One Perfect Shot

by Steven F Havill

  I handed the phone to her, and after a moment, she stopped listening and hung up.

  “Now what happens?” she asked. “You know, our hearts just go out to Marilyn. Such a loss for her.”

  “When we cross paths with Mo, we’ll have a chat,” I said, and it sounded as if I didn’t really care one way or another. Mindy Arnett relaxed a little. “Kids these days, eh?”

  “Oh, my,” she sighed, and turned her attention to Estelle. “Will we be seeing more of you now?”

  Estelle replied with a gentle but noncommittal smile. “I’ll tell mamá that we spoke, Mrs. Arnett. She’ll be pleased to hear that things are going well.”

  “You’ll bring her by the next time she visits.”

  “I’m sure.”

  I stood up abruptly, a clear signal that we were on our way. “The Pontiac is in the garage?” I asked, and Mindy was caught off guard by the question.

  “The Pontiac?”

  “Yes. The little gold one.”

  “Well, sure it is. I’ve been walking to work the past few weeks, trying to lose a little of the avoir dupois.” She patted her hip, then frowned. “Now, Mark is real strict with Mo about when and where he drives. Never to school. Never at night. And never, never with a carload of friends. In fact, most of the time, all he gets to drive is the truck when he rides with his dad. Not the Jeep or my car.”

  “Driving will consume his time soon enough,” I said. “Mindy, we’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for talking with us.” I fished out one of my cards and handed it to her. “If you see Mo before we do, have him give me a call.”

  “The garage is open, sheriff. If you need to satisfy your curiosity about the car, it’s parked right there. You’re welcome to look.”

  “Thanks, Mindy. We may do that.” Once outside, I took a deep breath to rinse out the stale, perfumed air of the rectory. “You know,” I said to Estelle as we settled into the car, “I have four kids. They’ve been out of the nest for years and years. And I can’t remember when I stopped checking on their whereabouts every minute of the day.” I looked at her, but knew I was talking a foreign concept. She was four years out of school herself, and I’m sure there were a myriad of times when her mother had to trust in her abiding faith that this daughter was safe and well in the United States. Great-uncle Reuben, on the other hand? The concept of reins would never enter his old head.

  “I mean, when they’re little, you keep your eyes and ears sharp, even the eye in the back of your head. Then they hit middle school, and it seems easier just to shout, ‘be home by eight!’ without a clue about where they really are or what they’re really doing. And high school? Forget it. We just start trusting ’em and hope that they survive the experience.”

  “Most do, fortunately,” she said.

  “Yep, they usually do.” I turned back toward Fourth Street and nosed the county car into the Arnett driveway. Sure enough, the handle of the garage was turned sideways to the unlocked position. And sure enough, after I got out of the car and rolled the heavy door up, all that remained of the Pontiac were vague scuffs on the garage’s concrete floor. I stood there, both hands on the door over my head, trying to believe that there was a simple explanation for all this. Estelle had gotten out of the car as well, but stayed a step or two behind me.

  “And so much for that,” I said. “Mom is right…the little bastard never drives to school.” I glanced back at Estelle as I eased the door downward. “But where else remains the question.” She was leafing through note book pages, but I could have told her that her memory was correct—Hugh Decker, with his 20/200 vision, claimed to have noticed a small, dark, innocuous sedan at the intersection of Highland and Hutton with a single occupant.

  For a long moment, I stood in the sun in front of the door, looking down at the concrete at my feet. “What makes me sick with all this is that it fits,” I said. “A kid sneaks away for a little hooky—a little R & R before school settles in for the duration. He takes mom’s car—hell, she won’t know. She’s at work, and dad’s out of town. Sis is at school, where she’s supposed to be. Mo takes the car, maybe takes one of dad’s rifles, and on impulse takes a wild shot at a parked piece of county machinery.”

  I checked that the garage door was secure and made my way back to the car. I didn’t pull it into gear, but just sat there like a lump, musing. “Fits, doesn’t it?” I said finally.

  “Almost,” Estelle Reyes said. Her voice was so soft I cocked my head.

