Percival Everett - The Body of Martin Aguilera

“Do you know where your father is right now?”

“At work.”

“Can you tell me where he’s working?”

She leaned against the door and rubbed her temple. “He’s—” She thought while she spoke. “—putting a roof on a barn. That’s what he told me.”

“Where?”

She sighed. “I think he’s over at San Luis. A man named Rubens, something like that.”

“Thank you,” Lewis said. “You have a very good memory.”

The girl smiled weakly, unimpressed by the flattery, and started to close the door.

“Could you call your dog?” Lewis asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Mala.” The dog ran by Lewis and into the house. She closed the door without another word or look.

Mala , Lewis thought as he got into his truck, Spanish for bad. He wanted to get Mala the dog and take it to see Doctor Peabody.

Lewis knew the Rubens place. It was a small ranch. He drove by pastured cattle with yellow ear-tags. Calves trotted after their mothers. Lewis could see where men were working on a barn.

Ignacio was on top, trying to line up a new piece of tin against an old seam. Lewis waved up to him, but Ignacio didn’t wave back. He did not seem pleased to see Lewis.

Ignacio scooted across the roof to the ladder and climbed down. “Hello, Lewis,” he said. “What brings you out here?”

“I’m looking for you.”

“Yes?” Ignacio unhitched his leather tool belt and let it rest over the side of the pickup bed.

Lewis let out a deep breath. “I don’t even know how to start this.”

Ignacio looked at him and seemed to anticipate the subject. “Then don’t,” he said and he turned away just as Salvador had.

“My friend Maggie has been kidnapped. I know how this sounds. I don’t really believe it myself, but it’s true. She’s been taken.”

“By who? Who took her?” Ignacio turned and faced him.

Lewis shook his head. “Ignacio, I don’t know who they are.” He felt a tear on his cheek. Ignacio was staring at it. “They want Martin’s body.”

Again, Ignacio turned away.

“I talked to Salvador and he sent me to talk to you. I’m so sorry. I’m sick about it. If there was any other way, I wouldn’t be here.”

“We let you see Martin and you said that would be it.”

“I know. What can I say? They say they’ll kill her, if I don’t give them the body.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Ignacio.”

“I can’t even talk about it.”

Lewis was sick of begging. “Fine, Ignacio, great. Save your soul by not talking about the dead, but be damned for letting someone die. Think about it.”

Ignacio said nothing, picked up his tool belt and fastened it around his waist. He was looking at the ground as he turned away.

“One other thing,” Lewis said. “Maybe you can do this.”

Ignacio looked at him.

“Switch trucks with me. Mine has a full tank and I’ll fill yours.”

“Keys are in it.”

Lewis thanked him. He took the beat up truck and drove to town and out the other side. Since it didn’t look like he was going to get Martin’s body, he decided to try the state police.

Lewis went over the things he might say to the state police when he got to Santa Fe. All of it sounded wild and unbelievable. Burns on dead bodies and kidnapping and vets who weren’t vets. He thought about Manny and remembered his looking the other way and filing the drowning report. Manny he knew to be a good man. If they could get to him, they could get to the state police. Maybe they had something on Manny personally. Maybe they kidnapped someone close to him. Lewis watched the yellow line of the highway flash by. He’d have to try the state police. He was out of options.

At the police headquarters, Lewis parked in the first spot in the lot he saw, hoping the walk to the building would steady him. A man and woman came through the door with a teenage boy with a bandage on the side of his face. A Mutt and Jeff team of patrolmen got into a car. A cluster of patrolmen stood laughing a few yards away from the door. One spat tobacco juice into the bushes.

Lewis entered. The station was clean, almost antiseptic, he thought. He realized he had little reason or opportunity in his life to be in police stations. It wasn’t what he expected. A woman at a desk with striking green eyes asked Lewis if he needed help.

“Yes, I’d like to file a missing person report.” He hoped he was saying it right. “Actually, I think it’s a kidnapping. Do I talk to the same person?” He felt himself breaking up. At least he didn’t like the way he sounded.

The woman’s too-green eyes showed sympathy. “Have a seat here, Mr.?”

“Mason.” He sat beside her desk in the seat she had indicated.

She picked up the phone and asked for a sergeant. She hung up. “I’ll get a call back in a second,” she said.

Lewis nodded.

“Can I get you anything? Coffee? There’re doughnuts over on that table.” She pointed.

“Thank you.” Lewis was hungry. “I think I will have a doughnut.” He got up and went to the table. He looked over the selection, then up and out the large window.

Parked in the lot was a brown van. Lewis rationalized that there were many brown vans around. This one was parked with the patrol cars. He picked up a glazed doughnut and took a bite. He remembered the van which had driven past him on the street in front of the restaurant that day. He remembered that he could not make out the tag because of the dirt. He tossed what he was eating into the can by the table and went back to the green-eyed woman.

“Where is the men’s room?” he asked.

She pointed.

He didn’t go to the restroom. He left the building and made a wide circle in the parking lot to get a view of the rear plate of the van. It wasn’t a New Mexico tag, he knew that, but he could not make it out. Because of the dirt. He found himself wanting to run, but he walked back to Ignacio’s truck and drove away.

Lewis stopped at a restaurant in Española. The tables were in booths that wore facades of old west town places; the livery, the saloon, the barber shop. The hostess sat him in the undertaker’s.

He ordered a hamburger, a lame attempt at convincing himself he was somewhere else. The sandwich came with green chiles on it. He was especially glad now that he had exchanged his truck for Ignacio’s. He never imagined he could be so afraid. Once, while at a conference in Chicago, a man had pointed a gun at him and demanded his money. He was scared then, but it was a simple matter of handing over the cash. There were too many unknowns here. Maybe if he had some idea of why Martin had been killed in the first place, he could have found more purchase.

He thought of Maggie. Was she really all right? Was she alive? Hurt? Blindfolded? Did Peabody think they knew more than they did? He could hear Maggie’s smart ass remarks flying. Perhaps that would amuse them enough that they wouldn’t just hurt to relieve the boredom. He’d had three bites of the burger, but could eat no more.

He would leave here and go to see Manny. He knew Manny had to be getting tired of this stuff. And he’d have to do something once he learned that Cyril Peabody had admitted to Lewis that he had abducted Maggie.

The waitress came and topped his iced tea and he asked for the check.

Unlike the state police headquarters, the county sheriff’s office had no cars, patrol or otherwise, parked in its lot. Lewis walked in to find Flora, the heavy dispatcher and secretary alone at her desk, eating a packaged snack-cake.

She wiped her mouth daintily with a handkerchief. “May I help you?” she asked.

“Is the sheriff in?”

“He’s on patrol.” She looked at the clock. “He should be back at three, but I can call him.”