“She took some courses at the university, and one of them involved a field trip to the mountains around here…geology, I think it was. She fell in love with the village and had dreams of raising Daisy here, away from the city.”
“Daisy’s the girl’s name?”
“Yes.”
“When did Cecilia move up here?”
“About a year ago.”
“And you?”
“Me? I received the ultimatum from my bishop last August. Dry out or get out.” Parris smiled faintly. “Bishop Sanchez didn’t use those exact words.” He shrugged. “I’ve been here ever since. I could have left long before, but I’m serving as a resident counselor.”
“And you’ve stayed dry?”
Parris nodded slightly. There wasn’t any pride in his voice when he said, “Dry.”
“Good for you. Even today?”
He covered his face with two smooth hands and then cupped them under his chin. “Even today. Falling off the wagon wouldn’t have done Cecilia any tribute.”
How noble, I thought. “What’s Daisy doing up at the hot springs with Finn?”
I couldn’t imagine leaving a kid of mine on the mountain with a long-haired freak while her mother expired in a hospital a hundred miles away…even if I were a priest and inordinately sensitive about appearances.
Parris’s face hardened, and I noticed the tick in his cheek again. “You have to understand, Sheriff, that even though we live in the same village, Cecilia and I see little of each other. We saw little of each other. For very obvious reasons.” He stopped in case I had to ask what the reasons were. I didn’t. “And she had been living with Finn, off and on. And was to have his child.” He held up his hands helplessly. “Now you have to believe I was going to-”
We were interrupted by the sound of a powerful car’s engine as the vehicle slowed and then lunged down into the retreat’s driveway. The flash of headlights stabbed through the window and then I saw the wink of blue and red.
“What the hell…” I said, rising to my feet. I peered out through the window and saw Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s county car as it nearly climbed the steps. “Excuse me.” I yanked the parlor door open, then the front door, and met Estelle just as she reached the porch.
She immediately turned around and headed back for the car, saying over her shoulder, “Come on, we need to get up the canyon.”
I turned to Parris, who’d limped to the door and was standing behind me. “Don’t go away,” I said and then made for the car. Estelle had already yanked the Ford into gear, and as soon as my ass dropped into the seat, she slipped her foot from brake to accelerator. The cruiser kicked gravel all the way out to the highway.
“What’s up?” I said as she got the car straightened out and howling on the pavement.
“Paul Garcia thinks he’s found the pickup truck.” Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s voice was charged with excitement. She was riding the cop’s high that comes when a burst of new information cracks a case wide open and makes the adrenaline flow. I stayed quiet, not wanting to distract her. I didn’t want the county car plunging into the canyon. Besides, I was feeling a little let down. Here I had spent an evening pumping gossip out of a priest, and a rookie deputy sheriff had gone and solved a murder case.
Chapter 10
I didn’t need to see the speedometer to know that the county cruiser was rocketing up Isidro Creek canyon fast enough to turn us both into jelly if we ran off the pavement.
If we didn’t wipe out a tourist family just as they pulled out of a campground, it would be a deer standing stupidly in the middle of the road just after a corner, blinded by the lights and spellbound by the noise.
Estelle held the steering wheel tightly in one hand, and with the other she played the powerful spotlight along the sides of the highway far ahead of us. Her jaw was set in determination. I reached back and groped for the seat belt, then pulled it around my girth and snapped it tight.
We entered a long straight stretch and I asked, “How does Garcia know it’s the truck?”
“He spent the afternoon dogging after someone who might have seen something…anything. I guess he hit paydirt. Pat Waquie said he’d seen a blue over white Ford half-ton cruising around the village last night.”
“Who the hell is Pat Waquie?”
Estelle didn’t answer for a moment as she paid attention to a series of S-curves. Then, as calmly as if she were selling stamps, Estelle said, “Pat lives in that rambling adobe just beyond where the pueblo land starts. He has the orchard where the trees practically hang out over the highway.” She glanced at me to see if I was following her description.
I gestured at the highway. The white lines, what few there were between long strips of double yellow, blended together into one racing stripe.
“So how does it figure to be the truck we’re after?” I asked.
“Garcia’s hunch. Waquie remembered it because one of the guys in it tossed a beer can in the old man’s front yard. Waquie was sitting on his front step enjoying the evening when the Ford drove by. They were really whooping it up.”
“Living by the highway, he must get lots of that.”
“This time, it was his own nephew.”
“And how…” I stopped as the Ford blasted toward a sign that announced a tight switchback. The yellow sign called for fifteen miles an hour. I tried to push both feet through the floorboards, and one hand reached for the dashboard.
Estelle hung the big car out wide, braked hard, slapped the gear selector down to first, and when the rear end howled and broke loose punched the gas. We exited the corner as pretty as you please, straight in our own lane and accelerating hard.
“…how does that connect with Burgess?”
“Garcia said the old man told him that he’d seen the nephew drive by a couple of times, each time a little faster and noisier…and the kid had picked up some passengers. The last time, well after dark and just before the old man went inside, he saw his nephew go by with at least five in the truck…three inside and two in the back.”
“The old man notices the fine details,” I said, skeptical.
“That’s what he said he remembered. And the boy’s been in a couple good scrapes before. His folks let him run wild. The uncle doesn’t like it much, but what can he do?”
“So based on the old man’s tale, Garcia thinks that maybe Cecilia Burgess got herself picked up by a bunch of drunks and ended up raped and in the rocks.”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s as good as anything else you’ve got.” We hit a straight stretch for a few hundred yards, and I tried to relax. “Where’s Waquie’s nephew now?”
“He’s with the truck.”
“And Garcia’s sitting on him somewhere up here? He’s got him staked out?”
“Right. So to speak.” We had reached the head of the canyon, and the stop sign at the T-intersection shot past as we swerved out onto the main state highway that ran east-west through the mountains. The convenience store off to the left faded behind us as we headed east.
Estelle said, “A group of Girl Scouts found the truck. They’re camping out on the backside of Quebrada Mesa. As the crow flies, it’s only a mile or less to the scout camp over on Forest Road 87.”
“What do you mean, ‘found the truck’? Crashed, you mean?” Estelle nodded. “And let me guess. The kid’s inside it.”
“Apparently.” Estelle suddenly stood on the brakes, and we skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway. “I missed the turn,” she said, and we backed up so fast my forehead almost hit the dashboard.
“Christ,” I gasped. “If your kid ever wants to be a damn racing driver, you’ll know where he got the notion.” My neck snapped back as she braked our backward plunge.
Off to the right, a small Forest Service sign announced: quebrada mesa campground, 7 mi., and snake run trail, 4 mi. Below that, it said: primitive road-not maintained. We jolted onto the forest two-track, and if I’d worn dentures, they would have been in my lap.