“That’s a possibility,” Estelle said. “Tell me again what time you prepared his meal?”
Fernando crossed his arms across his apron. “Aileen, what time did George call yesterday?”
“Sometime after ten, maybe,” she said, not breaking rhythm with the meat slicer. The roast had been reduced to the size of a baseball.
“So…sometime between eleven-thirty and twelve? That’s when it was delivered?” Estelle asked.
He nodded. “You have picked up the food from time to time, have you not?” he said to me. “This time, he asked if we would deliver. Sometimes, his daughter does the honors, but she was busy this day.”
“Who drove the food over?”
Fernando turned to look at Aileen. “It was Ricardo, no?” Aileen nodded. “Ricardo Mondragon,” Fernando said, and waved a hand toward the swinging door to the dining room.
Ricardo was forty-five years old going on ten, but steady and dependable. He took great pride, it always seemed to me, in keeping the Don Juan polished and spiffy, despite a strip or two of duct tape on the booth cushions. The dishes in the waitress islands were always stacked just so. At the moment, I could see his stooped, pudgy figure out in the dining room, putting a final polish on table tops.
“We packed it most carefully,” Fernando said. He pointed overhead to a broad shelf above the sink. A row of cheap Styrofoam coolers rested there, the kind stout enough for a single picnic or fishing trip, the mates of the one that we’d seen resting on George Payton’s kitchen counter. Estelle nodded absently, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. “First in the glass dish with the cover, then in a paper bag, then in the cooler. Do you need to talk with Ricardo?”
“We may need to, but not right now,” Estelle said. We took another five minutes, poking into this and that, but the undersheriff had closed her notebook. I knew that any moment, Fernando would offer us something to take the edge off, and sure enough, he slid a oval plate off the rack and held it toward me.
“Let me…” he started to say, but I held up a hand abruptly, an amazing show of self-restraint.
“Fernando, thanks, but we need to be on our way,” I said. “We’ve taken enough of your time.”
“You come back,” he said, and then extended his hand to Estelle. “I hope you find out,” he added. “You know I will help any way I can.”
On the way out through the dining room, I saw that JanaLynn was discussing something with Ricardo Mondragon, who nodded soberly. He reached out and straightened the stack of roll baskets. Estelle came up behind the older man and placed a light hand on his shoulder. He startled as if she’d used a cattle prod.
“Ricardo, may I talk with you for a few minutes?” the undersheriff asked. I think that JanaLynn could guess the subject matter, since the expression on her face was sympathetic. “Maybe we can go outside for a few minutes.”
Mondragon’s big, wide face turned toward the kitchen, as if he needed permission from Fernando for such a venture. JanaLynn came to the rescue. “I’ll take care of this,” she said, one hand on the counter. She didn’t explain what the ‘this’ was, but Ricardo appeared satisfied. He followed Estelle toward the door.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said. JanaLynn reached out and gave me a brief hug, one arm around my shoulders.
Chapter Twelve
Outside, I saw that Estelle and Ricardo Mondragon had skirted the corner of the building and were standing behind the bulk of my SUV. I joined them, and Ricardo was too worried by this strange change of pace in his day to manage a greeting. He eyed Socks, who was slobbering all over the door and window, trying to force his tough little body through the narrow opening. I’d broken my promise to the heeler, bringing nothing from the kitchen but aromas.
“Ricardo,” Estelle said, “Fernando tells me that earlier today, you took a meal over to Mr. Payton’s house on Ridgemont.” He nodded and thrust his hands in his pockets. A burly guy with unruly curly hair that lined his forehead in neat ringlets, Ricardo would have looked right at home in one of those commercials for an Italian restaurant where the chef punches, pats, and flings the pizza dough with an expression of contented pride-except Ricardo Mondragon’s face was empty of anything except apprehension.
“Was Mr. Payton all by himself when you saw him?” Estelle asked.
“He was all by himself,” Ricardo replied. His speech was without accent, but cadenced with a great deal of care, as if the words were slippery and elusive. “Is that your dog?”
“Sort of,” I said, and let it go at that.
“You spoke with Mr. Payton?” Estelle prompted.
“Him and me talked a little. I took the cooler out to the kitchen for him.” He pulled out a large handkerchief and massaged his broad nose. “They said that he died.”
“Yes, he did. Sometime after you left, Ricardo.”
“He was a good guy. Everybody gets old and sick.” Ricardo Mondragon still lived with aging parents, and although he might not ponder his future when they passed on, everyone else who knew him probably did.
“Yes, he was a good guy. Did he take the casserole out of the cooler, or did you?”
“I guess he did, ’cause I didn’t. I put the cooler on the counter.”
“When you left, he was all by himself?”
“Yes, ma’am. He said he didn’t need no help.”
“Did you open the wine bottle for him?” That question out of left field startled me but didn’t jolt Ricardo’s passive expression. He gazed at Estelle, then at my truck, then at the sidewalk.
“I saw that.”
“You saw the wine bottle?”
“I saw that, yeah. It was on the table. He had a big glass of wine all poured. He had some, ’cause I could smell it.” Ricardo frowned and shook his head. “I asked him if I could throw it away for him.”
“Throw the wine away?”
“The empty bottle,” Ricardo corrected. An empty container on the dinner table would prompt that response from the fastidious busboy, I supposed.
“Did you offer to open the new bottle then?”
“I didn’t see no new bottle.”
“Ah.” Estelle opened her small notebook and rustled through several pages. “Do you happen to know what time it was when you left Mr. Payton’s house, Ricardo?”
“It was eleven fifty-two.” The precision of the response amused me, but not a trace of humor touched Ricardo’s face.
“Did Mr. Payton say anything about bringing the dish back to the restaurant when he was finished?”
“He always does that. Somebody does.”
“And you didn’t see anyone else at Mr. Payton’s house? No one called, no one came by? You didn’t see anyone coming down the street as you drove away?”
He shook his head slowly. “How come you gots to know all this stuff?”
“That’s just what we do, Ricardo. We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.”
“You got to know anything else?”
“I may have to talk with you again, if that’s okay.” Estelle made it sound as if Ricardo Mondragon actually had a choice.
“That’s okay.” He looked for a long moment at his watch, and I could see his lips moving. “You should come in for dinner.”
“We’d like to, but it’s going to have to be some other time,” the undersheriff said. “Thanks for talking to us, Ricardo.”
“Dr. Gray and his wife are coming for dinner,” he said, and nodded off toward the parking lot. I hadn’t seen the county commissioner’s gray Lincoln slide into the lot, but Ricardo Mondragon had. “I’d better go.”
“Thanks again,” Estelle said. We watched him hustle off, and Estelle sighed. “Would that all witnesses were like that,” she said, and reached out to touch my arm. “Let me show you.” I ambled over to her car, and that prompted a flurry of pathetic yips from my captive. By the time I’d grunted into the passenger seat of the undersheriff’s Crown Vic, she’d selected several eight-by-ten digital photos from the envelope that she had never offered to Fernando Aragon.