Prolonged Exposure (23 page)

Chapter 38

At two minutes after six on Thursday morning, I was dozing in my old leather office chair, my boots up on the desk, hands folded on my belly, and my head slumped on my chest. I’m sure that with two days’ growth of beard, I looked like some old hobo off the road.

A few minutes earlier, I had elected not to go home, despite Camille’s entreaties. For sure, I knew that her “Dad, you’re not doing anyone any good staying here” was probably true. But I felt closer to where something
might
happen, and that was important to me.

Dr. Francis Guzman appeared in the doorway of my office, moving noiselessly. I don’t know how long he’d been standing there, but I jarred awake and looked up.

“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice husky.

“You making morning rounds?” I said, trying for some humor on a humorless morning. I glanced at my watch.

“I’m on the way,” he said. “Estelle went back over to the hospital for a little while to be with her mother. Then she said she’s coming here.”

I nodded. “You haven’t gotten much rest, either,” I said.

He sauntered over to my desk, hands trust in his pockets.

“Nothing?”

“No word, Francis. We made a little bit of progress a couple of hours ago.” I tried another smile. “There’s nothing like the middle of the night to put the screws on people. A Bernalillo detective who’s been working with us talked to Paul Cole’s new wife. She’s co-operating.” I leaned back and hooked my hands behind my head. My arms felt like lead.

“She and Paul Cole are so far in debt that she’s petrified. They had an argument last week when he broke the news to her about his so-called hunting trip to Wyoming. She says they can’t afford gas to drive to the grocery store, let alone something like that. They’ve paid their mortgage payment with a credit card the past several months. She really believed that Wyoming was where he was going.”

While I was talking, Francis Guzman pulled a blood-pressure cuff out of the pocket of his lab coat and advanced on my left arm.

He prompted me when I stopped talking. “And then?”

“She works at an animal clinic, and of course he’s a teacher and head coach, so their combined incomes are pretty solid. But she admitted to detectives that they’ve been living on their credit cards, just paying the interest. And now she’s afraid Cole’s going to get himself in hot water with the school and lose his job.” I pushed up my left sleeve and held it while Francis positioned the cuff. “The most interesting thing she told detectives is that for as long as she’s known Paul Cole, his ex-wife has been pestering him to take custody of little Cody.”

He looked sharply at me. “No kidding?” He patted the Velcro and pumped the bulb, slipping the earpieces of the stethoscope into his ears. I waited until he had finished.

“You need some rest,” he said. “Meds?”

“Meds are home, where they belong,” I said.

He grinned and shook his head. “A couple of them are important,” he said. “We need to keep your pressure somewhere below the boiling point. Are you still taking the heparin?”

“I have no idea what’s what,” I said. “I took a couple of aspirin earlier. I know what they are.”

Francis Guzman listened to my heart and other places where blood still gurgled, then raised one eyebrow at me.

“You ought to be home,” he repeated. “Was the aspirin for pain, or discomfort?”

“I’ve been catnapping here. And the coffeepot was empty, so I had a couple of aspirin instead.” Francis shook his head, but I waved off another complaint. “There are more important things to do just now than worry about my shitload of medications, Francis.”

He wrapped up the cuff and slid it back in his pocket. “I’ll give Camille a call and tell her which ones to express deliver to you,
padrino
.” He stared down at my telephone for a moment, as if expecting it to ring. “So Tiffany Cole wanted her ex-husband to take custody of their child. That’s interesting.”

“According to wife number two, or three, or whatever she is, Tiffany Cole has her own share of troubles. She blames them all on the child. And after looking at her house earlier, I can well agree. There’s not a lot of love evident there.”

“Do you believe what the FBI agent said earlier? About this being part of a deal to—what, sell children?”

I saw no point in beating around the bush with the young physician. “I think it’s simpler than that. If it was some kind of ring, or cult, there’d be more children involved. We’d have heard of more cases. I think someone was willing to pay for a child as a quick means of adoption. South of the border, it would never be traced, or if it did arouse official interest, a little money under the table would take care of it. I think Tiffany Cole, screw loose or not, changed her mind at the last minute. There was a slipup somehow, and she ended up with too much time to think about what she was doing.”

“And tried to substitute my son.”

“Yep.”

“What if that’s not what happened?”

I got up and faced Francis Guzman. I reached up and put a hand on each one of the good doctor’s shoulders. “Francis, we’re all guessing. You know that. Until something breaks, all we can do is dig, dig, dig. Every time we open a little channel of information, we make some progress. We don’t know for sure what happened, but we’re starting to get a little glimmer of the ‘why.’ And that’s a plus on our side.”

“The weather’s getting worse.”

“Yes, I know it is.” We stood and looked at each other helplessly.

“I’ll be at the hospital if you…” Whatever Francis was going to say trailed off as Ernie Wheeler, dark circles under his eyes, thrust open the door.

