Easy Errors

by Steven F Havill

  Chapter Eighteen

  Deputy Robert Torrez was impatient with the process, but we forced him to a standstill. Despite his earlier resistance, Sergeant Avelino Garcia was unflappably patient now, and no court in the world would fault his procedure.

  “Odds are good, Robert, that what we do here will end up in court, one way or another,” I said. “When we have the time, we take it.” The young man crossed his arms across his chest, locking his hands under his armpits. He looked as if he might be listening, so I added, “State prosecutors once blew a Grand Jury case here in Posadas that started with a simple bar fight and ballooned from there. They tried to catch one of the village officers on a charge of intimidating a witness.”

  I waved a hand to dismiss the rest of the details. “Because it was such a cut-and-dried case—the prosecutor thought—he neglected to provide a simple crime scene drawing of the saloon…one that showed who was where. By the time he was finished mangling the case, the Grand Jury just threw up its hands. No indictment. And they issued a pretty stinging rebuke to the prosecutor. So lessons were learned. No matter what we’re doing, we need to think ahead to the resulting court case. That’s not always possible, but a surprising percentage of the time it is possible. Just like with the windmill. You took careful pictures to support your hypothesis. Ditto with the victim’s body. One step at a time.”

  Garcia gadgeted up, and then walked off across the dealer’s lot. His distance shot—an establishing photo—would show the Dodge pickup in the boneyard, with the large D’Anzo Chrysler-Plymouth sign prominent in the far right corner. Even the front of the dealership office was included. That accomplished, he walked back in and took another shot of just the Dodge, framed by the fence.

  “Go ahead and open the tailgate,” he instructed, and Torrez did so, then stood off to one side. With the strobe held so that its muted light bounced off the interior roof of the camper shell, Avelino Garcia worked to record the position of the storage box in the truck. I could tell Robert Torrez was impatient with each methodical step, despite my lecture. He had every good reason to want to charge ahead.

  I handed Garcia the sheriff’s lock key, and he slid into the truck. He propped the remains of the twin padlocks that I had cut off on top of the lid, one by each hasp, and recorded that, then cleared the top and opened the lid.

  “Okay, we have two gun cases, half a dozen ammo boxes, and what looks like a few of those dried meals we used to get in the Army.”

  “I need it all in the photo,” I said.

  Avelino nodded and scrunched around, taking his time to aim the filtered strobe to avoid shadows that would make the photo useless. Torrez knew better than to climb his bulk into the camper, but he rested a hand on the tailgate, a tiny motion that Avelino noticed.

  “Don’t move the truck,” he snapped, and Torrez jerked his hand away as if burned.

  “Okay.” Avelino relaxed back.

  “Now I want photos of the guns out of their cases. I’ll want both an overall view and close-up of the serial numbers and the caliber designations.” Bob Torrez may have been six-foot, four and close to two-twenty, but he also had twenty-two-year-old agility. “Get yourself a pair of gloves and give him a hand,” I said, and to my surprise, the young deputy pulled a pair of clean gloves out of his hip pocket.

  Once in instructor’s mode, it was hard to stop. “Robert, the handgun is loaded.” He glanced back at me, and I shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve been there already. I touched the muzzle and butt of both, so if you do that as well, we’ll preserve any latents.”

  By the time they had finished—and it took a while in the poor light for Avelino to figure out his exposures—we had a good catalog of the guns, their vital stats, and their storage locations. All in all, if Mr. Bailey was as innocent as fresh snow, we’d achieved a useless invasion of a man’s property rights.

  “The one-hour color lab opens at nine?” I asked. “Then these and the Luminol prints need to be at the lab by then.”

  “Tell you what,” Avelino said, “I’ll do that. The wife needs to do some shopping, and while she’s doin’ that, I’ll see to the color work.”

  “You’ll be with ’em the whole time.”

  “You betcha.” The veteran sergeant didn’t need to be reminded of chain of custody issues, but it didn’t hurt for Robert Torrez to hear it again.

  “Good. Put ’em back and snap our lock back on, Roberto.”

  He hesitated. “We can’t take ’em into custody now?”

  “We could. And the warrant does mention firearms as items of interest. But there’s a certain presumption of innocence that we’re working with here. We’ll push a little further and see what we get before we go the confiscation route.”

  “I was going to do a bullet comparison.”

  “I understand that you want to do that,” I said patiently. “But right now, we have a scarred stump and a smashed bumper, and a witness who saw Bailey at the Broken Spur. We have nothing that connects Bailey with whatever the kids were up to. But I tell you what,” I glanced at my watch, “go home, get some rest, and tomorrow bright and early we’ll do some comparisons. We’ll start with what you recovered during your wading episode in Herb’s tank.”

  It took Torrez a moment to work up a nod of agreement. It must have been hell being twenty-two, eager, and surrounded with patient, cautious old duffers.

  Garcia slid gingerly off the tailgate, and I locked it up and smoothed an adhesive Sheriff’s Department seal over the tailgate and the camper’s swing-down door. “Sarge, thank you.” I beckoned to Torrez. “Let’s let the D’Anzos off the hook.”

