Lies Come Easy

by Steven F Havill

  The heart, other than being neatly detached from its surroundings, appeared to be in perfect condition. Lupe said nothing. Torrez turned the frozen heart over, peering closely. “What do you think?” he prompted.

  “Well, you know.”

  “Maybe through the liver?”

  Lupe seemed to deflate. “All I know is that I took one shot, and down he went.”

  “Through the head, maybe?”

  “You took that.”

  “Yep.” Torrez took the folder of photos that Estelle had been holding, and leafed out the over-sized one, an X-ray view of the entire skull. He reached out and held the X-ray up against one of the kitchen windowpanes. “What do you make of that?” Lupe peered at the X-ray, and then at the enlarged photos of the twin bullets, first one and then the other. “How far do you figure that deer managed to run with two bullets in the brain?” Torrez’ voice was calm, almost a whisper.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,” Lupe said. “How do I know that this is the same deer?”

  “’Cause I’m tellin’ you it is.” The sheriff managed to avoid any belligerent tone, and added almost kindly, “And I’m tellin’ you that the deer kill didn’t happen just the way you said it did. Do you own a twenty-two, Viejo?”

  “Sure, I own one. It belonged to my grandfather. He got it when he was a kid. I still got it.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  For a long moment, Lupe stood motionless, eyeing Torrez expressionlessly. The sheriff was well-practiced at waiting, and he returned Lupe’s glare unblinkingly. He did nothing to remind Lupe of the warrant so conspicuous on the counter.

  “Okay. It’s out in the living room closet, last I saw it.” He made no move to turn toward the living room.

  “That’d be good,” Torrez said.

  “Okay, then.” He glanced over at the stove clock on his way out of the kitchen. “Flora should be back soon.”

  A tall, narrow closet, finished in rough-cut knotty pine, had been built beside the door. Lupe opened the door and stood back. “You can get it out if you want to. Be careful. It’s loaded. Always loaded.”

  The closet was only fourteen inches wide or so, Estelle saw—about right for a broom and dustpan, maybe a pair of snow boots, and a couple of jackets. The rifle stood in the corner among a collection of walking sticks.

  Torrez examined the closet for a moment before reaching in and removing the tiny rifle. He looked at it for a long moment, then pulled it back to half cock and thumbed open the tiny breech. A cartridge gleamed, and he stroked it out of the chamber.

  “Is this little Remington the only twenty-two you own, Lupe?”

  “That’s a good gun. It still shoots…” and he made a straight line motion with his hand while he avoided answering the question. “My grandfather won that rifle in 1906, in El Paso.” He smiled. “It could tell stories.”

  Posey held out his hand and Torrez passed the gun. “A Remington Number Six,” the Game and Fish officer said. “A kid used to be able to get himself one of those by selling enough newspaper subscriptions.”

  Posey looked at Lupe in amusement. “Heck of a deer rifle, sir.”

  Lupe Gabaldon wouldn’t have made much of a poker player, Estelle decided. His face screwed up in a coy, smug expression, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Are you saying you shot that little buck with this?” Posey asked.

  “I didn’t say that. This young man,” and he nodded at Torrez, “asked to see it. So there it is.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t think you did. For one thing, twenty-twos aren’t legal for large game, and you would know that, being the law-abiding hunter you are. And this is a single shot rifle. It would have had to have been a really patient deer to wait for you to crank out three shots with this little guy.” He worked the breechblock back and forth.

  “I didn’t say I did that.”

  “Nope,” Torrez said, taking the little Remington back. “You said you used your Marlin thirty-thirty.”

  “You want to see that, now?”

  “Sure. Why not?” He carefully replaced the little twenty-two in the closet and dropped the single cartridge in his pocket.

  “It’s in the bedroom.”

  Torrez followed him, staying within easy grab reach. A little thumping in a back closet, and Lupe said, “There. You watch out, ’cause it’s loaded too.”

