The Fourth Time is Murder

by Steven F Havill

  Betty looked at the paper and then at Estelle. “That’s our phone number,” she said.

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Why would he have our phone number?” Her question didn’t sound altogether convincing.

  “That’s what we’re wondering,” Estelle said. She watched Betty’s face as the older woman examined the photo.

  “Was he working alone?” She laid the picture down thoughtfully. “But of course he wouldn’t be. I mean, I assume someone had to have gone for help when this happened. Up by Reserve, you say?”

  “Between Reserve and Quemado. They were working on a firewood contract for a rancher up that way.”

  “The poor boy,” Betty murmured. “No, I don’t know him. And I can’t explain the number.”

  “Well,” Estelle said, “I told the investigators up north that I’d ask. If you recall something, give me a buzz, will you?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “And maybe Emilio would know,” Estelle added.

  “I doubt that,” Betty said. “But you’re welcome to ask him. You know right where he is.”

  “That’s not his writing, though,” Estelle said, picking up the photocopy of the note.

  “No. If Emilio had written it, it would look like something from one of those illuminated medieval manuscripts. He has the most beautiful penmanship.”

  “I remember that he does,” Estelle said. “By the way, do you happen to have Joe and Lucinda’s number? I’d like to chat with them, but I don’t want to just barge in.”

  “Surely I do.” Betty rose, jotted down a number, peeled off the Post-it note, and handed it to Estelle. Her flowing schoolteacher’s script favored elegantly swooping curves on the 8s and bold, horizontal strikes for the tops of the 5s, nothing like the choppy block letters on the woodcutter’s note. A perfect match would have been convenient, Estelle thought. “It’s not mine, is it,” Betty asked, and Estelle glanced up quickly at her, intrigued at the odd tone in her voice. “The handwriting, I mean.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m just wondering who would have given your telephone number to a woodcutter working one hundred and fifty miles away.”

  “Maybe someone wrote down a number incorrectly. Our prefix here is so much like so many others. And the last four digits—the eight-four-eight-five—that could be misprinted a dozen ways, too.”

  “You’re right about that.” Estelle looked at the wall clock and sighed. “I need to run.”

  “Take some goodies along for those two boys of yours,” Betty said, and she didn’t wait for a response. Collecting a small tin from one of the bottom cupboards, she filled it quickly with a generous collection. “Oh…and I have a picture for you,” she said as she handed the tin to Estelle. “I meant to give it to you months ago, and it kept slipping my mind.” She held up a hand like a tour guide demanding attention, and sailed off into the living room.

  A moment’s rummaging through a small album by the fireplace and she found the five-by-seven print. She held it fondly, then extended it to Estelle. “I took this of the altar after Emilio finished that night.” She didn’t bother to explain what “that night” was, and didn’t need to. Estelle felt a stab of gratitude mixed with an odd, deep sadness. Centered among a sea of short, white candles on the altar was a family photo—her family. The portrait included her and Francis, with the two boys perched on their laps.

  “Teresa loaned me that photo,” Betty whispered. “Our prayers were all with you that day.”

  Betty didn’t need to explain when that day was. “I appreciate that, Betty,” Estelle said, and started to hand the photograph back.

  “No, you keep it,” Betty said. “You keep that.” She patted Estelle’s arm affectionately. “You and your husband have done a lot for this community. It’s only natural that they should hold you in their prayers when something like this happens.”

  Estelle slipped the photo in the manila envelope, along with the photos of two other people who might have benefited from a few kind thoughts.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Joe and Lucinda Baca’s home was another quarter mile east, and to reach it required a circuitous route through the village, finally reaching a fork in the two-track a quarter mile beyond the abandoned adobe that had once belonged to Joe’s late brother. The lane then wound through an old apple orchard much in need of pruning, and forked again.

  Estelle slowed the county car, steering onto the left shoulder to avoid the apple limbs that hung over the narrow lane. A large stump marked another turn, the wood scarred barkless from the dozens of times that a bumper had nicked it during the driver’s careless or inebriated moments.

  The right-hand trail led to Joe and Lucinda’s. A portion of their home dated back to the early 1930s, when Joe’s father had built a two-room adobe and stone dwelling, its back nestled into a gathering of car-sized boulders that he hoped had finished their tumble down the mountain. Estelle remembered tales about her great-uncle Reuben and Joe as they laid up stones for the fireplace—one batch of mortar, then a wine break. Another batch and beer. That the fireplace finished up more or less vertical and plumb was a testimony to dumb luck.

  As the family grew, so did the home. Now, with Joe Baca having already celebrated his seventieth birthday, the place was a rambling ten-room adobe with attached garage and a scattering of outbuildings.

  Estelle pulled in behind Joe’s pickup and once more keyed the radio.

  “PCS, three-ten is ten-six at Joe Baca’s in Regál.”

  “Ten-four, three-ten. Be advised that you have a visitor here in the office,” Gayle Torrez said.

  Estelle pulled out her phone and touched the auto-dial for Dispatch.

  “Who have we got?” she asked when Gayle picked up the phone.

