Snake in the Glass (21 page)

“Allison, I wish I knew. The car looked fine, and some of Cam’s stuff was in it, but I’d guess not all.”

“His computer?” I asked sharply.

“No computer.”

I relaxed a little. If Cam had taken his computer with him, there was a better chance that he was all right. Cam might not worry about clean underwear, but he would never let his electronic friend out of his sight.

“So what’s your guess?”

“The most innocent explanation is that Alex volunteered to take Cam out to the site he was supposed to study, either because he thought it would be easier than explaining how to get there, or he thought the trip would be too hard on Cam’s car. And I’m betting he parked the RV wherever the stones are.”

Frank and I exchanged a quick glance.

“Let’s say Alex offered to let Cam stay in his RV,” I said. “Wouldn’t that have to be somewhere reasonably accessible? I’ve never driven one, but I’d guess they aren’t easy to maneuver, especially not on rough ground.”

“That’d be my guess,” Matt agreed. “Not that it narrows down the choices much.”

“Hey, I’ll take anything I can get. Can we run through the time line? Cam shows up here last Saturday, I tell him about Allison”—I sneaked a glance at her, and she looked away—“so he hightails it off to meet Alex, whom he’d already contracted with to do this computer-modeling project. Matt, how long did the ME think that Alex had been dead when he was found?”

“A day or two. Hard to be precise, when a body’s left out like that.”

“So it’s possible that Alex took Cam out to wherever the RV is parked, the same day he left here, and promised to come back and collect him in a few days. Except he died shortly after that, so he couldn’t. Which means Cam might be sitting out there somewhere in the desert, wondering where the heck Alex is. But why wouldn’t he just walk out? It’s not high summer, and Cam’s in good shape. Surely he had food and water.” I was more or less talking this out for myself, but everyone else was following me closely.

“Maybe someone wouldn’t let him.” Matt’s voice was quiet, and I could tell he knew that I didn’t want to hear that.

“Our mystery buyer? Why would he detain Cam?”

“Em, we don’t know. We still don’t know anything about him. There’s no paper trail that we know of, and we have only Denis’s story about what Alex told him. Maybe—if he exists—he thought Cam had discovered too much or was trying to horn in on the find.”

I sat there, stewing, my dinner turning to lead in my stomach. There was a chance that Cam might have innocently blundered into something he knew nothing about, and he might have paid heavily for it. No. I was not going to think like that. We still had paths to follow. “I . . .” I began and then stopped, horrified when my voice cracked. I swallowed and looked at Frank. “Tell him what we did today.”

Frank turned to Matt. “Em and I took a drive north, toward the San Carlos Reservation. We were looking for sites where the rock formations might be right for peridot, where they overlap with properties that Alex and Denis own. We got through a few before we lost the light, but those looked pretty much undisturbed, so I think we can rule them out. There are three or four likely ones we might try tomorrow. If that’s all right by you.”

“You got hold of the land records?” Matt’s voice was ominously quiet.

“Yes.” Frank nodded. “With a little help.”

“That would be from me, or more precisely, my daughter’s husband, who’s in real estate,” Nessa volunteered.

Matt looked like he was swallowing a lot of words. He was silent for a long time, his expression carefully blank. I had a pretty good idea what he was thinking: that we should not be interfering in an official investigation; that if we, or rather the sheriff’s crew, didn’t act quickly, it might be too late; that the missing RV might be the murder scene where Alex was killed, and our finding it might compromise evidence. I felt for him, really I did—but Cam was my brother. Once again I think he read my mind.

He sighed. “Em, if I say no, you’ll probably go anyway. No, don’t say anything yet. This isn’t my investigation, it’s the sheriff’s, and it’s not a good idea to tick him off. But having said that, I can’t stop Frank from taking a drive to see the desert, can I?”

I thought I heard a qualified “okay” in there somewhere, so I picked up where Matt had left off. “And of course he needs a helpful local citizen to direct him. It would be a shame if Frank got lost, wouldn’t it? And if he and his helpful guide were to happen to stumble over anything that might be of interest to the sheriff, we would know enough not to touch anything or move anything, and we would contact the sheriff immediately.”

