Estelle glanced at Paulita with amusement. The woman had progressed from knowing nothing to a pretty comprehensive description. Jackie Taber approached, and Estelle turned to her. “I’d like you to run Mrs. Saenz up to the office and have her look through the Motor Manuals to identify the car that she’s talking about. It sounds like one of those ‘seventies model Ford wagons-those beasts with the hood about a football field long. See if that’s the one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But what about my son?” Paulita Saenz said.
“We have the Mexican authorities looking for him,” Estelle said. “We’re limited on what we can do on this end, Paulita. Until we have some word from them.” She saw the look of desolation on the woman’s face. “They don’t have much of a head start.”
“In that country you don’t need much of a head start,” Paulita said.
“We’ll add the vehicle description to what we’ve already told them. If they have an officer in the area, they might be able to do some good.” The words were hollow, and Estelle knew it. With a state policeman for every thousand square miles, capture in Mexico was more often the result of betrayal and ambush rather than simple pursuit.
Paulita’s gaze traveled out to the fence and beyond, into the bleak reaches of the Chihuahuan desert.
“What sort of trouble is he in?” Estelle asked.
“I wish I could tell you.”
“It wasn’t the Madrids? Benny and Isidro?”
“It could have been. And it could have been somebody else. They had heavy coats on, and with the hats and everything, it was hard to tell. It might have been, though. One of them…I thought he moved kind of like Benny when they were going over the fence.”
“Was that the one who hit Eurelio, or was it the other one?”
“The other one.”
Estelle turned and looked toward Mexico. Eurelio had been turned loose by Judge Hobart early that morning. He obviously hadn’t gone home and cleaned up for another workday with Posadas Electric Cooperative.
“Somebody knew your son was home, Mrs. Saenz. Less than three hours after he was released from our custody, you saw him bailing over the fence. Did you talk with him this morning? After he got home?”
Paulita shook her head. “He just said that he didn’t want to discuss anything about it. He gets mad, you know. And then I can’t talk to him.”
“Somebody’s talkin’ to him now,” Jackie Taber said, and Estelle saw Paulita Saenz flinch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When Eurelio Saenz jumped the border fence-whether he’d been forced to or not-he had managed to throw up a considerable road-block. Had the young man lit out for Phoenix, Denver, or even Cleveland, the long arm of American law enforcement could have kept pace with him at the speed of a computer’s neuron. By going to Mexico, the rules changed.
Estelle Reyes-Guzman knew that Capt. Tomás Naranjo would help all he could. There had been numerous incidents in the past when the Mexican officer had simply ignored international boundaries-without trumpeting the fact to his superiors, of course. A rarity among his colleagues, Naranjo sliced and diced paperwork and protocol with an efficiency that sometimes left his counterparts north of the border in the dust.
But with a vast, rural jurisdiction and few men to police it, Naranjo’s Judiciales worked at a disadvantage under the best of circumstances. Estelle didn’t hold much hope that the Mexican troopers would catch sight of the faded station wagon and its three passengers. The country was full of old cars that sagged down the dirt roads, battered and smoking. Had the trio stolen a new car, it would have stood out like a beacon.
The young Mexican officer with whom Jackie Taber had made initial contact had sounded eager, the deputy said. Maybe they would get lucky. Maybe Eurelio would get lucky. Maybe he’d finish his deal in one piece, whatever it might be, and sneak back over the border after dark. Maybe his mother would see him again.
Estelle continued to mull her options as she returned to the Public Safety Building in Posadas. She drove into the parking lot as if on automatic pilot and pulled the unmarked unit into a space without conscious guidance. For several minutes, she sat behind the wheel after the engine died, fingers tapping a featureless beat on the steering wheel. At last she got out, collected her briefcase, and entered the building. Gayle Torrez was standing in the door of her husband’s office when Estelle walked in, and the dispatcher raised a hand. “Here she is,” Gayle said, and then hesitated.
