“Going to be a beautiful day, I think,” Urioste offered, a polite way of asking, What do you want at five thirty in the morning?
“I’d like to talk with Hector, if he’s around,” Estelle asked.
“Hector?”
“Yes.” Estelle smiled cordially. “He and I chatted some when I did a career day presentation at the high school.”
“Oh.” Gordon Urioste nodded. “Oh, really? That’s right, I guess I remember. He talked about that.” An even shorter, wider form appeared in the doorway behind him.
“Good morning, Pam,” Estelle said. A loose housecoat, her short hair unruly, Pam Urioste’s early-weekend-morning uniform was a far cry from her polished, carefully groomed image that greeted clients at the insurance office.
“Hi,” the woman replied. “I’ve got coffee on…” And her voice trailed off expectantly.
Each of the three knew that police officers didn’t routinely show up on the doorstep at five thirty on a Sunday morning for idle chitchat about high school career days. Estelle knew the Uriostes well enough to greet them by name—that was all. Gordon glanced across toward the vacant double-wide, and Estelle saw something in his expression that might have been resignation or irritation.
“Look,” he said, “is this about the truck?”
The truck. She was tempted to ask, What truck? But Urioste had opened a door, perhaps unwittingly, and she didn’t want it slammed shut. Instead she said, “Mr. Urioste, I really do need to speak with Hector. I know it’s early, but I have a lot on my plate today, with the bike race and all the rest. If he’s here, then it will only take a minute.”
“Well, sure he’s here,” Pam said, and she began to sound more like the efficient administrative assistant that she was. She started to turn away, but her husband held up a hand.
“Now wait a minute,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “We need to know what this is all about. I mean, after all, we’re Hector’s guardians while he’s in this country.”
“I realize that, sir.” Estelle watched his face, and after a minute, he acquiesced.
“Okay. You want to shag him out here, honey?” Gordon smiled a little. “That might be a trick. He’s been dog-tired these past couple of weeks. Final exams, you know. He takes ’em serious.”
“I’m sure he does.”
They waited silently, and Urioste studiously avoided looking at Estelle. More than once, he glanced next door, and it wasn’t difficult for Estelle to guess what the attraction was.
In a moment, Pam Urioste reappeared, and she looked first at her husband. “He’s not here,” she said.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?” Urioste said, but it didn’t sound convincing.
“What else could I mean?” Pam snapped. “He’s not in the house.” And sure enough, Gordon Urioste’s eyes flicked to the right, toward the abandoned double-wide trailer next door.
“So,” Estelle said, “tell me about the truck, sir.”
“What’s this?” Pam asked. “What truck?”
“Look, I told him that he shouldn’t use it again…well, not too much, anyway. You know,” Urioste said, “after the old man passed away over there—” and he waved a hand toward his neighbor’s “—things have just sat there, you know. That old Chevy—I guess the bank will end up taking it. I was going to see about maybe putting a bid on it.”
Estelle turned and surveyed the double-wide. “There’s usually a truck parked there?” She racked her memory, trying to form a picture.
“The old man—you knew him?” Urioste asked.
“Reynaldo Estrada,” Estelle said. “I’m sure just about everybody knew Reynaldo.” One of the community’s perennial bachelors, Estrada had been a talented stonemason when not wrapped around a bottle, and before advanced years turned his knuckles to arthritic crystal.
The old man had died long before young Hector had arrived on the scene, but an abandoned Chevrolet pickup posed an attractive nuisance. A teenager with a finely honed sense of trespass might find it tempting to investigate. “Hector has the keys to his truck?”
“Well, they were in it,” Urioste said. “The old man, he used to tuck the keys under the floor mat so he wouldn’t lose ’em. He told me that himself once, just in case I needed to borrow it for wood or something like that.”
Estelle took a deep breath. “When was Hector here last?” Urioste started to waffle, and Estelle cut him off. “Look, sir, this is important. When—exactly—did you see Hector last?”
“I went to bed at about eleven,” Pam offered. “Hector was reading in his room then.”
