Steven Havill: Scavengers

Irma chatted about this and that, but most of what she said drifted past Estelle unheard, comfortable kitchen chatter that didn’t require an answer.

Estelle surprised herself by finishing two bowls of soup before putting down her spoon and straightened her spine against the back of the chair. “Okay,” she said. “Now I can make it down the hall.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “Give me an hour and I’ll be good as new.”

In their bedroom, Dr. Francis Guzman was sleeping flat on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. Francisco was curled beside him. Estelle left the door open and went to the boys’ bedroom, where little Carlos was curled into a ball about the size of a cocker spaniel. She stretched out on Francisco’s bed and, soothed by the smell of fresh linens and the regular, relaxed breathing of her youngest son across the room, fell asleep.

She awoke to the sound of her husband’s quiet voice drifting into the darkened bedroom from somewhere in the front of the house. By turning her head a fraction, she could see the outline of Carlos, still sleeping peacefully. He had adopted a favorite position, scrunched on all fours with his legs drawn up under him and his rump in the air as if he’d fallen sleep while crawling.

Estelle sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. With a start, she saw that it was almost five in the afternoon.

Francis appeared in the doorway. “How are you doing?”

“Okay…I think.”

“You slept like a stone,” he said. He stepped into the room and peered at his youngest son. “This guy wanted to wake you up a while ago, but I told him that wasn’t such a good idea.”

“ Y mamá? ”

“Sleeping. This sleep is good stuff,” Francis said. “Irma took Francisco with her to do a little grocery shopping. I’m surprised you didn’t hear him.”

Estelle pushed herself to her feet. “I didn’t hear anything. Did Jackie Taber call, by any chance?”

“Nope.” Francis followed her out of the bedroom. “Alan did, though. I just got off the phone with him. He said to tell you that John Doe was shot once in the head, probably either with a rifle or a large-caliber handgun.”

Estelle stopped in the kitchen doorway and leaned her weight back into her husband’s hands as he kneaded the muscles at the nape of her neck.

“Someone worked his lower face over, too,” Francis added. “Alan wanted to talk to you about that. At first, he thought it was a case where the victim was beaten severely, and then shot. But apparently that’s not the situation here.”

Eyes closed, Estelle tried to picture the scenario days earlier out on the prairie east of the MacInernys’ gravel pit. “What does he think happened?”

“Shot first, then a systematic effort made to destroy the dentition,” Francis said.

Estelle turned and looked at him, frowning. “That’s what he said out at the scene. That it looked like someone picked up a good-sized rock and did a number on his face.”

“That’s what Alan thinks. Ragged sort of injuries. Not the sort of thing you’d see if he’d been bashed with the butt of a rifle or hit with a baseball bat.”

“Whoa,” Estelle said, and rubbed her eyes.

“This, by the way, is chicken soup,” Francis said, pointing at the crocked pot on the counter by the sink. “Enough for a fair-sized army. And the pot on the stove is posole . ”

“I had some of the soup,” Estelle said. “What time did Irma go?”

“Not more than twenty minutes ago. She had one errand to run at home, and then she’d be back. She was planning to spend the night again, by the way.”

“She doesn’t need to do that. I think the worst is over.”

“She thinks she does. I’m on call. And she was worried about you.”

“I’m fine. I might have some more soup.” She made no move toward the Crock-Pot. Francis sat down at the kitchen table and watched his wife think. Her thick black eyebrows knit together so tightly they nearly collided over the bridge of her nose. After a minute, she stepped close to the stove and lifted the lid off the simmering posole . Whether she actually saw it was another matter. Francis knew that her mind was somewhere east of Posadas, out on the rolling, rock-strewn prairie.

“I really question whether there was enough blood on the ground or on the rocks for him to have been shot there,” she said finally.

“He could have been lying out there for a long time, Estelle. Several weeks, anyway. Between weather and critters, who can say?”

Estelle frowned and shook her head. “There hasn’t been any precipitation since January fourth, and that was less than an eighth of an inch of snow, barely a frosting. Alan thinks the man was killed about three weeks ago, and that puts it at the end of January or early February, when the ground was dry. If this guy was standing when he was shot in the face, he would have pitched right over backward. There’d be blood and tissue and bits of bone all over the place.”

“Scattered, though.” Francis grimaced. “Or sprayed, might be a better way to describe it.”

She looked at her husband. “We found a single skull fragment. Jackie found some small chips that may test out. Not much else. There was some dried blood under his head. But not much. Not a whole lot.”

Francis shrugged. “The skull fragment says that he was shot there. It’s hard to argue with that. Coyotes cleaned up, maybe.”

“With his face bashed in for good measure,” Estelle said. “And somehow whoever killed him managed to do it without leaving any tracks.”

“From out of the clear blue,” Francis said.

“No,” Estelle said, taking him literally. “If he’d been dropped from a plane, every bone in his body would have been broken, not just his face. Did Alan say anything about any other injuries?”

“Nothing except the damage to the head. No bruises, no fractures, no defense wounds, no nothing.”

“It’s possible the film that our dentist shot will show something,” Estelle said to herself. She glanced at Francis and read correctly the expression of combined curiosity and patience. He wouldn’t ask where she’d been, any more than she would pester him to replay the mental tapes of his treatment of patients. “That’s who I talked to at the airport, querido . A young dentist from Las Cruces saw the body and called it in.” She stepped toward the phone. “You said you were on call tonight?”

Francis nodded. “Why don’t you just let things mellow for a few hours?” he said. “Stew about it until morning. Maybe something will come to you. The guy’s as dead as he’s ever going to get.”

“Just two things,” she said as she dialed. “I need to know what’s on the film, and I need to know if Jackie found anything else when she was out there. That’s it.”

“Uh-huh,” her husband said. “And if either Linda or Jackie had new information that was of any importance, what would they have done?”

“Called me,” she said, listening to the phone ringing at the other end.

“Posadas County Sheriff’s Office, Wheeler.” Francis could hear the dispatcher’s voice across the kitchen.

“Ernie, is Linda still downstairs?” Estelle asked.

“She was. She and Jackie went back out to the MacInernys’ about an hour ago. Make that an hour and a half.”

“Did either one of them say why?”

“No, ma’am. I asked Jackie if she was going to work three shifts in a row, and she just looked at me.” Estelle smiled and glanced at her husband across the kitchen.

“Who’s working swing tonight? I didn’t look at the schedule when I was in there earlier.”

“Tom Pasquale. He’s headed out that way too, by the way. Maybe he thinks the girls are going to get lost in the wilderness or something.”