Assumption (11 page)

Ogden drove into Plata and parked in a diagonal space in front of the office. When he stepped inside he was greeted by the lanky desk officer, Felton.

“Good morning,” Ogden said.

“You’re half right,” Felton said.

“Late night?”

“I wish. My neighbor decided to go and get herself some peacocks.” He looked at Ogden. “You ever heard a peacock?”

Ogden shook his head.

“It’s a sound from hell. Sounds like somebody put a cat in a washing machine. She has six of them.”

Ogden tried to imagine it. “Sorry.”

“Fuck sorry. I don’t want your useless sympathy. I want you to come over and shoot the damn things.”

Ogden walked to his desk. “Why don’t you shoot them?”

“She’s my neighbor. Plus, she’s cute.”

“I see. Why don’t you ask her to move them to the far side of her property?”

Felton frowned. “They
are
on the far side of the property.”

“Oh.”

Bucky Paz stepped out of his office. “Ogden. Good, I’m glad you’re here. Come on in.”

Ogden walked past the big man into the room. There was a young woman sitting in the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk. He nodded hello to her and turned to face Bucky.

“Ogden, this is Caitlin Alison. Miss Alison, Deputy Walker.”

Ogden shook the woman’s hand. “Miss Alison.”

“Miss Alison here is trying to locate her cousin. She came all the way here from Ireland and can’t seem to find her.”

“What’s your cousin’s name?” Ogden asked.

“Fiona McDonough,” Bucky answered the question.

“She’s living here in Plata?”

“I don’t think so,” Caitlin said. “I don’t know. I sent letters to her general delivery to the post office in San Cristobal.”

“So, she’s up in the mountains somewhere.”

“Nobody seems to have heard of her,” Caitlin said. “I showed her picture around.”

“May I see it?”

Bucky took the photo from his desk and handed it to Ogden.

“Nobody’s seen her,” Caitlin said.

“Is Fiona from Ireland, too? Does she have an accent?”

“She’s from Minnesota. Born there. I guess she has a Minnesota accent.”

“Point taken,” Ogden said. “I hope my accent isn’t too hard on your ears. Does she have family there still?”

“Her mother.”

“Where in Minnesota?” Ogden asked.

“Minneapolis.”

Bucky shook Caitlin’s hand. “The deputy will find your cousin. He’s my best officer.”

Ogden offered Bucky a quizzical look that went ignored.

“Miss Alison, let’s take a ride.”

In the car, Ogden apologized. He pumped the gas pedal and turned the key again. “When it’s run for a while, it’s fine. There’s no air conditioner. You won’t notice it until about noon. That’s when you’ll start swearing.”

“You mean sweating?”

“No, I mean swearing.”

“I’ve been warned,” Caitlin said. “Please call me Caitlin.”

“Ogden.”

He drove them north. They crested a hill and he pointed at the view. “I never get tired of this. What’s your cousin doing here?”

“She wrote me that she wanted to live someplace beautiful for a while. And different.”

“She picked the right place.”

“She loves it here.”

Ogden nodded. “Is there a man in the picture?”

Caitlin said nothing.

“Or a woman? People sometimes go to a brand-new place to be alone. Most often there’s another person.”

“She didn’t mention anyone.”

Ogden nodded.

“I think she would have said if there was a man.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ogden said. “We’ll find her and you two can catch up and I can go back to chasing speeders.”

Ogden turned his attention to the road. He tried to formulate a strategy for when they reached the hamlet of San Cristobal. They’d go to the post office, of course, but after that? There was no town center. San Cristobal had only one small shop, a snack shop that sold a few curios, attached to a compound of rental cabins. It was not a wealthy place like Angel Fire or even Eagle Nest. It wasn’t trendy like Taos. There were a couple of houses on the road that led up to the D. H. Lawrence Ranch owned by the university, but not much else.

The post office was a long, narrow trailer with a ramped boardwalk that led from the gravel parking yard to the door set far off-center. A peeling decal of the USPS eagle was the only mark on the fiberglass outer wall.

“Everyone gets their mail general delivery up here,” Ogden said as they got out of the car.

Caitlin looked at him.

“They come here to collect their mail. No carriers.”

“I understand.”

They walked over the weathered boards to the door. Inside, a tall, thin man with a long gray ponytail stood poking through a pile of letters on a table. Ogden prided himself on knowing most people in the area, but he couldn’t remember this man’s face and so certainly couldn’t recall a name.

