The door closed on soundless hinges, and Holman shook his head. “I don’t think she heard a word we said.”
“That’s not surprising,” I said. “The woman is distraught. More than distraught. She’s panicked sick. I would be, too.”
“If that were true, then she’d be willing to grasp at any straws we held out to her,” Estelle Reyes-Guzman said quietly, and I turned, surprised.
“No one is going to welcome the news that their child’s been abducted by some creep,” I said.
“No,” Estelle said, “but even Tiffany Cole should be able to understand that the odds of an injured child still being alive after three November nights, with off-and-on rain, are slim to none.”
“We don’t know if he was injured,” I said.
“If he wasn’t, then he’d have been found,” Estelle said. “It’s that simple. If he’s up on that mesa, he’s dead. It’s that simple. If he was abducted, then there’s a chance he’s still alive. That’s what Mrs. Cole needs to understand.” She stood up and snapped her notebook shut. I glanced at the wall clock and saw that I was fifteen minutes overdue on my promise to Camille to be home in time to gulp down another handful of medications.
“Do you have time to stop by the house for a few minutes?” I asked.
“Let me swing by the hospital first and check on Mama,” she replied, and then turned to Martin Holman. “Sir, if nothing turns up by this time tomorrow, I think that you can pull the primary search teams.”
“Mrs. Cole is going to go ballistic,” Holman said. “But you’re right. What are you going to do now? If the child was taken just because some wacko child molester saw an opportunity, it’s going to be tough following the trail.”
Estelle grimaced. “That doesn’t fit,” she said. “Child molesters don’t drive around the wilderness at night. Shopping malls, schools, neighborhoods-yes. Not mesas. What we need is a list of names. A list of the people who would stand to gain something by taking a three-year-old child.”
I grunted to my feet as she continued. “Common sense would say that after a divorce, the noncustodial parent is the most likely to abduct. It happens all the time.”
“Paul Cole?”
Estelle nodded. “That’s a good place to start.”
Chapter 15
Estelle was relieved when Sheriff Martin Holman agreed to follow up on Paul Cole that evening.
“This is what I think we ought to do,” he said, standing behind his desk, pen in hand, looking down at the yellow legal pad filled with circles, doodles, and random jottings. “I’ll call the Bernalillo Sheriff’s office and have them make contact with Paul Cole. See if they can round him up for a few questions. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Holman frowned and regarded me. “I can’t help wondering why he isn’t down here already. I mean, we’re not exactly working in secret down here. This search has been all over television and the city newspapers. Maybe what his ex-wife said is true. Maybe he just doesn’t give a shit. What do you think?”
“I just walked into the middle of this mess,” I said. “I don’t think anything.” I didn’t say that whenever Marty Holman started acting like a cop, I got nervous. “Just be careful that he doesn’t get spooked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Make sure that the Bernalillo deputies don’t give him any information that he doesn’t need to know. None of the circumstances of what’s going on up on the mesa. Nothing about what we might suspect, or don’t suspect. Just have them tell Cole that his son has gone missing while on an outing with his mother.”
“I would think he’s heard about the search already anyway, from the television reports.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but they might not have used the youngster’s name yet. One lost kid isn’t statewide news until something unusual happens. It’s entirely possible that he simply doesn’t know.”
“We’ll play it by ear, then,” Holman said, and that should have made me really nervous. But I was as tired as everyone else, perhaps with less reason, and Martin Holman needed to dive into his job headfirst, without me holding his hand. I had other concerns.
Estelle hadn’t left the hospital by the time I arrived home, and even though it was nearly nine o’clock, I was restless. I suppose I should have chugged a handful of medications and gone to bed, but that was a repulsive notion on both counts. Camille knew my habits, and she knew better than to nag.
Still, it surprised me when she agreed to accompany me on a visit to Florencio Apodaca’s. The old man might not care one way or another what his stepson thought, or what Stanley Willit planned to do, but I had a feeling that whatever was about to happen between the two parties, I was going to be caught smack in the middle.
“Why don’t we walk?” Camille said, and I stared at her.
“Walk?”
She grinned. “It’s one block, Dad. The fresh air will do you good. Maybe it’ll make you sleepy.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, I would,” I lied. “But the suggestion has been made that this is more than a friendly neighborhood burial. I’d feel better having a radio and transportation close at hand.”
She held up a hand in surrender. “Are Estelle and Francis coming over? Have you had a chance to talk with them both?”
“I told her to stop by. We’ll just have to see. I don’t know what their schedule is. But we’ll be gone just a few minutes. I’ll leave a note for them.”
We drove around the loop and I parked in front of Apodaca’s house-a small settling adobe. At one time in the late sixties, a peaked roof had been added to the structure. The loft had created a home for pigeons, bats, squirrels, and the previous tenant’s grandchildren.
When I knocked on the door, the only light I could see was the blue cast from a television. I knocked again, then heard a chair scrape against the wood floor.
Florencio Apodaca’s face and figure showed every one of his eighty-plus years. He opened the door and stood behind the dilapidated screen, squinting out at me.
“Mr. Apodaca, I’m Bill Gastner, from across the way,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, pulling the word out long and heavily accented.
“Do you mind if I come in?”
“Well, I guess that’s all right.” He turned and shuffled back inside without opening the door. The hinges squawked, and after I stepped inside, I was careful not to let it slam. I glanced back at the Blazer and could imagine Camille sitting in the dark, holding up her left wrist and tapping her watch at me.
Florencio Apodaca had made his way back to the blue light, and he was already seated in the remains of a recliner when I entered the room. He looked away from the television and nodded at a rocking chair. “Sit down. You want some wine?”
“No thanks,” I said. The chair groaned under my weight, and I balanced gingerly, trying not to capsize backward. “What are you watching?”
He pointed at the set with his chin. “They got this show here,” he said, as if that just about covered it.
I took a deep breath, made sure the rocker wouldn’t collapse, and said, “Stanley Willit called me today.”
Florencio regarded me with rheumy eyes. “What did he say?”
“He’s worried about his mother.”
The old man frowned and looked back at the television. “You know,” he said finally, “I don’t understand most of these programs that they have now. It’s getting so I don’t understand most of them.”
“They’re pretty bizarre,” I said. I looked at the screen and saw that he was watching a sitcom featuring a brassy fat woman who had a perfectly timed slice-to-the-bone retort for every comment that came her way. She was enough to make even the most hardened traffic cop cringe.
“He lives out in California now,” Florencio said.
“Willit, you mean?”
“Yes.” He pronounced it gess.
“I told him I had no objection to the burial on my property.”
He turned and regarded me again. “You own that land across the street?”