Prolonged Exposure pс-6

by Steven F Havill

  “At least if he’s still alive, this change in weather might stretch his chances some,” Pasquale said, and I was sure the same sentiment would fire up the search party’s enthusiasm for the rest of the day.

  And as the weather improved, so did the number of leads, some fanciful, some ridiculous, some just plain worrisome. Every one had to be followed through on, though, and that sapped manpower and time.

  Shortly after nine, one of the Search and Rescue coordinators was standing on a ridge north and east of the rim, sweeping the terrain with binoculars. Movement caught his eye, and he zeroed in on a small moving object and no doubt sucked in enough breath to choke.

  The child was walking on a narrow Forest Service road, then disappeared over the horizon before the man could fumble his radio off his belt.

  Ten minutes later, hopes were dashed when half a dozen Guardsmen caught up with the kid and discovered that he was actually twelve years old, in perfect health, other than being startled by the sudden appearance of troops, and belonged to a family who was cutting wood on the far north side of the mesa.

  Shortly before noon, two members of the Posadas Volunteer Fire Department, working the mesa face almost down at the base road, discovered several small bones that, with an active, desperate imagination, might have been mistaken for those of a child.

  Despite what common sense should have told them, the discovery created enough furor that search coordinators raced to the scene with one of the medical examiners. The bones were scattered remnants of a mule deer fawn that had met its fate months before.

  With the door of my office ajar, I listened to the radio traffic with half an ear. Each new surge of adrenaline that pumped through the search team’s veins kept them eager and interested, but it wasn’t going to be long before each surge pumped the men just a little less, and then a little less.

  The top of my desk was nearly clear when the telephone lit up. “Well, well, well, well” came out as a rumbling chuckle from the other end, and I relaxed back.

  “Sam, what’s up?”

  “I’m supposed to ask you that,” he said. Sam Preston had been selling real estate in Posadas for thirty years. I’m not sure what the thrill was of selling the same weed-infested, dusty lot over and over again, but Preston was good at it. “You got time to jaw?”

  “No,” I said, and the Realtor laughed.

  “You haven’t changed,” he said. “Have you figured out what kind of schedule you’re lookin’ at on the Gonzales place now that you’re back?”

  “Sam, you’re supposed to say ‘Welcome back’ first.”

  “Welcome back. The surgery went well?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Preston laughed again. “See? I was just saving us time.”

  “I told Camille I’d like to take her out to look at it today.”

  “That’d be fine. Time?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll give you a buzz when we’re ready.”

  “Do that. Any word on the youngster?”

  “No.”

  “What a terrible, terrible thing. The parents must be going nuts.”

  “I would think so.”

  “Just let me know,” Preston said. “And by the way, it really is good to have you back. What you need to do now is retire and start spending all that stash you’ve been accumulating over the years.”

  “Thank you, Sam. I’m touched.”

  “You call me, now.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up, jotted one last remark in the margin, and shoved the last of the paperwork for the proposed January budget into its folder. I did so without hesitation, even though my name appeared several times in the personnel section as a full-time employee. That could be changed with a simple pen stroke, and I confess that the thought gave me a certain amount of comfort.

  “Sir?” Gayle Sedillos appeared in the doorway and I looked up. “Sir, you might want to know. Eddie Mitchell is checking out an RV that’s parked in the back of the Posadas Inn’s lot. The sheriff said he wanted at least one deputy available now, while the others are tied up with the search. Eddie was working central and spotted it.”

  “And?”

  “Apparently it has a Bernalillo County tag. There is also a small child inside. There don’t appear to be any adults in it at the moment.”

  My pulse hammered, even though I knew perfectly well what the odds were.

  “What’s the tag bring up?”

  I followed Gayle into Dispatch and looked at the computer readout. “Registered to a Niel Bronfeld, Corrales, New Mexico.” I took a deep breath. “And no wants or warrants.” I straightened up and looked at Gayle. “Has Eddie talked to them yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Gayle slid into her chair, leaned forward, and pressed the mike bar.

  “Three oh seven, PCS. Ten-twenty.”

  “PCS, three oh seven is at Trujillo Shell.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Tell him to stay there,” I said, and reached across in front of Gayle to slip the keys to 310 off the board. Forcing myself to take my time, I trudged out to the unmarked patrol car, unlocked the door, and slid behind the wheel. The last person to use the car had been a smoker, and I grimaced and buzzed down the windows.

  It had been five weeks since I’d last sat behind the wheel of 310. Although common sense would explain to even the most feeble-minded that the county couldn’t afford to let expensive patrol units sit idle, I was still irked. I’d driven 310 almost exclusively for the past year and a half and 89,000 miles.

  As I pulled out of the parking lot on to Bustos Avenue, the main east-west arterial of Posadas, I turned on the radio.

  “Three oh seven, three ten. ETA about a minute.”

  “Ten-four.”

  I turned south on Grande Avenue and immediately could see, a mile ahead, the interstate ramps. Art Trujillo’s Shell Station was nestled beside the westbound off-ramp, and I saw the county patrol car parked near the car-wash bay on the north side.

