Steven Havill: Prolonged Exposure

“I used to see him and his wife taking evening walks, but that was a while ago. Did he die, or what?”

“No, he didn’t. But we can’t find his wife, Gloria.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find her?”

“Just that, sir. One of the neighbors told us that she hadn’t seen Gloria in quite awhile…that she’d been ill, you know.”

“It seems to me that she was frail a hundred years ago,” I said. “Maybe she has Alzheimer’s and wandered off. Did anyone ask?”

“Gloria would be in her late eighties, so that’s entirely possible, sir.” Estelle said. “One of the village officers stopped by to check, and Florencio told him that she’d gone. That’s all he would say. Not that she had died, just that she’d gone. That’s all he would say.”

“Who was the officer who talked to him?”

“Chief Martinez,” Estelle said, and I looked heavenward. Eduardo Martinez was kindhearted, understanding, gentle, and stupid.

“So let me guess. The chief assumed that when Florencio said ‘She’s gone,’ he meant that his wife had gone to visit relatives or some such.”

“Exactly.”

“But you don’t think that she did?”

“No, sir. A couple of youngsters were in the lot across the street, building a tree house in one of those old cottonwoods. They found a grave. We’re pretty sure it’s hers.”

“Really? You think she died and her husband just planted her himself?”

“Yes, sir. There was a small cross, and her name was carved in the wood.”

I shrugged. “Well, there you are, then. If you’ve got a grave, the odds are good you’ve found your corpse. So what’s the deal? It’s not illegal for her to die, and it’s not illegal for him to bury her. Poor old guy. Where’s the grave site? I don’t remember their lot as being very big.”

“It’s not on their property, sir,” Estelle said, and then repeated what I hadn’t caught the first time. “It’s across the lane, on yours.”

I laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re saying that the old lady died, and Florencio dragged the body across the street, into my woods, and dug a grave…under one of my trees?”

“That’s what it looks like, sir.”

“I’ll be damned. Brassy old cuss, isn’t he? I wonder what put that notion into his head. And he even made a cross, too, you say?”

“Yes, sir. A simple wooden cross.”

“Well, that’s sort of sweet,” I said. “It’s not quite the way things are done these days, but what the hell.” I chuckled. “Gene Salazar is going to be ticked that he’s out a prep and burial fee. I wonder what Florencio used for a casket.”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Well, I don’t care, I guess,” I said. “I don’t walk around back there much. In fact, I probably haven’t been on that particular spot in twenty years.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind, but the village does. That’s the area where they wanted to run the new water line, so there’d be service to DelSol Estates. They said that you’d given them an easement.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I guess I did. Well, we certainly don’t want to stand in the way of progress.” I chuckled. “Or lie in the way. I didn’t know there had been any interest in that DelSol development, anyway.”

“They’re hoping, I think,” Estelle said.

“I’m sure we can work something out that will make everyone happy. If that’s the biggest problem you’re having, things must be going pretty smoothly.”

“That’s one,” Estelle said. “We’re also having a rash of B and E’s, sir. I think we’ve had something like eight residential burglaries in the past two weeks.”

“Kids again?” I remembered that the last rash of breaking-and-entering cases that Posadas County had endured featured a thirteen year-old punk as the mastermind.

“Probably. We’re not sure. Your house was one of them.”

“Shit,” I said. “You’re kidding.” That was a waste of breath, of course, since Estelle Reyes-Guzman was not the kidding sort.

“Apparently they gained access by busting out the bathroom window. They left the front door unlocked afterward. They did a thorough job of trashing the place.”

I felt my blood pressure start its slow, inexorable rise. “So you need an inventory?”

“If you have one.”

“I don’t. I’m not sure there was much that was worth taking. Just a bunch of books. I’d have to walk through the place to jog my memory.”

“Most of the books are scattered on the floor. The thieves dumped them off the shelves. They took the VCR but not the television.”

“Small loss.”

“And when you left, was the Civil War rifle and sword still mounted on the wall in your den?”

“Yes.”

“They took them, too.”

“Those little bastards.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Estelle, you might check that lockable filing cabinet just to the right of my desk. The little two-drawer unit. A couple of my handguns were in there, locked up.”

“That was gone, too.”

“The entire unit?”

“Yes, sir.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the blood gurgling in my newly reamed pipes. “There were some papers in there that I can’t afford to lose,” I said finally.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’ve got a couple of pretty solid leads that we’re following. If we come up with anything, I’ll let you know. And by the way, I had Bob Torrez nail a stout piece of plywood over the broken window in the bathroom.”

“Thanks. What about the garage? Any sign of entry there?”

“Apparently they didn’t get in there. The truck is all right.”

“That’s the least of my worries,” I said. “It’s too bad they didn’t steal it. It’d be a hell of a lot easier to trace that than the smaller stuff.”

I reached across the kitchen counter and pulled the calendar toward me, flipping the page over to the next month, December. “I was planning on flying back to Las Cruces in a couple of weeks. On the third of December,” I said. “That’s a Wednesday. I could move it up and leave here the day after tomorrow. That’s November sixteenth. I’ve got a couple of things to wrap up here, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“If you can manage, sir, it would be a help. Otherwise, I can go through room by room and we can settle over the phone.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Are you doing all right?”

“ Nicely is the doctor’s favorite word now. Apparently cutting out a cheese burrito from each carotid artery made all the difference. Let me plan on catching a flight out of here on Sunday, then. That shouldn’t be any problem to arrange. I’ve got a meeting with a man tomorrow that I really don’t want to break, but after that, it should be fine.”

Estelle Reyes-Guzman didn’t ask me what the meeting was all about, but when I hung up the telephone a few minutes later, Camille appeared in the doorway, both hands on her hips in that “Oh no you don’t” posture I knew so well.

The plane touched down in El Paso to two surprises. The first was the weather. During the flight from Flint, Michigan, I had eagerly anticipated seeing the vast, sun-swept panorama of the Southwest. Despite her best efforts, the month that I had spent recuperating at my daughter’s home seemed a lifetime, to a point where I was sure that I had grown mold cultures under my armpits. At least once during that sojourn in Michigan, the thought had crossed my mind that I might not be returning anywhere, ever.

As the jet entered Texas airspace, I could see a low, thick cloud layer that spread northward from the Gulf of Mexico, blanketing El Paso and muting the wonderful dichotomy between earth and sky to a solid, dismal gray. There was no break in the cloud layer to the west over New Mexico, either, and I sighed.