Beyond This Point Are Monsters

Chapter Nine

“For the record,” Ford said, “would you state your name, please?”

“My church name or my school name?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes, sir. I was christened with five names, but at school I just use Jaime Estivar because otherwise I’d take up too much room on report cards and attendance sheets, things like that.” He had sworn to tell the truth, but the very first thing he uttered was a lie. What’s more, it tripped off his tongue without a moment’s hesitation. The boys he admired at school were called Chris, Pete, Tim, or sometimes Smith, McGregor, Foster, Jones; he couldn’t afford to have them find out he was really Jaime Ricardo Salvador Luis Hermano Estivar.

“Your school name will be sufficient,” Ford said.

“Jaime Estivar.”

“How old are you, Jaime?”

“Fourteen.”

“And you live with your family at the Osborne ranch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell us about your family, Jaime.”

“Well, uh, I don’t know what’s to tell.” He glanced down at his parents and Dulzura and Lum Wing, seeking inspiration. He found none. “I mean, they’re just a family, no big deal or anything.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Yes, sir. Three of each.”

“Are they living at home?”

“Only me and my two younger sisters, they’re twins. My oldest brother, Cruz, is with the army in Korea. Rufo is married and lives in Salinas. Felipe’s got a good job in an aircraft plant in Seattle. He sent me ten dollars for Christmas and fifteen for my birthday.”

“When your brothers were at home, they all had chores to do around the ranch, did they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about you?”

“I help after school and on weekends.”

“Do you get paid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“My pop just hands me the money and says go buy yourself a Cadillac.”

“What I meant was, do you get paid by the hour or by the job?”

“The job usually. Also for the last three years I’ve been in business for myself part of the time. Pumpkins.”

“You’re pretty young to be in business for yourself.”

“Well, I don’t make much money,” Jaime said earnestly.

Ford smiled. “How do you go about getting in the pumpkin business, Jaime?”

“I just took over from Felipe, the way he did from Rufo and Rufo from Cruz. It all started with old Mr. Osborne lending Cruz a field for a crop that would bring him money to put away for his education. Cruz and Rufo grew a lot of different things. It was Felipe who thought of pumpkins. They grow fast and don’t take much work and you harvest them all at once at the beginning of October.”

“And is this what you did at the beginning of October 1967?”

“Yes, sir.”

“After the pumpkins were picked and sold, you plowed the vines under?”

“I did when my dad said I’d better get to it or else.”

“What date was that?”

“Saturday morning, November four, three weeks after Mr. Osborne disappeared. The vines were drying up by that time and a lot of them were broken and, you know, trampled down by people looking for clues and stuff like that.”

“Did anyone find any ‘clues and stuff like that’?”

“I don’t think so, not in the pumpkin field.”

“Did you?”

“I found the knife,” Jaime said. “The butterfly knife.”

“Where was it in the field?”

“The southwest corner.”

“The corner nearest the road leading out of the ranch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it buried in the ground?”

“No, sir. It looked like maybe somebody flung it out of a car window to get rid of it and it sort of stuck in the ground underneath one of the vines.”

“I’m going to show you a knife and ask you if it is the one you found.” Ford held up the knife, now labeled with an identification tag. “Is this it, Jaime?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Here, take it in your hands and examine it.”

“I don’t want — well, okay.”

“Is it the knife you found?”

“I think so. Except it looks cleaner now.”

“Some of the bloodstains were scraped off for analysis in the police lab. Allowing for that difference, would you say this is the knife you picked up in the pumpkin field?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it open with the blade operable the way it is now?”

“Yes, sir, open.”

“Had you ever seen a knife like it before that time?”

“A couple of the boys at school carry butterfly knives.”

“For show? For fun?”

“No, sir, for real.”

The knife was offered in evidence, numbered, then replaced on the court clerk’s table. Two of the high school students in the audience stood up to get a better view of the knife but the bailiff promptly ordered them to sit down.

“Now, Jaime,” Ford said, “I want you to go over to the map on the board, and using one of the colored marking pencils, indicate the location of the pumpkin field.”

“How?”

“Draw a rectangle and print the words pumpkin field beside it.”

Jaime did as he was told. His hand shook and the boundaries of the pumpkin field were uneven, as though old Mr. Osborne had laid them out himself on one of his drunk days and no one had bothered to straighten them. The area where the knife was found, Jaime indicated by a circle with the letter K inside it. Then he returned to the witness box and Ford went on with the questioning.

