“What’s that mean?” she whispered, knowing perfectly well what it meant.
Francis drew in a deep breath. “It means that we’re responsible for helping him find his way,” he said. “Whatever that takes.”
“You think this is his way, then?”
“I don’t know, querida. I’m not exactly practiced in this.”
“Ni yo. But he’s only six, oso. Tomorrow he might decide that he’s going to collect toys out of cereal boxes. The world’s largest collection.”
“Don’t we wish life was that simple,” Francis whispered. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s been consumed with that piano since the moment the store delivered it. Anybody can see that. And before that, he sneaked off and practiced on the piano at school. I don’t think this is a passing fancy.”
“I don’t think so either.”
“All I know is what Sofía says,” Francis said. “And what I see and hear myself...not that I’m much of a judge. My musical ability is limited to playing about four chords. I think Francisco inherited it all from you.”
“Ay,” Estelle said. “Two musical duds, and look what we produce.”
“Yep. Of course, you might have some great conductor in your past, for all we know. Maybe your real last name is Bach. Didn’t old Johann have about twenty kids, or something like that? Maybe some of them made it to the hinterlands of Mexico. I mean, when they were carrying those virgins up the steps of those Aztec temples to rip their hearts out, someone had to play the march music.”
She ground a knuckle into his ribs. “That’s it,” Estelle agreed. She could have counted on one hand the times when it might have mattered to her who her parents had been. Teresa Reyes, childless and a widow, had adopted her through the church in Tres Santos when Estelle was not yet two years old.
Francis locked a hand over hers to prevent more damage. “But I think he has to go sometime. I trust Sofía’s judgment about his genius, mi corazón. If Francisco had just a little bit of talent...a little proficiency, maybe, she wouldn’t be making such a big deal out of all this. She’d suggest that we make sure hijo got into band in school, that he took lessons, all that stuff that kids do. She was adamant that we buy the piano, and thank God we did that.”
“And when’s that ‘sometime’? Now what?”
“That’s exactly right. Now what? I don’t know.”
“He’s too young to go anywhere.”
“Of course he’s too young, querida. He’s six. And I can hear what Sofía would say. She’d say that at age six, he’s getting a late start. After all, Mozart was composing and performing in public when he was, what...four? Five?”
“And dead at thirty something, oso.”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Francis said. “For all this medical stuff that keeps me off the street corners, we don’t know, do we?” He pulled her touch closer. “But Mozart was a couple centuries ago, back when they thought that the heart pumped air. I probably could have kept him alive with a good does of amoxicillin. He might have lived long enough to write Don Giovanni, Part Six.”
“I’m serious, querido. I don’t care about Mozart. I care about Francisco. There has to be some other answer,” Estelle said.
“Sure. We could send hijo to New York City.”
“Caramba. I don’t think so. Anyway, he’s too young for Juilliard.”
“But not for the Conservatorio de Veracruz,” Francis said.
“Ay.”
“Yep. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Sofía could walk Francisco the two blocks to the conservatory and back. From her condo. Every day.” Her husband said it so easily, as if he could actually imagine such a thing. No doubt Sofía could, and as much as Estelle dearly loved her aunt-in-law and Sofía’s wisdom, she felt a pang of jealousy.
“Carlos would be a sad little saquito,” Estelle said.
“Not if he went, too.”
She pulled his beard very hard, enough to make him gasp.
“Maybe we just moved the wrong way last time,” he said, referring to their half-year in Minnesota. “And you could get a job working for the judiciales.”
She smoothed his kinked beard, and her lips found his in the darkness. After a long moment, she pulled just far enough away that she could whisper, “I don’t want to think that far ahead yet, oso.”
“Me neither. And I like what we’re doing right here in the backwaters. It’s the kind of medicine I want to practice, where I want to practice it. I can’t picture living in one of the busiest cities on earth. And I look at it this way...when Francisco is eighty-five and venerated around the world, with a bazillion recordings and honors to his credit, will it matter whether he began at age six or sixteen?”
