As we retraced our steps, I wondered if this caring for the horse indicated a caring for other things in my life.
Ramon was at the stable when King and I got back, cleaning out the stall. He said hello and went on with what he was doing, allowing me to tend to King on my own.
When I finished rubbing King down and led him into the clean stall, I noticed Ramon’s dark eyes were shadowed and puffy. He attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite come off.
“How’re you doing?” I asked.
He made a wobbly gesture with his hand. “We buried Hayley up in Bridgeport today.”
“Oh, I wish you’d told me. I would’ve-”
“Not necessary; you didn’t know her. It was a nice turnout, though. Even that wild man she ran off with and his girlfriend came. The girlfriend brought beautiful flowers. She works at Petals.”
So Rich Three Wings and Cammie Charles had paid their respects to Hayley. Rich, because he still loved her, and Cammie, probably because she felt guilty that her imagined rival was dead.
I asked, “Did Miri attend?”
Ramon’s eyes narrowed, the lines around them deepening. “No.”
“Why not? She was only on seventy-two-hour hold at the psychiatric ward.”
“Yeah. And then she checked herself into a rehab facility they recommended. By this morning she was gone. She’s probably in Reno or Vegas, helling around or selling herself. I’ve washed my hands of her. Sara’s real broken up about this, but she’ll get over it. You gotta go on.”
“And what about Amy? Anything from her?”
“Not a word.” He leaned in the doorway, and for a moment I thought he’d sag to the ground. “I loved that little girl, Sharon. I should’ve never let Miri run me off. I should’ve stayed and fought for the last of my nieces and nephews.”
I went to him, took his hand, and drew him over to the nearest bales of hay. As we sat, I said, “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“Anybody could’ve read the signs that she was headed for bad trouble. But not me, I was too offended at Miri, too dug down into my own unhappiness. Sara and I had two boys, you know-Peter and Raymond.”
“I didn’t know. Neither of you has ever mentioned them.”
“They’ve been gone a long time. Peter died in a gang shootout over in Santa Rosa. Raymond died of a drug overdose. I didn’t do so good by them, either.”
Sadness welled up inside me-guilt, too. “I’m sorry,” I said, “and I understand how you feel. I had a brother, Joey. Always was a rebel and a loner. After he graduated high school, he took off and very seldom came home. Ma-my adoptive mother-got postcards occasionally, but that was it. And then he died all alone of a drug and alcohol overdose in a shack up near Eureka. Ever since then I’ve wished I’d done more. That any of us had done more. But we just… let him go.”
“I’m sorry, Sharon. Us people, we’re all so careless. I don’t want to let go of Amy.”
“Neither do I. I promise I’ll find her.”
That night I dreamed of the pit again-only this time it was bigger. Impossible to place both my hands and feet on its sides and climb into the sunshine like a spider. I woke in a near panic, sat up, collapsed back on the pillows.
Told myself, I will not allow this to get the better of me.
Tomorrow I’d keep my promise to Ramon. Start an intensive search for Bud Smith who, my instincts said, was at the center of Amy’s disappearance.
Maybe that would keep my nightmares at bay.
Tuesday
The Nevada sky was cloudless as I coasted past the red-and-white sign welcoming me to Hawthorne, population 3,311. Larger than Vernon by far, and the county seat, but still a small town. Laid out on a grid, so I had no difficulty locating the Independent News building on D Street.
The man I talked to was pleasant and friendly. Back issues on microfilm? No problem. They were going to put everything online someday, but who knew when that would be? Soon I was seated in a dusty room fitting reels onto a machine with fumbling fingers. How could I be clumsy at the act I’d performed so many times before I’d become computer literate? Another symptom of burn-out?
I returned the films an hour or so later, having learned too few new details to justify such a long drive, except that Smith’s rape victim had remained too traumatized to identify her assailant.
It was after two in the afternoon, so I asked about someplace to eat lunch. McDonald’s; everyplace else had stopped serving. I hadn’t had a Mickey D’s burger in years, and it was a strange experience: not what I now think of as a burger, but a different substance entirely. I blocked out thoughts of what that substance might be and ate it anyway.
Back in the car, I checked my cell to see if it worked here-which it did-and consulted my notes. Got the number for the prosecutor in the Smith case from Information. Warren Mills, now retired, was home and willing to see me once I assured him that I was an investigator, not someone planning to write a book on the case. “Too damn much of that sensational crap going around these days,” he told me.
Mills lived only a few blocks away on East Eighth Street. The house was a low-slung rancher, one of a number on that block that were probably built in the late forties before developers realized that the wartime boom in the Hawthorne economy-due to activity at the nearby munitions depot-was dropping off. I parked out front and went up a concrete walk bordered on either side by cacti and polished rock. Westernized, I believe it’s called, for yards that don’t require much water or maintenance.
Warren Mills answered the door-a tall, erect man with thick gray hair and black-rimmed glasses who, according to the newspaper accounts, must now be in his late seventies but could have passed for mid-sixties. He led me inside to a den with a big-screen TV. The furnishings were overstuffed and looked comfortable; framed photos hung on the walls-color shots of Walker Lake to the north, he told me.
“Coffee, Ms. McCone? A soda?” He had a deep, rich voice that must have resonated in the courtroom.
“Nothing, thanks. I’ve just come from McDonald’s.”
“I should have offered you an Alka-Seltzer. Please, sit down.”
I sank into a brown chair that enveloped me in an embrace that made it hard to sit up straight.
Warren Mills settled on the couch, propped his moccasin-shod feet on a scarred coffee table in front of it. “You said on the phone that you’re a private investigator and interested in the Herbert Smith case. Why?”
“He may have recently been involved in the abduction of a young woman over in Mono County. I’ve read all the newspaper accounts of his case, but there’s so much that seems… unsaid. And a friend of Smith’s claims that you yourself were uncertain Smith was guilty.”
Mills nodded. “His confession was as false as I’ve ever heard.”
“Then why did you accept his plea bargain and send him to prison?”
“It was as if Smith was trying to talk his way behind bars. He insisted on his guilt, refused a lie-detector test when his public defender wanted to order one. I didn’t need to build a case against him; he built it for me. And of course the district attorney was hot for a quick trial and conviction. The rape and sodomy of a thirteen-year-old… small towns like this need to put crimes like that behind them and move on.”
“The victim-”
“I can’t tell you her name. But she was a nice girl from a decent, hardworking family. Too friendly and trusting, that’s all.”
“What happened to her?”
“The family moved away. She was severely damaged by the assault. And as you must know, you can keep the victim’s name out of the newspapers and court records but word gets out anyway and then it’s blame-the-victim time.”