In the morning, we both showered and dressed and said very little. It was early, and when I drew back the curtains, there was only the gray promise of day in the sky. I opened the door and felt the heat, and I thought again how I’d always heard the desert got cool at night. Another lie, I figured.
The Jeep Cherokee I’d rented had a remote starter, which I’d thought would come in handy on those blazing days when I wanted to kick over the engine from our hotel room and get the air-conditioning pumping out a cool stream long before we got in. I grabbed the key from the desktop, where I’d put it the night before, and stepped back into the doorway. The Cherokee was parked thirty or forty yards from our room, beyond the cactus garden, the only vehicle in the small lot. I hit the ignition button.
The Cherokee disappeared in a great ball of flame, and the blast of air against my face was ten times hotter than any Arizona sun.
CHAPTER 8
* * *
“Peter Bisonette,” Sheriff Chet Carlson said. “Not a name I’m familiar with.”
They’d cordoned off the burned-out hulk that had been our rented Jeep Cherokee. Cadiz Volunteer Fire and Rescue had doused the flames ten minutes after the explosion. Although it was still early, a good share of the town’s population had gathered on the street to gawk. Rainy and I sat on a bench in the cactus garden, while the sheriff questioned us and a deputy took notes.
“He was here because of the Goodman Center?” the sheriff said. “Patient or employee?”
“He’s been both,” Rainy said.
Carlson was in his late thirties, slender, dark hair, serious eyes. “Most recently?”
“Employee. A counselor.”
“Still employed?”
“Not there.”
“Where?”
“He works for the Harrises.”
Sheriff Carlson thought a moment and shook his head.
“Frank and Jayne Harris,” the deputy said. He hadn’t introduced himself, but he’d been writing a lot. He was boyishly good looking, with dark eyes and high cheekbones. Around the crown of his tan cowboy hat, he wore a band that was beaded in a colorful design that made me think of the Navajo. Although his name badge read CROCKETT, the same name as that legendary frontiersman and Indian fighter, I thought he might have some Native heritage in him. “They own a winery other side of the Coronados, set up against the Sonora Hills.”
Carlson turned again to Rainy. “What’s he do for them?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Rainy replied. “Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, as I understand it.”
“Have you checked with them about your missing son?”
“They haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.”
“So it’s been less than forty-eight hours since you’ve had contact with Peter?”
“That’s right.”
“We don’t consider a person officially missing until they’ve been gone forty-eight hours.”
I said, “When it’s your family, you look at it differently.”
He nodded toward the wreckage of the Jeep. “I’ve got to figure, since you just arrived, the car bomb, if that’s what it actually was, had something to do with your son. Doesn’t that seem reasonable to you?”
“Of course it does.”
“So?” He waited to be enlightened.
“I don’t know, Sheriff,” Rainy said. “I honestly don’t know.”
“When you talked with Peter the night before last, during your phone conversation, did he give you any indication what kind of trouble he might be in?”
“I didn’t actually talk with him,” Rainy said. “He left a voice message. And he said nothing about any kind of trouble.”
Another lie from the lips of the woman I thought I knew so well. But this lie, I understood.
“Okay, Ms. Bisonette, how about this? He was a patient at Goodman and then he worked there. At the Goodman Center you come into contact with a lot of folks who have a lot to do with drugs. Coronado County shares a long border with Mexico. We do our best to battle the flow of drugs up here, but sometimes it feels like we’re trying to hold back a flood with a dam riddled full of holes. You understand?”
Rainy just looked at him.
“You’ve been throwing his name out to a lot of folks around here,” Carlson went on. “I’ve got to tell you my first thought is that your son might be involved in trafficking drugs, and somebody doesn’t want you poking into that. It would go a long way to explaining both his disappearance and that burned-up Jeep of yours.”
“Peter got clean. And Peter would never traffic.”
“I know you believe your son was successful in his rehab, but sometimes it doesn’t take the first time around. And if he’s still trying to support a costly habit, I’m guessing what he makes working odd jobs at a winery won’t cut it.”
“Peter wouldn’t—” Rainy began.
“Then explain that Jeep to me, ma’am.” He gave her a piercing cop look, one I’d used myself when I wore a badge. A moment later, he turned the look on me.
“Everything you say makes perfect sense,” I said. Because it did. And because I didn’t really know Peter and had no other facts to offer, I figured at that point arguing with him would get us nowhere.
“You have a photograph of Peter?” he asked Rainy.
“It’s in our room. I’ll get it.”
Rainy headed away, leaving me alone with the sheriff.
The woman who’d checked us in the night before stood in the doorway of her office, speaking with another deputy. Her eyes flicked my way, and even at that distance, I could see how afraid she was.
“Peter’s not your son?” Carlson asked me.
“No. He’s my wife’s son, from her first marriage.”
“And you two? Been married long.”
“Since April.”
“Newlyweds. You know Peter well?”
“Not well, no.”
“Could he still be using?”
“He could be.”
“I’d like a list of everyone you and your wife have talked to since you arrived in Coronado County.”
“All right. Is there a car rental company here in Cadiz?”
“Nope. But even if there was, considering what happened to your last rental, I doubt you’d have any luck there.”
One of the firemen approached and said, “Could I talk to you a minute, Chet?” They walked away toward what was left of the Jeep.
Rainy came back with the photo.
“I’ll take that, ma’am,” Deputy Crockett said politely.
“I’d like it back.”
“We’ll scan it and return it to you. Sheriff’s going to be putting out a BOLO on your son.”
Carlson returned. “I’d like you to come down to the office and give us an official statement, and that list I asked for of everyone you’ve talked to. Do you have that photo?”
“Got it,” Crockett said and held it up for the sheriff to see.
*
We were given a ride in a cruiser, made our statements at the law enforcement center, wrote up a list of the people with whom we’d already talked, then were driven back to the Desert Breeze Inn. The Jeep had been towed away and the debris had been swept up. All that was left on the asphalt of the little parking lot was a big patch of soot, like the print of a black hand.
The woman in the office came out to meet us. She wouldn’t look at us as she spoke.
“You can’t stay here.”
“I understand,” Rainy said.
“May we leave our bags in the room until we find other accommodations?” I asked.