“Well,” Perrone said, pushing himself to his feet, “I’m finished here.” He looked up at the arroyo rim where Bill Gastner kept the two paramedics company. “No alcohol at the scene, apparently?”
“None that we’ve seen so far. There were two unopened cans of beer in the truck. None opened.”
Perrone nodded absently. “We’ll see. Right now, it looks like he made a simple mistake and overcooked it.” He reached out with his foot and gently nudged the exploded front tire with his boot. “Everything is going just hunky-dory, and then events conspire.”
They heard another vehicle, and a second white Expedition eased into view.
“That would be himself,” Perrone said. “Let me get out of here before the circus blocks me in.” He reached out a hand and touched Estelle on the arm. “I’ll let you know ASAP. But don’t expect any surprises.”
“Thanks, Alan.”
She saw the sheriff’s vehicle backing up, away from the paramedics’ unit. In a moment, Robert Torrez appeared in the arroyo bottom and trudged with no particular urgency down the center of the arroyo, where cattle tracks chewed the gravel. Fifty yards away he slowed to an amble, looking at this and that as he approached. At one point he stopped and turned to face down the arroyo toward the southwest. He scanned the edge of the cut, taking in the rise of ground where Bender’s Canyon trail skirted the edge, the sudden swell on top of which Estelle’s vehicle was parked corking the road.
He turned without approaching any closer and regarded the wreckage of the ATV and Freddy Romero.
“He was comin’ this way?” His voice barely audible.
“It appears so, yes. They didn’t keep you long today,” Estelle remarked.
Torrez grimaced. “Wasted trip. The DA knew that they were going to plea yesterday. He could have said something then.” He shrugged and crossed over to where Estelle was standing, towering over her by a foot. His dark features were impassive, but the eyes constantly surveyed the area, inventorying who was present, noting what might be out of place. His standard uniform of blue jeans and casual western style shirt hadn’t been modified even for a court date.
“The ATV caught him on the back of the neck,” Estelle said. “The accident is straight forward, I think. I just don’t know why he was over here.”
“There ain’t a postage stamp of ground where this kid hasn’t been,” the sheriff said with a touch of admiration. “You said his truck is over at the springs?”
“Yes. Right at the fork where 122 joins the county track. Ramps are down from the tailgate. He left his phone in the truck, along with a small cooler. Two cans of beer. None open.”
“Huh,” Torrez grunted. “So what’s with that, I wonder. He coulda just parked out on 14 and been half way here.”
“I just don’t know, Bobby. Our next step is to follow his tracks farther on up the trail. I’d like to know where he went…where he turned around. Whatever he was doing, or scouting, or hunting, it appears that he was on his way back. Maybe.”
“His folks know?”
“Not yet. APD is working on that.”
“What a day for them.”
“Did you read the article in the paper about the cat skull?”
Torrez nodded but offered no comment on the story.
“That’s an interesting coincidence, I think,” Estelle added. “Freddy told the newspaper that he found the skull way up above Borracho Springs, up in a cave just below the top ridge. That’s a long way in, up above the springs. That was earlier in the week. Now, I can see why he would want to return to that area…maybe find something else. Maybe he wants some claws or something.”
“But he didn’t do that,” Torrez said. “You can’t get a four-wheeler up in that country anyway.”
“No, and this time, he didn’t hike in. In fact, it doesn’t look like he went up into the mountains at all. He parked his truck below the campground, but the four-wheeler tracks say that he drove directly over here.”
“I don’t go along with the cave bit, anyway,” the sheriff said. “I’ve been up above Borracho all kinds of times. I don’t know of any caves up on the ridge, like the kid was claiming. Maybe some rock shelves or undercuts. Maybe that’s what he meant.” Torrez stepped over to the rig and knelt down. “And no place to drive this rig, either. You know this kid better than I do. Was he a hiker?”
