“The San Gabriel River,” Rainy said. “Cadiz isn’t far now.”
From the things she’d told me, I had a sense of the town. It was the seat of Coronado County and only a stone’s throw from Mexico. Somewhere on the outskirts was the Goodman Center for Recovery, where more than two years earlier Peter had spent three months kicking a painkiller addiction that had threatened everything in his life. Through most of it, Rainy had been there with him, living in a rented place near enough to offer support as a mother and her skills as a Mide.
I had no idea what awaited us in Cadiz, but I could sense Rainy’s growing anxiety. She was normally a quiet woman, but quiet in a calming way. Her silence, as we followed the dry bed of the San Gabriel, was different, and her dark eyes, as they considered this landscape so alien to all I knew, were alert, watchful, as if she was aware of some danger here that she hadn’t shared with me. I thought again of the killing she wouldn’t tell me about. She’d said it was long ago in her history. I was beginning to wonder just how long.
We continued to climb. The outside thermometer crept downward, and by the time we pulled into Cadiz, the temperature was ninety-five degrees, hot by Minnesota standards but pleasant in the middle of an Arizona summer.
The San Gabriel River split Cadiz. The main thoroughfare, Clementine Street, ran along the west bank, with a stone bridge in the heart of the town connecting to the other side. The two blocks of the downtown were lined with shops and stores housed in revamped Old West buildings straight out of a John Wayne oater. The Stagecoach Inn occupied a prominent corner location. Although in its day it had probably served mostly dusty, weary cowpokes and prospectors, it had been restored to a glory I doubted it ever really knew before. Out front, instead of mules and quarter horses tethered to a hitching post, were parked some pricey sets of wheels—a Mercedes sedan, a couple of Lincoln Navigators, a beautifully restored roadster of some kind. With a clear sky above, mountains on two sides, and a moderate temperature, Cadiz was clearly a tourist destination. Banners celebrating the Fourth of July and the Independence Day Rodeo at the county fairgrounds still hung above the main street. All the shops were done up with decorations in red, white, and blue. There were bits and pieces of exploded fireworks lying in the street along the curbs.
“Any idea where the county sheriff’s office is?” I asked Rainy.
“Across the river at the far end of town.”
We drove along the main street until we came to a second bridge over the San Gabriel, and on the other side, just as Rainy had said, stood the Coronado County Law Enforcement Center.
“Been here before?” I asked.
“Small town. After a couple of weeks, you know where everything is.”
It was a relatively new brick structure with an incarceration wing that struck me as surprisingly large for what appeared to be a sparsely populated county. Rainy and I went in together. In the public contact area, several people sat in plastic chairs. All of them appeared to be Hispanic, and only the three children with an older lady, who was probably their grandmother, looked at us directly.
We stepped up to the window. A woman not in uniform spoke to us through the microphone.
“Can I help you?”
“Just looking for a little information,” I said. “Have there been any arrests in the past twenty-four hours?”
She was in her late twenties, brunette, with a tight, tanned face, all business. “Yes.”
“Was someone named Peter Bisonette among them?”
“Just a moment.” She pulled a sheet from several others that lay to her left and scanned it. “No one by that name.”
“Have there been any fatalities reported in the past twenty-four hours?”
“Yes.”
“Is the information public?”
She almost smiled. “An accidental death. From snakebite, more or less.”
“More or less?”
“Most snakebites involve a male between the age of eighteen and thirty-four, with tattoos, who’s been drinking. This one fit the demographic perfectly. A biker. Got himself bit by a rattler, tried to ride back to Cadiz, ran off the road and into a fence post. Was actually the fence post that killed him.”
“That’s it for fatalities?”
“That’s it.” She considered us. “Is there something we should know about this Peter Bisonette?”
“We’re having some trouble finding him.”
“He’s missing? Would you like to file a report?”
I said, “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
She finally smiled, in a reassuring way. “Cadiz isn’t that big and Coronado County isn’t that populous. If he’s here, I’m sure you’ll find him.”
“You heard her,” I said to Rainy as we left. “We’ll find him.”
We got into the car, which in just the few minutes we’d been inside the county building, had become an oven.
“Where to now?” I said. I had some ideas, but this was Rainy’s show.
“The Goodman Center. Maybe he’s working today.”
“Point the way.”
The Norman Goodman Center for Recovery sat atop a mesa east of town, with a million-dollar view of the mountains and the valley of the San Gabriel River. It looked like an old Spanish mission with whitewashed adobe walls, a red-tile roof, and a bell tower. Dotting the mesa around it were a lot of new, expansive homes built in what I thought of as mission style and that probably cost an arm and two legs. We pulled into an asphalt lot, where there were half a dozen other vehicles, all of them high-end. We walked through an archway into a courtyard with a bubbling fountain and flower beds and palm trees. White benches were spaced around, inviting in the shade of the palms, but all were empty. Rainy had told me very little about the time she’d spent here with Peter, and I had no idea what to expect. Against the backdrop of the high mountains, the place looked like a little bit of paradise. A very expensive little bit.
Rainy led the way through tinted, pneumatic doors, which opened with a whish of cool air into a reception area that smelled of gardenias. Behind the reception desk sat a young woman studying a computer monitor. She looked up and smiled as if she’d been expecting us and couldn’t be happier that we’d finally arrived.
“Welcome to the Goodman Center. May I help you?”
“Can you tell me if Peter Bisonette is working today?” Rainy said.
“Peter?” The lovely smile faltered. “Peter doesn’t work here anymore.”
That caught Rainy by surprise. Me, too.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“When did he leave?”
“And you are?” Her dark eyebrows arched in a Hollywood pantomime of inquiry.
“His mother, Rainy Bisonette.”
The young woman considered this information, still maintaining her smile, and finally said, “Perhaps you should talk to our director, Dr. Saunders.”
“Yes,” Rainy said. “I’d like that.”