WEST BANK, SNAKE RIVER. OCTOBER 18.
3:30 P.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.
“Where the hell is she, Chayote?”
The dog looked at J.P., then looked at the tennis ball lying at his feet, and then back at J.P.
“Fine! Shit!”
He opened the back door toward the creek and threw the ball. The cattle dog went after it in an explosion of acceleration, knocking against the modest CHECK-IN podium with his behind.
J.P. bent over and picked up the half-dozen pens that scattered in Chayote’s wake. When he looked up, there was Chayote, staring at him through the screen door. The tennis ball was between his two front feet.
“Damn dog! Go play!”
Chayote cocked his head. J.P. slammed the heavy door, leaving the dog standing there alone.
J.P. checked his phone again for a new text message. Nothing. Just to be sure he wasn’t losing his mind, he looked at her last message. At least he assumed it was from her; it was from a number he didn’t know.
It’s me. I’m almost back to you. Let’s figure us out. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. XO.
The message had come the previous day. J.P. wrote back several times with no further response. He’d even called, but the phone had been shut off or was out of service. Esma hadn’t set up her voice mail yet.
He paced along the big picture window that looked out on the creek. Chayote paced with him, but on the other side of the glass.
“I can’t take this,” he finally said aloud, grabbing his keys. He jogged out the back door. Chayote bounced along in tow.
J.P. drove fast over the bridge, risking a ticket. The Snake River was a skeleton of its normal self this time of year, its flow lazy and low. It was a sign of things to come, the winter that would slow all Wyoming life, except for skiing, to a halt. He thought of the previous spring and of Esma with wildflowers in her black hair. The sense he had back then that something good was just beginning. He accelerated even more, wanting to get away from the dying river.
When he got to the grocería in Jackson, he slammed the shifter into park but left the engine running. Five minutes later he came back with a six-pack of watermelon Jarritos.
The apartment complex wasn’t far from the grocería. J.P. parked on the street and walked up the exterior stairwell. Chayote followed behind. The young girl, Gaby, was sitting on the deck outside her unit. The Jarritos were her bribe. She sat playing a game of some kind on her smartphone and letting a red Popsicle melt on a plate beside her.
“Little cold for that, isn’t it?”
The little girl just shrugged. Her dark hair was up in pigtails, tied with blue ribbon. She wore colorful pajamas. J.P. took a seat on the deck across from her, leaning his back against the railing structure. It flexed with his weight, which got Gaby’s attention.
“Easy, big guy.”
J.P. couldn’t respond before a shout came through the door. “¡Gabriela! ¡Hora de cenar!”
Gaby ignored the call for dinner, but it pulled her attention away from the device long enough for her to finally notice the sodas next to J.P.
“Put them over here.” She motioned toward the plate. J.P. pulled one of the drinks from the cardboard carrier and popped the cap on a rusty nail sticking out from the railing. Gaby gave him a disapproving look and went back to her game.
The door swung open. The smell of cumin and chili pepper floated out.
“¡Gabriela! La cena esta . . .” Gaby’s mother stopped when she noticed J.P. She said something quickly to her daughter in Spanish.
Gaby replied in English. “No. Esma’s boyfriend.” She rolled her eyes, as if to say Yep, this schlub.
Another quick exchange, but now Gaby spoke Spanish too. Her mother was upset. J.P. stood to go, but before he could, Gaby grabbed his hand and led him inside. The kitchen table was crowded with a feast: tamales, pork, chicken, and a cucumber-and-jalapeño salad.
The middle-aged woman pulled out a seat for J.P. and then gave him a thoughtful look. “I sorry she make you sit outside.”
“No problemo. Just looking for Esma.”
The woman didn’t seem surprised. She looked at Chayote, who had wiggled his way inside toward the smell when the door opened, with disdain. He sat and looked back at her, begging.
She frowned and threw him a piece of pork.
Gaby was Esma’s goddaughter and their downstairs neighbor. Sometimes when her mother and father were at work for the dinner shift or wanted an evening alone, J.P. and Esma would take Gaby out for what the little fireball sarcastically called “fun nights.”
The trio ate mainly in silence. When they were finished, J.P. tried to help clean up, but Gaby’s mother waved him off. He sat back down at the table, where Gaby was playing on her phone again.
“Did you make her leave?” The child spoke without looking up.
