Ogden stepped to the door and looked over at his desk. He scanned the entire room, but didn’t see the boy. “Willy?” he called out. “Felton, where’d that kid go?”
“What kid?”
“What do you mean, what kid?” Ogden said. “The boy I walked in here with. The Yates kid.”
“I didn’t see him. There’s not much I can add to that.”
Bucky stepped out. “What’s wrong?”
“The boy’s not here.” Ogden walked quickly to the door and out onto the street. He saw no kid. He saw no one on the street. Back inside, he said to Bucky, “I didn’t see him.”
“There was no boy,” Felton said.
Ogden glared at the man.
“He’ll find his way home,” Bucky said.
“He’s eleven.”
Bucky looked out the window across the room and sighed. “Well, get out there and find him. You, too, Felton.”
“Jesus,” Felton complained. “I don’t even know who I’m looking for. What’s this phantom boy look like, Ogden?”
“Like an eleven-year-old. Four feet five. Blond hair.”
“And invisible.”
“On and off,” Ogden said.
Ogden walked west and Felton east. Ogden imagined that the kid would have walked to the highway and tried to hitch a ride to Eagle Nest. If he’d been successful, of course, there would be no way for Ogden to know. He met Felton back at the station.
“No sign of a kid,” Felton said.
“Nothing,” Ogden said. “There was a boy.”
“Don’t get your skivvies in a knot. I believe you. It’s just that I didn’t see him, that’s all.”
“Now I have to find his father so I’ll know if he got home. Give me those addresses and I’ll drive over there later.”
Ogden thought it pointless to drive all the way to Eagle Nest before the boy had a chance to get home. He drove through the plaza several times and across the streets around it, eyeing every kid on foot or on a bike. He drove the length of the main drag through town twice. He finally stopped at his mother’s before heading east.
“The weather’s going to turn,” she said as he approached her. She was on her knees in her garden. “These roses will be the end of me. If it’s not black spot, it’s rust. If it’s not rust, it’s aphids.”
Ogden said nothing to this, just watched her popping off the dead heads.
“What’s wrong?” she asked without looking up at him.
“Trying to find a kid.”
“A child is lost?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Whose child?” she asked.
“His name is Willy Yates. I brought him to the station and he slipped out when I wasn’t looking. Right out the front door. It’s my fault he’s lost.”
“If he’s lost. You said that.”
“If he’s lost,” Ogden repeated. “I’m going to drive over to Eagle Nest and check out a few addresses. That’s the thing, we don’t have an address for him. All we have is a maybe-uncle.”
“Are you hungry? You can take a sandwich with you.”
“No thanks.”
Ogden got back into his rig and just sat there in his mother’s driveway. He had a thought that he should talk to Terry about the man he’d taken in earlier or talk to the man himself. Talk to Terry. The warden had taken the man to Santa Fe. For what good reason, Ogden didn’t really know. He’d drive to Eagle Nest, check out the addresses, then he’d contact Terry if it was necessary.
The community of Eagle Nest was very small. The lake was formed behind a dam built around 1920. It had been a site for illegal gambling and hookers around the turn of the century. The police killed all that and left the lake by itself, with a few slot machines and gaming tables at the bottom of it. A plateau at eight thousand feet, there were few trees and so, lake notwithstanding, the landscape looked as barren as the moon. The population was about three hundred and nearly all of them were white. It was on the eastern circumference of the so-called Enchanted Circle, but it seemed apart, certainly less than enchanted.
It took Ogden about an hour to get there and another twenty minutes to find the first address among the few streets and houses. An elderly, overweight man came to the first door and seemed amused, if not pleased, to have a visitor, even if he was a cop.
“What can I do you for?” he asked.
Ogden looked at the man’s overalls, brand spanking new, actually creased down the legs. “I’m looking for the family of a boy named Willy Yates.”
“We’re the Yateses, but ain’t no Willy here.”
“I might have the name wrong,” Ogden said. “An eleven-, maybe twelve-year-old boy. Do you have a grandson or a nephew?”
“So, you think I’m too goddamn old to have a son that age?”
“No, sir, I don’t,” Ogden said.
“Relax, son, I’m just funning you. Course I’m too old. I’m older than the dirt I sleep in.”
“Do you know of a boy around here named Yates?”
“There are two Yates households in this little community. Everybody knows everybody and I’m telling you as sure as pigs got curly tails there ain’t no Yates boy around here.”
Ogden thought better of asking the man if he was certain and so simply thanked him. He thought about not going to the second address, but realized he couldn’t get sloppy or lazy. He drove the thirty seconds across town and found an elderly, overweight woman named Yates. Though not dressed in overalls, the effect was the same. The expanse of yellow shift fell to just above her wrinkled knees.
Her story was the same as well. “No Yates boy here.”
“Do you have any relatives in the state?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know any other Yateses besides the man I just talked to?”
“Nope.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Are you married?” she asked. She raked her dirty blond hair from her face and settled her eyes on him.
“No, ma’am.”
“Would you like to be married?”
“Pardon me?”
“I have a daughter.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m not looking for a wife.”
“Shame.”
Ogden sat in his rig with the door open. The wind was picking up and, just as his mother had predicted, he felt a change in the air. Dusk was coming on. There would be no snow, but his trailer would feel like an icebox in the morning. Right now, though, he had to face the fact that he’d lost the boy. A lot of bad information from the kid and the so-called uncle had left him with nothing to go on. He called in.
“Sheriff wants to talk to you,” Felton said.
“All right.”
“Ogden?”
“Just what time did you say you saw Terry Lowell up at the hatchery?”
“I left him there at about one, I guess.”
“And he was okay, in control of the situation?”
“He had the guy cuffed. Why?”
“He didn’t report in. Fishery guy found his truck in the lower lot. There was blood on the seats, front and back.”
“Everything seemed okay when I left.”
“Well, come on back.”
“On my way.”
When Ogden walked into the station he felt as if the room was spinning. He wasn’t quite dizzy, but he really could not find the floor with his feet. Felton was at his usual place at the desk and Bucky Paz was standing behind him in the middle of the room with another man. Ogden recognized him as from Game and Fish, but didn’t remember his name. There was also a uniformed state policeman there.
“Have you found Terry?” Ogden asked.
“No,” the state cop said to Ogden. “Have you heard anything from him?”
“No.” Ogden found the man’s question off-putting, especially given that he had just inquired about the man.
“You want to tell us what happened this morning?” the same man asked.
Now Ogden was certain he didn’t like the man’s tone, recognizing it as accusatory. He looked at the crew cut and he thought about the sergeants he’d never liked in the army and then felt the weight of his present uniform, felt suddenly uncomfortable and so unhappy. “Like I told Bucky, Terry decided to arrest a man for poaching. The man’s name was Conrad Hempel. He was with a boy he claimed was his nephew. The boy told me his name was Willy Yates. Neither Hempel nor the boy knew the boy’s father’s address. Terry told me I had to take the boy. So, I brought him down here.”