Less Than a Moment

by Steven F Havill

  “Remember Davy Schofield?”

  Estelle grinned. “Oh, yes. I remember Davy. We show him an eight-­by-­ten glossy of a smudged shoe print left on a wet cement floor. Any attorney worth his salt would take one look and just laugh. But Davy takes one look, and figures he’s had it. He confesses to what, sixteen residential and a handful of commercial burglaries?”

  “Spooked by a photo that no court in the world would accept,” Linda added. “You never know.”

  “True enough.”

  “Hey?” Torrez’s disembodied voice said. “Lydia Thompson is parked out at the county road. You need to talk with her?”

  For a moment, Estelle pondered that. “Is there something specific that she wants?”

  “Other than results, you mean?”

  “Of course.”

  There was a pause. Her view up the steep slope was partially obscured, but she could see Torrez, still standing on the rock promontory, but this time twisted around as he looked back toward the county road.

  “She wants to talk with you,” Torrez said after a moment.

  “I’ll be up in a little bit. And no, I don’t want her coming down here.”

  “Ten four. Pasquale’s on his way.”

  Family first, Estelle thought. In moments of emotional crisis, family members were the first to strike out against their own. Wives stabbed husbands, husbands beat wives, parents roasted or boiled their own children. Look first to family. That’s what the statistics about perpetrators claimed. Still, she found it hard to believe that Lydia Thompson would have lashed out at the same man who had literally held her together years before, after the three crippling shotgun blasts…and then stayed by her side during the long months of surgery, recuperation, and therapy.

  “I’ll show Sergeant Pasquale what you need,” Linda said helpfully.

  Estelle smiled at Linda’s formal reference to her husband. “Just a standard tread cast,” she said. “We both know how much he loves to make those.” She nodded at the rock rubble hillside above them. “I need to know how long it takes to climb from here all the way to the top, where Bobby is standing.”

  Linda Pasquale didn’t ask why she needed to know that, and had she done so, Estelle would have been hard-­pressed to explain herself. But there had been at least two people on this hillside—­Kyle Thompson and the owner of the foot that had kicked him over the edge. Had there been others? Who knew?

  Had the motorcyclist ridden through here on the same day? A week before? And if he had ridden through on the day Thompson took his plunge, what had he witnessed? Had the motorcyclist only paused to innocently adjust his helmet? To light a cigarette? Had he glimpsed Kyle Thompson high above him? Had they conversed, shouting back and forth across the yawning space? Had the motorcyclist then clambered up through the rocks to talk face-­to-­face with Thompson, or had he witnessed the fatal kick from down here?

  The scrape that one could imagine had been made by the bike’s kickstand told an interesting story, Estelle mused. For a brief pause, why lower the stand? The rider clearly dismounted. And then what?

  “Remember the slithering critters,” Linda reminded helpfully.

  “Oh, sí,” Estelle stood for another minute, gazing uphill, plotting a likely route. She glanced at her watch, and set off, taking what appeared to be the easiest and most direct route. At one point thirty yards from where the motorcycle might have been parked, she stopped abruptly. Resting her left hand lightly on the massive hip of a pickup truck-­sized boulder, she stood absolutely still, letting her gaze cover the ground in front of her a few inches at a time.

  When she was sure of what she was seeing, she knelt and examined the single shoe print that marked a smooth river of sand, narrow enough that only the heel had been captured. The tread pattern was anything but clear and sharp, but she could see the hint of a waffle pattern.

  The print prompted another flood of questions with no answers, other than the realization that a human being had walked this same route…sometime.

  She turned and held up a hand, catching Linda Pasquale’s attention. “I need a photo up here,” she called. “One fair boot print.”

