Scavengers (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Paulita Saenz had been sitting on one of the hard chairs in the foyer, perhaps expecting the undersheriff to enter the Public Safety Building through the front door instead of the side entrance that led directly into the dispatcher’s domain. Whether alerted by the slight change in air pressure, the distant thud of the door, or the muffled voice of dispatcher Brent Sutherland greeting the undersheriff, Paulita turned and caught a glimpse of Estelle through the heavy glass of the dividers. She rose quickly and stood in front of her chair, hands clasped at her waist.

The deference now in her body language wasn’t lost on Estelle. The undersheriff crossed behind Brent Sutherland’s chair and opened the glass door that separated the dispatch console from the foyer. “Can you give me just a minute?” she said, and Paulita nodded. She turned as if to settle back in the chair, changed her mind and remained standing, her handbag resting on the chair’s arm. “Thanks,” Estelle said. “I won’t be long.”

Waiting was the order of the day, apparently. It seemed like a week had passed since Estelle had faxed her request to Sheriff Robert Torrez for information on the small gadget found in Eurelio’s truck. His reply had been prompt, as if he’d been sitting by the machine at the Virginia end, waiting for something to do. The document now rested in Estelle’s mailbox, where it had remained for most of the night. Estelle fished the paper out and unfolded it.

“Ernie Wheeler said to make sure that you saw that,” Brent Sutherland said needlessly. Estelle glanced at the young deputy, expecting him to add something to the announcement that she needed to know. “I guess it came in sometime before midnight,” Sutherland said lamely. “By the way, I’m sorry that I let that slip.” Estelle saw his gaze flick out toward where Paulita Saenz waited.

“That’s okay,” Estelle said, her attention already back on the message. Bob Torrez’s blocky printing surrounded the photocopied image of the small metal cylinder. Estelle could picture him in a lecture hall somewhere in downtown Quantico, Virginia, sitting in an auditorium seat with one of those awkward fold-down writing arms, one of two hundred sheriffs and sheriffs-to-be from around the country. She imagined his large frame scrunched up in the cramped seat, his fist clenched around his habitual felt-tipped pen. Down in front of the hall, an FBI specialist would be droning on about something wonderfully high-tech in the world of forensics, his lecture augmented by neat, colorful PowerPoint graphics projected onto a wide screen behind him. Sheriff Torrez wasn’t listening.

Regardless of where the sheriff actually was, or what he was supposed to be doing, Posadas County was first in his thoughts—enough so that the new chain of events had sent him back to his motel room to pack after firing off his return fax. Estelle read his message, a smile deepening the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes as she did so. Robert Torrez was never happier than when he was hunting—and it didn’t matter whether the quarry was wild game or people.

A drawing of what could have been a rifle hammer, a human thumb, and the tube of a telescopic sight followed. Estelle turned the drawing this way and that. At the bottom of the page, Torrez had added:

Estelle grinned and folded the paper so that she could slip it into the back of her notebook. “Ernie said that the sheriff was coming back early,” Brent said.

“In about an hour, as a matter of fact,” Estelle said without looking up. “Pop the main lockup corridor door for me, would you?” Sutherland reached over to the compact panel to the right of his desk and turned a large red switch. Off in the bowels of the building, they could hear the clang and draw of metal against metal.

Paulita Saenz still waited patiently in the foyer, and Estelle saw the woman jerk as the sound of the doors reached her. There would be a pang as the dismal sound reminded Paulita of exactly where her son was.

Estelle took another moment to pull a single, slender manila folder from the active case file cabinet. Eurelio Saenz’s name had been printed on the label in Deputy Tom Pasquale’s sprawling hand. She pushed the drawer closed. “We’re going to be with Eurelio for a few minutes,” Estelle said to the dispatcher. “His mother and I will just be in the corridor. No contact.”

Sutherland looked up at the corridor monitor over his station. “He’s our only guest at the moment,” he said. “You don’t want to use the conference room?”

