Bitter Recoil (6 page)

Chapter 9

Over the years, I’ve had lots of practice at not looking as surprised as I felt. This was one of those times. I leaned back in the chair and regarded Parris with interest. Then, trying to sound fatherly instead of intimidating, I said, “So tell me.”

He shrugged. “It’s no long story. As I said, Cecilia’s brother was a close friend of mine. My best friend. We’d known each other since we were two. We went to school together, all the way from kindergarten through college and seminary.” He stopped, arranging his mental cards.

“I wish some of his willpower and discipline had rubbed off on me. I drink too much, Sheriff. Or at least, I did.” He clasped his hands tightly together. “I guess that I was an alcoholic by the time Richard Burgess was killed. That’s what they tell me. Anyway, his death…the stupidity of it…the waste…was all the excuse I needed.

“I don’t remember all the grim details, and I don’t think I ever want to. The next eighteen months were my own private hell. They say a drunk has to hit rock bottom before he’ll admit to being in trouble.” He shook his head. “Do you know where they found me, finally?”

I shook my head and Parris said, “I was living in a cardboard box under an Albuquerque overpass—downtown, where the old railroad station used to be. And
living
is probably the wrong word. A rookie cop happened by and he thought I was dead. Next best thing. They took me to St. Joseph’s, and one of the nurses recognized me…she remembered when Richard Burgess and I hung out together. We used to be on rotation together as police department chaplains.
Los dos padres
, they called us. But that was a long time ago.” He hesitated, lost in his memories. My back hurt from sitting so long.

“I didn’t have any close relatives. Just one cousin back east somewhere. The nurse knew about Cecilia Burgess and called her. That was the big mistake, I guess. That’s when it started. I held onto her like a damn leech. I guess I put her through more hell than even last night.”

“I doubt that.”

“Anyway, one thing led to another. I was an accomplished liar. Always have been. I could lie to myself as easily as to anyone else. I made up some of the most wonderfully creative stories…personal sob stories that suckered that poor girl right into my world. I guess it was one of those nights when she was trying to keep me from tearing the apartment apart…that’s when we started.”

“You had sex with her, you mean?”

“Stripped of all the niceties and excuses, that’s the gist of it.”

“And that guilt really set you off?”

Nolan Parris looked up sharply at my tone. He moved his jaw sideways, assessing me. “Maybe you don’t understand, Sheriff. You impress me as the kind of man who’s always known exactly where he stood, who always knows exactly what he believes.”

“I’ve had my moments. Anyone does. But that’s not what’s at issue now. I gather the two of you didn’t stay together long?”

“No. I can remember having long discussions with her about my leaving the clergy, after finding out she was pregnant. But I…I just couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Again Parris looked at me critically, but he wasn’t in a hurry to answer. To let him off the hook a little I asked, “How did the two of you end up here, in San Estevan?”

“She took some courses at the university, and one of them involved a field trip to the mountains around here…geology, I think it was. She fell in love with the village and had dreams of raising Daisy here, away from the city.”

“Daisy’s the girl’s name?”

“Yes.”

“When did Cecilia move up here?”

“About a year ago.”

“And you?”

“Me? I received the ultimatum from my bishop last August. Dry out or get out.” Parris smiled faintly. “Bishop Sanchez didn’t use those exact words.” He shrugged. “I’ve been here ever since. I could have left long before, but I’m serving as a resident counselor.”

“And you’ve stayed dry?”

Parris nodded slightly. There wasn’t any pride in his voice when he said, “Dry.”

“Good for you. Even today?”

He covered his face with two smooth hands and then cupped them under his chin. “Even today. Falling off the wagon wouldn’t have done Cecilia any tribute.”

How noble, I thought. “What’s Daisy doing up at the hot springs with Finn?”

I couldn’t imagine leaving a kid of mine on the mountain with a long-haired freak while her mother expired in a hospital a hundred miles away…even if I were a priest and inordinately sensitive about appearances.

