I sipped the coffee and slowly settled into my padded swivel chair. Holman sat down in the straight-backed chair under the window. “That sounds like something out of one of those dumb brochures. What is it that they plan to do?”
“I don’t know. They want someone from this department to help coordinate their efforts.”
“You mean someone to tell them what to do.”
Holman sighed. “Yes. I suppose it would be a waste of breath to ask you if you’re interested.”
“All too true.”
“They mean well, Bill.”
“Of course. But has anyone told them that we don’t know what to do?”
Holman smiled faintly. “No. No one told them that. I was sort of hoping that we wouldn’t have to.”
I tipped back in the chair as far as it would go and dug out a cigarette. “We have no leads, Sheriff. Maybe Hewitt will be able to dig up something by ‘hanging out.’ But I can’t believe that’s going to happen quickly. He told me this morning that he figured he’d break the case just about the time we were ready to kill each other.”
“He’s really ready to play this ‘difficult grandson’ bit to the hilt, then?”
“You’d better believe it. And I think he’s more than half looking forward to enrolling in school here. And remember, it was your idea.”
“I’ll remember.” He stood up. “You won’t refuse to talk to a parent group if they make a specific request, will you?”
“Of course not. But they might not like what I have to say.”
Holman looked wary. “And that is?”
“Well, for instance, five gets you ten that the meeting would be some evening, right?”
“Sure.”
I spread my hands. “It might be more productive for them to stay home and talk with their kids, instead of leaving them alone one more time.”
Holman grimaced. “Maybe I’ll ask Reyes. By the way, the DEA is in town. They’re going to be running a chopper out of the Posadas Airport.”
“Doing what? Running the border again?”
The sheriff shrugged and sidled toward the door. “Who knows. They didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe they think I’m the ringleader.”
I grinned. “Isn’t interagency cooperation wonderful?”
“Terrific,” Holman said. “Get some rest. Soon. You look awful.” He left and as the door closed behind him, I muttered, “Thanks.” I was tired, but I needed to think. If I stretched out for two seconds, I’d be asleep, and I didn’t think well unconscious. I tossed away the coffee cup and grunted to my feet. It was a wonderfully clear day, hot and bright with puffy cumulus trooping out across the sky in even ranks. Within a block, I passed the village police unit. One of the part-time specials was sitting behind the wheel. He was reading something. Probably a Conan comic. Three months before, I had passed by and he was blowing z’s, right there in public, in broad daylight. I had done the only thing possible in the circumstance. I idled the county car right up beside him, so that my right headlight was just about even with his car’s door handle. Then I reached down and tapped my siren yelp. Had his head hit the roof any harder, it would have knocked him unconscious. He didn’t think well of me after that.
The memory of that incident woke me up a little, and I swung east and north, planning to loop around Consolidated Ore and then head on over to Tres Mesitas, where I could find a shady, isolated spot under a pinon tree for uninterrupted thought. Or sleep.
“Three-ten, PCS.”
“I don’t want to,” I moaned aloud, and reached for the mike. “Three-ten.”
“Three-ten, ten-twelve, ten-nineteen.”
“Ten-four. About four minutes.”
I had no idea who was sitting in my office, waiting to talk to me, but it might bring a change of pace. Maybe my errant grandson was already in trouble. I turned around and flogged 310 back to town, driving too fast just for the exhilaration.
George Payton was waiting in my office. George was short, fat, bald, and seemed like a heart attack waiting to happen. Whenever we both lit up cigarettes in his store, we usually joked about which one of us was going to kick off first. At least we were smart enough not to make bets.
“You taking me to lunch, George?” I said as I hung my Stetson on the peg behind the door. He wiped his flushed forehead and slumped a little more.
“Gets any hotter I’m going to melt. No, no lunch. I could have called, but I was over in the Motor Vehicles office, and decided to kill all the birds at once. Your dispatcher took pity on me and agreed to hail you in.”
I sat down. “So what gives?”
