by Roslyn Woods
“Yes, it is,” said Wilson. “We’ll see you in a minute,” and he drove through.
Gonzalez was impressed by the size of the place, and he loved seeing the horses grazing in an irrigated pasture. Wilson drove to the front of the huge, rock house and stopped near the arched, stone entrance.
It was evident that they weren’t going to have to ring the bell beside the enormous wood door with its large, iron knocker. A barefooted Estelle was waiting for them under the arch in a sleeveless blue top and tight blue jeans. It was the first time Gonzalez had seen her without her cowboy boots on, and her thick, platinum hair hung loose around her shoulders with a wide, silver headband to keep it out of her darkly-tanned face.
“I’m just not used to gentlemen callers,” she said as Gonzalez and Wilson got out of the car.
I’ll bet, thought the sergeant, but he only said, “We’d like to ask your cook a few questions, Ms. Travis.”
“What? You didn’t come to see me?” she asked in a kittenish voice. “Well, that’s just rude!” she pouted. “Oh, I’ll forgive you if you’ll sit down in the den and have a nice glass of sweet tea with me! You’ll get to talk to Cook when she brings it to us!”
“Fine,” said Gonzalez, who hated sweet tea. It was definitely a Texas thing, and he had grown up in California. He reflected that Estelle’s behavior was markedly different from her manner only a day earlier when they had interviewed her at the station and she had commented on her limited time. Today she was playing a flirtatious teenager, and she was about twenty-five years too old to get away with it.
The detectives were ushered into a large living room with over-sized, plush furniture upholstered in shades of camel and chestnut. The red tile floor was adorned with a beautifully woven wool carpet in shades of brown, rose, and turquoise. The walls were covered with landscape paintings whose artists were a complete mystery to Gonzalez and Wilson, but the sergeant was pretty sure they hadn’t come from Macy’s.
“Cook! Oh, Cook!” Estelle was calling in a sing-song voice. “I’ve got two handsome gentlemen in here who need some sweet tea. Could you bring it to us?” Then she turned to the detectives and smiled. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Okay,” said Gonzalez, unsure of how they would deal with the tea while standing. He and Wilson sat down on the over-stuffed sofa and waited for Cook to come into the room with the tea.
Estelle sat down in an armchair with a cowhide artfully arranged across its back and crossed her legs, the red toenails of her right foot annoyingly close to the sergeant’s knee. She leaned forward and asked, “Do you have any questions for me, gentlemen?”
“We’re really here to speak with the person who can verify your whereabouts on the twenty-fifth,” Gonzalez responded.
Just then, a youngish woman entered the room, and Gonzalez noted that she looked very much like the Mayan people of Central America. She was short, and she was slightly round, but she moved like a dancer, and she put the tea on the coffee table rather gracefully. She was younger than he had expected her to be. Probably in her early thirties.
“Excuse us, Cook,” said Estelle. “The detectives would like to ask you a question.”
“Yes,” said the sergeant, as the young woman stopped and stared at him. “I need to ask you if you were here last Friday from six to eight in the morning.”
Cook looked at Estelle before answering. “Yes. I was here,” she said, her English heavily accented.
“And was Ms. Travis here?”
“Yes. She sleep in on Friday the twenty-fifth,” she answered.
“May I ask,” he continued, “what is your name?”
“Juanita,” she answered.
“Yes, and your last name?”
“Cante.”
Gonzalez glanced over at Estelle Travis, noting that the name was quite dissimilar to Gomez or Diaz. “How is it, Ms. Cante, that last Friday’s date is so fresh in your mind? I didn’t mention that it was the twenty-fifth,” he said.
“I…” she looked at the sergeant with large eyes, “I think Ms. Travis remind me,” she said.
“Oh? Did Ms. Travis tell you what I’d be asking you?”
“Yes.”
“And did she tell you how you should answer?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, that’s absolutely untrue!” Estelle interrupted. “You’re just confusing her! You’re asking her questions and her English isn’t very good, and you’re getting her to say yes when she means no!”
“Is that right, Ms. Cante? Did you say yes when you meant no?” Gonzalez asked.
Suddenly, Juanita Cante abruptly turned and rushed out of the room.
“Now look what you’ve done!” shouted Estelle. “You’ve upset her!”
“Maybe,” said Gonzalez. “But it looks more to me like you don’t have a very good alibi for Friday the twenty-fifth. Even if you can get your help to say what you’d like her to say, she’s not a very good witness because she isn’t sure what she’s supposed to say, and I doubt her story would hold up if we looked into it, anyway.” He stood up and Wilson stood as well. “I think we won’t be drinking any tea after all, Ms. Travis. We’ll be seeing you again soon.”
“Even if she’s not good at explaining herself, it doesn’t mean I did anything wrong!”
“And it doesn’t mean you didn’t.”
“Well! This is just ridiculous! I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”
“No need. We’re on our way out,” he responded as he and Wilson headed for the door.
“And don’t expect to speak to me again without my lawyer present!” Estelle added.
