Neither roommate knew anything about his family. Vasco thought Juan might have a relative living in Vegas, but he wasn’t sure. We did this some more, then I asked to see Juan’s bedroom and the Vegas detectives who’d arrived before me stepped outside. They’d already seen the bedroom.
Clothes were lying around, but there was little else. Menderes slept in there, little more. One window was shut tight, the other unlocked and opened an inch, enough to bleed air conditioning into the hot night. The window frame was warped and Vasco volunteered that you need someone on the outside pushing to get it locked.
“Is it usually locked?” I asked.
“I’m never in here.”
“Why is it open now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Make a guess.”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Juan ever come by the bar where you work?”
“No. Where I work is a big deal. They wouldn’t let Juan in. It’s like a club bar. Why are you coming down so hard, man? We’re freaked out and trying to help you guys. We were watching it on TV when you got here.”
“Three roommates living together usually know something about each other. I’m trying to get my head around you knowing next to nothing.”
“Why do you need him so badly? Juan didn’t blow anybody up. The dude is not political.”
“Why would he run?”
“Probably got scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Police.”
“Why?”
“Seriously?”
“Why run? What does that get him, other than us looking for him?”
“I’m not saying I know what he did, but he comes from a place in Mexico where if the police are looking for you, it’s always bad.”
“Where in Mexico?”
“Some village. I don’t remember. He said it was bad, and he was never going back there.”
“Could he have come home and you didn’t see him?”
I pulled on the window handle again.
“You’re really on that window.”
“Does your landlord pay for your air conditioning?”
“Yeah, and he buys all our food and beer too. The landlord is an old asshole. We asked him to fix the window. He told me to fix it myself.”
I looked around at the room again. The carpet hadn’t been changed in thirty years. The paint might have been older.
“If later it turns out you covered up for him, that could pull you into a terrorist investigation. You don’t want a jury at a terrorism trial thinking you withheld evidence. You really don’t want that.”
“Sounds scary.”
Sarcasm, and early for it after what had happened tonight. I took that in, along with Vasco’s features: high forehead, jet-black hair razor-cut with clean lines, a handsome face, sensitive mouth and eyes. Everything about his look was a look, but maybe that just came with a high-end bartending job in Vegas.
I returned to the warped window and pictured Juan coming home for what he needed, then climbing out the window. Twenty steps from the rear of the house was a six-foot-high fence bordering the backyard.
“What did he do?” I asked. “Come home, get money, a different ID, an unused burner phone, and then hop out the window and climb over the fence. Let’s walk around back.”
We looked over the back fence in the moonlight together, Vasco and me—Vasco tired of repeated questions and going dark like the other roommate, Cordova. His answers got shorter and shorter. Waiting me out and not overly affected by the bombing. He was in a far different space than I was.
I looked at moonlight reflecting off a gravel road running through pale desert. Beyond the road and across an open area of scrub were the lights of another subdivision. I knew this road. It led to six abandoned concrete slab foundations that teenagers used for parties. Neighbors had complained about the noise and the drinking. Six years ago there had been a murder out here later linked to two other unsolved killings in Tucson and Kansas City. I shined a flashlight beam on dry, crumbly soil at the base of the fence and held the beam on a heel print.
“You know we’ll find him, right?”
“I’m not covering for him.”
“You’re not being straight either.”
“Why would I lie?”
Juan Menderes had a green card. He was documented. He had a job that sounded better than his previous stints as dishwasher, bellhop, busboy, casino worker. I stared hard at Vasco, and he finally gave me something. He also convinced me he was still holding back.
“Juan did stonework in Mexico and now he gets to drive, listen to music, deliver cakes, and makes good tip money. Maybe he doesn’t want to lose that. Maybe he thinks if he goes away for a while everything will be okay.”
“Hides while we catch the bad guys, then pops back up.”
“I guess that’s stupid, but that’s my only idea.”
I moved the flashlight beam to the next footstep; the one where whoever jumped had regained his balance after landing.
“Let’s go back inside,” I said.