“Can’t or won’t?”
“Well, okay. Won’t. Not yet. Investigation is continuing.” I sighed. “You know, Leo, I’m trusting you on this. This is a difficult case. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep the story as straightforward as possible. No supposition, no assumptions.” Before he had a chance to protest, I asked, “What’s your deadline for Tuesday?”
“I can take copy as late as…well, this time on Monday night. We print at five a.m., but I can leave a pocket on page one for a late update. The composing room will bitch and holler, but what the hell.”
“I’ll make sure you have something, then.”
“Don’t go cutting me out of this, Sheriff.”
“I wouldn’t think of it. If I haven’t called you by eleven p.m. on Monday, call dispatch. They’ll know where I am. Salazar’s is handling all the funeral arrangements, so you can get family details from them. Give us some time to work this.”
Bailey sighed. “Look…just one thing. And you gotta know this. The Spencer girl’s wound…back of the head? Temple? Execution style? What?”
“A single wound in the left eye.”
He sucked in a breath. “In the eye?”
“That’s correct.”
“Will Perrone talk to me?”
“Of course not, Leo. Everything goes through me or Sheriff Salcido.” I looked up as the tall, broad figure of Deputy Torrez appeared in my office doorway. He held the manila clasped envelope with hospital logo and tracking sheet printed on the front.
“Leo, I need to go. I will call you at eleven p.m. Monday—and probably before. Maybe we can do lunch.”
“I’m gonna hold you to it.”
“You do that.”
“Oh…wait, wait, wait.” Leo’s plea stopped my hand. “Are you still there?”
I made a deep snoring sound.
“One more thing. You got a minute?”
“Just about.”
“A little bit ago, one of my neighbors said there was all kinds of activity across the street at D’Anzo’s.”
I laughed. “How helpful your neighbor is, Leo.”
“Hey, you know. So what was goin’ on? She saw lots of flashes, like someone was taking a bunch of pictures. Three cop cars. And both Carmen and Rick were in the office. Now that’s unusual for this time of night, don’t you think?”
“It’s been an unusual week, Leo.”
“Come on, now. What was goin’ on?”
“Just insurance photos.”
He scoffed. “You gotta do better than that. Insurance photos at eleven o’clock at night?”
“We’re a twenty-four-hour outfit, Leo. We fit in stuff like that when we can.”
“Impounded vehicle? What’d you have, a hit-and-run or something? Stolen truck?”
“We don’t impound at D’Anzo’s, Leo. The guy hit a stump. How’s that for breaking front-page fodder?”
“Oh. Whoopie.”
“You could do a photo feature on the mechanics as they try to straighten out the front bumper. Or a close-up celebrity shot of the owner’s face when he sees the invoice. Hard-hitting stuff, all of that.”
He chuckled. “Okay. Okay. Don’t forget to call me. Or I’ll call you. Or something.”
“Good night, Leo.”
Chapter Twenty
I hung up and grinned at Robert Torrez. “The press.” I waved him toward a chair. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.” He held the manila envelope with both hands. “I see you stopped by the hospital.”
“I wanted to do a comparison with some of the bullets I recovered from the tank.”
I leaned back, steepled my fingers, and regarded the young man for a long moment. “Let me see if I can make this clear to you, Robert.” While he pondered that, no doubt wondering what was coming, I got up and walked around my desk to close the office door.
“How long were you in the Coast Guard, Robert?”
“Three years, sir.” One eyebrow drifted up in confusion.
“And left with a medical discharge for your knee.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’d you happen to wreck that?”
“An overloaded truck capsized, and some of the steel he was carryin’ took out my motorcycle.”
“You’re lucky it was just a knee.”
“Yep.”
“During those three years with the Coast Guard, did you ever borrow a cutter and take ’er out for a spin?”
“Sir?”
I let my hands relax in my lap. “Why wouldn’t you do that? Port Canaveral, right? I mean that’s beautiful ocean down there. Grab a cutter, go out for a romp off the continental shelf. A little informal patrol looking for druggies. Whale-watching. Something like that?”
