Black Sun Descending (23 page)

“He's sleeping.”

“Where?”

“Who knows? He said he wasn't all that interested in talking with you.”

“It doesn't actually work that way.”

SILAS WENT BACK
to the Monte Vista and rented a room. He awoke to his cell phone ringing. It was four in the afternoon. “Yeah,” he said, groggily.

“Is this Silas Pearson?”

“Yeah, who's this?” He thought he recognized the woman's voice.

“It's Sheriff Cross, from Coconino County. Dr. Pearson, where are you?”

“I'm still . . . I'm back in Flag, Sheriff.”

“Well, that might be good news and it might be bad. I'm calling to tell you that Dallas Vaughn is, well, missing.”

“What do you mean missing?” Silas sat up, more awake.

“He didn't show up for work yesterday. We called in there two days ago wanting to ask some more questions, and his foreman said he'd gotten into it with a few of his coworkers and just left. He didn't show up again yesterday. We went by his place and there was nobody there. We checked with his folks and they said he'd come by and left the kids the previous night and just driven off.”

“What does this have to do with me, Sheriff?”

“Hopefully nothing. But in the process of looking around his place we found your name and the name of your hotel on a piece of paper.”

“I gave him that when I got the keys for Jane's office from him.”

“Did you circle it and underline it with half a dozen red lines?”

“No, I didn't do that.”

“Well, it's not for me to say, Dr. Pearson, but I think there is a good chance that Mr. Vaughn is looking for
you
.”

SILAS CHECKED THE SECURITY CHAIN
on the door of his hotel room, then quickly showered and dressed in reasonably clean clothing. He figured he had two options: leave town as quickly as possible or stay put and try to find Dallas Vaughn before the man found him.

Leaving town was the smart choice, he knew. In Flagstaff he was vulnerable; if he went home or to the North Rim where he hoped to resume his search for Penelope, he stood a better than average chance of evading Dallas Vaughn until the authorities caught up with the man.

But smart had nothing to do with it. Silas was curious. What would make the man run? And why might he be looking for
him
?

As he threw his dirty hiking clothing into his bag he considered what he knew about Dallas Vaughn: truck driver, hard worker. The man sure hadn't liked Macy's when they had met there. He had hardly taken his eyes off the street the whole time they had talked. And what had he said?

More of an Uptown Billiards kind of guy.

THE UPTOWN WAS
just around the corner from Silas's hotel. He walked around the block and stepped into the building. The clack of pool balls colliding filled the air.

Dallas Vaughn was at the bar, hunched over a glass of amber-colored liquid. Silas sat down beside him.

“Word travels fast,” Vaughn said by way of greeting.

“If this was a spaghetti western, I guess my line would be
I hear you're looking for me
.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I got a call from Sheriff Cross. She told me you'd gone walkabout, and had circled my name and my hotel on the sheet of paper I gave you.”

Vaughn fiddled with his glass. He poured some of the liquor down his throat. “I guess I was trying to figure out what I'd do when I came over there.”

“You know, I've left and come back since I saw you last. I've been in Page and down the Grand Canyon since then.”

“Good for you.” Vaughn drained his glass. Silas caught the bartender's eye and pointed to Vaughn's glass, and then pointed to the tap labeled
LUMBERYARD IPA
, a locally made ale. He waited for their drinks to come and then said, “If you
were
looking for me, I just saved you the trouble. Are you going to hit me again? Is that why you left your kids with your folks and skipped out on work?”

Silas expected an angry retort, but instead Vaughn just shook his head. “I know things didn't go very well between us the last time we talked.”

“No, not so well.”

“I've found something that I think you might find interesting. That's why I was coming to see you. I think it might help you find your wife.” Vaughn looked at Silas for the first time. “You still got a fat lip.”

Silas nodded and took a drink of beer.

“Sorry about that. I got a little hot. Sheriff's people showed up after you left. One of the busybodies around my complex must have called it in.”

“It wasn't me.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway. Sorry.”

“You found something about Penny?”

Vaughn closed his eyes and took a long drink from his glass. “You know that they've been asking me about Jane. They think that maybe I did it. Can you believe that? Makes me so goddamned mad. Sheriff coming round, sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong, accusing me of murdering Jane when the killer is out
there
.” He gestured with his drink. “They fired me. Well, told me to take some leave time.”

“Who? Your work?”

“Yeah, sons of bitches.”

“Did something happen?” Silas knew from his conversation with Cross that
something
had.

“Some guy got to bugging me about Jane. Called her a fish-kisser. I hit him pretty good. I think I broke his jaw. Maybe some teeth. He had it coming. Anyway, they told me to take some bereavement leave. I don't think I'll be going back. What the fuck is the point now?”

“You need to take a break. When Penelope disappeared I was a mess. And it didn't help that the
FBI
started giving me the gears. It's been four and a half years and I think they still like me for Penny's disappearance.” As Silas spoke Dallas Vaughn seemed to have disappeared into his head. His eyes were vacant and his body limp. “Dallas?”

“What's that?”

