Bitter Recoil (5 page)
The sun rolled down the edge of Chuparrosa Mesa west of San Estevan, and the wash of evening light blushed the sandstone layers below the rimrock into a dozen hues. The ceramic chimes beside the Guzmans’ front door hung motionless.
I exhaled and watched the plume of smoke curl through the chimes, to fan out and then disappear into the
savinos
, the peeled and smooth juniper poles that lay diagonally across the vigas to form the small porch roof. I closed the file folder and tipped my chair back until I could lean against the adobe wall.
“Robert Arajanian,” I said and tapped my index finger on the cover of the folder. “And you say that the guy who owns the trading post—Orlando Garcia—he knows him?”
Estelle Reyes-Guzman returned from the kitchen and handed me a mug of coffee. “Yes, he knew him by name. He’d had the opportunity to cash a couple of checks for the kid.”
“What kind of checks?”
“The only one he remembered for sure was one made out to Cecilia Burgess. It was her tax refund check. For just a few dollars, as far as Garcia remembers. Burgess had signed it over to Arajanian. Orlando Garcia didn’t seem to approve much. I got the impression that he thought Cecilia Burgess was wasting her time with both Arajanian and Finn.”
I opened the folder once more. “That seems to be a generally held view around here. Odd that she signed the check to the kid instead of her boyfriend Finn. Maybe the trio shares everything.” I read the file. “And Arajanian has quite a record.”
The folder had been delivered from Albuquerque earlier that afternoon by a deputy. It had been on Estelle’s desk when we returned from the hot springs, and it made interesting reading.
Robert Arajanian had experimented with the law when he was just fourteen…an assault charge filed by the parents of another high school student. I noticed the other youngster involved had been seventeen—either he’d been small for his age or a complete wimp. Or young Robert had been spectacularly aggressive. Less than a year later a charge of vehicular homicide had landed Robert Arajanian in a youth detention home for two years.
“Interesting that he wasn’t drunk for the vehicular charge…or at least there’s no mention here that he was,” I said. “The implication is that he used the damn car as a weapon.”
“He was drag racing and bumped the competition into a grove of pine trees.”
“Where’s it say that?”
“It doesn’t. I called Albuquerque while you were in the shower.”
“You don’t waste a second, do you?” I looked at the file again. “So he gets just two years for what is essentially murder.”
Estelle moved her Kennedy rocker so that she could put her feet up on a big planter that supported one sorry-looking beaver-tail cactus. She shrugged at my comment. Under New Mexico law two years was the most detention any kid got, no matter what the crime, as long as he wasn’t tried as an adult. I grunted with disgust. Murder could come pretty cheap.
After his release from the detention home, Robert Arajanian had remained clear of the law for four years. Two days before his nineteenth birthday, and eight months previous to his playing lookout on the hot springs rock, the kid had been charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and attempted burglary of an apartment in the Northeast Heights of Albuquerque. He’d pulled six months probation for the marijuana. The attempted burglary charge never went to court.
“Well, that’s neat,” I said. “He must be a slick talker, too, when the spirit moves him. The burglary complaint was withdrawn. His first chance at a good, solid felony as an adult and someone wimps out. So now he can possess a firearm legally. Otherwise, as a felon, he’d be in violation.”
“There probably wasn’t enough evidence to make the burglary charge stick. Who knows?”
“So,” I said. “All very interesting, but nothing yet on H. T. Finn.”
“Albuquerque didn’t have anything on him. It’s going to take a while to track him down, I suspect.” Estelle sounded disappointed—as always, hating unanswered questions.
“What do you think the odds are that either Arajanian or Finn or both pitched Cecilia Burgess over the embankment?”
Estelle grimaced impatiently. “Zero.”
“Really? Finn didn’t seem awash in grief at the news of the accident. In fact, he seemed to assume that she was already dead.”
She shrugged. “And he didn’t say anything about going into the city to visit her either, but what does that prove?”
“That he doesn’t like talking to strangers, especially the law, or that he doesn’t have a car.”
“He could hitchhike. The Indians do it all the time. Do you need more coffee?”
“No, thanks.” I sat silently as she got up and went inside. I heard the coffeepot clank against the stove burner, and she started talking before she was out of the kitchen.
“I don’t know why we’re even worrying about Finn and Arajanian anyway. What we need—” She was interrupted by the telephone. I heard her monosyllabic side of the conversation but what I heard was enough. When she hung up and returned to the porch, her face was sober.
“She died?”