“I, um, no. Of course not. She wanted to see her family.”
Gaby was too sharp to fall for this. “Totally,” she said sarcastically.
“Have you heard from her recently?”
“Nope. There’s probably no reception down there.” She turned to her mother and spoke in Spanish, then back to J.P. “She hasn’t heard from her either.”
“Did she get a new phone? I got a message from her, but it was a different number.”
Gaby laughed. “I hope so. I’ve been bugging her to get an iPhone for like a year. She said she would when her phone died.”
It must be her! Her old prepaid wasn’t holding its charge very well before she left.
Gaby’s mother brought in flan, made from scratch. Gaby pushed hers aside, but J.P. devoured his. He had barely eaten since he’d gotten Esma’s message, and his hunger had caught up with him. Hearing that Esma might have gotten a new cell phone encouraged him. He was feeling better.
“When is she coming home?” Gaby asked. This time she paused the game and looked at J.P.
“I don’t know, but I think soon. I have to go. I’ll have Esma call you!”
He gave Gaby and her mother awkward hugs and sprinted out the door.
When he got in his truck, he immediately dialed the number again. The phone rang, which was the first time he had gotten that far. His excitement was building. Four rings. Five.
C’mon. C’mon!
J.P. dreaded the automated voice.
C’mon. Please just pick up.
“Hello?”
The voice shocked J.P.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Whoa, who the hell is this?” A man’s voice. American. From the background, he heard a scuffle and another voice, louder. “Put it down, idiot!”
“Hey! Is Esma there?”
Just laughter. Then, “I said put it down!” There was a loud thump and finally silence. Dead air.
“Hey!”
What the fuck?
J.P. dialed again. The phone rang but went straight to the automated voice mail. He dialed one more time. Nothing.
J.P. started the engine and swung the truck around in a U-turn, toward the police station. He fumbled to find a cigarette in the glove compartment, ran a few stop signs, then parked at the City/County complex. He jogged to the reception entrance, tossed the butt, and flung open the doors.
“Where’s the chief?” he shouted. His voice was trembling.
The receptionist stood up to block him from walking back into the offices. An audience of officers stood up, ready to react if necessary.
“I know him,” one of the detectives said. “It’s okay.” Mike, the ski-patroller-turned-cop. Must have a hard-on for telling people what to do, J.P. figured.
“Thanks, Mike.” J.P. caught his breath, put his hands on his face, and sunk into one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting area.
“What the hell is going on? You can’t storm in here like that. You’re gonna get yourself shot.”
“I’m sorry. My lady is in trouble, man. We were having some issues, you know, and she left, but she said she was on her way back, was supposed to be here this morning. She never showed.”
“Change of heart, maybe, J.P. Calm down.” Mike gave him a sympathetic look.
“It’s not like that. I called her phone, some guy picked up and somebody else was talking in the background.”
Mike considered this for a moment. “Is this Liz Hingley all over again, J.P.?”
“What? Shit no! C’mon, man!”
Mike recited the facts: six years earlier, J.P. had come home to find his girlfriend of over a year in the shower with his closest friend. And another friend. So he drunkenly fashioned the horns of a cuckold out of paper-towel rolls and wandered around the square with a bottle of Jim Beam, bawling. The cops weren’t far behind him.
“All right, I know the story, dude. Shut up.” Mike was trying to keep a straight face while the receptionist guffawed. “I just know something’s wrong.”
Mike put on a straight face. “All right, c’mon back.”
J.P. kept his head down while walking through the cubicles. Some of the officers kept their chuckles to themselves. Others weren’t so kind. J.P. didn’t look up until he sat down in front of Mike’s desk.
“Let’s start with her phone number. Sometimes if we call, they take it a bit more seriously.”
“Her voice mail message isn’t set up. It’s a new phone. I’m not totally sure it’s her, you know?”
“Not totally sure?”
“I think she got a new number.”
Mike sighed. “Let me try the maybe new number.”
J.P. reached into his sweatshirt pocket. He took out his phone and started pressing buttons.
Then he stopped. “Oh shit!”
“What is it?”
“Got a text.”
“That says?”
“It says, ‘I’m okay, see you soon.’ ” J.P. put his hand on his forehead, trying to think.
