Steven Havill - Before She Dies

This time, when I looked, I could see the bright colors clearly, the trade name on the fender, and, as I swept the beam back, the fancy gas cap, air dam, and roof rack. The Weatherfords’ Suburban had survived its high-speed trip from Oklahoma no worse for wear.

I took a deep breath and snapped off the flashlight, standing quietly with my back to the garage.

Now that the pieces were drifting into place, it all made perfect sense. Carlos Sanchez had himself an effortless pipeline for prize vehicles, straight to Mexico. He could make copies of the keys at leisure; he could lift an extra temporary sticker and fill in appropriate names. It wouldn’t be hard to find willing drivers-both for the excitement and the money. And either explained how Tammy Woodruff had gotten sucked in.

A dozen questions still circled in my mind like hungry vultures over a carcass. It made no sense that Carlos Sanchez would let this vehicle sit in a garage a rifle shot from the border. No matter how innocent the garage appeared, every minute the stolen truck stayed on the U.S. side of the line, the risk increased. That meant that all we had to do was wait.

I made my way back to the Blazer, climbed in, and released the clutch, allowing the vehicle to roll forward down the slight incline. When the road forked, I turned left, started the engine, and drove out of the village as casually as if I lived there.

The last dirt road turned off the pavement just before the first switchback. I followed it, winding up the hillside toward the enormous white water-storage tank that had been installed with monies from a federal grant five years before. The tank provided ample and dependable storage, and its broad, smooth sides provided local spray-can artists with an open canvas.

I drove around the back side of the tank and parked under two-foot high letters that proclaimed Esmarelda y Paco, ’93 . The bulk of the tank shaded me from the vapor light. From there, I commanded a view of the entire valley. I could clearly see the patch of black behind Mateo Esquibel’s house where the garage stood.

I turned the volume of the radio up just enough that I could hear the broadcasts, but kept the windows of the truck closed.

The night closed in, broken only by an occasional jet high overhead or a coyote somewhere in the hills behind me. Shortly after eight o’clock, a car engine started somewhere down in the village. A moment later headlights flicked on near a house a hundred yards west of Esquibel’s. I watched as the vehicle oozed out of one driveway, traveled down the road a stone’s throw, and pulled into another. A porch light went on, remained bright for a couple of minutes, and then went out.

The folks of Regal weren’t into rompin’ and stompin’, at least not on a Wednesday night. I looked across to the hillside on the east where the small church stood, but if the Catholics had planned a Wednesday night service, they hadn’t showed.

All evening long, I’d listened to Gayle Sedillos working dispatch, her voice caught by the repeater on Regal Peak. At 9:17, she came on the air, and I could hear a slight edge to her voice, a slight tremor of excitement.

“Three oh seven, PCS.”

“Three oh seven, go ahead.” Tommy Mears sounded bored. He was a good actor.

“Three oh seven, ten-twenty?” She had asked the deputy where he was less than twenty minutes before, and at that time he’d been at the airport, talking with manager Jim Bergin.

Now, he replied, “Three oh seven is two miles west, on the interstate.”

“Ten-four, three oh seven. If you get a chance, would you swing by the hospital and pick up a folder from Detective Reyes-Guzman? She said it’s at the information desk.”

“Ten-four.”

I smiled in the dark and my pulse clicked up about thirty notches. The message meant that Carlos Sanchez had left his house. Estelle Reyes-Guzman had no folder for anyone, but Carlos Sanchez, if he was listening to the police scanner, had no way of knowing that. Gayle had managed the complex and dull alert message without a hitch.

The cellular phone on the seat beside me chirped, and I picked up the receiver. Bob Torrez’s voice was distant.

“Sir, he’s heading west on State Fifty-six.”

“All right. Don’t let him pick up your headlights coming out of town.”

“I’ll stay back. What about Tomas?”

I glanced out across the sleepy village toward the border crossing. “No sign of him. But he said he’d be there.”

“I’d sure hate to see this guy slip through.”

“He’s not going to do that, Robert. Mears should be a minute or so behind you.”

“I can see him right now. He’s at the filling station on Grande.”

“Don’t let him get itchy. I want to see how Sanchez plays his game. Remember, if he stops at the bar, get to Gayle in a hurry. You go on past, and make sure Mears turns up Fourteen.”

“Yes, sir.”

The inside of my mouth was dry as I sat in the dark, trying to picture the flow of traffic southwest on 56. Carlos Sanchez had to be feeling confident. If he didn’t have a scanner, he was stupid. If he did have one, all he knew was that Deputy Mears was tied up at the hospital. There had been no word on the movements of anyone else. The night was ordinary.

I took a deep breath and settled back in the seat.

Eleven minutes later, the telephone chirped and I startled so hard that I almost hit my head on the roof.

“What?”

“I think he stopped at the bar, sir, but if he did, it was just for a minute. No more than that. I didn’t have time to go on by. He’s headed south.”

“All right. Stay back. Remember the scenic pull-out halfway down on this side. That’s where you stop.” Off in the distance to the south, I saw a single flash of light, as if someone had swept a spotlight in a circle, shooting the beam up into the night. “And Tomas is in place,” I said, hoping it wasn’t wishful thinking.

At 9:38, I saw the headlights high up on the switchbacks from Regal pass. They descended sedately, almost poking along.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I muttered. All I could see were the lights, but I could picture the old truck putting along, inconspicuous and legal as all hell. A rancher going home after checking the cattle, or a kid out in his daddy’s truck, going home nice and early just like he was supposed to. There were no state police on this section of highway, and Carlos Sanchez knew-and I hoped he was gloating-exactly where the deputies were.

The truck passed the turnoff to the water tank and kept going. If Sergeant Torrez had crested the pass, he’d dumped his lights, because the mountain behind us was black.

Like a homing pigeon, Mateo Esquibel’s old truck idled into the village, turning first this way and that, finally backing right into the old man’s yard, back bumper crowding the hitch of the wood-laden trailer. Resting the binoculars on the steering wheel, I watched the figure get out of the truck, illuminated by the faint rays cast by the dome light.

Sanchez was a believer in taking time with his cover, apparently. If he’d allowed Tammy Woodruff to drive a stolen truck to the border, he’d used the old man’s truck, hooked to the trailer, when he’d driven back up the highway to check on her, knowing that no one would give him a second glance.

From where I sat behind the water tank to Mateo Esquibel’s old adobe was at most 300 yards. But even with the binoculars, the figure was nothing more than a vague, drifting shadow.

Somewhere off in the distance a dog barked; it was soon joined in chorus by half a dozen others. The dogs didn’t know what the hell was going on, and neither did I. My telephone chirped again, and when I answered Bob Torrez said, “I’m at the pull-out.”