“Just a minute,” came a woman’s reply.
True to her word, in one minute, she appeared, a dark-skinned woman with a bright, white smile. Her hair was a wild crown of black and gray. Her eyes were dark and shiny in a face full of welcome. She was clearly well fed, though not quite rotund, and was dressed in the blue, short-sleeved shirt of a postal employee. Below that, she wore bright floral shorts.
“What can I do for you folks?” she asked, with a slight Hispanic accent.
“I’m trying to locate my son,” Rainy said. “He has a post office box here. His name is Peter Bisonette.”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know that name.”
“Do you know most of the people who have post office boxes here?” I asked.
“Towns don’t get much smaller than Sulfur Springs. Everybody knows everybody.”
“But you don’t know a Peter Bisonette?”
“Not that name.”
Rainy pulled her wallet from her purse and drew out the photograph of Peter she kept there, one taken after he’d completed rehab. “This is him,” she said, handing the picture over.
The woman studied it. “I haven’t seen him.”
“You’re sure?” Rainy asked.
“Like I said, small town. We all know each other.”
“His post office box is number twenty-seven.”
The woman smiled but shook her head. She handed back the photograph. “You said you’re his mother?”
Rainy nodded.
“You look worried.”
“I am.”
“I have a son I worry about, too. I hope you find your Peter.”
“Gracias,” Rainy said. Then she said a good deal more in Spanish and the woman closed her eyes and nodded.
Outside, we stood a moment in the sun, looking down the main street, which was quiet and mostly empty.
“What did you say to her?”
“Something a mother once told me. That for the sake of her child, a mother’s heart has to be like a willow branch, bending but never broken.” She looked around her at what she could see of the desolate little town. Not far away, a rooster crowed. “I don’t know why, but maybe he goes by another name here.”
“He can change his name but not his face,” I said. “She claimed not to recognize that either.”
“Claimed?”
“Small town. Everybody knows everybody. If Peter collects his mail there, she’s bound to have seen him at one time or another.”
“You think she lied to us?”
“Let’s talk to some more people,” I said.
We walked to the police station, which from the outside, didn’t look much larger than the post office. A sign hung on the door: ON PATROL. IN EMERGENCY, CALL 911.
Rainy glanced at me. “Peter said someone was after him. Maybe the police here?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But jurisdiction in something as serious as a killing is going to fall to the county. The sheriff’s people didn’t seem to know anything.”
A couple of motorcycles roared into Sulfur Springs, loud and fast, and cruised down the main street. The riders, two guys with red bandannas wrapped around their heads and wearing black T-shirts and sunglasses, gave us a good looking over as they passed. They seemed out of place to me in this quiet border town.
We visited every storefront on both sides of the single, run-down block of businesses, asking about Peter and showing the photograph. Everywhere the response was the same. We tried the church on the corner across the street from the mercado, St. Esteban’s. Empty and locked. The information on a little sign in front indicated that two services were held there on Sundays. One was Catholic at 8:00 a.m., the other Methodist at 10:00 a.m. There was a different name and contact number under each service.
At last we stood in front of the town’s eatery, Rosa’s Cantina.
“Let’s see if Feleena is whirling inside,” I said.
Rainy gave me a blank look.
“From a great song by Marty Robbins,” I explained.
The aroma of chilies and melted cheese and tortillas on a hot griddle greeted us as we entered. I realized that we hadn’t eaten since breakfast during our layover in the Twin Cities airport, and I was starved. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light inside, which was dark compared to the glare in the street. Except for a couple of hombres sitting at the bar, the place was empty. It wasn’t Marty Robbins on the jukebox but Kenny Chesney, crooning “All I Need to Know.” The two at the bar, who had beers in front of them, turned their heads to stare as we entered. One of them was an old-timer, long beard and all, wearing a red and black Diamondbacks ball cap. The other was dressed in a police uniform.
A young woman, tall, with jet-black hair, came through a door behind the bar. She wore a colorful blouse and tight jeans. Gold hoops big enough for a bird to fly through hung from her earlobes.
“Hola,” she said brightly. “Lost tourists?”
“Not lost,” I said.
“Mister, nobody who isn’t from here comes to Sulfur Springs unless they’re lost.”
“Not lost,” I said again. “But hungry.”
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place. Take a table, I’ll bring you a couple of menus. Anything to drink?”
“Cerveza,” I said, one of the few Spanish words I knew.
“Water for me,” Rainy said.
“Una cerveza fría,” the woman said with a laugh. “And a water.”
We sat at a table. Kenny Chesney ended his song, and the juke fell silent. The two guys at the bar went on drinking their beers, not speaking a word, waiting, I was pretty sure, to overhear what we might have to say. Rainy elbowed me and nodded at the uniform.
“In a minute,” I said. “The beer first.”
It came, and God bless her, our barmaid brought it in a frosted glass. She put Rainy’s water down, too, along with the promised menus.
“What’s good?” I asked.
“What isn’t?” she said. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
I took a long draw on the beer, and it was every bit as satisfying as I’d hoped.
“So,” I said. “If he’s not here, where is he?”
“I don’t know, Cork.” She sipped her water.
“He gets his mail here. That doesn’t mean he lives here.”
The uniform turned on his stool. “You folks looking for somebody?”
“Peter Bisonette,” Rainy said. “My son.”
“Bisonette,” the uniform said, as if testing the word. “Don’t believe I know anyone named Bisonette here.”
He was stocky, middle-aged, hair thick and silver. Hispanic. He wore a sidearm, a revolver. I was pretty sure it was a Smith & Wesson .38 Police Special, which was the same weapon I’d worn when I was sheriff, and also my father before me.
“How about a guy named Rodriguez?” I asked.
The uniform laughed. “Mister, in a border town like Sulfur Springs, asking about a guy named Rodriguez is like asking in Minnesota about a guy named Johnson.”
“Minnesota? Why Minnesota?”
“If you’re not from Minnesota, I’ll eat Sylvester’s hat.” He lightly slapped the ball cap the old-timer wore. “You talk that flat talk I hear every Saturday on A Prairie Home Companion. Love that show. You ever met Garrison Keillor?”