Assumption (13 page)

Ogden picked up the woman and carried her cradled in his arms through the rain to his rig, where he laid her across the backseat. Caitlin sat in the back with her, holding the woman’s head in her lap.

Ogden called in. “Felton, get me an ambulance to the Questa Lake road. I’ve got a woman who’s been shot.”

“Who’s been shot?” Felton asked.

“The ambulance, Felton.”

“On it.”

Ogden tried to get down the mountain as fast as he could, without letting his adrenaline push him to drive and slide into trouble. The rain let up a bit, but the track was truly a mess. He drove with his tires on the center ridge to avoid getting sucked into the mud of the ruts.

“She’s still breathing?” Ogden asked.

“I think so.”

“Do you recognize her?”

“No.” Caitlin was shaking. “Is she going to die?”

“Felton,” Ogden spoke into the radio, again. “Felton, where’s that ambulance?”

“They’re on the way,” Felton said. “Where are you?”

“Still on my way down the mountain. Another ten minutes, I think.”

“Copy that. I’ll let them know,” Felton said.

“Keep pressure on her wound,” Ogden said.

“She won’t stop bleeding.”

Ogden didn’t say anything, but attended to his driving. The rain was letting up even more and though the fog was thicker, it was in patches so he could see well enough. He thought about the volume of blood and the way the wound looked. The woman could not have been shot too long ago, yet they’d passed no vehicles on the way up. Was the shooter on the way up the mountain? Or still near the cabin?

There was an anxious moment as Ogden rounded the last bend and saw the gravel yard of the little restaurant but no ambulance, but then the paramedics rolled in, red light flashing in the fog.

They had the woman out of the rig and in the back of the ambulance in a matter of minutes. Bucky pulled into the yard just after the medics. One of the medics asked Ogden if he knew the woman’s name or anything about her and Ogden said he did not. Then they rolled away, siren screaming. They had wanted the helicopter, but there would be no flying today.

Bucky walked to Caitlin under the overhang of the restaurant boardwalk. “You okay?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“What about you?” Bucky asked Ogden.

“I think so. How’d you get here so fast?”

“I was down in San Cristobal.”

“We found her in a cabin almost to the lake. I’ll be driving back up there now,” Ogden said.

“Wait for Warren. He’s on his way.” Bucky turned to Caitlin. “Young lady, I’ll take you back to town. You can give me your statement and we’ll get you dry and warmed up.”

Caitlin looked at Ogden. She didn’t want to ride back with the sheriff. Ogden understood. People often wanted to remain with the person with whom they’d experienced something profound or frightening. He nodded to her, letting her know it was okay. He looked to the highway for Warren Fragua’s rig.

“See you back at the office, Ogden,” the sheriff said.

Ogden watched them walk through the now light rain and get into Bucky’s car. He stepped inside the restaurant and looked back through the window as they rolled away.

“Can I get some coffee?” he asked the teenager.

The girl was standing beside the register with the cook. “Was that the girl you were looking for?” she asked.

“No.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Ogden said.

“I’ll get the coffee.”

It took Fragua another five minutes and then the two men were traveling up the slick road in Ogden’s Bronco. The rain had stopped and the fog had thinned considerably.

“No idea who she is?” Warren asked.

“None.”

“All I know is I didn’t drive by anyone on my way up and nobody’s driven down since.”

“How’s the girl?”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“How’s the boy?”

“You mean me?” Ogden asked.

“Yes, you.”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“I hate guns,” Warren said.

“That’s because you’ve got a brain.”

“Did you notice anything strange when you were in there?” Warren asked.

“Other than the bleeding woman? Nothing. I didn’t even think that I might be in danger until I was headed down the mountain.”

Half an hour up the trail Ogden spotted the blue Bug again. He parked beside it. The men got out and examined the car. Ogden put his hand on the hood; it was cold. He looked under the car and saw that the ground was soaked underneath.

“This spot look flat to you?” Ogden asked.

“Pretty flat.”

This time Ogden approached the cabin with his weapon drawn. Warren had his pistol out as well and they came at the structure wide from either side. The front door was open just as Ogden had left it. They stepped inside.

