She held up an index finger. “We agree on that, sure enough. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to let Mr. Waddell decide for us how to proceed. He doesn’t get to dictate what happens on the private property around him. But we can work together.”
“Fair enough. As I said, he’ll be happy to hear that.”
“I didn’t say that up topside today because the newspaper guy was there. I didn’t want it blared all over the front page. Because who knows? We may…do nothing.”
“All right.”
Lydia Thompson smiled at Estelle’s cryptic response. “Any suggestions?”
“Mrs. Thompson…”
“Lydia, please.”
“Lydia, I can tell you what the law is, but I think you know perfectly well what your legal rights are.” Estelle ticked them off on her fingers. “You can’t drill water wells without approval from the state engineer. Even a permit for a single, simple domestic well for one family goes through his office. You can’t establish a subdivision without state and county approval. You can’t install a public water system or a sewer system without state environmental approval, or without certified operators. And on and on.
“This may not be the big city, but you still have an impressive number of hoops to jump through, nevertheless.” She smiled. “The long fingers of the state reach out, even in Posadas County. But you’re already aware of that.”
She shrugged. “But Frank? Frank Dayan is an interesting guy. Pam Gardiner is his editor, and she runs a tight operation over there. Now, were I in your shoes, Lydia, and had I decided what I wanted to do with the land, I would do my best to make Frank Dayan and Pam Gardiner my allies…if you and your husband are aiming for a commercial venture. Those two, and their newspaper, are staunch defenders of Posadas County and our way of life. I firmly believe the same can be said for Miles Waddell.”
“That’s pretty obvious,” Lydia said. “I know that I was a little precipitous walking out of our little meeting up there, but it didn’t feel right. It felt like stacked odds.”
“I understand that. But Frank Dayan is an intelligent man, and a fair one. If after talking with you he thinks you and your husband have a good thing going out there, what he says in his paper will reflect that. That helps quell the rumors.”
“You gotta love small towns.”
“Human beings everywhere,” Estelle offered. “There are some people whom you’ll never convince. They’ll do what they can to stop you, and within the bounds of the law, that’s their right. This county is home to a pretty substantial flock of conspiracy theorists…sometimes I think more than its share. Believe them, and you’ll believe that Waddell’s radio telescope is eavesdropping on his neighbors. When you put shovel to ground, I have no doubt that you’ll hear from the crazies. You’ll be under constant scrutiny.”
Lydia Thompson’s eyes narrowed. It looked as if she was calculating odds. “Maybe we’ll put twelve steers on the acreage and call it done. That’s about all the land will support.”
“There is that.”
“Or drill some exploratory oil or gas wells.”
“That too.”
“You probably think we’re out of our minds to get into this.”
“No. As I said before, I suppose that most people thought Miles Waddell was off his rocker for throwing money at his dream. But he’s making it work. His visitation traffic grows every week, and it’s traffic from all over the world. What you do with your money is your business.”
Lydia pushed herself to her feet. “Time to go back to the motel and check on hubby. Then we might take Mr. Waddell up on his offer of a hotel room on the mesa. Not that there’s anything basically wrong with the Posadas Inn, mind you.” She grimaced and raised one eyebrow.
Estelle laughed. “It’s a great place he’s designed up there on the mesa top. Five-star all the way. He was being modest when he said their food is good. It’s incredible.”
“Maybe we’ll do that.” She thrust out her hand. “Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.”
“Any time.”
“I want you to know that I appreciate your discretion, Sheriff Guzman. I really do.” Her smile grew radiant. “I have two of your son’s DVDs, by the way.” Her smile widened. “When I took my lame husband in for treatment, one of the ER nurses made sure I knew about your hometown celebrities.”
The sudden change of subject took Estelle by surprise. “I’m delighted to hear that. About the recordings.” She resisted the temptation to ask which nurse had taken such delight in blabbing the news.
Lydia regarded Estelle for a long moment. “I read the article in Rolling Stone about them a few months ago. That must be quite a challenge, being mother to someone like that.”
“It has its moments.”
