“And he never said a word?”
“No. I could hear him breathing and grunting, but he never said nothing. He threw me down, jerked my hands behind me, and taped my wrists. Then he threw me down again and taped my feet together. I tried to kick him, but he had me on my stomach, and I couldn’t. Then he pulled my feet up and taped them to my hands. And then he taped my mouth.” She stopped and wiped her eyes. “What are we going to do?”
“He left you here in the kitchen?” I asked.
“Right there on the floor,” she said, pointing. “And then he pulled the tape off Francis so he could get him loose of the chair. He lost him then for a little bit, and Francis took off. The man, he grabbed Francis by one arm, but he fought as much as he could.”
“Three years old and forty pounds,” I said. “Did he just carry Francis out of the house?”
“He taped his hands, in front of him, like this.” Erma held her hands together. “And then he taped his feet together at the ankles. Then he just picked him up like a…like a…”
“Under his arm?”
Erma nodded. I keyed the radio. “PCS, Gastner.”
“Gastner, go ahead.”
“I need some people, Ernie.”
“Ten-four.” I could hear other radio traffic in the background on the main patrol channel. “Undersheriff, three oh eight and three oh seven are responding. ETA about a minute.”
“Tell ’em no lights or siren. Did you get hold of the state police?”
“Ten-four. They wanted to know what your suggestions were about roadblocks.”
I cursed. Posadas wasn’t at the end of anyone’s road, but it sure as hell was on the road to a lot of places. The east-west interstate passed by less than a mile outside of town. Four state highways either intersected in or passed close by the village. Within that framework was a web of paved, gravel, or caliche county roads, as well as an additional network of U.S. Forest Service roads and trails that laced through Oria National Forest.
“Tell ’em to cover every one they can. Every one. Hell, there are still truckloads of Guardsmen left in town, or close to it. Shut everything down.”
“Ten-four.” Ernie’s voice sounded strained. I knew what he was thinking. If whoever had taken little Francis had a two-hour jump on us, there wasn’t much point in blocking roads ten minutes outside of Posadas.
A car slid to a violent stop at the curb, and I went to the front door. Robert Torrez came up the sidewalk at a dead run. Even as he did so, Deputy Mitchell’s county car turned onto Twelfth from Bustos, its engine pushing hard.
“We don’t know who or why, Bob,” I said. “Someone broke in and abducted little Francis. He left the baby. Erma said the man’s Anglo, big, built about like Dr. Guzman. He’s dressed in denim-jeans and lined denim jacket. He might be blond. That’s all we know.”
Torrez turned as I was speaking, surveying the neighborhood. Lights were on in every house, small wonder with all the traffic. “What kind of head start does he have?”
“Since three minutes after six.”
Torrez looked at his watch and grimaced. “Erma have any ideas?”
“None. Total stranger, as far as she’s concerned. The description doesn’t ring any bells with Estelle, either.”
“All right. Between Chief Martinez and his men and one or two of our specials, we can bottle up the village pretty tight.”
It had been a long time since Eduardo Martinez had worked nights in Posadas. His three-man police department turned the town over to us after four-and a lot of the rest of the time, too.
“Shag someone up the hill,” I said. County Road 43 led out of town to the north, winding up past the landfill and the abandoned Consolidated Mining boneyard, passing by the old water-filled quarry. Now on Forest Service property, that place was the handsdown favorite of locals for parties, booze, necking-anything that didn’t need an audience. The thought of this freak parked up there with my godson was enough to make me vomit.
Chapter 31
When I walked back inside the Guzmans’ house, I found Estelle sitting on the couch, her arms still wrapped around tiny Carlos. He had stopped crying but continued to pop a hiccup now and then.
From what Erma had told us, the infant hadn’t uttered a peep all the time that the intruder was in the house. Carlos had been asleep in his crib in one of the back bedrooms, and only he knew exactly when he had awakened and what he had heard.
Only when Erma Sedillos had begun creating her hour and a half of thumping, banging mayhem did Carlos let loose, standing in his crib and screaming.
I didn’t blame him. I’d have done the same thing if it would have brought my godson to the front doorstep.
By the look on her face, though, Estelle was far, far away. Her dark brows were closely knit, and her rocking and cooing to Carlos were distracted.
“I told Robert to have someone pick up Francis at the hospital,” I said. “He’ll be here any second.”
I didn’t know if that was true or not. If Dr. Guzman was in the midst of delicate surgery, it was going to be hard for him to drop the scalpel and run. Unlike a large metro hospital, there wasn’t a plethora of vascular surgeons who could just step in and take over.
And, as so often happens, a ridiculous thought, unbidden, came to mind. If Florencio Apodaca was guilty of actually murdering his wife, and if he was even half-cogent, he must have been wondering just how patient he was going to have to be with the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department. I wondered what stage of Bob Torrez’s preliminary interview with the old man had been interrupted when the deputies got the call to break away.
“This has to be someone who knows our family,” Estelle murmured. “He knew exactly what he wanted, and didn’t waste a step.” She turned tortured eyes to me. “He wanted Francis, sir.”
“It appears that way,” I said. “He knew the layout of your property. You can’t really see your back door from the street unless you’re looking for it. With the back light off, it would have been even harder.”
“And there’s no gate in the chain-link fence,” she said.
“I don’t know too many people who can vault over a four-foot fence with a child under one arm.”
“And he didn’t search through the house,” Estelle said, nuzzling Carlos on the forehead. As if sensing that now wasn’t a good time to interrupt, the child had released his hold on Estelle’s neck and sat like a silent beanbag doll, his dark face sober and eyes watchful, as quiet now as he’d been noisy a bit earlier.
In the next few minutes, he had lots of things to watch. Camille arrived with Gayle Sedillos, Erma’s older sister. This was my daughter’s first visit to Posadas in nearly twenty years, and already she seemed a perfectly natural fit-part of her talent for remaining a stranger for only a few seconds.
“Gayle,” I said, “Make sure that no one ties up any of the telephones. The phone in the bedroom is listed to Dr. Guzman in the directory. Until we get some recording equipment over here, I’d rather they weren’t even answered. Camille, I’d like you to use the cell phone in my Blazer to keep in touch with the hospital. We want Dr. Guzman here the instant he can break free.”
“Three ten, three oh one on channel three.”
I jerked the handheld from my belt, recognizing Martin Holman’s voice and at the same time dreading what he might blab out over the air for all of Posadas County to hear. “Go ahead.”
“Ten-eighty-seven at Posadas Inn.”
For an instant, I couldn’t even remember what the hell 10–87 meant, and I frowned at the radio as if the translation would pop up in the little frequency window. My mind snapped into gear, but my frown deepened. The motel was the last place I was interested in visiting at the moment. A drunk getting himself killed in a parking-lot brawl was just not one of my concerns at the moment.