“I’m surprised that he was ever found, going down in that country.”
“So am I, Joe. You’re sure this is the same young man, then?”
“Oh, yes.”
“When did he drop off the last check?”
“You know, I think it was Wednesday right after dinner.” Joe’s face lit up a little at the recollection. “That’s what it was. I remember him apologizing for being so late, but he said that he’d had a really busy delivery schedule, and that he’d also had some trouble with a flat tire.” Joe shook his head sadly. “Too bad. Too bad. A nice young man. These things happen, sometimes.” He looked up. “The cashier’s check we gave him…maybe he still had it with him in the truck, then? You think that’s possible?”
“It’s possible.” But he didn’t, Estelle almost added. “Do you have the winning check that he delivered to you?”
“Lucinda took it to the bank on Friday afternoon. That’s what happened. Friday.”
“How much was it for?” Estelle knew the blunt question about the prize amount would draw Joe up short, and she watched as he struggled with whether to answer or not. He hesitated and looked at the manila envelope again. He shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Is there some kind of problem with the check? If they don’t receive the money for the exchange rate…maybe they stop payment. I don’t know how these things work.”
“I’m not sure yet what problems there are, Joe.”
“Lucinda already took the check he gave us to the bank,” Joe said with finality.
“Posadas State?”
“Yes.”
“And you wrote a check to the driver?”
“No. We had to have a cashier’s check. Lucinda got that Wednesday morning. She could tell you the reason why. I don’t remember. But that’s what we gave to the young man. The cashier’s check. Anybody could cash it.”
“And when you did that, he handed you the sweepstakes check?”
Joe nodded. “That’s how it happened. We won twice, you know. Betty told you that.”
“When was the first time?”
“I would have to look in the checkbook. But I think it was about two weeks ago. Maybe three.”
“Same deal? You handed over a check, and in return were given the sweepstakes winnings?”
Joe nodded emphatically. “Same exact thing. Only the prize wasn’t so big the first time.”
“Do you mind me asking how large it was?” she asked gently. This time, he replied without hesitation.
“No, I don’t mind,” he said with a note of pride. “We won more than eight thousand dollars the first time.”
“You were given a check for that amount, then?”
“We had to pay…Wait a minute. This is making my brain go all to mush.” He pushed himself out of the chair. “Wait a minute.” In a few minutes he returned with a well-worn checkbook. “Now,” he said with satisfaction, and settled back in the chair. “Let’s see what this is all about.” Estelle waited for him to thumb through the records.
“On January: eighteenth, we gave him a cashier’s check for $1,402.50.” Joe repeated the number while Estelle jotted it in a small notebook. “That was for taxes and all that stuff.”
“The exchange rate, you mean?”
“That’s it. He said it was up to seventeen percent now.”
“And the delivery driver…he was this same young man?”
“Yes. The same man.”
“And then?”
“And then what?”
“This last time? The second time you won? What did you give him?”
Joe hesitated and flipped a page. “It was Wednesday. We wrote a check for this much to the bank, so we could have a cashier’s check.” He turned the book toward her as if embarrassed to say the number.
“Thirty thousand four hundred thirteen,” Estelle said, and the jolt of apprehension she felt was palpable. “And you received a check for how much?”
“Here’s the copy of the deposit ticket,” he said, and handed it to Estelle. “Lucinda went to the bank on Friday afternoon.” Estelle looked at the number and blinked-$178,900.
“One hundred and seventy-eight thousand,” she said.
“And nine hundred.”
“That’s a lot of money, Joe. That’s quite a streak of good fortune you’ve had. First the state lottery back in November, and now this.”
He grinned slyly. “That lottery…I bought the ticket, you know. Good thing, too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had the money to pay for this.” He reached out and touched the deposit ticket.
“Was there a particular reason why you and Lucinda waited two days to deposit the check?”
“We had things to do,” Joe replied, and smiled. “Maybe we had to give it time to sink in.”
“That would take some thinking,” Estelle said. “Caramba.” She sat back, the deposit slip in hand. “Do you have one of the original mailings for the sweepstakes?”
“Lucinda might remember where she put it. I don’t know. I can look if you want. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”
Other than a dead man? Estelle wanted to say. She looked at the deposit ticket again. The advance payment for a lottery prize was one of the oldest scams, and existed in a myriad of iterations, she knew. The undersheriff had a small folder of solicitations that she had collected over the years, including a Nigerian version, where the mark was told that he had been selected to help a foreign corporation transfer an enormous sum of money to avoid tax penalties, and had only to provide bank account numbers for transfer. Some required wiring advance money to pay various charges. But none offered a check on the spot, delivered in person.