  Eddie Mitchell lowered his window as I pulled alongside.

  “It’s the scruffy-looking WorldWide by the utility pole,” he said. It was no surprise that the deputy had located the RV. Every deputy I’d ever known had a favorite pastime, a way to keep the long, dull hours from piling up to crushing, job-wrecking boredom. One of Eddie’s quirks was cruising parking lots.

  Whenever Mitchell was on duty, the dispatcher could count on continuous keypunching as he called in plates.

  “And you saw the youngster?”

  Mitchell nodded. “I swung around the RV, between it and that retaining wall. He looked out at me through the small back window.”

  “Did he wave?”

  “No, sir. He just looked at me and then disappeared. He didn’t look happy.”

  “No adults?”

  Mitchell shook his head. He held up his clipboard and tapped the five-by-eight photograph of three-year-old Cody Cole. The little kid was grinning mischievously, as though he’d just slipped his brussels sprouts under the dinner table to the dog. “I didn’t see him for long, but the resemblance was close enough that I wanted to double-check.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Mitchell looked at his watch. “Twelve minutes.”

  “They’re probably eating lunch inside,” I said. “Without the kid. That doesn’t make sense, since it’d be a risk to leave the boy unattended. He could attract all kinds of attention.”

  “I’m not sure a three-year-old would understand that,” Mitchell said quietly.

  “Let’s do it this way,” I said. “I’ll go inside and find this Mr. Bronfeld and have a chat. You might go park near that whale just in case there’s someone inside who’s got a driver’s license.”

  Mitchell nodded and I idled 310 across the street to the motel, parking between a custom van from Colorado and a Texas Pontiac station wagon.

  “PCS, three ten will be ten-seven at the Posadas Inn.”<
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  “Ten-four, three ten.” If Gayle was feeling any apprehension or excitement, she kept it off the air.

  Noontime did not bring a crush of diners at the motel’s restaurant. I stepped inside and Buzzy Ortega grabbed up a menu and greeted me with an enormous smile. The inn had the best iced tea in town, but that was the extent of their accomplishments. The local Lions Club met there, but that was because they didn’t want their meeting interrupted by too much attention being paid to the food.

  “Buzzy, how ya doin’?” I said.

  He managed to maintain the smile. “I guess walking is good for me, Sheriff.” He patted his midriff. Judge Hobart had jerked his driver’s license for a year after one too many DWIs, but Buzzy Ortega was one of the few people I’d met who’d been able to cope with the inconvenience without getting into even deeper trouble.

  I waved away the menu. “I’m looking for a gentleman named Bronfeld,” I said, and stepped past him to look into the dining area. “He’s either checking into a room or eating lunch here.”

  “You want me to check the register for you?”

  “Just a minute,” I said. Only five of the tables were occupied. One was an elderly couple, a walker standing beside the woman’s chair. Two tables west, a man wearing a trucking company’s logo on his sleeve was eating his way through the soggy, awful burrito special that I’d learned to avoid years before.

  Near the window were two young women in animated discussion about who knew what. The table nearest the salad bar was commandeered by five National Guardsmen, looking well rested and clean. A few hours up on the mesa would take out some of the creases.

  That left a family two tables behind them, including mother, father, and two children. Both kids were blond.

  I ambled over toward them, my hands in my pockets.

  “Mr. Bronfeld?”

  The man looked up sharply as if I’d jerked his head at the end of a leash. “Yes? I’m Niel Bronfeld.”

  I smiled and nodded at the woman sitting beside him. She was pretty and looked ten years younger than she probably was. I kept my voice down and my back to the Guardsmen behind me. “I’m William Gastner, with the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Bronfeld frowned and extended a hand. His grip was limp and nervous.

  “Sir, is that your RV out back?”

  He leaned over and looked past his wife, out through the elegant fake-wood slotted blinds. He started to nod. Then he saw the county patrol car parked just a few feet in front of the unit, and he turned back to me, concern knitting his brows.

  “What’s wrong, Officer?”

  “May I talk with you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” He got up and patted his wife on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  “How are you guys doing?” I asked as we passed the Guardsmen. They all nodded, mouths full.

  Outside, Bronfeld and I walked toward the RV. As we approached, Mitchell got out of the patrol car.

  “Deputy Mitchell, this is Niel Bronfeld.” Shaking hands with a fat old man dressed in a casual flannel shirt and chinos was one thing. Facing a uniformed, unsmiling deputy was another matter. Bronfeld didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “What’s going on?” he said softly, and walked to the RV’s door. “Leigh?” He rapped a knuckle on the door, and after a moment it was opened by a rumpled, sleepy-eyed teenager who was a carbon copy of the woman in the restaurant. “Is David still asleep?”

  “He’s awake,” the girl said, and looked at me and Deputy Mitchell. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Bronfeld said, and turned to us. I liked the guy already. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” He walked away from the RV and glanced down its mammoth flanks. “Did something fall off?”

  I laughed. “No, sir. The deputy was making a routine check of the parking lot, and apparently a young child looked out at him through the window. The RV did not appear to be tended, and he wanted to double-check that everything was all right.”