“What?” Estelle asked.
“It’s just that you were frowning so hard,” Gayle said. “I didn’t want to interrupt you if you had to go write something down before you forgot it.”
“I wish I had something to write down,” Estelle replied. “What’s going on?”
Torrez appeared in the door of his office, his huge frame filling the opening. “Rafael Smith and Lolo Duarte,” he said without preamble.
Estelle stopped in her tracks. “Smith?”
“Well, Smeeeth, then,” Torrez said. “At least that’s the name he went by up north.”
“They weren’t brothers, then.”
“Apparently not.”
“You talked to the rancher involved?”
“I did. Smeeeth and Duarte worked for a rancher named Travis Fox from January sixth through the first week in February. I faxed the photos up to the Grant County SO for them to look at, but Travis was sure that’s who the men were. His description was right on target. Apparently they’ve worked for him on other occasions.”
Bill Gastner appeared in the doorway behind Torrez, and Estelle smiled at the older man. “Good morning, sir.” The livestock inspector looked relaxed and alert, as if he’d spent the night sleeping like a normal person.
“Hey, there,” Gastner replied. “You’ve had a busy morning. Young Mr. Saenz gave you the slip?”
Estelle looked heavenward. “We’re going around in circles,” she replied. “I’m not even sure if that’s what Eurelio did. He ducked across the border with two other men-that much his mother is sure of. Whether or not there was some force or coercion involved is another question. Naranjo said that he’d do what he could.”
“Which may or may not amount to diddly,” Gastner said.
Estelle nodded agreement and then looked at Torrez. “So the two of them were on their way home to somewhere, pockets full of money after a month’s hard work.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“You show your money, you get robbed,” Gastner said. “About as simple as that. Damn near biblical.” He held an aluminum clipboard in one hand and used it to usher Torrez to one side so that he could slip through the office door. “I need more fuel,” he said. He held his cup up toward Estelle. “Want some? Gayle just made it. There’s some cinnamon buns in there, too.”
“No thanks,” Estelle replied. Her left eyebrow drifted up as she contemplated the floor. “That leaves us with a lot of questions, then,” she said.
“Travis Fox answered one of them for me,” Torrez said. “Smith and Duarte arrived in an older model Chevy pickup truck. Fox thinks that its about a seventy-two. The transmission blew a few days after they started work. They didn’t want to spend all their earnings to have it fixed, and they asked Fox if they could leave it there for a while until they could come and get it. It’s still parked out on his place.”
“So they hitchhiked back down this way?” Estelle said. “And if their route took them through Maria, should I make a bet about where they’re from originally?”
“Asunción,” Torrez said. “Fox said that he and his family enjoyed having the two boys around. A couple of jokers, is how he described them. Told them to come back any time. That he’d have work of some sort.”
She nodded. “If they’re from Asunción, it makes sense then that they would stop at the Taberna Azul in Maria. They knew people there, and maybe figured that they could find someone who would run them the rest of the way home. There’s no direct road across the border at that point. It
would be a stout walk going cross-country.”
“That’s possible,” the sheriff said. “Somebody offered ’em a ride, all right.”
“Did Fox happen to say when the two of them finished their work up there?”
“They left his place on February second, midmorning.”
“And we found them February eighteenth. It makes sense that they stopped here late in the afternoon of the second. That’s the night that MacInerny heard the shots.”
Torrez nodded. “Or on the third. Or the fourth.” He held up his hands. “We’re guessing.”
“That’s something, then,” Estelle said. “If they stopped in Maria, then they were right in the middle of roofing season.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That’s when the two Madrid boys were in town, fixing their father’s roof. Paulita wouldn’t swear to it, but she thinks that the two men with Eurelio this morning might have been Isidro and Benny.”
“She doesn’t know them well enough to tell?” Torrez said skeptically.
“Distance,” Estelle said. “And maybe squirrelly light. And maybe a little denial thrown in.”
