Missing White Girl

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “Now you’re an artist, Estevanico?” Alvar asked him.

  “Perhaps I always have been,” Estevan replied with a grin. “But I never had such a subject before, or such a perfect stone to carve. It’s as if she hides inside, just waiting for me to bring her out.”

  “Where did you come by it?”

  “Here, in the camp. Like it was biding its time here until we came.”

  “And when we move on tomorrow, what then? Will you carry it on your back?”

  “Señor Castillo has already taken care of that,” Estevananswered. “He is showing some of the Indians how to make wooden wheels. There are trees here tall enough to form planks from. By midmorning at the latest, I will have a cart, and a ramp to load her onto it. Many hands make the work go fast.”

  Alvar simply shrugged and went into the hut. Estevan had it all figured out, it seemed. He had an answer for everything, and he had charmed his own master into helping in his crazy scheme.

  Alvar only hoped that it was a scheme they would all survive.

  DAY TWO

  1

  The fact that Buck’s sleep proved unsettled and restless didn’t change the time that his alarm went off. He rolled from bed, glancing back at Tammy’s stationary, blanketed mound. She rose later and later these days, unlike earlier times when she would already have been out milking and gathering eggs. He thought the changes in her had started after Trey’s death, but maybe it had been more gradual than that and he just hadn’t noticed. She still hadn’t moved by the time he had showered and dressed, only the steady rise and fall of the blankets giving any proof of life.

  His ranch, the Circle S, sprawled largely in the shadow of the Mule Mountains, so daybreak took longer to hit than it did for the rest of the valley. From the window over the sink, though, as Buck ran water into a coffeepot, he saw Aurelio out at the barn with the ranch’s white Ford F-350. He left the pot on the yellow-tiled counter and walked out through the kitchen door.

  Aurelio’s age was something more than sixty, but he seemed unsure himself, or unwilling to say if he did know. He had worked for the ranch since Buck’s father owned it, before it had been split between Buck and his older sister. As if he knew even before she announced it that she would sell her share and move to Las Vegas with her dentist husband, Aurelio had offered to work for Buck on his piece. Buck had taken all of twelve seconds before agreeing, and had never regretted his decision.

  Aurelio wore a straw cowboy hat that had been crushed and stained and stepped on, but was as much a part of him as the apple-round cheeks that squeezed his eyes into narrow slits and the white stubble that dusted his jaw like a light snowfall. A blue denim jacket provided a layer of warmth, but it would come off, Buck knew, as soon as the sun’s presence was more than a few stray beams breaking through a pewter sky. Aurelio carried a bale of green hay toward the back of the pickup, walking with bowed legs on heel-worn work boots. When he saw Buck come out, he nodded and grinned.

  “That pasture is pretty used up?” he said. His sentences often rose at the end like questions, but he didn’t expect an answer. “I’m gonna move ’em over a little.” In Arizona, a free-range state, Buck wasn’t required to keep his cattle fenced at all. Anyone who didn’t want Buck’s herd or someone else’s on his land had to fence them out. Buck preferred to keep them contained, however, and to fence off separate pastures so he had some control over where they grazed. The sixty-some animals had been confined in one pasture for a little more than a month and had denuded the grasses there. But the next pasture over hadn’t been grazed all year, and although a drought had kept the state drier than usual for a decade, the grass had responded well to the summer monsoon, growing tall and thick. Aurelio didn’t have to tell him his plans in any detail; the two men had worked together and discussed their strategy long enough to know what each other had in mind.

  As much as Buck’s cattle liked fresh grass, they were completely enamored of green hay. They would follow a truck bed full of it all the way to the Pacific Ocean if they could, so even working alone, Aurelio should be able to move them through the gate onto the next range. He might come back to the stable, a low brick building on the other side of a wood-fenced corral from the barn, to get a horse if he needed to chase down some stragglers, or to track down any calves who had wandered away from the herd and gotten snagged in mesquite or trapped in a deep wash. Whatever he had to do he would, and by the time Buck came home tonight the herd would have been successfully moved.

  Like all ranchers, Buck had hoped that his son, Trey, would want to take over the ranch when he couldn’t work it any longer, and he had steeled himself against the probability that Trey would have other plans. That decision had been made by other forces: a stray bullet and bad timing. The fact that they would never even have the conversation broke Buck’s heart every time he thought about it.

  “Sounds good,” he said simply.

  “Oh, and that pregnant cow? I think she’s about due.”

  “Cut her out and bring her down to the barn, then,” Buck said. “Keep an eye on her. Most likely we’ll be up all night again.”

  “They never want to calve during the day, that’s for sure?”

  “It’s a plot. Keep us exhausted so they can take over the world someday.”

  “They already think they own it,” Aurelio said, laughing. He would stick around. He had never married, and lived in a cabin on the far side of the stable, one of the ranch’s original structures from the late 1890s, that he had retrofitted with insulation, electricity and running water. He had a satellite for his TV, a library card from the Copper Queen Library in Bisbee, and a couple of prostitutes down in Nogales he visited occasionally, and he didn’t seem to want much else out of life.

  Buck shared the laugh. “That’s a fact.”