“That about covers it. I guess it’s not worth saying that I’d rather you didn’t put yourself in the middle of this? One man is dead, you know.” Matt looked at me, his gaze steady but unreadable.

“I’ll be careful, Matt, and Frank will be with me. All we want to do is check out a few more sites, and now that we know there might be an RV, we can look for that too, and sites that would accommodate one. There’s no guarantee that we’ll find anything.”

“Take my vehicle,” Matt said.

“What? The police cruiser?”

“No, my own—my truck. It’s got four-wheel drive, and it’s a lot sturdier than yours. I’ll take yours tonight.” Matt yawned, then looked contrite. “Sorry—not much sleep. I should go. Em, can you give me your car keys?”

“Sure, and I’ll walk you out.”

Outside in the cool darkness, I asked Matt, “Was there anything you didn’t want to say to the group up there?”

“No, not really. I think Denis has told us what he can. The sheriff is disinclined to think that Cam’s been the victim of foul play until it’s shoved in his face, and I can’t say that I blame him. He’s pulling out all the stops on Alex’s death, anyway. I’ll get a report on what my guys find at Denis’s and Alex’s homes, and maybe there’ll be something there.”

“You’re searching Denis’s house too?” I said sharply.

“Of course, and his office. He worked with Alex. He didn’t object. Em, it’ll be all right—we’ll find Cam.”

I wasn’t really sure that Matt believed his own words, but even if he was only being kind, I’d take it.

He pulled me close, under cover of darkness. “Be careful, will you? You know people get in trouble all the time in the desert around here. There are a lot of dangerous things out there. Tarantulas, snakes, that kind of thing.”

Reptiles or human snakes?
I relaxed against him. It was kind of nice, having someone to lean on, both literally and figuratively. “I know. I’ll try. But Cam’s more important to me than he is to the sheriff, so I’m going to do all I can.”

“That’s about what I figured.”

A few minutes later I watched him drive off in my car, fumbling only slightly with the gears.
I think I got the better of that trade
, I thought as I glanced over at Matt’s dusty midsize pickup truck, which looked as though it could climb walls. If Cam was anywhere out there on Denis and Alex’s land, Frank and I would find him.

I hoped.

After another restless night I was beginning to
wonder if I’d ever get any sleep. I thought of my studio with a brief moment of longing, but I knew that I wouldn’t accomplish much worthwhile there as long as Cam was still missing. I sometimes used making glass as therapy, losing myself in the fascination of shaping molten glass, but right now I was too distracted. Would the mystery buyer try to get in touch with Denis? The deadline was approaching fast—the Gem Show ended in a few days. I had to assume the police had that possibility covered.

Frank and I ran into each other in the kitchen early. We communicated economically.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Food?”

“I’ll do it.”

Finally I managed to string together an entire sentence. “We should refill the water bottles if we’re going to be out for a while.”

“Good idea.”

That, apparently, was our quota of words for the first hour. Luckily I didn’t need words to communicate with Fred and Gloria. The rattle of kibble meant food; the jingle of leashes meant walk. Finally, fed, watered, and equipped with detailed maps, Frank and I were ready to set out.

“You want me to drive?” I asked, not sure of what answer I wanted. I don’t like unfamiliar vehicles, and I don’t know much about driving on bad roads or sand. Put those all together, and I had my doubts about setting out in Matt’s truck.

“Nah. I think I’ve got the general idea. Not too many roads anyway, are there?”

“No, and not too many people either.” I handed him Matt’s key ring and we set off.

Since we’d started from the northernmost end of the highway yesterday, it seemed simplest to start at the southernmost today. That took us some five miles outside of city limits. Catalina was the first town past Oro Valley. To the east of the highway it’s a thriving town; to the west, there’s nothing but open land. Unfortunately Frank and I found . . . nothing. And when the few roads leading in that direction petered out, Frank and I headed north on the highway again. This time I held the maps, but Frank didn’t seem to need them, relying on some internal sense of direction. Or maybe the rock just called to him. It didn’t say a damn thing to me.

