“What do you want, Señor?” She forced her tone to stay abrupt, official, disinterested. But her curiosity wanted to pull her into this strange man’s story, a man who obviously knew something of her past that even she had never probed. And, in one of those rare moments of crystal-clear intuition, she recognized the electricity between herself and him—two people destined to meet. She forced up a wall of stiff authority, even though he was trusting her at this moment simply to listen.
Without answering, he watched her struggle, watched with interest as she withdrew her cell phone. “Un momento,” she said to him, and clicked the appropriate directory entry. The phone rang five times and automatically connected to her older son’s voice mail.
“Call me ASAP,” she said, and switched off.
Mazón could not have known whom she called—he could not see the face of her phone, and heard her mention no name. And yet he raised one hand as if to soothe. “Your son is safe, Señora. Trust me. He is well-protected now.”
“Trust you?”
“You can, you know.” He watched her settle into the chair, then leaned forward to clasp his hands together near the middle of the small table. He repeated slowly, this time in English, “You can trust me.”
“I’ve heard that often enough from all kinds of people that I could not trust,” Estelle replied softly. It would be easy to slam the handcuffs on his unprotected wrists…they lay on the table as if presented to her for just that purpose.
“I do not know what the colonel knows, or what he has told you. But what if I were to tell you what I know?”
“There is not much time.” And then she held up a hand as she pulled out her vibrating phone. She instantly recognized the number and connected.
“I won’t keep you, hijo. Just tell me. Is everything still all right down there?”
“Sure, Ma.” Francisco had dropped the Mamá, settling instead for the teenager’s abbreviated lingo as if that would assuage her worries, as if she were being so silly to worry. “But how is it with you?”
“A snarl,” Estelle whispered. Her son knew better than to ask for an explanation.
“And Padrino?”
She heard a sea of voices in the background. “He’s recovering nicely. His son is here.”
“Buddy? The Navy pilot?”
“No. The older one. Joel.”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Maybe someday you will. Listen, hijo. Everything is as it should be?”
“Spectacular. You called me only a couple minutes ago, and I didn’t have a chance to get back to you.”
“I just need to know,” she said. It would be such a luxury to settle into a long conversation with her son, a luxury neither of them could enjoy at the moment.
“We are fine.” He laughed. “We are fine. We’re about to rehearse with Maestro Durán. He’s the counter-tenor I was telling you about. Just super cool stuff.”
“And Mateo?” She wondered if the flute prodigy’s parents, nestled in their little village in Texas, were as much a basket case as she was. Perhaps they had found a way to travel to Mexico to watch the performance.
“He’s the we,” Francisco laughed. “Mateo and I, and the maestro. It’s kind of a churchy piece by Handel for flute, piano, and voice. The audience tomorrow night will love it, even if they don’t understand Latin.”
“I wish I could be there.”
“Well, I wish you could be, too. And, hey, every time we talk, I forgot to ask. How is Big Bad Bobby’s baby doing?”
“Thriving,” Estelle said, trying to sound lighthearted. “Gabe is just a wonderful little boy.” As she spoke, she never let her gaze leave Mazón’s face. Now just a white ghost remaining, at one time his drooping mustache had nearly hidden his mouth. Thick black eyebrows framed disarmingly expressive eyes. His nose, though broken at least once, added to his attraction.
“Yep,” Francisco said in fair imitation of Bob Torrez. “Look Mamá, I really have to cut away. Somebody said the Maestro has finished his warm-ups, so here we go.”
“Take care, querido.”
“Sure. Love you, Ma.”
She switched off, irritated that Benedicte Mazón had made no effort to grant her privacy. He had listened to her half of the conversation with interest.
“So,” he said. “All is well.” It was a statement, not a question. “As I said.”
“Why are you here?”
Mazón looked down at his hands. “I should tell you that I have just been released from prison after twenty-one years of incarceration.” Despite the rapid cadence of his speech, his diction in English was fluent and clear. His eyes rose slowly to Estelle’s. “I am fifty-three years old. I have spent thirty-six of those years in places too horrible to contemplate, mi sobrina.”
“Do not call me that,” the undersheriff whispered.
He offered a small shrug. “Who can blame, eh? Suddenly,” and he leaned back and spread his hands wide, “here I am, face-to-face with a niece until now merely a mystery to me. You have never seen me before, you do not know me.” He leaned forward quickly. “Let me ask you this. Have you spoken with Señor Guerrero recently?”
“The old man in Tres Santos? No. I have no reason.”
“No recollections?”
“None that are clear. I remember seeing him now and then when I was a child. I remember his wooden pushcart. He offered to give me a ride in it once, and I ran away. He would hardly remember me now.” Por Dios, why was she telling a stranger this?
“Señor Guerrero will remember you as clearly as if it was yesterday. Salvaste por los Ángeles is what he calls you. Saved by the angels. To a simple man such as him, you are…” and this time he groped for the word. “That night—it is hard for him even to talk about it to this day, his heart was so charged by what he saw.” He paused. “Tres Santos is but an hour’s drive. You have but to talk with him. I imagine he will find it difficult, but it is a thing that should be done. You know…” and he stopped abruptly, staring at his hands. “He never talked with the woman who later adopted you about that night. He could not bring himself. In such a small town, of course, your mother knew the story well. Yet she did not tell you?”
