Beyond This Point Are Monsters

by Margaret Millar

  “What made you jump to the conclusion that they were referring to Felipe?”

  “It wasn’t a very long jump. Carla had a crush on Felipe and the chances are he’s the father of her child. She’d naturally be angry if someone knew where he was and refused to tell her.”

  “So she found out where he was and now she’s going there?”

  “Yes.”

  “With another man? That seems a bit tactless.”

  “Necessary, though. She doesn’t have money for a trip like that. She had to talk somebody into taking her.”

  “And you’re pretty sure of that somebody’s identity?”

  “Yes. It was Valenzuela.”

  He leaned forward in his chair and the leather made a soft patient sighing sound. “Would you like to see my file on the girl?”

  “Of course.”

  He pressed the intercom. “Mrs. Rafael, please bring in the Carla Lopez file.”

  It was brief: Carla Dolores Lopez, 431 Catalpa St., Ap’t. 9. Age 18. Waitress, currently unemployed. Uses her maiden name though not yet divorced. Married Ernest Valenzuela Nov. 2/67 in Boca de Rio. Gave birth, March 30/68, to male child registered as Gary Edward Valenzuela. Separated from husband July 13/68 and moved to present address in San Diego. Juvenile record for shoplift­ing, habitual truancy.

  “The baby,” Ford said, “may or may not be Valenzuela’s. Under the law any child born to a married woman is presumed to have been fathered by her husband unless proven otherwise. Nobody’s tried to prove otherwise. Maybe there isn’t an otherwise.” He turned the file face down on his desk. “If the girl left town this morning with Valenzuela, it might simply indicate a reconciliation.”

  “But they’re heading for Seattle, where Felipe is. She couldn’t very well ask her estranged husband to help her track down her former lover.”

  “My dear Devon, many bargains are struck in this life that you wouldn’t understand or condone. The girl wanted to go to Seattle and one way or another was willing to pay for the trip.”

  “So you think everything is just dandy.”

  “I think practically nothing is just dandy. But—”

  “I’m worried about Carla. She’s very young and emo­tional.”

  “She’s also a married woman with a child, not a runa­way kid who can be picked up and held in juvenile hall for her own protection. Besides, I have no reason to believe Valenzuela poses any threat to her, or to anyone else. As far as I know, his record with the sheriff’s department over the years was good.”

  “Mrs. Osborne told me he was incompetent.”

  “Mrs. Osborne thinks most people are incompetent,” Ford said dryly. “Including me.”

  “She also told me that he didn’t resign, he was fired.”

  “When he left the department various stories were heard around the courthouse. The official one was that he resigned to take a job with an insurance company—true as far as it went. Privately it was rumored that he’d begun to slip because of heavy drinking. His marriage didn’t im­prove the situation. The Lopez family is large and trouble-prone and Valenzuela’s connection with it was bound to cause friction in the department.” He frowned up at the ceiling like an astrologer looking for stars to read. “How he got involved with the girl in the first place I wouldn’t know. Affairs of the heart are not in my sphere of compe­tence. Or interest.”

  “Really? You asked me enough personal questions about my life with Robert.”

  “Only because it was my business to present to Judge Gallagher the picture of Robert as a happily married young man.”

  “You sound as if you doubt that he was.”

  “My doubts, if any, are irrelevant. I think I’ve proved to the court’s satisfaction that Robert is dead. Of course I won’t be absolutely sure until Judge Gallagher announces his decision on the hearing.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I don’t know yet. When he called me earlier this morning I expected him to set a time for the announce­ment. Instead, he asked me some questions.”

  “What about?”

  “First, the truck.”

  “The old G.M. belonging to the migrant workers?”

  “No. It was the pickup Jaime referred to at the end of his testimony yesterday afternoon. I didn’t pay much at­tention, since Jaime seemed to be merely making a passing remark. But Judge Gallagher’s a stickler for details. He read that section of the transcript to me over the phone. I’ll repeat it for you: Q. Jaime, do you recall anything in particular about the crew? A. Just the old truck they came in. It was painted dark red, I noticed that specially because it was the same color red as the pickup Felipe used to teach me to drive. It’s not there any more, so I guess Mr. Osborne sold it on account of its gears being stripped too often.”

  Devon nodded. “I remember, but why is it important?”

  “Judge Gallagher wants to know what happened to the truck and where it is now.”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Who can?”

  “Estivar is responsible for all the vehicles used on the ranch. I’ll ask him about it when I get home. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation and that the truck had nothing to do with Robert’s death.”

  “You’ll take Estivar’s word for it?”

  “Of course.”

  He watched her carefully for any signs of doubt. There were none, and after a moment or two he continued. “Judge Gallagher is also curious about the weapon, the butterfly knife. So am I. A great deal of effort went into the disposing of the body. The knife could have been disposed of at the same time and in the same place. Instead, it was tossed into a pumpkin field. The pumpkins had been gath­ered for market at the beginning of October and the field was due to be cleared and plowed. Any agricultural worker would have known this.”