Estelle nodded. “At six-sixteen p.m.” She glanced at her watch. “Twenty-two minutes ago.”
“What’s your next step then?”
She sat down in the rocker and gazed off toward Chuparrosa Mesa. “Someone must have seen her shortly before she was struck. Did someone pick her up in the village? Was she walking up to the hot springs?”
“Late at night?”
“Who knows. And we don’t know what time she was hit either. She could have been lying there for some time. It had to have taken her some time to crawl up to the highway.”
“It’s hard to imagine, the way she was hurt.”
“Sheriff Tate said that they’re still in the process of running a complete background on her. He’ll let me know.” She made a face of frustration and leaned forward in the chair. “Not a single piece of evidence to tie in a vehicle of any kind, Tate said. No paint chips, no nothing. And…”
“And what?”
“And that’s not what really bothers me.”
“What does, then?”
“Daisy bothers me, sir.”
I said nothing and watched Estelle’s face as her agile brain sifted the facts.
She shook her head after a minute. “I hate to think of her up there with those two creeps.”
“We don’t know anything about Finn, Estelle. He says he’s the girl’s uncle. If he really is, the Department of Social Services will never give you a court order unless you can prove abuse or neglect or something like that. And if Finn’s lying to us, it’ll still take a while for a court order. And there’s one other possibility, too.”
“What’s that?”
“We don’t know for certain that the child is Cecilia Burgess’s daughter. We’re making an assumption just because her name is Daisy.”
“Come on, sir,” Estelle said in a rare display of contention. “Who else would she be? Coincidence is one thing, but that would be ridiculous. She even looks like Cecilia.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I couldn’t tell you. And little kids all look alike to me. I’m just tossing it out as another possibility, that’s all. Farfetched, but a possibility. And maybe Finn is telling the truth. But trust Tate to dig it out. He’s a ferret.” I sighed deeply and stretched. “I’m glad it’s not my worry.”
Estelle looked at me over the top of her coffee cup. “Give me another dozen hours, and you’ll be so tied up in this case you won’t be able to sleep at night, let alone go home.” She grinned. “
Como dos y dos son quatro
, as
mi madre
would say. And besides, I need your help.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Another hike like today’s and you’ll be attending my funeral. You’ve got Deputy Garcia. Walk his young legs off.”
“Exactly,” Estelle said. “We’re going to find an eyewitness if we have to talk with every soul in this valley. Everybody. I asked Paul to talk with as many folks as he could, to see if anyone remembers catching a glimpse of a vehicle late last night. Especially a pickup.”
“There’s thousands of pickups around here.”
“We have to start somewhere.”
I nodded and listened to a long, plaintive growl from my stomach. “And when do we eat?”
“As soon as Francis comes home.”
I groaned. “My God! We have to wait on a country doctor? It’s apt to be midnight. I’ll be dead by then.”
Estelle laughed. “I’ll get you a beer, some chips, and salsa. That’ll tide you over. Really, he won’t be long.”
She got up and said over her shoulder as she disappeared into the house, “And I need to ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Just a second.” After a bit she returned and set the promised snacks on the porch floor beside my chair. She handed me the beer. “I need you to talk with somebody for me.”
“Who?”
“Father Nolan Parris. At the retreat house.”
I regarded Estelle with interest. “He’s the monk or friar or whatever you call ’em who was hanging out with Cecilia?”
“According to rumor.”
“He might know something. I wonder if he drives a truck.”
“A priest? No, I don’t think so.”
“Well,” I sighed, “it’s a place to start.”
Estelle grinned. “It’ll give you something to do.”
I shrugged, convinced for about thirty seconds that the reason Estelle Reyes-Guzman was asking me to talk with Parris was because of the vast years of experience I had under my belt. And then, looking across the porch in the failing light and seeing the last bits of summer sunshine play around the planes of her face, I realized Estelle’s request was astute. If she arrived at the Catholic retreat complex in uniform, there’d be talk. If she strolled in to visit in civvies, there’d be even more talk, all of the wrong kind. What could be more innocent than one old man visiting another?
“It’ll cost you several beers,” I said. I expected jocular agreement, but Estelle shook her head.
“We need to talk with Parris tonight.” She pulled a small photograph from her blouse pocket. It was a picture of Cecilia Burgess, the posed kind with the misty background that college yearbooks favor. “Make sure he looks at this.” She handed the picture to me. “See if you can get him to hold it just the way you are right now.”
I frowned. “Where’d you get this?”
