Percival Everett - Assumption

“Nothing. She just said she was in trouble, but I knew from the way she acted that Christina was dead. I told her that and she finally told me I was right.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I was afraid to.”

Ogden looked around the house one more time. There was a lot of stuff, but it was all old. The curtains were dingy. There was dust on the surfaces. Ogden had seen it before. There had been money. Now there was none.

“What kind of doctor was your husband?”

“He was a podiatrist.”

Ogden nodded. “I’m sorry about your daughter.”

“Will you be able to help Carla?”

“I’m going to try.”

Ogden didn’t like the feeling of being lied to or of not trusting people. He didn’t feel threatened by Mrs. Douglass, but he did not like her affect. He couldn’t tell whether she had Carla’s best interest at heart and, if she didn’t, was she telling the truth about no one coming around looking for her? What was clear was that the money that three women had so far died for was still in the woods of New Mexico and Ogden believed that Carla was on her way to retrieve it. Mrs. Douglass apparently wanted a share of it; this was a sad thing. Ogden was quiet when he rejoined Warren in the truck.

“Where to now? Seattle?”

“What do you say we go home?”

“What happened in there?”

“She told me Carla left for Questa yesterday.”

“But you don’t believe her.”

“I believe her,” Ogden said.

The drive back to New Mexico was nicely boring but especially long because home was at the other end of it. Ogden dropped Warren at his house and then went to his own to shower and sleep for a couple of hours. He awoke at five and watched first light find the tops of the mountains to the east. He ate some dry cereal, drank a cup of coffee, and waited until six to call Bucky Paz’s house.

“Sorry to call so early,” Ogden said.

“I had to get up anyway to answer the phone,” Bucky said. “Are you okay? How’s that shoulder?”

“I’m fine.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m driving back up to Questa this morning. Leaving in a few minutes.”

“Taking Warren?”

“I’ve wasted enough of everybody’s time. I’m just going to look around. I really doubt I’m going find anyone or anything.” Ogden hated lying.

“All right, but be careful. Check in.”

“You got it.”

Ogden hung up the phone and went to his lockbox. He opened it and pulled put his 9mm and holster. He told himself he didn’t like guns. He felt the weight of the pistol in his hand, checked the clip, and pulled back the slide. He carried the pistol out to his rig and put it on the seat next to him. He then drove north.

The restaurant at the bottom of the road that led up to the Douglass cabin was still closed. There had been no rain for a couple of days and so the dirt road showed no obvious sign. He studied it for a while, trying to discern a track that might have been different from the usual pickup or dually, but he was not only wasting his time, but stalling.

Ogden stopped about a quarter mile from the bend in the road next to the cabin. He got out, took his pistol from its holster, and walked the rest of the way. Patches of fog hung in the firs.

There was a flash of white through the trees. He crouched low and approached. There was a white van parked in front of the cabin. Beside the van was a red mid-seventies Cadillac. He thought about running back to his truck, but recalled the truck had no radio in it. He felt the pressure of time. He pulled out his cell phone and, as he suspected, there was no signal.

There was no one near the vehicles. He crept up behind the van and looked inside. It could have been the one he’d been inside in Denver, but he didn’t know. He could see that the Cadillac was empty as well. He walked up to the house, his years of MP training in the service coming back to him. He glanced in through a side window and saw no one. He circled the house and satisfied himself that it was empty. Then he did what he had been trained to do. He did nothing. He squatted and listened. He moved through the woods and stopped again. Again. Then he smelled cigarette smoke. Voices came next, floating on the thin air. The sounds came from the stream that flowed through the woods down the mountain to finally join with the Red River. He sneaked through the trees, dragging his boots through the damp ground cover to be quiet. He heard a woman’s voice, then a man’s. The man’s voice was angry or at least harsh. He could not make out what was being said. He moved closer and saw them. Three people. Two men and a woman standing by an old shed, a derelict structure set high on the bank beside the stream. The sun was cracking the clouds and beginning to penetrate the forest. Ogden could see that one of the men indeed had only one hand and in it he held a revolver instead of a hammer. The other man grunted and worked, digging and scrapping under the shed. From under the shed’s floorboards he pulled a box. The second man was not as big as the man with one hand, but he looked plenty rough. His hands were filled with the box, so at least he was not holding a gun.

“Is that it?” One Hand asked.

The second man removed the lid and looked. “Money.”

“Is it all here?” he asked the woman.

The woman looked strange in the woods, out of place in her bright yellow, spaghetti-strapped sundress.

Ogden studied them. He had a thought to go back to the cabin and wait, but then thought better. If they planned to kill Carla Reynolds, they would do it there, deep in the woods. He moved closer, found a nice fat tree, and put himself behind it. He raised his weapon and pointed it at the man with one hand.

“Would you please drop the pistol!” he shouted, feeling a pang of embarrassment at his politeness.

“What the fuck?” One Hand said.

“Now!” Ogden shouted.

The man raised his weapon, finally seeing Ogden’s arm.

“Now!”

Ogden fired. He’d never liked the 9mm. It just didn’t have the stopping power of a.45, but he caught the man in the upper right chest and he went down fast. He moved from behind the tree. The second man had dropped the box and held his hands ridiculously high above his head.

“Don’t shoot,” the second man said.

“Facedown!” Ogden shouted. The man quickly complied. “You, too,” he said to the woman. “Get down.” He pointed the pistol at her. “Facedown.”

Ogden stepped slowly closer. The man with one hand was lying faceup in a shallow part of the stream. Ogden could see he was alive. He picked up the.38 and stood there for a few seconds, collecting himself, trying to bring his pulse down.

Ogden patted down the man on the ground and satisfied himself that he was not armed. “Okay, stupid,” he said to the man. “You get up and carry your buddy.”

“Carry him?”

“Over your shoulder.” He told the woman to get up. “You, grab the box.”

Ogden followed ten paces behind them as they all marched through the woods back to the cabin. About thirty yards from the cabin Ogden saw movement and then the big shape of Bucky Paz. Ogden called to him and then he saw Warren as well.

“You okay?” Bucky called out.

Ogden realized that firing his pistol had aggravated his injured shoulder and suddenly, the adrenaline worn off, it ached terribly. “I’m fine. Never better.”

Ogden was sitting in the kitchen in his mother’s house. His arm was again in a sling. She had placed a sizeable breakfast on the table in front of him and was demanding that he eat. He ate a few bites and put down his fork.

“Twelve thousand dollars,” he said.

Eva Walker said nothing.

“Three lives for twelve thousand dollars. I mean, I just can’t wrap my mind around it. I guess it wasn’t about the money.”