Then She Vanished Page 2

“No,” I said. Not after I officially questioned my partner in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man who shouldn’t have been shot. I betrayed the blue religion. I will be forgiven gradually if at all, but more likely never. I understood this when it was happening and would do nothing different if that shooting happened tomorrow.

  Dalton considered me again. The assemblyman was renowned for his battlefield valor and the oorah marine spirit he brought into public office. He was a tireless supporter of veterans’ programs for California and a stronger defense for the nation. He was the dictionary definition of team player. Me, on the other hand, I’m wired for noncompliance. Which lowers me in the eyes of some and raises me in the eyes of others. In the eyes of some, it suits me to stand alone, resistant to bureaucracy and conformity. But in Dalton’s eyes I suspected I stood lower. In my own eyes I mostly break even.

  “I’ll find Natalie.”

  “Semper Fi, man.”

  “Sometimes fi, anyway.”

  “Maybe it’s just a marine saying to you,” said Strait. “But it’s my faith. I believe we’re brothers. I believe we were heroes for what we did and lost over there. We can be heroes again.”

  I thought about that for a short moment. “I’ll settle for finding your wife and a check that doesn’t bounce.”

  “You’re not much fun but I’m told you’re good.”

  “I’m plenty fun and all good.”

  I got what I needed from Dalton Strait—names and numbers for Natalie and their sons, extended family, friends, doctors, and coworkers; credit card numbers, PINs, passwords, and security codes; vehicle information; pictures to my phone; favorite local hangouts; favorite Las Vegas hotels and restaurants; the names of the maybe stalker and the man on the reelection committee who looked at her wrong, etc. I got a promise of future payment.

  “Who was the last person you know to see her?” I asked.

  “Her younger sister, Ash. They’re close. She raises gundogs.”

  He downed the bourbon, reached into his briefcase and came up with a thick handful of campaign posters. Handed me one—a close-up of his youthful-looking face, both innocent and worried at the same time. Bold red and blue text:

  Dalton Strait

  Assembly

  Straight for California

  He stood, and set the rest on my desk.

  “Self-adhesive,” he said. “Easily removable, so don’t be shy with them. And take them down after I’ve won. I’ll look bad if you don’t.”

  His parting handshake was powerful so I powered back. Men. I listened to him going down the old wooden stairs, good leg softer and bad leg louder.

  TWO

  The road to Ash Galland’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffons wound through Pauma Valley then into the Palomar Mountains northeast of San Diego. Poppies and lupine swayed on the road shoulders in the late-morning sun while hawks wheeled high in the blue.

  She came from a ramshackle ranch house, down the porch steps, the dogs parting around her. A pink ball cap over dark hair, a red flannel shirt, jeans and black rubber boots with bright pink soles.

  “I hope you don’t mind dogs,” she said.

  The dogs wiggled and wagged and sniffed but didn’t touch me with anything but their snouts. Wirehaired Pointing Griffons have bushy mustaches, and soulful brows over deep-set, intelligent eyes.

  She nodded toward a barn and stayed a half step ahead of me. We crossed a barnyard with a big central oak tree and grass still green from April showers, the dogs a squadron of energy around us.

  Inside were facing rows of chain-link kennels, clean and neat and identically furnished: water buckets in like corners, food bowls elevated on stout terra-cotta flowerpots, sleeping pads mid-floor, and wooden doghouses parked along the back ends.

  The gate on the first kennel squeaked open and two of the Griffons entered with an air of disappointment. The gate squeaked shut. Ash Galland dropped the fork latch with a clank and looked at me.

  “I met Natalie for breakfast at Deke’s Tuesday morning in Valley Center,” she said. “It’s a halfway point for us. We said goodbye around nine. No one I know, or Dalton knows, has seen her since.”

  “How was she?”

  She nodded but didn’t answer. Opened the next gate and two more Griffs slumped in, one looking back at her. Squeak, clank.