  In a moment, Linda reached her position, and stabbed a short-­stemmed blue flag beside the print. “You want to take some of these with you?” she asked, and Estelle accepted a small bouquet of the flags and slid them into her back pocket. “I always have them in my kit.” She shot a dozen or so photos, including both background and close-­ups. “You’re thinking the killer went up this way?”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Estelle said. “We have no sense of time that ties any of this together. The photos you took of the bruising on Kyle Thompson’s back…” She waited while Linda scrolled through the library of photos stored in the camera’s memory card, then brought the one she wanted to the viewing screen. She offered it to Estelle.

  “Any chance of enough detail for a match?”

  Linda scoffed good-­naturedly. “Don’t we wish. But, no, not unless we let our imaginations mingle with wishful thinking. Another Davy Schofield moment.”

  “That can be useful,” Estelle said. “If that’s all we have.”

  “As long as he’s got the plaster mixed, you want Tommy to cast this too?”

  “Sure. Why not.” Several months ago, she’d watched Sergeant Pasquale work through the sloppy process during a show-­and-­tell day at the elementary school. The thirty-­five fifth graders had been impressed—­maybe if they were impressed enough, watching a plaster cast being poured might deter them from a life of crime. At the least, they might learn to stick to high, hard ground. “Okay, onward.”

  Total scrambling time to reach the spot where Kyle Thompson crashed into the rocks took a little more than two minutes. She ducked under the yellow tape and continued on up the hill, finding that the forty-­foot rise required almost five minutes, ducking around boulders and slipping through the narrow passageways in the boulder jumble—­and finding her way blocked by an ancient juniper that had somehow survived centuries without being crushed by tumbling rocks.

  The victim’s trip down was faster. He would have had time during his free-­flight for one heartfelt scream.

  “She’s waiting over in her vehicle.” Sheriff Torrez nodded over toward the county road as Estelle approached within earshot. “You might ask her why she and her husband drove separate cars.”

  Habit, Estelle thought, but didn’t voice the opinion. A busy couple like the Thompsons would want their individual wheels so they were never marooned should one of them go off gallivanting.

  Lydia Thompson, sitting on the passenger side of the older model Explorer with the door open and her feet on the ground, rose as Estelle approached.

  “Am I a person of interest in this?” The sober set of her face verified that she was not kidding.

  “Should you be?”

  “What I mean is, I’ve tried to talk with the sheriff a couple of times. It’s like having a conversation with a tree stump.”

  Estelle laughed gently. “I sympathize, Lydia.” She rubbed her hand across the top of the SUV’s doorframe. “As you must know, an investigation like this is a maze of little strands, some connected, some just drifting off into nowhere. I’m convinced that your husband didn’t stumble, lose his balance, and take a header down the rocks. Everything tells us that after the fall, he remained, unmoving, in exactly the spot where he was found by the deputy.”

  “And he would have had to fly out that far,” Lydia said.

  “Exactly so. Preliminary autopsy findings indicate that he received a significant blow to the upper back.”

  “A blow. Like a strike of some kind?”

  “Apparently.”

  “I mean with a weapon of some kind? A stick? Club? What?”

  Estelle hesitated, giving her intuitions time to voice their concerns. “At this point, it appea
rs that he was kicked.”

  Lydia’s eyes narrowed as she looked askance at Estelle. “Kicked in the upper back? My husband is six four. How would that work?”

  “That’s one avenue we’re pursuing,” Estelle replied.

  “But you’ve found no sign of a confrontation. No sign of a fight.”

  “True. Sergeant Pasquale is casting both a partial boot print, along with some evidence that points to a motorcycle, down below the drop off. Whether or not there is a relationship is anyone’s guess at this point.”

  “I…” Lydia started to say, then shook her head in frustration as she bit off the comment. Her otherwise lovely, glacial blue eyes were red-­rimmed. The unrelenting sun had chapped her tear-­stained cheeks.

  “At this point, is there anyone with whom Kyle was talking about this project? Had he met with anyone? He and Miles Waddell hadn’t had the chance to sit down together and discuss any of the plans, am I correct in that?”