His black eyebrows furrowed, and he held up the manila envelope as the connection clicked. “I wasn’t supposed to do this?”
I kept a straight face. This kid was smarter than the average bear. “Let me just say it outright, then, Robert.” I pointed at the parking lot. “That Blazer belongs to Posadas County. When you’re in it, you’re representing the county.”
He nodded slowly.
“And that means, even if you’re busy with a thousand other things, if some distraught civilian flags you down begging for assistance, you stop and do what you can—because that’s what they expect when they see the vehicle and the uniform.”
I nodded toward my office door. “Dispatch controls our traffic. It’s important that Ernie, or Chad, or whoever is on duty, knows where you are…where all the deputies are. If there’s a call, they make the decision, based on the deputies’ twenty, about who is going to respond.” I lifted my eyebrows in expectation, and Torrez returned my gaze steadily.
“I appreciate your initiative, Robert. Don’t get me wrong on that score. But as you’re aware, this is a quasi-military outfit…uniforms, chain of command, all those sorts of things. When you’re taking a department vehicle, dispatch needs to know where you’re going. Don’t just surprise us. If we need you, or the vehicle, we need to know how to contact you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So.” I held out my hand and he extended the envelope. I took it and laid it on my desk without unfastening the clasp. “When was the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?”
He almost smiled. “It’s been a while, sir.”
I rested a hand on the manila envelope. “We don’t want any mistakes. The first thing I want you to do is park the Blazer, hang up the keys, take your truck and go home and crash. Hug your folks, talk to the kids, and then get some sleep. We’ll do the tests first thing in the morning.” I stood up and thrust out my hand. His return handshake was strong. “I’m going to do the same thing. In the meantime, Baker is working graveyard. He understands the deal with Bailey’s truck, and will keep his eyes open.”
It seemed like such a logical plan, something to sleep on. The folder with the morgue’s evidence stayed in my locked file, and, sure enough—Robert Torrez’ Chevy took him home. The Blazer stayed in the lot, freshly fueled and ready to go when needed.
My own home welcomed me with deep, dark silence. As the clock crept up on midnight, I shed boots, hat, gunbelt, radio, and all the other junk that cops lug around. I flipped the colorful bedspread to one side—a huge quilt that my eldest daughter had labored over and that my housekeeper kept wrinkle-free and inviting—and I stretched out with a sigh. I think I saw the clock tick over to 12:08. A good solid hour of sleep, and I don’t know how many times the phone rang when it finally succeeded in its assault at seventeen minutes after one. I’d been home for a little more than an hour.
“Gastner,” I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.
“Damn it all to hell,” Leo Bailey said by way of greeting. “You didn’t tell me who owned the Dodge pickup truck you guys impounded.”
/> “You didn’t ask.” I rolled onto my back.
“Do you know?”
“Of course we know. So what do you want at this hour of the morning?”
“Why is my brother’s truck locked up in D’Anzo’s yard?”
I pulled myself upright in bed and swung around until I could plant my feet on the cool saltillo tile floor.
“Les Attawene tells me that he hauled the truck in from the Broken Spur Saloon.”
“Well, then that’s probably right.” I reached out and nudged the pack of cigarettes that rested on the nightstand, then decided against it. Caffeine first, then vitamin N.
“What’s with the Sheriff’s seal pasted all over the back? I had to walk all the way around the enclosure to get a look at that.”
“Trespassing all the way.”
“Oh, Christ. Yeah, right.”
“As long as you called, pass the word along to your brother, is it? We need to talk with him.”
“He’s hunting those mangy pigs down in Mexico with some buddies. You know Artie Torkelson, don’t you? Stuart’s brother?”
“Sure.” Artie and his older brother Stuart somehow managed to make a living selling Posadas County real estate, specializing in breaking up defunct ranchland.
“Him and an Army buddy. The three of them went down to Mangas it was, I think.”
