Scavengers (11 page)

Estelle walked around to the passenger door of the old truck. When it opened, the hinge squawked loudly, and she felt the resistance of a sprung hinge. The interior was surprisingly clean, without the usual eclectic clutter of junk that graced the broad, convenient dashboards of working trucks. What looked like a saddle blanket was folded neatly on the seat, protecting rumps from spring ends that had begun to project through the original fabric.

Behind the seat, a rifle rack spanned the back window. Empty now, the rack had been used enough over the years that the vinyl coating on the bottom set of hooks had worn through.

Estelle stepped forward and bent down to look under the passenger seat. A beer can sat on the transmission hump, just behind the tall, angular shift lever. She touched it with the eraser of her pencil and felt the weight of at least half a can.

The beam of her flashlight swept under the seat, where the collection of the ages hadn’t been disturbed. Popcorn was the leading contender, the pale kernels tied together with a rich layer of dust and cobwebs. Crumpled Styrofoam cups, an empty box of Wildcat .22 ammo, and assorted nails, paper clips, and ballpoint pens added to the wealth.

“You want to spring the seat forward?” Tom Pasquale asked. He had appeared at the driver’s side.

“Yes. Pay attention to the highway, though,” Estelle replied.

“You bet. Watch your head.” She straightened up as he yanked the seat lever and pushed forward at the same time. The bench seat slid forward, hung, then slid the rest of the way. He folded the seat back up against the steering wheel.

The generous space was filled with a large handyman jack, lug wrench, and a portion of what looked like a shop vacuum hose. Crushed against the right rear bulkhead was an empty cereal box, surrounded by wadded tissues.

“Yuck,” Pasquale said.

“What’s that?” Estelle pointed toward Pasquale’s side. The yellow paper was caught in the seat’s release mechanism.

Pasquale gently tugged it free and opened it. “A receipt from Posadas Auto Supply for a case of oil,” he said. “Don’t I wish that’s what it cost nowadays.”

“Dated?”

“August two, nineteen eighty.”

“Not exactly the stone ages,” she said. She pulled the cereal box free from its nest. The ad on the back promised a free Frisbee with return of the coupon inside, plus postage and handling. With her pencil, she moved the tissues, finding a small crescent wrench, a ballpoint pen cap, a six-inch length of electrical wire, and dust.

Estelle bent forward, surveying the trash. “Not much,” she said. “What’s that thing?” She focused her flashlight on Tom’s side of the transmission hump, near the heavy jack’s ratchet mechanism.

Pasquale wedged his large frame farther into the truck. “Whoa,” he said.

“Whoa what?”

He reached in and nudged the object with his pen. “Huh,” he said. “It’s a little cylinder of some sort.”

“It looks new,” Estelle said.

“I think it is. It’s blued, like a gun part of some kind.” He looked up at Estelle, then up at the rifle rack in the truck’s back window. “This is where we need the sheriff,” he said. “He’s the gun man.”

“And the gun man is in Virginia,” Estelle said. “Maybe Bill knows.”

“Bill knows what?” a quiet voice behind Tom Pasquale said. “Bill is out here directing traffic.” He appeared in the doorway and rested a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “What have you got?”

“Sir, before we move it…would you take a look?”

Pasquale pulled himself out of the truck, and Gastner struggled to push his bulk past the seat. “This thing?” he said, pointing the beam of his flashlight.

“That.”

“I don’t know.”

“It looks pretty new,” Estelle said. “Tom says it’s blued, like something off a gun.”

“I agree with both.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know.” He looked across at Estelle. “It shouldn’t be hard to find out.” He pushed himself free of the truck.

“Tom, you might call the county yard and have a wrecker come out. I think we’re going to hang onto this truck for a little bit.”

Chapter Twelve

As a child, Estelle Reyes had joined forces with the ragtag urchins who stalked the various eight-, six-, four-, two-, and no-legged beasts of the Chihuahan desert that encircled Tres Santos, Mexico. The sly, cautious jackrabbits had been her favorites.

She soon learned that when a jackrabbit knew that he was being hunted, he’d often crouch low, sometimes sneaking along on his belly behind the brush, hoping to avoid detection, hoping to avoid the risky, rocketing dash through the open spaces. The jackrabbits had played hide-and-seek with her, ducking behind the twisted acacia, greasewood, or cholla. Her skinny arms had hurled the sharp rocks that were her only weapons. When the rocks snapped too close, the hares had raced away in a blur, ears up, eyes wide.

Eurelio Saenz, sitting in the secured backseat of Tom Pasquale’s vehicle, reminded Estelle of a jackrabbit. He hunkered down low as she approached, head hanging but eyes wide and watchful.

She opened the front passenger door and climbed into the Expedition. Reaching across the broad seat, she snapped on the overhead lights and then settled, regarding Eurelio. He was a good-looking kid, with slicked back raven hair and the wink of a gold ear stud. If he let it happen, he’d age into one of those old men with the craggy face, lined walnut skin, and twinkling eyes.

As Estelle remained silent, he ducked his head and swallowed hard. She looked at the small evidence bag that contained the metal cylinder, turning it this way and that, letting the silence grow heavy.

