“Something about things getting out of control, but she didn’t explain. I think she just told me things to make me feel like I was involved in something. She said she was sending me a package, but I never got nothing.”
Ogden noticed a stack of unopened letters on the table behind the man. He walked over and looked through it. “When did you lose your sight?”
Robbins dropped his head. “Two years ago. It was coming on for a while.”
Ogden moved to another stack.
“What are you doing?”
“Just stretching,” Ogden said. “She didn’t say anything else? She mention any names?”
“No, like I said, she just made stuff up for my benefit. I’m sure she did.”
Ogden found a thick manila envelope from Emma Bickers. He held on to it.
“What’s your name?” Robbins asked.
“Howell,” Ogden said. “Thurston Howell.”
“She never mentioned you.”
“Really? Did she tell you she was afraid of anything, something happening, somebody?”
“The niggers in this place are trying to kill me. I just know it. You say somebody shot her?”
“Yeah.” Ogden let the lie stand. “How long have you been a member?”
“What is this about?” Robbins asked again. “You ain’t no member. You tell me what you’re a member of.”
“Thanks for your time,” Ogden said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Robbins shouted.
“Just another nigger,” Ogden said and left.
Back in his truck, Ogden broke federal law and opened Lester G. Robbins’s mail. He stared at the list of numbers. There were two rows of twenty ten-digit numbers. There was another slip of blue paper with a note:
To think I kept this in a coffee can for twenty years. You’re the only one who has this. Be careful, Lester.
Emma
Ogden started the drive back home. He knew enough more to be sure that he knew nothing, a feeling that was becoming sadly familiar. He imagined that Emma Bickers was a part of the hate group the FBI agents had talked about. She’d always been unpleasant enough, but still he couldn’t believe it. He had no idea what to make of the numbers. He learned little from talking to Robbins, except to find out that Bickers had been a member. Perhaps the holes in the meadow up Niebla Canyon made some sense; someone was looking for a coffee can. Then he became anxious and a little afraid. Someone was going to a lot of trouble to find what he had stuffed into his pocket. Perhaps Emma Bickers had even been killed for it.
~ ~ ~
All the lights were on at Ogden’s mother’s house. Snow was falling heavily and the wind was whipping around, making the tin on the metal shed rattle and slam. The house was warm, but it was empty. Ogden called a couple of his mother’s friends and they didn’t know where she was. Her car was parked beside the house where it was always parked. He called the hospital and she wasn’t there. He called the office and she hadn’t called there. He stood in her bedroom, looked around. He recalled standing in Emma Bickers’s room and he felt sick.
Ogden drove over to the Bickers house. Jenny Bickers’s little car was parked out front. He pulled up behind it. He looked at the glove box where his pistol was locked up, but left it there. He walked to the porch, opened the door, and stepped inside. Jenny sat in front of the gas stove.
“Wow,” Ogden said. “You drove up in this mess just to collect a few things?”
“Weather wasn’t so bad when I left.”
Ogden looked back into the house, at the kitchen, at the closed bedroom door.
“Did you find out anything? Do I have oil on that land? Gold?” She laughed.
Ogden took off his coat and sat on the sofa. “You’re good,” he said. “You’re very good.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“What are you talking about?”
Ogden stood and looked back into the house.
“You had me fooled.”
“What?”
“You can cut the act, Jenny, or whatever your name is. You told me your grandmother raised you. Emma Bickers’s mother died when she was a child.”
“Simon!” Jenny Bickers called out.
Ogden looked to see the bedroom door swing open. His mother walked out into the hall. He then saw a.22 semiautomatic pistol in Jenny’s hand. Behind his mother was the man from the used-car lot in Albuquerque.
Ogden stared at his mother’s terrified face, tried to let her know that everything was going to be okay. “You all right, Ma?”
“She’s all right,” the man said.
Ogden turned to Jenny Bickers. “All of this was so I’d do your investigating for you,” Ogden said.
“Where’s your gun?” she asked him.
“It’s in my truck.” He held his hands away from his body and turned around. “I think I do have what you want.”
“Give it to me and I’ll tell you,” Jenny said.
“Let my mother go.”
“You give me what I want?”
“He doesn’t have it,” Simon said.
“I hid it,” Ogden said.
“He doesn’t even know what it is,” Simon said.
“I know there’s no coffee in it,” Ogden said.
“Where is it?” Jenny said.
“I told you, I hid it.”
“Well, let’s go find it,” Jenny said. “Simon will wait here with your mother.”
“My mother goes where I go.”
“Okay, we all go,” Jenny said. “But don’t misunderstand, I’ll kill her and you, too.”
“Untie her,” Ogden said.
“Don’t get stupid.”
“At least let me put my coat over her. She’s freezing.”
Jenny nodded and Simon took a step back. Ogden saw for the first time the.357 he held. Ogden put his jacket around his mother. She coughed and he told her to hang on.
Ogden drove Jenny Bickers’s car. Jenny sat in the back with Ogden’s mother.
“So, what are those numbers?” Ogden asked.
“Shut up and drive,” Jenny said.
“Account numbers? A lot of accounts. What was Emma, treasurer? Club secretary?”
“Just get me the list.”
“How are we going to do this?” Ogden asked.
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Why don’t you let drop my mother someplace, a friend’s house, the hospital, the police station.”
“Just drive.”
Ogden parked in front of his mother’s house.
“You hid it here?” Jenny said.
“It’s been here the whole time. I found it the first day. Didn’t know what it was.”
“Simon, you go in with him.”
Simon nudged his pistol into Ogden’s ribs.
“Don’t do that,” Ogden said.
“Go,” Simon said.
Ogden led the way through the front door into the house. Simon left the door open.
“I think I put it in the desk drawer over here,” Ogden said. He moved to open the drawer.
“Back off,” Simon said. Simon opened the drawer and looked inside. “Where is it?”
Ogden leaned over to look. “Shit, I left it there. I put it right there. I’m sure I did.”
“You’d better stop fucking with me.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
“Get back outside. I ought to shoot you right now.”
“I’m sure I can find it.”
“Outside.”
Ogden walked back to the car. The snow swirled. Simon went to the rear window. He froze. Ogden removed the pistol from his hand. Warren Fragua came out through the back door.
“Where’s my mother?” Ogden asked.
“She’s in my car,” Fragua said.
“Bickers?”
“In the trunk.”
“Nice,” Ogden said.
There was a flash in the swirling white. Ogden responded to a loud noise, pointed the pistol in front of him, but couldn’t see anything. He then saw that Fragua was on the ground. Snow was falling onto the blood he was leaving on the ground. There was another shot and Simon was down, not moving. Ogden knelt down beside Fragua, still trying to find the shooter.