“What you got going on here, James?” Red asked as he approached the abandoned car, its blue steel reflecting in the daytime blaze.
James stood stumped. The doors were opened as well as the trunk. Two NHP officers were walking through the brush about a half mile off, searching for any clues about the missing occupants of the vehicle.
“Not much, Red. Car is pretty much empty. A couple empty water bottles is about it. A purse and some cell phones.”
“They work?”
“Naw. Dead. Car is dead too. Won’t turn over.”
Red walked around the vehicle, squatted down, and looked underneath. “Well, it’s not hung up. Doesn’t look to be stuck on anything. Out of gas?”
“Gauge says three quarters. I opened the tank and could still smell fumes. Just no battery power looks like.”
“Strange.”
“That it is, Red. The boys over there have been out walking for a while. Ain’t found anything. We saw a set of footprints heading back a ways, up that ridge there, but they just double back to the car.”
“Any other sign of heading out?”
“Naw,” James said as he motioned toward the front of the Mustang, “wind looks like it swept the valley clean, right up to the car. We didn’t find any footprints that way.”
“But the ones in back were still there?”
“Yup.”
“Huh, convenient place for the wind to stop, don’t you think?”
“I guess so . . . didn’t really think about it, but yeah, strange.”
Red sat down in the driver’s seat of the Mustang. The heat from the seat seared his backside as the steering wheel melted into his palms. He looked through the windshield toward the mountains. A long, smooth stretch of desert rolled out before him, disappearing into a haze of distorted air. He imagined who had sat there before him, looking out across the great expanse. Why had he come out here? Was it a suicide? A crazy man? A drunk?
“So what do you think, James?”
“I don’t know. We called the rental company and ran the driver’s license they had. Guy from Chicago. Nothing came up. No history, no tickets. Nothing.”
“And the purse?” Red asked
“Looks to be the wife’s. Same last name on the ID, same address.”
“Hmm.”
“So a guy just decides to get a car one day, drive it out in the desert, and walk off?”
“Looks like it.”
“I just don’t get some folk,” James said
“Yeah, sometimes it looks like the world’s gone crazy.”
Red started to get back out of the car. As he placed his foot on the ground, he noticed something. A skid mark in the dust in front of the back wheel, as if the car had been pushed back with the wheels locked. He knelt down to examine it closer. Putting his finger on the mark, he looked up at his deputy. “You ever see wind move a car?”
“I seen it on TV when they show the hurricanes and stuff.”
“Yup.” Red stood and scanned the horizon. The heat was starting to subside as evening came on, but it was still intolerable.
“Best call the boys in. I doubt they’re going to find anything. And get a tow truck up here. I’m sure the rental place wants their car back.”
“What you suppose happened?”
“They walked off west, I suppose. Why, is anyone’s guess. In this heat they probably didn’t make it too far.” Red started walking back to his cruiser, James following a few steps behind. “Lonely way to go if you ask me, but like you said, you just don’t get some folk.”
“Shouldn’t we go looking for them?” James asked.
“Car’s been out here for a while. In this heat, if they walked off, most likely dead by now. I’ll call Carl to get up in the chopper and do a sweep through here. But I doubt he’ll have much luck either. If people don’t want to be found, not much you can do about it.”
“Guess you’re right.”
“Go on now, get the boys back home and buy ’em a beer on me.”
“All right.”
The blast from the air conditioner hit his face, sending a chill down Red’s spine as he got into his police car. He looked at the scene—abandoned vehicle, windswept ground, vanishing people. It could be something out of The X-Files. He had seen it before where people got lost out in the desert, their bodies found baked in the sun, but this had a different feeling to it. Ominous. Creepy. Perhaps the occupants had been snatched up by aliens. There were plenty of people out in these parts who would assume that was the case, even swear their lives on it if they caught a whiff of the story. Red wasn’t one of them. He lived more by what his eyes told him. No, more than likely these were just some nut jobs who walked off quietly to meet their Maker.
The wind kicked up and blew dust across his line of sight. A good gust, short and quick. The Mustang didn’t flinch.
His gaze turned west toward the mountains looming on the horizon. He felt like he was being watched, as if the rock shadows were observing the men walking through the brush back to their vehicles. The desert can play tricks on the mind, that is for sure, he thought. You can’t judge a man who let it get to him. Even if he wanders off to die.