Before She Dies

Chapter 36

From the pass above Regal, I could count the lights, a sparse scattering of a dozen spots of yellow. Farther to the south and east, I could see the bright glare of the sodium-vapor lights at the border crossing. The gate would be locked, the officers gone for the day.

With the windows down, I drove through the narrow dirt lanes, keeping a sedate speed neither too fast nor too slow to attract attention. A single bulb burned somewhere in the bowels of Mateo Esquibel’s little house, the light faded to little more than a candle’s worth by the time it washed up against the lace curtains.

No lights were on at the ancient building next door. More than sixty feet long and only twelve or fourteen feet wide, it might have been a mercantile or feed store at one time. A portion of the roof had collapsed, and the three elm trees in the yard were dead. I stopped the Blazer near the end of the building, pushed off the lights, switched off the engine, and got out.

For February, the night was mild with just the faintest breeze stirring the tall grass along the old building’s foundation. But I wasn’t interested in history. I pushed the truck’s door closed just enough to turn off the dome light and skirted the old store, heading toward the back of Mateo Esquibel’s property.

If the old man had a dog, it was inside. I moved slowly, keeping my flashlight off. I didn’t remember any fences in my path, just an open side yard strewn with rocks and cacti.

I reached the trailer where the old man kept his wood supply, and bent down to look at the hitch that rested on a stout chunk of rail-road tie. If it had been used recently, fresh steel-against-steel contact marks would show on the bottom of the housing that covered the ball. I was about to attempt an impossible position so that I could see the hitch when the dog began barking.

From inside the house came the insistent, rhythmic yapping and I froze in place, flashlight switched off. For the better part of five minutes I stood there while the mutt ran through its entire repertoire of canine noises. No one came to either door or window, and eventually the dog gave up. For another five minutes I stood still, giving the animal time to lose interest.

Moving cautiously, I backed up and made my way around the back side of the trailer, and then to the back wall of the garage. A side window had been boarded up years ago, the nails rusting and sending streaks of black down the wooden walls.

At the front corner I hesitated, listening for the dog. Then I eased around to the doorway. It was secured with an old iron hasp and an enormous brass padlock. Any shine the brass may have had when it was new had given way to a dull patina decades before. By placing a single finger between the two sides, I tried to pry the doors open. They didn’t move a fraction of an inch. Whoever had hung the door had been an expert.

I made my way around the east side of the garage. Another window was covered, this time with a combination of boards and cardboard. One of the eight panes of glass had been hit in the corner with a small projectile-no doubt a neighbor kid’s rock from a slingshot. The pane hadn’t shattered, but by working my pocketknife into the hole I could pry loose a small wedge of glass.

I did so, and then pushed the cardboard that had covered the inside of the window to one side-just an inch or less, but enough for the beam of the flashlight to lance into the garage. I squinted and sucked in my breath. The beam bounced off chrome and fancy paint.

With care, I went to work with the pocketknife again, enlarging the hole by prying out another sliver of glass.

This time, when I looked, I could see the bright colors clearly, the trade name on the fender, and, as I swept the beam back, the fancy gas cap, air dam, and roof rack. The Weatherfords’ Suburban had survived its high-speed trip from Oklahoma no worse for wear.

I took a deep breath and snapped off the flashlight, standing quietly with my back to the garage.

Now that the pieces were drifting into place, it all made perfect sense. Carlos Sanchez had himself an effortless pipeline for prize vehicles, straight to Mexico. He could make copies of the keys at leisure; he could lift an extra temporary sticker and fill in appropriate names. It wouldn’t be hard to find willing drivers-both for the excitement and the money. And either explained how Tammy Woodruff had gotten sucked in.

A dozen questions still circled in my mind like hungry vultures over a carcass. It made no sense that Carlos Sanchez would let this vehicle sit in a garage a rifle shot from the border. No matter how innocent the garage appeared, every minute the stolen truck stayed on the U.S. side of the line, the risk increased. That meant that all we had to do was wait.

I made my way back to the Blazer, climbed in, and released the clutch, allowing the vehicle to roll forward down the slight incline. When the road forked, I turned left, started the engine, and drove out of the village as casually as if I lived there.

The last dirt road turned off the pavement just before the first switchback. I followed it, winding up the hillside toward the enormous white water-storage tank that had been installed with monies from a federal grant five years before. The tank provided ample and dependable storage, and its broad, smooth sides provided local spray-can artists with an open canvas.

I drove around the back side of the tank and parked under two-foot high letters that proclaimed Esmarelda y Paco, ’93. The bulk of the tank shaded me from the vapor light. From there, I commanded a view of the entire valley. I could clearly see the patch of black behind Mateo Esquibel’s house where the garage stood.

I turned the volume of the radio up just enough that I could hear the broadcasts, but kept the windows of the truck closed.

The night closed in, broken only by an occasional jet high overhead or a coyote somewhere in the hills behind me. Shortly after eight o’clock, a car engine started somewhere down in the village. A moment later headlights flicked on near a house a hundred yards west of Esquibel’s. I watched as the vehicle oozed out of one driveway, traveled down the road a stone’s throw, and pulled into another. A porch light went on, remained bright for a couple of minutes, and then went out.

The folks of Regal weren’t into rompin’ and stompin’, at least not on a Wednesday night. I looked across to the hillside on the east where the small church stood, but if the Catholics had planned a Wednesday night service, they hadn’t showed.

All evening long, I’d listened to Gayle Sedillos working dispatch, her voice caught by the repeater on Regal Peak. At 9:17, she came on the air, and I could hear a slight edge to her voice, a slight tremor of excitement.

“Three oh seven, PCS.”

