Then She Vanished

Six

The once Honorable Virgil Strait lived atop a boulder-strewn mountain near the border of San Diego and Imperial counties. The East County badlands, hot and windblown. A pickup truck carrying two stone-faced gentlemen fell in behind me as I climbed that mountain. Rifles racked in the cab. I had passed a similar pair in a similar truck about halfway up.

If you squinted you could call his property a compound. Trailers and storage sheds and a rust-eaten metal building. A dilapidated wooden corral, the lumber blackened by the sun. Trails had been etched through the enormous boulders everywhere you looked, disappearing downhill toward Jacumba and its labyrinthine caves and tunnels used for smuggling drugs and humans from Mexico to California.

As I parked, the first truck pulled up well behind me, turned broadside and stopped. The second one curled away and disappeared.

Strait’s home was an asymmetrical rock-and-concrete anomaly with a roof made of old license plates. Views of Jacumba, the border and beyond — deep into Mexico and Imperial Valley. It was early morning, the day after I’d talked to Ash Galland and seen Natalie Strait’s resounding HELP written in the back seat of her luxury SUV.

Virgil Strait had the leathery neck and wrinkled face of a desert tortoise, and small, clear eyes. He wore a knit cap against the morning chill. Flames lapped in a cavernous fireplace at the far opposite end of the room. He sat in an old-fashioned wing chair with his back to the window, giving me the endless eastern view. The walls were made of irregular rock slabs, closely cut and precisely mortared. Hung with rifles and shotguns, vintage and modern, lightly strung with cobwebs. Revolvers heavy in their holsters. Posters of cowboys and Indians in combat, Civil War and World War I battle scenes. Some faded and some slipping off their mounts.

His granddaughter Tola, Dalton’s younger sister, handed me a bloody Mary, smiled, then delivered one to Virgil. Tola owned a chain of legal marijuana emporiums in the rural county, and was often quoted and interviewed on the subject. She was a green-eyed redhead in skinny jeans and a long-tailed blue-striped business shirt that might have come from Brooks Brothers.

“Thanks, dearie,” said Virgil.

“Enjoy your primitive booze, gentlemen,” she said on her way out. “But remember, good cannabis doesn’t rot your liver or your brain.”

“Kids these days,” said Virgil. “I’ve tried that stuff. I wandered through the boulders singing the Sons of the Pioneers’ ‘Cool Water.’ Saw a rabbit almost as tall as I was, then I saw a posse of county, state, and federal officers all in cannibal masks, heading up the road here to arrest me. Their guns were drawn. Five hours later I’d sobered up enough to realize I’d imagined it all. But I also knew the coming-to-get-me wasn’t paranoia. Story of my life, Mr. Ford. People like you always ahold of my ankles, trying to drag me down.”

“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “As I’m sure Dalton told you.”

He peered at me. “I admire that. I’m private, too. The only thing I believe in is family. I have two living ex-wives, three sons and three daughters, eighteen grandkids and a dozen or so great ones. And cousins, nieces, nephews, and bastards of all description running around this fine county. They’re my confederacy, Mr. Ford. My partners and my protection. One snap of my fingers and they appear like a herd of banshees. I’m sure you took note on your way up my mountain.”

“I did.”

And the night before, in anticipation of this interview, I’d spent some time on IvarDuggans.com, searching the extensive Strait family entries for possible enemies of Natalie or Dalton. IvarDuggans.com is the best of the online investigator’s services, and I pay good money for my membership. And it paid off, as it almost always does: nearly twenty-five years ago, Dalton’s older brother Kirby had beaten Dalton bad enough to require hospitalization for a concussion and twelve stitches. Dalton was fifteen. The reason? An apparent problem with Dalton’s new girlfriend, Natalie. A year later, Dalton had retaliated with a ball-bat beating of Kirby for which Dalton, still a juvenile, was never questioned or charged. Both incidents took place in the small border town of Buena Vista, in Imperial County, whose three-man police department included Chief Everett Strait, Virgil’s brother. Thus, little press or media. Kirby had recovered in a small Buena Vista hospital owned by his grandfather, San Diego Superior Court judge, the Honorable Virgil Strait. Virgil had taken the hospital as payment for services rendered in his lawyering days.

The brutal brother-on-brother violence had gotten my attention. “Is there anyone in your family who would abduct Natalie?” I asked. “Maybe to get at Dalton?”

“Mr. Ford, the Straits may bicker a-twixt ourselves, but we prey on the world, not each other.”

“Except maybe Kirby.”

“Best leave Kirby out of this.”

“You know what I think when I hear that.”

“Think what you want. He’s hardly six months out of prison. Give the boy the benefit of the doubt.”

“Do Dalton and Natalie have other enemies?”

“Name me one consequential man or woman who does not.”

“Then who are these enemies, Mr. Strait?”

“You would have made a good bailiff in my court,” he said. “Beefy but polite.”

I made a mental note of that evasion and sipped the bloody Mary. Looked past him to the clear spring day. Two vultures circled slowly in the eastern blue. A black SUV came slowly down a dirt road from Jacumba, dragging a cloud of dust behind. So far as current-day enemies went, I had Natalie’s divided into two camps: sexual hunters and enemies of her husband. They both sought to use her, in different ways and for different reasons.

Tola strode back into the room now dressed in black and red motorcycle leathers and boots. Carried her helmet under one arm like a pilot. Her hair was pulled back and channeled through a long medieval leather-and-brass tube that rode to the middle of her back. She gave me a brisk smile. Reminded me loudly of Justine — the hair and eyes, the strength of presence. Quick and bright was the spark that flared up in me as I watched her.

Next came a white-clad orderly pushing a hospital bed, half-reclined, in which a sixtysomething man lay peacefully, his head bobbing slightly with the motion of the bed. Eyes closed. The orderly was a large, muscled Anglo with a jarhead’s high and tight haircut.