“I don’t think so. I tell myself that it won’t.”
“I don’t think it will matter either. I think our job is to keep him eager, querida. Keep him fueled. We don’t need to send him to some fancy labor camp to twist the last little bit of music out of him before he’s seven.” He stroked her cheek, fingers drawing down the side of her neck, “Besides, if need be, we can bring the world to him. If there’s some great maestro that he needs to study under, we’ll import the guy. If we have to add a music room out back, we’ll do that. He can go to music camps for two weeks at a shot in the summer.”
“I like the sound of that,” Estelle whispered. For a long moment, they lay in each other’s arms, breath matching breath.
“It’s Christmas morning, you know. The boys will be up in a few minutes,” her husband said.
“Then we’d better not waste time,” she replied, snuggling deeper into the curve of his body.
Chapter Eight
When the telephone rang at 5:55 that Christmas morning, the two boys had indeed been up for many minutes. Estelle was in the kitchen, guiding an industrious Francisco through his second major passion in life, the manufacture of enormous pancakes whose batter he poured meticulously one cake’s worth at a time, dead center in the pan.
Without releasing her support of the heavy bowl, she reached across the counter and picked up the receiver.
“Guzman.”
“Estelle, I need to talk to Francis,” Dr. Alan Perrone said. His tone was clipped and brusque, and he didn’t waste time with the usually automatic apology for the early-hour disturbance on a holiday.
“He’s in the shower,” Estelle said. “Hang on just a second.” At the same time, Sofía Tournál rose from where she had been sitting in the living room with Carlos as the little boy narrated the photos from his latest treasure to her and his grandmother. He had received a Christmas gift book from Padrino that described the history and development of farm tractors...a book that Dr. Francis Guzman had joked would be set to music before the end of the day—Concerto in John Deere Flat.
Sofía smoothly segued into position as bowl handler as Estelle headed down the hall.
“You probably want to head down here, too,” Perrone said. “Someone’s going to want to hold Gayle’s hand.”
“Sure,” she said, without actually having heard what Dr. Perrone had said. When the phone rang, she had immediately thought about Chief Eduardo Martinez, and it was only as she entered the master bedroom that it registered. She stopped short and beckoned to her husband, who appeared shaggy and wet, a towel around his middle.
She handed him the phone. “It’s Alan.”
“Shit,” Francis said matter-of-factly. “What’s up?” he said into the phone, then frowned as he listened to his partner. At the same time, he reached out and touched Estelle on the shoulder as if to hold her in place. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Yes, I think we’re going to have to do that. He’s stable enough now?” Again, the room was silent as he listened. “Right. Okay, that’s good.” He nodded as if Alan Perrone could see him. “How long was he out?” He frowned
and nodded, this time more slowly. “Okay. Give me ten minutes. Estelle will probably be there before that.”
He rang off. “Bob Torrez apparently had a pulmonary embolism early this morning.” He handed her the telephone. “Gayle drove him to the hospital about an hour ago. Alan wants to transport him to University in Albuquerque.”
“Ay,” Estelle whispered, but she was already turning toward the door. “I’ll head down,” she said. Francis nodded, and she left him to dress.
“We’ll be fine,” Sofía said when she saw Estelle’s face. “Just go and do whatever it is that you have to do.”
Without interrupting the process, Estelle bent over her industrious son and kissed him on the forehead, one hand cupping the side of his face while staying clear of the dripping ladle. “Perfecto,” she whispered to him, and he beamed at the huge pancake forming and bubbling. “Thanks, tía,” she said to Sofía. In the living room, she was met with a frown from her mother.
“You have to go at this hour?” Teresa observed, knowing perfectly well that the hour of the day or night didn’t matter.
“Mamá helps people,” Carlos said, and Estelle felt a twinge at his innocent defense. She clamped a hand on his small skull the way his father did, turning his face up so that she looked directly into his dark brown eyes, so rich and deep that she could become lost in them. Neither of them said a word, and after a moment she kissed him on the bridge of his nose, squarely between the eyes.
