Assumption (8 page)

“Did he seem worried or scared?”

They shrugged.

Ogden stood. “Thank you for your time.”

It was early Monday and Ogden was driving north. The weather had turned hard cold again. He turned onto the kidney-­busting dirt road to Niebla Canyon. A battered pickup rattled by him and the two men in it gave him a good looking over. He’d never seen them before. He tried to read the plate, but couldn’t. He stopped at the trailhead parking area. The county had indeed put a sign that warned of vandals. Ogden had never seen one like it. Bright yellow with big red letters, it read B
EWARE OF
V
ANDALS
. It had supposedly gone up a week or so earlier. He then wondered why the vandals had spared the sign. He looked at the only other sign there, one that said P
ARKING
. It was dented from birdshot and punctuated with bullet holes. It was ventilated just like every other sign along the highways and dirt roads up here. But not this sign.

At the office, Ogden did the small amount of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk. Then he sat for a long time just staring at his doodles on a sheet of paper. He’d drawn rows of evenly spaced dots and had connected them with straight lines. He was tapping the grid with his pencil when the phone rang.

It was his mother. “Guess who’s here?” she asked.

“I’m at work, Ma. Okay, I’ll guess. Weather Wally.”

“Jenny’s here. She came back to pack up her mother’s house.” Ogden heard her slap a sloppy hand over the receiver. “Can you stay for lunch?” Then to Ogden, “We’ll see you here for lunch.” She didn’t wait for a response, but hung up.

Ogden leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Felton came in. Ogden could hear his awkward gait.

“Oh Lord,” Felton said. “Another rough night for poor ol’ Deputy Dawg.”

“How are you, Felton?”

“Fine as frog’s hair. What about you? You don’t look good. What’d I tell you about them women and staying out late. Maybe I should be telling them about you, right?”

“I suppose.” Ogden got up and walked over to the rack, put on his coat, grabbed his hat. “I’m going out on patrol. Do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Tell Bucky I might be out of touch for a while.”

“You want me to tell him why? Or you want him to worry about it all day?”

“I want him to worry.”

“You got it, sport.”

Ogden sat across from Jenny at his mother’s round kitchen table. Eva Walker sat between them. He looked at the impressive spread of food. There was a variety of sandwiches, a bowl of carefully carved-out cantaloupe and honeydew melon balls, chicken wings, and sliced avocado. He smiled.

“What?” his mother asked.

“Nothing, Ma.” Ogden looked at Jenny. “So, how are things in Santa Fe?” He took a half of an egg salad sandwich and put it on his plate. The sun came through the window and hit Ogden’s eyes. He stood and pulled the blinds.

“The sun shouldn’t shine on such cold days,” Eva Walker said.

“Why is that?” Ogden asked.

“It’s like a con or something. Cold days should be gray so you’re not tricked into going outside.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” he asked.

“I like being out on cold days,” Jenny said. “Even the gloomy, overcast ones.”

Ogden ate a few bites. “I wish I could tell you something new about the case,” he said.

After a pause, Jenny said, “I’ve got a new job. I left the copy shop and now I’m in a bookstore. It’s not a great bookstore, but it’s better than the copy shop.”

“I’m glad,” Eva Walker said. “Better to be around books.”

“And,” Jenny said, “someone wants to buy my mother’s land from me. I don’t even know where it is, but this man wants to buy it.”

Ogden nodded. “That’s pretty quick. Who is it?”

“His name is Brockway. He called me and said he’d be back in touch.”

“That’s fast,” Ogden repeated. He shook his head. “No will, a murder. The sale won’t happen quickly, I can tell you that. Probate and all that stuff.”

“Really?”

“We can go over to the county clerk’s office and look up the parcel, get an idea what it’s worth anyway.”

“You’d help me with that?” Jenny asked.

“I’ll help.”

“Try the melon balls,” Ogden’s mother said.

The land registry was in the new courthouse, a large fake adobe affair. It was set right next to a fake adobe McDonald’s. Ogden looked at the young faces in the waiting area, couples holding hands, waiting for marriage licenses. Down a wide corridor, then a narrow one, and they were in the registry office.

“Hello, Deputy.” The short woman behind the counter said. “What can I do you for?”

