Percival Everett - Assumption

“See you back at the office, Ogden,” the sheriff said.

Ogden watched them walk through the now light rain and get into Bucky’s car. He stepped inside the restaurant and looked back through the window as they rolled away.

“Can I get some coffee?” he asked the teenager.

The girl was standing beside the register with the cook. “Was that the girl you were looking for?” she asked.

“No.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Ogden said.

“I’ll get the coffee.”

It took Fragua another five minutes and then the two men were traveling up the slick road in Ogden’s Bronco. The rain had stopped and the fog had thinned considerably.

“No idea who she is?” Warren asked.

“None.”

“All I know is I didn’t drive by anyone on my way up and nobody’s driven down since.”

“How’s the girl?”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“How’s the boy?”

“You mean me?” Ogden asked.

“Yes, you.”

“Shaken up, like you’d expect.”

“I hate guns,” Warren said.

“That’s because you’ve got a brain.”

“Did you notice anything strange when you were in there?” Warren asked.

“Other than the bleeding woman? Nothing. I didn’t even think that I might be in danger until I was headed down the mountain.”

Half an hour up the trail Ogden spotted the blue Bug again. He parked beside it. The men got out and examined the car. Ogden put his hand on the hood; it was cold. He looked under the car and saw that the ground was soaked underneath.

“This spot look flat to you?” Ogden asked.

“Pretty flat.”

This time Ogden approached the cabin with his weapon drawn. Warren had his pistol out as well and they came at the structure wide from either side. The front door was open just as Ogden had left it. They stepped inside.

“Everything looks normal,” Ogden said. “Right down to the big puddle of human blood on the floor.”

“Did you look in this back room?” Warren pointed to a curtain hanging in a doorway.

“Didn’t even see it.”

Warren moved the fabric aside with his pistol and peeked in. “Just a bed.”

“Made or unmade?” Ogden asked.

“No bedding at all.”

“Well, let’s see if we can figure out who’d been living here.”

“I’ll call down and see if Bucky can find out who owns this place.” Warren left and went back to the truck.

Ogden poked around near the sink and cabinets. There were dirty dishes stacked on the counter, two plates and a couple of forks. The residue of eggs and some kind of meat was not dried hard. He sniffed the plastic cups, no alcohol.

He moved over to the long table against the far wall. One of the panes of the window on that wall was cracked, a corner broken out. It looked like old damage.

Warren came back in. “Bucky’s checking on it. Anything?”

“Not yet. I’m going to see if there are any clothes in the bedroom.”

In the bedroom Ogden found a couple of pairs of women’s jeans and a stack of T-shirts. Then he heard a rumble. “Hey, Warren, you hear that?” he asked, stepping back into the main room of the cabin.

“Yeah,” Warren said.

“Shit,” Ogden said running to the door. He got there just as a white van raced by on the muddy road. “Jesus. Warren.”

The men ran to the Bronco and climbed in. Ogden tried to start the engine, but it decided to be uncooperative. “Christ!”

“Just give it a second,” Warren said. Warren got on the radio and told Felton that a white van was about to hit the highway.

Ogden tried again and the engine turned over. He slammed it into reverse and turned around, fishtailing as he turned onto the rutted lane. “Shit, shit, shit,” he said. “We’ll never catch up.”

The Bronco bounced and slipped. Warren put a palm on the ceiling to keep from banging around. When they got down to the restaurant parking lot there was no sign of the van. Ogden skidded to a stop on the gravel and ran into the restaurant.

“Did you see a white van?” he asked the teenager.

“No,” she said.

“Just now?”

“Didn’t see a van.”

Ogden walked back out. Warren was out and looking up and down the highway. Ogden kicked the truck on the front quarter-panel. “Piece of shit,” he said.

Warren ate some piñon nuts, looked up at the sky. “White van, no plate read. Only about a thousand white vans in this county.”

“Did you see anything special about it?”

“No. It was fast.”

“It wasn’t empty,” Ogden said. “It would have skidded out somewhere in that mud if it was empty.”

“That’s probably right. What now?”

“It’s time for me to call Fiona McDonough’s parents in Minnesota. I’m not simply helping a tourist anymore. Of course I only have the tourist’s word that the victim is not Fiona McDonough.”

“The messier things get,” Warren said.

“The messier things get,” Ogden finished.

“So are we driving back up to finish looking around?”

Ogden nodded. “No choice. The state guys will show at some points to take prints. Like that’s going to help anything.”

“You never know. Let’s do it so we can get it done,” Warren said.

Back at the cabin, Ogden left his rig parked across the road. No one would drive by this time. It was a bit of closing the barn door after the cow was out, but he had to do it. They sifted through the cabin again and found little sign that anyone was actually living there. The ashes in the stove were long cold and there were few of them. Dust was on most things, including the floor, but there had been traffic.

“A meeting place?” Warren asked.

“Could be.” Ogden went into the back room. He looked at the bed. “A nookie nest?”

“A bit out of the way. But I guess that’s the point. Married man? Girlfriend going to tell, bang.”

“Pretty disgusting. The mattress is clear of dust. Lots of traffic around the bed.”

“True.”

“Whose place is this? These magazines are six years old.”

“Like my bathroom,” Warren said.

“ Newsweek, Time, Southwest Fly Fishing. What do you say we drive up to the lake? For the hell of it.”

“Why not?”

They drove the track all the way to the lake and as they expected with all the mud and mess there was no one there. Warren pointed out the fishing had been off for years, said the locals blamed it on the tailings from the Moly mine.

“Probably true,” Ogden said. “At least it’s closed now.”

“Too little too late.”

Ogden sat in the driver’s seat with the door open. He called in and got Felton on the radio. “You got any word on that woman?”

“She’s not dead, but she’d not good. That’s what they’re telling us. They wanted to move her to Santa Fe, but they didn’t think she’d make the helicopter ride.”

“Is Caitlin there?”

“Left a few minutes ago. Sheriff drove her to her motel.”

“Thanks. Out.”

“Very good. You remembered to say out, ” Warren said.

“Crisis and all that.”

Ogden and Fragua drove back down the mountain. No other cars had found their way up to the cabin. Ogden wondered if the state police would send a crime scene team up as early as tomorrow. He didn’t think they would turn up anything useful, but it was a matter of principle and procedure. There had been a crime, a woman had been shot, maybe to death, and somebody ought to find it urgent enough to drive up from Santa Fe. It wasn’t far.

It was near dusk when Ogden parked in front of the sheriff’s station. Warren parked beside him. They walked inside and found Bucky there waiting.

“Well, it’s a murder investigation now,” Paz said. “She died fifteen minutes ago.”