“She lived in one of the small back rooms at the trading post when she wasn’t up at the springs with Finn. Garcia let me in. There wasn’t much there. Just some clothes and things. The picture was being used as a page marker in a children’s book.”
“And you want Parris’s prints?”
“I want a thumbprint.”
“Parris doesn’t have any kind of record where his prints were taken? Passport, anything like that?”
Estelle shook her head. “Not that we can find.”
“And what good will his prints do, anyway?”
“Remember the guardrail? The bloody prints, top and bottom? We assumed Cecilia Burgess somehow pulled herself over or under the rail.”
“You’re telling me the prints we saw aren’t hers…she had help?”
“That’s right. The prints aren’t hers. That’s what Sheriff Tate told me over the phone when he called to tell me Burgess died.”
“What about that guy who stopped and called on the CB radio? Maybe he tried to help her.”
“He said he didn’t. And he’s a state employee. Works in the Department of Revenue and Taxation. His prints were easy to doublecheck. He’s clean.”
“And no luck on what’s his name, with the Forest Service? He was there before you were.”
“Les Cook? He’s a cop. Not a chance.”
“Then someone else was there and split,” I said. Estelle nodded. “Might have been the driver of the vehicle, maybe someone else.” I cleaned off the photo with my handkerchief and carefully slid it in my pocket. “I’ll get Parris’s prints for you. And I suppose this means we’re going to have to walk all the way back up to the hot springs, too.”
“The prints don’t match Arajanian’s. Tate already checked for me. We don’t know about Finn. So yes, we need to go back.” I groaned at the thought of this exercise business becoming a habit.
Estelle and I ate dinner without her hubby. Francis called from the clinic just about the time Estelle had to turn on some lights so we wouldn’t trip over the furniture. He’d been about to leave for home when an Indian woman walked through the door with a sick youngster.
The stoic little kid had been flinching from a middle ear infection for several days, and the infection had bloomed. When his temperature spiked through 104 degrees, the mother decided herbs weren’t enough. The kid had himself a fine case of infectious meningitis.
Estelle sighed with resignation when Francis told her he wouldn’t be home much before midnight. After the youngster was transferred to Albuquerque, Francis wanted to follow up with a visit to the pueblo to see with whom the kid had come in contact.
The two chatted for a few minutes, and when Estelle hung up I smiled. “Marry a doctor and you starve to death.”
“Usually, it’s me who gets called out at all hours,” Estelle replied.
I leaned against the refrigerator and watched her cook. The kitchen was as tiny and cramped as the rest of the house, and I took it in at a glance. The row of bottles on the narrow windowsill above the sink surprised me—a whole alphabet of vitamins, minerals, and human fuel treatments. I reached over and picked up the largest, a collection of vitamin E capsules.
“I thought you always said that green chili cured all,” I said. She glanced my way and I put the bottle back.
“Francis wants to make sure the baby gets everything he needs,” she replied as offhandedly as if she’d remarked on the weather.
She laughed at the blank look on my face and went back to chopping onions.
“Well, congratulations,” I said. “When?”
“When what?”
“When’s it due?”
She took a deep breath. “February 10.”
I laughed. She even had that event pegged to the day. “That’s great. Does Sheriff Tate know?”
Estelle shook her head. “Francis and I agreed that I’d go on leave in October. That’s soon enough.”
“Then what?”
“We’re not sure. I don’t think I want to work.” She grinned widely. “I don’t think I want to face the wrath of
mi madre
. She’d never speak to me again if I left her grandson in a day-care center.”
“You two will work it out I’m sure,” I said. I picked up a loaded plate and carried it over to the table. She’d called it frijoles con something, and the food was so damn hot I accused her of serving it with a sauce of lit gasoline. But the spices—and the news about the pending kid—perked me up.
As we ate, our conversation kept circling back around to Cecilia Burgess and her boyfriends. Estelle wanted me to visit Father Nolan Parris, and there was no better time than that evening.
Shortly before nine, feeling fat from too much high-octane dinner, I arrived at the retreat complex just north of the village. As the crow flies the place was less than a mile from Estelle’s home.
The center included several small buildings clustered around a large three-story house. Monstrous cottonwoods shaded the complex and blocked out what little light there might have been from passing traffic, the moon, or even starshine.
Estelle hadn’t needed to worry about being seen by the wrong folks if she visited Parris. It was too dark for starting rumors. I parked the Blazer behind an older model Fairlane station wagon. A single bulb beside the double front door of the main house illuminated enough of the siding and porch to show that the facility was well maintained. I opened the door of the Blazer and listened. The compound was stone quiet. Maybe the clergy were in the middle of their late evening services.
