“Three oh seven.” Sergeant Tom Mears’ voice was clipped and efficient.
“Ten-twenty, three oh seven.”
“I’m up at the old quarry off Forty-three.”
“Ten-four. Did you check Hocking’s?”
“That’s affirmative. I was there about an hour ago.”
She acknowledged and dropped the mike in her lap. “Vacant houses are sort of pesky,” she said. “Kids from town try and use this one for parties when they get the chance.”
“I’m surprised it’s still standing,” Page said.
“So are we.” The dirt road narrowed and then forked, the route off to the left not much more than a rough two-track. It angled across the prairie, gradually winding up the eastern flank of the mesa. Several miles ahead, Estelle could see the flat bench where the county had long ago established its landfill. Beyond that, higher on the mesa, were the scars from the abandoned copper mine, great pyramidal slag piles and a fenced area where equipment gradually aged and settled into the gravel of the boneyard.
The Crown Victoria thumped and lurched as Estelle turned on to the two-track leading toward the landfill and mine.
“This gets sort of rough up here,” Page said. He shifted and stretched upward to watch the ribbon of dried vegetation that the car would straddle. The tracks from Mears’ Expedition were clear in the prairie dirt.
“You came down last weekend?” Estelle asked, and Page looked at her quickly.
“Yes. On Friday. I went back to Socorro late Sunday.”
“Did the two of you ride?”
He nodded. “Sure. We did about a hundred K on the road bikes.”
“That’s quite a ride. Where did you go?”
He shrugged, as if riding a hundred kilometers was an after-dinner sort of lark. “We went south to Maria, then circled back up and rode out west as far as the Broken Spur. We were going to go all the way down through the pass to Regal, but it was so windy it wasn’t much fun going that way.” He grinned. “Sure pushed us back to town, though.”
“Did you stop in either place?”
“We got some water at that saloon in Maria.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. We’ve eaten a couple of times at the Broken Spur, but we didn’t stop there on Saturday.”
Estelle let the heavy sedan find its own route up the two-track, the fragrance from the dried weeds that were crushed by the tires and roasted by the catalytic converter wafting potent through the open window. “Did Mauro Acosta ever ride with the two of you?”
If the question caught William Page by surprise, he didn’t show it. “No,” he said. “Mauro’s not interested in bikes, I don’t think. Tony is. But not Mauro. He likes to work on that old Pontiac they’ve got under that tarp in the backyard.” He grinned. “He’s pretty good at talking his mother into getting the parts he needs. They have rip-roaring arguments about that old heap. She keeps telling him that they’re going to sell it.”
“It runs?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know if it will ever run.” He reached out a stabilizing hand to the dash as the car waddled over two deep ruts cut diagonally across the road, the beginnings of an arroyo that would eventually obliterate the two-track.
“What was Kevin’s relationship with Mauro?” Estelle asked. “Or yours, for that matter.”
Page’s head snapped around as if he’d been punched. “What?”
Estelle repeated the question.
“I don’t follow what you’re asking,” Page said, although the flush on his face said that he clearly did.
“I’m asking if your relationship, or Kevin’s relationship, with Mauro Acosta was anything beyond what we would expect between two neighbors, Mr. Page.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding,” Estelle said.
“Mauro is just a…just a neighborhood kid,” Page said with considerable exasperation. “I mean, what is he, fifteen years old?”
“Just about that.”
Page rubbed the side of his jaw furiously, glaring out the window. “Did you ask me to ride along just so you could talk about that?”
“In part.”
“I’d like to know what you’re getting at.”
