Steven Havill - Prolonged Exposure

“Yes, sir.”

“Estelle and I are in three ten. Francis knows that, and so does the sheriff. If something breaks, give us a call. Otherwise, keep it quiet.”

Ernie Wheeler nodded and glanced up at the clock. The philosophical expression on his face told me that he knew it was going to be a long night.

I left the office and returned to the car. Estelle was sitting there, with her head leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed.

“Steinberg says that the RV belongs to Paul Cole’s brother-in-law,” I said as I got into the car.

“That means Cole’s in town.”

“There’s a possibility that he heard about the search and just drove down here from Wyoming, direct.”

“Not likely,” Estelle said. “That RV has been there for a number of days. If Cole was helping the search teams, we’d have met him by now.” She shook her head, eyes still closed. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “If he’s here, he doesn’t want to be noticed.”

She held up the cellular phone that had been in her lap. “Let’s go take their places apart. Both houses and the RV. There’s got to be something that will help us establish a connection. Judge Hobart has a warrant waiting for us.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline, a buzz about equal to ten cups of coffee, as I started the car and pulled it into gear. “It’s a good thing I was driving. If I’d been another couple of minutes longer, you’d have gone on over there without me.”

Estelle didn’t smile.

We stopped by Judge Lester Hobart’s home on MacArthur, and Estelle was inside for only a minute before she reappeared with the folded paper in hand. Minutes later, we were westbound on Bustos and then turned right on Fifth Street.

The streets were November-quiet, the sort of peace that descended at 5:00 P.M., when the sun set, and persisted until dawn the next day. No parties, no loud music, no barking dogs. Folks were practicing hibernation, preparing for our three weeks of winter in January.

Tiffany Cole’s sedan was parked in the driveway of 392 North Fifth. Andy Browers’s truck and camper weren’t. I slowed down as we approached, letting 310 drift along the curb, lights out. Several lights were on in the house, including the light over the front door.

“Browers’s truck is up at his house,” Estelle said. She pointed up the street. Sure enough, just three houses beyond the intersection the big GMC with the camper was pulled into the driveway. “Let’s visit here first.”

Her choice of the word visit had an ominous ring.

She got out of the car. I grabbed my large black flashlight, the only weapon I had with me, and followed. As she walked past Tiffany’s Chevy, she touched the hood lightly. “This has been here awhile,” she said.

The porch light was on. We stepped up to the front door and Estelle rang the doorbell. I could hear the chimes inside, a happy little sequence of notes that probably meant something to a listener with half a musical ear. She pushed the button again. The house was tomb-quiet.

“Stay here, and let me circle around back.”

Estelle nodded, and I stepped off the porch and made my way around the side of the house. The place was tidy, with nothing to trip over-no toys, no tricycles, no sandbox. It was as if the house had been dropped neatly into a quarter acre of perfect grass and nothing else had ever been done.

Around back, there were no trees, no interior fencing, just evenly clipped grass. I opened the back screen door and tried the knob. I expected it to be locked, and I almost lost my balance when the door swung open easily. “Whoa,” I said softly. I stood to one side and pushed the door open with the flashlight, letting the beam jump around the inside of the room.

The back door opened directly into the kitchen, and I realized I was looking at a floor plan nearly identical with the Guzmans’. That shouldn’t have surprised me, since much of the western half of Posadas had been built during the heyday of Consolidated Mining, and tract housing was the most efficient way to go-a generic house, plopped on a slab of concrete.

I stepped into the kitchen, found the light switch, and turned it on. On the kitchen table were the remains of what looked like dog food on a blue plastic plate. Half a plastic cup of milk stood beside it, along with a plastic fork.

Nothing else was on the kitchen counter-no knife or spoon or bowl or box of cereal, no toaster or blender or dishes on the drain-board, nothing. The fake wooden butcher-block pattern of the countertop was clean and dry.

I pivoted in place, looking at the kitchen. The floor was as clean as everything else. I walked from kitchen to dining room, pausing only to touch each light switch with the lip of the flashlight. I could just as well have been walking through a house that had never been occupied.

Tiffany Cole was a hell of a housekeeper, I mused, but the house was more than just tidy. The living room was as neat as something out of a catalog, and just as impersonal.

I walked to the front door and unlocked it. “Bizarre place,” I said. “No one home, no sign of anyone being home, with the exception of the kitchen.”

She stepped inside, and if humans had hackles, hers were up. Her eyes narrowed and her lower jaw thrust forward ever so slightly. She repeated the tour I had taken, but as I watched her silently peruse the house, I noticed that she ignored anything in the upper half of each room. The floor, the furniture, the lower portions of each wall-that’s what she examined, until finally she stood in the kitchen.

“That looks gross,” I said. “Whatever it is.”

Estelle didn’t answer, just stood in place, looking down at the plate, fork, and cup. “Did you check under the sink?” she asked after a moment.

“No.”

The cabinetry was the inexpensive oak style that didn’t have knobs, and Estelle slipped the tip of her pen under the edge and swung the door open. The trash can had a plastic liner, and she slipped the pen under the can’s rim and pulled it out. “Best of Texas brand corned beef hash,” she said, and pushed the trash can back under the sink. “And that’s all that’s in the trash bag, too, sir.”

She saw where my eyes were looking and nodded agreement. I nudged the refrigerator open. Somehow I wasn’t surprised. “This is what you see in those appliance catalog ads for refrigerators,” I said. “The unit that’s standing with the door open so you can see the shelves inside? All the food perfectly arranged by size, color, type.” I nudged the carton of milk. It was nearly empty.

I let the door close. “Estelle, were I to walk through this house any other time, without knowing who lived here, I would be willing to bet a week’s pay-hell, make it a year’s pay-that no child lived here.”

Estelle’s lower lip was trembling. “Bedrooms?” She led the way, but we found only more of the same. The master bedroom contained a queen-sized bed, a nightstand and lamp, a chest of drawers, and a clock. That was it.

The carpet was so clean, you could see the streaks from the vacuum cleaner where the pile had been stroked by the brushes. The closet included a neat row of clothing that I assumed belonged to Tiffany and Andy Browers, neatly ironed, neatly hung. And there wasn’t much there, maybe half a dozen shirts and an equal number of blouses or dresses.

Estelle reached out and touched a neat, tight pack of empty hangers at the end of the rod.

“Maybe,” I said.

The smaller bedroom, where I would have assumed Cody Cole slept, included a single bed, a chest of drawers, a floor lamp, and a pillow with the New Mexico Zia symbol embroidered on the cover.

The closet contained a winter jacket and a single pair of shoes. The chest of drawers was empty.