Easy Errors

by Steven F Havill

  “Sure. Darrel and Marron’s daughter.” Both parents worked for the state highway department. I knew young Bessie because she had made something of a name for herself, not always lucky enough to make the best choices. Bright enough, she’d graduated from high school near the bottom of her class. She’d tried college for a while, until the state university suggested that she’d be happier somewhere else. “She works for you.” The local job meant Bessie lived at home, much to her parents’ underwhelming relief.

  “Worked for me. I fired her ass two weeks ago. I got my niece workin’ for me now.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “She sold a twenty-four pack to Darlene Hot Pants. Apparently she thought I never look out the window.” He waved a hand at the little serving window that opened from the kitchen to behind the bar where he slid the finished orders. He turned to tend to the burger and its fixings.

  “So Darlene bought some beer. Did she have anyone with her?”

  “Who knows? Could have been anyone out in the car, waitin’.” He waved the spatula at me. “But see, I ain’t in the business of sellin’ to underage. I find that one of my people did that, and they’re history. Gone. My niece took over after Bessie hit the road, and my niece is a smart kid. She wouldn’t have sold to Darlene.” He plated the fries and the burger, now dressed with the nicely scorched chilé filets, and handed it to me. “We card everybody. If you ever ordered anything other than that black coffee you swill, we’d card you.” He almost smiled. “Go talk with her, if you want.”

  “But this incident with Bessie selling to Darlene was a couple of weeks ago?”

  “About that.” He jotted on a guest ticket and slapped it on the window shelf, knocking the wooden sill a couple times with knuckle. “She’ll get your ticket out front.” He turned his back to me, his pleasant way of ending a conversation, and I headed for the swinging door.

  “And tell the Torrez kid…” Sanchez added, and I stopped. “…he don’t need to hang out in my parking lot. Bad for business.”

  The Torrez kid? “He was in earlier today?”

  “Just tell him to do his paperwork somewhere else. Or his radar. Or whatever the hell he’s doing.” Victor concentrated on the few dishes and utensils in the stainless steel sink, making more noise than he needed to. “He don’t need to be parked in my lot. Or anywhere near me, for that matter.”

  “I’ll mention it to him. Thanks for the burger.”

  “It’s always on the menu.”

  The saloon proper was dark, naturally cool, thanks to the thick adobe walls, and quiet. An elderly couple sat near the west window, and he glanced up at me as I passed, offered a gold-touched smile, and pointed an index finger of approval at his plate.

  “Must be a treat living near this place,” he said.

  “Oh, it is. Enjoy your travels,” I replied amiably. They were clearly tougher than I was, traveling all the way from Delaware in a damn Volkswagen Beetle.

  Gus Prescott, the rancher with the pickup and stock trailer, was standing at the glass-topped counter near the register, watching Victoria Sanchez add the numbers.

  I headed for the small side room, a path that took me past Gus.

  “Do you have a minute or two?” Transferring my heaping plate, I took his offered hand. His grip was firm, hands rough enough that a month’s bath in hand lotion wouldn’t have made much difference.

  “Lemme check my social calendar,” he said with a grin, and followed me to the table. Gus was so thin that cancer was either already trimming his bones or about to. What flesh remained on his lanky frame was thoroughly pickled in alcohol. His ranch was east of Herb Torrance’s and accessible by a miserable little two-track off of State 56 at Moore. Gus was proud of that driveway. If someone was patient and driving a tough four-by-four, he could follow cow paths out of the east end of Bender’s Canyon, and finally end up within view of the Prescott ranch. But then there’d be arroyos to cross, and the jut of a mesa, and by the time he drove up to the Prescotts’ front porch, daylight would be gone.

  “We had a rough night.” I sat down, carefully arranging the plated artistry. As always, I reflected on what Victor’s business might be if he was a cheerful, hospitable soul.

  “Four kids from town got tangled up in some shenanigans in the canyon, and didn’t make it home. Crashed their truck into an interstate abutment.”