“Jaime, I understand the pumpkin business occupied your time only for a couple of months out of the year.”

“Yes, sir. Late summer and early fall.”

“The rest of the year you were engaged in other projects around the ranch, is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did these other jobs bring you in contact with the various crews of migrant laborers?”

“Not much. I did my work mostly after school and on weekends and holidays. Also my dad gave me orders to stay away from the mess hall and the bunkhouse.”

“So you didn’t become acquainted with any of the men personally?”

“No, sir. At least not very often.”

“Referring now to the crew which was employed on the ranch during the first half of October 1967, I’ll ask you if any of the men were known to you by name.”

“No, sir.”

“Do you recall anything in particular about the crew?”

“Just the old truck they came in. It was painted dark red. I noticed that specially because it was the same color red as the pickup Felipe used to teach me to drive. It’s not there any more, so I guess Mr. Osborne sold it on account of its gears being stripped too often.” He added, half in contempt, half in envy, “The kids in driver education at school learn in cars with automatic shifts.”

“I have no more questions, Jaime. Thank you.”

Jaime went back to his place very quickly, as though he were afraid the lawyer might change his mind. But Ford’s attention was already directed elsewhere, to the empty seat beside Devon.

“My witness is still missing,” he told Judge Gallagher. “Robert Osborne’s mother.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find out.”

“I’ll try. I need a short recess.”

“Ten minutes?”

“Half an hour would be better.”

“Mr. Ford, somewhere in the county of San Diego right now, at least one irate taxpayer is figuring out exactly how much a minute this case is costing him. Do you realize that?”

“I do now, your Honor.”

“Court is recessed for a period of ten minutes.”

As the room began to empty, Ford walked over to where Devon was sitting. He would have liked to sit down beside her. His legs were tired and the lower part of his body felt as if the vertebrae had softened and the connecting discs had been unfastened. “Where is Mrs. Osborne?”

“She went home to rest during the noon hour but she intended to be back by one-thirty.”

“I told her I was going to put her on the stand right after the lunch break. Perhaps it slipped her mind.”

“I hardly think so. Mrs. Osborne is very meticulous about such things, and very punctual.”

“Then perhaps one of us had better find out why she’s suddenly not meticulous and punctual any more.”

“Mrs. Osborne hates to be checked up on. It makes her feel old.”

“It’s time she got used to it,” Ford said briskly. “There are pay phones at the end of the corridor.”

“She might take it better if you called her.”

“That’s unlikely. I’m the big bad man who asks her embarrassing questions, you’re her loving daughter-in-law.”

“Am I?”

“Until the conclusion of this proceeding you are.”

Of the half-dozen pay phones at the end of the corridor five were being used. The booths looked like upended coffins whose occupants weren’t actually dead but had been put into a state of suspended animation to await a better world. The sixth booth had its door open, inviting Devon to step inside and wait too. She closed the glass door behind her, and as she’d done fifty or a hundred times in the past year, started to dial the number of Agnes Osborne’s house. But her hand seemed to freeze on the dial. She couldn’t remember more than the first two digits and had to look up the number in the directory as she would any stranger’s. “You’re her loving daughter-in-law... Until the conclusion of this proceeding you are.”

The ringing of the phone was loud and sharp. She held the receiver away from her ear, so that the sound seemed a little more remote, more impersonal. Six rings, eight, ten. Agnes Osborne’s house was small and she could get to the phone from any room in it, or from the patio or back yard, in less than ten rings, less than five if she hurried. And during the past year, when any call might be about Robert, she always hurried.

The booth was hot and smelled of stale tobacco and food and people. Devon opened the door a few inches, and with the little gust of new air came the sound of people talking in the alcove adjoining the row of phone booths. One of the voices was a man’s, hoarse and low-pitched:

“I swear to you I didn’t know a thing about it until a few minutes ago.”

“Liar. You knew it all the time and wouldn’t tell me. So did they. The whole bunch of you are liars.”

“Listen, Carla, I’m warning you, for your own good stay away from the ranch.”

“I’m not scared of the Estivars. Or the Osbornes either. My brothers see to it nobody pushes me around.”

“This isn’t kid stuff any more. Stay out of it.”

“Look who’s giving orders again like he’s wearing his old cop suit and tin badge.”