Parris’s face hardened, and I noticed the tick in his cheek again. “You have to understand, Sheriff, that even though we live in the same village, Cecilia and I see little of each other. We saw little of each other. For very obvious reasons.” He stopped in case I had to ask what the reasons were. I didn’t. “And she had been living with Finn, off and on. And was to have his child.” He held up his hands helplessly. “Now you have to believe I was going to—”

We were interrupted by the sound of a powerful car’s engine as the vehicle slowed and then lunged down into the retreat’s driveway. The flash of headlights stabbed through the window and then I saw the wink of blue and red.

“What the hell…” I said, rising to my feet. I peered out through the window and saw Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s county car as it nearly climbed the steps. “Excuse me.” I yanked the parlor door open, then the front door, and met Estelle just as she reached the porch.

She immediately turned around and headed back for the car, saying over her shoulder, “Come on, we need to get up the canyon.”

I turned to Parris, who’d limped to the door and was standing behind me. “Don’t go away,” I said and then made for the car. Estelle had already yanked the Ford into gear, and as soon as my ass dropped into the seat, she slipped her foot from brake to accelerator. The cruiser kicked gravel all the way out to the highway.

“What’s up?” I said as she got the car straightened out and howling on the pavement.

“Paul Garcia thinks he’s found the pickup truck.” Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s voice was charged with excitement. She was riding the cop’s high that comes when a burst of new information cracks a case wide open and makes the adrenaline flow. I stayed quiet, not wanting to distract her. I didn’t want the county car plunging into the canyon. Besides, I was feeling a little let down. Here I had spent an evening pumping gossip out of a priest, and a rookie deputy sheriff had gone and solved a murder case.

Chapter 10

I didn’t need to see the speedometer to know that the county cruiser was rocketing up Isidro Creek canyon fast enough to turn us both into jelly if we ran off the pavement.

If we didn’t wipe out a tourist family just as they pulled out of a campground, it would be a deer standing stupidly in the middle of the road just after a corner, blinded by the lights and spellbound by the noise.

Estelle held the steering wheel tightly in one hand, and with the other she played the powerful spotlight along the sides of the highway far ahead of us. Her jaw was set in determination. I reached back and groped for the seat belt, then pulled it around my girth and snapped it tight.

We entered a long straight stretch and I asked, “How does Garcia know it’s the truck?”

“He spent the afternoon dogging after someone who might have seen something…anything. I guess he hit paydirt. Pat Waquie said he’d seen a blue over white Ford half-ton cruising around the village last night.”

“Who the hell is Pat Waquie?”

Estelle didn’t answer for a moment as she paid attention to a series of S-curves. Then, as calmly as if she were selling stamps, Estelle said, “Pat lives in that rambling adobe just beyond where the pueblo land starts. He has the orchard where the trees practically hang out over the highway.” She glanced at me to see if I was following her description.

I gestured at the highway. The white lines, what few there were between long strips of double yellow, blended together into one racing stripe.

“So how does it figure to be the truck we’re after?” I asked.

“Garcia’s hunch. Waquie remembered it because one of the guys in it tossed a beer can in the old man’s front yard. Waquie was sitting on his front step enjoying the evening when the Ford drove by. They were really whooping it up.”

“Living by the highway, he must get lots of that.”

“This time, it was his own nephew.”

“And how…” I stopped as the Ford blasted toward a sign that announced a tight switchback. The yellow sign called for fifteen miles an hour. I tried to push both feet through the floorboards, and one hand reached for the dashboard.

Estelle hung the big car out wide, braked hard, slapped the gear selector down to first, and when the rear end howled and broke loose punched the gas. We exited the corner as pretty as you please, straight in our own lane and accelerating hard.

“…how does that connect with Burgess?”

“Garcia said the old man told him that he’d seen the nephew drive by a couple of times, each time a little faster and noisier…and the kid had picked up some passengers. The last time, well after dark and just before the old man went inside, he saw his nephew go by with at least five in the truck…three inside and two in the back.”

“The old man notices the fine details,” I said, skeptical.

“That’s what he said he remembered. And the boy’s been in a couple good scrapes before. His folks let him run wild. The uncle doesn’t like it much, but what can he do?”

