Before we left her office, Michelle took Rainy’s hands into her own and gazed with deep concern into my wife’s eyes.
“Look, I don’t want to scare you, but if this has even the slightest chance of having something to do with Lagarto and Las Calaveras, be very careful who you talk to and what you ask. The brutality of those people is beyond belief.” Then she offered Rainy a hopeful little smile and said, “Vaya con Dios.”
CHAPTER 7
* * *
As soon as we left the church, I tried the cell phone number Michelle had given us for Nikki Edwards but got no answer. The hour was late and we were hungry. We ate at a café called the Wagon Wheel, on the main street through Cadiz. It was a quiet meal, cheeseburger and beer for me, salad and iced tea for Rainy. There was a lot to think about. Rainy stared out the window at the street, which was mostly empty.
“I felt better when I didn’t know Peter might be involved with some death-dealing cartel,” she said.
“We don’t know the truth yet.”
“And we’re no closer to it than when we got here.”
“We know people who know Peter. If we keep asking, we’ll know more. Eventually we’ll find someone who can give us the answers we’re looking for.”
“Or, if Michelle is right, we’ll run into someone who’ll slit our throats for asking.”
“Then we need to be careful.”
“How do we ask without taking risks?”
“I don’t think we can. I’m just saying we should anticipate that we’re stirring up a hornet’s nest and be incredibly vigilant.”
“Incredibly scared, too? Because I am.”
“So am I, Rainy, but do we give up?”
“Rhetorical question,” she said.
“All right, tomorrow we begin by tracking down Nikki Edwards. And then I want to go back to the Harrises’ place.”
“They didn’t seem to know much.”
“I got the feeling they knew more than they said. But it’s really Jocko I want to talk to. If we get him alone and press him, he might be willing to tell us what he knows.”
We left the café and walked back to the Desert Breeze Inn. The air was still uncomfortably hot, though not as oppressive as it had been when the sun was overhead.
“I thought the desert got cool at night,” I said.
“Cooler,” Rainy said. “It’s all relative.”
It was a few minutes before ten when we reached our room. There was a clock radio on the nightstand, and I turned it on and found the local station. Our bodies were still on Minnesota time and we were both bushed. We got ready for bed, climbed under the sheets, and Nikki at Night came on.
“Hello, night owls, this is Nikki Edwards. For the next few hours, I’ll be your guide to music of all things nocturnal. Sit back or lie down, close your eyes, and imagine the night sky, a canopy of stars above you.”
Her voice was smooth and smoky.
“She sounds awfully sexy,” Rainy said.
“I wouldn’t mind going to bed with her every night,” I said. Then added, “Listening to her on the radio.”
Her playlist, languid and sultry cuts, fit her voice and the theme of her show. She was inordinately fond of offering arcane information about each track.
“Here’s a cut from Tommy Roe, singing one of the classics from way back when: ‘Stormy.’ It might be a hundred and ten degrees outside, but this song’ll make you feel like it’s a cool thirty-two. It lasts a satisfying two minutes, fifty-one seconds. Enjoy, all you night owls.”
A thought occurred to me, and I got up and went to the desk in the corner of the room. I opened the top drawer and found what I was looking for.
“What are you doing?” Rainy asked from the bed.
“Local phone book,” I said, holding up the little volume of yellow pages. “I’m looking up the number for the radio station. If Nikki Edwards isn’t answering her phone, maybe Nikki at Night is.”
I located the number and punched it in on my cell phone. A tired, male voice answered.
“Could I speak with Nikki Edwards?”
“You want to request a song?”
“No. I’d just like to talk with her.”
“She’s on air.”
“When she has a moment. I can wait.”
“Unless you want to request a number—” he began.
“Tell her it’s about Peter Bisonette.”
There was a deep sigh on the other end. “Hold on.”
Nikki at Night had moved on to another number, a long cut from Enya. I waited, and in a moment, it was her voice coming through on my cell, not sultry in the least, but guarded.
“Who is this?” she said.
“My name’s Cork O’Connor. My wife is Rainy Bisonette, Peter’s mother. We’re here because we’re worried about Peter. Pastor Michelle at Grace Church recommended we talk to you.”
I said it quickly because I wanted to get in as much as I could before she hung up or had to leave to key up the next cut for her show.
“Why are you worried about Peter?”
“We got a call from him yesterday. He told us he was in trouble. We haven’t been able to reach him since.”
“Where are you?”
“Here in Cadiz.”
“I can’t talk now,” she said. “Can we meet tomorrow morning?”
“When?”
“I have to be in Tucson at eight. Is six too early for you?”
“Where?”
“I pass right by the radio station on my way out of town. How about we meet here?”
“We’ll be there,” I said.
She hung up without a good-bye. I turned to Rainy and relayed the 6:00 a.m. request. She lay back on her pillow and stared up at the ceiling.
“Maybe tomorrow we’ll get some answers,” she said.
*
I woke in the middle of the night. Rainy wasn’t beside me. I called her name and got no reply. I left the bed, checked the bathroom, then went to the window that overlooked the cactus garden and the bubbling fountain. The night was moonless and black, but the streetlights threw a drizzle of illumination over the Desert Breeze Inn. I saw Rainy standing near the fountain, talking on her cell phone. Her back was to me. She’d been trying Peter’s number frequently since we’d arrived, but I didn’t think it was Peter she was talking to. She shook her head and gestured with her free hand in a way that signaled frustration. Or maybe it was pleading. She paced and looked up at the night sky and shook her head again.
I stepped outside to join her. As soon as she saw me, she said something quickly and quietly on the phone and ended the call.
“Chantelle,” she said. Her daughter, who lived in Alaska. “I thought she should know about Peter. I hoped maybe he’d talked with her.”
“Looked like a pretty lively conversation.”
“I’m a little upset is all.”
“How is she?”
“Who? Oh, Chantelle. Worried, of course.”
“Of course. Want to talk?”
“I’m tired, Cork. I just want to go back to bed.”
We lay together, but neither of us slept. One of the things I’d always loved about Rainy was that I’d believed she would never lie to me. Until that moment.