  The sheriff straightened up, holding the rifle, then turned and levered out seven rounds, each cartridge landing on the bedspread with a dull thump. Satisfied it was empty, he stuck his little finger in the action so the mellow light from the overhead bulb would bounce off his fingernail. He peered down the bore. Then he sniffed the barrel.

  “This old dog ain’t seen a whole lot of action,” he said, and handed the gun to Posey.

  “So this is the one?” Posey asked. When that brought no response, he looked sharply at Lupe. “This is the one? You shot the deer with this?”

  Lupe rubbed his chin and made a disgusted face, and took his time figuring out what to say. “I guess you know I didn’t,” he said finally. He looked at Estelle as if embarrassed to admit such a thing in front of her. “You know, your great-uncle borrowed that little twenty-two from me a couple of times. Said he liked it because it was so small and handy.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But who went hunting with you this time, Lupe?” She looked pointedly at his hands, his knuckles large and crooked with arthritis. “Someone used a fast-shooting twenty-two to kill that deer. Not this rifle, and not your old antique from the El Paso days.”

  He turned abruptly and left them in the bedroom. Out by the stove, he sat down heavily, hands on his knees.

  “That hike up the hill yesterday wore me out,” he said quietly. He fell silent for a moment, then said, “The only way I’d shoot a deer now is if he came down and helped himself to the flower beds out behind the kitchen. I got a license, you know that. I buy one every year.” He shrugged. “I don’t know why, now. But I do.” He waved a hand toward Posey. “His department could use the money, maybe.”

  “Someone else shot the deer and asked to use your tag?” Posey asked. Lupe nodded. “But you weren’t with him when the deer was taken?”

  The old man shook his head. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Up by the tank?”

  “That’s what I think. But I wasn’t there.”

  “But you didn’t hear the shots? A twenty-two doesn’t make much of a bark, but the way sounds roll around these hills…”

  “No. I didn’t hear it.”

  “And your tag—the one you filled out and is taped to the freezer door—it says the deer was harvested Friday, not Thursday.”

  The crow’s-feet around Lupe’s eyes deepened with amusement. “You young bucks just wait until you’re eighty-four years old. You just wait and see how good you remember things.”

  “Sure enough, that’s how life goes, Lupe. So who was this? Who bagged the deer for you?”

  “Just…” He rubbed both hands on the top of his skull, through the bristle of gray hair. “Just give me the ticket. I mean, I got most of the deer right there in my freezer. I didn’t have to take it when he offered it to me, so it’s my own fault. No, I didn’t shoot the deer, but I butchered it and wrapped it, and into my freezer it goes.” He held up both hands in surrender. “So just start writing that ticket, Mr. Game and Fish guy, and that’s it.”

  Doug Posey sighed and looked across first at Bob Torrez and then at Estelle.

  “Lupe,” Torrez said, “it ain’t about the deer in your freezer. If it was up to me, I’d say let you keep it and enjoy it. You got one tag, you got one deer. It evens out. But there’s other complications in all this. We need to know who shot it.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “And?”

  “All I know is that I got the mea
t frozen in there.” He shrugged again. “That’s what I know. And now you know I didn’t shoot it.”

  “Who did?”

  “That’s just going to be the way it is.”

  “Why did he give it to you? Why didn’t he keep it for himself?”

  “Don’t know. He was in kind of a hurry, is all I know.”

  “Somebody local? Somebody who knew you would help?”

  Lupe Gabaldon looked at the floor.

  “I guess we can go door to door,” Torrez said, and when he looked at Lupe, Estelle thought she saw the faintest trace of sympathy in Torrez’ dark eyes.

  “Lupe,” Estelle said, “yesterday up on the hill, you told us that you shot the deer, then you said that Al Fisher helped you carry the carcass down.”

  He almost smiled and looked cagey. “You know, I didn’t say that Al helped me. I said I got a neighbor to help me.”

  “And Al agreed that he was the neighbor in question.”

