GASTNER: And you thought his relationship with Jenny Barrie was going to jeopardize that?
SALINGER: I know it was. I know it did.
GASTNER: How do you know?
SALINGER: Do you know what his average was for the third nine weeks of this year?
GASTNER: Tell me.
SALINGER: He barely scraped a two-point.
GASTNER: So his love life put a dent in his scholarship. That’s not unusual.
SALINGER: No. I guess not.
GASTNER: [Long pause] What did you think of Jenny Barrie? [Pause, no reply] She was a senior also, wasn’t she?
SALINGER: Yes.
GASTNER: Good student? [No reply] I have to have a verbal answer for the recorder, Scott.
SALINGER: She got by.
GASTNER: What does that mean?
SALINGER: She wasn’t too interested in school.
GASTNER: What was she interested in?
SALINGER: You know. Playin’ around.
GASTNER: She wasn’t one of your favorite people, was she.
SALINGER: [Pause] No, sir. She wasn’t.
GASTNER: Will you tell me why? [No reply] Scott?
SALINGER: I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about it lately. The last week or so. I haven’t made up my mind yet.
GASTNER: About what?
SALINGER: [Pause] I don’t know.
Estelle leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She watched the tape machine closely, as if she could see the words coming off the reel.
GASTNER: We need to know, Scott. If it has anything to do with the accident, or the contents of the car, we need to know.
SALINGER: It’s just the pits, that’s all.
GASTNER: What is?
SALINGER: Life. [Pause] Maybe it doesn’t matter. Probably be easier just to go away.
GASTNER: Go away?
SALINGER: [Sigh] Next year is my last year in school. Get through that, then go away. College probably. Or I was thinking maybe the Air Force.
GASTNER: Scott, listen to me. If you have information about this investigation, you’d be doing everyone a favor by telling us.
SALINGER: Is there anything else you wanted? I need to get back to work.
GASTNER: Don’t hesitate to call me, Scott. When you decide. Anytime of the day or night. It doesn’t matter.
I reached over and snapped off the machine. I lighted another cigarette and Estelle stood up. “Something there,” she said. “I wonder what he knows?”
“Or,” I said, “it could be that he was just bent out of shape about Hardy. They were close friends. They’re both scholars.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I knew his older sister…she was also a brain.”
“The school guidance office shows he’s held a three-point-eight GPA since his freshman year. Right now, he stands about sixth in his class. He and Hardy were a year apart, but best friends nevertheless.”
“And so your theory is that he resented his friend’s infatuation?”
“Could be.”
“You think there’s more?”
I stood up and tucked in my uniform shirt. “Each of those kids checks out. They seemed to be pretty much normal, party-hardy teenagers, Estelle. Some maybe more than others. Salinger’s open dislike of Jenny Barrie is the first hint of a crack. It may be nothing, who knows. Probably is nothing. But I think we need to pry a little deeper into her background. A couple other kids said she was known as something of a wild hare. And maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the Salinger kid will decide that it’s time to talk.”
“And if he doesn’t, then we’re going to have to turn up the heat. Holman’s getting impatient. He keeps saying he’s got some ideas. He was breathing down my neck all morning.”
I glanced sideways at Estelle, wondering if she was making one of her rare jokes, but her face was impassive. “Spare us from a politician who thinks,” I said.
***
I was prepared to protest whatever harebrained idea our political sheriff was concocting-it wasn’t that I actually disliked Martin Holman. But old dogs become stuck in ruts. I was used to the oldtime expertise of Holman’s predecessor, Eduardo Salcido. Salcido chased criminals-he didn’t chase block grants. I knew that modern departments without money didn’t function worth a shit. I knew that the civil load of most sheriff’s departments was ten times the criminal load. But it seemed to me that Holman spent too much time talking, and not enough time doing. And as far as I knew, the sum total of Holman’s law-enforcement background was a two-week FBI school for sheriffs-elect.
Still, since he held the life of my contract in his hand, it seemed prudent to hear him out.