“So based on the old man’s tale, Garcia thinks that maybe Cecilia Burgess got herself picked up by a bunch of drunks and ended up raped and in the rocks.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s as good as anything else you’ve got.” We hit a straight stretch for a few hundred yards, and I tried to relax. “Where’s Waquie’s nephew now?”

“He’s with the truck.”

“And Garcia’s sitting on him somewhere up here? He’s got him staked out?”

“Right. So to speak.” We had reached the head of the canyon, and the stop sign at the T-intersection shot past as we swerved out onto the main state highway that ran east-west through the mountains. The convenience store off to the left faded behind us as we headed east.

Estelle said, “A group of Girl Scouts found the truck. They’re camping out on the backside of Quebrada Mesa. As the crow flies, it’s only a mile or less to the scout camp over on Forest Road 87.”

“What do you mean, ‘found the truck’? Crashed, you mean?” Estelle nodded. “And let me guess. The kid’s inside it.”

“Apparently.” Estelle suddenly stood on the brakes, and we skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway. “I missed the turn,” she said, and we backed up so fast my forehead almost hit the dashboard.

“Christ,” I gasped. “If your kid ever wants to be a damn racing driver, you’ll know where he got the notion.” My neck snapped back as she braked our backward plunge.

Off to the right, a small Forest Service sign announced:
quebrada mesa campground,
7
mi.
, and
snake run trail,
4
mi
. Below that, it said:
primitive road—not maintained
. We jolted onto the forest two-track, and if I’d worn dentures, they would have been in my lap.

“We’re not going to the campground,” Estelle said as if that made everything hunky-dory. “The scouts are a couple of miles this side of it, where the mesa edge is right next to the old logging clearing.”

She was already assuming that I knew the country as well as she did. I let it ride and concentrated on keeping my head from being driven through the roof of the Ford. In a couple places, the road would have been narrow for a three-wheeler, and the low-hanging ponderosa pine branches wiped scratches the full length of the patrol car. A limb as thick as my thumb whacked the mirror on my side askew and screeched across my window.

“Guzman, this is Garcia.” The radio message cracked loud despite the bouncing car, and I reached for the mike. I wasn’t about to give Estelle an excuse to take her hands off the steering wheel.

“Go ahead, Garcia.”

We hit another rut and I almost dropped the mike. Garcia’s voice was loud and clear. “I can hear you coming up the two-track. Estelle, stop where the scouts are. There’s a washout or two farther on. You’ll break an axle if you’re not careful.”

“Ten-four. Appreciate the thought,” I said, and to Estelle, I added, “I wonder if he broke his.”

For another five minutes we crashed along the path. Then Estelle swung the Ford around a corner and slewed the car to a stop. Four Girl Scouts stood in the middle of the lane, terrified. The lights from the roof rack pulsed across their faces.

The oldest kid couldn’t have been fourteen, and I wondered where their counselor was. “We can park right here,” Estelle said. She switched off the car and the lights. “…if you don’t mind hoofing it for a few yards.”

“No, no. I don’t mind,” I said and popped my seat belt before she changed her mind.

“The other officer told us to meet you out here,” the oldest scout said as Estelle got out of the car.

“Good girls,” Estelle said. She snapped on her flashlight. I was still rummaging, and Estelle called, “In the glove compartment.” I found the other flashlight and grunted my way out of the car. It felt good to plant both feet on unmoving ground.

“Where’s the other deputy?” Estelle asked, and the scout pointed off to the west.

“It’s shortest this way,” the girl said. “Part of the road farther on is washed out pretty bad. We can cut straight across.” There were six of us and six flashlights, and still the timber was dark as tar. I brought up the rear, hoping that the five young ones in front of me would kick all the obstructions out of the trail. They left enough to keep me paying attention.

This particular portion of Quebrada Mesa was a narrow spit of land where the two sides of the mesa tucked in tight before fanning out to blend with the swell of the mountain behind it. The Forest Service two-track was an access road to an old timber sale area. Campers used it and maybe serious lovers who didn’t want to be disturbed. I couldn’t imagine casual drinkers jolting their innards just to quaff a brew under the moon.