Her husband nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right.”
“Did you hear him go out, sir?”
He started to shake his head, then thought better of it. “He got up early.”
“What time?”
“Five, maybe.”
“Did he take the truck?”
Gordon hesitated.
“Sir?”
“I heard it start up,” he said finally. He nodded toward the dwelling next door. “And it’s not there now, so—”
“Do you know where he planned to go?”
“He and his girlfriend were going to hike in a ways on the mesa to find a good spot to watch the race. That’s what he told me yesterday.”
“Who’s the girlfriend?”
“I’m not sure who he’s seeing now. Last week, it was Penny Mendoza.” He laughed weakly. “I’m not sure about who it might be this week. He’s something of a lady killer, you know.”
Not just ladies, Estelle thought. “But you think that’s where he planned to go today?” she asked. “Up on the mesa?”
“I think so. Yes.” He seemed relieved that the story had finally come out.
“We can hope that’s where he’s going,” Estelle said. “If he comes back before I have a chance to talk with him, make sure you let me know, all right?” She handed them one of her cards. “It’s very, very important.”
“We should keep him here, then? When he comes back?”
Estelle had already turned to tackle slobber alley again. She paused, fending off the first flailing tongue. “Yes,” she said. “That would be a very good idea. I’ll be in touch.” When she backed the county car out of the driveway, Pam and Gordon Urioste were still standing in the doorway of their double-wide, wondering what had just happened to their lives.
Accelerating hard out the dirt road, Estelle palmed the phone and touched the auto-dial for dispatch.
“Brent,” she said quickly, cutting off Sutherland’s slow-paced greeting, “what’s Taber’s twenty?”
“Just a sec, ma’am.” Estelle’s county car reached the pavement of Bustos Avenue, and with a howl headed eastbound on the quiet street. Flashing past the center of Posadas, she then turned north on County 43.
“Estelle, Jackie’s west, out toward Regál Pass.”
“Good. Look, find out what license plate old Reynaldo Estrada had on his Chevy pickup. Alert Jackie and ask her to keep a watch for that truck, possibly driven by a Mexican national teenager.” Estelle glanced at the dash clock. The border crossing at Regál would open in just a few minutes. “Have her check with Customs.”
“I’m on it.”
“I’m headed to the airport.”
“Ten-four.”
She pushed the car even harder after turning westward on the state highway that headed out toward Posadas Municipal Airport. If Hector Ocate was bumping the old pickup up Cat Mesa with his girlfriend riding beside him, looking for the perfect vantage point to watch the race, Estelle would breathe a deep sigh of relief.
But she also knew that, if Hector had been the pilot of Jerry Turner’s airplane, he could have had opportunity to hear about the investigation—about the officers snooping around the airport, or about the discovery of the three bodies. Anyone driving past Posadas Municipal Airport on the state highway would have seen activity. Anyone driving south on State 56 toward Regál would have seen the gathering of lights at the
gas company’s airstrip. Anyone at the saloon would have heard Jim Bergin’s landing and takeoff.
Estelle hadn’t been listening, but it was likely that at least one of the area radio stations had carried some item, however sketchy, about the tragic events.
Had he glanced out the window of his bedroom, likely in the back of the house where bedrooms always were, he might even have seen the gathering of vehicles at Matt Grider’s room. It wouldn’t be rocket science to put all the numbers together. Knowing that something might be amiss, Hector Ocate would know that safety lay just minutes south of the border.
Chapter Eighteen
She hadn’t stayed at the airport after the flight to make sure that Jim Bergin and Jerry Turner had locked everything up. She could only hope. Jim had said that he planned to stay at the airport, but he might not have meant that very night. And Turner? Hopefully, he had taken the Cessna’s keys with him this time—but for an enterprising repeat burglar, that didn’t pose much of a problem. Several places in town could duplicate keys for a buck. How handy it would be to have a spare ignition and a spare door key.
