogden nodded. “That’s pretty quick. Who is it?”

“His name is Brockway. He called me and said he’d be back in touch.”

“That’s fast,” Ogden repeated. He shook his head. “No will, a murder. The sale won’t happen quickly, I can tell you that. Probate and all that stuff.”

“Really?”

“We can go over to the county clerk’s office and look up the parcel, get an idea what it’s worth anyway.”

“You’d help me with that?” Jenny asked.

“I’ll help.”

“Try the melon balls,” Ogden’s mother said.

The land registry was in the new courthouse, a large fake adobe affair. It was set right next to a fake adobe McDonald’s. Ogden looked at the young faces in the waiting area, couples holding hands, waiting for marriage licenses. Down a wide corridor, then a narrow one, and they were in the registry office.

“Hello, Deputy.” The short woman behind the counter said. “What can I do you for?”

“I need to know where a piece of land is,” Ogden said.

“It’s out there somewhere,” the woman said, nodding toward the window.

“I need to be more precise,” Ogden said and smiled. “I’ve got the description right here.” He read it off the deed.

“May I?” The clerk asked to see the paper. She then walked away to a stack of flat drawers with plat maps. She pulled open a low drawer and fingered through the huge squares of paper. She pulled one free and brought it back, laid it on the counter. “You’re right here.” She put her finger on the spot.

Ogden looked. “Is that Route 3?”

“Yes. And that’s Arroyo Hondo, if that helps.”

“You’re sure this is land?”

The woman gave him a look.

“Sorry,” Ogden said. He looked at Jenny.

“What is it?” Jenny asked.

“Nothing,” he said. To the clerk, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Ogden drove Jenny back to her car at his mother’s house. “We’ll take a ride next week if you want to come up and you can see your property.”

“Okay,” she said. “Is everything all right? You hardly said a word all the way back.”

“I’m exhausted, that’s all.”

Ogden left there and drove to Fonda’s Funeral Home. He found Emilio sweeping off the loading dock in back.

“Emilio?”

The man jumped. “Jesus, man, you scared the shit of me.”

“Sorry.”

“Go away.”

“I just want to ask you a couple more questions. Won’t take long. I promise.”

Emilio leaned on the broom. “Go.”

“What was José into?”

“I told you, man, I don’t know nothing.”

“Who took his body?”

Emilio looked away.

“I think, I’m not sure, but I think you told me last time that you scored some drugs at some point. That’s probable cause. I can go search your house right now. Do you think I’ll find anything there?” Ogden stared at the man.

Emilio shifted his weight. “It was his father.”

“What?”

“His father. José’s father came and took the body. I let him in. You gonna arrest me?”

“I don’t know,” Ogden said. “Why’d his father do that?”

“He thought they were going to do an autopsy on José and that family, well, they’re like super religious.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I know I shouldn’t have let him in. You gonna arrest me?”

“Not for that, no.”

“But you’re going to arrest me,” Emilio said.

“I don’t know. Were you two into drugs? Just tell me. Off the record. I’m not going to arrest you. I promise.”

“No drugs. We were getting paid to smash cars.”

“Excuse me?”

“José and me were supposed to hang out up in one of them canyons up there and smash anybody that parked there.”

“Just the two of you?”

“There were some other guys, I guess. We had our own hours, you know. Anyways, we only had to smash four or five. No one ever came up there.”

“Who paid you to do this?”

“I don’t know. José got paid and he paid me. I was helping José.”

“What canyon?”

“I don’t know what it’s called.”

“Niebla?” Ogden asked.

“That sounds right.”

Ogden started to walk away, then stopped. “I’m sorry about your friend.”