“Huh.” I rested my chin on my fist. “But Hugh never saw the gun? That’s what he says?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Did Tody hear the gunshot as well?”
“She says she did. A single crack. That’s how she described it.”
I rose from my chair and walked across the small office to the two framed maps on the wall-one of Posadas County, the other the village itself. “The Deckers live right about there.” I jabbed a finger at the intersection of Sixth and Hutton.
“On the west side,” Salcido added.
“Right. He goes outside, looks to the north,” and I stroked a finger across the short distance toward Highland. “If the shooter was about here…” Both Salcido and Estelle Reyes let me muse with the map without interrupting my chain of thought.
“No one else saw a thing?”
Salcido hooked one of the military surplus folding chairs with his toe, turned it around and sat down with his arms folded across the back. He drew a small note book out of his shirt pocket and used his thumb to push through the pages. “There are a total…” he lingered on that word… “a total of seven people who heard shots. And the number varies, Jefito. From one to a whole string. Some heard a loud boom, like maybe a shotgun. Some heard what they assumed were firecrackers.” He looked up at me, the crow’s tracks at the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Now if you hear one rifle shot, how do you translate that into a whole string?”
“Inventive,” I said. “I don’t know. I need to talk with Hugh. He saw the road grader working?”
Salcido shook his head. “Tody didn’t know. Hugh wasn’t home when I stopped by.” He made a spinning motion with one hand. “He has this rototiller that he’s trying to make work. He’s in and out all the time.”
“I’d like to talk with him,” I said, and turned to Estelle. “You ready to roll?”
“Yes, sir.”
Salcido laughed gently. “Quite a job interview you’re having today.” He regarded Estelle critically. “Did he find a vest that fits you?” This was one of those occasions where it’s do as I say, not as I do, since in all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen Eduardo Salcido wear a protective vest. Maybe it was vanity-a vest would plump out his already blocky shape and make him resemble a gourd-or just the discomfort of the thing, stiff and hot under the shirt. Those were my excuses, anyway.
In this case, any idiot could see that someone with Estelle Reyes’ body shape wasn’t going to enjoy the unyielding discomfort of the Kevlar body armor.
“I think we’re going to have to order for you,” I said.
“Sooner rather than later,” Salcido added gently. “She needs to observe in dispatch in the meantime.” He pushed himself up from the chair.
“That’s one of the goals for this afternoon,” I said. “I’ll come up with a schedule for her.”
“This afternoon,” Salcido chuckled. I could see it for myself, that inexorable advancement of the clock when Larry Zipoli’s corpse now lay on a slab at Salazar’s Funeral Home while his killer kept a sharp eye over his shoulder. The passage of time was the killer’s ally.
“You be careful out there,” Salcido said as he read my mind. “You’re going out to see the Deckers?”
I nodded. “And then I have a few more questions I want to ask Marilyn Zipoli.” Settling on the corner of my desk, I patted the personnel folder. “Pino had every reason over the years to can Zipoli’s ass. There are a dozen letters of reprimand in his records. And no action taken other than that, Eduardo. Just letters.”
That earned the familiar “oh well” expression from the sheriff.
“It’s almost as if Pino was afraid of him. Or at least afraid to face up to him and straighten things out.”
“Lots of folks find that hard to do,” Salcido mused. “It’s just easier to let it go. As long as nothing happens, you know. I don’t think it’s an issue of fear, Jefito.” And I was willing to bet that the sheriff knew exactly what the issue was. I was also willing to bet that Larry Zipoli’s drinking on the job was not the motive for his murder.
“I would hope not. Tony Pino certainly would have the county attorney on his side if he wanted to make an issue of personnel matters. And by the way, I talked with Jim Raught earlier. He’s an interesting fellow.”
“He is that,” Salcido agreed. “Keeps to himself. That’s what I know about him.”
“We’re stumbling around in the dark,” I said. “I find it hard to believe that Larry Zipoli’s drinking on the job had anything to do with his death, and I don’t believe that a little argument with a neighbor did.”
