“Yup.”
“I wish ’em all the luck. But unless they can cover the whole thing twenty-four hours a day, it isn’t going to do much good. What are they flying, do you know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it. Just that they’re coming.”
Bergin nodded. “Probably bringing in one of their mix-masters. Complete waste.” He shook his head sadly. “You know, if they’d go down into Mexico and bribe the right people, they’d probably be provided with a flight plan for each drug runner. But what the hell.” He waved the wire cutter in disgust, then grinned again. “At two dollars and nine cents a gallon for av-gas, I hope they work the border for about six months. Then I can retire.”
I was about to say something when I heard a car blasting down the state road past the airport. It caught my attention because the sound was that of a big engine being pushed until it howled. About the time I half-turned to look outside toward the road, we saw the flash of red lights. It was a county car, and flying low.
“Your boys are hotdogging it,” Bergin observed dryly.
“Young blood, eager beavers,” I replied. The door of 310 was closed, and I hadn’t bothered to put the radio on PA. “I better go give a listen.”
“Take care.” Bergin went back inside the airplane and I walked out to the car. He called after me, voice muffled, “There’s coffee if you want it.” I waved a hand and then pulled open the door. The night air instantly was filled with radio traffic.
“Three-oh-eight, what’s your ETA?” The voice was shaky, and I recognized it as one of the village part-timers.
“Posadas, three-oh-eight is six minutes out.” It had been Torrez who flashed by.
I was already in gear when Gayle Sedillos came on the air, finding Deputy Bishop as well. “Three-oh-seven, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Three-ten, PCS.”
I keyed the mike as I swerved around the hangar and out the gate. “Three-ten.”
“Three-ten, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Ten-seventy-one.”
“Ten-four. ETA seven minutes.” Every muscle in my body was steel-tight. The innocent numbers Gayle enunciated so clearly on the air meant that somebody had just put bullets into somebody else…and maybe was ready to continue doing so.
I concentrated on driving, nervous because I knew Bob Torrez would arrive at the park first. The part-timer wouldn’t provide much backup. His chief, Dan Martinez, wouldn’t either, since he was off on a week’s vacation. I reached the intersection of State 78 and County 43 and swept down the yield ramp at close to eighty miles an hour. There were three miles of straight paved road to the outskirts of Posadas, and after the first one, 310 felt light on its toes. I didn’t bother to look at the speedometer.
The village park was a triangular affair of two acres, grass and swing sets and a statue or two. It even sported a welded-up, World War I vintage tank-supposedly left over from Pershing’s fruitless dashes across the border after the outlaw Pancho Villa. If Pershing had used that tank in hot pursuit, it’s amazing Villa hadn’t laughed himself to death. The tank faced Pershing Street, and that’s where I saw Torrez’s car, parked diagonally in the street, lights flashing. Beyond was the village car, headlights askew. Pulling in from the other direction was a state police cruiser, no toplight bar but the grille lights pulsating. I skidded 310 to a stop altogether too close to 308. A crowd of people were gathered over on the grass about thirty yards behind the tank. I saw Torrez push someone hard, and the deputy gesticulated toward the village car.
Only after I had gotten out and was trotting across the grass did I recognize the man Torrez had pushed as the village cop. He ran past me, eyes wide. “Ambulance,” he yelped, and sprinted on.
I reached the first knot of people, folks from nearby houses and the rapidly gathering cars. “Move it, move it,” I snapped, and shoved through. The victim was lying on his face, but I recognized him immediately. My gut wound itself into a painful ball. The Beretta was in the grass, under the victim’s left shin. Benny Fernandez didn’t need an ambulance.
I stood up. “Now I want you people back. Way back,” I shouted. The state trooper didn’t hesitate to cooperate. He was five times bigger than me, and probably twice as mean. Crowd control was his thing, and he pitched in. I let him work, because Bob Torrez had me by the sleeve.
“Sheriff, over here,” he said. I turned quickly and almost fell, suddenly and violently dizzy. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath, waiting for my eyes to clear. The night air hadn’t felt so close and stuffy before.
