“So that’s the only way, walking north?”
“You could also head east, beyond the Santa Margaritas toward Arivaca. Go far enough and you hit I-Nineteen. It’s pretty much impossible if you don’t know what you’re doing, but that wasn’t Peter. I don’t know if he walked his groups to one of the highways, or crossed the mountains, or if there was a rendezvous point where other Desert Angels were waiting with vehicles. Or maybe he used a safe place somewhere as a kind of way station. He didn’t let us in on that part of the operation.”
“You dropped him here two days ago?”
“A couple of hours before sunset. Then I flew back.”
“How did you know when to return to pick him up?”
“This time it was preset. I was supposed to be here at noon yesterday. I showed up, Peter didn’t. I flew the whole area, a crisscross pattern. Couldn’t see a thing. I went back to my place and took my motorcycle up to the winery to talk to Frank about it. That’s when you folks showed up.”
“You don’t know where along the border he was going to meet his group?”
“Only the general area, and I spent a good deal of today flying that. The truth is, finding a body out here, especially when you don’t really know where to look, well, good luck with that one, mister.”
“I’ve got the coordinates for the spot where the rendezvous was supposed to take place.”
I could see his surprise. Clearly, he had no idea of Nikki Edwards’s part in all this. Peter’s wisdom. He took a map from the biplane, laid it on the wing, and found the location.
“How far from here?” I asked.
“No more than an hour’s walk.”
“You said good luck finding a body. You think Peter’s dead?”
“I hope not. But out here, the way things are, it’s best to steel yourself.”
“When the pickup wasn’t preset, how did he communicate?”
“Called Old Turtle’s phone.”
“Used a cell phone?”
“Coverage is pretty hit and miss out here. Probably a satellite phone.”
“What if he didn’t?”
“He’d have to be someplace where he could get a signal. Best bet would be east. The Santa Margaritas.” He nodded toward a wall of mountains in that direction.
“You know that range?”
“Not well.”
“Who does?”
“The Border Patrol. Also some of the old prospectors, I imagine. That area was part of the Oro Rico Mining District. Some big operations there in the day. All closed down now, I believe. And Oro Rico itself is just a ghost town.”
“Have you flown over the area?”
“Not yet.”
“Could we do that?”
“Not today. Need to get back before the light’s gone.”
“Tomorrow?”
He looked toward the Santa Margaritas. Since we’d departed Coronado County, the sun had dropped low in the sky. The heat was unchanged, the desert still an oven, and the mountains to the east were a blazing wall of red-orange fire against the hard, blue sky.
“Why not?” He looked at me wistfully and gave a little shrug. “But who knows? Maybe we’ll hear something before then.”
We took off and flew over the rendezvous point. The border fence there was nothing but strung wire. We stayed low enough that we could scan the desert for any sign of Peter or the people he’d arranged to lead to safety, but like Jocko had said, spotting an unmoving body in that broad expanse would be next to impossible. I had to fight hard against the sense that all this was useless.
We flew south of the Coronados and came up over the high grassland to Jocko’s little spread and landing strip. I’d thought Rainy would rush out, hoping for news, but no one met us when we climbed down from the biplane. We walked to the ranch house. It was empty. The pickup truck Michelle had loaned us was still parked in front, but Harris’s F-150 was gone.
“She probably took Frank up on his offer and went back to the winery with him,” Jocko suggested. “Let me give him a call.” He used his landline. “Frank, it’s me. You at the winery? Is that little lady Rainy there, too?” He shook his head. “No, she’s not. Thought maybe she’d gone with you.” He listened and said, “When we know, we’ll let you know.” He hung up and looked at me as if I’d asked a question to which he had no answer.
I pulled out my cell phone and saw that I had plenty of bars. “Let me try calling her.”
I punched in her number. A few moments later it began to ring. Outside the ranch house, I heard the notes of “Natural Woman” playing. Rainy’s ringtone. I headed out the door, but the call went to voice mail. The sun had dropped below the Coronados, and I stood with Jocko in the blue twilight and called again. The song played from somewhere in the tall grass that grew beyond the cottonwoods sheltering the house. I followed the sound but didn’t nail its location before my call went to voice mail again. I tried once more. The ringtone came from an area just ahead of me, where the grass was crushed and matted in the way I sometimes found in the foliage of the Northwoods where deer had bedded down for the night. The pale green-yellow of the standing grass was splashed with a darker, rust color. But I knew it wasn’t rust.
“Jesus,” Jocko said quietly at my back.
I’d been in this place before, losing someone I loved deeply. The phone sang to me, but for a moment, I couldn’t make my legs move. Then Rainy’s voice came on the line, brightly telling me to leave a message, and I walked forward.
Her phone lay in the center of the bloody, matted-down grass. Rainy wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 13
* * *
“What were you doing in Mr. Wieman’s biplane?” Sheriff Carlson asked.
“Sightseeing,” I said.
Carlson looked at Jocko. “Sightseeing where, Mr. Wieman?”
It was heading toward dark. The sheriff’s people were still going over Jocko’s property, the bloody matting of grass, mostly with the aid of flashlights now, moving along the perimeter they’d established for their search. I’d already checked the area thoroughly and had found nothing, no sign of Rainy.
We’d been grilled by a couple of investigators, including Deputy Crockett, who’d been part of the investigation of the bombing that morning. Now the sheriff was going over the same territory, probably trying to get the lay of the land for himself and maybe looking for holes in our story.
“Like I already told your deputies, I flew Cork over the Coronados, the San Gabriel Valley, showed him a bit of the desert.”
“What time did you take off?”
“A little before five.”
“And you came back when?”
“Bout eight-thirty.”
Carlson looked back at me. “She was here when you left?”
“She was here when we left.”
“And when you came back, that cell phone was all you found?”
“Yes.”
“Did she try to contact you while you were gone?”
“I was out of service range, and she didn’t leave me any messages.”
“I understand someone was here with her when you left.”
“Frank Harris, but he was going to head home after Jocko and I took off.”
The sheriff looked back at the pickup on loan from the minister. “Where’d you get the wheels?”