Short Cut to Santa Fe (24 page)

“All we know,” said McDowell sourly, “is that when we got her to the hospital, this bunch of goons from the feds swooped down and carted her away. We don't know what happened to her. Or what she knows, which is probably plenty.”

“And that means,” said Rodriguez, “that when we've done all the dog work and have figured it all out, they'll appear again like magic and say, hey, friends, this is a kidnapping and a hijacking and it's federal. These guys are ours. This is our collar and you can go screw yourselves.”

“How did they know that the bus was going to be hijacked?” asked Harriet. “You can't tell me that there's an FBI agent on every tour bus, just in case.”

“Information received,” said John.

“Or maybe they were watching someone on the bus and the hijack was coincidental.” McDowell used the word coincidental as if it hurt.

“Come on, McDowell.” Rodriguez shook his head. “Deever is mixed up in it. He was convinced that his wife was on that bus, you know. Which means she probably was.”

“Who's Deever?” asked Harriet.

“Rich man,” said McDowell, “owns a ton of land and people here and there in the Southwest. He was under investigation a few years ago over a question of prostitution. Procuring underage girls by forcible means—mostly in Mexico—and transporting them across the border into Texas. There was an extensive investigation and then hearings. Dragged on forever. The Santa Rosa hearings they were. That's the town where a lot of the girls came from. He slipped out from under without a scratch on him.”

“Hardly without a scratch,” said Rodriguez quietly. “There's still a lot of suspicion hanging over him these days. And when he walks down the street, people cross over to the other side to avoid the smell.”

“When you say underage,” said Harriet, “just how underage are we talking here?”

“How does twelve grab you?” said Rodriguez. “There were a lot of twelve-year-olds. And two of the kids they found were only ten. That's even better.”

“Ten,” said Harriet. “My God. That's younger than the twins. That is absolutely disgusting.”

“He is. Disgusting. Pond slime is lovable compared with Carl Deever.” Rodriguez finished his coffee and pushed back his chair.

McDowell stood up. “I don't want to hurry you, but if you've finished your breakfast,” he said, “do you mind coming over to my office? We have coffee there, too.”

“What's new?” McDowell called out as he swept them into his small office. It did, in spite of its size, boast a window of its own to indicate his exalted status.

“The search party has located the van and a body tentatively identified as Jennifer Nicholls,” said a young trooper, dropping a piece of paper on McDowell's desk.

“Good,” said Harriet. “I don't suppose there's anything left of my camera and film. In the van,” she added heartlessly.

“They said there was a great deal of camera equipment lying around there, and that some of it may have survived.” The young man looked somewhat disapproving. “They'll collect it all for you and you can check.”

“Thanks. Oh, just a minute,” she called to his retreating back.

“Ma'am?”

“Could you ask them not to open any of the four by five film holders that might still be in one piece?”

“I don't think they're stupid enough to do that, ma'am. But I'll tell them anyway.”

McDowell pulled up two extra chairs for Harriet and John. Rodriguez leaned on the windowsill, silhouetted against the brightness of the late morning. “One of the interesting things about all this was that a week before the tour left, the regular tour guide was bribed into calling in sick,” said McDowell. “As soon as she heard about the bus disappearing, she smelled a rat, of course, and sat down and sketched the guy who contacted her. She's some kind of artist, apparently. The feds got to her as she was walking out the door to go to the local police, and in a rare show of cooperation, they have given us a copy of the sketch.”

“Like hell they're cooperating. They don't know who it is and think we might,” said Rodriguez.

“Well, I can't say I recognize him just like that,” said McDowell. “But we're checking through Records. Meanwhile, we wondered if you'd seen him—at the airport, maybe. Anywhere.” He handed the picture to John.

Harriet craned her neck to get a look at it as well. “My God, John,” she said, “isn't that Jennifer's husband? It looks like him. I'd check with one of the other passengers, just to be sure, because by the time we got on the bus, it was pretty dark, but that's who he looks like. What was his name?”

“Brett,” said John. “Brett Nicholls. And you're right. I'm sure it's him.”

