The Fourth Time is Murder

Chapter Twenty-five

“No,” Sheriff Torrez said, with a curt shake of the head. Madelyn Bolles held up both hands in surrender. She had followed Estelle down the hallway behind Dispatch, toward Sheriff Robert Torrez’s office, but the sheriff would have none of it. He let the one word suffice, offering no explanation.

“I’ll be out in Dispatch,” Madelyn said.

“You can wait in my office,” Estelle said. “I shouldn’t be long.”

The reporter shook her head. “I don’t want to intrude. I’ll be outside.”

In the sheriff’s minimal office, Ricardo Ynostroza sat on one of the metal folding chairs, his back against the filing cabinet. His hands were still handcuffed behind his back, and he leaned forward uncomfortably. He looked from Estelle to Bob Torrez and then to Deputy Jackie Taber, who had eschewed the hard folding chairs and instead stood with her back against the windowsill, two steps from the young man. As Estelle closed the door, the deputy stepped forward and unlocked the handcuffs, and the young man rubbed his wrists gratefully.

“So,” Estelle said, and opened her notebook. “Señor Ynostroza. We’re a little confused by your behavior today.”

He sat motionless and silent. Deputy Taber had reported that Ynostroza hadn’t said a word on the ride from Regál to Posadas. “The authorities in Buenaventura tell us that you had a little trouble last week,” Estelle said. He didn’t answer but shifted a bit in his chair. “They say that they’d like to talk to you about the theft of a 1987 Chevrolet Caprice,” she said. Jackie Taber’s notes said that the car had been targeted by the car thief less than a week after its purchase.

“I gave it back,” Ynostroza said.

“Well, that’s okay, then,” Torrez said.

“Not entirely in one piece, however,” Estelle added, and Ynostroza hunched his shoulders with contrition. “So, talk to us.” She handed him the photograph of his woodcutter companion, and he promptly dropped it as he bent sharply forward, face buried in his hands. “Tell us what happened that day,” she said. “This past Thursday.”

“That is how I left him,” the young man whimpered. “I could do nothing.”

“Tell us how it happened.”

“We were cutting the wood,” he said. “Up the tree, so…,” and he straightened up enough to swing his hands back and forth, mimicking the motions of nicking the limbs off the trunk. “It…,” and English failed him. He slipped into Spanish, the words a torrent. Estelle let him wind down.

“The saw kicked back,” she said for the benefit of the others. “And then he lost his balance when it was still running. He couldn’t get away from the chain.” She knew that Jackie Taber didn’t speak Spanish and Bob Torrez’s facility had grown rusty over the years. “Where were you when it kicked back?” she asked.

“I went…I had went…to the truck for the gasoline. He said he was nearly ready. Then I hear his cry. He…he is tambaleándose?”

“He staggered?”

“Yes…he hold himself, but the blood…madre de Dios.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran to him and tried…I ran to him and he is this stagger, and I help him away. Nothing he does can hold the blood, agente,” he said, looking beseechingly at Estelle. “I want to go to the truck, but he is crying, presa del pánico. It is like he is trying to escape? He is trying to escape from this thing. He is all white, and fights like the madman. Finally I am able to make him sit down, and I see what the saw has done.”

He bent forward once more, both hands clamped on his mouth.

“Jackie, get a towel. I don’t want him pukin’ on my floor,” Torrez said.

Estelle retrieved the photo of the dead woodcutter as the deputy stepped around her. “And that’s where he died, leaning against the tree?”

“Yes.” The voice from behind the hands was small and hopeless.

“Why did you run away, Ricardo?” she asked.

“How can I stay? We have no papers. If I stay, when they come, they will ask. And I know that I can do nothing.”

“You had no phone, I suppose? No way to call for help.”

“No, agente.”

“Why didn’t you take the truck for help?” Torrez asked.

“I have no papers, and it is not my truck,” the young man said again. “I knew there could be trouble.”

“We don’t mean steal the truck, Ricardo. But you could have driven for help.”

“But I see Felix is unconscious in just a minute or two. I see…there is nothing that I can do that will help him. Even if the help come that very moment, there would be no time. The hospital is so very far away.…I see that it is hopeless. And I cannot move him to the truck by myself. He cannot walk.”

Deputy Taber returned and handed Ynostroza a white towel. He wiped his eyes and then clutched the wadded towel in his lap. “If I take the truck, they will look for me. If I just go…” And he held out a thumb. “Then they won’t look.”

“So you walked out to the highway and caught a ride?”

“Yes. That is what I did.”

“You didn’t tell anyone about Felix? That he was lying out there all by himself, bleeding to death?”

Ynostroza flinched as if Estelle had slapped him. “Señor Zamora had says that he was going to stop by, maybe five o’clock?”

“What time did the accident happen?”

“Maybe thirty minutes after four? I am not certain. It was late in the afternoon. We were both tired. Señor Zamora had taken out two full loads with the big truck that day, one just then. We were to fill the pickup, and that would be the end. We had work since Monday afternoon.”