Gonzalez said nothing but opened the door and headed toward the car followed by Wilson. Just as they came out from under the stone arch of the front patio, a car went past on the side driveway toward the front gate. Gonzalez looked back at Estelle who stood at the open door. “You might be needing a new cook,” he said.
They ended up following Juanita Cante down into Dripping Springs. Wilson put his red light on top of the car as she turned left onto Highway 290 leading toward the center of Dripping, and she pulled over once they got to an easy place for both cars to stop.
She looked angry when Wilson got out of the car and walked up to talk with her, but she rolled the window down on her old Toyota Tercel and waited, saying nothing.
“Ms. Cante, there’s nothing for you to fear from us,” Wilson said. “We just want to know what you know about Estelle Travis.”
“Okay,” she answered, but her eyes were suspicious.
“Would you mind sitting down with us in that coffee shop over there? Or is there another place?”
“It’s fine. We can park in front and go in.”
Her English was good, and he could distinguish no accent now. The detectives parked their car in front of Thyme and Dough and walked in while Juanita Cante parked her car.
“Order something,” said Gonzalez to Wilson. “Three iced teas. Unsweet. That should work.”
“Okay,” said Wilson.
In a moment, Juanita Cante came into the little restaurant and saw Wilson standing in line by the register. He was clearly the tallest person in the fairly crowded line. She looked around and found Gonzalez at a table by a large window that faced the front patio. The building was actually an old house that had a sort of haphazard addition to one side, and in front of the building there were more tables and a pleasant garden. Their own table was painted green, and the odd chairs placed around it looked to be pieces picked up at garage sales. Gonzalez liked it. It was an old-timey, funky sort of place.
“Ms. Cante,” he said, gesturing for her to sit down. “Thank you for speaking with us.”
Juanita Cante sat but didn’t speak. At that moment Wilson came to the table with two glasses of iced tea and placed them in front of Juanita Cante and his boss before going back for another.
“It’s not exactly like I have a choice,” she answered, looking at the sergeant.
“Do you mind?” Gonzalez asked.
“I’ve lost my job. I’ve got a kid, and I don’t know what I’m going to do to get by,” she said. “My husband does field work. How’s that supposed to keep us going?”
“I’m sorry, but Estelle Travis was never a good bet, was she?” Gonzalez asked, as Wilson sat down at the table. “I imagine you can find work somewhere else.”
“You’ve got a good imagination.”
“Did you think it was going to keep working out with Estelle Travis?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Juanita answered. “She’s a real bitch.”
“What happened to your thick accent?” Wilson asked.
“I’ve been here a long time. I put on the accent for Estelle. I thought it would be easier to get the job.”
“Why?”
“I knew the last person who worked for her. Her name was Magda, and she just thought Estelle Travis was the kind of person who thinks Mexicans don’t know much, and that was what she wanted in her help. Someone who barely knew the language. Anyway, Magda hated Estelle Travis and couldn’t stand working for her, but I needed a job, and the pay was okay. So I put on the accent. I got the job and just kept it up, acted like I didn’t understand everything. She paid me in cash, which was nice. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Why do you think Estelle Travis wanted someone working for her who doesn’t know what’s going on?” asked Gonzalez.
“It gives her a feeling of control, and I think she’s always doing something she shouldn’t be doing. She doesn’t think I know anything.”
“What kind of hours did you work?”
“Every day from seven to seven except Fridays. That’s been my one day off each week. I don’t know what the hell she was doing on Friday the twenty-fifth, but she’s hiding something. I guess I wasn’t very interested in covering for her.”
“What could she be hiding?” Gonzalez asked.
“I don’t know. Something to do with paintings and money? There’s a guy who comes over sometimes. His name is Logan. I don’t know his last name, but he drives an old white van, and he paints for her.”
“How do you know he paints for her?”
“He sometimes has paint on his clothes, and he smells like paint thinner. Plus, I’ve heard them talking a few times. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing.”
“What do you think he’s painting?” Gonzalez wanted to know.
“Canvases. I noticed canvases racked up in the back of his van once.”
“When was the last time you saw this guy, Logan?”
“Thursday morning. He came by before nine and they were talking about something. She was in a bad mood when he got there, and they had a few words, but they patched it up well enough that he wasn’t mad when he left. At least, I couldn’t tell if he was.”
“You know the make on that van?” asked Wilson.
“Ford. But it was old, and I couldn’t guess the year. Eighties, maybe.”
“What’s the guy look like?” Wilson asked.
“He has a long braid. Black hair, just starting to get a little gray around the edges. He’s, I don’t know, maybe about five-seven. Kinda stocky.”
“Do you know if Estelle Travis has a gun?”
“She has a gun case in her study. Rifles and a couple of handguns, but I don’t know anything about guns,” she answered.
“You got a phone number where we can reach you if we have any more questions?” asked Gonzalez.
“Yeah, but am I in any trouble?”
“Nope,” answered the sergeant. “You’ve actually been a lot of help.”
Chapter 42
Logan took another two vials of ketamine from the fridge and locked it back up again. The last one he had refilled with water and replaced. Some poor dog is going to have a tough surgery, he thought. He put the new vials in his pocket with a couple of syringes and went about his business cleaning the instruments from today and wishing his shift would end, so he could go check on his prisoner.
