“Dennis Wilton,” Estelle murmured. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“And even that doesn’t,” I said. I heard a discreet clearing of the throat in the living room. Francis was leaning against one of the bookcases, hands still in his pockets, watching us. Estelle caught the exchange. “Your husband thinks I’m going to drop dead,” I said.
“That’s not funny, sir.”
“Indeed not,” I replied.
“She’s heading across the trailer park toward her place,” Thomas Pasquale said, and I pushed the talk switch twice. Pasquale continued, “She’s up on the porch, door open, and she’s inside.” I half expected the kid to add, “Touchdown!”
“Sit tight,” I said into the radio and beckoned to Estelle. “Let’s get over there.”
She didn’t move. “Sir…”
“What?”
“We don’t need to do that, sir.”
I stared at her incredulously. “What are you talking about? That kid’s got a gun. And the closest cop to her is Thomas Pasquale.”
She nodded. “And in another minute, the supervising sergeant will be there. And so will experienced backup, sir. Thomas Pasquale isn’t even going to get close to the front door of that trailer by himself, if at all. Sit down and relax.”
I stood rooted, not knowing what to say. As if to break the silence, the radio barked. “Three-oh-seven, three-oh-eight. Ten-twenty?”
Eddie Mitchell’s voice, even over the scratch reception of the handheld, was calm and unperturbed. “Three-oh-seven is just turning onto Grande at Bustos. ETA about a minute.”
“Ten-four, three-oh-seven. You’ll see the P.D. just inside the entrance to the park. Park there and approach on foot.”
“Ten-four.”
“I’ll pull right through the place and park on the north side of the trailer. That way we’ll have spotlights on both sides.”
“Ten-four.”
Estelle looked at me as if to say, “There, you see?”
I sat down again and leaned forward, keeping my voice down. “Estelle, now listen to me. Remember a long, long time ago there was a day when you helped me escape from a goddamn hospital when I needed out of there the most? Do you remember that?”
She nodded slowly. “And you ended up back there again, too.”
“I know that, but not before we did what needed to be done. Now look. This is important to me. It really is. Tell your husband there that I’ll check myself into his goddamn hospital at 8 A.M. sharp, Monday morning. Then he can do whatever he wants. Brain transplant, fiberglass hip joints—hell, I don’t care.” I lowered my voice even more. “I just figured something out about Vanessa Davila.”
I sat back and Estelle mused at the expression of satisfaction on my face. “What’s that, sir?”
“She’ll talk to us now.”
“You think so?”
I nodded vigorously. “She didn’t before because she had plans.” I held up my right hand and made a pistol with thumb and index finger. “She was after someone. She decided to go get them…him…whoever…in her own way. We arrest her tonight and even she has to know that she isn’t ever going to get to do that.”
“On the way over, there’s something else I want to tell you, sir. Something that I found out this afternoon.”
My smile was like the Cheshire cat’s as I got up from the table. “But one thing, sir,” Estelle added, reaching across and putting her hand over mine. “No going solo.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you don’t drive yourself, you don’t chase, and if there’s a medication that Francis wants to give you to even the odds a little, you’ll take it. Deal?”
At that point, I would have agreed to anything.
35
“We can’t let an off-balance teenager walk around with a loaded firearm just to make it convenient for us to find out who she wants to kill,” I said, and Officer Tom Pasquale nodded as if he’d thought the same thing, even though seconds before he had suggested that we let Vanessa Davila go about her business, leading us to her intended target.
If Vanessa had looked out the curtained window of her trailer, she would have seen a fair-sized convocation. We waited in the darkness for fifteen minutes while elsewhere in Posadas Judge Lester Hobart scribbled his signature on an appropriate warrant. When the paperwork arrived via Deputy Eddie Mitchell, we kept the performance low-key. No lights, no sirens, nothing to disturb the neighbors from their dinner tables.
Vanessa never looked out, and her mother appeared genuinely surprised when she opened the door. Sergeant Bob Torrez was so tall he nearly had to duck going in, but he didn’t wait for an invitation.