  “The lady from the magazine is here,” Gayle said. “Madelyn Bolles?”

  “It’s going to be a while,” Estelle said. “I have some loose ends to tie up down here in Regál, and then I’ll be back up.”

  “Just a sec.” Gayle didn’t bother covering the mouthpiece of her headset, and Estelle could hear her explaining the situation to Ms. Bolles. The discussion continued for a moment, and then Gayle said, “Sorry about that, Estelle. She wants to know if she can meet you in Regál somewhere. She suggests at the mission.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Is she still driving the red Buick rental?”

  Gayle relayed the question, and the response in the background sounded amused. “She says yes.”

  “Then I’ll keep a lookout for her. It’s a pretty small world down here. She shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Estelle realized that Joe Baca was standing on the front porch of his home, watching her with interest. She waved a greeting. “Oh,” Gayle said. “Bobby is back in from the accident site. He said that he wanted to talk with you later today about Deputy Collins.”

  “We need to do that,” Estelle replied.

  “I think he’s settled down a little,” Gayle said. “Bobby, that is.”

  “I hope so. I’ll be back in a little bit,” Estelle said. She put the phone away and unbuckled from her office.

  “Good afternoon, Joe,” she called as she got out of the car.

  “Buenas tardes, hija,” Baca replied, and stiffly held up a hand as if his shoulder joint was frozen. “How come you don’t come around anymore?”

  “Here I am,” Estelle said, and stretched out a hand to the old man. His grip was warm and light, and she could feel the individual bones in his hand. “We’ve been so busy that sometimes I don’t know which way is up.”

  He looked at her askance, assessing her from head to toe. “You came out of it okay, then.” Joe made it sound as if it had been only the week before, not ten months.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  He grunted something unintelli
gible and shook his head. “Nobody,” and he accented each syllable carefully, “is fine after something like that, hija.”

  “I was lucky.”

  “Yes, you were. Very lucky. I saw you stop at Emilio’s place just now.” He turned, moving toward an old wicker chair. He didn’t sit down but rested a hand on it. “I wondered if you were going to stop by.”

  “Sure,” Estelle said.

  “You want to sit down? Let’s go inside. It’s chilly out here.” He turned toward the door. “I thought maybe it would freeze last night. Maybe this year I’ll have some peaches.”

  “They look fine. It’s way early yet.”

  “We’ll see.” He shuffled inside, more like a man of ninety than someone two decades younger. “Lucinda isn’t here just now, hija. She had to go to town. Maybe she’ll be back before you have to go.”

  “I’d like to see her,” Estelle said.

  “There was an accident on the highway last night, I hear. Up on the pass.”

  “A bad one, Joe.”

  “Somebody got killed?”

  “A young man from Las Cruces. His truck hit a deer and somersaulted over the guardrail just north of the pass.”

  Joe waved at the living room, as dark and gloomy as Betty Contreras’ was light and cheerful. The walls had been plastered a generation or two ago, and then painted a bright green that had faded to hideous. Various magazine pictures of Christ, the Virgin, and the various apostles had been framed and hung here and there. A huge photographic print of the Grand Tetons hung over the TV set.

  “You want some cider?”

  “No thanks, Joe. Betty wouldn’t let me go without tea and cookies.”

  “She’s a good cook,” he said, somehow managing to imply that Lucinda wasn’t.

  Estelle drew one of the photos of Chris Marsh out of the envelope. “Con permiso, I want to show you this, Joe,” she said. “This is the young man who was killed up on the pass.” He took the photo and moved toward one of the windows.

  “Ah, por Dios,” he whispered.

  “You know him, then?”

  “He drives for that company,” Joe said. “You know.”

  “The package delivery company, you mean?”

  “Yes. He’s stopped here before. We saw him this past week.” He looked up at Estelle. “He brought the checks.”

  “The checks?”

  “Lucinda won one of those sweepstakes things,” Joe said. “In fact, she won twice. Quite the thing, you know.”

  “Do you recall his name, Joe?”

  “No. He had a name tag, but without my glasses…”

  “What was he driving, do you remember?”

  “Sure I remember. A little white truck. A Chevy, I think. It had one of those camper shells on the back. White, too. A nice little rig.”

  “Any lettering on it?”

  “What do you mean, ‘lettering’?” He handed the photo back to Estelle.

  “Like the company name. The logo. Something like that.”

  “The name of the company was on the door,” Joe replied. “I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “Do you remember what the name was?”

  “Something ‘Global.’ That’s all. I didn’t pay attention. I know it wasn’t UPS or anything like that. Not a big van. Just a little truck. That boy had on a uniform with a name tag on the pocket. I remember that. And he had one of those fancy gadgets that you sign. That new stuff. No paper.”

  “And you say that he gave you a check?”

  “He did,” Joe said emphatically. “Both times.”

  “But you gave him a check as well? Do I understand that correctly?”

  He nodded. “That’s the way it works. The cashier’s check that we gave him…he said it was for the taxes and the what do you call it now…the exchange rate.” He moved painfully to one of the chairs and sat down with a popping of joints. “When did the accident happen? Last night?”

