School usually provided something of a haven for Carmen from her boisterous, hit-first family. The six-day suspension that was supposed to allow her to cool her heels instead merely placed her at ground zero in the Acosta household. Her mother worked long hours in the parts department of Chavez Chevrolet-Olds, but Freddy Acosta had been on disability for more than a year after slipping on a slick tile at Posadas General Hospital—part of the floor he’d finished mopping not two minutes before. He would be home.
As she turned onto Candelaria Court, Estelle saw Mike Sisneros, the full-time village patrolman, running a yellow tape from the back bumper of his patrol car to the fence that separated the Acostas’ small cinder-block house from their neighbor’s.
The ambulance was parked directly in front of the driveway, back doors agape. Farther on, Eddie Mitchell’s unmarked Chevy was nosed into the curb directly behind Sheriff Torrez’s department Expedition.
Sisneros jogged toward her as she pulled the county car to the far side of the street. Shorter than Estelle’s five seven, Sisneros had inherited his mother’s round Acoma Indian face and his father’s spare build.
“They really did it this time,” he said. “Carmen’s inside. The EMTs are workin’ on her.” He turned and nodded toward Mitchell’s car. “The chief has Freddy locked up over there.”
The Acostas’ driveway was empty. “You need to run a tape on the other side,” Estelle said.
“I was just headed that way.”
“Did anyone talk to Kevin?” she asked. The county manager’s white county truck was parked in his driveway one door east of Acostas’. Nosed in behind his personal car, an older-model Datsun 28oZ.
“Haven’t seen him,” Sisneros said. “I did a quick check, but nobody’s home. Not Zeigler or his roommate.”
Estelle frowned. “What did Freddy have to say?”
“Not a hell of a lot. He says that he walked over to the convenience store, and when he came back home, he found the place tore up and Carmen in her bedroom, beat to a pulp.” He shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
Twisting at the waist, Estelle surveyed the neighborhood. Five doors north, just before the intersection with MacArthur, Doris Marens stood on her front steps, arms tightly folded across her chest, watching. At least three neighborhood dogs carried on in cadence. In the other direction, beyond Zeigler’s house, lay an empty field, the dried kochia four feet high.
“You might talk to Mrs. Marens when you get a chance,” Estelle said.
“I’m on it,” Sisneros replied. He lifted the tape so the undersheriff could duck under, and she walked slowly along the sidewalk to the gravel driveway. A swatch of dirt a dozen yards wide separated the Acostas’ gravel from Zeigler’s concrete drive. Choosing her path carefully, she stepped across to the county pickup truck and touched the hood. It was warm, warmer than it should have been even with the afternoon sun dappling through the sparse limbs of the single large elm in the front yard.
“Good question,” a voice behind her said. She turned and saw the sheriff standing in the side doorway of the Acostas’ home. “Freddy says the truck wasn’t there when he left to walk to the store.”
Estelle glanced through the truck’s closed driver’s window and saw that the vehicle wasn’t locked. The keys were in the ignition.
Torrez held the Acostas’ kitchen door for her until she crossed to the house. “Miss Carmen might have won the first round, but not this one,” he said. He propped the door open with a capped ballpoint pen, and he motioned for Estelle to slip past him without touching the door frame. “Someone beat the crap out of her and added a few touches for good measure.”
Estelle halted two steps into the Acostas’ kitchen. “She’s alive?”
“Just.” He gently closed the door. “There’s evidence that the fight went from here right through the house. She’s in her bedroom. They’re trying to figure out how to transport her without making matters worse.”
“Freddy found her? Or Freddy beat up on her.”
“I ain’t thinkin’,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. “This isn’t his style, though.” Another siren announced more emergency traffic, and Torrez touched Estelle’s elbow. “I want you to see her before they move her. We need to make it snappy, though. They called another crew so they’d have lots of help.”
Estelle followed in Torrez’s footsteps as the sheriff made his way carefully through the house, keeping his hands in his pockets. They crossed the littered living room, stepping around an entertainment console. The screen of the television was shattered, the entire console skewed toward the wall.