He snicked a set of handcuffs on an already blubbering Vanessa and helped her to the living room sofa. Her mother stood in the kitchen, wringing her hands. If I had been in a worse mood, I would have suggested snapping a set of cuffs on her, too. But it had been Vanessa who had done the burglary, and I fervently hoped that the awful sound of handcuffs would frighten her out of any last resolve.
“Vanessa,” Estelle Reyes-Guzman said, “where’s the gun?”
“I ain’t got no gun,” she said, and it was the first time I had heard her voice—low, husky, and really quite pleasant. She would have made a good announcer for an airline.
“You were observed breaking into a residence on Escondido just a few minutes ago,” Estelle said. She sat on the sofa beside the cuffed Vanessa, and she was just about half Vanessa’s size.
“Just a few minutes ago,” she repeated. “Do you understand that you will be charged for breaking and entering and for aggravated burglary? When you broke into that house and then armed yourself with a stolen weapon, you got yourself in considerable trouble.” Vanessa Davila didn’t react with any great contrition, but I got the impression that Estelle made the speech more for the mother’s benefit.
“I didn’t,” Vanessa said.
“We got you on video,” Tom Pasquale said from the doorway, and I turned, surprised to see him holding one of those small video cameras that’s not much bigger than a sandwich. I tried to keep the surprise off my face.
“Well, I didn’t take nothin’.”
“We saw you remove a handgun from the premises, Vanessa. Now before you get into more trouble, play it smart,” I said.
Vanessa shook her head, still crying.
Estelle took a deep breath. “Mrs. Davila, do you know anything about your daughter’s activities?”
“What?” Mrs. Davila said, and Estelle glanced at me and then heavenward. She stood up.
“All right. Begin with the girl’s room,” Estelle said. Torrez, Mitchell, and Pasquale clumped down the narrow hallway, back into the dark confines of the trailer. Estelle turned back to the women.
“Do you understand that if we find stolen items in a search the penalties are more severe than if you cooperate?” she said, but Vanessa was playing her last cards, figuring that maybe we’d go away.
But we didn’t go away. It took ten minutes before I heard Bob Torrez say, “Okay, here we go.”
He walked out into the living room holding an enormous stuffed kangaroo. In its pouch, a small stuffed joey snuggled up beside a semiautomatic pistol. By this time, Mrs. Davila had made her way over to the couch, where she sat on one of its arms and hugged her daughter.
“Oh, Vanessa,” she said. That about covered it.
Sergeant Torrez slipped his pen into the weapon’s barrel and lifted the gun out of the pouch. Thomas Pasquale was at his elbow, holding a large evidence bag. “The cocking indicator says it’s hot, so handle it gently until we get prints off it,” Torrez said, and Pasquale nodded as if he’d thought of that, too.
By this time, Vanessa had sagged sideways into her mother’s arms and rocked and quaked with sobs. Estelle reached out a hand and put it on top of Vanessa’s, just holding it, a slight contact that told the girl she was there.
“Vanessa,” she s
aid finally, “did you take anything else from your cousin’s house?” It was the first time I’d heard that connection, but it didn’t surprise me. Half of Posadas was related in some fashion to the other half. Vanessa shook her head and for the first time turned and looked squarely at Estelle. I saw the muscles of Estelle’s forearm flex as she squeezed the girl’s hand and said, “You took just the gun?” Vanessa nodded, and Estelle turned to look up at Bob Torrez.
“Would you please uncuff her now?” Estelle had a handcuff key somewhere on her person, but Vanessa didn’t know that. Torrez nodded and bent over, removing the cuffs none too gently. That helped, too. Estelle kept her hand on Vanessa’s.
“Let us talk for a while, Officers,” she said, and Torrez nodded, ushering Tom Pasquale toward the door. Deputy Mitchell followed, the ghost of a smile crinkling around his eyes when he glanced at me as he went by. I closed the door and made my way toward a chair that looked like it would hold me.