“How do,” the postman said.

Ogden nodded. “I’m Ogden Walker.” He shook the man’s hand.

“Lonzo Pickler.”

Ogden had never met him. He would have remembered a name like that.

“This is Caitlin Alison,” Ogden said. “Here all the way from Ireland, looking for her cousin.”

“Ma’am,” Pickler said.

“Her cousin’s name is Fiona McDonough.”

Lonzo listened and nodded. “Don’t know the name. And I would remember that name. My first wife was a Fiona.”

“Here’s her picture.” Ogden took the photo from Caitlin and handed it to the tall man. “Have you seen her?”

Lonzo shook his head.

“Caitlin here says she received some letters with a San Cristobal postmark.”

“That might be. But I haven’t seen this woman. The post box is outside. People mail stuff all the time and I don’t see them. I postmark a lot of letters.”

“I see,” Ogden said.

“Hey, Reba,” Lonzo called back into the office. “Come out here, please.”

Reba came around the corner. She was a round and short Taos Pueblo woman. Ogden had seen her around.

“Deputy,” Reba said.

Ogden nodded hello.

“Have you seen this woman around?” Lonzo showed Reba the photograph.

Reba looked at the image and then at Caitlin and Ogden. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Ogden took back the picture.

“Did she do something?” Reba asked.

“No, nothing like that,” Ogden said. “Her cousin’s just trying to find her.”

“She missing?”

Ogden could hear the rumors starting already. First it would be a little buzz at the Pueblo and in short order the whole town of Plata would be talking about the woman abducted by a serial killer.

“No,” Ogden said. “We’re just trying to find her because her cousin here lost her address.”

“Oh,” Reba said. She looked disappointed. “Like I said, maybe I seen her, I’m not sure.”

“You might check the Muddy,” Lonzo said.

Ogden thanked them both, then steered Caitlin back out into the bright and hotter day. “Well, that was a bust.”

“What is the Muddy?”

“The Muddy Cabins are down the road. There’s a little store there where all the locals go. Maggie Muddy, and that is her name, runs the place. She’s a bit of a nut, but she’s sweet.”

“Maggie Muddy,” Caitlin said.

“Her married name,” Ogden said.

Caitlin laughed. “And I suppose that her husband is named Marvin Muddy.”

“Was,” Ogden said. “But his name
was
Mickey Muddy, but of course everybody just called him Buddy Muddy. You know, you can’t make this shit up.”

“This is a colorful place.”

“So to speak.”

The Muddy was named for Buddy Muddy, but it also happened to be situated at the confluence of two arroyos. When it rained in the spring, it was a mess. But in the summer, it was lousy with wildflowers. The cabins were small wooden huts, painted brightly and scattered through a stand of cottonwoods.

“What a sweet-looking place,” Caitlin said.

“It is sweet.” Ogden parked next to the little store. The double screen doors were propped open by cast-iron cats.

“Maggie!” Ogden called out as they stood in the empty store. Refrigerated cabinets lined the far wall and tables in the middle of the room were covered with canned goods, bags of chips, beans, paper plates, and candies.

“Maybe she’s not here,” Caitlin said.

“She’s here. I don’t think she ever leaves.”

“Who’s there?” a woman said. She came through a door beside the refrigerator full of eggs and milk. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Ogden, Maggie.”

“Ogden? Ogden who?”

“Ogden Walker. Eva’s son.”

“Eva Walker? How is she?”

“She’s fine, Maggie.”

“I ain’t seen you in forever,” the old woman said. Her face was absurdly lined, her hair all gray and worn waist-long in a braid. “Is this your wife?”

“No, ma’am. This is Caitlin Alison. She’s from Ireland.”

“My husband’s mother was from Ireland,” Maggie said.

“Maggie, have you seen this woman?”

Caitlin showed Maggie the photograph.

“Yes, yes, I’ve seen her.” Maggie looked out her front doors as if expecting someone. “Everybody comes in here.”

“Did you talk to her at all?” Ogden asked.

“She’s my cousin,” Caitlin said. “Her name is Fiona.”

“Yes, I talked to her. I talked to her for a long time. Buddy talked to her, too.”

Ogden sighed and looked away. “When was this, Maggie?”

