“No, I mean do you want to catch that monster fish that everybody’s always talking about? You know, fifteen pounds, two feet long.”
Fragua looked at the road, smiled. “That’s not easy to answer. Seems like it would be. No, I don’t think so. A big fish is fun, I suppose, but so are small ones sometimes. Depends on the water. If I catch a ten-incher in a creek that’s two foot wide, that’s a big fish. Know what I mean?”
Ogden nodded.
“What’s all this about?”
“Nothing. I can’t get Mrs. Marotta’s face out of my head.”
Fragua looked out the passenger window.
Ogden turned off the highway onto the snow-covered dirt road. “I think somebody taped a hose to the pipe and ran it into the bay of the truck. I think those men knew they were dying. You think it could have happened that way?”
Fragua nodded. “Let’s just fish today. Fish and not worry about what we catch, okay?”
~ ~ ~
Ogden walked into the station a couple of days later to hear a man and a woman describe how their car had been vandalized. The well-dressed couple told their story to Felton. The man told with some pride how he’d managed to get their car started.
“Excuse me,” Ogden said. “Where did this happen?”
“At Fog Canyon,” the man said. “That’s what we were told it was called. We were going to hike up to the falls.”
“Never heard of it,” Felton said.
“He’s talking about Niebla Canyon,” Ogden said.
“That’s what niebla means?” Felton said.
“We’ve had a run of incidents up there,” Ogden told the couple. “I was told the county was putting a sign up there warning about vandals.”
The woman said, “We saw the sign.”
“And you didn’t believe it?” Ogden asked.
“Somebody will go up there and look around,” Felton said.
“Good,” the woman said.
“We didn’t get more than a hundred yards up the trail when we heard them breaking the windows,” the man said.
Ogden walked to the door of Bucky Paz’s office and leaned against the jamb.
“What do you need, Ogden?”
“More vandals up at Niebla.”
“Shit. Find the time to stop up there once in a while. That’s all we can do.”
~ ~ ~
Ogden sat in his pickup outside the Marotta house. The family dog was sniffing the ground below his window. He opened the door and gave the animal a rub. Fragua had been back to the house and said that they were doing okay. He walked up to the door and knocked.
Mr. Marotta answered. His eyes were tired and it took him a few seconds to recognize Ogden’s uniform.
“Buenas tardes,” Ogden said. “Mind if I come in?”
The man stepped back and let Ogden in. He pointed to his daughter. “Siga a su habitación.”
Mrs. Marotta came and stood beside her husband. She gestured for Ogden to sit. He did, on a stuffed armchair. The woman sat on the edge of the sofa. Mr. Marotta remained standing.
“We haven’t found José,” Ogden said. “But I need to ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”
“Okay,” said Mr. Marotta.
“Do you know if your son used drugs?”
They shook their heads. Ogden couldn’t tell if they were saying he didn’t use drugs or that they didn’t know he was using or whether they were simply dismayed at the news.
“I found a lot of money in a shoe box in his closet. Do you know anything about that?”
“No,” Mr. Marotta said.
“Was he hanging around with anyone you didn’t know? Anyone you did know that made you worry?”
“No one.”
Ogden could hear the daughter crying in the other room.
“He started going away a lot,” Mrs. Marotta said.
“Do you know where?” Ogden asked.
She shook her head.
“Did he seem worried or scared?”
They shrugged.
Ogden stood. “Thank you for your time.”
It was early Monday and Ogden was driving north. The weather had turned hard cold again. He turned onto the kidney-busting dirt road to Niebla Canyon. A battered pickup rattled by him and the two men in it gave him a good looking over. He’d never seen them before. He tried to read the plate, but couldn’t. He stopped at the trailhead parking area. The county had indeed put a sign that warned of vandals. Ogden had never seen one like it. Bright yellow with big red letters, it read BEWARE OF VANDALS. It had supposedly gone up a week or so earlier. He then wondered why the vandals had spared the sign. He looked at the only other sign there, one that said PARKING. It was dented from birdshot and punctuated with bullet holes. It was ventilated just like every other sign along the highways and dirt roads up here. But not this sign.
At the office, Ogden did the small amount of paperwork that had accumulated on his desk. Then he sat for a long time just staring at his doodles on a sheet of paper. He’d drawn rows of evenly spaced dots and had connected them with straight lines. He was tapping the grid with his pencil when the phone rang.
It was his mother. “Guess who’s here?” she asked.
“I’m at work, Ma. Okay, I’ll guess. Weather Wally.”
“Jenny’s here. She came back to pack up her mother’s house.” Ogden heard her slap a sloppy hand over the receiver. “Can you stay for lunch?” Then to Ogden, “We’ll see you here for lunch.” She didn’t wait for a response, but hung up.
Ogden leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Felton came in. Ogden could hear his awkward gait.
“Oh Lord,” Felton said. “Another rough night for poor ol’ Deputy Dawg.”
“How are you, Felton?”
“Fine as frog’s hair. What about you? You don’t look good. What’d I tell you about them women and staying out late. Maybe I should be telling them about you, right?”
“I suppose.” Ogden got up and walked over to the rack, put on his coat, grabbed his hat. “I’m going out on patrol. Do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Tell Bucky I might be out of touch for a while.”
“You want me to tell him why? Or you want him to worry about it all day?”
“I want him to worry.”
“You got it, sport.”
Ogden sat across from Jenny at his mother’s round kitchen table. Eva Walker sat between them. He looked at the impressive spread of food. There was a variety of sandwiches, a bowl of carefully carved-out cantaloupe and honeydew melon balls, chicken wings, and sliced avocado. He smiled.
“What?” his mother asked.
“Nothing, Ma.” Ogden looked at Jenny. “So, how are things in Santa Fe?” He took a half of an egg salad sandwich and put it on his plate. The sun came through the window and hit Ogden’s eyes. He stood and pulled the blinds.
“The sun shouldn’t shine on such cold days,” Eva Walker said.
“Why is that?” Ogden asked.
“It’s like a con or something. Cold days should be gray so you’re not tricked into going outside.”
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” he asked.
“I like being out on cold days,” Jenny said. “Even the gloomy, overcast ones.”
Ogden ate a few bites. “I wish I could tell you something new about the case,” he said.
After a pause, Jenny said, “I’ve got a new job. I left the copy shop and now I’m in a bookstore. It’s not a great bookstore, but it’s better than the copy shop.”
“I’m glad,” Eva Walker said. “Better to be around books.”
“And,” Jenny said, “someone wants to buy my mother’s land from me. I don’t even know where it is, but this man wants to buy it.”