The Lovely Pines

by Don Travis

  “You bastard! Attacking me on my own property!” he sputtered through a mouth full of grass.

  A sharp, shrill voice startled me. “James Dayton, you started this fight. Now get up and act like an adult, not like one of your sons!” Wilma Brandini, the neighbor who helped me on my last trip, stood on the sidewalk with a bag of groceries in her arms. “I saw it all, and I’ll tell it like it was to anyone who asks.”

  “Nosy old bitch,” Dayton muttered beneath his breath. “Just a misunderstanding, Wilma. Nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Not if you’ll behave,” I said. “I just want to know—”

  “You just wanna know if I killed that randy son of a bitch who knocked up my little girl. Well, I didn’t. Ask anybody.”

  I removed my boot and moved out of the way. He staggered to his feet while muttering beneath his breath. Apparently everyone in James Dayton’s world was a son of a bitch, a bastard, or a nosy old bitch. What a sad world to live in. Did a fancy new Continental compensate for that?

  “I’m asking you first, Mr. Dayton. Then I’ll ask everyone else. And just so you know, attacking me makes me want to dig a little deeper into your life. As does claiming you were with a married lady you couldn’t name the night Bas Zuniga died. It took about ten minutes to learn her name and that she wasn’t married.”

  “Dig all you want. I didn’t kill nobody.” He swayed a moment before catching his balance. Drunk or three-quarters there, I suspected.

  Mrs. Brandini went on down the sidewalk toward her home, but the fight was gone out of Dayton. He sat on his front steps and grudgingly answered my questions. My last hope of pinning the death of Bascomb Zuniga pretty well disappeared when he reluctantly admitted he’d been in a late-night poker game after he left the Crippled Aggie that night. Apparently it was a high-stakes game everybody in town knew about.

  Before heading for Albuquerque, I confirmed his story of a late night of gambling with two of the other players, the fire chief and a police captain. They told me Dayton lost $500 he couldn’t afford that night before they broke up sometime after midnight.

  As long as I was in town, I looked up Hal Silva at the Biggest Little Car Dealership in New Mexico. No kidding. That was the name. Silva was a car salesman to the core. He kept trying to trade me out of my Impala into a late-model Caddy he was obviously having trouble moving. In between, he said he really had no idea what time Dayton left the Crippled Aggie on the night of June 16. He just knew Dayton was there sometime that night. I also satisfied myself he had no connections to the Forsyths over in Carlsbad. And that he was pissed at James Dayton for getting his Continental from over there rather than from him.

  I drove home that evening reasonably well convinced no one in the Dayton family could have killed Bascomb Zuniga. Of course, the youngest brother was in love with him, and lovers have killed one another for millennia. In addition, Pat was clearly frustrated by what I could only consider Zuniga’s teasing behavior. Maybe Zuniga didn’t intend it that way. Perhaps he only wanted to let Pat down easy, but from my perspective, the way Zuniga handled things would strengthen Pat’s hope that something might develop between the two of them. Nonetheless, my gut told me the killer was someone closer to the Pines, either within the Gonda family or near it.

  Of course, there were still the Forsyths. Could they have killed Bas because he objected to their adoption of his son? That was worthy of some additional scrutiny. And we hadn’t yet fully looked into the C de Baca family.

  Chapter 25

  FRIDAY MORNING, after turning over my voice recorder for transcription and answering her questions, I asked Hazel to phone Sgt. Roma Muñoz and give her Zuniga’s cell number to see if we could learn anything by checking the phone records.

  Once that item was tucked away in her notes, Hazel let me know she’d broadened her search for Miles Lotharson and turned up a record in Odessa, Texas. Nothing serious, meaning nothing beyond underage drinking, drunk and disorderly, fighting, and being a delinquent in general. She talked to a police officer at OPD who remembered him well, even though Lotharson left the Odessa area about four years ago, when he was seventeen. The Texas cop’s take on the kid had been that he was headed for a bigger and better criminal jacket, given time. Anger would be what would trip up the kid—at least in his opinion. I’d run into a little of that hostility when I took a run at him. That made him worth another look.

