“Carol, Petra, Carla, and Tina decided they were going to rip off One Hand. Petra found out that they collected all the money from the drugs and the pimping once a week. Like three hundred thousand or something crazy like that. They had this whole plan and it went bad, I guess. They killed Petra right there.”
“Where is ‘right there’?” Barry asked.
“I don’t know. Some house.”
Ogden showed Ivy the picture from the Illinois driver’s license he’d found.
“Carla,” Ivy said.
He showed her a photo of the dead woman from the cabin.
“That’s Tina.”
“You have a last name for Tina?”
“No, I don’t know. It was something Spanish.”
“So, they killed Petra at the house. What next?”
“One Hand caught Carol that night and they went chasing after the money. That really is all I know. Then you showed up and then that asshole One Hand came to tell me not to talk to you.”
“One Hand’s name is Hicks? Is that right?” Ogden asked.
“I think so. I don’t know his first name.”
“Do you know the names of any of his boys?” Ogden asked.
Ivy shook her head.
“Is One Hand your pimp?” Ogden asked.
“Not exactly. He comes around and shakes a lot of us down now and then.”
“Why weren’t you in on the robbery?”
Ivy laughed softly. “You saw me. I’m a goddamn drug addict. The girls didn’t want me fucking things up. I guess I might as well have been there.”
“Don’t wish something like that,” Ogden said. “You’d probably be dead now.”
“I’m talking to you. You know what that means, don’t you? I’m probably dead anyway.”
“Where are you from?” Detective Barry asked.
“Portland.”
“When you’re out of here, you’ll be on a plane to Portland.”
“I don’t want to go to Portland,” Ivy said.
“Where then?”
“St. Louis. I know somebody in St. Louis.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Ivy,” Ogden said.
Ivy looked out the window.
Out in the corridor, Barry took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, but didn’t take one out. “Some story.”
“A bloodbath.”
“I guess I’m supposed to find Petra’s body and arrest Hicks and clean up the rest of this town before sundown,” Barry said.
“Pretty much. Maybe after you feed the kids.”
“What about you?”
“Same as before,” Ogden said. “I’m trying to find Carla Reynolds before Hicks does. Maybe not everybody has to die.”
“This messiah thing of yours — you in training or just your natural disposition?”
“Disposition, I guess.”
“Good luck, Deputy.”
Ogden found Warren in the commissary. He was eating a chile relleno that he’d heated in a microwave.
“You know, this isn’t bad,” Warren said.
“It looks awful.”
Warren laughed. “So do I, but my wife loves me.”
Ogden stared at the food. “I’ll be right back.”
Ogden ran back to the elevator and rode it back to Ivy’s floor. He walked back into her room.
Ivy’s head was still turned toward the window. He eyes were closed and she was perhaps about to fall asleep.
“Ivy?”
“Yes?”
“I have just one more question for you. Could Tina’s last name have been Ortega?”
“That sounds right,” Ivy said.
“Thank you. Sorry to wake you. Get some rest.”
Ogden rejoined Warren by the truck.
“I don’t like the look on your face,” Warren said. “I have a feeling we’re not driving home.”
“Nope.”
“Where?”
“Dallas.”
“Texas?”
“Yes, Texas,” Ogden said.
“That’s a long way,” Warren said. He shook his head and looked at his watch. “What is it? A thousand miles?”
“It’s 880.”
“Well, then let’s get going, seeing as it’s just an afternoon drive. You pack your bathing suit?”
“It’s nine hours. If we leave now we’ll be there around noon tomorrow. Sorry about this.”
“Can you even drive with that arm?”
Ogden took off the sling. “Yes.”
It was mid-afternoon when they rolled into Salina, Kansas.
Ogden was just waking. He lifted his hat from his eyes and adjusted to the bright sun. “Wow,” he said. “Where are we?”
“Salina,” Warren said. “You were out.”
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Aren’t we looking to go south from here at some point?” Warren asked.
“Yeah, Interstate 135.” The sign for the highway appeared just as Ogden said it. “There.”
“So you really think the last girl is alive?” Warren said, taking the exit.
Ogden shrugged. “I hope so.”
“You know my wife thinks you’re smart and my daughter thinks you’re cute. They both believe you can do no wrong.”
“What about you? What do you think?”
“You might be smart. I don’t find you cute, so don’t get any ideas. I think you’re a stubborn son of a bitch with a messiah complex.”
“Second time I’ve heard that today. You’re probably right and I need to work on it.”
“Did I mention that you can’t fight worth a damn?”
“Don’t like violence.”
“Yeah, for somebody who doesn’t like to fight you sure rush into the fray awful quick.”
“Character flaw. I’m working on that, too.” Ogden looked at the passing landscape, relentlessly flat and generally uninteresting, except for the dense dark clouds looming ahead of them in the south. “That’s all we need.”
“I really don’t need to drive through a damn tornado today,” Warren said.
“Any of those chips left?” Ogden asked.
“Those were gone long ago.”
“Let’s stop and eat, see what those clouds do.”
They stopped and ordered sandwiches in a diner and watched the weather through the big window. The clouds did little but expand; they spat out some rain and flashed some lightning, but that was it. Ogden was glad to pause awhile. Now they would hit Dallas late enough to know certainly to wait until morning before contacting Tina Ortega’s mother. It was sinking in that he would have to tell the woman that her daughter was dead.
They rolled into Dallas around one in the morning. They slept in the truck in the outer reach of a parking lot at an enormous shopping mall. The morning came with a tapping on the driver’s-side window by Ogden’s head. A uniformed Dallas policeman motioned for him to roll down the glass. Ogden did.
“Sleeping it off?”
Ogden rubbed the sleep from his eyes and glanced over at Warren doing the same. “Mind if I grab my ID?”
“Go ahead,” the cop said.
Ogden handed the man his deputy’s badge and identification. Warren handed over his as well. The man studied them, then looked at their faces.
“We’re here on some business and got in really early this morning,” Ogden said.
The cop gave back their badges. “You’ll have to move on now, though”
“You got it.” Ogden started the engine. “Can you give me some directions?”
Ogden followed the officer’s directions to the Douglass house. He parked and looked over at Warren.
“You’re on your own, cowboy,” Warren said.
“I have a feeling that two of us might be a bit much anyway. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right here.”
Ogden got out and walked past snapdragons and day lilies to the front door. The cement walk was still damp at the edges. The storms of the previous day had left the sky clear, but thick with humidity. He rang the bell.
A woman, maybe seventy, answered the door. “Yes?”