Easy Errors

by Steven F Havill

  “Sarge, before they move the body, we’re going to need one series of photos showing north-south-east-west, including this whole area. Maybe you’ve already done that, but if not…then when we come back tonight for the Luminol, we’ll have something to compare.”

  He pulled out a small notebook and thumbed the pages. “I still need east-west, then,” he said.

  Deputy Torrez had moved a few yards to the north, bent down, and stuck a pencil point-first in the ground. “Include this area?” he said, but he made it sound more of a suggestion than a command. The spot he’d chosen was near the end of a massive alligator-bark juniper stump, its roots and horizontal trunk like old polished steel. At one time, for centuries, perhaps, the old juniper had twisted its way into the rocks to gain footing, near the crest of the rise. Traces of black char still touched the inside folds and crevices of the trunk where a fire a century ago had swept the area. Then one of New Mexico’s famous winds probably had shrieked through, laying the old giant flat.

  I took my time as I made my way over to where Torrez stood.

  “I can see the windmill from here,” he said.

  “We’re not all that far, as the crow flies.”

  “Nope.”

  “So what’s this?” I pointed with the toe of my boot at the pencil, but even as I said that, I saw what the deputy had marked. The bulk of the liquid had long since sunken into the ground between pebbles, rocks, and thousand-year-old lichen dried to a crisp, but there was enough shade to protect traces that even I could see…not much more than little clean spots on the rocks.

  “Bag some of it,” I said. “Even just a few crystals on a slide might tell a story. The Luminol will show us the outline of the original deposit.” Garcia had been watching us impassively, and he nodded agreement, then snapped photos that featured the pencil marker, the stump, and even Bob Torrez’ boots.

  “What time tonight?” Garcia asked.

  “Let’s shoot for nine o’clock,” I replied, and then to Torrez, “I’ll find someone to relieve you early on.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I know you are. But some sleep sometimes makes the brain work a little clearer.” I looked at my watch. Torrez’ evening ride-along with Payson had turned sour, and if the young deputy had managed any sleep at all, it had been just a few minutes.

  “I’ll have someone assigned by four this afternoon. They’ll relieve you, and then you can plan to be back here by eight-thirty.”

  I didn’t give him the chance to debate, but added, “Keep your radio on. A good share of the time, somebody who commits a crime will return to the site. In a remote spot like this, they might have gotten curious about what we’ve found. Gotta come see, you know?”

  I walked out of the taped area that now included the tagged carbine, picked up the paper-wrapped gun and held it up to attract Torrez’ attention. “I’m going to put this in your unit,” I said. He nodded, and I trudged down into the canyon. Deputy Tom Mears had had the common sense to tape off even more area, keeping the parking lot removed down-canyon from the site. I glanced downstream and saw that the EMTs had managed to find a spot wide enough to turn their rig around, and it now awaited with its rear doors open, backed up right against the tape. Sheriff Salcido’s Buick had added to the mix, and he had trudged up to join Mears and Game and Fish Officer Doug Posey. Their trucks boxed in Francine’s black Honda.

  Torrez’ K-5 Blazer was open, and I placed the bagged carbine on the floor behind the front seats. The keys were not in the ignition—hopefully they were in his pocket. I locked the truck and joined Mears.

  Beyond the yellow tape, they had thrust a dozen or more evidence markers into the sand and gravel of the arroyo bottom. Mears was crouched under one of the sculpted overhangs, the sandstone marked with streaks from rare water flows down the face.

  “They were thinking of having a fire.” He nodded at the collection of kindling, dropped beside a neat circle of basketball-sized stones. I nodded, watching where I put my feet. A box that had once held half a dozen Little Debbie snack cakes was crumpled up in the firepit, ready for the kindling. Near the rock sidewall, a paper bag was crumpled shut over the unmistakable shape of a six-pack, and a naked, empty tequila bottle lay in the sand.