We reached the edge and as we paused for a minute, I could hear the faint shush of wind through the pines below us. “Where’s Garcia?” I asked.

“Down this way,” the brave scout said, and we walked along the edge single file. A hundred yards ahead I saw several lights gathered at the edge and then, when the timber thinned some more, I saw a single flashlight down below, fifty, maybe sixty yards away. It had to be a hell of a drop-off.

Four more scouts and two counselors waited for us. The counselors—two gals of maybe eighteen or twenty—looked as scared as the little ones. Estelle looked down and then asked, “Is there an easy way down there?”

“It’s all pretty steep,” one of the counselors said. “The other deputy just slid down from here.”

Estelle sighed, and I knew what was going through her mind. She didn’t like someone skidding willy-nilly through the middle of her evidence. She pulled the hand-held radio from her belt and keyed the button.

“Paul? You copy?”

“Ten-four.”

“We’re up on the edge above you.”

“I see the lights.” His flashlight swept an arc for us.

“What have you got down there?”

“One nineteen-seventy-six Ford half-ton, blue over white. As far as I can tell, there were just the two occupants.”

“All right. I called Dr. Bailey from Jemez. He’s covering for Dr. Guzman tonight. He’s our closest. It’ll be a half hour at best.”

“Ten-four.”

Estelle turned to me. “I called for ambulance and coroner before I picked you up. But it’s going to be a while. Do you want to go down or stay here?”

“Should you be doing stuff like this?” I asked and knew right away my concern was a waste of breath.

“Come on, Padrino,” Estelle said. She grinned. “The kid may want to be a mountain climber someday.”

I grunted disapproval, at the same time swelling a little with pride that when Estelle had finally called me something other than “sir” it had been the Mexican equivalent of “godfather.”

“Let’s do it,” I said. Skinnying down into that black void wasn’t my idea of a good time, but what the hell. When her child was born, I didn’t want him looking up at me from his cradle and saying
wimp
as his first word.

Estelle swept the ground with the flashlight. “Paul,” she said into the hand-held radio, “did you locate exactly where the truck went over?”

“About fifty feet south of you. To your left.”

“Ten-four. We’re going to look around up here a little; then we’ll be down.”

“We ain’t going anywhere.”

Estelle included all the scouts in her flashlight arc. “Maybe you girls would go on back out to where I parked the car. An ambulance and other personnel will be following us in, and we don’t want them going any further than we did.” That would be a real trick, since the fat rump of her patrol car was blocking the two-track. The girls started to move off, and Estelle added, “And we’ll want to talk with you all, so don’t go anywhere else.”

I heard a “Yes, ma’am,” from one of them, and then we could see their flashlights bobbing as they made their way back through the big pines.

“Hell of a way to spend a campout,” I said. “Imagine the ghost stories you could tell ’em now.”

“And you’d have wet sleeping bags for sure,” Estelle muttered. “Let’s see where it went over.”

I took a deep breath, suddenly and deeply feeling fatigue as it snuck up and clubbed me. Being an insomniac is one thing, but I’d been on my feet, one way or another, since the accident sirens had awakened me at the campground. And this was the second time I’d been stumbling around in the dark, peering at evidence with the feeble light of flashlights.

“I wish to hell you’d learn to work during the daylight hours,” I said as Estelle made her way along the rim to the south, her light sweeping the ground.

“No time like the present,” she said cheerfully. “And here we go.” The tracks she had found were faint impressions in the soft duff. Estelle followed them with the light. The tracks came from off to the left, from the old two-track.

Her flashlight beam reflected off the white of Garcia’s four-wheel-drive Suburban. The road he had driven wound down through the trees from where we had parked, then looped over toward the mesa rim forming a turnaround that the logging trucks had used years before.

The driver of the pickup had driven straight across the turnaround and held course for the vertical drop-off…and as tired as I was, even I could see that not once had he spiked the brakes before going over.