  “No, they hadn’t.” She frowned into the distance. “A one-­point-­six-­million-­dollar whim, Estelle. That’s what we have here. Kyle bought this acreage based on the development Waddell has already done, and based on BLM plans for across the road. Never, in all the earlier pie-­in-­the-­sky discussions did the notion of a dark zone come up. Neither one of us had any idea that light pollution would be such a big deal to Waddell.”

  “You think Miles would have reason to try to stop any development on this property?”

  “I’m not saying that.” She turned and looked south, toward the NightZone mesa development. “My God, the money he’s poured into that place. And then we come along, and there’s the threat of development right under his nose. How’s he going to react to that?”

  “You know how, Lydia. He wanted to talk with you both, to see what your plans were. And I suspect if he saw a possible conflict, he’d do his best to compromise the impact.”

  “Kicking someone over a cliff is a hell of a compromise.” She smiled bitterly. “You know, one thing is for sure. Kyle was a big guy, but he was fit…with the exception of that wrecked ankle. That explains to me why, if he was kicked, or punched, or slugged, or whatever, that the blow had to come from the back. From behind him. He never saw it coming.”

  Lydia vised her head between both hands. “He would have heard whoever it was. That’s what I don’t understand. Somebody walks in, or motorcycles in, or drives in with a car or truck…Kyle would have heard that, he would have turned around to greet whoever it was.” She shrugged helplessly.

  “I have to do something to help, Estelle. I don’t know what, but I can’t just sit in the motel, or up at Waddell’s Shangri La, and twiddle my thumbs. I talked to Kyle’s parents, and they’re going to fly out to Albuquerque for some sort of memorial service. I have to think about that.”

  “Anything I can do…”

  Lydia laughed hopelessly and held up both hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Not a clue. If my gut could stand alcohol, I think I’d go back to my room and drink myself into a coma.”

  “Think hard, Lydia. Think instead. Who did Kyle talk with during the past couple of days? Since the two of you came down to Posadas. On top of that, who knew about your trip? Who knew that you two were here?”

  The young woman straightened her spine with a grimace, and rubbed her belly. “I wish I could answer that. I mean, it was no big secret or anything. A friend or two or three up in Albuquerque knew. And of course, all the NightZone folks knew that we were here. A few over in the county offices.” She grunted and stretched her spine again. “I’m in knots. I feel like this whole mess is going to split me wide open.”

  “You drove down separately. Why did you do that?”

  Lydia cocked one eyebrow. “Kyle was going to drive on down to Tucson. He’s got a couple of buddies who are interested in this as investment property. I did not want to go to Tucson. I wanted to do some camping here, trying to get a sense of the place.” She smiled. “Get it to talk to me about what it wants.” She drew a spiral in the air next to her ear. “How’s that for spiritual stuff?” She patted the Explorer’s flank. “Sleeping bag, tent, all the goodies in the truck.” Her frown was heavy. “Don’t think so now. The room up at Waddell’s place suits.” She smiled again. “So you see, no alibi.”

  “If you do go camping, especially if you do that before we have the perp in custody, will you let us know?”

  “Of course.”

  “Call if you think there’s something I can do for you. Or if you need to talk with Dr. Guzman.”

  Lydia shook her head, and this time patted her gut gently. “In the weeks and months after this happened, I came that close,” and she held thumb and index finger an eighth of an inch apart, “to developing a lifelong love affair with opiates. That close.”

  “It wouldn’t have been a very long life.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Kyle helped me out of that, too.” Her face crumpled. “And here I am. And there he is. It doesn’t take long for a life to turn around, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Lydia sighed heavily. “So what now?”

  “We work with what we have. And with what you can remember. So take a deep breath, and give it your best shot. Every person, every phone call, everything you can remember. Think about the Realtors you dealt with, or the bank personnel. Just every single person. At this point, we need connections.”

