“Sure don’t,” Brent said. “But he’s got to be related to Perry. Not that many Kendermans around these parts.”
“See what you can track down, will you? What’s the other tag?”
“One Eight One Thomas Edward Mike should appear on a white nineteen ninety-four Nissan registered to a Barbara Cole Parker, seven oh nine Third Street, Posadas. No wants or warrants.”
“Thanks. I’ll be out of the car for a while at that address, Brent.”
“Okay. And before you go, I have a note here from the sheriff to remind you of your appointment at zero nine hundred.”
Estelle glanced at the dash clock. In two hours and three minutes, the Posadas County Grand Jury would convene to decide the fate of insurance agent George Enriquez-on the first day of the rest of his life.
“I’ll be there. Thanks, Brent.” Across the street, a truck started up with a plume of blue smoke, then backed out of a driveway and headed south. From the first house north of the Parkers’, a small, ratty dog trotted out to stand in the street, watching the truck depart. After a moment, the animal turned, glanced at Estelle’s car, and sauntered back onto the brick path that connected house to sidewalk.
When the undersheriff got out of her car, the dog stopped and regarded her, tail a motionless flag at half-mast. Then the ears dropped, the tail flicked, and the dog approached, nose close to the ground.
Estelle stopped on the sidewalk and let the little animal sniff the cuffs of her slacks.
“You know exactly what happened last night, don’t you,” Estelle said. The little dog jumped sideways at the sound of her voice, ears pricked and tail wagging. With no head-scratch forthcoming, the animal turned to pursue interests elsewhere.
Estelle walked up beside the pickup. It was unlocked, the keys in the ignition. The ashtray yawned open, full to overflowing with cigarette butts. A light film of dust coated the dashboard, the perfect canvas for a welter of finger- and handprints and smudges. A hole gaped in the narrow dashboard where the radio had been.
The driver’s door was only partially closed, and Estelle lifted the latch. The rich, cloying fragrance of burned hemp wafted out. “Party time,” Estelle murmured and nudged the door shut. She walked forward past the truck and glanced at the sedan. Other than a cardboard carton that had once held canning jars and now might be home to any number of things, the inside of the Nissan was clean.
As she stepped to the front door of the house, Estelle paused to survey the neighborhood. Little boxy houses nested in small yards with occasional chain-link fences and shaggy, unkempt elms as yet untouched by breezes. At 6:57 that morning, the neighborhood was quiet. Inside the Parker house, she heard a child’s voice, then an adult’s, low-pitched and gentle.
Barbara Parker might have drifted off to sleep after the brutal evening the day before, after cops had left and well-meaning neighbors had gone home, after the children were settled. Perhaps she’d jarred awake at dawn, then forced herself to slip into her daughter’s bedroom to see if the girl was still lying there innocently asleep, the whole incident nothing more than the mother’s personal nightmare.
Taking a deep breath, Estelle rapped on the door.
“Just a minute!” a voice called, and Estelle heard the conversation continuing as footsteps approached the front door. It opened, but the woman’s back was turned momentarily as she said, “Make sure you put the top on Mindi’s,” and then she turned her attention to the visitor. “Hello,” she said. Maybe thirty-eight, maybe fifty-five, it was impossible to tell. The woman’s eyes were bloodshot, the black circles under them accentuated by the prematurely wrinkled skin of a heavy smoker. An inch or so shorter than Estelle’s five feet seven inches, she was fine-boned and so thin that her faded jeans molded over the projections of her hip bones.
“Good morning,” Estelle said. “Mrs. Parker?”
“Yes.” The woman’s tone was neutral, carrying no particular greeting or curiosity.
“I’m Estelle Guzman with the sheriff’s department. I’m sorry to bother you so early.”
The corner of the woman’s mouth twitched. “With two little kids, this is just about mid-morning. What did you need?”
“I need to talk with you for a few minutes, Mrs. Parker.”
“I think I know you, don’t I? You’re a social worker or something with the department.”
“I’m Undersheriff Guzman. I’m investigating your daughter’s death, Mrs. Parker.”
“I talked to the officers last night.” She said it without petulance and opened the door. She beckoned Estelle inside. “You don’t look like you got much more sleep than I did.” She nodded toward the kitchen. “The kiddos are having some breakfast, so you’ll have to put up with that.”
Estelle smiled. “I’m used to it. I have two of my own.”
Barbara Parker shot a quick glance at Estelle as she walked toward the kitchen. “I tell you, without these two little poppets, I don’t think the sun would have bothered to come up this morning.”
A little boy with wheat-colored hair that had been buzzed uniformly close to his skull was kneeling precariously on his chair, holding a quart milk carton with both hands, and using the milk carton for balance. In a high-chair with its back to the kitchen sink sat a sober little girl. She looked at her grandmother, then at Estelle, then at the bright blue plastic cup between her tiny hands.
“This is Ryan,” Barbara Parker said, watching the boy’s maneuvers with the carton. She snapped the cover on the little girl’s plastic cup and then took the carton of milk from Ryan and set it on the table. Freed of the challenge of the milk carton, Ryan scrambled down out of his chair. “He’s four. And this is Mindi. She was two in August, weren’t you, sweetheart.” Ryan approached Estelle, his broad face puckered into a frown. Estelle sank to one knee so the two of them were eye to eye. She held out a hand. As she did so, her jacket drew away enough that the boy saw the gold badge clipped to her belt.
“How come you got that?” he asked. He allowed Estelle to take his hand.
“Because I’m a police officer,” she said.
“Oh.”
“My name’s Estelle, Ryan.”
“Okay.” He nodded, and Estelle released his hand. He didn’t move away but reached out and smoothed a wrinkled picture that had been magnet-tacked to the refrigerator door. The crayon sketch showed a huge, glowering sun. The four letters of Ryan’s name stretched across the blue yard in front of a red house. “There was two policemans here.” He reached up and placed a hand against the side of his face. “The lady looked funny.”
“She had an accident a long time ago, Ryan.”
“Like mommy?”
Estelle nodded. “Sort of like that.”
“Mommy died.”
“Yes.”
“Did that lady?”
“No, she didn’t die.” She glanced up to see Barbara Parker gathering Mindi out of the high-chair. Ryan reached out and touched the dark arc of Estelle’s right eyebrow, the light tentative touch of the artist trying to fix a shape, a texture, a color in his mind.
“You got funny eyebrows,” he said.
“I think so, too,” Estelle agreed.
“He’s a young man who says exactly what’s on his mind,” the boy’s grandmother said.
“I’m familiar with that,” Estelle said, and pushed herself to her feet. Ryan backed off, scrubbing his back along the smooth surface of the refrigerator door.
“Let’s sit,” Barbara said. She edged one of the kitchen chairs out with her toe, then sat down with Mindi in her lap. The child seemed content with her plastic, lidded cup. Ryan walked a wide circle around Estelle and clambered back into his chair.
“I got this,” he said and hoisted the cereal box.
“Just keep ’em in the bowl, sport,” Barbara Parker said.
“I understand that you’re a counselor at the schools?”
Barbara nodded. “Of a sort. I’m the district’s occupational therapist. I work with kids all day long, all ages, all makes and models,” she said. “But I’m lost right now, I can tell you.”