All the same, he wasn’t without resources. The village had sent him to Mexico City for a week-long training program. And as part of that program, he had undergone a full day’s instruction, complete with role playing, on techniques of interrogation. He had learned a few things there. He had learned that one doesn’t lay all one’s cards on the table up front, oh no. One baits a trap and then gently, subtly, helps the interrogee fall into it.

He steepled his fingers at his chin and smiled in a friendly, relaxed manner, although his heart was thumping away. “I understand,” he said casually, “that the bus driver let you off here and told you you could catch a bus to Oaxaca in the morning? Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s very interesting. It’s true there is a bus from here to Oaxaca, but if I remember correctly, the bus from Santiago Matatlan also continues right up 190 to Oaxaca. Why then would he let you off here?”

“I’m just telling you what he told me. Maybe he wanted me off the bus. I don’t think he liked me.”

That part certainly held water, Sandoval thought. So much for that trap, but he had more than that to work with. “I see. But you know, now that I think of it, unless I’m mistaken, it no longer makes a stop in Teotitlan at all. So how-”

“I didn’t say it stopped in Teotitlan,” Garcia said without even a momentary pause. “He dropped me off at the junction, where the road heads into the village. I walked in from there.” Sandoval had to hand it to him. Very cool, very sure of himself.

“I see,” he said yet again, scowling. “To get the morning bus to Oaxaca, the one that leaves from the market square.”

“That’s right, unless there’s another bus stop.”

“No, it’s the only one. So then exactly what were you doing on the road up to the Hacienda Encantada?”

“I don’t know nothing about no Hacienda Encantada. I was going up in the hills, find someplace to sleep where no one would bother me.”