Her question caught me off-guard, and I blinked in surprise. “Who? Rocke?” I asked. She nodded, her face set in a firm mask only slightly betrayed by the dampness welling in her eyes. “Pretty well,” I said. “I trust him.”
“If he’s with David, and they … they’re in some kind of trouble … Would he help?” The hot sun sparkled on her cheeks, several tears leaving wet, watery lines down her face.
“He will,” I said, nodding. “If your husband’s in trouble, Rocke will do whatever he can to get them out. Do you think they might be in trouble?”
“I … I don’t know,” she admitted, her throat bulging with a heavy swallow. She shook her head, and the tears were gone, the hard mask back in place. “He’d been working a lot lately, down at the mine, working nights even, sometimes. He’d call to let me know, unless he forgot, but he’d always call the next morning. When he didn’t come home, I figured he’d stayed at work all night again, but when I didn’t hear from him the next morning …” she shook her head again. “I don’t know. I just had this … this feeling. I can’t explain it. When I called the office, they told me that he hadn’t been working that night.”
I nodded. It was similar to the gut feeling I’d had about Rocke when Rocke hadn’t shown up to meet me. It wasn’t some mystical connection or weird bond. It was just plain, simple, gut instinct, the kind you got right before a branch broke beneath you and sent you plummeting down to earth.
I still had it. And worse, it was getting stronger.
“Look,” I said, feeling slightly guilty for what I was putting her through. “The sheriff isn’t very interested in helping me find my friend—aside from arresting him. Is there anything you could tell me that might help me find either of them?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her head swaying in a small, side-to-side motion that was half-shake, half-deference. “I don’t. All I know is that he left work at six, just like any other day, and never came home.”
“All right,” I said, nodding. “I’m sorry to bother you, and I hope your husband’s okay.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Good luck finding your friend.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a final nod and turned from the door as she pulled it shut. I’d made it three steps down the drive, rough gravel crunching under my feet like dry breakfast cereal, when I stopped, my mind exploding with a sudden shock of clarity.
“Wait a moment!” I called, spinning around and catching the nearly closed door with the tip of my staff, a motion that was completely accidental but neat enough that I decided to play it off as intentional. “One more question.”
Mrs. Jefferson almost recoiled in shock as I nudged the door the rest of the way open with my staff, her face jumping between fear and open hostility.
“You said that you didn’t tell Sheriff Hanks that Rocke had asked your husband about the old mine shafts, right?”
“Well, no—I mean, yes—I mean I didn’t tell him,” she said, shaking her head in confusion. “And don’t you dare mention it to him.” There was a fire in her eyes now that the shock of my sudden question had worn off, and I could see her hand moving for the doorknob. I pulled on my staff, opening the door a little wider before she could cut me off.
“I won’t,” I said, giving her a quick shake of my head before jumping back into my train of thought. “But if you didn’t tell Sheriff Hanks that Rocke had anything to do with this, why is he looking for Rocke and all but accusing him of being involved in your husband’s disappearance?”
“I …” she blinked, pulling her head back. Then she shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know.”
“Did you mention him at all while Hanks was talking with you?” I asked. I pulled my staff back from the door, and she caught it with an open palm as it began to swing shut and shoved it back open.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “We didn’t want anyone at the mine hearing about Rocke trying to pressure David into something like that.”
“When did Rocke talk to you about that?” I asked. I had to think like Rocke. Ignore the burning sun overhead, the desert around me, and focus on what was important. Gather as much information as possible, even if it didn’t look relevant. It was what Rocke would have done, wasn’t it?
“Four days ago?” she replied. “No, three. It was the day before David disappeared. You don’t think—” she began, a worried look returning to her face.
“No, I don’t,” I said. “Rocke would respect your wishes, unless he was convinced there was no other way.”
“But he and David disappeared—” She stopped speaking again as her voice cracked, and her eyes started dampening again.
“I know,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out why the sheriff seems to think that Rocke’s connected to this when you didn’t tell Hanks to start looking for him.”
“Well, he is a bit—”
“I know, he hates Unusuals.” I shook my head. “That’s not enough of a reason though, at least, I hope not.”
“I don’t know,” she said, her mask cracking as her frustration grew. “I’m sorry, alright!? I just want to know where David is. I’m not that worried about your friend right now.” She looked down at the steps, no longer meeting my eyes. “Just … Just go.”
“I will,” I said, spreading my hands as I stepped back. “I’m sorry. Thank you for your time.” I turned away, leaving her still staring down at the steps. I’d almost made it back to my car when she called after me.
“There was something strange about how our dog died.”
I stopped, turning halfway back towards her. She was standing on the steps now, the door braced open against her shoulder.
“Rocke said there was something odd about the way it died,” she repeated, her voice shaky. “Something that didn’t make sense.” She shook her head and stepped backwards, retreating into the house. “He didn’t tell us what.” Then she turned away, vanishing into the depths of her home as the door swung shut behind her and left me staring at the bare, white facade.
