The Lovely Pines

by Don Travis

  If I followed the theory of a military connection to the end, the guy I’d flushed last night was probably Spider Natander. Was Hugo Pastis hanging around too? Why would they be looking for C de Baca so doggedly?

  I phoned Diego’s half sister, Consuela C de Baca de Simpson. Apparently she was a liberated woman who didn’t change her name when she married. Instead, she fell back on the old Spanish custom of adding her husband’s name at the end. A female voice answered the Simpsons’s home telephone and then agreed to get “the señora” on the line.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Vinson.” She got right down to business. “I talked to German and can add nothing to whatever he’s told you about Diego.”

  “You haven’t heard from him?”

  “Not a word. He didn’t even bother to come to our father’s funeral.”

  “He knew about it?”

  “Of course.”

  “How? Did you notify him?”

  “Well, no. But my father’s passing was well covered in the newspapers and TV. How could he not know?”

  “By not reading a newspaper or watching TV.” This woman wasn’t willing to cut her brother any slack at all, which probably meant she resented his existence.

  She brushed it off. “Unlikely. He just didn’t care.”

  “I understood he was close to your father.”

  “At one time. You know how he ended up in the Army, don’t you? And this is the thanks my father got for keeping him out of jail.”

  “So you have no idea where he might go?”

  “I have no idea where he would run to. He’s probably snookered some poor girl into hiding him.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from getting sharp with her. “Hiding him from what?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. But if I know him, he’s hiding from the law for some reason.”

  “Do you know what poor girl he’d run to?”

  “I know nothing about Diego’s friends. I have guests, and I have to go now. If you have further questions, I suggest you contact German.”

  The phone clicked in my ear.

  With a sister like that, I’d probably hide out too. But the kid was an heir. There was money waiting for him anytime he chose to come pick it up. Hell, he probably didn’t even have to come in. He could do it through bank transfers. Why had he disappeared? Was he lying dead somewhere? Injured? In the Bisti case I’d worked last year, a guy went missing after suffering a head wound and went half out of his mind. Could that have happened to this young man? When I got back to the office, I asked Hazel to search the hospitals and police jurisdictions around the state to see if she could pick up a trace of Diego C de Baca.

  While Hazel and Charlie worked their ends of the case, I turned to what I knew was uppermost in my client’s mind at the moment: Bas Zuniga and his two-year-old child, David James Dayton. Gonda’s grandson.

  I tried to save myself a trip to Las Cruces and interviewed the Dayton patriarch by telephone. I didn’t manage to reach James Dayton until after five that afternoon. He was still a working man. His rough voice and abrupt manner went hostile when I finally reached him and revealed the subject of my interest.

  “How come you asking about the baby? Who’re you again?”

  So I went over my credentials a second time and spun a story about Zuniga’s family wanting to make sure the child was all right and hinted at the possibility of support, all without revealing Bas Zuniga was dead.

  “Don’t want no support and don’t need none, neither. The baby’s taken care of, so don’t go sticking your nose in my business.”

  “You may feel the child’s adequately taken care of, Mr. Dayton, but a court might want to be reassured.”

  “That little shit’s gonna involve a court? That baby’s coming on two years old, and we never heard a word from Zuniga. My poor girl barely gets over there to that school before he knocks her up.”

  “It could be that Mr. Zuniga was discouraged from contacting you when your sons beat on him every time they saw him. That’s something the court would take into consideration. Where is the child, Mr. Dayton? No one’s seen him in quite some time.”

  “Where you can’t get your hands on him. He didn’t have no mother, and his daddy’s worthless, so we put him out for adoption.”

  “To whom?”

  “Ain’t got no idea. They don’t tell you that.”

  “What adoption agency was involved?”

  “That’s none of your business.” With that, James Dayton hung up on me.

  I was accustomed to that sort of treatment, so it didn’t cause any heartburn. I swiveled to my computer and began searching for adoption agencies in the area. Dayton was right about one thing: adoption agencies, private or public, were notoriously tight-lipped. But they were willing to share one thing. None of them found a record of handling an adoption for little David James Dayton.

  On further reflection, Bascomb Zuniga fell a little in my estimation. If I had a child, I’d fight anyone I had to in order to get him. According to Dayton, he hadn’t bothered to make contact. But then, what was Dayton’s word worth on the matter?

  Chapter 12

  THE NEXT morning, Charlie phoned to say that his watch on the chateau last night had been quiet and uneventful. He stationed himself at the same place where I’d spotted the intruder, but the man hadn’t showed.

  I skipped going to the office and headed out to the winery. Gonda was still halfway ticked at me for not informing him about Zuniga’s kid before Ray Yardley dumped it on him, but he was civil as he led me upstairs to his office.

  “BJ,” he said as soon as we were seated. “Give me your best assessment of our intruder. And how on earth does he keep eluding us?”

  “Okay, let’s take this step by step. First, I do not believe any of your staff or employees are involved in the break-in.”

  “Thank the good Lord. Then who?”