“You told me you found something that might help me find my wife.”

“Yeah, I got something.” He stood up shakily and pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his Carhartts. Sitting down again, Vaughn opened it and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Silas knew that it was Jane's will.

“I never looked at this before the other day. We had these done up when we were married, but Jane updated hers and when she did I didn't even read it. I guess I thought it would be a long time before I needed to. I actually figured I'd go first. My work and all. Likely get crushed or some fucking thing. But she went first and now I got this to deal with.” He held a single sheet of paper out for Silas.

“What is it?”

“Burial instructions.”

Silas read the sheet of paper. He got halfway through the page of instructions about cremation and the service when he got to the section on where Jane Vaughn wanted her ashes scattered. It read,

We have an agreement: if Darcy, Penelope, or I die, then the other two will take our ashes to a place on the Colorado River still wild and free and scatter them there. For the Colorado River is the heart of the Canyon Southwest; that is where we wish to spend eternity. The boys are on their own.

The paper dangled loosely from his trembling fingers. Silas felt a tear forming at the corner of his eye and pushed it away angrily.

“It's alright, man. I've shed more tears in the last two weeks than I ever thought a grown man could. This whole thing is fucked up, and this,” he pointed with his drink at the sheet of paper in Silas's fingers, “is the icing on the cake.”

“Penelope said much the same thing in her journal. It was all about the Colorado River for her.”

“What do you make of this business with
the boys
?”

“You and me? Maybe this guy that Penelope hung around with: Josh Charleston. He was another Abbey aficionado. Thinks he's Hayduke from
The Monkey Wrench Gang
.”

“I'm an operator. I fucking hate that shit. Somebody messed with my machine once and it cost me a week of pay while I waited for parts to come in to fix it. Kids almost didn't get Christmas that year.”

“I'm an English professor. I hate it too. But maybe Jane was talking about
him
?”

“He's just one
boy
.”

“
Boy
is right. But yes, he's just one. I don't know what that means.”

“Do you think this might help with your wife?”

“Like, I should be looking along the Colorado River? I've spent four and a half years crawling through the dust of this godforsaken landscape. I've spent more than a hundred days along the Colorado River alone. I've found other dead bodies. But I haven't found my wife.”

“I thought it might help.”

Silas stood up. “It might. I just don't know how.”

“You want this?” Vaughn held out the sheet of paper.

“No. You keep it. You're going to need it.”

“Where do I do this?” He waved the paper toward Silas. “Where do I scatter her ashes?” Tears leaked down the man's face.

“Let me think about it. I'll get back to you. Before I go, can I ask you one question? I don't want to get punched, though.”

Vaughn smiled weakly.

“Did you have a life insurance policy on your wife?”

“Yes. We both did. It was a group policy through my work.”

“Why didn't you just tell me that when I was at your place?”

“It wasn't any of your business. Just because your wife is missing doesn't give you the right to be asking anything you want, any time you want.”

It was Silas's turn to smile. “You're right. I guess I've gotten a little myopic.”

“The policy pays out twenty-five thousand dollars. But there has to be a death certificate, and you can't get one of those in Arizona for a missing person until they've been gone for seven—”

“Seven years. I know.”

“Of course you do. So I can use that to pay off our credit card and put a little aside for the kids' education so they don't end up in some dead-end job like their old man.”

“I'm sorry to have made it seem—”

“Forget it. You want another beer?”

“I should go. Dallas, you've got to call Cross and talk with her. The longer you stay on the lam the worse they will come down on you. And you got to go get your kids. They need their father.”

“I know it. Hey, Pearson. I really am sorry. For hitting you, for everything.”

“I'm sorry too, Dallas. I'll be in touch about that other thing,” he said, pointing to the paper.

Dallas Vaughn was still hunched over his drink when Silas left the bar.

SILAS COULDN'T BE CERTAIN IF
Dallas Vaughn was experiencing grief or remorse; what he did know was that Jane Vaughn, Darcy McFarland, and his wife had all worked closely together, so closely that Jane's dying wish was to have Penelope and Darcy scatter her ashes over the Colorado River. Silas considered it interesting that Penelope hadn't updated her own will to reflect this, but then remembered that she had disappeared long before Jane had.

Silas was also certain that his wife, if ever found, would be along the main stem of the Colorado or one of its tributaries. That didn't narrow his search by much, given that just about every river, creek, dry wash, and arroyo found its way to into the Colorado, but it helped him focus both his search and his investigation into who might have wanted Penelope, and the others, dead.

As he walked Silas thought about his own maps at home flagged with the yellow Post-it notes bearing the names of the bodies he'd found over the last year. For some of them the mystery had been solved, but not for Darcy McFarland—her yellow sticky note was at Potash on the Colorado—nor for Jane—at the Atlas Mill. Kiel, who didn't have a sticky note yet because Silas hadn't been home, had been found in the Paria. The killer—or killers—was still at large. Silas thought about the configuration of the notes, trying to make any sense of it. Jane and Darcy were separated by less than twenty miles, but Kiel was found more than three hundred miles distant. It didn't help.