“I understand that. Give me five minutes.” I hung up and sat for a moment, deep in thought. “Huh,” I said aloud. There’s a statistic somewhere-if I rooted through the files long enough, I’d find it-where the folks who collect such data claim that the majority of homicides involve family members. Domestic disputes turn ugly, and somebody steps in front of a bullet or knife or tire iron propelled in anger. And if we spread our definition of “family” just a little bit to include the loose groups of punks, gang bangers, border-ducking hoodlums or just drunken thugs, the net catches the majority of folks who belong behind bars.
I was willing to bet my paycheck that Marilyn Zipoli hadn’t taken the family rifle in the closet, driven out to where her husband was grading Highland Avenue, and fired at a puzzled Larry as he sat in the big Cat. But something was niggling at her, and she obviously felt that I needed to know. Why she hadn’t told Eduardo Salcido when she had the chance was another puzzle, but evidently she was comfortable talking with me.
The Zipolis lived in a neat place on north Fourth Street just beyond the intersection with Blaine Avenue. “For Sale” signs had started to crop up as the last cleanup crews at Consolidated Mining finished buttoning up the hard rock mine up on the mesa flank.
I pulled the LTD to a stop at the curb behind a long-of-tooth Datsun B-210 and alerted Dispatcher Baker.
“Three ten will be ten-six on Fourth,” I said when he came on the air. The folks who spent time listening to police scanners didn’t need to know that I was going to talk with Marilyn, but Marcus Baker would figure it out.
“Ten four, three ten.” He sounded enthused.
It appeared that Marilyn managed the family coffers as carefully as she managed my money at the bank. The Zipoli corner of the world was neat and tidy, a brick-fronted home that looked to be a standard three-bedroom affair. The front yard was xeroscaped except for a narrow flower bed that separated the property from the neighbor to the north. A fat-tired three-quarter ton Ford pickup parked on the left side of the wide driveway carried a massive cab-over camper. Slipped into the space between the garage wall and the property boundary was a hotrod ski boat on a trailer.
Every light in the house was ablaze, and I suppose that friends and neighbors had been doing their thing, covering every flat surface in the kitchen with food platters. The thought brought an automatic hunger response from my undisciplined gut, which should have been content with that burrito grande for the evening.
For a long moment, I stood on the sidewalk and listened to the neighborhood. An old yellow dog across the street stood by the curb and watched me. He wasn’t on a leash, and he looked like he owned the turf. Apparently I wasn’t worth a single bark. None of the other dog neighbors had noticed my arrival. Somewhere down Blaine Street, a Skilsaw shrieked and I wondered what home builder was working at this time of night. When the saw finished its cut and the night fell quiet, I could hear the regular flow of traffic on the interstate, a mile south.
The night before, with the weather a carbon copy of this evening, had Larry Zipoli paused in his front yard to listen and enjoy the peace and quiet? Probably not. Assumption drives our days, and one of the most comforting assumptions is that tomorrow we’ll still be here.
I took a deep breath and walked to the Zipolis’ front door. I didn’t need to knock. When my boot touched the first concrete step, Marilyn Zipoli opened the door.
“I saw you drive up.” She held the screen open for me, but paused as if having second thoughts. “The old guy across the street doesn’t bite, by the way.”
“My stealth approach,” I said. “I figured he didn’t. Just watching takes most of his time and energy.”
Marilyn hesitated, still blocking the door. “Maybe we could take a little stroll. It’s so nice out, and it’s so stuffy inside. If the phone doesn’t stop ringing, it’s going to drive me insane.”
“That would be fine. Whatever you want.”
She sniffed something that I didn’t catch, and slipped past the screen, closing it carefully. “What I want isn’t going to happen,” she offered. I fell in step with her. At the sidewalk, she turned north. For a block, she said nothing, and I didn’t prompt her. We reached Blaine, and she stopped, gazing off into the darkness of a vacant lot. That lonely, desolate spot seemed to suit her, and she turned to face me, arms folded tightly across her chest. Enough light from the street light across the way illuminated the tears on her cheeks.