  “So the knife was meant to be found,” Devon said. “Or else whoever threw it into the field was not an agricultural worker. I’m inclined to believe the first theory.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone in our area is connected with agriculture. Even the strangers passing through are ranch hands or migrant laborers.”

  “Gallagher made a further point: no poor Mexican field worker would have discarded a knife like that. He would have washed it off and kept it, no matter what it had been used for.”

  A sonic boom shook the building like an explosion. Ford got up and hurried over to the windows as though he hoped to catch a glimpse of the offending plane. Seeing none, he returned to his desk and made a note on his memo pad: report s. boom, 11:32. His report would be one of many, followed by an equal number of protestations of innocence from every air base within a thousand miles.

  Ford said, “The real question is why the knife, if it was meant to be found, did not implicate anyone. Ownership was never proved, which would indicate either that some­thing went wrong or that somebody did a cover-up.”

  “Who?”

  “Valenzuela was in charge of the case. Suppose he knew who owned or had access to the knife but kept quiet about it.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Let’s ask him when he gets back from vacation.”

  “That might not be for weeks,” Devon said. “Will we have to wait that long for Judge Gallagher to make his decision?”

  “No. It’s already been made, unofficially—he’s con­vinced of Robert’s death, and the points he raised over the telephone aren’t going to affect that. But, as I told you previously, he’s a stickler for details. He’s also presided at a lot of murder trials, and if yesterday’s hearing had been a trial, any questions about the knife and the pickup truck would have had to be considered very carefully.”

  “Were those the only points he brought up?”

  “The only physical ones,” Ford said. “The oth
er was psychological, having to do with Estivar’s testimony. You may recall that I asked Estivar how long he’d known Rob­ert. He stated that he’d known him since birth, that as a boy Robert used to follow him around; that Robert spent a great deal of time at the Estivar house and this close relationship continued until Robert was sent away to a prep school in Arizona after the death of his father. When he returned to the ranch two years later a considerable change had occurred in him. He no longer went to the Estivar house for meals, he avoided the Estivar boys and his relationship with Estivar himself was strictly business. Estivar blamed the change on the school in Arizona, claim­ing it taught Robert prejudice. Judge Gallagher refuses to buy this. He contends that a boy of fifteen who’d been brought up among Mexicans, who spoke their language and shared their food, couldn’t be taught prejudice against them, certainly not at that particular school.”

  “Why not that particular school?”

  “Judge Gallagher knows a great deal about it,” Ford said. “He sent his own sons there, it’s a good liberal prep school. So whatever reason Robert had for avoiding the Estivars, it wasn’t prejudice he’d learned at school. Natu­rally Gallagher is curious about what the real reason was. So am I. The question arises whether Estivar believed the story he told on the witness stand or whether he was using it as a cover-up. You might want to ask him.”

  “Why might I?”

  “Well, you’re going to be asking him about the pickup truck anyway.”

  “If he didn’t tell the truth in court, under oath, what makes you think he’ll tell it to me?”

  “He probably won’t. But his reaction to the question should be interesting . . . I’m flying up to L.A. for a confer­ence this afternoon and won’t be back in my office until tomorrow morning. Call me then, if you have anything interesting to report.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  she didn’t see estivar until late in the afternoon.

  She was in the kitchen helping Dulzura prepare dinner when she looked out the window and saw a man walking across a tomato field. Birds rose into the air like blown leaves at his approach, and fluttered down again as he passed. Although the man was too far away to be identified by sight, Devon knew it must be Estivar because he was the only one on the ranch who walked. The others rode, they rode anything on wheels, even if they had only a hundred yards to go and nothing to carry.

  As soon as Devon stepped out the back door she was trapped between the heat of the sun and the heat rising from the earth. It was like being struck by simultaneous gusts of fire from above and from below, and she stood motionless for a fraction of a minute, her breath caught in her throat. Then she started toward the field, shading her eyes with one hand. The vines had been picked, but here and there sun-baked tomatoes still hung like red balloons filled with water.

  Estivar saw her coming and he took off his hat and waited. The birds swooped past him, unafraid, as if they knew he was only a scarecrow.

  She said, “Have you finished work for the day?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Osborne.”

  “You might like to come in the house for a glass of beer or iced tea.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “No. I just want to ask you a question.”

  “What about?”

  “One of the trucks.”

  “All right.”

  They began walking, single file, between the rows of dying plants that still smelled fresh and fruitful. When they entered the ranch house Estivar stood just inside the door, twisting his dusty straw hat in his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to another. He’d been in that house hundreds of times, yet he looked like a stranger who’d gotten into it by accident and wanted to escape.

  “Come and sit down,” she said. “I’ll get you a drink.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not thirsty. Which one of the trucks?”

