I listened to the exchange with interest. Bob Torrez couldn’t help sniffing around the accident site. He wanted to find something as bad as any of us.
“Ah, ten-four,” Dispatcher Murton said, and there was a long pause while Miracle’s brain churned. Predictably, he then went through the same routine with Howard Bishop in 307. Bishop responded that he was twenty-one miles southwest of Posadas, which meant he was probably cruising through the little hamlet of Regal. Even Miracle Murton could figure out that Torrez was closer to home. “Ah, three-oh-eight, swing around and ten-sixty-two at Chavez Chevrolet-Olds.”
“Ten-four.” As it happened, there was little that we, or any department, could do about the folks who sat in front of their scanners, listening to our dull number routines. With a half-measure of diligent listening, anyone could know with fair accuracy what we were doing at any given time. That in itself wasn’t so bad, unless the person had the scanner in his car, which was illegal but convenient. Only the big metro sheriffs’ departments had good patrol coverage, especially during the night hours. One deputy, or even none, to cover several hundred square miles was not unusual for us.
On impulse, I swung around and headed north, intercepting County Road 43 just as Torrez flashed by. My radio barked twice as Torrez keyed the mike to acknowledge that he’d seen me. And now any chance was better than none. If someone roaming up on the hill was listening to a scanner, he now knew that both deputies were busy and that he was as safe as church. In a few minutes, I passed Consolidated’s mill. The road was deserted. I slowed down to fifteen, punched off the headlights, lowered the windows and turned off the air-conditioning. The radio crackled, and I reached down and turned it off, too. Smooth as silk, 310 purred up the road, and after a minute my eyes adjusted to the faint light cast by the single small bulb on the underside of the left front bumper-a light Holman liked to call my “perpetrator light.” Hell, it was rinky-dink, but it worked. It threw just enough light in this case to catch the orange center line of the macadam road. The quarter-moon was peeking over the mesa, and before long I could make out outlines here and there.
Two miles below the lake, I damn near rear-ended a parked car. I swerved just in time, not so much because they were almost on the highway but because the sudden shape had taken me by surprise. I could see, faintly silhouetted as I went by, two heads merged as one low on the passenger side. After continuing on a few feet, I stopped, knowing that the flash of my brake lights would spring the two apart. I backed up the Ford until my windows were even with theirs and swiveled the spotlight until it bounced off the hood of their car. I could see clearly the two young guilt-washed faces. The girl was Beth Paige, a kid who worked as an office receptionist for the Forest Service. The boy was a stranger.
I looked Ms. Paige in the eye and asked, “Are you all right, miss?”
It was hard to tell in the harsh bouncing glare of the spotlight, but I’m sure she blushed. “Yes, officer,” she said, and managed a sheepish grin.
I wasn’t too bad at reading faces, and hers told me things were fine. “You might find a safer place to park,” I said. The boy nodded, and had the good sense not to retort that it might be safer if I would turn on my headlights. The spotlight snapped off and I cruised 310 on up the road. I glanced in the rearview and didn’t see any motion. No point in appearing too eager to comply, I suppose.
A few minutes later, gravel crunched under the tires as I swung in the lake road. Even if it’s washed with a full moon, there’s nothing much darker to me than an old quarry. That night, there was no full moon. The water was just a dull, black, shadowless hole. With 310 blocking the road, I turned on the spotlight. The beam lanced out and touched rock palisades, water, trees…and shiny metal. The car was parked well back in the shadows, and I wouldn’t have seen it at all with normally aimed headlights. I didn’t linger with the beam, but let it pass on by. Even in the brief flash, I had recognized the car. Without rolling forward, I turned on the radio and reached for the mike.
“PCS, three-ten.”
Gayle Sedillos’s voice cracked back, bless her. She must have come in early, and had taken over from Miracle. I told her where I was and that I would be 11–96 with Yankee Charlie Xray 136. She wouldn’t bother to run the plate, since the number was on a small note on the bulletin board right above the radio.
“Ten-four, three-ten,” she said crisply. “Three-oh-eight, did you copy?”
