Adios Angel (15 page)

Eskadi’s
directions were less than precise.  The trip to the reservation took Kate
longer than she had anticipated.  By the time she arrived at the Brince house
it was late afternoon. 

Kate spotted
Eskadi sitting at a little picnic table under a small grove of cottonwood trees
on the south side of the house.  Sitting next to him were a short, heavy-set
Apache woman and two teenagers, a boy and a girl.  The petite young girl and
the tall skinny boy appeared to be in their late teens.  Kate waited to get out
of the car until they waved to her.  Eskadi rose to greet her.

“Good news,”
said Eskadi.  “Kayla’s daughter, Layna, and her boyfriend showed up about
fifteen minutes ago.  They were visiting some friends over in Las Cruces.  They
didn’t call because their friend didn’t have a phone.  Come on over and sit
down and join the celebration.  Mrs. Brince just made some fresh lemonade.”

A brief chat
over a cool drink with Layna and her boyfriend convinced Deputy Steele that
they had not been involved with either the car or the license plate thefts. 
They assured her, at the ripe old age of eighteen, their wild days were behind
them.  As of right now, joy riding was a thing of the past.  Mrs. Brince,
elated at the safe return of her daughter, continually ran her fingers through
her daughter’s hair, periodically stopping to hug her.  

With the sun
resting atop the mountains to the west and an hour drive ahead of her, Kate
excused herself.  Eskadi walked her to the car as Mrs. Brince continued
showering the returned children with affection.

“I would
have tried to get a hold of you to save you the drive but the timing didn’t
work out,” said Eskadi.  “But I’m glad you drove up anyway.  You have been a stranger
to these parts.”

“With the
death of Deputy Funke we’re short staffed.  I have been working lots of
overtime and will be for a while.”

Eskadi
rested his hand on her shoulder.  He looked toward the shadowed western slope
of the mountain as he called her by the Apache name he had given her.

“Son--ee--ah--Ray?”

The
questioning and uncertainty in his voice sounded strange.  His face carried a
confused, pained expression.

“Have you
given your heart to another man?”

Was Eskadi,
the strong and brave tribal chairman of the San Carlos, jealous?  The woman in
her was more than a little curious as to why he was acting so strangely.

“What makes
you ask?”

“You have
been distant lately in a way you never have been before.  It made me feel like
something is wrong between us.”

“I’m afraid
it’s just your imagination.  I’m not seeing anyone but you,” said Kate running
a hand across his face.

While her
words were essentially true, she had been having random thoughts of Josh
Diamond.  Those thoughts were fleeting, however, and certainly not etched into
any sort of purpose or intent. 

A beaming
smile returned to Eskadi’s face.

“Sorry, I’m
running late.  I have a lot of work to do yet today.  Let’s talk about it when
we have more time.”

“Then should
I call you later about the White man who pulled the gun on one of my people
when he was stealing those license plates?” asked Eskadi.

Kate did not
appreciate Eskadi’s little cat and mouse game.  This was exactly the sort of
thing that could make her think of the easy going, yet professional ways of
Josh Diamond.

“Do you have
something already?”

“I made a
quick call before I came over here.  I thought you would appreciate it if I did
you a favor.”

“Did you
find anything out?”

“The White
guy was not only big, he was ugly too,” laughed Eskadi.

“Let’s leave
personal opinions out of this,” replied Kate.

“No, I mean
he really was big and ugly.  He was wearing a cap but the witness thought it
looked like he had pretty short hair, like military guys wear.  His head might
even have been shaved.  She couldn’t tell for certain.”

“That
narrows the list down to about fifty million people,” said Kate.

“No need to
get sarcastic,” said Eskadi derisively.  “He was also missing some fingers on
his left hand.”

“Missing
fingers?  How many?”

“Two, maybe
three.  She couldn’t be sure because she was scared and ran away when he
flashed his gun.”

“Did she
recognize what kind of gun it was?”

“A hand gun
with a short barrel.  That’s all she saw.”

“Do you
think she would talk to me?” asked Kate.

“Not a chance. 
She is too scared to talk to the White police.”

“Where did
this happen?” asked Kate.

