He looked at the manila folder lying on the edge of the desk. “Uh huh.”
I nodded toward the envelope. “I don’t have to tell you what’s in this, but we both know how seriously some of the charges could be interpreted—two cases of unlawful entry, larceny, one domestic charge, and a restraining order that’s still being enforced.”
“Look, that was a bullshit deal and...”
I held up a hand. “Phillip, hold on a second.” I allowed my hand to rest on the file. “To be honest, I don’t care about any of this. It tells me that you’re no Eagle Scout, but as long as you keep your nose clean in my county, we’ll get along fine. But we do have a problem.” I let that one sit there for a moment. “I think you might’ve lied to me yesterday, or at least you didn’t tell me everything you know. Now, is that the case?”
He shifted in his chair. “Yeah.”
“So, why would you do that?”
He shrugged and sat there, silent for a while. “He paid me.” “Who did?”
“The guy.”
I could feel Saizarbitoria watching me as I questioned Maynard. “Tran Van Tuyen?”
“Yeah, him; the Oriental guy at the bar.”
“Asian, Vietnamese to be exact. What did he say?”
“He asked about the girl the day before yesterday, then came back in and gave me a hundred bucks to not mention his name.”
I glanced up at Sancho, who snagged his keys from the desk and quickly went out the door. “What kinds of questions did he ask?”
“Just if I’d seen this girl or heard anything about her. He had a photograph of her.”
“Did he call her by name?”
“Yeah, it was something like Packet.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Maynard thought and then shook his head. “Just that he knew the car was hers and that she’d run away and he was looking for her.”
“Nothing else?”
He shook his head again. “Nothing, and that’s the truth, Sheriff.”
I walked him out, stood there by my truck, and warned him that if he ever lied again that I’d find a place for him under the jail. He nodded and threw a leg over the Harley and rode off toward the rows of shanty housing at the south end of town.
I was still standing there when the Suburban came reeling around the corner; Saizarbitoria stood on the brakes and ground to a stop in front of me. He started to reach across and roll down the window, but I saved him the grief by opening the door. “Tuyen’s gone.”
I nodded. “What’d they say?”
“They said that he came into the office, paid his bill, hopped in the Land Rover, and took off.”
“How long?”
“About twenty minutes ago. I already called it in to the HPs.”
I thought about it. “You take 192 out to the Powder River, do the loop up toward Durant, and then circle back on 196. I’ll take 191 and 190 toward the mountains.”
He disappeared east, and I headed west.
I was about to make the turn at the underpass of I-25 when I saw the same two kids who had waved at me the day before and noticed that one was wearing a Shelby Cobra T-shirt. They were leaning on the same fence like regular eight-year-old town criers—well, one eight, the other maybe six. I had a thought and pulled onto the gravel. I pushed the button to roll my window down, but before I could say anything, the taller one with the glasses spoke. “Are you the sheriff?”
“Yep. I don’t suppose...”
He grinned and grabbed the younger boy by the shoulder. “I’m Ethan, this is my brother Devin.”
“Good to meet you. I don’t...”
The smaller one piped up. "Are you looking for bad guys?”
I nodded. “Yes. You didn’t happen to see a green Land Rover go by here about fifteen minutes ago, did you?”
They both nodded. "Yes, sir. DEFENDER 90...”
The older boy continued. “Coniston green with the convertible top, the ARB brush/grill guard, and front wing diamond plating.”
I sat there for a second looking at him, wondering what to say after that description, and then fell back on an old western favorite. “Which way did he go?” They both pointed toward I-25. “Did he get on the highway?”
The blond one answered. “No, he went under it.”
“Get on the highway on the other side?”
The one with darker hair responded this time. “Nope. Hey, can we have a ride?”
“Not right now, maybe later.” I saluted them and hit the lights and siren, but this time I left them on, thanking the powers that be for the American male’s preoccupation with all things vehicular. I thought of the Red Fork Ranch and called Saizarbitoria to tell him to turn around and take the 191 leg of the west side of the highway, and that I’d take 190.
