Blood Sweep (25 page)

Chapter Thirty

Sheriff Robert Torrez had left the circle of lights, noise and confusion and driven north on Grande. He saw nothing at the crime scene that demanded his attention—the photos would be taken, the scene measured, the grounds meticulously searched for any trace of evidence. He had a specific destination in mind, and deep in thought, he settled back in the Expedition's seat, two fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel.

The moment Deputy Brent Sutherland mentioned the older model Caprice, Torrez knew the owner. Back when Jerry Steward had decided that the Sheriff's Auxiliary was the way to go, he'd bought the car at a county auction after the vehicle had spent altogether too long patrolling the streets of Posadas. He'd driven it in parades, and attended 4-H shows, athletic events—anything at all where, in his judgment, an “official” car might serve a purpose.

Bob Torrez dismissed Jerry Steward as a wanna-be pest. He didn't consider for a nano-second that Steward might actually
win
the election for sheriff. The odds were about the same as a burro winning the Kentucky Derby.

But nothing about the violent attack on Dominic Olveda at the Posadas Inn matched Jerry Steward's laid-back, almost dim-witted approach to life either, and that made Torrez edgy. The sheriff had had ample opportunity to observe Mazón's behavior during the interviews, to watch the deep, dark eyes calculate without emotion. To strike, or not to strike…like the calm of a Mohave green. What he saw was a human being of a different species from Jerry Steward.

As the big SUV idled up Grande, Torrez fished out his cell phone and pressed one of the tiny buttons. Four rings and the undersheriff picked up.

“Guzman.”

“Hey, I'm headed up to pay Jerry a little visit.”

Estelle paused. “All right. Brent is sure it's Steward's car that he saw down here.”

“Yep. Now we'll find out why. If this is Mazón's doing, are you headed south?”

“Yes. The colonel is with me.”

“Be careful.” He switched off in time to turn the car onto Piñon, and then in a few yards right onto Sylvester. The Mesa View apartment complex dominated the block, a rundown heap of a building arranged in a shallow horseshoe with communal parking spaces in the middle. Built originally as an ambitious motel, the first owners had discovered that tourists fresh off the interstate and looking for one night's lodging rarely found the place. What did attract were the cheap by-the-week/month/season rates—long term accommodations that the Posadas Inn down at the interchange didn't offer.

An effort had once been made by new owners to make the Mesa View appear southwesterny by sticking on fake vigas, but that brainstorm faded after the landlord had run out of ambition. The eight vigas he'd managed to install provided an interesting architectural study. If the visible end of a viga was just the exterior end of a ceiling beam as that beam carries through the wall, then these eight beams would have been a haphazard delight on the inside.

Torrez surveyed the building, leaning forward against the steering wheel as he keyed the radio. When Mike Sands responded, he said only, “Three oh eight is 10-6 at Mesa View.” From his spot at the end of the parking lot, he counted seventeen resident vehicles. None of them was an aging Caprice.

With his phone switched to vibrate and flashlight in hand, he got out of the Expedition and took the long way around the parking area, eventually ending up at the metal stairway leading to the center section's second floor.

Jerry Steward's apartment, 201, was at the far end, and Torrez trod carefully near the porch railing to lessen the resonant ring of his hard-soled boots on the steel and concrete.

Six feet from the door he stopped, listening. A television set somewhere blared through an open window. Reaching out with the flashlight as if it were a baton, the sheriff rapped four times on the door. Nothing. He rapped again, at the same time palming his phone. This time, Dispatcher Mike Sands sounded eager to have something to do.

“Have Alfonso Torrez bring the master key to room 201 up to his favorite cousin. I'm at the room right now,” the sheriff said.

“Room 201. That's at the Mesa View, right?”

“Yep.” He frowned at the deputy's nervous redundancy.

In thirty seconds, Torrez heard the thump of a door, and then saw the bulky figure of his cousin trudging up the steep metal stairs, knees bowed inward by his weight.

“He left earlier,” Alfonso said by way of greeting. “I saw his car pull out a while ago.”

“Okay.”

“And don't you go kicking in the door, Bobby.” He held up the key ring. “I got enough to do around here.”

