Adios Angel (9 page)

Zeb’s heart thumped heavily, partly from anxiety,
partly from hatred and a desire for revenge.  The near certainty of a trap
raced through his mind.

“Sheriff, do you recognize the name Felipe Madrigal?”

“Sure, I know right where he lives.  Delbert used to
memorize the names on the mailboxes.  One time when I went with him I saw
Felipe in the yard.  He’s an old man.  He walks bent over at the waist.  He
waved to us.  I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.  He seemed like a
nice old guy.”

“Did he just confess to the bomb threats?” asked
Deputy Steele who had overheard only one end of the conversation.

“Yes.”

“How about the murder of Delbert?”

“No, he apologized for Delbert getting hurt.  He said
he didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Let’s go get him,” said Deputy Steele.

“He’s nervous.  He wants me to come alone.  You heard
me tell him to come out of the house with his hands over his head.  As I
remember, his house sits down low, in a little glen.  How do you feel about
covering me?  You have to be ready to shoot to kill, if it’s necessary.”

Deputy Steele had intense training in her background,
but never had it been necessary to pull the trigger.  At this moment she had no
doubts of her ability to do so.

“As Delbert used to say…never keep a criminal
waiting.  Let’s roll,” said Deputy Steele.

The patrol cars crossed over the Hanksco River, headed
north on County 6, as Zeb’s concern about an ambush slipped into a state of
perplexity.  Nothing about the case made sense.  Why would a friendly old man
blow up the grade school?  Then it dawned on him.  The bomb was less about
producing physical damage than it was about inflicting fear.  If Delbert had
not been in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, he would not have been
injured.  What message was Felipe Madrigal trying to send?  Why the remorse in
his voice?  When he had called to turn himself in, he had broken down and cried
like a child, not a sociopath.  Beneath it all lay a fear that it all might
just be a set up.  The crackling of the two-way radio broke the sheriff’s
concentration.

“Sheriff?”

It was Deputy Steele.

“I was thinking…why don’t you let me go on ahead?  I
can park my car, climb up over the hill and get close to Mr. Madrigal’s house. 
That way I can be ready in case he is planning something.”

It was a risk, but a good one. 

“Good idea.  Just don’t let him see you.”

Kate felt the adrenaline rise as she shot past the
sheriff’s car leaving a cyclone trail of dust.  Zeb slowed down, rolled up his
window and let her get some distance between them.  Kate pulled over a hundred
yards short of a silver metal mailbox at the end of a long driveway.  She
opened the trunk and pulled out the .30-.30.  She checked the safety and
quickly loaded shells into her weapon.  As she worked her way to the back side
of the house she noticed a smiley face painted in yellow that accompanied the
handwritten name of Felipe Madrigal on the mailbox.  The idea of drawing a gun
on an old man who drew smiley faces on his mailbox seemed like utter madness.

Zeb pulled into the old man’s driveway.  Kate, perched
on a small knoll ninety feet away, tipped her cap and pointed to the small
house.  The yard in front of the old adobe building was littered with twisted
pieces of metal, chunks of gnarly firewood, a garbage pile and a run-down
doghouse.  A truck with the hood propped open by a tire iron was parked under a
mesquite tree on the north side of the house.  A pair of windows in the front
of the house had broken panes.  One was partially boarded over from the
outside.  The other was stuffed with rags and dirty insulation.  Tumbleweed
remnants lay trapped under a rusted television antenna at the back of the low,
slanting roof. 

Exiting the car, Sheriff Hanks heard the unmistakable squeak
and low groan from the rusting blades of an ancient windmill.  An easy wind
from the south wafted the sweet aroma of late season sage bloom.  Everything
appeared normal--abnormally normal.   

The run down ranch house showed no signs of life. 
Deputy Steele trained the sights of the .30-.30 on the door.  A timid voice
from behind a window squeaked out.

“I don’t got no gun.  You tell señorita on hillside to
no shoot me.”

Felipe Madrigal sounded meek, almost childish. He was
definitely scared.

“She won’t shoot,” replied Sheriff Hanks.  “Come out
of the house with your hands over your head.  Nobody wants to hurt you.”

The door of the house, with its broken screen mesh
fluttering in the wind, began to open.  Slowly one hand, then the other, poked
through the open space.  The old man’s hands trembled as he held them above his
head.  His rounded back and shoulders forced his head into such a position
where his eyes could only see the ground.  He shuffled along with great
difficulty as he made his way toward the sheriff.

