She ate so little that she earned disapproving looks from both her mother and aunt.
“Take something with you,” Sofía said.
“No. I can’t.” Both boys were within reach, and she took Carlos’s left hand and Francisco’s right, bringing them together until she could cover both hands with hers. “I need to go. When you two are with Padrino, you be careful, you understand? He doesn’t feel well. Don’t make it harder for him.”
“Somebody hit him,” Carlos said, as if maybe his older brother hadn’t heard the previous conversation. Estelle didn’t add to the remark, but just sat quietly for a moment, then released their hands with a final squeeze and excused herself from the table.
She showered quickly, brushed her short hair just enough to restore some semblance of order, and then dressed in one of her tan pants suits. She was in the process of putting her Kevlar vest on over her blouse when she realized that Francisco was standing in the doorway.
“What’s that?” he asked, although Estelle was certain that he already knew.
“My vest,” she said. “It fools the bad guys, hijo.”
“Does Bobby wear one of those?”
“Sure he does.” She didn’t bother to tell the boy that Bobby hadn’t been wearing a steel ass-protector when the.223 rifle bullet had drilled him through the rump, making hash of a pound or two of muscle and mixing it with chips of hip bone.
“Does Padrino?”
“Sometimes.”
“Not on his head, though, huh.”
“Nope. Not on his head.”
“You know those helmet thingies that knights wear?” Francisco stretched his hand far up, emulating the plume on top of the helmet.
“Maybe we should have those, too,” Estelle said. She watched her son’s eyes stray downward to the stubby.45 automatic in its black holster at the small of her back, and to the handcuffs beside that. An eyebrow flickered, but he didn’t say anything.
“When you come home for lunch,” he said, with implications far more refined and pointed than his years should have allowed, “I’ll play that piece just the way old gruñón says, okay?”
She picked him up in a fierce hug. “Promise?”
He nodded, knocking the knuckles of his left hand against her vest.
“I love you, hijo. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that,” Francisco said with a grimace. He seemed fascinated by the hard edge of the vest, and as she held him, Estelle realized how heavy and solid he was. She boosted him up and held him even more fiercely.
“Don’t make Padrino laugh too much, hijo. He’s got a sore head.”
He beamed, and she crunched him one more time before letting him slide to the floor. She had just time to slip on her suit jacket before Carlos catapulted into the room for his hug, and he felt tiny and fragile to her in comparison to the robust six-year-old.
“Thanks, Sofía,” she said on her way to the front door, and then she detoured to her mother, who was back in the rocker. “Are you going with them to the hospital?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Teresa said. “Hospitals…” She let it go with a wave of her hand in front of her nose, fending off the odors. “That makes you look fat,” she said, nodding at the vest. “But I’m glad you wear it.”
“It’s easy to forget,” Estelle said. “Eddie gave me a hard time.”
“As well he should,” Teresa said. “You just be careful and take your time with this nasty thing you’re working on. Con paciencia, se gana el cielo, you know.”
“I know, Mamá.” With patience, you can reach the sky. As she went outside to her car, she wondered what Janet Tripp’s killer was thinking. And she wondered what the man who had clubbed Bill Gastner was thinking. She turned the ignition key, and as if she somehow shared in the jolt of voltage, realized that it made sense to her that the two attackers were one and the same.
Chapter Twenty-four
She listened to the telephone’s pulse as she drove. After eight rings, she was about to disconnect when Mike Sisneros answered.
“Yes.” His voice was flat and mechanical, and Estelle, at once relieved that he had answered, now had the mental image of him wrapped around a bottle, his face unshaven, with dark bags under his eyes. No one would have blamed him.
“Mike, this is Estelle. Can we talk?”
“Sure.” Again, no emotion, no rise.
“Have you had breakfast?”
This time there was a moment’s hesitation. “No, I guess I haven’t.”
“How about if I pick you up?”
“Okay. If that’s what you want to do.”
“Give me five minutes.”
“Okay.”
Estelle switched off the phone. If not wrapped around a bottle, Sisneros sounded as if he’d been zapped with one too many sedatives, uncomfortable with any decision more complicated than “yes” or “no.”
The apartment complex, a homely brick box divided into three apartments downstairs and two above, fronted on Third Street, across from the high school’s athletic field. Through his front window, Sisneros could watch high-school football games from the comfort of his easy chair. The rear of the building was separated by an alley from Posadas Lumber and Hardware on Grande.
Estelle parked in the empty spot reserved for the deputy’s Mustang that had been stranded in Lordsburg when Mike was picked up by Eddie Mitchell. As she got out of the car, she heard a door above and looked up to see Sisneros putting his keys back in his pocket. He came down the outside stairway with a methodical rhythm that bobbed his head with each step. He wore fashionably faded blue jeans and a stolen from the university of new mexico athletic department T-shirt that was two sizes too large and not tucked in. Even though it was barely fifty degrees outside, he wore no jacket. The T-shirt did nothing to hide the holstered automatic on his belt.
“Ma’am,” he said with a nod.
“Did you get any sleep?” she asked.
“Nope.”
She reached out and touched his arm, nodding toward the Crown Victoria. “I wish I knew some way to make this easier,” she said.
“Can’t think of a way,” he said, and settled into the seat. He swung the door shut too gently, like a man with a migraine who was afraid that his head would shatter. He tried again. “At least I’m still ridin’ in the front.” He glanced at Estelle to see if she’d caught his reference to the fenced-in back seat. “This is so…” He ran out of words. She guessed that he had been up all night…at least he smelled as if he had been.
“Can you eat something?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
Don Juan?”
“Sure. Anything.”
The restaurant was less than a dozen blocks away, and by the time they had reached the Don Juan’s parking lot, Mike Sisneros had slumped even farther, shoulder against the door, head resting on his right hand, gazing off at nothing.
JanaLynn Torrez, one of the sheriff’s innumerable cousins, greeted them inside the restaurant, managing to conceal most of her surprise at seeing Estelle without her customary restaurant companion, Bill Gastner.
“Booth in the back?” JanaLynn said brightly. She looked from Estelle to Mike, doing a creditable job of pretending that nothing was wrong that green chile couldn’t fix. The Posadas grapevine was amazingly efficient at spreading information, correct or otherwise. JanaLynn would have heard about the murder of Janet Tripp, perhaps even the head-bashing of Bill Gastner, one of her favorite patrons. If she was eager to ask questions, she showed great self-control.
She led them to Gastner’s booth. “How’s this?” A hand reached out and brushed Mike’s shoulder-just a light touch that carried a world of sympathy with it.
“Perfect,” Estelle said. Tucked toward the rear of the restaurant, the booth had a fine view of the parking lot, and was blocked from the rest of the dining area by one of the serving stations.