“Why was that?”
Avila frowned. “Why was what?”
“Why did the relationship end?”
“Mutual consent. We’ll let it go at that.”
“You have a family now.”
“Emilio and I were married eight years ago.” She smiled for the first time. “And, yes—Emilio Junior is seven, Maria is five, and Belinda is three.” Her smile widened. “Maria started Kindergarten this year. Em is in Mrs. Annuncio’s second grade. Belinda goes to Little Bear Day Care.”
“During volleyball season, you had occasion to interact with Coach Scott on a daily basis. Who was he seeing most recently?”
Again, Avila fell silent, answering with just a quick shake of the head. With fingers none too steady, she fished a little tin of lip balm from her pocket.
“Would you like some coffee? Anything at all?”
“I’d like to go home with my husband and forget that this ever happened.” She wiped her eyes with the wadded tissue. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
“No.”
“A lot of people are going to be hurt by all this.” She looked up and met Estelle’s gaze.
“Most likely. It’s a small town, in all respects.”
“That’s not something I want to be a part of.”
“I understand that.” And Barry Lavin said essentially the same thing. “But if everyone ducks, then a killer walks free.”
Marilee Avila turned and lowered her head, hiding her face in her arms. Estelle waited patiently, letting the young woman struggle. After a couple of minutes, Avila pushed herself upright, and took time to blow her nose and dab each eye. “I need to tell you why I broke up with Clint, all those years ago. I mean really why.”
“All right.”
“It’s really pretty simple. I just came to dislike him.” She gazed at Estelle as if somehow the undersheriff might not understand her, or even believe her. “I mean, you’d think—what’s not to like? He’s…he was…about the most handsome thing on two legs in a town that isn’t known for its abundant social opportunities. You know what I mean? But he was absolutely, one hundred percent, involved with himself. Sure, he liked the little kids, but sometimes I think he liked them because of the good press that he won by teaching them. He loved to see his picture in the paper, and nothing better than a classroom shot with the six-foot, four-inch Clint interacting with the cute little kiddos. They came about to his knees.”
“That’s understandable, I suppose.”
“Oh, sure it’s understandable. And he was a good, conscientious teacher, too. It wasn’t just show.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back again.
“So, as you said…what’s not to like?”
Avila’s laugh was just a husky whisper. “As a coach, there was a streak of genius there, too. A really, really wide streak. I mean, he really knew sports. He understood them. Made a science of them. He could encourage his athletes to do the most amazing things, to make the most amazing effort, you know? He’s put together an enormous scrapbook of the volleyball team’s record the past six or seven years. The one he did is back in the coaches’ office. On the shelf behind my desk. The biggest—that humungous black one—that’s all volleyball. It’s an amazing collection. I look through it from time to time. Can you estimate the number of times his picture has been in a newspaper?”
“Many.”
“Yes. Many. And there’s nothing wrong with that, either. It’s no secret why he makes sure Frank Dayan has the choice seat, the choice quotes. Look, the more photos, the deeper the hero worship runs. And that’s a powerful force, Sheriff.”
And sometimes heroes get killed, Estelle thought.
“But when it comes to homelife, Sheriff, it’s so one-dimensional. I would never have expected that. But dull. At least to me. He could spend an entire evening analyzing a game video. He’d take one player at a time, and trace her movements. List the strengths and weaknesses. Learn what to work on during the week.”
“The school got its money’s worth.”
“Oh,” and her laugh was strained, “I’ll say.”
“I’ve seen bits of last night’s game video, Coach, but I’d like to watch some parts again with you. Maybe you can talk me through it. Volleyball isn’t my game. Will you take a few moments to do that?”
Marilee Avila rose with an effort. “Of course.” Her enthusiasm was underwhelming. “The lieutenant has the DVD.”
They moved to the conference room, where Mears knelt in front of the laptop, taking notes on the settings.
“Showtime?”
“Yes.” Estelle turned to Marilee as the coach settled into one of the conference chairs. “Who filmed for you last night?”