“I try to imagine how…” She managed that far and stopped. “Sheriff Salcido said that Mrs. Truman found him?”
“Yes. She was running an errand into town.”
“Tell me how it happened. Neither the sheriff nor Tony seemed to know very much.” Or wanted to say the ugly words.
“We don’t know very much, Marilyn. Someone fired a shot that hit the grader in the windshield. The bullet passed through and struck your husband. He never moved from his seat.”
A yelp escaped from her lips, and she pressed a hand over her mouth, turning away. I started to reach out, to put an arm around her shoulders, but she turned back, both hands held up as if to block the scream of a jet engine. “And if it was…if it was intentional? The sheriff wouldn’t say. But how could it be anything else? My God. That’s all I’ve been able to think about. How something like this could have happened.”
“The bullet could have come from farther out, from out by the arroyo. Lots of folks shoot out there. We just don’t know yet.”
She looked at me, making no effort to wipe away the flood of tears. “Is that what you believe? I mean, how could that happen? You would have to aim right over that way. You’d have to want to shoot that way. Was it just some vandal who saw the county grader and decided to pop one over at it? Couldn’t he see that Larry was working?”
“I would think that he could, Marilyn, but we can’t be sure. That time of the afternoon, the sun would be on the glass of the grader’s cab. Whoever it was might not have known Larry was inside.”
“Anybody up that way would have heard it, sheriff. “That old thing is awful. Anyone would have heard it.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not.” Sharing an investigation closes some doors, and I didn’t want that to happen. So I settled for the lame platitude. “We’re going to find out. One way or another, we’ll find out exactly what happened. Did you have something in particular that you wanted to ask me? Or tell me?”
“Mostly I was just frustrated that the sheriff couldn’t or wouldn‘t tell me very much. And he asked me if Larry had had any arguments recently. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Did he?”
She struggled with that for a moment. “I want…I want you to talk with our neighbor.” With that said, she ducked her head and looked back down the street as if expecting a response.
“Which one?”
“Just next door. Mr. Raught. The fellow with all the cacti.”
“Raught.” The name rang only the faintest of bells. It always surprised me when I heard of a county resident whom I didn’t know, the busy-body nature of law enforcement being what it is. “Mr. Raught has information we should know? Or you have information about him?”
She drew a great, shuddering sigh as if uttering the words were going to cost her a great deal. “He threatened Larry.”
“Really. Threatened how?”
“Well, he’s always ready with something snippy.” She wiped her eyes. “Always. Some snippy comment. Larry would stop home for lunch once in a great while, and if Raught was home and saw the county pickup truck in the driveway, he’d make some snide comment about taxpayers paying for lunch. That sort of thing, just constantly. He complained when he saw a drop or two of oil from the boat on the driveway-and it’s our driveway, after all. Just every opportunity. He threatened to call the cops when Rori had a birthday party, and one of her friends parked for a few minutes in front of Raught’s house, with his car radio a little bit loud. Just no end to it.”
“Complaints aren’t threats, Marilyn. You said that Mr. Raug
ht threatened your husband.”
“Oh, that was the most recent thing. You’re not going to believe this, Bill. You know where the boat and camper truck are parked? The west side of the drive. And then there’s that narrow little border flower garden? Larry put up one of those decorator fences, one of those little plastic things that’s just a foot high or so? Right down the property line between us and Raught’s. And of course, wouldn’t you know, Mr. Raught complained about that. Last week, he just pulled it out and tossed it on the lawn between the flowers and the driveway.”
“He pulled it out? Without asking first? What was his problem with it?”
“He says that he can’t maneuver around his gardens with that fence there.”
“The fence would be on your property, wouldn’t it? You said that Larry put it in, right?”
“Of course it was,” Marilyn said. “But Mr. Raught said that it wasn’t, and that it prevented him from taking care of his own yard. And he said it was ugly. So he just pulled it out.”
“And Larry put it back,” I guessed. That seemed predictable somehow. We had a couple little kids at work here, arguing in their sand box and smacking each other with plastic shovels.