  “It has to be someone familiar with the property, and that argues it is someone who was at the winery before you purchased it. I believe there is a secret entrance to the winery or cellar the intruder uses to come and go when he pleases.”

  “Then why break into the winery in the first place? The hasp was forced, you know.” Gonda drew a sharp breath. “I see. The secret door was locked. The intruder needed to get into the winery in order to access it.”

  “Right. Then he simply left it unlocked… or there was a key inside he needed to obtain. That’s the only thing that makes sense. The break-in wasn’t really vandalism. All the intruder did was scatter some papers around in the office to throw us off track. There has only been a limited number of bottles of wine taken, which argues he likes a drink with his meals.”

  Gonda nodded. “And he takes only the very best, so he must be familiar with the grape.”

  “The disturbance you noted in your lab was a new product you’re experimenting with. I’d say that raised his curiosity, and he couldn’t resist looking at it closer. Which tells me he was intimate with the way the C de Bacas operated the winery.”

  “Were you able to identify the print on the bottle?”

  I shook my head. “No, it was too smudged. I used K-Y Labs, and they’re good. If it was identifiable, they’d have done it.”

  “Unfortunate. So you think it was a former C de Baca employee?”

  “Or one of the C de Bacas. The younger son, Diego, is off the grid. He is out of the military, but he might have gotten mixed up in something over in Iraq and is laying low for some reason.”

  “And where better to lay low than where you are most familiar with the territory, especially if there is a secret room somewhere,” Gonda said.

  “Exactly.”

  “My staff and I will examine every inch of the place. If there’s a hidden entrance, we’ll find it.”

  “Won’t that disturb the temperature in the cellar? Place your yield in jeopardy?”

  Gonda did that beard-stroking thing where there was no beard, reaffirming my belief he once wore one. �
��Perhaps you’re right.”

  “I took a preliminary look. I even lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the walls, hoping for a draft, but I found nothing. I pounded on them trying to find a hollow space. Nothing. Whoever constructed that door took a great deal of care with it.”

  He had no comment, so I spoke up again. “For the moment let’s keep this just between the two of us. And Margot, of course. But caution her to mention it to no one. Otherwise, everyone will be tempted to go find the entrance, and you’ll have the same problem. Let me and my associate, Charlie Weeks, look around.”

  His face sagged. “Agreed. We have already suffered one terrible loss. I see no value in placing anyone else in potential danger. Everyone is alerted against intruders as it is, and I trust that will be enough.”

  I watched the sadness cross his features and knew what was coming. “BJ, could… could this intruder, this Diego, if that’s who it is, have murdered my son? He was on guard that night.”

  “Yes, but Bas was already through the gate and out on the road. It’s possible he stumbled on the intruder—whoever it is—and challenged him. At this point, there is no evidence this happened.”

  “But is it not logical?”

  “Possibly, but Bas left your property and was walking on the edge of the road toward Plácido. If I were your intruder, I’d have cut through the forest west of the winery, nowhere near where Bas was shot. And even if we had crossed paths, I’d simply run away.”

  “Do you believe he is a danger to my employees?”

  “There is no way to judge until we know for sure who it is and why he keeps coming and going.”

  “You say this Diego person might be hiding from pursuers? Perhaps my son saw him and he didn’t want to be identified.”

  I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Zuniga… uh, Bas was new to the area. He didn’t know the C de Bacas.”

  “Then why?” It came out as a muted wail. “Why did he die?”

  “I can’t answer that, Ariel. The police will find the man who killed him.”

  “Perhaps, but I want you to investigate his death.”

  “I accepted the assignment of finding your intruder because the authorities closed their case. The death of your son is a joint investigation by the state police and the county sheriff. It’s active and ongoing, and they’d take a dim view of me interfering.”

  “Then find my grandson. Make arrangements with the Daytons for me to see him.”

  “I don’t believe they have the boy any longer. I think they put him up for adoption as soon as his mother died.”

  Gonda reacted as though he’d been slapped. “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “Any number of reasons. It’s a household of men. James, the father, is widowed. None of his sons is married. Perhaps they didn’t want to raise a child.”

  “Then why didn’t they turn him over to Bas?”

  “Because in their eyes, he was the source of the problem, not the solution.”

  “Then find him so Margot and I can raise him.”

  “That’s not as simple as it sounds. Adoption information in this state is private. I’ve already contacted Dayton Sr., and he told me to go to hell. Then I checked all of the legitimate adoption agencies I could locate.” I paused. “There might be one way. Take him to court. The judge might at least compel him to say what he did with the baby.”

  “Then by all means, we will file suit. Can you do it for me?”

  “No, you’ll need a lawyer. I work with one who’s good. Del Dahlman. But before you contact him, let me have another try at Dayton.”

  “The quicker the better, BJ.”

  “Is Margot on board with this?”

  “Absolutely. You can ask her yourself.”