“The sheriff’s sick,” she said to her mother, taking her by the hand. “I’ll be back when I can.”
“Ay,” Teresa said, her expression softening. “I bet that stubborn one didn’t get his flu shot.”
“I wish it were that simple,” Estelle said.
A few minutes later, Estelle saw Sheriff Bob Torrez’s heavy-lidded eyes flicker with a touch of irritation as she rapped lightly on the freestanding partition. The sheriff lay in the hospital bed, the skimpy gown looking ridiculous on his large frame. He had kicked the sheet off, and his left leg was flexed with his foot propped up on the bed rail...a pathetic imitation of his habit of thumping a boot across the corner of his office desk.
The crowd around his bed—now grown to three people—surely was stretching Torrez’s patience. Dr. Alan Perrone stood near the sheriff’s left shoulder, regarding the screen that monitored the patient’s vital signs. Gayle Torrez flanked her husband on the other side of the bed.
“What are you doin’ here already?” Torrez asked ungraciously. His voice was husky, and he reached up and fiddled with the oxygen tube in his nostrils. An IV was taped to the back of each hand. “We were just about to wrap all this up.”
“Oh, sure,” the unflappable Dr. Perrone said. He smiled tightly at Estelle. “How are you doing, young lady?”
“I’m okay,” Estelle replied.
“Happy Holidays,” Perrone added. “Or maybe I said that last night...I’m losing track.”
“And Merry Christmas to all,” Estelle said. She rapped a knuckle on the bedframe as she stepped around to stand beside Gayle. “Hey,” she said, and rested a hand on Gayle’s shoulder.
“Some people will do anything to get out of a family gathering,” Gayle said, but she didn’t even try to smile. Christmas with the hugely extended Torrez family meant that Bob Torrez’s mother would host half a hundred people in her modest adobe home on McArthur...and the overflow would reach Bob and Gayle’s mobile home less than half a block away.
“Actually, it’s pretty simple, Estelle,” Perrone said, “We’re in the process of explaining to this guy that there are two easy ways to find what happened...to find where that embolism is and just how nasty it might be. We can do a postmortem, or Robert can let us do our jobs without all the macho fuss.”
His glance shifted to Gayle, who accepted the barb, made only partially in jest, with a nod of agreement. “We took X-rays,” the physician continued, “and they don’t show as much as I’d like. We’re going to get a CAT here in a few minutes, but I’m willing to bet that’ll be inconclusive, too. The best way to see what we’re dealing with is pulmonary angiography...put in a little tracer and watch where it goes.”
“I don’t need to be stuck full of dye,” Torrez grumbled.
“Better a little bit of dye than a gallon or two of embalming fluid,” Perrone said, and Estelle saw Gayle wince. “Anyway, I want all the cards in my hand when we do that, and that means that we cart you up to University Hospital in Albuquerque.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re lucky. The Med-Evac flight crew thought they might get to enjoy Christmas at home, and we were able to round them up in Las Cruces. The plane will be here in a few minutes.”
“I’m not flyin’ to no Albuquerque,” Torrez said, but the protest was without much conviction.
“Oh, yes you are,” Gayle said. “Don’t be so stupid.”
“We’ve already established that you haven’t been taking the meds that were prescribed,” Perrone said. “That didn’t take much detective work. And you haven’t shown your face at physical therapy for the past couple of weeks. Mr. Model Patient, here.” He snorted with impatience, reached out a hand, and patted Torrez on the arm. “We’ll find a blunt needle and fill him full of happy syrup. He won’t even know where he is when we’re done with him.”
“Like hell,” the sheriff said.
“Yep,” Perrone agreed. He beckoned Estelle out of the room, nodding in sympathy at Gayle as he did so. “We’ll be back in a minute. Talk some sense into your husband, okay? And you should plan to go with us, by the way.”
Out in the hall, Perrone walked away from the ICU. He dug in his pocket for a mint and offered one to Estelle. “Francis is on the way down?”