Although there was inadequate personnel to have a deputy sitting at the airport full-time, the airport was under close patrol. Several times each shift, deputies cruised by, checking locks, checking for illegal access. That didn’t prevent much. With the prairie whisper-quiet, a patrol vehicle could be heard a mile away—certainly easily enough when its tires crunched the gravel of the airport’s driveway. Anyone could step into the shadows and wait until the cop was gone.
And Estelle grimaced to herself as she realized that they had all made a fundamental mistake, thinking from the beginning that the killer was long gone after the three homicides.
She found herself wondering how long it would take to push the big doors open, jump into the Cessna, crank it up, and flee. Less than a minute without checklists and careful run-ups?
The county car rocketed down a state highway thankfully devoid of traffic at that early hour. Three miles east of the airport, she overtook a diesel pickup, and caught a glimpse of a startled Jim Bergin as she blew past at nearly twice his speed.
“Three-ten, PSO.”
She picked up the radio mike. “Go ahead.”
“Three-ten, be advised the license number you requested is one-eight-three, Tom Kilo Lincoln. It should appear on a blue 1978 Chevrolet half-ton. Registration expired eleven of oh-six.”
She acknowledged.
“Three-oh-four copies,” Jackie Taber’s quiet voice said. “Negative contact at the border crossing.”
A quarter mile east of the airport, a large RV with a pudgy SUV in tow was parked at the scenic area pull-out, a spot that afforded a view of the sweeping prairie and the San Cristóbal Mountains beyond. So massive was the vehicle that Estelle almost didn’t see the second vehicle parked so that the RV was between it and the highway.
She stood on the brakes, swung wide, and executed a U-turn with tires squealing, then pulled into the west access for the parking area. The RV carried Wisconsin plates, as did the vehicle in tow. Estelle regarded the pickup as she reached for the mike.
“PCS, three-ten.”
“Go ahead, three-ten.”
“I’ll be out of the car with one-eight-three Tom Kilo Lincoln at mile marker one-oh-six on State Seventy-eight. I don’t see an occupant.”
“Three-oh-four will expedite up that way,” Taber said.
“Negative. Cover the border crossing until I see what’s what, Jackie.”
“Three-oh-eight’s ETA is about ten,” another voice said, almost inaudibly soft. Bob Torrez hadn’t been able to sleep, either.
Estelle stepped out of the county car and circled the truck. It was empty, with no keys dangling from the ignition.
“You with the cops?”
She turned at the voice, and saw an enormously fat man standing beside the door of the RV, the huge inner tube of belly hanging out beneath his white T-shirt. He supported himself on two aluminum crutches.
“Sheriff’s Department,” Estelle replied. “Was this vehicle here when you stopped?”
“Sure was.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh.” He grinned, looking at his watch. “I guess we’ve been here about thirty seconds, the wife and me. Gonna have us some breakfast.”
“Did you see anyone around this pickup?”
“No, ma’am. Who are we looking for?”
“We’re just checking,” Estelle said.
“Fair enough. And by the way, I think we’re lost. Is this the highway down to the border crossing?”
“No, sir.” She pointed east as she strode back toward her own vehicle. “Go east to the caution light, turn right. Head south through Posadas and catch State Fifty-six. That’ll take you to Regál and the crossing. You folks have a good day.”
Before the man had a chance to reply, she was back in the car and accelerating out of the rest area, beating Jim Bergin’s truck by a hundred yards. As soon as she turned into the airport access road, she could see that the hangar door had been run out, the door rail framework extending well beyond the corner of the building.
The car slithered to a stop in the loose gravel, and Estelle dashed to the gate, stabbed in the key to the county lock, and snapped it open. The long, heavy chain-link gate rolled easily. As she slammed the gate open, Bergin’s truck pulled in behind her county car. She held up a hand to stop, and then ducked back in her car. As she drove in around the office building, she heard the powerful engine.
Accelerating around the gas pumps island as hard as the police cruiser would go, she looked down the row of hangars and saw the Cessna outside, its back already turning to her. It trundled along smartly, headed for the west end of the runway.