The next call I made was to Ruby, who still sounded irritated, and that was without me singing. “What’s the matter?”
Static. “It’s another flood of these e-mails, and I’m getting tired of deleting them.”
I keyed the mic. “Any word from L.A. or Bee Bee?”
Static. "Nothing from L.A., but Bee Bee called and said that this Tuyen fellow inquired about the Red Fork Saturday, so if he was interested in the property, it was a sudden interest.”
“Well, I’m not sure how, but this guy is involved.”
Static. “Have you got him?”
“No, but I’m working on it.”
I hung the mic back on the dash and made the gradual ascent through the red wall country and broke onto the gravel road leading past the ghost town. I had just topped the hill when I noticed the flash of something reflective and slowed. I shut off the lights and siren, threw the truck into reverse, and backed down to where I could get a look into the canyon at Bailey’s ramshackle and only street. The Coniston green Land Rover sat parked along the boardwalk at the far end. I turned the big three-quarter-ton around and pulled off and into the ghost town.
In Bailey’s heyday, it had had a peak population of close to six hundred. The town had had a bank, hotel, hospital, post office, and something you rarely saw in high plains ghost towns: a large union hall, which stood at the top of the rise beside the road leading to the mine.
I drove slowly down the short street, looked back and forth among the buildings, and pulled my truck in front of Tuyen’s vehicle. I got out and walked over to the Land Rover; it was locked and unoccupied. Tuyen’s bags were in the back, along with a solid case that looked like the kind that might hold a computer.
I looked around the street again and unsnapped the strap on my Colt.
Nothing.
I stepped up onto the warped boardwalk and started down one side of the street. I tried to be quiet, but my boots resonated off the planks like I was starring in some B-movie western.
Most of the windows in the buildings were broken and boarded up, but between the cracks I could see the gloom of the interiors; the floors in most of them had held up. The buildings were dusty and dirty, but they were solid, and only Zarling’s Dry Goods, which was at the end of the street and had been the one with the fire damage, looked as if it might fall over.
There was a stone wall at Bailey’s far end; it was partially collapsed and provided a large, picture-framed view of the hillside that led to the mine, the weed-filled graveyard and, above the overhang, the union hall.
There was a wrought-iron fence around the old graveyard, a token of condolence from a company that hadn’t bothered to try to retrieve the bodies of the seventeen dead miners. Tran Van Tuyen sat on one of the thick iron rails beside the gate, with his back to me.
I walked the rest of the length of the boardwalk and down the stairs to the dry, cracked earth of the roadway and began walking up the hillside to the cemetery. The trail was overgrown with purple thistle and burdock, and the only thing you could smell was the heat. As I approached, Tuyen didn’t move even though I was sure that he’d heard my truck and me in the street below.
I stopped at the gate and looked over at him. He was sitting with his hands laced in his lap, his head drooping a little in the flat morning sun. He had the same light, black leather jacket he’d had on in the bar draped over his knee, and the sunglasses. It was hot and getting hotter with every second, but he wasn’t sweating.
After a minute, I saw his back rise and fall. “All of them died on the same day.”
I continued to watch him as the cicadas buzzed in the high grass, and I thought about rattlesnakes. “It was a mining accident, back in 1903.”
“A terrible thing.”
“Yep.”
He paused again. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Sheriff?”
It wasn’t the line I thought the conversation would take. “I’m not sure.”
"What do you believe in?”
“My work.”
He nodded. “It is good to have work, something you can devote your life to.”
Something wasn’t right. “Mr. Tuyen, I need to speak with you.”
“Yes?”
“It’s about the young woman.”
He nodded. “I assumed as much.”
“We questioned the bartender at the Wild Bunch Bar, and he said you were asking questions about this Ho Thi Paquet, and that you paid him some money.”
