“You bet.”
Sheriff Torrez stepped to one side and allowed Kenderman to pass.
“I’ll be talkin’ to you later,” the young man said to Barbara Parker as he passed.
“Actually, you won’t,” Estelle said as she followed Kenderman outside. “If Mrs. Parker needs to talk to you, she’ll call you. Otherwise, relax and have a good time in Las Cruces. When it’s time for the court-ordered paternity tests, you’ll hear from the Las Cruces P.D. And then on the basis of that, the courts will decide who pays child support and how much.”
Kenderman’s eyes narrowed. “This is a bunch of bullshit, and you know it. You think you can just…” he finished the thought with a disgusted shrug.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking, Mr. Kenderman,” Estelle said. “And there’s a good possibility you don’t want to know. I’m telling you the way things are going to be. So there’s no misunderstanding.”
“You guys should be spending your time trying to find my brother,” Rick Kenderman said. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt those two kids.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Estelle said. “We’ll let you know when we need to talk to you again.” She glanced at the little pickup truck. “The truck will be in the impound yard. There’s a good chance you’ll be hearing from us about that.”
Kenderman’s eyes narrowed.
“Then again, we may not even have time to get to it,” Estelle said easily. She shrugged and gave Kenderman a pleasant smile. “Sometimes we get busy.”
As she watched the young man climb into the Mustang, she sensed Jackie Taber at her elbow.
“Fun times?” the deputy said. Her level gaze followed the Mustang as Kenderman accelerated down the street, hard enough to make his point, not hard enough to break the law.
“Oh sure. Do me a favor? Escort him down to the interstate and make sure he gets headed in the right direction, all right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She strode across the street toward the Bronco and paused at the door. “I heard there’s a want out for Perry. Is that right?”
“Yes. If anyone sees him, give me a call first. I want to be there when he’s taken in.”
Jackie nodded, and Estelle stepped back on the curb.
Bob Torrez waited patiently by the Expedition. As Estelle approached, she grinned at him. “So it’s Igor now. I half expected young Mr. Kenderman to end up with a Sheetrock face.”
Torrez’s smile actually revealed teeth, a rare expression for him. “It’s got a nice ring to it, missy,” he said. “Were you serious about the marijuana bit?” He glanced across at the pickup. “If that’s the case, why didn’t we just arrest the punk and settle his ass in jail?”
“I wanted him out of town, Roberto. He’d just be out of jail in ten minutes on five hundred bucks bail, and we’d be right back where we started. This way, he’s out of town…and he doesn’t know for sure what we’ll do.”
“Do we know?” Torrez said.
“At the moment, all I know is that one Kenderman is headed out of town, and that his brother can’t hide forever. I’ll go with that for the time being.”
Chapter Seventeen
Carlos Guzman’s face appeared in front of Estelle’s as if he’d coalesced out of smoke. She shifted her head slightly so the pillow didn’t block her view but otherwise didn’t stir. His enormous eyes, about the color of semisweet chocolate, regarded her from out of a small round face that was just beginning to lose the indistinct lines of infancy.
“Telefono, Mama.” He whispered the two words and leaned his chin on the edge of the bed.
She lifted her head, loath to move more than that. The hours had finally caught up with her, and she’d almost fallen asleep during an early dinner. She’d stretched out, intending to catnap for half an hour or so-three and a half hours ago.
“Grandmama said you’re supposed to talk on the telephone,” Carlos said when he got no response, and Estelle shifted so she could see the phone on the nightstand. She had never heard it ring.
“Thanks, hijo, ” she murmured and reached for the receiver. The little boy remained motionless, watching. “Guzman,” she said, tucking the phone between her ear and the pillow.
“Estelle, Eddie. Catch you at a bad time?”
She captured her son’s spider-leg finger. With index hooked in index, she was surprised at the strength in that three-year-old finger. “No, it’s just fine,” she said into the phone. And if it weren’t, what difference would it make, she thought. The Posadas chief of police didn’t call to touch bases or engage in idle chitchat.
“We found Perry Kenderman’s truck,” Mitchell said. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Found it where, Chief?”
“It’s parked in the student parking lot at the high school.” She frowned and unhooked her finger from her son’s, and he took a step back as she pushed herself upright. “You still there?”
“I’m here,” she said. “That’s an odd place.”
“Maybe so,” Mitchell said. “Or maybe not. He lives right across the way, there, and knows we’d be watching his apartment. Mix in with all the student vehicles and he might gain himself an hour or two. Maybe he thought we wouldn’t check.” He paused for a heartbeat. “And sure enough, we didn’t. Tom Pasquale found it.”
She glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost eight. “There shouldn’t be many vehicles there this time of day,” she said.
“Nope. But a few. Some kids still in the weight room, a few working in the science lab. There’s always something going on.”
“Any sign of him?”
“Nothing yet. If he left town, he didn’t take his truck. As far as I know, that’s the only vehicle he owns.”
Estelle ran her fingers through her hair. Carlos waved a silent good-bye and thumped out of the room. “Who’s working tonight for you, Eddie?”
“Me. I’d call my part-timer in, but he’s done something to his knee. I’ll be out and about. But I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks, Chief. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just walks into the office in another couple of hours. Give him long enough to think about it. He doesn’t have many options.”
“If he’s smart, that’s what he’ll do,” Mitchell said. “But he doesn’t have much of a batting average for smarts so far. Maybe he’s wrapped himself around a bottle somewhere.”
“He never impressed me as the drinking type,” Estelle said, and that prompted a short, barking laugh from the chief.
“What type’s that?” he said. “Anyway, in a town this small, he’s not going to hide for long. He’s done good just keeping out of sight for a few hours. I wanted to let you know about the truck.”
“Thanks.”
She hung up the receiver and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment with her eyes closed. Perry Kenderman was a puzzle, an unpredictable enigma. He’d chased Colette Parker, behaving like a hotheaded teenager. What had he planned to accomplish by that? He supposedly harbored a deep affection for the two children, yet he’d been unable to admit, let alone assert, his paternity. And what was he doing now? Sitting in the darkened corner of a bar somewhere, nursing his confusion and frustration? Hitchhiking to Wichita Falls? At the time, it had seemed reasonable to give Kenderman the benefit of the doubt, allowing him to remain free on his own recognizance during the initial investigation.
Estelle sighed, arose, and shook the wrinkles out of her blouse and slacks. Her mother sat at the kitchen table, walker at hand. She was frowning over a crossword puzzle in the newspaper but looked up when Estelle appeared.
“You slept quite a while, hija,” she said in Spanish. “This is a funny business. For weeks and weeks, the only excitement we hear about is the county budget. Now there aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“That’s true, Mama,” Estelle said. “Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the time, the county could make do with one deputy. That’s just the nature of things.”