Snake in the Glass

by Sarah Atwell

  “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.

  Chapter 22

  The reflection of light from the surface of a gem has been described as adamantine, metallic, greasy, waxy, and pearly.

  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 j
ob of removing evidence of . . . something.

  As I shoved that unpleasant thought out of my head, I looked around again. “No electric wires. What keeps this place going?”

  “Built-in generator, runs off the gas tank. Looks like this has been here for a bit, so whoever was using it wanted to have all the comforts of home. And he probably kept his power use low.” Frank gestured toward a propane lamp on a shelf. “There’ll be a water tank too. Pretty sweet little setup, actually.”

  I wandered over to the tiny refrigerator, which wasn’t running, and opened it with one finger. Inside I found several jugs of water and not much else. Opening a cupboard with the same one-finger technique, I saw cans and packages of pasta and quick meals-in-a-bag, and a couple of rolls of toilet paper. This was definitely a bachelor hangout, and if someone spent time here, he probably went into one or another of the nearest towns for real food. Assuming, of course, that he had a car. Nobody would walk this far, not in Arizona, unless they were desperate.

  Nothing I saw screamed “clue” at me. No bodies, no blood, no weapons. Maybe I should be looking at what wasn’t there—starting with people, Cam in particular. I didn’t see anything that looked like my brother’s computer, and that spurred another question. “Frank, if there’s a generator, would that be enough to power a computer? A laptop, anyway?”

  “Sure. Nobody travels without a computer these days, right?”

  “But there isn’t one here, in any case.” I scanned chair backs, hooks—anyplace that might be used by a guy to drape something and forget it: nothing. “Frank, what does this look like to you? The place is clean and tidy. There’s no fresh food and no clothes.”

  “Looks to me like somebody came along and took any and all of the personal stuff.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. I agree. It all looks perfectly innocent—but it looks too good. What the heck are we dealing with here?” I tried to picture myself explaining to one or more law enforcement types that I was suspicious because the RV was too tidy. That would go over really well.

  I was running out of ideas. Cam, if you were here, can you send me a message or something?

  I opened a few more cabinets, and then I got lucky: there was a plastic wastebasket tucked in one of them, under the sink. I pulled it out slowly and peered in: fresh plastic bag, empty, but stuck to the side of the container there were a couple of pieces of torn paper. “You have a handkerchief, Frank?”

  Like a good Boy Scout he fished out a clean handkerchief and handed it to me. I covered my hand, reached into the trash container, and pulled out a piece of paper with writing on it.

  I recognized the writing: Cam’s.

  The flood of mingled relief and fear that swept through me then was almost nauseating. My brilliant deductive reasoning had been right: this had been Alex’s desert camp, and he had brought Cam here. Cam had been here. But now Cam was not here, and it looked as though somebody had gone to some length to conceal that he ever had been. That scared me.

  “What’ve you got?” Frank’s voice startled me.

  “It’s Cam’s handwriting. He must have been working here at some point—this looks like some kind of calculation—so that pretty much fits what we figured out. But then he left . . . with or without help.”

  I looked around me at the too-tidy space and wrapped my arms around myself. “Frank, before we get ahead of ourselves, can you take a look around the place, outside, see if anybody was kind enough to leave us footprints?”

  “Right.” Frank stepped carefully out of the RV, studying the ground, then moved off in a clockwise direction. I looked around inside again and considered my options. Which were pretty close to none. There were no clues of any value that I could see. I assumed the proper authorities would be able to “see” better and could look for fingerprints and other things. Cam had not left a neatly signed note saying “Help! I have been abducted by thugs! Please send assistance to . . .” It was time to call in the big guns and let them do their stuff.

  I stepped down from the RV and pulled out my cell phone. It was fully charged, but it got no signal at all, which did not surprise me. It also confirmed my suspicion that Cam couldn’t have called me even if he’d wanted to. And obviously, he hadn’t had his car, so he couldn’t have driven to a phone—or someplace with a Wi-Fi connection. He could conceivably have walked the few miles back to the highway and sought help. But how long would it have taken him to decide that he needed help?

  I could picture him here, nursing his wounded heart, distracting himself by digging into whatever modeling problem Alex had handed him. I could imagine him losing all sense of time. After all, he had food, water, and enough power to run his beloved computer, right? What more did he need? Maybe after a few days, when he had finished whatever he had to do, or Alex had missed a scheduled rendezvous—because he was dead—Cam would have begun to worry, a little. How long would he have waited before setting off to find civilization? And how quickly had he been interrupted by . . . who? Alex was dead, and Denis didn’t know where the RV was. Had Alex given someone information about where to find it? And had that information included the fact that Cam was there? Or was it purely coincidental that someone had stumbled on the RV? Or had Cam cleaned up before heading out and then gotten waylaid? Or worse, lost?

