Blood Sweep (23 page)

“Yup.”

“So…what's the deal with him, anyway? Is the campaign heating up or something?” Pointing an accusatory finger at Torrez, Gastner said to Naranjo, “You know, it's really hard to get this guy off the campaign trail long enough to take care of business. A real
politico,
he is
.”

Torrez managed a brittle smile.

Gastner's shaggy right eyebrow lifted as he regarded the sheriff. “Steward's a point of interest in all this somehow?”

“I'm thinkin' maybe, is all. Somehow.”

“That's some precise thinking, Bobby.” For a long moment, Gastner sat silently, gazing down at his toes. “Then talk to Miles, Bobby. He's discreet, he minds his own business, but he's also observant. If something is going on that involves his project, he's the one to talk to.” He looked askance at Torrez. “Not that it's any of my business, but what's your interest in Steward? What's got you thinking down those lines? I never thought him to be much more than a harmless wannabe.”

“Just thinkin',” Torrez said.

“About?”

“Olveda has been out to the mesa a couple of times, and at least once he brought Quesada along with him. So they know each other.”

“And Quesada is…remember you're dealing with my failing post-op memory, Bobby.”

“The sniper.”

“The
dead
sniper.”

“Yup.”

“And so…Steward? What's the bee in your bonnet about him?”

“Olveda has talked with him. At one point, they were together out at Waddell's. Quesada, too. I've been tryin' to think who would be in a position to know if I was out there on that property. Who would know that I was huntin'.”

“Half of Posadas, most likely.” Gastner heaved a careful sigh, shifting position ever so slightly. “I'd say you were grasping at straws, Roberto. Except,” he nodded in resignation, “we know how the tendrils wind around,” and he flashed a smile at Estelle. “And isn't
that
goddamn poetic? But
somebody
knew. You're absolutely right on that. That somebody flanked you, took a shot, and high-tailed it out of there. So—
somebody
knew.” He looked up sharply. “What's the kid Bueler say?”

“Ain't talked to him much, but he keeps it to himself.”

Gastner made a wry face. “Well, you
should
talk to him. Somebody as quiet as he is—he's spending time
thinking.
Like some other people I know. And listen to me, now. Such a big help.” Shifting again on the bed, he patted Estelle's hand, still clamped on his right shoulder. “How's the kid doing with his concert?”

“He comes home Sunday.”

“You're sorry about that, huh?”

“Oh, s
í.”

“
I am trying my best to convince her to go to the final concert tomorrow night,” Naranjo said. “She and Francis would be welcome guests.”

“There you go,” Gastner nodded. “Don't let that opportunity slide by.”

Naranjo held up both hands. “And if you wish, if
he
wishes, the young virtuoso can come home with us. He, as well, more than welcome. I…”

Torrez took a step backward as he pulled his phone off his belt, and at the same time, Estelle felt the familiar vibration in her jacket pocket.

“Torrez,” the sheriff answered, and he opened the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. Estelle saw that her message was from Sergeant Jackie Taber, and she said only, “Hold on a second, Jackie.”

Torrez listened intently, his face expressionless. “Yup,” he said finally. “I'm on my way. Shut things down. Get the SPs workin' the interstate.” He snapped his phone off.

“The sheriff just got the message,” Jackie said to Estelle. “You're both at the hospital?”

“Yes. Colonel Naranjo is with us.”

“Might as well bring him along. You might need him,” Jackie said.

“And find Olveda,” Estelle said. “Wherever he is, find him.”

Torrez was already out in the hall, hands on his hips, his face now dark and furious.

“Ride with us?” she asked Naranjo. “We'll make sure you have a ride back.”

“Absolutely. I am most interested.”

He nodded and turned toward Gastner, holding out a hand. “I'll visit again, old friend. Sometime when the world is not coming down around our ears.” His smile was sympathetic. “It is hard to be…what is it that the sports announcers say? Benched?”

Estelle took time to give Gastner a quick hug. “Don't go away,” she said.

All three had cleared the room as the nurse returned, along with Dr. Patel.

“Hell of a deal,” the old man muttered, reflecting with some irritation that the substance of the phone call had never been mentioned. Even Tomás Naranjo, who had not been privy to either call, seemed to know what the emergency was…either that or his magnificent patience was in tight control as he left with the others.