The first two keys didn't fit, but the third attempt rewarded them. “Whatcha after?” He stepped back, not the least bit eager to enter.

Torres nodded his thanks but ignored the question, and gently pushed the door with the butt of the flashlight. The apartment had originally been one of the finer suites when the Mesa View had been designed. Bathroom, kitchenette, living room—the sheriff surveyed it all without changing his position at the door.

“
Ay, chingada,”
Alfonso muttered and backed to the porch railing, holding on with both hands.

“You got that right,” Torrez replied. Jerry Steward sat in his favorite armchair—his only armchair, two steps from the television. One hand rested on each arm of the chair, his head fallen back as if he'd taken a nap. His posture mimicked the dead hitman, snoozing into eternity. A sea of blood drenched both Steward and the chair.

The killer had made no attempt at hiding the murder weapon. The aluminum baseball bat lay on the floor against the wall, gore adhered to the metal. The sheriff didn't enter the room, but remained by the door as he dialed.

“Guzman.”

“Hey,” he said. “See who you can shake loose over there. Somebody did a line drive through the front of Jerry Steward's skull with a baseball bat. Room 201 at the Mesa View.”

“Dead?”

“Yep. And somebody took off with his Caprice.”

“Signs of a struggle?”

“Don't know yet, but my first guess is not.”

“I can spring L.T., Linda, and Tommy. If the State mobile gets here, I'll have them swing that way, too. Forced entry?”

“Don't look like it. Make it ASAP with the team. You headed south yet?”

“About to. Naranjo and I were going to head for the border crossing at Regál, but we can hold off on that if you want me over there. I can come over if you need me.”

Torrez was silent for a moment, then replied. “Ain't nothing any of us can do for Jerry. I got this one all right. The way the body is, I'm thinking one hit with a baseball bat. We'll see. You be careful down there if you're thinkin' of crossing the border with Naranjo.”

“Oh,
sí.”

Chapter Thirty-one

The tiny village of Regál nestled on the south side of the San Cristóbal Mountains, facing the open sweep of the Mexican prairie—that prairie broken now and then by jagged volcanic plugs and ash-capped mesas. From the part-time border crossing, the road swept south through that battered landscape toward Janos. Because of the San Cristóbal barrier to the north of the village, it had always seemed to Estelle that Regál belonged to Mexico rather than the United States.

The undersheriff lowered the windows as she drove down toward the village. Cresting a last slight rise a stone's throw from the church, she stopped the car on the pavement and switched off the engine. To the right, the village lay in the darkness. She counted three porch lights, and even as she watched, one of them was switched off.

“Charming little town, I've always thought,” Tomás Naranjo whispered.

From far to the south, the yip of a coyote floated across the still air, and that prompted half a dozen village dogs to add their two cents. For a few moments, the chorus filled the night, then lost interest.

“If you drive through the village,” he added, “every dog and his cousin will announce you.”

“That's okay,” Estelle said. “If Mazón came this way, he isn't sitting on someone's front porch, waiting. He would have headed up.” She leaned down so she could see to the west, where an arm of the rugged foothills broke and then curved south, slicing the border. The new fence was a black shadow heading east and west from the border crossing behind the church. But a mile west, as the barrier of foothills rose, the towering abomination of steel posts and paneling had been abandoned in favor of the traditional four strand barbed wire demarcation, snaking up and over the rugged natural barrier.

“We'll never find him,” she said. “Not under cover of darkness. But we'll find the car.”

Certainly much of the modern economy had passed the village by. Regál was the sort of place destined never to know the bright lights of a Dollar store, or an all-night pharmacy—or any pharmacy at all, for that matter. The village was not gridded and surveyed and street-lit. The very darkness of the village worked in Mazón's favor, as did the hodgepodge layout of the community. The fifteen houses had been built as each owner saw fit, with lot lines sometimes marked by rustic fences, sometimes not. Outbuildings in various states of repair were scattered through the village as if a giant hand had swept overhead, sifting them down. Once over the pass and the smooth macadam of State 56, visitors found every lane in the village hard-packed dirt with occasional soft sand pockets or deep ruts in the caliche.

In spots, the narrow lanes wound within a foot or so of a front porch or juniper fence behind which elderly mules dozed.

