The Fourth Time is Murder pc-15

by Steven F Havill

  “What time of day did he come by?”

  “It was afternoon, I suppose. Yes. Midafternoon the first time, but quite late the second visit. I remember the last time-this past week-he said that he was running late. He came just as we were finishing up with supper.”

  “You signed for the delivery?”

  “Of course I signed.” She rose, walked to the living room window, and pushed the curtain to one side. “Just what does the State Police want with my husband? And who is that in your car? For heaven’s sakes, half the neighborhood is being locked up.”

  “That’s a visitor to the department riding with me,” Estelle said. “And the man that we arrested just now, the man sitting in the truck with Deputy Taber-he knew this man.” She held out the grisly photo of the woodcutter as Lucinda walked back to her chair. This time the woman took the picture with a sigh of exasperation.

  “Now who is this? He looks hurt.”

  “Dead, in fact,” Estelle said. “It was a woodcutting accident up by Reserve.”

  “Por Dios, that’s the other side of the world.”

  “It is a ways. We have reason to believe that the man we just took into custody was with him at the time.”

  Lucinda reached across and turned on the light beside her chair, and reexamined the photo. “What in heaven’s name happened?”

  “The saw kicked back,” Estelle said. “He bled to death. Do you know him?”

  “How should I know him?” Lucinda said. “I had a cousin who lived up in Quemado. But he’s long dead now.”

  “We apprehended the young man hiding behind your woodpile. An odd place to hide, don’t you think?”

  “Behind our woodpile? Is he an illegal, or what? What’s he doing here?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mrs. Baca. We do know that the two men were working together up in Reserve.” She handed the photocopy of Betty Contreras’ telephone number to the woman without comment.

  “What’s this?”

  “Do you recognize the number?”

  “Of course I do. It’s Bet’s.”

  “Betty Contreras?”

  Lucinda nodded with impatience. “Sure. And now what’s this for?”

  “Catron County officers found this in the dead man’s pocket.”

  “The woodcutter? What’s he have to do with all of this?”

  “Mrs. Baca, we don’t know who he is. We have a name. Felix Otero. But then your husband recognized him, and so did Betty. The phone number means that there’s some sort of connection between the dead man and Betty, maybe your husband as well. Maybe others. We don’t know any more about him than that.” She stabbed a finger toward the window.

  “That man, the one we found hiding behind your woodpile, is a young man from Mexico named Ricardo Ynostroza. He was with Otero up north. He ran when the accident happened, leaving his friend to bleed to death. Apparently, he ran back down here. We’ll find out the details when we talk to him at length. We’ll find out why Felix had a local Regál phone number in his pocket. We’ll find out who wrote the number, and why. That should all be interesting, no? And most important, Mrs. Baca, we need to inform Felix Otero’s family in Mexico. It’s going to be a sad day for them.”

  “Por Dios, what a mess. First the car crash up on the pass, and now this.”

  “We’re notifying Chris Marsh’s family as well,” Estelle said. “If he said anything else to you, anything that might help us in that line, we would appreciate knowing.”

  Estelle carefully slid the photos back into the envelope. “Mrs. Baca, why do you think that Ricardo Ynostroza came to your house? Why wouldn’t he go to Betty’s? The men had her telephone number, after all.”

  “I have absolutely no idea. How did you all find out that he was here?”

  “A telephone call.”

  “Well, then the first thing to do is ask that person…the one who called you to report him.”

  “Of course. You have no idea yourself?”

  “No. I told you. I have no idea about any of this. Except half the world knows now that we won some money. What, do they all think we keep it in bags around the house?”

  Estelle laughed gently. “I hope you don’t. I would wonder, though…how would a man like Señor Ynostroza know about your winnings?”

  “Your guess is every bit as good as mine,” Lucinda said. “When are the cops going to be through with my husband?”

  “And you don’t know anything about who might have written this note, or why?” Estelle asked, ignoring the question.

  “No. How could I know that?”

  Estelle stood up. “I have a feeling,” she said, “that the news won’t be good about your second check, Lucinda. We’ll be able to track that down with the bank on Monday morning.”

  “What are you going to do if it is good? I really think it is, you know.”

  “Then you’ll have my best wishes to spend it in good health,” the undersheriff said.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As she walked back to her car, Estelle Reyes-Guzman saw that Madelyn Bolles had taken the command to stay in the vehicle in the spirit of the order, if not the letter. The passenger door was open, and the writer was turned sideways in the front seat, feet outside on the ground, fingers dancing over her laptop’s keyboard.

  “Were you beginning to think you’d been abandoned?” Estelle asked.

  “Oh, no,” Madelyn replied brightly. “I’m just taking the opportunity to catch up on some notes.” She nodded back down the road, the dust of Jackie Taber’s Bronco still hanging in the air. “As soon as the deputy and the fugitive left, I figured it was safe to stop paying attention for a few minutes.”