“Jim Kelly films all the games, Sheriff. He’s a senior this year, and we’ll sure miss him next season. Back in the day, we didn’t even film volleyball, but we don’t miss a game now. Part of the reason is that Jimbo and Martha are like this,” and she linked two fingers.
“Martha?”
“Martha Grier. You’ll see her in the film. Statuesque might be a good word for her. She’s just shy of six feet, but I swear she could slam dunk a basketball. She doesn’t jump. She soars.”
The game coverage caught the action filmed from the top row of the bleachers, and Kelly was obviously a practiced hand. His transitions were smooth, and he clearly understood the game. He had a narrative flair, Estelle noticed, making use of the camera’s capabilities for quick zooms. Each server dominated the frame at the instant of ball contact, and then the camera tracked the ball without jerks or miscues. As long as it was in play, the ball never left the screen.
Between actions, Kelly focused on individual teammate expressions, or once in a while caught an interesting spectator moment. If a player pumped a fist in exaltation, the camera zoomed in to catch the portrait in solo frame. If a girl walked with head down, hands on hips, in frustration at the rare missed shot, she received her few seconds of solo video time. The coaches also were featured with rich personality shots—moments of tense apprehension, moments of confab with players, moments of irritation with the line officials. If Kelly was infatuated with Martha Grier, he kept his amour under control. She appeared in the action when it was logical that she do so.
“In all my glory,” Coach Avila said when her own face filled the screen. Kelly had left his perch high in the bleachers to move the camera down courtside. Coach Avila was nose-to-nose with one of the players, the conversation intense.
And then the camera’s eye drifted to the stands to catch Coach Scott explaining something to newspaper publisher Frank Dayan, the scene Estelle had watched several times. This time, she turned just enough that she could study Coach Avila’s face. A slight narrowing of the eyes would have been caught by a poker pro. Without being prompted, Mears froze the tape.
“Coach, is this the first and only game that Ms. Stewart attended?”
After a slight pause, Avila said, “Ah, no. She’s a regular. I think she played when she was in high school.”
“Does she always sit with Coach Scott?”
“No. Usually in the same general section of the stands, I guess. But what…intimate like this? I guess I hadn’t noticed. But I did notice last night.”
“Did the two women leave the game together? Dana Gabaldon and Stacie?”
“I can’t tell you that.” She tried to smiled. “When I’m in my game mode, that’s about all I notice.”
“They stayed for the whole game, though?”
“No. In fact I did see that they were gone well before the end. I didn’t actually see them leave. I mean, I had other things to pay attention to. I guess Mr. Dayan was getting an interview with Coach Scott, because he stayed until the bitter end. The Channel Nine crew did too.”
Estelle watched as Coach Clint Scott rose from the bleachers, sure enough a large man, one who moved with grace and assurance. He stood beside Avila for a moment, she petite beside him, and then he beckoned several benched players over.
Estelle watched as he forced eye contact with each athlete, head bent forward, hands in front of his face drawing pictures in the air. As he finished, he gestured with the power fist in the traditional “go team” exhortation. Then, hands thrust in his pockets, he ambled back to his seat, a quip bringing a smile to newspaperman Frank Dayan’s face.
“Fast forward and see if there’s coverage that shows the moment Stacie leaves.”
But cameraman Jim Kelly had missed that opportunity. A sweep of the stands showed the two women in place, hands high over their heads clapping in unison with the crowd. A few minutes and a few points later, a fleeting shot recorded them already gone.
Estelle turned back to Marilee Avila as Mears zipped the images back to Coach Scott attended by the two young women. “Was Scott having an affair with Stacie Stewart?”
Avila stared at the screen, now frozen with Stacie Stewart’s elbow resting on Scott’s shoulder. She slowly shook her head. “I honestly…I mean I honestly do not know, Sheriff.” She shrugged helplessly. “I mean, you know how rumors work.”
“I wish that I did.”
“No, really. Sure, we hear things. She was gone from Posadas for a long time, working somewhere over in Texas, I think. And then she’s back, and marries Mr. Stewart, over at the bank. I’ve never seen him at a game, but what does that mean?”