  “Oh my God,” Bronfeld said, and his shoulders slumped. “This is near where that youngster went missing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mitchell said, and the tone of his voice made it clear that we were still interested in the contents of the camper.

  “We read about that in the Sunday paper.” He stepped up into the doorway and Leigh backed out of the way. “Come on in, Officer.”

  I followed him and instantly realized that RV living wasn’t for me. A family of six would have to love one another every minute of the day to avoid a homicide before the vacation was over.

  “David is our youngest. We’re not sure if he’s just a little carsick, or what. Leigh was keeping him company. David?”

  The child appeared from one of the cramped bunk units. From a distance, he could have passed for Cody Cole. Up close, I could see his mother’s pug nose and freckles. He was pale and sober, the way little kids get when they’re not feeling well.

  “Mr. Bronfeld, I’m sorry for the intrusion, and we appreciate your cooperation,” I said, but he shook his head.

  “No, no. No trouble at all. I’m sorry we gave you a start.”

  I grinned wryly. “You folks have a good vacation.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we will. Going on down to Tucson to see my parents. We pulled the kids out of school a few days early to give us a head start.”

  Leigh tried to smile as I slid past her. “You’re the designated baby-sitter, eh?” I said pleasantly.

  She made one of those teenaged “I’m cool, but the rest of my family’s not” faces, and I stepped back down to the parking lot.

  “You folks have a nice day,” I called, and patted Deputy Mitchell on the arm as I walked by. “Good eyes,” I said. “Keep it up.”

  I sounded confident, but other than giving the Bronfelds something to talk about during dull moments on their trip and pumping my blood pressure up, we hadn’t accomplished anything. And I knew damn well the odds of seeing little Cody Cole alive, sober-faced or not, were slim to none.

  Chapter 18

  Sam Preston looked from me to Camille and then back at me. I waited for Camille to say something-anything at all that would let me know what her first impressions of the Gonzalez place might be. We stood in the November sun, Sam Preston leaning on the hood of the Suburban, waiting.

  “Can we look inside?” Camille finally said, and her tone was flatly neutral. Not “This house is perfect,” or even “Oh, how cute.” Just “Can we look inside?”

  Sam glanced at me, and when the Realtor is skeptical, you know you’re in deep water.

  He led the way down the dirt lane to the front door, the pathway dappled in shade by a grove of cottonwoods whose crackling brown leaves still clung stubbornly. The six rooms of the tiny adobe had been built one at a time, added as the need arose. Hector Gonzalez had built the first room, thirteen by thirteen feet, in 1890. He’d married Sara Montano the next year, and by the time the first child arrived, he had completed two more rooms. In 1920, when Sara’s elderly and ailing mother moved in with them, he added two more wings, one off each end. Shortly after, someone in the family decided that indoor plumbing was here to stay, and the final room was added as the bathroom.

  “This is a storybook house,” Sam said as he opened the door for Camille.

  “Some story,” she muttered. The place was clean enough, in its own dark way, about as clean as any place can stay when it stands vacant for half a dozen years.

  “Hector Gonzalez’s son was the last one to live here,” I said to Camille. “Remember Rudy?”

  “Is he the guy who used to sit in Pershing Park playing the guitar all the time?”

  “That’s him,” Sam said heartily. “He’d walk up there every day. It’s what, two miles? Maybe a little less?”

  Pershing Park was a grandiose name for a tiny triangle of land framed by the skewed intersection of Bustos, Grande, and Pershing. I could remember seeing Rudy Gonzalez sitting on the grass, leaning against the steel treads of a
vintage army tank that was displayed there-the tank an olive drab testimonial to all the simpleminded ways the U.S. military had tried to catch the Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa. A bright yellow state historical marker implied that Villa had strayed into Posadas sometime in his checkered career.

  Camille leaned against the bathroom doorjamb and surveyed the utilities, such as they were. The tub looked as if pack rats had been the last ones to use it. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think it’s awful,” Camille said matter-of-factly. “You must be out of your mind. But then this part of the country is not featured regularly in Better Homes and Gardens anyway. What’s out back?”

  We went out the kitchen door. As the trees shed their leaves, the view to the south and west was impressive, a great sweep of prairie and in the distance the San Cristobal Mountains. The cottonwood grove continued back to the irrigation ditch, a park of great thick-trunked trees whose crowns mingled and filtered the November sun through leaves turning to crisp brown.

  “This part of the deal is impressive,” Camille said. “I love these trees.” She turned and looked at the dull brown of the little house. “I’m sure a couple of good contractors and about fifty thousand bucks could work wonders with the house, too.”

  “Now there you go,” Sam Preston said. “This is a smart daughter you’ve raised, Bill.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of hiring a cleaning crew for a couple hundred,” I said, and Camille grimaced.

  Sam Preston’s beeper shrieked at him, and he held up a hand. “Let me run and get that,” he said. “Don’t go away.”

  Camille linked her arm through mine and lead me to one of the old wooden benches by the back door.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” she said.

  “No.”

  “And at least once when you were up at our house, you said you weren’t even sure you wanted to stay in Posadas when you retire.”

  “I’m not.”

  “And so…”