“Three-oh-eight, ten-four.” Torrez sounded unexcited. “I’m ten-eight.”
I had ten minutes, or less. I was willing to bet my pension, such as it was, that Torrez was more than just “in service.” He would be on his way through town and up County Road 43, covering the ground a whole lot faster than I had. If the two neckers were still parked on the shoulder, his jet wash was just a few minutes away from rocking their locked lips apart.
People park in the midnight timber for several reasons, but only one or two fit Benny Fernandez that night. If he was out cheating on his wife, I was going to be embarrassed and so was he. But I didn’t even consider that the occupants of the Cordoba might include the steely-faced Mrs. Fernandez.
A Forest Service access road allowed me to circle around so that I could park a few yards behind Fernandez’s Cordoba. The duct tape plastered over the patrol car’s dome light eliminated the blast of light when I opened the door. I walked slowly toward the Cordoba, letting my eyes adjust as much as they could. Benny knew I was coming-unless he was blind drunk or dead. And he would have heard me idle up behind him, as quiet as the night was.
When I reached the back fender, I stopped, flashlight still off. Cigarette smoke wafted out his open window.
“Benny? It’s Bill Gastner.”
“How you doin,’ Sheriff?” he said.
“Fine. Crack your door so I can see, will you?” He did, and the dome light flooded on. I moved up and relaxed a little when I could see both his hands. One held a sandwich of sorts, the other a plastic cup filled with coffee. “Long night?” I asked pleasantly.
“I figure this is as good a place as any,” he said.
“For what? You got insomnia?” I tried to keep my tone light, but it was hard. I could see the black butt of the Beretta. The rest of the gun was covered by his right leg.
“You’re out late too,” he said. “You want some coffee?” He hefted the cup and looked up at me.
“Sure.” I watched him reach for the thermos bottle and the cup-lid. He started to pour and then heard the noise at the same time as I did. “Boy,” he said, “somebody is sure pushin’ it hard on that highway.”
I decided it was time to cut the gab and get on with it. “That’s Deputy Torrez coming up the hill,” I said. Fernandez looked sharply at me. “Standard procedure,” I added. “A cop doesn’t usually go talk with a man with a gun unless there’s some backup…even if they’re all good friends.” Fernandez finished pouring and handed the coffee to me. I laid the flashlight on the roof and took the cup. “Benny, what are you doing up here?”
Fernandez took his time. I had always thought of Benny as something of a marshmallow. He had reminded me of all those Mexicans in the “B” Westerns, the folks who wore white cotton and were always being beaten and whipped by the bad guys. In the end, they rose up, armed with scythes, axes, and garden hoes. Maybe that was Benny’s mood just then. There was a certain hardness about the man. I saw the muscles of his cheek twitch, and he looked down into the dark depths of his coffee cup.
“Is there something illegal about sitting out in the night, Sheriff?” he asked.
“No. And there’s nothing illegal about carrying a gun in this state, either, Benny. Like the one under your leg there. But I kinda start wondering what you have in mind. It’s hard to see rabbits in the dark. It’s illegal to jacklight deer. This isn’t good snake country.” I paused and sipped my coffee, keeping my eyes on his hands. “But as long as the weapon isn’t concealed and loaded at the same time, you can walk down Grande Boulevard with it. You might make a few
folks nervous, just like you’re making me nervous right now. You’re hunting, Benny, and that makes me nervous. Who?”
Fernandez reached down and picked up the big Beretta. I wasn’t familiar with the gun, but the hammer was down. Then I saw that the trigger was far forward, and that meant it was double action. I got nervous again. He turned it this way and that in his hands thoughtfully. “You know, Sheriff, for two, maybe three days after Ricky died, I could think of nothing but my own loss. I guess you could say I was feeling sorry for myself. Ricky…I’m sure he felt nothing.” He snapped his fingers. “A fraction of a second, maybe. No more.” He tapped the rim of the steering wheel with the Beretta’s barrel. “But then your people found that bag of cocaine under the seat.” He stopped and shook his head. “For the past few days, I’ve been thinking, Sheriff. That much, it’s worth a lot of money. It’s more than just-what do the kids call it now, a little hit? I mean, somebody is dealing heavy. Maybe not like in L.A. or New York, where they bring it in a ton at a time. I still don’t believe it was my Ricky, but it was in his car…my car. I believe he knew it was there, and ran because of it.”
