Then She Vanished

Two

The road to Ash Galland’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffons wound through Pauma Valley then into the Palomar Mountains northeast of San Diego. Poppies and lupine swayed on the road shoulders in the late-morning sun while hawks wheeled high in the blue.

She came from a ramshackle ranch house, down the porch steps, the dogs parting around her. A pink ball cap over dark hair, a red flannel shirt, jeans and black rubber boots with bright pink soles.

“I hope you don’t mind dogs,” she said.

The dogs wiggled and wagged and sniffed but didn’t touch me with anything but their snouts. Wirehaired Pointing Griffons have bushy mustaches, and soulful brows over deep-set, intelligent eyes.

She nodded toward a barn and stayed a half step ahead of me. We crossed a barnyard with a big central oak tree and grass still green from April showers, the dogs a squadron of energy around us.

Inside were facing rows of chain-link kennels, clean and neat and identically furnished: water buckets in like corners, food bowls elevated on stout terra-cotta flowerpots, sleeping pads mid-floor, and wooden doghouses parked along the back ends.

The gate on the first kennel squeaked open and two of the Griffons entered with an air of disappointment. The gate squeaked shut. Ash Galland dropped the fork latch with a clank and looked at me.

“I met Natalie for breakfast at Deke’s Tuesday morning in Valley Center,” she said. “It’s a halfway point for us. We said goodbye around nine. No one I know, or Dalton knows, has seen her since.”

“How was she?”

She nodded but didn’t answer. Opened the next gate and two more Griffs slumped in, one looking back at her. Squeak, clank.

“Natalie rarely burdens others with what she’s thinking or feeling or going through. Sometimes I get her energy. Her smile. I get her attention, full and empathetic and helpful. Other times, her exhaustion and her faraway eyes. But either high or low, I don’t get much of her.”

“Was she anxious or worried? Expecting something bad to happen?”

Into the third kennel went two more Griffons, their free ranks now cut in half. A half-dozen Jack Russell terriers nipped and bounced around us like popcorn.

“No. She was happy and animated.”

“Leaning toward the manic,” I said.

“You do understand. Like a flower toward the sun. That’s the heart of this problem. Two poles. All her brightness and energy can… spill out. Overflow. Overwhelm.

“She was dressed for work in a trim black suit, a light blue satin blouse the color of her eyes. Black heels. Freshwater pearl earrings and choker. She was beautiful.”

I pictured Natalie Strait from the TV commercials. She and a crew of other salespeople surrounding the latest swanky BMW. I own a Ford F-150 king cab, a battered 1955 Chevrolet Task Force pickup, and a red Porsche Boxster once loved and driven hard by my wife, Justine. I keep the Boxster — clean and covered and ready to run — in a barn not unlike Ash Galland’s.

“Did she have any errands or appointments before or after work?”

“Lunch with Virgil Strait. Dalton’s granddad.”

I let that sink in. The former Honorable Virgil Strait, taker of bribes. Wondered why Dalton hadn’t known of this lunch, or hadn’t bothered to tell me about it.

Ash had an expectant expression but said nothing.

“What did she have for breakfast?” I asked.

“Why?” An exasperated look. Blue eyes, too, like Natalie’s. And her big sister’s thick dark hair, ponytailing from the ball cap.

“Because sometimes one thing leads to another you don’t expect,” I said.

“Fruit, dry toast, and cottage cheese,” she said sharply.

She threw open another kennel gate, then another. The dutiful Griffs went in. I’d never seen a pack of such well-behaved dogs. The terriers slowed and studied her, keen to her change of tone.

She sighed and looked down at them. “Sorry. I’ve never been able to put on the happy face like Natalie does. I’m worried about her. I know she’s capable of going off her rails. That men are drawn to her and not all men are trained well. Or even close. She had coffee, too. Black.”

I accepted her apology and asked about the stalker who almost bought a car from her.

Ash said the stalker had driven by her sister’s house several times. Dalton had offered to set up on the front porch and shoot him. Shortly after that, Natalie filed a complaint with the sheriffs, who interviewed him and the drive-bys stopped.

I asked about the Strait reelection campaign volunteer with the roving eyes.

“Brock Weld. She’s mentioned him more than once. Natalie said he’s polite but… bold.”

“Does Natalie alarm easily?”

“No. And she’s a good judge of character.”

I made a note to have my associate, Burt, get Brock Weld’s whereabouts the morning that Natalie vanished.

