Prolonged Exposure (17 page)

Chapter 29

We managed just over two hours of relaxation—enough to eat far too much of Camille’s pasta primavera, several salads, all of which bordered dangerously close to health food, and a low-fat raspberry cheesecake that was really pretty good.

Two telephones sounded simultaneously—a startling cacophony that prompted me to look at my watch. Dr. Francis Guzman carried one of those small holstered cellular telephones on his belt—a New Age progression from beepers. His belt phone chimed just as the telephone in my kitchen jangled.

“So much for peace and quiet,” I said, starting to push myself up and out of my old leather chair.

“Let me get it, Dad,” Camille said, and she was in the kitchen before I was upright. Francis migrated toward the foyer, the ridiculously small instrument at his ear. His voice was soft and muted, but Camille had never been muted in her life.

“Good evening,” she said, and then waited. I twisted around and saw the frown on her face. She was listening intently, but then she pulled the receiver away from her ear and glanced at it, as if she wasn’t hearing correctly.

“Who is it?” I asked.

She held up a hand, then said, “Is someone on the line?”

“Cranks,” I said, and turned away, grinning at Estelle. “Remember the days of the old party lines?”

“Dad,” Camille said, “maybe you’d better listen to this.”

By then, Francis had finished with his call, and he held up his hands in resignation. “Duty calls,” he said, adding, “Camille, thanks for the dinner. I’ve got to run.” He kissed Estelle on the forehead and waved at me. “And I’m sure you folks will be getting the call, too. Someone got themselves shot.”

By then, I was on my feet. Camille handed me the receiver. “It sounds like falling furniture, with a youngster crying way in the background,” she said.

As soon as I put the receiver to my ear, I could hear the lusty screams of a child, muted with distance, and then a series of heavy thuds close to the telephone, like someone thumping a book against a hassock.

“That’s a really hurting child,” Camille said.

I listened again, but obviously I didn’t have Camille’s fine-tuned mother’s ear. It sounded like a child who was unhappy about something, but that was normal for most kids the majority of the time. Estelle pushed herself up from the couch, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“Gastner,” I said into the receiver. A mighty crash was followed by more howling from the distant kid. It sounded as if the whole side of the room, telephone and all, had collapsed. “Jesus,” I said. “Hello?”

I was about to hand the receiver to Estelle when I heard a muffled cry, an urgent “Mmmmph.”

“This is Undersheriff William Gastner,” I said again. “Is someone there?”

“Mmmmmph. Mmmmmph. Mmmmmph.” And in the background, the child continued to cry, stirred on by whatever was making the wild thumping and banging.

“Can you understand me?” I said, and abruptly the ruckus stopped, followed by another string of grunts and moans.

“Grunt once for yes, twice for no. Are you hurt?”

“Mmmph, mmmph.”

“Is the child with you hurt?”

“Mmmph, mmmph.” Whoever it was put considerable urgency in those grunts, and then a slow, dim light began to glow somewhere in my dull brain.

“Are you using an automatic dialer?”

“Mmmph.”

“Estelle,” I barked, and I handed the receiver to her. She’d heard my side of the conversation and she didn’t bother with background explanations. I could see by the look on her face that she recognized the voice of the howling child, if nothing else.

“Erma?” she said, and my pulse jumped. She got a single loud “Mmmph,” loud enough that I could hear it standing three feet away. “I’ll be right there.” She thrust the phone at me and said, “Keep her on the line.”

“Erma, do you need an ambulance?” I shouted. Estelle was already racing toward the front door.

The two “Mmmph” ’s that came then were more like a whimper than a cry for help.

“Are you in any immediate danger?”

“Mmmph, Mmmph.”

“Why can’t you talk? Are you gagged somehow?”

“Mmmph.”

“How about the kids? Are they all right?”

“Mmmmmph, Mmmph.” I could hear the anger shouted right through the tape, or sock, or plastic bag that was covering her mouth.

My blood ran cold. “Hang in there,” I said. “Is it safe for you to break the connection?”

The two screams were as immediate as a cry from a hot poker.

“All right, I’m here, and Estelle’s on the way. It’ll just be a couple of minutes.” I put my hand over the receiver and looked at Camille. “Go into my bedroom and get my handheld radio.” She took off like a shot. “Erma, now listen carefully. Is someone else there with you, other than the children?”