“I’ll bet. Is he planning any local concerts in the near future? I’d love to see him in person. Both him and his wife.”
Francisco Guzman, live at Posadas High School Gym. Estelle smiled at the thought. That had happened once, years before, when the youngster was a fifteen-year-old prodigy, fulfilling a conservatory requirement.
“He’s at Lincoln Center in September. In New York.” She did not add, he’s also five blocks away at this very moment, coping along with his wife and their new son with the trials and tribulations of building a new home. She did not mention that Miles Waddell had lobbied Francisco Guzman’s agent long and hard for a concert in the NightZone auditorium.
“Oh, I envy your going to New York. Do you know yet what he’s going to be performing?”
“No, I don’t.” That came out a little more abrupt than Estelle intended, and she added, “He’s a busy young man. And September is a long way off.”
“Oh, I’m sure he is. He has that seven-disc DVD set coming out covering the Beethoven tribute festival in Munich that he did last winter. I preordered it. I can’t wait.” She waved a hand. “Listen to me. I get so caught up.” She lowered her voice. “My husband listens to blues. Saxophone and steel guitar…it all sounds the same to me. Not that I’d ever tell him that.”
Deputy Ray appeared in the doorway. “Ma’am, there’s an elderly gentleman who wants to talk to you,” he said with a straight face. “He’s making a nuisance of himself out in dispatch.”
Estelle rose and accepted Lydia Thompson’s offered hand. “Good luck with your project, Lydia. If there’s anything that the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department can do for you, don’t hesitate to contact us.”
The young woman’s footsteps past dispatch to the entry foyer were quick, and at one point, Estelle heard Lydia Thompson chortle as she walked out, “Oh, wow.”
Chapter Five
“What’s ‘oh wow’?” Bill Gastner asked. The former sheriff of Posadas County rested against the dispatch island counter, both hands locked on his skeleton-framed walker. “That was the lady developer, wasn’t it? Thompson?”
“It was. Lydia Thompson. It turns out that she’s a big fan of my son’s music.” Estelle reached an arm across Gastner’s broad shoulders and gave him a hug. The shoulders that once had been heavy mounds of muscle were now angular and bony—some of the old man’s weight-loss by choice, some by his various battles with so many birthdays.
“I can’t imagine why,” Gastner said. “Anyway, are you ready for lunch? I’ve got some interesting news for you…also in the ‘oh wow’ category. Or are you going home to see what the kids are up to?”
“As a matter of fact, I am ready for lunch, and no…I’m trying my hardest to stay out of their way. So your timing is perfect, Padrino. Where are we eating?”
“You don’t usually ask silly questions.”
She caught the dispatcher’s eye. “I’ll be at the Don Juan, Woody.”
Gastner’s walker slid silently over the tiles, demonstrating that he clearly didn’t need its steadying assistance. Once outside, he folded the
walker onto the backseat of Estelle’s patrol car. Two minutes later, when they reached the Don Juan, he left it there. He walked slowly but steadily, taking advantage of handholds when he reached them, but making an obvious effort to keep his spine straight and erect. In a few minutes they were comfortably seated in Gastner’s favorite booth, deep in the shadows near the back of the restaurant behind the waitresses’ service island.
The retired sheriff, who had recently and grudgingly celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday anniversary, looked nifty in a plaid shirt and new corduroys. He had carried a large manila envelope in from the car and now laid it carefully on the table, well out of range of his coffee cup.
“Anything new in Waddell’s world that I need to worry about?” he asked. From day one of the NightZone project, Gastner had been a consultant and advisor to Miles Waddell. He still spent considerable time on the mesa, almost always riding the train out to the site the moment it became operational.
“He’s worried, maybe. He doesn’t know what the Thompsons are up to yet.”
“I don’t think anyone else does either. A subdivision seems a likely bet if you’re among the brain-dead.”
“Time will tell. They’re changing their minds, apparently. From whatever their original plan was when they bought the property.”
“Huh. Well, so be it. Maybe they’ll decide to put in one of those commercial rocket places, and launch space shuttles full of tourists out into orbit. New Mexico already has one of those, and as we all know, one is never enough.”