With a glance my way, Tola bent down to whisper in Virgil’s ear. The old man nodded and whispered something back, while beyond them the orderly steered the bed to a sunny window, got the angle right and pressed the foot brake.

Tola kissed her grandfather’s cheek, then came my way, extending a hand and a card. “Don’t get up,” she said.

I already was. I took the card.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Ford. If you find yourself in need of peace or excitement, swing by one of my Nectar Barns and we’ll fix you right up. We’ve got some incredible edibles if you’re the type to be discreet about such things. You look like you may be.”

Biker boots on tiles. The orderly followed her out. Then a small-toothed grin from Virgil and the distant slam of a door. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Thirty-five, but not married yet,” he said. “Teamed up with the Indians and making money hand over fist but no bank will take it. Dangerous — all that cash in boxes. She’s still looking for Mr. Right, Mr. Ford, but she’s fussy, fussy, fussy.”

I refrained from laughing at the prospect of joining the Strait family.

Through the big window I saw the candy-apple-red and black Harley Davidson come slowly down the drive, flatulent and loud, a customized Sportster with dazzling paint and sleek saddlebags streaming leather pendants. It rumbled past. The pickup truck driver waved at her and followed her down the mountain.

Virgil pointed a bent old finger. “Meet my firstborn son, Archibald. Archie, this is Roland. As you know, some years ago bandits shot up Archie for less than a thousand dollars in Better Burger money. Not one of them lives today. You may approach the bed.”

I stood at a respectful distance. Archie Strait looked to be sixty or sixty-five, movie-star handsome, freshly shaven, with tanned skin and gray, razor-cut hair. He looked ready to throw back the sheets and get out, any second. Archie’s younger face had smiled down on motorists from Better Burger billboards across the Southwest for over three decades. In the billboard shot, Archie Strait wore his killer smile and a red bandana around his neck in the style of John Wayne. These days the signs were sun faded but seemed somehow eternal.

Virgil silently appeared beside Archie, reaching out a hand toward his son. Trailed Archie’s cheek with the backs of his fingers; touched his thick, up-brushed hair; spread open Archie’s eyelids one at a time to reveal the clear gray eyes. The lids stayed parted, as if trained.

“Hmm,” said Virgil. “They say brain damaged since that night. They say he doesn’t feel, think, or know much anymore. Tola’s got him doped up with that stuff of hers. Not the druggy version but the medicinal one. Seems to work. He’s peaceful, and I think his mind is sometimes alert. Chews his food now. Hums, too. Not a tune, just a humming sound. Hard for me to believe, when I look into those eyes, that nobody’s home. I think he’s aware of a lot. Aren’t you, son? I’m no fool, Mr. Ford. And I’m no crackpot. But I do believe in God and I think God is still inside this boy. Do you?”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

He turned and looked at me as if I’d failed an important test. “If you stand in the middle of the road, you will be run over from both directions.”

“Who’s standing in the middle of a road?”

The old man’s look was quick, sharp, and satisfied. “Because of the lipstick on the back of Natalie’s car, we know she’s in serious trouble,” he said.

“Narrow it down.”

“This is about money. Not some rapist who’s seen Natalie on TV.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“The abduction was not impulsive, Mr. Ford. It was done with planning. Daylight. In public. A fit, spirited young woman. They took the extra time and risk of being seen, to get her into another car. To go where? Perverts would have done their deeds and killed her out in Pala. It was perfect — a private place and her own car. If that’s all they wanted, they’d have left her there. No. Dalton will get a ransom demand. They’ll want some kind of cryptocurrency through the Internet and the FBI will have almost nothing to go on.”

“I thought that at first, too. But it’s been five days now.”

Virgil frowned, lowered Archie’s eyelids both at once, with thumb and index finger. Walked slowly away, his body following his straining, tortoise-like head to the window. I got my first full view of him — shorter than I’d expected, thin and leaning as if into some private wind. Thermal long johns, a canvas barn coat, and calf-high shearling boots.

He sat back down. Took off the knit cap, shook it once and rearranged it over his sparse white hair. Then turned to the window, giving me his back.

“Your thoughts,” he said.

“If it’s not sex and it’s not money, then another reason comes to mind,” I said. “Revenge.”

“For what?”

“I was hoping you may have some ideas, Mr. Strait. Now we’re back to the enemies question you didn’t answer.”

He turned. “The Democrats of California hate him. They’re financing that awful woman against him.”

“I doubt that the California Democratic Party had Dalton’s wife kidnapped,” I said.

“Why not? How is my grandson to run a reelection campaign with this hanging over his head?”

“Not to mention hers.”

“Why do you think he’s hired you to find her, instead of trusting the police? Because soon as the media get into this, it will become a circus of fake news and speculation, and he’ll be in the middle of it. His opponents will find a way to use it against him. Isn’t that plain to you?”

The old man had a point but it wasn’t sharp enough. “I mean vengeance for an action taken. Or perceived to have been taken.”

Virgil locked his tiny, shiny eyes on mine. “Enemies. Vengeance. I like the way your mind works.”

“Where were you set to meet Natalie for lunch on Tuesday?” I asked.

“Vintana. It’s above the Lexus dealership near her work.”

Strait told me he had waited there for forty minutes, made three calls to her but got no answer. Tried her boss, who said she still hadn’t showed up for work and hadn’t called. It wasn’t like her. Strait had lunch, two martinis, and drove himself home. Said he met Natalie for lunch twice a year unless there was some special reason they needed to talk.

“Was there some special reason?”

Virgil considered, his eyes hard upon me again. “Yes, there was. Want to see my scorpion collection?”

“Of course.”