The Vanishing Point (20 page)

“Well,” Curt paused and gave the query some thought. “I never heard that he was murdered in San Miguel de Allende, but I did hear that he was there. On the other hand, I also heard that he was in Denver, Santa Fe, L.A., Seattle, and who knows where else? There were numerous sightings in the early years. I checked out the ones that were nearby, but I didn't have the resources to go far afield. I certainly couldn't go to Mexico. The fact that there were so many sightings seemed to take away the plausibility of any of them, but there's always the possibility that one or more were accurate.”

“You never told me what you believe happened to him,” Claire said.

“In all honesty, I don't know. The truth about the man was as elusive as a native trout. Luckily I only have eight months left to think about it.”

Claire didn't believe he would stop thinking about it once he retired, but she didn't say so. She still wanted to ask him about breakfast in Bluff, but she couldn't think of a way to lead into it. Did he eat breakfast? What did he like for breakfast? Were there any restaurants in Bluff that he enjoyed? It seemed far too obvious to Claire, and her confidence in herself as an investigator was waning. “Thanks a lot for your help,” she said. “If you ever get to Albuquerque, give me a call.”

“I'll do that,” Curt replied.

After she got off the phone, Claire considered how else she might find out whether Curt had told the truth about breakfast in Bluff. One way was to go there. It was a five-hour drive, but it wouldn't take very long to check out the Navajo Cafe. She didn't necessarily have to do it alone either.

She called the rancher, Sam Ogelthorpe, to ask if he would meet her. While the phone rang, she wondered if he'd be out on the ranch somewhere or if he had an answering machine.

She was somewhat surprised when he answered, “Howdy,” on the fourth ring.

“Sam,” she said. “This is Claire Reynier from the Center for Southwest Research.”

“At the University of New Mexico?”

“That's right. I have to be in Utah this weekend, and I was wondering if you might be able to meet me in Bluff. My days are going to be pretty full, but 1 could meet you for breakfast.”

“I get up early,” Sam said.

“What time?”

“Five-thirty, but it'll take me a while to get over there. How about if I meet you at seven on Saturday?”

“It's a deal. How about the Navajo Cafe?”

“It's the only place I'd eat in Bluff.”

“I'll see you there,” Claire said. Her confidence had been restored to the point that she began
making
a list of the questions she had for Sam Ogelthorpe.

Chapter
Fifteen

B
EFORE
C
LAIRE LEFT FOR
U
TAH
, she called John Harlan to see if he'd been able to locate the
Out of the Blue
's
.

“I found two of 'em,” he said. “Neither was very valuable, and neither was written by Jennie Dell. Both have a man's photo on the dust jacket. One is a novel, one is the autobiography of a pilot.”

“I'm on my way to Utah and could use some reading material for the trip. Could I stop by and pick them up?”

“Sure, but you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to read either of these books. A takeout menu would be more interesting.”

“Let's say I'm more curious than desperate.”

“On the subject of curiosity, are you going to tell me why you're going to Utah?”

“To talk to Sam Ogelthorpe again.”

“Has that guy got anything to say that he hasn't already said a hundred times over?”

“He might, if I ask the right questions.”

There was a pause before John said, “Could you use some company on your trip? I've been thinking about taking a weekend off.”

“Thanks, John, but this is something I have to do by myself.”

On her way to Page One, Too, Claire stopped and bought USGS topographic maps of Sin Nombre Canyon and the adjacent quadrants, including Comb Ranch. John was out when she got to his office, but he'd left the two
Out of the Blue
's on his desk, along with an invoice for thirty dollars and a note that read, “Call me on Monday. I'm expecting another
Out of the Blue.
” Claire was incapable of picking up a book without checking its content and its condition. A brief glance at both books confirmed what John had already told her.

