Lies Come Easy

by Steven F Havill

  “Not yet.” She dug a card out of the center console, but Betty waved it off.

  “Oh, I have half a hundred of those. Don’t waste another one.”

  “Good. If you should happen to see Mr. Fitzwater, call me asap, would you? Any time, twenty-four seven. Even if it’s just a glimpse of him driving by.”

  “Absolutely, I will. And you know, the last person I saw talking with Myron was Lupe Gabaldon. That was just earlier in the week. You might want to check with him, if your officers haven’t already.”

  “I’ll follow up with him. Thanks, Betty.” She pulled the Dodge into gear. “I need to meet with the others. Thanks for the information.”

  “Such a sad thing,” Betty said, stepping away from the car.

  “Let’s hope that it doesn’t get any sadder,” the undersheriff said.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  As she had experienced just the night before, the trail up to the water tank high above the village was the site of bad dream fodder. She had once chased three illegals up toward the tank after they’d made their way through half of the backyards in Regál, and been reported by four different citizens. Lupe Gabaldon had taken a shot at them, but number nine birdshot at a hundred yards was less effective than a swarm of no-see-ums.

  The arrest of the three, all of them winded, terrified, and thankful to be caught, had been uneventful, but the location had worked itself into Estelle’s subconscious dream center for frequent replay.

  She parked just behind Betty’s house alongside the two department SUVs, and then walked up the rough, circuitous path—it was hardly a road or even a two-track—until she reached the U.S. Forest Service boundary fence. The trail reached a people pass-through, one of those Y-shaped structures that cattle couldn’t figure out, and wouldn’t fit through even if they did, and which nimble deer just vaulted. Estelle walked another hundred yards, the trail ascending steeply, dodging around house-sized boulders, a couple talus slides, and long-dead juniper stumps that still showed black char from a fire a century before.

  From this raven’s eye view, the village looked like something out of a finely crafted HO gauge train layout. She could look to each roofline and know by name the occupants of the house. So steep was the hillside that someone with a good throwing arm could pitch a stone, and after a couple of ricochets and bounces, it might even reach the back wall of Connie Suarez’ trailer.

  The water tank was a three-thousand-gallon unit, eight feet in diameter and as many tall. It rested on a pad built with railroad ties by one of the Forest Service summer youth work crews. They had snuggled it tightly against a buttress of rock, and an inch-diameter fill pipe ran off the rocks behind the tank to the black polyvinyl dome of its top.

  Loaded with water, the tank would weigh more than twelve tons—not something that a handful of vandals could tumble off its base. They could use it for target practice, and for the fun of watching water squirt out through the bullet holes. Sure enough, a few screw-in repair plugs dotted its black sides.

  Estelle stopped at the yellow ribbon that crossed the trail, secured from bush to tree.

  “Thought you’d got stuck down there,” Bob Torrez said. She glanced down the hill and could see the ant-figures working at the luminarias trailer.

  “Some of the locals trying to work up some holiday spirit.”

  “Well, yeah. Good luck with that.” He beckoned to Jackie Taber.

  “L.T., come fill ’er in.”

  “You probably remember when this unit was put in,” Taber said, and Estelle nodded. “The spring that feeds it is right up there.” She nodded uphill, beyond the shelf of boulders. “Because it’s so high up, they were able to route the fill pipe straight over to the top of the tank. A really convenient location. It’s not much of a flow, but it runs all the time, and the tank overflow pipe is over there, on the south side of the tank. The tank is hooked up to a wildlife drinker.”

  “Why the tank?” Estelle asked. “Why not just let the spring fill a little pond without using all the hardware?”

  “I suppose the cattle and other critters, the elk especially, would walk all over it until it was just a mucky wallow.” Jackie looked over at the sheriff, who nodded.

  “The spring worked just fine for thousands of years, just as is, without no tank or drinker. It don’t matter how it works,” Torrez said.