  Frank came back. “Nothing like usable footprints, but it looks like one guy came, two guys left.”

  “It didn’t look like one of them was resisting, or possibly being dragged?” When Frank shook his head, I went on. “I guess it’s time to call Matt. He’ll know who should cover this. I’m not even sure what county we’re in. My cell phone doesn’t get a signal out here, so we’ve got to go back to Oracle.” The town could be counted on to have working telephones and cell phone service.

  We drove back in silence as I mulled over what I wanted to say to Matt. Oracle turned out to be a nice sleepy town. I knew it had become something of a bedroom community for Tucson, since it was just under forty miles away (although I much preferred my commute, which could be measured in feet), and I seemed to remember something about an Oracle Pumpkin Festival.

  When I finally found a signal, I punched in Matt’s cell, and he answered quickly. “What’ve you got?”

  I matched terse with terse. “We found the RV, outside of Oracle. Nobody home, but it looks like somebody worked hard to tidy it up. No dust, no mess. If this was Alex’s home away from home, there should have been junk lying around. There’s nothing personal there at all.” I swallowed. “Matt—I found something with Cam’s handwriting on it. I’m pretty sure he was there.”

  Matt’s sigh echoed over the ether. “Pinal County. Figures. Okay, I’ll get the ball rolling. Can you find someplace in town to sit tight until I get there?”

  “Will do. See you soon. And, Matt? Can you hurry?”

  Chapter 23

  Cleopatra’s famous emeralds may actually have been peridot.

  Matt called my cell phone when he arrived in Oracle and met us at the pizzeria where Frank and I had taken refuge. He dropped into a chair and ordered a cold drink before asking, without preamble, “Where is it?”

  “A couple of miles outside of town, to the west. It’s back in an arroyo, so you can’t see it until you’re pretty much on top of it. Who are we waiting for?”

  “The rest of the troops are coming. They had to do some song and dance about who’s in charge. I just gave them the general outline and told them to meet me here. You okay?”

  “Good enough. FYI, I found the papers with Cam’s writing on them in the wastebasket under the sink. Before you ask, I didn’t touch them directly, and I left them where I found them. We didn’t mess with anything else except to make sure no one was hiding in the bathroom. Frank looked around outside and found some footprints. Matt, I know it doesn’t seem like much, but like I said, the RV is just too clean. If this was Alex’s place, I would have expected junk lying around. How does that match up with Alex’s home?”

  “Night and day,” he said absen
tly. “Frank, you get anything that Em missed?”

  “I would have missed the ‘clean’ part.” He grinned. “Outside? People have been around, not too long ago. Still plenty of gas for the generator, and water in the tank. Nothing out of place.”

  Matt’s eyes were on a Pima County sheriff’s vehicle that had pulled up outside behind his cruiser, followed shortly by a Pinal County one. “Show’s about to start. Frank, you can guide us out to the site. But, Em, I think you ought to stay out of this—go back to Tucson.”

  “Go back and tend to my knitting while the big boys do all the work?” I said, angry even though I knew it was unreasonable.

  “You know I don’t mean it like that. But this is going to get crowded, fast, and the fewer civilians, the better. I will pass on that you identified the writing as your brother’s and that there is good reason to believe that he was there. But it’s going to be bad enough just explaining what you were doing there.”

  I was pissed, but I knew that he was right: I’d only get in the way. “All right,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. I stood up. “See you later, if you aren’t too busy.” I stalked away before Matt could say anything else, or before I said something I would regret.

  On the drive back toward Tucson, all by my lonesome, I wondered just what I could do now. I’d been doing my part, giving everything I found to the right authorities. What did that leave me with? Not much.

  What advantage did I have? I knew Cam, although a lovelorn Cam might not act exactly normally. And . . . I had Denis’s confidence. He had come to me when he was scared. I had counseled him to come clean to the cops, and he had. Could I use that trust?

  The police had searched Denis’s and Alex’s homes and offices. But had they really “looked” at them the way I had looked at the RV? I had noticed how clean the RV was—and that was not typical of a bachelor like Alex. So maybe, just maybe, I could find something that they’d missed at Denis’s. It was the best—or more like the only—idea I had at the moment.