  “So…ready for a fire, but on a warm summer evening. But they didn’t. And they left early. If we’re to judge by what happened later, they left in a hurry. Because of Darlene, or something else? That’s our problem.” Mears looked up at me thoughtfully. “Did the kids come here to party, then heard shooting up at the windmill, and trotted on up there to see who it was?”

  I caught the eye of Darby Ashford, one of the EMTs. “We’re ready for you,” I called. She was busy tending to Francine Spencer, who sat on the ground, her back against the left front wheel of her Honda.

  I heard his breathing and turned to find that Sheriff Eduardo Salcido had been standing behind me, silently listening.

  “What do you think?” His voice was little more than a whisper, his back to Francine. “I heard what you said, but…”

  “Number one, I think that the kids were out here, Eduardo. That’s the first step. The first grand assumption. Other than say-so, we have nothing that connects Darlene Spencer with the others. No witnesses have come forward to say that all four were seen together. But it makes sense that they were all here. Number two, Torrez collected spent thirty-caliber carbine shell casings from up by Herb Torrance’s water tank, and it won’t be hard for ballistics to show whether or not there’s a match with Willis Browning’s carbine. Number three, the deputy is certain that the carbine we found up there on the trail is Browning’s. He recognized it.”

  I shrugged. “Personally, I think that Darlene was with the other three kids out here, ready to partake in a little party time.” I intertwined the fingers of both hands. “I don’t know what happened after that. It appears that Darlene has a single, significant penetrating injury,” and I touched my left eye. “Although we don’t know the extent, or what caused it. Is that what spooked the kids, made them run? We don’t know, but it’s a logical assumption.”

  Salcido gazed at me for a long moment. “If they were here and needed help, why didn’t they just go up to the Torrance ranch? It’s not far. They knew the Torrance kids…maybe they were all partying together, you know.”

  “I don’t think so. I know Patrick and Dale pretty well, Eduardo. If someone had been hurt, they would have run for help. Likely they would have told their parents. No way they would have just left her here.”

  The gurney and the EMTs had gone up the slope, and now were making their way back down on the unsure footing. Francine rose, her hands clasped together and pressing into her mouth.

  Salcido shook his head wearily as he watched Francine. “I need to be with her now.” His brow furrowed. “But someone else was here, you think? Someone besides the four kids? And maybe besides the Torrance kids?”

  “Almost certainly,” I said. “Somebody used Herb’s stock tank as a shooting gallery, and that wasn’t the kids…certainly none of Herb’s brood. They helped put that tank in, and they routinely climb that windmill to maintain it. No way they’d vandalize their own equipment. The damage looks as if at least four different guns were used. The kids had only Willis Browning’s old military carbine.”

  I stopped and heaved a couple deep breaths. “But I’m willing to speculate some, Eduardo. The damage to the tank was fresh. When I checked it mid-morning today, the water hadn’t all drained. The windmill wasn’t pumping, but there were wet spots where the bullet holes leaked.”

  “What have you told momma?” He nodded at Francine Spencer.

  “Nothing. She saw only her daughter’s covered body. She’ll make the formal ID now.”

  He nodded. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “By the way, they took Browning to the hospital a little earlier. His heart, they think.”

  That shouldn�
��t have come as a surprise, but it still took me a moment to absorb it. “He looked bad last night,” I said. “Most of us looked bad.”

  “Bad all the way around,” Salcido agreed. “I’ll talk with Francine for a little bit, see what she can tell me about her daughter’s activities last night.” He ducked his head as if apologizing. “Then I’ll go to the hospital and see if Browning is going to be able to tell us anything.” The crow’s-feet around his dark eyes crinkled, the creases running deep. “You look like you need to curl up under a tree for a while yourself.”

  “I probably will.”

  He started to step away, then hesitated. “How’s mihijo doing?” I had stopped thinking of Robert Torrez as a kid, but Eduardo had me by a dozen years. To the sheriff, no doubt, anyone under thirty was damn near an infant.

  “I couldn’t ask for more. He’s going to take a break for a few hours, and we’re meeting again here after dark to take some exposures with Luminol. We’ll see.”