“Sir, telephone for you on two. It’s Herb Torrance.”

“It’s who?”

“Herb Torrance? Out on Fourteen.”

“Tell him I’ll call him back,” I said. I knew the old rancher well, having bailed his wild-haired son out of more than one jam.

Wheeler persisted. “Sir, he says he’s got Francis.”

I spun around and grabbed the phone. The damn thing slipped out of my grasp and crashed to the desk.

“Herb, you there?” I bellowed when I managed to fumble the receiver to my ear.

“Sheriff, I need me some help out here.” My heart nearly sailed out of my chest. “My son found this little boy.”

“Is he all right?”

“No, he’s busted up pretty bad. He was tryin’ to catch him, see, and he slipped and fell.”

“Who fell? Your son or the boy?” Francis’s face went pale. “Herb, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m sayin’ my son found that little boy we was all lookin’ for up on the mesa.”

“Cody Cole, you mean.”

“I guess so, ’cept I thought the Cole youngster was a…white kid, you know. I thought I read he was blond. My son says this one looks like maybe some wetbacks lost track of him.”

“Oh shit,” I muttered. “Is the boy all right?”

“I guess he’s fine. My son ain’t. I took him over to the house. We’re going to have to take him to town.”

“Where’s the boy?”

“He’s out there on the side of the ledge, up behind our west stock tank. That’s where my son seen him. He was trying to get him down, and the boy wouldn’t pay him no attention. I told the boy just to leave him be. I didn’t want someone blamin’ us if he got hurt.”

“We’ll be right there.”

“Just come to the front gate. I’ll take you back there.”

I hung up. “What?” Francis said, his eyes wide.

“It sounds like they found your son,” I said, and then grinned. “They can’t catch him.”

Chapter 39

As we turned westbound on Bustos to head out of town, we could see the leaden gray sky stretching flat and featureless. Dr. Guzman sat in back, behind the security screen. Estelle was silent, eyes fixed outside.

The thermometer on the bank hovered at forty-one degrees, and I had visions of little Francis Guzman standing out in the middle of the prairie in his bunny jammies, shivering, while old Herb Torrance and his sons tried to rope him.

Herb Torrance’s ranch wasn’t exactly in the hub of all Posadas County activity. We drove west out of the village on 17, the old state highway that roughly paralleled the interstate. Twenty-one miles later and, I’m sure, an eternity for Estelle and Francis, we reached the intersection of County Road 14, the ribbon of gravel that ran north-south down the west side of the county, connecting the east-west state roads like a strand of angel-hair pasta laced across the four tines of a fork.

The route brought Andrew Browers to mind. If anyone knew these roads, it was he. Paul Cole wouldn’t know one county lane from another.

The H-Bar-T ranch included more than ten thousand acres, mostly leased from the feds, land that tourists looked at and then remarked about in their various strange accents. “Gee, Elvinia, there ain’t nothing out here but cactus.” There was more, of course, since cattle couldn’t live on cactus. A little stunted bunch of grass here and there explained why Herb needed to lease ten thousand acres for two hundred head of rangy steers.

And somewhere out here, according to Herb, was a little three-year-old boy. I’m sure Estelle and Francis were asking themselves the same string of questions that ran through my mind. Why wasn’t the child inside Bea Torrance’s snug kitchen, drinking hot cocoa with the other five Torrance children? If cowpunchers could maneuver and catch rangy steers charging through prairie scrub, why couldn’t they catch a three-year-old?

Five miles of smooth gravel later, I turned into the H-Bar-T driveway, under the wrought-iron arch that featured a bull chasing a cowboy through yucca.

Herb Torrance stepped out of his front door, crossed the porch, and headed down the steps to meet us even as we pulled under the arch.

He waved us to park beside an enormous crew-cab dualie and 310 was instantly surrounded by four yapping dogs, those variegated blue-and-black things that chase sheep. None of them bit when we got out of the car, and Herb lit a cigarette so he’d have something in his hand when he talked to us.

For the first time since I’d known him, Herb Torrance didn’t invite us inside for coffee. I wouldn’t have been able to hold the damn cup, anyway—a combination of joy that my godson might be all right and anger that a bunch of adults hadn’t been able to corral a three-year-old.

“We’ll take my truck,” he said. “Wife’s taken Patrick into town to have his leg looked at. Rory’s got the Jeep. You might make it in car of yours, but you’re apt to get ’er stuck.” He grinned at me as I grunted up into the cab. “Make ’er? I heard you been under the weather some, Bill.”

“A little. You say Patrick found the child?”

“Over yonder past the big stock tank, across the road there.” He waved a hand generally toward the south. “The boy’s up in some rocks, and the footing gets kinda nasty when it’s wet like this.”