“Trouble, you’ve been nothing but trouble to me ever since I laid eyes on you.”

“You laid more than eyes on me, chicano.”

Devon waited for another half minute, six rings, but there was no answer from Mrs. Osborne’s house and no more talk from the alcove. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

The girl had gone. Valenzuela stood alone at the barred window of the alcove, his eyes somber and red-rimmed. When he saw Devon his mouth moved slightly as though it were shaping words he wasn’t ready to speak. When he did speak, it was in a voice quite unlike the one he’d used on Carla, soft and sad, with no hint of authority in it.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Osborne.”

“What about?”

“Everything, how it’s all turned out.”

“Thank you.”

“I wanted you to know I hoped things would be different, and the case would be solved by now. That first night when I was called out to the ranch to look for Mr. Osborne, I was sure he’d show up. Every step I took, every door I opened, every corner I went around, I expected to find him — maybe beat up a little or sick or even up to some mischief. I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

“It’s not your fault, Mr. Valenzuela. I’m sure you did the best you could.” She wasn’t sure, she’d never be sure, but it was too late now to say anything else.

“I could maybe have done better if they’d given me more money. Not more salary. Bribe money.”

“Bribe money?”

“Don’t be shocked, Mrs. Osborne. In a poor country everything’s for sale, including the truth. I believe someone saw that old red truck at the border or on the road going south to Ensenada or east to Tecate; someone noticed the men in it, maybe recognized a couple of them; someone may have watched them bury the body in the desert or dump it into the sea.”

“Mrs. Osborne offered a substantial reward.”

“Rewards are too official, too many people are involved, too much red tape. A bribe is a nice simple family type of thing.”

“Why didn’t you explain the situation to me a year ago?”

“A cop can’t ask a private citizen for bribe money. It wouldn’t look pretty in the newspapers, it might even cause an international scandal. After all, no country likes to admit that a lot of its police, its judges, its politicians are corrupt... Anyway, it’s over. All I’m saying now is I’m sorry, Mrs. Osborne.”

“Yes. So am I.”

She turned and walked toward the courtroom, holding herself rigid to counteract the feeling she had inside that vital parts had come loose and were bleeding. Someone saw the truck — noticed the men — watched them bury the body or dump it in the sea. She thought of the dozens of times she’d watched the men stooping in the fields, but they were always in the distance, always anonymous. She had wanted to get to know them a little, to be able to tell them apart, to call them by name and ask them about their homes and families, but Estivar wouldn’t allow it. He said it wasn’t safe, the men would misinterpret any friendliness on her part. The men, too, had obviously been given orders. When she drove past a field being harvested, they would bend low over their work, their faces hidden by the big straw hats they wore from dawn to dusk.

The light had been switched on in the sign above the door: Quiet Please, Court Is in Session. By the time Devon entered, the room was nearly full, the way it had been before the recess, but now the Lopez girl, as well as Mrs. Osborne, was missing.

In the aisle beside the seat Devon had occupied since the hearing began, Ford stood talking to Leo Bishop. Both men looked impatiently at Devon, as though they’d been waiting for her and had expected her to come back sooner.

Ford said, “Well?”

“There was no answer.”

“Did you let it ring several minutes, in case she might be outside or in the shower or something?”

“Yes.”

“Then I guess you’d better go over to the house and check up on her. Mr. Bishop here has offered to drive you or let you use his car, whichever you prefer.”

“Exactly what am I supposed to do?”

“Find out if she’s all right and when she intends showing up to testify.”

“Why are you forcing her to testify?”

“I’m not forcing her. When I brought the subject up she seemed perfectly willing to be a witness.”

“That was just a front,” Devon said. “You mustn’t be taken in by it.”

“Okay, so I don’t know her front from her back. I’m a simple man. When people tell me something I believe it, I don’t immediately conclude that they mean the opposite.”

“She — isn’t ready to admit Robert is dead.”

“She’s had a whole year to get used to it. Maybe she’s not trying hard enough.”

“That seems a very cynical attitude.”

“You’d better watch it,” Ford said with a wry little smile. “You’re beginning to sound like an honest-to-God loving daughter-in-law.”

The door to the judge’s chambers had opened and the clerk was intoning: “Remain seated and come to order. Superior Court is again in session.”

“Call Earnest Valenzuela.”

“Ernest Valenzuela, take the stand, please.”