He leaned back as the waitress appeared. “I’m so excited that I gotta eat.” He beamed at the attractive young woman, holding a hand out toward her. “This is Rosita Mirales in person. She started here just this week.”
Gastner swung his hand over to present the rest of the introduction. “Rosita, this is the undersheriff of Posadas County, Estelle Reyes-Guzman. A better person you’ll never meet.” He let out a sigh, not bothering to open the menu. “A burrito grande for me, with all the fixin’s, por favor.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, I know. I’m on a strict diet. But today, to hell with it.”
“Red or green?” Rosita asked gently. Her husky voice was self-conscious, not much more than a whisper.
“Just remind Fernando that it’s for me and he’ll do it right. He’ll decide.”
Rosita nodded, her thick black eyebrows converging as she wrote the order’s instructions. She then glanced across at Estelle, a little uneasy.
“I’d like the chicken tostadas plate, please, Rosita. Green, with a to-go box. And iced tea.”
“Coffee, black, with water, Rosita,” Gastner added.
The girl nodded her thanks, her smile needing work.
“You remember her?” Gastner asked when Rosita had vanished toward the kitchen.
“I do. She was a lot younger then.”
“Yup. And her brother is still in jail.”
“Yes, he is.” She took a deep breath. “One of the joys of a small town. We get to meet our clientele over and over and over again.” She shrugged with resignation. “It’s good that Fernando gave her a job here at the restaurant, though. I hope she does well.”
After a moment, she added, “So. What’s happening in your life, Padrino? Last Sunday when you came over for dinner, you were not your usual ebullient self.”
“Ebullient? I’m ever ebullient?”
“On occasion, yes.”
“I’ll work on that, then. I think it was just because the kids weren’t here yet, and I was having an attack of the lonelies, struggling with the anticipation. That happens now and then. Now I’m concentrating on just staying out of the way.”
“Me too.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Sweetheart, I can absolutely guarantee that Francisco and Angie would like to see more of you. And I don’t mean just to provide free babysitting services.”
“They haven’t found a nana yet.”
“They will, in due time. Anyway, you and the good doctor are coming over for dinner tonight? Francisco asked me to remind you. He and Angie are cooking some weird thing that they learned about in Munich. Probably something awful with Brussels sprouts or fermented cabbage. But on a brighter note…”
He opened the envelope with care and pulled out a letter protected in a glassine cover. The rampant Colt logo of the historic Colt Firearms Company was prominent on the letterhead. “And this is a good place to start, speaking of ebullient. You remember this?”
“I do remember.” She scanned the brief letter from the Connecticut firearms company’s archivist. Gastner had discovered the rusted remains of a Colt revolver seven years before, on land just north of Miles Waddell’s astronomical park—land now owned by the Thompsons.
The old man had worked patiently with oil and the finest brass wool until he could piece together the serial number from the three locations where it was stamped on the revolver’s rusted frame. That number told a tantalizing story, according to the company’s archivist. Manufactured in 1889, the gun was part of a shipment of two sent to Rosenblum and Sons’ Mercantile in Silver City, New Mexico Territory.
When Gastner had found the gun, it was a rusted hulk, a relic apparently lost more than a century before among the rocks out in the bleak prairie. It still held three unfired cartridges in its six-shot cylinder, along with two empty shell casings.
Estelle looked up and saw the twinkle that lit Gastner’s face. “And as I recall, you received this response to your inquiry to Colt about…how long ago?” She looked at the date. “Six years. And as I recall, at the time it was a dead end.”
“Yep. Since then, I’ve tracked a few things down, being the talented sleuth that I am. Rosenblum started his Silver City business in 1878, and went bust in 1891. Just thirteen years in business. But…” he opened the envelope again and pulled out the rest of the paperwork. “It’s not a common name.”
He handed a photocopy of a small newspaper clipping to Estelle. “Came across this not long ago, and it got my juices started again.” His jowly face broke into a smile. “I think your kids coming to live with me was a master stroke. I feel twenty years younger, all motivated and stuff.”
