For just a moment, she looked at the instrument as if she could make it vanish before it triggered the answering machine on the fifth ring. She set the bottles of chilled juice down on the counter and picked up the receiver. “Guzman.” “Estelle, Tony Abeyta.” The deputy sounded as if he were holding his breath when he talked. “What’s up, Tony?” “On December twenty-seventh of last year, Mountain Trails Sporting Goods in Las Cruces sold a forty-four magnum Marlin Model eighteen ninety-four lever action rifle to Eurelio Saenz.” The silence on the line hung heavy for a few heartbeats. The deputy anticipated Estelle’s question. “The salesman remembers mounting the scope and bore-sighting the rifle for Saenz at the time. He remembers that Eurelio had an old scope with him, but that it was much too big for the rifle. He ended up buying another one that he liked better…the whole package.
