Disturbed Ground (10 page)

Again, Judy called Dorothea. And again, Dorothea put her off with excuses.

Now it was approaching the end of October, and Judy was approaching the end of her patience. "Look," she said, "you're really putting me in jeopardy by having him out of the country this long." (This wasn't exactly true, but Judy hoped to sound weighty.)

Puente became repentant and less cavalier. "I'm really sorry that he's not here, but he'll be back next week. Really. Because I know I could get in a lot of trouble if he's not."

But Judy had heard this before. They were getting nowhere, and she couldn't put aside her fear that Dorothea had somehow lost Bert. Suddenly she asked, "Dorothea, don't you have something to tell me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I really feel like there's something that you need to tell me. This would be a good time, you know, if there's something you have to say."

Dorothea paused briefly, but responded, "No, no. There's nothing."

Judy sighed, back at square one, and tried to sound firm, "Okay. You'd just better have Bert back here by the first of November."

Dorothea gravely agreed. Bert would be back at the house by then. She promised.

Unannounced and with some trepidation, the VOA partners climbed out of their van and ascended the sun-dappled stairs at 1426 F Street. It was Tuesday, November 1, and Dorothea Puente's house was still festooned with Halloween decorations.

Puente met them at the door, alone, solemn, looking pale. Bert was still in Mexico, she conceded, her hands clasped together. She asked them to come sit with her out on the porch, and so the three sat down, not a smile among them.

"You said he'd be here today, Dorothea. What happened?" Judy asked.

"Well, I just don't know. He said he'd be here. I'm so sorry, but I really thought he'd be back by now." She sounded distressed, even embarrassed.

Judy didn't know what to say. Dorothea was their sole link to Bert and she didn't want to bully her, but so far the soft and sympathetic approach had gotten them nowhere. "Look," she said, assuming an assertive tone, "this is the third time you've said you'd have him here, and each time you've let us down. We don't really have any choice now but to contact the authorities."

"Well, Bert will be back," Puente insisted. "He'll definitely be back, there's no doubt about that. I just need a little more time."

"Dorothea, you know I'm responsible for him." (Judy was bluffing; she wasn't a caseworker and had no official responsibility for Bert, but now she was grasping for extra authority.) "Now you've violated the two-week deadline for his Social Security, and we're going to have to report that. And we're going to have to place him somewhere else when he gets back."

Dorothea's China-blue eyes glistened with tears. "Oh, dear, I'd really
hate to lose him. I'd really miss having Bert here," she said, a catch in her
voice. "And, oh, I've already gone out and got Christmas presents for
him. I just, well, I was looking forward to sharing the holidays with him."

Moved by this sudden display of affection, Judy wondered how she could have been suspicious of this woman who cared so deeply for Bert. How could she doubt someone who had done so much for him? In a conciliatory tone she said, "When Bert gets back, it might be possible for him to stay through Christmas. We'll see what we can arrange."

Dorothea sighed heavily, wiped the tears from her cheeks, then stood suddenly and started pacing. "Well, this has just gone on too long," she pronounced. "I'm just going to have to go down to Mexico and bring him back myself."

Beth and Judy exchanged hopeful looks. "How are you going to do that?" Beth asked.

"I'll fly down."

"When?"

"Wednesday. I'll fly down on Wednesday and bring him back." Dorothea's whole countenance had changed. Her posture was erect, her voice resolute.

And somehow, her plan made sense. It was as if a light had been switched on. Of course! Bert was having trouble getting back because he was incapable of making the arrangements himself. He needed to have Dorothea go down and physically bring him back to Sacramento.

"So you'll have him back here when?”

"Oh, I’ll have him back by Saturday. You can come by and see him then."

"Saturday is our day off," Judy said, "but we can come by next Monday. That would be the seventh."

"He’ll be here," Dorothea promised.

Oddly, after leaving the F Street boardinghouse, Judy Moise and Beth Valentine settled back into work without discussing their conversation with Bert's landlady. Perhaps they had turned fate over to the power of positive thinking and didn't want to contaminate the air with negativity. Or perhaps their belief was too fragile to subject to much scrutiny. They
wanted
to believe that Dorothea would bring Bert back to them and everything would be fine.

But
nighttime proved less hospitable to hope, and during these still hours Judy's worries festered. For the fourth time, the landlady had put them off with promises. A month of promises, and still no Bert.

She tried to remember the last time she'd seen him. Summertime, yes. June, probably. Now it seemed an awfully long time ago.

And she racked her brain: What
was
it that Mary Ellen Howard and Polly Spring had said last summer about Dorothea? It had seemed so ludicrous at the time, but what had they said? Something about Dorothea robbing some old guy, wasn't it?

She searched the house for the misplaced copy of the magazine article that Mary Ellen Howard had given her. She moved stacks of books, sifted through papers, flipped through files, shuffled her in and out boxes. Zip.

