by Don Travis
“At first I thought that’s exactly what I was seeing. But no, it wasn’t that. He was settled down. I didn’t see any wild streak in him anymore. He was nervous as hell. Never relaxed. Always looking over his shoulder.” German shook his head, remembering, “But I guess a lot of people who go through a shooting war act that way. At any rate, I didn’t see any sign of drugs. Hell, he’d even quit smoking. He looked healthy. But he was so damned nervous. I wondered what kind of horrors he’d seen over there. What do they call that? PTSD? There was still some pretty nasty fighting over there before he came back.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t talk about it. I understand that’s not unusual either. A lot of vets don’t talk about their experiences with people who haven’t been through it.”
“When did he leave Lovely Pines?”
“He wasn’t home more than a week.”
“He give any reason before he left?”
“He got a couple of phone calls before he took off. In fact, he left right after the second one. I got the feeling he talked to Dad before he disappeared, but I didn’t have an opportunity to ask, because my father got sick rather suddenly and died.”
“From what?”
“Heart attack. I say suddenly, but he’d been complaining for a month before. Wouldn’t go see a doctor until it was too late. He wouldn’t even talk about going until he fainted on the stairway one night and broke a hip. When we got him to the hospital, the doctor gave him hell for not getting in earlier. They did everything they could, but he was dead within two days.”
“Did Diego come back during the illness?”
“He didn’t even show up for the funeral.”
“And you have no idea how to get in touch with him?”
“Not a clue.”
“Pardon me for being blunt, Mr. C de Baca, but Ariel Gonda paid a pretty hefty price for the Lovely Pines, and as an heir, Diego presumably received a share of that.”
“Everything was put into a trust. He, my sister, and I are beneficiaries under the trust and are entitled to certain funds, but the corpus is intact.”
“I understood Lovely Pines was a corporation.”
“It was, but the shares were owned by the trust. Dad transferred everything to the C de Baca Family Trust about five years before he died.”
“Then the trust must have some way of conveying the funds to him.”
“He hasn’t touched a penny. I checked. It’s still sitting in the trust’s disbursement account.”
“How was the relationship between you and your brother? Actually half brother, if I’m correct.”
“My brother was so much younger than I was, we were more like cousins. When he was first born, I was a little resentful. But he was such a great kid, I got over it. I liked being around him.” He frowned. “Until the last couple of years before he went into the Army.”
“What happened?”
“He turned into a different guy.”
“Why?”
He spent five minutes not answering the question, but when I asked about his sister’s relationship with Diego, I thought I understood. She wasn’t quite as forgiving as German. Although he didn’t come right out and say it, she resented another heir, especially one from a different wife.
When German started showing signs of impatience, I thanked him for his time and asked for a photo of Diego. He declined but showed me a family photo made after his younger brother’s brief return last September. A handsome, serious, almost dour-looking young man standing at German’s left peered into the camera’s lens. He stood slightly apart from the other two, as if acknowledging the age, blood, and emotional gaps between them. Somehow he seemed familiar to me.
German provided the phone numbers for Lovely Pines while the C de Bacas owned the business, although he wasn’t certain if the calls Diego took came in over the landline or the cell phone his brother carried. He did not have the number or the cellular carrier but seemed to recall it was one of those pay-as-you-go services. If Ray Yardley wasn’t interested in trying to track down the source of those calls that may have lured Diego away, then perhaps my old APD partner, Lt. Gene Enriquez, would check them out.
SINCE I was already halfway there, I hightailed it to Plácido before the light failed in order to have another look around. If I was right that no one got past me and escaped out the door the other night, then Paul’s conclusion was correct. There was an unknown entrance into the winery.
I parked beside Juisson’s red Miata and walked the exterior of the winery building looking for cracks that could have signaled a hidden door. After that revealed nothing useful, I bummed a couple of cigarettes from Parson Jones and spent an hour walking the interior of the building, blowing smoke all over the walls in the hope a draft would suck smoke and reveal an opening. All I accomplished was to rekindle a hunger for tobacco I thought I’d killed eight years ago.
