“Mmmmmph, Mmmph.” I could hear the anger shouted right through the tape, or sock, or plastic bag that was covering her mouth.
My blood ran cold. “Hang in there,” I said. “Is it safe for you to break the connection?”
The two screams were as immediate as a cry from a hot poker.
“All right, I’m here, and Estelle’s on the way. It’ll just be a couple of minutes.” I put my hand over the receiver and looked at Camille. “Go into my bedroom and get my handheld radio.” She took off like a shot. “Erma, now listen carefully. Is someone else there with you, other than the children?”
“Mmmph, Mmmph.”
“Was someone there?”
“Mmmph.”
She was crying, and I could hear her breath coming in jerky sobs. I could envision all kinds of nightmares, and one of them was Erma Sedillos choking to death. “Are they there now?” I knew damn well that the intruders weren’t going to be sitting there, watching her grunt into a telephone, but they might have been in the yard.
I took a deep breath of relief when I heard the two choked grunts, and Camille handed me the handheld radio.
“Hang in there, Erma. Everything is going to be all right.” I twisted the power button on, switched to channel three, and barked, “PCS, Gastner.”
The response was instant, and I recognized the clipped, efficient voice of Ernie Wheeler.
“Gastner, PCS.”
“PCS, I need a backup unit at Four-ten South Twelfth Street. Code Thirty-three.”
“Ten-four, sir. What’s your twenty?”
“I’m home, damn it.”
“Sir, all units are responding to a call at the motel…”
With a curse, I grunted to my feet, not hearing the rest of our dispatcher’s message. “Erma, are you still there?”
“Mmmph.”
“All right. Listen, is there any danger to Estelle when she arrives?”
“Mmmph,” and then, after a pause of five heartbeats, “Mmmph.”
“She’ll be there in just a minute. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to have my daughter Camille stay on the line with you. Do you understand me?”
“Mmmph.”
“She’s got a radio direct to the Sheriff’s Department, so you’re not alone. All right?”
“Mmmph.”
I thrust the phone at Camille and planted the radio in front of her on the kitchen table. “If you need to call Dispatch, just push the talk button. I’ll have the radio on in three ten, and I’ll have the other handheld with me everywhere else, so you can talk to me, as well. All right?”
She nodded and sat down, as white as a sheet.
“You’re sure you’re all right with this?” I said.
“Go, go,” she said. “And be careful.”
If I could have sprinted, I would have. But motions repeated over the years until they were second nature sufficed. Three ten hit the asphalt of Escondido with a loud bellow, and then, with a wrench of the steering wheel, I launched north onto Grande.
Estelle’s home was five blocks south of Bustos, the major east-west artery of Posadas. The fastest way to get there was to avoid all the side streets, heading straight north on Grande for a mile and then west on Bustos. I passed the intersection of Grande and MacArthur still accelerating, staying in the left-hand lane, hugging the center median.
The intersection with Bustos was four lanes wide, but I still didn’t have enough room. The county car squalled sideways through the intersection, and for an instant I had visions of planting 310 upside down on Pershing’s tank. Everyone and everything stayed out of my way, and I straightened out and headed west on Bustos.
My heart was hammering when I slowed for the left turn onto Twelfth, and as soon as I turned the corner, I could see Estelle’s county car parked at the sidewalk three blocks ahead.
As I pulled up behind her car, I palmed the microphone. “PCS, three ten is ten-ninety-seven, Guzman residence.”
“Ten-four, three ten.”
I slammed the gear lever into park, eyes scanning the front of the house. I don’t know what I expected to see, but nothing appeared amiss.
The engine died and I got out of the car. The Guzman home was one of those neat out-of-a-can tract homes that had been built during the mining boom. It was attractive and unpresumptuous. A decade before, the house next door had burned, and the previous owners of the Guzman home had had the foresight to purchase the lot, remove the charred ruins, and double the size of their own yard. That was the feature that had attracted the Guzmans when the place had come on the market a handful of years later.
As I walked to the door, I looked left, along the chain-link fence that enclosed the yard. Neither Francis nor Estelle had time to garden, and they’d settled for planting trees and bushes. On a summer’s day, the place was a densely shaded arboretum.
The neighborhood was so quiet, I could hear the hot engine of 310 ticking behind me. Estelle couldn’t have arrived more than a minute before me.
The front door was ajar. I pulled the screen open and sidled inside. The foyer opened into the living room, and Estelle was on her knees beside Erma Sedillos. A table was overturned, and the telephone unit and answering machine were on the floor.
From a back bedroom, I could hear the lusty voice of little Carlos.
“He’s okay,” Estelle said, and she was working frantically and gently to free the duct tape from around Erma’s face, hands, and feet. She was trussed like a turkey. “They took Francisco,” Estelle said over her shoulder to me.
“They what?”
Estelle shot a glance at me, and for the first time since I had known her, her voice shook. “Francisco. They took him.”
Chapter 30
“He came in the back,” Erma cried, and her tears were an equal mixture of agony and anger. She was no frail, shrinking violet. In an arm-wrestling contest, she’d probably break my elbow before tearing every muscle out of my shoulder. “We were in the kitchen, and he came right through the door.” She followed Estelle into the back room, and in a moment they returned, Estelle holding the red-faced Carlos.
Less than a year old, Carlos was in no mood to understand or cope. He howled.
“When did this happen?” It was a simple-enough question, but Erma couldn’t get the words out. She was sobbing and collapsed down on the sofa, her hands over her face. Estelle knelt beside her and hugged her shoulders with one free arm, then stroked her hair.
She had Carlos on one side and Erma on the other. “Come on, now, hermana, think for me.” She gripped the girl’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Come on. Pull yourself together and think for me. How long ago did this happen?”
“I…I looked at the clock in the kitchen as soon as I knew he’d gone. ’Cause I knew you might still be over at sir’s. It was three minutes after six.”
I glanced at my watch. An hour and forty minutes. The bastard had an hour-and-forty-minute head start. With that much time, he could be in Mexico. The Regal crossing closed at six, but we were a scant hour and a half from the twenty-four-hour crossing at El Paso. Or he could almost be in Arizona. Or he could be back in his hole somewhere in Posadas. The possibilities were endless, and all grim.
After looking at the clock, Erma had squirmed painfully from kitchen to living room. Something as simple as a telephone on a table had been a monumental feat for her. She had managed to worm against the table, pushing it against a chair until the whole thing capsized. And then she had pressed the automatic dialer with the only part of her anatomy that wasn’t taped tightly in place-her nose. That trip and task had taken more than an hour.
“Now think hard,” Estelle said. “It was just one man?”
“Yes.” Erma wiped her eyes and looked imploringly at Estelle. “I thought that it was Francis. The back light wasn’t on, and I thought he was Francis. The way he knocked on the door.” Carlos heard the magic name and his cries subsided into hiccuppy whimpers. Estelle held him firmly; his arms were around her neck.