All day he had been worrying the kind of worry that kept him edgy and irritable. He had ceased taking his medicine two days ago. He figured he needed to be sharp, but his real feelings about everyone had risen to the surface, and it was a constant battle to keep them in check. Right now, he hated his coworkers, hated this place, hated Estelle. This morning he had even hated Lindsay. He had hated her for getting him into this mess. It was her fault, her illness that had backed him into this corner. And then there was his prisoner. She looked so much like Lindsay with her long, blond hair and her big, sensitive eyes. She had told Estelle that his paintings weren’t “up to snuff.” He hated her, too.
But he vacillated. He would feel hate and anger for a while, and then he would feel strangely protective. He both wanted to take care of her and do away with her, and he wasn’t sure which side of him would win. Always, he wanted out of the situation he was in.
The woman was smart. She might have already figured out what he was up to, and if she had, it would all come crashing down like a house of cards if she was released. If she were gone, erased, however, his troubles might be over. The sales could go through at the gallery, Lindsay would continue to get her medicine, and he could relax a little bit.
Unless someone had seen him, or seen his van and his license plate. It was possible they had. He knew there were surveillance videos taken in parking lots, and even though he had deliberately parked in a dark spot, it was possible they had gotten him on tape. By now, people had to know she was missing. Someone must have reported her abandoned car. If they had gotten video of him taking her, it was only a matter of time. But had they? No one had offered to even ask him a question about the missing woman or his van. Some people got away with doing things like this over and over again. Maybe he would, too.
Tonight he would decide. He would give her another drink, but this time there would be no pain meds added to it. Oh, maybe a few of Lindsay’s Valium tablets, but nothing more potent. Then he would give her another injection. She would quit fighting him for a while, and he could quit worrying about her trying to get away.
He switched to worrying about the skin on her wrists and ankles. He’d had no intention of damaging her skin. He thought about buying handcuffs, but he was afraid to do that. He was afraid of being seen, afraid the cops watched those places that sold sex toys. That would be the place to get them. She wouldn’t be allergic to handcuffs, but it probably wasn’t worth the chance.
For now, he would stick with the tape. It had been pretty easy wrapping her wrists with the strips of cloth before taping her down to the cot. He could release her in eighteen hours. Just get her a Coke for tonight and be done with her. That would keep her a few more hours. Then he could give her another shot and take her. She would wake up and find herself in a park or somewhere, and she would wander to where people were, and someone would help her. She could go home. Life would return to normal for everyone.
Or maybe he should just kill her. Get it over with. She was being a real pain. He could have strangled her when she had dropped the Coke earlier. He was pretty sure it was a calculated choice. She was defying him, and it made him furious when he thought about it.
Chapter 43
Shell was thirsty, but she wasn’t dizzy anymore. The effects of the drugs had worn off enough that she was more and more conscious of her predicament. She had worked her right hand up into the tight part of the tape Jack had wrapped around her wrist. It was painful, but she was desperate. Having cloth under the tape had helped. The cloth layers were working apart as she struggled, and the more she moved her wrists, the more the fabric worked out from under the tape and gave her room to twist and pull.
The barn creaked, and overhead she heard something scurrying. A possum or a raccoon, she thought. The white light that had been filtering through the wallboards had turned a shade of violet, and she wondered how much longer before she would be trapped in darkness again. She was guessing it was close to eight p.m. Jack had said he would return in eight hours, and she tho
ught it could have been six. She knew he might return at any moment.
“Help me, help me,” she whispered, pulling her hand a little further into the tightest part of the tape. She was finally getting somewhere, but would she be able to get loose in time to make an escape? Then, with one last pull, her right hand was out of the tape at last.
She surveyed the damage for a moment. Her skin was raw and bleeding, but she couldn’t afford time worrying about it and went to work unwrapping her left wrist. It was harder than she had thought it would be, undoing the tape with one hand, but in a few minutes, the job was done. When the tape was off, she was able to sit up and put her feet on the floor where it was easy to bend down and remove the binding from her ankles and untie the cloth with the use of both hands.
She wasn’t very surefooted at first. Hours in a lying position had made her unsteady when she tried to walk, and she caught herself on Jack’s makeshift table and stood for a moment gathering her equilibrium. Then she made her way in the darkening barn to the toilet room and found the sink where she ran water over her burning and bleeding wrists. She cupped her hands under the stream and bent down and drank the cool water knowing she didn’t have time for this, but her thirst was overwhelming. She told herself that she was going to need some hydration if she was going to get very far from here. This place was miles from civilization. As she left the little toilet room, she turned the knob on the door in the partition and surveyed the contents of the adjacent room. Even in the almost darkness, she could see a dozen canvases in there, all landscapes in different stages of completion.
Then, in bare feet she went to the door with the red handle and turned the deadbolt. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her, standing for just a moment to survey her options. Texas hill country could be unpredictable and wild, and she knew there would be cacti, poison ivy, scorpions, and snakes. If she went down the road toward Dripping Springs, she would be very likely to run into Jack or even Estelle. No, she mustn’t be seen by them.
