“Nasty night,” Emilio said.
“Yes, it is,” Estelle agreed. “How are you doing?” she said to the man, her smile broad and warm. The big man with the ponytail glanced first at his partner, then at Estelle, then at Robert Torrez. The sheriff was making his way with painful steps toward the front of the church, his right hand running along the plastered wall for additional support. The big man rested his weight against the communion rail, arms crossed over his chest. If he carried a weapon, there was no sign. It certainly didn’t appear as if Torrez was advancing on him…perhaps just making his way to the sacristy of the church to check on who knew what.
“These are some traveling friends from…” Emilio paused, standing near the wood box. “Where did you say you was from?”
“Over Oklahoma way,” the man in the pew said. “We’re just passin’ through.” He smiled engagingly at Estelle. “Nice place you folks have here.”
“Yes, it is,” Estelle said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Torrez was two pews from the front of the church, within fifteen feet of the big man with the ponytail. The sheriff’s hand pulled away from the windowsill at that point, and Estelle knew exactly what he intended.
She swept her hand behind her, and the automatic appeared in her hand in one fluid motion. The man in the pew startled backward, almost losing his balance.
“Both hands on top of your head,” Estelle snapped.
“You too, buckaroo,” she heard Torrez bellow in a tone that left nothing to the imagination. His own.45 had appeared in his right hand, the cane now abandoned against the wall.
“Hey, we don’t…”
“Hands on top of your head,” Estelle barked, and she motioned with the automatic. Emilio had moved away, and he now stood well off to one side, both hands on the back of one of the pews.
As large as Ponytail was, he elected not to argue with Torrez. He belly-flopped onto the floor when told to do so, arms stretched out over his head.
The middle-aged man lifted both hands, but he hesitated.
“Hands on your head, fingers locked,” Estelle commanded, and snapped off her automatic’s thumb safety. The man’s startled expression had been replaced by wary assessment.
“I’m not armed,” he said, shaking his head. “Really…” He stood up slowly, and Estelle shifted position so that the end of the next pew was between her and the man.
Behind her, Estelle heard the sharp snick of handcuffs and knew that Ponytail had been neutralized. The middle-aged man heard the same sound and glanced to his right, toward Emilio Contreras. With a grunt, he moved with remarkable agility, springing first onto the pew and then vaulting the back, his heavy boots crashing on the wooden floor.
Even if Estelle, or Bob Torrez now limping up behind her, had wanted to fire if they saw the threat of a weapon, Emilio was in jeopardy. The man saw the opening and sprinted toward the door.
“Wardell!” shouted the big man on the floor, but his partner was headed south. His hand hit the door and grabbed the stout rope latch, but the weight of the door, even on hinges oiled to perfection, precluded snatching it open. Hard on his heels, Estelle hit the door just as it yawned open a foot. Her momentum knocked the man sideways against the small lectern that held the visitors’ book, and both lectern and man crashed to the floor.
Estelle grabbed the man’s right wrist and twisted, pinning his arm behind his back, at the same time driving her left knee into the base of his neck.
“Just shoot the son-of-a-bitch,” she heard Torrez shout, and beneath her, the man stopped struggling. Perhaps with the border so close, he had no idea what kind of barbed-wire justice awaited him. She remained motionless while the sheriff single-footed down the aisle, and an instant later she felt her handcuffs removed from the cuff case at the small of her back.
“Okay,” the sheriff said. The cuffs snapped into place. “You can stop grindin’ his face into the floor now.” He stepped back and watched as Estelle hauled the man to his feet. Over the car thief’s shoulder, she saw that the sheriff’s face was pasty white, the sweat standing on his forehead.
Palming her radio, she pushed the transmit. “Tom, get over here ASAP.” She pushed the man to the nearest pew. “Sit,” she ordered, then turned to Torrez. “You, too,” she said.
