“But still reaching the audience somehow?” Estelle said.
“Exactly, Ma. That’s exactly right. William Thomas sleeps right through it.” He changed tracks effortlessly. “Oh, and remember that dinner is over here tonight. Will six still work for you?”
“I think so. I can make it work.” She looked at Bill Gastner, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “What’s up your sleeve, Padrino?”
“Are you ready for this?”
“Oh, yeah, huh,” Francisco said, obviously knowing what was coming. “Freshen that?”
“Absolutely.” Gastner handed his coffee mug to his godson, and then turned to face Estelle, eyes twinkling.
“I found the books.” He clapped his hands in delight. “How about that?”
“The mercantile records?”
“Yep. Three volumes.” He held up three fingers, and bent each in turn. “Volume one from 1878 through 1884, volume two from 1885 through 1888, and volume three from ’89 until the store closed in ’91.” He grinned. “I was so damned excited that I drove my new power chair around the block, and then through that jungle in the back yard. Damn near killed myself.”
Estelle relaxed back. “So,” and she beckoned for more.
“Well, I lucked out. See, one of Mary’s sons—remember that she married Jules, the founder’s son who took over the store and then promptly died of an infected tooth? Well, she then married Frank Silverman, a savvy businessman who tried his best. And then had the four kids.” He grinned at Estelle, whose eyebrow was raised in mild confusion. “Don’t get lost in the unimportant family saga. That’s just obituary stuff. What’s important is that Mary’s son Irving—Irving Silverman—is now eighty-one, that young sprout, and lives up in Ratón when he’s not wintering in one of those awful Florida places.” He reached up and accepted the coffee mug from Francisco. “Thank you, Jeeves.”
“And he has the journals?”
“He does.”
“¡Ay, caramba! That’s amazing, Padrino. Did you tell him about the gun you found?”
“After a while. First I had to listen to his litany about how goddamn old he was. He’s one of those geezers who’s goddamned impressed because he’s survived this long. I had to hear all about his having two knee replacements, shoulder work, two strokes, and a heart bypass.”
“You’ve got him beat, Padrino,” Francisco offered. Gastner grimaced.
“You could have gone all day without reminding me of that, sprout. So, anyway.” He took a thoughtful sip of the coffee. “Irving says that I can look through the books in person if I’ll come to his place in Ratón.”
“At least he has the year that the gun was shipped to his grandfather’s store.”
“That narrows it down, for sure,” Gastner said. “And even though there was no such thing as gun registration back then, the buyer’s name should appear in the journal, I’d think. That’s just common sense.”
“That’s a long drive up there. To Ratón.”
“Seven, eight hours. I figure if I bother to go I’ll spend the night in Santa Fe and then go on up the rest of the way.” He shrugged. “Not to mention that there’s an offer on the table to fly me up there, door-to-damn-door. Can you imagine the look on old Silverman’s face if that happened?”
“Just say the word,” Francisco said. “We’ll be back from Hawaii on Sunday, so a little jog to Ratón and back on Monday is as convenient as it gets…while we still have the jet in the neighborhood.”
“A little jog,” Gastner laughed. “Anyway, we’ll see what old Silverman has to say after he takes a look through the journals. It may just be a wild goose chase.”
Estelle shifted so she could reach the chirping, vibrating gadget in her jacket pocket. “Speaking of wild goose chases.” She stroked the iPad’s face and then settled it to her ear.
“Yo,” Sheriff Robert Torrez greeted. “Where you at?”
“I’m sitting in the shade with Padrino and my son at the new house.”
“I’ll meet you on 14, first turnoff north of Waddell’s. You’ll see the traffic.”
Estelle’s heart sank, but she worked to keep her tone neutral. “What have you got?”
“Miller says it looks like a single fatality. Back off the road a ways. We don’t want to do the initial after dark.”
“Does Luke recognize the victim?”
“Nope. I’m about ten out. We’ll see then.”
