“Sometimes it’s better just to lie low,” Christine added.
“Did he mention that he’d spoken to Freddy on Thursday or Friday?”
“No. He just saw the article. If he talked with Freddy about anything, he didn’t say so.” She stroked the gelding’s neck with one hand while letting him nuzzle the other palm.
Estelle watched the two girls, both of them deep in the saddest of thoughts, but unconsciously communing with the horses, who sponged up the affection without judgment.
When he’d been sitting in the Broken Spur, listening to Freddy Romero blast by on his four-wheeler, Gus Prescott had been aware, if he’d read the article carefully, that the boy had fabricated the tale of where the jaguar’s carcass had been found.
“Casey, did your father ever talk much about Eddie Johns?”
“Not to me.”
“Christine?”
The older sister frowned. “I don’t know what kind of case you’re trying to build, sheriff. You asked me that earlier, and you also talked to my dad earlier. He told you what he knew.”
Estelle gazed across the yard toward the spot where the line of old vehicles had rusted into the prairie. None of this is going to go away, Casey had said to her mother. None of this.
“We’re just following pathways, Christine. At this point some pretty indistinct trails. I was curious about the circumstances that led to your dad buying that wrecked truck from Johns.”
“I didn’t know that he had done that.”
“The one that burned?”
“Now that I remember. Dad said that he was cutting off some part and started a little fire.” She smiled. “A little fire. Oh, sure. But it wasn’t much loss. It was wrecked anyway.”
“You saw it? Before the fire, I mean.”
“I don’t know if I did or not. It wasn’t something that I paid attention to.”
“I saw it,” Casey offered. “I mean, before he burned it.”
“All bashed up?”
“Well, kinda. It was shiny black, I remember that, ‘cause after he lit it on fire, it was ugly black. He was really ticked.”
“You remember the make?”
“No. Just a wrecked truck. That’s all I remember. He sold a whole bunch of that old stuff so he can buy parts for the grader. But you already know that. You saw it go out this morning.”
The buzz of Estelle’s phone was startling, and the mare jerked her head back, ears pitched forward. Estelle stepped back slowly, and flicked on the phone.
“Guzman.”
“Hey,” Torrez said. “Borderland’s records show a 2004 black Ford 250 crew cab sold to Eddie Johns on November 12, 2003. He got the VIN, but that ain’t going to do us much good. The dealership don’t keep a record of the engine and tranny serial numbers, but we don’t have those anyway. Yet.”
“That’s good work, Bobby. They carried the paper on it?”
“Wasn’t any. Cash deal.”
“Ay. ”
“Thirty-eight thousand dollar cash deal.”
“Real estate was going well for Mr. Johns, apparently.”
“Something was,” the sheriff said. “Where you at right now?”
“Talking with Casey and Christine Prescott.”
“Gus there?”
“No. The girls said that he went to town to buy some parts for his road grader.”
“Okay. Look, this El Paso mess is gonna take Mears a while. He’s got folks workin’ for him at the bank, at the utilities…everything so far says that Johns just vanished without notice. He didn’t close out any accounts, didn’t clean up any of his mess. Didn’t even clean out the fridge, the landlord says. He was there one day, gone the next. No notes, no nothing.”
“That probably rules out any lingering notion of suicide,” Estelle said, and Torrez grunted with amusement.
“He ain’t no suicide. Suicides don’t crawl back into caves and shoot themselves in the back of the head.”
“I know he hasn’t had time to dig into too many dark corners, but has Tom found any hint of a Mexican connection?”
“We’re gonna find out. But my guess is that the Mexicans are just as much out of the loop as we are. They may have been plannin’ something, or maybe were interested in what Johns had to offer, but there ain’t no actual connection that I can imagine.”
“We’ll see what Captain Naranjo finds out,” Estelle said. Tomás Naranjo, an ally in the Mexican Judiciales, sometimes cooperated with them so willingly that it seemed he considered Posadas County to be a small but obstreperous extension of his own state.