“He did, and he even moved it a couple inches our way, too, so Mr. Raught wouldn’t have anything to complain about.”
“But he complained anyway?”
“He pulled it out again, sheriff. I couldn’t believe it. That’s so childish. And he didn’t just pull it out. He broke it up and threw it in the dumpster in the alley. He said the next thing he was going to do was rip out the flower garden, since most of it is on his property anyway.”
“And is it?”
“No, it’s not on his land. Good heavens. Larry was so angry, I thought he was going to have a stroke. The two of them had words, and Larry asked Mr. Raught how he’d like to have the cops come and check out his back yard.”
“Ah. Do I want to know about this?” From plastic decorator fence to World War III. The old dog across the street must have had quite a show.
“That’s when Mr. Raught started talking about real trouble. I told Larry that he just needs to forget all about it. Just pretend that no one lives next door. You know,” and she rubbed her nose, searching for a tissue with the other hand, “sometime that man is going to need help from somebody, and nobody is going to come to his aid. That’s not very Christian, I know. But that’s how I feel.”
“So he promised what you’re referring to as ‘real trouble.’ When was this last confrontation?”
“Yesterday morning. That’s when we found the fence had gone missing, and we found it in the dumpster. And now, Larry …” She closed her eyes. “I’m sure Mr. Raught had nothing to do with Larry’s accident. But the coincidence of it all was on my mind, and I needed to talk to someone.” She tried a smile. “You know, one of these days, I’m going to come face to face with that man and he’s going to say something nasty about Larry, and I’m going to punch him right in his fat nose. And it’s going to feel really good.” She reached out and touched my arm. “Just so you know it’s coming, sheriff.”
“Marilyn, I can’t imagine that an argument over a foot high border fence resulted in shots fired, but you’re right to mention it.” Well, yes I could imagine it. I’d responded to fights that had started over far less, but Marilyn didn’t need to know that. “We’re looking at every angle, talking to everyone we can think of. I’ll add your neighbor to my list, sooner rather than later.” I took her by the elbow and we started to wend our way back down the sidewalk.
Marilyn Zipoli stopped in her tracks, and looked up at me through her tears. “Larry’s always saying that the man probably has a backyard pot farm, what with all his walls and security. I mean, that’s exactly what Larry thinks he’s growing back there. Mr. Raught said it was just Virginia Creeper, and Larry thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ‘Virginia Creeper, my ass,’ he’d say. ‘Not in this country.’”
“Be interesting to check that out,” I said. I had a tough, valiant Virginia Creeper vine trying to survive on the back of my old, shady adobe on the other side of town, so it was certainly possible.
“Oh, let it go,” she said, and that surprised me. “I don’t care what he’s growing. I know that he was a thorn in Larry’s side, and that they’d had a confrontation, and it seemed to me that maybe that was important. And now I’m thinking I probably shouldn’t have mentioned a thing. It’s hard to keep things straight at a time like this. Someone to blame. That’s what it is, I think. Someone to blame. Something so stupid, so senseless…”
I sidestepped a bicycle that lay half in the gravel of a front yard and half on the sidewalk. I’d ignored it when we’d passed by before, but now I took a moment and nudged it out of the way. “The neighbor kids must have a good time with this Raught fellow, if he’s as contentious as you say. He’d be easy to bait.”
“I don’t know about that. I suppose he keeps pretty much to himself. I mean, we don’t see Mr. Raught all that often.”
I glanced sideways at Marilyn Zipoli. Conflicted and confused, she was a bundle of contradictions. Was Raught a neighborhood curmudgeon, or was he a recluse? Did he make a hobby of confrontations, or did he remain in the shadows? Marilyn changed course.
“You know, Larry spends a lot of time with the neighborhood kids. He works with the scouts, you know. And with the 4-H, especially when Rori was active. And there’s always a group ready to go fishing or water skiing. You’d think we had ten kids, instead of just the one daughter home now.” She stopped as if she’d walked into a stone wall. “I just don’t know,” she murmured. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now.”