“Three oh seven, go ahead.” Tommy Mears sounded bored. He was a good actor.

“Three oh seven, ten-twenty?” She had asked the deputy where he was less than twenty minutes before, and at that time he’d been at the airport, talking with manager Jim Bergin.

Now, he replied, “Three oh seven is two miles west, on the interstate.”

“Ten-four, three oh seven. If you get a chance, would you swing by the hospital and pick up a folder from Detective Reyes-Guzman? She said it’s at the information desk.”

“Ten-four.”

I smiled in the dark and my pulse clicked up about thirty notches. The message meant that Carlos Sanchez had left his house. Estelle Reyes-Guzman had no folder for anyone, but Carlos Sanchez, if he was listening to the police scanner, had no way of knowing that. Gayle had managed the complex and dull alert message without a hitch.

The cellular phone on the seat beside me chirped, and I picked up the receiver. Bob Torrez’s voice was distant.

“Sir, he’s heading west on State Fifty-six.”

“All right. Don’t let him pick up your headlights coming out of town.”

“I’ll stay back. What about Tomas?”

I glanced out across the sleepy village toward the border crossing. “No sign of him. But he said he’d be there.”

“I’d sure hate to see this guy slip through.”

“He’s not going to do that, Robert. Mears should be a minute or so behind you.”

“I can see him right now. He’s at the filling station on Grande.”

“Don’t let him get itchy. I want to see how Sanchez plays his game. Remember, if he stops at the bar, get to Gayle in a hurry. You go on past, and make sure Mears turns up Fourteen.”

“Yes, sir.”

The inside of my mouth was dry as I sat in the dark, trying to picture the flow of traffic southwest on 56. Carlos Sanchez had to be feeling confident. If he didn’t have a scanner, he was stupid. If he did have one, all he knew was that Deputy Mears was tied up at the hospital. There had been no word on the movements of anyone else. The night was ordinary.

I took a deep breath and settled back in the seat.

Eleven minutes later, the telephone chirped and I startled so hard that I almost hit my head on the roof.

“What?”

“I think he stopped at the bar, sir, but if he did, it was just for a minute. No more than that. I didn’t have time to go on by. He’s headed south.”

“All right. Stay back. Remember the scenic pull-out halfway down on this side. That’s where you stop.” Off in the distance to the south, I saw a single flash of light, as if someone had swept a spotlight in a circle, shooting the beam up into the night. “And Tomas is in place,” I said, hoping it wasn’t wishful thinking.

At 9:38, I saw the headlights high up on the switchbacks from Regal pass. They descended sedately, almost poking along.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I muttered. All I could see were the lights, but I could picture the old truck putting along, inconspicuous and legal as all hell. A rancher going home after checking the cattle, or a kid out in his daddy’s truck, going home nice and early just like he was supposed to. There were no state police on this section of highway, and Carlos Sanchez knew-and I hoped he was gloating-exactly where the deputies were.

The truck passed the turnoff to the water tank and kept going. If Sergeant Torrez had crested the pass, he’d dumped his lights, because the mountain behind us was black.

Like a homing pigeon, Mateo Esquibel’s old truck idled into the village, turning first this way and that, finally backing right into the old man’s yard, back bumper crowding the hitch of the wood-laden trailer. Resting the binoculars on the steering wheel, I watched the figure get out of the truck, illuminated by the faint rays cast by the dome light.

Sanchez was a believer in taking time with his cover, apparently. If he’d allowed Tammy Woodruff to drive a stolen truck to the border, he’d used the old man’s truck, hooked to the trailer, when he’d driven back up the highway to check on her, knowing that no one would give him a second glance.

From where I sat behind the water tank to Mateo Esquibel’s old adobe was at most 300 yards. But even with the binoculars, the figure was nothing more than a vague, drifting shadow.

Somewhere off in the distance a dog barked; it was soon joined in chorus by half a dozen others. The dogs didn’t know what the hell was going on, and neither did I. My telephone chirped again, and when I answered Bob Torrez said, “I’m at the pull-out.”

“All right. Sit tight and stay on the line,” I said, laying the receiver on the seat. I didn’t know what to think, since I assumed Carlos Sanchez would be meeting someone at the border… someone who would collect the vehicle and, I thought, hand over a lump of cash-perhaps ten, maybe fifteen thousand for such a vehicle.

But as yet, I saw no clear way for Sanchez to return to Posadas once the deal was made. Maybe that was his plan. Maybe this time he was headed south along with the Suburban. Two murder raps made for powerful motivation.

Down below, a blast of light illuminated the area around the garage. The backup lights of the Suburban were bright, and for a moment, perfectly clearly, I could see the wooden doors, open wide. Sanchez pulled out of the garage, stopped to get out and close the doors, and then drove out of Mateo Esquibel’s yard. I tracked the Suburban as it drove through the village and reached the pavement. “Turn right to Mexico,” I said, and as if he heard me, the vehicle turned toward the border. I started the Blazer and pulled out, lights off. By the time I reached the pavement, I could see the brake lights of the Suburban flash as Sanchez braked for the tight curve just before the customs’ gate. I accelerated hard, wanting to narrow the distance while the slight rise of hill separated us.

As I approached the curve, I shoved the gear lever into neutral and clicked off the engine. I wanted to roll to a stop just as I crested the hill, so that when Carlos Sanchez got out of the truck, he wouldn’t hear the engine or tire noise of my old Blazer.

At the same time, hidden behind a hillock on the Mexican side of the border, Captain Tomas Naranjo of the Federales had promised that he’d wait for my signal before making a move-in case our quarry somehow slipped through the gate.

Our timing was perfect. Our luck could have been better.