“I don’t know. I see him working with all the machinery-the bikes, ATVs, the boat, even that dreadful motorized skateboard that my two urchins think is the greatest invention on the planet. I know Freddy liked to play golf with his dad. The whole family liked outings at the Butte for fishing and water skiing.” She sighed. “They’ve been neighbors for eight years, and I’ve never been in their house.” She slid her hands past one another, two ships passing.
Estelle knelt and examined the victim’s well worn, even tattered, trainers. They weren’t the sort of footwear that would stand up to much hiking through rugged country.
“Well, he did what he did,” she said, and Torrez shrugged again.
“It probably don’t matter,” he said. “What happened here looks pretty obvious. Are you ready for transport?”
“Yes.” The sheriff glanced once more at the mangled ATV, then walked back up the arroyo far enough that he could make himself heard by the two EMTs up on the trail without raising his voice. They disappeared behind the ambulance and shortly reappeared with one of the light gurneys. They climbed down into the arroyo using the same trail taken by the sheriff.
“You sure find some spots,” Matty Finnegan said. She pivoted at the waist, taking in the desolate country, then glanced at Estelle. “Or maybe I should say he found the spot, huh. Who called this in? Some rancher drive by?”
“Luck on our part,” Estelle replied. “We followed his tracks.” She didn’t explain why.
“Yesterday his brother? Now Freddy.” Matty grimaced. “What did they do to deserve this run of luck.”
Torrez interrupted her musings. “When you’re done, I need a hand with the ATV.”
“That’s us, the wrecking crew,” Mattie muttered good-naturedly.
“Ten seconds,” the sheriff said. “That’s all it’ll take.”
The abrupt noise of the body bag zipper prompted a flinch. A life finished, Estelle thought. Just like that. A life reduced to memories and the sound of one long zipper. She glanced at her watch, wondering if the Albuquerque Police Department had had time to make contact with George and Tata Romero.
“Hey,” the sheriff prompted quietly. Estelle turned to see him standing by the ATV, the two EMTs ready. “Give us a hand now?” He made a flipping motion with his hand. “Over that way. Everybody make sure they got hold of something that ain’t sharp.” The five of them managed the wreckage more easily than Estelle had imagined. It thumped back on its wheels, the one mangled and bent, both handlebars and luggage rack twisted.
“God, we’re good,” Linda Real said.
“And we’re out of here,” Mattie called. The EMTs set off down the arroyo with their burden, and Estelle watched their progress. The bagged figure on the gurney looked too small to be Freddy Romero.
“Stubby’s going to be able to get his rig in here somehow?” Linda referred to the driver of the county’s contract wrecker. The question jarred Estelle back to the task at hand. The sheriff pointed at the arroyo bank.
“Winch it right up there,” he said. “No problem.” Linda stepped back and took a series of photos of the wrecked machine. In the sunshine, the oil and gasoline were still fragrant. Torrez pulled the short.22 rifle out of the nylon boot. He popped the magazine out, and Estelle could see the bright noses of the cartridges. The sheriff jacked the bolt, but the chamber had been empty. He pushed the cartridges in the magazine, so there was no play to allow more to be added, and shook his head. “No luck huntin’. All ten still there.” He slid the rifle back into the boot, but kept the magazine, bouncing it thoughtfully in his hand.
Estelle’s attention was drawn to the plywood
box that was bolted to the rear rack, its lid held in place with two stout bungee cords. The box had taken the brunt of one of the flips, but the three-quarter inch plywood out of which it was constructed had suffered only digs and gouges. The latch was secured with a twist of wire.
The sheriff loosened the wire and swung the lid back. A package of Oreo cookies had been reduced to crumbs and chunks that cascaded down into the box. Below the cookies, three bottles of water had nestled, two of them apparently exploded with the force of the crash.
“Cookies and water,” Estelle remarked. “The outdoorsman’s diet.”
“Works.” Torrez reached past Estelle. “Stop a minute.”
She had already seen what had prompted his interest. “Linda, please?”
As Linda Real stepped close, Estelle added, “Get a good close up of this in situ for me.”
“The oily rag?” Linda asked.
