The driver of a fancy dually pickup truck paused after slamming the tailgate shut, and watched Estelle as she walked along the border of the pit toward the dump station.
“You lose something?” he called. A young man, he appeared dressed for a game of golf.
“No, thanks. Just checking for bodies.” She smiled at the man, and he started to reply when he noticed the sheriff’s badge on her belt. He looked uncertain, glancing back down into the pit.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if he’d caught the joke.
“You have a nice day,” Estelle said. By the time she’d reached her car, two more vehicles had entered, and the constant clouds of red dust settled in her hair and on her clothes.
“Find what you need?” Bart Kurtz asked.
“Thanks a lot,” she replied, then stopped suddenly in afterthought. “When do you guys cover the trash? You don’t wait until the trench is full, do you?”
“Every Sunday night, Sheriff.”
“Just kind of a thin layer, then?”
“Enough to keep things from blowin’,” Kurtz said. “Maybe six inches or a foot. Pack ’er down, cover it up.”
“And every Sunday you do that?”
“Yup. Sunday after we close. Lots of folks come out on weekends, you know. Come Sunday afternoon, we push the day’s drop-off pile into the trench, then we cover it all up.”
“Pretty simple. But you push the drop-off pile into the pit every day?”
“Sure enough we do. Otherwise it’d blow all over hell and gone.”
“I would think so.”
“Yeah, it don’t take no rocket scientist.” He looked off toward where Don Fulkerson still worked on his thermos of coffee and the bulldozer.
“Thanks again,” Estelle said. Back in her car, she sat for a moment, looking out the side window at Fulkerson’s pickup truck, an ’80s-vintage four-wheel-drive Chevy C20. A black headache rack, the kind favored by plumbers who need to haul lengths of pipe, reached out over the cab. Fulkerson had parked between a trio of fifty-five-gallon drums labeled WASTE OIL PRODUCTS and a trailer loaded with what appeared to be used concrete blocks and paving bricks.
She turned the county car’s ignition key. In the distance she heard the staccato bellow as the landfill’s bulldozer surged into life, almost as if the one key had connected both machines.
Chapter Thirty-one
“I have a question,” Dr. Francis Guzman stage-whispered in Estelle’s ear. “What does the work of an engineering prodigy look like?”
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Estelle whispered back. She straightened up from her examination of something made from Popsicle sticks labeled Moon Bace in strong, red crayon. Her husband was doing his best to keep a straight face.
Across the room, Sofía Tournál had both Francisco and Carlos in tow…actually it was Francisco doing the towing while Sofía provided the guidance. A safe distance behind the trio, Estelle’s mother shuffled from one display to the next, keeping a firm grip on her walker, with Myra Delgado at her elbow. The two appeared to be exchanging professional secrets.
Sofía was maintaining a resolute face, despite a day spent traveling from Veracruz, Mexico, to Posadas—a trip fraught with more than its share of delays and frustrations. A stocky woman of medium height, Sofía favored tailored suits, with just a touch of ruffle and lace at the collar of her white blouse. She could have been the school’s principal.
Immediately upon their arrival at the elementary school, the two older generations had been led on the grand tour of the skyscraper constructed by Francisco and his partner, Rocky Montaño. The creation did indeed nearly scrape the sky—or the acoustical ceiling tiles of the first-grade room. The two boys had assembled a conglomeration of dowels draped under yards of foil, with windows, doors, and occupants drawn with black marker. Estelle had to turn the small camera sideways to capture the full majesty of the structure, and she managed to include Moon Bace in the same photo—both structures remarkable for first graders.
Francis frowned and poked at a section of the skyscraper’s aluminum foil that had collapsed inward, perhaps because of a massive winter gale off the Great Lakes.
“Emergency exit,” he said.
“On the fiftieth floor,” Estelle added.
“Neat, though.” He nodded at the moon base. “I like the idea of transporting a million Popsicle sticks to the moon to make bachees.”
Estelle laughed. “Be kind.”