  A swing by Childer’s Motorcycle Repair in Bernalillo revealed Lotharson took the morning off. He wasn’t due to report to work until later. I decided not to waste a trip north and headed west to the Pines. As I pulled into a parking lot holding more cars than usual, I noticed a Harley Davidson Hardtail and wondered if I hadn’t located Miles Lotharson after all. He was visiting his girl, apparently on an especially busy day for her.

  Heléne Benoir greeted me at the chocolatier’s kiosk in the foyer with a big smile and said she’d let Ariel know I was here.

  “Don’t bother right now,” I said. “I’ll poke around downstairs for a bit first. Judging from the automobiles outside, it appears to be a busy day. Anything special going on?”

  “We placed a notice in the Albuquerque Journal about our wine tasting, and that brought traffic to the front door.”

  After excusing myself, I made straight for the Bistro. The place was busy, but there was no sign of the waitress, Katie Henderson. Or her boyfriend. Margot was moving through the room, apparently handling their guests’ needs. She came over when she spotted me in the doorway.

  “BJ, how nice to see you. Do you want a table, or are you looking for Ariel?”

  “I wanted a word with your waitress.”

  “Katie? She’s on her break right now. Her boyfriend showed up, so she went out back to speak to him a moment. If you’ll take those french doors right over there, they’ll lead you to the garden.”

  I thanked her and headed outside. Other than some patrons sitting at a couple of tables on the patio, no one was around. I found the pair I was searching for just beyond the corner of the building. Katie stood against the wall while Lotharson leaned in close. But I sensed they were talking rather than spooning… as my mother used to call it.

  Upon catching sight of me, Miles stepped back from Katie and planted his feet. “What you doing here?” His voice held a threat of violence.

  “Miles,” Katie cautioned.

  “Shut up.” He turned his attention back to me. “Answer my question.”

  “I will, since you asked so nicely.” Sarcasm was wasted on this guy. “I’m doing a job for Mr. Gonda. But I was actually looking for you.”

  “You get outa my life and leave me alone, you hear?”

  I took in the twenty-one-year-old bundle of hostile energy rippling with corded muscles and decided it would be better to de-escalate the situation. But I couldn’t just walk away from him.

  “Miles, Mr. Gonda asked me to do something for him, and I am going to do it to the best of my ability. That means I need to talk to people, see what they know, piece together things to come to a conclusion. You happen to have known Bascomb Zuniga, so that means I need to talk to you. We cool?”

  “We ain’t. You asked me about everything the other day. I don’t have nothing to add. And you been snooping around in my affairs. Guy at the place I live told me you been asking questions.”

  I lifted my hands, palms up. “Wasn’t me.” I didn’t lie outright. It was Charlie who’d called around on my behalf.

  Talking man-to-man wasn’t Miles Lotharson’s thing. In his bully’s mind, he was being bullied, and he wasn’t going to put up with it. Maybe a little of the attitude was because Katie was present, and he wanted her to see he was a man. Whatever, this wasn’t going to end well.

  His hands folded into fists. “Walk away, man. Right now.”

  “Can’t do that. I need to talk to Katie too.”

  Red meat to a hungry carnivore. His face flushed. “You leave her outa this. Off limits!”

  “We can either talk here or
talk down at the county sheriff’s office.”

  Wrong thing to say. He flushed even darker and danced a little, shifting from foot to foot. “Yeah. You talk to me one day, and the next, a county deputy comes calling. Damned near cost me my job.”

  He came for me then. Not like a boxer but like a wrestler. I sidestepped his grappling lunge and caught him on the ear with a right that should have rung his bell. He turned to face me again, even madder and less lucid than before. When he lunged this time, I went into a squat and evaded his outstretched hands. Then I stood straight and hoisted him into the air. He went over my back and landed flat on his. He lay motionless for a moment with the wind knocked out of him, but he’d have to try for me again because his girl was watching.