  “Well, Sheriff, actually it does matter.” Undaunted, Taber walked westward around the tank. “Over here, on the downhill side…” and she stopped when Estelle’s phone rang.

  “Help!” Linda Pasquale’s yelp was audible even to those not holding the phone. “Where the heck are you guys?”

  “Turn off the highway where you see three units parked behind Betty Contreras’ home. The trail up here is behind her house. You’ll see it.”

  “Arrgg. I’m supposed to schlep everything all the way up there?”

  “Yes. Your Honda won’t fit through the gate.”

  Her sigh was audible. “Here I come.”

  Estelle switched off the phone. “Linda, feeling put upon,” she said. “Go ahead, Jackie.”

  “On the downhill side of the tank is a wildlife drinker. Pretty nifty. Small enough that hopefully the elk won’t step in it and punch holes through it, but big enough to hold several gallons of water. Another nifty valve keeps it full.” She stood with her hands on her hips and looked at Estelle. “I won’t swear to it, but this unit—tank, valves, pipe, all of it—isn’t designed to supply the village down there. There’s not that big a flow. The idea of the tank is that three thousand gallons is too large to freeze solid, with enough reserve to serve the critters during an extended drought. And the black plastic of the tank acts like a trombé, keeping the valves from freezing most of the time. They’re further protected by being below ground in a valve box.”

  Estelle followed her around the tank and looked down at the plumbing.

  “So, no piping down to the village. This doesn’t supply any homes down there?”

  “No. Strictly designed for wildlife habitat. That’s the intent, anyway.”

  “And this?” Estelle touched a piece of white PVC pipe one inch in diameter that lay exposed several feet below the tank where it joined with black polyvinyl pipe that appeared to wind down the slope through the rocks.

  “Like I said, intent. Someone’s taking advantage of the source, is my guess. I’m betting that the pipe runs down the hill to someone’s home. Or garden. Or something.”

  Estelle knelt and examined the pipe. It had been buried neatly at one point, perhaps all the way to the valve box, where it had been hard-plumbed into the existing piping. All but two feet of it had been covered, and the marks where the dirt had been first swept aside, but then replaced, were obvious.

  “Okay. This kept a plumber busy for a little bit.”

  “Yes. But then it gets interesting. This way.” Fifty feet west of the tank, in a spot encircled by yet another yellow ribbon, Taber stopped. She leaned against a boulder and used her hands to draw a valley in the air—the ground protected between two collections of boulders. The blood that had soaked the soil and even splashed on the rocks was clear.

  “Oh, here we are,” Linda Pasquale said cheerfully as she joined the others. “Party time. And this is gross. Who is it?”

  “More like a what, girl,” Jackie Taber said. “The remains of hide, the guts, the skull, the spine—they’re all widely scattered, but close by.”

  Linda nodded. “When fully assembled, what was it?”

  “A muley. Mule deer. A little buck.”

  “Mountain lion, you think? No, scratch that. If it were a lion at work, we all wouldn’t care, right?” Linda looked around at Sheriff Torrez.

  “Soooooo right.” Torrez managed a faint smile.

  “Well, yuck.”

  “The yuck part starts over there,” Taber said, pointing downhill, beyo
nd the tank. “I wish I could claim finding this, but Sharp-Eyes Sutherland did the good work. Follow in my footsteps, please.”

  Walking past the tank, they angled downhill for thirty or forty feet. “The deputy was headed downslope this way because he wanted to see where the pipe led.” In a moment she stopped where two evidence flags were pushed into the ground. “The piece of scrub oak is what’s interesting.”

  Standing back as if the stick that lay on the ground was a rattlesnake about to strike, Estelle then knelt slowly. “Why am I guessing that’s not mule deer blood? Or mule deer fur.” About four feet in length and two inches in diameter, the wood was seasoned long enough that all the bark was gone, the wood smoothed with age. “Oak,” she added. “Tough stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t think that a lot of hunters nowadays use cudgels to beat up on their game,” Linda said helpfully.