“Just the other day. Last week, maybe. She said she was from someplace.”

“Where?” Ogden asked.

“Someplace else. It made Buddy laugh.”

“Did she say where she was living?”

“My hollyhocks aren’t coming up they way they should. Oh, all the volunteers are sprouting up where I don’t want them, but the ones in my garden, no.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ogden said.

“Do you think my soil is too rich?” Maggie asked. “I used a new fertilizer.”

“It’s possible.” Ogden nodded to Caitlin. “Maggie, thanks for talking to us. We’ll be going now.”

“She said she was living up above Questa.”

“Thanks, Maggie.”

As they walked back to the truck, Caitlin asked, “Questa?”

“Might as well be Mars. Maggie’s out of her head. Buddy’s been dead for ten years.”

“I see.”

“I don’t have any better ideas, though.”

Ogden looked up at the intense midday sun.

“Is it far?” Caitlin asked. “Questa.”

“Not too far. But why would she come way down here to mail letters? There’s a post office up there, a bigger one. And why shop here?”

“Because it’s quaint?” Caitlin said.

Ogden shrugged.

“I don’t want to take up all of your day,” the woman said.

“I did promise my mother I’d do something for her. If you don’t mind, I’ll drive you to Questa tomorrow morning. I think it’s a wild-goose chase, but we should check it out.”

“That works for me.”

Ogden dropped Caitlin off at the office of El Pueblo Motel and told her he’d see her early the next day. He then drove to his mother’s house, where he found her washing the stray dog she’d taken in a couple of weeks ago.

“Fleas?” Ogden asked.

“Not anymore.”

“You ready to go pick out a new air conditioner?”

“Thanks for remembering. So, did you find the missing girl?”

Ogden made a decision to not look surprised. “There is no girl and she’s not missing.”

“You found her then.”

“No,” Ogden said.

“Son, that’s what folks around here call missing.”

His mother had a point, but it wasn’t a really a valid one. Ogden said nothing.

“I know, I know,” she said, waving her hand. “You’re not allowed to discuss an ongoing case.”

“There really is no case. So far no one is missing. Besides, I don’t have cases. I write tickets and stumble onto marijuana gardens. Now, let’s go get your air conditioner.”

“Okay. Don’t get your undies all twisted up.”

“And may I ask who informed you about the alleged missing person?”

“A bird told me.” She loved saying that or,
I have my sources.

Ogden drove his mother to Manny’s Appliance Depot or MAD as the locals called it. Manny had one of the few billboards in town and most people hated it, if only for its sheer size. Everyone hated it but Manny and Blinky Ortiz, the sign maker. The billboard was a giant hand-­painted portrait of Manny with microwave ovens for eyes and a deep freeze for a mouth. Blinky had painted the sign himself and along with it the mural on the side of the store. The mural depicted refrigerators dressed like Indians dancing around a huge, glowing-­red convection oven. The scene was modeled after the local corn dance and most people were offended by it, but Blinky, being Native, claimed that every detail was accurate, except for the fact that the dancers were appliances.

Inside, Ogden and his mother were approached by Manny. Manny looked like a loud person. He was a big man in bright clothes, shiny shoes, with long strides and large gestures. But when he opened his mouth, the softest, almost sweet, voice came out. It wasn’t feminine, but it was easy on the ear.

“Hello, Deputy, Mrs. Walker,” he said. He prided himself on knowing the name of anyone who had ever bought anything from him.

“Hello, Manny,” Eva said. “I need an air conditioner. A good one that can run day and night.”

Ogden let his mother wander off with Manny. He would stay out of it, let her make her decision, then carry it home and install it and drive it back when she didn’t like it. Manny was honest and his shop was the only show in town. They could have driven down to Santa Fe, but they didn’t and wouldn’t. Ogden browsed the shelves of hand tools. He stopped and admired all of the saws, daydreamed about making cabinet furniture some day.

“Hey, Ogden.”

Ogden turned around to find Leon Newton, the county clerk. He was a tall, pale white man with an endearing comb-­over. “Hello, Leon.”

“Looking at saws?”

“Yes. What brings you in here?”

“Nails. Need nails. I own a house. I always need nails.”

Ogden nodded.

“Anything interesting going on down at the sheriff’s office?”

Ogden shook his head. He picked up a Japanese handsaw.

“That’s beautiful,” Leon said.

“It is.”