Sheriff Bucky Paz was a big man with a belly round enough that the general belief was that his suspenders not only held up his trousers but kept him from exploding. He didn’t carry a side arm because he figured he was wide enough without one. He had once said to Ogden, “I can’t do anything about my gut, but there’s no reason to look sillier than god intended.” He was sitting now behind his desk, eating carrot sticks and listening to Ogden’s report.
“You get any more out of the neighbors?” Paz asked. “People don’t like to talk in the middle of the night, but you catch them after breakfast and that’s another story.”
“They’re not crazy about talking with full stomachs either,” Ogden said. “Mr. Garcia didn’t see anything. The Hireleses didn’t see anything. Nobody saw anything.” Ogden stood from his chair and walked across the room to lean on the file cabinet. “And I believe them. Though I can’t say any of them are too fond of the old girl.” He peeled down a slat of the blinds and looked out at an insignificant flurry of snow. “They might not say anything even if they had seen something, but I believe them.”
Paz held up the Baggie of carrot sticks and offered some to Ogden. He nodded at the refusal. “My wife packs these for me. Says she’s trying to save my life. You know how many of these you have to eat before you don’t want a doughnut?”
Ogden rubbed his eyes. “How many?”
“Hell if I know. I eat all the carrots she packs for me and then I go get a doughnut.” He dropped the Baggie on the desk. “You say there were no car tracks.”
“Only mine and the mailman’s. The only vehicle on the street was Mr. Hireles’s pickup and it never moved.”
“That vintage blue Ford?”
“That’s the one.”
“I love that truck.”
Ogden nodded.
“Mrs. Bickers.” Paz said the name as if to hear how it sounded. He shook his head. “You know I took this job because nothing happens around here.”
“So, what now?”
“Hell if I know.”
“No escapes from the prison,” Ogden said. “I called. Not for over a year anyway.”
Paz bit the end off a carrot stick and looked up at him. “That’s good to know.”
“Felton!” Paz called out into the duty room.
The lanky Felton came to the door, tugged at his belt buckle, and adjusted his glasses. “Yeah?”
“Call over and see if anybody’s escaped from Santa Fe.”
“No reports of any escapes,” Felton said.
“Call anyway,” Paz barked. Then to Ogden, “Nothing wrong with double-checking. And call the mental hospital, too.”
“Yes, sir,” Felton said and turned away.
Paz studied Ogden. “You look like shit.”
“I’m tired.”
“Yeah, you look tired, too. Son, you’re too young to look old.”
“Right.”
“Have you had anything to eat today?” Paz asked. “You know breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Person can’t go around with his body needing fuel.”
“You sound like my mother.” He started out of the office. “You know, Bucky, it wouldn’t hurt to miss a meal or two.”
“That’ll be the day.”
Ogden left the station and drove to the diner down the street. It was a place run by two young women who opened for the single meal of lunch. Whether they slept late and went to bed early, Ogden didn’t care. He cared only that their lunches were good and not expensive. They were pleasant enough and not flirty and Ogden liked that. He waved to a couple of people at the counter. One of the two owners came to his table, filled his cup with coffee.
“Thanks.”
“How you doin’, Deputy,” she said.
She and her partner didn’t much like the idea of policemen. He understood. He didn’t much like cops either, though he did want to like himself. “It’s okay to dislike the uniform. It’s just a uniform. Under it I’m just like you.”
She studied him for a second and together they realized that he had just uttered a blatant untruth.
“Forget I said anything,” he said.
“What’ll it be?”
“Tuna on whole wheat.”
“Fruit or fries.”
“Fruit,” he said.
She smiled. “And you’re healthy under the uniform as well.”
As he watched her walk back to the kitchen, Manny Archuleta and Rick Gillis slid into the booth opposite him.
“Hey there, Ogden,” Rick said. “Mind a little company?”
Ogden shook his head no, but he didn’t mean it. “How are you guys?”
They nodded.
“Don’t you love this place,” Rick said. “I was telling Manny I think they’re lesbians.”
“Who?” Ogden said.
“The gals that run this place. Mindy and Eloise.”
“So,” Ogden said.
“So, I think that’s hot,” Rick said.
“What about you, Manny?” Ogden sipped his coffee while he looked at Manny.
“I don’t know. It don’t matter none to me.”
“Me, either.” Ogden shifted his focus to Rick.
“Listen, don’t make me out to be no pervert,” Rick said.
“How’s Carla?” Ogden asked Manny.
“She left his ass,” Rick said.
Manny slapped his friend’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “She’s gone to visit relatives.”
“Yeah, right,” Rick laughed. “That’s why she took everything she owns with her.”
Manny called for Mindy or Eloise to bring them some coffee.
Rick leaned back in his seat. “Hey, Ogden, we’re trying to get some guys together for a poker game this weekend. You interested?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“You’ve got enough,” Manny said.
“I don’t think so. I told my mother I’d fix a few things, and I was hoping to get in a little fishing.” Ogden looked at his watch. “Don’t you two work for a living anymore?”
“Break,” Manny said. “Man’s got to have a break now and then to remain productive. That’s what memo 9374 says.”
Ogden looked over at Huddie’s Lumber Company where Manny and Rick worked, had worked since high school, probably would work until they stopped working for good.
“It’s slow right now,” Rick said.
Ogden nodded.
Mindy or Eloise brought food to Ogden and coffee to his friends. She didn’t give them much of a look and even less of a greeting.
“She doesn’t like you guys,” Ogden said.
Rick smiled. “She likes us.”
“Listen, fellas, I’ve got to eat so I can make my rounds. You mind?”
Rick held his palms out as if pressing against an invisible wall. “Pardon the hell out of us. We wouldn’t want to interfere with Wyatt Earp making his rounds.”
“Give me a break, guys.”
They did. The two men left in a bit of a huff. Ogden watched them walk across the street and back toward the lumberyard. He felt bad for having shut them down. He finished his meal.
The old road up to the defunct ski area was just that, old. The lodge had burned to the ground fifteen years ago and now the only people who went up there were teenagers. They kissed each other, tore around on the occasional snowmobile, or spray-painted what they thought were offensive words on the remaining five feet of the lodge’s north wall. It being a weekday and during school hours, the place was deserted, the dry snow blowing across the meadow beyond the parking area. Ogden got out and walked to where the doors had once been, then he moved around and along the wall to see the new graffiti. In the summer, people who called themselves Gypsies would come park their motor homes and squat for a while. Nobody minded much. He recalled the past summer when he had to pick up a Gypsy man accused of stealing a watch from a tourist. Ogden knew as soon as he began talking to the man that he wasn’t guilty of stealing the watch, but oddly he also knew that the man, given the opportunity, would have taken the watch in a heartbeat. He went back to the tourist and helped the man retrace his steps. They found the watch in the man’s car trunk.