Before it got too dark, I hiked the woods north of the winery, trying to imagine the cavern holding the wine cellar beneath my feet. Unfortunately I lost the light before I finished that search.
The intruder would be too skittish after the close shave the other night to show himself so soon, so I decided to find a spot where I could observe the winery from the outside. The best one seemed to be the place where someone kept watch just on the west side of the wall. I made myself comfortable a few feet south of the wallow I’d found. I didn’t want to be discovered if the sniper returned. That thought rolled off my mind so effortlessly, there was no question I’d accepted that was who utilized the spot.
What was the significance of that? Could it have anything to do with Zuniga’s shooting? He certainly wasn’t the victim of a sniper shooting from concealment. The caliber of bullet was wrong; the pattern of the wounds wasn’t right. And judging from what I’d seen at the crime scene, Bas was confronted before he was shot.
Satisfied no one was concealed in the wallow, or for that matter in the general area, I used my cell phone to let Paul know I wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. He offered to drive up and protect my rear while I kept guard. The idea of him snuggling up against me from behind was attractive, but I discouraged him. A call to Gonda informed him of my plans and asked him to go ahead and shut the front gates even though my car was still in the parking lot. I took my stubby Ruger from the belt at my back and checked that all five chambers were loaded. Satisfied, I transferred it to a front pocket in my windbreaker for easier access. After that, there was nothing to do except to wish I’d brought a heavier jacket and a thermos of hot coffee or tea. The days might get hot, but the evenings cooled off considerably, especially up here on the haunches of Sandia Peak.
Years of investigative work had taught me patience, but a long stakeout gets boring for even the most experienced of us. The Lovely Pines community shut down relatively early. I watched one car leave, presumably Zuniga’s mother going back to her hotel either in Bernalillo or Albuquerque. Reason told me that no matter how generous and accepting Margot Gonda was, neither woman would be comfortable with Barbara sleeping in the same house.
Nothing moved across the silent landscape for hours. The place was well lit with external lights on two corners of the winery, over the door to the chateau, and a couple of lights in the vineyard area. By using a small pair of binoculars I habitually keep in my car, I located the security cameras Gonda had installed at both the winery and at the chateau. The most distant visible light was the bulb at the door of the Bledsong cottage. Another illuminated the open work shed directly adjacent to it.
That meant whoever was entering the winery probably approached through the forest to the west. I was reluctant to leave the spot near where someone obviously spent a good deal of time watching the winery, but logic determined that I should shift my position to have more of a view of the northern fence line. As I was about to rise, movement caught my eye. Wishing my glasses had night vision, I put them to my eyes and scanned the fence area between the lake and the vineyard. T
ension flowed out of me as two mule deer strolled up to the tall cyclone wire looking for a way to get to the grapevines. As I watched, they came to the end of the tall fence and nimbly hopped the four-foot stone wall to resume looking for an entry point. When they didn’t find one, they lowered their graceful heads and began munching on Gonda’s lawn.
I smiled to myself as I dropped the glasses back onto their leather strap around my neck. I was ready to make my move toward the forest when the sound of a motor vehicle moving up the road behind me reached my ears. I sank down into the grass again and waited. The driver killed the engine. There had been no glow of headlamps, so he must have used parking lights to maneuver the road.
As soon as the motor went off, the night went so quiet I realized I’d grown accustomed to hearing: animals in the bush, night birds calling, the flutter of unseen wings. Now everything waited and watched.
Ten minutes elapsed with no sign of the prowler. Had he walked on up the road? I was about to go check when I heard a faint rustle, as if a large serpent slithered through the grass and weeds. After a moment of panic—snakes and I aren’t compatible—I realized it was the intruder. He was crawling on his belly. Alarm bells went off again. This man was a pro. He moved like a couple of people I knew back in the Marines. Snipers. Men who could appear behind you without warning. Men who knew how to kill.