  As we entered the dealership, Carmen favored us—well, mostly Robert—with a wide smile. “The coffee will just go down the sink if you don’t finish it up.” Neither the mild flirt nor the offer of beverage made a dent in the deputy’s solemn visage.

  “We thank you,” I said, and held up the truck keys. “The truck is locked front and back with a Sheriff’s seal on the gate. We put the lock back on your boneyard gate. I’m taking the Dodge keys with me. If and when Mr. Bailey contacts you, I need to know.”

  Carmen made a face that looked as if she might burst into tears, all lighthearted flirting vanished. “I was talking to my mom? She said that she heard that Darlene Spencer was found dead down in the canyon, maybe shot to death? That it looked like she’d been assaulted?”

  And where did mom hear all this? I wondered. “Your mom is partially correct, Carmen. Miss Spencer was found dead, and there is evidence that she suffered a head wound.” I paused. “There is no evidence that she was assaulted in any way other than that.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Is that what the deal is with the truck?” Rick D’Anzo asked.

  “We’re not sure.” I thrust my hands in my pockets. “That’s why it’s important that if you hear from Mr. Bailey, or anyone in his company, we need to know about it ASAP. You have my number, and you know nine one one. Dispatch can always reach me.” I reached out and lifted the carafe to top off my cup. “And folks, it would help us tremendously if you didn’t discuss any of these events with anyone. If one of your mechanics says something about the truck, just say that you’re waiting on owner authorization.”

  “They’ll see the yellow Sheriff’s seal.”

  “If they do, they do. The tighter we can contain all this, the better.”

  They agreed with that, but unfortunately, not everyone else in Posadas did. By the time we walked into the Sheriff’s Office, I saw a couple of While You Were Out notes stuck in my mailbox. One was from County Commissioner Arnie Gray, but he could wait.

  The other was a phone message from Leo Bailey, publisher and editor of the Posadas Register. The similar name drew me up short, but there were many, many Baileys in the world. I had known Leo for a dozen years before, since he had purchased the Register from Russell Smiley’s estate. The Register, still
clinging to historic broad-sheet format, leaned heavily on photos to fill the white space around the ads, and that was okay with most folks. Most of them would rather see a photo of three cub scouts standing goofily in a row, holding awards, than they would hard-case investigative reporting.

  I’d heard rumors that Bailey was looking to sell the publication, but until I heard it from Leo himself, I assumed the paper was still in aggressive hands. Leo worked hard, and I admired that—even if sometimes he became a pushy pest. The fact that he had called in the dark of night told me that he was paying attention. He would expect a return call. As rampant as the rumor vine grew, maybe he’d heard something I needed to know.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I took the notes to my office and tossed them on one of the few spots that wasn’t cluttered. Dispatch had written 10:02 p.m. on the note, and below that, Chad Beuler had printed, “Info on MVA.” I settled into my chair, pulled the phone closer, and was about to dial when I remembered that Deputy Torrez had been at my elbow all evening, and now had vanished like a puff of smoke.

  “Ernie?” I called through the open door. Graveyard dispatcher Ernie Wheeler could hear me just fine, and his swivel chair squeaked. In a moment he appeared in my office doorway.

  “Sir?”

  “Did Bob Torrez leave the office?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No, sir, he did not. I was assuming home, but maybe not. He took the Blazer.”

  I leaned back and looked out the window at the scenic view of the parking lot. Torrez’ personal pickup truck was still parked just beyond the gas pumps. Sure enough, the department Blazer he’d been using was not in its slot. With nothing but a few catnaps for relief during the past hours, I knew how tired I was. Granted, Deputy Torrez was a hale and hearty twenty-two-year-old, motivated by a nearly incomprehensible family tragedy, so that gave him an edge.

  What bothered me more was that Torrez appeared to embrace the solitude of his new job to a point where he didn’t feel the need to discuss his comings and goings with either me or dispatch. A vintage case of the pot and kettle, but as undersheriff with a good many years under my belt, I suppose I felt that I had earned my solo status. I didn’t ask Sheriff Salcido every time I took a step—and there would come a time when I would expect the same from Robert Torrez. But as a rookie during his first week on the job?

  I reached out and pushed the intercom button. “Ernie, find Deputy Torrez for me, please.”

  “You got it, sir.”

  Leo Bailey’s home phone was listed, but first I dialed the office of the Posadas Register. The Friday edition of the paper would be printed down in Deming, and Bailey would make that drive at five a.m. so he’d arrive in time to chat with composing room folks and see the page plates made. I knew his habits. On one early morning, I’d stopped him as he drove down Grande Avenue at close to eighty miles an hour. His excuse—and I had let it work for him—was that he had a late-breaking page one story that still needed to be typeset.

  “Bailey.”

  “Hello, Leo.”

  “Well, for crissakes.” I could imagine him swinging around in his antique swivel chair so he was facing me, pencil poised over a notebook. “Are you going to bring me up to speed on all this shit that’s going down?”

  The clock ticked to one minute past midnight. “Good morning. And probably not.”

  “I can’t wait forever, you know. I have deadlines.”

  “There’s always Tuesday’s edition.”

