“He’s got all kinds of pet names for you, doesn’t he?” I asked. “What’s chinita mean?”
Estelle smiled wearily. “Around here, you’d translate it about like, ‘little half-breed darling.’”
“Cute. He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?”
“He’s known my family for generations, sir. He knew my Great-uncle Reuben. In fact, Reuben built one of the fireplaces in the barroom for him. Years ago.”
“I should have known. You asked about the patrol car. You don’t seriously believe that the killer thought that Paul Encinos was someone else? Bob Torrez told me earlier that he was thinking the same thing.”
Estelle shook her head. “No, sir. I don’t think anyone would notice the number on a patrol car. I just wanted to see the look on Victor Sanchez’s face. That’s all.”
“No connection?”
“No connection, sir.”
I sighed. “You want to go down to the hospital with me for a bit?”
“If you’ll stop on the way for something to eat, sir.”
I laughed. “I didn’t think you ever stopped to eat, drink, sleep…”
Estelle grinned. “No, sir. You need something to eat. I saw you watching that soup. And I want to show you something.”
My spirits lifted. Earlier, while parked behind the highway department’s gravel pile, Estelle hadn’t just been ruminating about Victor Sanchez. There was something else brewing in her mind.
Chapter 12
I was too tired and depressed to care much about eating, and that alone said something about my condition that evening. Because she wanted to talk on the telephone privately with her husband, Estelle suggested we meet at her house.
Francis Guzman’s aunt met us at the door. She frowned hard at Estelle and muttered something in Spanish that I didn’t catch. I recognized the word that had something to do with sleep, and true enough, we both had ten-gallon bags under our eyes. But that wasn’t unusual. The entire department would be operating on fumes if something didn’t break quickly.
Senora Tournal wore a tailored blue suit of casual cut, the white blouse fluffed and lacy at the throat. Her black shoes were mirror-perfect. She was not the image of the perfect nanny. Rather, she looked like she was waiting for a tardy junior partner to arrive so that she could begin a board meeting.
Sofia Tournal had no children of her own. I wondered if, behind that handsome face that registered only concern for her niece, Mrs. Tournal really enjoyed being corralled as a baby-sitter.
As if she could read my mind, Sofia Tournal glanced at me and offered a half smile. “The kid is asleep, Estellita.”
Estelle nodded. “We’re going to be in and out. I’m sorry.”
“No tengas lastima,” Sofia said, and ushered us toward the dining room table-Estelle’s office.
“No tu invitamos para ser nana para el nino, Sofia,” Estelle said, and hugged the older woman.
She waved a hand in dismissal. “Por un dia o dos.” Sofia Tournal may not have minded baby-sitting the kid for a day or two, but spending those days near a hot stove wasn’t in her plans.
Her favorite solution to immediate food problems was American fast food-and her particular passion was fried chicken, the higher the cholesterol the better. She didn’t even cast a second glance at my girth as she vanished out the door, Estelle’s car keys in hand, headed off to fetch a barrel of the crunchy stuff. She knew where my heart was.
I settled in one of the chairs near an uncluttered spot on the table and heaved a sigh.
“Are you all right?” Estelle called from the kitchen.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, not convinced.
She reappeared and set a tall glass of orange juice in front of me. I grimaced. “You got anything to put in this?”
She grinned and ignored my request. Instead she opened her briefcase and drew out a large, clear plastic evidence bag containing what looked like a streamlined socket wrench with no handle. “I found this off the shoulder of the highway,” Estelle said, and handed it to me. While I looked at the wrench, she fished a piece of graph paper from her briefcase. “Right here.”
She had drawn the deputy’s patrol car and then labeled everything else with distance flags. The wrench had been lying sixty-five inches from the edge of the pavement, thirty-five feet in front of patrol car 308.
“You want to tell me how anyone missed this?” I asked. Estelle shrugged and I added, “We all walked through that area a hundred times. This thing is what, about a foot long?”
“Nestled in a clump of rice grass,” Estelle said. “The way it was lying, it was obvious that it was dropped recently.”
“How so?”
“Nothing on top of it. Not even dust.”
I held the bag by the zipper lock and turned it this way and that. “It’s brand-new.”
“Just a few scratches. Do you know what it is?”
“Sure. It’s a lug wrench…or part of one. The ratchet part. And you’re right. No dust, nothing. You could have one of these stowed in your vehicle for years, and never use it. But it would collect dust and dirt with the passage of time. This one is clean as a whistle.”
“Brand spanking new,” Estelle said.
“So, you found a lug wrench,” I said. “Or half of one. This part fits over the lug nuts…or the jackscrew.” I made little twisting motions with my hands and the tiny crow’s-feet at the corners of Estelle’s eyes deepened ever so slightly. “There’s another part, the actual ratchet handle, that slips over this end.”
“General Motors has been using those since about 1988,” Estelle added. She pointed with the tip of her pencil. “There are a few marks on the black paint where the handle was attached, sir.”
I frowned. “So…we’ve got half of a lug wrench. It may have been dropped recently. It’s from one of the major manufacturers, which means that we’ve narrowed the vehicle down to one in a couple billion.”
Estelle nodded. “Since we’re starting with nothing, this,” she said tapping the bag, “is more than we had.”
“I won’t argue that,” I replied. “You’re going to run it for prints?”
“Tonight.” She leaned forward. “Sir, this might be connected.”
“It might be.”
“If someone had a flat tire and stopped to change it, it’s easy to imagine that in the dark, one piece or another of that wrench could be dropped, or kicked, or misplaced somehow. If the person was unfamiliar with the equipment, it’s even more possible. If that person was in a hurry, or nervous, it might be even more likely.”
I leaned back in my chair and Estelle watched me, as if what I would have to say might make a difference. I reached out and toyed with the glass of orange juice. “The shots came from across the highway, Estelle.”
“I think there were two vehicles involved.”
“Two?”
“Yes. I think that Deputy Encinos parked behind what he thought was a disabled vehicle.” She nodded at the wrench. “It was disabled. It’s too desolate out there for it to be coincidence, sir.”
“All right. You’ve got a vehicle stopped.” I gestured at the wrench. “Flat tire. The deputy comes along. Yes, he would stop. It’s automatic.”
“Automaticc” Estelle mused.
“That, too,” said. “And the second vehicle?”
“Either across the road…”
“Facing east, back toward town?”
“I have no way of knowing that, sir. It could have been. Or it could have been parked with the disabled vehicle, and the killer could have ducked across the highway when he saw headlights coming.”
I frowned. “Or just passing by at the wrong moment. I don’t buy lying in wait. That seems a little far-fetched. As Paul’s car approached, the killer would have no way of knowing it was a cop, in the first place. And to dart across the road and hide, deliberately waiting, would mean that he had reason to believe that a cop was in fact coming and would have reason to be suspicious. And we know that he didn’t know Paul was coming, because Paul never said anything on the radio after he left Bustos Avenue. Other than that, someone with a scanner wouldn’t have known much about the deputy’s location.”