The traffic was heavy leaving town, and it took five and a half hours to get to Bluff, driving most of the way in darkness and missing the beauty of the red rocks east of Cuba. The fires at the oil refineries in Farmington blazed in the night. When Claire got to Bluff she found a motel and checked in at ten-thirty. Being a compulsive reader, she actually would have read the phone book or a takeout menu when she got into bed, if nothing else had been available. But she examined the books John left for her and found that he had been right. Jennie Dell wasn't the author of either of them, unless she'd been a ghost. The autobiography had an interesting subject, but the poor writing made it dull. The novel read as if it had
been
written by a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, which to Claire meant intensely personal observations ending in an epiphany that she couldn't share. She glanced at the author photo and bio on the back flap. The bio confirmed that the author had graduated from the University of Iowa. The photo showed him to be an earnest young man. The copyright page revealed that the book had been published in 1975. Twenty years had passed, and the Iowa style remained unchanged, a thought that Claire found depressing, since she believed that writing should reflect the times. She put the books down and by midnight was sound asleep.

She woke early and arrived at the Navajo Cafe at six-thirty, sitting at a table in the picture window and looking over the village of Bluff, which had a beautiful site, thick with cottonwoods, near the banks of the San Juan River. The town was a Mormon settlement that had been carved out of the wilderness at the cost of many lives, some of which were Mormon. A cemetery on top of the bluff commemorated their struggle.

Claire's waiter appeared wearing a T-shirt, a bandanna, and a name tag: Nelson. He had a round face and long black hair tied back in a ponytail. He was a big man, but soft-spoken, with a gentle, humorous manner. Claire thought he was most likely a Navajo, since the reservation was on the other side of the San Juan River. The waiters in Indian country had a way of lowering the volume and slowing the pace.

“High test or regular?” he asked.

“Regular.” Claire laughed and told him she would wait till her companion arrived to order breakfast.

When Nelson returned with the coffee, she asked him if he knew Curt Devereux.

“Don't think so,” Nelson said. “Does he live here?”

“He works for the Park Service.”

“Those guys like to sit at Dolores's station. She's retired now, but her family's been havin' some health problems and she needs the extra cash, so she works here part-time. She still likes to keep in touch with what's happening. Want me to ask her to come over?”

“Please,” Claire said.

She watched Nelson cross the room and stop to talk to a waitress with ash blond hair pinned on top of her head with a clip. She wore jeans and hiking boots and had a muscular build and a no-nonsense manner. Dolores glanced briefly at Claire, then went back to serving her table. Claire sipped at her coffee and debated how to broach the subject of Curt Devereux. When Dolores had a free moment, she walked over, stood beside the table, and studied Claire with wary eyes that seemed to suggest she considered Claire too refined and too urban to trust. Since Claire was wearing a T-shirt and jeans herself, she wondered what signal she might have sent that she was a scholar or a nuisance.

“You
want to talk to me?” Dolores asked.

“I'm looking for Curt Devereux. I heard he comes in here sometimes, and I was wondering if you knew how I could find him.”

“He's working out of Gallup now. I don't see him much anymore. Last time he came in for breakfast was, oh, a couple of weeks ago.”

“Do you remember what day?” Claire was pushing at the envelope of the circumspect limits she had set for herself and worried that she might be trying Dolores's patience as well.

“It had to be the last Saturday in October. That's when I started working the breakfast shift. If you really want to find him, you could check the ranger station. They'll know whether he's over this way or not.”

“Thanks,” Claire said.

“No problem.” As Dolores walked back to her side of the cafe, Claire thought that although the alibi she'd given Curt wasn't airtight, it tended to substantiate his story. If Curt had been in the Navajo Cafe the morning Tim died, he couldn't have killed him. The owner of the white van parked at the entrance to Sin Nombre Canyon remained unaccounted for. Claire got out the USGS maps and was studying the terrain when Sam Ogelthorpe showed up, wearing his swooping black hat and dusty cowboy boots.

“You're here early.” He sat down, took off his hat, and laid it on an empty chair.

“I like the morning. It's the best time of day, don't you think?”

