The driver of a fancy dually pickup truck paused after slamming the tailgate shut, and watched Estelle as she walked along the border of the pit toward the dump station.
“You lose something?” he called. A young man, he appeared dressed for a game of golf.
“No, thanks. Just checking for bodies.” She smiled at the man, and he started to reply when he noticed the sheriff’s badge on her belt. He looked uncertain, glancing back down into the pit.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if he’d caught the joke.
“You have a nice day,” Estelle said. By the time she’d reached her car, two more vehicles had entered, and the constant clouds of red dust settled in her hair and on her clothes.
“Find what you need?” Bart Kurtz asked.
“Thanks a lot,” she replied, then stopped suddenly in afterthought. “When do you guys cover the trash? You don’t wait until the trench is full, do you?”
“Every Sunday night, Sheriff.”
“Just kind of a thin layer, then?”
“Enough to keep things from blowin’,” Kurtz said. “Maybe six inches or a foot. Pack ’er down, cover it up.”
“And every Sunday you do that?”
“Yup. Sunday after we close. Lots of folks come out on weekends, you know. Come Sunday afternoon, we push the day’s drop-off pile into the trench, then we cover it all up.”
“Pretty simple. But you push the drop-off pile into the pit every day?”
“Sure enough we do. Otherwise it’d blow all over hell and gone.”
“I would think so.”
“Yeah, it don’t take no rocket scientist.” He looked off toward where Don Fulkerson still worked on his thermos of coffee and the bulldozer.
“Thanks again,” Estelle said. Back in her car, she sat for a moment, looking out the side window at Fulkerson’s pickup truck, an ’80s-vintage four-wheel-drive Chevy C20. A black headache rack, the kind favored by plumbers who need to haul lengths of pipe, reached out over the cab. Fulkerson had parked between a trio of fifty-five-gallon drums labeled WASTE OIL PRODUCTS and a trailer loaded with what appeared to be used concrete blocks and paving bricks.
She turned the county car’s ignition key. In the distance she heard the staccato bellow as the landfill’s bulldozer surged into life, almost as if the one key had connected both machines.
Chapter Thirty-one
“I have a question,” Dr. Francis Guzman stage-whispered in Estelle’s ear. “What does the work of an engineering prodigy look like?”
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Estelle whispered back. She straightened up from her examination of something made from Popsicle sticks labeled Moon Bace in strong, red crayon. Her husband was doing his best to keep a straight face.
Across the room, Sofia Tournal had both Francisco and Carlos in tow…actually it was Francisco doing the towing while Sofia provided the guidance. A safe distance behind the trio, Estelle’s mother shuffled from one display to the next, keeping a firm grip on her walker, with Myra Delgado at her elbow. The two appeared to be exchanging professional secrets.
Sofia was maintaining a resolute face, despite a day spent traveling from Veracruz, Mexico, to Posadas-a trip fraught with more than its share of delays and frustrations. A stocky woman of medium height, Sofia favored tailored suits, with just a touch of ruffle and lace at the collar of her white blouse. She could have been the school’s principal.
Immediately upon their arrival at the elementary school, the two older generations had been led on the grand tour of the sky-scraper constructed by Francisco and his partner, Rocky Montano. The creation did indeed nearly scrape the sky-or the acoustical ceiling tiles of the first-grade room. The two boys had assembled a conglomeration of dowels draped under yards of foil, with windows, doors, and occupants drawn with black marker. Estelle had to turn the small camera sideways to capture the full majesty of the structure, and she managed to include Moon Bace in the same photo-both structures remarkable for first graders.
Francis frowned and poked at a section of the skyscraper’s aluminum foil that had collapsed inward, perhaps because of a massive winter gale off the Great Lakes.
“Emergency exit,” he said.
“On the fiftieth floor,” Estelle added.
“Neat, though.” He nodded at the moon base. “I like the idea of transporting a million Popsicle sticks to the moon to make bachees.”
Estelle laughed. “Be kind.”
“This is the future of the human race-or rachee — that we’re talking about here,” Francis added, and she elbowed him sharply. At the same time, he saw her glance up at the wall clock. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re clock watching. That’s not a good sign.”
“I will stay until the bitter end,” she said. “Until Sofia collapses from jet lag, or Carlos and Mama fall asleep, or Francisco runs out of things to show off.”
“How about the best two out of three,” Francis said. “Leave it up to Mozart, there, and we could be here after they turn all the lights out.” He looked over his shoulder at his eldest son, then back to Estelle. “Show me the piano room,” he said. “They won’t even know we’re gone.”
They walked hand in hand down the hall, examining all the other art displays from the various grade levels as they went. At one group of watercolors, Francis stopped short. Estelle saw a fleeting expression of sadness cross his handsome, dark face.
“Look at this,” he said. He touched the bottom margin of a watercolor showing what might have been a cabin on the shore of a violet lake, surrounded by jagged, indigo mountains. The image was so advanced it appeared out of place, surrounded by other work so obviously created by children. “Fourth grade,” he said. “Sheri Monaghan.”
“You know her, oso?” Estelle asked.
Francis nodded. “She’s a neuroblastoma patient of mine. We just transferred her to Lovelace.”
“ Ay. ”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’s she doing?”
Francis lingered at the landscape. “Well, I don’t think she’ll be coming home, querida.”
“Is that the Monaghan who works at United Insurance?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Her mother said that before she got so sick that she couldn’t lift a paintbrush, she did two or three paintings a day. Sheri’s been homeschooled for quite a while.” He shook his head and looked down the hall. “Anyway, show me.” He quickened his pace, ignoring the remainder of the art.
When they reached the music room, he stood in the doorway for a moment. Estelle hooked her arm through his and didn’t interrupt his thoughts.
“Kind of a dismal place, isn’t it?” he said finally. He clicked on the lights and looked up at the ceiling. “I always wondered why school roofs leak. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a classroom where at least a few of the ceiling tiles weren’t water strained.”
“You’re not supposed to waste time looking up, querido,” Estelle said. She jerked his arm in mock discipline. “Pay attention, now.”
“So he comes in here, all by himself, and stands at the piano,” he said, and stepped over to the battered and scarred instrument. He bent over, spread his hands, and played a chord. Cocking his head to listen, he shifted his hands and played another. “That’s just about the sum total of what I remember,” he said, and sat down on the bench. He frowned at the keyboard, and then played several measures of a flowing, melodic piece.
“Fur Elise,” he said, and stopped. “That’s all I remember. Everyone who ever takes a piano lesson has to learn it. And learn it. And learn it.” He grinned up at Estelle. “Are you ready for this?”
“Sure,” she said. “Even Mama’s excited.”
“Excited? Your mother? I don’t think so.”