A Discount for Death

Chapter Twenty-seven

Estelle knew that once planted and fed, the rumor grapevine grew at the speed of sound. With that in mind, she and Torrez elected to interview the students in school the following day, rather than in individual homes. Despite admonitions to keep the experience to themselves, it was a certainty that the students would talk with one another after the interviews-and that some would talk with parents when they arrived home from school late Thursday afternoon.

That gave Estelle a window of opportunity when any information that the students might possess would not be general knowledge in the community-one brief school day.

Six of the twenty-two students on the trip had been seventh-graders, and five of those had returned to Posadas for the following school year. The sixth had moved to San Diego.

Estelle met with the five, one at a time, in Tessa Dooley’s office at the middle school. Mrs. Dooley sat at the head of the conference table and greeted each student with an expression that was half glower and half affectionate empathy-an expression that told them they’d better provide answers, and fast.

By nine-thirty Thursday morning, Estelle had heard the same wandering, vague recitation of the Mexican experience: the embarrassed dancing, the gift giving, the food. For several of the students, the high point of the trip appeared to have been listening to their boombox headphones on the bus ride down and back.

All five remembered “those guys” from the chamber of commerce. Not one recalled a name. Two of the five students had no idea who school superintendent Glen Archer was-much to Mrs. Dooley’s exasperation-despite Archer’s appearance at the middle-school assembly just the day before.

One of the five, a slender little girl with enormous blue eyes and a mouthful of braces, recalled the poverty of the Acambaro area. What stuck in her memory was the lack of a sidewalk from the classroom building to the uncompleted gymnasium.

Estelle and the principal watched the last child slip out of the office. “Close the door behind you, dear,” Tessa Dooley said, and when the child left without latching it, the principal arose with a grunt and pushed the door closed herself.

“Impressive, don’t you think?” she said, the sarcasm heavy.

Estelle glanced up at Dooley as the principal maneuvered her way back to her place at the conference table. “I’m always amazed at what children see, or maybe I should say, how they see,” Estelle replied.

“It’s very different, that’s for sure. Maybe with a little prompting, they’d remember more, but it’s been a long time for them.” She flashed a quick smile. “By their standards, a long time. I wish I had gone along. Of course,” and she hunched forward into a self-deprecating shrug, “I probably would remember less than they did.”

Estelle reached across and turned off the tape recorder that had been nestled discreetly beside a large box of tissues, simply so that it hadn’t been the sole, intimidating object on the table.

“Wouldn’t it help if we knew what you were looking for?” Mrs. Dooley asked. “I feel like we’re stumbling around in the dark here.”

“I’m sorry it’s frustrating,” Estelle said, “but it’s important that the kids don’t pick up on a particular direction from us. They’re wonderfully adept at figuring out what adults want to know and bending their stories accordingly. I’m sure you know that better than I.”

The principal laughed with resignation. “Oh, yes.” She studied Estelle silently for a moment. “You must have kiddos of your own?”

“Two boys.”

“Mr. Archer tells me that you were born in Mexico?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Dooley’s mouth pursed a little with amusement at Estelle’s cryptic answers. “Here I go, asking all the questions,” she said. She stood up quickly and extended a hand, glancing at the clock at the same time. “If there’s anything else we can do, you know where to find me.”

Locating the remaining sixteen students at the high school was not so simple. Two had moved out of district during the intervening year. Three were absent from school, as was the high-school principal himself. Estelle met first with Barry Vasquez, the sponsor of the trip. He had transferred to the high school for the new school year.

In his late twenties, broad-shouldered and full-bellied, Vasquez settled uneasily onto the leather couch in the principal’s office. He placed an enormous wad of keys secured on a long lanyard on the couch beside him, then looked warily at the tape recorder. He glanced at the door as if weighing his options for escape. Estelle turned the chair beside the principal’s desk so that it faced Vasquez.

“Mr. Vasquez,” she said, “we’re interested in certain aspects of the two trips that you and your students took to Acambaro last year. The one at Christmas, the second the following May.”

“What’s the deal?” Vasquez asked, his accent thickly west Texas.

“You rode on one of the buses?”

“Gol dang, I don’t remember which bus I rode on. That’s a long time ago.” His smile was immediate and faded just as quickly. He glanced at the door again, then at his watch. Estelle leaned back in her chair, her right hand resting comfortably against her cheek.

“I’d like to know if your recollection agrees with Superintendent Archer’s, Mr. Vasquez.”

“I’m sure it does,” Vasquez said. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

“Mr. Vasquez,” Estelle said patiently, “we can dig our way through this one painful step at a time, or you can speed things up immeasurably. I need to know anything you remember about the two trips to Mexico. I want to know how you got there, what you did while you were there, what you saw. I’m interested in your impressions, Mr. Vasquez.”

“Some of our kids in trouble?”

“No, they’re not.”

“And that’s all I get to know?”

Estelle nodded and remained silent.

“Is this tied in with that Enriquez thing somehow? He went along with us, both times.” He pushed himself forward on the couch so he could rest his forearms on his knees. “Look, this is a trip that the school has been taking for years…since way before my time here.”

“I’m not interested in any trips except the two last year,” Estelle said. “The one in December, the one in May.”

“Okay,” Vasquez said, and settled back on the couch, twisting so that he could throw one arm over the back and rest his left knee on the cushion. He pulled up his sock and smoothed the trouser leg over it. His recitation of the trips was a high-speed synopsis that began with how the student council chose which students could go along, how the preparations were made, and the schedule of the actual trip.