  “Natalie rarely burdens others with what she’s thinking or feeling or going through. Sometimes I get her energy. Her smile. I get her attention, full and empathetic and helpful. Other times, her exhaustion and her faraway eyes. But either high or low, I don’t get much of her.”

  “Was she anxious or worried? Expecting something bad to happen?”

  Into the third kennel went two more Griffons, their free ranks now cut in half. A half-dozen Jack Russell terriers nipped and bounced around us like popcorn.

  “No. She was happy and animated.”

  “Leaning toward the manic,” I said.

  “You do understand. Like a flower toward the sun. That’s the heart of this problem. Two poles. All her brightness and energy can . . . spill out. Overflow. Overwhelm.

  “She was dressed for work in a trim black suit, a light blue satin blouse the color of her eyes. Black heels. Freshwater pearl earrings and choker. She was beautiful.”

  I pictured Natalie Strait from the TV commercials. She and a crew of other salespeople surrounding the latest swanky BMW. I own a Ford F-150 king cab, a battered 1955 Chevrolet Task Force pickup, and a red Porsche Boxster once loved and driven hard by my wife, Justine. I keep the Boxster—clean and covered and ready to run—in a barn not unlike Ash Galland’s.

  “Did she have any errands or appointments before or after work?”

  “Lunch with Virgil Strait. Dalton’s granddad.”

  I let that sink in. The former Honorable Virgil Strait, taker of bribes. Wondered why Dalton hadn’t known of this lunch, or hadn’t bothered to tell me about it.

  Ash had an expectant expression but said nothing.

  “What did she have for breakfast?” I asked.

  “Why?” An exasperated look. Blue eyes, too, like Natalie’s. And her big sister’s thick dark hair, ponytailing from the ball cap.

  “Because sometimes one thing leads to another you don’t expect,” I said.

  “Fruit, dry toast, and cottage cheese,” she said sharply.

  She threw open another kennel gate, then another. The dutiful Griffs went in. I’d never seen a pack of such well-behaved dogs. The terriers slowed and studied her, keen to her change of tone.

  She sighed and looked down at them. “Sorry. I’ve never been able to put on the happy face like Natalie does. I’m worried about her. I know she’s capable of going off her rails. That men are drawn to her and not all men are trained well. Or even close. She had coffee, too. Black.”

  I accepted her apology and asked about the stalker who almost bought a car from her.

  Ash said the stalker had driven by her sister’s house several times. Dalton had offered to set up on the front porch and shoot him. Shortly after that, Natalie filed a complaint with the sheriffs, who interviewed him and the drive-bys stopped.

  I asked about the Strait reelection campaign volunteer with the roving eyes.

  “Brock Weld. She’s mentioned him more than once. Natalie said he’s polite but . . . bold.”

  “Does Natalie alarm easily?”

  “No. And she’s a good judge of character.”

  I made a note to have my associate, Burt, get Brock Weld’s whereabouts the morning that Natalie vanished.

  She kenneled the last of the Griffons then started down the opposite row and herded a Jack Russell into each. They feigned defiance and confusion, then obeyed the hardening edge in Ash Galland’s voice.

  Back at the first kennel she cracked the gate and let a slender young Griffon wriggle through.

  “This is
Wendy. Still shy with strangers.”

  Ash grabbed a walking stick propped near the door, then led us back into the May sunshine on the barnyard.

  While on the topic of animals, it seemed like the time to mention the eight-hundred-pound gorilla always looming in the background when a wife goes missing.

  “How is Natalie’s relationship with Dalton?”

  “She only talks about him in glowing terms. Pure Natalie.”

  “Do you suspect anything un-glowing between them?”

  “Well.”

  We left the barnyard and the shade of the big oak tree and started down a good dirt road. Ash said, “Hunt ’em up,” and Wendy quartered out ahead of us, nose to the ground. She looked back to Ash often, her body trembling with energy. I’d noted on the Ash Galland’s Wirehaired Pointing Griffons web page that a new litter would be ready for homes in June. All but one male had been sold at $2,000 a copy.