“He wouldn’t come down?” Francis asked.

Herb shook his head and took a deep drag on the cigarette. He glanced back at Francis. “Ain’t you one of the docs over at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“This is Dr. Guzman,” I said. “You know Estelle.” Torrance nodded and butted out the cigarette. “It’s their son who was abducted last night. You may have seen the bulletin on television.”

Torrance jerked upright and swiveled to look straight at me. The steering wheel twisted to follow his head and we swerved dangerously close to his front gate support. He jerked the wheel back. “Abducted? That right?” We charged out onto the county road and turned left. “Well hell. No, we didn’t catch that. How’d that happen, anyways?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, and let it go at that.

Herb didn’t press the matter. “No wonder the child won’t come near nobody. He’s got to be scared plumb to death, out all night. I left Rory there to keep an eye on him while I called you. I figured another little while wouldn’t hurt him none. Better than taking a fall.” He turned to Estelle. “I told the boy not to chase after him. Runs like a little rabbit, Patrick was sayin’. He don’t want to have anything to do with strangers, that’s for sure. I thought that maybe he didn’t speak any English.”

“He speaks English just fine,” I said, not bothering to add that little Francis was also choosy about whom he spoke to.

We drove two miles on the county road and I began to get nervous that Herb’s “over yonder” was somewhere in Mexico. The road began to climb gradually as it made its way up the back side of San Patricio Mesa, a broad, flat buttress of land crisscrossed by narrow, deep canyons whose southern boundary was the valley carrying State Road 56 to Regal.

The road wound around several large rock outcroppings that looked as if they shed parts during the infrequent cloudbursts, then, where the country opened up for a bit, we passed by a windmill that was missing all but three of its blades. A small barn, its adobe and stone back wall collapsed inward, stood beside a rusted stock tank. Thirty years before, it might have been an outfit to make a rancher proud.

Fifty yards farther, Herb turned the truck left across a cattle guard and onto a narrow, muddy two-track that slithered through cactus and greasewood for a hundred yards toward an enormous galvanized water tank. The windmill there turned lazily, its Aer-motor—Chicago rudder keeping track of the fitful breeze. Twenty or thirty cows stood close by, watching our approach with interest.

“There we are,” Herb said.

“Where?”

He pointed off to the right with the butt of an unlit cigarette toward a small black vehicle. “There’s Rory’s Jeep. And if you look just past that grove of brush, up in them rocks?” I did and saw nothing except brush and rocks.

A figure appeared out of a grove of stunted junipers and lifted a hand in greeting.

“That’s Rory,” Herb said. The truck slowed to a stop and Estelle and Francis were out and away before I could even find the door handle.

The water tank and windmill nestled in a small amphitheater, the limestone rocks forming a jumbled wall on the east and north. The rocks weren’t particularly high, but they afforded ample protection for ground squirrels, pack rats, rattlesnakes, and three-year-old Francis Guzman.

I first caught sight of a small patch of blue, and as I drew closer, I could see that the child was sitting on his haunches, leaning against a boulder that was about the size of a small sedan. “How the hell did he get up there?” I muttered.

When he saw his mother and father, he stood up, and that brought me to a halt. The drop-off in front of him was six or eight feet. “
Mama
,” he shouted. He turned and scrambled out of sight for just a moment, then appeared around the side of the rock on top of which he’d been sitting. His father ran to meet him, using his hands to steady himself as he made his way up through the jumble.

Herb walked up beside me and lit another cigarette. “I just figured that it was safer to let you folks handle this, ’cause, of course, I thought…” he said, letting the wetback explanation trail off. “After Patrick took that header, Rory helped him back to the truck. He was hurtin’, so they just up and left the child. Didn’t figure he’d go anywhere. Patrick busted his leg just above the ankle.” The rancher sucked air through his teeth. “He said he saw the boy down by the tank when he was driving in, and the kid just took off. Rory said they called to him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to trust nobody he didn’t know. That’s why we got to thinkin’ that he’d probably been dumped by some wetback family, you know.” He glanced at me. “And after Patrick fell, why I just thought, Hell, if he’ll just sit there…”

“Thanks, Herb,” I said. I watched the two figures merge, and then Dr. Guzman turned around, his son in his arms, and carefully picked his way back down through the rocks. Estelle went up to meet them, and for a while the three of them formed a single huddle.

“I’d sure like to know what sort of person would just leave a kid out in the middle of nowhere, though,” the rancher said. He sauntered back toward the truck, muttering to himself. I turned and went with him. The cattle were starting to move toward the truck, their interest piqued. They stopped a dozen yards away, chewing thoughtfully.

“Did you see any traffic last night or early this morning?” I asked.

“No. Sure didn’t pay any attention,” he said. “What’s the deal, anyway?”