Estelle shook her head. “No. We won’t be that long.” And there was something about the cold, passionless restraint of the steel cell bars that added to the ambiance, she knew—especially with an inexperienced kid. Sit at a nice mahogany table in a comfortable leather chair with your mom at your elbow, and there’s always the tantalizing notion that you’re going to go home if you arrange your lies just right.

She tapped the folder against her thumb for a minute, deep in thought, then turned and left dispatch. Paulita Saenz looked expectant as Estelle approached. Her gaze drifted down to the manila folder. “Let’s find a quiet spot,” Estelle said, and led the way to her own office just down the hall. She held the door until Paulita was inside, then closed it behind them.

“Before we talk to Eurelio, let me clarify some things for you, Mrs. Saenz.” She nodded toward one of the large chairs beside her desk. “First of all, your son is over twenty-one.”

Before Estelle could continue, Paulita’s face scrinched up in a grimace. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “He’s got to fight his own battles. He got himself into whatever mess this is, now he can get himself out.” She nodded at Estelle as if to add “Am I right?”

Estelle set the manila folder carefully on top of several others that lay scattered across her desk, then sank into her own chair. She clasped her hands in front of her and leaned forward slightly.

“He’s my son,” Paulita said as the silence lengthened. “I have every right to know what’s happening with him.”

“Of course you do, Paulita,” Estelle said. She took a deep breath. “Your son was arrested for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle, and later for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.” She reached over and opened the slender folder, thumbing the two single sheets of paper apart. “The deputy has also specified that there were open containers of alcoholic beverages in the vehicle when it was stopped.”

She stopped and let the folder fall shut. “In this case, I really don’t care about any of that, Mrs. Saenz.” She leaned back in the chair. “If that was all that concerned us, your son would have been arraigned and probably released on his own recognizance, with a follow-up visit with the judge scheduled for later in the day.” She shrugged and spread her hands. “That would have been that. And you and I wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of the night, wondering about what’s going to happen to him.”

“But that’s not it, is it?” Paulita said.

“No, it’s not.” Estelle paused again. “Paulita…” She stopped, letting the single word hang all by itself for a few seconds. “Paulita, I’m worried about your son.”

“This is the first time he’s done something like this,” Paulita said. “That old truck—usually it just sits, you know? Until a tire or something goes flat. He maybe uses it once or twice a year. Sometimes not even that.”

“I don’t care about the truck,” Estelle said flatly, and Paulita looked surprised. “Your son knows something about the two men who were killed north of Maria. That’s what worries me.”

“No, he…” But Paulita stopped in midthought.

“Back at the hospital, you said that Eurelio didn’t want to speak with you—that it was Tori Benevidez who told you that Eurelio was in jail. Didn’t she mention the circumstances? Why wouldn’t your son want you to know that he was in trouble?”

Paulita looked hurt and puzzled. “I don’t know.”

“I can think of a couple reasons,” Estelle said. Her voice softened. “Maybe he doesn’t want you to become involved in whatever trouble he’s in. Maybe he thinks that he’s protecting you from something.”

“No,” Paulita said, but then could go no further. Forehead wrinkled, she examined the edge of the desk. She lifted her hand and ran a finger along the polished wood. Estelle waited, seeing the understanding on the woman’s face.

“Let me tell you what we found,” Estelle said. “And then you tell me if we should be worried.” When Paulita looked up, Estelle added, “That old truck…it was your husband’s?”

Paulita nodded.

“Your son is the only one who drives it? That’s what he told me.”

“As far as I know. Maybe once in a while somebody else, but not often.”

“Who might the ‘somebody else’ be?”

Paulita frowned. “Well…” And she paused. “I guess one of the boys borrowed it sometime last month. When they redid the roof across the street. They were throwing the old roofing down into the back of it so they could take it to the dump.”

“One of the boys, Paulita?” Estelle said. “Was that Eurelio, you mean?”

