The Lovely Pines

by Don Travis

  “That’s true. And I did know Patrick. Found him very likeable but a little….”

  I waited, but she didn’t pick up the thought. “But a little what, Mrs. Zuniga?”

  “He wasn’t very masculine.”

  “Did you object to their friendship?”

  “No, but I felt I had to warn Bas about—” She brushed her lips with a forefinger. “—well, about inappropriate behavior.”

  “Homosexual behavior, you mean?”

  Her complexion darkened. “Yes. Precisely.”

  “How old was Bas when this happened?”

  “Senior in high school. Almost eighteen. I didn’t know of Patrick except as a casual acquaintance until then.”

  “So I assume you were relieved when Bas started dating Patrick’s sister.”

  She looked flustered, leading me to believe my assumption that she considered the girl as cover was correct. “Yes, I guess I was.”

  “So you suspected your son of being gay?”

  “No!” The exclamation was a little too forceful. “But I was keenly aware he grew up without a male role model in the home. So it naturally concerned me. But my concerns were pointless. After all, he fathered a child, didn’t he?”

  I didn’t bother to point out that many gay men have fathered children over the centuries. Besides, I was beginning to think Bascomb Zuniga had handled his maturity into adulthood pretty well.

  After another fifteen minutes of questioning, I thanked her and left, convinced that while she likely did the best she could in raising her son alone, there was something missing in the relationship. She lived an insular life and had been overly protective of Bascomb. That was probably why Zuniga kept his private affairs private. Not many sons withhold knowledge of a grandchild from their mothers. Nor did they become itinerant farm workers when overwhelmed by problems at school. Zuniga, who seemed like a pretty squared-away young man, had done both. The pity was that a ready and able masculine influence was foreclosed to him because of a conspiracy of silence between his parents.

  MY COMPANION, Paul Barton, was a pretty sharp interviewer thanks to his journalism training, so I often shared details of cases with him. To cover him with the admittedly skimpy confidentiality protection New Mexico law provided, I insisted he accept a modest check each month as a consultant to the firm. That protection didn’t mean much of anything, except when my client was an attorney, which provided Vinson and Weeks coverage under the lawyer’s umbrella. A consultant to the consultant? Iffy. Following a dinner of shrimp and stir-fry vegetables that evening, we settled on a couch. After a few soul- and libido-stirring kisses, I brought him up-to-date on the Lovely Pines affair.

  “So it looks like it’s two different cases,” he said after hearing me out. “The intruder is one thing, and Zuniga’s murder is another.”

  “Zuniga having a son, another potential Gonda heir, gives that second option a new twist. I’m convinced Gonda didn’t know of his grandchild, and Zuniga’s mother certainly seemed caught off guard by the news.”

  “That doesn’t seem right. I don’t know how, but my mom would have known.”

  “That was in the South Valley. Everyone knows everything down there. I think Barbara Zuniga lived differently. Either she was deeply ashamed of having Gonda’s baby, or else that was the deal she made with him.”

  “How do you know they weren’t simply acting surprised at news of the baby?”

  “They’re damned good thespians to fake that surprise. Gonda gave me hell when he found out I knew about the child.”

  “Why hadn’t you mentioned the boy? Asked Gonda about him?”

  “I assumed he knew and hadn’t had the chance to discuss it with him. Other things kept getting in the way,” I said. “And what I told him was true. I wanted more information before I went off half-cocked and told him things I hadn’t verified.”

  “Why do you think Zuniga didn’t tell anyone?”

  I shook my head. “Who knows? Shame, maybe. Having a child out of wedlock is not such a big deal these days, but he was seventeen years old when he got her pregnant and eighteen when the baby came. Then the trauma of his girlfriend’s suicide on top of all that.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Overdosed on prescription meds.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “That’s what everyone wants to know. Supposedly she was in ill health after the birth, but Hazel suspects the family kept her away from Zuniga, and that, on top of her health problems, sent her over the edge.”

  “So the Daytons blamed him for their sister’s death. Crazy.”

  We were in the den of our home the house my father built in the north valley. It was a 1950s contemporary with a stone foundation and redbrick walls in a settled neighborhood. I’d managed to keep my mother’s treasured roses alive and prospering since I inherited the place—along with around $12,000,000 in other assets—upon their death in a car accident on I-40 in January of ’03. How a couple of schoolteachers came to amass a fortune like that is a whole other story.

  Paul scratched his chin. “If that brother… uh, Willie Dayton… made a threat on Zuniga’s life, that ought to make him a pretty good suspect in the guy’s murder. But I can’t see that having anything to do with breaking into the winery at night when neither Zuniga nor anybody else is around.”

  “At this point there’s no real evidence Willie Dayton, or any of his brothers, killed Zuniga. But you’re right. Breaking into a deserted building at night doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Zuniga’s murder. Still, I don’t like—”

  “Coincidences,” Paul finished my familiar refrain. “If you don’t like coincidences, you’re not going to buy the theory there were two different intruders, are you? So explain this to me. If the guy needed to break a lock off the door to get in the place once, how has he gotten in after that without doing the same thing? How many times has he been in the building, anyway?”

