Bitter Recoil

by Steven F Havill

  I should have been flattered that Pat Tate wanted my company, but I knew damn well that breakfast with the sheriff was going to be reminiscing—one war story after another until we’d both drunk enough coffee to ruin a kidney. By then half the morning would be shot.

  That was an agonizing thought, because I’d been watching Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s face during the past few minutes and wanted more than anything else to hear what was on her mind.

  Chapter 5

  “Do you feel like taking a short walk?” Estelle Reyes-Guzman asked and I groaned.

  “Sure. Why not.” There were several good reasons why not. Sheriff Pat Tate had finally taken leave around 10:30 that morning, and I was still bloated from the coffee and raw-mouthed from too many cigarettes. When Tate left, I had remained at Bobby’s Cafe.

  Earlier I had made arrangements to meet Estelle there when she’d finished her errands. The cramped, dimly lighted eatery was across the street from Garcia’s Trading Post, and it had been interesting to watch the traffic come and go. In a common enough display of poor sense, when noon rolled around I’d ordered a “Burrito Grande” special for lunch.

  I had just finished eating when Estelle’s county car swung into the cafe’s parking lot and pulled to a stop beside my Blazer.

  As she entered the small dining room, I waved her to a seat. That’s when she hit me with the invitation for exercise.

  “Where are we walking to?” I asked.

  Estelle looked at the big plate in front of me and the scattered remains of the lunch. “What was that?”

  “It was too much, that’s what it was. Burrito Grande I think they call it. And you’re as evasive as ever. Where are we walking to?”

  “I’d like to hike up to the hot springs camp.”

  “To talk with Cecilia Burgess’s boyfriend?”

  “You heard about him?”

  I nodded and looked at the bill for lunch. If food that good had been that cheap down in Posadas, I would have weighed 700 pounds. I fished out a tip. “Your hubby knew about him. I asked Francis if the Burgess girl had any other romantic flames besides the hippie. He didn’t know.”

  Estelle nodded vigorously. “She does. Or did. I talked with Mary Vallo…Francis’s nurse?”

  “I met her.” I tucked the tip under the plate and stood up. “Tell me on the way. If I sit here any longer, I’ll go sound asleep.”

  “Mary’s born and raised here. She knows every living soul, I think. Anyway, there were some rumors going around that really upset some of the older folks. They’d talk with Mary at the clinic. Apparently Cecilia Burgess was spending some time with Father Nolan Parris. That’s what the solteronas told Mary.”

  “Who’s Parris?” I paid the bill, and we stepped outside into the bright sunshine.

  “He’s in retreat. At the Servants of the Paraclete. You might have noticed the enclave just north of the Forest Service office?” I nodded and she added, “Parris and Burgess were seen together on several occasions.”

  “Whoopee, Holmes,” I said dryly. “Maybe they’re cousins. Maybe a thousand other possibilities. Maybe Cecilia Burgess went to the good father for confession. Are the little old lady gossips assuming that there’s an affair going on? That’s pretty thin, Estelle.”

  “I’m just telling you what Mary Vallo told me. It’s another angle.” She nodded at my Blazer. “Let’s drop that off at my house.”

  I followed her car north until, just beyond the gas station, she turned off on a lane between two irrigated cornfields. A quarter-mile farther on, tucked under two massive ancient cottonwoods, was a tiny adobe. Estelle pulled into the driveway and gestured for me to park close to the wire fence. Judging from the outside, the house had four rooms at most. But it was neat and clean, and the nearest noisy railroad or interstate was seventy-five miles away. It would be peaceful as a tomb at night.

  “Cute place,” I said as I settled into the county car.

  “It’s cheap,” Estelle said. “Until Francis and I decide what we want to do this fall.”

  “Do?”

  Estelle shrugged. “We might not want to spend the winter here. The house has just a couple of those little wall heaters…and they’re not much good.”

  “I don’t imagine either one of you is home much.”