  “It’s very stressful being married to a public figure,” said Ash. “Natalie is Dalton’s support system. She’s also a mother of two boys and she works hard part-time, selling the cars. There are good money months and not-so-good. She spends lots of time and energy on Dalton’s campaigns. A California assembly term is only two years, so they’re constantly campaigning. This next election will be for Dalton’s fourth. He can have six. Then, on to the state senate, maybe.”

  “Do they owe money?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Of course, no complaints from Natalie. But they have nice things and live in a pricey part of California. One son in a high-dollar college and another at state. The Straits don’t take home mountains of money.”

  “Did they pay off Natalie’s gambling and shopping jag in Las Vegas?”

  “The families stepped up. Mom and Dad. Me. The extended Straits, of course. The dire Straits. In all their tainted glory.”

  Ash gave me a half smile, acknowledging the reputation of her East County in-laws. In this moment her face seemed like a psychological negative of her sister’s—the same shape and shades of hair and skin and eyes, but opposite spirits. TV Natalie was big-smiling and exuberant. Kennel Ash was tight faced and controlled.

  “These may help you understand Natalie better,” she said, un-pocketing her phone. The picture gallery was mostly selfies of Natalie and Ash, with an assortment of others thrown in. Natalie and Ash and Dalton, of course; Natalie and Ash with Natalie’s BMW cohorts; Natalie and Ash with a skinny old man I recognized as Virgil Strait; Natalie and Ash and a pale, red-haired hombre with a killer’s grin.

  “That’s Dalton’s older brother, Kirby,” she said.

  I flipped through the rest of the images in that folder and handed back the phone, catching Ash in a focused study of my face.

  “Would you send me those?”

  “Of course. You’re not the first one to come snooping around my sister lately. There were state people, and the FBI.”

  Interesting.

  We headed back up the road, Wendy at perfect heel. Ash told me that these aforementioned “leeches” were interested in Dalton and Natalie’s personal finances. Which were complicated. Since part of Natalie’s responsibility as head of the Strait Reelection Committee was tracking donations and thanking the voters for their generous support, she’d been deluged with questions from both state and feds.

  “I’m not sure if what I just said helps you,” said Ash. “But maybe it will lead to something you don’t expect.”

  I heard a rustling in the grass and saw Wendy lock on point. Body down, left front paw up, tail out. Movement in the wild buckwheat ahead of her.

  “Hold,” said Ash, stretching out the “o.”

  Wendy held beautifully and shivered. The quail chick-chicked like they do before bursting into the air.

  “She’s too young to hold that point very long,” said Ash.

  As if in agreement, Wendy bolted toward the birds. Two quail whirred into the air ahead of her, curving up and away, twin blurs, Wendy humping after them.

  “We will walk you out.”

  Wendy maintained a perfect heel as we went back up the dirt road toward the barn.

  When we got to my truck, she said, “I haven’t slept well since Natalie disappeared. My nerves are shot and my patience is gone. The dogs all know something is wrong. So, sorry for my brevity.”

  I told her there was no need to apologize at a time like this, gave her a card and asked her to call if she had any contact with Natalie, or remembered anything that might help me locate her.

  Headed back down the hill. I stopped in Valley Center and found a coffee shop. Incidentally, Valley Center is where the largest grizzly bear ever killed was killed. Two thousand something pounds. It was called Bear Valley then. A much smaller bear is on display in a small museum here. I’ve always been fascinated by the top of the food chain.

  The coffee shop’s windows were hung with campaign signs for Dalton Strait’s opponent in November, whom Dalton was threatening to link to terrorists in the Middle East.

  VOTE!

  AMMNA SAFAR

  This State Is Your State

  82nd Assembly

  THREE

  Special Agent Mike Lark was in his late twenties, with a boyish face, a budget haircut, and raptor’s eyes. We sat in a windowless conference room in the new FBI building off Vista Sorrento Parkway in San Diego. It was afternoon but you wouldn’t know it.

  Lark swiveled the monitor so we both could see it, then anxiously spun the cursor about the screen. Mike, all energy. We had a history, brief but intense.