“Who’d Fernandez tangle with?” I managed, but Torrez just pulled me along. I recognized one of the paramedics from the fire department, crouched and working furiously. He was off duty, and didn’t have much to work with. Just as intent, and obviously in charge, was Dr. Harlan Sprague, Jr. I recognized first his unruly white hair. His face, unevenly illuminated by the bright sodium vapor lights of the park, was soft and puffy, like that of a man just jerked out of bed. I couldn’t see much of the victim at first, but then I saw the ankle holster, and tasted the bile that welled up in my throat as I bent over.
“Ah, no,” was all I managed to say. Art Hewitt lay on his back, arms outflung. By his right hand was the stubby Magnum.
“Where the hell is that ambulance?” the paramedic muttered. “There ain’t a thing we can do until he gets here.” In the distance, we could hear another siren building.
“How is he?” I said, dropping to my knees beside Sprague.
“His pulse is good. Breathing is ragged. There’s no way of knowing where the bullet went. But I think he’ll be all right.” He was holding a pad made from Hewitt’s own T-shirt against the young officer’s right flank. “He’s conscious.”
Hewitt’s features were rigid, and his eyes were staring wildly up into the night, shifting first one way and then another as if he were searching the heavens for an answer. “Art?” He looked over at me, obviously having trouble focusing his eyes. “Art, what the hell happened?”
He wet his lips and swallowed hard. “Damned if I know,” he whispered. “I was talking with some kids and…and…”
“And what?” The ambulance screamed up to the curb. “And what, Art?”
“He was talkin’ with some guy over by the corner.”
“Who was talking? Fernandez?”
Art Hewitt nodded slightly and swallowed hard. “And then he just came over and jumped me.”
“Jumped you? You mean he threatened you with the gun?”
“No. He just…he just charged me, pushed me real hard. I tripped and fell backward.”
Footsteps pounded toward us, and I looked up. The ambulance crew was sprinting across the grass. I put a hand on Hewitt’s shoulder. “They’ll get you fixed up, Art. Just lie easy.”
“I’ll be okay, Gramps.”
Sprague, an internist by training, and far from being a trauma specialist, stood aside and let the well-equipped EMTs take over.
I moved to give them room to work and gasped aloud, so vicious was the combination of pain and pressure that suddenly and relentlessly clamped me in a vice. “Holy shit,” I breathed, and stood bent over with my hands on my knees.
“Are you all right?” It was Sprague.
“I think so,” I said, slowly straightening up. Air came a little easier and the pain subsided. “Too much running around.”
Dr. Sprague’s eyes narrowed as he looked closely at me. “Chest pain? Pressure?”
Everything was coming back to normal, and I knew that if I answered the doc truthfully, there’d be complications that I couldn’t afford just then. “No. Just a little dizzy. I’m all right.”
Sprague had me by the wrist, and it was only after a few seconds that I realized he had been expertly but unobtrusively taking my pulse. I pulled away. “I’m all right.” They were loading Art Hewitt into the ambulance. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“Probably for more reasons than you think,” Sprague said dryly. “Who’s
your doctor?”
I looked at him impatiently. “None,” I said truthfully. I had been ill so rarely that I had never seen the need for a regular physician.
“Find one,” he said cryptically. “If you make it through this night, find one. I mean it.”
I nodded and said, “Sure. And I’m going to need to talk to you. You saw this?” I nodded at the flattened spot in the grass. Even as we talked, a second unit arrived and Fernandez’s corpse, covered with the usual white sheet, was loaded.
“No. I heard the shots. That’s all. As you know, I live just over there.” He indicated a row of town houses that had been built on the east side of the park. “I didn’t even have time to put together something for my bag. I haven’t been in active practice for some time.”
“All right. We’ll want a statement.”
“Certainly.”
I saw that Bob Torrez and the village part-timer were working the other eyewitnesses. I left Sprague and joined them. In the next few minutes, Estelle Reyes arrived, as did Howard Bishop. “I want statements from every living soul within a block of this park,” I snapped at Reyes. I could see, even in the vague light of the park’s sodium vapors, that her face was pale.