“Up here
between the Ruidoso Ruins and Diamond Butte.  She was up there gathering herbs
when it happened.  She said it was either last Wednesday or Thursday, just about
the time when the sun was going down.  He was in a great big truck, the kind of
truck that sits way up high off the ground.  She said after he saw her he got
in the truck.  Another man was driving.  She thought the driver was a younger
Mexican or Native, maybe even mixed blood.  In either case he took off driving
down the road like a crazy man.”

Kate jotted
down a few notes and looked over toward the mother and daughter before saying
goodbye to Eskadi. 

On the
return trip to Safford she could only think of Felipe Madrigal.  No matter how
she put the pieces together, it added up to exactly nothing.  The stolen cars,
stolen plates and the dead body of the young girl in Lorenzo García’s truck
didn’t seem to have a direct link.  But her intuition told her otherwise.  She
felt trapped between the facts and what she wanted to believe. 

Dusk and the
hissing of the streetlights turning on overhead greeted her at the city limits
of Safford. 

“Deputy
Steele.  Step into my office would you?”

“Yes,
Sheriff Hanks.”

“Did you get
any more information from anyone who might have seen the car thieves?”

“No…”
replied Deputy Steele.

“You’re
hesitating,” said Sheriff Hanks.  “Why?”

“Nobody else
had anything specific to say.  I mean no one else had seen the Vega or the
little guy….”

But?” said
Sheriff Hanks.

She knew Zeb
carried a certain amount of ill will toward Eskadi, and, as shorthanded as they
were, he might not care for the fact that she had run out to the reservation to
follow a lead that turned out to be nothing.  On the other hand, she had
garnered some information that might be of value.

“I had a
lead on a missing girl who I thought might have been the dead girl in Lorenzo García’s
pickup. It turned out she wasn’t really missing.  But I did find out some other
things that might be important.  One in particular seems to be.”

“Go on.”

“Eskadi…”

Zeb rolled
his eyes.

“…gave me
some information.  I don’t know if it means anything but it might.”

“I know you
and Eskadi are close, but he and I have history between us.”

“I know that
and I get it.”

“So don’t be
taken aback if I take anything he says with a grain of salt,” said the sheriff.

“I
understand completely.”

“Okay, what
do you have?”

“An old
Indian woman was gathering herbs between the Ruidoso Ruins and Diamond Butte.”

“I know that
place,” said Zeb.

“She saw an
oversized pickup with a big White man and a younger Mexican or Native American,
or maybe even mixed blood.  They were stealing license plates.  She got close
enough to see that the big White man was missing some fingers.  He pulled a gun
on her when he spotted her.”

“Did you
talk to her?”

“Eskadi told
me she is scared. She won’t talk to anyone but him.  He doubts she will tell
him anything more than she already has.  She thinks the big White man with the
missing fingers is the devil himself.”

“That could
be very important.  See if you can follow up on it.  You have a better chance
of getting Eskadi to do something than I do.”

“Got it,”
said Kate.  “I take it you have talked with our prisoner some more?”

“Yes, I did
have a nice conversation with Madrigal.  I believe he is a good man in his
heart.  But something is dreadfully wrong.  I don’t know exactly what, but I do
think he will tell us eventually.”

“What did
you find out?”

“You might
say he’s more than a little down on his luck on account of his wife and
daughter.   They both died of cancer.  First, his wife died.  That was about
two years ago.  His poor wife died very slowly and suffered a lot.  Her
suffering almost killed him from the sounds of it.”

“How did he
express that to you?”

“It isn’t as
much how he said it, as what he said.   Sadness, I guess.  Her death broke his
heart.  Then just when he was starting to get over his wife’s death his
daughter was diagnosed with cancer too.  Ovarian cancer took both of them from
him.  He is obviously depressed.  I guess he’s been that way for quite a
while.  He started crying when he was talking about it.  To be honest, I had to
do my best to keep from crying myself.”

The
sheriff’s openness was a bit surprising.  He had not really opened up in that
fashion to her, ever.  This new, compassionate side of her boss was as welcome
as it was unnerving.

