Short Cut to Santa Fe (11 page)

“What's that?”

“That bus isn't more 'n fifty or sixty miles away from the airport.”

“Oh?”

“It never came in to get filled. Somewhere between the service bay and the pumps it just disappeared, and Bert with it. I'd guess it isn't too far away, sitting on empty. But I want to know where Bert is. Bert's my best driver, and I want to know what's happened to him.”

So far John's attempts to turn the inhabitants of the bus into a functioning team had been singularly unsuccessful. Donovan's death had shaken them; and fear had melted any glue that might otherwise have held them together. No one had any idea why the rest had left, except that they were cowards, or stupid, or rats. Jennifer Nicholls had volunteered the rat theory. “Go off to get help?” she said, her voice shaking with rage—or perhaps amusement. “Brett? Risk his life for the good of the group? Are you kidding? He'd never get off his ass and do anything that strenuous unless he thought trekking through the fucking desert was his last chance for survival. Then it'd be worth the effort and the risk.”

“Does that mean—?” Rose Green stopped and looked helplessly around.

“It doesn't mean a goddamn thing. He's too stupid to figure out the odds, and he knows piss-all about the desert. He panicked, that's all. They probably all panicked.”

“Are you saying you think the Kellehers panicked?” asked Harriet. “They seemed to have their feet on the ground as far as I could tell. And what they were planning to do makes sense.”

“What was that?” asked Jennifer.

“Climb up as high as they could get and see if they could tell where we are. They took my map.”

“If you can believe that . . .” said Jennifer. “They just wanted to get your map out of your hands.”

“You don't trust them?” asked John.

“No. But then I don't trust many people.” She shook her head. “Look at Kelleher. He claims to be a software developer and he looks like a field worker. Unless he's been in prison, working on the roads or whatever they make people do around here, and they're on this trip to celebrate his release. And his wife. If Suellen—and I ask you, Suellen? That name is too good to be true—she grabbed it in desperation to try and sound Texan—if she's from Texas, I'm from Raleigh, South Carolina.” Jennifer ended this homily on a flourish. “Hang on—I have to check my patient again.”

“Did someone say they were from Raleigh?” called a sweetly affected voice from behind them. “That's where I was born, but I moved away when I was just a little girl. What are we doing? Telling life stories to pass the time?”

There was a scrambling of feet on the steep slope, and Suellen Kelleher came into view.

“We thought you'd gone,” said Harriet.

“Not a chance.” Rick Kelleher appeared and jumped down a steeper section onto the road. “Is there anything new? Where are the kids?”

“They went exploring up the road. Better than having them cooped up here, I thought,” said Harriet defensively.

“You went off to see where we are,” said John hastily. “Any luck?”

“Not much. Is that coffee?”

“It's cold, but there's lots,” said Harriet. “I'll get you some.”

“There's an interesting mesa formation up at the top of the hill,” said Rick. “But it looked pretty deserted. There might be water down at the foot of this, if you could get down to it. I thought I saw the sun glint on something shiny down there at one point. But no sign of a stream or anything like that. No people, no cars, and this is the only road—if you can call it a road—that we found.” He paused to finish his coffee. “There is one thing that disturbed me,” he said cautiously after a while.

“Just one?” asked Harriet impatiently. “And what's that?”

“The bus is damn near invisible from up above. Your van can be seen, of course, but the bus just blends into the mountainside. And as far as I can see, that means we have to leave. There's water in the bus, of course, drinking water, and a reservoir for hand washing in the rest room. If we can organize containers for it—enough containers for it—we can trek out of here. If we have enough.”

A new and powerful force had hit the group, and they all stirred uneasily. “Not everyone is going to be able to walk out of here,” said Sanders. “We're talking more than five miles of rough downhill road, just getting down this mountain. Then maybe another five miles across the flat unless a car comes by. It could be pretty brutal.”

“I couldn't, for one,” said Mrs. Green. “My knees wouldn't take me one mile. And of course Diana Morris can't either, and I expect that means that Jennifer Nicholls won't.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?” said Rick. “Sit here swapping yarns as we slowly die of hunger and thirst?”

“We weren't just swapping yarns, Mr. Kelleher,” said Rose Green. “We were trying to come up with a plan. And I want to know who killed Mr. Donovan,” she added.

“Donovan's dead?” said Rick. “When did that happen?”

“If Gary killed him,” said Harriet, “it had to be before he left.”

