There was no way Vanessa Davila could have hidden from me. Her trailer was the better part of a hundred yards from the entrance to the mobile home park, and it didn’t take me long to grunt into 310 and slam the gear lever into drive. She had headed for the back of the lot, then doubled back, running along behind the other trailers on the far side. We should have both arrived at the gate at about the same time. I slid to a stop with the patrol car’s nose sticking out into Escondido Lane, and I played the spotlight up and down the road. The place was deserted.
I cranked around in my seat and surveyed the nearest trailers. Nothing moved except an elderly, arthritic mutt who leaned his weight against his chain, front legs spraddled. He didn’t bark and his tail was motionless. Maybe he was bronze.
Edging out into the street and turning left, I shot the spotlight beam across lots behind the trailers. Unless Vanessa was doing a good imitation of a propane tank, she wasn’t there. I probed the dark spots behind cars and wheelbarrows and doghouses as I idled 310 down the road.
A deep hedge of locust, elm, and juniper formed the eastern boundary of the park, and from there the property along Escondido Lane was a hodgepodge of older homes with cluttered yards. I sighed and shook my head.
“Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa,” I murmured. If she had dived through the hedge, she could be house-hopping all the way out the lane until it jogged north to join State Highway 17.
Dogs barked here and there, but that didn’t mean they were watching Vanessa sneak through the darkness. In Posadas, there were always dogs barking. A home wasn’t a home without a stupid spaniel or hound in the front yard, barking at the hum of the streetlights.
I accelerated hard and drove quickly east on Escondido, keeping 310 noisy until I reached the state road. There was no traffic, and I pulled out on the highway with a squeal of rubber. It was the sort of sound that would carry, even over the dogs. Vanessa might hear it and relax for a few minutes.
I drove for half a minute, then slowed, drifted the car to the shoulder, and swung in a wide U-turn.
With the intersection of Escondido Lane in sight, I punched off the headlights and let the patrol car coast. The tires crunched on loose gravel as I turned into the lane and I let the vehicle’s momentum carry me along. Vapor lights were scarce and there wasn’t much moon. I leaned forward, peering into the darkness, until my chin was almost on top of the steering wheel.
As the car drifted to a stop, I pulled over to one side and switched off the engine. Both windows were down and I sat quietly counting the heartbeats in my ears.
I would have felt better if, in a few minutes, I had seen Vanessa Davila’s imposing figure materialize out of the darkness. Another car approached, and I turned my head so the bright lights wouldn’t rob what little was left of my night vision.
It was an older model pickup, and after it passed I watched it in the rearview mirror. The occupants were silhouetted against the glare of their truck’s headlights, and neither person had enough shoulder width to be Vanessa.
With a twist of the key, 310 burbled into life and I drove slowly back on Escondido, sweeping the spotlight from one side to the other. When I reached Grande, I switched off the light and turned right, not the least bit eager to explain to Martin Holman why I didn’t have a fourteen-year-old in custody.
I couldn’t imagine Vanessa Davila running far-or even walking far. It was just a question of probing the right set of shadows at the right time before I found her. As 310 idled up Grande toward the expressway interchange, I glanced up the steep slope of concrete that formed the sides of the underpass. And there she was.
Vanessa Davila sat on the ledge where the span beams rested. Her legs were drawn up so that she could rest her head on her knees, with arms locked around them. She had to be exhausted after sprinting this far, but I had no illusions about her staying put.
I pulled over and snatched the mike off the radio. T. C. Barnes answered immediately, and I told him to call Aggie Bishop, Deputy Bishop’s wife. Aggie worked as an on-call matron for us, and she was just right for this job-big, tough, clearheaded, and soft-spoken in two languages.
I was about to sign off when I thought better of it.
“Three-oh-seven, this is three ten.”
Holman’s reply surprised me, so immediate he must have been driving with his microphone in his lap. “Three-oh-seven.”
I looked up at Vanessa, just to be sure. She was motionless, like a two-hundred-pound pigeon roosting for the night.
“Three-oh-seven, ten-twenty?”
