“Am I?”
“Until the conclusion of this proceeding you are.”
Of the half-dozen pay phones at the end of the corridor five were being used. The booths looked like upended coffins whose occupants weren’t actually dead but had been put into a state of suspended animation to await a better world. The sixth booth had its door open, inviting Devon to step inside and wait too. She closed the glass door behind her, and as she’d done fifty or a hundred times in the past year, started to dial the number of Agnes Osborne’s house. But her hand seemed to freeze on the dial. She couldn’t remember more than the first two digits and had to look up the number in the directory as she would any stranger’s. “You’re her loving daughter-in-law... Until the conclusion of this proceeding you are.”
The ringing of the phone was loud and sharp. She held the receiver away from her ear, so that the sound seemed a little more remote, more impersonal. Six rings, eight, ten. Agnes Osborne’s house was small and she could get to the phone from any room in it, or from the patio or back yard, in less than ten rings, less than five if she hurried. And during the past year, when any call might be about Robert, she always hurried.
The booth was hot and smelled of stale tobacco and food and people. Devon opened the door a few inches, and with the little gust of new air came the sound of people talking in the alcove adjoining the row of phone booths. One of the voices was a man’s, hoarse and low-pitched:
“I swear to you I didn’t know a thing about it until a few minutes ago.”
“Liar. You knew it all the time and wouldn’t tell me. So did they. The whole bunch of you are liars.”
“Listen, Carla, I’m warning you, for your own good stay away from the ranch.”
“I’m not scared of the Estivars. Or the Osbornes either. My brothers see to it nobody pushes me around.”
“This isn’t kid stuff any more. Stay out of it.”
“Look who’s giving orders again like he’s wearing his old cop suit and tin badge.”
“Trouble, you’ve been nothing but trouble to me ever since I laid eyes on you.”
“You laid more than eyes on me, chicano.”
Devon waited for another half minute, six rings, but there was no answer from Mrs. Osborne’s house and no more talk from the alcove. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
The girl had gone. Valenzuela stood alone at the barred window of the alcove, his eyes somber and red-rimmed. When he saw Devon his mouth moved slightly as though it were shaping words he wasn’t ready to speak. When he did speak, it was in a voice quite unlike the one he’d used on Carla, soft and sad, with no hint of authority in it.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Osborne.”
“What about?”
“Everything, how it’s all turned out.”
“Thank you.”
“I wanted you to know I hoped things would be different, and the case would be solved by now. That first night when I was called out to the ranch to look for Mr. Osborne, I was sure he’d show up. Every step I took, every door I opened, every corner I went around, I expected to find him — maybe beat up a little or sick or even up to some mischief. I’m sorry things turned out this way.”
“It’s not your fault, Mr. Valenzuela. I’m sure you did the best you could.” She wasn’t sure, she’d never be sure, but it was too late now to say anything else.
“I could maybe have done better if they’d given me more money. Not more salary. Bribe money.”
“Bribe money?”
“Don’t be shocked, Mrs. Osborne. In a poor country everything’s for sale, including the truth. I believe someone saw that old red truck at the border or on the road going south to Ensenada or east to Tecate; someone noticed the men in it, maybe recognized a couple of them; someone may have watched them bury the body in the desert or dump it into the sea.”
“Mrs. Osborne offered a substantial reward.”
“Rewards are too official, too many people are involved, too much red tape. A bribe is a nice simple family type of thing.”
“Why didn’t you explain the situation to me a year ago?”
“A cop can’t ask a private citizen for bribe money. It wouldn’t look pretty in the newspapers, it might even cause an international scandal. After all, no country likes to admit that a lot of its police, its judges, its politicians are corrupt... Anyway, it’s over. All I’m saying now is I’m sorry, Mrs. Osborne.”
“Yes. So am I.”
She turned and walked toward the courtroom, holding herself rigid to counteract the feeling she had inside that vital parts had come loose and were bleeding. Someone saw the truck — noticed the men — watched them bury the body or dump it in the sea. She thought of the dozens of times she’d watched the men stooping in the fields, but they were always in the distance, always anonymous. She had wanted to get to know them a little, to be able to tell them apart, to call them by name and ask them about their homes and families, but Estivar wouldn’t allow it. He said it wasn’t safe, the men would misinterpret any friendliness on her part. The men, too, had obviously been given orders. When she drove past a field being harvested, they would bend low over their work, their faces hidden by the big straw hats they wore from dawn to dusk.
The light had been switched on in the sign above the door: Quiet Please, Court Is in Session. By the time Devon entered, the room was nearly full, the way it had been before the recess, but now the Lopez girl, as well as Mrs. Osborne, was missing.
In the aisle beside the seat Devon had occupied since the hearing began, Ford stood talking to Leo Bishop. Both men looked impatiently at Devon, as though they’d been waiting for her and had expected her to come back sooner.
Ford said, “Well?”
“There was no answer.”
“Did you let it ring several minutes, in case she might be outside or in the shower or something?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess you’d better go over to the house and check up on her. Mr. Bishop here has offered to drive you or let you use his car, whichever you prefer.”
“Exactly what am I supposed to do?”
“Find out if she’s all right and when she intends showing up to testify.”
“Why are you forcing her to testify?”
“I’m not forcing her. When I brought the subject up she seemed perfectly willing to be a witness.”
“That was just a front,” Devon said. “You mustn’t be taken in by it.”
“Okay, so I don’t know her front from her back. I’m a simple man. When people tell me something I believe it, I don’t immediately conclude that they mean the opposite.”
“She — isn’t ready to admit Robert is dead.”
“She’s had a whole year to get used to it. Maybe she’s not trying hard enough.”
“That seems a very cynical attitude.”
“You’d better watch it,” Ford said with a wry little smile. “You’re beginning to sound like an honest-to-God loving daughter-in-law.”
The door to the judge’s chambers had opened and the clerk was intoning: “Remain seated and come to order. Superior Court is again in session.”
“Call Earnest Valenzuela.”
“Ernest Valenzuela, take the stand, please.”
Chapter Ten
When they reached Leo’s car in the parking lot, he unlocked the right front door and Devon stepped inside without protest. She didn’t like being dependent on Leo but she liked even less the idea of driving a car she wasn’t used to in a city that was still strange to her.
Leo got in behind the wheel and turned on the ignition and the air conditioning. “I’ve kept away from you all day because you asked me to.”