Convenient Disposal

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The hat pin rolled easily, six inches of steel shaft with a black plastic head on one end and a filed needle point on the other. Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman nudged it back and forth with her right index finger while the three other people sitting at the conference table waited.

Estelle wasn’t paying attention to the weapon. Instead, she watched fourteen-year-old Deena Hurtado. The girl sat between her mother, Ivana, and the middle-school principal, Tessa Dooley.

Deena’s mother was trying not to cry, a wadded tissue in both hands. As a longtime District Court employee, she would know something about the law, would know what was coming. As a mother, what she knew would be turning her insides to pudding.

Estelle wished that she could read Deena’s mind, but the teenager’s face was a mask of studied indifference. Deena never looked at her mother, and Estelle decided that, despite the girl’s feigned calm, she didn’t enjoy seeing her mother in misery.

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