Estelle listened politely, without comment or question. She absorbed information like a sponge. I wondered how well she’d be able to jump into an interrogation. The bad guys weren’t going to confess all just because it was the right thing to do.
“The phone call just now was Mark Arnett, father of Mo. He’s at the office and wants to talk to us, about what I don’t know. Mom Arnett is all bustle and control and whatnot, but did you get the feeling that she isn’t in touch with her son very much?” I didn’t give her time to answer. “Did she know that he wasn’t in school? No. Does she know that he has her car? No. Will she have a clue about where her son might have gone? I bet not. So…bossy, controlling, and clueless-a poor combination. And that brings us to Dad Arnett.”
I held up a hand as I chewed. “I’m willing to bet that he’ll be defensive, that he’ll be ready to take the belt to his son…or at least he’ll make a big show about saying that he will. Lots of dads are all talk, no action.” I shrugged. “I’m not saying he is, but the odds are there. He doesn’t know Mo is pitching M-80’s around, or if he does, hasn’t done anything about it. The folks aren’t wild about Mo going on the Elephant Butte trips, but don’t prevent it. You see how it goes?” That earned a nod. “And I’m also willing to bet that he’ll be angry with us.” I chuckled. “That just comes with the turf. We generally end up as hated messengers.”
Estelle nodded as if my lecture had made sense. I put both hands on the table. “Think about this, Estelle.” And she was thinking, I could see, her thick black eyebrows knitting to practically meet over her slender, aquiline nose. “A guy and a gal get married,” and I drew two imaginary circles on the table, then produced a third one between them, “and along comes the kid. Now, we have a triangle. Who controls the household? Who is the absolute authority? When there is a problem, what are the dynamics between family members? We know it’s not always dear old dad. He may be an authority figure, or he might be a wuss. Ditto for mom. And the kid? If the parents have given up and let him run things, well then. It becomes our business when the law is involved. The trick,” and I pushed my empty plate away, “is that when all the dust settles, for us not to have made things worse. And the sad thing is, that can’t always be helped.”
I gazed across the restaurant at one of the waitresses as she chatted with a family of six about to have every sense assaulted with the best chile in the world. I envied them, since I had finished my treat and now had more mundane things to do, while they had the whole menu to explore.
“Let me end the lecture by adding that I tell my deputies that how they respond to a domestic disturbance at 11 p.m. will determine what kind of ruckus they’ll have to return to a second time at 3 a.m. So we’ll listen to what Mark Arnett has to say without landing on him with both feet, without making him feel desperate. We try to keep him on an even keel, and then we wing it from there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” I echoed. “And we can hope that in the meantime, someone stumbles across their son, alive and well and ready to come home.”
“When you spoke with Mr. Arnett on the phone the first time, did he indicate that he was coming right home?”
“Nope. Maybe he thought of something we need to know. We can always hope.” Her frown hadn’t relaxed, and I’m sure it wasn’t the remains on her modest plate that fascinated or perplexed her. “What?”
She cocked her head, still regarding the plate. “Mrs. Arnett said a curious thing.”
“Curious how?”
“When she was talking about James Raught, sir. She referred to him as a shepherd who strayed.”
“Vaguely I remember that, but I think she was referring to the Zipolis.”
“When church people talk about shepherds, they’re referring to the priest-or pastor, or whatever.” Her tone was one of musing, not correction, and I waited for the rest of the thought. “Mrs. Arnett might have been referring to Larry Zipoli, leading the kids around. I suppose that could be what she meant.”
“You’re still thinking about Tres Santos, aren’t you.”
She shrugged helplessly. “I heard that one word, sir. Shepherd. The connotation of that is so strong to me, growing up where I did. And all of Raught’s art, his obvious interest in religious art-the icons of it all.”
I sat back in the booth, both hands folded where my plate had been. For a full minute, we remained in silence. Estelle neither fussed nor elaborated. She was as comfortable with the silence as I was uncomfortable with her suggestion.
Finally, I said, “You want to talk with him again?”
She nodded. “My mother was going to talk with Sophia today.”
“And who the hell is Sophia?”
“My fiancé’s aunt, sir. The lawyer in Veracruz I mentioned.”
“Ah.” To have a twenty-one year old memory again. “Tell me about this.”
“Sophia Tournal is acusadora-a prosecuting attorney, sir. She was involved with the original Tres Santos case. At one time, they thought that they had arrested one of the suspects in the theft. But no.”
“Poor bastard is probably still in the can, though,” I said. “I wondered how all this got around to your lovely mother.”
“My mother was going to ask Sophia for some details, sir. If there are any identifying marks, characteristic things, that could help identify the retablos that Raught has in his home.”
“Your mother has no phone. How is she going to accomplish all this?”
“The Romeros, just down the lane.”
“All right, then. Let’s see how it all washes out. You want to talk with Raught again?”
“Yes. After I hear from my mother.”
“Fair enough. In the meantime, we have a man waiting. A nervous man. Let’s not keep him waiting.” I stood up, intercepted the lunch ticket from the waitress, and folded it around a twenty. “Thanks, Jana Lynn.”
Mark Arnett’s white three-quarter ton was parked in one of the two visitors’ spaces at the county building. Enough junk was loaded in the back to make it squat. But Mark wasn’t inside the truck, giving his son a tongue lashing. They weren’t sitting together, having a heart-to-heart father-son talk. Mo Arnett wasn’t slumped in an emotional heap on the front steps of the Sheriff’s Department building.
Dispatcher T.C. Barnes looked up as we entered the employee’s entrance behind dispatch. “Sir, Mr. Arnett is waiting in conference.”
I nodded and skirted the dispatch island. “Conference” was a grand term for the small room across the hall with a six-place table and a small cabinet that held the coffee maker, cups and such, two tape recorders that often didn’t work, and a video camera mounted on a tripod. Across the room was a small copier/fax that worked in the best of times.
We had no fancy one-way observation glass like they always use in the movies, no place for an audience to stand and watch the interrogation process. Most of the time, deputies used the room as a spacious office and lounge, or a non-threatening place to interview minors whom the state’s Children, Youth and Families outfit wouldn’t let us just throw in the lock-up-although that approach would have done some kids a world of good.
The conference room door opened soundlessly, and we caught Mark Arnett in a relaxed moment. He was seated in one of the side chairs at the table, leaning back, one boot up on the corner of the table. His chin rested in his hand pensively, elbow propped on the arm of the chair. Across the room, a four-by-five foot map of Posadas County was framed on the wall, the surface dotted with an array of colored pins, one of Sheriff Eduardo Salcido’s projects to visualize the pattern of every motor vehicle fatality in the county.