I climbed into my Rover and started the engine, though I didn’t take it out of park. Instead, I let it idle, the AC taking away some of the burning heat I’d picked up from the bright, morning sun. I could feel my shirt sticking to my back already, the fabric too thick to dry properly now that it was pressed up against the seat. I wanted to sit and think for a minute, to try and put together the pieces that I’d just been handed. But I knew I couldn’t linger, not in the driveway of someone I’d nearly pushed to tears with my questions.
I slid the car into drive without my foot on the gas, and it began to move forward slowly, enough that I could hear faint pops as small bits of gravel and rock were caught under the Rover’s tires, but not fast enough that I would be at my destination anytime soon.
Whatever my destination is, I thought as the Rover made its way towards the road. How does Rocke do this? Does he write down everything anyone says? Or does he just sit and think about it? I couldn’t quite picture him just sitting somewhere and mulling things over.
I reached the road proper and pulled my attention away from my conversation with Mrs. Jefferson long enough to make sure I wasn’t going to hit anyone when I pulled out. It was a fairly pointless check; the road was clear in either direction as far as I could see. I turned right without even thinking about it, heading south along the path of least resistance.
It was still bugging me that Hanks had come looking for Rocke even though Mrs. Jefferson hadn’t mentioned him asking her husband for help. Or rather, I mentally corrected myself, she claimed she hadn’t told him. I grimaced as the car came over a small rise, falling and then rising once more as it passed over a dip. How does Rocke deal with all this doublethink?
Then again, she had mentioned that Rocke had been turned down at the silver mine itself, and that the guy who ran the silver mine—What had his name been? Henderson?—and the sheriff were friends. Maybe the sheriff had put two and two together and come up with … What? Five?
I slowed
as I approached another intersection, buying myself a little time to consider my next move. Part of me wanted to just head back to my motel room and wait for Rocke to turn up on his own, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Until I got proof that his disappearance was more than coincidental, I had to resign myself to the fact that my vacation wasn’t the relaxing stop I’d wanted and do what I could to find him.
An idea occurred to me. Unless there’s another way I could get some help with this. I pulled to a total stop as I approached the intersection, a desolate four-way surrounded by sagebrush and empty desert. I was definitely on the outskirts of the town now, its edges visible in the rear-view mirror and the other side of the valley slowly rising in front of me. I could see the sprawl of the silver mine to my left, a vast collection of squat buildings, gravel piles, and fences that seemed to be doing its best to spread itself across as much space as possible.
I leaned over to the passenger seat, glancing down at the map Maria Salas had sketched for me the day before. I had to pick it up and rotate it for a few seconds before I figured out exactly where I was in relation to the quick sketch she’d made, but as directionally challenged as I could be, it wasn’t too hard to generalize my rough location and from that, the silver mine’s. Or the massive sprawl it covered, at least.
Again, it looked like both Rocke’s hunch and mine about the most likely location for the chupacabra to be hiding was a sound one. It was possible I wasn’t estimating the distances on the map properly, but it looked like each of the four places that had suffered attacks were fairly close to the mine.
So why wouldn’t the company let Rocke take a look? I wondered, setting the map back down on the seat next to me. Did they just not want him getting in the way? I could hardly see that making any sense. The mine’s land seemed to cover the whole southern end of the valley. If there was space for a chupacabra to hibernate undisturbed, then there was definitely space for someone to go in and take a look without disturbing the rest of their operation.
I reached over and turned down the AC as my car reached a comfortable level. So, I asked myself, what are you going to do now?
With the AC down, I could make out the mine’s distant rumble, the same faint clangs and deep, diesel roars I’d heard the night before. Now that I was closer, the sounds of a mine at work were much more distinct. Clearly audible over the faint grown of my engine and the rush of the AC.
Ah, to heck with it, I thought, dropping my hand to the shifter and pulling it back into drive. I was close enough to the mine that I could probably find some sort of public entrance where I could ask a few questions. Questions like what Rocke had been asking for when he’d come in, and why they hadn’t let him look around.
And maybe, just maybe, if they had any idea where he’d disappeared to.
Chapter 5
It didn’t take me long to find my way to the mine’s public entrance, although I did make a few wrong turns on the way there. The southern half of the valley seemed to be a sprawl of fenced-off areas, abandoned buildings, and warning signs crisscrossed by a grid of roads that more often than not ended in barricades or ditches dug to keep cars out.
The ground was hillier in the southern end of the valley, in opposition to the gently rolling, flatland most of the town was built on. The rises weren’t large enough that I could just rely on what I was seeing to make my way, though. After a few false starts, I eventually got on the right track: a simple, paved, two-lane road that took me right to the mine, or at least as close to the mine as I could get.
The complex’s parking lot was separated from the road only by simple chain-link gate, or at least it would have been if the gate had been closed. I pulled in, noticing the lack of a guardhouse or surveillance equipment and idly wondering if the remoteness of the location made security just not worth the effort.
The complex itself seemed fairly complicated. A series of makeshift office buildings sat on one end of the lot, the kind that had been made by taking cheap, pre-fab warehouses and giving them windows and internal bracings, like what you’d see on a construction site. A set of stairs faced the parking lot, running up the side of the building to a plain, white door. Next to the door a sign proclaimed “Henderson Mining Corp.” in simple, plain text. No frills, no extras.