  “Almost?”

  “I don’t understand it as a wild impulse, sir. Not a wild shot like one of the highway shooters taking a pot shot at a road sign. It appears that the killer got out of the car and walked some distance toward the road grader, sir. That’s if Mr. Decker’s testimony is believable. And then he saw a figure walking…not running…walking back to the car.” She fell silent, and I prompted her with a beckoning motion of the hand. “I agree that with the afternoon sun on a dirty windshield that it would have been nearly impossible to tell if the grader was occupied.”

  “The killer would have heard the grader idling, though,” I said.

  “He possibly could have, if he walked close enough. If the wind was right.”

  “So what are you saying, then?” Estelle hesitated, and I added, “I’m serious. I want to know what scenario makes sense to you. You’re saying that you see a definite intent in all this? Not just senseless vandalism?” Anyone who had been thinking as hard as she had been should have had some notions, and at this point, I was open to suggestions, even from a sub-rookie. Something in that quiet, analytical manner of hers impressed the hell out of me.

  “I find it hard to believe that it was an accident, sir.”

  “That’s what’s been giving me nightmares for the past couple of days.” I spun my index finger beside my skull, mimicking an old film projector. “I keep playing out the scene, and that creates more questions than answers. If some guy had a serious grudge against Larry Zipoli—I mean something that would drive him to murder—then I wonder why he took the shot from fifty or sixty yards away…when he would have had difficulty making out the target through a grubby windshield? Why not stalk right up to the grader, maybe have time for a word or two, a curse or two, and then bang. Right through the open door.”

  “Fear of confrontation, maybe?” Estelle said. “And maybe we’re supposed to think it was an accident—what’s been mentioned since day one. A moment of vandalism gone wrong.”

  “Fear of confrontation.” I echoed, and gazed at Estelle thoughtfully. “You’re goddamned right about that. It takes a special kind of cold son of a bitch to look the victim right in the eye before the shot. So he takes it from a safe distance. If the shot misses, and Zipoli comes charging out of that machine to pound his lights out, then maybe he can sprint back to the car in time.”

  “Why not just take another shot?” Estelle asked.

  “Why not indeed. A miss gives him time to reconsider, maybe. Shoot and run is one thing. Trying again is another kettle of fish. Shoots and run. That’s what makes sense to me.” I pulled the car into gear and backed out into Fourth Street. “Shit,” I muttered. “And that’s what fits. So where did the little bastard go?” I reached for the mike, and in a moment dispatch was handling a BOLO call—be on the lookout for a little gold Pontiac, license CLT 499. I was loath to add the armed and dangerous advisory, but wishful thinking wasn’t going to make anyone safe.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Jason Packard had found better things to do than attend school, and it didn’t take a BOLO to find him. The door of his grandparents’ garage was open wide, and Jason was working at the bench in the back, under the light of a fluorescent fixture. He wasn’t alone. Tom Pasquale had had enough lung busting. He had circled back to town, and now he and Jason were deep in conference over a bicycle wheel that was suspended in some form of vise. A tiny dial indicator
mounted on the side of the vise measured the wheel rim’s wobble in thousandths.

  Years ago, one of my sons had tried to true the front wheel of his bike, spinning it in his hands, squinting with one eye closed, then wrenching on the heads of the spokes. He didn’t know what he was doing, and when he gave up, his wheel wobbled just as much or more than when he started. Packard’s approach, with Pasquale kibitzing, appeared far more scientific.

  While Tom Pasquale was ruggedly built, broad through the shoulders and already starting to put on the padding that promised him as a real bruiser as an adult, Jason Packard was a typically thin and wiry ranch kid. He could probably throw bales of hay off a tractor-trailer for hours without breaking stride. That his mom and stepfather couldn’t find some common ground with this hardheaded boy was one of those senseless tragedies that always left me shaking my head in puzzlement.

  The two kids didn’t stop work when the county car slid up to the curb, although they certainly saw us. As Estelle and I walked up the driveway, Jason stepped back from the wheel and let fly with a string of profanity as he tossed a wrench onto the bench. I suppose the obscenities were for Estelle’s benefit.

