Steven Havill - Prolonged Exposure

“I’m sorry we took so long,” she said to Camille, but this time it was Estelle and I who were interrupting the action. My daughter and little Francis were busy. Camille had folded down the backseat, and they were in the midst of a board game-using rules that had never occurred to the manufacturer.

Camille looked up and grinned, her eyes shifting to me as I bagged the jacket and scrawled my initials on the tag. The grin faded.

“Just that?” she asked.

I nodded. “So far. No blood, no signs of injury. No nothing.”

“God,” Camille whispered.

“What are you doing?” I said, and she looked down at the fistful of red plastic hotels in her right hand.

“These are all ore trucks,” she said, as if I’d know just what she was talking about.

“Where did that come from?” I asked. I knew more or less the contents of my vehicle, and a board game wasn’t on the list. Camille motioned toward Estelle’s voluminous backpack.

“His aunt in Veracruz sent him that,” Estelle said. “He just got it yesterday.” I cocked my head, leaned closer, and got the thing within range of my bifocals. Sure enough, it was the Spanish version. And just as deeply as he’d been occupied by the game, Francis just as quickly came unglued. He stood quickly, upending the board and scattering pieces.

“Oops,” he said, and then helped as much as any three-year-old could as Camille and Estelle gathered houses, hotels, and metal players’ pieces from the cracks in the Blazer’s anatomy.

“The reporter was nosing around,” Camille said quietly as Estelle finally slid the lid onto the box.

Estelle nodded. “I saw her walk over this way.”

“She apparently knows Francis?” She tucked an arm around the kid and held him in a hammerlock.

Estelle shot a quick glance at me, and her eyebrows furrowed again. “She did a feature story on me before the election last year, and of course”-she shrugged-“she covered the election itself. She talked us into a family picture for that first story.”

“She took my picture,” Francis said.

“That’s right,” Estelle said, “she did, didn’t she? You and Papa and me. You didn’t have a baby brother yet.” It was a decent photo, too. I had a copy in my scrapbook. Estelle may have had a fetchingly photogenic family, but that hadn’t been enough for an election win. Progressive had never been an adjective I would have applied to Posadas County, and the electorate had declined the opportunity to elect New Mexico’s first female Mexican sheriff.

“No,” Camille said. “What I think he means is that she took a picture or two of him just a few minutes ago.”

“Why would she do that?” I asked. “How could she take a picture through the glass, anyway?”

Camille grimaced. “Bad timing, Dad. We were outside.” She gestured at two small junipers and a pinon that snuggled together. “Potty time. I promised I’d wait right here by the truck while he went over there.”

“All of fifteen feet,” I said.

“Yep,” Camille said. “We were just about to climb back in so I could beat him in round two when Miss Photog showed up. She snapped a picture of Francis climbing into the truck, with me standing by the door, looking stupid.”

“Ah, well,” I said.

“And maybe another one after that.” Camille released Francis so his mother could help him clamber his way into the seat belt shoulder harness that secured him in the small seat, looking like a miniature jet pilot ready for ejection.

“And she asked if you’d call her later,” Camille added.

Estelle nodded and turned to look at me. “How are you holding up, sir?”

“I’m fine,” I said, and leaned an arm on the Blazer’s door. “I’ve been watching you think, so you’re the one doing all the work. What’s next?”

I could have predicted the result of that question. Estelle Reyes-Guzman played her cards close, even with me.

“Sir,” she said, pulling the last of her son’s belt tight, “We’re going to have to talk with the Coles. In private, away from the rest of the audience.”

“All right,” I said.

“I’d like you to be there. And Sheriff Holman.”

That surprised me, and Estelle grinned when she saw my expression. “He actually has an astute streak, sir.”

“However narrow,” I said. “Just say when.”

She glanced at her watch. “About eight this evening would be just about right. It’ll be dark by then; they’ll be exhausted and willing to come off the mesa for a while.”

“At the office?” Camille’s face didn’t show a flicker of annoyance when I said that. Perhaps she hadn’t heard.

Estelle nodded. “I need to talk with my husband for a few minutes. And I’ve got some other odds and ends to wrap up this afternoon.” She walked around the truck and climbed in the driver’s seat. She put the key in the ignition and hesitated. “This morning I put out a bulletin for the child,” she said. “I probably should have done that last night.”

“There’s always a chance,” I said. “Who knows. Maybe they’ll find him today. Maybe they’re heading in the right direction now.”

“He’s not up here,” Camille said quietly. I cranked around to look at her, and Camille shook her head. Her right arm had drifted over so that her hand rested lightly on the nape of little Francis’s neck. “He’s not up here,” she repeated.

“No,” Estelle said. “He’s not.”

My office door was locked when I arrived that evening, and it took a moment to fumble for the right key before I pushed the door open. The interior of the Posadas County Public Safety Building-a grand name for an aging adobe-had been remodeled the previous year, making room for the updated computers, wiring conduit, massive files, and more computers.

Posadas County residents hadn’t paid a cent in raised taxes for the expensive renovation. The gleaming hardware, updated information-retrieval systems, and even the new furniture were all testimony to Sheriff Martin Holman’s grant-writing talents. No one had ever convinced me that a tiny New Mexican county with fewer than eleven thousand residents needed any of it, but I had learned to keep quiet.

Parts of the renovation I liked. Parts of it made me grimace.

In most places throughout the building, the floor was beautiful polished tile that didn’t generate either static or warmth. It was easy for a lackadaisical trusty to mop clean, and drunks could vomit all over it, or even bleed on it, and it could be wiped clean in a jiffy. On a cold winter’s day, it was as comforting as an ice cube.

The tile ended outside my door, and I could walk across aging boot-polished wood to my leather swivel chair and oak desk. But sure enough, time marched on. A single computer terminal perched on my desk, its bland face dark.

And it stayed dark, most of the time. In spare moments the previous spring, Gayle Sedillos had surreptitiously helped me explore some of the machine’s surface mysteries. When things were really slow-say in deep February on a weekday night-it was sort of fun to watch the toasters float across the monitor’s face. Sheriff Holman had been quick to point out that the screen-saver program, flying toasters and all, was somehow more economical that just leaving the damn thing turned off.

That was as far as I’d gotten. Estelle Reyes-Guzman could make the computer do magic, of course, and that was just fine with me.

That evening, Gayle followed me to the door of my office. She waited patiently while I found the correct key. “Sir,” Gayle Sedillos said as I headed for my desk, “there are a couple of messages that came for you this afternoon.”

“Aren’t you due to go home?” I asked, taking the yellow slips of “While You Were Out” paper from her.