  “Oh, shit.” His heavily lined, tan face sagged with sympathy. “Anybody I know?”

  “Willis Browning’s son, for one. Two of the Torrez kids.”

  “Well, hell.” He adjusted his ball cap. “You was sayin’ four…”

  “Darlene Spencer was involved somehow.”

  He shook his head sadly, maybe doing a quick count of his own teenagers, making sure they were all near the nest. “My gosh.” He shook his head again. “The Browning boy hunted prairie dogs on the ranch a time or two. He’s a classmate of Christine’s. I mean, I didn’t know him or the others, but I guess she would have. Just too damn bad.”

  “Yes. The evidence suggests that they were engaged in party-hearty time down in the canyon behind Herb’s number two windmill. It’s looking like they did some vandalism to the mill and tank both. Either they did, or someone else with them took a whole bunch of shots.”

  He frowned, trying his best not to look at the mound of golden French fries on my plate. I turned the plate so that they were more invitingly within reach, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “That ain’t the first time. Some of these hunters get trigger happy, ’specially if they haven’t come across any legit game. Hell, you know that big stock tank I got over by the north gate, just a bit in from the highway? I’ve had to repair holes in that half a dozen times. Gets so I don’t even bother to call you folks. I mean, what can you do?”

  “I was wondering if just in the past day or two you’ve seen anyone else around. See anyone you don’t know? Hear any random shooting, or find gates left open—that sort of thing?”

  His frown deepened. He crossed one bony knee over the other, lit a non-filtered cigarette, and regarded the plank floor. “You know, it’s been quiet around these parts of late. But like I said, that kind of shit happens all the time.” He squinted through his smoke, looking speculatively at me. “What do you have goin’ on?”

  Before I could reply, Victoria arrived with a sloshing cup of coffee for me. She tried her best to smile, but it looked as if she were in pain rather than pleasure.

  “Ms. Sanchez, how’s your day going?”

  “Okay.”

  I drained the saucer back into the cup. “Busy night last night?”

  “Boring.”

  “Boring is nice sometimes.” She looked as if she didn’t understand that concept. “Anyone come in to use the phone? Anything like that? Someone with car trouble?”

  “Just those guys that broke their truck.”

  “Those guys…”

  “Well, the one guy. But he had somebody with him, ’cause I could hear ’em talking outside. I mean, before he came inside.” She looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen, but Victor’s surveillance had flagged. Working for her uncle must have been an interesting experience.

  “Who did he call?”

  She shook her head. “He asked if he could use the phone, and that he needed to see the phone book.”

  “You didn’t hear who he called.”

  “No. We had other customers. But he was the same guy who came in earlier. He and another guy. They bought a whole bunch of stuff. Mostly beer and a couple bottles of bourbon.”

  “Earlier in the day, you mean?” She nodded. “Young?”

  “No. Old guys.”

  “Like us?” I grinned at Gus. Victoria blushed.

  “No. A little bit younger.”

  “You’d recognize them if you saw them again?”

  “Oh, sure. The guy who bo
ught the package liquor—he’s the one who came in later to use the phone. He was kind of a flirt.”

  “Big guy?”

  Victoria frowned. “Not so much.” She looked back toward the kitchen again. “Gross fat, though.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention. Sometime yesterday evening. I think it was already dark, though.”

  “He reached whoever it was he was trying to call?”

  She tried a wry smile and swept back a heavy strand of black hair. That smile was going to take some practice so that it wouldn’t make her look like a stroke victim. “I wasn’t exactly eavesdropping,” she said. “But he said, ‘Okay, see you soon,’ when he hung up.” Victoria started to turn away. “Oh,” she remembered, “the tow truck came about an hour later. Maybe a little longer. You know Les?”

  “Attawene? Sure.”

  “He came in and got a cup of coffee to go after they were done hooking up.”

  The old man near the window caught her eye, raising his cup.