  “Mr. Packard, Mr. Pasquale,” I said pleasantly. “How goes the truing?” A flicker of surprise touched Jason’s face. Geezers who knew about truing bike wheels? Jeez, what’s the world coming to. Leaning against the workbench was the gold and blue racing bike that Pasquale had been riding earlier, minus the front wheel. “Hit a curb?”

  Tom grinned sheepishly. “Yes, sir. That’s exactly what I did.”

  “It jumped into your path, did it?”

  “I got cut off,” he said. “You know, some lady wasn’t watching and cut me off when she turned right.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced down as he shifted his weight, and I saw a scrape just above his ankle. “I didn’t dump it, but came close.”

  “Did she stop?”

  “Ah, no, sir.” The kid grinned. “She waved, though.”

  “Well then, that makes it all right.” I stepped closer and peered at the wheel. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  I nudged the wheel gently and watched the little dial indicator as it flickered only a thou-and-a-half through a full revolution. “Hell of a good job.” Packard didn’t reply, but he looked pleased. “So. Have either of you two seen Mo around lately?”

  “No, sir.” Pasquale’s answer was immediate, but I saw a twitch of expression on Jason Packard’s narrow face that told me he’d rather talk about bike wheels.

  “Jason?”

  “Nope.”

  “But he’s been riding with you lately?”

  “Well…some, I guess. He can’t keep up, the wuss.”

  I laughed. “You set the blistering pace, do you?”

  “He don’t have a decent bike,” Jason said. “And he won’t work on getting in shape.”

  “But he’d like to?”

  Jason frowned, not sure how to answer. He settled for a noncommittal shrug.

  For a long moment, I regarded the wheel in the vise as the hub gently drifted on perfect bearings. “So you haven’t seen him around today or yesterday? It’s unusual that the three of you all ditched school today. You were all planning a ride or something?”

  “Just got things to do,” Jason said. He glanced at Tom Pasquale, probably wondering what else his cycling friend had told me during our earlier conversation. I couldn’t imagine that Tom hadn’t mentioned his traffic stop out on NM17, or my admonition that stop signs applied to cyclists. I jumped right into the issue at hand, hoping for a little shake-up value.

  “What do you think about what happened to Larry Zipoli, Jason?”

  It was one of those stupid questions in the same category as those asked of catastrophe survivors by television reporters. Before either young man had the chance to cook up a response, I added, “Did either of you ever hear arguments between Zipoli and anybody else?”

  “No, sir,” Tom Pasquale said, and his expression added, “What arguments?”

  “Arguments with the neighbors? Fence encroachment, unkempt lawns, the boat leaking oil, kids hanging around at all hours, maybe dealing marijuana…”

  Jason Packard’s frown was dark and stormy, and he glared at me incredulously. “Jesus, mister, where’d you dig up all that shit?” Obviously he wasn’t a kid easily intimidated, by stepfathers, school staff, or cops.

  “None of it’s true?”

  “I don’t know about any of that.”

  “You ever have the chance to pass the time of day with Jim Raught next door?”

  “No. I seen him once in a while. He keeps to himself.”

  “Did you overhear any arguments that Mr. Zip might have had with him?”

  “No. That ain’t any of my business what they do.” He touched the wheel so that it coasted another turn.

  “You guys shared a beer or two from time to time with Mr. Zipoli?”

  “Sure. Why not?” I glanced sideways at Tom Pasquale. He couldn’t suppress the fidgits, and his T-shirt armpits were wet.

  “About a hundred reasons.” I picked a tiny piece of something off one of the wheel’s yellow spokes. “So let me ask you both something you do know about.” I regarded Jason thoughtfully. “The other day, the three of you apparently stopped up on the county road to chat with Larry Zipoli—just up past the old drive-in. But one of our witnesses says he saw just the two of you there. Not three.”

  “Yeah? So?” Jason’s tone was wary. Tom Pasquale studiously examined the concrete floor, since he knew what he’d already told me.

