Then She Vanished

Twenty-Five

As we climbed out of Borrego Valley toward his campaign headquarters, Dalton worked his phone: posting, talking, tweeting, returning media calls. Half-lit by bourbon, he mumbled his replies as he posted them, so I got the gist. The cops had rattled him and Harris Broadman had set something loose in him, and now Dalton’s reaction was to put his foot on the gas.

Most of the interview requests he passed on to his reelection committee, but he returned one to Fox News and expanded on the idea that “mentally disturbed Natalie could easily have spent some campaign donations on personal stuff because it’s so damned hard to navigate the fed rules anymore. And these allegations against me are nothing but a political hack job by Democrats who want to run the last Republican out of state office. Just ask ’em — they’ll tell you that.”

Etc.

“It’s crazy, man,” he said, ending the call. “You tell the world your bipolar wife might have blown a few campaign dollars for a round of golf with contributors, and people go bonkers. I’m getting way more media than before — everybody wants me! They can’t get enough dirt. And guess what? The money’s flooding in again big-time, right after my press conference. Speaking of which.”

Dalton shoved himself up in the seat, worked out his wallet and pulled a thick stack of bills. I heard him counting them off.

“Here’s the eight hundred to get us started,” he said. “Even though that was days ago. I’ll have the rest but… it might be a while. I’m good with this, Roland. Hope you are, too.”

“I enjoy being shorted by my clients.”

“Shit.” He broke the wallet back open.

“Forget it, Dalton. Pay me when you can.”

“You know I will.”

“I don’t know what you’ll do.”

“Really? After all this?”

“Hang on to your money,” I said. “For now.”

Dalton put his wallet away then fished a flask from a coat pocket.

I declined.

He took a draw. “So, there’s a lot of people saying I can’t just blame this indictment on Natalie, that I’m a real bastard for trying to do so.”

“It looks bad, Dalton. The way you talk about her bipolar condition. It makes you sound like a pig.”

“I do bring home the bacon.”

“There you go again.”

“Want to be my campaign manager?”

“No. Someone’s had your wife captive for ten days and you’re joking.”

“Heroes cry on the inside.”

“Any idiot can say stuff like that.”

We came down the mountain from Valley Center on Cole Grade Road, a fast road with long views. It was late morning and the ceanothus was blue against the green slopes.

Dalton set his phone on his leg, took another swig, and let out a soft groan. “I borrowed money to buy that bridal set. If you bought the engagement ring and the wedding ring as a combo, you saved some shekels. To be honest, I was really proud to give them to her. We were just stupid in love. You’ve been like that?”

“I have.”

He gave me a look. “It kind of started a civil war in my family. Marrying her. My older brother, Kirby, was the one who introduced us. He wanted her bad. Half killed me when I told him she was going with me. Dad and Tola were pulling for me, mostly because Kirby was unstable and they really liked Natalie. Mom and Grandpa, though, they were for Kirby all the way. Thought I’d betrayed a brother. Broke a Strait bond. Maybe I had. Hell, I was fifteen. Later Kirby did what he did to Dad and everything changed.”

“Which was?”

“Big fight. Dad just a little slower than he used to be. Kirby, way strong for his age, and mean. A good fair fight until Kirby used one of his kung fu moves and tripped Dad back hard with his foot. Well, they say the Lord moves in strange ways and He sure did that night. The back of Dad’s head hit the river-rock barbecue pit so hard it sounded like a pistol shot.”

I thought of Archibald Strait, healthy looking but apparently unconscious in his hospital bed, catching some sunshine in Virgil’s rock fortress living room.

“That’s not the story Virgil told me,” I said.

“He prefers the Better Burger robbery story.”

“I’m surprised you all could pass it off for so many years.”

“Surprised why? East County is Strait country. We write the stories.”

Which was the first thing we new East County deputies were told when starting out in that vast, hard country. I was one of them only briefly. But back then I hadn’t realized quite how true it was.

“Because of who she is, Natalie always has men after her,” said Dalton. “Women like her always do. It’s not looks. It’s not even behavior. It’s attitude. An unknowable thing. A certain kind of man senses that in her and the rest is simple nature. He knows what he wants and where it is. That’s what got me to marry her. Love her.”

Echoes of Kirby.

I thought of Kirby and Dalton, Brock Weld, and the guy at the dealership. I pictured the robust and attractive woman I’d seen on the car commercials and had to admit that even on a screen Natalie Strait had some not-quite-visible attractant.