“He’ll be here in just a minute or two,” Estelle said. “What happened?”
“Well, like I told Gayle, I’m sure it’s a clot that broke loose and ended up in his lung. Pulmonary embolism,” Perrone said. “I’m sure of that. Gayle says that early this morning, Bobby woke up and couldn’t get his breath. His heartbeat went wild, and he fell on his face when he tried to climb out of bed. Scared the bejeepers out of her. He wouldn’t let her call an ambulance, and he’s goddamn lucky that stupid little decision didn’t kill him. She drove him down here herself.”
“That sounds like Bobby,” Estelle said.
Perrone leaned against the polished tile wall and regarded the grout between the tiles as if all the answers lay there. “None of this surprises me, I guess. All that surgery he had on his leg and hips, and then he doesn’t take care of himself and pay attention to physical therapy. If he’s not careful, he’s going to end up being forty-five years old and walking like an old man of eighty-five.”
“I thought he looked pretty bad last night,” Estelle said. “We had a little confrontation down in Regál, and even Bill Gastner said that Bobby looked terrible.”
“That sorry affair didn’t do the sheriff any good, I’m sure. He’s in no condition for scuffles.”
“Well, sort of a scuffle, Alan. But that was more me than him.”
“Ah.” Perrone took off his glasses, and Estelle felt his ice-blue eyes assessing her. “And you’re none the worse for wear?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Well, his nibs here isn’t. At the moment, we have him on rat poison and a handful of other things to thin his blood. We need to do a full rundown and see what the hell is going on.” Perrone patted his own right hip. “He’s got a hell of a bruise on his thigh, just above where the break was. Gayle says that somehow he managed to smack himself with the door of his truck yesterday or the day before.”
“He never said anything about that,” Estelle said. “But what else is new.” She glanced at her watch. In another few minutes, the shift at the Sheriff’s Department would cycle from graveyard to days, and Gayle Torrez, office manager and head dispatcher, had been scheduled for duty...th
e first Christmas tour she’d drawn in several years, thanks to the conspiring of root canals, flu, and various other complications among the small staff.
“So if he goes to Albuquerque, what are we talking about? How long?” Estelle asked.
“He is going to Albuquerque,” Perrone said. “He doesn’t have a choice there. And it all depends what we find. Unfortunately, clots tend not to be isolated events. We’ll just have to see. He’s going to be out of commission for a while...and I’m afraid it’s an indeterminate while just now. That’s the best I can tell you. He might be back on his feet in a day or two, or not.”
Estelle started to say something when her husband appeared around the corner by the Hospital Auxiliary’s coffee bar.
“Ah,” Perrone said. “Now we’re all set.”
Reaching out to take Perrone by the elbow, Estelle nodded toward the ward behind them. “How’s Eduardo?” Somehow, it seemed weeks ago that she had last seen Eduardo Martinez, pale and frail, in his ICU bed—not just hours. If his family was still maintaining a vigil, they were cloistered away somewhere, perhaps in the ICU waiting room down the hall.
“That’s the problem,” Perrone said. “I’m starting to think that it might be a good idea if one of us rides on the plane with Bobby, but maybe not. That’s what I wanted to discuss with Dr. Guzman,” and Perrone held up his hand like a traffic cop as Francis strode up to them. “One of us certainly needs to stay here and ride herd on the chief. And to answer your question, Estelle, he’s not good. He’s unresponsive, and the family is trying to decide what to do. He’s reached a point where the machines are breathing for him. Not good.” He nodded in resignation. “Like I said, Merry Christmas, eh?”
He stepped away, yielding his spot in the conversation to Estelle’s husband. “We’ll talk in a bit,” he said to Estelle, and then with a final pat to his associate’s shoulder, he hustled back to the ICU.
“Sofía said not to bother calling Irma,” Francis said, referring to Irma Sedillos, the Guzman boys’ nana and Gayle’s sister. “Everything is under control on the home front, querida.”
Statute of Limitations Page 8