“Brett Nicholls?” asked Rodriguez. “Doesn't sound familiar. Is he one of Deever's men?”

“Can't be. At least, he sure as hell isn't any of the men they investigated for the Santa Rosa hearings,” said McDowell. “The feds have them all memorized.”

McDowell had dropped the copy of the sketch on the table, face down. “Mind if I look at it?” asked Rodriguez, strolling over and picking it up. He carried it back to his comfortable niche against the window. Harriet, her attention drifting from the scene in front of her, watched him move across the room, impressed in spite of herself. Then he turned the paper over and lifted it to the light. The change in him shook her; she caught one glimpse of his face, bleak, white, and strained, before he strode across the room again. He dropped the sketch casually on the table, and raised a hand in farewell. “Urgent call. Sorry. I'll be in touch.” And he was gone.

“Maybe she went from the bus to the cabin.”

“How?” asked Deever. “She doesn't even know there is a cabin. Or where it is. How stupid do you think I am?” The heavy draperies were pulled tightly across both sets of windows in his office, cutting off every last stray beam of light or breath of wind, as if only in darkness and fetid air could he be safe. He was sitting in the chair behind his desk, staring at Ginger in the semidarkness.

“Women always seem to find these things out.”

Deever brooded over that thought. “If that's where she is, I want her out,” he said at last. “We'll take her with us across the border and worry about her then.”

Ginger sat and looked at him, waiting for clarification. “It would be easier to deal with her here. Leave her in the mountains somewhere.”

Deever shook his head. “Too risky. Go and get her.”

“The trouble is, Mr. Deever, I go out there in the Jeep and every cop in the state is on my tail, because they want to know where she is, too. Also they want to know what you're up to. I don't think it's a good idea. If she's there, I'd never get to her first. If she isn't, it's a big waste of time.”

Deever whirled his chair around so that it was facing the curtained window and leaned back in it. “Shit,” he said. “You're right.” He drummed his fingers together as he thought. “I think we'd better get out of here and stay out for a while until things calm down,” he said at last. “We'll fly in, pick her up, and get the hell out of the country. Leave the fallout for Harper to handle. That's what lawyers are for, isn't it?”

“What about that photographer? Grosvenor.”

“There's not a hell of a lot she can do if we're in Mexico. And after that, well—it's her word against mine. No one made her come out here, did they? And who's going to believe a lush like that?” He considered that a moment longer. “Tell Harper to write her a letter, sort of apologizing for any misunderstandings, but not admitting liability, of course. And then offer her a few thousand.”

“I don't know, Mr. Deever. She's a famous woman. Rodriguez said—”

“Fuck Rodriguez! I'm sick of the sound of his name. She's a neurotic bitch and a lush and she needs the money for booze. And if she's too fucked up to work, like they say, she isn't much of a threat,” he added, an edge of doubt creeping into his voice. “Anyway, by the time we're ready to come back, she'll have drunk through the money and be brain dead.”

Kate was being driven mad by inactivity. Antonia had disappeared into her study to work; Consuelo had rushed downstairs for a hasty breakfast and then hurried out of the house, late for school; a woman whose name Kate did not catch turned up and began to clean very energetically. Every time she found a quiet corner to sit down in, she was chased from it by an orgy of mopping and dusting and wiping.

But after a couple of hours, even that game was over. Antonia emerged from her study, pointed out the cold lunch waiting for Kate in the refrigerator, and rushed off to teach her first class of the day. “Don't go outside,” she called, as she headed for the garage. “Don't answer the door or the telephone.” And she was gone.

It was still much too early to eat lunch. She helped herself to some fruit in order to pass the time, and paced back and forth between dining room and living room. Her constant headache had been receding slightly. She'd been able to ignore it for hours at a time while mind or body was engaged in other things. But now, with nothing to occupy her but a returning sense of self-pity, it resurfaced, preventing her from doing anything that required concentration and thought. She looked at the bookshelves, with their rows of novels in Spanish, and tomes of philosophy and criticism, and gave up the idea of curling up with a book. The phone rang. Once. Twice. And stopped. Of course, the energetic housekeeper was still around. She went back up to her bedroom and stared out the window at the dogs. There were six of them outside, almost the entire complement of Rottweilers except for the pups. The housekeeper must have put all the dogs outside so she could clean. They were sleeping in the cool shade of a pleasant arbor, and she envied them their ability to fritter away the day. Perhaps she should emulate the dogs, and give herself over to sloth.