The three raps of the brass knocker were loud enough to make me flinch. I formed a mental picture of a row of bowed, maybe even shaved, heads snapping up at the sound and nervous hands clutching rosaries.
The retreat was for clergy who had strayed from the straight and narrow. Some may have nipped the bottle too often…maybe a few dallied with members of the fair sex—or even with their own sex. “I think it’s sort of a second chance house,” Estelle had said and that made sense. If a priest couldn’t concentrate on his prayers here, he was probably out of luck.
The right-hand side of the double doors opened and an elderly cleric peered out at me. I shouldn’t say elderly…hell, he was about my age, maybe a year or two younger. He wore basic black, without the Roman collar.
“Good evening,” I said and held my identification up so he could see it through the screen door. I adopted my most accommodating tone. “I wonder if it would be convenient for me to visit with Father Parris?” The priest squinted at the badge and commission card, and I wondered if he could read it well enough to see the county name.
His watery gray eyes flicked from the identification to my face, and I put the wallet away. “Well,” he said and placed one hand on the screen door like he was preparing to push it open for me, “this isn’t the best of times.”
“I won’t need much of his time,” I said. “And it would really be a help.”
He started to push open the door, then asked, “You may have to wait a moment or two. May I tell him who’s calling?”
The doorkeeper had just flunked the reading test. I could just as easily have held up my Sears card. “Undersheriff Bill Gastner.” He’d forgive a minor sin of omission. I opened the screen the rest of the way and stepped inside.
“If you’d care to wait here, in the front room?” the priest said, indicating a small parlor crowded with overstuffed furniture and a small upright piano. “I’ll fetch Father Parris.” He touched my elbow lightly as he guided me into the room and then left.
I thrust my hands in my pockets and gazed around. I stepped over and perused the titles in the single bookcase. Most were Reader’s Digest chopped editions. If the good fathers had a theological library, this wasn’t it. I turned at the sound of footsteps.
“Father Parris will be down in a few minutes,” the priest said and smiled. “Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee or something?”
“No thanks. Appreciate it though.”
He nodded and left. I sat down in one of the chairs and found that it supported me in all the wrong places. I perched forward on the edge of the cushion, clasped my hands together, rested my forearms on my knees, and waited. After about two minutes, I noticed that there were no ashtrays in the room. I took a deep breath and occupied my mind by trying to imagine what Parris looked like. In another minute, I had my answer. My guess hadn’t been close.
Nolan Parris stepped into the doorway of the parlor and stopped. He rested a hand on the jamb. He was short, no more than five feet five and handsome in a well-oiled sort of way. His black hair was carefully trimmed with the part just off-center, and he kept the sideburns short. He wore gold wire-rimmed glasses, and his brown eyes glanced around the room when he first came in as if I might have company hiding behind the furniture.
I guessed that he was no more than thirty-five, just beginning to soften around the edges and expand at the gut. And he was pale, like a man just risen from bed after two weeks with the flu.
“Good evening,” he said cautiously.
I rose and extended my hand. “Father Parris?”
“Nolan Parris, yes.” He entered the room and limped to the center of the carpet, where I met him. His perfunctory handshake expended two pumps. “Do I know you?”
Once again I pulled out my identification. Parris looked at it and a muscle in his jaw twitched. He nodded and gestured toward a chair. “Please.”
“Father Parris, I’m assisting Deputy Guzman with an investigation of a pedestrian accident earlier today up the canyon.” A pained look swept briefly across his face. He was wearing slippers, and his right sock was bulging around what was probably an elastic bandage. I didn’t know if the grimace was because of the ankle or my announcement. “Perhaps you heard about it.”
He nodded. Something was interesting in the pile of the old purple carpeting in that room, because that’s all Parris was looking at. “I heard about it, yes.”
“Would you take a look at this, please?” I held out the picture of Cecilia Burgess, and Parris took it. With satisfaction I saw his thumb clamp down on the bottom margin of the photo. “Do you know the young lady?”
“Yes, of course, Cecilia Burgess. I’ve known her and her family for years.” He took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out with a slight shake of his head. He handed the photograph back.
“Her family? She has relatives in the area?”
Parris shook his head. “No longer. Her parents died when she was quite young. For a time she was living with her brother in Albuquerque.”
“Where’s her brother now?”