“There’s something that we’re missing, then,” Salcido said, echoing my own thoughts exactly.
Chapter Eighteen
Hugh Decker was glad to see us. Just in case we might decide to pass him by, he dropped the rag he’d been using to polish the engine housing of his rototiller-something I would certainly want to do should I own one-and made for the curb to head us off. The Deckers owned the cleanest, most meticulously maintained tiller in Posadas County. Exactly why blow sand needed tilling was a mystery to me.
I parked in the shade of an enormous cottonwood whose roots had to be sucking water from five neighboring yards.
“Keep a straight face,” I ordered.
Hugh waddled across to us, his thin shorts more like cut-off pajama bottoms and threatened by gravity at each step. His sleeveless T-shirt was inadequate for its task, and hairy pink flesh bulged in some unattractive places. Enormous flat feet splayed his sandals.
“Tody said you were by,” he rumbled in greeting, and he mopped his forehead with a mammoth wrist.
“The sheriff was,” I corrected. And who knew. With Hugh’s damaged eye-sight, he might well have mistaken Eduardo for me, or vice versa.
“Well, lemme show you something,” he said, and then stopped short as he caught sight of Estelle Reyes. “And who are you, young lady?”
“This is Estelle Reyes,” I said. “New with the department.”
Hugh thrust out a huge paw, and Estelle’s hand disappeared for several pumps. “Good to make your acquaintance,” he said. “Where do you hail from?”
“Posadas, sir.”
Hugh looked puzzled. “Do I know your folks?”
“I would doubt it, sir.” A safe enough assumption, since Estelle herself didn’t know her folks.
“What’s to show us?” I prompted, and Hugh nodded vigorously and beckoned for us to follow him around to the back of the house. The place was tidy. The garage door was open to reveal a late-model Ford LTD with Sheriff’s Posse license plates and two whip antennas sprouting from the trunk. In the back yard, half a dozen dwarf fruit trees were making a valiant effort.
“Oh, hello!” Tody warbled, sticking her head out the back door. “Hugh, remember that you have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Goddamn doctors, excuse my French. They’re never satisfied.” He grinned at me and punched his glasses back up the slope of his fleshy nose. “I expect you’ve had your share.” Not waiting for an answer, he walked to the back block wall and pointed. Over the four-foot barrier, the open prairie stretched uninterrupted to the north. A view of the streets was impossible, the vegetation in the back lots just high enough to block the road surfaces and bar ditches from view, but I could just make out the stop sign at the intersection of Hutton and Highland-and only then because I knew it was there.
“Car parked right at the intersection,” Hugh said, affecting an officious, clipped delivery. He swept his arm to the east. “Now, the road grader would have been right about over there. The guy I saw was walking back to the car.”
“Holding something?”
“I couldn’t swear to it, sheriff.”
I leaned an elbow on the top row of blocks. “How far do you suppose that is, from here to the stop sign at the intersection.”
“Two hundred yards, maybe three.”
“Two or three football f
ields,” I translated. “Close enough that if the wind was right, you could hear voices.”
“Didn’t, though.”
“Could you hear the road grader?”
“Not when it was just idling. When he was actually grading, I could catch snatches of it.”
“You heard a gun shot?”
Hugh held up a single finger. “One. Just one. At three minutes after two.” He held up his left wrist to display the impressive, multi-functioned watch. Again, he adopted the officious tone. “I hear a shot, I look at the clock.”
“We’re glad that you do,” I said. “When you heard that one shot, where were you?”
He turned and pointed across the yard at the chaise lounge. “Right there, letting lunch settle.”
“So you heard it-at three minutes after two-and got up to see what’s what.”
“That’s exactly what I did. Every once in a while, you know, somebody gets itchy on the trigger just a little bit too close to dwellings. And I tell you…” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Old war time thing-you hear a whole mess of shooting, not to worry. You hear one shot, it’s time to worry. Somebody bought the farm.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, and Hugh nodded sagely. “You heard the shot, checked the time, and walked over to the fence?”
