“I was in my camper,” the rancher said. “Parked way over there, near the south rim.” Costace shielded his eyes, squinting into the distance. The travel trailer was a dot near the mesa rim, a modest little domicile for a billionaire. Waddell’s home, a sprawling ranch house twenty miles north of Lordsburg, saw its owner rarely.
“And first?” Costace waited patiently, content to draw Waddell’s answers out one at a time.
“I heard a chain saw. But it was off in the distance, and I didn’t bother to investigate until I heard the ruckus. Maybe it was the power lines crashing down. I went to investigate, and sure enough. I drove down, got close enough to see the damage, and thought I saw a body. So I called the S.O.” He held up both hands. “That’s it. In a few minutes, the emergency vehicles started arriving. The distance plays tricks. I couldn’t tell for sure at first where the noise of the saw was coming from.”
“That’s odd, though,” Costace said. “At that hour.”
“Yeah, it’s odd,” Waddell laughed. “One o’clock in the morning? Not to mention one little point—there are no trees worth firewood down there. We don’t get many firewood cutters in these parts.”
“But you didn’t get up to investigate right away?”
“Well, sort of. I could hear the saw, so I went outside to listen. That’s when I could tell they were off to the north, not too far away. Then I heard the crash…more like a whump. I drove over to the rim to look, and I could see the fire. It was just a little scatter of flames at that point.”
“I was surprised to hear it was Curt Boyd,” Costace said. The agent had had a run-in or two stemming from the family’s interest in military weaponry. Every one of their fully automatic weapons—even a rare Lewis once mounted on a World War I biplane—was fully documented and taxed. I had tried my hand with the big .50 Browning during one memorable July Fourth shindig at the ranch, and did myself proud, reducing a ’62 Chevy to scrap metal at 500 yards. Then there came a time when another rancher had taken a wild shot at a low-flying airplane and in a one-in-a-million fluke had actually struck the pilot. For a while during the investigation that followed, it might have seemed natural to suspect the Boyds.
But machine guns are like a mesa-top observatory in at least one way. No one believes that you own all those automatic weapons without some hidden agenda, and rumors fly.
“I’ve known Boyd since he was a kid,” I said.
“Sure,” Waddell added. “In fact I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and we chatted for a bit. He was hunting prairie dogs north of here.” Waddell turned to me in question. His memory was accurate. I’d been hiking the Bennett Trail and seen first the young man with the Mauser 98 World War II sniper’s rifle, and then, a few minutes later, Miles Waddell himself, repairing a short section of barbed wire fencing.
“You mean he wasn’t using a Thompson on the dogs?” Costace laughed.
“Ah, no,” Waddell said. “What the hell was it? I’m not much of a gunny.”
“A German sniper’s rifle,” I supplied. “Not antique, but historical. A little overkill for prairie dogs, but effective. He was hiking by himself, and wasn’t anywhere near the power lines.”
“So,” Costace mused. “You went to have a look-see. You saw the truck leaving the scene?”
“No. Sure didn’t.”
“Any ideas who Boyd’s associates might have been for this deal?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said. “When the sheriff has time to deal with the Las Cruces end of things, maybe we’ll find out. Curt had been teaching and coaching down there, so that’s a place to start.”
“We’ve been there, and will be again.” Costace apparently was unconcerned that he was blabbing his intentions in the presence of a couple of civilians. “It makes sense to me that if Boyd was tied in to the school’s schedule down in Cruces, his associates might be in Cruces as well.” He studied the ground at his feet. “It’s a crap shoot, though.”
“His associate could have been living in Calcutta,” I remarked. “With the Internet, or e-mail, you can command-center from anywhere in the world. They could have planned to rendezvous here for this little gig.”
“If Boyd’s vehicle shows up in Posadas, I might buy that,” Costace said. “Otherwise, it makes sense that they drove up here together.”
“So what’s your interest in this?” I asked Hotchkiss. I knew exactly what his interest was—sabotaging interstate power lines, maybe any kind of power lines, was a federal matter, and would spike all kinds of interest. But the young man had kept his own counsel so far, and I admired the zipped lip.
“An attack on interstate power lines is a serious matter,” the young agent replied as if he’d heard my prompt. That was an entirely adequate explanation, and he didn’t embellish it.
“Somebody’s dumb prank,” I said, and didn’t believe it.
“Were that the case, they’d have taken out something closer to town, where more people would actually see their handiwork.” Costace looked hard at Waddell. “Pretty close to you.”
“And they wouldn’t kill a cop if it was just a prank,” Hotchkiss added, the first time he’d offered an independent thought. I didn’t agree with him, since many a prank had turned needlessly tragic.
The wind was picking up a chill, and Costace zipped up his vest. “It bothers me that someone is out to disrupt your power up here,” he said. “If that’s what this is. Could be just coincidence, but who the hell believes in those? They picked a spot where they could work without drawing attention. It almost worked, if you’d been sleeping a little harder.” He smiled at Waddell. “There’s not much up here yet, but it sends an interesting message, don’t you think?”
I wondered what the official FBI thinking was about Waddell’s undertaking—of course, they would know something, even if it was wrong. They had access, if they so wished, to all the permits that Waddell had filed. They would know about the California outfit and the huge radio telescope.