  Sitting at his desk with a white Superman mug of coffee steaming close at hand and the whistle of the wind outside, Buck read over the initial report from the forensics inspectors in Bisbee. The coffee was made from beans he bought over in Bisbee, French roast, strong and aromatic. Its smell relaxed him just as much as too many cups would wire him, and after a largely sleepless night he needed some of that wiring to keep him focused as he worked through the dense pages.

  The report contained—unfortunately, he thought—no major surprises. The boys had been killed by their knife wounds, Hugh and Manuela by bullets fired from a .38. The report suggested that his earlier conclusion—that the boys had come first—was correct. The killer hadn’t wanted to risk awakening the parents, so he had done the boys with the quiet weapon. By the time he reached the master bedroom, he was no longer worried about making noise—and they were more capable of fighting back effectively at close quarters—so he’d pulled the gun.

  What about Lulu, though? Maybe he had started with her, binding her in some way so she wouldn’t be a threat. Finished off the rest of her family, then drove away. Tire tracks the rain hadn’t completely washed away belonged to a full-sized truck. Wrangler AT/S. The tracks had been compared to the Lavenders’ truck and to known delivery vehicles, with no matches. Didn’t mean it was the killer’s—pickups were as common as houseflies around the region—but it was better than nothing.

  If he had taken Lulu out first, then it indicated that she was the prime target. Buck had wondered about that anyway—why kill everyone except her, if the goal all along wasn’t to take her alive? No one had survived to pay any ransom, not that the Lavenders would have been able to afford much anyway. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of a sexual predator, but he had to consider it.

  The footprints outside the house hadn’t matched any of the family members either. But Scoot’s photos weren’t much good, since he hadn’t put anything in the frame for size comparison. And the rain had hit before he’d made casts, so the prints were pretty much a dead end.

  Unknown fingerprints had been found at various spots inside the house, but not necessarily in places the killer would have touched. Once they had a suspect
in custody, the prints might help place him at the crime scene, but by themselves they meant nothing.

  The report had come fast, less than twenty-four hours from the time the FI team had arrived at the scene. As Sheriff Gatlin had said, until they had a crime scene for the Lippincott kidnapping, the quadruple murder was Forensics’ biggest priority. While Buck appreciated the speed, the uselessness of the sheaf of papers depressed him. He knew life was not like television, but he hadn’t been able to keep from hoping that something in the report would point at a specific perpetrator.

  Since that hadn’t happened, he would have to do some real investigating. He still kind of liked the neighbor for it. New in town, relatively, and there hadn’t been any major homicides on his road before he’d come. Plus he drove back and forth to school with Lulu on a semiregular basis. Maybe something had happened there, some teacher/student affair that had turned bad. Buck would have to find out a little more about him, and maybe check that shed behind his house.

  2

  “Oliver Bowles works for you?”

  “That’s correct,” Franklin Hinckley said. “I chair the environmental sciences department here.” Brightly lit by a bank of overhead fluorescents, Hinckley’s office, from its gray speckled linoleum floor tiles to the visible edges of the bookcase, was virtually spotless. Posters and topographic maps covered two walls, and a bookcase, stuffed so full that some books lay sideways on top of the others, filled the third. The fourth was mostly window. Hinckley had stationed his desk in front of the window, facing the door, so that Buck sat in a visitor’s chair with Hinckley practically silhouetted in front of him. Made it hard to read the man’s face. Buck guessed it wasn’t accidental.

  “And what exactly does he teach?”

  “Environmental Sciences 103,” Hinckley said without looking it up. “Studies of Human Impact. Also a class on the natural history of the San Pedro River, which is one of his specialties.”

  “Two classes? That’s it?”

  “He’s new,” Hinckley replied. “He wanted some time to himself so he could work on a paper, or I guess maybe a book, about the San Pedro. So yes, at this point he’s part-time faculty.”

  Buck nodded, in case Hinckley wanted to elaborate further. He seemed like the kind of man who, if Buck could find the right button, might say more than he had intended. Hinckley clammed up, though, so Buck asked another question. “Is he good?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is he good at his job? He a good teacher? However you judge such things, I don’t know, through student reviews or test scores or whatever.”

  Hinckley regarded Buck through the top half of his bifocals, as if taking a second look at him. The department head was a black man, almost sixty, Buck figured, and heavy. He had a cannonball of a head, with short hair trimmed close, gold-rimmed glasses and a winning smile that came and went as suddenly as the Sulphur Springs Valley winds. He had on a crisp blue Oxford shirt with a red and gold striped tie and navy pants. The matching jacket dangled from a standing coat rack near the door. A whiff of Bay Rum transported Buck to his boyhood, when his father would put on his only suit and knot an unfamiliar tie around his neck for a dance in town or a veteran’s parade.

  “As far as I can tell so far, yes, he is good,” Hinckley said. “He knows his material. He communicates it effectively, and he engages his students. We are a community college, not a university, and not to put too fine a point on it, many of our students barely escaped high school by the skin of their teeth. Dr. Bowles’s are not what are so affectionately termed dummy classes, and the material he presents could be challenging to some. Is challenging, in fact. Dr. Bowles seems capable of ensuring that they come out of the class understanding it. To my mind, that makes him a good teacher.”