“Yep,” Torrez said. He stepped aside slightly, allowing the sunshine to fall fully into the battered carrier. The photographer’s camera snicked a series as she moved in and out, her last three photos taken so close that only the cloth would be in the frame.
“Got it,” she said.
Estelle gently pulled the wrapped object out of the carrier, holding it in the palm of her right hand. Through the cloth, she could feel the familiar hard steel. The cloth had once been a T-shirt, and she unwound it as if about to reveal a treasured diamond. The handgun was encrusted with a uniform coating of dust and dirt, including a liberal assortment of what looked like animal droppings adhered to the smooth metal.
“Here,” Torrez said. “Hold it still.” He slid a pencil into the bore, marked where it stopped with his thumb, and withdrew it, laying it along the pistol’s slide. “Still got one in the chamber.”
“This isn’t something Freddy was just carrying,” Estelle said. “It’s been in the elements for a long time.”
Torrez bent down a little and scrutinized the handgun. “Smith and Wesson. Not a bad piece. Be interesting to know if that bad boy’s been fired.”
“And at what.”
“Hunters, maybe. Remember the revolver that power walker found along the roadside over east of town? We had all kinds of theories about how that ended up there until we found out it belonged to some kid who’d been shooting from the roadside. He laid the gun on his jeep, and then got preoccupied with something else. Drove off and sure enough, the gun bounced off. That’s most likely with this. Some hunter got careless. If it wasn’t stainless steel, it’d be just a hunk of junk right now.”
“It wasn’t Mr. Romero’s,” Estelle said.
“Not likely. He was nervous enough about his son drivin’ around with that. ” He touched his toe to the.22 carbine in the nylon boot. “He called me to find out how many laws Freddy was breakin’ by carrying that on his ATV. Made him kinda nervous that the kid was doin’ that.”
“You need anything?” Bill Gastner’s voice interrupted them.
“If you’d find me an evidence bag for this.” Estelle held out her hand so Gastner could see the gun. “In my briefcase.”
“You got it.”
While she waited, she carefully wrapped the gun in the cloth, mindful of where the charged weapon’s barrel pointed.
“Let me take that and have Mears get started on it,” Torrez said. He strolled with no urgency to the arroyo bank and reached up to catch the plastic bag that Bill Gastner dropped to him. “How are you doin’?” he asked the older man.
Gastner knelt with one knee in the dirt, surveying the scene below him. “I’m okay,” he said. “What’s with the gun?”
“Don’t know yet,” Torrez replied. “We’re gonna know. That’s for sure. She got any masking tape in that briefcase? That and a marker.”
Gastner returned with the two items, and Torrez peeled off a long strip, wound it across the outside of the evidence bag and wrote LOADED in large, block letters.
Chapter Nine
The four-wheeler tracks crisscrossed the two-track here and there, and it soon became apparent, as they reached low spots where the sand was a perfect matrix for tracks, that more than one round trip on Bender’s Canyon Trail had been made. At one such location, Estelle stopped the Expedition and she and Bill Gastner got out.
“At least three,” Gastner said. “Now, that’s interesting.” He bent his head back, gazing at the sky. “Look, we haven’t had a drop of moisture in three weeks. If we hadn’t found the kid and his wrecked machine in the arroyo, there’d be no way we could tell if these tracks were made this morning, yesterday, last week, or three weeks ago.”
“There’s a time puzzle here,” the undersheriff agreed. “For one thing, it’s likely that Freddy rode in here maybe yesterday some time. Fair enough. Then,” and she stepped across a hummock of grass, looking down at a particularly clear, deep impression left by the knobby tires, “did he ride back and forth? In and out? And this?” She paused, a toe almost touching another track.
“Not an ATV,” Gastner said. “Truck, car, jeep, something. Ground’s too gravelly to give us an impression.”
“But it’s on top, isn’t it.”
Gastner knelt down with a loud popping of knees, one hand on the ground to keep his balance. “Sure enough. But look, like I said, out in the boonies as this might be, there’s still a fair amount of traffic on this two-track, sweetheart.”
“Interesting,” Estelle muttered.
“What is?”