“And this was Thursday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you go, Ricardo? When you left Felix, where did you go?”

“No one came right away. Then I think I hear the sirens, and I went down to the river. I walk along it until dark.”

“Which river is this?” Torrez asked.

“I don’t know what it is called.”

The sheriff reached to the small metal bookcase to the right of his desk, and pulled out a battered paperbound state atlas. In a moment, he spun the open book around on his desk and beckoned Ynostroza to look. “This is Reserve,” he said, tapping the map. “You were somewhere in here?”

Ynostroza frowned, bending awkwardly over the desk. “Yes. Now I see what I did.” He pointed to a spot on the map.

“So you walked down along the Tularosa,” Torrez said. “That ain’t easy.”

“It was very hard,” Ynostroza said fervently, as if his efforts to follow the winding little creek were somehow heroic.

“If you’d stayed along the river, you’d still be up there,” the sheriff said. “Where’d you go?”

“I knew where the road was, agente, far to the west. So just before dark, I walk to the highway, and then through the town. A woman offered me a ride south, but she was going to Mogollon. I did not want to go there.”

“I would guess not,” Torrez said. Mogollon nestled high in the Gila, on the way to nowhere.

“She drove me to another town. I don’t remember the name.”

“Glenwood?”

“That may be it. I slept that night in an abandoned house. I knew that no one would find me there.”

“Let’s cut this travelogue short,” Torrez said. “Why did you come back to Regál?”

“I knew that I could go home to Buenaventura from here,” he said, and Torrez scoffed.

“Horseshit. You weren’t headed to Buenaventura, bud.”

“But I was.…”

“Then all you had to do was ride across the border with one of the burros. He gave you a ride that far. Why did you change your mind?”

Ynostroza fell silent and Estelle watched him closely. Calculation was replacing the earlier trepidation, remorse, and guilt, but he wasn’t particularly good at it.

“You have nowhere to go,” she said, and Ynostroza’s eyes flicked her way. “Immigration will turn you over to the policia in Buenaventura,” she said. “You are finished here.”

“If…” And he stopped, biting his lip.

“Would padre Anselmo help you, do you think? Is that what you are hoping?”

“I did not go there,” he said quickly. “Maybe you would call him.…”

“The burro dropped you off at the parking lot of the iglesia. You could see that the good father’s car was not there. You know the padre?”

“Everyone knows the padre,” he said.

“Is that a fact?” Torrez said. “Why would that be?”

“It is known that he gives mass in Tres Santos. Ever since the old padre died there.”

“Why did Father Anselmo write down the telephone number of the American woman for Felix? The lady in Regál? We found the paper in his pocket.”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, you do,” Torrez interrupted.

Ynostroza slumped in resignation. “If we needed someone,” he admitted. “That is all. We could use the name as the referencia.”

“A reference,” Estelle provided.

“Yes.”

“Why did you not go to that house, then?” she asked, taking care to avoid mentioning Betty Contreras by name. If Ricardo Ynostroza hadn’t known Betty before, he didn’t need to know her now. “If you have their telephone number, why not go there?”

“That is where I was going when you found me,” he replied.

“Not true,” she snapped. “Even if you didn’t know where your referencia lived, why wander through half the town? You could have stopped at any house, and asked, no?”

“Yes.”

“Emilio would help you, no?” She saw no puzzlement at the name, and made a further guess. “And you know that he is at the church most of the time.”

“Yes.”

Estelle felt a surge of relief at this first small opening. “Why did you not go there? Why did you not seek him out?” She waited while the silence grew, then took a leap into the dark. “Isn’t that who Father Anselmo told you to turn to if you needed help? Isn’t that why he wrote down Emilio’s telephone number for you?”

“Yes, that is true,” Ynostroza admitted, and he took a deep breath, holding it in as if he’d climbed a long, rugged slope.

“Why then were you going to the other house?” she asked. “We must know this, señor.”

“You are going to send me back?”

“Yes. Of course.”

That brought another look of defeat, an expression at which Ricardo Ynostroza was most adept, Estelle reflected. “There may be some discussion on how we choose to return you to Mexico,” she said. “If you are cooperative.”

Ynostroza chewed on that for a moment, searching through her comment for a promise.

“How many of you were there?”

“What do you mean, agente?”

“Exactly that, señor.”

“It was Felix and myself, agente.”

“How did you learn about the work up north, by Reserve? How did you learn of the woodcutting with Señor Zamora?”

“Father-” And he bit it off. “There is work everywhere. This Señor Zamora, nos ha tenido trabajando todo el día.”

“I’m sure he did,” Estelle said. “How much did he agree to pay you?”

“He was to give forty dollars for the day,” Ynostroza said, and shrugged with resignation. “Is not so much, but…”

“The land of milk and honey,” Jackie Taber said, breaking her silence for the first time. “Is that forty for each, or twenty apiece?”