  This time, Lupe’s grin was so wide it looked as if his eyes were closed. “Now there’s nothing wrong with your memory, is there, young lady?”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The sun hadn’t yet risen above the San Cristóbals, and Estelle was glad for the suggestion that they all bundle into Doug Posey’s four-door pickup. A shaft of Christmas morning sunlight slipped through the dip that was Regál pass and tinged the foothills far to the west of the village. Farther south, sunshine was waking up the Mexican desert. Regál itself was still sleeping, without a single child in residence to spark excitement over a full stocking.

  “So now,” Posey said, “let me see if I follow your way of thinking, Sheriff. Somebody kills a little buck, somebody without the proper, legal firearm, and without a license. Bam, bam, bam, a triple tap to the skull with a twenty-two. Two connect, the third grazes and goes off somewhere. So the shooter field-dresses it, leaving for the critters the skull, spine, and whatever else isn’t edible, and asks Lupe to take the carcass and butcher and wrap it. Lupe, the obliging old soul that he is, does that, using his own big game tag in the process.”

  “So far, so good,” Torrez grumbled. He shifted, trying to make a comfortable spot for his bulk.

  “But I think I’m right in that the Sheriff’s Department could give a flyin’ rip about the whole incident. That’s where Myron Fitzwater fits in, am I right?”

  “Yep.”

  “The bloody oak stick—club, staff, whatever you want to call it—says that someone with type O-positive blood got whacked, maybe murdered, within feet of where that deer went down. Am I still on track?”

  “Yep.”

  “And according to Forest Service records, Myron Fitzwater had type O-positive.”

  “Yep.”

  “So how does it happen? A guy bags an illegal deer. From down below Myron hears the shots, and being the nosy young bastard that he is, he strolls up the hill. There’s a confrontation, and Myron is whacked over the head hard enough to put him down.”

  “Timing is everything in this,” Estelle pointed out. “Let’s say that Lupe admits to accepting the deer on Friday. He says that he shot it, we know he didn’t, and Al Fisher volunteers that he carried the carcass down to Lupe’s kitchen. We also know that on Friday, Myron skipped work, true enough. So odds are good that he was here in Regál. It’s obvious that Lupe wants to protect the shooter. Maybe he knows what happened, maybe he doesn’t. He’s a pretty crafty old guy.”

  “A lyin’ old bastard is what he is.” Torrez vehemence surprised Estelle. “First of all, Lupe knows exactly what happened. He’s protectin’ somebody. One thing’s for sure…when this is all over, some Grand Jury is going to have a field day with him. Conspiracy, aiding and abetting, tampering with evidence,” and he looked hard at Posey. “And you’ll have your own list to add to that menu.”

  “You know the one constant in all this,” Posey mused. “Connie Suarez was killed with one shot from a 9 millimeter…probably. You don’t have the slug, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the gun you found at the scene, Myron Fitzwater’s Glock, is the weapon in question. You have one shell casing found at the scene that might match it. It’s Fitzwater’s blood…probably, on the oak staff. His hair, probably, too.”

  “That’s a lot of probably,” Estelle said. “Al Fisher claims that he helped carry the carcass down the hill for Lupe. There’s every possibility that Alt did the shooting, too—Lupe is just playing coy to protect a neighbor. That’s all possible.”

  “It is. Find Fitzwater and some of ’em might clear up.”

  “This is where I’m goin’,” Torrez said. “If Fitzwater is layin’ out there somewhere with his skull cracked open, who knows if we’ll ever find him. Maybe somebody will stumble across his bones twenty or thirty years from now. And how did his truck end up north, up by Newton? We don’t know that, either. But starin’ us in the face is somethin’ a little simpler. We find who put three into that deer, if we can. That can clear a whole big corner of the puzzle. Find out who Lupe is protecting, and why. Maybe it’s Al, like you say. Maybe not.”

  “There’s a shortcut or two for that,” Estelle said.

  “We make Lupe’s life miserable, for one thing.” Torrez opened the truck door and slid out, then turned to face them. “It ain’t going to be hard to figure out who didn’t go huntin’ up on that hill. That’ll narrow it down some. Pretty short list.”

  “I was thinking another route, Bobby. Right about now, a cup of hot tea would taste good. No one serves better than Betty Contreras. I need to talk with her. I think she trusts me. She and the other member of the waffle club.”