“Everything looks normal,” Ogden said. “Right down to the big puddle of human blood on the floor.”

“Did you look in this back room?” Warren pointed to a curtain hanging in a doorway.

“Didn’t even see it.”

Warren moved the fabric aside with his pistol and peeked in. “Just a bed.”

“Made or unmade?” Ogden asked.

“No bedding at all.”

“Well, let’s see if we can figure out who’d been living here.”

“I’ll call down and see if Bucky can find out who owns this place.” Warren left and went back to the truck.

Ogden poked around near the sink and cabinets. There were dirty dishes stacked on the counter, two plates and a couple of forks. The residue of eggs and some kind of meat was not dried hard. He sniffed the plastic cups, no alcohol.

He moved over to the long table against the far wall. One of the panes of the window on that wall was cracked, a corner broken out. It looked like old damage.

Warren came back in. “Bucky’s checking on it. Anything?”

“Not yet. I’m going to see if there are any clothes in the bedroom.”

In the bedroom Ogden found a couple of pairs of women’s jeans and a stack of T-shirts. Then he heard a rumble. “Hey, Warren, you hear that?” he asked, stepping back into the main room of the cabin.

“Yeah,” Warren said.

“Shit,” Ogden said running to the door. He got there just as a white van raced by on the muddy road. “Jesus. Warren.”

The men ran to the Bronco and climbed in. Ogden tried to start the engine, but it decided to be uncooperative. “Christ!”

“Just give it a second,” Warren said. Warren got on the radio and told Felton that a white van was about to hit the highway.

Ogden tried again and the engine turned over. He slammed it into reverse and turned around, fishtailing as he turned onto the rutted lane. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said. “We’ll never catch up.”

The Bronco bounced and slipped. Warren put a palm on the ceiling to keep from banging around. When they got down to the restaurant parking lot there was no sign of the van. Ogden skidded to a stop on the gravel and ran into the restaurant.

“Did you see a white van?” he asked the teenager.

“No,” she said.

“Just now?”

“Didn’t see a van.”

Ogden walked back out. Warren was out and looking up and down the highway. Ogden kicked the truck on the front quarter-­panel. “Piece of shit,” he said.

Warren ate some piñon nuts, looked up at the sky. “White van, no plate read. Only about a thousand white vans in this county.”

“Did you see anything special about it?”

“No. It was fast.”

“It wasn’t empty,” Ogden said. “It would have skidded out somewhere in that mud if it was empty.”

“That’s probably right. What now?”

“It’s time for me to call Fiona McDonough’s parents in Minnesota. I’m not simply helping a tourist anymore. Of course I only have the tourist’s word that the victim is not Fiona McDonough.”

“The messier things get,” Warren said.

“The messier things get,” Ogden finished.

“So are we driving back up to finish looking around?”

Ogden nodded. “No choice. The state guys will show at some points to take prints. Like that’s going to help anything.”

“You never know. Let’s do it so we can get it done,” Warren said.

Back at the cabin, Ogden left his rig parked across the road. No one would drive by this time. It was a bit of closing the barn door after the cow was out, but he had to do it. They sifted through the cabin again and found little sign that anyone was actually living there. The ashes in the stove were long cold and there were few of them. Dust was on most things, including the floor, but there had been traffic.

“A meeting place?” Warren asked.

“Could be.” Ogden went into the back room. He looked at the bed. “A nookie nest?”

“A bit out of the way. But I guess that’s the point. Married man? Girlfriend going to tell, bang.”

“Pretty disgusting. The mattress is clear of dust. Lots of traffic around the bed.”

“True.”

“Whose place is this? These magazines are six years old.”

“Like my bathroom,” Warren said.

“
Newsweek, Time, Southwest Fly Fishing.
What do you say we drive up to the lake? For the hell of it.”

“Why not?”

They drove the track all the way to the lake and as they expected with all the mud and mess there was no one there. Warren pointed out the fishing had been off for years, said the locals blamed it on the tailings from the Moly mine.

“Probably true,” Ogden said. “At least it’s closed now.”

“Too little too late.”

Ogden sat in the driver’s seat with the door open. He called in and got Felton on the radio. “You got any word on that woman?”

