“But he didn’t,” Torrez said.
“No. Page said he talked Kevin out of it. It wasn’t any of their business.”
Torrez let out a loud grunt that could have meant any number of things. “Sure as hell is now, though.”
Chapter Fourteen
Roy Hurtado listened without interruption. If he was surprised that Wednesday by the early-morning telephone call from the Sheriff’s Department, and if he wondered about a version of events other than the one he had heard from his wife and daughter, he kept it to himself.
“We’ll have her there,” he said brusquely.
“Have you talked with Deena about what happened at school?” Estelle asked.
“Sure. And I heard about yesterday with the Acosta girl. You close to an arrest?”
“We’re making progress,” Estelle replied, and let it go at that. “We’ll see you at seven-thirty, then.”
“We’ll be there,” Hurtado said, and hung up.
Across the kitchen, Francisco and Carlos industriously tackled their generous breakfast. As she put down the phone, Estelle watched the two boys, enjoying the intensity of a discussion about whether raisins should float on top of an island of oatmeal or be mixed in.
Dr. Francis Guzman had left the house already, headed for his early rounds at Posadas General Hospital before the day at the clinic began. Francisco’s bus would slide up to the curb in a few moments, and he would disappear.
Estelle took a long sip of the strong herbal tea that she had brewed and listened as Francisco chattered nonstop about this and that, inconsequentials that tumbled from his agile little mind without pause, and that prompted an occasional sage nod from his little brother. Carlos ate with a studious frown, his eyebrows puckered in concentration.
The thump of the rubber-capped aluminum legs of Teresa Reyes’ walker announced Estelle’s mother as she made her way along the hallway toward the kitchen.
“What nasty thing kept you up all night?” she asked in Spanish by way of greeting. She thumped up close to Estelle, long brocade robe brushing the floor, her iron gray hair gathered in a single loose braid that touched her waistline. She accepted a peck on the cheek, running a hand up the back of Estelle’s arm in return.
“You want coffee, Mama?” Estelle reached across the counter for her mother’s cup, an enormous mug with a souvenir logo of Mexico City.
“Of course I want coffee,” Teresa replied. She watched as Estelle filled the cup to within a half inch of the rim and then set it on the kitchen table for her.
“Sofia’s coming!” Francisco announced loudly. Teresa grimaced at the volume.
“That’s good, Ruidoso,” she said. “Maybe I’ll have someone to talk to who makes sense.” She settled in the chair, swinging the walker out of the way. “What time did you come home?” she asked Estelle.
“About one, I suppose.”
“About one.” Teresa shook her head as she took a tentative sip of the coffee. “All these nasty things going on.”
“It happens once in a while,” Estelle said. The long weeks, sometimes months, of serenity in the county made the brief moments of harsh reality seem all the more intrusive.
“Sofia called last night? Is that what all this means? I heard the telephone,” Teresa said.
“Yes. Francis talked to her.”
“Well, that’s good. Don’t forget to tell Padrino,” Teresa said. “Maybe we can all have a nice dinner together.” She paused for emphasis. “If you’re going to be home.”
“Ah,” Estelle said, and set her cup down. She slipped a small notebook from her pocket and jotted a short message. “You reminded me,” she said. Bill Gastner, retired Posadas County sheriff, dear friend and godfather for the boys, would want to see Sofia Tournal. The two were unlikely friends-the polished, stately woman of the world and the gruff, paunchy New Mexico livestock inspector. More selfishly, though, Gastner represented the perfect solution to a nagging challenge-although she could imagine his immediate reaction to what she was going to suggest. “I’ll make a point of seeing him today.”
She glanced at the clock. Irma Sedillos, nana, housekeeper, and close friend, would arrive in a minute or so. Later in the morning, Irma would escort Carlos to the Little Bear Day Care Center.
Even with the day organized, Estelle found it hard to leave the warm kitchen. With the lassitude of a brief night’s sleep, it would have been comfortable to sit at the breakfast table with her mother, enjoying no schedule at all. Once out the front door, her world was one of unanswered questions.
But ten minutes later, she hefted the packet of photos from her mailbox in the Public Safety Building, the pictures accompanied by a concise report from Sgt. Tom Mears. Dispatcher Brent Sutherland leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, and waited until she finished reading.
“No word yet,” he said when she looked up. “On Zeigler, I mean.” She knew he hadn’t meant the report in her hand, which he wouldn’t have read. Mears’ memo told her only that the blood samples on the lamp shade, as well as other physical evidence, had been sent to the state lab in Las Cruces by courier-Deputy Sisneros this time.
If the county manager had been located, someone would have called her, no matter what the hour. “You wouldn’t believe the places Jackie’s checked out during the night,” Sutherland added. “And the sheriff, too.”
“I can imagine,” she said. The enigmatic Deputy Taber moved about the county like a phantom, working graveyard shift through preference. Ex-military herself, she would have looked at home in one of the recruitment ads that showed special forces troopers lurking with faces painted and uniform and hardware camouflaged.
And through thirty years of hunting and camping since his early teens, Bob Torrez knew every back road and deserted two-track down to the Mexican border…and many beyond. Both sheriff and deputy preferred to work alone and in the cover of darkness. Estelle empathized.
“The sheriff said to ask you about what I should tell Frank or Pam when they come in.”
Estelle grimaced. A middle-school student expelled for carrying a weapon on school grounds, another teenaged girl the victim of attempted murder in her own home, and a missing county manager-such would be the stuff for the front page of the Posadas Register this week, a monumental break in routine for publisher Frank Dayan.
With a newspaper printed late Thursday afternoons, Frank longed for important news that was fresh during the first part of the week, before events were pounded stale by the large metro papers and television stations. Frank was smart enough to wonder about possible connections, too.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said. “What time did Linda and Sgt. Mears go home?”
“Just about four, I think. He said for you to call him if you had a question about that.” Sutherland nodded at the papers.
There wasn’t much to question. Estelle scanned the terse report again as she walked toward her office. She paused in the doorway and glanced up as the “employees only” outer door clicked open between the dispatch island and the foyer. The brawny figure of Bill Gastner appeared.
“Great minds are on the same wavelength,” she said, and smiled at Padrino.