“And stuff.” She looked at the paper. Dated March 30, 1917, the clipping from the Silver City newspaper announced that Michael Rosenblum had been lost in fierce fighting near a tiny village in southern France. Gastner waited until Estelle looked up from reading the clipping.
“Michael was the son of Jules and Mary Rosenblum,” he said.
“And Jules was…”
“The son of Richard Rosenblum himself, the store’s founder. One of Richard’s sons, anyway. There were three.” Gastner waved a hand and sat back to give the waitress room to maneuver his plate. “I don’t know what happened to the other Rosenblum boys. Quiet lives and faded away, I guess. Anyway, the name to remember is Mary Rosenblum.
“The store closed in 1891, shortly after Richard Rosenblum, the original founder, was killed in a freight wagon accident. Jules, Richard’s son and Mary’s husband, tried to take over after his father’s death, but died the next year from an infected tooth.” He grinned and sampled his burrito. “You following all this?”
“So far.” She stirred her salad. “Richard the elder owned the merc with his sons. He died in a wagon accident. One of the sons, Jules, died of a bad tooth about the time that the store closed. He and his wife had a son who was killed in France twenty-six years later. He was no boy soldier, then. This all sounds like one tragedy after another.”
“Yep. Not much in the good luck department.” Gastner savored the rich flavors of the chile and cheese. “Mary is the name to remember, though. Ever the good daughter-in-law, she kept the books for the mercantile when it was in business.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“No. I’m not sure they exist anymore. Mary died in 1943, in Santa Fe. She
might have kept the ledgers after the store closed, and maybe not.” He spread the fingers of both hands out, fanlike. “The family went this way and that. The obit in the Santa Fe paper says that Mary was survived by four children and a gaggle of grandkids, great grandkids, and so forth. I don’t know if all four of her children were from her husband Jules, or if she married again.”
“The four children, then. One of them might have kept her mother’s souvenirs.”
“Might have. If she kept them. Some folks get a real kick out of old artifacts like that. Some couldn’t care less. Just dust-collectors. I have the kids’ names from Mary’s obit. Son Michael, of course, died in the war. As of 1943, the surviving siblings were Irving…” Gastner put down his fork and counted on his fingers, eyes half closed. “Irving of Ratón; Gladys Tupperson of Amarillo, Texas; Rosie Rosenblum of Merced, Oregon; and Glenndon of Miami Beach.” He shrugged and dug another generous mouthful of his burrito. “How hard can it be? Except…”
“Except 1943 is a long time ago, Padrino.”
“A mere three quarters of a century. Hell, I’m older than that. So I’m looking at the next generation.”
“Ay.”
“One of the joys of this being eighty-five business is that naps are often much more important to me than doing any kind of challenging work. But on occasion, I get lucky.
“The way I figure it, several things could have happened. The sales record book might well have been destroyed…and I gotta be realistic. It probably was. Or maybe Mary kept it for sentimental reasons. Maybe before she died she gave it to a historical society somewhere. Maybe one of her children got it, and it’s now in the possession of one of their kids. Maybe, maybe. I mean, if I’d had it, I would have kept it. Journals like that are fun reading. Somebody pays twelve cents for a can of peaches, a dollar fifty for a shovel. That sort of thing. It appeals to historians.”
“At least you know the gun’s shipping history after it left the factory.”
Gastner grimaced. “Yeah, but I want to know who purchased it from Rosenblum originally. I want to know who plunked down their seventeen dollars or whatever it was to buy it, all shiny and new. Because, see, I also want to know what it was doing out there on the prairie, dropped in the rocks of Bennett’s Trail, lost for all these years. I want to know what life it led between 1889, when it left the factory all bright and shiny, and when it was lost. I mean, people don’t go around just casually dropping Colt revolvers. Only in the movies. Why didn’t the owner pick it up again after he dropped it? That’s a month’s wages, after all. That’s a pretty simple question. And the titillating thing is that Josiah Bennett himself was supposedly murdered down in that country.”
Less Than a Moment Page 5