Scavengers

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The plan was simple enough. Sheriff Robert Torrez and Undersheriff Estelle Guzman would drive one of the county units as far as the border crossing in Regál, leaving it and their weapons behind as they accompanied Capt. Tomás Naranjo into Mexico. Torrez was skeptical about going anywhere unarmed, but both he and Estelle knew it was an understatement when Naranjo reminded them that his Mexican troopers had “weapons enough for everyone.”

Estelle was grateful to Naranjo for extending the invitation-it certainly was not required of him. In fact, if the Madrid brothers could be implicated first in the death of Juan Carlos Osuna in Asunción and then in the attempted murder of Eurelio Saenz on the Mexican side of the border, the arm of Mexican justice would bury them so deep that extradition to face charges in the deaths of the two woodcutters in Posadas County was probably neither a possibility nor a necessity.

As they drove south on Grande Boulevard, Estelle noticed that the normally reticent Robert Torrez was even more quiet than usual. Perhaps he also had been mentally enumerating all the things that could go wrong when two American peace officers strayed south of the border. Whether by invitation or not, the arrangement was an informal one, depending entirely on the strength of Tomás Naranjo’s word.

“I’d like to go through Maria,” Estelle said as they drove through the interstate underpass.

“Regál is almost an hour faster to Asunción,” Torrez said. He glanced over at Estelle, then into the rearview mirror at Naranjo’s Toyota.

“I know. But we can cross at Palomas just as easily, and then catch Route Two back toward Janos.” Torrez had already started to slow for the intersection with State 56, the highway west toward Regál. “I just have a feeling,” Estelle said.

“All right.” Torrez said. He passed the intersection and drove south on State 61. Naranjo followed, a discreet hundred yards behind. “So what’s the feeling?”

“Mamá y Papá is the feeling,” Estelle said. “We haven’t talked to them. Francis and I stopped in Lucy’s place for a few minutes whenever it was, but other than that, nothing. I’d be interested to hear what they have to say. Things have tumbled so fast, I haven’t had the chance.”

“I think they’d be the first ones to say that their boys are on their own,” Torrez said. “It’s Benny and Isidro who chose to live in Mexico. Their folks didn’t force them that way.”

Estelle sighed. “But they’re up here all the time. That’s what’s bizarre.” After a minute, she held up two fingers a quarter inch apart. “We were this close, Bobby.”

“To what?”

“If those two had followed me across the arroyo, and then just a few yards farther into this country, we’d have had them. Dead to rights.”

“The dead part is probably true,” Torrez said. “And hopefully it would have been them.”

“We were so close.”

“And now…” Torrez said, and stopped in mid-thought.

“And now what?”

He accelerated the unmarked Expedition up to eighty to pass a pickup pulling a livestock trailer. “And now you’re hoping that Isidro and Benny might slip back across the border to find out from Mama and Papa just what’s going on. Try to find out what we know?”

“I would if I were them. Then maybe take off for some place that’s a little cooler.”

“For instance?”

“Guaymas, Guadalajara, Mexico City…somewhere out of the state, that’s all.”

“Or even Denver or Coeur d’Alene,” Torrez said. “Or Central America someplace. Hell, with some money, they can go anywhere.”

“We know they have a little,” Estelle said. “The money from Osuna, the money from the woodcutters. At least that much.”

“Nickel, dime,” Torrez said. “We’re not exactly talking about masters of the big haul here. I’m surprised that they haven’t put the touch on the old man or the old lady yet.” He turned and glanced at Estelle, the figurative lightbulb coming on over his head. “That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it.”

She nodded. “And their aunt,” she added.

“Paulita?”

“Why not? The taberna probably earns a pretty good bundle. Easy pickings. And after last night, they’re not just going to sit around and wait for something to happen. They don’t know if someone just dragged Eurelio’s body away, or if he’s still alive.”

“Except for the ambulance siren on our side of the border. And they know that Mexican authorities aren’t involved. Nobody chased them. They saw a figure running in the darkness-that’s all.”

“That’s right. If Eurelio is alive, the Madrids have to assume that this time, he’ll talk. But he’s on our side of the border, and that makes for a nice, convenient complication that works in favor of the Madrids. I think that they beat Eurelio to scare him silent. Maybe he sold them that rifle in good faith, as a favor to a relative. Maybe they coerced it out of him. They figured a good beating would convince Eurelio to keep his mouth shut. And then one of them changed his mind and shot Eurelio, almost as an afterthought…one of them is trigger-happy.”

“Not smart, but trigger-happy,” Torrez said. He thumped his index fingers on the steering wheel in a fast drum roll. “A great combination.” As they passed the dirt road that followed the power lines northward, he slowed the car. “Paulita is at the hospital with the boy?”

“Yes. And Jackie’s with her.”

“Okay. That’s one out of the way then. I told Tony Abeyta to stay there until he heard otherwise.” They rounded the sweeping curve that led into Maria, the red tile roof of the taberna visible on the right, and several abandoned, slumping buildings on the left. Torrez slowed the vehicle to an amble.

From the other direction, a large RV sporting white Texas license plates appeared, a small SUV hitched to its back bumper. The rig blinked its directional signal and turned into Wally Madrid’s gas station. The RV was certainly taller than the small adobe building, and probably more square feet on the inside.