  “Four or five times, at least. The first time—when he broke the lock and threw some papers around as a diversion, in my opinion—the time some of Gonda’s instruments were moved. After that, a bottle of wine was disturbed in the lab. Another bottle went missing from the cellar. And then last night while I was there. In addition to that, both Zuniga and Hakamora told me they thought they’d heard someone in the cellar.”

  “Seems like things happen mostly at night.”

  “Except Zuniga and Hakamora didn’t work at night. Not usually, at any rate. Hakamora said he thought it was afternoon but didn’t specify a time.”

  Paul frowned in thought before continuing. “The guy forced the lock the first time because he needed to gain access. He didn’t after that. So he obviously laid his hands on a key during the first break-in.”

  “Gonda swears there were no keys inside the winery. He keeps all of them locked in a steel box in his office at the chateau.”

  Paul gave me a lazy grin—which was almost as sexy as his last kiss. “Chateau. Tell me, what’s the difference in a chateau and a big-assed house?”

  I shrugged. “It just looks like a chateau. You know, a tall stone building with a continental air.”

  “Are you sure the guy didn’t get past you and slip out the door after he faked you out by rolling a bottle across the floor?”

  “It’s possible, but the outside door to the winery was locked, and he’d have to be pretty quick to stop and key it. It’s a deadbolt, not one of those where you press a bar and step outside.”

  “Maybe he was hiding in the winery somewhere?”

  “Possible, but I searched the place pretty thoroughly.”

  “Then it’s simple, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yeah. There’s another means of entering and leaving the building.”

  “One he couldn’t use until he got inside the first time.”

  “Right.”

  “So where does that lead you?” Paul asked.

  “More than likely back to the C de Baca family. But even if we’re right, that still d
oesn’t tell us why the intruder keeps coming back or what he’s after.”

  Later, as Paul reached up to snap off the light at the head of the bed, not even the tiny black dragon tattoo on his left pec lured me away from my thoughts of the Lovely Pines affair. That’s how engrossed in the mystery I’d become.

  THE NEXT day—a Sunday—I sat in my home office rereading my notes on the Gonda case and deciding it was time to determine if something in my client’s background had reached out and touched him. During our first interview in my office, he indicated there might be someone, acknowledging they’d be more likely to burn down his building than to break into the winery. I called Charles Bosco, an old Marine buddy now enmeshed in the State Department swamp in Washington, DC. He was home enjoying a hot June day with his wife when I reached him. We reminisced about our leatherneck days before I laid my problem on him. He agreed to see what he could find out about my client, both here and in Europe. In addition to his own contacts, he had a friend in Homeland Security who would likely help out.

  Next I ran down Ray Yardley, who gave me the results of the interviews with the Dayton brothers. The older two, Willie and Bart, were certified neighborhood bullies who’d butted heads with the local police several times. Mostly over busted noses, black eyes, and the like.

  “Unfortunately they have alibis for the time of Zuniga’s murder,” Ray said. “Willie worked swing shift at a produce-packing plant and hit a bar afterward until it closed down at two the next morning. Bart’s was even better. He’d been an overnight guest of Las Cruces PD for his specialty—busted noses and black eyes.”

  “What about the youngest boy?”

  “Patrick? He was a friend of Bas Zuniga’s and was closest to his sister. He doesn’t have a sheet. But then he doesn’t have an alibi, either.”

  “You told me all three of the Dayton brothers ganged up on Zuniga. That doesn’t sound like Patrick was a friend.”

  “Turns out that wasn’t entirely accurate. Patrick was trying to discourage his brothers from beating his friend to a pulp. Still, he’s the Dayton who was out-of-pocket the night Zuniga died. Up in Albuquerque with two friends to catch some comedian at The Stage at the Santa Ana Star.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “That’s not Albuquerque. That’s Bernalillo. Not far from Plácido, as a matter of fact….”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Anyway, no one at the club was able to identify any of them. His two traveling companions are old schoolmates and back up Patrick’s story, but if they’d been along when their buddy shot a man in the back, they’d be unlikely to expose themselves as accomplices.”

  “Any evidence at all? Ticket stubs to the show, for instance?”

  “Looking for them. I’ll let you know how that comes out,” Ray said. “Why are you interested, anyway? You were hired to catch a break-in artist.”

  “Like you, I’m not convinced they’re two separate cases. I’m not convinced they are related either. But I’ve got to keep my options open.”

  MONDAY MORNING, Charlie and Hazel plopped down at my conference table for our daily huddle. Hazel had accepted a new case, a background investigation on a prominent local realtor suspected of engaging in a Ponzi scheme. There was no known involvement by the authorities, but rumors were rife. The attorneys felt it was merely a matter of time before someone—probably the feds—became involved. Our client wanted as much information as possible before the hammer fell.

  By rights that should have been my top priority, but I hated to let go of the Lovely Pines problem. Once I started something, I liked to see it through to the end. There were enough records for Hazel to check before Charlie and I needed to begin interviewing. We could bring in Fuller and Mendoza to help out if things got to rushed. Providing, of course, APD or the FBI didn’t move in first. But knowing our client, a large Albuquerque law firm who represented some prominent citizens who thought they were often on the butt-end of unfair tactics from the authorities, they’d want us to stay with it regardless of what occurred.

