Bad Penny (12 page)

For the moment, revenge had taken a back burner to riding his high. Seven

It had taken Luis longer than he’d planned to leave Agua Caliente. Part of it had to do with the fact that he kept trying, without success, to get Conchita on the phone, and part of it had to do with his aunt and uncle.

He knew that, with their advancing age and the amount of time that passed between his visits, the chances of seeing one or the other alive again were always lessening. It was almost noon before he finally said goodbye, and he still hadn’t talked to Conchita. After checking his map, he headed for the next village east, Casa Rojo.

Lieutenant Dominguez had been the chief of police in Casa Rojo for years. It didn’t pay much, but it was easy, and jobs were hard to come by in this part of Mexico. At noon, his wife had brought him a large meal of frijoles and tortillas. By the time she left, he was engorged and sleepy. Within a few minutes, he’d gone back into one of the cells and lain down on the bunk inside. Soon he was sound asleep. Sometime later, he was awakened

by the sound of someone calling out.

“Here. I am here,” he said, and quickly rose to a sitting position, before getting to his feet.

He smoothed down the front of his shirt, then tucked the tail into his pants before moving to the outer office. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to smooth down his hair, and the left side of it was slightly flat and pushed upward, like the broken wing of a bird.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a hall window just as he saw his visitor. Embarrassed, he combed his fingers through his hair several times to put it back in order.

The man waiting for him on the other side of his desk was of average height and appeared to be somewhere in his forties. His hair was straight and black as night. He wore it tied at the back of his neck in a short ponytail, giving him a slightly rebellious look, although his skin was the same warm brown as Dominguez’s own. He was wearing a pair of dark pants and a light-colored, short-sleeved shirt. When their gazes met, the stranger flashed a badge.

Dominguez drew himself up a little straighter.

“Good afternoon. I am Lieutenant Dominguez. How can I help you?”

Luis Montoya stifled a grin. He’d caught the other policeman sleeping in one of the cells. He couldn’t blame him. It was time for a siesta. He would have liked to do the same, but he had too many miles still to cover. He reached across the desk and offered his hand.

“Detective Luis Montoya, Chihuahua Homicide.”

Dominguez straightened his shoulders even more. A real detective from the city. He waved toward the chair on the opposite side of his desk. As soon as the visitor sat, Dominguez did, too.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Montoya took a picture of Tutuola out of a file folder and slid it across the desk.

“Have you ever seen this man?”

Dominguez’s eyes widened in shock at the man’s appearance. “Definitely not. I would have remembered him for sure.” Montoya sighed. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. “So why are you looking for this man?” Dominguez asked.

“I’m not looking for him. He’s dead. I am looking for the person who killed him,” Luis replied. “We know that he was most likely in Nuevo Laredo before he came to Chihuahua, and that he had a large sum of money on him when he arrived in our city. We’re hoping to find his killer by finding out how many people knew of the money as he traveled through the country.”

Dominguez nodded firmly, indicating that he, too, understood the process.

Montoya stifled a grin. The lieutenant was a bit full of himself. He suspected the worst things to happen in this small village probably involved sleeping with someone else’s wife and stealing a few chickens. However, this man’s lack of knowledge did not exclude the possibility others had seen Tutuola.

“Have there been any strangers through your village in the past month or so? Say, someone out of the ordinary?”

Dominguez started to say no, then suddenly remembered the American woman.

“There was a woman—an American. But that was a while back, and she was alone.”

“How did you come to know her?” Montoya asked.

“It’s quite a story,” Dominguez said, then leaned back and got comfortable before he began to talk. “She was a tall woman, with an exotic face. Quite beautiful, but too skinny for my tastes. Her hair was dark and long, and her eyes were hard. Oh…and she had a most terrible scar at her throat, as if someone had slashed it with a knife.”

Montoya frowned. Even though Tutuola had been a monster of a man, a strong woman with street smarts could have done him in.

“She came to you?”

Dominguez nodded. “It was quite a sight. She drove up just as you did,

only she came into my office carrying a baby girl. The woman was dusty and weary, but she was holding the baby with much care. She said she’d found the child in the desert, and that the mother’s body was in the back of her vehicle.”

Montoya’s opinion of the woman began to shift. Murderers weren’t usually Good Samaritans, too. He listened as Dominguez continued.

“We ascertained that the mother and baby had probably been abandoned by a coyote…smuggling illegals across the border. The woman found them just in time to save the baby’s life and the mother’s body from being eaten by animals. Then she did something quite out of the ordinary. We found identification papers in the mother’s belongings stating that she was from Adobe Blanco. The crazy American woman made me promise not to call the authorities to come get the baby until she went there to see if she could find any family members. In fact, she came close to threatening me. She seemed angry that we might let the baby become lost in the government system.”

Montoya was hooked on the story. This was like something from a movie. “What happened?” he asked.

“So this crazy woman drove away like the hounds of hell were after her and found Adobe Blanco, although it is hardly more than a pile of donkey dung. She returned with the baby’s grandparents and a priest, as well, and all before sunset.”

“Where did she go after that?” Montoya asked. “I don’t know. She just headed west. That’s all I saw.”

Montoya frowned. West. Chihuahua was west. “By chance, do you remember this American woman’s name?”

Dominguez nodded. “Oh yes…I remember it well. Her name was like el gato…the cat. She called herself Cat Dupree.”

Montoya’s pulse kicked. He knew that name. But from where? He opened his files and began going through his notes. Then he saw it.