“Mmmph, Mmmph.”

“Was someone there?”

“Mmmph.”

She was crying, and I could hear her breath coming in jerky sobs. I could envision all kinds of nightmares, and one of them was Erma Sedillos choking to death. “Are they there now?” I knew damn well that the intruders weren’t going to be sitting there, watching her grunt into a telephone, but they might have been in the yard.

I took a deep breath of relief when I heard the two choked grunts, and Camille handed me the handheld radio.

“Hang in there, Erma. Everything is going to be all right.” I twisted the power button on, switched to channel three, and barked, “PCS, Gastner.”

The response was instant, and I recognized the clipped, efficient voice of Ernie Wheeler.

“Gastner, PCS.”

“PCS, I need a backup unit at Four-ten South Twelfth Street. Code Thirty-three.”

“Ten-four, sir. What’s your twenty?”

“I’m home, damn it.”

“Sir, all units are responding to a call at the motel…”

With a curse, I grunted to my feet, not hearing the rest of our dispatcher’s message. “Erma, are you still there?”

“Mmmph.”

“All right. Listen, is there any danger to Estelle when she arrives?”

“Mmmph,” and then, after a pause of five heartbeats, “Mmmph.”

“She’ll be there in just a minute. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to have my daughter Camille stay on the line with you. Do you understand me?”

“Mmmph.”

“She’s got a radio direct to the Sheriff’s Department, so you’re not alone. All right?”

“Mmmph.”

I thrust the phone at Camille and planted the radio in front of her on the kitchen table. “If you need to call Dispatch, just push the talk button. I’ll have the radio on in three ten, and I’ll have the other handheld with me everywhere else, so you can talk to me, as well. All right?”

She nodded and sat down, as white as a sheet.

“You’re sure you’re all right with this?” I said.

“Go, go,” she said. “And be careful.”

If I could have sprinted, I would have. But motions repeated over the years until they were second nature sufficed. Three ten hit the asphalt of Escondido with a loud bellow, and then, with a wrench of the steering wheel, I launched north onto Grande.

Estelle’s home was five blocks south of Bustos, the major east-west artery of Posadas. The fastest way to get there was to avoid all the side streets, heading straight north on Grande for a mile and then west on Bustos. I passed the intersection of Grande and MacArthur still accelerating, staying in the left-hand lane, hugging the center median.

The intersection with Bustos was four lanes wide, but I still didn’t have enough room. The county car squalled sideways through the intersection, and for an instant I had visions of planting 310 upside down on Pershing’s tank. Everyone and everything stayed out of my way, and I straightened out and headed west on Bustos.

My heart was hammering when I slowed for the left turn onto Twelfth, and as soon as I turned the corner, I could see Estelle’s county car parked at the sidewalk three blocks ahead.

As I pulled up behind her car, I palmed the microphone. “PCS, three ten is ten-ninety-seven, Guzman residence.”

“Ten-four, three ten.”

I slammed the gear lever into park, eyes scanning the front of the house. I don’t know what I expected to see, but nothing appeared amiss.

The engine died and I got out of the car. The Guzman home was one of those neat out-of-a-can tract homes that had been built during the mining boom. It was attractive and unpresumptuous. A decade before, the house next door had burned, and the previous owners of the Guzman home had had the foresight to purchase the lot, remove the charred ruins, and double the size of their own yard. That was the feature that had attracted the Guzmans when the place had come on the market a handful of years later.

As I walked to the door, I looked left, along the chain-link fence that enclosed the yard. Neither Francis nor Estelle had time to garden, and they’d settled for planting trees and bushes. On a summer’s day, the place was a densely shaded arboretum.

The neighborhood was so quiet, I could hear the hot engine of 310 ticking behind me. Estelle couldn’t have arrived more than a minute before me.

The front door was ajar. I pulled the screen open and sidled inside. The foyer opened into the living room, and Estelle was on her knees beside Erma Sedillos. A table was overturned, and the telephone unit and answering machine were on the floor.

From a back bedroom, I could hear the lusty voice of little Carlos.

“He’s okay,” Estelle said, and she was working frantically and gently to free the duct tape from around Erma’s face, hands, and feet. She was trussed like a turkey. “They took Francisco,” Estelle said over her shoulder to me.

“They what?”

Estelle shot a glance at me, and for the first time since I had known her, her voice shook. “Francisco. They took him.”