  When we got around to Gonda’s problem, I briefed my two associates on the latest developments as I knew them. Afterward, Charlie brought me up-to-date on the C de Bacas.

  “Diego—you know, the youngest son—isn’t in the Army anymore. He received an honorable discharge, showed up briefly in Albuquerque, and then fell off the proverbial map.”

  “Okay, Hazel,” I said. “Perform your magic.” She was a pro at finding missing people.

  “You want me to do that before or after I perform my magic on the real-estate case?”

  “Okay, I’ll look for C de Baca the younger.”

  “Youngest,” Hazel said. She was always a stickler for what was proper. Which made her soft spot for Paul strange. In her book, our relationship was anything but proper.

  “Is it worth your time?” That was Charlie’s subtle way of asking me to prioritize.

  “Yeah. It’s a loose end. I’ve got to gather all of those up before I know which one to pull and magically unravel the plot.”

  Hazel pushed her glasses up on her nose and leveled a look at me. “Are you reading whodunits again?”

  THE OBVIOUS place to start my search for Diego was with the C de Baca family. German, the eldest son, now ran a consulting business for vintners, specializing in enzymes and hydrology. His office was on Wyoming NE near Paseo del Norte. Before I tackled him, Hazel let me know a quick records search in Albuquerque and Bernalillo for Diego C de Baca turned up nothing but minor stuff. I asked her to dig deeper.

  Few people can absolutely disappear off the grid, but Diego did as good a job as anyone. He didn’t own a car or have insurance, and the only address she’d found was an RFD Route in Valle Plácido, which turned out to be Lovely Pines. The Visa and a MasterCard he carried when he entered the military didn’t seem to be active now. I located a couple of people he served with, but they claimed no contact with him since his discharge. They told me he’d bummed around with a Spec 3 by the name of James K. Natander—gifted with the nickname of Spider—and Staff Sergeant Hugo Pastis. He worked with both in a motor pool in the US Division-South at Basra. Both of those two would require a little work to locate.

  By the time I headed north to C de Baca Consulting LLC, all I’d learned so far that day was something I already knew but forgot—and had nothing to do with the case. C de Baca was the shortened form of Cabeza de Baca, which meant Head of the Cow.

  German was in his office and agreed to see me. As I stepped over the threshold, I mentally reviewed what Charlie learned about the eldest child of Ernesto and Esmerelda. He’d been born in Doña Ana County fifty-one years ago and was married to Yolanda. They had no children. He worked alongside his father all his life except for the four years he spent at NM State, where he took a degree in management. In the final years of the family’s tenure at the Pines, German ran the business end while his father confined himself to the lab.

  As we shook hands, I noted he was shorter than I was, probably around five nine, but he outweighed me by twenty-five pounds. Graying black hair, brown eyes. He would have been distinguished had there not been a cast to one eye that made him turn his head away slightly when he looked at you. Wall-eyed, we used to call it.

  I flicked on the recorder on my belt as I took the seat he offered.

  “Why are you looking for Diego?” he asked after I put the question to him.

  I didn’t want to mention a murder at this point, but I needed to come up with some sort of story. “Process of elimination, really.”

  “You can’t possibly think he had anything to do with that shooting out there the other night.”

  So much for not talking about murder.

  “Like I said, process of elimination. Have the authorities been in touch with you?”

  He shook his head. “No. And I don’t expect them to be. Diego isn’t around. Hasn’t been for several months.”

  “I understood he returned after he received a discharge from the Army in September 2008.”

  �
�He did briefly. Stayed for a week or so. He was changed. He went into the Army a boy and returned a man. But it wasn’t the man I expected him to become.”

  “In what way?”

  I could see from German’s expression he considered terminating the interview, but he didn’t. “Diego went into the Army in 2005, after he graduated high school, because he got into a little trouble.”

  I nodded, encouraging him to continue. He grimaced, probably realizing he was getting in deeper. “He got caught with some drugs. Not heavy stuff, just marijuana.”

  “That’s interesting, because there’s no record of any arrests. No record at all except for public drinking and a suspected DWI.”

  “Yeah, the kid was sorta wild there at the end. Drank pretty heavily, but he wasn’t a hopeless case. So when he got caught with more weed than would fit in one pocket, the old man used his influence with a friend to stave off an arrest. But Diego had to agree to join the Army.”

  “He was dealing?”

  “Using. Experimenting, really. Anyway, Dad and… this deputy… believed the military made men out of boys. You know, straightened them up. So Diego agreed and ended up in the infantry. He did a tour in Iraq.”

  Might as well check the facts as I knew them. “Where?”

  “Basra. He was with the First Infantry Division down in Southern Command.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Started in transportation, ended up in a motor pool.”

  “Transportation?”

  “You know, trucking ammo and supplies to the more remote outposts.”

  “When was that?”

  “Went over in ’07 and came back in August of ’08. Transferred around a couple of times after he got back and mustered out at Fort Bliss down in El Paso.”

  “Did you see any evidence of drug use when he got back? Was that what you meant when you said he was changed?”