Sulfur Springs Read online

  “In the Marines, Peter was in the field, working with the locals, gathering intelligence.”

  “So you understood what Peter went through,” Rainy said.

  “He was very open with me about it.”

  I knew what they were referring to. Rainy had shared Peter’s military experience with me, especially the part that had led to his addiction. What ended his service was a Taliban ambush in the mountains in which a number of his comrades were killed. Peter had been badly wounded and medevaced out. He’d spent a long time in a hospital, recovering. On discharge, he’d enrolled in the University of Arizona in Tucson. Then the real difficulty had begun. During his hospital convalescence, he’d become reliant on painkillers. In civilian life, he found that he couldn’t function without them. That’s when Rainy had intervened and had got him admitted to the Goodman Center.

  “It’s clear that Peter hasn’t been so open with me,” Rainy said. “About his life in Coronado County anyway. What could he be involved in that would put him at odds with this cartel?”

  “All I could do is speculate, and that wouldn’t get you anywhere,” the minister replied. “But I know someone who might be able to answer all your questions. Nikki Edwards. She manages our local radio station, and is a DJ as well. Five times a week, she hosts a program from ten to midnight called Nikki at Night. She’s also a member of the congregation here. She and Peter are very good friends.”

  “Peter never mentioned her to me.”

  “Talk to Nikki. I think she can tell you some of the things you need to know.”

  “How can we get in touch with her?”

  “Let me check the church directory.”

  From her desk drawer, the pastor pulled several sheets of paper held together by a staple. She turned to the second page. “I have her cell phone number.” She copied it on a slip of paper and handed it to me.

  Before we left her office, Michelle took Rainy’s hands into her own and gazed with deep concern into my wife’s eyes.

  “Look, I don’t want to scare you, but if this has even the slightest chance of having something to do with Lagarto and Las Calaveras, be very careful who you talk to and what you ask. The brutality of those people is beyond belief.” Then she offered Rainy a hopeful little smile and said, “Vaya con Dios.”

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  As soon as we left the church, I tried the cell phone number Michelle had given us for Nikki Edwards but got no answer. The hour was late and we were hungry. We ate at a café called the Wagon Wheel, on the main street through Cadiz. It was a quiet meal, cheeseburger and beer for me, salad and iced tea for Rainy. There was a lot to think about. Rainy stared out the window at the street, which was mostly empty.

  “I felt better when I didn’t know Peter might be involved with some death-dealing cartel,” she said.

  “We don’t know the truth yet.”

  “And we’re no closer to it than when we got here.”

  “We know people who know Peter. If we keep asking, we’ll know more. Eventually we’ll find someone who can give us the answers we’re looking for.”

  “Or, if Michelle is right, we’ll run into someone who’ll slit our throats for asking.”

  “Then we need to be careful.”

  “How do we ask without taking risks?”

  “I don’t think we can. I’m just saying we should anticipate that we’re stirring up a hornet’s nest and be incredibly vigilant.”

  “Incredibly scared, too? Because I am.”

  “So am I, Rainy, but do we give up?”

  “Rhetorical question,” she said.

  “All right, tomorrow we begin by tracking down Nikki Edwards. And then I want to go back to the Harrises’ place.”

  “They didn’t seem to know much.”

  “I got the feeling they knew more than they said. But it’s really Jocko I want to talk to. If we get him alone and press him, he might be willing to tell us what he knows.”

  We left the café and walked back to the Desert Breeze Inn. The air was still uncomfortably hot, though not as oppressive as it had been when the sun was overhead.

  “I thought the desert got cool at night,” I said.

  “Cooler,” Rainy said. “It’s all relative.”

  It was a few minutes before ten when we reached our room. There was a clock radio on the nightstand, and I turned it on and found the local station. Our bodies were still on Minnesota time and we were both bushed. We got ready for bed, climbed under the sheets, and Nikki at Night came on.

  “Hello, night owls, this is Nikki Edwards. For the next few hours, I’ll be your guide to music of all things nocturnal. Sit back or lie down, close your eyes, and imagine the night sky, a canopy of stars above you.”

  Her voice was smooth and smoky.

  “She sounds awfully sexy,” Rainy said.

  “I wouldn’t mind going to bed with her every night,” I said. Then added, “Listening to her on the radio.”

  Her playlist, languid and sultry cuts, fit her voice and the theme of her show. She was inordinately fond of offering arcane information about each track.

  “Here’s a cut from Tommy Roe, singing one of the classics from way back when: ‘Stormy.’ It might be a hundred and ten degrees outside, but this song’ll make you feel like it’s a cool thirty-two. It lasts a satisfying two minutes, fifty-one seconds. Enjoy, all you night owls.”

  A thought occurred to me, and I got up and went to the desk in the corner of the room. I opened the top drawer and found what I was looking for.

  “What are you doing?” Rainy asked from the bed.

  “Local phone book,” I said, holding up the little volume of yellow pages. “I’m looking up the number for the radio station. If Nikki Edwards isn’t answering her phone, maybe Nikki at Night is.”

  I located the number and punched it in on my cell phone. A tired, male voice answered.