We had reached their property, and I glanced at the narrow flower garden sandwiched between the driveway and the neighbor’s property. In the dark with just a distant street lamp for illumination, the narrow garden didn’t look like much, but I could see where the spread of neat cactus gardens and arrangements crept right to the property line. Working in the Zipolis’ little flower garden would have been risky. Stumble and fall into the neighbor’s yard and you’d end up a pincushion. A fence might have been a good idea.
Raught’s home was dark, with one of the bedroom windows open on the street side. No doubt he could hear every word we were saying.
“Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” Marilyn offered. “We have a houseful of food, and my sister brought over that big coffee maker from the church.” She shook her head wearily. “Oh my.”
“Thanks, but I have some things that need tending to.” I gripped her shoulder and rocked her a bit, making sure I had her attention, and spoke just above a whisper. “We’re going to get through this, Marilyn. That’s the extent of what I know at the moment. We’re going to find out exactly what happened to your husband. Somewhere, somehow, somebody knows something. It’s just a matter of putting all the pieces together. If you happen to think of anything else-any little bit, no matter how insignificant-be sure to give me a call. Don’t hesitate.”
“And I know what I said, but I don’t blame my neighbor.” She glared toward Raught’s house. “Really, I don’t. I hope you don’t think that I’m just looking…”
“That’s the whole point, Mrs. Zipoli,” I said. “We are looking. Under every rock, in every dark corner. Tomorrow afternoon, when you’ve had a little time to rest, one of our officers will be by to chat again. As I said, we’ll explore every avenue. I’ll come by myself and talk with Raught. Even if the argument didn’t go anywhere, he might have heard something, somehow. Something useful.” I rocked her shoulder again. “And don’t worry. I certainly won’t tell him that you complained.”
“Oh, he’ll know.” She looked numb from fatigue and the emotional drain of this impossible day. I watched her go into the house, and then walked back to my county car. The old yellow dog stood so still he might have been a statue.
“What do you know?” I asked. He didn’t answer.
Apropos of nothing, I realize
d that in all the years I’d lived and worked in Posadas, in all the years I’d known who the Zipolis were, in all the years I’d had the opportunity to perhaps greet one or the other on the street or in the bank, in all those years, I had never seen them together.
Chapter Seven
I didn’t give much thought to what Marilyn Zipoli had told me about Mr. Raught. Gossip about neighbors was not generally reliable…certainly not the stuff of court testimony, which is where all this would end up eventually. You see the old lady digging in her iris bed, and it’s obvious as hell that she’s burying body parts that used to belong to her husband because, when you saw her, that’s the creative daydream that shot through your head. Surprise, surprise. She was burying iris bulbs. Marilyn Zipoli wasn’t thinking straight, and I wasn’t about to go charging into a man’s life based on her wandering statements.
Maybe Jim Raught did have a marijuana plant in his back yard. Maybe his idea of happy hour included a big fat reefer. I didn’t care. Some cops would, and I probably should have, the law being something that I was sworn to uphold. What he did with his weeds in the privacy of his own home was up to him, until he sold some of it to a neighbor kid, or baled it to take to Albuquerque.
I didn’t care what arguments Jim Raught had had with Larry Zipoli, either-unless the argument turned violent. I did care that someone had put a high-powered rifle bullet through a seated, defenseless victim. That was the work of a warped and twisted sniper, and the idea that we might have one of them living in our little village was enough to massage my natural insomnia.
At midnight, the county building was like a tomb. Two trustees were currently in residence, and both would be asleep upstairs in the lockup, so there was no gentle swishing of the mop on the entryway tiles, no monotonic whistling as Benny Vasquez dusted everything with a treated cloth-he’d even dust me if I held still long enough. The sheriff’s wife drew a pittance salary as the department’s chief matron, and she made sure the trustees-never would she use the word ‘prisoner’-were well fed and comfortably housed. My own theory was that Benny enjoyed his lodging just a little too much. Locked up with Benny was Todd Duncan, a long-haired dope-sniffing loser who was basically good-natured enough, and enjoyed washing county vehicles. Todd enjoyed our hospitality for short stretches every couple of months.
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