smoking and stroking his coffee cup. “He’s deaf, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Francis said. Lucy looked at him expectantly, as if he was supposed to produce a pocket cure for deafness on the spot. “You have a nice day,” he said.
Lucy snorted. “Ain’t they all?”
Outside, Francis waited while Estelle unlocked the car, and then he slid into the passenger seat. “So…Eurelio’s nervous, and on top of that, he lives right over there?” He pointed at the tavern, its adobe bulk visible beyond the corner of the service station. “He’s sure in the neighborhood, isn’t he?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Well, now you can lie awake all night long, tossing and turning.”
Estelle smiled as she pulled the car into gear. “You catch me, okay?”
Chapter Nine
Estelle looked at the vast mess in the middle of the kitchen linoleum with satisfaction. The original four colors of the modeling clay bricks were fused into one amorphous brown hue through long sessions of mangling, and were now sculpted, carved, and twisted into shapes that would have made Dalí’s head spin.
Five-year-old Francisco built upward, squishing the clay into columns that supported odd creatures who lurked atop their pedestals. Carlos let his creations fan outward, preferring the horizontal line. The clay smashed into roadways along which strange vehicles gouged their way toward destinations unknown. The two youngsters chattered constantly to their father as they built. Francis presided over the vast conglomeration, lying on his side on the floor, his pager mercifully silent.
In her favorite spot in the north corner of the living room, engulfed by the wings of the overstuffed chair, Estelle’s mother dozed, her hands folded in her lap. To the right of her chair within easy reach, her incongruously high-tech aluminum walker waited. On the end table to her left was a small brown thing Francisco had fashioned from the clay. Looking like a prairie dog who had tried to stand up on his hind legs to whistle and then had begun to melt in the sun, the creature’s two eyes guarded the old woman while she slept.
Irma Sedillos, convinced that each member of the family was finally on the mend, had gone home after dinner, first to tend to her cats and then to spend time with her patient boyfriend, Manny Garcia. Manny, a math teacher and three-sport middle and high school coach, could count the number of his free evenings each week on one finger—and Monday was it.
Estelle sat at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad in front of her. Over her right shoulder on the wall behind her were the three ancient
retablos
of
los Tres Santos
from whom the tiny village had taken its name, and that Estelle’s mother had refused to leave unattended in Mexico.
Los Santos
Mateo, Ignacio, and Patricio, each carved in cottonwood that had cracked and polished over the decades, watched in silence as Estelle sketched on the pad.
As if the two sips of awful tea at Lucy’s had destroyed the last vestiges of pathogens in her system, she felt a deep sense of contentment and well-being. Part of that contentment was being able to glance up and see every member of her inner universe at once—the boys and her husband playing on the kitchen floor, her mother napping peacefully across the living room. Her contentment, she knew, also was familiar to people addicted to jigsaw puzzles when they first broke the cellophane wrapping from around a new challenge and dumped the pieces out on the table.
The first five pieces of the undersheriff’s puzzle lay in front of her. In neat black ink, she had drawn the transmission line support tower, the service two-track, Juan Doe’s grave, the shovel, and far to the left edge of the paper, the site where the first victim, John Doe, had been found. In a tiny bracket, she had written the measured distance between the two victims—1,740 yards, give or take a detour or two around bushes and cacti. John Doe had managed
“I didn’t know,” Francis said. Lucy looked at him expectantly, as if he was supposed to produce a pocket cure for deafness on the spot. “You have a nice day,” he said.
Lucy snorted. “Ain’t they all?”
Outside, Francis waited while Estelle unlocked the car, and then he slid into the passenger seat. “So…Eurelio’s nervous, and on top of that, he lives right over there?” He pointed at the tavern, its adobe bulk visible beyond the corner of the service station. “He’s sure in the neighborhood, isn’t he?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Well, now you can lie awake all night long, tossing and turning.”
Estelle smiled as she pulled the car into gear. “You catch me, okay?”
Chapter Nine
Estelle looked at the vast mess in the middle of the kitchen linoleum with satisfaction. The original four colors of the modeling clay bricks were fused into one amorphous brown hue through long sessions of mangling, and were now sculpted, carved, and twisted into shapes that would have made Dalí’s head spin.
Five-year-old Francisco built upward, squishing the clay into columns that supported odd creatures who lurked atop their pedestals. Carlos let his creations fan outward, preferring the horizontal line. The clay smashed into roadways along which strange vehicles gouged their way toward destinations unknown. The two youngsters chattered constantly to their father as they built. Francis presided over the vast conglomeration, lying on his side on the floor, his pager mercifully silent.
In her favorite spot in the north corner of the living room, engulfed by the wings of the overstuffed chair, Estelle’s mother dozed, her hands folded in her lap. To the right of her chair within easy reach, her incongruously high-tech aluminum walker waited. On the end table to her left was a small brown thing Francisco had fashioned from the clay. Looking like a prairie dog who had tried to stand up on his hind legs to whistle and then had begun to melt in the sun, the creature’s two eyes guarded the old woman while she slept.
Irma Sedillos, convinced that each member of the family was finally on the mend, had gone home after dinner, first to tend to her cats and then to spend time with her patient boyfriend, Manny Garcia. Manny, a math teacher and three-sport middle and high school coach, could count the number of his free evenings each week on one finger—and Monday was it.
Estelle sat at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad in front of her. Over her right shoulder on the wall behind her were the three ancient
retablos
of
los Tres Santos
from whom the tiny village had taken its name, and that Estelle’s mother had refused to leave unattended in Mexico.
Los Santos
Mateo, Ignacio, and Patricio, each carved in cottonwood that had cracked and polished over the decades, watched in silence as Estelle sketched on the pad.
As if the two sips of awful tea at Lucy’s had destroyed the last vestiges of pathogens in her system, she felt a deep sense of contentment and well-being. Part of that contentment was being able to glance up and see every member of her inner universe at once—the boys and her husband playing on the kitchen floor, her mother napping peacefully across the living room. Her contentment, she knew, also was familiar to people addicted to jigsaw puzzles when they first broke the cellophane wrapping from around a new challenge and dumped the pieces out on the table.
The first five pieces of the undersheriff’s puzzle lay in front of her. In neat black ink, she had drawn the transmission line support tower, the service two-track, Juan Doe’s grave, the shovel, and far to the left edge of the paper, the site where the first victim, John Doe, had been found. In a tiny bracket, she had written the measured distance between the two victims—1,740 yards, give or take a detour or two around bushes and cacti. John Doe had managed
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