Past that, the warehouses shifted into an entire assemblage of industrial equipment that I didn’t have the first clue about, other than that it was for silver mining. I could make out rows of snake-like conveyors, furnace stacks poking into the sky like long, brick-red needles, and twisting mazes of plastic or metal piping that almost reminded me of a giant rodent maze.
There were a few empty parking spots near the side of the warehouse marked as “Guest Parking Only,” so I pulled my Rover into one of them, noting that I was the only one using the spaces. I sat inside my car for a moment, soaking in a few blissful moments of cool air before I climbed out into the blazing sun. The once-faint noises I’d heard from the motel were loud and clear now, a constant background intermixed with sharp spikes of noise that rang across the parking lot and even shook the sides of my Rover. I added my own noise to the mix, first the sharp slam of the Rover’s door shutting, then the heavy, equal clang of my boots against the metal stairs as I made my way up towards what I assumed were the public offices.
Fortunately, I’d assumed correctly, and the door swung open to reveal a clean, spartan office interior much cooler than the outside. The secretary looked up from the room’s sole desk as I entered, her thin-rimmed glasses reflecting the fluorescent lights overhead as she ran her eyes over me.
“Hi,” she said in a cheerful tone. “Welcome to Henderson Mining. Did you have an appointment to meet with someone?”
“No,” I said, stepping up to the desk—not too close, since it only came up to about my thighs and I didn’t really want to force the secretary to lean too far back to see me. “Will I need one?”
“Well, that depends on who you’re here to see,” she said, grinning. She didn’t seem perturbed by my lack of planning or knowledge, so I figured she was all right with my straightforward, honest answer.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I admitted, giving her an apologetic shrug as she smiled again. “Who would I need to talk to if I wanted permission to look at some of the old mines in the area? Or find out where they were so I could stay off of company property, if that’s a concern?” I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, and she gave a nod.
“Chupacabra hunting?” she asked, one corner of her mouth turning up just a little higher.
“Actually, no,” I said, and her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Not yet, at least,” I amended. I paused for a moment, then decided it couldn’t hurt to give her the explanation up front.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” I said. “Jacob Rocke.”
She nodded. The name was familiar to her.
“He was here about a week ago,” I said, spreading the tips of my fingers across the end of her desk. “Maybe less.”
The secretary let out a sigh as some of the cheerfulness faded from her face. “Then you’ll need to meet with Mr. Henderson himself,” she said, motioning for me to take a seat. “He’s the one that spoke with your friend. I can already tell you that you’re wasting your time, though. He’s not going to let you wander around company property.” She snagged her phone without even looking, her finger making a series of clearly memorized stabs at the buttons.
“Actually,” I said with a shake of my head, “it’s not about that.”
“Oh?” She looked up at me in surprise, her finger held above the keypad. “What do you want me to tell him then?”
“Just that there’s someone here to speak with him,” I said. “Don’t mention Rocke, if you can help it. I don’t want to start things off with the wrong impression.”
“Fair enough,” she said, her finger jabbing down once more. “Go ahead and have a seat.”
“Thanks.” I turned away from the desk and stepped across the room. A single, pale-grey couc
h sat against the wall, its cushions showing clear signs of age. In in front of that a small coffee table sat, the surface covered with dog-eared magazines so old I was sure some of them weren’t even in print anymore. I dropped myself onto the couch, hearing the old cushions wheeze as they settled under my weight, and started sorting through the magazines, looking for something either interesting or recent.
“I’m sorry, what was your name?” I looked up in embarrassment and gave the secretary a grin.
“Decroux,” I said. “Hawke Decroux.” She repeated my name into the telephone, and I looked back down at the pile in front of me, digging through copies of “Yacht Club Monthly” and idly wondering who would bother getting a magazine like that in the middle of the desert. Someone who liked boats, maybe? And lives in the wrong state, I told myself. There was a click as the secretary hung up, and I turned my attention back to her as she spoke.
“He’ll be here in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes,” she said. “Until then, make yourself comfy.”
“Thanks,” I said, nodding at her. She looked back down at her desk, the faint swish of paper moving against paper starting up as she went back to work.
It only took me another minute or so to thumb through the rest of the magazine pile and decide there was absolutely nothing even remotely interesting to me, aside from the question of who in New Mexico would order a subscription to a yacht magazine. I still couldn’t figure that one out.
“Excuse me,” I asked after a moment. “Is there a water cooler or a water fountain around here?” She looked up and pointed towards a door set against one wall.
“There’s a break room in there,” she said, already looking back down at her work. “Bathroom too, but don’t go past that. You’re not cleared for it.”
“Thanks,” I said, crossing the room and stepping through the door into the break room. It was tinier than I expected, with a small table that only four people at most could sit around comfortably, provided they found another two chairs. A small kitchen counter took up one wall, running right up against a full-size fridge, while the wall opposite led to what looked like a standard bathroom. The last wall, opposite the office, had a single door and a large window that looked out over the inside of the warehouse.
Dead Silver Page 8