  THAT WAS how I found myself headed south on I-25 for the 225-mile trip to Las Cruces on Friday afternoon. I didn’t mind too much because Paul managed a rare weekend off and decided to accompany me. I’d met him while he was a senior at UNM and working part-time at the North Valley Country Club as a lifeguard. I’d been using swimming as therapy for the gunshot wound to my thigh, and when this handsome, hunky guy wasn’t put off by the ugly purple scar, I began to look at him through new eyes. There hadn’t been anyone in my life—not even casually—in the year since I’d broken up with Del Dahlman. I think Paul saw my hunger and was generous enough to sate it. We’ve been together ever since.

  As we raced down the freeway, he casually threw an arm across the seat back and massaged my neck. His touch was magic… easing the tension there and raising it elsewhere.

  “Damn, it’s good to get away, Vince.” He and Del were the only two who called me that. Probably because the rest of the world addressed me as BJ. Then he glanced at me and grinned impishly. “I’m not going to be shot at or hit in the head or trussed up again, am I?”

  Ours had not been an uneventful relationship. Three years ago, he was first a suspect and then a kidnap victim in what I referred to as the Zozobra Incident. Then last year, he narrowly escaped being hit by a hail of bullets at the Lazy M Ranch down in the boot heel country while I was working the City of Rocks investigation.

  “Don’t worry. This is a simple domestic matter. Well, the domestic end of a murder case, at any rate.”

  “I hear those are the worst kind. Cops hate domestics.”

  “Then just stay in the car.”

  “No way. If my man’s gonna walk into danger, I’m gonna be right beside him.” He laughed. And some of Paul’s laughs still sounded like giggles. “Well, behind him, anyway.”

  The road was long, but we got off I-25 to have an early dinner at the Owl Café and Bar at San Antonio, rumored to have the best hamburgers in the state. Served with a cold Dos Equis Ambar, it was all a man could ask for. Paul still looked young enough to be carded, even though he’d turned twenty-four last month.

  Stomachs well padded, we got back in the Impala and headed south again. I’m a lifelong history buff, and by the time Del Dahlman and I broke up, we’d visited just about every town, village, and city in New Mexico, so I knew a little about the state’s second-largest city.

  Known as the City of Crosses, it was the center—both geographically and economically—of the Mesilla Valley agricultural flood plain. The area was originally the home of the Menso people, with the Mescalero Apaches nearby, until 1598 when Juan de Oñate brought the Spanish flag northward and declared everything on the high side of the Rio Grande as part of New Spain. After they threw off the yoke of the Spaniards, Mexico ruled the region until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded it to the United States in 1848. At one time, the Republic of Texas claimed the area. Cruces was the home of New Mexico’s only land-grant college, New Mexico State University, and serviced the nearby White Sands Test Facility and White Sands Missile Range.

  Before long we spotted Picacho Peak northwest of the city, and soon thereafter the Organ Mountains hove into view. These strange, jagged peaks paralleled the city about ten miles to the east. We found a decent motel on Telshor Boulevard, the city’s main north-south drag, and checked in. As soon as we freshened up, we piled back into the car and headed out to find the Dayton residence. Our timing was good… after normal work hours but early enough so most people wouldn’t have gone out for the evening.

  Dayton’s house turned out to be in a lower-middle-class residential area not far from the renovated downtown area. The plain, once-white clapboard building could use some renovating itself, especially when measured against the late-model cinnamon Lincoln Continental sitting in the driveway. As good as his word, Paul walked up the sidewalk to the house with me.

  I figured the man who answered our knock was Willie Dayton… or perhaps Bart, the second son. When I asked for his father, he backed away without either answering or opening the screen door. A few minutes later, a heavy man with scowling features took his place.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re James Dayton?”

  He didn’t bother to answer, so I continued. “Mr. Dayton, I’m B. J. Vinso
n, and this is my associate, Paul Barton. I spoke to you by phone a few days ago.”

  “Yeah, you that PI asking about the kid.”

  “That’s right. I’d like to discuss the matter a little more.”

  “Don’t have no interest in that. Ain’t none of your business.”

  “Is there some reason you won’t discuss the child with me?”

  “Like I said, it ain’t none of your business.”

  “It might be of interest to the children’s welfare department. Where is the child, Mr. Dayton? Is he safe?”

  “No business of the state. The baby’s getting good care. I told you on the telephone, he’s been adopted. All legal-like.”

  I put some steel in my voice. Enough so to draw the Dayton son forward. He stood right behind his father. “I’ve checked every legitimate adoption agency in the state, and no one’s handled an adoption for David James Dayton.”

  “No law says it’s gotta be in this state.”

  “Are you aware the baby’s father is dead? Murdered. And we’re having a hard time finding anyone who didn’t like him except for your sons.”

  “Yeah, the state police already asked their questions. We got alibis. Ever’ one of us.”

  “Except your youngest son, Patrick. I understand he was up in Albuquerque.”

  “Crap!” Dayton said with a sneer. “Pat was the only one who give Zuniga the time of day. Hung out with him even after the kid knocked up his sister. No pride, that one.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.” Dayton slammed the door in our faces.

  “Not a very friendly fellow, is he?” Paul said.

  I paused behind the Lincoln and wrote down the license plate number in my pocket notebook. If there was any justice, the Daytons were watching from inside and would worry about my action.