Rose Green shook her head. “No,” she said. “Right after the lights went out, I fell asleep. When I woke up, Karen Johnson was gone, and so were the two drivers. They had been sitting on the step right beside our seat, whispering. And there was no one there. I even reached my hand out to see if I could touch them. Nothing but empty air. And then I heard Kevin Donovan tell Miss Suarez he had to get out, and would she let him by. And he went out of the bus and never came back. Then she left. And some of the others.”

“My God, where was I while all this was going on?” asked Sanders.

“I think you were asleep, Inspector. You sort of jumped and woke up—I could feel it—when Donovan said something to Miss Suarez.”

“How do you know it was Donovan? Maybe it was me, and I had to get out past Suellen,” said Rick.

“In that case, why call her ‘Teresa sweetheart'?” said Rose sharply.

“Maybe they came back and killed him,” said Suellen.

“Why bother?” asked Sanders.

“Who elected you God and chief inquisitor combined while we were away?” asked Rick, with a glare at Sanders.

Excited chatter from up the road and around the corner interrupted the discussion before it could become irretrievably unpleasant. “There they are—there's the bus. Am I ever glad. You're heavy, you know.” Caroline's voice carried through the clear air, preceding a sight more unexpected than the reappearance of the Kellehers. Stuart and Caroline came staggering around the corner, supporting between them the filthy, limping body of Karen Johnson, tour guide.

“Hi,” said Stuart. “Look who we found. We gave her some of our soda, but I think she's still thirsty. She's been walking for miles in her bare feet.”

Karen opened her mouth to say something. A small, hoarse sound issued from between her lips and she crumpled onto the ground.

It was past nine o'clock when Kate arrived back at the motel. Still no cream-coloured van sat parked in front of unit twelve. “Dammit,” she muttered, and walked into the management unit. “Any messages?” she called from inside the empty office. And waited. She hit the bell on the counter. And waited.

The owner took his usual interminable time to poke his head around the door from his quarters. “Hi, Ms. Grosvenor,” he said. “No calls and no sign of your friends. Now—about that room . . .” he began.

“Shit! Are you sure?” Of course he was sure. Everyone was sure about everything but her. “Look—I told you to hang onto the goddamn room for them, so hang on to it. You'll get paid.” A wave of hot, painful fury slammed through Kate's already miserable body; for lack of a more cogent response she stormed out of the office and slammed the door. It didn't help. She stood wavering at the door to her room. What was inside? Her pills. Her Scotch. Nothing else. Not even a book or a magazine. And suddenly she was hideously thirsty again. She would walk back into town and get a bottle of spring water. Maybe she would have something to eat on this trip. She had ordered toast with her breakfast coffee and had been unable to bear even the smell of it.

She managed to fritter away an hour and a half before heading back to the motel, now supplied with some paperbacks, water, and a Danish. No sign of Harriet. She retreated to her room and stared for a long time at the two bottles beside her bed—one large, one tiny. No, Kate. Later. First of all she had to find out what in hell was going on, even if it meant calling every hotel in Santa Fe, and for that she had to be clear of head and of speech. She started to eat her Danish very slowly, and with great determination, like someone who has a gun to her head and is being forced to consume a revolting object. Yak dung, perhaps. Camel testicles. Unwise things to think about while eating. She managed three bites. She stuffed the rest of it back into its paper bag and threw it into the wastebasket. Still, for the first time in a long time, she had swallowed solid food before her first drink of the day.

Now what? She could call the airport. But even at small airports no one notices the people who arrive to pick up passengers. Or even the passengers pouring off flights. It occurred to her that she had no idea when he'd arrived or what airline he'd been on. Wonderful. Come on, Kate, think. What do you believe has happened that justifies raising a fuss? The answer sprang immediately into her mind. Harriet has been wiped out on the brief drive down to the city, and she is either dead or lying in a hospital near death. Otherwise she would have contacted you. Therefore whom do you call? The state troopers.

With that established, she looked up the number, pulled the telephone closer, and dialed.

It was already past twelve o'clock in the Eastern time zone. Those few government workers who were fated to toil away on Saturday were either finished for the day or out foraging for lunch in a dead, weekend city where most of the restaurants sat quietly filling up with dust. Two gloomy people who had been supervising various aspects of the Santa Rosa file looked at each other over a cluttered desk.

“Fill me in on what you've managed to get so far.”