“So your brother and Artie Torkelson—who’s the third?”
“Fella by the name of Joe Smith. I’m serious. That’s his name. Lieutenant Joe Smith, I think. He’s an MP or something like that. They got all the paperwork together and went south for a few days. At the same time they were going to scout out some antelope country down by Prescott’s ranch. For the fall hunts. So damn,” and he took a moment to suck on a cigarette. “What’s the SO’s interest in Cliff’s truck? He miss some parking tickets or something?”
“No.” I wasn’t about to explain to Leo that his brother may have pranged the pickup while speeding after the teens. In all fairness, that might not have been what had happened at all. But coincidence after coincidence was piling up. If we matched the bullet fragment in Darlene Spencer’s brain with any of the bullets from the stock tank, or from either of Clifton Bailey’s guns, we’d have a lot more than coincidence.
“Look, Leo…let me tell you exactly what I know for sure. And then you gotta let me get some sleep. I’m about comatose here.” I took a deep breath. “Your brother, if that’s who it is that owns the Dodge at D’Anzo’s, somehow damaged his truck. You saw the damage to the front end?”
“Sure enough.”
“Well, he had it towed in to D’Anzo’s, but he didn’t accompany it. They tell me that he gave verbal instructions to the tow truck driver to have D’Anzo’s do the repairs. But he didn’t sign a work order, or leave a deposit. So they’re not going to work on the truck until he returns and does the paperwork.”
“Well, that’s dumb. Of course, I never claimed that my brother was a rocket scientist, either. But it doesn’t explain the Sheriff’s seals, my friend.”
“I’ve told you all I can tell you, Leo.”
He exhaled a long, fart-like flapping of the lips. “Look, I’ll run over and sign for the work.”
“Don’t bother. The truck’s not moving until we release it. And that won’t happen until we talk with your brother.”
“You’re not making sense, Sheriff. There’s something else going on here.”
“Be patient. If your brother happens to call you, tell him to get his ass back here.”
“Like there are phones all over down in that Mexican back country. Look, you know what I’m thinkin’.”
“I do?”
“Yeah, you do. That saloon is right down in that area where you say the kids were partying? They speed off and crash comin’ off the interstate. My brother’s on the same county road, goin’ too fast, as usual. What’d you say he hit?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, what did he hit?”
“An old stump just off the county road.”
“Well, wowser. A goddamn stump. Okay, so he crashes into a stump. There’s all kinds of little connecting threads floatin’ around with all this.” Leo Bailey may have sounded like an Midwestern redneck, but he was a perceptive newsman.
“I’ll call you with an update Monday night, Leo. Have your brother call me. Or better yet, have him come see me when he gets back from Mexico.” Leo grumbled something incomprehensibly profane and hung up.
I hung up and relaxed back on the bed. Stuart Torkelson, mentioned by Leo Bailey as brother to one of the hunting buddies, was one of those “pillar of the community” sorts, a man with membership in a couple service clubs, with one term under his belt on the Board of Education, and a helpful, coordinating volunteer for Toys for Tots. He judged during the local science fair, helped with 4-H, and was a stalwart member of the Church of Christ. More than once, I’d kept him company in the grandstands during a Posadas Jaguars football game.
His brother, Arthur “Artie” Torkelson, was sort of a shaky pillar. He hit the bottle enough, but hadn’t yet learned to do it in the privacy of his own home. That habit had led him to cross paths with us on a fairly regular basis.
That little link chimed in my tired brain. Several weeks before, well after midnight, Deputy Howard Bishop had helped Critter Cop Doug Posey clean up the remains of a mule deer who’d lingered in the middle of State 56 for a few seconds too long. Artie Torkelson’s mammoth Ford one-ton diesel crew cab dually smacked the poor creature so hard that she was tossed a hundred yards down the road, ending up in the middle of the oncoming lanes.