The old gunshot wound in my inner right thigh began throbbing. I pressed my hand down on it as if afraid he would hear the blood rushing, but otherwise I didn’t move a muscle. Another seemingly endless ten minutes elapsed while my body cried out for movement—any kind of movement—to relieve cramping. But I held still. Finally I saw the tall stalks of grass nearby twitch. The wily son of a bitch hadn’t returned to his former watching place. He’d picked another spot a few yards to the south… and closer to me than I liked.
The moonlight feebly penetrated a thin layer of clouds, giving me only a hazy view. Objects began to swim before my eyes, so I switched to my peripheral vision. That was a little better. Very slowly, a dark figure rose up no more than five feet to my left. He was concentrating on the winery, so he didn’t notice my presence. He placed his elbows on the wall and put a set of large binoculars to his eyes. I waited in silence to see what he would do.
While my companion of the night moved like a sniper, he did not appear to have a rifle of any sort with him, unless it was lying at his feet in the grass. As I watched, he scanned the lawn and parking lot, probably with night-vision equipment. He paused as he scanned my car. This guy was familiar with the routine at Lovely Pines and recognized the Impala did not belong. Cautious. And careful.
He transferred his attention to the winery building, turning away from me slightly so that his features were in silhouette briefly. My view was imperfect; my eyesight strained in the darkness, but this did not appear to be Diego C de Baca… or at least, the image of Diego I’d built up in my mind. It was more of an Anglo face, although I couldn’t have described him adequately because of the darkness.
I expected him to complete his surveillance of the area and head for the winery, but he surprised me. He slipped down behind the wall so only a portion of his head appeared above the top. He was waiting and watching for something… or someone.
Moving slowly, I pulled a small camera from my jacket pocket and pointed it in his direction. I closed my eyes before triggering the flash to protect my night vision. I heard a suppressed grunt when the light flashed, but when I opened my eyes, he was gone. This time he didn’t even try to keep quiet. He blundered through the underbrush, heading west toward the forest road. I took off after him. His night vision should be destroyed, so there was a chance I could catch him. Even so, I had trouble seeing once I reached the dark forest, smacking into a sapling or a bush now and then.
I fumbled for my flashlight and snapped it on. That allowed me to move faster, but it also painted me for the intruder. If he moved like a trained sniper, he probably was a sniper. Once I reached the road, I turned the light off and made the best time I could over the rough ruts in the darkness. Almost immediately, I twisted my ankle, which slowed me considerably.
A motor fired in the distance ahead of me. He’d reached his vehicle. I saw a glint of metal a moment before bright headlights blinded me. As I tried to cover my eyes, the vehicle backed down the road and out of sight, leaving me struggling to see anything other than the bright afterglow of his headlamps painted on the underside of my eyelids. I would never catch him now.
I grabbed my cell and dialed 911, explaining the situation to the operator and asking that a county deputy be dispatched from Bernalillo to stop any vehicle on the road and detain anyone until Lt. Ray Yardley or Sgt. Roma Muñoz could reach the area. The intruder headed west toward I-40, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t reverse course and head into the mountains. So I limped on down the road until I reached the highway. There was no traffic moving in either direction.
As I stood in the middle of the road looking toward Valle Plácido, I reached a couple of conclusions. The intruder was military… or at least, military-trained. My overwhelming impression was of a sniper. His stealth tactics had been impeccable. I knew he was coming from the time the car motor died, yet I hadn’t heard him until he was within feet of me. His reflexes were lightning fast. Yes, military. But not Diego C de Baca.
I pulled out my digital camera and checked the photograph I’d taken. The flash dimly illuminated an indistinct figure screened by tall weeds and grasses. The shape of the head was distorted by a dark woolen cap, but it nonetheless reaffirmed my belief the mysterious man was not Diego. Did that mean the sniper was looking for the ex-infantryman?
