Sam Carranza wasn’t at the San Bernard library to escape the heat or read the papers. He was looking for a man. Sam had a picture, taken years earlier. It showed a spry sixty-something with a mop of white hair and clear blue eyes. Thadée Molyneux would have been a good fit for the elderly set that perused publications in the library lounge, but he wasn’t among them.

Molyneux had dementia. He absconded from the retirement home where Bella, his daughter, had put him. Bella, teary-eyed, told Sam the police had called it quits. It was end July in heat-hammered West Texas. Molyneux might have fallen in a ditch, encountered a rattler, or a two-legged predator. The cops gave Bella Sam’s number. Maybe he could help, and his fee was reasonable.

San Bernard was two hundred and fifty miles west of the Uvalde retirement home that Molyneux fled. He had made it that far, partly on foot, partly in a slow-moving train, and partly riding shotgun with a grizzled farmer who recognized a fellow free spirit. Sam had patched together the itinerary. Molyneux was spotted near the Uvalde rail tracks. Train traffic was light with few stops en route and Molyneux was too old to jump off. Finding the San Bernard farmer was a stroke of luck.

Sam wasn’t in any hurry to ship Molyneux back to Bella. He negotiated a decent hourly rate and was creative padding his expense statement. He collected stubs from every diner and bar he visited. It was slow going; sustenance was moderately priced in small West Texas towns.

“Can I help you, sir?” the librarian said.

“A lady hired me to find her father.” He showed her Molyneux’s picture and gave her his card. “His mind is not completely there. He’s been lucky so far. People have helped him.”

“Bless their hearts.” A ray of light coming from the high clerestory windows bathed the woman in an angelic glow. “There’s a sort of commune, a few miles out of town. They might have taken him in.”

“Religious?”

“No religion I ever heard of. They call themselves Climbers of the Mountain of Eternal Light.”

Freak cults in the desert. They thrived like prickly pears and were as friendly to the touch. “Thanks.” Sam squinted to read her name tag. “Willa.”

“I hope you find that poor man.”

Now that he wasn’t incognito anymore, Sam decided to pay a visit to the local sheriff.

Tom Collier was a tall, bald and bespectacled type with a gravelly voice and a bushy gray mustache. “Good of you to come by, Carranza. What’re you after?”

Sam explained. “Molyneux might still be around here. There’s this group south of town.”

Sheriff Collier looked pained. “Can’t say I like them very much.”

“Trouble?”

“Don’t know what to make of them. They’re pretty quiet. Womenfolk in long dresses and bonnets, guys with beards.” Collier tipped his chair back on the hind legs. The chair creaked in protest.

“I’m thinking of going out there.”

“Watch your back, son.”

#

Thanks to Sheriff Collier’s precise directions, Sam found the dirt road leading to the heavenly climbers’ retreat after only three wrong turns. His old pickup truck moaned. Whatever shock absorbency it had left died on that potholed track. The land was desert drabness at its harshest. Whatever lived here had to be scrawny, bony, dried up, burrowed deep, and damn stubborn. And Sam liked desert landscapes. The enormous sky, the unbroken horizon, the shimmering heatwaves of the mirages, and the tortured mesquites. But this was plain despair, overbaked to a crispy death.

The concrete block hovels and leaning trailers were a tiny irregularity on the endless plain. Sam’s truck produced thick clouds of dust. He stopped with a teeth-grinding screech in front of a red trailer that looked newer than the others. A van was parked alongside the trailer. He wrote down the tag, stepped out of the truck, and leaned on the horn.

They all came out. Women in blue and pink dresses, toddlers in bulky cloth diapers, and men in dark clothes.

Every single one of Sam’s brain cells screamed that these people were hostile.

A large woodsman-type stepped forward. “What do you want?”

The men stood at attention and the women assumed a cowed and submissive stance that Sam remembered from nature documentaries. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. I wonder if you’ve seen him.”

“Nobody comes this way.”

“His name is Thadée Molyneux. He’s seventy-five and has dementia.”

Sam caught the look one of the women shot toward a battered blue RV. It was fugitive and quickly smothered.

“Your friend ain’t here.”

#

“They have Molyneux,” Sam said. “Nasty vibes.”

“Let’s assume you’re right,” Collier said. “Either they’re protecting him or they’re holding him. Maybe he told them a story. They want to lock me up. Best-case scenario, the old man is safe, but it might be hard to get him out of there.”

“A judge, procedure.”

“And potential confrontation,” Collier said. “Still better than option two. Him being held against his will. Family’s finances?”

“Comfortable. There hasn’t been any activity on the accounts.”

“I can count the common criminal motives on the fingers of one hand. One of these fingers has a dollar sign tattooed on it. Maybe Molyneux told them he had a fortune stashed somewhere.”

“If he did, the chances are he forgot where he put it,” Sam said. “When did these people get here?”

“Two years ago, a Leopold Danker bought a chunk of desert, useless and cheap. He paid cash. They have wells, septic tanks, and generators for power. Self-sufficient.”

“I have to go back and make sure,” Sam said.