Deputy Bishop was promptly on hand because he’d been parked at the intersection of County Road 14 and the state highway, partially hidden behind the state’s gravel pile. From there, he could see Artie Torkelson’s truck parked at the Broken Spur. The deputy had seen him leave, and pulled out to follow, intending to ticket Torkelson if the man’s pickup so much as kissed the highway’s dotted center line.
Fur and brains and guts blasted all over the pavement showed that Torkelson hadn’t strayed from his lane, and he passed the field sobriety test, steady enough that the deputy hadn’t bothered with the breathalyzer.
That deer-icide helped explain for me why Clifton Bailey—perhaps in company with his buddies—had been in the neighborhood of the Broken Spur Wednesday evening. They knew the place, and favored it with their patronage. No doubt, over a beer or three, Artie Torkelson had recounted his collision with wildlife.
I meandered into the kitchen and started the coffeemaker. For a long time, I leaned against the counter, watching the pot. My stomach growled, and I looked at the clock. I had three hours before Fernando Aragon would open the back door of the Don Juan de Oñate Restaurant to begin his prepping for the day. He was used to seeing me early, and never groused about the special favors. The pot gurgled and the little light came on, but I was engrossed in thought.
What if the bullet from Darlene Spencer’s brain matched one of the slugs recovered from Herb Torrance’s cattle tank? And by extension, what if it matched a bullet test-fired from one of Clifton Bailey’s guns—either the Ruger carbine or the Ruger Super Blackhawk revolver? That was clearly the path down which we were headed.
But all of that led to another interesting question. If there was a match, who pulled the trigger? Bailey? One of his two friends? Could they have met the partying youngsters and let them have a go with one of the magnums—just the kind of rip-roaring firearm performance that would appeal to the kiddos. Maybe they’d dipped some of the empty beer cans on the rim of the tank, so that the water-filled aluminum containers would have erupted when struck by a bullet—especially one from a large-caliber gun.
And that led to a thought that raised bile in my protesting gut. How could the shooter, after hearing the ricochet whine away into the brush, not have been a member of the party wh
o went looking for Darlene? Did she cry out? Had she been at the stock tank, and left the company of friends to go potty? Wouldn’t someone notice when she didn’t return? How could circumstances be that Darlene had simply been abandoned, to bleed out during the night?
Fitful sleep isn’t much good, but fresh coffee helped me grab a few winks until, at five a.m., I forced myself out of bed, showered, shaved, and found fresh clothes. At five-thirty I was checked in with dispatch and parked at the Don Juan de Oñate. The restaurant didn’t open until seven, but no matter.
“Breakfast burrito, green, sour cream, all the trimmings,” Fernando sang when he saw me open the screen door into the kitchen. I didn’t recognize the tune, but he had a good, operatic voice.
“I love ya,” I said, nodding.
“Coffee’s ready. Right there at the island. You know where it is. Help yourself.” He looked hard at me. “Tough night, eh? In fact, this has been a tough couple of days, no?”
“Yep.”
“How about an egg on top of that?”
“You bet. Two would be even better.” I skirted around him, giving him a paternal pat on the rock-hard muscle of his shoulder.
“Terrible thing,” he said. I knew what he was talking about, so I just nodded. “Too many, too young. Muy trágico.”
The screen door opened and Aileen, Fernando’s daughter, entered, and favored me with a huge smile. This father-daughter combination was quite a contrast with the pair down in the southern corner of the county at the Broken Spur. Aileen was stout, damn-near burly, with short black hair and a sweet face—she looked more like her mother, Adeline, who would arrive at seven.
“Bobby’s out in the parking lot,” she informed me.
“Bobby?”
“Okay, Dreamboat Bobbie,” she corrected. I recalled Carmen D’Anzo’s expression when she greeted the deputy and me at the car dealership and offered coffee. I wondered how many other fair damsels in Posadas were going to be breathlessly following Robert Torrez’ career, hoping that he’d direct a “yep” at them. “I told him to come in and have some breakfast, but he said he’s already eaten.”
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