Estelle guided the car around a sharp curve as the dirt lane swung toward the corner of the tall chain-link fence bordering the county landfill. “Mr. Page, we’re investigating a vicious assault of a teenaged girl. We’re also investigating the disappearance of her neighbor. There are enough unusual circumstances here to attract lots of attention.” She glanced at Page. “We open every door, Mr. Page. Every one. I can tell you that at the moment, the circumstances of your relationship with Kevin Zeigler are of no particular interest to the Sheriff’s Department. We don’t care what you do in the privacy of your home, or in private moments anywhere else, Mr. Page. We do know that either you, or Kevin, or perhaps both of you, had some interest in Mauro Acosta. That’s a door that we need to open.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Yes, you do. I think it’s interesting that he is the only member of that family whom you—or Kevin—photographed alone. And photographed essentially surreptitiously from behind the blinds of a window.” She looked over at Page. He was squinting straight ahead. “You might remember that Mauro is very much a minor.”
“You’re very thorough,” Page said after a moment.
“I will do everything I can to establish what happened to Kevin Zeigler, Mr. Page. I will do everything I can to find the person who assaulted Carmen Acosta. I believe it’s obvious that the two events are linked. I do not believe that Kevin assaulted the girl.” She hesitated for a minute, trying to assess Page’s churning emotions. “I also do not believe that we will find Kevin Zeigler alive, Mr. Page.”
“Christ, stop calling me that,” he snapped. “You make me feel like I’m sitting on a steel chair, under a bright lamp shining into my eyes.” He heaved a great, shuddering breath. “It’s only been a day.”
“Twenty-eight hours.”
“Christ, you can’t just give up hope that easily.”
“It isn’t easy, William. I liked Kevin. In just two years, he’s reorganized this county, moved us out of the dark ages, done all kinds of wonderful things. As far as I can tell, he relished his personal life with you as well, and I’m happy for you both. I sympathize for your loss. But that will not prevent us from exploring every avenue.”
“I understand that.” He glanced at Estelle cautiously. “I guess.”
“Then you can understand why our curiosity is piqued when we look through the collection of photos on Kevin’s Rolodex and find something like that provocative photograph of Mauro Acosta—taken with a telephoto lens, through the window of Kevin’s bedroom.”
“It’s just…” Page waved a hand in frustration.
“It’s just what?”
“It’s no different than if a photographer saw a beautiful young girl posed in the park, or at the beach. She’s beautiful to look at, so he snaps her picture. There’s nothing wrong with that…and it doesn’t matter if the subject of the portrait is a six-year-old, or twelve, or seventeen, or thirty-five…or eighty. It’s not illegal.”
“Is that what happened? Did you take the photo?”
“What difference does it make?”
“None, I suppose. It would just be helpful to know.”
“Kevin took it. He’s the photographer. Yes, I saw it, and yes, I thought it was a wonderful study. Mauro isn’t much of a deep thinker, Sheriff. But in that photo, he’s…well, he looks like he’s trying to understand the whole world.”
“That’s interesting,” Estelle said. They both fell silent as she drove along the fence of the landfill.
“Mur de Dump,” Page murmured as they nosed up the last hill before the two-track joined with the main, graded county access road to the landfill. “Kevin said this eyesore’s days are numbered.”
“Maybe so,” Estelle said. “He’s trying to tal
k the County Commission into going with a private management firm—a private company to run the village and county’s solid-waste operations.”
“He was trying to,” Page said glumly.
The county car kicked gravel as they pulled up onto the county road. “From here out to Forty-three, and then up to the top of the mesa?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“This is the route you took that day with Tony?”
He nodded. “With much bitching and moaning,” he said. “That kid needs to ride about a hundred miles a day to get into shape.” He rested his right arm along the windowsill and drummed his fingers on the vinyl. “So why are you here?”
“Here where?” Estelle asked.
He turned as far sideways in the seat as the shoulder harness would allow, regarding Estelle. “Why is someone like you working in a backwater like Posadas? Why aren’t you in Hollywood, or something like that?”
She glanced at him, amused at his frank, open stare. “Hollywood?”
He pursed his lips judiciously. “You can’t be unaware of how attractive you are, Sheriff.”
“Undersheriff. And thank you.”
“So why is Posadas so lucky?”
“Just the luck of the draw, Mr. Page.”
“You’re from Mexico, originally?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you when you came to the United States?”
