It was 7:31 A.M. when Hackberry and Pam Tibbs drove up a pebble road to a grassless parcel of land where a frame house sat in the shadow of a hill, its front door open, the curtains blowing inside the screens. There were no vehicles out back or in the dirt yard. A crow sat on top of the cistern. It flapped its wings and lifted into the sky when Hackberry and Pam Tibbs stepped up on the gallery.
“It’s Sheriff Holland,” Hackberry called through the screen. “I need to talk to Pete Flores. Step out on the gallery, please.”
No answer.
Hackberry went through the door first. The wind seemed to fill the inside of the house in a way that reminded him of his own home after his wife had died, as though a terrible theft had just occurred for which there was no redress except silence. He walked deeper into the house, his boots loud on the plank floors. A half-eaten cheese sandwich lay on a plate on top of the kitchen table. Dry crumbs were scattered on the plate. A faucet dripped into an unwashed pan in the sink. A garbage sack, double-bagged and taped, rested on the back screen porch, as though someone had planned to carry it down to the Dumpster on the road or to bury it and had been interrupted.
The medicine cabinet and the bedroom closet were empty, coat hangers strewn on the floor. The toilet paper had been removed from the spindle. Hackberry looked through the front screen and saw a small Hispanic boy on a bicycle in the yard. The boy was not more than ten or eleven, and he was staring at the pump shotgun affixed to the cruiser’s dashboard. The bicycle the boy rode was old and had fat tires and was too big for a boy his size.
“You know where Pete Flores is?” Hackberry asked, stepping out on the gallery.
“He ain’t home?” the boy said.
“Afraid not.”
The boy didn’t speak. He got back on the bike, his face empty.
“I’m Sheriff Holland. Pete’s helping me with a little matter. Do you know where he might be?”
“No, sir. Miss Vikki ain’t home, either?”
“No, nobody is here right now.”
“Then how come you’re in their house?”
Hackberry sat down on the steps and removed his hat. He straightened the felt in the crown. He lifted his face into the sunlight that was breaking over the hill. “What’s your name?”
“Bernabe Segura.”
“Pete might be in some trouble, Bernabe. What’s Miss Vikki’s last name?”
“Gaddis.”
“Do you know where I could find her?”
The little boy’s face was clouded, as though he were looking at an image buried behind his eyes.
“Are you listening, Bernabe?”
“There were some men here last night. They had flashlights. They went inside the house.”
“So you came here to check on Pete?”
“We were gonna hunt for arrowheads today.”
“You shouldn’t have come here by yourself. Where’s your father?”
“I don’t have one.” Bernabe tapped on his handlebars. “Pete give me this bike.”
“Where can I find Miss Vikki, Bernabe?”
JUNIOR VOGEL LEANED on the counter. “I knew it,” he said.
“Knew what?” Hackberry said.
Junior picked up a towel from the counter, wiped his hands with it, and threw it in the direction of a yellow plastic container filled with soiled towels and aprons. “It’s that damn kid she’s been mixed up with. Pete Flores. What’d he do?”
“Nothing I know of. We just need some information from him.”
“Who you kidding? When that boy isn’t drunk, he’s hungover. I knew she was in trouble when she left the diner. I should have done something about it.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“She came in for her check. But two or three things were going on at the same time. Like a bad omen or something. I don’t know how to put it. A guy wanted to buy milk for his baby. Then a couple of guys in a Trans Am started coming on to her. I didn’t sort it out at the time.”
Pam Tibbs looked at the side of Hackberry’s face, then at Junior and back at Hackberry. “We don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, sir. Can you take the pralines out of your mouth?” she said.
“This guy said he was staying at the Super 8 and needed milk for his three-month-old baby girl. I asked him why he didn’t go to the convenience store. He said it was after eleven and the store was closed. So I got him a half-gallon out of my refrigerator and told him to give me two bucks for it. But he didn’t have the two bucks. How can a guy be out looking for milk and driving across Texas with his family when he doesn’t even have two bucks in his pocket?
“While I’m dealing with this guy, these two characters in a Trans Am are hassling Vikki. I don’t have trouble in my place, but suddenly, I got it all at one time, you follow me now? Drunks and hard cases don’t mess with my employees, Vikki in particular. Everybody knows that. ‘Orchestrated,’ that was the word I was looking for. It was like it was all orchestrated.”
“You get a license number on any of these guys?” Hackberry said.
“No.”
Hackberry placed his business card on the glass counter. “Call us if you hear from Vikki or if you see any of these guys again,” he said.
“What’s happened to Vikki? You ain’t told me squat,” Junior said.
“We don’t know where she is. As far as we know, you’re the last person to have seen her,” Hackberry said.
Junior Vogel let out his breath, the heel of his hand pressed to his head. “I looked out the window and the guy with the milk was ahead of her. The two creeps in the Trans Am got some gas and followed in the same direction. I watched it happen and didn’t do anything.”
THE SKY WAS gray with dust as they drove back down the state highway toward town, Pam Tibbs behind the wheel.
“I talked to my cousin Billy Bob Holland,” Hackberry said. “He’s a former Texas Ranger and practices law in western Montana. He’s known Pete Flores since he was a little boy. He says Pete was the best little boy he ever knew. He also says he was the smartest.”
“These days it’s not hard for a good kid to get in trouble.”
“Billy Bob says he’d bet his life this boy is innocent of any wrongdoing, at least of the kind we’re talking about.”
“My father was in Vietnam. He was psychotic when he came home. He hanged himself in a jail cell.” Pam’s eyes were straight ahead, her hands in the ten-two position on the steering wheel, her expression as empty as a wood carving.
“Pull on the shoulder,” Hackberry said.
“What for?”
“That road bull is waving at us,” he replied.
The inmates were from a contract prison and wore orange jumpsuits. They were strung out in a long line on the swale, picking up litter and stuffing it into vinyl bags they tied and left on the shoulder. A green bus with steel mesh on the windows was parked up ahead. So was a flatbed diesel truck with a horse trailer anchored to the back bumper. One mounted gunbull was at the back and another at the head of the line working along the road. An unarmed man in a gray uniform with red piping on the collar and pockets stood on the swale, waiting for the cruiser. He wore yellow-tinted aviator shades and an elegant white straw cowboy hat. His uniform was flecked with chaff blowing off the hard pan. His neck and face were deeply lined, like the skin on a turtle. Neither Hackberry nor Pam Tibbs knew him.
“What’s going on, Cap?” Hackberry said, getting out of the cruiser.
“See that Hispanic boy over yonder with Gothic-letter tats all over him?” A polished brass tag on the captain’s pocket said RICKER.
“Yes, sir?” Hack said.
“He killed a bar owner with a knife ’cause the bar owner wouldn’t return the money this kid lost in the rubber machine. Guess what he just found back there in the rocks? I almost downloaded in my britches when he handed it to me.”
“What’d he find?” Hackberry said.
The captain removed a stainless-steel revolver from his pants pocket. “It’s an Airweight thirty-eight, a five-rounder. Two caps already popped. Don’t worry. The hammer is sitting on a spent casing.”