“Wait…” Emily Vasquez held out a hand. “Barry said that one of the men from the chamber of commerce who went on both trips is the one who shot himself the other day. Is that true? Is that what this is all about?”
Estelle nodded.
“What could possibly be on that tape?” Emily asked. “The raw tape was almost three hours of a gym full of kids whooping and hollering.”
“May I see it?”
She frowned. “You don’t want to see the year-video version then, the three-minute finished program.”
“Both would be fine.”
Emily put both hands on the arm of the chair and pushed herself halfway up. “One’s easy. You can have a copy of the year video. I don’t know for sure if we still have the raw tape. We’ll see. They’re all in the back closet in my room.”
She led the way back across the hall, and as she opened the door of 116, Estelle could hear Mrs. Dooley’s twang as she explained her own version of exponents to a student.
“I’ll wait out here,” Estelle said. “That would be better.” Emily Vasquez nodded and disappeared into the room. Less than a minute later, she returned with two videotape cassettes in hand.
“This one is the raw footage,” she said. Estelle saw the ACAMBARO, CHRISTMAS 2001 label on the spine. “And this is the year video. You’re welcome to keep that if you like. We’d like the file footage back. Sometimes we use a clip for some other project.”
“I’ll be careful with it,” Estelle said.
Emily reached out and touched her arm. “Did you talk with the student who filmed the trip yet? She’s a freshman this year.”
“Lori Schmidt,” Estelle said.
“Yes. She’s a wonderful girl.” She started to say something and hesitated.
“We’ll do our best not to involve any of the youngsters,” Estelle said. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to view the tape first, before I talked to her.” She held out her hand. “Mrs. Vasquez, I appreciate your help.”
The teacher grimaced. “I don’t much like it when the outside world comes into this building, Sheriff. I like to be able to pretend that it’s not out there sometimes.”
“I can understand that.”
“And I don’t know what I’m going to tell students when they ask me why I let you have those.”
Estelle held up the tapes. “Mrs. Vasquez, I don’t think that this is one of those First Amendment questions where you’re correct to protect a source. What I’m looking for is something the camera might have seen, perhaps in the background-something that Lori didn’t even realize was there, or was important.”
The teacher nodded.
“I can get a court order, if that makes you feel better.”
“No, no,” Ms. Vasquez said with a quick shake of the head. “That would be a waste of your time. I just want to be sure that the youngsters are protected.”
“That’s my first concern,” Estelle said. “I’ll bring these back as promptly as I can.” She left the building through the side door, hearing a final peal of laughter as Tessa Dooley relinquished her hold on the math class. It was a comforting sound to hear.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Sheriff Robert Torrez settled into the chair at the end of the conference room opposite the television monitor and folded his hands across his lap. Linda Real popped the zip top on a can of soda. “Anyone bring popcorn?” she asked.
“I’d settle for dinner,” the sheriff said. “Perrone called, by the way. About half an hour ago.”
Estelle stopped rummaging for the TV’s remote. “What did he say?”
“Someone popped Enriquez on the right temple hard enough to fracture his skull. Perrone is sure it happened before the gunshot. The body’s gone to the M.E.’s in Albuquerque.”
“And the gun?”
“That, too,” Torrez nodded. “It’s lookin’ like someone hit George with the barrel of the.41, which would explain some of the hair traces. We’ll see.”
Estelle straightened, remote in hand. She placed it carefully on the TV stand. “If he was struck, his hands would go to his head out of reflex,” she said. “That would explain why his head was back against the chair and his left arm raised.” She mimed the motions of someone clutching the side of his head. “That’s how he was sitting when the shot was fired.”
“That could be,” Torrez said noncommittally. He nodded at the television. “Show time,” he said. “How long is this thing?”
“Three hours,” Estelle replied. She looked down at her legal pad at the list of footage. “But we’re just going to make some brief stops along the way.”
“You want sound?” Linda Real asked.
“Sure.”
A bright image of the Posadas Middle School’s parking lot flashed onto the large screen, and Estelle immediately pressed the Pause button. “Two buses and a van,” she said. Surrounding the vehicles was a swarm of students. The bulky figure of Barry Vasquez could be seen in the back of one of the buses, partially hidden by the yawning door. Tessa Dooley was frozen in mid-stride halfway between the school’s side door and the vehicles.
“This is George Enriquez,” Estelle said, touching the screen with the tip of her pencil. She indicated a dark shadow inside the van. The vehicle’s two doors were open wide, with a variety of bags and boxes already filling the empty space behind the last seat.
“Okay,” Torrez said.
Estelle pressed Play, and the scene jumped into motion. In a flurry of disorganization, the van and buses were loaded, the students forming an unruly ant line back and forth into the school. “This is first thing in the morning,” Estelle said. “They actually started loading about eight-fifteen or so. They were on the way by about five minutes after nine.”
“What am I looking for?” Torrez asked.
“I want you to look closely at the van,” Estelle said, “especially in a couple of minutes when the camera moves in closer.”
For almost ten minutes they watched the loading process. It appeared that George Enriquez was good-naturedly directing the stuffing of the van, starting with the first of the three bench seats in the back, and then filling the remaining space between the final seat and the doors.
“Who was running the camera?” the sheriff asked.
“An eighth-grader named Lori Schmidt,” Estelle said.
“She’s a patient girl.”
“Yes, she is.”
“And she used a tripod,” Linda Real said. “That thing’s rock steady. And it’s a good camera. Nice and clear.”
The scene abruptly shifted to a bus pulling out of the parking lot, with hands waving out the windows. Estelle put the tape on Fast Forward. “There’s a lot of footage of kids doing kid things,” she said. “Lori has a good eye. Lots of smiling faces, lots of neat expressions. She shot about five minutes of tape just of the kids on the bus. Mostly nonsense stuff.”
Estelle pressed Play again, and the border crossing at Regal sprang into focus, the video shot through the window of the second bus.
“This is interesting,” Estelle said. “The van is between the buses. The Mexican border officials know the program, and they’ve seen the same buses before, so it’s nothing new.” They watched the first bus as it was waved through. The Mexican border guard appeared to chat with George Enriquez for a few seconds and then grinned broadly, looking toward the second bus as he stepped back.
“Who’s driving the lead bus?”
“That’s Frieberg,” Estelle said. “You’ll see him later, when they’re unloading. As far as I can tell, he just sat in the bus when they loaded in Posadas. Glen Archer is driving the bus that Lori’s on. In fact, there’s a place where he tells her that she needs to stay seated when they’re on the road. He tells her that about five times.”
The Fast Forward spun the students into a blur, and Estelle abruptly slowed the tape and put it on Pause. “Now. We see one van and one bus, parked in front of the school in Acambaro.” The front yard of the school was packed clay, and every now and then the wind would kick a small whirl of dust through the legs of the students, enough of a breeze that it plastered clothes and ruined perfectly prepared hair.