“Yes. And I saw one figure-I would guess it to be a man-walking back to a car by the intersection.”
“The grader was sitting still at the time?”
“It was.”
“Running?”
“I couldn’t swear that it was.”
“Couldn’t see an operator moving around?”
“Hell, I couldn’t even tell if there was anyone on board. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
“Ain’t that the truth. As the man-woman, whoever-walked back to the vehicle, how would you describe his pace, Hugh. Hustling, trotting, sprinting?”
“Walking. As best I could see. Just walking along.”
“And carrying…”
“Nothing that I could see. ‘Course, if he was right-handed and held the rifle in that hand, it’d be hidden mostly by his body.”
“True enough. You watched him get into the vehicle?”
“Well, sort of. I mean, it was a small car, you know. We got a lot of weeds and desert shit between here and there. Couldn’t see much.”
“Heard one door slam?”
“Didn’t hear any door slam,” Hugh corrected. “Too damn far for that.”
“You watched him drive off?”
“I did. He turned around in the intersection and drove back down Hutton into town.”
“Speeding? Big dust plume?”
“Nope. Just normal.” He looked askance at me. “You thinkin’ that wasn’t the shooter, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, like I told Eduardo, I don’t see how it couldn’t be. And that says to me that you’ve got one cool cucumber.”
I turned around and regarded the house. “Where was Tody, then?”
“At the kitchen sink, right inside.” He pointed. “See that window that’s a little higher than the others? That’s right over the counter top beside the sink.”
“She has a minute?”
“’Course she does.”
Tody Decker looked like the nurse that she’d been for thirty years, neat and cool in shorts and polo shirt, fighting the battle of the waistline with a moderate paunch, legs a little heavy from years spent working on both the hospital and the high school’s unyielding concrete floors.
“This is just the most awful thing,” she announced after pumping our hands. “I mean in our little neighborhood. I told Sheriff Salcido the same thing. I just can’t believe it.” She leaned forward and stared at Estelle Reyes as if maybe she’d missed her at the handshake. “My word, you’re a gorgeous young lady,” she blurted. “And we know each other somehow.”
“Mrs. Decker, you were our school nurse when I was at the high school.” Estelle offered a warm smile.
“Well, that hasn’t been so long. My word, my old memory is so full of holes.”
“Tody,” I said, not wanting to settle into a round of reminiscence, “after you heard the shot, you looked outside?”
She pointed back at the kitchen. “I heard the shot and then Hugh got up and I heard him say, ‘Now what the…are they shooting at?” She smiled demurely and glanced affectionately at her husband. “I won’t tell you what he actually said. And then I looked out across the field. I remember that there was a road grader out there. That’s all I saw.”
“No car, no one walking?”
“Sheriff, I’m not saying there wasn’t someone. It’s just that the screen over the window makes it hard. I think that I saw the car, but it was a little thing.”
“A compact, maybe?”
“No, I mean at that distance, it’s just too far to see clearly.”
“Well, I saw the Goddamn car and the guy walking back toward it.”
I gazed off to the north, trying to form the image. “So…and this is important, Hugh.” With one arm, I pointed at the spot where the car would have been parked. With the other, I made an angle back toward the road grader. “I want to know how far the man was from the car at the very first instant you saw him. How far did he have to walk to make it back to the car?”
Hugh frowned, the expression producing a rumple of his massive forehead. He turned, and held up his own arms, mimicking my geometry. “My guess…my guess is that he was maybe a hundred feet from the car when I caught sight of him. And he was already walking back toward it.” He swept one arm to the east and sighted along it. “So right about there. Yeah, that would be about right.”
I wondered what he could see through his thick and not entirely clean glasses.
“See there’s a good-sized group of tumble weeds just past the little dip there?”
The “tumble weeds” could have been long horn steers as far as Hugh was concerned. “So he actually had to walk a little bit to reach the car. I mean, as much as twenty or thirty paces.”
“That’s a fact. I had time, thinkin’ about it now, to watch him walk for a little bit. I was wondering if he was the one who had fired the shot, and at what. See, the road grader was way the hell over there,” and he nodded eastward.