  Estelle pulled out her phone, and sorted through three numbers before her husband answered.

  “Oso, Alan is hiding out somewhere, but we need a blood sample typed and another preserved for DNA analysis. Can…will…you do that typing for us? We need to know if it’s human, and then if it is, what type.”

  “As in now, querida?”

  “Yes. I’ll have one of the deputies run it up.”

  “You’re back down south?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I going to end up in court testifying with all this?”

  She laughed. “Always thinking ahead, you are. We can only hope so, Oso. It adds legitimacy to your assistant deputy medical examiner status with Alan.”

  “That’s just what I need. By the way, Francisco called. They’re about two hours out. He’ll call again when they’re closer. Are you going to be able to meet and greet at the airport? Otherwise, we can call Padrino and have him head out there.”

  “Ay. I will do my best. But the blood sample is primero, Oso.”

  “Tell the deputy to bring the samples to the clinic. I can do all the preliminary work right here. I’m tied up at the moment with a twelve-year-old who owns a really nasty, infected ingrown toenail. Just a grand thing to have on Christmas Eve. You’re going to give me a few minutes?”

  “Just a few. We love you, Oso, me most of all.” She consulted her phone again, then stoked the appropriate panels. The phone on the other end rang five times before Craig Stout answered.

  “Craig, this is Undersheriff Guzman. What’s your twenty?”

  The Forest Service Law Enforcement officer sounded tired. “We’re back up in the Newton area. Your folks are just coming in to collect Fitzwater’s truck. Any word down there?”

  “We’re up on the hill behind the village. You recall the wildlife tank you folks have up on the hill?”

  “Vaguely. We have wildlife drinker tanks like that in several places in the district. It’s sometimes a cooperative venture between us and the permitee for cattle. That one, though—I think it’s primarily for wildlife. I think that one was a project with the YCC kids a few summers ago. I’d have to check, but I’m not sure that we have a permitee on that mountain right now.”

  “We found evidence of a wildlife kill, but more important, we recovered what may be a weapon. Maybe. There’s blood and some hair that needs to be tested.”

  “You’re thinking human samples?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but the hair looks so. My husband is going to process it as soon as we can deliver it to him.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot faster than what I’d have to do when things like that are found on federal property,” Stout said. “Go ahead with the sample, and I’ll pretend you didn’t tell me about it.”

  “Lots of questions for you when you return.”

  “We’re on our way. If Fitzwater doesn’t show his face today, I’m going to contact the FBI. We could use their help.”

  “Any assistance is welcome,” Estelle said. “Sooner rather than later.” She closed the phone and nodded in appreciation at Jackie. “Anything else?”

  “Not unless Deputy Sutherland found something during his hike down the hill.”

  “He’s following the pipeline?”

  “We’ll find out who’s siphoning off spring water.”

  “That would be earth-shaking news that we should all be vitally interested in at this point,” Linda snorted.

  “It’ll shake our earth if that’s human blood and hair on that club,” Jackie replied. “People have been known to get pretty riled over a few gallons of water.” She looked back toward the evidence flag. “Lots and lots of pictures before we move it, please.”

  “And how that might be related to a butchered muley, we may never know,” Estelle said. “But it’s a start.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  United States Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Craig Stout stood quietly, his hands deep in his pockets. District Ranger Tully sucked on a canteen, as if the moderate hike uphill to the water tank was his whole week’s exercise.

  “This is fairly recent,” Stout said, feeling the need to verbally inventory the obvious. He twitched both pant legs up and knelt, just outside of the splash of dried, brown blood and what little remained of the deer carcass. “Makes sense that he dropped ’er right here, rather than dragging it in from somewhere.” Still kneeling, he twisted and peered downhill to the evidence marker that had replaced the blood-soaked oak limb.

  Without being asked, Linda offered her camera, and both Stout and Tully stroked through the photos she had taken of the bloody oak cudgel before it was removed and shipped north to the lab. “It’s what…” Stout said, “about four feet long or so?”