“There are all kinds of rumors,” Waddell said carefully.
Hotchkiss prompted, “For instance?” His voice was reedy, reminding me of a bassoon playing in its tenor register.
Waddell turned guarded. “Just all kinds of things.”
“A United Nations listening post up here, maybe?” Hotchkiss managed to say that with a straight face.
“You’ve heard that one, too,” Miles said.
That didn’t appear to surprise either agent. “And are you?” Hotchkiss asked.
“There might be some good rent to be had for that.”
Hotchkiss didn’t look amused. “What are you going to do for power up here? One little transformer stepped off that line down there doesn’t seem adequate for what you have planned.”
Waddell pulled out the little tin and took his time loading his cheek with another neat pinch. “And just what do I have planned, Agent Hotchkiss?”
“Just in a manner of speaking,” the young man said, with no hint of apology, “what you do is your business within the parameters of law, but the road up here bespeaks something, it seems to me. This isn’t just pasture.”
For a moment, Waddell fell silent, and then sighed as he reached a decision. “Let’s make this easy, gentlemen.” He uncorked the tube once more. “Maybe knowing what’s going on will help find these jerks.” In a moment the two feds were examining the plans and the architectural rendering of the completed site.
Costace whistled in amazement, and the rancher let them look without comment, until the FBI agent straightened up. “I have a nephew who would give his left nut to work in a place like this.”
“Tell him to watch my website for progress reports.” He extended business cards to both agents. “The application process will be posted.” How odd, I thought, to hear this rancher talk in terms of “posting” and “websites,” a rancher whom I’d known by way of cattle counts, freeze-s
napped fences, or vanishing groundwater.
Hotchkiss was glued to the rendering, eyebrows furrowed together, head shaking slowly from side to side. “Who’s funding all this…I mean, we’re talking millions and millions.”
“I’m funding it,” Waddell said easily. “I’m sure your agency has tendrils into the IRS vaults. Go there, and you won’t have to take my word for anything.” They didn’t protest, even weakly.
After another moment scrutinizing the plans, Hotchkiss nodded. “You’re going to be a target, sir.” He looked satisfied to be able to say that. Maybe it was a form of job security for him.
“Tell me why?”
Hotchkiss hesitated, and Costace didn’t come to his rescue. “Well, for one thing, it’s the money. You can’t dump this kind of money around without attracting the kind of attention you don’t want.”
“All right. We’ve come to that same conclusion. I was planning on shooting a few of ’em and hanging their corpses on a pole, down there at the entrance way. Do that a few times, and it might put a stop to all the nonsense.”
Hotchkiss looked pained. “You’re going to need security, for a start. But that’s not the real issue.”
“And what is?”
“Folks are going to think you’re up to something else.”
“I’ve been told that. I’m hoping some well-targeted publicity will smooth things out. That starts this week. Otherwise, I don’t care what people think.”
The agent looked dubious. “If someone is upset enough to cut down your power poles, it isn’t going to stop there. You can be sure of that.”
“Well, one of ’em got himself permanently discouraged, and that’s a fact. And his partner’s a fugitive. His life is over. If there are others, that’s why we pay you the big bucks.”
“You can bet that we’re interested in who they might have been working with,” Hotchkiss said.
“If they were,” I said.
Costace shot a quick glance my way. “We’re almost sure of it.” He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and jotted a note or two.
“Let me ask you something, then,” I said. “It doesn’t require a rocket scientist to take a chain saw to a wooden power pole. Make that six power poles. Any airheaded teenager could do that. How does this stunt lead you to think it’s some big conspiracy?”
Costace laughed gently. “You know, maybe it’s just a form of job security for us.” He turned serious. “A teenager would cut a pole closer to town, where he could see the results. This was done with a purpose—and it makes a hell of a statement to drop six like this.”
Hotchkiss drew a circle around the mesa-top installation with his index finger.
“How many acres?”
Waddell started to say something, and bit it off. I saw his jaw muscles clench, why I don’t know. The kid from Homeland Security had had the time to scrutinize the drafting, and pick up all kinds of details. But apparently the rancher had reached his limit.
“A few,” he said.
Hotchkiss glanced up at him, clearly puzzled at his reticence, then turned his attention back to the drafting. “But this is the only access to the mesa-top.” He swept a finger across the rendering to the access road.
“How about that,” Waddell said dryly. He didn’t offer to educate the young agent. Both the rancher and I knew that there was the remains of an old mining road on the southeast side. At the moment it could be used for a world class championship 4x4 course. But what the hell—maybe another million would make it passable.
Hotchkiss straightened up. “Can we get a copy of this?”
“No, you can’t.” Waddell deftly rolled up the rendering and the multiple sheets under it, and Hotchkiss watched with a stone face as the rancher slid the plans into the cardboard tube. They could get a copy, of course, from any number of sources, the state building inspector being the simplest. But at the moment, Hotchkiss remained polite.
“We can’t help you if we don’t have the information we need.”
Waddell laughed. “How about when I want your help, I’ll call you?” His tone was perfectly pleasant and reasonable. He looked across at me. “Isn’t that the old joke? ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help?’”