  Estelle laughed. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it. Of course, if he’d been in collusion with someone with a high-powered rifle inside the house…”

  Madelyn folded the computer closed and slid it onto the floor in front of her seat. “Then I don’t think that you would have approached the way you did, right out in the open.” She pulled herself out of the car and stretched, turning in place as she surveyed the small village. “I would think that this would not be a hotbed of illegal alien crossings,” she observed.

  “It isn’t.”

  “I mean there’s an official border crossing right here, with that magnificently homely fence. And even if they climb up into the mountains, where are they going to go?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what was the young man after?”

  “We don’t know yet.” The undersheriff settled into the driver’s seat. She started to put the envelope into her briefcase, and then thought better of it. Slipping out the picture of the dead woodcutter, she handed it to the writer. “This young man died in a woodcutting accident up near the little village of Reserve, a couple hundred miles north of here.”

  “Yuck.” She examined the photo closely. “Femoral artery?”

  “It would appear so. That and then some. The young man we just took into custody was with him at the time of his death. It appears that when the accident happened, the young man we just arrested hightailed it out of the woods, never stopping to look back…and never trying to save his friend.”

  “That would take a miracle of modern medicine, undersheriff.”

  “True. But he didn’t try.”

  “Under New Mexico law, is he required to?”

  “No. But we could hope that the law of decency might kick in.”

  “What makes you sure that it was an accident, and not a homicide?”

  “The Catron deputies haven’t said that the nature of the circumstances points to that, or the nature of the wound, either. It doesn’t look like someone snuck up behind him and slipped a chain saw between his legs.”

  “That’s gross enough for any grocery store tabloid.”

  Estelle handed Madelyn the copy of the telephone number. “For whatever reason, this was found in the dead man’s pocket. It’s a local Regál number-and happens to be that of the woman who tipped us
off that Ricardo Ynostroza was in the village, headed toward Joe Baca’s house.” She pointed at the low adobe. “This one.”

  “He certainly took his time, then,” Madelyn said. “I mean, he wasn’t exactly fleeing from anything. Could he just walk back through the border checkpoint?”

  “Sure.” Estelle nodded. “Or he could hike through the hills a bit and skirt the fence. Either way. But he sat and thought things through. Maybe he couldn’t decide whether to go to Betty’s house.…He walked right by it on the way in, the one back there with the turquoise trim? Now why did he do that? Maybe he doesn’t trust her. Maybe he doesn’t actually know her. We don’t know. And then he headed to Joe’s.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the woman who called you have to say-the woman whose phone number was on the note?”

  “That’s Betty Contreras. And that’s where we’re headed right now.”

  “Allen to three-ten.” The radio was jarringly loud, and Estelle reached out and turned it down.

  “Go ahead.” Ahead of them, Joe Baca still sat in the front passenger seat of the state car.

  “I’m about to go ten-eight. I have Mr. Baca’s phone number if there’s anything else we need.”

  “Ten-four. Thanks, John.”

  The door of the state car opened and Joe struggled out. Estelle knew the old man was embarrassed at being detained, even if informally. But the undersheriff had wanted to talk with Lucinda before the couple had a chance to compare stories. Allen had provided a convenient avenue for that, and he had played the part perfectly. John Allen swung the black-and-white around and drove out the dirt lane.

  Estelle got out of the car and called to the old man as he trudged toward the house. “Joe, thanks for your help.”

  He stopped and raised an uncertain hand. “Let us know,” he said.

  “Por supuesto,” Estelle replied.

  “They seem like nice people,” Madelyn said as Estelle started the car and turned it around.

  “They are.” Estelle saw that her passenger had opened her digital camera. She didn’t offer to show Estelle the photos on the viewing screen.

  “Is it fair to say that you’ve known these folks for years and years and years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe since you were a kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “That must make it interesting.”

  “It does.”

  “Some edgy moments there,” Madelyn said after a moment. “I have a good picture of you taken side on, hand on your gun. You would have used it, do you think?”

  Estelle glanced at her. “That depends.”

  “Of course. Forgive a silly question. If he had sprung out from behind that woodpile brandishing a weapon, putting you in jeopardy, you would have used your gun. Is that fair to say?”

  “Yes. I can imagine that Deputy Taber would have responded first, since she had a full field of view and was weapon in hand.”

  “What’s that like, Estelle?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “I’m not sure what I mean. I never have to make that kind of decision, so I guess I don’t understand people who do. Physical confrontation has to be an interesting way of earning a living.”

  “It’s one very small part of the job,” Estelle said. “Is this one of those ‘why are you a cop’ questions?”

  “I suppose it is.” Madelyn laughed at the good-natured question.

  “Then maybe I should just say something outrageous. Actually, the whole object is to try and control the situation so that no physical confrontation is necessary. It comes to that and it means that all negotiations are lost.”

  “Did you think about that when you were shot last year?”

  The blunt question caught Estelle off-guard, and she slowed the patrol car to a walk. Her gaze wandered from shadow to shadow, hunting through old buildings, sheds, corrals, and barns for things out of place.

  “There wasn’t much time to think,” she said finally. “We were all way beyond the chance for any kind of negotiation. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened that day, step-by-step, moment-by-moment. I think I could tell you what I was trying to do, but that’s a different story. I have to rely on others to tell me exactly what did happen.”