  “Just under,” Estelle said. “Forty-one and five-eighths.”

  Stout peered closely at the best photo that showed the whole length of the stick. “Whittled on?”

  “No. Both ends look naturally broken, and well aged.”

  “So just a handy walking-stick sort of thing.”

  Tully looked vexed. “I don’t get it. Sheriff, what are you thinking?”

  Torrez shook his head slowly. “We’re waitin’ on the M.E.’s results.”

  “If that’s deer’s blood on the tree branch, then what?”

  “Then that’s that,” Torrez said. “Maybe the hunter used it…or was gonna use it…to prop open the carcass, or to prop the hind legs apart. He finishes up with the guttin’ and tosses the stick.”

  “And why would he do that?” Tully persisted.

  Torrez looked puzzled. “Why keep the stick? He’s done with it, and tosses it.”

  “And if it’s human blood and human hair on there, not from the deer?”

  “Then we find out who it belongs to.”

  Tully frowned and looked across at Stout. “These two events might not even be related, then.” He nodded first at the site where the carcass had been butchered, and then over his left shoulder at the spot where the stick had been found. “How long until the M.E. gets back to us?”

  “As soon as he can,” Estelle replied. “The deputy left with it,” and she looked at her watch, “about forty minutes ago. The M.E. has it now and, other patients depending, he’ll get right to it.”

  “Other patients?”

  “Live ones come first, Ranger Tully.”

  Her formal tone wasn’t lost on him. He nodded impatiently. “And what’s this? We have the whole town on the visitors’ list?”

  Estelle turned to see Lupe Gabaldon and Al Fisher, along with Maria and her father, Solomon Apodaca, making their way up the trail from the village, escorted by Lieutenant Taber. Gabaldon and Apodaca looked as if they might be brothers—short, barrel-chested, bandy-legged, and walking with arms stretched out to the sides for balance, as if their ankles were about to sprain on the uneven ground. Al Fisher was walking with one hand lightly on his girlfriend’s elbow, the two of them in deep conversation.

  Taber halted them at
the yellow ribbon. Al reached out and lifted the police line marker as if he planned to duck under, but Jackie stopped him short. He took a deep, exasperated breath and let the yellow tape drop.

  “Gentlemen, Maria, thanks for coming up, but we need to keep people out of this area for a little while,” Estelle said.

  “What happened?” Lupe Gabaldon said. “Did I leave too much of that deer carcass behind?”

  “It ain’t much of a trophy,” Torrez said. “I wrapped the head, though. I’ll dispose of it for you.”

  “Well, sure. I was going to collect that, but didn’t get around to it. It looked like the critters had dragged it off some.”

  “They were workin’ on it.”

  “He ain’t much of a buck, but he don’t have to be for good eating,” Gabaldon offered. “He was just a little spike, you know. ’Course, if you picked up the head, you know all that.”

  “What did you bag him with?” The old man shifted under Torrez’s unblinking gaze.

  “That old thirty-thirty Marlin of mine. Good gun. One shot ruined the heart, and down he goes.”

  Torrez nodded thoughtfully, but it was Jackie Taber who interjected, “That’s quite a haul down to your house.”

  “I got me this neighbor guy to help me with it,” the old man said.

  Estelle looked at Al Fisher, who was grinning. “You’re this ‘neighbor guy,’ Mr. Fisher?”

  “That be me.”

  “When was the hunt?” Tully asked. “For this area, I mean?”

  “Closed out end of last week,” Torrez said. “Lupe, you have the tag down at your house?”

  “Oh, sure.” He managed to make it sound like “no,” complete with a shake of the head.

  Tully took a step forward, squaring his shoulders as if he expected someone to throw a punch at him. “You want to explain to us where all the piping goes?”

  Lupe Gabaldon smiled and turned to look at both Al Fisher and Solomon Apodaca to make sure they were sharing the humor. “I guess you could dig up that pipe if you wanted,” he said. “It’s on your land, so I guess you could do that.”