“No, no. It would have been either Isidro or Benny Madrid. They were up here to do the roof on the service station for their father. They put on new metal.” She tapped a finger on the desk. “You were going to tell me what you found.”

“Yes. The deputy found a cartridge casing in that truck, Mrs. Saenz. A recently fired shell casing. Eurelio says he’s never seen it before, doesn’t have any idea how it might have gotten in the truck, or when, or by who.” She rested her chin in her hand. “I have two little boys of my own, Paulita. And when they’re fibbing to me, I can tell. I’m sure that when Eurelio was little, you could do the same thing.”

“Why would he lie about something like that?” Paulita said, but the answer was so obvious that it brought a pained expression to her face.

“We found another firearm-related item in the truck,” Estelle said. “Eurelio denies any knowledge of that, too.”

“Now all this you’re telling me…all this. You’re telling me that maybe my son has something to do with that awful business—those two dead men they found up on the prairie?” Paulita said. “That’s what this is all about, then? Do you even have any idea who these two men are?”

“No, I don’t.” Estelle lifted her head off her hand. “I’d like to ask that you look at a couple of photos, though. You see people passing through Maria all the time. You know a lot of people. There’s a chance.” Estelle slipped a heavier folder out from under Eurelio’s. “Will you look at them?”

“I guess so.” Paulita’s reluctance was understandable. The photos weren’t for the faint of heart. Estelle saw the woman’s jaw muscles twitch as Paulita clenched her teeth, hands rigid on the two eight-by-ten glossies.

“
Jesús, Maria y…
” she murmured, and then her voice trailed off. The massive head wounds and an indeterminate time out on the prairie would have made it difficult for John Doe’s own mother to recognize him—perhaps the pattern of the hair line, the angle and arch of the one remaining eyebrow, the color of the hair would be familiar. Paulita looked longer at the morgue portrait of Juan Doe. The dirt had been cleaned from his face and hair.

Estelle watched Paulita’s face. “You know them,” she said when Paulita shuffled the pictures for the tenth time, as if trying to will the images to fade—or at least change into a couple of nameless strangers.

She held out a photo of the victim from the shallow grave. Estelle stretched across the desk and took it. “His name was Rafael. I remember that. I don’t remember his last name. He and this other one…” She handed the rest of the photos across the desk. “They were like brothers. Rafael and…” She stopped, eyes closed. With a shake of her head, she added, “Maybe they were. I just don’t remember. That one…Rafael? He did most of the talking when they stopped by.
Un verdadero payaso
. A real what-you-call-it.”

“A comedian?”

“That’s what he was,” Paulita said and nodded vehemently. “He and his brother, they stopped at the
taberna
, I remember that. Before you know it, Rafael has us all in stitches. He reminded me of that guy who was so famous…the one with the small mustache who always did the funny bullfight scenes. He was in the movies all the time years ago, that clown.”

“Contínflas?” Estelle prompted.

“That’s the one.”

Estelle looked at the photo that lay on the blotter. Rafael hadn’t died with a smile on his face. “These brothers…if that’s what they were…they were from Mexico, then?”

“Sure. They were going to Mule Creek, up north there.”

“Did they say why?”

“Rafael said that they were going to cut firewood on some big ranch up that way. He said that they were going to make a lot of money doing that. That they had at least a month’s work, with room and board.”

“When was this? Do you remember?”

“I don’t know. It was after Christmas some time. I think that’s when it was.”

“So Rafael and his brother spent what, an evening? An evening at the
taberna
?”

“Yes.”

“Do you recall who was there that evening?”

Paulita frowned and shook her head. “
Por Dios
, no.” She looked at the photos again and shook her head sadly. “
Ay
,” she murmured. “I remember him doing a trick with whiskey tumblers…hands so fast. I couldn’t figure it out. He made a few bets with that. I remember Eurelio crouching down so he could look along the table at eye level, you know. To see how Rafael did it…”

“So Eurelio
was
there.”

Paulita looked startled. “I guess he was, then. And so were the boys.”