  Lydia carefully pushed the door of the Explorer closed. “Okay.” She grinned wistfully. “You know, back when all this happened,” and she stroked her gut again, “I cried so much, for so long, that I just cried myself out. Kyle used to say that my tear ducts had been drained from over-­work. And then he’d keep giving me these ridiculous get well cards that would make me blubber some more. After a while, like a good addict hitting rock bottom, I decided that all that crying was going to accomplish was to give me sore eyes. It wasn’t going to help me heal, and it wasn’t going to fix up my insides so that someday I might have a family.” She shrugged helplessly. “So I quit. But that’s what I think I need to do now. Go lock myself in Mr. Waddell’s wonderful hotel suite and let it all go. I don’t think that’s going to work, but it’s a nice thought, eh?”

  “You have my number.”

  “Yeah, I do. Thanks.” She nodded at the approaching figure of Sheriff Torrez. “And please tell the stump there that I’ll be okay. I think I make him nervous.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  Chapter Twenty-­Three

  Estelle drove south on County 14 for a few hundred yards and turned into the NightZone entrance. She idled the county car across the ample parking lot to the colorful sun shades under which two dozen vehicles were parked. The collection of New Mexico license tags was mixed with the characteristically dull rentals with California, Arizona, and Texas plates. Two-­thirds of the way down the row, Lydia Thompson’s Explorer was sandwiched between a Range Rover with Louisiana plates and a Jeep Grand Wagoneer from New York.

  The two tram cars were passing each other near the mesa rise’s midpoint, and for a moment Estelle considered taking that approach to the mesa top, but, loath to leave her mobile “office” untended, she drove across the parking area to the mesa access road’s gate.

  This time, her greeter was a young woman. She appeared from the gatehouse even before Estelle had pulled the Charger to a stop. Her name tag announced Cecily Montaño, and the young woman’s smile was radiant—­enough so that Estelle had a fleeting image of Miles Waddell conducting “This is how to smile at visitors” workshops for all staff.

  “Hi,” Cecily greeted. “I’m Cecily, and does Mr. Waddell have you sign in, or do you just drive on up?”

  “How’s your day going, Cecily?”

  “Oh, just amazing.” Her smile faded. “So sad about our neighbor’s accident, though.”

  Our neighbor. Estelle regarded the girl
with interest. Rich, smooth coffee skin, raven hair secured in a pert ponytail with a turquoise clip, and unfathomable brown eyes, in concert with a body that could belong to a New York model. But like so many of Miles Waddell’s employees, Cecily Montaño was no high-­fashion import. Posadas­ born and raised, Cecily’s list of accomplishments at Posadas High School had been impressive. Estelle knew that the girl had worked part-­time at the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant, and then, when she graduated high school with honors, had taken an office job with the Bureau of Land Management’s field office in Deming.

  “Did you have a chance to meet the Thompsons when they were topside?”

  Cecily scrunched up her face. “You know, never actually like met, you know. Lots of talk going around that they were visiting. Maddy Lucero said that they were in the restaurant a time or two. Such nice folks.” She shook her head in sympathy.

  “If you’ll open the gate, I’ll buzz Mr. Waddell and tell him I’m on my way.”

  “Will do. Oh, and someone said that your son was home for a while?”

  “I hope I get to see him,” Estelle said with a grin.

  “Oh, I know how that goes. Well, tell him ‘hi’ for me. I mean, he won’t remember who I am, but you know.” She shrugged fetchingly and pushed the remote for the gate.

  Halfway up the mesa road, Estelle slowed at one of the tight left-­hand curves, bringing the car to a full stop. By straining hard against her seat belt/shoulder harness, she could see the county road down below, and the billowing dust cloud behind Sheriff Robert Torrez’s unit. His speed wasn’t surprising. Torrez possessed a habitual lead foot during the most peaceful of times.

  Estelle settled back and continued on up the grade. When she crested the top and was well away from the torturous curves and the sheer drops, she nudged the auto-­dial of her cell phone.

  “This is Miles Waddell. Hey, two visits in one day makes it special, Estelle.”