“I don’t know, Thomas,” I said. “We’re trying to build some sort of profile of the village the way it was last night. We collect names, and juggle all the pieces, and see if anything matches. Right now, we have nothing.”
“You don’t think the old man killed her?”
“Wes Crocker? No, I don’t.” If Pasquale thought the mid-fifties Crocker was an old man, I wondered what he called me.
“Or Orosco?”
“No.” I stood up. “And right now, it doesn’t look like she was killed in the first place. She choked to death on a piece of pepperoni pizza.”
Pasquale’s eyebrows knitted together until he felt the twinge of a pulled stitch. He reached up and patted the bandage gently. “Is there anything special you want me to do tonight?”
I grinned. “Make sure Crocker isn’t bothered. Get some rest yourself. Tomorrow we’ll see which direction we want to go.”
That was unbridled optimism, of course. Unless Estelle Reyes-Guzman had a magic wand to wave, the only course of action open to us was pounding the pavement, talking to people, and building a list of names.
We left the hospital in Officer Thomas Pasquale’s care—in itself a good measure of my frustration—and drove back toward downtown.
“Do you want to stop by the office?” Estelle asked.
“No,” I said quickly.
“You mentioned something to Sheriff Holman…”
“True enough, but not yet. Let’s get some pizza.”
Jan’s Pizza Parlor had about three hours before the torrent of game-frenzied teenagers struck. Jan Maldonado knew to the minute when to start worrying, and when Estelle and I walked through the front door, it wasn’t the right minute. The place was quiet, with only two patrons. They were sitting off in the corner, happily stuffing starch down their gullets. Only one girl worked behind the counter, and I saw Jan’s graying head back by one of the ovens.
I’d been to enough home games and the pizza stuffings that followed to know that when the busy hour hit, there would be ample staff working the joint.
Jan looked up when she heard the door chimes, and I waggled a finger at her. She grinned and approached the counter.
“You two eating?”
“I wish we could,” I said. “We need to talk to you for a few minutes, if you can break away.”
“That I can do,” she said. “How about that booth over in the far corner?”
She brought along three cups and a pot of coffee, but I was the only one with sense enough to accept free coffee anytime it was offered. Jan returned the pot to the kitchen and then slid gracefully into the booth. I pulled out the small photograph of Maria Ibarra that Sergeant Torrez had taken at the morgue. Other than that the victim was obviously dead, the photo wasn’t too grim. In fact, Maria Ibarra’s expression would probably have been described by an undertaker as “peaceful.”
Jan grimaced. “Is this the little girl from last night?”
I nodded. She turned the photo this way and that. “She was pretty, wasn’t she.”
“Yes, she was.”
“I’ve never seen her before. Certainly not in here. And I work at it.”
“I know you do,” I said. “That’s why we wanted to check with you first.” If anyone was an off-campus counselor for the teenagers of Posadas, it was Jan Maldonado. She was a member of every civic group there was, and the fund-raisers she organized were legion. A dozen times or more a year the parking lot of her restaurant became a car wash, with kids raising money for this or that.
“What do her folks have to say?” Jan asked, then held up a hand. “I’m sorry. You probably can’t talk about it.” But she waited for an answer anyway.
“She was living with Manny Orosco, Jan,” I said, and her eyes went wide.
“You’re kidding.”
“No. What we really need to know is who the girl was with last night. If she was with kids, then it makes sense that she might have stopped in here.”
“I know she didn’t,” Jan said and returned the photograph with a sigh. “I wish I could be of more help. And you know, they might have been using the drive-up window. Or whoever was with her might have left her in the car while he came inside.”
I nodded. “We’re aware of all the possibilities.” I smiled and slid out of the booth with a grunt. “We were hoping that we’d get lucky.”
“Do you have an estimate of how many take-out orders of pizza you sold last night?” Estelle asked. She hadn’t moved from her seat, and Jan turned and knelt with one knee on the opposite seat cushion.
“Oh, probably fifteen or twenty. It’s always slow on Thursday night.”
Her answer obviously scotched whatever idea Estelle had been brewing, because she just shook her head with impatience and put her notebook away. She took her time getting out of the booth. We were almost to the door when Jan raised a hand and beamed at her. “How’s the campaign trail, by the way?”
Estelle made a face. “I’ve never seen it,” she said and nodded at me. “He makes me work all the time.”
“Come on, sir,” Jan said. “The first female Hispanic sheriff in the history of the state. It’ll put us on the map.”
“How incredibly politically correct,” I muttered and earned a poke in the short ribs from Estelle’s index finger as we walked outside. I grinned at her. “If you were Jewish and gay as well, you’d make a clean sweep.”
“I’m Catholic and uncomfortably pregnant,” Estelle said. “That’s going to have to do.”
We drove the three blocks to Pizza World and heard the same story. They had never seen Maria Ibarra before, either in, out of, or around the restaurant.
It was beginning to appear that the young girl had materialized in the middle of Posadas one day and had then gone unnoticed by the entire community—save for the person who had watched her die, and then dumped her body.