“What do you folks know that we don’t?” My question took the two agents by surprise. “Your response time was pretty good for a case of vandalism.”
“We were headed this way,” Costace said.
“The California deal?” That earned a sharp look from Hotchkiss and a smile from Costace. “Why do you say that?”
“Makes sense. You’ve got some folks out there who have announced that they’re moving a half billion-dollar radio telescope out of their state to New Mexico. California is not going to take the loss lightly—and only a few folks in New Mexico are going to welcome the project, at least until they find out how many people are going to be employed here. The rest would prefer the rumor—that it’s the government, once again here to help.”
“I think you’re overreacting to the rumor,” Costace said. “To rumors and old, bad jokes.”
“And yet, here you are. The sawdust down below is still fresh, and we’ve earned a visit from both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.”
“We were around.”
“And that’s pretty lame,” I said. “Did Sheriff Torrez call you?”
“Yes, he did. Listen, Bill,” and Costace took me by the elbow as if he wanted to lead me out of earshot of the others. I didn’t take the hint, and he relaxed his grip. “Look, I don’t know what your stake in all this is…”
“No stake.”
His eyes twinkled. “Right. That’s why you’re sitting on a mesa-top at one in the morning.”
“Not this mesa, and when you’re pondering deep thoughts like I do, you gotta sit somewhere lofty.”
“If something comes to your attention that you think we ought to know, will you call me?”
“You’re on the Rolodex, Neil.”
He nodded, and Hotchkiss took the opportunity to hand me a card. I extended it to Waddell without looking at it.
“Good luck with all this,” Costace shook hands with me and Waddell as if he meant it. Hotchkiss’ grip was still polite, but a little tempered this time. We watched them trudge back to their sporty little SUV.
“I should have locked the gate down below,” Waddell quipped, and I laughed. “You never know who’s going to drive in.”
“See? We’re just as paranoid as everybody else.”
Miles Waddell, rancher, entrepeneur, dreamer, once more implored that I consider his offer, and as I left the mesa that afternoon, I thought about the mammoth design of his project, and the odds of it actually seeing fruition. Small to none, was my pessimistic conclusion, and I kicked myself for falling so easily into that trap. I felt a pang of sympathy for him. And the second thought was one of irritation. Why shouldn’t Miles Waddell be able to build his castle in the sky? Why should boneheads stand in his way?
Chapter Fourteen
I spent the rest of the afternoon at the sheriff’s office, reviewing my depositions to make sure my less-than-acute memory hadn’t botched it. The account of my nocturnal mesa-top observations was brief, but the paperwork I cranked out for the shooting of Mr. Nathan Baum spelled out that incident in excruciating detail. I knew damn well what was coming from that one.
Listening to dispatch with half an ear, I followed the man-hunt for Perry Kenderman’s killer. The unsuccessful roadblocks were lifted shortly after four p.m., but they’d become useless long before that. By four-thirty, the investigation out at the power line was closed, with a depressingly brief list of evidence. Heavy equipment from both the local Electric Cooperative and from the grid had arrived and were allowed to move in.
Evidence was scant. We—they—had a corpse with a broken neck and crush
ed jaw, some sawdust from a chain saw, a few scuffs in the gravel, and six downed power poles. One witness had heard the chain saw. Another had been watching from twenty miles away.
The list for the Kenderman site was equally brief: a corpse with a through-and-through head wound with no bullet or shell casing left behind, a brief radio broadcast, and some scuff marks in the gravel.
The shooting of Sergeant Jackie Taber and Nathan Baum was as well documented as the Boyd/Kenderman tragedy was obscure. The only lingering question was why Nathan Baum hadn’t tried to sweet-talk his way out of the initial confrontation with the sheriff’s sergeant, instead of confronting her from the get-go with a shotgun. Did he actually expect that the officer would take one look at the gun and say, “My mistake. You can go now.”?
The sheriff and half a dozen other officers of various jurisdictions clumped through the office at various times that afternoon, all grim-faced and frustrated. I didn’t know where they were coming from or going, and didn’t ask. It wasn’t that I wasn’t curious—I was, acutely so. But I was also aware of how in the way I could be.
Because I had a standing offer to use the undersheriff’s office, I relaxed there, with a nice view of the neighboring county buildings and Cat Mesa beyond. Musing was a great way to spend time, and I was good at it, my thoughts free-ranging.
“Are you ready for a ride?”
I startled so hard that I yanked a muscle in my neck.
“Sorry, sir,” Estelle Reyes-Guzman said. “I didn’t realize you were asleep.”
“I wasn’t,” I grumped. “I was thinking.” I glanced up at the wall clock and saw with some astonishment that it was late afternoon…I’d been thinking, all right. And hopefully not snoring.
She regarded me silently for a moment. “I’d like to talk with Johnny Boyd,” she said. “He’s home now. Bobby talked with him out at the site, but I wanted to follow up on a couple of things that Boyd mentioned out there. He asked if you were around, too.”
“I’m around, all right. What’s Johnny need from me?” Counseling the bereaved was not my favorite pasttime.
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