“Let me tell you what I plan to do,” he said one afternoon when he’d managed to corner me in my office. Estelle Reyes had tried to slip away down the hall, but he waved her inside. It was very hot, maybe 105 degrees out in the sun. “Yeah, but it’s dry heat,” some airheads might say. One hundred five is hot…dry or not dry. Despite the air-conditioning in the county building, my uniform shirt was a mess of dark circles. Holman, dressed in a lightweight summer suit, looked 60 degrees.
“You no doubt are aware of the interagency drug task forces that have been pretty successful in various parts of the state.” Both Estelle and I were aware, of course…more so than Holman. We were both polite enough not to say so. Estelle had worked records for them for two weeks shortly after she joined our department. I had been half-tempted once to work for the narcs, but the two weeks away from my hovel seemed an awfully long time. Old dogs…
Holman continued, “I thought a minor version of that is something to try. You know Artie White up in Gallup? Chief of Police?” We both did. “I had some time at one of these law-enforcement conventions recently, and we got to talking. I was telling him about all of your experience, Bill, and he laughed and said he had the other side of the coin.”
“How’s that?” I asked politely.
“Chief White said he had a freshly minted patrolman on his force who just turned twenty-one, for one thing…the kid couldn’t even buy a legal beer until a couple months ago. And the chief said what makes it worse is that the kid is one of those long, tall bean poles who looks sixteen. Believe it or not, he’s proving to be a good, careful cop.”
I chuckled gently. “I wonder how he’s going to do when he goes to his first bar fight and his backup never shows.”
“I asked Chief White the same thing. The kid’s been to a couple. The first one, he walked into this real tough joint. The two guys who were dukin’ it out stopped, took one look at him and broke up laughing. He put the cuffs on both of ’em. Pretty effective. He got called to a second one, and damn near got a charge of police brutality on his head. I guess he’s pretty good with a nightstick. Fast as a rattlesnake.”
“And so…” I prompted.
“And so,” Holman said, “I got to thinking. Some undercover work is what we need, and not by some DEA hotshot, or big-time narc from the big city or from the state police. We obviously can’t use our own people. They’re too well known. So, I thought let’s get the kid down here. Hell, we maybe can even plant him in the high school. Who’s to know?”
“Some folks at the school should know, for one thing,” I said.
“Why? What if the dealer is one of them? Hell, what if the damn principal is running drugs? Stranger things have happened.”
“You got a point,” Estelle said. “Would this guy really fit in? I mean, does he really look like a high school kid?”
“That’s what White says.” Holman was obviously pleased with himself.
“Let’s get him down here,” I said. “Maybe he’ll get it all wrapped up before he has to enroll in school. And that reminds me of something we may be forgetting. Whose kid is he? I mean, he’s got to be living with somebody. Nobody’s going to believe a high school kid living by himself in an apartment somewhere.”
Holman grinned and held up an index finger, apparently ready to make his grand point. “You have four grown children, correct?”
“So?”
Estelle had already covered her mouth with a hand to conceal the grin. She saw through Holman before I did. “So, your oldest son is what, thirty-nine?”
“So?”
“It’s no secret that for the last ten years, he’s had nothing but trouble with his oldest boy. A summer vacation for the rotten kid, away from home, is just the ticket. Who better for him to visit, in lieu of going to some paramilitary camp, than his old granddad, Undersheriff William C. Gastner, famous for his many exploits along the border?”
I looked at Estelle. “Have you been letting this man snort the evidence, or what?” I turned and frowned at the sheriff. “My oldest son doesn’t have a son of any description. Five wonderful girls, yes. A son, rotten or otherwise, no.”
“So who’s to know? I mean that. How many people in this county, in this town, keep track of your grandchildren, Bill? Hell, you never talk about them.”
“That’s because I think that people who corral innocent bystanders with pictures and tales of their grandkids deserve to be shot.”
“Bill,” Holman said patiently, “even you are not that much of a curmudgeon. And once, not more than a month ago when we were all happier and more relaxed than we are now, you showed me a picture of one of yours.”
