“You ready for some sleep?”
“I’m ready to try,” she replied. “Let me look in on los hijos first.”
The boys’ bedroom door was ajar, and Estelle toed it open just far enough to slip through. The two heavy bunk beds, site of such joyful carnage, pillow fights, and tent castles most of the time, were stone quiet. Carlos, who enjoyed the top bunk since his sleep patterns mimicked a hibernating bear, was a small lump under a light blanket. He didn’t stir at his mother’s presence, and Estelle saw that his hands were tightly clasped under his chin.
Francisco, on the other hand, was a prowler at night. He might rise half a dozen times, his mind a whirl. His soundless practice keyboard rested on the window ledge within easy reach, and Estelle knew that it wasn’t unusual for the little boy to rise, pad out to the living room swathed in his favorite corduroy robe, and sit at the grand piano, fingers roaming the keys with a touch so light that the action didn’t twitch.
The nine year-old didn’t fight his nocturnal restlessness, and Dr. Guzman’s theory was that the “wolf gene,” as he called it, was inherited from the boy’s late paternal grandmother, an architect who had done as much work during the night as she had the day.
Estelle knelt down beside the lower bunk.
“When is Butch coming home?” Francisco whispered.
“Soon, hijo. Papá says that he’s going to be all right.”
“Does he know about Freddy?”
“I suppose so, hijo. His parents would tell him.” She touched his forehead, smoothing back the lock of black hair that always threatened his eyes.
He let out a long sigh. “I don’t think I want to go.”
“To Leister, you mean?”
He nodded.
“I think we should visit, hijo. So does papá. People can put anything they want in a brochure. You need to see it. You need to talk with people about it.”
“Do you think I should go?”
She stroked his cheek. “I think we have to work hard to find just the right school, hijo. This is an important decision for you. For us. ”
“Butch and Freddy were best friends,” Francisco said.
“Yes, they were. And Butch is going to be grateful that you and he are friends, hijo. He’s not going to feel very good for a long, long time.”
“We can’t be friends if I’m at Leister.”
“Ah.” The little boy’s logic tugged at her heart. Time would heal, she knew, and they would be able to visit the musical academy and make a decision. But the immediate hurt needed to stop first, and she felt as if a huge scimitar was poised over their heads, waiting for an unguarded moment.
Chapter Twenty-one
The remains of a leather belt passed through the holster. In the glare of the lights, Estelle Reyes-Guzman could see that rodents, or skunks, or bored coyotes had chewed the leather, and insects had then enjoyed the moist remains. Perhaps the taste of gun oil had been a deterrent, since the holster was nearly untouched.
“Oh, joy,” Linda Real whispered.
“How are you going to do this?” Estelle answered. They were huddled close together in the confines of the overhang, the flow of cool air coming from deep within the mesa through the small slit in the rocks. A few more rocks had been removed, marginally enlarging access.
“I’ll try everything,” the photographer said. “This might be time for the old tissue trick.” The camera’s flash, even set on the manufacturer’s optimistic “auto” setting, was simply too powerful for the tight spaces. The bolt of light washed out the image’s detail. To block it, Linda doubled a small square of clean tissue and held it over the flash, experimenting with several efforts until she had defused and muted the light to her satisfaction. She fired off a dozen photos, and each time Estelle looked away, taking the milliseconds of opportunity to survey the rest of the cave as it was illuminated by the muted flash.
In places, a coyote could walk upright once he’d squeezed through the entrance. The floor of the passage was studded with rocks, and more hung precariously from the ceiling. Great fissures extended off in all directions, but there appeared to be a central crack, a central vent, from which the air flowed.
“Okay. This is interesting.” Linda reached back and moved one of the spot lights that was supported by a squat tripod no more than ten inches high. “Here I was worried about H1N1. Now I can set my sights on something more interesting, like hantavirus or rabies. Maybe a touch of distemper.” She adjusted her cotton face mask and then pulled down her baseball cap a little tighter.
“Hold still a minute,” Estelle said, and she could feel Linda’s body tense as if she’d announced a spider or worse. The undersheriff reached out with a pencil and touched a portion of the belt. “What’s that?”
“Oh, gross,” Linda replied cheerfully. “That, my friend, is a belt loop from a pair of pants. Or what’s left of it. And this…” She reached out and pointed, the tip of her finger within a millimeter of a scrap of something… “looks like fabric, like some more of the trousers.”
The camera blasted several more times. “You up for this?” Linda asked.
“Sure. Why not.” Estelle could think of a hundred reasons why not. Her breath in the face mask kicked back hot and moist, fogging her safety glasses. Most of the bats had left in protest, but they hadn’t found any other creatures who objected to their presence other than a spider or two and one energetic stink beetle. What lay deeper in the crevices, watching their progress, was anyone’s guess.
“Oh, double gross,” Linda said. “You see that?”
“Yes.” The remains of the belt terminated in a buckle, a large brass utility buckle. Estelle could see where the end of the belt with the adjustment holes passed through the buckle, still securely attached. She touched a dust-covered hump, flicking a bit of bat or lizard guano to one side. “That would be a vertebrae.”
“Oh, joy.”
“Bobby?” Estelle called.
“Yep.” The sheriff had settled down directly in front of the packrat’s nest, and he reached out and tapped the bottom of Estelle’s boot.
“I need a soft brush. There’s one in my briefcase out by the entrance.”
“Ten four.” In a moment she felt the tap again and she reached back and secured the soft-bristled artist’s brush.
“Deep in the Egyptian tomb,” Linda said, her voice a bass imitation of the voice-overs for movie previews, “lay a secret covered by the dust of the ages. ” She then provided a couple bars of appropriate theme music.
With deft strokes, Estelle gently ushered layers of dust off the belt and the bones it encircled. Just beyond her hand, the floor of the crevice fell away, with stones blocking her view. “I can’t really see what’s what,” she said, loud enough for Torrez to hear. “We have bones. The belt is still around a portion of vertebrae, but I don’t know about the rest. There are some rocks in the way. If I can move a couple of them…”
“Negative that,” Torrez snapped. “I’m not diggin’ you out after everything collapses.”
“It’s not about to,” Estelle replied, and she heard Linda whisper something to herself. “Push the light so it shines over this way a bit,” she added, and the photographer did so. “I think this is as far as Freddy managed. I don’t see any fresh scuffing where he would have had to have crawled. But this…” and she thumped a rock the size of a microwave oven with the heel of her hand. “Is right in the way, unless I pretend I’m a coyote.”
“That rock hasn’t been there for eons,” Linda observed, and any tone of levity had disappeared. “Look up.”
And sure enough, a football-sized rock hung above them, prevented from falling by a couple of tiny projections that had jammed against neighbors. The microwave oven had lost its grip, but the space where it had been suspended until some time recently…by geologic standards anyway…shown pale.