“And you couldn’t hear it or see the operator.”
“That’s right. You know, sheriff, it don’t sit just real good with me knowing that Larry Zipoli was just lying out there, shot dead, while I sat here drinking iced tea.” He shook his head. “What time was he found?”
“He’d been there a while,” I offered. “But that’s the way these things go. Someone might have driven by and never noticed him.”
“Could have, I suppose.” He slid one huge arm around his wife’s shoulders, waiting for the next question. But I didn’t have any. The Decker’s portrait of events did nothing to alter the chilling image of the scenario that I imagined. Step out of the car, maybe walk as much as a hundred feet or so, take aim and fire at a defenseless man. And then stroll away.
Chapter Nineteen
“You see the problem?” I asked Estelle Reyes. She’d been taking a slew of notes in a small spiral notebook. I didn’t wait for her to read my mind. “On the one hand, Hugh Decker hears one shot, and then sees a man…a person…walking back to a parked car.” I held up an index finger. “If we take him to be the shooter, then he’s as cold and calculating as they come. No rush, no fuss. He shoots once, doesn’t check his target, and saunters away. Once he’s back in the car, he doesn’t even drive down Highland to see what damage he’s done.” I shrugged. “Now tell me how that jibes with Bobby Torrez’s experiments.”
“Do you trust what Mr. Decker claims to have seen, sir?”
“Now that’s a question.” I swung the car onto Hutton, and we approached the intersection with Highland at a sedate ten miles an hour. For a moment, neither of us said anything, both of us looking off to the east along Highland, trying to imagine circumstances on tha
t quiet day. To the south, I could see the back of the Deckers’ house, squat and secure among a half dozen other homes, the big cottonwood dominating their double lot.
“Let me put it this way. Were I a defense attorney, I’d be ecstatic to see Hugh Decker as a prosecution witness.”
I stopped the car, hunching forward over the steering wheel, linking the fingers of both hands. “Most of the time, something breaks for us. Some insignificant little thing pops its head up. If we stay receptive, maybe we see it.” I shrugged philosophically. “We’re coming at this thing from several directions. We keep at it, and something will break.”
The young lady was an easy passenger to talk with-well, to. She didn’t blab pointless theories, or push an opinion based on nothing. She appeared to absorb, but who knew when she would factor everything out.
“I tell you what,” I said, looking for a rise of some sort-a comment, an impression, something from behind those inscrutable black eyes that had been watching us all day. “Tell me what happened, and you’ll make detective sergeant by tomorrow morning.”
She smiled, a delightful expression that I’d learned she held in deep reserve. The smile didn’t stay long enough, but faded as her eyebrows lowered in a frown. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
I laughed. “Well, hell. I can come up with that much, Deputy Reyes. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re going to end up clocking a dozen hours today if we don’t knock off. That happens once in a great while-normally, our days are full of astounding boredom, and you’ll have to develop your own system for not going insane.” I pulled the car into reverse. “But in a case like this, we make hay when we can. The longer we dawdle around, the greater the odds that the killer will walk.”
The LTD idled down Hutton…all right, dawdled. As far as I was concerned, the day was yet young. “I have a stop or two I want to make, but I’ll be happy to drop you off at the office. “It’s your call.”
“You had mentioned coming up with a schedule for me…”
“Ah. I did. And of course, I haven’t gotten around to it. Mañana isn’t our motto for nothing, my friend.” I watched Hutton creep by. “I’d like you to start out working dispatch days for a couple of shifts. You need to see how the organization works-or doesn’t, as the case may be. Meet people, learn were the copier is, how the files work, how we manage the lock-up…just the whole ball of wax. It’s not rocket science, and it’s not a huge department.” I shrugged. “So in about twenty minutes, you’ll know all there is to know. Then we’ll swing you around to four to midnight, and then midnight to eight. And then you’ll dispatch, probably midnight to eight, with Ernie Wheeler looking over your shoulder. Fair enough?”
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