  “Were was Mo? Wasn’t he out riding with you that day?”

  “Yeah, he was on that wreck of a bike of his.”

  “He lagged behind, or went on ahead while you guys talked with Zipoli? Is that it?”

  “He went on ahead a ways. He said he was havin’ trouble with his chain.” Jason shrugged expressively. “What’s to go wrong with that thing? He’s always comin’ up with something like that. Always some lame excuse.”

  “A lame excuse for what? For talking with Zipoli? For sharing a brew on a hot day? Does this Mo guy have an issue with Zipoli somehow?”

  Jason almost laughed at that. “This Mo guy,” he repeated. “Not no more issues now, I guess.”

  “He did have, though?”

  “Mr. Z picked on him sometimes,” Tom Pasquale offered.

  “Because?”

  The boy shrugged. “Just ‘cause. Mo was kinda clumsy. Kinda chubby.”

  “And Zipoli wasn’t?”

  “I’m just saying.” Tom smiled. “Mo couldn’t ski…I mean he tried, but he couldn’t stay up more’n a hundred yards. He made it up once, and Mr. Z spun the boat around in a real tight circle, and that dumped him.” The young man laughed with delight at the memory. “The only time Mo got up, and he gets dumped.”

  “That made Mo angry?”

  “Well, Mr. Z did that with all of us,” Jason said. “I mean, it was just part of the fun.” He drew circles in the air. “You know, you drive the boat in a circle tighter and tighter, and pretty soon the skier can’t keep the slack out of the tow rope and you just kinda sink. If you’re paying attention, you can hand-over-hand some of the ski rope slack, but that don’t work for very long. Anyways, Mo couldn’t do that. Stayin’ up was his big accomplishment, and then he got dumped.”

  “Well, big fizz,” I said. “The kid can’t take a little horseplay. Is that what you’re saying?” I had no idea where all this was headed, but the two boys were talking then, and I didn’t want it to stop.

  Jason nodded. “He got mad last week ‘cause Mr. Z bet him a buck that he couldn’t take me.”

  “What do you mean, he couldn’t take you?”

  The lad looked pained. “We rode out
on Highland a little bit. I was trying to sell him my old Peugeot,” and he turned and nodded at a well-worn ten-speed that hung from the wall. “Just a little test ride. Mr. Z was out there that day, too. He was workin’ on the grader. Seems like it was broke down more than it worked.”

  “And you stopped to visit?”

  “Yep. Just to shoot the breeze for a minute or two.”

  “Any refreshments that day?”

  Jason smiled slyly. “No.” He looked sideways at me to see just how gullible I was.

  “And this ‘take you’ business?” I prompted.

  “Mr. Z kinda poked Mo in the gut, you know. He was just joking around, but he’s always after Mo, every chance he gets. He’d say, ‘When’s the baby due?’ or shit like that.”

  “There’s an old adage about a pot and a kettle,” I said. “Did Mo ever give back as good as he got?”

  Jason shook his head slowly. “He’s just not too good at that. He just gets mad and goes off by himself.”

  “That’s what happened that day?”

  “Well, sort of. Mr. Z is all into boxing, you know. He was always saying that he wanted to get a club started in town. And then he kind of stepped back a little, standing there like a referee or something with his hands on his hips. ‘Winner gets the buck,’ he said. ‘Hell, make it five.’”

  “Winner? He wanted you and Mo to fight, you mean?”

  “Sure. I knew he was jokin’. But I don’t think Mo did. I pretended to get set.” Jason held up two fists, fighter like, and glowered over his knuckles. A good glower, too. I would have been convinced.

  “What did Mo do?”

  “Well, he kind of got all flustered, sort of. And then I got to thinkin’ I could use five bucks. No big deal. I was thinkin’ we could play around some, you know. Pretend boxing. I poked him up here,” and Jason rubbed his own cheek near the jaw line. “Nothin’ hard or anything. Just like they do in Hollywood. But Mo, he didn’t lean back and I kinda hit him maybe a little harder than I wanted.”

  “You connected, you mean.”