Mike flopped the notepad he had been writing on back onto the desk. He stood up and pushed his chair back in. “We’re done, J.P. I’ve got shit to do. It’s not our job to find your road-tripping girlfriend.”
“But . . .”
“Look, if something happens, call us. You can’t come in here like this.”
“Where’s the chief?”
“Business trip, buddy. Sorry.”
“Shit!” J.P. slammed a closed fist on the detective’s desk.
“All right, let’s go!” Mike took him by the arm and pulled him toward the door. J.P. could hear snickers from the peanut gallery as he left.
J.P. staggered back to his truck. He looked at Chayote. “Something’s not right.” The heeler plopped into J.P.’s lap, muddying his pants. Then he settled down and licked J.P.’s face.
“You need a drink, buddy?” Chayote cocked his head.
* * *
J.P. nailed the concrete divider as he slid into the brew pub’s small parking lot. Goddammit! A light sleet had started to fall, making the surface slick.
“Inside, now.” The dog hesitated as if he knew better, but then followed J.P. inside. The pub was almost empty. Just a few locals having a beer.
Everyone stopped and looked at J.P., big and burly with his soft eyes looking wistful, and the dog, prancing around him as if to ask Where we going next? Huh? Huh?
“Whoa, whoa! He can’t come in here, bro!”
J.P. beelined to the bartender who had just reprimanded him. The young man stepped back from the bar, intimidated.
“Listen . . .” J.P. didn’t recognize the new employee, so he looked at his name tag. “Skyler from Connecticut. This is my anxiety dog. He comes with me everywhere, law says so. You want a lawyer up your ass? Get us two pale ales.”
“Take it easy, man.”
A particularly pickled local named John looked over. “You got that there anxiety, J.P.?” He giggled, showing his country teeth.
“Fuck off. Tonight I do.”
J.P. drank half of his beer in one swig and then set the other down for the dog, who drank eagerly too. He motioned for another from Skyler.
A woman appeared a moment later from the kitchen, smiling at J.P.
“Heard someone’s threatening to sue us?” Melissa, the front-of-house manager, spoke with only a tinge of seriousness. “You think Jake would take the case? He likes our beer, doesn’t he?”
Shit. J.P. chugged the rest of his second beer and prepared to be kicked out. He burped loudly.
“Impressive,” Melissa said. “Well, let me see the little fella at least.”
She walked casually around the bar, saying hello to the regulars. When she approached Chayote, he was wagging his tail so fast that he could hardly keep his body still.
“I think your anxiety dog needs an anxiety dog.”
The new bartender was polishing glasses; their shiny glare matched the look he gave J.P., who thought in retort: Fuck you, Connecticut!
“I’ll get out of here. Let my man finish his drink.” J.P. motioned at Chayote, who had a third left and a bad case of the hiccups.
“Stay. Beer’s on me. What’s going on?” Melissa had a knack for knowing when a customer needed a shoulder to cry on. She walked back around the bar and rested her elbows on its surface, face low and close to his.
“What’s bugging you?”
He looked at his beer glass like a starving orphan, and Melissa took it. “Pale ale, right?”
J.P. nodded. “You remember Esma? I had her in here for lunch couple times.”
“How could I forget? Good-looking woman.”
“Yeah, thanks. Well, we were having some issues, and . . .”
“You two were a couple?” John spoke up again. “That exotic-looking one? I had a dream once where she and I were stuck in the snow in my truck, and . . .”
“Better shut it, John.” Melissa stopped the confrontation before it started.
“Jesus, man!” J.P. turned back to his drink. “So she went out of town, kinda upset you know, and I wasn’t sure when or if she was coming back. Then yesterday I get this text from her saying she’s coming back and wants to patch things up.”
“That’s great.” Melissa was now pouring a beer for herself and a glass of water for John.
“But she never shows up, and I tried to call her and it’s been just weird.”
“How?”
“Some guy answered and then hung up.”
“Don’t let your imagination run like that. Probably a wrong number. You know what I think?”
J.P. shrugged as he took a swig.
“She probably wants you to come for her. Do something romantic, you know? Sweep her off her feet.”
“I don’t even know where she is.”
“You could find her if you wanted to. She’s playing hard to get.”
“Wait. Maybe I can.”
Can’t you trace a mobile phone? He knew one person who ought to know. The last and best of J.P.’s resources remained untapped: Jake Trent.