“Y tu?” he asked Estelle. I knew about ten words of Spanish, just enough to be surprised at the familiar greeting.
She shook her head. “Queremos unos pocos minutos de tu tiempo, senor,” she said.
Sanchez banged the bowl down on the table and turned to glare at us. I knew the look-I’d used it myself many times in the marines when conversing with idiot recruits.
“You know how many people I talk to today, querida?” Estelle’s face remained impassive. He took a step closer and shook a stubby finger in her face. “All day long, in and out, in and out. Like flies. They ask, what’s this, what’s this, what’s this?”
“What do you expect?” I said quietly when he paused to take a breath. “One of our officers was killed just down the road. Do you think we’re going to wait until there’s a lull in your bar traffic to talk to you?”
Sanchez dropped the knife on the cutting board and wiped his hands on his clean, starched apron. “What does this place have to do with what happened?” he demanded. He turned back to Estelle and hunched his shoulders like an old bulldog. His words came machine-gun fast, and I guess maybe he thought Estelle would flinch. She listened impassively. “Nada pasaba aqui. Nada. Ni siquiera una persona vio nada. Ahora, quita de medio.” He chopped the air with the edge of his palm.
“He said nothing happened here, that no one saw anything… and to get out of his way,” Estelle said to me. Victor grunted.
He waved a hand in my direction. “He knows damn well what I said, chinita. All these cops, you drive away my customers. You cost me money.”
He turned back to his celery and dumped it into a stainless steel cooking pot on the stove. The tidbits disappeared into the bubbling soup and my stomach twinged a little with anticipation.
“Victor,” I said using my most conciliatory tone, “one of your customers might remember something. In a case like this, we don’t have much to go on. Any little detail that someone might remember. It could help us. Anything that happened that was even a little unusual.”
Several pieces of chicken were spread out on the cutting board as Sanchez went to work with the big knife, deftly separating skin and excess fat. He studiously ignored the two of us. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
Estelle stepped close to the table and leaned over so that she was talking within two inches of Victor Sanchez’s ear. I saw one of his eyebrows rise a little.
“He oido decir que alguien cerca de aqui sabe mas,” she said, her voice husky. “Con tu ayuda…”
Victor Sanchez straightened up slowly, the knife motionless on the cutting board. He looked at me and grinned, at the same time nodding his head toward Estelle as if to tell me he knew he’d almost stepped in it.
“You tell your compadres, senor, that if I think of something I’ll let you know.” He pointed directly at Estelle. “Tu, chinita, solamente.” He pointed then at the door behind us. “Now leave me alone to my work. You want something else, you bring a warrant.”
Estelle ignored Sanchez’s dismissal and instead pulled out a small notebook from her purse. She leaned against the prep table and leafed through the pages.
“Senor, you told one of the deputies earlier that Francisco Pena came in at twelve minutes after eleven and shouted that there had been a shooting.”
Sanchez grunted something I didn’t hear. “How did you happen to know it was twelve after eleven?” Estelle asked.
“Because I was standing at the bar and happened to be facing the door.”
Estelle flipped forward a page in her notes. “And there is a clock right by the door, sir.”
Sanchez looked up sharply at her. “Basta, you think I didn’t tell the truth…”
Estelle shook her head. “I need to make sure that the deputy who told me was correct, senor. You told him that Francisco busted in like maybe he had an accident or something. And then?”
“You know the story as good as me,” Sanchez muttered as he hacked at the chicken.
Estelle dutifully continued. “After Francisco settled down enough to tell you what was wrong, you called the state police. The nine-one-one relay connected you with the Sheriff’s Department. Most of your customers went outside, and at least four of them drove down the road to the scene.”
“Six of them went outside. I told ’em no toquen alguna cosa…nothing,” Sanchez said. He wagged a finger. “Don’t touch nothing.”
“All right. So…” I turned to Estelle quizzically.
“Mr. Sanchez said that last night he had no patrons other than those known to him. I have a list here, if you want to see them.”
I shook my head. “So, no strangers in the place all evening?”
“That’s right,” Sanchez muttered.
“And there were no disturbances of any kind that amounted to anything, no luchas?” Estelle prompted.
Victor Sanchez dumped a pile of hacked chicken into the soup pot and walked over to a refrigerator to collect a package of baby carrots. He took a deep breath as if becoming resigned to our presence.
He spilled the carrots out on the board, slicing each one lengthwise and then across, building a mound of perfect little carrot quarters. After processing about ten, Sanchez shrugged. “Pat Torrance, he drank too much. It looked like he was going to puke, so I asked him to go out back before he made a mess of my bar.”
“And that’s all? One drunk cowboy?”
“Es todo.”
“It appears that it was a pretty quiet night up until then, sir,” Estelle said to me. “No strangers, nothing unusual.” She closed her notebook and slipped it back in her purse. “Mr. Sanchez, when was the last time you spoke with Sergeant Torrez?”
For a moment, Victor Sanchez’s face was blank. Estelle folded her arms and leaned against the table. “The deputy who arrested Tammy Woodruff, sir.”
Sanchez’s eyes narrowed. “Conozcolo, senorita.” Estelle ignored the emphasis Sanchez placed on the jibe at her age and appearance. True enough, Estelle Reyes-Guzman was far from matronly.
She smiled faintly. “Bueno. Cuando estaba el tiempo ultimo cuando hablaba con el?” Sanchez shot a sideways glance at me. I raised an eyebrow as if I understood Estelle perfectly and was waiting for an answer.
“I spoke with him Friday night only.”
“Not since then?”
“No.”
Estelle looked down at the growing pile of carrots. “Did someone mention to you last night…after Francisco and the others left and the police came…did someone mention to you which patrol car was involved in the shooting? Did someone mention who the deputy was?”
It was Sanchez’s turn to look puzzled, and if he was faking it, he was a great actor.
“Nobody said nothing about which one, senora. I found out that it was Paul Encinos only after Pat Torrance came back and told me that is who it was.”
“Torrance was recovered by then?”
Sanchez shrugged and almost smiled. “Podria andar. But he did not go down to the place. He said he heard from someone else out in the parking lot that it was Encinos. I know him, you know. I know his family.”
“Encinos, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“But no one said anything about which patrol car was involved?”
Sanchez cocked his head and frowned at Estelle. “No. What difference does it make?”
She didn’t answer but pushed away from the table as Sanchez collected the last of the carrots for the soup.
“Sir, thank you. If there’s anything else, I’ll be in touch.”
Sanchez shook his head and started toward the refrigerator again. “No mas, chiquita, no mas.”
We stepped outside. Beyond the circle of the sodium-vapor light in the parking lot, the prairie stretched away into the chilled darkness of that February evening.