  “Could I speak with Nikki Edwards?”

  “You want to request a song?”

  “No. I’d just like to talk with her.”

  “She’s on air.”

  “When she has a moment. I can wait.”

  “Unless you want to request a number—” he began.

  “Tell her it’s about Peter Bisonette.”

  There was a deep sigh on the other end. “Hold on.”

  Nikki at Night had moved on to another number, a long cut from Enya. I waited, and in a moment, it was her voice coming through on my cell, not sultry in the least, but guarded.

  “Who is this?” she said.

  “My name’s Cork O’Connor. My wife is Rainy Bisonette, Peter’s mother. We’re here because we’re worried about Peter. Pastor Michelle at Grace Church recommended we talk to you.”

  I said it quickly because I wanted to get in as much as I could before she hung up or had to leave to key up the next cut for her show.

  “Why are you worried about Peter?”

  “We got a call from him yesterday. He told us he was in trouble. We haven’t been able to reach him since.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Here in Cadiz.”

  “I can’t talk now,” she said. “Can we meet tomorrow morning?”

  “When?”

  “I have to be in Tucson at eight. Is six too early for you?”

  “Where?”

  “I pass right by the radio station on my way out of town. How about we meet here?”

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  She hung up without a good-bye. I turned to Rainy and relayed the 6:00 a.m. request. She lay back on her pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Maybe tomorrow we’ll get some answers,” she said.

  * * *

  I woke in the middle of the night. Rainy wasn’t beside me. I called her name and got no reply. I left the bed, checked the bathroom, then went to the window that overlooked the cactus garden and the bubbling fountain. The night was moonless and black, but the streetlights threw a drizzle of illumination over the
Desert Breeze Inn. I saw Rainy standing near the fountain, talking on her cell phone. Her back was to me. She’d been trying Peter’s number frequently since we’d arrived, but I didn’t think it was Peter she was talking to. She shook her head and gestured with her free hand in a way that signaled frustration. Or maybe it was pleading. She paced and looked up at the night sky and shook her head again.

  I stepped outside to join her. As soon as she saw me, she said something quickly and quietly on the phone and ended the call.

  “Chantelle,” she said. Her daughter, who lived in Alaska. “I thought she should know about Peter. I hoped maybe he’d talked with her.”

  “Looked like a pretty lively conversation.”

  “I’m a little upset is all.”

  “How is she?”

  “Who? Oh, Chantelle. Worried, of course.”

  “Of course. Want to talk?”

  “I’m tired, Cork. I just want to go back to bed.”

  We lay together, but neither of us slept. One of the things I’d always loved about Rainy was that I’d believed she would never lie to me. Until that moment.

  In the morning, we both showered and dressed and said very little. It was early, and when I drew back the curtains, there was only the gray promise of day in the sky. I opened the door and felt the heat, and I thought again how I’d always heard the desert got cool at night. Another lie, I figured.

  The Jeep Cherokee I’d rented had a remote starter, which I’d thought would come in handy on those blazing days when I wanted to kick over the engine from our hotel room and get the air-conditioning pumping out a cool stream long before we got in. I grabbed the key from the desktop, where I’d put it the night before, and stepped back into the doorway. The Cherokee was parked thirty or forty yards from our room, beyond the cactus garden, the only vehicle in the small lot. I hit the ignition button.

  The Cherokee disappeared in a great ball of flame, and the blast of air against my face was ten times hotter than any Arizona sun.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  “Peter Bisonette,” Sheriff Chet Carlson said. “Not a name I’m familiar with.”

  They’d cordoned off the burned-out hulk that had been our rented Jeep Cherokee. Cadiz Volunteer Fire and Rescue had doused the flames ten minutes after the explosion. Although it was still early, a good share of the town’s population had gathered on the street to gawk. Rainy and I sat on a bench in the cactus garden, while the sheriff questioned us and a deputy took notes.

  “He was here because of the Goodman Center?” the sheriff said. “Patient or employee?”

  “He’s been both,” Rainy said.

  Carlson was in his late thirties, slender, dark hair, serious eyes. “Most recently?”

  “Employee. A counselor.”

  “Still employed?”

  “Not there.”

  “Where?”

  “He works for the Harrises.”

  Sheriff Carlson thought a moment and shook his head.

  “Frank and Jayne Harris,” the deputy said. He hadn’t introduced himself, but he’d been writing a lot. He was boyishly good looking, with dark eyes and high cheekbones. Around the crown of his tan cowboy hat, he wore a band that was beaded in a colorful design that made me think of the Navajo. Although his name badge read CROCKETT, the same name as that legendary frontiersman and Indian fighter, I thought he might have some Native heritage in him. “They own a winery other side of the Coronados, set up against the Sonora Hills.”

  Carlson turned again to Rainy. “What’s he do for them?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Rainy replied. “Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, as I understand it.”

  “Have you checked with them about your missing son?”

  “They haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.”

  “So it’s been less than forty-eight hours since you’ve had contact with Peter?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We don’t consider a person officially missing until they’ve been gone forty-eight hours.”