Carmen Acosta’s bedroom was part of a small, shed-roofed addition on the east side of the house that included another bedroom and a small bath. The narrow door was open but blocked by the wide shoulders of Nina Burns, one of the EMTs.
“I think right out the front door,” she was saying. “But you can’t wheel it, Rick.” She turned and glanced at Torrez, then at Estelle. “And we need to wait until we have enough hands.”
“Here’s the hands,” Torrez said.
“Nah, we got a team comin’ right behind you there.” She reached out toward Estelle. “You want to slip in here?”
Carmen lay facedown on her narrow single bed as if she’d flopped there after a hard day picking fights at school. Her clothing—a sweatshirt with an ACTITUD ES TODO logo across the back, jeans, and white socks—were rumpled but roughly in place.
One of the EMTs knelt on the opposite side of the bed near the girl’s head, one large hand cupped over Carmen’s right hand and the other holding an oxygen mask in place. Beside him, another emergency tech worked to arrange an IV line into Carmen’s left arm. Even as Estelle watched, the girl’s right foot lifted off the bed a couple of inches.
“It’s okay,” the EMT holding the mask said, and immediately transferred his free hand in a featherlight touch to the top of the girl’s head. He looked up as Estelle approached and made a face, shaking his head at the same time.
He lifted his hand and pointed.
“Ay,” Estelle whispered. Blood soaked the back of Carmen Acosta’s head, some of it running down into the creases in the back of her neck under her short, spiked hair. Estelle’s attention was drawn to an object in the girl’s left ear. At first glance, it might have been mistaken for a black hearing aid, or a black plastic dangly earring that had been swept upward into the ear canal. But the girl had not been so lucky. Whatever other injuries Carmen Acosta might have suffered, the hat pin driven into her brain through her left ear would have been the finishing touch.
Chapter Six
The young EMT’s ruddy face faded to the color of bleached linen, but he didn’t move his hands from Carmen’s head. Out of reflex, he ducked so that he could see the girl’s right ear as if he expected to see the point of the hat pin protruding there.
“It’s six inches long?” he asked, and Estelle nodded. She knelt on the floor, her face close to Carmen’s. The girl’s eyes were half open, her lips parted. If she was breathing, her respiration was too shallow and fleeting to notice. And the EMT, Cliff Gates, was panting so loud that he was apt to need oxygen himself.
“It could be,” Estelle whispered. The display in Mary Anne Bustamonte’s Great Notions shop included hat pins that ranged from three to six inches—and teenagers would lean toward excess. Estelle rose to her feet and moved out of the way as two EMTs brought the spinal board into the small bedroom. Working quickly, she snapped half a dozen photos of the girl, including close-ups with the hat pin in place, all the while sidestepping the frantic bustle of the rescue crew. She glanced up to see Sheriff Torrez’s towering figure appear in the bedroom doorway.
“Did someone notify Carmen’s mother?” Estelle asked, and the sheriff nodded.
“She’s on the way.”
Estelle stepped across the room and took Torrez by the arm, steering him back out of the bedroom. “Someone needs to ride in the ambulance with Carmen,” she said. “We’re going to need her cloth
ing, for one thing.” Chief Eddie Mitchell joined them.
“I’ll arrange that,” Mitchell said. “Is there anything in particular that you’re after?”
“Just all her clothing, Eddie. If there’s blood evidence, I don’t want that going in the incinerator. And if they cut off her jeans, make sure they don’t disturb the inseam.” She ran a hand down the inside of her own leg.
Mitchell frowned. “Related to the school business this morning, you think?”
“I don’t know yet. But I don’t like coincidence.”
“It don’t look like we’re going to get a statement from her,” Torrez said. “Everything we can find is going to count for something.” He lowered his voice. “You want me to swing around and pick up the Hurtado girl?”
“Not yet,” Estelle whispered. “That looks like the same sort of hat pin that I confiscated this morning, but there’s no doubt in my mind that there are others in town.” She shook her head. “Six inches of hat pin.”