“I need to know where a piece of land is,” Ogden said.

“It’s out there somewhere,” the woman said, nodding toward the window.

“I need to be more precise,” Ogden said and smiled. “I’ve got the description right here.” He read it off the deed.

“May I?” The clerk asked to see the paper. She then walked away to a stack of flat drawers with plat maps. She pulled open a low drawer and fingered through the huge squares of paper. She pulled one free and brought it back, laid it on the counter. “You’re right here.” She put her finger on the spot.

Ogden looked. “Is that Route 3?”

“Yes. And that’s Arroyo Hondo, if that helps.”

“You’re sure this is land?”

The woman gave him a look.

“Sorry,” Ogden said. He looked at Jenny.

“What is it?” Jenny asked.

“Nothing,” he said. To the clerk, “Thank you, ma’am.”

Ogden drove Jenny back to her car at his mother’s house. “We’ll take a ride next week if you want to come up and you can see your property.”

“Okay,” she said. “Is everything all right? You hardly said a word all the way back.”

“I’m exhausted, that’s all.”

Ogden left there and drove to Fonda’s Funeral Home. He found Emilio sweeping off the loading dock in back.

“Emilio?”

The man jumped. “Jesus, man, you scared the shit of me.”

“Sorry.”

“Go away.”

“I just want to ask you a couple more questions. Won’t take long. I promise.”

Emilio leaned on the broom. “Go.”

“What was José into?”

“I told you, man, I don’t know nothing.”

“Who took his body?”

Emilio looked away.

“I think, I’m not sure, but I think you told me last time that you scored some drugs at some point. That’s probable cause. I can go search your house right now. Do you think I’ll find anything there?” Ogden stared at the man.

Emilio shifted his weight. “It was his father.”

“What?”

“His father. José’s father came and took the body. I let him in. You gonna arrest me?”

“I don’t know,” Ogden said. “Why’d his father do that?”

“He thought they were going to do an autopsy on José and that family, well, they’re like super religious.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I know I shouldn’t have let him in. You gonna arrest me?”

“Not for that, no.”

“But you’re going to arrest me,” Emilio said.

“I don’t know. Were you two into drugs? Just tell me. Off the record. I’m not going to arrest you. I promise.”

“No drugs. We were getting paid to smash cars.”

“Excuse me?”

“José and me were supposed to hang out up in one of them canyons up there and smash anybody that parked there.”

“Just the two of you?”

“There were some other guys, I guess. We had our own hours, you know. Anyways, we only had to smash four or five. No one ever came up there.”

“Who paid you to do this?”

“I don’t know. José got paid and he paid me. I was helping José.”

“What canyon?”

“I don’t know what it’s called.”

“Niebla?” Ogden asked.

“That sounds right.”

Ogden started to walk away, then stopped. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

Fragua was eating piñon nuts like crazy, cracking and chewing and brushing the empty shells onto the floor of Ogden’s truck. Ogden looked at him and then at the mess.

“You’re going to clean that up, right?” Ogden asked.

“Clean up what? This is natural waste, bio-­stuff. You should be happy to have it in here. They’ll break down naturally and contribute to the ecosystem that is your truck.” He looked out the window. “I love early morning.”

“I need to tell you, I found out something about José Marotta’s body,” Ogden said.

“If you know, that’s fine,” Fragua said. “Let’s keep it just the way it is.”

“You know.”

Fragua looked ahead through the windshield.

“How’d you find out?”

“You told me. When you noticed the Marottas are Penitentes. Pretty much when the mother faked fainting when we told them their son’s body was missing. They never even called the station to find out if we’d found him.”

“Mr. Detective.”

“Enough said,” Fragua said.

“Enough said.”

“You say the Bickers land is up Niebla Canyon.”

“The trail leads all the way to Mount Wheeler. My father and I used to hike it.”

“You say somebody paid those boys to break windows?”

“Yep.”

“But not slash tires,” Fragua said.

“That’s right.”

“Pot farm,” Fragua said.

“My guess.”

After a couple of hours of hiking, Ogden stopped and looked at the rough trail. He pulled a topo map out of his pocket and studied it. “Okay, we leave the trail here.” They walked a half mile and then crossed an old logging road.