Chapter 30

“He came in the back,” Erma cried, and her tears were an equal mixture of agony and anger. She was no frail, shrinking violet. In an arm-wrestling contest, she’d probably break my elbow before tearing every muscle out of my shoulder. “We were in the kitchen, and he came right through the door.” She followed Estelle into the back room, and in a moment they returned, Estelle holding the red-faced Carlos.

Less than a year old, Carlos was in no mood to understand or cope. He howled.

“When did this happen?” It was a simple-enough question, but Erma couldn’t get the words out. She was sobbing and collapsed down on the sofa, her hands over her face. Estelle knelt beside her and hugged her shoulders with one free arm, then stroked her hair.

She had Carlos on one side and Erma on the other. “Come on, now,
hermana, think
for me.” She gripped the girl’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Come on. Pull yourself together and think for me. How long ago did this happen?”

“I…I looked at the clock in the kitchen as soon as I knew he’d gone. ’Cause I knew you might still be over at sir’s. It was three minutes after six.”

I glanced at my watch. An hour and forty minutes. The bastard had an hour-and-forty-minute head start. With that much time, he could be in Mexico. The Regal crossing closed at six, but we were a scant hour and a half from the twenty-four-hour crossing at El Paso. Or he could almost be in Arizona. Or he could be back in his hole somewhere in Posadas. The possibilities were endless, and all grim.

After looking at the clock, Erma had squirmed painfully from kitchen to living room. Something as simple as a telephone on a table had been a monumental feat for her. She had managed to worm against the table, pushing it against a chair until the whole thing capsized. And then she had pressed the automatic dialer with the only part of her anatomy that wasn’t taped tightly in place—her nose. That trip and task had taken more than an hour.

“Now think hard,” Estelle said. “It was just one man?”

“Yes.” Erma wiped her eyes and looked imploringly at Estelle. “I thought that it was Francis. The back light wasn’t on, and I thought he was Francis. The way he knocked on the door.” Carlos heard the magic name and his cries subsided into hiccuppy whimpers. Estelle held him firmly; his arms were around her neck.

“The same size as my husband?”

Erma nodded. “He was maybe six two or three. And heavy. Not fat, but heavy and strong. Broad shoulders. When I saw him standing outside, I really thought it was Francis. I didn’t even think. He rapped on the door frame, like he’d forgotten his keys. Oh, Estelle, there was nothing I could do.”

“I know. Now try to think clearly.” Estelle was talking to herself, and to me, as much as she was to Erma. She glanced at me and indicated the telephone. I jerked into action as if someone had slapped my face, and I punched the autodialer for the Sheriff’s Department. Despite its crash to the floor, the phone still worked.

Ernie Wheeler answered on the third ring, an eternity. “Sheriff’s Department. One minute please.”

I wasn’t about to wait while he diddled with someone else. “Jesus Christ, Ernie, answer the goddamn phone,” I bellowed, and apparently he heard me over the radio traffic in the background.

“Sir?”

“Now listen, Ernie. Someone’s abducted Estelle’s son. We don’t know who yet, or why. But you get on the horn and get some troops down here. And stay off the goddamn radio with it.”

A brief pause followed. Ernie didn’t bother to say anything inane like “You’re kidding,” or all those other things humans fill dead air with. “Sir, almost everyone is down at the motel. There’s been a homicide there.”

“I don’t care if the goddamn thing is burning to the ground. Get a hold of Bob Torrez. And call the FBI office in Las Cruces.” I tried to force my brain to think in an organized fashion. “And call the Border Patrol with a description of the boy. We have no idea where this son of a bitch is headed, but south makes sense.”

“You think that’s most likely?”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t know what’s most likely. The son of a bitch has had almost a two-hour head start. Just do it. And then call all the public transportation you can think of, especially Las Cruces International. Right now, we only have evidence that one person is involved, a big individual. Beyond that, we don’t know. I’ll get back to you. Keep the lines open. And call the state police. In fact, do that first. As soon as we have something, we’ll let ’em know what to look for. Hang on.”

I nodded at Estelle. “Sir,” she said, “we have one man, large, heavyset. He was wearing blue jeans, a white knit shirt, like a golf shirt maybe, and an insulated denim jacket. He had on a ski mask, red and yellow stripes.”