“Vanessa,” Estelle said, “we know you’ve been upset since your friend died. Since Maria died.” She brought her other hand over and held Vanessa’s. “And you have every reason to be. But you can’t try to settle things by yourself.”
Vanessa sniffed and Estelle handed her a tissue. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Vanessa nodded. “Was it Denny Wilton, Vanessa? Was that who you were going to go after?”
Vanessa nodded again, and the relief of knowing at least one small answer swept over me.
“Vanessa, were Ryan House and Denny Wilton with Maria the night she died?” Vanessa had experienced good luck with the nod, and she stuck with it. “Were you with them?” This time she shook her head. “Did you see them together?”
“Yes,” Vanessa said. “I saw them drive in to where Maria stayed.”
“How did you happen to see them?”
Vanessa shrugged. “I was walking over to see if Maria wanted to go downtown for a while.”
“And did they see you?”
“No.” Vanessa heaved a great breath and sat up a little straighter, shrugging off some of her mother’s weight. “I don’t think so.”
“Was it Denny Wilton’s truck that you saw? The dark blue one?”
Vanessa nodded.
“Did you see them again that evening? Thursday night?”
She shook her head.
“When did you hear about Maria?”
Vanessa took another shuddering breath. “Next morning at school.”
“You didn’t try to see her again that night? Thursday night?”
“No.” This time the reply was small and faint, as if Vanessa realized she’d made a mistake by letting her friend go off with the two boys that night.
“Why didn’t you come forward and tell someone, Vanessa?”
The girl shrugged and her lower lip thrust out. “’Cause.”
“Were you afraid?”
Vanessa shook her head. She didn’t look like the type who was afraid of much.
“You left school on Friday, didn’t you? Right after homeroom, when you heard the news? When you saw all the commotion?”
Vanessa nodded.
“Where did you go?”
“Home.”
“She was here all day,” her mother barked helpfully, apparently forgetting our earlier visits.
“Did you go to the football game Friday night?” I asked, and Vanessa leveled expressionless eyes at me and didn’t respond.
“Did you?” Estelle prompted.
“No.”
“Where did you go? You weren’t home most of the day, and certainly not that evening. We stopped by and talked with your mother a couple of times. You didn’t come home at all Friday night.”
“I was sitting up by the highway, watching cars.”
“By the interstate, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded. “All day and most of the night?”
She nodded again. “Until I walked uptown. When I thought everybody would be coming back from the game.”
“Were you trying to decide what to do, Vanessa?” Estelle asked, and on the surface it sounded like a monumentally dumb question…a rarity for Estelle Reyes-Guzman. Why else would a fourteen-year-old sit hidden in a bunch of elm brush, I thought, watching others travel on with their lives? Vanessa nodded, and Estelle patted her hand. “And when did you decide to go after Denny Wilton?”
“After I heard about him killing Ryan.”
“Who gave you the idea that he killed Ryan, Vanessa? It was a truck crash. They had just passed a school bus. The bus driver thinks that Denny fell asleep.”
“He killed him. I know he did.” She said it with simple finality.
“Who told you about the crash, Vanessa?” I asked.
“They were talking about it at Portillo’s.”
“The convenience store, you mean. You went there?”
“For a little while.”
“Why would Denny want to kill Ryan House, Vanessa?” Estelle pressed gently. “Why would he want to do that?”
“’Cause Ryan woulda told on them sometime about Maria. He couldn’t keep quiet very long. And somebody was saying how he’d heard that somebody had killed that old bum that was in town…the one that got arrested when they found Maria.”
The grapevine was a marvel of efficiency if not accuracy, I marveled.
“And you think that Denny Wilton killed Ryan House because he was afraid that Ryan would tell someone about Maria, and about the old bum, is that right?”
Vanessa nodded with absolute certainty.
“But Vanessa, Maria choked to death. She wasn’t killed by anyone. The boys may have panicked and run, but they didn’t kill her. And the old man wasn’t hurt badly. Don’t you think Denny Wilton might have known all that? Is that a reason for him to kill his best friend?”