I shook my head. “I would never do that.”
“Then how do I know that down in Corpus Christi, Lieutenant William Gastner, Junior, and his wife Edie managed to keep little Kendal and Tadd clean long enough for a family picture? Lieutenant Gastner resplendent in flight suit? T2C Buckeye jet trainer in the background?”
“Checkmate, sir,” Estelle said quietly.
“I showed you that picture?”
“Yes.”
“It was a good one, wasn’t it?”
Holman laughed heartily and nodded. “Thank you. That was the first time I’ve felt good in the past two weeks. Anyway, I want White’s peach-fuzz to stay with you. What better yarn for local kids to swallow? A heavy metal shithead of a kid from out of town, occasionally bad-mouthing you as an old, worn-out symbol of law and order. Hell, that line alone ought to be worth five sales.”
Estelle nodded. “Good idea. Better that than trying to hide him in the back room here. Or putting him with strangers.”
“Big help you are,” I muttered.
“You’ll do it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you have a choice.”
“I bet. And I suppose you’re going to coach him on how to treat me as an old and worn-out…symbolically, anyway.”
“Bill, your skin is entirely too thin.”
I ignored that. “When’s he coming, Sheriff?”
“I called Chief White yesterday. The officer will meet you at Albuquerque International Airport Saturday at eleven A. M.
“Albuquerque! That’s almost three hundred miles from here!”
“Huh,” Holman said, pretending to be astounded. Then he turned reasonable. “It would look great for the kid to drive into Posadas in a Gallup patrol car, wouldn’t it? Or to drive into town at all, for that matter. Your son wouldn’t let him drive all the way from L.A. by himself, would he?”
“And so the idea is that he has supposedly flown into Albuquerque, and I go pick him up.”
“Right.”
“What’s wrong with Las Cruces?”
“The major airlines from L.A. don’t fly there, for one thing. Bill, picky, picky. Look, if you meet him up in Albuquerque, that gives you six hours or more for a private confab, right? Six hours to lay things out.”
“He’s right, sir,” Estelle agreed. “And besides, between now and then, you could drop a word here and there about picking up this kid. No big deal, but any scat helps.”
I looked at Estelle Reyes in astonishment. “‘Any scat helps?’ Where the hell did you hear that line? Christ.” She grinned, looking about fourteen years old herself. I held up my hands in surrender.
“Great,” Holman said. “And feel free to use a county credit card for gas.”
“You are all heart, Sheriff,” I said. A goddamned kid chasing kids, I thought. Hell, maybe Scott Salinger would talk to him. Maybe Salinger would sell him a nice, fresh kilo and the kid-cop would bust the case wide open. That’s all the little town of Posadas needed.
Chapter 6
I reached the airport nearly an hour early, figuring to have time for breakfast and a leg-stretch before the long return drive. The place was busy. Everyone from real weirdos with turbans to an aging-relatively speaking-deputy U.S. marshal I recognized. He didn’t see me, and seemed in a hurry, so I didn’t bother hailing him. I probably missed some good war stories. In the corner of the restaurant, sitting back where it was dark, was a man who looked a lot like the city’s mayor. He was in earnest conversation with another man who looked a lot like a popular U.S. senator. After a few minutes, a local news crew complete with minicam arrived and interrupted the quiet meeting. The senator gave them five minutes, then he and the mayor went out to the plane.
A big family pushed their way into the restaurant: fat father, pudgy mother, and an assortment of youngsters who ranged from three feet six to six feet three. I munched on the wonderfully huge, sloppy Danish and made bets about where the family was from, and where they were bound. From Terre Haute, going to Marine Land. Best bet. They headed for a table back in the area just vacated by the senator. The oldest boy-he was doing a good job of pretending the rest of his family didn’t exist-changed directions without a word and headed straight at me. He was grinning from ear to ear and looking at me.
“Granddad!” he said altogether too loudly. “Here you are, hiding over behind the Danish!” I almost choked.