“It's nice to have such good friends, isn't it?” Patel said cheerfully.

“I don't know about that,” Gastner said. He watched with resignation as the physician read his chart, concentrating as if he'd never set eyes on it before this moment.

The hospital room door opened without a knock, just far enough to allow Estelle Reyes-Guzman to slip in. “Excuse me again, for just a moment,” she said to Dr. Patel, and he backed up a few steps, still chart hopping.

Estelle put a hand on each of Gastner's shoulders and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I'm sorry,
Padrino.
I should have told you. Mazón has escaped.” She nodded in resignation. “I'll get back to you as soon as I can.” And then she was gone.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The drive west to Posadas—a mere forty-eight miles from exit to exit—took hours…or so it seemed to Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman. With all his opportunity before Estelle had taken Benedicte Mazón into custody—and even afterward, if he was as quick and strong as he appeared—the prisoner had chosen his time with exquisite care, and likely with clear purpose.

Why hadn't he simply taken a walk in Las Cruces, when he had ample chance? His behavior was too easy for a desperate man. He had
allowed
himself to be arrested. A calculated risk—but calculated for what? The logical conclusion was that the man had unfinished business in Posadas. He couldn't be so naive as to expect that the undersheriff would run interference for him with Mexican authorities, no matter what tall tale of familial relationships he relied upon.

Torrez and Naranjo remained silent during the forty minutes on the interstate. Estelle wanted nothing more than to plant the Charger's accelerator pedal flat to the floor, but she forced patience, keeping below a hundred. Despite the blur of guard rails and the other traffic that stood still, the wait was agony.

Estelle hadn't asked, during her brief telephone conversation with Jackie Taber,
how
Mazón had managed to escape. Granted, the Posadas County lockup was no high security Leavenworth. Still, the renovation of the county building a dozen years before had included upgrades—cameras, new doors and hardware. No amount of digging with an old spoon, or sweating with a hacksaw blade would do the job. Mazón was smart enough to know that. The last escape from Posadas custody had been in 1952, long before mandated renovations, when Bobby Barton had simply walked out through an unlocked door. Nothing that simple could have presented itself to the Mexican.

Within the hour, Dispatcher Mike Sands faced the sheriff, undersheriff, and a colonel of the Mexican
Judiciales,
and tried his best to explain exactly what
had
happened. At 8:16 that evening—just about the time the undersheriff, Bobby Torrez, and Tomás Naranjo had been greeting Bill Gastner back at the Las Cruces hospital—Mazón had been the only guest in the Posadas County jail, awaiting a decision by the ponderous wheels of justice that would not come until the next day.

Earlier, Estelle had deliberately stayed clear of the man during the initial processing and incarceration—Mazón was too good a salesman, his tales of tragedy in the river too compelling.

The county itself was quiet at 8:16, still several hours away from the predictable Friday night witching hour when the bars turned up the volume.

The young dispatcher, just turned twenty-two and now, as he faced the grim trio of officers, so nervous that his lower lip seemed to have a life of its own, tried to stand still as he recited the events leading to the prisoner's escape. They stood just outside the cell door, the aroma of the incident strong.

The young man's first thought, naturally enough, was fault—regardless of how it happened, the escape had occurred on his shift. A single corrections officer, Benny Montoya, had been on duty upstairs, no doubt preparing for increased Friday night business. Benny was now downstairs, typing up his version.

“Everything was quiet, and Benny was in the john. I went upstairs for just a minute to check on the prisoner,” Mike Sands related. “I get here and Mazón is half out of bed, as if he had been crawling across the floor and then tried to pull himself back up on the cot.”

“And in distress?” Estelle asked. Bob Torrez rested his shoulder against the steel doorjamb, eyes riveted on Sands' pale face. Naranjo stood silently, hands folded at his waist, managing to project an air of authority even though this was not his department, not even his country.

“He looked awful,” Sands said. “He'd soiled himself, and I could smell the urine, you know? His left arm was clamped across his chest, with his fist tight up under his chin.” Sands mimicked the motion, and Estelle felt a turn—the gesture was exactly the one that her youngest son, Carlos, adopted when unsure of himself, or worried, or frightened, or even delighted beyond endurance. “His right hand was grabbed onto his left elbow.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“No. I don't even think he knew that I was there. Just gasping, I mean long and shaky, almost like sobs. Like he couldn't get enough air. He was just staring at the floor, and I could see he was bleeding from his right nostril.”