“She could have been having an affair with Coach Scott, then.”
Avila held out both hands toward the frozen image. “What you see is what you see. Make of it what you want. I know they appear to be casual friends in that game disc. That’s all.”
Many scenarios jammed their way into Estelle’s mind. Stacie had left the game either after the final shot, or during the final seconds. The scoring outcome was never in doubt, so it made sense to leave before the rush. The crowd, perhaps two hundred people, was immense by volleyball standards.
Later, leaving husband, baby, and puppy dog at home, did she come back to the locker room? And there the void. What was certain was that Stacie Stewart had inexplicably vanished the next day, leaving daughter and puppy in a sweltering Volvo…just a short time before Barry Lavin discovered Clint Scott’s body.
Without explanation to Coach Avila, Estelle rose abruptly and left the small conference room. She headed for the hallway, taking a detour to the side exit. Once outside, she breathed in the heat of late afternoon deeply, and shut her eyes, letting the peace and quiet of the public safety building’s modest interior courtyard settle her nerves and slow her pulse.
Deputy Tom Pasquale had reported that when Stacie Stewart saw him in The Spree parking lot, she had “twiddled” her fingers at him in recognition. The deputy didn’t recall that the young woman had actually smiled at him. Maybe by then, she had nothing to smile about.
“Estelle?”
She turned to see Mears holding the door open. He stepped out into the courtyard and let the door close behind him.
“Three things, LT,” Estelle said. “Three things that might talk to us about motive…before any more time passes. Number one, we need a search of Scott’s house. Top to bottom. I wish I could say what I’m looking for, but I can’t. And ditto Stacie Stewart’s effects. Todd Stewart isn’t going to like us rummaging through his wife’s possessions, and he might not let you do it without a warrant, but then he has no choice. Can I leave you with both of those?”
“Sure. You said three things.”
“Dana Gabaldon. I haven’t been able to connect on the phone. Let’s try it in person. I have to know what she has to say.”
Chapter Twenty
Even as she passed The Spree, Estelle saw the wink of emergency lights ahead on Grande, just on the town side of the interstate off-ramp of the interstate, directly across from the Posadas Inn. As she neared, she first saw Sergeant Taber’s blocky form walking back toward the passenger side of her department Expedition, both the officer and her vehicle incredibly bulky compared to the lithe Corvette that the deputy had stopped.
Out of reflex, Estelle glanced at the dash clock—5:22 p.m. Where the day had gone, the undersheriff wasn’t sure, but she was sure that Sergeant Taber was taking on an extra shift, back-to-back.
The Corvette’s highly polished maroon paint winked under the sun. The car sat so low it was hard to imagine how the driver slipped it on—sleek as an evening gown. As Estelle cruised by, the Corvette’s driver had raised the power window, and with the tinted glass and chancy light, it was impossible to tell if it held one occupant or two.
Jackie Taber raised two fingers in salute as Estelle drove by, and seconds later, the undersheriff’s phone awoke, the sergeant’s voice amplified by the car’s sound system.
“You heading out for a while?”
“Just a quick run to Cruces to find Dana Gabaldon. Nice catch you have there.”
“Pretty nifty. She rolled the stop sign just as I cruised by. I’m not sure now that I shouldn’t have just let her go. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t other things to keep me busy right now.”
“Speaking of which,” Estelle said, “I have a favor to ask. LT has the game footage, and I’d like you and Pasquale to watch it, start to finish. Stacie Stewart is one of the stars in one short section, but we need to know what else there might be of interest.”
“You got it. I sense pizza time.”
“Tom and Linda might appreciate that. Give Linda a hug for me. Bobby and LT are going to talk the judge out of a warrant to go through Stacie’s papers. And they’ve got Scott’s house covered. I’m headed to talk with Dana, so if you’d find time to survey the game film…”
“You bet. I’ll get on it as soon as I finish up with these kids here. I’ll give ’em one of my special stern warnings. Won’t take a minute.”