Again we took the fork at Oracle Junction and headed toward Oracle. I knew Oracle was a fair-size town, although it was set back off the highway. We had gone less than a mile beyond Oracle when I swear Frank’s nose twitched.

“That road off to the left—where’s it go?” he asked.

I traced my finger over the map in my lap. “Looks like . . . Old Tiger Road.”

Frank slapped the steering wheel with one hand, making me jump. “Of course! The old Mammoth-Saint Anthony Mine. How could I have forgotten that?”

“Huh?” I said intelligently. “Frank, do you know everything about every mine in existence?”

“Not quite, but this one was famous in its day. Opened up in 1879, mostly for gold. But they found something like ninety kinds of minerals there, back in the day. Not open now.”

I looked back at my map. “It looks like there’s a pit mine a bit further ahead.”

“Nope, we want this road. Pit mine’s not what we need—different geology.”

I lay down my maps and concentrated on the landscape. The road veered to the left, skirting the flank of a hill, then right to follow the gully along the fold between two hills. It wasn’t in good repair, and I couldn’t imagine that it went anywhere, except maybe to a ranch. We followed the road a mile, then two, bouncing around in our seats like popcorn. I was ready to suggest we turn around before we trashed Matt’s suspension, when Frank stopped the car and pointed. “There.”

I followed his finger and at first saw nothing. Then a patch of brown resolved itself into the man-made lines of a small RV, covered with dust. “I see it! Can we get closer?”

“If it got there, we can get there. Hang on.” Frank started up again and crept forward until we were within twenty feet. It was a small Winnebago, not new. I didn’t see anything like an electric line, although that would have been a lot to expect out here. Frank turned off the engine and quiet fell on us. I climbed gingerly out of the car and studied the RV as Frank came up beside me.

I realized my heart was pounding. Odds were good that the RV was Alex’s, but I was scared to take the next step. It looked pretty deserted, and nothing moved.

Frank relieved me of the decision. “Halloo in there! Anybody home?” His voice sounded shockingly loud in the empty landscape. Still, it didn’t produce any response.

We looked at each other. “Matt didn’t want us to interfere with it, if we found it,” I said dubiously.

“Gotta make sure there’s no one in there, don’t we? Somebody might be in trouble and need our help.”

“Oh, definitely. We should be sure. We don’t have to touch anything else, right?”

“Right.” Frank strode toward the metal door, with me following closely.

We stopped again when we reached the door. It was closed and didn’t look damaged.

“A five-year-old could open this lock, you know.”

Was I really so transparent? “Then open the door.”

When Frank carefully covered his hand and tried the door, it wasn’t locked. It opened out, and Frank took a cautious step into the interior. He stood still for a moment, and then he stepped forward and beckoned me to follow. I climbed in and stopped beside him.

Silence. There was nobody there. At least, not anyone living. I had never been in a vehicle like this, and under other circumstances I might have admired the compact and efficient use of space. I spied a microwave, a stove top, and a small television with a DVD player set into the wall. But I had other things on my mind. I nudged Frank. “Bathroom?” The presumably tiny bathroom was the only enclosed space and the only part of the vehicle that we couldn’t see from where we stood. I was holding my breath when Frank pulled open the door, and I let it go when I saw that it was empty. There was no one here.

But there had been, and not long ago.

Frank returned to my side and we looked at the small open space. “What’re you thinking?”

“For a start, someone has been here recently. And not just in and out—the surfaces aren’t covered with dust. Out here, it doesn’t take long for dust to accumulate, and this place is anything but airtight.”

“Couple of days, max?” he asked.

“I’d say so. And it looks pretty tidy in here. I’ll have to ask Matt what Alex’s house looked like, but Denis said his office was a mess. So somebody cleaned up?” I realized as I said it that that could be taken in more than one way. Either the place had been occupied for some time by a neatnik, or someone had done a thorough job of removing evidence of . . . something.