“Nats knows this and uses it,” he said. “Sometimes, she pretends to be flirting, sometimes not. Either way, I understand how she’s coming across to these guys. How it’s affecting them and what they think their options are. Which has put me in the protective-husband position a lot. Not something I aspired to. It takes energy. Jealousy can creep in. Worst emotion in the world. Makes you do crazy stuff. You are always in the wrong. Makes you second-guess. Your leg. Your dick. You. Gets you where you live.”

We came down the grade and headed for the campaign headquarters in Escondido.

“I lost a nut in the blast,” he said. “My favorite. There’s some ugly scars. And some nerve damage, but the doctors say the damage is in my head. I’m okay that way but not perfect. I’ve hardly told anyone that.”

I didn’t see any point in telling him that he’d said as much to me, drunk, in the Sacramento men’s room.

“It sounds like I’m complaining about her, but I’m not,” said Dalton. “If I could go back, and know what’s ahead, I’d do it all over again with her. She’s like… a diamond you find, and when you get it home you see the flaws in it and they make the diamond even more valuable. More one-of-a-kind.”

He took another draw and propped the flask on his half-natural, half-manufactured knee. Let the flask top swing loose on its chain. Rolled up one sleeve of his business shirt, switched hands on the flask, and rolled up the other.

“I want her back, Roland. Not out there in a world that can hurt her. I know you’re trying. She’s trying, too. Asking for help. Leaving her rings in her car as a way to communicate with me.”

“We’re going to find her,” I said.

“Ten days. It’s got to be some kind of record.”

The Strait reelection campaign headquarters stood in a stately neighborhood of fifties-style homes, some now converted for commercial use. A law office, an orthopedic surgeon, an architect. Pepper trees and trophy citrus, salvaged and proudly groomed. A boulevard from Southern California’s past still trooping into the future.

A uniformed private security guard stood outside the front door, armed but essentially defenseless against a mailed bomb.

As we stepped in, Dalton’s unannounced visit sent a visible charge through the faithful. In the halting of tasks and the turning of faces and the pause of conversations I saw that nearly all of the people here were at least as old as the neighborhood, as much a part of the past as the trees outside. He was their young one. They drifted toward him subtly, more drawn than moving with a purpose.

He proceeded into them with greetings and handshakes, hugs and slaps on shoulders. Familiar comments, smiles, and confidential laughter. Dalton grabbed a donut from a pink box, turned back to me, and waved me over.

He stood on a folding chair, a big man with a mop of curly brown hair and a donut in one hand, his cuffs rolled up and a strangely serene air around him. I realized that this was Dalton at his happiest. His most whole again. Surrounded, supported, and followed. Standing on their shoulders to dream his dream.

“I apologize for making excuses about Natalie,” he said. “Any minute I expected her to walk in here. You know how stubborn hope is. But she didn’t. I knew from that first day that something was very wrong. That she needed help. I didn’t want you all to worry.”

Silence. Not a question from Dalton’s loyalists. Not a murmur.

“I apologize, too, for the false and malicious claims that my own federal government has brought against me. You all know how honest I am, and what a stickler Natalie was for keeping the books right. These charges represent a new low in American politics and I vow to fight those charges with all my might.”

“Yeah, Dalton!”

“Kick ’em right back, Mr. Strait!”

“We’re all in for you, Dalton!”

He hopped down, finished his donut, threw some hugs. Let them take selfies with him.

Half an hour later we were headed through Escondido toward Dalton’s house.

“Hey, Roland, park in that Chevron lot right there, by the air and water pumps, will you?”

I pulled into one of the parking slots by the pumps.

“I don’t need air or water,” I said.

“Me neither.” He took another long draw off his flask. “I need certain things a man in my position is denied. It’s a heavy burden. I think you’ll understand.”

He pocketed the flask and got out, just as a black Lincoln limousine pulled alongside me. The black-suited driver stepped out and opened the rear door for Dalton.

“Good morning, Mr. Strait.”

“Morning, Joe.”

“Another beautiful day.”

Dalton looked back at me, waved and nodded before getting in. Beyond him, deep in black leather, sat Asclepia Pharmaceutical representative McKenzie Doyle, a recessed spotlight aimed at the phone on her crossed knee, readers down on her nose, looking at me without expression.