As she watched, one of the puppies, fat, huge-pawed, and awkward, stumbled out of the kennel. It blinked, surprised, at the brightness of the day. In the opening of the kennel, she could just make out the seventh dog crouched, vigilant, watching her venturesome young. Calendar stuff, thought Kate contemptuously, and walked over to the chair where Fernando had set her camera bag. She took out her OM 4 and regarded it critically. It was just as it had been when he'd picked it up from the floor of her motel room. In a spiteful gesture, whoever had searched her room had wrenched open the back and exposed the film. Not that it mattered a damn. She had put the film in the camera after throwing away the roll with the accursed shot of the murdered child on it, and hadn't touched that, or any camera, since. She tossed the useless film in the wastebasket, found another roll of HP5, and went to work on the camera. With absolute concentration, she took out her blower and delicately removed each visible speck of dirt or dust from the open parts of the body, and then set to work cleaning the lens, checking that everything was still functioning, and loading the film.

Out the window, the puppy had been joined by two others, and all three were rolling ferociously about on the grass and dirt, in a magnificent play fight. With the rapidity that was her trademark, she flew through a half roll of film catching the battle. Roaming through the viewfinder beyond Antonia's fence, she saw in another yard a girl in short shorts and a halter top swinging on a child's swing set in desultory fashion. She appeared to be waiting for something she feared would never happen—to grow up, perhaps, or for a boy to come along and release her from the slavery of boredom. As Kate switched lenses and shot the other half roll of film, she realized that she was humming to herself.

But then the roll was finished and she lacked the will to find another in all that mess in her camera bag. She stared at the camera in her hand as if it were an alien creature. Without thinking, she slipped the rewound film back into its container, and marked it with time and date. She put the camera away and sat down, exhausted and deflated. Her head pounded; her back and chest and shoulder ached miserably. Her legs felt stiff and awkward.

What she needed was a hot bath. She hurried toward the bathroom as if it might disappear in the length of time it was going to take her to get to the taps and turn them on. She tossed a bubble of scented bath oil into the hot water and looked down at her working jeans. Silk negligees, that's what you need, Kate, she thought, and little feathered things to throw over your shoulders; then you might feel like lazing around all day. It was a strange sensation, to be enveloped in fragrant steam with nothing to do but enjoy it. She went back into the bedroom and stripped off her practical, working clothes, heedless of the open curtains, and then, in spite of protesting leg muscles, stepped into the tub.

The fragrance of orange and the lapping of water calmed her head and soothed her body. She drifted, in a beautifully semiconscious daze, thinking of very little, but remembering with startling clarity every gorgeous erotic feeling Fernando had aroused in her. As she ran her tongue lightly over her bruised and swollen lips, she could feel his lips on hers, and the delicate play of his tongue, darting between her teeth. The warm rippling water brought back long, slow caresses on her earlobes, her neck, her breasts and belly, awakening her body until it vibrated in sympathetic harmonies with his. And now that she had been brought to such a glorious pitch of arousal, she thought happily, nothing could send her back to her old state of numb indifference. He was, she decided, falling abruptly from the poetic to the pragmatic, really something else. Where he had learned his extraordinary skill was another and more interesting question; but she'd leave that for another time.

She was amazed at how easily he had walked into her life and turned it over; or had she been the one to walk into his with arrogant certainty and upset his existence? That was another question to be answered later. Much later. All she knew was that for the past four months her body had been trapped in an irritable drug-hazed stupor, capable of feeling two things: pain and absence of pain. He had reached out a hand and she had broken free. She would never go back there again; she was serenely confident of that.