“Christ,” Mitchell muttered.
“She’ll almost certainly be airlifted to Albuquerque if she survives the transfer out of here.” She glanced back inside the room. Now five in number, the EMTs were tackling the challenge of moving Carmen’s limp body from facedown on the bed to facedown on the spinal board without changing the position of her head relative to the rest of her body. Nina Burns was on the radio. Estelle recognized her husband’s voice as the EMT fired information to the physician and received instructions in return.
“No,” one of the EMTs said, and took the oxygen mask from Cliff Gates. “You’ve got to stay away from the ear.” Estelle felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. “Get me an ear cup,” Nina said. In a moment they had secured the padded plastic cup—nothing more than half of a set of inexpensive earphones—over Carmen’s left ear, sheltering the handle and stem of the pin from contact. With that taped securely in place, they lifted Carmen off the bed in slow motion, ten hands working in concert so that the position of her body didn’t shift.
Padded, strapped, and taped, with IVs dripping and rich oxygen flooding her injured brain, Carmen Acosta started her long ride to Posadas General Hospital.
As the EMTs orchestrated their way through the narrow bedroom door with the spinal board and its passenger, Nina Burns caught Estelle’s eye. “Dr. Guzman has arranged air transport to Albuquerque,” Nina said. “The air ambulance just left Las Cruces, so it shouldn’t be long.”
They crossed the small living room, and Village Officer Mike Sisneros appeared in the doorway just as they reached it. He immediately backtracked out of the way. Estelle saw Juanita Acosta behind Sisneros, rushing up the sidewalk toward the house. The village officer caught Juanita by the arm. He transferred his grip to a shoulder hug, keeping her out of the EMTs’ path.
Someone had released her husband Freddy from the back-seat of Mitchell’s patrol car, and he now stood in the dirt beside the sidewalk, hands thrust in his pockets, looking as if he wanted to punch someone.
Juanita’s heavy-featured face reflected fury more than anything else, perhaps through long years of practice. But her hands told a different story, clasped tightly together between her breasts as the EMTs approached carrying her motionless daughter.
“Por Dios,” she said. “Now what?” Estelle had a fleeting image of the heavy, powerful woman lunging forward, knocking the carefully balanced EMTs and their burden in six different directions.
“Mrs. Acosta,” the undersheriff said, and she reached out a hand to grip Juanita’s right wrist. Sisneros didn’t release his hug, and the two of them guided the woman out of the way. “Juanita, we don’t know what happened yet, but they’re taking Carmen to the hospital. She’ll be transferred by air ambulance to Albuquerque as soon as she’s stabilized. It’s important that you go with her.”
“Por Dios,” Juanita said again, and she turned toward Freddy as if he were responsible.
“You can ride right in the ambulance with us, ma’am,” Nina Burns added as she passed. “There’s lots of room.”
“Mrs. Acosta, I’ll go with you,” Chief Mitchell said, and he replaced Sisneros at the woman’s elbow.
A school bus nosed into Candelaria and eased to a stop, the driver facing the sea of flashing emergency lights. Estelle released Juanita’s arm with a final pat and crossed the scruffy grass toward Freddy.
“Sir, I need your help,” she said. The man nodded absently, eyes locked on his daughter’s silent form as it was whisked toward the yawning doors of the ambulance. “Sir?” She touched his shoulder.
“I just don’t know what happened,” he said, voice distant. “I came home, and there she was…”
“Mr. Acosta, are the other kids on that bus?”
He looked up quickly. “Oh. Yes. Lucinda and Josie.” Another Sheriff’s Department vehicle had swung into the street from MacArthur, blocking the bus’ path so the driver wouldn’t inadvertently block the ambulance. Deputy Dennis Collins got out of the Bronco and advanced on the bus, and Estelle saw the door flick open. Immediately behind Collins’ unit, Linda Real arrived. The Sheriff’s Department photographer weaved her small Honda around the bus and patrol unit, then accelerated quickly down the block, parking directly behind Estelle’s car.