I wiped my mouth and stood up slowly. He extended his hand, still beaming. I had to take his hand, or it would look as if I were turning away my own kin. He gripped my hand in one of those hard two-handed squeezes, and to prevent him from shattering the arthritis I had been culturing in my right hand, I had to squeeze heartily in return.
“Gosh, you’re lookin’ well,” he said, and motioned at the chairs. “Don’t let me interrupt.” He sat down first, still with that goddamned grin all over his face.
“You’re observant,” I said flatly, and went back to the Danish.
He dropped his voice several levels, all the while looking for the waitress. “Your sheriff told Chief White that all I had to do was just find a man who had an old-fashioned military brush cut and a mustache like Don Ameche’s. I mean-” and he spread his hands expressively-”how many of you can there be?”
“That’s all he said?”
Peach-Fuzz grinned. “No. But…”
“But what?”
He waved a hand in amusement. He was tall and skinny all right, but with the conditioning of a mid-season track star. Fighting with him would be like wrestling a steel spring. He looked sober. “Undersheriff Gastner, it’s going to be a pleasure working for you. I hope we can run this thing to ground.”
“Run to ground?” I said. “You’ve been reading too much Sherlock Holmes. It’s a damn mess, is what it is. But we’re grateful for any help. So, Officer Hewitt, what does a grandfather call you? Arthur? Art?”
Hewitt grinned. “My real granddad called me Punk.”
“Smart man. Is he still alive?”
“No.”
I nodded. “Grandparents have a way of getting old.”
“He didn’t die of old age. He got shot.”
“Cop?”
Hewitt turned on that electric grin again. “No. He landed an oil company plane in the wrong place down in Peru. The natives were unappreciative.”
“You don’t seem overly grieved.”
The young cop shrugged, and when the waitress finally brought his coffee, he took several minutes finding enough sugar. “He wasn’t my favorite person. I’ll tell you about him sometime.”
“And there’s got to be something better than Punk, too.”
“Art would be fine.” He drained the coff
ee. “You ready to go? I’m looking forward to hearing all about the case.”
We left the restaurant and rode the escalators downstairs. A large crowd had gathered around the baggage conveyor, all hoping their suitcases hadn’t gone on to Fairbanks or Miami Beach. Art Hewitt slid through the folks, watched for thirty seconds, then darted a hand out. He came back with a large brown suitcase.
“You went to all the trouble of putting that on the baggage-claim conveyor before coming upstairs?” I asked in wonder.
“Sure. Neat touch, right?”
I stopped and looked at him. “You’re as much of a fruitcake as Sheriff Holman. Who in hell is going to tail me six hours north from Posadas County, Art? And for what reason?”
“You never know. Anyway, it saved me from carrying it upstairs. Where are you parked?”
I walked through the electric door and pointed. “Short-term lot.”
He squinted. “The Blazer, right?”
I chuckled. “What other background information did you dig up on me?”
“Lots and lots. Your oldest son doesn’t have a son, for instance.”
“Aren’t computers wonderful?” I put the key in the door of the Blazer. “And now you can forget all that and concentrate on what I’m going to tell you for the next six hours.” He climbed in and we rolled.
As he snapped the seatbelt, he said, “So tell me.”
Chapter 7
Holman was waiting for me when I got to the sheriff’s office the following day.
“Good trip?”
“Yup. Hewitt is a smart kid.”
“What’s he doing now?”
I shrugged. “Hanging out.”
“Doing what?”
I chuckled and poured a cup of coffee. “I’m not sure what one does as a teenager hanging out, Sheriff. It’s been a while since I was one. If you told me to hang out now, I’d probably go home and go to bed.”
Holman looked a little concerned. “It’s been a long week.”
“And will get longer.”
“Did you hear about the citizens’ task force?”
“The what?”
“A certain Mrs. Wheeler has taken the bull by the horns, so to speak. She’s organizing a bunch of parents. Their aim is to do something about drug abuse.”
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