“Maybe.”
“And I tell you this. I know from when I lived in Phoenix. Once the dealers move in, they move in for all they can take. That cocaine you found was not the last of it. Sometime, those bastards will try again.”
“And you plan to be there with that thing when they do?”
Fernandez made a funny little noise that sounded like an effort to laugh. “People who deal in kilos aren’t Boy Scouts, Sheriff.” We both turned our heads as Bob Torrez’s car turned into the lake road.
“Hang on a minute, Benny.” I walked quickly back to my car and fumbled the radio. A minute later, we saw Torrez turn around and head slowly back down the hill. “I think you can appreciate that what you’re doing makes us all a little nervous, Benny,” I said when I returned. “I mean, this is our job, not yours. You’re not trained for it, you’re too involved to think straight. Now let’s suppose a couple cars pulled in down there by the lake and parked door to door. What would you do?”
Fernandez just stared ahead at the imaginary cars. I continued, “I mean, it’s dark, Benny. Are they just necking? Having a beer? Telling dirty jokes? What? And you’re telling me that you’re going to charge down there with a fifteen-shot semi-automatic pistol at the ready? How are you going to know who they are? Are you going to threaten them and force them all out of their cars and then search them? And if they bring suit against you, you’ll probably lose. And I mean lose more than you can imagine. I don’t know how many civil suits you’ve ever been involved in, but take my word for it, avoid them. And what will you do if they just laugh at you, Benny? Shoot them all? Then you’ve got manslaughter charges against you. And if they’re drug dealers, Benny, what will happen is this. We’ll find what’s left of you lying on the gravel down there the next morning.” I stopped. He was looking down at the gun. “Use your head, Benny. When I came up here, I did it knowing I had backup. I had a light. You don’t even have that. If I hadn’t recognized Yankee Charlie Xray one-three-six, I would have called in the plate and had a bunch of information before I stepped out of the car.” Spouting out his license plate like that made a dent. He looked up at me, a little sorrowfully. “And, Benny, I’ve done this before. I don’t think you have. We don’t want to see you hurt, or anyone else.”
He nodded and offered the Beretta to me, butt first. I shook my head. “That’s not necessary, Benny. Take it back to wherever you bought it tomorrow. For now, just unload it and shove it under the seat. Go home and get some rest. Let us work. Hell, I may be fat and old, but I’m pretty damn good at what I do. The deputies are better still. We’ve got some leads. The sheriff told me today that he’s planning to bring in a specially trained dog. The beast sniffs drugs, believe it or not. Even if you just smoked a single joint as much as forty-eight hours ago, this critter will nail you. We’re going to publicize that, and some people are bound to get nervous. The Drug Enforcement Agency is working with us.” That was a lie, but Fernandez didn’t need to know. “Something’s going to break, believe me. Soon.”
He nodded and sighed heavily. “You just feel so helpless sometimes,” he said.
“Sure.” I groped for something to lighten his spirits a little before sending him down the hill. “And my bet is that when this is all over, it’ll be obvious that Ricky wasn’t involved as anything other than maybe an innocent bystander. You’ll be proud of him.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yup. I know what kind of a home he came from.” Even if I didn’t buy that one, Benny Fernandez did. He looked grateful. I pressed the advantage. “I’ll pull back so you can get out of here, Benny. There’s other things I need to check up here. You go on ahead. Go down and get some rest. Being the midnight vigilante isn’t your style.” He laughed and sounded a little relieved.
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll get rid of this thing tomorrow, first item of business. Sell it back to George Payton.”
“I’m sure he’ll give you back every nickel,” I said.
“A man can be stupid sometimes,” Fernandez said.
It was only in retrospect that Benny’s last line really haunted me. If I had been able to replay that scene, I would have grabbed that Beretta at the first offer. But when I next saw the weapon, it was in a plastic evidence bag.