“How is he?” she asked, and I shrugged helplessly.
“I’m going on down to the hospital. I’ll call Holman and tell him to get his ass out of bed.”
“He’s already on his way down,” Estelle Reyes said, almost in a whisper.
“Fine,” I said. “Take this place apart. I mean it. I’ll be back to help just as soon as I can.”
I strode across the grass toward my car. But what I’d told Estelle Reyes wasn’t true. It wasn’t fine. I had the goddamned feeling that absolutely nothing was under control.
Chapter 10
Martin Holman walked stolidly toward me. The hard heels of his finely polished boots clicked on the polished hall tiles of Posadas General Hospital. His hands were thrust in his pockets, and he stared at the floor as he walked, ignoring others, letting the few nurses dodge him. I didn’t bother to get up. He stopped a pace in front of my chair and surveyed me with tired, bagged eyes.
“You look like shit,” he said finally.
“Thanks.”
“So what the hell happened?”
“I don’t know yet. Art says Benny Fernandez ran at him. ‘Jumped him’ is how he put it.”
“You got a chance to talk with him, then?” Holman said, relieved.
“Briefly. I didn’t get the whole story. There were at least five witnesses, it looks like. Estelle and Bob Torrez are taking their statements now.”
“Benny Fernandez was killed instantly?”
“Yes.”
“And how does it look for Art Hewitt?”
“I think he’ll be all right.” I glanced at my watch. “He’s in surgery now.”
“Where was he hit?”
I jabbed my right index finger into my side under the ribs. “He was hurting bad, but it’s just about impossible to tell anything, you know. I don’t have any information whatever.”
“We’ll just have to wait,” Holman said. “I called Gallup, by the way. Chief White says the boy’s parents live in Tucson. He said he’d take care of contacts there.”
“That’s good.”
We both fell silent, and after a long moment Holman said, “Hell of a thing.”
“Yes.” A nurse walked by pushing a jingling tray cart. She looked at us and smiled helpfully.
“Hell of a note,” Holman said. I just looked at him. “So Benny Fernandez was killed outright?” he asked.
“Yes. It looked like he’d been shot once in the face.”
Holman winced. “You talked to the widow?” The blank look that settled over my face told Holman all he needed to know. “Christ, Bill, how long’s it been?”
I glanced at the wall clock. “Twenty-five minutes.”
Holman was already on his feet. “I’ll take care of it. You stay here.” I watched him hustle off, and shook my head. I must have figured the dead could wait attendance. I didn’t worry about explaining my preoccupation to Holman. What was going to be tough was explaining why I hadn’t taken the Beretta when it was offered to me.
***
After a while, the hospital didn’t even smell anymore. I didn’t notice the polish on the floor. Holman had returned, and for an hour or more we talked. Now he sat with his hands clasped between his knees, head twisted, slightly to one side, eyes staring without registration at the old issue of Sports Illustrated on the table beside him.
Estelle Reyes and Bob Torrez had shifted their operations from the park to the sheriff’s office, and every twenty minutes one or another of them called us and got the same negative answer. At a quarter to five, when there still wasn’t the faintest hint of dawn behind the curtains, Estelle Reyes walked into the waiting room. She looked so goddamned prim, like a grade school teacher ready to lecture the troops…except there was a little fatigue tremor twitching her lower lip.
“Officer Hewitt was apparently talking with the five teenagers,” she said without preamble. “Three of them say he was trying to buy grass. Two of them think he was really after something harder. A couple of the kids were just hangers-on. They don’t know what was going on. One of them said they all thought Hewitt was ‘funny,’ whatever that means. I think they were just hanging out, no particular, cohesive group. If any of them had actually been into drugs, been ready to sell, Hewitt would have suckered them in, that’s for sure.”
“And if all this was going on at midnight or after, where the hell were the village police?” Holman asked bitterly.
“And then Fernandez arrived,” Estelle Reyes continued, ignoring the sheriff’s question. “One of the kids was so shook when the shooting started that he crapped his pants. He ran home. Howard Bishop went to talk to him.”