“Actively bleeding, or just some blood smear?”

“No…it was running down over his upper lip.”

“You did the right thing,” Estelle told the shaken young man. Sands, on the job for less than two months, had indeed known what
not
to do. He did not open the cell door. Instead, he pounded on the bathroom door, yelling for Benny, then dashed downstairs and called for an ambulance. Without a pause, he then radioed the only deputy on duty in Posadas County, Thomas Pasquale, for assistance. Pasquale was cruising contentedly twenty-six miles south on State 56, enjoying the final cup of coffee from his Thermos and waiting for drunks to start leaving the Broken Spur Saloon.

Still feeling adrift, even as Pasquale's patrol unit hurtled northbound toward the village, Sands called his shift sergeant, Jackie Taber, and Lieutenant Tom Mears.

Before Sands could question Mears' emphatic instructions
not
to try first aid,
not
to enter the cell by himself, the ambulance arrived with Matty Finnegan and Barbara Carl on board. By then Benny Montoya
had
entered the cell, and was in the process of assessing the prisoner's condition.

Because the cheerful Matty was the senior EMT of the outfit, Ms. Carl, fiftyish and a good, solid rookie, was gaining experience behind the wheel. She took the time to off-load the gurney while Matty sprinted inside.

“I could tell he was in a bad way,” Sands said. “Benny wasn't making any headway with him, and it looked like he was starting to convulse. When the EMTs got here, I stayed outside the cell to secure the hallway. His breath was all choppy-like, and I heard Matty say something about 165…his pulse, I guess.”

“What did you think was happening?”

Sands wore the first aid responder patch on the shoulder of his uniform shirt, so he'd completed the first step in his training process, and should have been able to begin the patient evaluation.

“Heart attack maybe, blood clot. I wasn't sure, 'cause his lips weren't blue. The blood from his nose? I didn't know about that. Maybe he just whacked his face against the frame of the cot. I knew they were going to transport, though. Matty got the IV for saline in quick and easy, and then we strapped him down and shot out to the ambulance.”

Estelle remained silent and let Sands fidget. So far, his recitation of events had matched Benny Montoya's perfectly. What had been Mazón's plan at that point? She remembered his calm, polite demeanor in Las Cruces earlier in the day, even his patience in the Posadas cell after he was locked up.

And then he had ample time to think and plan. Even if he had never visited the facility, he would have known that, in a village as small as Posadas, the modest hospital would be just a few blocks at most from the county building. The ambulance ride would require but a minute or two.

“Was there ever a moment when it appeared that the prisoner was resisting the EMTs?”

“No, ma'am. I mean, he was
out
of it.”

Estelle turned to Torrez. “Mazón would know that the saline IV was standard,” Estelle said. “It wouldn't hurt him a bit. He might have guessed that the EMTs would administer nothing more risky until the hospital's ER staff had done some kind of emergency workup.” She stepped farther into the cell, avoiding the mess on the floor near the cot, and then turned to Sands.

“During all of this, did the prisoner say anything at all? Anything at all?”

“No, ma'am. He didn't look like he
could
talk.”

Estelle thumbed back a page or two in her pocket notebook. “Deputy Pasquale arrived at the hospital about seven minutes after the escape,” she mused, “just moments after the ambulance reached the hospital.” As she read her notes, she knew that the only two officers
not
scouring the neighborhood for the fugitive were herself and Bobby Torrez…every deputy in the department had been pulled in, along with calls to State Police, Border Patrol, and Customs—even the sole Game and Fish officer in the district. But Estelle was not optimistic. Mazón had chosen the cover of darkness, and that escalated his chances. Logically, he would head south, since he knew his nemesis, Colonel Tomás Naranjo, was now in the country.

“Why now?” Torrez straightened up, surveyed the cell once more, and then jerked his thumb at Sands in a brusque “out” command. “Soon as Linda has all this documented, you and Martinez can go ahead and clean up.”

Mr. Soft Touch,
Estelle thought. To make sure the young dispatcher understood, she added, “You did everything you could have, and everything you
should
have, Mike. Nobody was hurt, and the rest will take care of itself. That's the important thing now. Get your written deposition finished today.”