This time, Holman knew exactly where he was. “A mile out on forty-three. You want me to swing down that way?”
“Affirmative, three oh seven. We have a female subject who is sitting under the overpass. We need to talk to her, and she isn’t showing much inclination to move.” I looked at that steep slope of concrete again, thinking how nice it would be for someone other than me to puff his way up to Vanessa along with Aggie Bishop. “And three oh seven, when you arrive, drive under the interstate, then swing around and park right under the northbound underpass. I’m going to drive up the westbound on-ramp. That will put me right above her.”
“Ten-four, three ten.”
I sat back, waiting. Vanessa didn’t move, and I didn’t want her out of my sight. Sheriff Holman didn’t let moss grow under his tires. It seemed only a matter of seconds before 307 appeared southbound on Grande.
As he drove by, he said cryptically, “I see her.”
“Keep her in sight. I’m going topside. Wait for Deputy Bishop to get here before you approach her.”
“Ten-four.”
I pulled 310 into gear and drove out from under the concrete, keeping an eye on Vanessa. The on-ramp curved off to the right, and for half of its distance I could see the girl’s dark shape under the beams.
“She’s going to be out of my sight now, so keep me posted,” I said.
“She hasn’t moved,” Holman said. “You want me to go up and talk with her?”
“That’s negative. Wait for Deputy Bishop.” I had visions of Vanessa grabbing the sheriff in a bear hug and both of them toppling down the concrete slope to land in the broken glass and shredded tire treads, Holman no doubt on the bottom.
For fifteen minutes we sat in the darkness, Martin Holman below, me above being rocked by the wake of passing tractor trailers, and Vanessa Davila curled up in the middle.
At five minutes after two, another marked county car idled up behind me. I got out, thinking we had a fair-sized gathering to take one frightened teenage girl into custody. Sergeant Robert Torrez was in civilian clothes, and he came close to smiling.
“Isn’t this interesting,” he said.
Aggie Mendoza Bishop got out of the car and joined us. She walked carefully between the guardrail and the patrol car, looking over the side. “She’s down there? Under the bridge?”
“Yes. Watch your step. There’s broken glass and all kinds of pleasant things.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “And I have no idea what her reaction is going to be. She might come without a struggle, or she might bolt again.”
“She ain’t going too many places from here,” Sergeant Torrez muttered.
Aggie Bishop held up a hand. “You two stay well back,” she said. “Let me talk with her first. My God, she’s got to be frightened to death. Out here in the middle of the night like this. What’s her name?”
I told her, and she stepped over the guardrail with considerably more grace than I managed. The footing was treacherous, and when roadside weeds gave way to the steep polished concrete of the abutment, it was even worse. I was perfectly content to stay well back, clinging to one of the rebar bolts for support, my ankles protesting.
Aggie Bishop took her time, but what Robert Torrez had said was true: Vanessa Davila had nowhere to go. After what seemed like an hour, I saw the bright flash of Torrez’s light and heard him say, “Watch your step here, now.”
The three of them appeared as one huge dark shadow, and I clawe
d my way back the few steps to the guardrail. Vanessa Davila allowed herself to be steered toward the backseat of the county car without a whimper, and my spirits rose several notches. I still had no idea what the girl knew, but if there was any connection to be made with Maria Ibarra’s death, Vanessa Davila was as close to that connection as anyone.
We crossed the median and headed down the off-ramp. Bob Torrez, with Matron Bishop and Vanessa Davila in the backseat, headed for the office, with Sheriff Holman falling in behind. I drove back to the Ranchero trailer park to chauffeur Mrs. Davila down to be with her daughter. I figured, after she had seen Vanessa flee into the night, that she’d be sitting in the kitchen, wringing her hands and worrying herself into a swivet.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Mrs. Davila wasn’t waiting for me or anyone else. After a third symphony of pounding and doorbell-ringing, she opened the door, her face puffy from sleep. She rubbed one eye and regarded me with the other as if she had never seen me before.