  “You want company?”

  “It’d be better not. Seems a little less official with me by my lonesome.”

  “That’d be good.” Torrez squinted into the distance. “While you’re doin’ that, me and Doug can go down and talk with Danny Rivera. He ain’t workin’ today.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Suppose I meet you in the church parking lot right at ten? Then I really need to go home for a bit.”

  “Has Francisco decided about that old truck yet?”

  Estelle laughed. “Bobby, if you want to buy that thing, you talk to Francisco. Or, if you happen to catch him driving on the highway without license, registration, or insurance, you can confiscate it. That would suit me just fine.”

  The sheriff actually smiled.

  Betty Contreras smiled too, when she opened the door to greet Estelle. Tiny bells on the door’s Christmas wreath jingled. “Well, Merry Christmas and look who’s here. Flora and I were just having a final cup of coffee to settle all the food.” She wrapped an arm around Estelle’s shoulders to usher her inside. “How about yourself? I can tell you never take time to eat enough. How about a nice waffle with walnut syrup?”

  Estelle tried not to gag at the thought. “No, thank you, Betty. A cup of tea would be nice, if it’s no trouble.”

  “Oh, pshaw. Trouble. Flora, look who’s here.”

  Flora Gabaldon peered out from the kitchen, looking a little apprehensive. “We didn’t see you at the Christmas Eve services last night,” she greeted. A round little woman with a cherubic face just beginning to show a few wrinkles and canyons, Flora was facing an eightieth birthday soon, Estelle knew—but she looked and moved as if she were a solid fifty.

  “Guilty,” Estelle replied, and Flora waited a couple heartbeats expectantly, hoping for tidbits. But being absent from church didn’t compare with the other gossip that was rife around town, and Flora Gabaldon switched quickly enough. “So awful about that sweet girl, don’t you think?” Flora advanced from the kitchen. “I mean, we’ve known her since she was this high.” She held her hand two feet off the floor. “Just awful.”

  Before Estelle had a chance to agree or amplify, Flora held up a hand and glanced toward the door as if to assure herself that a band of fellow officers wasn’t lurking outside the door
.

  “We saw the parade yesterday and again this morning,” she said, then her face sank into an expression of contrition that suggested that, if no one else, she was certainly guilty of something. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s that illegal deer, isn’t it?”

  “Believe me, the deer is just about the least of our worries, Flora.”

  “Well, I saw you all talking with Lupe this morning…”

  “And we’re glad to see you both doing so well. Lupe is getting around just fine now, isn’t he?”

  “Well,” and she hesitated while Betty handed Estelle the brimming cup of tea.

  “The new hip at the end of the summer made such a difference. I won’t exaggerate and say that he’s a kid again, but such a difference. I mean, you saw him walk up that mountain yesterday with the whole gang.”

  “Good that Al Fisher stayed close to his elbow, though—just in case.”

  “Oh, my, he’s been such a help this year, Al has. You know, with Lupe’s hip surgery and all, Al made sure we had enough firewood, fine split and stacked, to last the whole winter, and then some. And then when the transfer case in Lupe’s old truck went south, Al took it over to Danny’s and they fixed it up. Al borrows it once in a while, you know. That truck’s hauled more wood than you can shake a stick at.” She smiled at her joke. “Or however that saying goes.”

  “This is Danny Rivera you’re talking about?”

  “Sure. You know him. Down in his grandparents’ old place. In all of Regál, he’s the closest to the border. His squash roots burrow out of the garden and get flattened by the Border Patrol when they drive by, running the fence.”

  “Who’s the hunter in the group?”

  “The hunter?” Flora looked over at Betty, then back at Estelle. “You mean other than Lupe? I wouldn’t call him much of a hunter, not after his hip. An ambusher, maybe, when the deer come into the yard.” She made a face. “Poor things. They like to eat the apples and pears, you know. Then they sleep in the backyard. Lupe says they think we’re running a bed-and-breakfast just for them.”