Chapter Six
Early Christmas morning, Everett Wardell and Bruce Jakes would be arraigned on charges of grand larceny auto theft, interstate transportation of stolen goods, conspiracy, and resisting arrest, as well as assault during the commission of a felony. Estelle had no intention of dragging Judge Lester Hobart out of bed before then.
Sour under any circumstances, Hobart’s reaction was predictable. He would dither with rage as he dealt with the ragged pair who had dared to assault one of his oldest friends on such an otherwise peaceful holiday.
Both Wardell and Jakes swore to the deputies that they had never laid a hand on retired Posadas Police Chief Eduardo Martinez back at the motel, but that would cut no ice with Judge Hobart. Whether Chief Martinez was ever going to have a chance to recite his version of the incident remained in question.
The young Las Cruces reporter, Todd Willis, whom Bill Gastner had dubbed “Joseph,” remained the only witness to some of the events outside the Posadas Inn that Christmas Eve. None of the motel’s other patrons interviewed by deputies had glanced out a window or strolled into the parking lot during the moments in question. And Willis was unwavering in his recollection. He had not seen the two Indiana men physically touch Chief Martinez.
Until they could appear for preliminary arraignment before the judge, the two men could enjoy the sterile comfort of separate cells. There was no reason to doubt their pitiful tale.
Bruce Jakes had worked for an auto parts store in Hickory Grove, Indiana. The week before Christmas, his uninsured 1982 Datsun pickup truck, parked at the curb under a growing pile of snow, had been totaled by one of the Hickory Grove city snowplows. As that storm stretched on and on, the leaden skies over Hickory Grove remained bleak and oppressive, crushing the winter-weary Hoosiers.
Bruce Jakes’s string of bad luck and the dismal weather finally prompted Jakes to suggest, during a long drinking binge with his unemployed pal, Everett Wardell, that the sunny climes of the Baja were just the place for two Indiana slush-kickers. Neither had ever visited Baja, but Jakes had seen enough of it during coverage of an off-road race on ESPN that it looked like heaven compared to the mounds of snow. One thing led to another.
Responsible for closing the auto parts store at noon on Saturday, Jakes had done just that…after pocketing the cash portion of the week’s receipts. Secure in knowing that the store’s owner was enjoying two weeks in Georgia with a daughter’s family, Jakes then stole the well-worn Dodge sedan that belonged to the store owner’s wife. With pockets flush and the car sort of eager, Jakes and Wardell had headed west.
They had a full day’s head start. The store owner’s teenaged son reported both the stolen car and pilfered store the following Monday morning. By that time, Wardell and Jakes were long gone.
When they crossed the Mississippi River on Sunday afternoon, they had outrun the winter storm. The skies cleared and they motored on, convinced that the gods were smiling on their enterprise. The interstate seemed a safe place, and the old Dodge blended in with traffic.
The first tickle of sour luck struck Monday afternoon in eastern Oklahoma. Whether it was flu or food poisoning, a virulent bug laid them both flat on their backs, and the motel outside of Claremore became their home until they were able to stagger back onto the road.
Trading driving chores, they had made it as far as southern New Mexico before the weather turned bad again near Las Cruces, and then a bit later the right front tire gave up the ghost-almost exactly halfway between Deming and Posadas. Bolting the silly little space-saver spare on the Dodge, the two men wobbled ever westward into Posadas, stopping at the Posadas Inn on Christmas Eve. By now road-weary, they saw the inn as a safe haven for the night. They would
tackle tire troubles the next morning, if they could find a service station open on Christmas Day.
Temptation smiled on them through the drizzle that Christmas Eve. In the motel’s parking lot, they chanced to pull in beside a nice, shiny new Buick LeSabre, warmed up and ready to go, with an owner who barely had the strength to haul himself toward the motel entrance. Everett Wardell had seen heart attacks before-both his father and two brothers had died of them. He could tell that the little stout man with the pale, sweaty face and bluish lips wasn’t going to need the Buick much longer.