  I said, “When it’s your family, you look at it differently.”

  He nodded toward the wreckage of the Jeep. “I’ve got to figure, since you just arrived, the car bomb, if that’s what it actually was, had something to do with your son. Doesn’t that seem reasonable to you?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “So?” He waited to be enlightened.

  “I don’t know, Sheriff,” Rainy said. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “When you talked with Peter the night before last, during your phone conversation, did he give you any indication what kind of trouble he might be in?”

  “I didn’t actually talk with him,” Rainy said. “He left a voice message. And he said nothing about any kind of trouble.”

  Another lie from the lips of the woman I thought I knew so well. But this lie, I understood.

  “Okay, Ms. Bisonette, how about this? He was a patient at Goodman and then he worked there. At the Goodman Center you come into contact with a lot of folks who have a lot to do with drugs. Coronado County shares a long border with Mexico. We do our best to battle the flow of drugs up here, but sometimes it feels like we’re trying to hold back a flood with a dam riddled full of holes. You understand?”

  Rainy just looked at him.

  “You’ve been throwing his name out to a lot of folks around here,” Carlson went on. “I’ve got to tell you my first thought is that your son might be involved in trafficking drugs, and somebody doesn’t want you poking into that. It would go a long way to explaining both his disappearance and that burned-up Jeep of yours.”

  “Peter got clean. And Peter would never traffic.”

  “I know you believe your son was successful in his rehab, but sometimes it doesn’t take the first time around. And if he’s still trying to support a costly habit, I’m guessing what he makes working odd jobs at a winery won’t cut it.”

  “Peter wouldn’t—” Rainy began.

  “Then explain that Jeep to me, ma’am.” He gave her a piercing cop look, one I’d used myself when I wore a badge. A moment later, he turned the look on me.

  “Everything you say makes perfect sense,” I said. Because it did. And because I didn’t really know Peter and had no other facts to offer, I figured at that point arguing with him would get us nowhere.

  “You have a photograph of Peter?” he asked Rainy.

  “It’s in our room. I’ll get it.”

  Rainy headed away, leaving me alone with the sheriff.

  The woman who’d checked us in the night before stood in the doorway of her office, speaking with another deputy. Her eyes flicked my way, and even at that distance, I could see how afraid she was.

  “Peter’s not your son?” Carlson asked me.

  “No. He’s my wife’s son, from her first marriage.”

  “And you two? Been married long.”

  “Since April.”

  “Newlyweds. You know Peter well?”

  “Not well, no.”

  “Could he still be using?”

  “He could be.”

  “I’d like a list of everyone you and your wife have talked to since you arrived in Coronado County.”

  “All right. Is there a car rental company here in Cadiz?”

  “Nope. But even if there was, considering what happened to your last rental, I doubt you’d have any luck there.”

  One of the firemen approached and said, “Could I talk to you a minute, Chet?” They walked away toward what was left of the Jeep.

  Rainy came back with the photo.

  “I’ll take that, ma’am,” Deputy Crockett said politely.

  “I’d like it back.”

  “We’ll scan it and return it to you. Sheriff’s going to be putting out a BOLO on your son.”

  Carlson returned. “I’d like you to come down to the office and give us an official statement, and that list I asked for of everyone you’ve talked to. Do you have that photo?”

 
“Got it,” Crockett said and held it up for the sheriff to see.

  * * *

  We were given a ride in a cruiser, made our statements at the law enforcement center, wrote up a list of the people with whom we’d already talked, then were driven back to the Desert Breeze Inn. The Jeep had been towed away and the debris had been swept up. All that was left on the asphalt of the little parking lot was a big patch of soot, like the print of a black hand.

  The woman in the office came out to meet us. She wouldn’t look at us as she spoke.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I understand,” Rainy said.

  “May we leave our bags in the room until we find other accommodations?” I asked.

  The woman nodded and, as she turned to walk away, said quietly over her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

  It was midmorning by then. We’d missed our appointment to talk with Nikki Edwards. I was hungry, and Rainy and I needed to sit for a while and consider our options. We went back to the Wagon Wheel. A lot of heads turned our way as we walked in, but no one said a word to us. We sat down at a table by a front window where the morning sun came through in a bright splash of light. Immediately, a young waitress was at our table.

  “You’re them,” she said, handing us two menus. “The folks with the bombed car.”

  “Guess our cover’s blown,” I said to Rainy. I scanned my menu. “Could we get a couple of coffees, black?”

  “Sure. If it’s any consolation, you’re not the first.”

  I looked up. “Oh?”

  “Same thing happened down in Sulfur Springs a couple of months ago. That guy wasn’t so lucky.”

  “What do you mean?” Rainy asked.

  “Killed him, the bomb. But he was local, not tourists like you.”

  “Did the sheriff solve that one?”

  “Nope.” She shrugged. “Nothing new. You live along the border, things like that happen way too often these days. That fence?” She shook her head. “Doesn’t do a thing. Be right back with those coffees.”

  Rainy leaned across the table. “Modus operandi.”

  “If they’re related.”

  “Why didn’t the sheriff mention it?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Officially.”