As he warmed to his topic, Estelle could see that Barry Vasquez was one of those people who would spend thirty hours a day at school if he could. His eagerness to help students organize themselves was his major motivation, and talking about the challenges of taking twenty-two middle-schoolers to Mexico, along with a ton of food and gifts, loosened his tongue.

As far as he was concerned, both trips had been completed without a hitch. The students had been where they were supposed to be, when they were supposed to be.

“Mr. Vasquez,” Estelle said as he wound down, “did George Enriquez appear to enjoy himself?”

“Which time? December?” He pulled at his sock again. “Yeah, I think so.”

“He drove the senior citizens’ van for the December trip?”

“Yes ma’am, he did. Both times.”

“What did the chamber take down in December? Why was the van necessary?”

“Ah…” Vasquez paused and rubbed his forehead vigorously. “The copier and all that surplus junk. The junk computers and stuff.” He frowned at his sock. “The van was where most of the food was, I think. At least a lot of it. Yeah.” He looked up quickly. “The food was in the van. We had it packed in plastic bags.”

“Did Mr. Enriquez stay in Mexico with the group the whole time?”

“Sure. We all crossed the border together. Two buses and a van. We traveled as a group.”

“Both times.”

“Yes. Except no van the second time. We didn’t need it.”

“Was there ever a time, either trip, when you noticed that Mr. Enriquez was not at the school with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You explained that you arrived at the school in Acambaro in the late morning and left sometime between one and two that afternoon. That’s three hours or so. During that time, was Mr. Enriquez always present?”

“Sure. As far as I know. I remember that on the December trip, we forgot the ice. He and one of the other guys went to get some. There’s a little sort of gas station-grocery store-gift shop just a couple of blocks down from the school. He drove the van down there, I remember.”

“And someone else went with him?”

“I think so, but I don’t remember for sure. I really don’t.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, then abruptly shook his head. “I just don’t recall. I do remember that in May, we didn’t take any ice along, because we knew we could get it right there.”

“But all the years previous you took ice with you?”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “We took everything, Sheriff. Right down to bottled water.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Who went to get the ice in May?”

“Good God, I don’t know.” He started to shake his head, then as abruptly stopped and held up a hand. “I think it was Mr. Enriquez. In fact, I know it was. I remember seeing him and Owen Frieberg carrying the four bags into the gym when they got back.”

“Frieberg went with him?”

“I don’t know if he went or not. I’m just assuming that he did. I just remember seeing them carry the bags into the gym. I remember Frieberg saying something like, ‘You think this stuff is safe?’ and Mr. Enriquez just laughing.”

Estelle toyed with the tape recorder, shifting its position a fraction of an inch. “What did you bring back with you, Mr. Vasquez?”

“How do you mean?”

“Just that. Did you guys do any souvenir shopping anywhere? In Acambaro or anywhere else? Did you let the students out for a break?”

“No. We didn’t have time for that. It’s a short drive, anyway. Just a bit over an hour. If there’d been a mall, the kids would have rioted if we didn’t stop. But I think they were kinda happy to get back across the border and onto home turf.”

“No stops in Tres Santos, for instance?”

“There’s nothing there.”

“I was thinking about some of those neat woodcarvers’ places.”

“No. We came right through.”

“A return trip with two big empty buses and an empty van,” Estelle said.

“We had lots of room to stretch out,” Vasquez said. “The chamber guys put all the trash bags in the van for us, so we didn’t even have to mess with that.”

“Lots of trash?”

He nodded. “We trek it in, trek it out. There must have been ten of those big black trash bags full. Gift wrapping, bottles, cups…just all kinds of stuff. I always tell the kids that no one in Mexico wants to pick up after a bunch of little rich kids from the States.” He grinned. “That always gets their attention. They don’t like being called Lurks.”

“Lurks?”

“Little Rich Kids.”

“Ah. That’s neat. In December, Enriquez drove the van by himself? Both ways?”

“Yes, ma’am. As far as I recall.” He leaned his head back again.

“The superintendent and that other chamber guy, Joe Tones, were in the one bus. I rode on the big activity bus with Frieberg so we’d have someone from the school with the kids. That’s where most of the stuff was. And Enriquez drove the van.”

Vasquez picked up his bundle of keys and wrapped the lanyard around his fingers, looking at Estelle expectantly. She reached over and turned off the tape recorder.

“I don’t know what exactly you’re looking for, but a lot of the trip in December is on tape,” Vasquez said. “The kids put out a video yearbook, and one of the yearbook kids is on the student council. Lori Schmidt? She’s the council historian, in fact. Old Lori was always stickin’ that camera in our faces. I think she used up an entire tape.”

“I’d like to see that.”

“When the clip came out in the video yearbook, it was about three minutes long,” Vasquez said. He laughed. “Chop, chop, chop.”

“What teacher works with the yearbook crew?”

He ducked his head with a touch of pride. “My wife.” It came out ma waff, and Estelle smiled. “She’s still at the middle school. Emily Vasquez? Teaches math and art.”

Estelle made several quick notes. “Okay. Thanks.” She smiled at Vasquez. “I appreciate your cooperation. I’m sorry to keep you so long.”

He practically lunged to his feet. “That’s all right. You all got a job to do, same as us.” He shook hands, his grip crushingly strong.

“Lemme know.” He nodded and left the office, keys jangling.