“Maybe good isn’t the right word, but what I mean is, now Annie isn’t left believing that her mother totally abandoned her, never bothering to get in touch again or find out anything about her in almost twenty years.”
“That’s a point.”
“And Carl… now he knows that Blaze never did run off from him.”
“He knows she intended to.”
“Does he? Now I’m starting to wonder about that too. Did she tell him she was leaving him? Did she leave a note? As far as I know, she didn’t do either. So how do we know for sure that the story about her running away with Manolo has anything to it? How do we know that she had anything to do with the robbery at all?”
“I don’t know,” Gideon said, getting interested. “How do we know?”
“That’s the question. Did it just get pieced together after the fact-everybody saying, ‘Well, she’s gone, and he’s gone, and the payroll’s gone, and we know they had a thing going, so they must have been in on it together.’ Well, maybe yes, maybe no. There’s a lot we need to find out, Gideon.”
“No, there’s a lot Marmolejo or whoever he puts on the case needs to find out,” Gideon corrected. “Let’s not stir the pot any more than I already have.”
“And another thing,” Julie continued placidly on, “what makes us so sure Manolo really left? What makes us think he wasn’t killed too?”
“Why would we think he was?”
“For the same reason Blaze was-the money. Maybe somebody killed them both for the money.”
He shook his head. “Well sure, maybe, but that’s about as hypothetical-as speculative-as you can get. There’s nothing at all that points to it that I can think of.”
“Okay, I grant you there isn’t. But half an hour ago you could have made the same point about Blaze: there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest she hadn’t taken off with Manolo.”
“Except for that little matter of her skeleton.”
“But until Mr. skeleton Detective came along and stuck his nose in, everybody assumed it was some little girl, which made it impossible for it to be Blaze. How do we know there might not be some other unidentified skeleton out there that will turn out to be Manolo’s?”
“Because there isn’t. These were the only unidentified skeletal remains Marmolejo’s office had. Nobody’s found any others.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. The fact that something hasn’t been found hardly proves its nonexistence, does it? What evidence is there that he hasn’t been killed?”
“That he hasn’t been killed? Other than having him walk in the door, how can there be evidence-whoa, this is getting pretty deep. Are we getting into epistemology here?”
“Look, nobody found what’s turned out to be Blaze’s skeleton either, until just last year, and Blaze has been dead almost thirty years. How can we be sure someone isn’t going to find another skeleton out there in the desert a month from now, or a year? Or tomorrow?”
“We can’t, of course. But are you suggesting that the possibility that something as yet unfound should be considered probable evidence of its existence?”
Why, they weren’t sure, but they both started laughing. “Let’s call it a draw,” Gideon said.
“All right, but I’m going to mention my theory to Javier when I see him. He can do what he wants with it.”
“No reason not to, but you don’t have a theory, Julie. A theory requires at least some observed facts from which to draw reasonably reliable inferences that can then-”
“Okay, my hypothesis.”
“You don’t have a hypothesis, Julie. Even a hypothesis has to be founded on observed phenomena that-”
She was rolling her eyes. “Okay already, my speculation! All right?”
“You don’t h-”
“My conjecture! My supposition! My unverified supposition? My blind guess? My shot in the dark?”
Gideon stroked his chin contemplatively. “I would accept blind guess, yes.”
She made a face and threw a balled-up napkin at him, and they broke into laughter again. “Oh, the joys of being married to a pedant,” she said.
Below, Carl, Annie, Tony, and Jamie were speaking rapidly in a tight, earnest little cluster near the horse.
“I sure hope they’re not putting their heads together to cook up some kind of story to protect Carl,” Gideon said. “Marmolejo will see right through it. Besides which, I’ll have to tell him whatever I’ve heard about it.”
Julie nodded. “I know you will. When are you going to see him?”
“I think I should head over there now. I gather you can’t come with me after all; Jamie said the two of you needed to finish up whatever you were doing this afternoon.”
“Well, I should be free all day tomorrow. How about if we go into Oaxaca then?”
“You’re on.”
“Gideon,” she said thoughtfully, “do you really think Javier will be interested enough to pursue this? I know, cold cases are what he’s working on, but this one’s positively freezing. It was almost thirty years ago.”
“Julie, if I know Javier as well as I think I do, he’ll be after this like a fox goes after a rabbit. He lives for this kind of thing.”
SIXTEEN
It appeared, however, that Gideon did not know Javier as well as he thought he did. Marmolejo heard him out with patient interest, but when it was done, he sat back, engulfed in his enormous chair, rolled his brown thumbs over each other, and said: “Well, my friend, I can’t deny that you’ve produced your usual rabbit, but I’m afraid I don’t see what I can do about it.”
“What you can do about it?” Gideon exclaimed. “How about an investigation, for starters? Obviously, there’s never been one, at least not on the right track, since no one even knew she was dead. And the people who were closest to her are all still right there, they’ve never been questioned about it. Surely, there’s information to be gotten.”
“I don’t doubt it. Still-”
“What do you doubt? Do you think my identification might be wrong?”
“No, but-”
“I thought cold cases were what you were here for. What, is this too cold for you?”
“Yes, exactly. There would be no point. You see-”
“No point?” Gideon was having a hard time understanding Marmolejo’s reticence. This was utterly unlike the man, whom Gideon knew to be the most dogged and resourceful of policemen. “How can you possibly say there’s no point?” he said in exasperation. “I don’t understand you.”
Marmolejo merely sat there, quietly smiling at him, not with his mouth but with those exotic Mayan eyes, opaque and strangely piercing at the same time.
“What?” Gideon said.
“I’m permitted to speak now?”
“Go ahead.”
“An entire sentence? Perhaps even two?”
“Who’s stopping you from-” Gideon stopped, laughed, and relaxed back into his chair. He’d been propped tensely on the front edge of it. “Sorry about that, Javier. I apologize. Sure, go ahead. What the heck, take three if you really need them.”
Marmolejo soberly leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “I gather you aren’t familiar with our statute of limitations.”
Gideon shook his head. “No, but surely there’s no statute on murder.”
“Ah, but there is: fourteen years. After fourteen years, cases cannot be prosecuted. This death would seem to have occurred thirty years ago.”
“That’s crazy. Every… country excludes murder from its limitations statutes.”