Estelle sighed patiently. “I was fourteen, Mr. Page.”
Page chuckled dryly at her reserve. “Your background isn’t the subject of discussion today, right?”
“That’s correct, Mr. Page.”
“‘Mr. Page, Mr. Page,’” he muttered. “Your husband is Kevin’s physician. He thinks highly of Dr. Guzman.”
“So do I,” Estelle said.
Page shook his head in amusement and turned back straight in the seat. In another hundred yards, they reached County Road 43, the paved two-lane road that switchbacked up the mesa past the mine, on into the national forest. “We usually ride up here, past the quarry, and on along the rim. There’s that road that parallels the mesa lip that’s really spectacular.”
Estelle pulled to a halt at the stop sign, and waited as another county vehicle approached from the direction of town. In a moment she saw that it was Bob Torrez, and he swung the big SUV into the landfill road, stopping door to door with Estelle’s sedan.
“Anything?” he asked. He dipped his head a little so he could see across the car, looking at Estelle’s passenger.
Estelle shook her head. “No. Mr. Page says that he and Kevin used to ride up here regularly. We’re following their usual route. Tom says that he checked Hocking’s place earlier. No one’s been there.”
“I heard,” Torrez said. “I talked with Brunell at the Border Patrol. I don’t know what he can do, but they’re lookin’. I think we ought to give Naranjo a jingle, too.”
“That’s a good idea. Do you want me to do that?”
“Your Spanish is better than mine,” Torrez said. “Yeah, give him a call. You never know what his federales might stumble on to. Did you talk with Dayan?”
“I wrote a release and left it with Gayle. She was going to call him and tell him it was ready.”
“Okay. I’m headed into the outback for a little bit. I gotta get away from the telephone.” He nodded at Estelle and his eyes flicked to Page once more. “You be careful,” he said. With two fingers lifting off the steering wheel in salute, he backed the Expedition out onto the paved road and accelerated up the hill.
“Interesting fellow,” Page said.
“Sheriff Torrez is one of the good guys,” Estelle said.
“I hope so. I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. But I’m not sure that if he’d been the one to suggest a ride that I would have gone along quite so cheerfully.”
Estelle’s cellular phone chirped just as she pulled out onto the highway. She answered, and almost immediately stepped hard on the brakes, swinging wide.
“I’m on my way,” she said and tossed the phone onto the seat beside her. “Make sure you’re buckled in,” she said, U-turning so hard the tires shrieked in protest. She accelerated hard back in the direction of Posadas. Taking a fraction of a second to check her rearview mirror, she was not surprised to see Sheriff Torrez’s big white SUV charging down the hill behind her.
Chapter Twenty-four
A county car with lights flashing blocked the narrow County B-1, the access road that led directly from County Road 43 west to the maintenance yard off Third and Hutton Streets. Deputy Dennis Collins stood at the front fender of the unit, and Estelle slowed enough to avoid skidding broadside into his car. She heard the squeal of brakes behind her. Collins pointed down the road toward the maintenance yard and Estelle nodded, accelerating. The young deputy didn’t look pleased.
“Three oh seven, three ten.”
“Three oh seven.” Sergeant Mears’ voice sounded as if he was on the fringes of radio reception, somewhere north beyond the hump of Cat Mesa.
“Tom, we’re probably going to need you down here, too. County yard at Hutton and Third.”
“Ten-four.”
They drove along the fence that enclosed the county maintenance yard. The flatbed trailer with the large section of culvert still rested exactly where it had been earlier in the morning. The front loader was parked next to a pile of gravel on the other side of the yard. Rounding the west corner of the yard and turning left onto Third Street, Estelle braked hard. Mike Sisneros stood beside his village unit. Across Third Street, four county employees were standing in a small group on the sidewalk, facing Chief Eddie Mitchell.
“Stay in the car,” Estelle said to Page. She didn’t wait for a reply, but got out, hesitating at the door for a moment so that Torrez’s vehicle had room to slide to a stop.