  “Were you thinking about that incident today? Just now, back there?”

  The “does it still haunt you” question, Estelle thought. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “That no one gets hurt. That everyone goes home when it’s over.”

  “Except the felon, of course.”

  “He’s not a felon yet,” Estelle said. “And there’s every chance that he won’t be.” She eased the car into the Contreras driveway behind Betty’s Toyota. “And if he’s not, then he should go home, too. He has family, just like you and me.”

  “I should stay in the car?”

  “Yes. You really should, Madelyn. I want to give Mrs. Contreras the chance to let her guard down.”

  Betty Contreras was waiting in the doorway to the kitchen as the undersheriff approached. “You have company,” Betty said.

  “Yes, I do. Every once in a while, we get civilian ride-alongs.”

  “Talk about too much free time,” Betty scoffed. “Come on in. It’s been a busy couple of days, no?”

  “Indeed.”

  “I saw Jackie drive by with our friend in custody. I hope there was no problem.”

  “Everything went fine.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I had the impression that you already knew him,” Estelle said.

  “I’ve seen him before, I think. He’s been in town.”

  “When?”

  “Oh,” Betty backtracked, “I couldn’t be sure.”

  “His name is Ricardo Ynostroza, from Buenaventura. I wanted to ask you what prompted your call to the Sheriff’s Department, Betty.” Estelle didn’t mention that she knew Betty had called the regular office line, not using 911, making sure that Dispatch reached Estelle and not someone else.

  “Well, for one thing, strangers stick out like sore thumbs in a little village like this. You certainly know all about that.”

  “Indeed they do. He was on foot when you first saw him?”

  “I heard a car stop out on the highway and looked out the kitchen window here.” She stepped to the window, with a view past the vehicles, fence, and small field to the state highway a hundred yards east. “They dropped him off right here at my street, and I thought that was odd.”

  “Why odd? Who was he riding with, do you know?”

  “One of the burros,” Betty said, referring to the tandem car tows that headed, one well-used, battered vehicle towing another, in a regular flow south of the border. “He could have just hitched a ride all the way south, wherever he was headed. Why get out here? That’s what made me nervous.”

  “And then what did he do?”

  “At first, I thought he was headed for the church. He walked halfway across the parking lot, and then changed his mind and started to head this way. He crossed the road and came on down our lane, but he didn’t stop. He seemed to know where he was going.”

  “What prompted the call, then?”

  “Well,” and Betty hesitated. “I thought…I thought he might be after money.”

  “From Joe and Lucinda?”

  “Yes.”

  “How would he know about them?” Estelle asked.

  Betty looked uncomfortable. “Word gets around,” she said lamely. “Anyway, that’s when I called Gayle. At first it looked like he was going to stop in here, but he didn’t, and I thought Lucinda might be home all by herself, so it seemed prudent to let someone know.”

  “Did you speak to him?” If Ricardo Ynostroza had walked right past the Contreras house, he would have been five feet from the front porch.

  “No,” Betty replied quickly. “I mean, in this day and age, you just never know. This one seemed unsure of himself, an
d I have to tell you…he looked awful. I knew something was wrong, and that’s what made me nervous. He wasn’t in any hurry, either. He stopped at Sosimo’s old place and went inside. It isn’t locked, you know. I thought, Well, he’s going to take a nap or something. There’s nothing left in that old place to take, after all.”

  “The Border Patrol is right over there,” Estelle said, nodding in the direction of the border crossing less than a quarter mile away. She already knew the answer before Betty Contreras snapped it out.

  “That’s not necessary,” the older woman said. “We have to put up with those people too much of the time as it is. I’d rather deal with people I know.”

  “The end result will be the same,” Estelle said. “Ynostroza will go back to his home in Mexico.”

  “And so it goes,” Betty said philosophically. “That’s better than getting into trouble. That’s what I wanted to avoid.”

  “Did you think that he posed a threat to Joe or Lucinda?”

  “Well, he was headed up that way. Theirs is the only house at the end of the lane. I kept looking out through the window, watching him. He was obviously trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t think it would hurt to have you talk to him.”

  “Did you call Joe?”

  “I did. I mean, I tried to. No one answered the phone. Maybe he was outside.”

  “Perhaps. Would Felix Otero have stopped here if he was passing through?” Estelle asked. “Did he remember you well enough?”

  Betty blinked at her. “And he is…”

  “The young man who was killed in the woodcutting accident up north. Also from Buenaventura, I would guess. He and Ricardo worked together. After the accident, Ricardo left him to die.”

  One of Betty’s hands drifted up to her mouth, fingers flat against her lips. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Why would Ricardo head back here, then?” Estelle asked. “If he wanted to go home, he had only to ride with the burros through the gate. No one’s going to question him going southbound.”

  “I have no idea, Estelle.”

  “Why did the dead man have your phone number, Betty?”

  “I told you before…I don’t know. I absolutely do not know.” She didn’t manage to sound convincing but instead looked pained by it all.