“And where is the boy now?” the Fish and Game man said.
“He slipped out,” Ogden said.”
“Did you talk to the boy?” the state cop asked Bucky.
“I was in my office,” Bucky said.
The state cop looked at Felton. “I didn’t see him.”
“Were you out of the office?”
“I was sitting right here.”
“But you saw Deputy Walker.”
“Yeah, I seen Walker.”
“But no boy.”
“Could have been a boy,” Felton said.
“But you didn’t see him.”
Felton looked at Ogden, almost apologetically. “No.”
“What’s going on?” Ogden asked.
“They found Terry,” Bucky said. “He’s dead. They found him a hundred yards downstream of the hatchery.”
Ogden felt a wave of nausea that faded quickly.
“He was shot,” the state cop said. “Two times in the chest. May I see your weapon, please?”
Ogden removed his pistol from his holster and handed it grip first to the man.
“A Sig P226. Nice weapon.”
Ogden nodded.
The cop pulled back the slide and sniffed the ejection port. He looked at Bucky and at the Fish and Game man. “When was the last time you discharged this pistol?”
“A couple of weeks ago on the range,” Ogden said.
“You cleaned it?”
“I always clean it after I use it.”
“It’s dirty right now.”
“What do you mean it’s dirty?” Ogden asked.
“It’s been fired, Deputy.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s been fired.”
Ogden found a chair and sat down.
“Tell us about this boy,” Bucky said.
“Willy Yates, eleven years old. Looked eleven. Light brown, maybe blond hair, blue eyes. He was wearing a striped T-shirt and jeans, sneakers.”
“What about this Hempel?”
“Average. Maybe six feet. He had a tattoo on his, um, right arm, I think. I don’t remember of what. Receding hairline. Light-colored hair as well.” Ogden stared at the floor. “Terry.”
“What about him?” the cop asked.
“Nothing,” Ogden said. “I can’t believe it.” He looked up to see the state cop putting his pistol into a plastic evidence bag. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“Does it look like I’m joking, Deputy Walker?”
“Why would I shoot Terry?”
“You tell me.”
Ogden looked at Bucky. The fat man looked scared, helpless. “Am I under arrest?”
The cop looked at the sheriff. “Will he run?”
Bucky shook his head.
The cop looked back at Ogden. “You better not run. You’re not under arrest, but I’ll have the ballistics back tomorrow morning and then things might be just a little different.”
The Fish and Game man and the state cop walked out without another word or glance at Ogden or Bucky. Ogden looked at Felton and then at the sheriff. “What the fuck just happened?”
Bucky shrugged.
“I’m going to go grab some coffee,” Felton said. He wouldn’t look at Ogden’s eyes.
“You didn’t see the boy?” Ogden asked him.
“I’m sorry, Ogden.” Felton left.
“Bucky, what am I supposed to do?”
“You need to find that boy or Hempel or both.”
“Okay. That’s what I’ll do.”
“And you’re not going to run,” Bucky said, but it was more of a question.
Ogden looked at him. He was a little disappointed, but he understood. “I’ll find them.”
Bucky turned and walked back into his office, closed his door. Ogden sat at his desk and turned on his computer. He was clumsy with the thing, but what he had to do was simple. Check the DMV and the phone book. There were three Hempels in New Mexico with a license to operate a motor vehicle. All women. Two of them over sixty, one was thirty-one, all three living down in Albuquerque. Ogden called all three and described Conrad and all three claimed to know nothing and he, unfortunately, believed them. There were two more in the phone book, one man in Raton and the other man down in Pilar. He called the man in Raton and it turned out he had died six months earlier. The last man was listed as Cyril Hempel. Ogden called and there was no answer. Pilar was even smaller than Eagle Nest, wedged in the Rio Grande Gorge, a place where you had to look up to look out. It was also close to Embudo and so it was his first choice of a place to look anyway.
Ogden’s sometime partner Warren Fragua walked into the station. “What’s shaking, cowboy?” he said.
Ogden leaned back in his chair and stared at his screen.
“Cold out there,” Warren said.
“Bucky call you?”
“Yep.”
Ogden nodded.
“Sounds bad.”
“Feels bad. Must be bad.” Ogden leaned forward in his chair and held his face in his hands.
“What can I do?”
“I don’t know, Warren. I just don’t know.” Warren stood and walked to the window, looked out at the darkness. “If I hadn’t told it so many times to myself and others, I’d give you an account of everything that’s happened.”
“I think I get it.” Warren pointed at the computer. “Doing any good? Where to now?”
“Pilar. I’m looking for a Conrad Hempel. I found a Cyril in the white pages.”
“It’s a C anyway.” Warren bit his lip. “So, let’s go.”
“Bucky tell you to keep an eye on me?”
Warren shrugged. “He wants to make sure you don’t get hurt. After all, one man is dead.”
“Tell you what, why cover the same ground twice? You search and I’ll search and we’ll see if we can’t find Conrad Hempel and an eleven-year-old who might be named Willy Yates.”
Warren didn’t want to agree, but he did. “I’ll call all the schools in the morning. You can’t go to Pilar tonight.”
“I’ll go to my mother’s house.”
“Good.”
Ogden didn’t walk into his mother’s house like he always did. Instead, he tapped lightly on the door and waited for her to answer. She was confused by his knocking. She looked beyond him to see if he was alone.
“What’s going on,” she said. She closed her robe against the cold night air. “Get in here. What do you mean by knocking like that? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You know Terry Lowell?” Ogden asked. “Works for the Fish and Game Commission?” He followed his mother inside and they sat on the sofa, where they never sat.
“No.”
“Well, he’s dead.”
“Oh my. What happened?”
“Somebody shot him.”
“I’m sorry, Ogden. Was he a friend of yours?”
“I knew him, but that’s not the real problem. For me, anyway. Some people seem to think I killed him.” Ogden watched his mother swallow hard. She pulled her robe even tighter “Now I’m trying to find the man I last saw him with.”
“Oh, Ogden. What can I do?”
“Nothing, nothing at all, thanks.”
His mother hugged him and he hugged her back.
“Do you mind if I sleep here?” Ogden asked.
Eva Walker was puzzled by the question. “Of course you can sleep here. Ogden, are you all right?”
“No.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I can’t eat. But thanks. You go on to bed now, Mom. I’ll be out of here really early, so don’t worry when you wake up and don’t find me.”