“You bet. Right now.”

“So…why does he pull this stunt now?” Torrez repeated as the stairway door closed behind Sands.

“Mazón must know,” Estelle said slowly, “that the odds are good that if he stays in our custody, we'll turn him over to Colonel Naranjo, one way or another. At the moment, we have nothing concrete to hold Mazón here, other than illegal entry, and what's the penalty for that?”

“Nothin' yet,” Torrez added.

“He doesn't know for sure what he's facing here, but in Mexico, he's up against two capital charges, going up against those carrying a lengthy prison record. Not good. That's not a gamble he wanted to take when it became clear to him that I wasn't going to cooperate with him in any fashion. That's why he didn't just duck out in Las Cruces. There was always the slim chance that I'd cave, that I'd cover for him in some way. Then he saw that wasn't going to happen. He saw a good chance when we decided to return to Las Cruces.”

“Yep, but it takes a while to arrange an extradition, and who knows what might happen in the meantime. Be nice if we could just dump him over the fence.” He glanced at the colonel, who remained a silent spectator, then regarded Estelle as if she should have all the answers. “So where's he goin'?”

“I don't know. He's smooth, Bobby. He made it into this country without a hiccup. Maybe drove to Posadas, found Quesada. Then he decided to meet with me on neutral ground—the hospital in Las Cruces, and at that point, who knows what he thought he could accomplish. Sanctuary after a fashion?” She flashed a quick smile. “Did he think I'd say, ‘Hey, beloved Uncle…at long last! Don't worry—I won't tell the good colonel that you're here.'”

“So where's he headed?” Torrez persisted.

“I don't know. All I can say is that I'd be
very
surprised if
we
catch him
.
This is not a man who makes clumsy moves. He's just thirty miles from the border at this point, and I can't imagine that's much of a challenge for him.”

“Don't know about that,” Torrez grumbled. “The Mexicans had him in jail for twenty years or so. He got clumsy somewhere along the line.”

Naranjo chuckled. “I like the way you put things in focus, Sheriff.”

Estelle shuffled pages in her notes and scanned the interview with Matty Finnegan, loathe to waste another moment pondering what
had
happened, instead of being out in the night, probing the shadows. But there might be hints.

An IV for saline was quick and easy, and Mazón was strapped in and transported downstairs and out into the ambulance. That's what dispatcher Sands and jailer Benny Montoya related, and the EMTs corroborated. It was simple, really. Mazón couldn't break out of jail. But an ambulance was far from high security, even though, now without any other prisoners to supervise, jailer Montoya had gone along for the ride. The ambulance reached Posadas General Hospital: Benedicte Mazón did not.

EMT Matty Finnegan had been stunned. One moment she was working every angle she could to keep her patient alive during five blocks of transit, and the next she was caught around the neck by one of the cables yanked from one of the monitors, Mazón's saline drip swept to one side, a free hand popping the clasps of the gurney restraints. Both Matty and Barbara Carl remembered Mazón's single line clearly as he twisted the cable, speaking directly into Matty's left ear.

“Stay off the radio and the phone.” It was spoken with such polite command that Barbara almost collided with one of the portico pillars outside the emergency room doors. With a certain amount of loyalty, no one wanted to discuss Montoya's performance. A small, chubby man, Montoya had frozen—and maybe that was a good thing for Matty's welfare.

And then, moments before Deputy Pasquale arrived, only minutes before Sergeant Taber and Lieutenant Mears had responded as well, Benedicte Mazón was away into the night.

“Did he have any other weapon in his possession?” Estelle had asked, and Matty shook her head. She had been close to tears, but more angry than frightened.

“I remembered what you guys always say,” she had whispered. “What's important is to be able to go home at the end of the shift.” Her eyes were steady as she met the officers' gaze. “I'm no hero and neither are the others. If he wants to run off into the night…” Matty Finnegan shrugged. “He convinced me that he was sick, I mean
really
sick. That's why I didn't wait for Tommy to arrive with cuffs. I
really
thought there was a better than even chance that we were going to lose him. And you know, I still do. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if we find him in a puddle on the sidewalk just a few blocks from here. If he was faking it,” she shrugged, “then he's a hell of an actor. But where's he going to go?”