Estelle glanced at her watch. “I’m on my way. ETA about thirty.”
“Or less,” Torrez said, and disconnected. His description—the first turnoff after Waddell’s development—matched property owned by the Thompsons. Had Kyle stumbled again? Or Lydia? Or any one of the many locals who still hunted that ground? An unsuspecting birder too far afield? The unknown surveyor stake vandal?
Estelle looked up and met her son’s eyes. “Sorry, Francisco. I need to roll on this. Give my love to Angie and William Thomas.”
“A bad one?”
“It looks that way.”
“You’re going to miss dinner?”
She offered a game smile. “Unless you all eat around midnight or so.”
“That can happen.”
She pushed herself up and hugged her son. “You’re a sweetheart, hijo.” She stepped across to Gastner. “I’ll keep you posted. And you can let me know what you decide about a visit to Ratón.” As she settled into the car, she reflected that former Sheriff Bill Gastner had returned her hug, but he hadn’t offered to ride along. Then she wondered what Sheriff Robert Torrez’s reaction would have been if she’d just said “no.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Charger’s air conditioning almost kept up with the harsh late afternoon sun that baked through the windshield. Before long, the sun would hide behind the bulk of the San Cristóbal range that separated Posadas County from Mexico, and the evening cooldown would be abrupt.
The snarl of the engine and the roar of tires on hot macadam drowned out the radio, and Estelle turned up the volume so she could keep track of the dispatcher’s traffic.
Happy Hour had started at the Broken Spur Saloon, and as she flashed by, Estelle caught sight of a gaggle of tourists disgorging from their bus. In another mile, she braked hard for the intersection with County Road 14, and the drop from the state highway’s macadam to the graveled county surface was jarring. Six miles of dusty switchbacks farther on, a discreet black-on-white sign with an arrow announced NightZone Parking. The generous paved parking lot welcomed half a dozen cars, but a large group of tourists was gathered at the east end of the parking lot where the portico protected rail passengers while they waited for the train.
In another mile, a yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the county road.
Deputy Luke Miller’s Tahoe was parked diagonally so that it blocked both lanes of the narrow thoroughfare, and he walked quickly toward Estelle’s vehicle. A bony, almost gawky man with hair more white than blond, he bent down as if he wore a back brace, hands on his knees.
“Sheriff wants foot traffic only, ma’am,” he said. “Might be good to leave your vehicle right where it’s at. Obregon is up the road half a mile blockin’ the other way.”
“Tell me what we have, Luke.”
“Well”—he pivoted without straightening up and pointed off to the east—“see where this first mesa’s edge runs right along that line of juniper? About a hundred yards out?”
“All right.”
“Just below that. It looks like we got us a hiker who took a header.”
“Dead?”
“As dead can be.” He touched his forehead under the bill of his cap. “A hard look through the binocs shows his whole frontal crushed in. ME will tell you more, but looks to me like he went off headfirst somehow, and landed smack on his skull. It’s nothing but a jumble of rocks off that ledge.”
>
“So it’s a male.”
“Yes, ma’am. Appears to be.”
In the distance, Estelle could hear sirens, and as she got out of her car she saw Robert Torrez walking cross-country toward her, avoiding the two-track that broke off from the county road.
“Sheriff wants people to stay off the two-track,” Miller reminded her.
“I can do that.” Estelle waited a moment as the sheriff approached.
“Nobody drives on that lane,” Torrez said by way of greeting, and he nodded at the deputy. “Have the ambulance wait out here until we give an all clear. ME’s going to have to walk in like everybody else. We got a few tracks, and I don’t want ’em obliterated.” He looked off into the distance and closed his eyes, as if trying to sift through all the aromas that the prairie had to offer. After a few seconds, he turned to Estelle. “You might want to bring your camera, too. Calls out to Linda, but I don’t know what she’s doin’.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s take a hike.”