“Ma’am, we have your daughter in custody. She’s safe. I’d like you to come down to the office and be with her while we question her. One of the matrons is with her now.”
Mrs. Davila looked puzzled. “What?” she said. I took a long, deep breath. If I had had a bottle in my hand, it would have been a long, stiff drink.
23
“Did she do it?” Sheriff Martin Holman met me at the back door of the sheriff’s office, and he spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Who? And do what?” I asked, pausing on the bottom steps.
“That girl, Vanessa Davila. Do you think she killed Maria Ibarra?”
I looked at Martin’s eager face and slowly shook my head. “Martin,” I said and stepped up so that I could put my hand on his shoulder. He was four inches taller than I was, and he probably hadn’t forgotten that it was his hand that signed my paycheck every month. But he still accepted the fatherly gesture and even leaned forward a little to hear my words of wisdom.
“Martin, every soul that we bring up these steps is not necessarily under suspicion of murder, even if a murder took place. And in this particular instance, to the best of our knowledge, the victim wasn’t murdered.” I patted his shoulder. “Dumped by some son of a bitch, but not murdered. Stop being so eager.”
I gave him a final pat and pushed past. He followed me down the narrow hallway to my office as if I actually had some answers. “She’s in the conference room with Torrez and Mrs. Bishop.” Just as I stepped into my office he added, “We’re waiting on Estelle.”
“She may be tied up most of the night out at the accident site,” I said, and headed for a chair.
“No, she radioed in that it wouldn’t be more than ten minutes. She was at the hospital.”
I nodded. “Fair enough. Let me tell you what we have.” I sat down heavily. “We have a girl who choked to death.”
“That part, I know,” Holman said testily. I waved a hand for him to be patient.
“She choked to death on a piece of pizza. Somewhere, we don’t know where. Someone, we don’t know who, dumped her body under the bleachers. A real good Samaritan that person was. We know where and with whom the victim was living sometime before the time of her death…but not necessarily at the time of her death.”
“But you don’t know what relationship Miguel Orosco is to Maria Ibarra,” Holman added quickly.
“Just so. We don’t. And you bring up a good point. What we don’t know makes a more impressive file than what we do know. In the first place, that girl”-and I pointed in the general direction of the upstairs conference room-“is the only person who was seen with Maria Ibarra outside of regular school hours during the past day or so. Apparently Vanessa Davila and Maria Ibarra might have been friends.”
“You don’t sound very positive,” Holman murmured.
“No, I’m not. It’s the word of one convenience store clerk, and not a very dependable clerk at that. Glen Archer doesn’t remember the two girls together, but then again he doesn’t really remember Maria Ibarra in the first place, alone or otherwise.”
“All right, so we don’t know who she was hanging out with, other than maybe this Davila girl.”
“Right. And before that, we don’t know how Maria got herself linked up with Orosco. There’s a Mexican connection there that we may never solve, unless we get just plain lucky. We don’t know who was in the two vehicles that Wes Crocker reports seeing behind the school. We don’t know what kind of vehicles they were. We don’t know just when they were there. Do you want the rest of the list?”
Holman shrugged, but it was a bleak shrug. “Sure.”
“We don’t know if the vehicles behind the school are related to Maria Ibarra’s misfortune. We’re not sure if she died near there, or somewhere else and was dumped. We received one anonymous telephone tip that reported the body, but other than that, not one word from anyone.”
“I just can’t imagine someone sitting there, watching a girl choke to death, and not doing something about it,” Holman muttered. “I mean, even I know the Heimlich maneuver.”
“People are capable of all kinds of delightful behavior, Martin, as you are well aware. And if you don’t mind me changing the subject in midlist, we don’t know if the hit-and-run incident involving Wesley Crocker was an accident or not. We don’t know what kind of vehicle it was, or who was driving it. We don’t know if it is connected in any way to Maria’s death. Right now, my suspicion is that it is not.”
I folded my hands over my belly, leaned back, swung one foot up on my desk, and smiled at Sheriff Martin Holman.