“Portillo’s,” I said, as we settled into 310 outside of the restaurant.
From the parking lot of Portillo’s Handy-Way, we could look west and see the domed roof of the school’s gymnasium and the bleachers to the north. It was an easy five-minute walk over to the school complex, and I was certain that students took advantage of that, even though it was supposedly a closed campus for everyone except seniors.
Estelle parked along the front curb, away from the gasoline pumps. The place was deserted, and the door chime was loud when we walked in. The place looked like one of those sets for a grade-C sci-fi movie about life after the blast, with everything oddly in place and tidy…but deathly quiet and void of life.
Elliott Parker was working the counter—figuratively, anyway. He was sitting in the shade of the cash register, reading. He glanced up, saw that we weren’t armed and dangerous, and took his time marking his place in the magazine.
I had known Elliott Parker for more than twenty years. He had almost graduated in the same class as my youngest son, Kenyon, who had shared his consuming fascination with model airplanes.
For a couple of years, Elliott and Kenyon had been the best of friends. Elliott had stayed overnight at our house dozens of times, and in their basement lair the two boys had built models and talked about aircraft until even the Wright Brothers would have thrown up their hands in despair.
And then it had gradually dawned on my hyperactive son, about the time he turned seventeen, that Elliott didn’t actually want to do anything other than talk and read and fuss with models. That was about the time that Kenyon discovered women.
The two drifted apart after that year. Elliott didn’t graduate with his class at all, preferring during his senior year to take a job at one of the shops in town where he could talk and read and fuss with models. Kenyon did graduate, married his first date, joined the naval ROTC at the state university, and earned his gold aviator wings five years later.
But all that was a full career in the past. My lieutenant-commander son was stationed in Corpus Christi, and Elliott was looking at me e
xpectantly across the counter of Portillo’s Handy-Way.
I purchased a tube of lip balm just to hear the sound of coins clattering on the counter, and then showed Elliott the photograph of Maria Ibarra.
He raised his eyebrows and held his breath. “Yeah, she’s been in here a time or two. Is she the one…”
“Yes, she is. When was the last time you saw her?”
Elliott frowned and pursed his lips. “Gee…I don’t know if I could swear to a day, Mr. Gastner.”
“But you have seen her.”
“Oh, yes. She’s probably been in here half a dozen times. I think she’s new in town, though. I mean she just started coming in a couple of weeks ago.”
“What about last night?” Estelle prompted.
Elliott Parker shook his head. “Not while I was here, anyway.”
“What time do you come in to work, Elliott?”
“Four. I work four to midnight. Sometimes later, if there’s any need.”
I retrieved the photograph. “And you remember for certain that she was not in here last night?”
“She was not in here last night. No, sir. Now”—and his face brightened a little—“the afternoon before that, she was in here.”
“What did she buy?”
“Nothing. A girl with her did, though.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Do you know the girl who was with her?”
Elliott shook his head. “I’ve seen her a few times, but I don’t know her name.”
“What did she buy?”
Elliott frowned and looked up at the ceiling. The answer wasn’t there, and he shrugged. “I really don’t remember. I remember what the girl there in the picture had, though.”
“I thought you said she didn’t buy anything?”
“She didn’t. She slipped a fruit pie into her pocket.”
Estelle leaned against the counter and fixed her black eyes on Elliott Parker. He stirred uncomfortably. “She shoplifted?” she asked.
He nodded.
“What did you do?” Estelle asked.
Parker shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Why didn’t you say something to her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. There didn’t seem to be any point. She didn’t speak much English and I just didn’t want to make a scene about it. If she denies it, what am I going to do, search her? And I’m going to call the cops over a fruit pie?”
“Was that the first time you saw her do something like that?”
Parker shook his head. “Two or three times before, when she would come in.”
“With the same friend?”
Parker nodded.
“And you never did anything about it.”
“No, sir.” He returned my gaze steadily.
“Why not?”
“Because, like I said. I just didn’t, is all.”
“Do other kids steal?” I asked, knowing goddamn well what the answer was.
“Sure.”
“And do you do anything about them?”
“Usually not. Unless it’s really serious. And they always buy stuff, too, so it’s not like they’re doing it all the time.”
“Do they know that you know?”
“I don’t think so. I think they honestly believe they’re being really clever.” He shrugged again. “It’s just easier to ignore it, ignore the hassle, as long as they don’t walk off with the whole store.”
“Is that the company’s policy?” I asked.
Elliott Parker smiled and pointed at the SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED sign by the door.
I was glad that Elliott had found his niche in life. If he actually owned Portillo’s, I wondered if he would put a big neon sign in the window that said STEAL HERE.
“Would you recognize the girl’s companion if you saw her photograph?”
“Probably. She was really chubby, you know?” He held up his hands around his face. “Almost perfectly round, like a bowling ball. Perfect teeth. Smiled a lot. Giggled a lot. Looked like she probably had fleas.”
“Fleas?”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but didn’t press the matter.
