She felt as if she’d won the lottery. “I’m fine. It’s just…hot.” She swiped at a drop of sweat rolling down from her temple. “Can you tell me anything about Julia?”
“Not much. There was only one time that we actually spoke. The needle on my gas gauge was sticking.” He tapped the glass below the dusty dash. “I thought I had plenty in the tank but turns out I didn’t. I ran out right in front of their place, had to knock at the door and ask if I could buy a couple gallons off ’em.”
“What did they say?”
“Julia came to the door. She was real sweet. Ran and got me a gas can and invited me in for a glass of iced tea.”
“Did you see Butch or any of the Wheelers when you were there?”
“Paris was in the kitchen. Dean, too. They were just finishing lunch. They said hello, told me Julia was from California, that her parents didn’t treat her right so they’d taken her in. Dean mentioned that she helped out in the yard. Didn’t see Butch, Elaine or Bill.”
“Did that incident occur in the summer?”
“Had to be. Damn hot that day. That’s why the iced tea tasted so good.”
“And this was two years ago?”
“Yup.”
Francesca used the back of her wrist to dab at the sweat beading on her upper lip. “I see. And then Julia was gone shortly afterward?”
“Oh, I saw her out front once or twice after that, and we waved. But when I stopped by a few months later to see if Butch had a carburetor for a ’57 Chevy, she wasn’t around no more.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked about her. He said she’d run off. Said it was the damnedest thing, kind of ungrateful ’cause of everything they’d tried to do for her.”
If she was gone three months after this man had initially spoken to her in the height of summer, she’d disappeared in September or October, maybe even November 2008. “Has Butch or Dean or anyone else who lives at the salvage yard ever done anything you’d consider…unusual?”
Deep grooves formed in the farmer’s weathered face. “Unusual in what way?”
“Are they up late at night? Moving objects in and out of the house? Have you heard any fighting?”
“I only work here. I don’t live here. So I can’t say what goes on after hours. They’ve always seemed okay to me. They mind their own business.” He chewed on his tobacco. “What’s with all the questions? What’s going on over there? I saw the police cars when I arrived. And you’re the second person this week to ask me about them. Guy from Montana, another P.I. or some such, called a few days ago, wantin’ information. Somethin’ wrong?”
She lifted her hands from the window ledge. “One or more of them might be in trouble.”
“With the law?”
“Let’s just say we need to find Julia, make sure she disappeared by choice.”
“You don’t think Butch killed her.” When the farmer spat again, he nearly hit the frame of the window.
Francesca slid to one side for fear his aim would falter even more. She liked the shoes she was wearing. “I hope not. But it’s a possibility.”
Shifting his tobacco to the other cheek, he shook his head. “No. If someone’s actin’ out, it’s gotta be Dean.”
She was putting another twelve inches or so between them, but at this, she paused. “Why do you say that?”
“Dean’s always been weird.”
“That’s it?”
“If you knew how weird, you’d know his type of weird is enough.”
Francesca understood why he’d say that. It was Dean who’d threatened his ex-girlfriend right before she went missing, Dean who’d broken into her house.
And yet…it was Butch who frightened her.
“Are we getting close?” Jonah asked.
Ray Leedy, the young security guard who’d followed Butch into the mountains the night before, sat in the passenger seat of the rented SUV, leaning into the harness of his seat belt as he concentrated on every bend in the road and every tree and rock that came into sight. “It feels like we’re close,” he said. “But…a lot of this area looks the same, you know? And it was dark.”
Jonah was losing hope. He’d been driving back and forth, going around the same bends, going down this turnoff and then that one for hours, searching for where Butch had gone, all to no avail. Ray insisted he’d seen a cabin near the place where Butch had disappeared into the trees, but numerous cabins dotted these mountains.
“This one had a big S above the front door,” he explained. “The initial of the family who owns it, I guess. It was right there in the beam of my headlights.”
Ray had shared this detail before, several times, but they hadn’t come across a cabin fitting that description.
“Do you think it could be up a little farther?” Jonah asked.
“Maybe. When I headed back, I clocked the distance on my odometer, but not right from the start. I didn’t think of it immediately.”
Jonah rubbed his face. They had to find where Butch had gone, had to recover that black garbage bag.
Spotting a cabin they’d passed twice already, he pulled into the drive.
“What are you doing?” Ray asked.
“Checking to see if anyone’s around.”
“Looks empty.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Jonah jogged to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer. Primarily vacation getaways, these cabins were used mostly on holidays and weekends.
Ray rolled down his window as Jonah returned. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Jonah said, but he wasn’t ready to give up. He visited the next cabin they saw, and the next and the next one after that. It wasn’t until he’d approached six different cabins that he finally found someone at home. And then she wouldn’t open the door.
“Go away. Or I’ll call the cops,” a female voice called out.
Jonah didn’t blame her for being scared. For all she knew, he could be someone like Dean.
“Will you just answer one question for me?” he called back.
After a long pause, she responded. “What do you want to know?”
“I’m looking for a cabin with an S on it. Can you tell me if it’s in this area?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m slipping my card under the door.” He leaned down to do that. “Name’s Jonah Young,” he said as he straightened. “You can call the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office and someone will vouch for me.”