“Who wouldn’t panic?” I muttered morosely. “I’m surprised it was only one.”
“And then?” Holman said.
“They all say that Benny Fernandez came across the grass like a man possessed. From the east side of the park.”
“Over by the apartments?”
“Right. Now, even in the dim light, Officer Hewitt would have been easy to recognize. The tallest of the five kids was five feet six inches. Hewitt is six-three.” Estelle looked at the paperwork on her clipboard, and took a deep breath.
Holman looked at me. “Did Fernandez ever have a chance to meet Hewitt? Did he know him?”
I shook my head, and Estelle continued, “They agree that Fernandez said something, but none of them understood him. It’s possible it was something in Spanish, who knows. He pushed Hewitt very hard. ‘Violently,’ one of the kids said. Like a football player. Hewitt apparently was caught off guard and stumbled backward and fell. He wasn’t able to catch himself, and went down hard. Two of the kids said that they saw Hewitt’s gun strapped to his ankle as he fell. Apparently, Fernandez did too. One of the five youngsters saw Fernandez pull out a ‘very large automatic.’ That’s how he described it. At that point, three of them agree that Hewitt said something like, ‘Oh, shit.’ Fernandez fired once. None of the kids are sure what happened, but it seems likely that Hewitt tried to roll out of the way. At the same time he pulled his own revolver from his ankle holster. Fernandez fired twice more. One of the youngsters says he heard the bullet hit Hewitt.” Estelle looked pained as she thumbed through her notebook. “‘It sounded awful,’ the kid said. They all agree, and this is important: that Hewitt fired once, while lying on his back, after he was wounded. We’ll get the autopsy report later, but I was just down at the morgue. The bullet hit Benny Fernandez just above his left eyebrow.”
Holman nodded slowly. “You just never know, do you.” He looked at me. “And up on the hill, Fernandez was cogent? Even calm, you said? Rational?”
“All those things,” I replied. “He even seemed relieved to be going home, relieved that it was over.”
“But apparently it wasn’t,” Holman said.
I looked at Estelle Reyes. “None of the five kids saw Fernandez before he started running across the grass toward Hewitt?”
“No, sir. They said that there were several people out all around the park. Apparently the late hour didn’t brother anyone. Certainly not the kids. They said they were getting nervous, though, that the village police might drive by. But they said Hewitt laughed and told them he’d fixed that up good. Something about cross-eyed headlights.”
“He did that, as a matter of fact.”
Holman asked, “Did Hewitt make a buy from any of the kids?”
Estelle Reyes shook her head. “Apparently not. We’ll have to ask him, to be sure. But those kids were scared enough about the whole thing that I think they would have told me. I get the impression they thought he was some kind of big-city freak. He made them nervous.”
“He enjoyed playing the undercover role to the hilt,” I said. “Maybe too much so. He had nowhere near enough experience. We should have realized that. I should have monitored what he was doing much more closely.”
Holman slapped the arm of his chair lightly. “This is no time for self-flagellation, Bill. Sure, maybe he was inexperienced. Maybe you should have confiscated Fernandez’s gun. But that’s all wonderful twenty-twenty hindsight. What we need to know is what triggered Fernandez. When he left you, he was mellowed out and homebound. What, about an hour later? About that? You had time to go out to the airport for a while. An hour later, he dashes into a park, charges into a gang of kids, and blows one of them away. We have to know exactly why.”
“There’s only one person who saw Fernandez before he ran into the park, and that’s Art Hewitt,” I said. “He was able to tell me that he saw a person he thought was Fernandez talking to someone on the sidewalk on the east side of the park. Now, Doc Sprague lives over there, in those new apartments, and he says that he heard the shots. But there was no reason for the doc to be looking out beforehand. He says he didn’t see anyone.”
Holman looked up at Estelle Reyes, and he put his fingers against his lips, deep in thought. We waited, and finally the sheriff said, “But there’s no reason for Hewitt to make something like that up. So what do you plan to do?”
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