Chee could tell from the captain’s tone that he wasn’t finished.
“Now for the bad news. The preliminary results are back from the bone fragments. I’m afraid they were human.”
Chee felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. Shocked and then angry. What made Delahart think he could desecrate a human body for a movie promotion? And to blatantly lie about it? What kind of scum was this?
Bahe’s voice scattered Chee’s thoughts. “The medical examiner told me something else interesting. The intern said the little bits of bone had been burned. Cremated. Like a mortuary does. The whole idea of it makes me sick.” He handed Chee a sheet of paper. “I drew up a new citation to include illegal disposal of human remains as well as the earlier charges.”
Chee looked at the citation, remembering that the original was in his unit. “We ought to make Delahart remove every one of those little bits of bone on his hands and knees.”
“I agree.”
Chee put the paper aside. “I don’t like the idea of that girl out there somewhere.”
“You can look for her on your way to serve the citation. I’ll call hotel security and ask Haskie and Erdman to look around for the girl. Maybe she’s at the restaurant, having a soda.
After so many trips over the rough road, Chee had learned to avoid most of the holes and ruts and other obstacles in the dirt loop. He knew where the wide spots came that made passing the tour buses easier. He kept the windows up to reduce the dust, appreciating the air conditioning.
His concern about Alisha Isenberg was tempered by his experience as a policeman. Unless parental abuse factored into their motivation, runaway children usually returned home or showed up at a friend or relative’s house. He assumed Alisha hadn’t gone far, and would head back to the hotel room once she came to terms with her embarrassment. But if she’d walked to the park, a several-mile hike in the hot sun, the story changed. Dehydration, sunstroke, and vast empty spaces to get lost in—that was more complicated. She’d already been traumatized, and he didn’t want her to suffer any more. He’d had good luck finding Missy; he hoped Alisha turned up safely too.
Spotting a blue car in the Wildcat Trail parking area, he pulled off the road. He couldn’t see what kind of sedan it was, but it resembled Isenberg’s vehicle. When he got out of his unit, he realized the day had gone from hot to sizzling, and that the car was not Isenberg’s Audi. He stretched, felt heat seep through his skin into his bones.
A couple in shorts and floppy hats using metal walking sticks approached. The man spoke first. “Hi there, Officer. Everything OK out here?”
“I’m looking for a missing girl.” Chee described Alisha.
“This is a big place to be lost in,” the woman said. “We haven’t seen her.”
The man said, “If I were lost, I’d try to get to the road and follow it back. You can see the dust rise.”
That gave Chee an idea.
He stopped to chat with the next tour bus driver, and the next and the next. Bus number four had pulled over to let the customers get photos of Elephant Butte from the overlook. Chee drove close, lowered his window, explained that he was looking for Alisha.
The driver, a portly woman wearing a straw hat, had news.
“I saw that girl walking on the road. She looked bad, sunburned, beat down by the heat. I stopped and asked her if she needed some help. She started crying and asked me if I could take her back to the hotel. I told her to get in and I’d get her there but it would be a while yet because the bus had to make vista stops. I gave her some water.”
The woman paused, gave Chee a knowing look. “We’re not supposed to pick up people along the road, but I was worried she could have a heat stroke or something. Ford Point, that was the next stop. She sat here in the cab with me. The customers got out for photos and to look at the jewelry and stuff and to get a can of soda or something. She just sat.
“Then this car pulled into the parking area, and as soon as she seen it, she jumped right out and started waving and yelling. The car slammed on the brakes. And then she’s running over to it and the driver’s door opened and this man got out and he swooped her up like you see in the movies.
“I went over there to make sure everything was OK. I’ve got a daughter myself, you know.” The gold cap on her front tooth sparkled when she smiled. “Turned out the guy was her papa. I think they’d had an argument or something.”
Chee couldn’t call in the good news because of lack of service, so he texted Courtney and Bahe. As soon as his phone picked up bars, they’d get the message. One problem solved, two left: the citation to deliver and the People Mover to fix. Well, two and a half: Who killed Samuel? For the girls’ sake, he hoped it wasn’t Isenberg, but he figured that was Burke’s baby.
He continued through the valley with a lighter heart. As always, the beauty of Dinetah spoke to him, the vertical red stone against the blue dome of the sky lifting his spirits. Why was it, he wondered, that those polls that measured well-being focused on income and home ownership and never asked about the view?
He pulled into the movie parking area and realized that Gerald wasn’t on the job. Vehicles had parked haphazardly, some clustered under the juniper trees, some in uneven rows, looking as though their owners had stopped without a plan in mind.
Perhaps because it was daylight, the movie camp seemed quieter than usual. He went to the administration trailer and asked for Robinson.
“Sorry, he’s not here today,” BJ said. “Want me to have him call you?”
“No. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“We have a big group meeting tomorrow.” She gave Chee the time. “I know he’ll be here for that. You could catch him afterward.”
Or before, Chee thought. He would serve the citation directly ahead of the meeting and not have to listen too long to Robinson’s protests of innocence. “I’ll stop by then. Is Gerald off today? The parking lot looks like a disaster area.”
“He got terminated. You know, fired.”
Chee put on his I’m-interested look and waited for her to say more.
“Oh, he’s a good guy. It wasn’t anything he did. One of those budget shortfall deals.”
“Too bad. He lives around here. There aren’t a lot of jobs.”
“If somebody had to get fired, it should have been Samuel. That guy was nothing but trouble.”
With her use of “was,” Chee assumed she knew Samuel was dead. “Why do you say that?”
She glanced down at the desktop, then back toward Chee. “He was Delahart’s stooge. Eavesdropping on our conversations and feeding him information for that dumb blog and all the other ways he gets publicity. But Delahart pays the bills, and Samuel was Delahart’s golden boy, so we all put up with it.”
“The FBI investigator, Agent Burke, will probably want to talk to someone here about that.”