“As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
“That’s where I found my car. Got a great deal. What are you looking for?”
“A prostitute.” The page came up and Ogden stared at it. He found the Denver site. He looked in the section of women seeking men and men seeking women, but that just turned out to be people in various stages of loneliness or desperation seeking friends or dates. Then he saw the word “adult” under the heading “services.” There he found not-so-veiled advertisements for prostitutes. Listings with headings like “Curl Your Toes” and “Hot to Trot” and “Your Place in Twenty Minutes” and “Cum on My Face.” Many had pictures of fairly rough-looking women, some looking like addicts, some worse, and pictures of extremely young-looking Asian women. He looked through them all, one at a time. He grew sadder with each face he saw. The rough ones looked sad enough and he could see the futures of the young ones. He was completely and thoroughly depressed by mid-morning. Then he saw the face of Carla Reynolds. The heading read, “Giving Two Heads is Better Than One.” She was posed beside another woman who was holding the camera to take their picture in a mirror. The ad said that their names were Destiny and Petra. Carol Barelli seemed to be the one called Destiny, best he could tell. There was a phone number and no address. Ogden looked around the office, feeling dirty, feeling stupid for feeling dirty, feeling silly for finding himself embarrassed to dial the number. But he did. A woman answered.
“I’m calling for Petra,” Ogden said. He asked for Petra because he believed Destiny to be dead.
“You want to make an appointment?”
“No, I would like to talk to Petra.”
The woman hung up.
“You never have had any luck with women,” Felton said.
Ogden stood and walked to Bucky’s open door. “Sheriff, I think I need to drive up to Denver.”
Bucky Paz studied his desktop. “You want to take Warren with you?”
Ogden shook his head.
“Okay, go ahead.”
Ogden stopped by his mother’s house and told her he’d be gone for a few days. Her house was frigid. “What’s going on in here?”
“I’ve got the damn thing on the lowest setting,” she said about the air conditioner. “And it’s turning the place into an icebox. I want to take it back.”
Ogden leaned over to the look at the control panel. “Well, you do have the fan on low, but you’ve got it set to its coldest.” He adjusted the knob.
“Thanks.” She led the way into the kitchen. “You want to eat before you go?”
“I’m okay.”
“Two young girls. How awful. Is that why you’re going up to Denver?”
“Yes, to see if there’s anything to find out.”
“I made some scones. They’re plain, but they’ll be good road food. Want a thermos of coffee, too?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“You’ll be careful, son?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Four scones enough?”
“That’s great.”
Warren Fragua pulled into Ogden’s yard while he was setting his bag in the back of his pickup. “I hear you’re driving all the way up to Denver for a hooker.”
“I heard that’s where they keep them.”
“I’d offer to go, but, well, you know.”
“Your wife doesn’t approve of you looking for hookers. Doesn’t she know it’s the twenty-first century?”
“She’s a prude.”
Ogden fell in behind the wheel.
“Give a call if you need help,” Warren said.
Ogden nodded.
Ogden drove north out of town and stayed on that road until he came to Interstate 25. It was only a five-hour drive, but he felt like shit by the time he arrived. It was just becoming fully dark at nine o’clock and it was starting to rain. He checked into a Motel 6, stretched out on the bed, and fell asleep for what felt like the first time in weeks.
The next morning he grabbed some of what passed for breakfast at the Waffle House next door and then drove to the Denver Police Department. It was a big city and everyone moved like it was. Still, it was Denver and his cowboy appearance didn’t seem odd to anyone. He stepped up to the desk and asked if he could speak to someone in Vice.
“What, you get rolled by some hooker and her pimp?” the man at the counter said.
“No.” Ogden showed the man his badge. “I’m just the lowly chump deputy from a Podunk little county in New Mexico that got sent up here to find something out about a murdered woman. A woman who was arrested here for prostitution last year.” Ogden felt he’d diffused what contempt or simple ridicule the man might have directed at him with the words chump and Podunk.
The man studied Ogden briefly. “Vice is down that hall. You’ll see it written on the door.”
“Thanks.”
Ogden did find the door and he walked in. A woman detective was seated on the edge of a desk, just hanging up the phone. She was tall, what his mother would have called a horsy woman. She wore her sidearm, a.38 special, butt facing forward on her right side. “What do you want?” she asked.
Ogden introduced himself and noted that she was even less impressed with him than he was with himself. He went on. “We’ve had two murders and I’m here to see if I can find out something about one Carol Barelli.”
“Destiny,” the cop said. “How does she fit into your case?”
“She’s one of the dead people,” Ogden said.
The cop whistled, shook her head.
“You knew her?” Ogden asked.
“Picked her up a few times. Busted her once. She was an alright kid. Smart.”
“Maybe,” Ogden said.
“I’m Detective Hailey Barry,” the woman said. She reached up and shook Ogden’s hand. “Don’t even mention my name.”
“What about your name?”
The woman cocked her head and looked at Ogden. “Halle Berry, the actress?”
“Listen, Detective, I find pot growers and throw sticks for my dog. I don’t know much about movies. I just found out about Craigslist this morning.”
Detective Barry smiled briefly. “So, what happened to poor Carol Barelli.”
“Shot. I believe by a man with one hand. Do you know of anybody with one hand?”
“Sounds like you got yourself a mystery.”
“Could you ask around a little for me? And do you know anyone called Petra? Another hooker, worked with Carol.”
“No.”
Ogden showed her the picture he’d printed from Craigslist.
“Don’t know her.”
“Do you have an address for Carol Barelli?” Ogden asked.
Barry sighed and looked at her computer screen, typed a bit. “I’ve got one here, but I’m sure it won’t do you any good.”
“Mind if I take a look at her arrest report?”
“You sure ask for a lot.”
“Sorry.”
Barry turned the screen so Ogden could see it. He wrote down the address and read quickly through the report. There was nothing that struck him as unusual. “Well, you were right about her being smart,” Ogden said.
“Very bright.”
“I didn’t have her pegged for a hooker.”
“Drugs,” the detective said.
Ogden nodded.
“She really wasn’t like the rest of them,” Barry said. “I shouldn’t say that. She was a lot like the rest of them.”
“You know anything about a guy with one hand?”
“Yes, he’s a drug dealer. They call him, if you can believe it, One Hand.”
“Know where I can find him?”
“No. I’ve never seen him. He’s never been busted here in Denver as far as I know.” Barry pushed herself away from her desk and looked at the ceiling.
“Also, I just wanted to let you know that I’m in town and I’ll be asking some questions, probably pretty clumsily. I don’t mean to step on toes.”