Steven Havill: Before She Dies

“What’s everybody so damn happy about?” I said. “Real just went out of here like somebody’s slipped her a big scoop.”

“Busy night, sir,” Estelle said. “Maybe she smells the front page.”

“Just what I needed to hear,” I said. I tossed my hat on a chair. “Let me find some coffee.” Estelle waited patiently while I found a cup that wasn’t crusted over. The coffee was just the way I liked it-about four hours old and beginning to form an oil slick on top.

I was annoyed that someone had called Estelle in the middle of the night for this nonsense. Tammy Woodruff could sleep off her intoxication like anyone else.

“Who called you down?” I asked as I walked back into the spacious clutter that was my office. I set the cup down on the edge of the desk, well away from the avalanche of paperwork on the other side.

“No one,” she said, and held up a folder. “Francis took the kid down to see my mom earlier today.” I grinned at the slang reference to her son. I had called little Francis Guzman Jr. The Kid ever since he’d been born. If I was still alive when he turned twenty-one maybe I’d try something else, but for now, the tag suited him just fine. And I didn’t have trouble remembering it. Estelle glanced at her watch as I took the folder from her. “Yesterday, I mean. And then Francis is going to bring his aunt up for a visit.”

“Which one of many aunts is this one?” I could keep track of Estelle’s family easily enough. Her mother, tiny, wrinkled, and independent, lived across the border in Tres Santos in the same miniature adobe house that Estelle’s grandfather had built nearly a hundred years before.

But Estelle’s in-laws populated Old Mexico from one end to the other, an endless assortment of brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts-the entire gamut. Francis Guzman was the sole U.S. citizen in the family, but that distinction was more of an oddity for the Guzman clan than an accomplishment.

“His Aunt Sofia,” Estelle said, her own accent making the simple word elegant.

“I don’t know her, I guess.”

Estelle shook her head. “You met her at the wedding. She lives in Veracruz. Francis has always been one of her favorites. When we were married, she came to Tres Santos for the wedding. You might remember that she was the lady who spent almost the entire time sitting and talking with my mother?”

“Ah,” I said. “The lawyer.” I remember her vaguely, remembered how stiff and starched she’d been at first. Maybe she shared a little of the apprehension others of the Guzman clan might have felt about Francis, the successful surgeon, marrying this only daughter of an ancient Chihuahuan peasant lady. The patrician noses hadn’t been out of joint for too long, as I remembered.

“Right. She’s retired now. Her husband died a couple of years ago.” Estelle began gathering up papers. “She spends most of her time traveling around Mexico, visiting the new generation.”

“Why didn’t you go down with Francis, then? What are you hanging around here for?”

“I have an exam Monday, or I would have gone along.”

“An exam? In what?”

“Economics. And by the way-we need a statement from you on Sonny Trujillo.”

I took the folder she held out. “Aren’t you supposed to be home studying or something? I thought college students stayed up all night, cramming for exams.”

Estelle grinned and got up, vacating my chair. “I’m caught up,” she said. “I’ll do a little review this afternoon, before the gang arrives.”

Of course she was caught up. Someone who could manage a family that included an active one-year-old, a physician husband, and an aging mother living in Mexico-as well as part-time work for us-wouldn’t let studying for a college class slow her down.

Her career with our department had taken its share of wild turns. Now she worked part-time, on-call in our detective division. She was our detective division. There had been a time when Martin Holman had wanted to expand the department, including at least three detectives. The county would have liked the idea if someone else could have provided the money. No one ever did. Holman, ever the smooth politico , compromised by promoting Estelle from sergeant to lieutenant…with a promised increase in pay. We all knew what “promised” meant.

I sat down and opened the folder with one hand while fumbling for a cigarette with the other. I had quit smoking a year before, but the action was still automatic. I found my glasses instead and put them on. One earpiece was still crooked, and I grunted as I tried to bend it back into shape without snapping the fragile hinge.

“Need some tape?” Estelle asked.

I ignored her suggestion. “What about Tammy Woodruff?” I asked.

“Her father said to leave her in jail until morning. He’ll see about it then.”

“Good man.”

“And Sheriff Holman called.”

“I bet he did.”

“He got a call from Victor Sanchez again.”

“About Sergeant Torrez?” I tossed the folder on the desk and leaned back, glad for the minute to relax.

“He said that if Bob didn’t quit harassing his customers, he’d take on the deputy himself.” Estelle grinned. “Either that or he’s going to file suit.”

“Hell, same old tune. Tell him to try ’em both,” I chuckled. “Why not. Victor needs something to make his life a little more interesting. Mopping up spilled beer must get pretty dull after a while.”

Estelle moved toward the door. “Is there anything else you need tonight, sir?”

“Hell, no. Thanks for taking care of the Woodruff girl for us. They could have called in Aggie Bishop just as easily.” Deputy Bishop’s wife worked occasionally when we needed a matron.

“The flu, sir,” Estelle said, and I made a face.

“Any word on your truck, by the way?”

“No, sir.” She shrugged. “I’m sure it’s long gone.”

“You guys didn’t even have it long enough to scratch the paint,” I said.

“Oh yes,” Estelle replied. “Francis backed into the fence down at mother’s.” She smiled ruefully. “But they stole it anyway.” Even with a dent, the thieves had gotten a hell of a deal. The big two-tone blue Suburban had had less than a thousand miles on it. The Las Cruces police had been sympathetic and diligent. But the truck was gone, driven out of the mall parking lot while the family was shopping.

“Next time, maybe you should buy something about twenty-five years old,” I said. “Then nobody wants it.”

“I suppose,” Estelle said. “If you need me for anything, I’ll be home.” She paused in the doorway. “Why don’t you come over for dinner Sunday night?”

“What are you having?”

Estelle cocked her head and frowned at me in mock exasperation. She knew my see-food diet habits as well as anyone. “Seven o’clock. We’ll expect you.”

I waved a hand. “Give your aunt my regards if something comes up,” I said.

“Sir…” she said, and left the rest hanging. Living by myself, I had developed that sort of independence of clock and calendar that irritated more rational minds. Estelle knew better than to fight it.

After she left, I settled back with my paperwork. My mood improved, as I took grim satisfaction in knowing that Sonny Trujillo would be stone sober for some time if Judge Hobart’s colors ran true to form at the preliminary hearing.

And Tammy Woodruff would wake up jail-cell sober in a few hours. I had no doubt that her father would put her on the straight and narrow. At least he would try to. But Tammy was no child anymore. I had no intentions of getting myself involved in that family fight. An hour later, I left the office.

Shortly after 2 A.M. that Saturday, I pulled off Guadalupe Terrace into the driveway of my adobe house, buried under gigantic cottonwoods in an old quarter of Posadas south of the interstate. The place was rambling, dark, and quiet. No sounds filtered through the two foot thick walls.