“It's still sketchy. New Mexico is trying to collect as much information as possible without alerting anyone at any level to our interest in the thing. It ain't easy, let me tell you,” she added, her crisp, expensively acquired East Coast dialect falling into mock disrepair. “At the moment, we're doing our best to keep it looking like some psycho hijacking a bus filled with innocent tourists. Tragic, yes, but with implications? No.”

“Is that possible?”

“Is what possible?” She sounded puzzled, her mind running miles ahead of her superior's at the moment.

“That it was some psycho hijacking a bus filled with innocent tourists, only it happened to be our bus?”

“Sure. And we could be hit by lightning as we sit here, too. Even though there isn't a cloud in the sky and we're trapped inside this building. Listen—I take two hours off on Friday morning to go the dentist and what happens? One of my most promising agents is sent into nowhere with zilch briefing, an agent who should have been on holiday right now. The agent
and
an essential witness are now both missing. I can't believe it,” she added, in tones of anguish. “Only eight passengers on that goddamn bus and two of them are ours. An irreplaceable agent and a crucial witness. I don't believe in coincidence. Not beyond a certain point. With that witness we can wrap him up this time, and he knows it.”

Her boss squirmed but ignored the criticism. “Who else was on the bus?”

“You think it was someone on the bus? Someone who knew what we knew?” She frowned. “I considered that. But we've been so damned careful. It just seemed too—”

“I don't think. I just want to know who else was on the bus.”

“Well—the tour company is pretty well organized.”

“With eight passengers to a trip, I should hope so.”

“New Mexico faxed us the list and I have notes on a few of them. It's not easy to get information within seconds on a Saturday morning, you know.” For the first time, she sounded a trifle querulous. “Anyway, you want me to give you what I got so far?” In the absence of a quick negative, she went on, almost without pausing. “Kevin Donovan. Gave an address in Chicago. Initially, he checks out, but I don't feel good about him. Could be I'm prejudiced, but you don't expect a guy traveling alone to be on a hokey trip like that.” Her boss nodded sagely. Or maybe sleepily. “Rose Green. Got herself a senior's discount ticket. Lives in Worcester, Mass. There is a Mrs. Rose Green at her address in Worcester who has lived there for forty years and has no known involvement with organized crime or a record of violence.”

“Now that's a refreshing change,” said her boss. “A little old lady who's actually a little old lady.”

The speaker reddened and darted a poisonous look at him. “We have nothing yet on the next couple, a Rick and Suellen Kelleher purported to be from Amarillo, Texas. A few communications problems there, I think. Diana Morris is listed as a librarian from Virginia, which checks. Brett and Jennifer Nicholls are from Minneapolis, but aside from apparently living in the house they say they live in, we have very slender information on them. Teresa Suarez lives in New York at her address and her neighbours say she works in an advertising agency. Which checks. It might take until tomorrow or Monday to get better information on all these people. Do we want one on Karen Johnson?”

“Who in hell is she?”

“The guide. Called in at the last minute.”

“Yes. When I said everyone, that's what I meant. Call me here as soon as you have fresh information.” He looked up. “Why was she called in at the last minute?”

“Haven't the faintest. I'll find out.”

“And one of those is ours?”

She nodded her head. “Fred's the only one who knows which it is. Or who the witness is. There were so many leaks and screw-ups the last time, we agreed it was the only way to go. You authorized that, sir,” she added grimly.

“So I did. It seemed to be a good idea at the time, didn't it? Who knows what levels the man has friends at?”

“So as long as one of them isn't Fred, we might still be able to rescue something out of this.”

“If we can find them first.”

Kate hadn't known quite what to expect from her inquiry, but it had not been a car screeching up in front of her room within five minutes of placing her call.

“Miss Grosvenor?” asked the man who filled her doorway. He had a dark, pleasant face, now composed into a grave expression. A bearer of lousy news expression. She felt sick.

“That's right,” she said steadily, grateful that she had resisted the impulse to have that drink once she had made the call.

“Sergeant Rodriguez. You called us about a woman in a cream Chevy van with Missouri license plates who was supposed to meet you here in Taos.” It was, and wasn't, a question. It was almost as if he wanted to give her a chance to say that it was all a mistake, that she had merely dreamed the van, and that she had no friend. There was something hostile and threatening in that voice.