Do not go there, she told herself. “So far, you have told me nothing, except that you’ve spent most of your life in prison, and that you know one or two people from my childhood.”
“Ah,” Mazón said, and twisted as he withdrew his wallet from a back pocket. The photograph that he fished out was a battered one, eight by ten and folded in quarters, a digital photo enlarged as big as the cheap paper would allow. He passed it to Estelle. “I have one of the prison guards to thank for this,” he said. “A young man with more than his share of humanity who has aspirations for a book someday.”
Estelle studied the photo carefully. It was bleak, in color so stark and muted that it could just as well have been black and white. The photographer had stood back from the iron bars and shot through them into the tiny, stark cell without the harsh shadows of a flash. Benedicte Mazón stood just left of center in the photo, head down, hands clasped behind his back, half glasses sliding down his nose like an old scholar lost in thought.
Two cell walls were visible, and both were papered with magazine articles and photographs. Without a magnifying glass, she could not assess the entire collection, but she could see enough. Light streamed in from a high, barred window on the left, casting the prisoner’s face in the shadows. But the walls were illuminated, and presented a heart-wrenching record of her son Francisco’s incredible career—solo in concert at age seven with the gigantic nine-foot long grand piano stretching away from his knobby little knees like a vast, black ocean; in concert with various orchestras; in impassioned duet with the child flutist, Mateo Atencio. Several publicity portrait shots also graced the wall, including the formal black and white study of him that had been used the past year for his concert in Posadas, New Mexico. Someone not intimately familiar with the photos would have had a hard time understandin
g the images, but to her, they were all achingly familiar.
“You may keep that, if you wish,” Mazón said.
“No.” She laid it on the table in front of him. “It’s yours. I’m surprised that the prison guards allowed you this collection in your cell.”
“Some were understanding. What harm in photographs?”
“And I repeat…so what? You have obviously followed my son’s career closely for some time. That alone makes me nervous. And you have yet to say how all of this concerns Señor Guerrero in Tres Santos.”
“Besides my twelve-year-old self, the old man is the only witness to the accident that killed your parents and your two siblings, Señora Guzman.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“The fact that he hiked around the south end of the ridge to get you in his sights tells me that he was familiar with the country.”
Torrez tried to stretch his long limbs in the confines of the state SUV. “That part ain’t hard. I mean, it’s obvious what the ridge does. But I wasn’t lookin’ behind me.”
The sheriff fell silent, thinking through the previous day minute by minute. Miles Waddell had known the sheriff was hunting, but not when or exactly where. Had the developer seen the sheriff’s aging pickup, he would have recognized it. Torrez had not told the Sheriff’s Department dispatcher where he was. He had not told any of his staff, including Undersheriff Estelle Reyes Guzman. The hunt had been more a spur of the moment thing, prompted by perfect weather, mood, and no pressing engagements. Robert Torrez had had the time, and took advantage of it. The hunt wasn’t a grand secret of some sort. He simply didn’t care who knew. When he had left the house that morning, he hadn’t even told Gayle what his plans were. She was used to that.
He tapped his knee impatiently as the State Police lieutenant guided the SUV down the hill at a conservative pace, closely followed by Miles Waddell’s pickup.
At the bottom, Steward had already opened the gate, and stood expectantly on the right side of the road, trusty clipboard in hand.
“How well do you know this guy?” Adams asked.
“Little bit. He’s been around for a long time.”
Adams glanced in his rearview mirror. “Bueler didn’t have much to say.”
“Nope.”
“I’d like to know what’s on his mind.”
Instead of driving through the gate, Adams pulled hard to the inside curbing, giving Waddell room to pass. The developer did, and parked just beyond the small security building.
“This ain’t the best place to park,” Steward said as he approached the State Police unit, but Adams was already out, letting the SUV’s door swing closed behind him. The security guard added, “We got some big rigs that come through here.”
“We won’t be long,” Adams said easily. Torrez joined the caucus, and Steward looked a little uneasy as Waddell and Bueler walked around the end of the gate.
The representative from United Security Resources had been quiet, Torrez thought, but what did he need to say, with the loquacious Waddell and Mark Adams leading the conversations?
“We need to see your log,” the sheriff said to Steward.
Clearly uncomfortable with the request, the man looked down at the aluminum clipboard as if to say, “You mean this?”
“Anything they want, Jerry. Anytime, anything,” Waddell said, and it wasn’t a suggestion.
Steward passed the clipboard to Torrez, who studied it for a long moment. Another bottom-dump semi swung off the county road in a cloud of dust, and the lieutenant stepped out on the pavement and judged the clearance between the SUV and the guardrail.
“Lots of room,” he announced.
“So who doesn’t sign in?” Torrez asked.
Steward reached out and thumbed the thick sheaf of pages behind the cover page. “Everybody who comes up here signs in,” he said officiously. A second semi appeared, the driver riding his Jake brake as he swung the monster off the county road, following the first one across the vast acreage of the parking lot. Both units slowed a bit as they neared the gate, but it was obvious they weren’t stopping. Torrez waited until they passed, trailing clouds of residual dust and diesel fumes.