The next day, she virtually upended her desk at the office, but the article didn't surface. It seemed to have vanished.

Every night that week, deep into the small hours, Judy lay awake, pondering. If Dorothea didn't genuinely care for Bert, why would she have bought Christmas presents for him? Why would her eyes tear up when she talked about him? Surely she was trustworthy. Surely she would have Bert with her on Monday morning, as promised.

But Sunday night, again, Judy couldn't sleep. She kept telling herself that Bert was fine, that he would be there tomorrow. But still she wrestled with the nagging question: "What if he's not?"

CHAPTER 9

One might expect the seventh day of the eleventh month to dawn auspiciously. Not so. Even as Judy Moise was coming into her office that morning, events were veering off in unexpected directions.

As she came in the door, the phone was ringing. She rushed to answer it, and a man's voice said, "Hello, this is Michel Obregon."

"Michel?" An odd name for a man, Judy thought. A French given name with a Spanish surname?

"I mean Miguel," he corrected himself. "I'm Bert Montoya’s brother-in-law. I'm calling from Shreveport, Utah, and I have Bert here with me."

Judy frowned. "Bert doesn't have a brother-in-law."

"Yeah, he does. We've been close for many years."

You sound much too young to be married to any sister of Bert's, Judy thought to herself. Incredulous, she responded, "I know about Bert's family, and I don't know about any brother-in-law."

"Well, you don't know everything," he snapped. "I came to California and picked Bert up on Saturday to bring him home with me. Now he's here with me and my wife. He's going to live with us in Utah. I'm calling because we want you to stop Bert's Social Security. We're a real proud family and we don't accept charity. So just please stop the checks."

"If Bert's there with you, let me talk to him."

"He can't come to the phone," the man said. "He's under the weather."

"What do you mean, 'He's under the weather'?"

"He's
under the weather!"
the man repeated forcefully.

"I want to talk to him," Judy insisted. "Give me your number so I can call you back."

"No, uh, you can't," he said. "I'm calling from a pay phone at the side of the road."

"Then give me your home phone number and address. I’ll call later."

"No, uh, we're moving and we don't have a phone yet. Anyway, my wife is sick. Uh, I have to go now. Good-bye." And he hung up.

While Judy had been on the phone, Beth had been checking messages left on their pager. Now, before Judy could absorb this strange conversation, Beth was bringing something equally odd to her attention: a message left earlier that morning by Mr. Obregon. They played the tape, and Judy again heard the man stumble over his alleged name. He said, "This is Don Anthony—I mean, Michel Obregon."

What kind of ridiculous charade was this supposed to be? Dorothea Puente had to be behind this, Judy decided, so she would just call her.

When Dorothea answered, Judy had just one question: "Who is Don Anthony?"

Puente said nothing. The silence turned elastic, stretching long moments before she responded, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Judy quickly explained about the phone call from "Michel" or "Miguel" Obregon, who claimed to have taken Bert to Utah.

Then Dorothea perked up. "Oh yeah, that's just what happened," she said.

"I have a hard time believing that."

"No, no, he's right. That's exactly what happened. I went down to Mexico and brought Bert back on Saturday, like I said I would. Then on Sunday his brother-in-law came while I was at church. It was very unexpected, but he just loaded up Bert's things in his truck and took him off to Utah."

"Dorothea, this is pretty farfetched," Judy chided. "I've never heard of Bert having a brother-in-law."

"Well, you know, I hadn't either, but Bert was so glad to see him and just seemed as pleased as anything to be invited to go live with him."

"Listen, this just doesn't seem right. There's something wrong here. I'm going to have to call the police and report Bert to Missing Persons."

Puente said hastily, "You know what? I can make a few phone calls, and if you want to get back to me later today, say around three o'clock, maybe I can have some new information for you."

"Like what?" Now thoroughly vexed, Judy cut Dorothea off, saying, "Never mind. I'm going to call the police."

And that's just what she did. Judy knew the number for Missing Persons by heart, she'd called it so many times for so many street people. The officer on the other end took Bert's name and other information, then promised to send someone over to talk to Judy later that morning.

With that, suspicions about Dorothea Puente had finally catapulted beyond private speculation into legal inquiry.

But the day was just beginning, and fears that Judy had fought to suppress were now blasting through her like hot vapor.
Where was Bert?
And what exactly had Dorothea Puente been accused of in the past?

Judy placed more calls. First, she phoned Peggy Nickerson to ascertain the last name of John, the thin, white-haired, hawk-eyed old fellow that Nickerson had placed at Dorothea s house back in January. Sharp, Nickerson told her. John Sharp.

Second, with self-reproach ringing in her ears for not having heeded warnings months earlier, Judy called Polly Spring to ask for Mildred Ballenger's phone number, and to ask just what sort of record Dorothea Puente had.

Spring didn't remember the precise details, but said that Ballenger would. Then she asked, "Why are you calling about this?"