“Look, this is none of my business, Bill. But I guess you’re discreet enough that I should tell you.” He had my interest, and I leaned forward a little to encourage him. “You’re a good customer at my gunshop. Hell, I got lots of good customers. But Benny Fernandez has never been a customer of mine, right?”
“How would I know that?” I said, but a nasty feeling was beginning to settle in my gut. “What happened?”
“He stopped by this morning. He spent an hour looking, very carefully. I asked him if I could help him, but he waved me off. At one point he looked at me and said, ‘I’ve been doing some reading.’ Whatever that meant. Anyway, when he was finished, he bought an entire setup.”
“Meaning?”
George ticked it off on his fingers. “Nine-millimeter Beretta, that new one, like the one adopted by the army. Five boxes of ammunition. Not cheap plinkers, either, Bill. Two extra clips.” He stopped and looked at me anxiously. “Hell, it isn’t any of my business what people buy, as long as they can answer all the questions on the federal form. But, hey, I know what state of mind Fernandez has been in since that accident, or at least I can imagine pretty good. A man like Fernandez doesn’t buy hardware like that for busting rabbits.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“I just thought that maybe, maybe one of you guys should know. I probably shouldn’t have told you, but hell, I’m no priest or no lawyer. There’s no law I can’t mention it to you, is there?”
“I appreciate it. I have no idea where I heard it.”
Payton got to his feet and pulled his golf shirt away from his sweaty schmo-like body. “Yeah, well. The last thing we need right now is one of those gun-toting vigilantes who goes around blowing everyone away, you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean.”
“I mean, if you came in and bought that stuff, I’d just think that maybe the county gave you a raise. And there’s about fifty other good customers who might buy it and I wouldn’t turn a hair. But Fernandez?” He scoffed. “I just thought you should know.”
I reassured him that he’d done the right thing, and started to show him out. He suddenly stopped and turned, hand on the doorjamb.
“You remember Cuffy Oates?”
“Yes.”
George nodded. “Man like him, never owned a gun in his life. Comes in the store, talkin’ about how he’s worried about snakes, and wants something for that. So I sell him a little inexpensive thirty-eight revolver. Remember that?”
“It wasn’t your fault, George.”
“No, but I never thought to question him any, either. So he goes home, turns on the television, sits down in the rocker and blows his brains out.” George shook his head, heaved a great sigh and turned away. “I’ll see ya, Bill. Take care.”
I watched him waddle off down the hall. It wouldn’t have made George feel any better if I’d told him that Cuffy Oates had tried suicide about five different ways before taking the sure way out. George wanted me to do something about Fernandez. I could have gone over to the restaurant and confronted the man, asked him what the hell he was planning to do with a 9 mm cannon that could fire fifteen rounds from one clip. But he had a right to it, just like anyone else. At least we had gained a little edge if he was after something other than rabbits.
Chapter 8
Hewitt and I had arranged to meet at home for dinner, and he showed up just a
bout the time the lamb chops turned to charcoal. I had forgotten about teenage-or near-teenage-appetites. He finished three chops to my one.
“You coming off a week-long fast, or what?” I asked.
“I think I got a tape worm or something,” he said. “You cook good, though.”
“Most people who live alone do. It’s either that or eat out all the time. I do too much of that as it is.”
“Your wife died eleven years ago?” He looked at me over the top of an ear of corn.
“Yes.”
“Airplane crash, wasn’t it?” He had done his research thoroughly, but I had no intentions of discussing the past-especially those few minutes long ago when the airliner had fought a wind shear and lost.
“Did you make any progress today?” I asked, ignoring his question. He glanced down at his plate, embarrassed, then shook his head.
“Not really. Well, maybe some. I don’t know. Tonight, maybe. I found out a couple places to check out. The burger place on Grande is one. I can probably even get me a job there. Kids hang out in that parking lot like flies on a dead dog. And there’s a place out in the National Forest, too. I don’t know just where.”
“You mean out at the lake? Up past the old Consolidated mill?”
