Steven Havill: Scavengers

“If we could just have the roll, that would be fine,” Estelle said. “I’ll make sure you get the negatives of anything we don’t use. We really appreciate it.” Terri nodded and rewound the film. She popped the canister out of the camera and handed it to Estelle.

“I hope it helps,” she said.

“We’ll take all the help we can get,” Estelle said. “When you flew over that spot, did you happen to notice anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Any sign of human activity. Tracks, vehicles-anything at all?”

The young woman shook her head. “Nothing like that. Just a lot of open desert. But then again, I wasn’t really looking, you know? The eagle got me all excited, and that’s where my mind was.” She grinned. “He was quite a sight.”

“And nothing had changed out there when you went out again with Jim Bergin? Other than that the eagle had left the scene.”

“Not that I saw. The body was still there. I was going to try for a picture when he buzzed the spot, but it went by too fast. Sorry. Do you know how long it had been out there? The body, I mean? Is it something that just happened, or what?”

“There are still lots of questions to answer, Miss Keenan. Nobody is sure of anything yet. It may just be someone who got caught unprepared, out in the cold, after dark. It’ll take a while to sort things out.”

Terri Keenan looked skeptical as she opened a fresh package of film and reloaded the camera. “That’s a long way from anywhere just to be out hiking around in February, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Estelle said.

When Estelle didn’t elaborate, Terri shot her a wry smile. She handed the undersheriff a business card, unadorned embossed gold lettering on ivory stock that announced the practice of Terri W. Keenan, DDS. “In case you need to reach me,” she said. “First thing in the morning is always easiest, before I’m up to my elbows in someone’s mouth.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Dr. Keenan,” Estelle said. “We’ll want to get the film back to you, and if you should think of anything else that might be important to us, I’d appreciate a call.” She extended one of her own cards to the pilot. Terri Keenan frowned as she read it, then looked up at Estelle with a bright smile.

“When your deputy said that the undersheriff wanted to talk to me, I pictured some big guy with a potbelly and bad teeth. I don’t know why. I mean, I’ve been told about a thousand times that I don’t look like your average dentist, either.”

“And I’m sure you’re not,” Estelle said, and extended her hand. “Thanks for your help this morning. We’ll be in touch.”

She left Terri Keenan to her preflight chores, and ducked her head inside Bergin’s office on the way out. “Thanks, Jim.”

“Don’t mention it. Interesting gal, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Looks too young to be a dentist, though. She talks more like a high school kid…and stuff.” He grinned. “Makes me want to go to Las Cruces for a checkup.”

“Win the lottery first, sir.”

Bergin nodded slowly, pencil poised over his weather station log.

“That’s the impression I got, too,” he said.

By the time Estelle Reyes-Guzman reached the Public Safety Building on Bustos Avenue, she was sure that someone had rapped both knees with a ball-peen hammer after first clamping her elbow joints in a steel-jawed vise. She forced herself to concentrate as she filled out the evidence tag and tracking slip for Dr. Terri Keenan’s roll of film, and then double-checked to make sure that she had put the film and paperwork in Linda Real’s drawer.

She closed the cabinet and turned to find Gayle Torrez, the sheriff’s wife and chief dispatcher, watching her with sympathetic eyes.

“You need to go home,” Gayle said.

“Yes, I do.” She shook her head in frustration. “Go home and join the rest of los miserables . If you see Linda before she finds my note, would you ask her to process that roll of film as soon as she can?”

“Sure. You’ll be home, then?”

Estelle nodded. “A nap and I’ll be fine.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Yuck,” Estelle said. “She and Carlos are a pair. But I think they’re over the hump now.”

“And now you?”

“Don’t say that. I’m just tired.”

“Well, take your tired self home, and stop breathing on the rest of us.” Gayle smiled. “Jackie said that she’s going to spend some more time out at the scene. Widen the search circle a little.”

Estelle nodded and then rocked her head from side to side to remove the kinks. “Bobby called the house this morning and talked to Francis. No emergency or anything. I guess he just wanted an update.”

“And he called here. I don’t think he cares much for Virginia. He said he hasn’t seen the sun since he got there. He’s homesick, Estelle.”

“Me, too.” She opened Linda’s workstation again to make sure the bagged roll of film was where she remembered putting it, slid the steel drawer shut, and locked it. “If anyone needs me, tell ’em I went…somewhere.”

“Did you see the note from Bill, by the way?” Gayle pointed toward Estelle’s mailbox.

“Nope.” She pulled the While You Were Out message from the slot, penciled not in Gayle’s neat script but in the heavy, blocky printing of the state livestock inspector, Bill Gastner.

“When was he in?”

“Half an hour ago or thereabouts.”

“He was supposed to come over for Sunday dinner today, but not with the stinkies, as Francisco calls them.”

“That’s what he said. He just missed you when you went to the airport, so he stopped here to leave a note.”

“I need to borrow Linda,’ ” Estelle read.

“He’s working some complaint about a bunch of mules or something,” Gayle said. “He wanted Linda to take some pictures. Apparently the light’s not very good, and he needs her expertise.”

“He’s got it,” Estelle said. “When Linda comes in from…” She waved a hand eastward. The spot where the corpse had been found was so bleak no one had thought of an appropriate locator name for it. “…from out there, would you tell her to get in touch with him?”

“Sure. But he said there was no hurry on it.”

“And that means inmediamente ,” Estelle grinned. “We know how he is.” She slid the note into Linda Real’s mailbox and puffed out her cheeks at the effort of moving the single sheet of paper. “I’ll be home.”

When she entered the house on Twelfth Street, the light tangy fragrance of simmering chicken greeted her, along with a silent house. Irma appeared from one of the back rooms.

“It smells wonderful,” Estelle said. “How’s everybody doing?”

“Chicken soup,” Irma Sedillos said, affecting a heavy New York accent tinged with her own Mexican border lilt. “That’s just what you need. Chicken soup.” She took Estelle’s jacket before it landed on the foyer floor and hung it up. “We had an early lunch, and then everybody crashed.”

“Francisco, too?”

“His dad stretched out for a bit, and el niño couldn’t resist. He’s a smart kid. You need something to eat, and then you do the same thing.” Irma waggled an index finger. With a gray wig and a touch of stage makeup, she could pass for sixty, rather than the twenty-six that she was.

“The nap sounds good.”

“You want some soup first,” Irma insisted, adding over her shoulder, “ No estás pegando en cuatro, Estelle, ” and headed for the kitchen. “You can’t start skipping meals, now.”

With too many knots in her joints to argue and in absolute agreement that she wasn’t firing on all cylinders, Estelle did as she was told. The soup was so good that she lingered at the kitchen table, letting the vapors drift up from the bowl.