  “No. Especially not this week. But he’s always said he wanted to practice in a tiny village.”

  “He got his wish. This is hardly Denver.” We rode silently for a few minutes, and I watched civilization thin as we drew away from the village. “How do you like it here?”

  “Interesting,” she said. “It’s quite an experience being the only cop in town. You wouldn’t believe some of the domestic disputes I’ve been called to.”

  “I think I would. What do the solteronas think?”

  Estelle grinned. “About me, you mean?”

  “Uh huh. If the old maids are upset at the idea of a woman talking to a priest, what must they think about a female deputy sheriff?” She didn’t answer right away, and I added, “Has there ever been one around here?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I imagine that takes some adjustment.” I stretched to ease the seat belt tension on my full stomach. “They’ll get used to it, like anything else. And in time, they’ll all wonder how the hell they ever did without.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “My mother isn’t used to the idea yet.”

  I knew Felipina Reyes pretty well. The old woman, a widow for twenty years, lived alone in Tres Santos, a tiny village thirty miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border.

  When Estelle had worked for me in Posadas, she was only an hour’s drive north from her mother, but to Felipina Reyes, her daughter might as well have worked on the moon.

  And ay! To be carrying around a revolver as an agente del Alguacil Mayor de un contado en los Estados Unidos! Double ay.

  “So what else did you find out this morning?” I asked.

  “Well, I talked with Orlando Garcia.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He owns Garcia’s Trading Post, right across from where you were eating.”

  “Son of a gun. I never saw your car over there.”

  Estelle grinned briefly and left me hanging. Maybe she could go invisible; I don’t know. “Garcia had a lot to say about Cecilia’s boyfriend up at the springs. Not much of it good.”

  Before she had time to elaborate on all the juicy particulars, we reached the turnoff. She swung the patrol car into the campground below Steamboat Rock and then drove to the far end of the parking lot. A grove of runty Douglas firs would provide enough shade to keep the Ford from turning into an oven.

  The trail east to the hot springs followed a small stream that ran into Isidro Creek. We walked slowly in deference to the discomfort in my gut. After a couple of minutes, I felt better. Maybe there was something to this exercise business. I even had enough breath for a question.

  “What’s the boyfriend’s name? Did Garcia know that? Mary Vallo never said.”

  Estelle nodded. “H. T. Finn.”

  “H.T.? I wonder if his mother named him Huck and he couldn’t stand it.”

  “Maybe. Garcia didn’t know what the H.T. stood for.”

  “How old a guy is this Finn?”

  “Orlando wasn’t sure. Older than thirty, though. And that sort of surprised me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Hiking this trail will keep him in shape, that’s for sure.”

  We skirted the buttress of Steamboat, a massive volcanic plug that rose vertically from the canyon and towered upward for nearly 300 feet. The trail was well worn and marked further with a considerable collection of refuse. Beer and pop cans, gum wrappers, cigarette packs, diapers…you name it.

  After a hundred yards the trail forked and the Forest Service sign announced that the hot springs were three-quarters of a mile to the left, with Quebrada Mesa a mile and a half to the right. Of course I noticed morosely that the trail to the hot springs angled stee
ply uphill.

  We trudged a hundred yards and I stopped to catch my breath. “Are you all right?” Estelle asked.

  “I’m fine,” I gasped. “Just fat. And I smoke too much.”

  Estelle grinned. She gestured ahead and said sympathetically, “I think it levels out just up ahead.” It did, but not nearly enough.

  The first sign of human encampment was a site tucked under a limestone overhang, with the recess sheltered on either end of the overhang by mixed oak and aspen. Smoke from camp fires had blackened the overhanging rock, and I guessed that if a scientist could find a way to section that smoke residue, there’d be traces dating back hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

  It would have been a favored spot for any hunter passing through, from yesterday’s hippie back to Pueblo Indians before him and then back to whoever came before the ice age.

