appeared to have been written by the man’s wife, Abella. Otto pulled the photographs from the bottom of the box and found the black-and-white picture of Santiago and his wife, the sides of their heads touching, squinting and smiling toward the camera. The edges of the photograph were worn from being handled so often. Otto imagined Santiago lying on his back in bed, staring at those pretty smiling eyes, wishing for the day he could return home.
Otto understood the pain of leaving one’s family. When he and Delores left Poland as young newlyweds, he’d been assigned a simple task: attend school in America, become a doctor, and return to the family village a trained physician. At nineteen years of age, with no preparation, no training, no travel experience outside of Poland, and no understanding of the process for acceptance into even the most mediocre of medical schools in America, Otto learned within six months the task his parents had given him was unachievable. He and Delores discovered their limitations together, learned of the betrayal their families felt at their failure, felt the same intense guilt at the shameful waste of their parents’ hard-earned savings, and realized that they had little more in life than their love for each other. They fast learned the lessons of poverty: that life isn’t a journey with options, but rather a ladder to climb day after day, methodically taking one rung at a time.
Otto stared at the photo in his hands and pictured the couch in his comfortable living room, neat and tidy with Delores’s personality touching each pillow and needlepoint and rug, creating a cocoon of warmth he never took for granted. He realized that he’d climbed off the ladder, the one he’d visualized for so many of his younger years, and he’d found his place to rest. And it saddened him that this family would never find that same peace.
Once Otto had reviewed the letters, he asked Marta to read them for specific details that might help them narrow down where the family lived, or for information about Santiago’s health. Marta sat beside Otto at the conference table and read through each of the letters, jotting down very few notes. She handed them back to Otto when she finished.
“Mostly, they’re filled with family milestones. It’s the stuff that means nothing to you and I, but breaks the heart of the one missing it.”
“No mention of towns or cities?”
“No. There were several letters from Santiago’s daughters and one from his son, written just before the boy entered the Ejército Mexicano, or the Mexican Army, last year. But they didn’t mention where he’d be stationed.”
“Anything about Santiago’s job?” Otto asked.
“It’s obvious that his wife understood very little about his work at the Feed Plant. The job provided a paycheck and little else.”
* * *
Josie left Marta and Otto at the police department and drove out to talk with Sauly Magson. His house was located just south of the mudflats on the Rio, surrounded by thick swaths of three-foot-high prairie grasses that rippled in the breeze like ocean waves. Mountain runoff and natural springs kept the area green year-round, and with the recent rains it looked almost tropical. Sauly’s house was a three-story grain elevator he had painted purple and converted into an artsy space. He had become something of a local celebrity the past year after he was photographed by a writer from Western Art and Architecture, writing a story on free expression. Josie doubted he had even seen the article.
She heard a boom, like that of a cannon, explode behind his house. Anyone else and she would have been concerned—with Sauly it was the norm. Josie walked around the back of the grain elevator toward the sandy slope that led down to the river. She found him, bald-headed and bare-chested, with a blue bandana tied around his neck. He was wearing a pair of jean shorts with no shoes, holding an aerosol can and lighter. He turned and Josie saw he was shaking the can and laughing aloud.
“Did you hear that? Glory!” he yelled. Raindrops from the drizzle slipped down his chest, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Sauly stood by a seven-foot-long plastic pipe that looked like a giant bazooka gun. Beside the pipe lay a bag of potatoes and several small cans of propane and aerosol propellant.
He seemed to realize he was talking to a police officer, and his smile faded.
“You here to ruin my day?” he asked. “It’s just a potato gun.”
She