They’d covered no more than fifty yards of humpy, bunchgrass-strewn prairie, dodging clumps of contorted cholla and wasted beavertail cacti when Torrez stopped abruptly and drew in a huge breath. “He’s not goin’ anywhere. No need for us to break a leg tryin’ to hurry.”
“You recognize the victim?”
“Yep.”
One painful factoid at a time, Estelle thought, not without a little irritation. “So who have we got?”
“His license says S. Kyle Thompson.” The sheriff glanced sideways at Estelle.
She stopped short. “Where’s Lydia?”
“Don’t know. Not here.”
“Have you actually ever met Kyle Thompson? I mean, you’d recognize him?”
“Can’t see this guy carryin’ Thompson’s papers in his wallet if it’s not him.”
After a spread of creosote bush and acacia, they reached a sparse grove of stunted junipers, and Estelle could hear the breeze just beyond playing among the rocks of the mesa-face. On ahead twenty-five yards, a forest green Subaru Outback was parked, the only set of vehicle tracks that was obvious on the two-track leading directly to the little station wagon.
“Stay over this way,” the sheriff instructed. He led her around a copse of runty junipers competing with an enormous cholla cactus, and an assortment of cow plops. In a moment, she was standing on top of a house-sized boulder with a grand view to the north and east.
The view downward wasn’t so grand. The victim lay on his face, arms and legs spread-eagled as if he’d been determined to fly. Instead he’d plunged face-first the forty feet to the rocks below. The artfully eroded sandstone under his head was blood-soaked.
“Was Luke down there?” Estelle asked. The deputy had been with the Sheriff’s Department for less than a year, and Estelle was not yet confident that Deputy Luke Miller could resist galumphing his size thirteens through a potential crime scene before calling for assistance.
“Nope. He stopped right where we’re standin’ and called it in.” He pointed south with his chin. “I took one climb down over there, stayin’ on the hard rocks, and checked his wallet. It’s in his left back pocket.”
“And that’s Kyle Thompson.”
“Says so.”
Estelle set her camera bag down and unzipped the main compartment, selecting a wide-angle lens. “Ay, this is going to be so bad.” She took a deep breath and held it, then let it out as if she were exhaling a jet of smoke. “You ran the plate on the Subaru?”
“Yep.”
“Thompson’s?”
“Yep.”
She moved to the edge of the rock, the sandstone curving down and away from the souls of her boots. “I want some overalls before everyone shows up.”
“I’ll keep trying to locate Linda.”
“That would be good.” Estelle had confidence in her own photographic abilities, but no one produced photographic results like Linda Pasquale. Seemingly impossible shots were commonplace for her. “Show me where you climbed down.”
By the time the undersheriff had reached the body, she’d fired off fifty or more images covering the arc of land that included the boulders making up the cliffside. Then, she concentrated on the undisturbed area immediately around the corpse. Finally, she knelt beside the man.
Damage to the victim’s upper face and skull was massive. The curdle of brain tissue oozed out where the skull had cracked open. Bending low, Estelle saw the damage epicentered above Thompson’s right eye. It appeared that he had dived straight into the rocks, with no last-second squirming in midair to avoid the face-first contact. If the cap that was lying amid the rocks yards to the victim’s left had been on his head, it hadn’t offered any protection.
Even so, the victim’s heart hadn’t been convinced. It had continued to pump a gusher of blood until the lack of command signals from the brain switched it off.
Estelle knelt on the sun-warmed rock beside Thompson’s broken head. He was a large man, probably weighing two-twenty or better. The skull’s frontal bone was stout, taking lots of abuse during a lifetime. But forty feet down onto solid, unforgiving rock? The crashing impact had popped his skull like smacking a coconut with a large hammer.
One pant leg had hiked up enough to reveal the black ankle boot, a heavily braced affair that included the entire foot and ankle, leaving only the socked toes exposed. Even if the damaged joint wasn’t sore, the contraption would have forced Thompson to limp, throwing him off balance.