I told him briefly what had happened, and what kind of vehicle we were looking for, but he shook his head. “Whole United States Army could have driven by and I wouldn’t have noticed,” he said. “The kids had a couple of TV videos from town, and that was enough noise for anybody.”

“What time did everyone turn in?”

Herb shrugged. “Probably close to midnight.”

“And you didn’t hear anything after that?”

“No, not that I paid attention to. It’s a county road, after all. Fair amount of traffic, especially with the bar down at the main road there.”

I turned and grinned. Estelle and Francis were walking back on either side of their son, each holding one of his hands. He was refusing to walk, but he bounced off the ground every second step or so. I could hear his little high-pitched voice jabbering away in Spanish. My blood pressure drifted down a couple notches when I saw that he wasn’t wearing pajamas.

“
¡Padrino
!” the child bellowed when he was a dozen yards away. If I had been Estelle or Francis, I’m not sure I’d have been able to let him go. But they did, and he charged forward. I bent down to scoop him up. His jeans and cotton jacket were grimy and damp, and his hair smelled like one of the little sheepdogs over at Herb’s house.

“These aren’t mine,” he said, getting right to the important stuff first. One arm was around my neck, and he reached down with the other to touch the toe of one of his fancy blue-and-white sneakers.

His face was dirty and tear-streaked. “Whose are they, kid?” I asked, taking his tiny hand in mind.

“They’re Cody’s,” he said soberly.

I looked at Estelle. I’d never seen tears in her eyes before. “Were you with Cody?” I asked. The child twisted in my arms and looked over my shoulder toward Herb Torrance and the big pickup. I could feel his grip around my neck tighten. “That’s okay,” I said. “He’s a friend.” The grip didn’t loosen.

“He’s in the bus,” the child said.

“Who else was in the bus,
hijo
?” Estelle said. He dug a knee into my belly as he twisted and reached out with both arms to his mother. I handed him to her and he flung both arms around her neck.

He didn’t answer immediately, and Estelle brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Were Cody’s mommy and daddy in the bus?”

The child nodded. “A man chased me up there,” Francis said. “But he fell and hurt his leg.” I smiled at the satisfaction in the child’s voice. “Then they went away.” He pointed at Rory Torrance’s black Jeep. “That truck right there.”

“You’re safe now,” I said. “This is Mr. Torrance and his son Rory. They’re friends of ours. This is their ranch.” Francis nodded and I saw his eyes shift to Rory, skeptical. “Why didn’t you stay on the bus?”

“’Cause,” he said, as if that was all the answer necessary.

“Did Cody’s mommy and daddy make you get off the bus?” I asked, then repeated, “Cody’s mommy and daddy?” He nodded. “Where did they stop to make you get off?”

He turned and pointed over Estelle’s shoulder. “Right there,” he said. “But I runned away.”

The “right there” was indicated by a tiny index finger pointing generally off to the west.

“Why did you run away,
hijo
?” Estelle asked softly. Dr. Guzman was holding the door of the truck for us, no doubt hoping the cops in the group would stop their goddamn interrogation and let him take the kid somewhere warm and dry.

Little Francis abandoned English, and most of what he said was whimpered in rapid-fire Spanish into the hollow of Estelle’s neck. She cooed something back to him, holding the back of his head tightly as she carried him to the truck.

She sat in the back, with the child in her lap, her arms wrapped around him. Her husband slid in beside her.

“You all want to go back to the house?” Herb Torrance said.

“Please,” I said. I twisted in the seat and saw that Estelle was looking hard at me. “What?” I asked.

“He said that Cody’s mommy and daddy told him that if he didn’t behave, they’d put him in the hole, too.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. The little boy’s head came up as we hit the county road, and his enormous dark eyes, still filled with tears, watched as we passed the abandoned adobe barn. “In the hole. That’s what he called it in Spanish? A hole?”

Estelle put her hand on the top of the child’s head. “He doesn’t know the word
grave
yet.”

“That’s where they put that man,” little Francis Guzman said, his spine ramrod-stiff. He almost poked a finger in his father’s eye in his eagerness to point out the window. He twisted his head and looked at me. “Cody has two daddies. And that’s where they put him.”

“Herb, stop the truck,” I said.

“Bill, please,” Dr. Guzman said.

“Just stop, Herb. Let me out, and then take these folks back to the house. Estelle, use the radio to call Torrez and Mitchell out here. Or whomever you can reach. I’ll be waiting for ’em.”

The truck crunched to a stop. “You sure about this?” Herb said. I looked behind us. The black Jeep idled, waiting.

“Yep. I’ll keep Rory with me for company.” Just before I slammed the door, I turned to Estelle. “While you’re talking to him,” I said, indicating little Francis, “we need to know what direction that bus went when they took off. And if he heard them say anything about where they were going.”

I stepped away from the truck and beckoned to Rory Torrance.