Estelle started the car and pulled it into gear, idling down the last hundred yards of pavement before swinging off onto the dirt of the first lane into the village. Now after ten, the blue ghosts still lit many of the windows, and she could imagine the folks sitting deep in their old wing-back chairs—the Sanchez clan, the Abuelos, old Marvin Acosta, the widow Fermina Torrez, who was a distant relative of the sheriff, and ten or fifteen others who had shut out the night—now captivated by the modern life of the tube-people.

Letting the car idle, tires crunching on patches of gravel, they wound through the village. Ralph Martinez was standing in the doorway of his adobe home, and he raised a hand in greeting. Estelle slowed as she saw him step carefully out of the house and mosey toward the road, smoke trailing from his cigarette. They met at his mailbox, itself now obsolete and replaced by an ugly cluster box out by the highway.

“Who you lookin' for?” Martinez asked with a lopsided grin. He bent down, and Estelle caught the fragrant aroma from the smoke. He offered his hand, the brown skin now tissue-paper thin. “And who you got there?” He leaned a bit more, knuckles of one hand against the car for support, and squinted at Estelle's passenger.

“Ralph, this is Colonel Tomás Naranjo of the
Judiciales.”

“
Ohhhhhhhhh.” It was impossible to tell if the comment was derisive or if Martinez was genuinely impressed. She turned to Naranjo. “Mr. Martinez was postmaster for years and years up in Newton.”

“Until they took away my post office,” Martinez added. “You know, I've been here now for eighteen years. How about that.” He straightened a bit. “Some of my neighbors still consider me an outsider.” He puffed another plume of smoke. “So, Sheriff
,
you know, I got to go into town and talk to your husband.”

“He'll be happy to see you.”

Martinez coughed a little chuckle. “I don't know about
that.
But I don't piss so good, and I guess I better do something about it. Keeps me awake all night.”

“You should go see him.”

Martinez looked off to the west. “You after that other car?”

“That depends,” Estelle said.

“Brown Chevy? He drove through here just a few minutes ago. Maybe half an hour. Maybe less.”

“Did you see him come back out this way ?”

Martinez shook his head. “Nope. Now he could have circled around past Trujillo's, but I don't think so. That little bridge over the arroyo has loose boards, and the tires, you know? Make all kinds of noise. I would have heard.”

Estelle reached out and patted the back of Martinez's hand. “Thanks, Ralph.” She looked squarely at him. “Don't be putting off that appointment, now.”

“No, I got to do that.” He stepped back as she eased her foot off the brake, turning the car sharply to follow the lane around the west side of Martinez's lot.

“How much do you know about this man?” Naranjo asked.

“Martinez? Or Mazón?”

“The man who calls himself your uncle.”

“Only what he's told me. If he's the one responsible for killing Quesada, Olveda, and now Steward, then there are links to all these people that I don't yet understand.”

“There are ties,” Naranjo said. “What is the expression? ‘A falling out of thieves?' Something moved Benedicte Mazón to act against the Ortega brothers in Mazatlán.” He shifted in the seat. “I would not be surprised if it is because of your son, my friend. That's what the display of a decade's worth of photographs and articles has to say.” When Estelle didn't reply, he added gently, “That explains it all to me, even what has happened here in the States. What is the common factor?”

“Me.”

“That's right.” He nodded vigorously. “You and your family. I could go so far as to say that this man is protecting you and yours…in his own way. We have suspicions, you know. We
suspect,”
and he drew out the word for emphasis, “that Olveda and his
compadres
are doing nothing so much as establishing a…” He paused, searching for the right word. “A
beachhead
in Posadas. And we are surprised it has not happened before. What a marvelous place—close to the border, a good airport, near the interstate, yet isolated. And now this project of your Mr. Waddell. Imagine the sorts of things something like that can conceal.” He sighed. “In this case, however, it is…it
appears
to be, an ambitious and creative group of Costa Ricans who are the entrepreneurs. And it further
appears
that we have some Mexican businessmen,” and he said it with heavy sarcasm, “who object to what they see as their turf being invaded.”