“I guess.” He sighed and put his hands on his hips. “With the kid split to Mexico, there’s not a whole lot we can do, other than asking Naranjo’s boys to make some inquiries for us.”
“And they’re doing that,” Estelle said.
“Good. Bill and I were just tackling the problem of the donkeys,” Torrez said. “And some bad news, by the way.”
“Bad news how?”
“Eleanor Pope didn’t make it.”
Estelle felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She reached out a hand to the cool, smooth surface of the wall and stood silently for a long minute. The sheriff waited until she looked up.
“Francis called me just after nine this morning.”
“Ah,” Estelle said. By nine, her mother had decided that the new day held at least a few more promises. Eleanor Pope had given up on any she might have had left. “She took a lot of answers with her, then.”
“Yes, she did,” Gastner said. He took a sip of the coffee and grimaced-whether from appreciation or revulsion, Estelle couldn’t tell. “Somebody made a deal with Billy White up in Belen,” Gastner said. “He was supposed to take a look at the wee beasties this morning, and if he liked what he saw, haul off the whole bunch.” Seeing the blank look on Estelle’s face, he added, “White’s a dealer. White and Sons Livestock. Actually, his specialty is draft horses.” He grinned. “One extreme to another, I supposed. The idea of horse-things about the size of cocker spaniels appealed to him.”
“Who called him?”
“He said that he took a call from Denton Pope earlier in the week. Pope offered the critters for sale.”
“But White didn’t talk with Eleanor?”
“Apparently not.”
“And this Billy White person…he just called you from out of the blue? Had he heard about the fire, or what?”
“No, nothing like that,” Gastner said. “There was a message on my answering machine.” He flashed a quick smile. “A day or two old, I might add. You know how diligent I am about checking that damn thing. Anyway, White had been trying to get in contact with me for a few days, but I’ve been in and out, and we’ve managed to miss each other.” Gastner took another swallow of coffee, and his right hand patted his shirt pocket as if there might be a cigarette there.
“White’s a legit dealer who plays by the rules,” he said. “Denton told him that he had all the paperwork, and I guess White asked him a question or two and didn’t get the answers that he thought he should. He called me to make sure the deal was on the level. To make sure the livestock were as advertised before he drove all the way down here from Belen.”
“Ah.”
“Ah, is right,” Gastner said.
“That’s interesting,” Estelle said, more to herself than to anyone else.
“Yes, it is,” Gastner agreed.
“Did Denton suggest when Billy White would come to inspect the animals?”
“Apparently he did. White said he was supposed to come to Posadas this afternoon.”
“And knowing that, Denton set the place on fire. After turning the animals loose.”
“A truly great mind at work,” Gastner said. “Makes it easy, number one, to tell me that the paperwork for the animals was destroyed in the fire.”
“But there are copies,” Estelle said.
“True enough.” Gastner smiled. “We can excuse a man who would poke holes in a propane line for missing a salient point like that. And number two, my guess would be that Eleanor had no intention of seeing her herd of pets auctioned off. She didn’t call Billy White, after all.”
“If Denton stood to collect on house insurance, his mother’s life insurance, and the sale of the animals, it would have been a clean sweep,” Estelle said.
“Yep. Then Denton could fly off to Tahiti or some such place. And probably never break open another bale of alfalfa in his life.”
“We don’t know about the insurance angle yet,” Torrez said.
“Collins is working on that,” Estelle said. “Just Eleanor’s medical bills alone would have been staggering, even assuming Medicare took care of most of it.” She turned to Gastner. “What are you going to do with the donkeys?”
“They’re sampling a piece of pasture over on Herb Torrance’s place,” Gastner said. “He’s got a paddock with the boards set close enough together that they won’t just slip under and wander off.”
“You have them all?”
Gastner grinned. “I doubt it. But we will. A couple of the neighborhood kids volunteered to play cowboy, helping Herb and his son with the roundup. They think it’s great fun.”