  When I grasped Katie’s elbow to return to the Bistro before anything else happened, I saw Marc Juisson not thirty feet away. He’d obviously witnessed the entire affair.

  “Break’s over, Katie. Time to go to work,” I said.

  “But he’s—”

  “He’s all right. Nothing’s hurt except his pride.” I pulled her around the corner and into the Bistro as Miles staggered to his feet.

  Margot agreed to give me a few minutes with Katie at a table in the corner. After she delivered a couple of coffees, I started asking my questions.

  My most lasting impression of the college girl was that her eyes were as startlingly blue as Lotharson’s were. She appeared to be intelligent—other than in her choice of boyfriends—and forthright. She had liked Bas Zuniga and understood he was interested in her. When she told him she had a boyfriend, Zuniga backed off but remained friends. She even made an effort to build a friendship between the two men, but it didn’t take. She didn’t perceive hostility, but there was no bonding between the two. She confirmed that Lotharson helped Zuniga fix a problem with his bike, but beyond that, there was nothing.

  All during the interview, her eyes continued to flick to the french doors and back to me, so I surmised Lotharson was standing there watching our tête-à-tête. As I thanked her and made ready to go, she reached out and touched my arm.

  “Do you have to report… you know?”

  “No, but Mr. Gonda’s nephew was standing nearby and saw everything.”

  “Marc doesn’t always tell everything he knows.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She flushed. “Nothing really. Just that he doesn’t always tell the boss when someone makes a mistake.”

  “If Mr. Gonda learns of the incident, it won’t be from me.”

  Miles Lotharson was nowhere in sight when I got up and made my way to the main area of the chateau. Gonda stood at the chocolatier’s kiosk talking to Mrs. Benoir when I walked up.

  “Ah, BJ. I heard you were on the premises. Any progress?”

  “I came to give you a verbal report,” I said.

  “Gut. Shall we go to my office? For a little privacy, no?”

  As soon as we were seated opposite one another at a small table in the corner of his office, I told him about my trip to Las Cruces and the conclusions I reached. “The reason I am giving you this report verbally at the moment is that there is one development I think should be revealed, but I’ll leave to your discretion as to whether it will appear in the written report.”

  I had his attention. He leaned forward over the table, his hands grasping his forearms.

  “As I said, I’m convinced that neither the Dayton father nor two of his older sons killed your son.”

  He straightened. “I was of the opinion there were three Dayton sons.”

  “Yes. The youngest is Patrick.”

  “But he was Bas’s friend. The only friend in that family.”

  “And that is why we’re talking about it instead of you reading it. Pat was quite taken with Bas.”

  “Taken with?” Gonda started. “Do you mean he had designs on him? He lusted after him?”

  “Essentially, that is what I’m saying. Patrick would have liked a liaison with Bas. Bas was aware of his desires. They discussed it.”

  “Did they…?”

  “I don’t believe so. But Bas told him that if he ever decided to go that way, it would be with Patrick. That could have been honesty, or it could have been your son’s way of letting someone he considered a friend down easy.”

  “I see. Does it mean this Patrick could not be the killer?”

  “Not necessarily. Frustrated love can drive people to do both wonderful and terrible things. In all honesty, I don’t think Patrick is the killer, but that said, he deserves another look. He was, however, in contact with Bas. He provided me with Bas’s cell phone number, which simply goes to voicemail. I gave Sergeant Muñoz the number and asked if she can provide us with any information as to its present status. She hasn’t had time to respond yet.”

  “Is that important? His having a cell phone, I mean?”

  “Not unless someone answers it one of these days. But the question I want to put to you is important. Do you want that information about Pat and Bas included in the report? It should be disclosed—and I have just done that—but it doesn’t necessarily need to be in the written report.”

  “Thank you. I am not sensitive to the discussion of personal relationships, but I see no reason to include it.”

  Margot’s voice startled me. I turned to find her at the door with Marc hovering at her shoulder. “BJ, Marc told me you were here. Are we interrupting anything?”

  “No, my dear,” Gonda said. “BJ was just filling me in on what he’s learned.”