“This ain’t on the map,” Ogden said.

Fragua took a knee and studied the road. “Somebody uses it, though.”

They followed the road about a mile and came to a clearing. “This could be it,” Ogden said.

“Look at this,” Fragua said. He pointed to a hole that had been shoveled out, the dirt left in a pile beside it.

“Here’s another one,” Ogden said. “And another.”

There were dozens of small holes, two or so feet deep and the same across.

“This is creepy,” Fragua said.

“You think?”

“Somebody’s looking for something?”

Ogden said nothing. He wended his way through the holes and mounds.

“What do you say we get out of here?” Fragua asked.

“Okay.”

They walked back along the logging road, then cut cross country back to the trail. The sky remained clear. The air was cold.

“I have a question,” Fragua said. “To whom do we tell what?”

“That’s a damn good question.”

Ogden dropped off Fragua at his house, then drove home. There was a sedan parked in his front yard. There were two men in suits under open parkas knocking on his door. They turned as he set his brake and stepped out.

“Help you?” Ogden asked.

“You Deputy Walker?”

“I am.”

“I’m Special Agent Clement and this is Special Agent Howell.”

Howell nodded.

“Special agents,” Ogden said, weighing the words.

“We’re the FBI,” Howell said. He was the taller man.

“FBI,” Ogden repeated.

“We’d like to talk to you, “ Clement said.

“And so here you are,” Ogden said. He stepped past them, turned the knob, and opened the door. “I never lock it.”

The men followed him inside.

Howell zipped up his parka.

“Have a seat,” Ogden said.

The men sat at the little kitchen table.

“So, what can I tell you about what?” Ogden asked.

“Emma Bickers.”

“I’m going to make some tea,” Ogden said. “You want some tea?”

They said they didn’t.

“Mrs. Bickers,” Ogden said. “You know she’s dead.”

“Yes,” Clement said. “We read in the report that you recognized a dead man from another recent murder as someone you’d seen in a photograph belonging to Emma Bickers.”

Ogden turned the flame on under the kettle.

“That man was an FBI agent. His name was Terry Knoll.”

“I see.”

“Knoll was undercover. We hadn’t heard from him in a month and some days,” Clement said.

“Okay. What do you want from me?”

“Anything you can think of,” Clement said. Ogden looked at Howell. “Do you have the photograph?”

“It’s in the file,” Ogden said.

Clement looked at Howell, then said, “Cowboy, it ain’t there now.”

The kettle started to rattle. “I put it there.”

“It’s not there now,” Clement repeated.

“What kind of undercover work?” Ogden asked.

“We’re not at liberty to discuss that,” Howell said.

“All right. Well, I’ve told you all I know. Sorry the photo got lost, but the last time I saw it, it was in the folder.”

“He was investigating hate groups,” Clement said. You know, KKK, neo-­Nazis, good folks like that.” Clement took an envelope from his inside suit jacket pocket, opened it, and pulled out several photographs.

Ogden looked at the pictures. The first was of a man tied to a cross, his body split wide open and empty.

“He was field-dressed,” Howell said.

Ogden looked at all the photos. All were of the same man from various angles and ranges. He handed back the pictures. “Well, that’s scary.”

“He’s a marker,” Clement said. “Some very bad people staked that poor bastard out on the Mexican side of the border to warn people to stay in Mexico.”

Ogden didn’t know what to say. He tried to press the image of the man out of his head.

“Hate group,” Ogden said. “Are they around here? What’s the name of this group?”

Clement sighed. “It’s a very violent, very secret club. They like to kill people. They don’t want to get caught killing people. Rumor has it that a lot of upstanding citizens are members. Call themselves
The Great White Hope.
”

“Not much for subtlety,” Ogden said. The kettle whistled and Ogden got up to pour his water.

“These are not your everyday, run-­of-­the-­mill, lunatic-­fringe bad people,” Clement said.

“What did your undercover agent have to do with Mrs. Bickers?” Ogden asked.

“You tell us.”

Ogden just looked at them.

“Tell us what you know about Emma Bickers,” Clement said.

“You read my report.”

“We want to hear it from you.”

“The report is from me,” Ogden said.

“You were the last person to see Emma Bickers alive?” Clement asked.