“Can’t get to the place without being spotted, son. You can see a skinny coyote from a mile away in that terrain. We gonna get weather later in the week. That might help.”

#

Research didn’t deliver anything on Danker. Sam found more on Molyneux. Born in Louisiana, two tours in Vietnam, retired from an insurance company. Sam contacted the VFW and located a couple of old army buddies. They reminisced over the phone. Thad was cool and a big success with the girls. Thad didn’t smoke, so he always had more in his pocket than the rest of the bunch. And he was real smart.

Sam called the insurance company. Molyneux was dedicated, a team player, and still missed. The praise sounded boilerplate.

Friday afternoon Collier called. Storms were moving in. The sheriff’s plan was simple: drive to the compound with Sam in the back of the prowler and distract the locals. Half an hour on-site should give Sam enough time to check if Molyneux was indeed in the blue RV.

The storm was a freak of nature. It blacked out the entire sky. The prowler rocked on its wheels, shoved sideways by gusts of wind strong enough to lift gravel that clattered on the bodywork. Visibility zero.

“I’m glad you know where you’re going,” Sam said.

“Might need a fresh paint job on this crate.” Collier was biting his words harder than usual.

“What’s your cover story?”

“Illegal guns. Okay, we’re close enough.”

The prowler slowed to a crawl and Sam got out. The red trailer was outlined by the car’s headlights, blurry in the pelting rain. Collier switched on the flashing lights and let off two siren bursts. Lights came on in the houses and the trailers. The sheriff let the siren loose, shrill and obnoxious. The door of the red trailer swung open and light illuminated the steps and the water-filled potholes. A large shadow blocked part of the light. Sam crouched by the blue RV. On the other side of the courtyard, a door opened and a woman appeared. The wind whipped her pink dress.

Collier cut the siren in mid-bleat and exited his car, one hand on his Stetson, the other on his holster.

“Whaddya want?”

“Mind if I come in?” Collier stepped in a puddle and cursed.

“Get inside Maddy,” the man yelled. The woman in pink retreated.

Collier was near the trailer steps. “We gotta have a talk, Danker.”

Sam hadn’t heard a sound coming from inside the blue RV. A ray of light leaked under the door. The windows were curtained. He put his ear to the door. Nothing. He knocked. Waited. Knocked again.

Sam reached for the door handle. The knob turned, the latch retracted. He stepped to the side of the door and inserted a finger between the door and the doorjamb. All he could see was a sliver of gray linoleum and the corner of a bed.

He opened the door enough to slip through.

And faced the barrel of a rifle.

Thadée Molyneux was neatly dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. His white hair was clean and combed back. The blue eyes were keen and the hands holding the rifle did not shake.

“I knocked,” Sam said.

“I don’t have to open my door if I don’t want to.”

“Mr. Molyneux, you are reported missing. People are worried.”

The old man chuckled. “I bet. The golden goose got loose! Show me your badge.”

“I’m a private investigator. Your daughter hired me.”

“She loves me from the bottom of her heart and the depth of my wallet.”

“Would you mind pointing that rifle somewhere else?”

Molyneux dropped the gun on the bed and sat next to it

“If you’re declared dead, your daughter will inherit. You’re worth more to her dead than alive, sir.”

Molyneux, who was as mentally impaired as a chess master, burst out laughing. “That’s a pittance, son. Bella has a head for numbers. She’s after a big windfall.”

“And Leo Danker isn’t?”

“Leo and I have a deal.”

“I bet if you croak his deal gets even better.”

“Leo needs me.”

“A bundle of cash makes people do weird things. See the flashing lights out there? I have a sheriff on my side. That ain’t something you spit at. Think about it.” Sam put his card on the bed, next to the rifle. “I’m way cheaper than Leo Danker.” Molyneux stuffed the card in his pocket. “Write to your daughter. Get off the missing person’s list. I’ll take the letter to her.”

“She’ll want to know where I am.”

“I don’t have to tell her,” Sam said.

Molyneux sat down at the kitchen table to write. Sam took a picture. It was a good letter. To the point. Leave me be. I’m with friends. I’ll be in touch. You’ll be a rich woman someday.

“That should do it,” Sam said.

“And you’ll leave?”

“I’m not Danker. Keep that in mind when he tries to double-cross you.”

Sam guessed what was going on. Molyneux wouldn’t spend time in this desolate place if he didn’t have to. The money wasn’t there yet. Molyneux and Danker were waiting. The payoff had to be juicy. Sam too had a head for numbers.

#

“He was in there?”

The rain hadn’t let up and Sam swamped the prowler. “Danker is a friend of the old man who’s running from the suffocating affection of his daughter. Not to mention the retirement home. Can’t blame him.”

“Storm in a teacup, eh?”

“Molyneux is coherent,” Sam said.

“What now?”

“He wrote a letter to his daughter. Case closed.”

“Police-wise he’s no longer missing,” Collier said. “And I have a list of Danker’s arsenal. All legal guns. We did good work today.”

The knot in Sam’s gut said otherwise.