Cat Dupree was the woman who’d trailed Mark Presley across the border into Nuevo Laredo for killing her friend. And Mark Presley was the name on the card he’d found in Tutuola’s possessions. But Presley had been arrested just after Christmas. That was months ago. She would have gone back to Dallas with him when he was taken into custody. So why would she have come back to Mexico so much later? Unless she’d known about the money and decided to go after it?

Questions and more questions, and all without answers. It was all about the timing. The American had admittedly been in Mexico. Dominguez could be off on the dates.

“Tell me, Lieutenant. How sure are you about the timing of Miss Dupree’s visit to Casa Rojo?”

“Positive,” Dominguez said. “I know, because the day after she left was my wedding anniversary, which was April 29.”

Montoya added that to his notes. Proof that she’d come back. But why?

“One more thing…where is Adobe Blanco from here?”

Dominguez frowned. “It is a long trip back west and then south. A little place in the middle of nowhere.”

“Can you tell me how to get there?” Montoya asked. Dominguez shrugged and then nodded.

Montoya wrote down the directions, then asked where he could buy fuel and took his leave.

A short while later he’d filled both his car and the two extra gas cans in the trunk of his car with fuel. Now he was on his way to see what the people of Adobe Blanco had to say about a woman called el gato.

Padre Francisco was repairing a crack in the outer wall of his church when he heard the sound of an approaching engine. Many came to the little church, but almost always on foot. Few drove.

Curious, he turned to see who was coming. When he saw the stranger get out of his car and come toward him with a badge in his hand, the first thing he thought of was the American woman who’d rescued baby Maria Elena from death. When she’d given her fine American car to his church, the whole village had rejoiced.

She’d been responsible for returning the baby to her grandparents and

bringing the body of her mother home to bury. Then only a week or so later, he’d received a letter from her, along with the proper papers donating her car to the church. All he’d had to do was go to the airport in Chihuahua to get it and say a prayer for her when he had the time. Also, she’d asked that he not speak of the details.

He’d known then that she’d been in trouble. But he knew an angel on earth when he saw one, and she was such an angel. So nothing that came out of this stranger’s mouth was going to change his mind about keeping what he knew to himself. The American woman had asked him to pray for her. In his mind, it was as close to a confession as she’d been able to come, and in confession, what was told to a priest was sacrosanct.

Luis Montoya saw the priest’s gaze move from the badge in his hand to his face and was surprised to see his expression shut down, rather than turn welcoming. Adobe Blanco was one of the poorest places he’d seen in his country, and he doubted many strangers came their way, so maybe the priest was just naturally suspicious..

“Padre…I am Detective Luis Montoya of the Chihuahua Police Department.”

The priest smiled and offered his hand. “Padre Francisco at your service. Please come inside. I have a little wine. Some beans and tortillas. You will eat and drink with me.”

Montoya relaxed, deciding that his earlier opinion of the man had been wrong. This old man wasn’t hiding anything but his age.

“Gracias, Padre.”

“De nada. Come, come.”

Montoya followed him inside, through the narrow, shadowed entry, past ten dusty pews, into a tiny room that obviously served as the man’s living quarters. At the priest’s urging, he sat, then watched as the old man prepared the food, then carried it to the small table. When he pulled an old decanter from a small cupboard and filled their glasses with wine, Montoya couldn’t help but notice the raised veins and gnarled knuckles on the priest’s hands.

Padre Francisco sat down then, blessed the food, and pushed the plate of cold tortillas and beans toward the detective.

“Please serve yourself,” the priest said, and then pointed to a small bowl of salsa. “One of the women of the village makes this for me. It is good and hot to my liking. I hope you agree.”

Montoya smiled. “Hot is perfect. I thank you for this, Padre. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten. My stomach was complaining of neglect.”

The priest laughed, helped himself to a tortilla, added a spoonful of beans and a generous helping of the hot salsa, and dug in.

They passed the meal in near silence, talking only to ask that something be passed, or to offer a second glass of wine. But Montoya was very aware of the other man’s meager existence, and limited himself to only two tortillas and one glass of wine.

When they had finished, the priest brought out a dented tin. Inside were a few small cookies covered with a light dusting of powdered sugar. Montoya took one, the priest another, and then the meal was finished. It was the priest who started the conversation.

“So, tell me, Detective…why is it that you have come so far from Chihuahua to our little village? There isn’t much here but mountains and scrub brush and a few hardy people.”

Montoya nodded. “You speak the truth, Padre Francisco. But it is information I seek.”

The priest nodded, awaiting the questions to come.

Montoya took out his file and slid the picture of Solomon Tutuola in front of the old man. Within seconds, the old man’s nostrils flared, and he quickly made the sign of the cross before shoving the photo back across the table.

“El Diablo.”

It wasn’t the first time Montoya had heard that, and he wondered if Padre Francisco had met Tutuola.

“Have you ever seen this man?” he asked.

The priest frowned. “No. And I have no wish to meet him. Look into his eyes. They are evil. Who is he? Why do you look for him?”

“I’m not looking for him. I’m looking for whoever killed him.”

The priest gasped, then leaned back in his chair. His gaze shifted to a small painting of Christ on the wall above the detective’s head, and he thought of the scar on Cat Dupree’s neck as he absorbed the full impact of the detective’s words.

“So you are looking for this man’s murderer. What led you here?”

“I’m just following up on leads as they come,” Montoya said, then shifted gears. “I have another question to ask you.”

“Of course.”

“Do you know a woman named Cat Dupree?”

Padre Francisco exhaled on a sigh. So. It had finally come to this. “Yes, but of course. She is viewed as something of a heroine around here.” Montoya nodded. “Lieutenant Dominguez from Casa Rojo said as much.”