Estelle had never met Eurelio Saenz, unless it had been when he was a grubby little kid playing around the Taberna Azul. She had no recollection of her uncle taking her inside that establishment, but Paulita Saenz, the young man’s mother, was enough of a memory that their paths might have crossed a time or two.

Tom Pasquale had judged it right, Estelle thought. There was something there. Eurelio Saenz should have greeted a routine traffic stop with bravado and attitude, especially with Tori Benevidez riding shotgun, ready to be impressed. Instead, he was playing jackrabbit.

“Do you know why the deputy stopped you, Eurelio?”

He nodded. He was trying for stoic and not doing very well—pretty much the same expression she would have expected from her son Francisco when he was hoping that her anger about modeling clay smeared on the carpet would deflect her attention away from a larger crime elsewhere in the house.

“Why do you think he stopped you?”

“The truck.”

She turned and looked out the windshield. Tom Pasquale was standing with Tori Benevidez beside the right-of-way fence. Tori’s posture had relaxed. With her hands in her hip pockets, she dug the ground with the toe of her boot, nodding in response to what the deputy was telling her. Bill Gastner had ambled back across the road. He stood near the front of the unmarked car with his hip leaning against the fender. He appeared to be counting the stars overhead.

Exaggerated calm, Estelle thought. Everyone’s calm. She shifted position and rested her left arm across the back of the seat, her face close to the wire mesh.

“Tell me what you know about the dead man, Eurelio.”

His eyes jerked up from their study of the seat back stitching, met Estelle’s for only a heartbeat, and then shifted away. For a moment, it looked as if he was going to say, “What dead man?” He settled for silence instead.

“Did you know him?”

“No.” His answer was immediate.

“How do you know that?” Estelle’s voice was almost a whisper. Eurelio’s eyebrows knit together as he considered where the traps might be.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It sounded lame, and the expression on his face agreed.

“You didn’t get out of the electric company truck this morning,” she said. “When you and Wayne Hudson came out to check up on us. You didn’t walk up to where the body was.”

“So? Why should I? And the cops wouldn’t have let me anyway.”

“And you didn’t have any questions about what was going on? About who the victim might have been?”

He shrugged. “Hudson was talkin’ to you. If there was something that the cops wanted me to know, I figure they would have told me.” Estelle smiled at that. Start a scuffle in school, and students mobbed the action, vying for a look. Blood was neat, a torn blouse was neater. Eurelio was only four, maybe five years removed from that mindset. But if there was something to see, he’d gawk with everyone else—unless there was a good reason not to.

“You weren’t curious, Eurelio?”

“No.” A little starch crept into his voice.

“I think you already knew, didn’t you?”

Eurelio looked out the side window. Estelle held the evidence bag up and shook the blue-black cylinder into the opposite corner. She held it against the security screen. “Tell me what this is.” He turned, leaned forward and looked at the bag briefly when Estelle held it against the screen.

“How should I know that?”

“It was in your truck.”

“Is that right? That’s my dad’s truck, anyways,” Eurelio said quickly.

“Ah, your
dad’s
truck. And the shell casing that the deputy found—that was in your
dad’s
truck, too.”

“I don’t know about any bullets.”

“Did you used to go hunting with your dad, Eurelio? Back when you were a kid?”

“Sometimes.”

“Where was his favorite spot?”

Eurelio shrugged. “All over.”

“No one spot that he liked more than the others?”

“He’d go over to Silver Springs Canyon a lot of times.”

“That’s west of here, isn’t it? Right at the foot of the San Cristóbals?”

He nodded.

“What did he hunt?”

“Javelina, mostly.”

“And you went along too.”

“Sure. Sometimes.”

“So you know this country pretty well.”

Eurelio nodded absently and turned his attention back to the side window of his small automotive cell.

“Do you ever let anyone else use your father’s truck now? Does anyone ever drive it besides you?” The young man took a long time mulling the question. “
Su madre
…maybe your mom loans it out?”

Estelle watched him with interest as a dark frown of irritation was touching his face. He shook his head quickly as if to say “Don’t drag my mother into this.” Turned sideways in her seat, the undersheriff rested her chin on her left arm. Her silence, her settling into patient comfort, goaded Eurelio as surely as if she’d prodded him through the security mesh with a stick.

“You going to arrest me, or what?” he said.

She didn’t answer immediately, but then said, “
Cuéntame cómo su madre, Eurelio.
”

The light was poor, but Estelle thought that she could see the deep flush of embarrassment creep up Eurelio’s neck from the collar of his T-shirt. Paulita Saenz would be tending bar that very moment at the Taberna Azul, a thousand yards down the highway. But Eurelio’s twenty-first birthday was two years history. As far as the law was concerned, it didn’t matter what
Mamá
thought.

“My mom don’t have nothing to do with any of this stuff,” Eurelio snapped. His brows furrowed with anger and he glared out the side window.

“Any of what
stuff
, Eurelio?”

Eurelio Saenz started to say something and thought better of it. His eyes blinked rapidly. “Me usin’ this truck or anything.”

“Do you think we care whether or not you use your dad’s truck, Eurelio?”

