Steven Havill - Scavengers

Torrez nodded. “You need a break anyway,” he said.

She patted him on the arm as she slipped past him. “ I need a break, Bobby? You look like you qualify for the walking dead yourself.”

“Tomorrow at this time, we’ll all be wondering what to do with ourselves to stay busy,” he said. “What’s the word on Isidro, by the way? Did Francis know yet?”

The moment that the Posadas EMTs had sliced off Isidro Madrid’s fancy running shoe and released the sea of blood and gore, it was obvious that it would take more than a Band-Aid before Isidro would be able to limp into his court arraignment.

“He’s working with Brownell, the orthopedic surgeon from Deming,” Estelle said. “The general consensus is that Isidro’s heel bone is never going to be as good as new. ‘Dusted it’ is the way Francis described it.”

“Good shot, then. You should have aimed a bit higher, though. Saved us all a lot of work.”

“The thought crossed my mind.” She followed him to the cubbyhole down the hall that he called his office. She was surprised to see Tom Pasquale sitting like a schoolboy waiting for the principal. Torrez motioned Estelle to the remaining chair and closed the door. The small office was stuffy, smelling of old leather and aftershave.

“Did you have a chance to read this yet?” Torrez picked up a folder from his desk and handed it to Estelle.

“Yes, I did.” She leafed through Eurelio Saenz’s deposition, four pages of single-spaced typing. Deputy Jackie Taber had been thorough, guiding the young man through the narrative, from the moment he had made the foolish decision to sell the.44 magnum carbine to his second cousins. Maybe the long, sorry tale had helped to keep his mind off the fire of the cactus thorns and the battering of his ribs. “The azote loosened his tongue, at least.”

“Maybe that’s what we should try on Isidro,” Torrez said.

“Believe me, that thought crossed my mind, too.”

Torrez laughed. “That’s what Tom tells me.”

“He’s right.”

Torrez hooked his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Benny’s a good singer, though,” the sheriff said with satisfaction. “He’s telling us what we need to know. I think he hopes the DA is going to cut him a deal if he sings loud enough.”

“He’s dreaming.”

“True. But…” He stopped and held up his hands. “The little bastard can always hope. He says that he stayed in the taberna when Isidro took Rafael and Lolo out to test drive the old pickup truck. Isidro and Benny had convinced Eurelio to sell the truck to the boys, do you believe that? Benny says he never went along for the test ride. He says that both he and Eurelio stayed in the bar, and that when Isidro came back, he told him that Rafael and Lolo didn’t want the truck after all, and that they’d hooked a ride home with someone else.” Torrez puffed out his cheeks. “And Benny believed him when Isidro said he slipped jumping out of the back of the truck and cracked his head on the bed rack. Next he’s probably going to tell us that he slept through the whole thing with Eurelio out there on the desert.”

“It would be tough to sleep through something like that,” Estelle said.

“For sure. Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about…remember I mentioned some time or other that Tom had some interesting information about the Popes?”

Estelle’s eyebrows lifted with curiosity. She had no recollection of that particular conversation in the great flood of events during the past few hours. The fire at Eleanor Pope’s seemed a year in the past.

Torrez took that as agreement and said, “You remember in the hospital I said that I had some interesting news for you that was going to make you want to arrest somebody?”

Estelle nodded. “Yes.”

“Collins is working on the insurance deal involving the Popes.” He turned to Pasquale. “Tell Estelle what you told me, Tomás .”

Pasquale cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably on his chair. He hadn’t spoken a word since Estelle and the sheriff had walked into the office-something of an accomplishment for him, Estelle reflected. In fact, he had studiously avoided opening his mouth, trying to blend in with the institutional green of the painted heater duct behind him. “Well, my motorcycle, you know?” he said, beginning in midthought.

“Your motorcycle?”

He cleared his throat again and leaned forward, forearms on the padded winds of the chair. “Yeah. You know, that big bike I bought from Tom Mears. When I first got it, I had a bank loan on it for a few months, and in order to do that, the bank required collision insurance.” He held his hands out, palms up. “That was costing me an arm and a leg. So”-he looked embarrassed-“I borrowed a thousand bucks from Linda so I could pay off the loan. That way, I could drop the collision. Anyway, that’s what I did.”

He straightened in his seat and took a deep breath. “Then I happened to run into George Enriquez, and he said that he could cut me a pretty good liability policy for the bike that would save me some money. That he had an insurance company in his pool that gave bikers who qualified pretty good rates.”

“Bikers who qualified,” Estelle echoed.

“That means you have to own a bike,” Torrez quipped, and Pasquale looked even more uncomfortable.

“And so that’s what you did? You went with him? You dropped your collision with…”

“Arizona Mutual. Yeah, I dropped the whole thing with them and went with this company that Enriquez suggested.”

“That was NMI?”

“No. Some other company in his pool, he said. I guess I didn’t pay much attention. Anyways, Collins was lookin’ through what he could find of the Popes’ financial papers and couldn’t find anything on insurance. The Popes had their cars insured with Enriquez. He found the insurance cards in the glove box of Eleanor’s car. When they went through her checkbook, they found a check for a payment dated about three months ago. But they apparently didn’t have home owner’s insurance.”

“What’s this have to do with your motorcycle, Thomas?” Estelle asked.

“Well, see-” He hesitated. “Linda talked with Mrs. Pope not too long ago, down at the insurance office. She remembers Mrs. Pope commenting about how everything is going up, including her home owner’s. But it turns out that Mrs. Pope didn’t have home owner’s with his agency,” Pasquale said, as if that cleared things up.

Estelle frowned. “So what are you telling me?”

Pasquale shifted again. “Well, I don’t have any paperwork that shows I have insurance with Enriquez, either. I mean, I got a proof of insurance card for the bike. Enriquez’s secretary typed that out right there in the office when I took out the policy. Enriquez gave me a statement sheet that showed my payments, and said I’d be getting the regular policy from the company in a couple of weeks.”

“And did you?”

The deputy shook his head. “Never got one. Nope.”

“Did you check with Enriquez about where your policy might be?”

“No.” Pasquale examined the nail of his left index finger. “It wasn’t something that I was too concerned about.”

“So where is all this leading?” Estelle said. She glanced up at the clock above the file cabinet. What she wanted more than anything else was a nap about 36 hours long.

“Well, I got to thinking,” Pasquale said, and Estelle saw Robert Torrez’s boot shift as the sheriff toyed with interjecting something. He let Pasquale continue. “What would be the point of burning down your own home if you didn’t stand to collect some insurance? Denton Pope was sure up to something, but what did he stand to gain if there wasn’t insurance? I mean, what was the point?”