The sound of Samuel taking a deep breath joined the hissing on the line. “You have to see something. You have to come out here, Chuck. Right now.”
Chuck ended the call and reentered the house, finding Janelle and the girls alone in the living room.
“Audrey went to the bathroom,” Janelle explained from the couch. She pointed at Chuck’s phone, still clutched in his hand. “Who was that?”
“Samuel Horvat.” He paused. “I need to go to Mesa Verde.”
“You what?”
“He said there’s something he wants to show me.”
Janelle’s mouth formed a hard, straight line. “You honestly think, with what’s just happened, that you’re going to leave us here in town and head all the way out there?”
“He already knew about Barney and the break-in. Whatever he wants me to see is related to Barney’s . . . to the murder. He said he doesn’t dare send pictures over the phone, that I have to see it for myself.”
“That’s nuts, Chuck.”
“You and I agreed on the need to move fast.”
“We agreed on the need for the police to move fast. There’s a big difference.”
Audrey appeared in the arched opening at the back of the living room. “Who won’t send pictures of what?” she asked, her words muffled as she blotted her nose with a tissue.
“That was Samuel Horvat who called,” Chuck told her. “He’s out on Wetherill Mesa, on the west side of Mesa Verde National Park.”
She lowered the tissue. “Barney spent a lot of time in the park over the years. He always loved being there. He said it was the center of his universe.”
“It’s the center of my universe, too. Samuel’s on a dig out there. I hadn’t heard of it, which means it’s been kept pretty quiet—no press releases or tours or the usual public-relations
stuff. His phone has been lighting up with texts since . . . since . . . for the last couple of hours.” He held Audrey’s gaze. “He said there’s something out there he wants me to see.”
“Then go,” Audrey said. “Go.”
Chuck tucked his phone in his pocket and turned to Janelle with beseeching eyes.
Before she could respond, Rosie said, “I want to go along.”
Janelle shook her head. “No. No way.”
“But I do,” Rosie insisted to her mother. “I want to help. And I want to see whatever archaeology stuff there is to see.”
Audrey squeezed the tissue in her hand. “You sound just like my Barney.” She dropped her chin to her chest and released a harsh cry from deep in her throat. She raised her eyes to Janelle. “I know Samuel. I trust him. You have to let them go, right now, this minute. And while they’re gone, you can do something for me.”
“Anything,” Janelle said. “Just name it.”
“The officer, Sandra, said she’d let me know when I could see Barney’s . . . his . . . the body. She said it wouldn’t be for a while. But I can’t just sit here in the meantime waiting for Jason to get here from Denver. I have to see where it happened. If nothing else, I have to check on Barney’s car, and I don’t want to go alone.”
“His car?” Janelle asked.
Chuck tilted his head to one side, squinting. The location of Barney’s car, presumably parked somewhere in the Grid, might well be informative. Had Barney parked well away from the house, attempting to keep his car’s location secret, before sneaking in the back gate and breaking into Chuck’s study? Or had he parked somewhere near the house, making no attempt to hide his car, and entered via the front door after knocking and finding no one home? That is, had Barney been complicit in the break-in? Or had he happened upon the crime while it was in progress and died trying to stop it?
“Yes, his car,” Audrey responded to Janelle. “I want to find it, and I want to go to your house, too.”
“Everything’s closed off in all directions.”
“Then we’ll get as close as we can. We can take my car.”
Carmelita stood up from the couch. “I’ll go with you,” she said to Audrey. She looked at Janelle. “With both of you.”
Rosie turned to Chuck. “And I’ll go with you.”
Janelle frowned at him. “Do you really think—?”
“We’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Whoever did it is on the run, trying to get as far away from here as they can, as fast as they can.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself.”
“Because I am,” he said, injecting all the assurance he could muster into his voice.
4
Rosie sat with Chuck in the front passenger seat of the truck. The crew cab’s diesel engine roared as he accelerated up the highway, climbing Mancos Divide. They were twenty miles west of Durango, on their way to Mesa Verde. It was mid-afternoon, barely three hours since he’d checked his phone at the climbing gym and sped home to find Barney’s body in the alley. The sun was still high in the sky, the temperature a few ticks warmer than it had been at midday.
“Will we get to do any archaeology when we get there?” Rosie asked.
“I doubt it.”
“Awww.”
Rosie’s sixth-grade class was a few weeks into the semester-
long course on local archaeology offered each fall to Durango’s middle schoolers. She tended to be less than enthusiastic about academics in general, but the archaeology curriculum had captivated her so far. After school each day, she excitedly told Chuck and Janelle everything she’d learned in class about the many ancient archaeological wonders of the Four Corners
area.
Chuck glanced across the seat at her as he drove. In the aftermath of the break-in and Barney’s murder, he was more comforted than he’d have imagined by her presence in the truck with him.
“Well,” he revised, “we might get to do a little digging when we get there. We’ll see.”
“Goody.”
They reached the top of the divide and began the curving descent to the entrance of the national park at the foot of the towering Mesa Verde plateau. Chuck leaned back in his seat and sighed heavily.
“You’re sad, aren’t you?” Rosie said.
“Really sad,” he admitted. “Barney was a good friend of mine, and a good person. I worked with him for a lot of years.”
“Uncle Clarence worked with him, too, didn’t he?”
