Scavengers

CHAPTER THIRTY

The leisurely drive back to Posadas included a brief stop at the small mission in Regál. Estelle had been surprised at the request, since her mother had shown no interest in visiting the church in Tres Santos. The original mission in Tres Santos had burned in 1960, and had been replaced with a conservative frame building, its sharply peaked, metal roof somehow incongruous in a village of flat-roofed adobes. Perhaps it was that design that offended Teresa.

In Regál, it took Teresa Reyes more time to get out of the van and walk up the three steps to the mission’s cool interior than she spent inside. Once inside, what brief conversation she had with the various saints was a concise and private one.

La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora was without electricity or plumbing. The thick, immaculately white walls rose uncluttered to the heavy beamed ceiling, and the twelve stations of the cross were represented in small nichos around the perimeter. Other than the soft, distant knocks and pings of the roof as it cooled in late afternoon, the hush of la Iglesia was powerful.

Estelle stood just behind the last pew, watching her mother commune with the spirits. When after three or four minutes Teresa began the process of lifting herself from her knees, Estelle stepped forward to offer assistance.

“This is a good church,” Teresa said. She didn’t clarify whether it was the building that was stout and true, or whether she meant that the saints harbored in its cool silence were especially receptive.

“Yes, it is,” Estelle said, and her mother nodded with approval that her daughter understood.

Back in the car, Teresa sighed with contentment and readjusted the oxygen tube without reminder. As they pulled back onto the asphalt of the state highway, she turned to her daughter to relate the decision after her consultation with the higher powers.

“What you’re doing is a good thing.”

Estelle glanced across at her mother. “Which thing that I’m doing is good, Mamá? ”

“You know, I’m eighty-two years old. In all that time, you’re the only policewoman I’ve ever known.”

“You’ve lived a sheltered life, Mamá. That’s why the word policía is feminine.”

“That’s true. That’s true. But I’ve decided it’s a good thing-what you do.”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” Estelle replied.

“The farmer says that, too, when it doesn’t rain as often as he likes.”

“I suppose.”

“The devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil, you know. And I’ve been around for a long, long time now.” She gazed out the side window as the van wound its way up through Regál pass. “I’m glad we didn’t wait until summer to visit the house. Do you remember how hot it would get in July and August?”

“For sure. We spent most of our time in the water holes,” Estelle replied.

“Maybe you should take the boys down. This summer, I mean. Roman and Marta would like to see them-if you have the time.”

“We’ll make time, Mamá. Francis would enjoy that too. By then, he’s going to need a break.”

“Sometimes it seems like it’s a hundred miles away, doesn’t it?”

“Or more.” As if it had been waiting patiently for them to clear the rise of Regál Pass, the cellular phone interrupted. Estelle thumbed it open.

“Guzman.”

“Ma’am, this is Collins,” the deputy said. “Are you back in the country?”

Estelle smiled and glanced at her mother. “We’re just coming down off the pass, Dennis. We’ll be back in town in about twenty minutes.”

“Oh, good. Look, I talked with George Enriquez of National Mutual Insurance. His agency is the one who held Eleanor Pope’s auto insurance. I got the insurance card from the glove box of her car? And her son’s, too, what’s left of it. I figured that maybe she’d have all her insurance with the same place. But Enriquez says that Mrs. Pope didn’t have home owner’s, at least not with NMI.”

“Maybe with another company, then.”

“He doesn’t think so. He said that he’d tried to talk her into home owner’s before, but that she didn’t want it. He said that he tried pretty hard to convince her that she should have it.”

“She didn’t have a mortgage on the place, then.”

“Why is that?”

“A lender would require insurance, Dennis. They’ve lived on that property forever, though. I suppose it was paid off long ago. Did you happen to ask about a life insurance policy?”

“No dice,” Collins said. “She didn’t have that either.”

“At least not with NMI.”

“Right. But Enriquez said he’d talked to her about that, too, on more than one occasion. She never mentioned that she had coverage with someone else. She just told him that she wasn’t interested in more insurance.”

“So, no life insurance, and no home owner’s insurance,” Estelle said, more to herself than Collins. “Unless she had it with another company. That’s interesting.”

“Kind of makes you wonder what old Denton had in mind when he decided to blow things up,” Collins said. “Maybe it was just his way of winning the award for the most complicated suicide of the decade.”

“Stranger things have happened. Did you happen to locate Mrs. Pope’s checkbook, by the way? That’s sometimes a good record of payments.”

“I think Taber was going to go that route. And the Popes also had a safety deposit box at Posadas National Bank. Taber was going to see about getting a court order from Judge Hobart to have a look-see. Maybe there’ll be something of interest hidden away, but I don’t know if she did that yet or not. She might still be out in no-man’s land, for all I know.”

“That very well could be.” She didn’t bother to add for the high-octane Collins’ benefit that persistent, dogged diligence sometimes uncovered things missed in the first, quick pass. “Who else did you talk to?”

“Ah, nobody, yet. I was kinda going on what Enriquez said.”

“That’s okay, but you need to make a quick run down the list of agents in Posadas, Lordsburg, and Deming,” Estelle said. “Find out if Eleanor Pope was a customer. She might have been doing business with somebody else, and just didn’t want to have to explain to Enriquez. And when you find out what bank she used, have a chat with them, too.”

“All right.”

“And then get together with Jackie to see about payments. Not very many people pay things like their monthly bills with cash. She would have been writing checks if she had insurance.”

Collins grunted something Estelle didn’t catch, then added, “I don’t know about that…Tom Pasquale sure does. Cash or money orders.”

Estelle laughed. “But that’s Tom,” she said. “If the whole world operated the way he does, the global financial system would be in chaos. You need to check with the other agencies.”

“Will do. Everybody’s closed now, though, so I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.”

“There’s always…” Estelle stopped herself, the memory of a casual comment flooding back into her mind. “Have you talked to Linda Real about this?”

“Why her?” Collins asked.

“She mentioned that she’d talked to Eleanor Pope while they were sitting in the insurance office. Maybe she said something in that conversation that would be useful to us.”

“I think she went home for a while.”

She had been about to remind Collins that even after hours, there were home phones to contact, but she thought better of it. She knew that several of the deputies-herself included-didn’t bother documenting overtime. Others-Dennis Collins included-turned in every minute over the standard forty hours, perhaps on the not uncommon assumption that they had a life, and the county’s intrusion into that life was going to be a commensurate cost to taxpayers. She made a mental note to talk with Linda herself as soon as she had the chance.

“We’ll see what develops,” she said instead. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do,” Collins replied.

She switched off the phone and glanced at her mother.

“You know, my mother remembered Pancho Villa,” Teresa said. “She met him once, less than a week before he was killed.”

“I would have liked to have been there.”

“Just another bandito, my mother said. Nothing more.”

“History has given him some stature, then,” Estelle said.

Teresa nodded. “These men you chase,” she said. “The ones who left the two boys out on the desert to die. No such stature in them, is there.”

Estelle looked back at her mother with surprise. It was easy to assume that an elderly woman, dozing in a rocking chair, wouldn’t hear the conversations around her, or if she did, might not understand them or ruminate on them. “What do you think about it all, Mamá? Why would they do such a thing?”

“Because they have nothing else,” Teresa said. “Tomorrow holds nothing for them. It is only what they can gain today that counts. Nothing else. And they are young, and that makes them dangerous. No wisdom.” She grimaced and shook her head. “They are young devils, Estelita. They don’t know anything about tomorrow. And that makes them dangerous.” She took a deep breath through her nose, drawing in the oxygen. “As long as they don’t know that you’re coming up behind them, you’ll be okay,” she said.