“He was wearing a ski mask and you thought he was Francis?” I snapped, then instantly regretted it.

Erma covered her eyes. “He was standing back from the door, off to the side, sir. It was dark. I heard the light rap, and I opened the inside door before I really checked. The backyard is fenced, and I just thought…” She pulled a deep, shuddering breath. “The jacket’s insulation was blue and black checks, I remember,” she said.

“Good girl. Did you see a vehicle?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The second I opened the back door, he yanked the lock right out of the screen. And when he left, I was all tied up on the floor.”

“Did you hear anything? When he left, that is. What did you hear?”

“I could hear a car leave from farther down the street.”

“Might not have been his,” I said. “But nothing with a characteristic sound? Nothing you could identify? Car versus truck, that sort of thing?”

Erma shook her head.

“Did you hear any other people at any time?”

“No.”

“What about his hands?” Estelle said. She reached up and coaxed Carlos’s left hand away from her neck and held it out toward Erma. “His hands.”

“His hands?”

Estelle nodded. “His skin. What could you tell about his complexion?”

“He was wearing brown gloves. Like the kind cowboys wear? Work gloves? He took them off when he was taping me. I think he was fair-skinned, because the hair on the back of his hands was blond, I think.”

“His voice. What about his voice?”

Erma frowned and shook her head. “He never said a word.”

“He never spoke to you?”

“No.”

“Was there anything familiar about him that would lead you to believe that he was a local? Anything at all—even his smell. Anything that makes you think you might have seen him somewhere?”

Erma shook his head.

“No one like that in the neighborhood?”

“Doesn’t sound familiar to me, either,” Estelle said. “And we know everyone who lives on this street.”

“All right.” I put the telephone to my ear again. “Ernie, this is what we’ve got so far. It’s a white male, six two to six three. Probably well over two hundred pounds. Maybe alone—we don’t know. Unknown vehicle. He’s wearing jeans, a denim jacket lined in blue and black, rawhide gloves, and maybe a ski mask.” I turned to Erma. “What color was the mask?”

“Yellow and red, I think,” she said.

“Yellow and red,” I said. “He’ll be in company with a three year-old Hispanic youngster—hell, you know what Francis junior looks like.”

“Is the boy injured?” Ernie asked.

I started to answer and found I couldn’t form the words. I managed a simple “We don’t know.”

“What was he wearing, sir?”

“Just a minute.” A brief conference established that little Francisco had been in his pajamas, ready to go to bed. “Flannel pj’s, Ernie. The kind with built-in booties. They’re light blue with dark blue jackrabbits on them.”

Estelle’s face was pale, and if she hugged Carlos any tighter, the poor kid would suffocate. But he didn’t seem to mind. “Erma,” I said gently, “that’s all the child had on when the man took him out the door? No coat? No shoes?”

She shook her head and then covered her face with her hands again.

“That’s all we’ve got, Ernie. Get the state police working first, then the Border Patrol. Then go with the airports and the FBI. I’ve got the handheld here on channel three. Don’t let anyone tie up lines.”

I hung up the telephone, pulled the radio off my belt, and turned the volume up. “Show us what happened, now.”

Erma led us out into the kitchen. The back door was closed, as if nothing had happened. The door had both a standard lock and a dead bolt. Despite the appearance of security, a properly aimed kick probably could have busted both out of the thirty-year-old wood frame.

“Francisco was sitting here,” she whimpered. A box of cereal was open, waiting. A spoon was on the floor under the table. “I was at the sink, rinsing out his bowl.” She picked up the only bowl that would work as far as the kid was concerned—blue stoneware with a line of jackrabbits bouncing around the rim.

“I heard a light rap and turned to look.” She pointed at the door. “I could see a figure, but the back light wasn’t on. The way he knocked, it just seemed—”

“Show me how he knocked,” I said.

“It was just a light, friendly rapping, like this.” She used the knuckle of her right index finger and imitated the familiar seven-note refrain—five and then two, shave and a haircut, two bits—of greeting. “Just a few minutes before I set the garbage out, and I hadn’t turned the lock yet. I didn’t think.” The tears rolled down her brown cheeks. “I opened the door and then he just yanked the screen open.”

I turned the knob and opened the back door. The screen’s closure piston kept it firmly shut, but I could see the bent aluminum lock. That didn’t mean much. A dedicated child could rip open a screen door. I flipped on the back light.