“She’s not dead, but she’d not good. That’s what they’re telling us. They wanted to move her to Santa Fe, but they didn’t think she’d make the helicopter ride.”

“Is Caitlin there?”

“Left a few minutes ago. Sheriff drove her to her motel.”

“Thanks. Out.”

“Very good. You remembered to say
out,
” Warren said.

“Crisis and all that.”

Ogden and Fragua drove back down the mountain. No other cars had found their way up to the cabin. Ogden wondered if the state police would send a crime scene team up as early as tomorrow. He didn’t think they would turn up anything useful, but it was a matter of principle and procedure. There had been a crime, a woman had been shot, maybe to death, and somebody ought to find it urgent enough to drive up from Santa Fe. It wasn’t far.

It was near dusk when Ogden parked in front of the sheriff’s station. Warren parked beside him. They walked inside and found Bucky there waiting.

“Well, it’s a murder investigation now,” Paz said. “She died fifteen minutes ago.”

“Any identification?” Ogden asked.

“None. Felton is going through all the missing persons reports from the state, Colorado, and Arizona.”

“I’ll call Texas,” Warren said.

“Do you know how many people go missing every day?” Felton said. “It’s a lot more than you’d think. I mean missing the official twenty-­four hours.”

“I need to call Minnesota,” Ogden said. “Where’s Caitlin?”

“I drove her back to her motel,” Paz said.

“Bucky, did you ever get a look at her ID?”

Paz paused to look out the window. “Never thought to ask,” he said. “Funny about that. What are you thinking?”

“Nothing. All I know is I need to call Fiona McDonough’s family and get some sense of what’s going on. That blue Bug is the car that Olivia Mendez saw Fiona driving.”

“Drive on over and get the numbers right now. And check her damn ID. I feel like a big fat fool. I really do hate this job.” Paz walked back into his office and shut the door.

Ogden drove directly to the motel. He stopped at the desk and asked for Caitlin’s room number.

“She was in unit seven,” the clerk said.

“What do you mean
was?
” he asked.

“I mean she was in unit seven and now she ain’t,” the short, balding man said. He stroked the tabby cat that slept on the counter. “She checked out.”

“When?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

Ogden looked out the window at the street.

“Drove off with her boyfriend.”

“What boyfriend?”

“You’re not a very good detective, are you? She left with the guy she come with. Been here the whole time.”

“What does he look like?” Ogden asked.

“Normal enough looking fellow. About your height. White guy. Light brown hair. Blue eyes.”

“Did they leave in a car?”

“They did.”

“Can you describe it?” Ogden asked.

“Light blue Honda Civic. Tan interior.”

Ogden was writing everything down now. “Anything else?”

The clerk looked at his desk. “California plate, 5QTH769. I think it was a rental.”

“Thanks.” Ogden turned to leave.

“Did I mention he had only one hand?”

Ogden shook his head. “No, you failed to mention that. Which one did he have?”

“The left one.”

“Was the rest of him there?” Ogden asked.

“Far as I could see.”

“Did he have a prosthetic of any kind? A hook?”

“Nope. His nub was covered with a sock.”

“A sock.”

“A white tube sock,” the clerk said, nodding.

“Any other little details you want to share with me before I start out again?”

“That’s it.”

Bucky Paz couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He shook his head the whole time Ogden was speaking. Warren Fragua stood at the window and peered out at the night. His stomach growled.

“I’ll second that,” Paz said. The sheriff looked at Ogden. “Felton is out there checking the plate. It’s not your fault, Ogden. It’s mine. Never try to be a nice guy; that’s the lesson here.”

Felton came into office. “The motel man was right, the license plate was from a rental car,” he said. “The plate came from a place called Dave Delmonte’s Rent-­a-­Ride in San Juan Capistrano, California. Except that the car with that plate is suppose to be a yellow Ford Focus.”

Paz twirled around in his office chair. “Probably got a trunk full of plates. Okay, Felton, call Minnesota and see what you can dig up on Fiona McDonough.

“And,” Felton said, “the Volkswagen is registered to a Christopher Banks in Santa Fe.”

“The cabin?” Ogden asked.