Prolonged Exposure

Chapter 11

The woman walked with the exaggerated stability of the practiced drunk, her boots hitting the ground flat-footed and graceless. Small wonder, I thought as she drew closer. Her eyes were puffy and red, and despite what her clothing said, she was no more at home in the boonies than I was.

One of the state troopers materialized out of the trees to her left, and the woman startled, almost losing what little balance she had.

I had never seen her before, but I knew her escort. Andy Browers walked at her right elbow, his lean face haggard and pale. He still wore his Posadas Rural Electric Co-op work clothes, now soiled and wrinkled from his long hours on the mesa. Deputy Pasquale, looking fit and eager, rested a hand lightly on the woman’s left shoulder. He steered her over to where I was standing.

“Undersheriff,” Deputy Pasquale said, “this is Mrs. Cole.” I nodded and extended my hand.

“Ma’am,” I said. She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were locked on the yellow tape a few yards ahead of us.

“Andy Browers,” the lean man said, and shook my hand. Up close, the bags under his eyes could have been used to transport his belongings. I nodded.

“The deputy said that you’ve found something,” he said, his voice was deep, smooth, and pleasing, with just a hint of the Deep South. He gestured toward the yellow tape. “Is that it over there?”

“We’ll need an identification,” I said, and reached out a hand to take Tiffany Cole by the elbow. Her blond hair was dirty and her clothes smelled of wood smoke. “We think that we’ve found the boy’s jacket.”

Mrs. Cole whimpered something unintelligible, and Browers and I walked her toward the oak grove. “And ma’am, you need to understand that we don’t know what this all means,” I said, but she didn’t care. Her eyes were locked on the jacket, and when she reached it, she sank to her knees, picked it up, and hugged it as if the child were still inside.

“Jesus,” Andy Browers said. He pivoted at the waist and looked off toward the southeast. “This is a good half mile from the campsite, at least. I don’t understand what the hell…”

“We don’t either, sir,” I said. I glanced across at Estelle. She and the others seemed perfectly content to let me do all the talking. I didn’t blame them. They’d been on that damn mesa for forty hours or more and had probably fielded hundreds of useless questions. “Is that your son’s jacket?”

I suppose that was a stupid question, considering Tiffany Cole’s agony right there in front of me. In her condition, it wouldn’t have taken much to open the floodgates-any piece of child’s clothing, her son’s or not, might have done the trick.

“I don’t understand,” Browers repeated. “Why would Cody take off his jacket on a cold night?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why would he wander way in there? Jesus.”

“We don’t know,” I said. “At least it gives us something of a lead. A general direction anyway.” I motioned with my hand toward the northwest.

“I don’t see why we didn’t see this before,” Browers said. “There must have been searchers going by here before this.” I didn’t have an answer to that, and Browers added, “What’s down that way?” He stood at his girlfriend’s side, one hand resting on her shoulder. He didn’t try to help her up, didn’t try to pry the jacket loose.

“Well,” I said, and turned to find Dale Kenyon. He was walking toward us through the trees, a black plastic folder under his arm. “Let’s check a map.”

“I can’t believe we’re still looking at maps,” Browers said.

He had every reason to be snappy, and I could imagine just how frustrated he felt. “Maps keep us organized,” I said pleasantly. “If we knew exactly where a lost three-year-old would go, then the boy wouldn’t still be lost, would he?” Cole’s forehead furrowed, and I saw a flash of color that was more than exertion. “All of these folks have damn near lived up here for the past two days, same as you. I’m the newcomer on the block, and I need a map. Leave me alone up here for two minutes, and you’ll be looking for me, too.”

“Here’s a topo map of the area,” Kenyon said, and he spread the plastic-coated map out on a level spot. “Here’s where we are, right in from the rim.” His finger followed the contours where they bunched together, indicating the steep country. “You can see that in another quarter mile or so, the country opens up some.”

“What’s this?” Browers asked, and when he knelt, his knees cracked like an old man’s.

“Turkey Springs,” Kenyon said. “It’s an old water-catchment system that’s been abandoned for years. The permittee on that section drilled a well farther east.”

“That’s Boyd?” I asked, and Kenyon nodded.

“Johnny Boyd. Right.”

I cracked off an oak twig and used it as a pointer so I wouldn’t have to kneel. “His place is about three miles north and west. Right there.”

“And this is the closest road,” Browers said, tapping a faint dotted line.

“That two-track runs along the edge, then cuts down the mesa,” Kenyon explained. “It joins up with Forest Road Thirty-three at the base of the mesa, and Thirty-three winds farther on down, eventually joining up with County Road Fourteen. And by the way, we’ve had search teams sweep right along this mesa in that general direction, all the way to that two-track, and all the way to Thirty-three. So I don’t know.”

“Shit,” Andy Browers said, and stood with his hands on his hips, as if he could discipline an answer out of the pinons.

I stepped around the map and knelt by Tiffany Cole. Her eyes were closed and her face was still muffled in the jacket. I was afraid for a moment that she’d gone to sleep. “Mrs. Cole, can you answer a couple questions?”

She nodded and lifted her face out of the polyester. “That’s your son’s jacket?”

“Yes.” Her voice was small and distant. Her lip quivered, but she wouldn’t look directly at the jacket she held in her hands. Instead, her eyes-and they would have been pretty had they not been shot through with so much red-were focused somewhere off on the horizon.

I put a hand on the tiny garment, and Mrs. Cole jerked as if she feared I was going to take it away. Instead, I just gave it a pat, leaving my hand on top of hers. “Was the jacket torn? The last time you saw your son, did his jacket have these tears in it?”

Then she focused, her eyes following the four parallel rents down the back of her son’s coat. It was as if I’d pulled the plug on whatever small energy source she had left. She crumpled backward before I could catch her, her head hitting the base of one of the little oaks with a thump.

Andy Browers was at her side in an instant, as were Deputy Pasquale and Dale Kenyon. I backed off to give them room. Movement to my right attracted my attention, and I glanced up, to see Estelle Reyes-Guzman walking back through the trees, toward the spot where we’d left the truck, Camille, and little Francis.

Mrs. Cole needed a hot bath, a massive sedative, and about two days in a soft, warm bed. And none of that would make it any easier. We still didn’t have a clue about the boy’s whereabouts. And now, every time she drifted back to the real world, Tiffany Cole would think of that jacket and wonder what the hell had taken a swipe at her son-and if whatever it was had ever come back to finish the job.

I didn’t blame Estelle a bit for wanting to go hug Francisco.