We stood in the doorway, facing a huge room full of tall silver tanks and racks of wooden kegs. I couldn’t see anyone.
“If you’re here to help with the harvest, that’s not for another month.” The voice came from somewhere near the back, behind the silver vats.
“We’re looking for Peter Bisonette.”
“Just a minute.” In less than that, two men slipped from between the tanks. The first appeared to be about my age, mid-fifties, slim but in good shape, with a little brown mustache that matched his hair. He sported glasses and wore jeans and a blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows. The guy who followed him was taller, well over six feet, and much older, though hard to say exactly how much, with a full head of white hair, a big nose, big hands, and a big, wistful smile.
“Looking for Peter?” the younger man said, as he approached. He had a rag and was wiping his hands of what appeared to be grease.
I glanced at Rainy and saw relief all over her face. Finally someone who admitted to knowing her son.
“Yes,” I said. “We were told he works here.”
“What do you want with him?” the older man asked.
Rainy said, “I’m his mother.”
“Rainy Bisonette?” The younger man seemed surprised and pleased. “Then you must be Cork. This is a real pleasure.”
Rainy said, “We were told at the Goodman Center that he works here now.”
“That he does,” said the older man.
The younger one finished wiping away the grease and held out his hand. “Frank Harris. And this is Robert Wieman.”
“Just call me Jocko.” The big white-haired man offered us his hand, large as a catcher’s mitt.
“Is he here?” Rainy asked.
“He didn’t show up today,” Harris said. “Which is not like Peter at all.”
“He didn’t call?”
“We haven’t heard a word from him since he left work yesterday. He didn’t say anything about you coming for a visit.”
“A spur of the moment thing,” I said. “The truth is we’re worried about him. He seems to have disappeared.”
“As I said, it’s not like Peter to miss work without calling, but things come up, you know. Is there a particular reason you’re worried?”
“What do you know about my son?” Rainy asked.
“Look, why don’t we talk inside?” Harris suggested. “Jayne would love to meet you. She’s in her office in the house.” He half-turned and opened his arms to the winery fixtures. “The quality of what’s in those tanks is up to me. But the business is all Jayne’s. Jocko, why don’t you go check on those new graftings?”
The older man seemed more inclined to accompany us to the house, but he gave a nod. He mounted the motorcycle, kicked over the engine, and took off into the vineyards.
“His bike?” I asked.
“Jocko’s pride and joy. He used to be a crop duster, flew a biplane. Had to give up the job when he hit eighty. But that Honda Hawk of his? Never.”
We followed Harris across the yard and through a small, adobe-walled garden with a bubbling fountain at its center. Inside the house, everything was deadly quiet and the air blessedly cool. The place was decorated in a Mexican motif—tiled floors in beautiful patterns, walls and tapestries done in bright, singing colors, furniture of dark wood and leather. I smelled cinnamon.
“Have a seat,” Harris said, when we arrived at the living room. “I’ll get Jayne.”
We sat on a sofa upholstered in soft brown leather.
“Is that a Frida Kahlo?” Rainy nodded toward a large painting of fuzzy fruit, which hung above the hearth of a fireplace that, I suspected, had never seen a flame.
“What’s a Frida Kahlo?” I asked.
Before Rainy could answer, Harris returned with his wife. Jayne Harris was striking—tall, ash blond, and lovely. She was dressed in a way I remembered Dale Evans did on the old Roy Rogers television show: cowboy boots, a pearl snap shirt, and blue jeans, except that the jeans were stone-washed and fit so tight I figured she’d had to grease herself to get into them. She beamed a gracious western smile and said, “Howdy.”
“Jayne doesn’t usually look like this,” Harris said.
His wife laughed. “I did a photo shoot this morning for a Phoenix magazine that’s featuring our winery in next month’s issue. The theme was the Old West meets the New West. You know, beef versus bottle. Corny, I know, but the wine market is competitive and it’s important to keep our name out there.”
“Would you like some wine?” Harris asked. “We make a really fine pinot gris.”
Rainy glanced at me and I could read her eyes.
“Thanks, no,” I said. “We’re a little anxious to find Peter.”
“Let’s sit and talk,” Harris suggested.
When we’d arranged ourselves, Jayne said, “Frank told you that Peter didn’t come to work this morning? He’s always been so reliable. One of his many endearing qualities.”
“What kind of work does Peter do here?” I asked.
“Anything and everything,” Harris said. “He’s a quick study.”
“How is it that you know my son?” Rainy asked.
“Grace Methodist Church in Cadiz,” Jayne said. “Small congregation and we all know one another pretty well. After Peter lost his job at the Goodman Center, we gave him one here. We couldn’t pay him a lot, not like what he’d been making at the center, but he seemed fine with that.”
Rainy said, “You know Peter was in treatment there once.”
“Of course. Are you worried he’s using again?” Jayne said. “Because if you are, you can let go of that fear. Peter’s stayed clean, I’d stake my life on it.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Rainy asked.
Jayne seemed surprised. “You don’t?”
Rainy explained about the P.O. box in Sulfur Springs.
“We don’t have an exact address for him, but he drove to work from Sulfur Springs every day,” Frank Harris said.
“How’d he come?” I asked.
“The Old Douglas Road, south of the mountains.”
“We came that way,” I said. “Got stopped by Border Patrol.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Harris said. “There’s been a lot of activity along the border here lately.”
“What kind of activity? Undocumented immigrants coming in?”
Harris shook his head. “The big wall ends twenty miles west of here. Just low barbed wire after that, pretty easy to get over, so that’s where they try most often. Around here it’s drugs. They’re pretty inventive getting them across.”
“We were just in Sulfur Springs,” Rainy said. “No one we talked to claimed to know Peter.”
“He’s a very quiet guy,” Jayne said. “Maybe he just preferred to keep to himself.”
“Why Sulfur Springs?” I asked. “Did he ever say what made him choose that place to live after he left the Goodman Center?”
“Not really,” Harris replied. “I just figured it was cheaper than renting a place in Cadiz, which is a tourist town, so things are more expensive there. Sulfur Springs isn’t exactly an oasis.”
“Does Peter have any friends? A girlfriend maybe?” Rainy asked.
“Friends among our congregation, I suppose. But a girlfriend?” Jayne gave Rainy a look I couldn’t quite interpret. “You’re his mother. You don’t know?”