  “You’re uproarious, BG.” He was the only person in Posadas County who called me that, as if hinting that our casual relationship might actually run a little deeper.

  “I’m too tired to be uproarious.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  “Tell me what you have so far, Leo.”

  “What I have so far…” I heard papers rustling. “We start off with the three kids killed down at the overpass. One of them is the late ADA’s son, Christopher Allen Browning, age sixteen. Two passengers, Orlando Ruiz Torrez, age…lemme see. He would have been…just turned seventeen. And Elena Rowina Torrez, she was fifteen. Okay, that’s that. The vehicle was a 1984 Chevrolet Suburban, registered to Mr. Browning.”

  “All of that is correct.”

  “And I was sorry as hell to hear that Browning died earlier today. What a kick, eh? I can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve had coffee together. First his son, and then him. What a kick.”

  I remained silent, absorbing the “kicks,” and pondering how much to tell him.

  “You still awake?” he prodded.

  “I am, sort of.”

  “So what else do you have for me? Or are you going to let all the metro papers blow me out of the water…again?”

  “I have no control over when kids die, or when bad guys do their thing, Leo.”

  “Yeah, yeah. All that, I know. But I’m sittin’ here lookin’ at the clock, and whatever you tell me, right now, I can get into tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Yep.” I leaned to one side and maneuvered my notebook out of my hip pocket.

  “So, contributing factors?”

  “Speed and alcohol. There appear to be other medical issues involved. We’re continuing to investigate that.”

  “Medical issues? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Christ, what a big help you are. Look, I took a photo of the Suburban through the county fence, and I have photos of the crash site, not that those amount to shit. So they were comin’ down the exit ramp way too fast?”

  “Way too fast. Lost it, and rolled multiple times. Ended up against the interstate support pillar. One occupant, Orlando Torrez, was ejected from the vehicle. We used the jaws to remove the other two.”

  Leo’s officious tone softened a little. “All pronounced there at the scene?”

  “Yes. Coroner Sherwin Wilkes.”

  “Did you ever have the chance to talk with Browning?”

  “Yes. In fact he came to the crash scene. I’m surprised that you weren’t there.” The multiple frequency police scanner in the bookcase immediately behind Leo Bailey’s desk scanned everything from police to weather to air traffic control.

  “I was out of town. But jeez, what a kick.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m told that two of the kids were related to your new deputy.”

  “You’re told right. Elli…Elena…and Orlando were Deputy Torrez’ younger sister and brother.”

  “That’s a sorry state of affairs. I heard he was there. How could that be?”

  “Your grapevine is efficient, Leo. Yes. Deputy Robert Torrez was riding with Sergeant Lars Payson…doing a little community familiarization tour before he started his shift.”

  “I heard it was his first night on the job.”

  “Hell, you don’t need to talk to me, Leo. Just headline it, “Grapevine says…”

  “Okay,” and Leo huffed with amusement. “Okay. Was it his first night on the job?”

  “He’d been around some. He did a few tours before he went to the academy. He was lucky and got an early schedule on that, so he didn’t have to wait around twiddling his thumbs. He went to academy, got certified, and now he’s facing this godawful mess. It ain’t easy, Leo.”

  “It’s fair to characterize him as a rookie, though.”

  “I suppose. Or ‘new hire’ if you want to be a little more dignified.”

  “That’s not in my genes.” I heard a typewriter clatter in the background. “And these kiddos were returning from where?”

  I hesitated. “That’s something we’re still investigating, Leo. We don’t have a definite answer yet. Just some good guesses.”

  “How about giving me your best one of those, then?”

  Resting my
head back against the chair, I closed my eyes. After a minute, Leo prompted me, “You still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here. I’m thinking.”

  “Gets to be this time of night, and us old codgers tend to drift off.”

  “I’m wishing I could.” I saw the images that we had to work with: the carbine abandoned in the bushes, Darlene Spencer’s body, the panic that drove the kids in the fleeing Suburban…none of that was guesswork. “We think that the kids were down in the Bender’s Canyon area, just off County Road 14.”

  “That’s rugged country. Party time, you think?”

  “I would guess so. It’s secluded, and we know it’s a favorite spot.”

  “So it’s really the same old story, isn’t it? Kids out drinkin’, and then they overcook it comin’ home.”

  “There is that.”

  “So what was this other ambulance call today? Down in that same area, wasn’t it? I got busy and didn’t follow up on that one.”

  I cleared my throat and read my notes, making an effort to stay as neutral as I could. “The Posadas County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the death of a teenaged girl whose body was discovered near Bender’s Canyon Thursday morning. Probably cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head. The victim was identified as Darlene Spencer, seventeen, of Posadas.”

  There was a long pause, and the clatter of typewriter keys. He stopped typing and breathed, “Holy shit. You’re talking about Francine’s daughter? I mean, Franny’s kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn, how did that happen? Hunting accident? Suicide? Murder? What are we talkin’ here?”

  “I wish I had an answer for you.”

  “Oh, come on. Jesus. But they have to be related, right? The girl’s death and the partyin’ kids? I mean, that’s just too close for it to be a coincidence.”

  “I can’t tell you.”