  A sleeping bag was rolled up tightly and stuffed well back under the rock. Estelle crouched down and pulled out the bag. A quick examination produced only a well-worn flashlight and a half roll of toilet paper.

  “They travel light,” I said. Estelle pushed the bag back where it had been. “Are there other sites on up ahead?”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s where most of them are. Right by the springs.”

  Another fifteen minutes answered my question. The hot springs formed a series of stair-stepped pools, nestled in a grassy swale. The overflow burbled downhill, forming a tiny rivulet not more than two feet wide. Thickly timbered saddlebacks rose steeply on either side of the swale. Any wind would have to do some serious corkscrewing to reach campers down in that protected place.

  A gigantic boulder rested like a granite house near the first pool. And I would have missed him had Estelle not stopped suddenly. I followed her gaze and saw the young man sitting on top of that boulder.

  He was sitting Buddha-fashion, legs crossed, and wearing only a pair of cutoff jeans. As we stepped closer, I saw he had a book open in his lap. He watched us approach without any obvious interest or movement. When we were a dozen feet away, we stopped. I had to crane my neck back to look up at him and felt foolish.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  “Hello,” he replied. He was so scrawny his ribs looked like they might pop through his skin. Long snow-colored hair hung down to his shoulders, and even if he’d given up most of society’s conventions, he certainly hadn’t lost his comb. His hair was placed just so…like he’d finished giving it the hundred strokes with the comb moments before.

  “Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?” Estelle said, but the boy’s only reply was a slight toss of his head to move a fall of hair farther from his eyes. “Are you H. T. Finn?”

  “No.”

  “Is he still camping up here?”

  The boy’s eyes darted off to one side, to glance at the big tent that was pitched up at the head of the swale. He was a miserable sentry, and I figured that he’d lie, too. He did. “Nope.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  The boy shook his head.

  At that moment we both heard the voices, first that of a small child, then the faint mumble of an adult’s reply. I turned and looked north, past the tent and on up the saddleback. Two figures were walking slowly down through the timber, and by squinting I could make out a man and a small child, hand in hand.

  “That’s maybe him?” I said, ignoring the boy on the rock.

  “Could be,” Estelle said quietly. “Or maybe just hikers.”

  “She’s a little small to hike so far from the parking lot,” I muttered when I could see the child more clearly.

  Estelle turned and looked intently at the boy up on the rock. He’d closed the book at least. “Is that Finn?” she asked, and her voice carried some authority. The boy finally nodded, and Estelle turned back to me. “Well, technically, Finn isn’t camping at the moment, just as his friend here said. He’s hiking. Let’s go have a chat with him.”

  Chapter 6

  H. T. Finn nodded at me without much interest, but for him Estelle Reyes-Guzman was another story. He eyed her as if he were choosing another member for his harem.

  Normal interest was certainly excusable, since she wasn’t wearing the starched and quasi-military duds that sheriffs’ departments favor…and those, along with a wide Sam Browne belt loaded with hardware, take most of the sex out of the figure.

  But Finn’s gaze started at Estelle’s running shoes and drifted slowly upward, pausing here and there until I was ready to slug him.

  Finn was no kid. I guessed him to be within shouting distance of forty. He wore blue jeans torn at each knee and a gray T-shirt. On the T-shirt was one of those fish symbols with the words JESUS CARES stenciled underneath.

  He was fit. The T-shirt stretched over a wide chest and powerful shoulders, with no bulge at the waistline. And he was either tough or heavily into pain, because he was barefoot. I winced at the thought of walking over the limestone-studded forest floor without something to protect my soles.

  I glanced at the child…a toddler, almost. She was a pretty tyke with golden hair parted down the center and pulled back into a thick ponytail. Big, trusting blue eyes watched Estelle without blinking.

  Her red jumper needed a washing, but at least she was wearing shoes. Her hand was tightly clutched in his. She edged closer to his leg and started to back around behind him when she saw me looking at her.