“This is the future of the human race—or rachee —that we’re talking about here,” Francis added, and she elbowed him sharply. At the same time, he saw her glance up at the wall clock. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re clock watching. That’s not a good sign.”
“I will stay until the bitter end,” she said. “Until Sofía collapses from jet lag, or Carlos and Mamá fall asleep, or Francisco runs out of things to show off.”
“How about the best two out of three,” Francis said. “Leave it up to Mozart, there, and we could be here after they turn all the lights out.” He looked over his shoulder at his eldest son, then back to Estelle. “Show me the piano room,” he said. “They won’t even know we’re gone.”
They walked hand in hand down the hall, examining all the other art displays from the various grade levels as they went. At one group of watercolors, Francis stopped short. Estelle saw a fleeting expression of sadness cross his handsome, dark face.
“Look at this,” he said. He touched the bottom margin of a watercolor showing what might have been a cabin on the shore of a violet lake, surrounded by jagged, indigo mountains. The image was so advanced it appeared out of place, surrounded by other work so obviously created by children. “Fourth grade,” he said. “Sheri Monaghan.”
“You know her, oso?” Estelle asked.
Francis nodded. “She’s a neuroblastoma patient of mine. We just transferred her to Lovelace.”
“ Ay . ”
“Uh-huh.”
“How’s she doing?”
Francis lingered at the landscape. “Well, I don’t think she’ll be coming home, querida.”
“Is that the Monaghan who works at United Insurance?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Her mother said that before she got so sick that she couldn’t lift a paintbrush, she did two or three paintings a day. Sheri’s been homeschooled for quite a while.” He shook his head and looked down the hall. “Anyway, show me.” He quickened his pace, ignoring the remainder of the art.
When they reached the music room, he stood in the doorway for a moment. Estelle hooked her arm through his and didn’t interrupt his thoughts.
“Kind of a dismal place, isn’t it?” he said finally. He clicked on the lights and looked up at the ceiling. “I always wondered why school roofs leak. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a classroom where at least a few of the ceiling tiles weren’t water strained.”
“You’re not supposed to waste time looking up, querido,” Estelle said. She jerked his arm in mock discipline. “Pay attention, now.”
“So he comes in here, all by himself, and stands at the piano,” he said, and stepped over to the battered and scarred instrument. He bent over, spread his hands, and played a chord. Cocking his head to listen, he shifted his hands and played another. “That’s just about the sum total of what I remember,” he said, and sat down on the bench. He frowned at the keyboard, and then played several measures of a flowing, melodic piece.
“Fur Elise,” he said, and stopped. “That’s all I remember. Everyone who ever takes a piano lesson has to learn it. And learn it. And learn it.” He grinned up at Estelle. “Are you ready for this?”
“Sure,” she said. “Even Mamá’s excited.”
“Excited? Your mother? I don’t think so.”
“Well, eager, then.” A telephone was ringing, and Francis looked at her.
“Is that yours or mine?”
“Mine,” Estelle said in resignation. She headed for the exit in the back of the
music room, and pushed the heavy door open, letting in a welcome wash of cool air. “Guzman,” she said into the receiver.
“Hey there,” Sheriff Bob Torrez said. “Where are you at?”
“Down at the school. It’s open-house night.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember you talkin’ about that. Listen, guess who opened her eyes.”
“Oh, you’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. Carmen managed about thirty seconds of consciousness, according to the patrolman who’s assigned to her room.”
“Her folks were there?”
“Yep.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“She didn’t say anything, by the way.”
“That’ll come with time. But that’s just great news, Bobby.”
“Yep. Look, the reason I called—and I don’t guess there’s anything about this that we can do tonight, but Tom Mears finished processing Zeigler’s flat tire. Something kind of interesting.”
Estelle stepped out away from the building. “What?”
“Well, there’s a pretty good smear—ah, it’s not really a smear, but anyway—some flat black paint on the back side of the tire. Not a lot, but sort of a little crescent. Might be something, probably not. Linda figured out a way to take some pretty good pictures of it.”
Estelle realized that her pulse was racing, and she reached out a hand to the steel doorjamb for support.