She kenneled the last of the Griffons then started down the opposite row and herded a Jack Russell into each. They feigned defiance and confusion, then obeyed the hardening edge in Ash Galland’s voice.

Back at the first kennel she cracked the gate and let a slender young Griffon wriggle through.

“This is Wendy. Still shy with strangers.”

Ash grabbed a walking stick propped near the door, then led us back into the May sunshine on the barnyard.

While on the topic of animals, it seemed like the time to mention the eight-hundred-pound gorilla always looming in the background when a wife goes missing.

“How is Natalie’s relationship with Dalton?”

“She only talks about him in glowing terms. Pure Natalie.”

“Do you suspect anything un-glowing between them?”

“Well.”

We left the barnyard and the shade of the big oak tree and started down a good dirt road. Ash said, “Hunt ’em up,” and Wendy quartered out ahead of us, nose to the ground. She looked back to Ash often, her body trembling with energy. I’d noted on the Ash Galland’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffons web page that a new litter would be ready for homes in June. All but one male had been sold at $2,000 a copy.

“It’s very stressful being married to a public figure,” said Ash. “Natalie is Dalton’s support system. She’s also a mother of two boys and she works hard part-time, selling the cars. There are good money months and not-so-good. She spends lots of time and energy on Dalton’s campaigns. A California assembly term is only two years, so they’re constantly campaigning. This next election will be for Dalton’s fourth. He can have six. Then, on to the state senate, maybe.”

“Do they owe money?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Of course, no complaints from Natalie. But they have nice things and live in a pricey part of California. One son in a high-dollar college and another at state. The Straits don’t take home mountains of money.”

“Did they pay off Natalie’s gambling and shopping jag in Las Vegas?”

“The families stepped up. Mom and Dad. Me. The extended Straits, of course. The dire Straits. In all their tainted glory.”

Ash gave me a half smile, acknowledging the reputation of her East County in-laws. In this moment her face seemed like a psychological negative of her sister’s — the same shape and shades of hair and skin and eyes, but opposite spirits. TV Natalie was big-smiling and exuberant. Kennel Ash was tight faced and controlled.

“These may help you understand Natalie better,” she said, un-pocketing her phone. The picture gallery was mostly selfies of Natalie and Ash, with an assortment of others thrown in. Natalie and Ash and Dalton, of course; Natalie and Ash with Natalie’s BMW cohorts; Natalie and Ash with a skinny old man I recognized as Virgil Strait; Natalie and Ash and a pale, red-haired hombre with a killer’s grin.

“That’s Dalton’s older brother, Kirby,” she said.

I flipped through the rest of the images in that folder and handed back the phone, catching Ash in a focused study of my face.

“Would you send me those?”

“Of course. You’re not the first one to come snooping around my sister lately. There were state people, and the FBI.”

Interesting.

We headed back up the road, Wendy at perfect heel. Ash told me that these aforementioned “leeches” were interested in Dalton and Natalie’s personal finances. Which were complicated. Since part of Natalie’s responsibility as head of the Strait Reelection Committee was tracking donations and thanking the voters for their generous support, she’d been deluged with questions from both state and feds.

“I’m not sure if what I just said helps you,” said Ash. “But maybe it will lead to something you don’t expect.”

I heard a rustling in the grass and saw Wendy lock on point. Body down, left front paw up, tail out. Movement in the wild buckwheat ahead of her.

“Hold,” said Ash, stretching out the “o.”

Wendy held beautifully and shivered. The quail chick-chicked like they do before bursting into the air.

“She’s too young to hold that point very long,” said Ash.

As if in agreement, Wendy bolted toward the birds. Two quail whirred into the air ahead of her, curving up and away, twin blurs, Wendy humping after them.

“We will walk you out.”

Wendy maintained a perfect heel as we went back up the dirt road toward the barn.

When we got to my truck, she said, “I haven’t slept well since Natalie disappeared. My nerves are shot and my patience is gone. The dogs all know something is wrong. So, sorry for my brevity.”

I told her there was no need to apologize at a time like this, gave her a card and asked her to call if she had any contact with Natalie, or remembered anything that might help me locate her.

Headed back down the hill. I stopped in Valley Center and found a coffee shop. Incidentally, Valley Center is where the largest grizzly bear ever killed was killed. Two thousand something pounds. It was called Bear Valley then. A much smaller bear is on display in a small museum here. I’ve always been fascinated by the top of the food chain.

The coffee shop’s windows were hung with campaign signs for Dalton Strait’s opponent in November, whom Dalton was threatening to link to terrorists in the Middle East.