“Richard’s dead. About five years ago.”
“How did that happen?”
Parris took his time collecting his thoughts before he said, “He was riding his motorcycle on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. A pickup truck ran the red light at Washington. Richard wasn’t wearing a helmet. It probably wouldn’t have done any good even if he had been.”
I grimaced. “Hard luck family. And he was her only brother? No others? Sisters?” Parris shook his head. “What did the brother do?” Parris glanced up at me, puzzled. “His line of work?” I added patiently.
“He was a priest.” Parris hesitated and watched me pull a small notebook out of my hip pocket. When my ballpoint was ready, he added, “We attended seminary together.”
“He was older than Cecilia?”
“Yes. By about twelve years.”
“What was your relationship with Cecilia?”
Parris eyed the carpet again. “We were good friends. As I said, we’d known each other for years.”
I paused and stuck the pen in my mouth. “Father Parris, are you aware of what happened last night?” Parris nodded. His eyes were closed. I waited until he opened them and looked at me. “Would you tell me how you found out?”
Parris slumped back in the chair, and his left hand strayed to his pectoral cross. He toyed with it for a minute, then clasped his hands together. “I heard all the sirens, of course. And then this morning I had occasion to drive into the village. I sprained my ankle last night, and I needed an elastic support. Orlando Garcia, at the trading post, saw me and asked if I’d heard.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I called the clinic immediately.”
“Do you remember what time that was?”
Parris pursed his lips and glanced at his wristwatch, as if the hands might have stopped at the moment in question. “Mid-morning. It was shortly after I’d finished mass here.”
“And then?”
“They told me that Cecilia had been transferred to Albuquerque. To Presbyterian. I drove into the city immediately.”
“So you were aware of the extent of her injuries?”
Nolan Parris stood up with a grunt and limped across to the bookcase. He rested both hands on the top shelf for support. I waited. Finally he said, “I administered last rites. I was there when she died.” He turned and looked at me without releasing his grip on the bookcase. “I made arrangements. A friend of mine at Sacred Heart will say rosary and mass, probably tomorrow. I did all I could. And then I drove back here.”
“Father, are you aware that Cecilia was pregnant?”
“Yes.” His lack of hesitation surprised me.
“Do you know who the father was?”
“I’m not sure I understand how that is relevant to the investigation of the accident,” Parris said without much conviction.
“Do you know?”
He pushed away from the bookcase and sat down on the only straight-backed chair in the room. “I can’t imagine what good these explorations into Cecilia’s private life can do now.”
“Father Parris, a hit-and-run is homicide.” Parris’s face flushed, and his shoulders sagged a little. “So you see, information of any kind might be helpful to us.”
Parris bowed his head, and for a moment I was afraid he’d sunken into one of those hour-long prayers. Eventually, he looked up at me. “Yes, I know who the father was. Or I should say, I know who she said he was.”
“And who’s that?”
“A fellow by the name of Finn.”
“First name?”
“I’m not sure. They’re just initials I think. H.P. maybe. Something like that.”
“Are you aware of where Mr. Finn lives?”
“Oh, he lives around here, all right.” Parris almost chuckled, the sound coming out like more of a snort. “Up at the hot springs. He and a
friend
camp out there.” He stressed the word
friend
.
“Do you know the friend?”
“No. But I’ve seen him once or twice. And Cecilia mentioned him now and again. A younger man, I believe.”
“And so you think Finn is the father?”
“Cecilia said he was. She said he paid one or two of her bills at the health clinic.”
“Did Cecilia Burgess have any other children?”
The question seemed to catch Parris off-guard. He watched the rug patterns for a long minute, then settled for a simple shake of the head. A very small shake.
“So the little girl who’s staying with Finn—Daisy, I think her name is—isn’t Cecilia Burgess’s child?”
“No, not as far…” Parris stopped abruptly. His face was anguished. “No, I’m not going to do that.” He was speaking more to himself than to me, and I remained silent. His features twisted with some internal struggle, and I thought for a moment that the young priest was going to weep.
He closed his eyes again for a while, then got out of the chair, limped to the door, and gently closed it.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Forgive me. This is hard.” He made his way slowly to the chair nearest mine. I said nothing, letting him take his time. He surprised me with a faint grin. “I feel as if I’m in the confessional.”
“Some different laws apply,” I said gently.
He nodded sad agreement with that. “The girl living with Finn is my daughter.”
“And Cecilia’s?” I prompted.
“Yes,” Father Nolan Parris said. He looked relieved.