Sisneros approached, pointing through the maintenance-yard fence as he did so.
“Right there on the tire pile, just down from the top.”
Estelle stepped only as far as the edge of the pavement. Between the fence and the asphalt of Third Street was a narrow, even spread of graveled shoulder, and she knelt and peered first up and then down the street. Inside the fence, the pile of tires was bordered on the south side by a retaining wall of concrete blocks. A row of three fuel tanks stood on tall legs just beyond the wall, and then the large steel building that included repair bays and offices stretched all the way to the yard gates.
“Well, shit,” Bob Torrez said as he joined her. The mound of tires was at least ten feet high, a relatively neat pyramid twenty feet in diameter at the base. Many of the tires were enormous, retired from road graders, loaders, dump trucks. The small tire on the north slope would have been easily missed under normal circumstances, hooked halfway through the gaping center of a five-foot-tall behemoth. Sunlight winked off the wheel on which the tire was still mounted.
“Who saw that?” Torrez said, turning to Sisneros.
“Dennis was driving through here,” Sisneros said. “I guess he just happened to glance that way, and there it was.”
“Well, shit,” Torrez said again. “Give the kid a medal.”
“He called the chief on the phone,” the village patrolman said. He turned to Estelle as she rose from her kneeling position. “I didn’t see any tracks on the shoulder, but not much is going to show. The chief looked too, but…” He shrugged.
“Has anybody been in there?” Torrez asked. “I mean, other than those guys?” He nodded at the group across the street.
“No one,” Sisneros said emphatically. “The chief put Dennis out at the road, and then his own unit down at the other end, there. We called all the county guys out.” He turned to point at the small group around Mitchell. “That’s every one of ’em, right there.” Estelle glanced over at the chief, wondering why he had exiled Collins to traffic duty right at the height of the young deputy’s elation at finding such a critical piece of evidence.
“Okay.” Torrez pulled his handheld radio off his belt
. “PCS, three oh eight. Have Linda respond to this location.”
“Ten-four, three oh eight.”
“Real copies,” a faint voice said. “ETA about twenty minutes.”
“She’s twenty minutes out,” Torrez muttered and glanced at Estelle. “You want to get started?”
Estelle nodded and walked quickly to the trunk of her car. Page got out at the same time. “Is that the flat tire from Kevin’s truck?”
“We don’t know yet,” Estelle said. She partially closed the trunk lid so that she could look directly at Page. “And I’m serious. You need to remain right where you are, sir. Otherwise, I’ll have one of the officers take you back to the office.”
With one camera around her neck and the other in hand, Estelle returned to the edge of the pavement. “It’s interesting,” she said. “It’s on the back side of the pile. The guys couldn’t have seen it from inside the yard unless they happened to walk around the back side of the pile. Right along the fence.” She nodded at the tanks of fuel. “Even over there, the bulk of the pile would keep it out of sight.”
“And no one’s going to see it driving up this way,” Torrez said, gesturing south to north on Third Street. “Just comin’ from the other direction, the way Collins was. The kid got lucky.”
“He was on his toes, to realize what he might be seeing,” Estelle said. “There’s a puzzle, though. I’d like photos from above,” she said, focusing the camera with the telephoto lens through the chain-link fence. “And we need to do a careful sweep of the road shoulder, too. We need to make sure everyone stays off it.”
“We can do that,” Torrez said. “Let me go see where the cherry picker is.” He turned, then stopped and lowered his voice. “I don’t like the flamingo bein’ here, Estelle.”
She shot him a withering look. “Bobby, I had a valuable talk with him. I would have dropped him off back at the office, but I didn’t want to take the time. I told him to stay right there by the car. He understands.”
“I’ll have Mike run him back,” Torrez said as he turned away. His tone made it clear there was no room for debate. He strode over to Sisneros, stopped for a moment, and Estelle saw the patrolman nod. He beckoned Page, who in turned glanced over at Estelle, frowning.
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