Too tired and too sore to unscramble the message behind his tone and his words, she plowed on with the raw truth. “Yes, I did. She left Denver on Thursday; she was planning on spending Thursday night on the road somewhere between Denver and Santa Fe, then picking up a friend at the Santa Fe airport and driving him back here to Taos. She hasn't made it and I'm worried about her. We were going to spend a few days together. As a holiday. And before you think I'm just another hysterical female—” That sentence was going nowhere useful. She switched gears. “I know she's a grown-up, and it hasn't been that long but, believe me, please, she isn't someone who makes appointments and doesn't keep them. For one thing, she knew I'd called the motel and reserved two rooms.”

“Lots of people reserve motel rooms and don't bother turning up. That doesn't mean a thing.”

“You don't understand. She's one of those conscientious Canadians. She'd classify stiffing a motel owner right up there on the scale of things with robbing a bank.” That drew a change of expression that almost qualified as a smile. “Anyway, when she hadn't turned up this morning, and hadn't called, I thought I should contact you people.” Kate still felt as if she was talking into a large pillow. “Do you have any information on my friend?” she asked, exasperated, after a very long silence. “Are you even interested in the fact that she seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth?” Easy, Kate, easy. Calm down. She took a deep breath and then gasped as the pain bounced around her rib cage and shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Sorry,” said Kate. She caught her breath with difficulty and went on. “Gunshot wound,” she added automatically. “Souvenir of the Middle East.”

“Military?”

“No—a photographer, news photographer. Just as hazardous at times,” she added, with a wan smile. “But not as noble. Look, why don't you come in and we can sit down?” So far, this conversation had left her exhausted beyond all reason.

Sergeant Rodriguez walked in and looked around. “Nice rooms,” he commented, and sat down at the table by the window.

“I'd offer you coffee if I had any—I'd offer myself coffee if I had any, in fact—but all I've got is spring water.” She took a large bottle out of her canvas bag and set it on the table. “Help yourself,” she added, pointing to the nest of glasses in the middle of the table.

“Just a minute,” he said, went out to his car and came back with a large thermos jug.

Kate watched him move with fascination, temporarily forgetting her misery, her fingers itching to capture that fluid movement on film. He reminded her of the beautiful young men with rippling, controlled muscles whom she had photographed in hot, dry, bomb-scarred villages, scrambling over rocks and dropping out of second-story windows. Now dead, probably. Or at least most of them.

“Black with sugar,” he said cheerfully, fortunately unaware what was in her head. “I hope that's okay. And that you don't object to drinking your coffee out of water glasses.” He poured two glasses of coffee and two of spring water. “Now—let's talk about your friend. I'll start. We are interested in the fact that your friend seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Very interested. Particularly since according to you she was driving a cream Chevy van with Missouri plates. We think you might be in a position to tell us a whole lot, Miss Grosvenor. Let me explain the situation to you.”

“It can't be true,” said Kate, after she had heard him out. “No matter how sure people think they are. I'll admit that Harriet isn't one of my oldest childhood friends, but we spent a summer together, we've met at other times, we've done a lot of talking. She could not have kidnapped two children, for whatever reason. I'll tell you what's possible, though. If the kids appeared to be stranded at the airport, she is idiotic enough to offer to drive them home and then to get everyone lost in the process. She's very helpful and impulsive. She never seems to think about consequences—like being sued for driving away with someone else's children without authorization. She's also one of these people who believes that if she has a map she can find her way anywhere—and that means that she's always getting lost. But a kidnapper! That's just nowhere near possible.”

“What about her boyfriend?”

“Ah—him.” Kate looked intently into the lazy brown eyes flecked with gold that had been assessing her all this time. “Well, I'd be prepared to believe almost anything about him.”

“Why is that, Ms. Grosvenor?” She had caught his attention at last. He leaned forward, and a lock of his glossy dark hair fell onto his forehead.

“Because he's a cop, that's why,” she said, in a very conspiratorial voice. “Harriet tried to tell me he was intelligent, and enlightened, and thoughtful, and all that crap, but you know what cops are like.”

“Very funny,” he said coldly, leaning back again.

“I'm sorry,” she said, with a small grin. “It was a cheap shot. But I don't think a photographer is any more likely to kidnap two children than a police officer is. And she isn't crazy. If she wants kids, all she has to do is marry the guy and have some. He's willing, and she's thinking of it. We had a long talk about it.”

“Did she bring up the topic of children?”

“No. I did. It's a subject that I've been considering very hard for the past few months—ever since I almost got killed. And so I forced it into the conversation.”

“Is he a Canadian, too?”

“As far as I know. He's a cop in Toronto, where she lives.”

“With the city police force?”