  “Victoria, thanks.” I had a long list of questions I could ask, but decided to save them for later, lest Victoria earn her uncle’s wrath. Les Attawene, the wrecker driver, would have a full log of information about his tow job, right down to the VIN of the rescued truck.

  Gus unhooked his leg and recrossed going the other way. He lit another cigarette and shook the pack toward me. I held up a hand in protest…again. “I’m trying to quit,” I said.

  “That’s easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times.” He grinned. “And I guess I should be getting my carcass home.”

  “Give my best to your spouse.”

  “I’ll do that. And don’t be such a damn stranger. We usually got some pie or something layin’ around.” He pushed himself to his feet and stood for a moment, both hands on the table, the cigarette smoke drifting up into his eyes. “Hell of a thing about that wreck last night. I’ll talk to Christine and see what she has to say. She spends enough time on the damn phone, there shouldn’t be much about the whole deal she hasn’t heard.”

  I handed him one of my cards, although over the years he’d gathered a fair collection. “If she thinks of something I should know, have her call me.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My handheld radio stood on the table at my elbow while Gus Prescott and I gabbed, but as if it were controlled by some large eye in the sky, it knew when I was alone. The volume was turned down, and Deputy Robert Torrez’ voice came across as a whisper.

  “Three ten, three oh eight.”

  “Three ten.”

  “Ten twenty?”

  “Three ten is ten eight at Uncle Vic’s.”

  The briefest of pauses greeted that, a location code that any airhead could crack with a little thought. Still, it discouraged some of our more casual scanner ghouls who tried to keep track of us.

  “Ten four. ETA twenty.”

  And where might you be? “Three oh eight, ten twenty.”

  “Three oh eight westbound at interstate mile marker thirty-four.”

  I clicked the transmit button twice and let those little barks suffice as a reply. If Deputy Torrez was twelve miles east on the interstate, he wasn’t going to cover that twelve miles, plus another twenty-six or so on State 53, in twenty minutes. An average of even a hundred miles an hour would require a little more than fourteen minutes of travel time. Maybe, hopefully, the young man meant a New Mexican twenty minutes—which could mean anything from just exactly that to next week sometime.

  Victoria appeared with the coffeepot, topped off mine, and reached into her apron pocket for my tab. But I had twenty minutes to wait, and needed to put it to good use.

  “Victoria, I’d like one of those scrumptious pieces of cherry pie, if you please.”

  “A la mode?”

  “Oh, sure. Why not?” There were actually many reasons why not, including the considerable girth pushing out my gun belt. I might have been able to resist with the help of an after-dinner cigarette, but I’d benefitted from enough of Gus Prescott’s secondhand smoke that I held out, even though I could feel the comforting push of the cigarette pack in my shirt pocket.

  The pie crust was marginal, the ice cream a little old and cardboardy, but the cherry filling was real, sour, and just wonderful. Halfway through it, a boisterous Mexican family arrived—mom, pop, four youngsters none of whom had become a grouchy teen, and abuela, steel-gray hair bun, flinty eyes ever watchful for a child’s indiscretions, and the wag of a quick admonishing index finger.

  The folks from Delaware listened to the chatter of Spanish for a few minutes, and decided it was time to vamos. At the register, he turned to me, forehead puckered. “Would you know how far it is to the nearest gas station?”

  “Posadas is northeast, twenty-eight miles. The nearest gasoline in Mexico is Janos. That’s about fifty miles. The border crossing closes at eight p.m.” I glanced at the clock. “You’ve got plenty of time yet.”

  “Closes?”

  I made gates out of both hands and swung them shut. “Which direction were you headed?”

  “Well, south, maybe. I just assumed…”

  “Nope. Janos is a good hop. Road is graded gravel, but it’s no boulevard.”

  “In Regál,” and he pronounced it as if he were referring to monarchy, “there’s a motel? Best Western or something?”

  I smiled my most sympathetic “you’re an idiot” grin. “There is nothing in Regál except a Catholic mission and twenty or thirty good folks.”