Estelle carefully guided the car around a trim little barn and the corner of an orchard. Just beyond, the double-wide trailer of Modesto Armijo loomed, and beyond that, the collection of antique farm machinery Modesto had collected over the decades—without a tillable field in sight.

“Do you think Mazón is working on their behalf? His killing of Steward, Olveda, even Quezada has nothing to do with me.”

“Except protecting you and yours from being caught in the middle of something ugly. Surely you do not think that these people are simply going to say, ‘Ah, well…it looks like we'll have to go elsewhere for our development plans. This Posadas County is too much of a risk.'”

“You're expecting more of this, then.”

“Of course. We must not be naive. Mr. Waddell is going to have to be
constantly
on guard. That is what the attempt on your sheriff's life makes clear to me. Working with a non-entity such as Jerry Steward guarding the gates to the county is so much easier than trying to deal with our Robert Torrez…a man who cannot be bribed or intimidated, a man with complete and honest loyalties.”

She braked so suddenly that the tires slid in the dirt. Cranking the spotlight around, she snapped it on and played the beam down the row of scrap that constituted Modesto Armijo's outdoor museum.

Three International Scouts all listed badly, tires removed, windshields long gone. A grain harvester, miles from the nearest grain field, loomed beside two aging tractors whose guts were no doubt gummed and rusted into a congealed, useless mess. For whatever reason, Modesto had left a space or two, and then parked a useless, worn-out Suburban with all six doors yawning, a Hilton for the packrats and the investigative towhees. Estelle held the light still. In the space between the Suburban and the nearest tractor, a dusty brown Chevy sedan rested, hood up, doors ajar, all four tires flat. As the light flooded past the hood, it reflected off the chrome spotlight by the driver's front door.

“So,” she breathed. Naranjo sucked in a gentle breath but said nothing. Switching off the spot, Estelle found her hand light and got out of the county car. Mindful of the fanged denizens of the dry New Mexican back-country, she approached the row of junk carefully, watching where she put her feet. Naranjo followed, his own light playing patterns on the machinery.

The tire tracks in the stunted grass and crushed, gray weed stalks were fresh. Touching the driver's door to push it open further, she smelled not the dull, musky odor of years in the sun and weather, but the urban aroma of mixed aftershave, cigarette smoke, and sweat.

“The tires were knifed,” Naranjo muttered. “But he left the license plate.”

“Thoughtful of him,” Estelle said. “Maybe he thought we'd never walk around behind it. The flat tires give it the derelict look.”

Naranjo stood quietly, two paces away from the Caprice. “You know,” he said finally, “if he took the time to wipe the car clean of prints, we lose an important connection.”

“It was Mazón,” Estelle said flatly. “I can smell him.”

“That will be interesting to hear in court,” the colonel chuckled.

“I think we can guarantee that Benedicte Mazón will never see a day in court.”

“This charade gives him a few more minutes.” Naranjo turned and looked west. “It is my understanding that the new fence goes just up into these foothills, not over the crest.”

Estelle swept the flashlight beam toward the shadows west of the village. “Over the rise, down a little draw, and then it deadheads into some spectacular, rough country.”

“And that's where he went.”

“I would think so. Out of view of the cameras, out of view of the blimp, if it's flying. Under cover of darkness, he'll be over the barbed wire and into Mexico in just a couple of hours.”

“Then he's our problem,” Naranjo said grimly. “You know, we could fly the desert with helicopters and spend a million dollars and never find him. But a man like Mazón will surface eventually. It is only a matter of time.” He clapped his hands once without much enthusiasm. “You know, some people would say that he has accomplished what he sought to do. He has protected your son, and now he has neutralized any threat to your village from Olveda and his cronies. He has satisfied whomever he answers to in my country. We may never hear from him again.”

“One helicopter on each side of the border fence,” Estelle said. “We have to try that. We might get lucky.”

“You might. We might.” He stretched his head back and look at the panoply of stars. “Come dawn? How far can he be?

“Miles from here, Tomás. And of course, so easy to hide in that country. On top of that, it's impossible to sneak up on someone with a helicopter.” Estelle gazed back through the village, just a thin sprinkling of lights. “Or he might be sitting in the dark, behind someone's woodpile, watching us run around in circles. He has all the cards now.”