by Mark Reps
“Yes, he most certainly did. I don’t think I need to tell you he is quite an expert when it comes to cars.”
Sheriff Hanks knew it for certain having talked to Lorenzo García many times since his Chevy LUV had been stolen.
“The car was a Chevrolet Vega. Mr. García said he even mentioned to the young man that he should get a different car because the aluminum engine in the Vega is nothing but trouble. He said the young man laughed and told him he was thinking about getting a new pickup, maybe one just like Mr. García’s.”
“Did Mr. García say what color the Vega was?” asked Sheriff Hanks.
“He said the name of the color of the car in Spanish. Amarillo.”
The sheriff knew that meant yellow.
“Did he say what kind of shape the Vega was in?”
“He called it a real rust bucket. Mr. García said he couldn’t believe anyone would let a car get in as bad of shape as that. He figured it was probably all the young man could afford.”
The wheels spinning in Zeb’s head gripped like the traction on a firm road. The description of the vehicle, yellow and rusted, was a perfect match to the recently stolen Vega. What were the odds Mr. García’s truck was stolen by the young Mexican man in the Vega? Could there be a link between the young Mexican and the dead girl in Mr. García’s burnt out truck.
“Deputy Steele, are you still in the vicinity of the García place?”
“Six or seven miles back toward town,” replied the deputy.
“I want you to go back and get a detailed description of the driver of the Vega from Mr. García.”
“I have a decent one, but I can get a better one. I will do that right now.”
Kate was starting to put the same pieces together as the sheriff. Stolen yellow Vega, young man, stolen Chevy LUV pickup that the young man in the possibly stolen Vega had seen as an easy opportunity. And, a dead young Mexican woman in Mr. García’s stolen pickup. It was a long shot, but it had to be considered. It was the hottest lead they had.
“Did you find out anything else?” asked Sheriff Hanks.
“Nothing specific. I did talk with four or five people out that way who complained about fast traffic. It seems an oversized pickup, a high rider with an elevated cab, has been seen speeding down those roads at what some of the people said was over a hundred miles an hour. They asked me to set up a speed trap out there. I told them that would be impossible but that we would be on the lookout for speeders, especially in big pickup trucks. I believe some of the older folks are quite scared about it, especially after Mr. García’s truck was stolen.”
A crosswind carried a trail of dust into the wooded dale behind the Madrigal place where it settled restlessly. Overhead, the squeaking from the windmill ceased, replaced by a constant droning hum as the wind became steady. The faint odor of dried sage surrounded Zeb as he stared at the disabled truck pondering the old man’s motive. What did Felipe Madrigal have to gain by calling in a bomb threat? Why risk what little he had?
“I will see you back in town,” said Sheriff Hanks, clicking off the two-way radio.
He returned to the house and grabbed the pictures from the table. Maybe being surrounded by pictures of his family would loosen the old man’s tongue. It was a long shot but he needed something. Maybe Kate would find something as well.
Back in town Zeb made an official stop at Josh Diamond’s gun shop. The clanging cowbell signaled his entrance as Josh’s bloodhounds eyed him curiously. The proprietor was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll be right there,” shouted the store owner. “I’ve just hard wired the place with a new security system. So don’t try and walk off with anything.”
Josh peeked over the swinging doors. He greeted his old border patrol buddy with a broad smile.
“Zeb, welcome back to my home away from home. I’m cleaning up an old Winchester repeater.” Josh reached out to shake Zeb’s hand but withdrew, noticing just how filthy his hands were. “This rifle is a real beauty. Come on back here and have a look.”
Zeb slipped around the edge of the counter. The broken glass had been replaced and a new set of guns had been placed in the Elk antlers.
“Look at this. It’s a Winchester 94. It’s one hundred percent original, right down to the gold inlay. There aren’t many of these old gals around anymore. It even has John Ulrich’s name engraved. Want to see?”
Josh’s infectious enthusiasm was catching and calming. Zeb found himself feeling light and happy as he watched his old pal softly run his hand along the stock and barrel of the rifle. This time his memories of the border patrol days were better ones. He remembered how Josh liked to take his weapon apart, clean it and put it back together, blindfolded, just like in the movies. It had been a difficult morning trying to dig into Felipe Madrigal’s psyche. Zeb was glad for the distraction.
“Nice thirty-caliber,” said Zeb eyeing the weapon.
“I’m impressed,” exclaimed Josh. “I didn’t know you knew these old-fashioned guns.”
“What sort of a western lawman would I be if I didn’t know about the most famous deer rifle in history?”
“Tell me more,” said Josh, egging on Zeb. “I didn’t have you pegged for the collector type.”
Zeb held the gun and eyed down the sight line.
“Lever action, one of the first made, known as the true personification of the romance of the old west. Twenty-six inch barrel, forty-five inches in total length.”
“Forty-four and a half.”
“I was rounding up,” said Zeb. “If you know so much, maybe you can tell me where the gold was mined for the inlay.”
“Just north of San Francisco.”
“Touché.”
As he passed the gun back to Josh, Zeb eyed Josh’s injuries.
