A Flower in the Desert (21 page)

“Yeah,” he said. Still sulky.

“What about the other guy?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

“Were you here while they did it?”

His glance shifted slightly, came back to mine. “Sure.”

“Bill. Code violations?”

He looked blank for a moment, and then, frowning, he shrugged. “I was here with the FBI guy.”

“The other guy slipped you some cash, did he?”

He frowned again, and then said defensively, “Guy's gotta make a living.”

“Did the FBI man find anything?”

“Uh-uh. So what's the deal here, anyway? If I may be so bold to ask.” This was accompanied by a weak, tentative smile.

“You don't want to know, Bill.”

He nodded, frowning sourly. “Yeah, right. That's how come I asked.”

I started searching. Stamworth had slipped up before, by not checking the tape on Melissa's answering machine, and it was possible that he had slipped up here, while he searched the place. It was possible that the other man had, as well. But I didn't really expect to find anything in Juanita Carrera's apartment that would help me locate her, and I didn't.

I came back from the bedroom into the living room, walked over to the dining room table. The three books on its top were textbooks, two of them psychology texts, and one was opened. The third was a study of American literature. On the flyleaf of each was written, in neat cursive script,
Property of Juanita Carrera.
Below that, in the same script, was her apartment number and the Cerrillos Road address. Beside the books, standing upright on its base, was a yellow Magic Marker. I flipped through the books and saw that, here and there, paragraphs had been highlighted in yellow.

So Juanita had been taking classes somewhere. That would explain why she returned to her apartment later in the evening on Tuesday and Thursdays.

I looked around. She was tidy, Juanita Carrera. The inexpensive clothes hanging in the bedroom closet were conservative and subdued, the dresses and skirts and sweaters of a person who wanted to be presentable but not necessarily memorable. She had a subscription to
Cosmo
, which suggested she was at least curious about the Modern American Single Woman, and that perhaps she might aspire to that pinnacle herself. She was apparently taking college-level courses, which suggested she was trying for a degree. I didn't know the woman, but I was inclined, on the evidence, to like her. I would feel sympathetic, anyway, toward anyone who had to put up with both Rebecca Carlson and Bill Arnstead in the same lifetime.

And now, like Melissa Alonzo, she had vanished.

She had vanished last Wednesday, October the second. Cathryn Bigelow had been killed last Wednesday, October the second.

Coincidence?

I didn't think so. Cathryn Bigelow and Juanita Carrera did have one thing in common. Melissa Alonzo.

“Hello.” The male voice had a faint Spanish lilt to it.

“Hello. Could I speak to Norman Montoya, please.”

“Who's this calling?”

“Joshua Croft.”

“Hold on a sec.”

I waited. I was in the lobby of the public library, using one of the two pay phones.

Montoya's voice came on the line: “Yes, Mr. Croft. How may I help you?”

“Is your phone line clear?” I asked him.

After a brief pause, he answered, “I am assured that it is. This is a serious consideration?”

“Maybe. Things are getting complicated.”

“That, of course, is in the nature of things, Mr. Croft.”

Wonderful. A Zen telephone conversation. “Mr. Montoya, do you know anyone with connections to people who might be aiding illegal aliens?”

Another brief pause. “May I inquire as to why you ask?”

“There's a woman missing. She worked for a group called Sanctuary. You know them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“She knew Melissa Alonzo. Melissa was her sponsor. She disappeared last week, the same day that Melissa's sister, Cathryn, was murdered in Los Angeles. I think she's running scared. I need to find her and find out why.”

Another pause. “You have become convinced that the sister's death is related to Melissa's flight?”

“I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's likely.”

“This woman. The one who disappeared last week. You are aware, of course, that she could have left the area entirely.”

“She could have, yeah. But she worked for Sanctuary. Maybe she knew people who provided safe houses. Her boss says otherwise, but I have a feeling that her boss may not know everything that's going on. And the woman had at least some kind of attachments to Santa Fe. She was probably going to college here. I think there's at least a chance she's still around.”

“You do realize, Mr. Croft, that from everything you have told me, it will now be possible for me to identify this woman without any further assistance from you.” I thought, but couldn't be certain, that I detected a smile in the voice. “And you realize that having identified her, and assuming that she is still in the area, I could proceed to locate and question her on my own. Without you being any the wiser.”

“Yeah. I realize. But as I recall, you gave me your word you wouldn't interfere.”

A soft chuckle came over the line. “Ah, Mr. Croft. If you truly had no doubts about the value of my word, you would hardly remind me of my having given it.”

“The other thing,” I said, “is I can't afford to screw around right now. Melissa and her daughter might be in serious trouble. There's some clown from the federal government looking for this woman. And another man, too, a Hispanic. I don't like the sound of him. I don't want to go to the cops with any of this because the cops would probably scare the woman. She's Salvadoran, a refugee, and I doubt that she has any real fondness for people in uniform.”

“Who is this other man you mention?”

“I don't know. But the consensus seems to be that he's not a nice guy.”