“You’re going to talk with Prescott again today?”
“I think so. It bothers me that he lied to Herb Torrance about how he acquired the truck from Johns.”
“Maybe he ain’t lyin’.”
“That would mean that either Herb concocted the tale, or the people you talked to at Giarelli’s have faulty memories.”
“Either is possible. Ain’t likely, but possible.”
Estelle had turned slightly, and now a motion from Gastner drew her attention. He pointed toward the south, where a roil of dust rose behind an approaching vehicle.
“We’ll talk with Gus here in a bit. He’s on his way in right now.”
“You be careful.”
“Oh, sí. ” She switched off and turned back toward the corral. Casey Prescott was still receiving a full dose of commiseration from the mare, but Christine had stepped away from the horses, standing close to Gastner’s elbow.
“What’s actually going on?” Christine asked quietly. She looked from Gastner to Estelle, and at the same time, Casey pushed away from the corral. The same question was in her eyes. Estelle had known both girls for years, and had had the opportunity to talk with Christine a number of times in an official capacity. She had long ago come to the conclusion that the young woman was not only strikingly pretty, but equally quick-witted, caring, and honest. The impulse to simply lay the case open before her was strong. But the cloud that hung at the moment over their father’s head was more than just dust kicked up by a pickup truck.
“Whenever there’s an unattended death,” Estelle said, “we’re required to follow up on every detail. Painful as it might be.”
“Unattended,” Christine said, taking her time with the word. “Are you referring to Freddy, or to Eddie Johns?”
Estelle hesitated. “Both. In both cases, we believe that there’s a possibility that the two incidents were not unattended deaths.”
Casey moved a step closer to her sister until their arms touched, but the younger girl didn’t speak. Not an unattended death. The terminology-even the concept itself-was so familiar for a cop, yet so completely alien for a teenager who’d just lost her boyfriend. Someone else was there. And that changed everything.
Christine gazed at Estelle, her expression assessing. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, but any other comment was drowned out by the sounds of Gus Prescott’s pickup. The extended-cab truck pulled in a few paces from Estelle’s cruiser, twenty or thirty yards away. The clattering of its gruff diesel engine died abruptly and Prescott got out, followed by a small white poodle who shot off toward the house. From a distance, Estelle could see a long gun in the rear window rack, well out of reach of the driver without climbing out of the truck and accessing the back seat.
“Good mornin’,” Prescott said, affably enough. He seemed in no hurry to approach, and Estelle turned to the girls.
“Excuse us, please.”
“I don’t think so,” Christine said firmly, and her response surprised Estelle. “I want to know what’s going on.”
Behind them, the little dog yipped as he was mobbed by the three larger animals, and Estelle heard the screen door of the house open and then close as he made it unmauled into his sanctuary. Jewell Prescott appeared to be perfectly content with not knowing what was going on outside.
“Find your grader parts, sir?” the undersheriff asked as she walked over toward the truck.
Gus Prescott watched her with fe
igned indifference as he got out and then crossed around the front of the pickup. “Had to order,” he replied.
“Herb seems eager to get that road of his fixed,” Gastner offered.
“I guess he might be,” Prescott said. He wiped his face, dabbing at the corners of his mouth. From a dozen feet away, Estelle could smell the beer. “You girls get on into the house, now.”
The order might not have sounded ridiculous had Casey been accompanied by one of her school chums instead of her sister. But Christine was in no mood to chirp, “Yes, daddy” and do as she was told.
“Sir,” Estelle said, “we were interested in what you can tell us about the Ford pickup truck that belonged to Eddie Johns.”
“What do you mean?” Prescott rested an arm on the hood of the pickup, as if feeling the need to protect it.
“Just that, sir. I was wondering how his black Ford three-quarter ton ended up on Cameron Florek’s junk hauler. I was wondering how you happened to come by it.” She glanced at the fender of Prescott’s own truck, still decorated with the XLT Triton V-8 emblem…not the diesel that was obviously under the hood.