“Almost everybody,” he said.
“Well, I mean visitors, you know,” Steward said.
“When was the last time Olveda was here?”
“Who?”
“Dominic Olveda,” the sheriff repeated.
“The guy from Tucson who wants to build out at the airport,” Waddell prompted. “He’s been here a couple times.” He reached across for the clipboard, rifled through the pages, and then paused, holding the sheet out toward Torrez, thumb marking a signature, a classical flourish unlike any of the other scrawls on the page.
“That’s him, there. Came out last Thursday. Last week.”
“That’s the only time?”
“I think,” Waddell said, shuffling more pages, “it’s the only time he signed.”
“You know, we get busy,” Steward flustered. “Sometimes there’s a line here, and if I know ’em, well, on they go.”
“And you know him.” Torrez studied the man, and Steward shrugged uncomfortably. “You spoke to him?”
“Oh, sure.”
“He ever have anybody with him?”
“No, just the once.”
Torrez’s brows twitched with a mix of amusement and exasperation. “What’s that mean?”
“No, I mean this Olveda fellow has visited a couple of times, and at least once, he had this other guy with him. Some Mexican guy.” Steward’s eyes flicked to Torrez and then away, as if he’d stepped in it. “I mean he…”
“What was his name?”
Steward took the clipboard back and scanned the signatures. After a moment, he flipped the pages and started the search all over again. “I don’t guess that he signed it. Appears not.”
Mark Adams looked across at Waddell, making no effort to conceal his grin.
“Good system you got going here,” he said.
“You’d remember what he looked like?” Torrez asked.
“Oh, sure. Least I think so.”
“I’ll drop by with a photo today or tomorrow.” The ‘after’ shot of the assassin that the medical examiner would produce after a little clean-up wouldn’t be pretty, but the .45 slug had left his face more or less intact as it rattled around inside his skull.
“You got it,” Steward said eagerly. “Now what’s the deal, anyway?”
“Just curiosity,” Adams said. “You know, it’s quite a place you have here.” He reached out and nudged Steward’s arm. “Quite a responsibility for you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Steward said, the self-aggrandizement surfacing effortlessly.
Rick Bueler stepped closer to the sheriff as the group separated. “I’d like to see that photo when you have it. If you want me to come into the office, I’ll be happy to do that.”
Torrez regarded the man for a moment. “No problem with that.”
“I’ve talked to Mr. Olveda twice up on top,” Bueler added. “And once he did have company with him.”
“What did they want?”
“Olveda was waiting to talk with Mr. Waddell. Actually both times. The other gentleman, I don’t know. He was impressed with the view, I know that. He had binoculars, and spent some time just looking.”
The sheriff nodded and started to walk across the highway, beckoning Bueler to follow. On the far side of the pavement, Torrez stopped, his back to the group. “What did Olveda want?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You didn’t talk to Waddell afterward?”
“A little. I asked if there was anything I needed to know, and Mr. Waddell shrugged it off. He said that Olveda was scouting out opportunities for the guests at that hotel he’s building at the airport…things that would be available on NightZone property.” Bueler linked his fingers together. “He’s thinking along the lines of some sort of cooperative venture with Mr. Waddell.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know for certain. We have thousands of acres here, though. And I know that Mr. Waddell is cranking out one idea after another. I know that he was talking about earmarking the arroyo wash area to the northeast for a birdwatching sanctuary. And maybe the BLM caves to the west for spelunkers. I don’t know what Olveda wanted to suggest.”
“When was all this?”
“He and the other gentleman were out here earlier in the week.”
“Just this week, you mean?”
“Yes, sir. In fact, it was Monday. I’m certain of that.”
“Describe him for me.”
“Olveda, you mean?”
“His buddy,” Torrez said patiently.
Bueler looked down at the ground. “Five-six or seven, maybe. A real stump. Burly.” He held his arms out to encircle a barrel. “I’d say maybe he went two thirty, two forty. Not fat, but solid. That day he was wearing blue jeans and kind of a fancy shirt.” He laid his hand on his chest. “Fancy stitching in the Mexican style. Long, wavy hair combed back, heavy on the pomade. Heavy features. No mustache, no beard, but sideburns down even with his earlobes.”
“He say anything?”
“Not a word. A nod for greeting, but that was all. In fact I never heard him speak. I don’t even know if he spoke English.”
“Did Olveda ever call him by name?”
“No, sir.”
“When Waddell arrived, you didn’t stick around to hear the conversation?”
“No, sir. I had things to do. Lots of bugs to work out. And Miles Waddell is the boss.” Bueler grinned. “What he says goes. He does what he wants to do. The rest of us just try to keep up.”
Torrez almost smiled and glanced back at the others across the road where the flustered Steward was engaged in conversation with his boss and Lieutenant Adams. “I can see that.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“So long ago,” Mazón sighed. “I was but ten years old that night. My brother was but twenty-two.” He bowed his head slightly in deference. “You, mi sobrina, were but days away from entering this world had circumstances not interfered.”
Blood Sweep Page 18