“You want to do some measurin’?” Torrez’s voice was gentle, even patient, floating down from above.
“Who do you have coming?”
“Taber will be here in about three minutes. Mears in about five. Camera girl is parked out at the road and is loadin’ up. Guzman is attending. He’ll be here in a bit.”
“Let’s wait on Taber for the tape.” Estelle continued to stare at the boot, her eyebrows practically knit together in a frown line over her nose. “What were you doing, Kyle?” she whispered. Twisting in place, she looked up at the rock from which the man had plunged. A commercial wooden cane lay at the base of the rocks.
“What?” Torrez asked.
She held up a hand palm out, and continued to stare toward the cane without crossing the intervening ground between her and it. Eventually, Torrez became impatient.
“What?” he asked again.
“Bobby, the geometry of this doesn’t make sense to me.”
The sheriff palmed a small tape measure and tossed it down to her. She caught it and deftly extended the tape until it reached back and bumped against the rocks. She knelt and touched the measure to the victim’s right foot. “Nine foot four inches.” She looked up at the sheriff. “That’s what bothers me. And you can see it from up there. That cane, assuming it’s his, is actually leaning against the base of the boulder.”
“Yep.”
“If he was just standing on the edge and lost his balance, why would he hit the ground way out here? I mean, his feet are almost ten feet from the base of the rocks. ”
“Takin’ up high diving,” Torrez said.
“Maybe so. He had a sprained ankle—might have been an actual fracture somehow. He’s going to jump with that? He’s going to have to take a running leap.”
“Somethin’ to ask your husband when he gets here. With that thing on his ankle, he’s gonna be kinda careful how he walks.”
She extended the tape once again, this time until it reached the white baseball cap lying crown-down in the rocks.
“Nine feet,” she said. “Both he and his cap landed out here. His cane didn’t.”
“A lot of ways that could happen—and that’s sayin’ that the cap and the cane are even his.”
“Wow, look at this!” Linda Pasquale announced from on high, stepping carefully up behind the sheriff. She reached out a hand and gripped To
rrez’s belt, then squatted, keeping her center of gravity low, one hand clutching her weighty camera case. “Some latent desire to be Icarus, or what?”
Sheriff Torrez glanced down at the young woman, who didn’t appear to be the least bit intimidated by his glower.
“The ambulance ETA is about five minutes. We passed ’em on the way down. Lydia Thompson just arrived. Jackie’s keepin’ her back at the car until you give the word.”
Estelle gazed up at the young photographer thoughtfully. “And who informed Lydia?”
Linda shook her head. “Information like that is above my pay grade.” She twisted gently, surveying the rocks. “You want the whole schmeer on this?”
“Everything. Right now, a side view of the whole scene. Make the relationship between the body’s position and the base of the rock wall clear, so we can draw a schematic from it. And the cane. And the cap.”
Estelle turned her attention back to the corpse. Kyle Thompson was dressed in blue jeans that showed little wear—the view from the backside showed no gouges, rents, or tears. He wore a light summer-weight cream-colored shirt that also showed no sign of the victim’s injuries. The ball cap showed no blood or other signs of impact to the portion that she could see.
Still kneeling, she settled back on her haunches as she manipulated her phone, tapping her husband’s number.
“I’m on the road,” Dr. Francis Guzman responded. “Just coming up on the Spur.” Almost a decade before, he had accepted the position of deputy medical examiner. Dr. Alan Perrone, the ME, had pointed out that there was no one else to take the position, and most of the time over the years before his appointment, Francis had unofficially filled in when needed anyway. His excuse—that he wasn’t good at interrupting what he might be doing to charge off into the hinterlands—hadn’t won his case. “Nobody is prepared for these deals,” Perrone had reportedly told him.
“One of the deputies will walk you in,” Estelle said. “And the victim is Kyle Thompson…Lydia is on-site but won’t be identifying the victim until you’re finished.”
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