For a long moment, Gus Prescott didn’t answer. His gaze flicked first to Gastner, who stood relaxed but watchful, then to Christine and Casey, and finally back to Estelle. He looked her up and down, and Estelle could see that his eyes watered and wandered…he was so juiced that he would have a hard time passing a field sobriety test.
“I got to get me a beer,” he said flatly, and looked over at Gastner. “You want one, Mr. Livestock Inspector?”
“Appreciate the thought, but no thanks. Too early in the day for me, Gus.”
“Well…it ain’t ever too early.” He walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and Estelle could hear the snap of plastic as he pulled a can away from a six-pack. The firearm in the back window was a shotgun, very much like the one in her patrol car rack.
He didn’t close the door, but circled around it, popping the can as he did so. “You’re sure?” He raised the can to Gastner.
“I’m sure, Gus.”
Prescott shrugged and glanced dismissively at the undersheriff. “So, what do you want?” No simple courtesy there, Estelle noted.
“Just to clear up some things, Mr. Prescott,” Estelle said.
“There’s nothing to clear up.”
“I wish that were true, sir.”
Prescott rested his can carefully on the sloped hood, and took his time lighting a cigarette. The blue smoke jetted out against the fender. “You didn’t drive all the way out here just to waste county gas, lady. So if you got something to say, just say it and get it over with.” He took another long pull on the beer. “You’re just enjoyin’ the hell out of all this, aren’t you.”
“Sir?”
“Comin’ out here where you got no business? Stirring things up where you got no cause?”
“That’s an interesting take on it, sir.”
Prescott’s lips compressed into a tight line as if he suddenly realized he’d said too much, and his head jerked to one side as if he were wearing a shirt and tie with the collar too tight.
“Is the diesel engine in this vehicle the one from Johns’ truck, sir?” She pulled the small notebook from her pocket, and thumbed through the pages, not bothering to read the contents. The notion of documentation was not lost on the rancher.
“What, you got to check it now?” Prescott strode around the front of the truck to the driver’s door, jerked it open and yanked the hood release lever. “There,” he said, groping for the safety catch. The mammoth hood yawned up, and he held out a hand, presenting the engine. “Bought that engine years ago. Got a good deal on it. So there you go, sheriff. ” His sarcasm was heavy. “And yeah, it ain’t the motor that come with this truck. Sure as hell ain’t. You check all you want.”
“How did you happen to come by Johns’ truck, sir? A 2004, I think.”
“Do I got to put up with all this?” Prescott asked Gastner. “I mean, a man’s got rights, don’t he?”
“Indeed he does, Gus my friend. Indeed he does.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then,” Gastner said calmly, “we’d appreciate some answers, Gus. And I guess you know that you can give ’em now or later.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. Now or later, Gus. If not to us, then there’ll be someone else.” Gastner grinned warmly. “I’d sure rather talk with me than somebody else.”
Prescott frowned as he tried to understand that. “Look, I sold that wreck to Florek fair and square. You ask him. I got his receipt right in the house.”
“We did ask him, Gus. Seems like a good thing to be clearing out some old junk. A man kinda gets buried by stuff after a while. But there’s a few little things that don’t square up, and you can understand our curiosity, I would think.”
“What’s your interest in all this?” Prescott asked.
“Me personally? Well, now,” Gastner said, “I’m just lookin’ out for some old friends. I got a right to do that, don’t you think?”
“This Johns a friend of yours?”
“Nope. Never was. And now I have this nagging suspicion that he had some friends south of the border I wouldn’t have cared much for either. That’s why we’re curious how you came by his truck, Gus. Just want to make sure everything is in the clear.”
“I bought it off him.”
“From Eddie Johns, you mean?” Estelle asked.
“That’s what I said.”
“Pricey unit,” Gastner observed.
“Not when I got it.”
“It was one or two years old when you bought it?” Estelle asked.
“More like three or four,” the rancher said, and wiped his mouth again. He regarded the truck’s engine, setting his beer can on the radiator housing. “Took me three days to put that in here. Runs like a charm.”