  Salcido grimaced at that. I don’t know what bothered him—probably the fact that Luminol illuminated ugly things. “I’ll try to be here,” he said.

  The EMTs paused with the gurney long enough for Francine to gasp and stagger backward when Sheriff Salcido eased the body blanket back. The victim’s head was turned to the left slightly, almost hiding the wound. Some folks like to use the soothing word “peaceful” to describe the dead, but that’s something from the undertaker’s sales pitch to make customers feel better. Darlene didn’t look peaceful to me. Francine would go through her own brand of hell for several days, and then Darlene would be a painful memory.

  One by one, the various vehicles cleared the canyon, and with Robert Torrez tending the site up the hill, I was left to myself. I made arrangements for Deputy Paul Encinos to cover the site starting at four, but Torrez was still rooting around, taking notes and burning more film. He had no questions for me, and it seemed prudent—and instructive for me—to leave the young man alone with his thoughts.

  I moseyed up-canyon, hands thrust deep in my pockets. Not far to the northeast, a deep swale in the prairie erased most of the canyon, and with a short detour up-grade, I found myself on a dome of prairie overlooking the windmill site and the hillside dotted with runty acacia, rabbitbrush, creosote, and an occasional tough juniper. I loved the prairie, with its tawny canvas, its potpourri of wonderful aromas, the murmur of grama seed heads nodding in the lightest breezes. To Darlene, desperately hurt and abandoned, the peace and solitude of this country must have been terrifying.

  The sheriff’s suggestion about finding forty winks under a welcoming tree was a good one, but not many likely candidates grew on this section of moisture-starved prairie. The ravens followed me, engaged in a constant guttural chatter of raven talk, sometimes sending one of their flock for a low pass over my head.

  I found a convenient rock and sat, facing west. The kids’ voices would have carried to this spot last night, sharp and clear, punctuated by bursts of shrill, alcohol-filled laughter. It appeared from preliminary lab tests that at least one of the youngsters—little Elli Torrez—had not touched any of the beer or spirits. Maybe she was already worried about her brother, who had touched far too many.

  And Darlene Spencer? Clearly, she had ridden out to Bender’s Canyon in the Suburban with the other three. I couldn’t see any other way it might have happened. The autopsy would reveal how much she had imbibed, if any. Regardless, it would have been a raucous bunch, enough to give the ravens something to be cranky about.

  Who had heard them? The ravens drifted overhead, this time five of them, now and then uttering those almost musical little gargles. They knew, but they weren’t telling.

  Chapter Ten

  Down below to my right, just a few yards from the windmill, my county car sat in the sun, the insides no doubt a furnace. Movement caught my eye, and in a moment Deputy Torrez appeared through the brush several yards west of the rugged trail we had used previously. This time, he was pushing the little walking wheel, the measuring gadget we routinely used at motor vehicle accidents. He walked easily, in no hurry, planning his route so that the measurement would be as accurate as possible.

  “Well, that’s not going home and getting some rest,” I said to myself. Once more at the water tank, he leaned the measuring wheel against the warm metal, and then turned to the windmill. For a time, he just stood there, looking up at the Aermotor. He could certainly see me easily enough, but he never turned or acknowledged my presence. Once, he backed up several paces, changing the perspective. The sails were facing southwest, where our breezes most commonly originated. Not a hint of wind stirred them to motion.

  Apparently satisfied, Torrez walked to the array of braces at the windmill’s base, and in a moment, he shrugged out of his Sam Brown belt and all its hardware. He draped the wide, heavy utility belt over one of the horizontal braces, drew the revolver from its holster and tucked it behind his back, secured by his trouser belt. He walked around to the narrow metal ladder that accessed the maintenance platform thirty feet over his head.

  By that time, I was on my feet and walking down-slope toward the mill. If Torrez saw or heard me, he didn’t react. Instead, he climbed methodically, testing each skinny metal rung before putting his weight on it. I was delighted that Robert Torrez hadn’t bother to ask permission for whatever it was that he was doing. He didn’t show much inclination to “play well with others,” but what the hell. I had plenty of deputies who were social gadflies—who’d travel in packs if they could.