“Well, it ain’t licensed.”

“No, it’s not. And it’s not insured. And right now it smells like a brewery.” She sighed and lowered her voice to a soft whisper. “And it turns up in the wrong places, Eurelio.”

He turned and looked at her, forcing himself to hold her gaze for a few seconds. “Me and Tori were just out, that’s all. We drove up that road a little ways, turned around at the yellow tape, and drove back. That’s all we did. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay.”

He seemed to relax back against the seat. “So can we go now?”

Estelle pushed herself away from the comfortable support, turning her back to the young man as she opened the door and slid out of the vehicle. “I don’t think so, Eurelio.” He had started to say something when she closed the door, cutting him off. In frustration he slammed the security mesh with the palm of his hand.

Tom Pasquale’s left hand drifted out and touched Tori Benevidez’s right elbow as Estelle approached. She nodded at the girl. “Miss Benevidez, where do you live?”

“North Fourth Street.” As if finally realizing that being helpful might be to her advantage, she hastily added, “Seven oh one North Fourth.”

“Is that where your folks live?”

“No. I share an apartment with a friend of mine.”

“We’ll drop you off there, then. Is that all right?” Estelle said, and indicated the unmarked car parked across the highway. Without waiting for a response, she said to Pasquale, “Is a tow truck on the way?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” She turned and studied the old pickup one last time. “And make sure that it gets parked in the secured bay,” she said. “We’re going to want to take it apart tomorrow.”

“I really don’t understand any of this,” Tori Benevidez snapped. “Eurelio hasn’t done anything. I mean, so there’s no license on this old heap. Big deal. That’s no reason to arrest him, to treat him like some criminal or something.”

Estelle nodded. “You’re right, Tori. Driving an unlicensed vehicle is no reason to arrest him.” She started across the highway, but the girl held back. “You want a ride home, or are you going to walk?”

Tori Benevidez shook her head in exasperation and followed across to the unmarked car. “Can’t I ride with Eurelio? Aren’t you letting him go?”

“No,” Estelle said, opening the back door of the sedan for her. “You can’t ride with Eurelio.”

“I don’t understand this,” the girl said. She slid into the back of the unmarked car, muttering to herself. Bill Gastner had been standing beside the passenger side of the car, watching. He grinned at Estelle. She shook her head and looked heavenward.

Halfway back to town, they passed the tow truck headed toward Maria. “Interesting, interesting,” Gastner said. Estelle didn’t respond, and they completed the rest of the trip into Posadas in silence. Tori Benevidez’s address on North Fourth was a tiny place, a four or five room fake adobe, its cinderblock skeleton showing here and there where the plaster had chipped away.

Estelle got out and opened the back door. Tori slid by without looking at her. “If there’s anything else that you think of, I’d appreciate hearing from you,” Estelle said. The girl mumbled something that might have been agreement and hurried inside.

“And now?” Gastner said when she had settled back in the car. “You look beat.”

“I am,” Estelle said. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was just moments before ten. “I’ve got energy for one little errand. Then I’m going home to collapse.”

“The little errand can’t wait until tomorrow? That’s my old trap, you know. Just keep going until…” He made a fall-on-your-face motion with his hand.

“This really is little,” she said. “It’s time Bob Torrez did some work.”

“Sweetheart, he’s in Virginia, last I heard.” He glanced at the clock on the dash. “And it’s about midnight there, or after.”

“Yep. Right in the middle of FBI country. We need to know what that little
cosa
is that we found in Eurelio’s truck.” She grinned as she pulled the patrol car away from the curb. “And that’s the fastest way I know of to do it. And as Eurelio took pains to remind me, sir, that’s Eurelio’s
dad’s
truck, not his. The dead dad.”

“And you think Bob will know?”

“If it has to do with guns, he’ll know. Yes, sir.”

“You don’t have much to hold Eurelio on.”

Estelle nodded. “We don’t. Not yet, anyway. But DUI, unregistered, uninsured, and open containers in a motor vehicle should get us through the night. We can stall that long. Let him call his
mamá
, if he’s got the guts.” She glanced across at Gastner. “That ought to be interesting. He didn’t sound like he wants her involved in his mess.”

“Smart kid.”

Back at the Public Safety Building, Estelle nudged the steel cylinder out of the evidence bag, onto the glass surface of the photocopy machine. After a couple of experiments, she managed a reasonably clear image. Above the image, she wrote, “What is this?” and signed it.

She handed it to dispatcher Ernie Wheeler. “Bob didn’t leave me a fax number, but there has to be one, Ernie. See if you can dig it up, and get this off to him just as soon as you can.”

“You want me to give you a call when I hear back?” Ernie asked.

Estelle found herself nodding, and pulled up short with a sudden shake of her head. She held out a hand. “No. Not unless Bob comes up with an answer in the next five minutes, no. Just put it in my box. Or Jackie’s. That’ll give us a running start in the morning.” She took a deep breath and looked up at the clock. The minute hand jolted forward to 10:34
PM
“Uh,” she groaned. “In fact, if the world comes to an end, let me find out about it tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.” As usual, Ernie Wheeler took her seriously.