Vanessa choked back a sob. “He don’t have best friends,” she said, and the venom fairly dripped.
“Do you think he would risk crippling or killing himself, just to get at Ryan? Why would he do that? They were friends.”
“He started hangin’ out with Ryan House this year ’cause Ryan broke up with Julie Hayes. That’s all. And…” She hesitated, as if she was afraid to give away too much. “Even last year, he and Ryan got into a fight right during class. So they weren’t no best friends.”
I heaved a sigh myself, not ready to try analyzing the why of teenage relationships. And from my own experience with my two sons and their friends, I knew that kids could be sworn enemies on Monday and best buds on Tuesday.
“Why do you think Ryan and Denny Wilton wanted to go out with Maria, Vanessa?” Estelle asked.
“’Cause.”
“Because why?”
“Her and Ryan were in Spanish together.”
“That’s all? They shared a class?”
“She had this crush on him. One day her and me were in the hall, and she tried to say something to him. She talked Spanish at him, and Denny Wilton was there and called her ‘the truck girl.’ He was real mean.”
“And yet they all went out together,” I said.
“A bet, maybe,” Estelle said quietly. “That and the fact that Ryan House didn’t have a car. Vanessa, do you know anything else about that night? The night Maria Ibarra died?”
She shook her head.
“And you still think Denny Wilton killed his best friend? You don’t think that the crash was an accident?”
Vanessa nodded. “I know he did.”
“How do you know, Vanessa? He could just as easily have been crippled or killed as well.” Estelle didn’t bother to mention the functioning air bag and seatbelt–shoulder harness.
“’Cause he killed my brother, too. And he didn’t never get caught either.”
36
By the time we had pried the story out of Vanessa—and tried and failed to pry corroboration from her mother—it was after seven that Saturday night.
Estelle argued vehemently against charging the girl. I
didn’t think that formal charges would be such a bad idea, but I certainly balked at the idea of jailing an emotional basket case like Vanessa in our crude, outdated lockup, and Judge Hobart balked with me. After a brief preliminary hearing, both the girl’s mother and the old judge agreed that we could transfer Vanessa to the juvenile facility in Las Cruces, where she’d be properly cared for.
With that compromise, I agreed with Estelle. If Vanessa’s story held water, there was no point in pressing any kind of charges for burglary…and Toby Romero didn’t care, as long as he got his gun back and his window fixed. He and his girlfriend came home from a day trip to Albuquerque to find a yellow crime scene ribbon tacked across the window and a deputy parked out front. Deputy Tom Mears said Romero shrugged when he heard the story and said, “Whatever you want to do, I mean, you know.”
It was the part about the girl’s story holding water that bothered both Estelle and me.
Back at the office, we spread out every scrap of paper that we could dig from the files that was remotely related to the death four years before of Rudy Davila, Vanessa’s brother. The event had occurred during a brief period when Estelle Reyes-Guzman had been working for a sheriff’s department in the northern part of the state…a period I preferred to forget.
It was the same summer that Sheriff Martin Holman’s house had burned to the ground, a summer he no doubt would have liked to have forgotten as well.
When the school principal, Glen Archer, had mentioned Vanessa’s brother as being cut from the same cloth as his sister, he had been guilty of understatement if anything.
The file told us that Rudy Davila had been a real piece of artwork. Some of the arrests I remembered clearly. His first arrest had come at age nine, when he’d helped a friend break into a car dealership to steal several expensive tools. He’d been caught, much to his dismay, when a neighbor saw and reported them.
That lesson lasted for almost a year, until he was arrested for assaulting his school-bus driver. The details were sketchy, but the incident apparently involved something about a lunchbox being knocked off a seat. Young Rudy had lost his bus-riding privileges for the remainder of the school year. That wasn’t much of a penalty, since Rudy attended more sporadically than did his younger sister, Vanessa.
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