“Has anyone heard from the Fire Marshal’s office?” Estelle asked.
“Todd Paul showed up with a couple assistants,” Torrez said. He glanced at his watch. “I was going over there in a few minutes to see what they found out.”
“Are there relatives, by the way?”
“To the Popes, you mean? No, I don’t think so. At least no one close.”
“There’s a cousin,” Gastner interjected. “Well, her niece, his cousin. Something like that. One of the neighbors thinks that she lives in Denver, but doesn’t know her name. An older woman, they said.”
“We’ll find her,” Torrez said.
“Maybe she’ll want a few ducks for her backyard pool,” Gastner said, and waved his cup at the two officers. “I need to hit the road. If you think of anything else you need from me, just hesitate to ask.” He frowned at Estelle. “You still headed to Mexico this afternoon?”
“Yes. Naranjo agreed to meet with me in Tres Santos. We’ll compare notes.”
Gastner nodded, taking a long, slow breath. “You be careful.”
“Oh sure.”
“And give my best to your mother.”
“I’ll do that.”
Gayle Torrez reappeared, and gave Bill Gastner an affectionate pinch on the arm as he walked by. “Pam Gardiner on two, Bobby,” she said to the sheriff, and Torrez rolled his eyes. His method of dealing with the Posadas Register had so far not progressed beyond the stage of ignoring its presence.
“Why don’t you talk to her?” he said to Estelle.
Estelle smiled. “I’d rather go to Mexico,” she said. They both heard Gastner’s chuckle as he pushed open the outside door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The telephone caught Estelle in midstride between refrigerator and cooler. For just a moment, she looked at the instrument as if she could make it vanish before it triggered the answering machine on the fifth ring. She set the bottles of chilled juice down on the counter and picked up the receiver.
“Guzman.”
“Estelle, Tony Abeyta.” The deputy sounded as if he were holding his breath when he talked.
“What’s up, Tony?”
“On December twenty-seventh of last year, Mountain Trails Sporting Goods in Las
Cruces sold a forty-four magnum Marlin Model eighteen ninety-four lever action rifle to Eurelio Saenz.”
The silence on the line hung heavy for a few heartbeats. The deputy anticipated Estelle’s question. “The salesman remembers mounting the scope and bore-sighting the rifle for Saenz at the time. He remembers that Eurelio had an old scope with him, but that it was much too big for the rifle. He ended up buying another one that he liked better…the whole package. Rifle, scope, rings, and mounts.”
“Uh,” Estelle groaned. “I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case.” She sighed. “Have you passed word to Jackie yet?”
“No, ma’am. I just got off the phone with Cruces. Jackie’s out on the prairie somewhere, sifting sand.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d get in contact with her first thing. She needs to know what you’ve found out. You have a record of the serial number and such?”
“Mountain Trails faxed me a copy of the ATF form. It’s interesting, though. The salesman I talked to this morning remembers Saenz. He was absolutely sure it wasn’t a straw sale.”
“How would he know?”
“He says that Saenz came in by himself, and looked at several rifles before he decided on the Marlin. In fact, he came close to buying another weapon entirely. The salesman said that Saenz spent more than two hours making up his mind and then selecting the right scope and all. It wasn’t as if he was buying the stuff for someone else. He made some interesting choices.”
Estelle leaned against the kitchen counter. “In what way?”
“The salesman remembers Saenz talking a lot about hunting javelina in rugged country. He didn’t want a high-powered scope. What he was looking for was something with relatively low magnification, but a wide field of view.”
“And he found it?”
“Apparently so.” She heard Abeyta shuffling papers. “He bought a little two-and-a-half power jobbie with a reticule that shotgun shooters like. It’s got kind of a circle thing in the middle with crosshairs that lets you swing on a moving target.”
“A man running for his life across the open prairie certainly qualifies as that,” Estelle said.
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