“All of it. Freddy didn’t say what day he found the jaguar skull, but the school records show that he was in school all week-except yesterday. Now, if you were a teenager getting his kicks out of exploring caves, and if you found something as neat as that skull, what would you be likely to do?”
“Oh, I’d be back there,” Gastner said without hesitation. “Damn right.”
“So would I. Why would I be over here, across the valley, out on the prairie counting cow pies? And where did I find the handgun? That’s quite a discovery all by itself.”
“That could have been anywhere, even along the highway,” Gastner offered. “Things bounce out of trucks all the time. You’ve seen that collection that they have over at the state highway barns. People drop the damnedest things. Gloves, chains, jacks, hubcaps, coolers, shoes. Have you ever lost a shoe along the highway?”
“Ah, no.”
“How do they do it? Always amazed me. I once found a loaded shotgun up on Regál Pass. Turns out that a guy had it in the back of his Jeep, and somehow it bounced out when he turned onto the highway from the ridge trail. People are just plain numb, sweetheart.” A sudden recollection lighted his heavy features. “My all-time favorite was finding a set of dentures up on Cat Mesa. A perfect set of choppers, lying on an old, moldy mattress. Now you could have a grand time making up a scenario to fit that. No matter how hot the moment of passion was, how could someone forget his teeth? ”
He grunted to his feet and shook his head. “But a fair enough question. Regardless of where he picked up the handgun-if he picked it up somewhere and didn’t just buy it from somebody-then what was he scouting over here?” He held out a hand as if to add, “after you.” Estelle snapped a series of photographs of the tracks, knowing that they showed little.
For another mile, the two-track skirted the base of a mesa whose top looked as if it had been laser leveled. The rim itself was a vertical jumble for the last fifty feet, but despite the formidable barrier was still scarred by cattle trails. Rounding the mesa, the path headed due north past a dilapidated windmill missing most of its blades. The water tank, one side caved in, was peppered with bullet holes. The barbed-wire fence around the well head had fallen in a tangle, the posts weathered to steel gray.
The ATV tracks led past the attraction, keeping to the two-track. In another hundred yards, the road forked, the tracks leading northwest. They jolted to a stop facing a small arroyo too shallow to hide a car. The ATV apparently hadn’t hesitated.
“You’ll make it,” Gastner encouraged.
> “When was the last time you were out here?” Estelle asked, and Gastner laughed.
“Mid-afternoon of June 21st, nine years ago. Good God, come on, sweetheart. I have no idea when it was.”
“But you’ve been here, in this very spot.”
“Yes. Absolutely. I have no recollection of why or when. I know that this two-track here winds around about a million acres of worthless prairie, and in about two miles we’ll run into one of Herb Torrance’s gates, and if you go that way, you’ll end up right in his back yard. Otherwise, we’re going to go around that big mesa behind Herb’s and come out to a fork in the road. One path goes on through Miles Waddell’s place, back out to the county road. The other choice heads north, out to the old state highway.” He sat up a little straighter, peering over the hood. “Just where Freddy Romero didn’t go.”
They had just bumped into the shade of a scrub oak grove, the dry leaves scraping along the Expedition’s flanks, when Estelle’s cell phone buzzed. She stopped the vehicle. For a moment, the connection produced nothing. Finally, a voice that clearly was struggling with emotion said, “Estelle?” The connection wasn’t particularly good, with plenty of background noise.
“This is Estelle.”
“George Romero,” the caller said, and Estelle found it impossible to imagine the stocky, gruff auto mechanic trying to choke the words out. “Look,” he said, and stopped, then tried again. “Look, is all this true?”
Trusting the distant police department, but knowing how messages can sometimes become entangled, the undersheriff delayed the moment. “What did the officers tell you, sir?”
“Two cops and a chaplain came to the hospital. They said Freddie had an accident on his four-wheeler.” George’s voice cracked, and Estelle could hear him taking deep breaths.
“He did, sir. I’m sorry.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jesus, how…”
“He flipped the unit into an arroyo off Bender’s Canyon Trail, sir.”
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