“That would be Deputy Pasquale,” I said. Pasquale slid to a stop in front of the Jeep. With him in the Bronco was Niel Costace, and I noticed that the FBI agent took his time getting out of the shoulder harness.
“Have you got your camera bag with you?” I called to Pasquale, and he stopped in his tracks and retreated to the Bronco. “And the heavy shovel,” I added. By the time Pasquale had the black bag out of the back, Costace had climbed down. He shut the door of the Bronco with exaggerated care.
“Sergeant Torrez is about ten miles out,” the agent said. “But I’m sure we would have gotten here first even if we’d started in Denver.” He shot a glance at Pasquale, but the young man either didn’t hear the remark or chose to ignore it.
“Over here,” I said. As we moved past the Jeep, I added, “And this is Rory Torrance. He’s one of the rancher’s sons who found Francis this morning.”
Costace reached out a hand and grasped Rory’s. “Niel Costace. Good work.”
“Sir,” Rory said to me, “do you want me to go now?”
“I think you probably can, son. We’ll be in touch with you for some of the details later in the day.” He nodded and looked at the shovel that Deputy Pasquale held. “Unless you want to stay. I’m sure you can be of help when we have to lift him out.”
“No thanks, sir,” he said quickly, and hustled back to the Jeep.
I led Costace and Pasquale around the building. “I’m guessing that it’s Paul Cole,” I said. “Just from what I can see of the arm. Browers has darker hair, and he isn’t as big.”
“You want me to clear away some of these rocks first?” Pasquale said.
“No,” I replied. “First, I want you to take a set of photos that shows the grave site just the way it is. Start back here, and make sure you include some of the landmarks in the first couple frames. Then move in closer, including a corner of the building. And then closer still, until you have just the grave in the frame.” I held my hands up in front of me and drew a funnel in the air. “Start general, then move to the specific. Just the way they taught you at the Academy.”
“Now that we’ve made it here alive, remember that film’s cheap,” Costace muttered.
When Pasquale was finished, we cleared away the rocks until the actual perimeter of the grave was obvious. “Photo time,” I prompted, then watched Pasquale finish a roll and reload.
It didn’t take long to expose the corpse. The man was buried under only inches of dirt, his legs bent back at the knees so that his feet were touching his rump. Despite the dirt, the heavy blood staining high on the right side of his flannel shirt was obvious.
He was blond, probably once ruddy of complexion, and tending to paunch. Well over six feet, he would have weighed 240 at least, perhaps a good deal more.
“Three ten, three oh eight.”
Pasquale reached down and pulled his portable radio out of its holster and handed it to me.
“Go ahead, three oh eight.”
“ETA about six minutes.”
“Ten-four. Robert, did Estelle say anything to you about notifying the coroner?”
“Ten-four. He’ll be a few minutes.”
I handed the radio back to Pasquale. He holstered it, then pulled out a small notebook and began jotting information about the photos he’d taken.
“What’s unclear, Niel,” I said, “is whether the child was able to run away on his own or whether they let him go. He told us that he ‘runned away.’ That could mean a lot of things.”
“A three-year-old isn’t much of a witness,” Costace said.
“Well, this one might be. He’s as sharp as they come. He told his mother in Spanish that Tiffany Cole and Browers told him that if he didn’t behave, they’d put him in the hole, too.”
“Nice folks. He wasn’t clear who was who? Or does he know who Andy Browers is?”
“No. He made the comment that Cody Cole ‘has two daddies,’ and he added, ‘And that’s where they put him.’” I gestured at the grave. “That’s a pretty fair assessment of Cody’s situation, if you think about it. To Cody, both Browers and Paul Cole fill the daddy role. I’m assuming that this is Paul Cole. That leaves Andy Browers and Tiffany Cole, with her son.”
“So they let the Guzman boy go,” Costace mused. “Out here in the middle of nowhere. I wonder where they got that idea.”
“He said that he ran away.”
“Yeah, well,” Costace said skeptically, “it’s hard to imagine not being able to catch a three-year-old.” He shrugged. “Of course, in the middle of the night, who’s to know what happened, exactly. They probably figured he’d either die of exposure out here somewhere or be found come morning. Either way suits their purpose and gives them a good head start.” He paused and looked down at the remains of Paul Cole. “Head start to where? — that’s the next question.” He looked up at me. “Do you think that the youngster will be able to tell us what went on in that motel room?”
“Maybe. I’m not counting on it.”
He grunted with disgust, surveying the prairie and hills around us. “Where the hell do they think they’re going to go? They think they’re going to drive that behemoth through roadblocks without anyone noticing?”
“They have to know better than that,” I said. “But we’re close to the border. If they can get across and put just a few hours between us and them, the Mexican police aren’t going to give them much thought. A token search. That’s about it. Especially if they pay the right price.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
“Look at it this way. They got rid of this deadweight, and they got rid of one of the two youngsters-in this case, the one who would cause them the most trouble. They might have figured that a three-year-old wouldn’t make much sense of what went on out here. Now they’re running, just the three of them.”
“If they don’t get rid of the RV, they’re going to be caught. It’s that simple,” Costace said.
“Then that’s next,” I said. “If Paul Cole was using the borrowed RV as a sort of personal motel and base of operations, odds are good that he was planning to return it when the deal was done. He’d get his share of whatever Madrid was supposed to pay for the kid, and he’d be home free.”
“But then there’s the fracas at the motel,” Costace said. “One plan goes out the window. Our lovin’ parents know they’re in over their heads anyway now, so they take the RV and split.” Costace shook his head in disgust. “Hell, maybe they got some fool notion that they’d be able to return to the States after a spell, claimin’ that they were abducted. Who the hell knows what people like this really think?”
“If they’ve got half a brain between them,” I said, “they’ve been listening to the radio. Browers may even have a scanner. The border crossings slammed shut and roadblocks went up before they could slip away. That makes it tough. Now they know they made a mistake, and they’re going to be ditching it.”
“You got any ideas where?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t guess, but I’ve got an idea for a place to start.”
Chapter 41
By the time I left Paul Cole’s final resting place, a fair convocation of folks had arrived, including Dr. Alan Perrone, the assistant county coroner. Deputy Pasquale didn’t like it much, but I commandeered his Bronco, leaving him to catch a ride with one of the other deputies.
Estelle had taken her husband and son back into Posadas in my car, and I needed to know what other information she had been able to pry gently out of little Francis. I didn’t want to infringe on her time or her privacy with her family, especially with her mother in intensive care. But there was still a whole mountain of information we badly needed.
I drove into Posadas at twenty minutes after eight that morning, feeling an odd combination of immense relief and apprehension. Paul Cole had been an unknown quantity-I had never met him, knew nothing about him. His notion of fooling both wife and school with the fake hunting trip spoke of a kind of brainless, lame bravado-make things too complicated, and then try and bull through. It hadn’t worked with Roberto Madrid, either.