  “Mr. Finn?” Estelle asked.

  “Who are you?” Finn grinned, still letting his eyes drift.

  “I’m Deputy Estelle Reyes-Guzman, Castillo County Sheriff’s Department. This is Undersheriff Bill Gastner.”

  I didn’t bother to correct Estelle’s implication that I was on home turf. Finn wasn’t impressed anyway. “You have some identification, I assume?” he asked, still grinning. At least he had enough control over his hormones to raise his eyes from Estelle’s chest to her face. The grin was only from the nose down—his gray eyes were void.

  “Yes.” Estelle pulled out her wallet and held it up so he could see her badge and commission. He glanced at it briefly, then looked at me. He raised an eyebrow.

  “Pretend that I’m a civilian,” I said. If I had to arrest this son of a bitch, that would be soon enough to show him anything. His eyes narrowed.

  “Mr. Finn, we’d like to talk with you for a few minutes,” Estelle said.

  “So talk,” Finn replied. “This is National Forest land. They let anyone in.” He flashed that humorless grin again.

  “I understand that you knew Cecilia Burgess?”

  Finn hesitated only a second before nodding. “Yes. I knew her.”

  “She came up here from time to time?”

  “Of course.” He said that as if he thought us both simple.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Finn pursed his lips. “Alive, you mean?” His bald-faced response startled me. “Before last night?”

  “You knew that she was involved in a pedestrian accident last night?” Estelle asked.

  “Yes.”

  I glanced down at the little girl. She had transferred her grip to the seam of Finn’s jeans. And she had given up on us as something interesting to watch. The thumb of her other hand was jammed in her mouth as she watched a stinkbug make its way through the pine needles. All the adult talk was lost on her.

  When I looked back up, Finn had clasped his hands together, resting them lightly on his chest like a priest.

  “She’s still alive, Mr. Finn. At least she was this morning, when she was transferred to Albuquerque.” Finn accepted that with a slight nod and spread his hands apart slightly as if to say, “So you say.”

  “How did you hear about the accident?” I asked.

  Finn lifted only one hand this time and pointed downhill at the youth on the rock. He did it slowly and gracefully, again reminding me of a priest, maybe extending the consecrated bread during Eucharist. “Robert was in the village this morning.”

  “How did he hear about it?”


  “You’d have to ask him,” Finn said. “But in a village so small news travels rapidly, doesn’t it?”

  Estelle nodded as if she hadn’t thought of that on her own. “How long had you known Burgess, Mr. Finn?”

  Finn took a deep breath and gazed off into the distance. “Several months,” he said finally. “What’s today?”

  “August 5.”

  “Well then, let’s see. I first met her just before Christmas. So I guess that’s seven or eight months.”

  “Do you know who else she associated with? On a regular basis?”

  Finn looked irritated for the first time. “I have no idea. What she did down in the village was her business.”

  “And when she was up here?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You and she were close?”

  Finn glanced down at the little girl. The tyke had squatted and was nudging the stink beetle with a tiny index finger. The beetle thrust its hind end up in empty threat. “Of course,” Finn said after some hesitation. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have come up here.”

  I decided to try a long shot, based on my conversation with Francis Guzman. “Is this her other child?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I knew damn well that Finn had heard me just fine, but I repeated anyway. “Is this child her daughter?”

  “No,” Finn said immediately. “Ruth is my niece. She spends the summer with me.” He smiled faintly. “The city is no place for a child.”

  I had no argument with that logic. Estelle Reyes-Guzman turned slightly so she could see Robert of the Rock. “Did your friend say anything to you about hearing how the accident happened?”

  The smug expression returned to Finn’s face. “You’d have to ask him.”

  This time Estelle came as close to snapping as she ever did. “No, Mr. Finn. I asked what he said to you, sir.”

  “Nothing, Deputy,” Finn said, one eyebrow raised. “If you want to find out what he knows, talk to him.”