  By the time I reached the water tank, the deputy was standing on the maintenance platform high overhead, sidling in close behind the sails, his right hand on top of the transmission housing as if he were standing beside a good friend, one hand on the shoulder.

  “Good view from up there,” I greeted.

  “Better up where you were sittin’,” he replied. “I need a panorama from up there.” His compact Olympus camera was tiny in his big hands, the strap tight around his wrist. In the next couple minutes, he took both his panorama scenery shots as well as several photos of the two windmill sails nearest him.

  “Just punched right on through,” I said, then realized that wasn’t a rocket science observation, since the individual windmill sails that made up the mill’s wind-catching disk were thin metal not much more resistant than one side of a tin can. Torrez didn’t reply, but eased forward and reached out to the inner steel band, one of two that connected the sails and kept them oriented. He paused.

  “Herb has the brake set,” he said.

  “You want it off?”

  “Yep.”

  “Watch your footing, now. We can’t afford a workman’s comp claim.” I stepped to the tower and pulled the iron brake lever down. In the forty years since I’d pulled the brake handle on my grand-uncle’s windmill at his farm in North Carolina, the Aermotor mechanics hadn’t changed much. In a moment the windmill sail drifted around one blade’s worth, uttered a little groan, and rested in place. With no breeze to assist, Torrez took his time, working the sails by hand around a full revolution. He stopped now and then for photos, and seemed fascinated by one particular area of damage. He held on to the transmission housing with one hand, one boot blocked against framework that enclosed the sucker rod down through the center of the tower, and leaned out farther than I would have liked. The little camera clicked and clicked again.

  “We can call the cherry picker out here if you need a photo from the front of the sail,” I said.

  “Might need to,” and he shot a final exposure with his arm outstretched, the view angling in from the side. With an impatient shake of the head, he turned away and faced the northeast, gazing out over the windmill’s tail vane. Looking back toward the sail, he pushed the whole assembly around to give himself room, then folded his six-foot, four-inch frame as only the young and fit can. He sat down on the edge of the platform, legs dangling. He fished another roll
of film out of his pocket, rewound and emptied the one from the camera, and replaced it.

  “There isn’t enough damage to prevent Herb’s using it, I wouldn’t think.”

  “Don’t think so.” He looked back over his shoulder at the sails. “Peppered it pretty good, though. Like sixteen times.”

  “Straight-on shots? Through the front of the sail?”

  “Mostly.”

  “So the shooter was standing facing the sail, probably.” It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t expect a reply. Young Torrez didn’t disappoint. “But you found the empty casings over there,” and I waved a hand back along the two-track leading into the site. “The breezes are fitful. Last evening the sails could have been facing any old way.” Again, Torrez didn’t respond to the obvious.

  “We don’t know for sure that Chris Browning was doing the shooting at the sail,” I said. “I’m not sure you can gauge much by holes punched in tin.”

  Torrez sat silently for a moment, taking his time organizing an answer. Watching him mull things over, I had the errant thought that in coming months and years, lawyers were going to learn quickly that Robert Torrez on the witness stand would force patience on them, rather than the young deputy being rattled by the pressure.

  “I’m goin’ by that there ain’t .30-carbine bullets recovered from the tank, so I don’t think he was shootin’ that way. I mean, we found less than a box of empties, so he wasn’t shootin’ much.”

  “So you think he let fly a few times at the windmill? How many cases do you have?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “So you have sixteen holes in that mill. Then someone else tore after the tank.”

  “Yup.”

  “Three ten, three hundred.” My handheld, and Torrez’ hanging from his belt at the bottom of the mill, squawked in unison.

  “Three hundred, three ten.” The radio remained silent for a heartbeat or two, and then the sheriff’s soft voice, made metallic by the electronics of the radio and broken by the distance and terrain, reached out to us.