This was simplicity itself. The Bacas had paid a total of just under $32,000 in “fees” and received, on the spot, checks that totaled more than $187,000, for a profit of more than $155,000.
When Estelle didn’t respond, Joe tapped the paperwork. “You ask Serafina,” he said. “She’ll tell you the same story.”
“Serafina won from the same contest?”
“Sure, she won before we did. She won twice, too.”
“You’re kidding.” She didn’t mention that Betty had already spread the good news.
“No, I’m not kidding, hija,” he said, and then added, the tone of his voice implying that somehow he and his wife had found the magic formula, “Maybe we shouldn’t have…I don’t know. The driver told us that he had delivered more than one prize a lot of times. Serafina won twice, I know that. And so did we.”
Estelle sat back in the chair. “Fascinating,” she said. No complaint, no crime. Joe and Lucinda Baca evidently hadn’t been defrauded.…In fact, they’d collected handsomely-maybe. The second, larger check hadn’t had time to clear the bank yet. Maybe it would. But there had to be a catch, Estelle knew. The whole “taxes and exchange rate” nonsense was just that, as surely as the sun rose. Somehow, the next step in the scam had been scotched when Chris Marsh had plunged his truck over the mountainside.
She tapped the envelope on her knee thoughtfully. “Joe, let me ask you one more thing.” She drew out the photo of the woodcutter and handed it to the old man. She watched his face intently.
“Now this,” he said slowly. “What happened?”
“Do you know this man?”
“No.…” He shifted uneasily. “Maybe I’ve seen him around. I don’t know his name. What happened to him?” He squinted at the photo.
“An accident while cutting wood-up north near Reserve.”
“Who took this picture?”
“One of the investigating officers.”
“Who was with him? He was working alone?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that, Joe.”
“This is all too bad,” Joe Baca said. He handed the photo back, and Estelle handed him the paper with the telephone number. “What’s this, then?” he asked.
“You know the number?”
“Well, sure I know it. That’s Emilio’s phone. Or I guess I should say Betty’s. Emilio doesn’t answer the phone ever. By the time he gets to it, it’s the next day.” Joe smiled. “Why do you need that?”
“I don’t need that,” Estelle said. “It was in the young man’s pocket when he was found.”
“And he was already dead?”
“Yes. He bled to death.”
Joe shook his head slowly. “That’s bad, hija. That’s a bad business. Those chain saws…”
“Is this your handwriting?”
“Why would that be my writing?” he replied. “You already talked with Betty. That’s her number.”
“But she didn’t write this note,” Estelle said, and slipped the paper back in the envelope.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Joe said. “He’s not from around here. That much I can tell you.”
“But you saw him around the village,” Estelle suggested.
Joe shifted, his frown deepening. “Maybe I was mistaken. You know, in this country there are a lot of people. They come and go all the time. I can’t be sure.”
A lot of people. Regál counted forty-one residents. The border provided a constant trickle, but how many of those travelers-either north- or southbound-paused long enough to be noticed?
“It’s fortunate that you have recovered from that experience,” he said, apparently eager to drop the subject about whom he might, or might not, know. “We all prayed for you, you know.”
“I appreciate that, Joe.” She was touched that her welfare immediately after the shooting nearly a year ago had been on the minds and in the prayers of so many people.
“So, where are you headed now? Can you wait until Lucinda comes home? She’ll just be a few minutes.” He had skillfully opened the door for Estelle.
“I wish I could,” Estelle replied. “I don’t get down here often enough. But maybe next time.” She glanced at her watch. “Dispatch tells me that I have a visitor waiting for me, so I’d best be on my way. I appreciate your help, Joe. Give Lucinda my best.” She stood and slipped the envelope under her arm, freeing her hands to take the old man’s in both of hers. “And I appreciate your thoughts,” she said. “It means a lot.” He patted the back of her hand.
“I think he was just passing through,” Joe said, nodding at the envelope that contained the photos.
“I’m sure you’re right.” And I’m sure you know more than you’re telling me, she thought, and saw the crinkles around the corners of his eyes deepen a touch as if he could read her mind.