“He’s talking about Carmen, then?”
“Yup. What if she witnessed something that she shouldn’t have?”
“You mean that Kevin was up to something, and saw her watching?” Gastner shrugged.
“The obvious route right now is the flip side of that,” Estelle said. “I understand why Bobby thinks the way he does. He walked into Zeigler’s house, saw the evidence that he and Page share a bed, and his expression looked like he’d stepped in something a dog left behind.”
Gastner laughed. “I can imagine.” His face settled into sober. “I just wanted to pass the conversation along. That’s all. You follow your instincts, sweetheart.”
“At the moment, I’m not sure that I have any,” Estelle said. “We’ll see what Deena has to say.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Sit over there,” Roy Hurtado said, directing his daughter toward a chair on the opposite side of the small conference table. He pointed to the seat next to the one he had chosen for himself, and his wife, Ivana, settled into it. Ivana was dry-eyed, her jaw set firmly-whether from twenty-four hours of resignation to the ugly events that had caught up her daughter, or from confidence gained from being told what to do by her husband, Estelle couldn’t tell.
“Ivana, can I get you something? Water, tea, coffee?” Estelle asked.
“We’re fine,” Roy said.
Estelle held eye contact with Ivana until Deena’s mother found her voice.
“No, thanks,” Ivana echoed. “We’re fine.”
“Deena?”
The teenager shook her head.
“We need some answers,” Roy Hurtado said. He stretched out his arms on the table, hands forming a bowl. “We need to know what the hell is going on.” The index finger of his right hand extended, aiming at Deena across the table. “From the beginning,” he ordered. Hurtado wasn’t a large man, but he impressed Estelle as physical-quick with the hands as well as the mouth.
Estelle had placed her briefcase on the table, and she picked up the folder of photographs that was resting on top of it, at the same time circling around the end of the table. She pulled out the chair nearest Deena.
With his order to start talking ignored by his daughter, Hurtado snapped, “I mean, for the rest of the year, she’s out of school. What the hell are we supposed to do with that?” He managed to make it sound as if the entire incident was the school’s fault.
Still ignoring his heated outburst, Estelle slid the eight-by-ten glossy photo of Deena’s hat pin in front of the middle schooler. She saw Deena’s eyes flick to the evidence tag attached to the upper right corner. “Deena, when you purchased this from your Aunt Mary Anne, the tip wasn’t sharpened.” Estelle reached across and touched the photo lightly with the tip of her pen, indicating the polished, filed tip. “You can see clearly that it has been. By comparison”-she drew back and riffled through the photos, finding one she had taken of the display at Great Notions-“you can see that none of these have been.”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” Roy said. “Let me see those.” He stretched out his hand, middle finger and thumb going through the soundless motions of snapping.
“In a minute,” Estelle said without looking at him. “Deena, did you sharpen this yourself, or have it sharpened for you by a friend?”
“Well, she wouldn’t have done it,” Roy snapped.
Estelle turned and regarded him with interest. “Why do you say that, sir?”
“Well…,” Roy began, and stalled.
“You don’t have hand tools in the house?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes whether or not she sharpened the damn thing. I mean, after all…”
Estelle turned back to Deena. The youngster had settled back into herself, waiting for her father to wind down. Dressed in a simple, frilled white blouse and new jeans with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she looked exactly like what she was: a frightened child.
Although Deena was wiry and fit, Estelle saw that she could easily encircle the youngster’s wrist with thumb and index finger. There was no way that Deena, or anyone like her, had chased the chunky, scrappy Carmen Acosta through the house, wielding a heavy lug wrench so hard that a missed swing had shattered wall plaster and a television set. Had Deena arrived on the Acosta doorstep, Carmen wouldn’t have run in the first place.
“Deena, it would be helpful if you’d share certain information with us,” Estelle said. “I’m sure that you heard about what happened to Carmen yesterday.”
Deena nodded slightly.
“Is she going to be all right?” Ivana asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Estelle replied. “I wish I could be more optimistic.” She tapped the photo again. “Tell me about this.”
“Mauro fixed it up for me,” Deena said without hesitation.
“Mauro Acosta?” Estelle managed to keep the surprise out of her voice. Deena had done some introspection since the day before. “Tell me about that.”
“That little punk,” Roy muttered. “Ought to take him out back-”
Estelle held up a hand to stop the tirade. “Do you know about this?” she asked Roy.
“No, I don’t know anything about it. I just-”
“Then let your daughter explain without interference, all right?” She let the silence deepen for a moment to make sure that he had finished blustering. She watched his jaw muscles twitch, but then he nodded curtly. She then turned back to Deena. “Tell me about Mauro.”
“A while ago, he had one of these, and we thought they were neat,” Deena said.
“Neat,” Roy grumbled.
“That’s where you got the idea? From Mauro? He had one first?”
“I guess so. I mean, I don’t know where he got the idea, but one day he had one at school and was showing it around out on the parking lot. That’s where I saw it.”
“Mauro’s in ninth grade, right?”
Deena nodded. Ninth grade and the source of all things important, Estelle thought. “How long ago was that?”
Deena’s head settled back until she was staring at the ceiling. “A while,” she said, then looked at Estelle directly, unflinching. “I don’t remember for sure. It was back when Carmen and me were talking and stuff, though.” What could have been the trace of a philosophical smile twitched the corners of her mouth. “Mauro said that one of his cousins up in Albuquerque had one of those pins, and showed him how to stow it so no one would see it.”
“Do you know if Carmen wore hers to school?”
“All the time,” Deena said emphatically. “All the time.”
“Christ,” Roy Hurtado muttered.
“The night of the volleyball game,” Estelle said, “when you and Carmen fought. Did you have the hat pin with you that night?”
The girl shook her head. “I didn’t. I forgot to take it.”
“What about Carmen?”
Deena looked back down at the photo, and Estelle saw the moisture gather in the corners of her eyes. “That’s how close you came, Deena,” the undersheriff said, and she bent closer. “Carmen had hers that night, didn’t she?” Deena nodded. “That’s why you wore yours to school?” She nodded again.
“When we were fighting…” Deena paused, looking up at Estelle. “That’s all I could think about was what would happen if she got that thing out.” She slowly shook her head. “I grabbed on to her left hand, thinking that I could keep her from getting to it. I grabbed on and wouldn’t let go.” Deena blinked. “Even when she thumped my head against the pavement. I wouldn’t let go.”
“You thought that she really would stab you?”
“I know she would have,” Deena replied. “Carmen? Sure. When she gets all mad and crazy, she’ll do anything.”
“She’s pretty strong, isn’t she?”
Deena looked heavenward. “She is so bad. There aren’t even any boys who want to tangle with her.”
“What about her brothers?”
“Well, they’re different. They’re worse.”
“So when you purchased this”-and Estelle tapped the photo again-“when you bought this from your aunt, you gave it to Mauro to fix up? To sharpen for you?”