“Here’s what I need you to do, Mr. Acosta,” Estelle said. She moved in front of Freddy, forcing herself into his line of vision. “Do you have somewhere that you and the kids can stay tonight?”
“Stay?”
“For tonight. You can’t stay here.”
Sheriff Torrez appeared behind her. “Freddy, take the kids on over to Armand’s.” It didn’t surprise Estelle that the sheriff knew the Acostas’ relatives; he may have shared a few of them. “Where are Mauro and Tony?”
“There are the girls now,” Freddy said, taking a step forward. Five backpack-toting youngsters had stepped off the bus. Deputy Collins ushered them as a group to the sidewalk, talked to them briefly, and ushered three of them around the corner to the first house on MacArthur. The other two children waited with the deputy.
Torrez keyed his handheld radio. “Dennis, keep the kids right there for a little bit,” he said. “Mr. Acosta will be up there in a minute.”
The sheriff pointed the stubby radio antenna at Freddy Acosta. “Freddy…where are Mauro and Tony? We got to know,” he asked again.
Apprehension buckled Freddy Acosta’s eyebrows together as if he had just remembered that he had two older boys to consider as well. “They don’t ride the bus,” he said.
“No shit,” Torrez said. “They have their own car?”
“Oh, no,” Freddy said quickly. “No…they usually ride with somebody, or walk. You know, when you cut right across, it’s not very far.”
Torrez leaned his head toward Freddy. “We know where the damn school is, Freddy. You don’t know where they are, then?”
“Well, you know,” Freddy said helplessly. “Sometimes Tony rides his bike. Well, until it broke, he did. Not Mauro. He usually catches a ride with somebody.”
With the ambulance now safely away, the school bus had backed out of Candelaria, and Estelle could see the two Acosta girls sitting on the sidewalk, backpacks making convenient chair backs.
“Sir,” she said, “you said that you walked uptown? When you did that, you left Carmen alone in the house?”
Freddy nodded. “I shouldn’t have left her like that,” he murmured.
“That’s not the issue, sir,” Estelle said. “When you walked up the street, you didn’t see anyone in the neighborhood who you didn’t know?” He shook his head slowly. “You don’t remember seeing any vehicles?” His head had settled into a methodical rhythm. “Do you remember what time that was?” The oscillation slowed, but Freddy didn’t reply.
“Sir, whatever you can remember is going to help us.” The dispatcher had taken the father’s desperate 911 call at 2:38 PM Estelle could picture Freddy plodding home, ambling up the driveway, entering the house through the kitchen door, and taking several minutes
to notice the results of the ruckus. If he had paused in the kitchen, it was conceivable that he wouldn’t notice anything amiss for some time.
“I guess,” Freddy started slowly. “I guess that I walked up to the car place, there, right around noon. I was going to see if Juanita could break away for lunch, maybe. We sometimes do that. Right there at the burger place.”
“And that’s what you did today?”
Freddy nodded and then brightened a little. “You know, I walked in and Juanita was on the telephone. I remember her looking at the clock, and then she just shook her head at me. I remember that.”
“What time was that?”
“Just like…like twelve oh one. Something like that. Right at noon.”
“And then after that, what? You walked downtown?” Torrez asked.
“I thought maybe I’d get a pizza or something. But then I just went to Tommy’s and got some chips. I talked to a few people, you know…just people I know. I had a cup of coffee. I guess…”
“When you came back home, you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?” Torrez said, clearly irritated at the man’s wandering reminiscence. “Nobody outside, no traffic, nothing?”
Freddy shook his head. “Just like…you know? Like always, I guess.”
Like always, Estelle thought.
“And then I came inside…” His lip quivered. “The first thing I saw…the first thing was the telephone on the floor. I almost stepped on it. I looked across the living room and that’s when I saw the television set, all smashed.” He looked helplessly at Estelle. “Who would do such a thing to Carmen?”
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