  “We don’t think so, Joe. We’re thinking maybe Wednesday or Thursday. We just found him last night.”

  “I’m surprised that he was ever found, going down in that country.”

  “So am I, Joe. You’re sure this is the same young man, then?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “When did he drop off the last check?”

  “You know, I think it was Wednesday right after dinner.” Joe’s face lit up a little at the recollection. “That’s what it was. I remember him apologizing for being so late, but he said that he’d had a really busy delivery schedule, and that he’d also had some trouble with a flat tire.” Joe shook his head sadly. “Too bad. Too bad. A nice young man. These things happen, sometimes.” He looked up. “The cashier’s check we gave him…maybe he still had it with him in the truck, then? You think that’s possible?”

  “It’s possible.” But he didn’t, Estelle almost added. “Do you have the winning check that he delivered to you?”

  “Lucinda took it to the bank on Friday afternoon. That’s what happened. Friday.”

  “How much was it for?” Estelle knew the blunt question about the prize amount would draw Joe up short, and she watched as he struggled with whether to answer or not. He hesitated and looked at the manila envelope again. He shifted uneasily in his chair.

  “Is there some kind of problem with the check? If they don’t receive the money for the exchange rate…maybe they stop payment. I don’t know how these things work.”

  “I’m not sure yet what problems there are, Joe.”

  “Lucinda already took the check he gave us to the bank,” Joe said with finality.

  “Posadas State?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you wrote a check to the driver?”

  “No. We had to have a cashier’s check. Lucinda got that Wednesday morning. She could tell you the reason why. I don’t remember. But that’s what we gave to the young man. The cashier’s check. Anybody could cash it.”

  “And when you did that, he handed you the sweepstakes check?”

  Joe nodded. “That’s how it happened. We won twice, you know. Betty told you that.”

  “When was the first time?”

  “I would have to look in the checkbook. But I think it was about two weeks ago. Maybe three.”

  “Same deal? You handed over a check, and in return were given the sweepstakes winnings?”

  Joe nodded emphatically. “Same exact thing. Only the prize wasn’t so big the first time.”

  “Do you mind me asking how large it was?” she asked gently. This time, he replied without hesitation.

  “No, I don’t mind,” he said with a note of pride. “We won more than eight thousand dollars the first time.”

  “You were given a check for that amount, then?”

  “We had to pay…Wait a minute. This is making my brain go all to mush.” He pushed himself out of the chair. “Wait a minute.” In a few minutes he returned with a well-worn checkbook. “Now,” he said with satisfaction, and settled back in the chair. “Let’s see what this is all about.” Estelle waited for him to thumb through the records.

  “On January: eighteenth, we gave him a cashier’s check for $1,402.50.” Joe repeated the number while Estelle jotted it in a small notebook. “That was for taxes and all that stuff.”

  “The exchange rate, you mean?”

  “That’s it. He said it was up to seventeen percent now.”

  “And the delivery driver…he was this same young man?”

  “Yes. The same man.”

  “And then?”

  “And then what?”

  “This last time? The second time you won? What did you give him?”

  Joe hesitated and flipped a page. “It was Wednesday. We wrote a check for this much to the bank, so we could have a cas
hier’s check.” He turned the book toward her as if embarrassed to say the number.

  “Thirty thousand four hundred thirteen,” Estelle said, and the jolt of apprehension she felt was palpable. “And you received a check for how much?”

  “Here’s the copy of the deposit ticket,” he said, and handed it to Estelle. “Lucinda went to the bank on Friday afternoon.” Estelle looked at the number and blinked—$178,900.

  “One hundred and seventy-eight thousand,” she said.

  “And nine hundred.”

  “That’s a lot of money, Joe. That’s quite a streak of good fortune you’ve had. First the state lottery back in November, and now this.”

  He grinned slyly. “That lottery…I bought the ticket, you know. Good thing, too. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had the money to pay for this.” He reached out and touched the deposit ticket.

  “Was there a particular reason why you and Lucinda waited two days to deposit the check?”

  “We had things to do,” Joe replied, and smiled. “Maybe we had to give it time to sink in.”

  “That would take some thinking,” Estelle said. “Caramba.” She sat back, the deposit slip in hand. “Do you have one of the original mailings for the sweepstakes?”

  “Lucinda might remember where she put it. I don’t know. I can look if you want. There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  Other than a dead man? Estelle wanted to say. She looked at the deposit ticket again. The advance payment for a lottery prize was one of the oldest scams, and existed in a myriad of iterations, she knew. The undersheriff had a small folder of solicitations that she had collected over the years, including a Nigerian version, where the mark was told that he had been selected to help a foreign corporation transfer an enormous sum of money to avoid tax penalties, and had only to provide bank account numbers for transfer. Some required wiring advance money to pay various charges. But none offered a check on the spot, delivered in person.

  This was simplicity itself. The Bacas had paid a total of just under $32,000 in “fees” and received, on the spot, checks that totaled more than $187,000, for a profit of more than $155,000.