  “The old red pickup Jaime referred to on the stand yesterday. He said it’s not in the garage anymore.”

  “No.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “It—I think it got wrecked.”

  “Who wrecked it?”

  “I don’t know. Probably one of my sons,” he added. “They were always in a hurry.”

  “The vehicles on the ranch are covered by insurance, I understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then a claim is filed when one of them is damaged?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there should be a record of such a claim.”

  “There should, yes. Why are you asking these ques­tions?”

  “Judge Gallagher called Mr. Ford to check certain points that were brought up during the hearing. He wanted to know what happened to the pickup truck.”

  “I see.” Whatever it was he saw hurt his eyes. He rubbed them with the back of his hand. “The truck—it had nothing to do with Mr. Osborne’s disappearance. It was gone before he was.”

  “You sounded quite vague about it a minute ago. How can you be so sure now?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Felipe took it when he left the ranch. He had to move fast, people were after him.”

  “Who was?”

  “The girl, Carla Lopez. She was pregnant and she blamed Felipe for it. She kept threatening to send her brothers to beat him up if he didn’t marry her. She’s a loose-living girl. I couldn’t let my son be forced into marry­ing her when there was a good chance he had nothing to do with her pregnancy. He was only eighteen, too young to be stuck with a family and no future. I told him to take the truck and get out of here fast. It was an old truck, worth very little. I didn’t think it would be missed.”

  A long slanting ray of sun was coming in the window at the top of the door. Inside it, particles of dust moved back and forth like a miniature mob scene caught in a spotlight. Estivar shifted position slightly, so the shaft of sun touched the side of his face and the little dustmen milled around his left eye and ear and leaped across the furrows in his cheeks.

  “If you want to call it stealing—”

  “No, of course not.”

  “—call it mine, not Felipe’s. I would have stolen more than a truck to get him away from that girl.”

  “I think Carla’s on her way to Seattle now to look for him.”

  “She won’t find him.”

  “She seems very determined.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s not there, he never was. I made up letters once in a while for the sake of his mother and Jaime . . . No, she won’t find him,” he repeated, but there were echoes of sadness in his voice as if he almost wished that Felipe had stayed and married the girl and lived hap­pily now and then.

  it was about eight o’clock when she saw Estivar’s station wagon leaving the garage, its headlights prying into the darkness.

  the café was on the main street of Boca de Rio and it was identified by a small pink neon sign as Disco’s. The propri­etor was a Scot named MacDougall but the Mexicans started calling him Disco when he had a juke box installed years ago, and he’d kept the name because he liked the friendly people who gave it to him.

  When Estivar arrived the cafe was empty except for Disco himself, three men drinking beer in a booth and a pair of teen-agers sharing a bowl of chili at one end of the counter. Estivar sat down at the other end, moving slowly and cautiously as though he suspected the place was booby-trapped.

  “What’ll it be?” Disco said.

  “Coffee and a doughnut.”

  “Plain or sugar?”

  “Sugar.”

  The doughnut, served on a paper napkin, was stale and the coffee bitter with chicory. After a mouthful of each, Estivar said, “I’m looking for Ernest Valenzuela. Someone told me he hangs out here.”

  “He does.”

 
“I want to ask him about an insurance policy.”

  “You’re too late. He left town this morning, and the way I heard it, maybe he’s not coming back. He kept talking about going some place and starting over but he couldn’t make a move until the Osborne case was settled. He was the chief witness. He used to be a cop, did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  Disco leaned across the counter. “Say, you look kind of familiar to me. Did we meet somewhere, maybe a long time ago?”

  “I don’t think so. My name is Estivar.”

  “Some boys called Estivar used to come in here a lot, they worked on the Osborne ranch. Any relation to you?”

  “My sons.”

  “Oh.” Disco thought about it awhile and then added, “They were okay.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of them was pretty scrappy—Felipe—he liked to fight with the Lopez boys. They’d go out the back door and zap each other around. It was all more or less in fun, kid stuff, until Luis Lopez started carrying a knife. Then it got serious.”

  “What kind of knife?”

  “A fancy little hinged job, made in the Philippines, called a butterfly knife. I told Valenzuela about it, but he said forget it. So I forgot it. In a business like this you learn to forget and remember at the right times.”

  Estivar took a bite of the doughnut. It felt gritty be­tween his teeth as if the grains of sugar were turning into sand.

  “Now this,” Disco said, “this is a pretty good time to remember—the Osborne case is over and Valenzuela’s left town. And suddenly my head’s clearing, know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Not that I ever had any important information about the Osborne case, just little things. The night Osborne was killed, for instance, Luis Lopez was in here and he had a butterfly knife with him. That doesn’t mean it was the knife, of course. Or even if it was the knife—well, somebody could have taken it from him. It was Friday—Friday’s a big night in Boca de Rio and there were lots of people in the place, including your son, Felipe.”