“Not to worry,” Jackie said. “I’m having fun. If someone wants to bring out some coffee, that would be nifty. Captain Mitchell is already headed this way.”
“Ay, estoy torpe esta mañana,” Estelle groaned. “I’m sooooo slow.”
“The mountain will keep,” Jackie replied. “Any word this morning on Pam’s daughter?”
“Francis checked on her this morning. They think she’ll be okay. The surgery went well.” Went well. It was so easy, she thought. Crack somebody else open to repair defective parts, and it all goes well. Kerri Gardiner, fifteen years old and full of the self-conscious self-image that plagued the teen years, might not think so when she had her first look at the scar down the middle of her chest that the “went well” left behind.
“That’s good to hear,” Jackie said. “See you in a bit, then.”
Estelle rang off and sat on the edge of the bed for another moment, deep in thought. Jackie Taber had already located two important bits at the crash site. More might surface. Christopher Marsh had not died alone. He’d been helped. Estelle pushed off the bed and headed toward the bathroom.
It took great planning and thought to move about this planet without leaving some kind of track, she mused. Marsh’s crash had been an accident-a deer had waited until the wrong moment before crossing into the truck’s path. What had happened next had been a crime of opportunity, and those so often left room for error.
The hot water felt good, and she stood under it with her eyes closed, letting the steam turn the shower into a sauna. In slow motion, she began the ritual of stretches that helped tame the ache in her right shoulder and side, bending with her arm arched over her head, letting the hot water beat her skin, then twisting carefully to full extension, locking her hands behind her back and tugging.
After fifteen minutes, she turned off the water and sucked in a deep breath. “It went well,” she repeated aloud. “Oh, sí.” The mirror was steamed over, and she didn’t bother with it. She didn’t need to see the massive scar that circled around the right side of her own torso, from armpit to the lower, medial margin of her right breast. The scar had faded over the months, from livid roadway to a narrow track, just as her husband had said it would.
If the memory of those moments would fade, all would be well. But just the reverse happened as her mind dredged up the details that she thought had been lost, rerunning the tapes at the most inopportune times.
She dressed quickly, shook her short black hair into some semblance of order, and hurried out to the kitchen to begin the day with a moment, a concentrated shot, of normalcy.
Halfway through the first small square of waffle, a sweet chunk of magic about the size of a playing card that Carlos convinced her to try, Estelle’s cell phone rang.
“I can answer that,” Francisco chirped, and he started to reach for his mother’s holstered cell phone. Estelle fended him off with a mock threat from her fork as she rose from the table. That earned a glance from her mother, who usually kept her thoughts to herself when the children were present. Tiny, wrinkled, and now so bent of spine that she sat no higher in her chair than did six-year-old Carlos, Teresa Reyes lifted an arthritic index finger for emphasis.
“They ask too much of you,” she said, and then nodded as if to add, and that’s that.
“Sometimes they do,” Estelle said, “but I’m late.” She walked into the living room and opened the phone on the third ring. “Guzman.”
“Hey,” Sheriff Bob Torrez said, his soft voice carrying no urgency. “You okay?”
“Sure,” Estelle replied, surprised that the taciturn sheriff would ask. But he was used to her being places before he was. “I conked out for a while.”
“I’m headed out to the pass. You headed that way?”
“Yes. I just talked with Jackie. She’s found a couple interesting things.”
“Yeah. I talked to her, too. Linda?”
“She’s been called.”
“Okay. I’m headed to Regál right now,” the sheriff said. “And hey…Sutherland’s got a bunch of paperwork that came down from Catron County. They’ve got a situation goin’ on up there that maybe has a tie with us. You want to stop by the office on your way and check it out?”
“What kind of situation? Are they asking for an assist, or what?”
“Little bit, maybe. If you think there’s anybody we can break free, that’d be good. I’ll see you in a bit, then.” The connection broke.
Chapter Eleven
The manila envelope from the Catron County Sheriff’s Department was folded into the undersheriff’s mailbox. With the time-consuming investigation pending down in Regál Pass and the sticky situation surrounding the accidental discharge of Deputy Collins’ handgun, Estelle’s first impulse was to leave Catron’s problems for later. She already had the feeling of looking uphill at a huge snowball that was perched on the brink.
She pulled the envelope out of the box and was about to open it when she saw a civilian push himself out of one of the chairs in the foyer beyond the dispatch island.
“Undersheriff Guzman?” The man approached her, skirting Brent Sutherland’s workstation and stopping by the electrically operated half gate that blocked access to the offices behind Dispatch. Neatly dressed in a dark business suit, he looked like a successful salesman who had had a bad night’s sleep.
“Good morning, sir. How may I help you?”
He extended a hand, and his grip was perfunctory. “I’m Elliot Parker. I understand that my son’s arraignment is this morning at nine?”
Estelle glanced at Sutherland, who nodded agreement. “Mike scheduled it,” Sutherland added.
“Anyway, I’m here for that,” Parker continued. “The sheriff was in here earlier, and was good enough to allow me to talk with my son. May I have a moment of your time? The sheriff suggested that I might talk to you.”
The sheriff didn’t suggest that to me, Estelle thought, but she was thoroughly used to Robert Torrez’s ways. “It will have to be a brief moment, Mr. Parker.” She had no trouble imagining what the abrupt sheriff had actually said.
“This is important, officer.”
“I understand that you’re concerned about your son, sir. But at the moment, there’s nothing I can do about the schedule of the arraignment, or even about the fact that he’s going to be arraigned.” She saw the muscle of Parker’s right cheek twitch.
“The others have all gone home. My son is still locked in that cell. Now I can understand you all being a little unsympathetic about this sort of thing, and no one wants to tolerate underage drinking, but-”
“It’s not a question of sympathy,” Estelle said evenly. “The others are all minors, Mr. Parker. They are under eighteen. For them, Juvenile Probation has jurisdiction. Your son is not underage. On top of that, there’s more here than a question of underage drinking. Your son will be treated like any other adult.”
“I think that we need to talk, young lady,” Parker snapped.
Estelle stepped closer and rested her hand on the gate’s polished wood. “Thank you for that thought, Mr. Parker. A forty-year-old mother of two always appreciates a compliment.” She saw his eyes narrow a bit. “But at the moment, we have an active homicide investigation ongoing. Even if that were not the case, there isn’t much that the sheriff or I can do for you until after your son’s arraignment. Or even then, for that matter.” She tapped the edge of the manila envelope on the rail. “It’s a matter for the district attorney now, not us.”
“I assume you have an office?” Parker’s tone was heavy with condescension, and Estelle did not reply, waiting for him to continue. “May we talk in private?”
Did you ask the sheriff if he had an office? she thought, but kept her tone civil. “Go ahead, sir. I’m listening.” Parker looked across at Sutherland, who was doing a credible job of ignoring them.