“Isn’t it a little tough working with a wrist cast and broken ribs?” asked Zeb.
“When a man loves what he is doing, there is no such thing as pain.”
“Amen,” said Zeb.
The men stood quietly for a moment as Josh wiped the rest of the grease off his hands.
“Zeb, from the look in your eyes this isn’t a social call.”
“Actually, it is business,” replied Zeb. “I was hoping you found something which might lead me to the thieves.”
“Well Zeb, actually I did find something. Here, let me show you what I found.”
Josh led him to the back door. The big two inch by four inch beam still kept the door secure. But Josh had replaced the old latch with a new, complex key lock. As they passed through the door into the alley Zeb observed Josh’s careful, almost measured movements. He had not changed one bit when it came to his unique eye for detail.
“Your deputy, Kate Steele, came by a few hours after you were here. She dusted for prints and made some castings of the boot prints left behind by the alleged perp. She is very competent.”
“You would have to search pretty far and wide to find someone who didn’t think the world of her,” replied Zeb. “And I just bet you find her appealing in many ways.”
“She is all right by me,” said Josh. “As to how all right she is, time will tell.”
Zeb nodded. He wasn’t about to press the private side of Josh Diamond.
“We talked a little. While she was casting the footprints I stood around to watch. Standing there, looking at the boarded up building next to mine, I noticed something I hadn’t previously seen.”
Josh pointed to a piece of plywood covering a busted out basement window in the adjacent abandoned building.
“This is what I called Deputy Steele about.”
Zeb looked down at the sun beaten lumber. The curled piece of wood was cracked, faded from exposure and covered with pigeon droppings. Near the center of the warped board he noticed was a brown discoloration. Beneath the stain a dried drip line ran for a few inches. It looked like a dirty board covering an old window frame. No different in appearance than when he’d originally noticed it.
Josh crouched near the win
dow.
“Right here. This is what struck me as odd.”
Zeb squatted. He ran a finger over the wood near the brown stain.
“Now take a whiff. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Zeb’s furrowed eyebrows caused Josh to snicker. Zeb was well aware Josh knew things about tracking that he could only imagine, but sticking his nose next to a brown stain amid a pile of pigeon droppings seemed a little silly. Zeb did it anyway.
“What do you smell?” asked Josh.
“Pigeon shit,” replied Zeb pulling his head away from the wood.
“Did you get a good smell of the brown stain?” asked Josh.
“Tobacco? It has the foul odor of chewing tobacco. Spittle, my dad used to call it.”
“Very good,” replied Josh. “You pass the test.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at, but isn’t it sort of a stretch connecting it to whoever burgled your store?” asked Zeb.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Josh. “I found some tobacco spittle, as you so aptly put it, in my back office, next to the ammunition. Let’s go back inside. I’ll show you.”
Zeb examined the tobacco stain. Using a pocketknife he scraped it into a borrowed baggie.
“You haven’t taken up the chew, have you?” asked Zeb.
“No. I find it a vile habit.”
“Did anyone who chews tobacco come back into this area?” asked Zeb.
“The only three people that have been back here in the last week are you, your deputy and me.”
“I guess there is a pretty good chance we have ourselves a tobacco chewing thief. If you find anything else, would you please let me know?”
“You can count on it, Sheriff.”
Zeb smiled. Somehow it felt right to have Josh call him that.
23
“Sheriff Hanks just checked in. He said he wanted you to call him right away if you have anything new. Here are your phone messages.”
Kate took the pink slips from Helen and headed for the communications room. The first message was from her grandmother wondering what time she was planning to stop by the Desert Rose Nursing Home. The second was from the editor of the Eastern Arizona Courier requesting an update on the school bombing investigation for the current edition of the weekly paper. The third call was from Eskadi Black Robes. He wanted her to call as soon as possible. Kate activated the radio set and signaled the sheriff’s car.
“Sheriff, this is Deputy Steele. Helen said you wanted me to check in.”
“I’m down in a hollow, but I can hear you pretty well. What have you got?”
“I’ve got some new information.”
“Go ahead. Let’s have it.”
“You know that beat up Chevy Vega with the leaky radiator that Lorenzo García said he helped fix?”
“Yes,” replied Sheriff Hanks.
“It turns out the same guy had the same water leak problem about fifteen miles further down the road. I found another man who told me a young Mexican male stopped at his house and asked for some water for his radiator.”
“Did both people who saw the driver describe him the same way?”
“Yes, the given descriptions match in height, weight, hair color and length, age, right down to the silver necklace with a silver cross around his neck.”
“By any chance did the second witness see anyone in the car with him?”
“Negative,” replied Deputy Steele.
“Thanks, Deputy. I’m on my way back to the office now. Out.”
Kate returned to her office, scribbled a few notes from her conversation with the sheriff and picked up the phone to call Eskadi. He sounded perturbed.
“Why is it when a First American calls a deputy sheriff, it takes forever to get a return call? I bet if I was some White person with a problem you would have called last night.”
“Don’t you even bother to say hello?” asked Kate.
On the other end of the line Eskadi Black Robes emitted a grudging grunt as a substitution for a greeting.
