“Then really talk. Tell me what’s going on with you. Maybe I can help.”
Tears stung my eyes, as they had all too often over the past months.
“I can’t do that now,” I said. “There’s someplace I have to be.”
Hy’s comment about it being Halloween had made me wonder how the locals celebrated. As I drove into town I noticed jack-o’-lanterns on nearly every doorstep. Several bales of hay had been trucked into the Food Mart’s parking lot, and beside them stood a scarecrow. Big deal in a small town. The decorations must’ve been there days before, but I hadn’t been attuned to the holiday.
As I hadn’t been attuned to so many things.
I turned onto Miri Perez’s street and drove along, bouncing in and out of potholes, to her small gray house. The yard was fenced with chain link, its browned grass littered with takeout containers, soda and beer bottles; an old rusted bicycle that was missing its front wheel lay on its side under a juniper bush. No vehicles out front or in the driveway. As I went up the walk to the concrete stoop, I heard nothing.
I knocked on the door, waited. Knocked again, called out to Mrs. Perez and Ramon. No response.
The windows to either side of the door had their blinds drawn. I went along the driveway, noting that the windows there were too high to see through without a ladder. The backyard was the same as the front: browned grass, dead plants, more litter. A decrepit swing set sat near the rear fence.
The windows here were also covered by blinds. Another concrete stoop led to a back door. I climbed it, looked through the single pane. Straight ahead were an old refrigerator and a counter, to the right an archway.
I reached for the doorknob, pulled my hand away.
Holding fast to my new resolve, I didn’t.
It was noon, time for the watering holes to open their doors. I decided to stop in at the bar on whose answering machine Sara had left a message. Hobo’s was your typical tavern, the kind I’d visited over and over in the course of my investigations. At night it would be dimly lighted and its scars wouldn’t show; by day the shabby booths and chairs and tables and banged-up walls were more obvious. Three old men hunched at the long bar, staring up at a TV that was broadcasting a replay of last weekend’s Forty-Niners game. The bartender-white-haired, with a thick beard and a large gut-was setting out bowls of popcorn.
As I took a stool at the bar, I thought of all the hours I’d wasted seeking information in such establishments.
“Help you, ma’am?”
“Maybe. Sara Perez sent me.”
“Oh, yeah, I haven’t got around to returning her call.” The man picked up a rag and began wiping the surface in front of me.
He added, “Reason I’ve been putting it off is that I had an ugly scene with Miri Perez in here last night, and then this morning I heard the news about Hayley from one of my delivery drivers.”
“Did you know her?”
“Hayley? Not really. She was just one of the kids who would come in to drag their drunken parents home. She ran away before she even finished high school.”
“What kind of ugly scene did you have with Miri?”
He frowned at me. “You a friend of the Perez family?”
“Ramon’s the manager on my husband’s and my ranch.”
“You’re Hy Ripinsky’s wife.”
“Right.”
“Well, then.” He leaned forward on the bar, lowering his voice and glancing at the patrons. They were absorbed in watching a ’Niners pass completion. “Miri came in last night about nine-thirty. I’d permanently eighty-sixed her a year ago, on account of she’s a problem drunk. But she was sober and behaving herself so I let her stay. My mistake.”
“What happened?”
“She was alone when she came in, but Miri’s never alone for long. Not because she’s particularly attractive-not any more, anyway-but because she has this reputation.” He stopped, probably abashed at having said that much to a friend of Ramon and Sara.
“I know about Miri’s problems,” I said. “Go on.”
“Well, there was a bunch of guys down from Bridgeport. Not bad guys, but they get kinda rowdy when the wives aren’t around. One of them started buying Miri shots and she got rowdy too. Started making nasty remarks to the people at the next table, lobbed some popcorn at them, then threw a drink in one woman’s face. Was cussing me out and swinging at me when I cut her off. I had to escort her out. The guy went with her.”
“What time was this?”
“After eleven, but not much. Ramon came in looking for Miri around midnight.”
“You know the name of the guy she left with?”
“His friends called him Dino. Like Dean Martin, the singer.”
“What about his friends? You have a full name for any of them?”
“Only Cullen Bradley. Owns a hardware store in Bridgeport.”
“Any idea where this Dino and Miri might’ve been heading?”
“Her place? The motel? That’s the usual deal with Miri. No, wait a minute.” He touched his fingers to his brow. “Before I escorted them out the guy said something to her about the Outhouse.”
“The
He smiled. “It’s a tavern, up the highway about fifteen miles. Used to be a gas station. They’ve got the best fried chicken in the county.”
Somehow I doubted Dino and Miri were headed there for the food. “Did you mention this to Ramon?”
“Yeah, I did. He wasn’t happy about it.”
“You say this place is fifteen miles up the highway?”
“Give or take.”
“Ramon couldn’t have followed them-he didn’t have a vehicle.”
“Miri did. I saw her old van in the lot when I showed them the door. But they didn’t take it; they got into a red Jeep Cherokee. And the van was gone when I closed up.”
“You notice the license plate number of the Cherokee?”
“My eyesight hasn’t been that good since 1992.”
“So you think Ramon might’ve taken the van?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s unlikely he had a key; he and Miri haven’t been on speaking terms for years.”
“Ramon wouldn’t’ve needed a key. Not old Magic Fingers.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ramon’s been hot-wiring cars since he was a kid. Made the mistake of getting caught after he was eighteen, did a stretch in prison for it.”
As I drove up the highway toward the Outhouse, I thought about the assumptions we make about people and how sometimes they’re totally wrong. Hardworking, upwardly mobile Ramon Perez-a car thief? An ex-con? Did Hy know about his past? Most likely: Vernon was a small town, and Hy had grown up there.
Why hadn’t he mentioned it to me? Probably because Ramon had turned his life around and his misdeeds weren’t relevant any more. Hy was big on giving people second chances; God knew he’d received more than his fair share of them.
It was a beautiful day, and I tried to enjoy the drive. The lake spread below me as I negotiated the road’s switchbacks, its placid surface reflecting the clear blue of the sky. In the distance I could glimpse the dark, glassy mound of Obsidian Dome, one of the many distinctive formations created by the volcanic activity that shaped this land. In 1982 the U.S. Geological Survey issued a hazard warning that an eruption the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens disaster could occur here at any time. The warning is in effect to this day.
After I reached the ten-mile mark, the road-still climbing-veered to the east and cut between rocky slopes to which scrub pine clung. Five miles more, and the Outhouse appeared on my left. It was a typical old-fashioned gas
