“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.
Chapter Seventeen
Estelle recalled Serafina Roybal as a large, imposing woman who could be intimidating when she chose. But that was an image from twenty-four years before, when Mrs. R, as the students universally called her, had taught Spanish, speech, and drama at Posadas High School. Her husband, Octavio, Betty Contreras’ oldest brother, had taught history until pancreatic cancer had killed him on his sixtieth birthday.
Those many years before, Mrs. R had taken the darkly gorgeous and equally reticent Mexican teenager from Tres Santos under her generous wing after consultation with Estelle’s foster mother, Teresa. Serafina and Teresa had known each other for years, no doubt through Estelle’s great-uncle Reuben, who knew everyone along that section of border, especially if that everyone happened to be female.
Teresa was adamant about her adopted daughter’s future. Just turned sixteen, Estelle would finish high school in the United States and then attend an appropriate college, collecting her official U.S. citizenship in the process. She would not be left to languish in the dusty poverty of rural northern Mexico. Estelle had accepted that notion with alacrity-she had no desire to languish anywhere-and soon found that Mrs. R was a teacher of enormous imagination and good humor.
Over the years since then, when Estelle would on rare occasions meet Serafina Roybal in the grocery store or in passing at the bank, their conversations were more often than not in the dignified Castilian Spanish that Mrs. R taught her students. And over the years, Serafina shrank.
The woman who answered Estelle’s knock this day was impossibly tiny. This could not be the imposing woman who had stood figuratively-and sometimes literally-between Estelle and the swarms of eager teenaged boys who to their credit recognized beauty when they saw it.
Withering into herself, the now eighty-year-old Serafina was a wrinkled little gnome, only her thick, luxuriant hair-now iron gray-a reminder of the long years past. Her right eye showed the first signs of clouding, but she recognized the undersheriff with a little gasp of delight.
“Estellita!” she cried, and held out both arms. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.” It was hard to imagine that this tiny bag of bones was the same fearsome woman who had nailed four senior boys for smoking funny tobacco behind the high school’s vo-tech building.
Serafina cocked her head as far as her stiff neck allowed and looked up at the undersheriff. “How’s that husband of yours?” she asked in Spanish.
“He’s too busy,” Estelle laughed.
“That’s always the case. And the boys?”
“They keep me young.”
“The oldest boy…he continues with his studies?” Serafina held out two arthritic hands and played a phantom keyboard.
“More than ever,” Estelle replied. “We have discussions about where he wants to study when the time comes.”
“And it will come too soon,” Serafina said. “Don’t be in a rush.”
“How is Esmeralda doing these days? It’s been years since I’ve seen her.”
Serafina made a wry face at the mention of her daughter. “She doesn’t visit much anymore,” she said. “Not enough time to bother with an old lady.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Her family is well?” Estelle had a vague recollection that Serafina and Octavio Roybal had raised only the single daughter, Esmeralda, who in turn had moved away to raise her own family.
“I hope so,” Serafina said. “That’s the big news, you know. You’ll come in for a few minutes? I know you’re busy today.”
Estelle was fascinated that the tiny village’s grapevine was flourishing even in the few moments it took the undersheriff to drive from one house to another.
“Thank you.”
“I have some coffee,” Serafina offered, but Estelle held up a defensive hand.
“No, thanks so much, Mrs. Roybal.” Estelle followed the elderly woman as she shuffled inside, one tiny, slow step at a time. The home displayed the much-worn pathways of the very elderly. The large cushioned chair, with back and arms covered with graying, tattered doilies, faced the television across the room. The TV set was one of those cabinet affairs with light maple woodwork, and Estelle saw that the picture would be much brighter if the thick layer of dust was wiped from the screen.
A path worn into the amorphous designs on the carpeting led to the simple kitchen, and another to the bathroom and two bedrooms. Serafina’s world was gradually collapsing inward to a few well-worn, predictable routines.
“What’s the big news?” Estelle asked.
“Well, now, you won’t guess who’s visiting tomorrow,” Serafina said. “My granddaughter called and said she’d like to stop by. That’s Ezzi’s oldest, Irene. She’s an honor student now, you know. But…,” and Serafina lowered her voice as if she didn’t want the ghosts to hear, “she’s had a crush on that Danny Rivera since I don’t know when. Not that it does any good. Mr. Danny doesn’t show any signs of wanting any part of the big wide world.” She turned and beamed at Estelle. “Irene is going to have to come to him, you know. But that’s fashionable these days.”
Serafina pointed a crooked finger at the envelope that Estelle had brought inside with her. “You have something for me?”
“I have a photo or two, Mrs. Roybal. A couple of strange faces. I need to know if you’ve seen either one around the village.”
“I don’t get out so much, you know. I can’t even walk through the orchard anymore. I used to enjoy that. All the birds, you know.”
“I understand that.” And it’s not an orchard now, Estelle thought-the gnarled old stumps, tinder dry, hadn’t seen irrigation or fruit for ten years. She removed the photo of Christopher Marsh but hesitated. Maybe life should reach a point of serenity, she thought. Serafina Roybal had known her share of heartache over the decades. She’d seen prize students go on to enjoy successful lives but suffered the ones who were killed on prom night in a tangle of metal and broken bottles, or those who were expended by their governments. It seemed unfair to inflict Chris Marsh on this gentle woman.