"I'm going," she said. "I sent her there, and now I'm going to find her and bring her back. You're welcome to join me."
She shut the door and started for her car.
Jose rolled his window down and said, "Okay, book me a ticket, will you?"
Casey tossed her briefcase into the front seat, smiled, and said, "Yes. I'll see you tomorrow. Good luck at the ranch. And Jose?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
CHAPTER 35
JOSe NESTLED THE BIG WHITE TRUCK INTO THE SAME SPOT HE'D used before, in the trees under the shadow of the bridge embankment. This time he walked out onto the bridge to study his spot, assuring himself that no passerby could detect the truck coming from the other direction. Below, the water slipped silently past, a river of murk unwilling to give back a reflection of the brilliant night sky above. Trees rose up from the river's edge, casting a black pall about them thicker than tar. Satisfied, Jose started off, scuffing his boots along on the gravel shoulder until he saw the glow of oncoming headlights and dropped down into the ditch and beyond that into the dusty scrub.
The car sped past, washing away the sound of the night things all around him, then ebbing away until the chorus of bugs and rodents and frogs rang clearly again, like the piercing sound of an alarm. He took to the roadside and made it to the service entrance of the ranch without pause. To avoid the cameras he ducked back into the brush, glad for his GPS in the confusing tangle of twigs and vines, and coming out well down the drive, where he crunched away at the gravel until ominous shapes of the barns washed by a single halogen light on a pole in the yard sent his blood pumping a bit faster. Between the buildings and beyond, small lights winked at him through the trees. He stood for a time in the shadow of the biggest barn, out of the white light, his nose overwhelmed with the smell of manure and rotted and fermenting feed grain. Inside, animals of some kind shifted in their stalls, issuing an occasional grunt. On a grassy knoll above the barns rested an old farmhouse with light shining from a single downstairs window.
Jose moved cautiously away from the barns and through the gap in the trees, following a dirt path that opened into the clearing where row upon row of sagging shacks rested like corn stubble, truncated, broken, and listing. From the chinks between the wallboards and the occasional open door or window, a gauzy yellow light permeated the migrant camp.
Off to one side of the path sat three low buildings. A shift in the night air brought with it their stench, identifying the three buildings as latrines. He covered his face and took shallow breaths until he passed the latrines and stood on the lip of the dirt lane leading down into the cluster of hovels. In the shadows of the crooked roofs, shapes of people came to life for him. The low chatter and occasional ripple of laughter broke free from the other sounds of the night, giving the camp a festive quality.
He descended the slight incline and allowed his feet to carry him into their midst, but the festive humor melted away with each new step. Silence accompanied him like a contagion and it was remarkable to him how quickly, in this feeble light, they had sensed the presence of an outsider. He stopped in front of one shack, entirely dark, where an older man sat on an upended piece of firewood, whittling away at what smelled like a raw green willow branch, the fresh shavings littering the dirt like a light snow.
In Spanish, Jose explained that he was with the law and needed to ask some questions.
The old man started and stared up, the creases in his weathered face as deep as rock fissures. In Spanish, he asked, "The chief send you?"
"You mean Gage?" Jose asked.
The old man nodded and said, "He's the law here."
"There's a bigger law than Gage," Jose said. "I'm with that law."
The old man contemplated this for a while, then shook his head and returned to his whittling, and spoke no more.
Jose glanced around and saw that others had been listening, and when he began to move down the row, people disappeared like frogs along a creek bed so that by the time he reached the end there were no more workers to interrogate. He started back up the next row and met with the same form of denial until he noticed the flickering silhouette of a dark-haired woman in the open window of a shack, where several candles burned on a small table within.
Jose approached her and asked if she'd speak to him.
In an urgent whisper and speaking in English, she said, "Walk down the next row, then leave the way you came. I'll meet you by the barns."
Then, she shouted, "Gabacho!"
The wooden window slammed in his face.
Jose did as he'd been told, remembering to hold his breath as he passed the latrines. As he waited in the shadow of the biggest barn, he wondered if her urgent words might not have been a ruse to get rid of him. A few minutes later, however, she hurried out of the trees, looked around, and dragged him by the arm inside the barn. Livestock that Jose recognized as veal calves snorted and shifted, straining their hair rope tethers and scuffing the hay-strewn floor. The smell ranked second only to the latrines, but Jose soon forgot about it. Enough light from the halogen lamp outside fell in through a window that Jose could make out the woman's face and he realized she wasn't as young as her long dark hair had made him think.
"They're saying you're with the FBI," the woman said. "My name is Amelia. Are you looking for Nelly?"
"I'm working on a case for a lawyer who's trying to help a Mexican woman," Jose said. "I used to be a cop, but I'm not anymore. I'm not with the FBI. Who's Nelly?"
"A girl," Amelia said, her face wincing with pain. "A friend. I told her to run. I've been here for many years. I know what happens. When someone causes trouble, they disappear. Some say they leave here on their own. I think differently."
"Wait, wait," Jose said, holding up a hand. "What are you talking about?"
"Nelly heard them fighting," Amelia said. "The senator and his wife. Everyone knew Elijandro went with the wife, and not just once. He was a beautiful man. It could only end badly. Nelly is Mrs. Chase's maid. She heard them the night after the senator killed Elijandro. Nelly told me she heard the senator tell his wife that Elijandro asked for it, and I told her she must run. But Nelly had nothing and nowhere to go. She didn't believe. She listened to the others who make fun of me and call me a witch. If it makes me a witch because I know, then I'm a witch.
"She was a good girl," Amelia said. "Young and sweet, and I don't know what they did to her, but I know it's not good. No one comes back."
"Who disappears?" Jose asked. "This happened before?"
"The senator and his friends are very rich," Amelia said. "They do things the way rich people do, using drugs and prostitutes without fear of the law. I have always taken care of the senator's children, so I've never seen these things, but others have. They talk a little about the bad things they've seen and then they're just gone. Who is there to look for them? So we forget and pretend it didn't happen, pretend they went home or moved to Atlanta or Chicago, some big city far away. That happens, too, anyway. People leave, but there are always others to replace them, always people hungry for work. And here, people have a place to live, a place where the agents can never come because the senator makes the laws. We understand this from Mexico, how things work."
"Like razor blades," Jose said, more to himself than to her. "One nicks you and you throw it away for a new one. Aren't you afraid to tell me all this?"
Amelia sighed. "The little girl is the youngest and she goes away to boarding school at the end of the summer. A blade can go dull, too. I will be told to leave. This I know. What's the difference if I leave now?"
"You mean, right now?" Jose asked.
"I have four thousand dollars," she said, patting the rucksack she wore over her shoulder.
"How long you worked here?" he asked.