“Evening's not too bad.”

Nelson arrived with two menus, and the conversation ceased while they ordered. Claire decided on bacon and hashbrowns. Sam had eggs over easy.

“What are you looking at?” he asked, eyeing the map.

“The way to get from Sin Nombre to your ranch.”

“It's a direct route,” he said. “You hardly even have to cross an arroyo.” With the tines of his fork he traced the path across Cedar Mesa. “Back when they used to let me graze my cattle in the canyons, I rode over there a lot. My tracks were clear in 1966. Jonathan followed my trail right up to my ranch. All he had to do after that was walk out to the road and hitch a ride to Mexico.”

“Can you tell me what kind of a build the person you saw had?”

Sam shrugged. “Medium height. Slim-hipped.”

“Would you say he was short-legged or barrel-chested?”

“No.”

“What color was his hair?”

“Brown.”

“Was
it thick or frizzy?”

“No. It was long, but it wasn't frizzy.” Sam's answers were quick and sure, considering the event had taken place more than thirty years ago, but it was also a story he had repeated often. Claire wondered how much it had lost or gained in the retelling.

“Did anyone fitting that description ever visit you?”

“Might have. A lot of people visited me back then. I may not remember all of them, but I do remember who I saw killing my cow.”

“And you're positive it was Jonathan?”

“If it wasn't him, then it was a deserter, but what the hell would a deserter be doing in southeastern Utah? Where would he have deserted from?”

“What makes you think he was a deserter?”

“He was wearin' dog tags and a fatigue jacket.”

“You didn't tell me that before.”

“Didn't I? Well, I told Curt Devereux, and he made nothin' of it. Just some old hippie, he thought. It couldn't have been Jonathan 'cause he wasn't reported missing till two days later.”

“Why are you so convinced he was headed for Mexico?”

“Where else would a deserter or a draft dodger go from here? It's a whole lot closer than Canada. With a little bit of money to pave the way, a guy could live out his life comfortably in Mexico. They've got no objection to criminals or draft dodgers as long as they've got the money.”

Nelson brought breakfast, and that ended the conversation. Claire wondered whether Sam had any more information to give her, but as soon as breakfast was over, he remarked that much as he enjoyed visiting with her, he had to be on his way.

His departure left her wondering what to do with the rest of the day. It was still early. If she left now, she'd be home by early afternoon with no plans for the weekend. She considered stopping at the ranger station to see Ellen Frank, but how could she visit Ellen without admitting she'd been conducting her own investigation? Claire decided to drive back to Slickrock Canyon the long way through Blanding to avoid the tortuous climb up the Moki Dugway.

It took an hour to get to Mile Marker 23. When she stopped at the gate to let herself in, Claire noticed that fresh tire tracks in the dust had obliterated animal tracks left over from the night. She drove down the bumpy road to the fork. Today there was a Subaru station wagon parked under the cedars where the van had been. An SUV was parked in the right fork. A couple of backpackers were standing next to it, adjusting their loads and preparing to hike into the canyon.

Claire said hello, walked along the rim, and sat down at a place beside the stone cist where she could look out through an opening framed by a weathered gray beam. She never went hiking without her
day
pack containing trail mix and water, and now she took the pack off and drank from her water bottle. The cist could be a thousand years old, but, as far as she knew, it had never been established whether the structures on the canyon rims were used for storage or for lookouts. Food could be stored anywhere, but this was a spot from which the Anasazi could see their enemies approach. Lookout made more sense to Claire than storage. Glad to be alone in the silence of this place, she stared into the canyon, hoping to bring the mystery of the writer, the hero, and the student into focus.

A bird rode an updraft above the far rim. It had the white underbelly and wide wings of a redtailed hawk. It tipped its wings as it circled, flapped once, and flew away. Claire remembered seeing a redtail drop out of the sky and pick up a snake in its talons. She knew a hawk could spot a snake beneath a tree at a distance from which a human could see only the tree.