“Elliott, thanks. We’ll be back with a yearbook to see if you can give us an I.D. In the meantime, if you happen to think of anything else, let us know.” I handed him a business card, just in case he didn’t have the energy to look through the phone book.
I left the store thinking it was time to give my son Kenyon a call, even though the official date of Thanksgiving was still a month away.
18
I rang Glen Archer’s doorbell at five minutes after ten that night. Under normal circumstances, he would have attended the out-of-town football game. The day was anything but normal, and the principal was about out of starch.
According to our dispatch records, he’d called the sheriff’s office on the hour, requesting updates. We hadn’t been able to give him much. I was sure that the good folks down at the twice-weekly Posadas Register were calling him hourly, too.
The doorbell chimed once before Archer snatched it open.
“Thank God,” he said, and I could see his wife behind him. She was hugging a sweater around herself, her hatchet-thin face set in lines of concern. Mrs. Archer looked as if she were counting the days until her husband’s retirement. “What have you got?” Archer asked. He waved me in impatiently. “Come in, come in.” Estelle remained in the patrol car.
“That’s not necessary, Glen. We do need to see a yearbook, though. We need to borrow one.”
“Last year’s?”
I nodded and stepped inside so he could shut the door.
“I tell ya,” Archer said, “when I retire, I’m going to burn everything I own that has to do with education.” He walked into his living room and motioned for me to follow. “Then I’m going to buy a big, oceangoing yacht. That way I won’t have to live by the side of the road and be a friend to man, as the poet says. I’m getting damn sick of it.”
“Would either of you two like something?” Mrs. Archer said. She hovered in the doorway to the kitchen. One hand had released its grip on the sweater and held a glass with amber liquid and ice. It looked good.
“No thanks,” I said.
Archer knelt by the bookcase in the corner and selected the last in a long row of high school yearbooks. “Here you are,” he said. “You don’t have a set of these down at the sheriff’s department?”
“No. But about fifteen years ago, we did buy a new dictionary.” I grinned. “We like to keep up, you know.”
Archer looked at me sideways and cocked an eyebrow. He waved at the couch. “Sit, sit. You have to look at it somewhere, and this is more comfortable than your office.”
“I’d like to, but we can’t,” I said. “We don’t know who we’re looking for, but we’ve found a possible witness to make an identification.”
“Someone who was seen with Maria Ibarra, you mean?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, good luck. And would you call me the minute you know something? I don’t care what time of day or night it is.” He followed me back toward the front door. I promised Archer we’d keep him posted, and I stepped back out into the night air. The light breeze felt good.
I settled back in the car seat and looked at the yearbook during the few seconds that the dome light was on. On the cover, superimposed across some sort of modern art design that looked like a geranium squashed by a car, was the single word Promises.
“Back to the store?” Estelle’s quiet voice asked.
“Back to the store. Maybe we’ll get something positive. That way there’ll be a tidbit to throw to Marty Holman. Otherwise his ulcers will keep him up all night.”
The process was easier than I would have imagined. Elliott Parker was still behind the counter, still reading his magazine, still pleasantly vague. He accepted the yearbook without comment and flipped open to the first section of phot
ographs…the class of 2000, the current crop of freshmen at Posadas High School.
In less than two minutes, he said, “That’s her, right there.”
He spun the book around and pushed it toward me, keeping his index finger on the third photo from the left in the second row from the bottom.
Staring up at me was a blurry image that could have been anybody or anything. I cursed while I fished out my glasses. While I was fussing, Estelle found the name that corresponded with the photograph. With my bifocals on, the image sharpened and became Vanessa Davila.
Elliott Parker’s earlier description was accurate. Vanessa Davila was as round as they come, with a wide mouth, great pudgy cheeks, dark eyes almost hidden behind heavy brows, and a forehead that narrowed up into her hairline so that her head looked like an overweight teardrop. While most of the photographs on the page showed amorphous little kids with too many teeth and strange hair, Vanessa’s photo promised an imposing figure. Her shoulders jutted out platform-straight, right out of the picture.
Her smile was sweet enough. She looked as if she were about to be handed a bag of jelly doughnuts. She also looked tough enough that if you didn’t give her the doughnuts, she’d break your arm.
“Shoplift mostly candy, does she?” I asked, and Estelle elbowed me and frowned. “Sir…”
“Sorry,” I said. “Are you sure that’s her?”
“Absolutely,” Elliott said. “How could I mistake her?”
“And she was with Maria several times? You heard them speak to each other?”
Elliott nodded.
“They spoke Spanish?”
He nodded again.
“Do you understand Spanish?”
He shook his head.
“Is there anything else about her that you know? Where she lives, or who her parents are, or a boyfriend, or anything like that?” Elliott Parker’s head wobbled one last time. He was not a well of information, but he’d given us a start.
I closed the yearbook and rapped it on the edge of the counter. “Thanks, Elliott. We’ll be in touch.” He was still standing behind the counter when we left, probably not caring a lick whether we were ever in touch or not.
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