  “What I’ve eliminated is more like it.”

  “Just so. But that is the process, is it not? Eliminate everything until you get down to the kernel.”

  The two entered the room and took seats at our table. Gonda then proceeded to summarize my report as virtually eliminating the Dayton family as Bas’s killer. He did not mention Patrick’s desires.

  “So where does that leave us?” Marc asked.

  “BJ found a number for Bas’s cell phone and turned it over to the police. Perhaps they can learn something from that.”

  “Is it still working?” Margot asked.

  “It goes to voicemail. It’s the standard prerecorded voice. Not Bas’s.”

  Marc leaned forward in his chair. “You say the Dayton family’s out? How about the brother who was up here at the Santa Ana Star Casino that night? Have they traced his steps?”

  “I’ve talked to the two friends who were with him, and they claim they weren’t separated except for a bathroom trip or two. Certainly not enough time for Patrick to sneak off and meet Bas.”

  “Can you believe them?”

  “Let me put it this way. There’s no reason to disbelieve them at this point. That would make them coconspirators in a murder. Not many people would do that out of friendship.”

  Marc pursed his lips and grunted. Then he spoke again. “What about the people who are trying to adopt the baby? Maybe they were afraid Bas would claim custody.”

  “A possibility,” I acknowledged. “But they’re reputable business people. I doubt they’d put that business at risk. Nonetheless we’re still looking into them.”

  “Then where does that leave us?” Margot asked.

  “Still searching. But the field has narrowed.”

  “Narrowed to what?” she asked.

  Marc spoke up. “Narrowed to right around here. Maybe one of his coworkers.”

  “I-I cannot believe that!” Gonda sputtered.

  “Or maybe Katie’s boyfriend,” Marc said. “I saw your dustup with him a few minutes ago.”

  So I was forced to inform the Gondas of my run-in with Miles Lotharson.

  “I will ban him from the property!” Gonda exclaimed when I finished.

  “Has he caused any other trouble?” I asked.

  “Not to my knowledge. Margot? Marc?”

  Both shook their heads in the negative.

  “Then there’s no reason for that on my account. He’ll likely keep his distance and sulk.” />
  “Unless he killed Bas,” Marc said.

  “That’s true. But if he comes at me again, that tells us something too.”

  When Gonda insisted on treating me to lunch at the Bistro, Margot and Marc went about their business. Between bites, I answered all Gonda’s questions about my investigation, most of which had been covered before… and likely would be again.

  As we finished and parted, I decided to visit SCSO to see if Roma learned anything. I sat in the Impala for a moment puzzling over what to make of Lotharson’s aggressive hostility. It could mean he had something to hide, but not necessarily Zuniga’s murder. There might be something else the young man didn’t want revealed. Or he could have been grandstanding for Katie. Probably bitched to her about my questioning him the other day and wanted to show he knew how to deal with the problem. Didn’t work out that way, but if he’d gotten his hands on me, things would likely have turned out different. He had twenty pounds on me while I had sixteen years on him.

  The Impala’s engine hummed with perfect precision when I ground the ignition. Backing out of the parking space presented no problem, but when I stopped before pulling out onto the road, the brakes felt mushy. Maybe the old girl required some attention. I’m usually pretty good about maintaining my vehicles, but I’d been out of town more than usual lately, so the car was overdue for service. I’d have them check the brakes for me.

  I turned right onto State Road 165 and started the long downhill trip into Bernalillo. As I approached Placitas, I tapped the brake to slow down while going through the community. Nothing happened. I pressed the pedal more firmly this time. Still mushy. And it didn’t slow me down any. I pressed again. The pedal went all the way to the floor. The car picked up some speed while I fruitlessly stomped on the brake. I shifted into second gear before the car picked up too much speed. She slowed a little, but not enough. I pulled it all the way into low and thought the gears were stripping before the motor growled and the car slowed a little more. I wasn’t going to wreck or go off the road for the next few miles, but after that the decline increased sharply, and if I went barreling into Highway 550, there would be a terrible wreck, probably with fatalities.