“To answer your question, I was working. I thought your call was personal so I was waiting until I had more time. I didn’t want to have to rush when I called. What’s the problem?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I can’t get any cooperation from the police anywhere. It is truly a matter of the police not giving a damn about Native Americans--even if the police have native blood flowing through their veins.”
“Eskadi, getting short with me isn’t going to solve anything. Please, why don’t you explain to me what you’re talking about?”
Kate was beginning to feel the downside of dating a tribal chairman who believed that the White man conspired against the Indian at every turn. An education at the University of California Berkeley had turned him on to the radical branch of the American Indian Movement. His politics of intolerance of Whites and other authority figures frequently rose to an unreasonable level. His position at the San Carlos Reservation had done little to quell his rage.
“The damn police in Tucson don’t give a good goddamn about a missing person from the reservation. Even if they might have her body,” said Eskadi.
“What are you talking about? A missing person situation?” asked Kate. “You know the reservation isn’t their jurisdiction. You would raise holy heck if they came on the reservation without your permission.”
“Hell, yes I would. But this is different. It’s a missing kid.”
“Did you report it to the reservation police?”
“They don’t seem to give a shit either. No one cares if a dark-skinned, Native American child is missing. It would be an entirely different situation if it were a blond haired, blue eyed kid.
Kate knew that there was a small seed of truth in Eskadi’s observation. Obviously there had been a misunderstanding somewhere along the chain of command. An angry Apache and a stubborn city cop in Tucson mixed like oil and water.
“Maybe I can help,” said Kate. “Tell me what you told the police.”
“I was listening to the news when they had that story on about the young girl’s body,” said Eskadi.
“Are you talking about the young woman who was found in a burned up truck in Tucson?”
“Yes, I am. The reporter said the truck was stolen from outside of Safford.”
“That’s right. The truck belonged to Lorenzo García. He lives outside of town just south of reservation land.”
“The news report said the body was a young female, slight build, about five feet tall. Possibly Mexican…maybe Native American…maybe mixed blood.”
“The possibly Native American part is news to me,” said Kate. “Where did you hear that?”
“I didn’t need to hear it. Those White cops and White coroners wouldn’t know one dark skinned person from another. To them we are all the same.”
“I think you’re making quite a leap.”
“Try seeing it through my eyes,” said Eskadi.
“Tell me what you have,” pressed Kate.
“Kaytee Brince’s daughter, Layna, is missing. She fits the description I heard on the radio to a tee.”
“What makes you think Layna is the dead girl?”
“I’ll tell it to you just like I told it to everybody else. Layna and her boyfriend have been picked up twice for joy riding. They have a history of borrowing trucks that don’t belong to them.”
“Borrowing?”
“Kaytee Brince called me because Layna’s been missing for a week. She thought she was staying over at her boyfriend’s house, but he’s gone too. He has been missing for a week or more as well.”
“Did anyone file a missing person’s report?” asked Kate.
“They’re doing it today.”
“Not a lot can be done until a missing person’s report gets filed. Nobody would know where to begin. Did you tell Mrs. Brince to make sure to mention that her daughter has a history of vehicle theft and joy riding? Believe it or not it might actually speed up the process a bit.”
> “There’s no history of that stuff,” said Eskadi.
“But you just said--,”
“I said they got picked up for joy riding. Each time the truck was returned without any damage. Nobody pressed charges. Not everybody follows the ways of the Whites. Some people make allowances for kids who do stupid things.”
“Give me a description of the two missing kids. You’re in luck because the detective in charge of the case is an old friend of Sheriff Hanks. I have to talk with him anyway.”
“Why don’t you come up here and talk with Kaytee?” asked Eskadi. “She is pretty shook up because no one is willing to look for her daughter. It would be very helpful to me if you would drive up here, and perhaps allay her fears a little bit.”
Kate was up to her ears in work. The San Carlos Reservation was technically out of her jurisdiction. Anyway, Eskadi was probably the one who got Mrs. Brince worried to begin with. If Layna and her boyfriend had a history of joyriding, they would probably show up soon. Eskadi, as usual when it came to police matters, was leapfrogging ahead of himself and the legal process. Kate glanced at her watch.
“Where does she live?”
“Just east of High Rolls off of Indian Route 9 near the Black River. When you get to the first road past the railroad crossing just north of the intersection of Indian Route 9 and Indian Route 4, hang a right. You’ll see my truck,” explained Eskadi.
“Is she there now?”
“No. She’s sitting in my office about five feet away from me.”
“Give me an hour and a half. I have to finish a couple of things here at the office.”
“Thanks, Kate. I’m sorry about being short with you. It’s just that in my job I am supposed to be able to get things done for my people. Sometimes dealing with the White man’s bureaucracy puts me at my wit’s ends.”
“Forget it. If Layna Brince was the girl in the pickup, we had better know about it. If it isn’t her, we need to know that too.”
“There is one other thing too. I almost forgot. Somebody else reported a pair of missing license plates. This time there was an eyewitness. The thief was a White man with a big gun. I thought you would want to know.”