Neither Wardell nor Jakes knew anything about border crossings, but with the impulsive theft of the Buick, life was becoming complicated enough that Mexico seemed like a good idea, sooner rather than later. Arriving in Regál innocent of the realization that now they were only minutes ahead of the law, they were astonished to find the border crossing closed for the night-whoever had heard of such a thing?
That presented a problem, since both men knew from the movies that both the big crossing behind them at El Paso and the one farther ahead somewhere in Arizona were crawling with Border Patrol and other cops at all hours of the day and night-holidays not withstanding.
The brainstorm of hiding at the little picturesque iglesia had been Wardell’s, part of his life philosophy whose cornerstone read, “When in doubt, do nothing.” Parking beside the bulk of the church, the Buick remained in the shadows, its license plate hidden. Had the headlights of Deputy Tom Pasquale’s patrol unit not glinted briefly off the Buick’s headlight chrome, the fugitives’ luck might have held.
The inside of the church was warm and inviting, and both Jakes and Wardell relaxed, chatting with the ancient man who kept the fire stoked. Had the scene not been interrupted so rudely a few minutes later by the young man and woman who, it turned out, were far more than just a young couple, Wardell and Jakes might have been invited over to the old caretaker’s house after church services for some holiday cheer.
Fifteen minutes after midnight on Christmas morning, Estelle Reyes-Guzman finished the preliminary paperwork and recorded the requisite message on District Attorney Dan Schroeder’s voice mail. She cranked out a brief press release for Frank Dayan, publisher of the Posadas Register, knowing that the release would prompt a flood of additional questions that she either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer.
The fugitives were in separate cells in the Public Safety Building lockup, no doubt staring sleeplessly at the ceiling and thinking that this was turning out to be one of their least merry Christmases. Confirmation of their story had already arrived from the Hickory Grove, Indiana, police department.
Stopping at the small newspaper office just long enough to slip the release through the mail slot, Estelle then continued on to the hospital, where she found that the extended Martinez family had pitched camp, taking over the small waiting room beside the intensive care unit. Father Bertrand Anselmo had stayed with them.
Estelle spent half an hour with the family after looking in on the chief. Eduardo Martinez remained unresponsive amid the welter of tubes and sighing machinery. His body was there, but he was clearly no longer in residence. Having done as much as he could, Dr. Francis Guzman had gone home, leaving the ICU in the efficient care of the unit nurse.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m., Estelle left the hospital as well. The rain had stopped. She drove slowly with her window down, savoring the sharp wind from the southwest that carried a bouquet of aromas from the wet desert. She could see a scattering of stars breaking through the scud over the San Cristóbals.
Turning south on Twelfth Street, she saw that her husband’s SUV was pulled into their driveway, tucked in close to the neighbor’s fence so that Estelle would have plenty of space to park her county car.
Sofía Tournál’s Mercedes was parked at the curb in front of the house as if poised for a swift getaway, but in truth, Francis Guzman’s aunt would have reveled in the opportunity to spend a long evening with Estelle’s sometimes acerbic mother and the two little boys.
If not feeling actually cheated or jealous, Estelle did feel a pang of regret that she had passed Christmas Eve investigating the exploits of two misfits from Indiana, her mood driven further into melancholy by Eduardo Martinez’s illness.
She punched off the headlights as she nosed the car into the driveway. As she got out, she saw that besides the porch light, a single light burned in the living room. She pushed the car door closed with her knee so that the latch made no more than a quiet click. Standing still for a moment, she inhaled the tang of the sharp, damp air. The antiseptic smells of the hospital still clung to her, the same smells that lingered on her husband’s clothing as a sort of permanent trademark.
The front door opened, and Sofía Tournál stood framed by the porch light.
“Qué noche,” she said as Estelle approached the step, then switched to her elegantly accented English. “The good doctor came home about an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry all of this came up,” Estelle said.