“No, no. Way the hell and gone out in the forest. There’s some place where they can have campfires and a bunch of rocks keeps the fires out of view of the fire tower.”
“Oh.” I nodded and rescued another chop before they all disappeared down the human garbage disposal. “That’s out County Road 21. Turn on Forest Road 420. About a mile, and turn off on Forest Road 562. Big limestone outcrop on the south side of the canyon. They call it ‘the Rec Room.’ They don’t use it much anymore after the forest fire three years ago. That kinda spoiled the view. And the Forest Service sits on it pretty hard. If you get on the right road, you can’t miss it. All kinds of graffiti on the rocks around there. You got a map?”
“Yeah. But I got to work on getting somebody to take me out there. No way you’re going to let me take your Blazer, is there, Gramps?” He grinned widely.
“You got that right, punko.”
“Maybe I can just hot-wire it sometime.”
I ignored the thoughtful look on his face and asked, “Who’d you talk to, anyway?”
“I only found out this information after hours of resourceful digging.”
“I bet. Who?”
“I stopped by the library. One of the clerks seemed to know all about it.”
“If it was Mary Ellen Coburn, it’s because she has three high-school-age kids. Hefty gal with freckles?” Hewitt nodded. “I’m surprised she talked to you.”
“I was my most persuasive self,” Hewitt said and grinned. “And speaking of persuasive, you never told me your department had the best-lookin’ detective in the state. I saw her riding with Bob Torrez today.”
“You mean Estelle Reyes.”
Hewitt wagged his eyebrows. “How’d someone like her hook up with you guys?”
“She’s from Mexico, about five years ago. Graduated first in her class at the Police Academy in Santa Fe. Hell of a good cop. She does more good in plain clothes than in uniform… spends most of her time as our juvenile officer.”
“Plain clothes…no clothes,” Hewitt said, and grinned some more.
“And her fiancE will slice you thinner than salami,” I said.
Hewitt groaned and looked sickened. “Tough dude, huh?”
“He’s a vascular surgeon in Las Cruces.” I smiled pleasantly. “Keep your mind on your work.”
Hewitt nodded and held up his hands philosophically, then pushed his plate away and stretched like a contented cat. “God, that was good. I wish we could get sweet corn like that up in Gallup.” He glanced at his watch. “Got about two hours till dark. Guess I’ll roam a little, then maybe twist some headlights or something.”
“Twist headlights?”
Hewitt looked startled that I didn’t know. “Yeah. Twist ’em. You get a Phillips-head screwdriver, and when the cop goes in for coffee, or in the office or something, you twist the hell out of the adjustment screws on one headlamp.” He crossed his eyes wildly and cackled. “The cop car cruises around looking moronic. They can never figure out why the kids always know it’s them coming up the street.”
I looked skeptical. “And the cop doesn’t notice? They’re that stupid up in Gallup?”
“No, but, you’d be surprised. With the streetlights and all, it works pretty good with city cars. Not for the country, of course.”
“Of course. I can see that the younger generation of Posadas is going to profit mightily from your sojourn here, however short.”
“You betcha.” He stood up and shook his pant leg as if he had a dog attached. I glanced down and then did a double take.
“You’re kidding,” I said, pointing. He looked down, then up at me, puzzled. “An ankle holster?” I asked.
“Why not?” He pulled up the leg of his jeans. The little Smith amp; Wesson Model 19 rested in a suede holster with the Velcro strap just above his anklebone.
“You can run with that on?”
“Sure.”
“And you can get it out without dancing around on one leg like an awkward ballerina?”
“Sure.” He demonstrated, bending at the waist and pulling up his knee at the same time. One hand pulled pant leg, the other pulled S amp;W, all in one fluid, practiced motion. He snapped it back in.