  “He’s a doctor?”

  “He has a Ph.D., yes.”

  Buck inspected the toe of his own boot. Playing hick cop in hopes that the college professor would underestimate him. It had been known to happen. “Students like him?”

  “We haven’t had any complaints,” Hinckley said. “His reviews are generally favorable.”

  “Any in particular who have a strong opinion one way or the other?”

  “None that come to mind.”

  “Could I have a look at his personnel records?”

  “Absolutely not,” Hinckley said firmly. “Unless you have a warrant, of course.”

  “Any reason I should get a warrant?”

  “You’re trying to make me say something bad about one of my most recent hires,” Hinckley said. “I don’t care what has happened in his past, Dr. Bowles is a qualified person, knowledgeable about our region, and he has the ability to present science in such a way that students are excited about it.”

  “It’s his future I’m concerned about,” Buck said. “But the way you bring up his past, it sounds like maybe there’s something there I should know about. Is there?”

  Hinckley didn’t answer. He had folded his arms over his massive chest. Buck wished he could see the man’s eyes better.

  “I’ll find out,” Buck said. “I’ll go to the last place he worked, and the one before that. It’ll take me more time, though, and time is the one thing I’m really short on right now, since a life may be on the line. So that’ll piss me off. I would never threaten you, but you wouldn’t want to have me around when I’m pissed off.”

  “I’m inclined to believe that,” Hinckley said. “Since I don’t especially want you around now, and apparently you aren’t even pissed off yet.”

  “Nope, not yet. You can keep it that way.”

  “It’s not a state secret, I suppose,” Hinckley said. “Although I’m sure he would prefer it be treated like one.”

  “If it’s not relevant to the case, I’ll forget it the moment it hits my ears,” Buck promised. “But if it is…let’s not forget that a person’s life might be at stake.”

  Hinckley blew out a breath, looking at the surface of his desk as if inspecting it for wayward dust motes. “There was some…trouble, at his old school, San Diego State University. An affair with a student.”

  “Is that still considered a bad thing?”

  “It happens more often than I’d like to think about. Consenting adults spending time together, intellectually stimulating conversation. Things happen. But you know, in today’s world, it’s all about the appearance of propriety. Every school has regular sexual harassment workshops for faculty and staff, even for students. And the teacher/student relationship can be a powerful thing, with most of the power resting in the hands of the teacher. It’s easy to see an affair as a powerful person subverting the will of a weaker one, making a consensual situation look like something else altogether.”

  Buck had hit the button. If Hinckley hadn’t had an affair of his own, he’d at least been tempted.

  “Do you know the details of Bowles’s case?”

  “I can’t imagine why they’d be relevant. Anyway, all I know is that the young woman decided to end it, and to go public. Apparently it was a bit of a scandal for a while. Dr. Bowles is married, of course, as well as being years older than the student. The university had no choice but to let Dr. Bowles go, and by doing so they persuaded the young woman not to sue. The department chair at San Diego State is a longtime acquaintance of mine. He knew of Dr. Bowles’s interest in the San Pedro and general expertise in the southeastern Arizona region, and suggested he might be a good fit here. I interviewed Dr. Bowles and agreed.”

  “And he hasn’t had any affairs with any students here.”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “If he did?”

  “I would not tolerate it. He would be terminated immediately. He knows that and has agreed to—if you’ll excuse the vernacular—keep it in his pants.”

  “No whispers? Rumors?”

  “Nothing that I’ve—”

  Buck cut Hinckley off. “Do you know who Lulu Lavender is?”

  Hinckley cleared his throat, tapped into place an already milit
ary-neat stack of papers. “She is one of his students. Apparently also a neighbor, who rides to and from school with Dr. Bowles from time to time.”

  “And that’s okay? A young female student spending time alone with him in his car? How long is it to his place, thirty or forty minutes?”

  “I have no reason to think there’s any relationship there other than what I’ve already described,” Hinckley said firmly. “He drives her to school. He is her teacher. When they get home, her family is there, and his wife is at his house. She knows about the arrangement and approves of it.”

  “But then, she stuck with him after the first affair.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “Just commenting. I try not to judge people.”

  Hinckley laughed. “Isn’t that precisely your job?”

  “I’m a cop, not a judge or jury. I’m just trying to make sure I know what the relationship is between Bowles and the girl.”

  Even silhouetted against the window, when Hinckley tensed Buck could see it, could almost see the man’s dark skin blanch. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “When you said someone’s life might be at stake…”

  “Lulu Lavender’s family was slaughtered,” Buck told him. “She’s missing. Almost thirty hours at this point. The clock is running out for that girl, and I aim to find her.”

  “You don’t think Oliver…”

  “I don’t know. I can’t afford to disregard him, though. I’d appreciate it you don’t tell him we talked. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “I simply can’t believe he’s capable of anything like that,” Hinckley said. “He’s not that kind of person.”

  “Thank you,” Buck said. “I’ll take that into consideration too. I’m not saying he’s guilty, or even a suspect, at this point. Just what we call a person of interest.”