“You still there?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You workin’ tomorrow?”
“Of course I’m working tomorrow, Bobby.”
“I thought you were headed to Cruces or something.”
“That’s Saturday.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, we need to talk,” Estelle said.
“Yep.”
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“Some lasagna that Gayle made. You guys want to come over? We’ve got enough for about eighteen people. Bring the whole mob.”
“Thanks, but how about meeting me at the office in a few minutes?”
“Not too few, now. I’m hungry.”
She backed into the room and looked at her husband. Francis nodded wearily and mimed crashing huge chords on the piano.
“How about an hour?”
“Ten-four. What did you find?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ll be interested to see what you think.”
“Uh-oh. I gotta think?”
“Oh, sí,” she said. She switched off and slid the phone back in her pocket.
“I heard that,” Francis said.
“Carmen was awake for a little while, querido.”
“Fantastic. Did she say anything?”
“No. Apparently not. But Tom Mears found something on the spare tire. And I’m pretty sure I know exactly what it is.”
She saw her husband’s eyes narrow a little as he looked at her. With a sigh, he closed the cover of the piano and stood up. “You’ve got that hunter’s look, querida,” he said. “We have an hour though, right? Is that what I heard you tell Bobby?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go back and rescue Sofía.”
The other parents, children, and art in the hallway were a blur to Estelle as they returned to the first-grade classroom.
Chapter Thirty-two
The sheriff relaxed in his favorite thinking posture—boots crossed over the corner of his desk, the old swivel chair leaned back far enough that he could rest his head on the heating duct. He had remained so quiet during the portion of Crowley’s video that she had played for him that at times she thought he had fallen asleep.
“It’s all guesswork, isn’t it?” he said. He reached out and nudged a copy of the Posadas Register toward Estelle as if with that one comment, discussion of the tape was concluded. “You saw that?”
“Not yet.” While Bob Torrez waited, Estelle scanned the front page. It featured a terrible digital photo of Kevin Zeigler on one side of the page and a yearbook photo of Carmen Acosta on the other. Carmen’s picture had been cropped out of a larger group photo and then enlarged. Bannered over the photos was the stark headline:
Girl Assaulted, Manager Missing
Although the article never said so, the implication was easily made that Zeigler’s sudden departure was somehow related to the assault. Details were meager, but Pam Gardiner—or perhaps Frank Dayan himself—had obviously not been content with the release that Estelle had provided.
The article included speculation from several folks, including County Commissioner Barney Tinneman, who made the point that he hadn’t really known Kevin Zeigler all that well…taking the politically safer road of distancing himself immediately when the first sign of trouble arose. The article even featured a wandering, anguished quote from Freddy Acosta, who certainly had no idea “who would do such a thing” to his daughter. Freddy had provided the lurid detail that a hat pin had been used.
“I guess it’s the best we could hope for,” Estelle said. She folded the paper and placed it carefully on Torrez’s desk.
He nodded at the tape. “That’s guesswork, I mean,” he said.
“For now it is,” Estelle persisted. “But there’s a pattern, Bobby. For the first time, we’ve got a motive. Hiring a private company to manage the landfill was Kevin Zeigler’s idea…it’s not something that the commissioners asked him to investigate. If Zeigler could push it through, guess who stands to lose his job.”
“Don Fulkerson, maybe.” Torrez nodded judiciously. “And we don’t know that, either. There’s the chance a private company would hire him.”
“True, that’s a chance. But he has a nice little empire up there on the hill. In fact, it’s a monopoly. Skim the cream off the top, and he can haul a load to the flea market every week. That’s a pretty good deal.”
“He ain’t gettin’ rich,” Torrez said skeptically.
“No, but it’s all his. He says that Zeigler was up there early Tuesday to pick up paperwork of some kind. I believe him. There’s no reason for him to deny that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin was trying to make sure he had the most up-to-date paperwork on the tonnage that passes through that place. Kurtz told me that they weigh everything, and charge if the load exceeds five hundred pounds.”