He frowned and looked down at the worn wooden floor, and I tipped my head back, popping the vertebrae in my neck. Every time one popped, the ringing in my left ear changed pitch. Perhaps orchestral tinnitus could be a new hobby for me.
Holman shoved his hands in his pockets and walked across the room to the window, then turned and walked back to my desk, a habit that told me he was thinking as hard as he could and getting nowhere. “Did you make any progress today at all?”
That was a loaded question, and I knew it. But pretending wasn’t in my nature, so I settled for a simple, “Other than finding Vanessa Davila? No. But the outlook isn’t entirely bleak.”
“It’s not?”
“No, Martin, it’s not. Sometime today or tomorrow or the next day or next week, bureaucrats willing, we may hear something from the state lab. There are blood, tissue, and hair samples that might help us. We’ll know exactly what killed the girl, and when, give or take. And when we’re finished interviewing Vanessa Davila, we’ll have an entire list of details to check out.”
I held up my right index finger and thumb, about a quarter inch apart. “Tiny pieces, Martin. Tiny, patient little pieces.” I swung my feet down and thumped the chair forward. “The trick is to give Estelle Reyes-Guzman time and room to work. She’s the best investigator there is. When she talks with the girl, trust me-if there’s something there, she’ll find it.”
Holman’s hands were still jammed in his pockets. “And if there’s nothing there?”
I shrugged. “That’s the way it is. And by the way, who was the fatal?”
Holman grimaced as that memory replayed itself. “Ryan House.” He saw that I was struggling to place the name and added, “He’s a senior. Co-captain of the basketball team. All-conference last year. Salutatorian of his class.” He waved a hand. “The list goes on. You remember him.”
“Uh,” I said, committing to neither a yes nor a no. “That’s interesting. His younger brother is the kid who was giving Officer Pasquale a hard time the other evening. How about the other one? The driver?”
“Another senior. Kid by the name of Dennis Wilton. His father works for the state highway department.”
“Ah, Wilton,” I said, remembering the name that the school-bus driver, Stub Moore, had given me.
Holman nodded. “Right. He’s a lucky kid. Apparently he suffered just a few bruises, a couple little cuts. That’s about it. The driver’s-side
air bag worked just like it was meant to. And he was wearing his belt. Estelle was going to talk with him for a few minutes at the hospital before the sedation puts him out.”
I rubbed a hand over the sandpaper bristles of my short-cropped gray hair. “That’s what I need, a sedative habit.” I closed my eyes for a moment and then blinked at Holman. “But why are they keeping him if it’s just cuts and bruises?”
“A few hours for observation,” Holman said. “Apparently he’s not doing very well,” and he tapped the side of his skull. “It would be rough for anyone, but I’m told that the two boys were close friends.” Holman had been edging toward the door and he looked sideways at me. “Is everything all right?” He didn’t accept my shrug as an answer. “No, really. Are you okay?”
I settled for a simple nod.
He reached for the doorknob and glanced at his watch at the same time. “If Wesley Crocker is released later this morning, are you going to let him stay with you?”
“Why not?” It was easy keeping the enthusiasm out of my voice.
Holman smiled. “I always got the feeling that you prized your isolation and privacy out there in the woods.”
I chuckled and stood up too suddenly for my middle ear’s sake. I had to rest the knuckles of my right hand on the desk until my vision cleared. If Holman noticed, he didn’t say anything. “I’m not sure twenty trees make a woods, Martin. And I do value it,” I said. “But everything else is shot to hell, so that might as well go, too.”
Voices out in the hallway interrupted us, and Holman turned and looked past the doorjamb. “Detective Reyes-Guzman is back,” he said. It may have been the middle of a long night for everyone else, but Estelle Reyes-Guzman looked like she’d had her twelve hours of sleep. She appeared in my doorway, black briefcase in hand.
“Puzzling, sir. Really puzzling,” she said by way of greeting. She set the briefcase down on the straight chair just inside the doorway and ran both hands through her black hair, then froze in position with a hand on each side of her head. For the first time I saw the black circles under her eyes.
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