#

Sam waved goodbye to Collier and Willa. He liked the way they looked at him, their friendship, their image of him. Twenty miles out of town, he had second thoughts. Maybe he should have pressed Molyneux, maybe he should have slapped a tracker bug on Danker’s van. A windfall. How much?

Sam waited four days before giving the letter and the picture to Bella. She pressed him for her father’s whereabouts. She threatened to withhold his fee. They argued and Sam won. She shouldn’t antagonize her father. Not if she wanted a piece of the pie.

After ten days Sam came to the painful conclusion that he had let the prize slip through his fingers.

When his phone rang three weeks after the conversation in the RV, Sam had put the wishful incident behind him. It was no use brooding over missed opportunities; it only benefited the bartender who kept his double whiskeys coming.

It was Bella. “My father wants me to come get him. I’m in Miami. Can you go? You know the place, and he knows you.”

“What’s his phone number?”

Sam called from the road. Busy. Molyneux must have had a falling out with Danker. After the money came in.

The four-hour drive gave Sam ample time to think. He doubted Danker was still there but his followers might be, and they had guns. He thought about calling Sheriff Collier, but sending the cops in could backfire. Better assess the situation first. Now, if Danker was still on site… Sam dialed the number again. Still busy.

#

The compound seemed deserted. The van was gone but a brown Camry was parked in front of the blue RV.

A body lay in the dirt next to the car. Sam put the truck in park and left the engine running. He took a pair of gloves from his side door, retrieved the gun he kept in the central console, and checked that the safety was off. He waited. A light wind lifted the dead man’s shirt. It gave the body the appearance of life. Nothing else moved. Sam hit the horn. Nothing stirred.

Sam got out his truck. He didn’t close the door.

The dead man was Leo Danker. Half his head was gone. A gun was in his hand. Flies buzzed around the gaping wound, slowed down by the searing heat and the feasting. A trail of blood started a few yards from Danker and snaked toward the blue RV. Sam went up the stairs, careful not to mess up the evidence on the treads and the railing. The door was ajar; the handle was coated with blood.

Molyneux was on the bed. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. A gun was on the floor by the bed. Sam checked for a pulse. Not a flutter. His experience with crime scenes was limited but he had no trouble picturing the sequence of events. A confrontation between the two men by the side of the car. Danker shoots first. Molyneux is hit but not knocked over. He retaliates. Or the two men discharge at the same time and Danker dies on the spot.

Sam walked over to the Camry. The money was in the trunk. Six duffel bags chockfull of new, crisp twenty-dollar bills. Maybe people accessing bank vaults saw that kind of cash every day and it didn’t impress them anymore, but the stash didn’t seem real to Sam. This was out of a movie, or a bank robber’s wet dream.

“No way,” he muttered.

No way he could put these bags in his rusty truck and haul them up to his apartment. Or hide them in the desert somewhere. You had to be dumb as a post or have balls of brass to believe you could run with that kind of booty. Sam dug into one of the bags. He grabbed two handfuls of bundles, counted them. Nine. Okay, one more. An even ten. He closed the trunk and put the bundles in the glove box of his truck, with the gloves and his gun on top. The old saying, in for a penny, in for a pound, pinballed through his head and he shoved it away. That wasn’t how it worked. That was how you ended behind bars.

He called Sheriff Collier.

#

“Nobody can figure out where the money came from,” Collier said. “Molyneux’s former employer claims it’s theirs. Good luck with that. They never reported anything missing. My guess is that he nibbled at their accounts for his entire career. With Danker’s help, he invested his take in a bunch of accounts under a bunch of aliases. It’s been two weeks and we identified six so far.”

“Bella hired a lawyer to help her with her father’s estate,” Sam said. “It’s Danker’s too, potentially, but I doubt anybody will come forward to claim his share. Who was that guy?”

“Might never know his real name. The cult members are in the wind. We put out a bulletin,” Collier said.

They smoked and sipped their drinks. They were on the back porch of Willa’s picture-perfect frame house. Saguaros, yuccas and ocotillos surrounded the property. The night sky was putting up a show. A shooting star zipped overhead. Sam made a silent wish, like his grandmother told him to do.

“What did you think when you saw the dough?” Collier said.

Sam put his feet up on the railing. “That I wouldn’t know where to run with it. It made me humble. I realized I wasn’t desperate enough.” He sighed. “How much was there?”

“South of six million. Rather modest in the grand scheme of things,” Collier said.

“You see that number written down and you think, okay, neat,” Sam said. “You see it in real banknotes and it’s a very different feeling.”

“That’s a fact.”

Sam busied himself with his pack of cigarettes. He pictured the twenty grand in his glove box. “Bella asked me to bring her father back and when I got there I couldn’t do a damn thing for him.”

“He was missing and you found him. When he was in trouble, he called her. They made peace in the end, sort of.”

Sam took a deep drag off the cigarette. The old man was a grifter. A persistent, talented grifter. Not a small-time cheater of expense statements like him. Sam blew out the smoke. He wasn’t in Molyneux’s league. Not by a long shot.

– M.E. Proctor