“Oh, there’s nothing to be sorry about, querida.” Sofía deftly held open the storm door with her hip and hugged Estelle at the same time. “We all have our jobs to do.” She peered out toward the street. “I half expected the good Señor Noctámbulo to be with you.”
Estelle laughed at Sofía’s reference to Bill Gastner, Mr. Night Owl. “No, he went home. I think we wore him out. Either that, or he got hungry and went to find something to eat.”
“Ah, we have plenty here,” Sofía said.
“It smells wonderful.” Estelle closed the door and slipped off her coat, draping it over the back of the nearest chair. “But Padrino is more like the old tejón. He comes out for a while, but then he needs to find a dark corner somewhere, away from everybody.”
“Such an interesting fellow,” Sofía mused. “I am very fond of this old badger, as you call him. That’s most appropriate. But…,” and she waved her hands in a flourish to change the subject. “What can I fix you?”
“A cup of tea would be nice.”
Sofía looked askance at her nephew’s wife. “Tea? Just tea, after such a night? Don’t be ridiculous. Let me fix you a little something.”
“No, really,” Estelle said, holding up a hand. “I need to let my stomach settle a little. It’s too late to eat now.”
“Ah,” Sofía said. “An ugly night, no?”
“Just depressing,” Estelle said. She lowered herself into one of the straight chairs at the dining table with a sigh. “Sometimes I think that people lie awake nights thinking of stupid things to do.”
“Ah,” Sofía said again. “Well, we both know that to be true.” She half-filled a saucepan with water and set it on the stove, and Estelle watched as the older woman methodically double-checked that she was turning on the correct burner. “Do I know Mr. Martinez?”
Estelle rested her head on her hand with half-closed eyes. It felt good not to move. “I think you met him the night we had the big retirement banquet for Padrino a couple of years ago. Short, quite heavy, a very gentle man in every way.”
“His wife is Essie?”
“Yes. I wish I had your memory, Sofía.”
The older woman chuckled. “I remember only things that don’t really matter, querida. But I remember her. We had a nice talk that night, I remember. She was so glad that Arturo…is it Arturo?”
“Eduardo.”
“Ah. She was pleased that Eduardo had retired the year before.” She leaned her hip against the counter and watched the water. “I remember that she was a little bit worried about Padrino…that maybe he’d have a hard time with retirement.” A wistful expression touched her face. “That maybe he wouldn’t find enough to do.”
“Not likely,” Estelle said. “I think Padrino is every bit as busy now as he ever was.”
“I think so, too. But the good doctor doesn’t think it will go so well for Mr. Martinez now.” The “good doctor” was her standard reference to her nephew, Estelle’s husband.
“No.”
The quiet worry that Estelle saw now wasn’t because a man whom Sofía had met only once had suffered a heart attack…or even because she might be worried that retired sheriff William Gastner might not be finding enough to keep him busy.
“These things are always so sad,” Sofía said finally. She glanced at Estelle. “But we had a nice evening. You know…,” and she stopped in midsentence, busy with selecting just the right mug from a cabinet beside the refrigerator. With economy of motion, she filled the tea strainer with bulk green tea, then poured the boiling water. She turned off the burner and carried the cup to the table.
“There,” she said. “And nothing else?”
“No, thanks, tía. This is fine.” It was nice to be waited upon.
Sofía settled in the chair beside Estelle, folding her arms comfortably on the table. Estelle stirred the tea gently, waiting. The older woman’s lips had been pursed in concentration, but now her face relaxed. She took a deep breath, her patrician eyebrows rising with the inhalation.
“I should just go to bed,” she said. “Such a day.”
Estelle smiled and adjusted the mug carefully on the table, lining it up with the pattern of the placemat. “But that’s not what you want to do,” she said.
Sofía reached out and patted the back of Estelle’s left hand. “You’re most perceptive,” she said, and then leaned closer, her voice no more than a whisper. “Listen, querida, I tell myself that this is none of my business, but…”
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