Could this man possibly be Delbert’s killer?  Sheriff
Hanks didn’t think so, but then again the things he had seen along the border
of Mexico, when dealing with human and drug trafficking, did not make sense
either.  He shook his head clear of the thoughts of the border patrol agent’s
death and focused on what was in front of him.  The lingering doubt he lived
with, that the deaths of Darren Wendt and now Delbert Funke had been caused by
his lack of attention, haunted him at a level few could understand.

“Please, Señor Policia.  Don’t kill me.  I did no harm
no one.”

The sheriff’s eye trained on the man caught something
off to the side moving through the underbrush.  He instinctively crouched
behind the door for additional protection when he realized it was Deputy Steele
slowly making her way into his peripheral vision.

“Deputy Steele, check the house.”

She made her way to the door and quickly ascertained
that Felipe Madrigal was alone, at least at this moment.

“No one is going to shoot you,” said Sheriff Hanks.

“Gracias, Señor Policia.  Gracias.”

Felipe Madrigal fell to his knees, weeping. 

“Suplico clemencia.  Clemencia.  Please have mercy on
me, Señor Policia.”

Sheriff Hanks grabbed the little man under the arm and
helped him to his feet.  The man’s left eye was discolored and swollen.  His
face was sad and defeated.  A salt and pepper beard surrounded a mouthful of
yellowing teeth. 

“Are you Felipe Madrigal?”

“Sí.  I am Felipe Madrigal.”

“Did you phone the sheriff’s office in Safford and say
you wanted to confess to the bomb threats at the high school and grade school
in Safford?”

“Sí.”

“Do you know your rights?”

The old man responded with a puzzled look and turned
toward Sheriff Hanks.

“Under the laws governing the State of Arizona and the
United States of America you have the right to remain silent.”

The tired and haggard looking old man stared at the
ground.  His body trembled as Sheriff Hanks rattled off the Miranda mantra. 

“Do you understand these rights as they have been read
to you?”

The old man said nothing.  He stood rigid, gazing open
mouthed toward the ground.

“Should I read them to him in Spanish?” asked Deputy Steele. 
“I’m not so sure he understands everything you said.”

“I think you had better do that,” replied Sheriff
Hanks.

Deputy Steele removed a Spanish copy of the Miranda
rights from her pocket.  She read fluently, sometimes not even looking at the
words.  When she asked the old man if he understood, the weathered old man
responded by nodding his head up and down.

“Let’s put some cuffs on him and put him in the back
seat of my car.  I want to ask him a few questions on the way into town. 
Deputy Steele, you close up the house and follow me back to town.”

Sheriff Hanks headed south on County 6.  He waited for
Felipe Madrigal to say something.  If the old man was the first to speak, he
might feel less pressure.  He might simply let things out, maybe even explain
what he had been thinking by threatening the lives of hundreds of children. 
The sheriff drove slowly.  His prisoner remained mum.  Near town Zeb flipped
down the visor to shade himself from the setting sun.  In the rear view mirror
he noticed Felipe holding his head forward.  The prisoner wore a humble, sad
expression on his face.  The sheriff flipped the passenger’s side visor down to
block the sun from his eyes.

“Gracias.”

“De nada”

“Habla Ud. español?” asked the old man.

“Un poco, no, not really,” replied the sheriff.

The old man returned to a stony silence.

“Felipe?”

“Sí?”

“Why did you call in those bomb threats?”  Zeb glanced
over his shoulder.  The old man was quivering.  “Felipe?”

“Sí?”

“Did you think that no one would get hurt when you
made a bomb and put it in the grade school?”

“Señor Policia.  I didn’t make no bomb.  I didn’t put
no bomb in the school!”

His meek voice suddenly became adamant.  His dull eyes
sharpened as he spoke.

“Who made the bomb, if you didn’t?”

Felipe cast his eyes toward the floor of the car,
tipped his head forward and once again became mute.

“Is there anything you’d like to say to me now?  We’re
almost at the jail.  The more you can tell me now the easier it will be for
you.  My deputy is dead.  This won’t go easy for you.”

The old man’s voice was forlorn, fearful as he
muttered three words.

“Mercy, mercy, mercy.”

Felipe Madrigal barely uttered a word as he filled out
some paperwork he obviously didn’t understand.  His confusion and
disorientation heightened as Deputy Steele inked his fingertips for
identification.  The look in his eyes spoke of a man who carried a heavy burden
bearing down on his soul.  Yet some unseen force rendered him mute. 