Ynostroza looked as if he’d been slapped. “Twenty, each,” he said.

“How did you learn of this job? Did Father Anselmo hook you up?” the sheriff asked.

“I don’t-”

“Did he know the Zamoras somehow?” Estelle asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“When you first came to this country to speak with the father, when was that?”

“No. We talk with him in Tres Santos.”

“You, Felix, and who else?”

Ynostroza hesitated, obviously well aware of where he was about to step. “Six,” he said.

“¿No más?”

“No. Only six.”

Only, Estelle thought. “All from Buenaventura? Or that area?”

“This time, yes.”

“This time? You know of other times?”

“Of course.”

Estelle looked at Bob Torrez, and the sheriff’s face would have done justice to Rushmore, so devoid was it of expression. No wonder the good father was spooked, Estelle thought.

“Where are the others now?”

“I do not know that. I heard Albuquerque,” and the name rolled off his tongue with a rhythmic lilt.

“How did you get to Reserve?” she asked. “The truck you were using for wood hauling belonged to the Zamoras, did it not? You and Felix certainly didn’t walk from Regál to Reserve.”

Hitchhiking would have been the obvious answer.

“The father…he made arrangements for us to go to Silver City,” Ynostroza said. “On Sunday afternoon, after the wedding at the church.”

Estelle looked at the young man incredulously. “There was someone at the church who agreed to take you and Felix up north?”

“Yes. But just to Silver City. That is where Señor Zamora met us.”

“Who was this? Who gave you the ride?”

“I don’t know his name. It was someone that Father knew from Tres Santos.”

“And Father Anselmo gave you the telephone number.”

“Yes. To find him, if there was trouble. He is driving so much, sometimes it is hard. He said we could always find this person with the phone, and she would reach him.”

“So tell me, señor…when you returned to Regál today, why did you go to the house where we found you? Did you think he would help?”

“I thought, yes. Maybe yes. Maybe he could help.”

“You could have just ridden home with los burros, Ricardo.”

“That is what I should have done.”

“Well, then?”

“I thought that…” He fell silent, thinking hard, brows knit together. “I thought that Señor Baca might help.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He had help before.”

“Ah, he did. How did he help? Did he help Father Anselmo arrange the work for you?”

Ynostroza’s expression turned wary. “No.”

“But now you return. I’ll ask you again.…What was Joe Baca going to do for you? What did you think he could, or would, do for you? You were headed to his place when we stopped you. What did you want from him?”

Ynostroza held up his hands helplessly. “I just thought…”

“What did you just think, Ricardo?”

“Señor Baca is a wealthy man, agente. At the church, Father Anselmo gave each one of us twenty dollars. He said that the money came from the congregation. But Felix said that he had heard about Señor Baca winning the lotería.”

“So, you knew about that,” Estelle said. She let her voice sink to just above a whisper, as if she and Ynostroza were the only ones in the room. “Were you going to try and rob Señor Baca? Is that what you were thinking about?”

“Agente, I would never do this.”

“Really. An old man, el viejo, who you knew to be a wealthy and generous man? The thought never crossed your mind?”

“Never, agente.”

“Lying sack of shit,” Sheriff Torrez said matter-of-factly, and Ynostroza’s eyes darted first to Torrez and then back to Estelle.

“When you walked from the highway to Señor Baca’s, what were you thinking, then?” she asked. “You did not walk directly to his house. You did not approach as an honorable man, straight to the door to make your request. You went inside the old abandoned house first, then sat and smoked a cigarette in the shade of the orchard.…What were you planning to do?”

“I wasn’t sure what he would say,” Ynostroza said lamely.

“You were trying to make up your mind,” Torrez said. “Trying to decide how you were going to do it.”

“No. I was worried.”

“Of course you were,” Estelle said. “And then you saw the State Police car coming down from the pass.”

Torrez added, “An illegal on the wrong side of the fence, a thousand yards from the border crossing, thinkin’ about tryin’ to rob the same people who’d helped you. That’s a lot to be worried about.”

“Why didn’t you go to the church?” Estelle asked. “You knew that the father would help you.”

“I could see that he wasn’t there,” Ynostroza said. “His car, you know. As you say, it would be by the church if he was there.”

“Ay,” Estelle whispered. She looked at Torrez, and then heavenward. The sheriff seemed amused at this turn of events. She knew Father Bertrand Anselmo’s sympathies, and wasn’t the least bit surprised that he shuffled a few workers across the border now and then. The process was simple enough, until something went wrong…like a chain saw kicking back into a leg.

“Do you want to talk to Anselmo, or do you want me to?” Torrez asked.

“I’ll talk to him,” Estelle said.

“Are you going to give Immigration a heads-up?”

“Eventually, we have to,” the undersheriff said quickly. “But just at the moment, muscle isn’t going to solve this.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Torrez said. “And we don’t need to be readin’ about this at the checkout stand,” he added, nodding at the closed door. It was clear that he wasn’t referring to Posadas Register publisher Frank Dayan.