Steven Havill - Scavengers

“ Could have been?”

“That’s correct. She wasn’t sure.”

“And Mr. Saenz hasn’t been seen since, I’m willing to wager.”

“That’s also correct.”

Naranjo studied Estelle for a long time, but there was none of the suave, gentle Don Juan in his expression this time. “It seems to me that another trip to Asunción is in order,” Naranjo said. He looked at his watch. “You have a previous commitment at five, I understand.” He almost smiled when he said that, and quickly added, “And your mother is tired and needs to go home, I’m sure. Let me look into this. Perhaps there are some simple answers after all.” He reached out a courtly hand for Estelle’s elbow. “I’ll pay my respects to Don Roman, gather my purchases, and be on my way. Expect to hear from me this evening. Will that be satisfactory?”

Estelle nodded. She let herself be escorted back into the house. Fifteen minutes later, with the dust from Tomás Naranjo’s Toyota long dispersed, Estelle walked her mother out to the car for their return to Posadas.

As they drove out the lane, around the high adobe wall that marked the Diaz hacienda’s grounds, Teresa sighed. “This is a nice little village,” she said. “But you know…” She waved a hand, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“I hope we didn’t pull you away from visiting your place too soon,” Estelle said.

“No, no. I saw what I needed to see.” She turned slightly in her seat, arranging first the pleats of her skirt and then the coils of oxygen hose. “You gave information to the captain that was of interest to him. I could see it on his face when he left.”

“He has a case that’s related to one of ours, I think,” Estelle said.

Teresa nodded. “He left in a hurry. You, too.”

Estelle eased the car up out of the arroyo, and turned on the single lane dirt road that lead north to the border crossing at Regál. “We both have five o’clock meetings, Mamá .”

“Oh, okay,” Teresa said. She covered her mouth with two arthritic fingers to stifle the smile.

The leisurely drive back to Posadas included a brief stop at the small mission in Regál. Estelle had been surprised at the request, since her mother had shown no interest in visiting the church in Tres Santos. The original mission in Tres Santos had burned in 1960, and had been replaced with a conservative frame building, its sharply peaked, metal roof somehow incongruous in a village of flat-roofed adobes. Perhaps it was that design that offended Teresa.

In Regál, it took Teresa Reyes more time to get out of the van and walk up the three steps to the mission’s cool interior than she spent inside. Once inside, what brief conversation she had with the various saints was a concise and private one.

La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora was without electricity or plumbing. The thick, immaculately white walls rose uncluttered to the heavy beamed ceiling, and the twelve stations of the cross were represented in small nichos around the perimeter. Other than the soft, distant knocks and pings of the roof as it cooled in late afternoon, the hush of la Iglesia was powerful.

Estelle stood just behind the last pew, watching her mother commune with the spirits. When after three or four minutes Teresa began the process of lifting herself from her knees, Estelle stepped forward to offer assistance.

“This is a good church,” Teresa said. She didn’t clarify whether it was the building that was stout and true, or whether she meant that the saints harbored in its cool silence were especially receptive.

“Yes, it is,” Estelle said, and her mother nodded with approval that her daughter understood.

Back in the car, Teresa sighed with contentment and readjusted the oxygen tube without reminder. As they pulled back onto the asphalt of the state highway, she turned to her daughter to relate the decision after her consultation with the higher powers.

“What you’re doing is a good thing.”

Estelle glanced across at her mother. “Which thing that I’m doing is good, Mamá ? ”

“You know, I’m eighty-two years old. In all that time, you’re the only policewoman I’ve ever known.”

“You’ve lived a sheltered life, Mamá . That’s why the word policía is feminine.”

“That’s true. That’s true. But I’ve decided it’s a good thing-what you do.”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” Estelle replied.

“The farmer says that, too, when it doesn’t rain as often as he likes.”

“I suppose.”

“The devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil, you know. And I’ve been around for a long, long time now.” She gazed out the side window as the van wound its way up through Regál pass. “I’m glad we didn’t wait until summer to visit the house. Do you remember how hot it would get in July and August?”

“For sure. We spent most of our time in the water holes,” Estelle replied.

“Maybe you should take the boys down. This summer, I mean. Roman and Marta would like to see them-if you have the time.”

“We’ll make time, Mamá . Francis would enjoy that too. By then, he’s going to need a break.”

“Sometimes it seems like it’s a hundred miles away, doesn’t it?”

“Or more.” As if it had been waiting patiently for them to clear the rise of Regál Pass, the cellular phone interrupted. Estelle thumbed it open.

“Guzman.”

“Ma’am, this is Collins,” the deputy said. “Are you back in the country?”

Estelle smiled and glanced at her mother. “We’re just coming down off the pass, Dennis. We’ll be back in town in about twenty minutes.”

“Oh, good. Look, I talked with George Enriquez of National Mutual Insurance. His agency is the one who held Eleanor Pope’s auto insurance. I got the insurance card from the glove box of her car? And her son’s, too, what’s left of it. I figured that maybe she’d have all her insurance with the same place. But Enriquez says that Mrs. Pope didn’t have home owner’s, at least not with NMI.”

“Maybe with another company, then.”

“He doesn’t think so. He said that he’d tried to talk her into home owner’s before, but that she didn’t want it. He said that he tried pretty hard to convince her that she should have it.”

“She didn’t have a mortgage on the place, then.”

“Why is that?”

“A lender would require insurance, Dennis. They’ve lived on that property forever, though. I suppose it was paid off long ago. Did you happen to ask about a life insurance policy?”

“No dice,” Collins said. “She didn’t have that either.”

“At least not with NMI.”

“Right. But Enriquez said he’d talked to her about that, too, on more than one occasion. She never mentioned that she had coverage with someone else. She just told him that she wasn’t interested in more insurance.”

“So, no life insurance, and no home owner’s insurance,” Estelle said, more to herself than Collins. “Unless she had it with another company. That’s interesting.”

“Kind of makes you wonder what old Denton had in mind when he decided to blow things up,” Collins said. “Maybe it was just his way of winning the award for the most complicated suicide of the decade.”

“Stranger things have happened. Did you happen to locate Mrs. Pope’s checkbook, by the way? That’s sometimes a good record of payments.”

“I think Taber was going to go that route. And the Popes also had a safety deposit box at Posadas National Bank. Taber was going to see about getting a court order from Judge Hobart to have a look-see. Maybe there’ll be something of interest hidden away, but I don’t know if she did that yet or not. She might still be out in no-man’s land, for all I know.”