“Hell of a lot of work,” Gastner said.
“Damn right.” Prescott moved the can and reached up to grab the hood and pull it shut.
“So that’s that. You satisfied?”
“Had the truck been damaged when you bought it?” Estelle asked.
“Hell, yes, it was damaged. Johns…well, he wouldn’t say for sure what he did, but he rolled it down into an arroyo. That’s what I think. Wasn’t a body panel left that wasn’t wrecked. Insurance wrote it off.”
“Johns had the salvage as part of the settlement, and you bought it from him.” Gastner made it sound as if the answer to that one question would put a period to the whole discussion, and Prescott nodded quickly.
“Sure. That’s how it was.”
“Giarelli had nothing to do with it, then.”
Gus Prescott shot a quick glance at Estelle. “What makes you think that he-who’s Giarelli?”
“One version of the story has an employee of Giarelli Sand and Gravel in Deming backing into Johns’ truck right there in the company yard, sir.”
“I don’t know where you heard that.”
“That’s a problem, then, sir. If Johns rolled his truck into an arroyo, there’d be a police report on the incident-probably in our files or with the state police. Otherwise the insurance company wouldn’t pay him. They wouldn’t total it out without a report, and Johns wouldn’t stand for that. He wouldn’t get a cent.” Prescott’s mouth worked and he flicked a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “And if the accident happened at Giarelli’s, there would also be an incident report, sir. They’d see to that. Otherwise, their company insurance wouldn’t pay.”
“Dig, dig, dig. It’s like a dog scratchin’ at a flea bite. You won’t leave it alone.” He licked his lips. “Look, I don’t know about all this Giarelli business. All I know is what Eddie Johns told me. That he’d wrecked the truck and collected a shitload of insurance, and wanted to know if I wanted the salvage. Just a nuisance to him. Maybe he made up a story to tell somebody so he wouldn’t sound like a simple son of a bitch. How the hell would I know.”
“So Johns signed the truck’s title over to you,” Estelle said.
“I didn’t get no title. The thing was wrecked. It was salvage.”
“He removed the license plate?”
“Well, damn, I don’t know whether he did or not. Or the insurance company. Hell, maybe his old aunt Minnie did. Who the hell knows. I don’t have it, that’s for sure. Never did.” He huffed with exasperation. “And you know it ain’t on the truck now. You checked thorough enough. That’s what my neighbor tells me.” He squared his shoulders. “Just what are you tryin’ to prove with all this mumbo-jumbo?”
“Do you own a rifle, sir?”
The question took the rancher by surprise. He glanced toward the pickup, then at Gastner.
“’Course I own a rifle. Everybody in this county owns a damn rifle.”
“Is that what you normally carry in the truck, sir? Other than the pump shotgun you have there?”
“Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. What, now you’re going to accuse me of shooting Johns? Is that what this is all about? First I shoot him, then I steal his truck?” He managed a derisive laugh. Estelle watched as the color ran in splotches up his cheeks, as if he was fighting a fever.
“Mr. Prescott, Eddie Johns wasn’t shot with a rifle, as I’m sure you know by now, neighborhood communication being what it is. So no…I don’t think your ranch rifle shot him.”
“So what’s the point, then? What are you gettin’ at, lady?”
“May I see the rifle?”
“A rifle’s a rifle.”
“May I see it?”
“Well, hell, I suppose so.” He turned toward the truck, going again to the passenger door. Estelle watched him as he bent over and collected the gun, a short, angular weapon that had apparently been lying on the front seat or leaning in the passenger well. With the door open, she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but it appeared he was fumbling out the magazine. She shifted to her left a step or two, away from Bill Gastner, circling so that the rancher would have to turn to face her. Prescott tossed the magazine on the seat and stepped back, his footing not all that steady, the muzzle of the carbine held skyward. She had not heard or seen the bolt drawn back, so if a cartridge had been chambered before, it was still in place. He thrust the weapon out toward her, holding it forward of the trigger guard.
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