“Huh,” I said, noncommittal. “I’ve seen ’em in the movies.” I started to gather dishes. “I don’t think I’d be happy with one.” Hewitt’s expression of polite amusement told me that he could imagine the result as well as I. Grab down, suffer back-muscle spasm, throw out trick knee, stagger sideways and sprain other ankle. Fall and land on left wrist, refracturing an old break. At least I would be left with a good right hand and the S amp;W for permanent pain relief.
“I wasn’t going to carry one at all,” Hewitt said, “but then I got to thinking.”
“That’s a good idea, thinking. And by the way, just for passing interest, I found out today that the father of one of the teenagers in that wreck purchased his own arsenal. His name’s Benny Fernandez. He owns the Burger Heaven you were talking about, down on Grande.”
“No shit? I mean, I know who he is, but he bought a gun?”
“No shit.”
“Who’s he going to blow away?”
I shrugged. “No one, we can hope. Perhaps it will rot in his closet until he gets tired of it and sells it.”
“What’d he buy?”
“A Beretta. The big kind. Like the military one.”
“Terrific.”
“He drives a white older model Cordoba, Yankee Charlie Xray one-thirty-six. He also owns a year-old charcoal-gray Continental, Charlie Delta fifty-nine-ninety. Keep an eye peeled when you’re floating around. I don’t know what he’s up to, but it isn’t quail hunting.”
Hewitt nodded and repeated the license-tag numbers, firmly planting them in his youthful memory. I added, “And a reminder about the Salinger kid. He’s mooning over something. Keep that in mind, too. I don’t think you’ll find him out and around much. He works at the home center days, but I don’t think he’s much of a night owl. But you never know.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to sleep for a couple hours or so, then cruise around some.”
“Don’t you have regular-shift deputies out?”
“Yes. Two on the road, four to midnight, and then one, midnight to eight.”
“But you still work all day, and then most of the night?”
“Yes.” I was about to say something more, but just shrugged. It never did any good explaining that work was also hobby, pastime, relaxation, and maybe even a little therapy. “If I see you twisting headlights, you’ll have your first experience trying to undercover yourself out of jail.”
He started with mock horror. “You’d do that, Gramps?”
“Cert
ainly. Let them try to feed you. Probably bankrupt the county.”
***
I slept so hard I awoke soaked with sweat, feeling as if I’d been slugged. The old adobe house was dark as pitch, and I turned to stare at the digital clock on the nightstand. By squinting hard and really concentrating, I could make out that it was after ten. I got up, showered and put on fresh clothes. The hall light near the front door was on so that Hewitt wouldn’t stumble over the uneven floor bricks and break his neck. I left it on and went out. The air was velvety soft, black as pitch with no moon and no streetlights on my block. Not a breath of moving air stirred the cottonwoods that formed a thick umbrella over my house.
I slid into 310 and turned on the radio. It was silent. I almost pressed the mike to go 10-8, but decided against it. Miracle Murton was working, and if he knew I was out on the road, he’d do his level best to find something for me to do. Let him live in blissful ignorance…as usual.
Grande Boulevard dropped out of Posadas toward the east, and as I drove 310 out past the lumberyard, D’Anzo Chrysler-Plymouth, Laundromats, junk shops, tourist traps, and motels, and Benny Fernandez’s burger joint right in the middle of them all, I chuckled. There were about ten youngsters lounging around that parking lot, including a group of four who sat on the hood of a big 4-by-4 suburban. Leaning against the fender of that same vehicle, looking at home like the rest of them, was my “grandson.” Maybe he would do some good after all.
In another block, I had proof that the kid worked fast. The village police car idled out of a side street, another part-time patrolman at the wheel. The car was comically wall-eyed, its right headlamp skewed downward. I didn’t want to be on the radio just then, but someone would tell him before the night was over, I was sure. The village was his problem, not mine. The village department was tiny, but the cops were sensitive. We always had to be careful not to step on their turf, unless asked. My plan was to swing east, gradually taking in the top half of the county.
“Three-oh-eight, PCS. Ten-twenty?”
“PCS, three-oh-eight. I’m about three miles up County Road 43, northbound.”
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