A hand braided leather billfold revealed twelve
dollars cash, a social security card, an expired Local 616 Morenci Copper
Miner’s ID card and an Arizona driver’s license.  According to the driver’s
license Felipe Madrigal was sixty-five years old, five feet two inches tall,
weighed a hundred twenty pounds.  He had brown eyes and black hair. 

Tucked away in the wallet was a Spanish version of a
prayer to the Blessed Virgin and three small photos.  One photo was Felipe
dressed in a fine white suit with an Indian or Mexican woman in a traditional
wedding dress.  The second photo was a smiling, young girl in a white dress
holding flowers and a Bible.  From the age of the photo, Deputy Steele assumed
it was his daughter.  The final one was a young boy in a cap and gown.  The
deputy held the picture of Felipe and his wife on their wedding day. She held
it close so her prisoner could see it clearly.  Felipe shook his head.

“Ella está con Dios.”

“Que?” said Deputy Steele.

“She is with God,” said Felipe.

When she flashed the second photo, his eyes welled
with tears. 

“Ella está en un lugar mejor ahora.”

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand spoken Spanish very
well,” said Kate.

The old man looked away, speaking silently, “She is in
a better place now.”  

“Felipe?”

“Sí?”

Deputy Steele showed him the picture of the young man.

“Who is this young man?”

Felipe Madrigal shook his head, almost defiantly.

“Is he your grandson?”

“My grandson has gone to devil,” replied Felipe.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.”

Felipe spoke the words with a harsh determination. 
Deputy Steele once again asked about Felipe’s grandson but his unwillingness to
discuss the young man stopped the conversation cold.  

“Would you like something to eat?”

“No.  No quiero comer…quiero fumar.”

Deputy Steele shrugged her shoulders. 

“Could I have cigarette?”

“I’m sorry,” replied Deputy Steele.  “There is no
smoking in the jail.”

The tired looking old man lay down on the bed and
rolled towards the wall.  Breathing heavily through his mouth it sounded to
Deputy Steele as though he was fighting back tears of distress and pain. 

Kate was stymied.  If Felipe made the bomb threat, why
would he confess and then clam up?  Maybe the old man did not have respect for
her because she was a woman?       

She walked to her office and removed the bomb threat
tape from the locked desk drawer.  She slid it into the tape player.  There was
no doubt the voice on the tape was that of Felipe Madrigal.  A part of her
genuinely wished that the recording was not this seemingly humble old man.  A
glance at the clock told her it was after nine.  She knocked on Sheriff Hanks’
door.

“Come in.  What have you got for me?”

“Not much, I’m sorry to say.”

Zeb kept his head down over some paperwork and
grunted.  Her response was more or less what he had anticipated.

“Sheriff, I think you might be able to get more out of
Felipe Madrigal than I can.  I think he would rather talk to a man. If he’s
awake, I am willing to bet you can get him to chat.  I think he might feel
better if he got things off his chest.”

“I agree with you.  It seems like things are weighing
pretty heavy on him.  I get the feeling he wants to tell us something.  Did you
learn anything that might help me to get him to talk?”

“He seems to open up when you get him to talk about
his family, his wife and daughter that is, but not his grandson.   I think if
he believes we are here to help him, he might talk.  But I don’t know for
sure.  I suspect he is very troubled.”

“We see a lot of troubled folks in here, but we don’t
see many like him do we, Kate?  We don’t see many that had a hand in killing
one of our own.”

It took everything the sheriff had inside him to hold
back his anger.

“No, we sure don’t.  Thank God for that.  Sheriff,”
said Kate. 

“Yes?”

“It’s just not the same without Delbert around.”

Stony silence was the sheriff’s response. He did not
need to be reminded that it would never be the same again.  When you lose a
man, a good man, you never forget.  Zeb felt his anger rising as he headed for
Felipe Madrigal’s cell.  Felipe was lying on his side, half asleep and half
weeping.  Zeb put his hands on the cell door and listened.  Could this
whimpering old man possibly have made the bomb and planted it in the boiler
room of the grade school?  Could this man really be Delbert’s killer?  The
whimper turned into a soft snore.  Zeb decided he would let the old man sleep
on his guilt.  Tomorrow would be here soon enough.  The sheriff headed home. He
gave orders to the night staff to check in on the prisoner to make sure he did
not try to kill himself.