Steven Havill - Scavengers

“I wish I could tell you.”

“It wasn’t the Madrids? Benny and Isidro?”

“It could have been. And it could have been somebody else. They had heavy coats on, and with the hats and everything, it was hard to tell. It might have been, though. One of them…I thought he moved kind of like Benny when they were going over the fence.”

“Was that the one who hit Eurelio, or was it the other one?”

“The other one.”

Estelle turned and looked toward Mexico. Eurelio had been turned loose by Judge Hobart early that morning. He obviously hadn’t gone home and cleaned up for another workday with Posadas Electric Cooperative.

“Somebody knew your son was home, Mrs. Saenz. Less than three hours after he was released from our custody, you saw him bailing over the fence. Did you talk with him this morning? After he got home?”

Paulita shook her head. “He just said that he didn’t want to discuss anything about it. He gets mad, you know. And then I can’t talk to him.”

“Somebody’s talkin’ to him now,” Jackie Taber said, and Estelle saw Paulita Saenz flinch.

When Eurelio Saenz jumped the border fence-whether he’d been forced to or not-he had managed to throw up a considerable road-block. Had the young man lit out for Phoenix, Denver, or even Cleveland, the long arm of American law enforcement could have kept pace with him at the speed of a computer’s neuron. By going to Mexico, the rules changed.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman knew that Capt. Tomás Naranjo would help all he could. There had been numerous incidents in the past when the Mexican officer had simply ignored international boundaries-without trumpeting the fact to his superiors, of course. A rarity among his colleagues, Naranjo sliced and diced paperwork and protocol with an efficiency that sometimes left his counterparts north of the border in the dust.

But with a vast, rural jurisdiction and few men to police it, Naranjo’s Judiciales worked at a disadvantage under the best of circumstances. Estelle didn’t hold much hope that the Mexican troopers would catch sight of the faded station wagon and its three passengers. The country was full of old cars that sagged down the dirt roads, battered and smoking. Had the trio stolen a new car, it would have stood out like a beacon.

The young Mexican officer with whom Jackie Taber had made initial contact had sounded eager, the deputy said. Maybe they would get lucky. Maybe Eurelio would get lucky. Maybe he’d finish his deal in one piece, whatever it might be, and sneak back over the border after dark. Maybe his mother would see him again.

Estelle continued to mull her options as she returned to the Public Safety Building in Posadas. She drove into the parking lot as if on automatic pilot and pulled the unmarked unit into a space without conscious guidance. For several minutes, she sat behind the wheel after the engine died, fingers tapping a featureless beat on the steering wheel. At last she got out, collected her briefcase, and entered the building. Gayle Torrez was standing in the door of her husband’s office when Estelle walked in, and the dispatcher raised a hand. “Here she is,” Gayle said, and then hesitated.

“What?” Estelle asked.

“It’s just that you were frowning so hard,” Gayle said. “I didn’t want to interrupt you if you had to go write something down before you forgot it.”

“I wish I had something to write down,” Estelle replied. “What’s going on?”

Torrez appeared in the door of his office, his huge frame filling the opening. “Rafael Smith and Lolo Duarte,” he said without preamble.

Estelle stopped in her tracks. “Smith?”

“Well, Smeeeth , then,” Torrez said. “At least that’s the name he went by up north.”

“They weren’t brothers, then.”

“Apparently not.”

“You talked to the rancher involved?”

“I did. Smeeeth and Duarte worked for a rancher named Travis Fox from January sixth through the first week in February. I faxed the photos up to the Grant County SO for them to look at, but Travis was sure that’s who the men were. His description was right on target. Apparently they’ve worked for him on other occasions.”

Bill Gastner appeared in the doorway behind Torrez, and Estelle smiled at the older man. “Good morning, sir.” The livestock inspector looked relaxed and alert, as if he’d spent the night sleeping like a normal person.

“Hey, there,” Gastner replied. “You’ve had a busy morning. Young Mr. Saenz gave you the slip?”

Estelle looked heavenward. “We’re going around in circles,” she replied. “I’m not even sure if that’s what Eurelio did. He ducked across the border with two other men-that much his mother is sure of. Whether or not there was some force or coercion involved is another question. Naranjo said that he’d do what he could.”

“Which may or may not amount to diddly,” Gastner said.

Estelle nodded agreement and then looked at Torrez. “So the two of them were on their way home to somewhere, pockets full of money after a month’s hard work.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“You show your money, you get robbed,” Gastner said. “About as simple as that. Damn near biblical.” He held an aluminum clipboard in one hand and used it to usher Torrez to one side so that he could slip through the office door. “I need more fuel,” he said. He held his cup up toward Estelle. “Want some? Gayle just made it. There’s some cinnamon buns in there, too.”

“No thanks,” Estelle replied. Her left eyebrow drifted up as she contemplated the floor. “That leaves us with a lot of questions, then,” she said.

“Travis Fox answered one of them for me,” Torrez said. “Smith and Duarte arrived in an older model Chevy pickup truck. Fox thinks that its about a seventy-two. The transmission blew a few days after they started work. They didn’t want to spend all their earnings to have it fixed, and they asked Fox if they could leave it there for a while until they could come and get it. It’s still parked out on his place.”

“So they hitchhiked back down this way?” Estelle said. “And if their route took them through Maria, should I make a bet about where they’re from originally?”

“Asunción,” Torrez said. “Fox said that he and his family enjoyed having the two boys around. A couple of jokers, is how he described them. Told them to come back any time. That he’d have work of some sort.”

She nodded. “If they’re from Asunción, it makes sense then that they would stop at the Taberna Azul in Maria. They knew people there, and maybe figured that they could find someone who would run them the rest of the way home. There’s no direct road across the border at that point. It would be a stout walk going cross-country.”

“That’s possible,” the sheriff said. “Somebody offered ’em a ride, all right.”

“Did Fox happen to say when the two of them finished their work up there?”

“They left his place on February second, midmorning.”

“And we found them February eighteenth. It makes sense that they stopped here late in the afternoon of the second. That’s the night that MacInerny heard the shots.”

Torrez nodded. “Or on the third. Or the fourth.” He held up his hands. “We’re guessing.”

“That’s something, then,” Estelle said. “If they stopped in Maria, then they were right in the middle of roofing season.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s when the two Madrid boys were in town, fixing their father’s roof. Paulita wouldn’t swear to it, but she thinks that the two men with Eurelio this morning might have been Isidro and Benny.”