  “See?” His wife poked him none too gently in the belly as she said to me, “Rory always thinks that he can wing it. No planning.”

  “Ah, well.” I skidded the last bit of pie onto my fork. “Posadas has gas stations galore, and one good motel, just past the interstate exit.”

  “Damn.” He shook his head in frustration. “I just hate to backtrack. You know what I mean? We just thought…”

  “You just thought, Rory,” his wife said. I could see tempers were getting a little thin. When they rattled their way back to Posadas, they needed to trade the bug in on a Caddy.

  “Well,” he sighed. “You’re sure?”

  “About which part?”

  “The crossing actually closes?”

  “At eight. Yes. I’m sure.”

  He looked at the patch on the shoulder of my uniform shirt. “Well, I guess you would know.”

  “Stop at the Posadas Inn,” I said. “Tell the owner I sent you. That’s Mr. Patel.”

  “Patel?” Rory said bleakly.

  He looked startled when Deputy Robert Torrez walked through the door, followed by Doug Posey from Game and Fish and RC Markham, a New Mexico State Police officer. Maybe it was because lack of sleep had carved his handsome face, or that he was half a foot taller than either state officer, but Deputy Torrez looked like the ramrod of the outfit.

  Sober-faced, he nodded at Rory and his wife; Doug gave the Delaware couple a friendly grin; and RC showed that he’d listened during the last pitch from his superiors that state cops were expected to be ambassadors.

  “Evening, folks,” he said. Rory gaped at the tiny scorpion preserved in a crystal cube that RC wore hooked into the diagonal Sam Brown strap across his chest. “You folks travel safe, now.” He looked across the room at the Mexican family. “Rafael, how you doin’?” RC called, and the father saluted crisply. The trooper turned back to us. “Rafael just left the Marine Corps for us, can you believe that?”

  Rory and his wife started to make their exit, and Markham put on a serious face. “That your VW outside? The one with the Delaware tags?”

  “Certainly is,” Rory said. “All the way.”

  “You’re showing expired. You’re runnin’ on May.”

  “Oh, my gosh. The new one is in the glove box. I keep
forgetting about it.”

  Markham grinned, leaning a little closer. His leather gear creaked. “Take a minute and stick ’er on, then. While you’re thinking about it.”

  “See?” his wife said.

  “Yeah, yeah. I was waiting for the month to expire, and then I just forgot.”

  “You can put ’em on early, you know.” Markham smiled engagingly. “No days lost.”

  I scooted around to give all three officers room at the tiny table. A moment later, we heard the wheeze of the VW.

  “They’re going to make it, you think?” Markham laughed.

  “If they don’t kill each other first,” I said. Torrez had an envelope in his hand. “Get your pictures?”

  “Yep.” He slid them out and handed the whole pack to me. The photos were sharp, perfectly focused, and presented a nice tour of Herb Torrance’s ventilated windmill.

  “This all happened at the same time as the girl?” Markham asked.

  “We think so.”

  “And what’s your theory, Deputy?”

  Torrez reached across and selected a single photo, but held on to it as Victoria arrived with three more cups balanced in one hand, the coffee carafe in the other. She pointed at the creamer and sugar packets in the center of the table, flashed what could have been a smile at Bob Torrez, and quickly retreated. She didn’t ask if someone might want food. I saw Victor Sanchez leaning on the serving window. The two of them had a brief conversation, and sure enough, Victoria returned, receipt book in hand. After that effort, she might have been disappointed in the negative response from the trio, but managed to hide it.

  When she had returned to the bar, Torrez slid the photo back across to me. The gouge in the windmill’s inner wheel band was clear, and the photographer had zoomed in until the mark dominated the frame. He selected another photo, this one appearing to be an artistic landscape. I saw my own image, standing on the old juniper log over in the bushes, far enough from the windmill that I was just a dot.

  Without comment, Torrez selected a third photo, this one also showing the landscape, but taken from ground level.

  “And so…” Markham prompted as he examined each photo in turn, then passed them to Doug Posey.