Steven Havill - Before She Dies

“Two for dinner, sir?”

I hadn’t heard the girl approach, and I turned with a start. The hostess smiled pleasantly, her plump, acne-scarred face framed by long, curly black hair. She was the kind of kid who probably didn’t turn many sober heads now, but when she reached fifty she would have grown into her features. Her gaze shifted from me to Estelle and back again.

“Is Victor here?” I asked.

“Mr. Sanchez? Let me go see.”

The bar was through a doorway to the left. To the right was a small dining room. Straight down the hall was the kitchen, and the hostess headed that way. Estelle browsed the foyer and then stepped briefly into the bar. I didn’t follow. The tobacco smoke would be thick and I didn’t need the temptation. The cigarette machine behind me was bad enough.

I saw the hostess stop in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the doorjamb as if she weren’t allowed to trespass. After a minute’s earnest conversation, she recoiled a step and Victor Sanchez appeared, a large carving knife in one hand and a bunch of celery in the other. He looked out at us and then waved the celery in dismissal. He disappeared and the hostess turned and smiled at us hopefully, maybe thinking that we’d see the obvious and leave.

I remained rooted under the Barbbed wire, so she padded back down the hall, her head down in that “please don’t kill the messenger” posture she’d probably learned early in this job.

“Mr. Sanchez said he can’t talk with you now.”

“Ah, busy night, huh,” I said. The girl nodded, her face brightening with the hope that I wasn’t going to be as cranky as I looked.

I stepped past her and walked down the hall toward the kitchen. The hostess didn’t object or offer to present me to his highness. She murmured something to Estelle and then vanished into the bar to deal with customers she understood.

The kitchen smelled of Saturday night’s fajitas, grilling hamburger, and cleaning compounds. Victor Sanchez was working at the cutting board, chattering the celery into slivers with the knife. He looked up and saw Estelle and me standing in the doorway. He stopped cutting.

“I said I was busy.”

“I see that,” I said.

Sanchez was a squat man, beefy through the shoulders with short, muscular arms, thick wrists, and powerful, stubby-fingered hands. He tipped the board of celery into a bowl and turned toward the stove.

“You want something to eat?”

“No, thanks. I guess not.” I did, but Sanchez was fixing something that looked and smelled like chicken soup, and as far as I was concerned, that was health food.

“Y tu?” he asked Estelle. I knew about ten words of Spanish, just enough to be surprised at the familiar greeting.

She shook her head. “Queremos unos pocos minutos de tu tiempo, senor,” she said.

Sanchez banged the bowl down on the table and turned to glare at us. I knew the look-I’d used it myself many times in the marines when conversing with idiot recruits.

“You know how many people I talk to today, querida ?” Estelle’s face remained impassive. He took a step closer and shook a stubby finger in her face. “All day long, in and out, in and out. Like flies. They ask, what’s this, what’s this, what’s this?”

“What do you expect?” I said quietly when he paused to take a breath. “One of our officers was killed just down the road. Do you think we’re going to wait until there’s a lull in your bar traffic to talk to you?”

Sanchez dropped the knife on the cutting board and wiped his hands on his clean, starched apron. “What does this place have to do with what happened?” he demanded. He turned back to Estelle and hunched his shoulders like an old bulldog. His words came machine-gun fast, and I guess maybe he thought Estelle would flinch. She listened impassively. “Nada pasaba aqui. Nada. Ni siquiera una persona vio nada. Ahora, quita de medio.” He chopped the air with the edge of his palm.

“He said nothing happened here, that no one saw anything… and to get out of his way,” Estelle said to me. Victor grunted.

He waved a hand in my direction. “He knows damn well what I said, chinita . All these cops, you drive away my customers. You cost me money.”

He turned back to his celery and dumped it into a stainless steel cooking pot on the stove. The tidbits disappeared into the bubbling soup and my stomach twinged a little with anticipation.

“Victor,” I said using my most conciliatory tone, “one of your customers might remember something. In a case like this, we don’t have much to go on. Any little detail that someone might remember. It could help us. Anything that happened that was even a little unusual.”

Several pieces of chicken were spread out on the cutting board as Sanchez went to work with the big knife, deftly separating skin and excess fat. He studiously ignored the two of us. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.

Estelle stepped close to the table and leaned over so that she was talking within two inches of Victor Sanchez’s ear. I saw one of his eyebrows rise a little.

“He oido decir que alguien cerca de aqui sabe mas,” she said, her voice husky. “ Con tu ayuda …”

Victor Sanchez straightened up slowly, the knife motionless on the cutting board. He looked at me and grinned, at the same time nodding his head toward Estelle as if to tell me he knew he’d almost stepped in it.

“You tell your compadres, senor, that if I think of something I’ll let you know.” He pointed directly at Estelle. “Tu, chinita, solamente.” He pointed then at the door behind us. “Now leave me alone to my work. You want something else, you bring a warrant.”

Estelle ignored Sanchez’s dismissal and instead pulled out a small notebook from her purse. She leaned against the prep table and leafed through the pages.

“Senor, you told one of the deputies earlier that Francisco Pena came in at twelve minutes after eleven and shouted that there had been a shooting.”

Sanchez grunted something I didn’t hear. “How did you happen to know it was twelve after eleven?” Estelle asked.

“Because I was standing at the bar and happened to be facing the door.”

Estelle flipped forward a page in her notes. “And there is a clock right by the door, sir.”

Sanchez looked up sharply at her. “ Basta , you think I didn’t tell the truth…”

Estelle shook her head. “I need to make sure that the deputy who told me was correct, senor. You told him that Francisco busted in like maybe he had an accident or something. And then?”

“You know the story as good as me,” Sanchez muttered as he hacked at the chicken.

Estelle dutifully continued. “After Francisco settled down enough to tell you what was wrong, you called the state police. The nine-one-one relay connected you with the Sheriff’s Department. Most of your customers went outside, and at least four of them drove down the road to the scene.”

“Six of them went outside. I told ’em no toquen alguna cosa …nothing,” Sanchez said. He wagged a finger. “Don’t touch nothing.”

“All right. So…” I turned to Estelle quizzically.

“Mr. Sanchez said that last night he had no patrons other than those known to him. I have a list here, if you want to see them.”

I shook my head. “So, no strangers in the place all evening?”

“That’s right,” Sanchez muttered.

“And there were no disturbances of any kind that amounted to anything, no luchas ?” Estelle prompted.

Victor Sanchez dumped a pile of hacked chicken into the soup pot and walked over to a refrigerator to collect a package of baby carrots. He took a deep breath as if becoming resigned to our presence.