His hand moved, and I found mine on the .45 at my hip. He had been holding something in his hands, and he extended it toward me. It was a photograph of the same young woman wearing a dance outfit, perhaps younger, a snapshot of her in a crowd; she had turned her head and was smiling.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This was taken when she graduated from a dance school in Thailand when her mother came to see her perform.” I thought he was done speaking, but the next words barely escaped him. “She was our only grandchild.”
7
We sat in the office. Tuyen was holding his coffee cup, the contents of which he had doctored using the supplies that Saizarbitoria had procured from the Powder River Mercantile. He must not have liked the nondairy substitute, because he had yet to take a sip.
“I have another business; a group that unites Vietnamese children with their American relations—
bui doi,
which translates to ‘dust child’ in English.” He stared at the floor. “Children of the Dust is a nonprofit organization, and I became active in their efforts two years ago.”
“Working with the Vietnamese Amerasian Homecoming Act?” Santiago looked at me, and I shrugged.
“Exactly.” Tuyen glanced at Saizarbitoria. “Since 1987 we have assisted twenty-three thousand Amerasians and sixty-seven thousand of their relatives in immigrating to this country.”
I sipped my coffee. “Must be rewarding work.”
“Very.”
I nodded and made the mental note to ask Ned to check the organization from California. “What’s all this about Trung Sisters Distributing?” I thumbed his card from the folder on the desk.
He looked up. “It is another of my businesses, and the one that makes a profit.” He pulled another card from his jacket pocket and handed it to me; this one was emblazoned with the words CHILDREN OF THE DUST and had an address the same as the one for the film office, with the same three phone numbers. “I sometimes find it more advantageous to be in film distribution than an individual tracking down men who may have illegitimate children.”
I nodded. “Especially men in my age range who might’ve been in Vietnam?”
“It can be rather shocking, and sometimes responses are not particularly positive.”
“I can imagine.” I put my coffee cup on the desk. I had had enough of the stuff. I looked at Saizarbitoria, who seemed to be studying me. I turned back to Tuyen. “What about the Red Fork Ranch?”
“I am genuinely interested in the property.”
“But that’s not why you’re here.”
His face lowered. “No.”
“Mr. Tuyen, I’m really sorry to be insensitive, but I need to know about your granddaughter.” He placed his still untouched coffee on the desk, and I wasn’t happy about what I had to do next. “I’m assuming her married name was Paquet?”
“Yes, she was briefly enjoined to a young man, here in the U.S.”
"And that would be in California?”
“Yes. Orange County, Westminster.”
“Little Saigon.”
He looked up and smiled sadly. “I am not used to people referring to the area in that manner outside of Southern California.”
“Mr. Tuyen, do you have any idea why your granddaughter might’ve stolen a car and then run all the way to Wyoming?”
“A number of them, actually.”
“She obviously didn’t want you involved, so how was it you were able to find her?”
“She acquired one of my credit cards, a gas card. She also, well, borrowed a valuable laptop computer, some jewelry, and a few other items, but it was through the credit card I was able to follow her.”
I watched him for a moment. “We didn’t find any credit cards on your granddaughter’s person.”
“The card was left at a Flying J truck stop in Casper. I recovered it there.”
“So you figured she was heading north and drove to Powder Junction?”
“Yes, it was as good a guess as any other.”
“Did it occur to you to contact any law enforcement agencies to see if they could find her?”
He laced his fingers in his lap and stared at them. “My granddaughter . . . Ho Thi had some unfortunate incidents, which I thought might color a more official response to her disappearance.”
I looked at the planing light on the side of his face and then plunged ahead. “That would have to do with the troubles of a month and a half ago?”
It took a commensurate amount of time for him to respond. “Yes.”
“So you figured with your experience in working with Children of the Dust, you would find her yourself?”
“Yes.”
“These incidents you referred to concerning Mrs. Paquet: We got some information from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department concerning some charges?”
He looked at me with a sharpness that he couldn’t or didn’t want to hide. "I don’t see how that is...”
“I’m just trying to get a clearer idea as to her situation, and how and why it is she ended up here the way she did.”