  “Not the best quality pictures,” he said. “What is it about post office security cameras?”

  “The cameras in the Fallbrook post office are old-school,” I said. “I watch them as I stand in line.”

  Lark moved the cursor some more. “Bomb makers are rodent secretive,” he said. “Kaczynski up in Montana. McVeigh at the lakeside compound. Or our very own terrorist Caliphornia in his Chula Vista storage unit. The city hall bomb came from the Fallbrook post office, Roland. We have two almost decent images of who dropped it off. So maybe you can help us. Maybe she’s a neighbor of yours.”

  “She.”

  “Why not a she?”

  “Well, the post office has the return addresses in their computer,” I said. “So just knock on her door.”

  “Her alleged return address is a Fallbrook gift shop whose owner has never seen this woman.”

  The cursor finally stopped and Mike clicked the mouse.

  In the macro shot, a young dark-haired woman wearing skinny jeans and a dark sweater. Thick shoulder-length hair parted in the middle, partially obscuring her face. Jackie O sunglasses. In the closer-up shot her expression looked pinched, as if she was in a hurry. Impatient. Again, the quality was poor. She could have been almost any dark-haired woman—Latina, Greek, Italian, Armenian, Semitic, or Arabian.

  “I’ve never seen her,” I said.

  “Take your time.”

  “I don’t need time.”

  “There were showers in Fallbrook that morning,” said Lark.

  “But she’s got sunglasses,” I noted.

  Mike nodded. “Sure, spring showers—they come and go fast. Okay. Maybe she needed sunglasses. But if she knew what was in that box, maybe she was wearing them for curious people like us.” I thought. “Maybe the mailer was running an errand for a friend or employer. Part of a job, or a favor. Had no idea what it contained.”

  “Of course. It happens.”

  Mike cued up three more pictures, none more helpful than the first. The longer I looked at the screen the more I was sure I hadn’t seen the woman.

  “What can you tell me about that bomb?” I asked.

  “Smart, thrifty, and reliable. Commercial gunpowder, ground match-heads for ignition and a rubber-band striker that went off when the package was opened. Common ma
terials, hard to trace. This is interesting: there wasn’t enough charge in it to do more than blow off a finger, maybe take an eye. Not even enough to destroy the return address on the box. The pipe was hardware store PVC, not metal—less pressure to build the blast. So we figure that’s what they wanted to do. Frighten and maim, not kill. The restraint worries me as much as the anger behind it.”

  “They? Do you believe this committee stuff? Bombers like working alone.”

  “They almost always have help,” said Lark. “I sense organization here, Roland. Planning. This isn’t some moron living out of a van. This committee’s the real deal—one guy or a hundred. The surest way to miss the possible is to close your mind to it.”

  I liked Lark’s young, federal, not-afraid-to-state-the-obvious kind of thinking. He handed me an enlarged copy of the Chaos Committee letter that was published by the Union-Tribune. It was marked up with notes and questions in his condensed, fast-forward handwriting.

  Dear California,

  The bomb sent to the mayor of San Diego is the first that will be mailed to government thugs and conspirators throughout our once great state. We deem these acts to be necessary to stop the spiral of decay that is rotting our republic from the inside out, namely our broken non-government; a fraudulent one-party system, maintained by the rich on the backs of the poor; narcissism and moral decay through technology. We are post-political. We, the Committee, believe that only the People can overthrow this system, and that only chaos, fear, and terror can drive the power brokers, the moneylenders, and the godless technocrats from our collective temple. We will provide the protection of anarchy, fear, and terror. The People will rise and take back the levers of power and California will once again be of and by and for the people. People at one with the great land that we have inherited. Rise when you are ready.

  The Chaos Committee

  I’d read it before but I read it again. A little grandiose for a pipe bomber, but not unintelligent. Angry but reasoned. Nothing misspelled. A call for the end of the two-party system, the end of politics, the necessity of anarchy as a prelude to a new America. Familiar. The old Unabomber, eco-terror stuff. Death to technology. Back to nature and farming. Luddites with explosives.