“The slippery slope can start with a rolled stop sign,” Estelle quipped.
Taber let out an odd little laugh. “The driver just turned eighteen years old, with what appears to be a valid Kansas license. The car is registered in her name, with a valid temp tag in the window, registered to a Miss Angela Trevino out of Ridgeway, Kansas. And she’s the happy driver, although both she and her passenger are nervous as cats just now. Does the name ring any bells?”
“No.” Estelle had braked hard under the interstate overpass to access the eastbound ramp, and now the Charger accelerated hard up toward the interstate. ”Who is she?”
“She says that she’s a student at Leister Conservatory in Missouri. There’s no student parking permit affixed to the corner of that fancy new windshield, but a little place like Leister might not have student parking, anyway. So that jibes. And, I might add, Miss Angela is a really, really beautiful young lady.”
Estelle’s foot had lifted off the gas at mention of Leister, and she let the Charger drift over to the right-hand shoulder of the interstate as she fought to force her heart back into place.
“What are you telling me, Jackie?”
“Her escort is a fifteen-year-old student at the same school.” Sergeant Jackie Taber rarely had difficulty being blunt, but she clearly hesitated this time. “Your son is with her, Estelle.”
The Charger had been rolling slowly along the shoulder, and now jarred as she slammed on the brakes. Sergeant Jackie Taber let the silence ride as Estelle tried to fumble the right words. The undersheriff remained speechless.
“Francisco says that they drove over for your mother’s birthday celebration tomorrow night, and he also said something about a church service Sunday morning?”
The church service was one of Teresa’s requests, a simple mass of thanksgiving at the Iglesia de Tres Santos, the little mission in the tiny Mexican village just south of the border where Teresa Reyes had lived for seventy-five years. The “birthday celebration” was, at Teresa’s demand, just a quiet family dinner.
“They’re headed for Twelfth Street right now. Do you want to talk with them before I turn ’em loose?”
“Of course…I mean no, I don’t. I’ll…Jackie, you’re not joking with me…?” Estelle kne
w that was silly the moment she said it.
“Nooooo.”
“It’s my son in the car?” That sounded dumb, too, but Estelle could think of nothing else.
“Francisco Guzman, age fifteen, with a school ID card that shows his home address as 112 South Twelfth Street, Posadas, New Mexico.”
“Ay. Look…I…no. I don’t know what I want to do. I need to talk to my husband before I say all the wrong things.” Por Dios, Estelle thought. This is impossible.
“You going on to Cruces, then?”
“I really need to, Jackie. I mean, with what you’re telling me, right now it’s the last thing I want to do, but I have to. But…ay, ignorance was bliss.”
Taber’s chuckle was low and quiet. “You want me to impound the car, put Miss Trevino in one of the women’s detention cells, and send this Francisco character back to Leister on the next bus out of town?”
Estelle’s groan was closer to a whimper. “Are you one hundred percent sure that it’s Francisco?” What a stupid question, she almost added. Sometimes it seemed easier to face ten armed felons than a single, willful child.
“I can’t imagine that there are two Franciscos in the world, my dear. He greeted me by name in his usual polite fashion. I think I blushed. He’s a doll.”
“How can Leister…?” Estelle stopped. The academy’s stiff behavioral policies surely didn’t allow underage students to roam around the countryside with teenaged girls, unchaperoned in powerful sports cars. “Jackie, I don’t know what to do. For now, just make sure they make it safely to the house. That’ll give me some time.”
“I figure if they drove all the way from Kansas, they can manage a few more blocks. Your mom’s going to be thrilled, though, huh?”
“Yes, she is.” Estelle let it go at that, still unable to reconcile the conflicting emotions. A big, heartfelt hug first, and then kick Francisco’s butt down the road for about a mile. And the girl? This Angela Trevino? What, who was she? A fellow musician, obviously. Estelle knew she could hardly expect her fifteen-year-old son to live in a cloister until he reached thirty-five. But at fifteen, driving across the country with an eighteen-year-old more-than-companion, in an eye-catching sports car with all the temptations of speed and…
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