“Depends who you are,” Torrez said. “Do you think Zeigler went back later in the day?”
“I think that could have been one of Zeigler’s noontime errands. What if he didn’t have everything he needed? What if Fulkerson didn’t provide all the data that he wanted? Zeigler was a number cruncher, Bobby—and I don’t think Don Fulkerson spends his days in front of a computer. I think it would be natural to have friction between the two men. I can see Kevin zipping up there at lunch to meet with Fulkerson, to get the correct paperwork before the agenda item comes up. Maybe while he was there, the two of them had an argument, and whether by accident or design, Fulkerson took his chance. I get the impression that there was no love lost between them.”
“In a manner of speaking.” Torrez smirked.
Estelle felt double relief that she hadn’t bothered to pass on Fulkerson’s “Miss Ziggy” comment. “The landfill is closed on Tuesdays,” she said, “so there’s no witnesses. Fulkerson dumps the body, and then he’s left with a problem.”
“No shit, he’d have a problem. For one thing, there’s the truck.”
Estelle nodded. “Don Fulkerson is one of those clever people, Bobby. I think that he has a pretty high opinion of himself. He’s one of those country sages who is quick at contempt for strangers, outsiders, or just plain fancy folks. He doesn’t have a high opinion of Kevin Zeigler. I can easily imagine sparks between those two. And I can see Fulkerson thinking to himself, what would present more of a clever puzzle than us finding Zeigler’s truck right in his own driveway. It would be sure to throw us off.”
“Maybe.” Torrez still sounded dubious, but Estelle could see the mental gears grinding.
“Look—Doris Marens saw the truck. At
least she says that she did. And think about the little things. The truck drives by slowly, not in Zeigler’s usual fashion. The driver spikes the brakes a couple of houses early.”
“None of that…,” Torrez said, and waved a hand. “I’d hate to have this case depend on her testimony. I can imagine what a good lawyer would do with her. By the time he was finished, nothing she had to say would be worth a damn.”
“None of it by itself is worth a damn,” Estelle said vehemently. “But together? He drives the truck back to Candelaria Court, and parks it in the driveway. Bobby, I could smell him in that truck. He pulls in, and there’s Carmen Acosta, standing at the kitchen door. She sees him. And the game is up. It’s all over, because what would happen if the most thick-witted cop asks her, ‘All right, Carmen, did you see anyone at Zeigler’s today?’ What’s she going to say? ‘Why, sure. This grubby guy in a greasy coat who sure looks a lot like our landfill manager.’” Estelle snapped her fingers. “Busted.”
“Carmen wouldn’t stand a chance against Don Fulkerson,” Bobby said.
“You bet she wouldn’t.” She balled her fist. “The lug wrench is handy, lying right there on the truck’s floor, in plain sight. He charges after her. Can you imagine him slamming into that door, just as she’s trying to close and lock it? At one point, somewhere in the house, she gets in maybe one good lick with the hat pin before he grabs her hand and wham. It’s all over.”
Torrez tossed the pencil down. “I don’t suppose you saw a nice wound on Fulkerson’s arm or something like that.”
“No. But working up there all day long, they probably cut and nick themselves all the time.”
Torrez swung his feet down and stood up. “I have a serious question for you.” Estelle looked expectant. “Why Zeigler’s driveway, Estelle. Why not just drive back to the county building?” He held up a hand as he answered his own question. “Sure. Too many people. Too many eyes.”
“I thought of this, too. Remember Freddy Acosta? What if Fulkerson saw Freddy, strolling toward downtown? This is a small town, Bobby. It’s a certainty that Fulkerson knows Freddy, and he may even have a rough idea where he lives. He saw Tony Acosta riding bikes with Kevin and William—it’s entirely possible that he knows where they live. Tony told me that when they were out riding, the ‘guy at the landfill’ wolf-whistled at them, and that Kevin then muttered something not very complimentary in confidence to William Page. Well, think about it. Later, Fulkerson sees Freddy, who’s maybe walking right up Bustos, and figures that’s a chance to park the truck without anyone seeing him.”
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