Another pause. “Very well, Mr. Croft. Give me the woman's particulars. If she is still in the area, my people may be able to uncover her. If they do so, they will approach her, discreetly, and make arrangements with her to contact you. Without themselves questioning the woman. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yeah.” I didn't see that I had much choice. I gave him Juanita Carrera's name, and everything I'd just learned from a call to Motor Vehicles. Age, twenty-seven; height, five feet eight; weight, 120 pounds. No eyeglasses. And a description of her car, including the license plate number.

“She's probably very skittish,” I told Montoya.

“I understand. My people will exercise caution. The federal agent you mentioned. What is the nature of his involvement?”

“I don't know yet.”

“With which agency might he be associated?”

“I don't know. He says FBI, but I have my doubts.”

“I see. Is there anything else in which I might help you? Money, perhaps? Perhaps an assistant?”

“Muscle?”

The chuckle floated down the line again. “Such a colorful vocabulary. Yes, muscle, Mr. Croft, if you like.”

“No thanks. But I'll bear the offer in mind.”

“Please do so. You asked about the phone lines. Have you reason to believe that your own might be unsafe?”

“It's a possibility. I'll find out later.” Rita's cousin, Leroy, had a key to the office and by now Rita had given him a key to my house. He had probably already installed tap indicators on both lines.

“An excellent idea. But in the meantime, perhaps we should make arrangements now for your meeting the woman, in the event that my people succeed in finding her.” Norman Montoya was a man who thought ahead.

“Okay. If you find her, have her meet me in the parking lot opposite the state capitol building. You give me the time.”

“Very well. And please do not hesitate to contact me again if I may be of further help.”

“Thanks.”

“Good day, Mr. Croft.”

After hanging up on Montoya, I looked at my watch. Quarter to four. About half an hour free before I had to head up to Hartley to see Deirdre Polk. I went into the Library and looked through the catalogues for the three colleges located here in town: St. John's, the Santa Fe Community College, and the College of Santa Fe. Juanita might have been taking courses in Albuquerque, at UNM or at one of the other schools down there; but Albuquerque, down and back, was a three-hour drive. That didn't leave her much time to attend classes and get back to her apartment by ten.

The College of Santa Fe was the only school that offered the right courses at the right time. The Intermediate American Literature class met on Tuesday night, from seven until nine thirty. Abnormal Psychology met on Thursday at the same hours. Assuming that it had been Juanita Carrera who left the psychology book open on the table last Wednesday night, and not any of the people who'd been tramping through her apartment since then, that fit. I wrote down the phone number for the college, and the names of the professors who taught the courses, then went out into the parking lot and climbed into the Subaru.

I stopped at the fax service on my way out of town. The fax from Chuck Arthur had arrived.

In the car, I glanced down the list of long-distance calls that Melissa had made in July and August. There weren't that many, and there were no calls dated after August 2, the day she'd left for El Salvador. She might've cleared the messages from her machine when she returned to the house on the seventeenth, the day she got back to L.A., but she hadn't used her home telephone to make any out-of-state calls.

There were two numbers I recognized on the list. On three separate occasions in July, and again on August 1, the day before she left, she had called Juanita Carrera.

Eighteen

T
HE WEATHER WAS CHANGING AS I
drove north. Up ahead, black clouds were crowding out the span of blue. Great shafts of sunlight from the west poked aslant beneath their bulky billowing shapes.

An impressive spectacle, but I couldn't enjoy it. I was worried. As I'd told Norman Montoya, I didn't like the sound of the Hispanic man who'd spoken with Rebecca Carlson and Bill Arnstead. I didn't know who he was or where he fit in.

Or where Stamworth fit in. He, too, had been questioning both people last week.

Juanita Carrera was apparently the key. She knew something, something that had to do with Melissa Alonzo.

It had to be. I knew, from the phone bills and from the message on Melissa's machine, that Melissa and Juanita Carrera were connected. Melissa's sister, Cathryn Bigelow, had been killed last Wednesday morning. On Wednesday night, Juanita Carrera had disappeared. Suddenly, as though something had frightened her. On Thursday, Stamforth had talked to Carlson and Arnstead, trying to locate Carrera. On Friday, the Hispanic man had done the same.

On Tuesday night, two days ago, Stamworth had been in Los Angeles. Why? I hadn't believed his Shining Path story then and I didn't believe it now. So who was he?

Who was the Hispanic man?

What did the two of them want with Juanita Carrera? And what did they want with Melissa Alonzo?

And how had Stamworth known about me? How had he known that I was in Los Angeles looking for Melissa?

Whoever they were, Stamworth and the Hispanic man were a week ahead of me. They had known about, and tried to locate, Juanita long before I'd known that she existed.

Where
was
Juanita Carrera?

And where were Melissa and Winona Alonzo?

I was worried. The countryside around me, ragged high desert, gullied and brown, spotted with piñon and juniper, seemed more bleak and barren and vast than I could remember it being. Wilder, emptier, easier to get lost in. The black clouds up ahead seemed ominous, foreboding.

The pathetic fallacy. Projection.

So I told myself. But after I passed the bright orange explosion of cottonwoods down in the valley at Velarde, after I slipped into the canyon of the Rio Grande and the sunlight guttered out and there were only the weathered black cliffs climbing up on either side, and the gray roof of sky, and the dark river sliding silently along to my left, I felt a sudden physical chill.