Chapter 9
Meeting Fernandez had set me on edge. I was as wide-eyed as one of those lemurs you see in picture books about the jungle. Any notion that this night might be one with six or eight hours of sleep was just that…a notion. The road down the hill was empty. The night neckers had gone elsewhere. About five miles north of town, I jogged west on State 78. A housing development of new ranch styles sprawled up the side of the mesa. Most of them had “For Sale” signs in front, and a few looked pretty ragged. The mine and mill closing had caught many developers overbuilding. Maybe drug trafficking was the new industry, I thought as I followed the road up the mesa until it topped out by the airport. With headlights off, I drove along a hundred yards of fencing and passed the airport parking area and an apron access gate for pedestrians. The main gate that led to the hangars was wide open. That was normally the case during the daytime when the airport manager, Jim Bergin, was on the premises. But at midnight or after, it was a little unusual unless some charter flight had just come in.
I drove through the gate and saw that the big padlock was hooked loosely through the chain link above the gate latch. Farther on, one arc light blazed, casting hard shadows around the hangars. Light streamed out from one, and I drove over. Bathed in the harsh fluorescent wash from overhead was a pretty tan-and-white Cessna. Its cowl was off, and from an open door on the passenger side a leg and foot projected. As I stopped the car, Jim Bergin pulled himself up far enough so he could see my car, and then he untangled his long frame from the innards of the airplane. I got out and walked over. My left hand groped automatically at the cigarette pack in my shirt pocket.
“Don’t smoke in here,” Jim said immediately. In mock threat, he waved what looked like wire nippers.
I laughed. “You know me pretty well, Jim. How you doin’?” I patted the pocket flap back in place, fighting that strange reflex that smokers have when they’re meeting someone and about to talk. I saw the pan of oil under the plane’s nose and the neat cans of Aeroshell lined up on the floor.
“I’m tired and cranky and tryin’ to keep the customers happy. How about yourself?” Bergin said.
I glanced at my watch. It was twelve forty-six. “Damn picky customers to make a man work this late.”
Bergin offered one of his easy smiles. “Nah. There’s a big bird coming in to pick up about five tons of milling parts from Consolidated. Maybe you saw the truck over on the north side of the parking lot?” I shook my head and Bergin added, “Their plane blew a tire in Pueblo, and that, plus thunderboomers, puts them about five hours late.” He glanced at his watch. “So I figure about three
o’clock.”
“And you get stuck waiting for them, huh?” I ran a hand over the smooth alloy of the Cessna’s prop.
Bergin shrugged and wiped his hands on a clean rag. “They want a fast turnaround and fuel. I’ll help get them squared away and sell ’em a few hundred gallons of fuel besides. Hell, might as well make a dime. I don’t have anything else to do.” He grinned. “Corporate schedules assume people are not mortal, you know. What are you sniffin’ around after?”
“Just out, Jim. Swung by here and saw a light. Whose plane is this, anyway?”
“Doc Sprague’s.”
“No shit?” I thumped the end of the spinner. “I didn’t think he was still flying.”
“Oh, yeah. He quit for a little while. About the time his daughter died. Just as well. A man’s got to keep his mind on business up in the air. He just wasn’t in any shape. But he picked it up again about eight months ago. In fact, he just bought this bird in June.”
“Bunch of moola.”
“You’d better believe it.”
I walked around and looked inside at the fancy fabric and all the dials, knobs, and levers. “Wow.” There was a messy hole in the middle of the dash, though, where Bergin had obviously been working. “Something break?”
“Putting in a new radio. He’s got to have the best, you know. I figured I might as well change the oil while I was working and waiting for the charter. It’s due.”
I muttered some pleasantry in agreement and looked back along the fuselage.
“You seen anything of the government yet?” Bergin looked quizzical, and I added, “The DEA is going to be running a plane out of here.”
“That’s good news,” Bergin said, and flapped his eyebrows. “There’s nothing like government credit cards to boost gas sales. I hope they use a helicopter, and not some gas-sippin’ bird. They’re going to push the border again, huh?”
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