“The same size as my husband?”
Erma nodded. “He was maybe six two or three. And heavy. Not fat, but heavy and strong. Broad shoulders. When I saw him standing outside, I really thought it was Francis. I didn’t even think. He rapped on the door frame, like he’d forgotten his keys. Oh, Estelle, there was nothing I could do.”
“I know. Now try to think clearly.” Estelle was talking to herself, and to me, as much as she was to Erma. She glanced at me and indicated the telephone. I jerked into action as if someone had slapped my face, and I punched the autodialer for the Sheriff’s Department. Despite its crash to the floor, the phone still worked.
Ernie Wheeler answered on the third ring, an eternity. “Sheriff’s Department. One minute please.”
I wasn’t about to wait while he diddled with someone else. “Jesus Christ, Ernie, answer the goddamn phone,” I bellowed, and apparently he heard me over the radio traffic in the background.
“Sir?”
“Now listen, Ernie. Someone’s abducted Estelle’s son. We don’t know who yet, or why. But you get on the horn and get some troops down here. And stay off the goddamn radio with it.”
A brief pause followed. Ernie didn’t bother to say anything inane like “You’re kidding,” or all those other things humans fill dead air with. “Sir, almost everyone is down at the motel. There’s been a homicide there.”
“I don’t care if the goddamn thing is burning to the ground. Get a hold of Bob Torrez. And call the FBI office in Las Cruces.” I tried to force my brain to think in an organized fashion. “And call the Border Patrol with a description of the boy. We have no idea where this son of a bitch is headed, but south makes sense.”
“You think that’s most likely?”
“How the hell should I know? I don’t know what’s most likely. The son of a bitch has had almost a two-hour head start. Just do it. And then call all the public transportation you can think of, especially Las Cruces International. Right now, we only have evidence that one person is involved, a big individual. Beyond that, we don’t know. I’ll get back to you. Keep the lines open. And call the state police. In fact, do that first. As soon as we have something, we’ll let ’em know what to look for. Hang on.”
I nodded at Estelle. “Sir,” she said, “we have one man, large, heavyset. He was wearing blue jeans, a white knit shirt, like a golf shirt maybe, and an insulated denim jacket. He had on a ski mask, red and yellow stripes.”
“He was wearing a ski mask and you thought he was Francis?” I snapped, then instantly regretted it.
Erma covered her eyes. “He was standing back from the door, off to the side, sir. It was dark. I heard the light rap, and I opened the inside door before I really checked. The backyard is fenced, and I just thought…” She pulled a deep, shuddering breath. “The jacket’s insulation was blue and black checks, I remember,” she said.
“Good girl. Did you see a vehicle?” I asked.
She shook her head. “The second I opened the back door, he yanked the lock right out of the screen. And when he left, I was all tied up on the floor.”
“Did you hear anything? When he left, that is. What did you hear?”
“I could hear a car leave from farther down the street.”
“Might not have been his,” I said. “But nothing with a characteristic sound? Nothing you could identify? Car versus truck, that sort of thing?”
Erma shook her head.
“Did you hear any other people at any time?”
“No.”
“What about his hands?” Estelle said. She reached up and coaxed Carlos’s left hand away from her neck and held it out toward Erma. “His hands.”
“His hands?”
Estelle nodded. “His skin. What could you tell about his complexion?”
“He was wearing brown gloves. Like the kind cowboys wear? Work gloves? He took them off when he was taping me. I think he was fair-skinned, because the hair on the back of his hands was blond, I think.”
“His voice. What about his voice?”
Erma frowned and shook her head. “He never said a word.”
“He never spoke to you?”
“No.”
“Was there anything familiar about him that would lead you to believe that he was a local? Anything at all-even his smell. Anything that makes you think you might have seen him somewhere?”
Erma shook his head.
“No one like that in the neighborhood?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar to me, either,” Estelle said. “And we know everyone who lives on this street.”
“All right.” I put the telephone to my ear again. “Ernie, this is what we’ve got so far. It’s a white male, six two to six three. Probably well over two hundred pounds. Maybe alone-we don’t know. Unknown vehicle. He’s wearing jeans, a denim jacket lined in blue and black, rawhide gloves, and maybe a ski mask.” I turned to Erma. “What color was the mask?”
“Yellow and red, I think,” she said.
“Yellow and red,” I said. “He’ll be in company with a three year-old Hispanic youngster-hell, you know what Francis junior looks like.”
“Is the boy injured?” Ernie asked.
I started to answer and found I couldn’t form the words. I managed a simple “We don’t know.”
“What was he wearing, sir?”
“Just a minute.” A brief conference established that little Francisco had been in his pajamas, ready to go to bed. “Flannel pj’s, Ernie. The kind with built-in booties. They’re light blue with dark blue jackrabbits on them.”
Estelle’s face was pale, and if she hugged Carlos any tighter, the poor kid would suffocate. But he didn’t seem to mind. “Erma,” I said gently, “that’s all the child had on when the man took him out the door? No coat? No shoes?”
She shook her head and then covered her face with her hands again.
“That’s all we’ve got, Ernie. Get the state police working first, then the Border Patrol. Then go with the airports and the FBI. I’ve got the handheld here on channel three. Don’t let anyone tie up lines.”
I hung up the telephone, pulled the radio off my belt, and turned the volume up. “Show us what happened, now.”
Erma led us out into the kitchen. The back door was closed, as if nothing had happened. The door had both a standard lock and a dead bolt. Despite the appearance of security, a properly aimed kick probably could have busted both out of the thirty-year-old wood frame.
“Francisco was sitting here,” she whimpered. A box of cereal was open, waiting. A spoon was on the floor under the table. “I was at the sink, rinsing out his bowl.” She picked up the only bowl that would work as far as the kid was concerned-blue stoneware with a line of jackrabbits bouncing around the rim.
“I heard a light rap and turned to look.” She pointed at the door. “I could see a figure, but the back light wasn’t on. The way he knocked, it just seemed-”
“Show me how he knocked,” I said.
“It was just a light, friendly rapping, like this.” She used the knuckle of her right index finger and imitated the familiar seven-note refrain-five and then two, shave and a haircut, two bits-of greeting. “Just a few minutes before I set the garbage out, and I hadn’t turned the lock yet. I didn’t think.” The tears rolled down her brown cheeks. “I opened the door and then he just yanked the screen open.”
I turned the knob and opened the back door. The screen’s closure piston kept it firmly shut, but I could see the bent aluminum lock. That didn’t mean much. A dedicated child could rip open a screen door. I flipped on the back light.
The Guzmans’ back door opened onto a brick patio, the bricked area extending twenty feet or so back to the sandy rubble that was Francisco’s playground. That was surrounded by trees and shrubs of various heights, keeping the place sheltered from wind and sun. The chain-link fence was four feet high, adequate for children and dogs, but not much of a deterrent for an adult.
“And then what happened?”
“He burst inside, then grabbed me and threw me down on the floor. He threw me down so hard, I thought I’d broken my arm.”
“That’s when he taped you?”
“No,” Erma said. “He moved so fast. When I fell, he just stepped right over me and went to Francis. He had this role of tape, and he just went around Francis three times.” She made circular motions with her hands. “Just so fast. Around the boy and the back of the chair. I screamed at him, and by the time I got to my feet to try to stop him, he grabbed me. Because of the tape around him, Francis couldn’t run away.”