The Guzmans’ back door opened onto a brick patio, the bricked area extending twenty feet or so back to the sandy rubble that was Francisco’s playground. That was surrounded by trees and shrubs of various heights, keeping the place sheltered from wind and sun. The chain-link fence was four feet high, adequate for children and dogs, but not much of a deterrent for an adult.

“And then what happened?”

“He burst inside, then grabbed me and threw me down on the floor. He threw me down so hard, I thought I’d broken my arm.”

“That’s when he taped you?”

“No,” Erma said. “He moved so fast. When I fell, he just stepped right over me and went to Francis. He had this role of tape, and he just went around Francis three times.” She made circular motions with her hands. “Just so fast. Around the boy and the back of the chair. I screamed at him, and by the time I got to my feet to try to stop him, he grabbed me. Because of the tape around him, Francis couldn’t run away.”

“And he never said a word?”

“No. I could hear him breathing and grunting, but he never said nothing. He threw me down, jerked my hands behind me, and taped my wrists. Then he threw me down again and taped my feet together. I tried to kick him, but he had me on my stomach, and I couldn’t. Then he pulled my feet up and taped them to my hands. And then he taped my mouth.” She stopped and wiped her eyes. “What are we going to do?”

“He left you here in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Right there on the floor,” she said, pointing. “And then he pulled the tape off Francis so he could get him loose of the chair. He lost him then for a little bit, and Francis took off. The man, he grabbed Francis by one arm, but he fought as much as he could.”

“Three years old and forty pounds,” I said. “Did he just carry Francis out of the house?”

“He taped his hands, in front of him, like this.” Erma held her hands together. “And then he taped his feet together at the ankles. Then he just picked him up like a…like a…”

“Under his arm?”

Erma nodded. I keyed the radio. “PCS, Gastner.”

“Gastner, go ahead.”

“I need some people, Ernie.”

“Ten-four.” I could hear other radio traffic in the background on the main patrol channel. “Undersheriff, three oh eight and three oh seven are responding. ETA about a minute.”

“Tell ’em no lights or siren. Did you get hold of the state police?”

“Ten-four. They wanted to know what your suggestions were about roadblocks.”

I cursed. Posadas wasn’t at the end of anyone’s road, but it sure as hell was on the road to a lot of places. The east-west interstate passed by less than a mile outside of town. Four state highways either intersected in or passed close by the village. Within that framework was a web of paved, gravel, or caliche county roads, as well as an additional network of U.S. Forest Service roads and trails that laced through Oria National Forest.

“Tell ’em to cover every one they can. Every one. Hell, there are still truckloads of Guardsmen left in town, or close to it. Shut everything down.”

“Ten-four.” Ernie’s voice sounded strained. I knew what he was thinking. If whoever had taken little Francis had a two-hour jump on us, there wasn’t much point in blocking roads ten minutes outside of Posadas.

A car slid to a violent stop at the curb, and I went to the front door. Robert Torrez came up the sidewalk at a dead run. Even as he did so, Deputy Mitchell’s county car turned onto Twelfth from Bustos, its engine pushing hard.

“We don’t know who or why, Bob,” I said. “Someone broke in and abducted little Francis. He left the baby. Erma said the man’s Anglo, big, built about like Dr. Guzman. He’s dressed in denim—jeans and lined denim jacket. He might be blond. That’s all we know.”

Torrez turned as I was speaking, surveying the neighborhood. Lights were on in every house, small wonder with all the traffic. “What kind of head start does he have?”

“Since three minutes after six.”

Torrez looked at his watch and grimaced. “Erma have any ideas?”

“None. Total stranger, as far as she’s concerned. The description doesn’t ring any bells with Estelle, either.”

“All right. Between Chief Martinez and his men and one or two of our specials, we can bottle up the village pretty tight.”

It had been a long time since Eduardo Martinez had worked nights in Posadas. His three-man police department turned the town over to us after four—and a lot of the rest of the time, too.

“Shag someone up the hill,” I said. County Road 43 led out of town to the north, winding up past the landfill and the abandoned Consolidated Mining boneyard, passing by the old water-filled quarry. Now on Forest Service property, that place was the handsdown favorite of locals for parties, booze, necking—anything that didn’t need an audience. The thought of this freak parked up there with my godson was enough to make me vomit.