Chapter 11
NEITHER THE New Mexico State Police nor the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Office caught anyone fleeing toward I-40. After alerting the authorities, I used Gonda’s master key to free the Impala from the parking lot and make my way down the road toward Bernalillo, checking each turnoff into a yard or into the forest, looking for signs a car had recently passed. It was more difficult to determine recent traffic in the small commercial areas of Plácido and Placitas, but in any event, I didn’t locate a vehicle that did not appear to belong.
I stopped at SCSO in Bernalillo to download a copy of the photo of the intruder for Sergeant Muñoz and to fill out a detailed report while it was fresh in my mind. Then I went home. Paul threw an arm over my chest as I slipped into bed, but he didn’t really wake up. I soon joined him in slumber.
THE NEXT morning, a fine late June Tuesday, I settled down at the office to learn more about Diego C de Baca and his two missing Army buddies, Spider Natander and Hugo Pastis. I managed to locate the former commander of their headquarters company, a captain named Donald D. Delfonso who remembered the trio vividly.
“Why are you interested?” Triple-D asked.
I explained the break-in at Lovely Pines and the intruder I’d flushed there the night before. He listened carefully as I revealed everything except the murder of Bas Zuniga. No need to spring that on him unless I needed leverage. But he was cooperative.
“You’re right. Spider Natander was a trained sniper. He went a little rogue, so they changed his MOS and made him into a motor pool mechanic. He didn’t take it too well. If your intruder was one of those three, it was Natander.”
“What do you mean ‘a little rogue’?”
“During one mission, he took out the target okay, but he also shot the man’s wife and father. Since the old man was rumored to be a bad guy too, nothing came of it. Officially, that is. But he was reassigned to my motor pool.”
I played a hunch. “What was Pastis before he came to your command?”
“A demolition expert. He located and disarmed IEDs until it got to him. I understood he was a good one before he cracked.”
“Cracked?”
“Wrong choice of words. He just got so nervous the rest of his team were afraid to work with him any longer. So my motor pool inherited him. He was a decent worker. Night dispatcher, as I reca
ll.”
“Sounds like they dumped their misfits into your motor pool. What was C de Baca’s story?”
“Basically a decent kid but dependent. Easily led. I think the other two recognized him as an easy mark. At any rate, they bummed around together after hours.”
“Any trouble?”
“Yeah. Drank too much. Went out and shot up the desert a few times. Pastis blew up a couple of boulders. Pain in the ass stuff. Almost got them dishonorables, but C de Baca managed to muster out clean.”
“And that’s it?”
“Criminal Intelligence came around once asking questions, but that wasn’t too unusual. The locals were always filing complaints, and the brass just needed to show they were listening.”
“Do you know what they were looking for?”
There was a pause, and I heard a noise like he was shifting the phone receiver from one hand to the other. “There were rumors, but if I paid attention to all the rumors, I wouldn’t have time to do my job.”
“What was the nature of the rumors?”
“Usually women. Petty theft. Sometimes it got heavier. More than one of our men took out his frustration on the locals. There have been a few murder and manslaughter charges. Plus the Criminal Investigation guys were always looking for stolen artifacts.”
“Artifacts? You mean like those looted from the Iraqi National Museum?”
“A lot of them’s been recovered, but there are plenty still missing. The locals have made an industry out of offering some of the loot to our guys. At least, that’s what they claim. Of course, our people get taken. You know, offered priceless relics from antiquity that turn out to have been carved last week by the local stonecutter. I never paid much attention when they came around.”
The captain offered little else, so I hung up with the firm conviction Diego had fallen in with two adventurous types, to put it politely. Was he hiding out in the winery to get away from those two? If so, why? That would have been a drastic step, but maybe his situation was drastic. The winery was where he grew up, and if a secret door to the building existed, he would probably know about it. I considered asking German about such an entrance but didn’t want to expose my hand yet.