Torrez turned left in front of the gas station, drove far enough up the lane that he passed Lucy Madrid’s restaurant and another abandoned building. Just ahead was a cluster of five homes, situated helter-skelter with lot lines that would have made a surveyor groan. Dominating the north end of the village, at the end of J Street, was la Iglesia de Santa Lucia, a low, flat-roofed structure plastered a rich rosy pink.

The dusty margins of the lane opened a bit so that Torrez didn’t need to drive all the way to the church’s parking lot to turn around. He swung the truck in a U-turn, idling back the way they’d come. Torrez pulled to a stop where a curb would be if Maria had sidewalks, just beyond view of the little café’s front window. As they stopped, they saw Tomás Naranjo drive by on the state highway.

“I’ll check the station,” she said. Torrez sat with his chin resting in his left hand, gazing at the front door of Lucy Madrid’s restaurant. Estelle climbed down out of the unmarked Expedition and strolled past the café, her hands in her trouser pockets. She continued up the lane to the service station. She rounded the corner in time to see the driver of the RV peering through the front door, his hand up to shade the glass.

“Don’t guess they’re open,” he said when he saw Estelle. A smile split his round face. “You from these parts, señorita? ” His voice carried the twang of west Texas. His eyes ran appreciatively up and down Estelle’s trim figure.

“Yes, sir,” Estelle said. “But they don’t sell diesel here, anyway.”

“They’re missin’ a good bet,” he said. Estelle smiled pleasantly. The Texan was right, of course. But it was just one of many good bets that Wally Madrid had passed on over the years. “Probably should have filled up in Columbus, then,” the man said. “What’s the closest westbound, you happen to know?”

“Posadas is sixteen miles,” Estelle said. “There’ll be a big station on your left, just after you go under the interstate. They’ll fix you up.” She glanced toward the RV and saw a white-haired, plump woman peering out the door. The man appeared to be in no hurry to break off his conversation, perhaps happy to have found a native who spoke English in complete sentences. “You folks have a good day,” Estelle said even as his mouth opened to say something else.

He nodded. “You too, young lady.”

Estelle walked past him, glancing inside the front window as she did so. Wally Madrid’s cluttered desk was visible in the far corner. If each piece of litter that constituted the landfill of his desk represented a successful business deal, Wally Madrid would have been a millionaire. The single overhead light was off.

She glanced down the street and saw that Naranjo had turned around and stopped at the curb fifty yards away. He lifted a finger off the steering wheel in salute, but stayed in the vehicle. Unlike Estelle and Torrez, Naranjo was in uniform.

The station, one room with a bathroom off the side, had been built onto the original adobe house nearly half a century before. Estelle walked around the side of the station, pausing at the door of the restroom. The door was ajar, and she pushed it open with her toe. The door cleared the commode with an inch to spare, revealing a dark, dank interior where the white porcelain of the sink and toilet had long ago stained to match the adobe walls. The fragrance was deep and pungent, and Estelle couldn’t imagine stepping into the tiny room and actually closing the door on the flow of fresh air from outside.

She continued toward what appeared to be the front door of Wally Madrid’s home. Two cinderblocks served as a front step, both loose in the dirt and waiting to tip should an unwary foot be planted wrong. She knocked on the door and waited, then knocked again. The blue porcelain doorknob included no provision for a lock. She turned it and pushed. The door opened effortlessly. The air inside was cool, and she could see an old sofa with an afghan on the back, a television with the round-cornered screen of the ‘sixties black-and-whites, and a coffee table piled high with magazines.

“Mr. Madrid?” she called. The house was silent. From where she was standing, she could see the rump of the owner’s red International Carry-All parked beside the house. She called his name again, a bit louder. With no response, she stepped inside and quickly walked through the house, taking no more than thirty seconds to tour all five rooms.

By the time she walked back outside, glanced inside the Carry-All and then rounded the front of the station, the huge Texas RV had trundled back out onto the highway, a plume of diesel hanging behind. She glanced back at Naranjo and shook her head, then walked back the way she had come, ignoring the restaurant.

“What did you find?” Torrez asked when she returned to the Expedition.

“Nothing. The station’s closed and locked, his house is wide open. The coffeemaker’s on in the kitchen. His truck is parked outside. Engine’s cold.”

“So. Maybe he’s in his wife’s café, having breakfast.”

“He hasn’t talked to Lucy in a dozen years. I don’t think so.”

“Want to go ask?”

“I certainly do.”

Torrez opened the door, then hesitated. “Where’s Naranjo?”

“Parked just down the street.”

“You didn’t see anyone else?”

“Not a soul, other than the Texan tourists.”

“I was hoping that we’d see a big yellow Ford station wagon parked in the shade somewhere,” Torrez said.

“They’re not going to be that stupid, Bobby.”

He shrugged. “And why not? Why change what works?” He stepped out of the vehicle, and then he and Estelle walked to the front door of Lucy Madrid’s café like two curious tourists. Lucy’s was open for business, the fluorescent bulbs in the single ceiling unit providing just enough light for customers to be able to find the saucer with their cup.

The first person Estelle saw was Wally Madrid, sitting at the same table she and Francis had used earlier in the week.