“What did Mo do?”
“Well, he kind of got all flustered, sort of. And then I got to thinkin’ I could use five bucks. No big deal. I was thinkin’ we could play around some, you know. Pretend boxing. I poked him up here,” and Jason rubbed his own cheek near the jaw line. “Nothin’ hard or anything. Just like they do in Hollywood. But Mo, he didn’t lean back and I kinda hit him maybe a little harder than I wanted.”
“You connected, you mean.”
“Not hard or nothin’, but yeah…I connected. It looked kind of funny, you know. We all cracked up, ‘cause he lost his balance and stumbled backward. Well, Mo was pissed, and he ran back to the bike and took off. Mr. Z thought that was pretty funny.”
“And you got the five bucks?”
“’No fight, no money.’ That’s what Mr. Z said. I knew it was just a joke, anyway. Funny thing is that big as Mo is, if he got himself into shape, he’d probably be a pretty good boxer. Got real big hands.”
“You saw Mo after that? What did he have to say?”
Jason shook his head. “He dumped the bike back here, right in the front yard. I guess he just went home.”
“When did you see him after that?”
“Just when him and Tom and me went for a ride this past week. Tom invited him along, not me. Mo wasn’t talkin’ much. He wouldn’t say shit to me. Still mad, I guess.”
“He was,” Tom Pasquale added. “He wondered what would happen if sometime he dropped one of those M-80’s he’s got down the fuel tank of Mr. Z’s road grader. See how he likes it. That’s what Mo said.”
With a gentle tug, Jason set the bike wheel in motion again. “You’re not saying that Mo might have had something to do with the shooting, are you, sir?”
“Nope…we’re not saying that.” Jason heard the ‘we’ and glanced across at Estelle, who true to form had remained silent through the whole chat. “Do either of you happen to know where Mo went this afternoon? Did he stop by here?”
“No, sir,” Tom Pasquale said. “I haven’t seen him.”
Jason shook his head, then smiled, an expression that would have been charming if someone had taken care of his dental needs when he was a squirt. “He’s probably still mad at me. He’ll get over it.”
“Maybe so.” I wasn’t sure I believed that.
Chapter Thirty
Estelle Reyes picked at her chicken taco salad while I indulged my broad streak of gluttony with a green chile burrito that would no doubt give my ailing gall bladder fits. But what the hell. The person I most wanted to interview was seventeen year-old Maurice ‘Mo’ Arnett, but he’d played his wild card.
Small as Posadas was, there were a myriad places to hide, and my inclination was to think that’s what Mo had done. I couldn’t see him taking off cross-country. South of the border wouldn’t appeal to him, a pudgy gringo who didn’t speak ten words of Spanish and for whom the vast northern Mexican desert would yawn as an endless threat.
“So, where did he go?” I said around a mouthful of fragrant cheese and chile slices. “If you were seventeen and on the run, where would you go? You have a stolen car…well, a borrowed car. He can’t hide that very well. That’s a ton of metal that we’re going to find eventually.”
“Relatives out of town?” Estelle toyed with a tiny slice of chicken.
“No doubt. But how’s that going to work? Auntie sees Mo on her doorstep over in Calcutta, Texas, and what’s she going to do? Call Mindy and Mark, is what. And then it’s over. He can’t hide with friends, because he doesn’t have any. And I have a hard time believing he’s the sort of independent kid who could go to a strange place and just settle in. Not many kids are self-reliant enough to do that.”
Before she could answer, my radio, standing like a sentinel beside the salt and pepper shaker, squelched to life.
“Three ten, PCS. Ten twenty-one.” Baker’s voice held no particular urgency, but good dispatchers are like that. The world can be collapsing under them, and the voice on the radio is calm and mellow.
I reached across and pushed the transmit button. “Ten four.” I shoved my plate forward a bit and pushed myself out of the booth. “In a minute,” I said, and made my way toward the front of the restaurant. A phone nestled under the short counter by the cash register, and I dialed the Sheriff’s Department. Barnes picked up on the first ring.
“What’s up?” I leaned on the counter, looking down through the scratched glass at the tempting array of small cigars.
“Sir, Mark Arnett is here and wants to talk with you. Hold on a minute, and I’ll get him.”
“No, no, don’t bother with that. We’ll be back in the office in ten minutes. If he wants to wait, make him comfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that was quick,” I muttered as I hung up. Arnett had pounded the pavement home from Deming without delay, and that told me that the standard issue parental denial might not be the case here. I could make it back to the office in three minutes, but what the hell. A burrito was waiting back at the table, steaming and fragrant, and who knew-with the way the day was going to hell, the opportunity to eat might be as elusive as Mark Arnett’s son. A dozen pairs of eyes were now looking for Mo Arnett, and they didn’t need me for a few minutes.
When I returned, Fernando Aragon, the restaurant’s owner and chief chef, was leaning against the back of the booth, hands clasped over his generous belly as he chatted with the department’s newest recruit. He laughed at something Estelle said, and looked up at me as I approached around the waitresses’ island.
“Hey, Sheriff!” He thrust out a hand. His grip was strong, but his hand felt bloated, damp, and smooth from all the hot water, detergent, and hand cream. “You know, I met this young lady when she was this high.” He held his hand a couple of feet above the well-worn carpet. “What do you think of that?”
“Small world,” I said. “How’s business for you?”
“Ay.” He straightened up and moved so that I could slide in to my seat. “You know, with the mine closing, we’re going to be facing some lean times.”
I wagged my eyebrows while readjusting the precise position of my plate. “I’ll always do my best to help.” I glanced at my watch. “I hate to eat and run, but we need to get back to the office.” Fernando took the hint-one of the many things I liked about him-and headed back to his kitchen, leaving us to our gastronomic delights.
I shoveled two mouthfuls of burrito, and then paused. “So, your fiancé…you said he’s the only member of his family living in the United States? How did you two meet?”
She thought about that for a piece of chicken or two. I was amused at the level of thought she gave the opening of each doorway into her personal history. “His aunt is a lawyer in Veracruz. She knows my mother. From years and years ago.”
Teresa Reyes, Estelle’s stepmother, lived in Tres Santos, a miniscule hamlet south of the border and a scant fifty miles from where we now sat. Veracruz was a long, long trip south, on the east coast of the country a stone’s throw from the Yucatan-about the same distance from Posadas as Cleveland, but with no nifty interstates between to eat the miles. I made a mental note to pursue how an attorney in Veracruz had come to know a school teacher in Tres Santos-a school teacher who owned neither car nor telephone nor a long list of life’s other comforts.
“Ah,” I said, and let it go at that. “The reason I asked about Francis is that one of the most interesting things that we end up doing in this crazy business is talking to parents, Estelle. Mom, Dad…that’s if the subject in question is lucky enough to have both, and both functional.”
I speared another section of burrito, and worked at keeping the cheese from sagging down my shirt front. “I did my time as a parent-two sons, two daughters,” and I spread my hands. “Scattered all over the country. And,” I chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m acutely aware of some of the mistakes that I made. Hell,” and I waved the fork. “I have a son who won’t even speak to me…how stupid is that? I also have a daughter who won’t stop speaking to me. That’s almost as bad.”