“Mr.
Madrigal prayed the rosary every day for two years.  He kept asking God for a
miracle.  He lit candles to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He even made a holy
shrine.  I guess he is what you would call a devout Catholic.  On the other
hand his faith was tested by the death of his wife and he became angry with
God.   When his daughter got snatched away so soon after the death of his wife,
Mr. Madrigal told me that he shook his fist toward heaven and cursed God until
he was so hoarse he couldn’t even talk.  He thinks that his actions are the
root of his problems and for that he takes complete responsibility,” explained
Zeb.

“What exactly
does that mean?” asked Kate.

“He believes
his actions toward the Almighty came back on him as a personal curse.”

“You mean
him making the phone calls about the bombs and his being in jail?”

“No,”
replied the sheriff.  “Not like that.  It seemed like something else.”

“What?  What
do you think he meant?”

“He feels
horrible about Delbert.  I am certain he is willing to go to jail for that,
even if somehow he wasn’t directly involved.”

“If nothing
else, we are absolutely certain he made the phone call.”

Kate’s
reminder was indeed a solid fact.  Felipe Madrigal had been involved with
Delbert’s death.  Yet something felt wrong.  That little man inside the
sheriff, his conscience, his intuition, his gut feeling, told him something
else was definitely at play.  Zeb was working on a theory that someone had
forced Felipe Madrigal into making those phone calls. But who?  And why?

“I am
becoming quite sure he didn’t place the bomb in the school.”

Deputy
Steele reiterated that there was no doubt Felipe Madrigal had made the phone
calls.  “No matter how you look at it, he was complicit.”

“Sometimes
you learn about a man in other ways,” said Zeb.  “Mr. Madrigal had such a hang
dog look on his face that I could almost feel sorry for him, for his
situation.”

Kate’s return
gaze spoke to the issue of becoming too compassionate with those you have under
arrest.  Zeb caught the look as well as its meaning.

“I wanted to
get to know him better.  I thought I could figure out what makes him tick.  He
started talking about his work.  He was very proud of that.  He was a truck
driver for a lot of years for the company that owned the mines.  Felipe had
been a short haul driver for the copper mines in Morenci.  He had hauled mostly
for the big mine in Morenci, but he also spent five years working at the Indian
Flats mine on the southern end of the San Carlos Reservation.  The limp came
from a leg injury when a piece of equipment fell off a truck.  After the
accident he couldn’t handle a clutch anymore.  The union got him a job as a security
guard at the credit union in Morenci. It was a desk job. He carried a gun and wore
a badge, but mostly he signed people in and out of the safe deposit boxes at
the credit union.”

“Did he say
why he called in the bomb threat?”

“We never
went near that subject,” replied the sheriff.  “I don’t think he wanted to talk
about that.”

“What else
did he talk about?”

“Everyday
things.  We compared notes about different county roads we both knew.  He’s the
only guy I ever met who has been out on those roads more than I have or more
than Delbert did.  He knows every landmark in the county.  But most of all, I
would say when he wasn’t talking about truck driving he was pretty down in the
dumps.”

“You seem to
have gotten to know him.”

“Yes, I feel
like I do, at least a little bit.”

“Why do you
think he called in the bomb threats?”

Zeb looked
out the window.  Deputy Steele could practically see the wheels spinning inside
the sheriff’s head.

“I don’t
want to call Felipe Madrigal a liar.  But if he hadn’t confessed to calling
those threats in, I would swear he didn’t do it.  It’s almost like he’s making
it up or covering for somebody.  I listened to those tapes again.  That is him
on those tapes.  There is no doubt about it.”

“Maybe deep
inside he wants to tell someone why he did what he did.  Maybe that person is
you, Sheriff.”

“I hope so. 
I am going to bring him a radio so he can listen to the game tonight.  He’s a
big baseball fan.  He knows his stuff.  His favorite players, back in the day,
were Orlando Cepeda and the Alou brothers.  What are their names again?  I
remember one is Felipe.”

Without
skipping a beat Kate replied.  “Matty and Jesús are the other brothers. 
They’re all from Domingo in the Dominican Republic.  They had a fourth brother
that never played ball, Boog.”