The plane did not have rearview mirrors, and if the pilot concentrated on watching over the cowling, he might never see her. She kept the accelerator flat to the floor, and by the time she reached the end of the last hangar, closing in behind the taxiing airplane, the Crown Victoria was rocketing along at close to a hundred.
Just a few feet behind the plane’s stabilizer, she braked hard and swerved left, shooting obliquely across the smooth median between taxiway and runway. Not touching the brakes until she had careened back onto the asphalt of the runway, she managed to slow enough to take the turnaround donut at the end of the runway, racing toward the Cessna head-on.
She saw the astonishment on Hector Ocate’s face. He had three choices: charge his airplane head-on into Estelle’s patrol car, try to swerve past her to the runway, or spike the brakes and turn around. The heavy airplane was no ballerina on the ground, and Estelle saw that she could run the nose of her patrol car into the prop if necessary.
He chose the third course, and Estelle saw the Cessna 206 dip its nose as he braked. He telegraphed his intentions with a swing first to the right, taking all the asphalt possible, then started to swing left. Estelle punched the gas and cut him off.
For a moment, the big snout of the Cessna, its three-bladed prop a menacing blue, approached within a yard of the Crown Victoria’s driver’s door. Hector braked so hard that Estelle saw the front gear collapse the oleo strut to its stops. Without a handy reverse, Hector was trapped. If he rammed the car—if he so much as kissed it—the propeller would be destroyed.
He stood on the left brake and the engine roared in one last desperate effort to lurch around and clear the car, but Estelle pulled the sedan forward and to the left, cutting the plane’s maneuvering distance to a hairsbreadth. She released her seat belt at the same time, ready to dive to safety when the prop started chopping the Ford.
She rammed the gear selector into park and clawed across the clutter between the seats, digging her knee painfully into the corner of the computer. Diving out the passenger-side door headfirst, she pushed away from the car and came to her feet with the stubby .45 automatic in hand.
Hector Ocate was caught, and knew it. He slumped back in the seat as Estelle rounded the front of the patrol car an
d ducked under the left wing, advancing as far as the strut. Without being told, the boy reached forward to the dash, and in a few seconds, the engine ran rough and then died.
Jim Bergin’s truck slowed to a stop twenty yards away on the taxiway, but he stayed inside.
“Step out of the airplane,” she commanded. The door popped, and she moved to her left, putting the strut and door between her and the boy. “Put both hands where I can see them.” He did so, hesitantly, one foot showing below the door. Estelle held the gun in both hands, watching the boy over the sights. “Step out of the airplane with your hands on top of your head, Hector.”
The second foot appeared, and the youth slid down from the cockpit. He closed the door gently with both hands, and then turned to face Estelle. He laced his fingers on top of his head, and stepped to one side to avoid the wing strut.
“Stop there,” she ordered. Hector was dressed in blue jeans and a colorful short-sleeved shirt, and he looked smaller than she remembered. His knees quaked and he almost staggered before regaining his balance. “Face down on the ground,” Estelle ordered, and when he hesitated, she commanded in Spanish, “¡Al suelo, boca abajo!” Instantly, he sank to his knees, one hand reaching out toward the Cessna’s wing strut for balance. “¡Al suelo!” she repeated, and he sagged forward on his stomach on the cold concrete. “¡Extiende los brazos!” When he was down and spread-eagled, and she could see both hands and both feet, Estelle moved toward him, shifting the gun to one hand.
“I speak English,” Hector shouted, his voice now shaking.
“I know you do,” Estelle replied. “No te muevas.” Not only would he speak English, but he would be familiar with police tactics in his home state. There were only two alternatives to obeying police commands—a savage beating or a bullet. She had seen his fear in his quaking knees.
Slipping the cuffs out of her belt, she advanced on him from behind. “Pone una mano detrás de la espalda,” she ordered, and seeing the speed at which he complied, wondered if he had considerable practice. In deft movements, she snapped the cuffs on his wrist. “La otra,” she said, and secured both hands.
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