Out of Season

by Steven F Havill

  “I’ve got two new permanent crowns waiting for me,” Linda said. “There’re a couple of procedures yet to go that involve building something that looks like the Brooklyn Bridge, but I think it’s all on an outpatient basis.” She didn’t move her jaws much when she talked, but her diction was clear and precise.

  “Those are what Dr. Guzman refers to as ‘lengthy orthodontic procedures’?”

  “Lengthy is in the eye of the beholder,” Linda said easily.

  “I think that what’s at issue is the job description,” Estelle said, cutting right to the chase. JanaLynn arrived with our food, and we waited while she placed the steaming, fragrant burrito grandes in front of Linda and me, and a taco salad for Estelle.

  Linda Real hadn’t lost her appetite, and even though she was forced to process the food entirely on the right side of her mouth, she attacked the meal with gusto.

  “Job description?” I asked.

  Estelle frowned as she worked loose a corner of the flower-petal taco shell. “If a dispatcher does nothing but dispatch, I don’t think that a physical handicap matters.”

  “Depending on the handicap, of course,” I said. “But let’s look at the facts. Our department is a small one. Hell, not small. Miniscule. With twelve full-time employees to cover seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, everyone has to be a jack-of-all-trades.”

  Linda started to say something, but Estelle leaned back and put her fork down. “And you’ll remember, sir, that’s one of the things we talked about that needs to change.”

  “Sure enough,” I said. I knew exactly what she was driving at, and in a normal world with normal budgets and legislators who had their heads screwed on straight, there would have been no argument.

  “Especially where the dispatcher is concerned,” Estelle pointed out.

  I poked at my burrito and rearranged an ocean of sour cream. “If you were working dispatch, what’d be your job?” I asked Linda.

  “Radio. Telephone. Fax. Computer. Some filing. Talking with walk-ins.” She leaned forward eagerly, fork poised. “And I’d really like to continue working with photography. I think I can make a contribution there.”

  I nodded. “I have no doubt of that. And in a perfect world, those things you mentioned would be the bulk of what a dispatcher’s job would be limited to. But this world is far from perfect. Sometimes the person working dispatch needs to tend to someone in the lockup. That’s what Francis was talking about when he mentioned duties beyond the radio. And there are times when the officer working dispatch needs to assist in booking procedures, too.”

  “But always with another officer in that case, sir,” Estelle observed. “And if the dispatcher needs to go into the lockup, it’s just to check quickly on the general situation, not to enter the cells.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “That’s the way it should be. There should be nothing that takes the dispatch officer away from the communications console. I know that. And when it happens, we’re setting ourselves up for disaster.” I took a sip of coffee. “I’m sure you both remember Sonny Trujillo. The kid who choked to death in one of our cells? Gayle Sedillos was all alone when that happened. Granted, she probably shouldn’t have been. But we were busy with another case, and we were shorthanded.”

  Estelle nodded and turned to Linda. “We get caught sometimes, Linda. We put ourselves in a position where we hope that the dispatch officer can get to the radio or telephone immediately. It doesn’t always happen. It hasn’t always happened.”

  Both women looked over at me and I shrugged. “Linda, you’re an intelligent, gifted young woman. I have some idea about what you’re going through. But you know, for the life of me, I don’t understand what attracts you to the dispatch job. It’s deadly dull ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the time. The starting salary we pay is less than welfare. On top of that, any new dispatcher will have to work graveyard…” I let it trail off and raised an eyebrow at her expectantly.

  “I don’t think I could explain why I want to do it,” Linda said softly. “It’s just something I’m comfortable with in my mind.”

  “Comfortable with…”

  She nodded. “I’ve watched Gayle Sedillos work, and she seems so confident and professional. Part of a team.”

  I looked down at my diminishing burrito. “Let me ask you something straight-out.” I put down my fork and pushed the plate away. “Does your wanting to work for us have something to do with the incident two years ago? With the shooting?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I think that if I’d been through what you have—and what you’re still going through because of it—I’d sure as hell distance myself from anything to do with police work.”

  Linda bit her lip. “What happened to me could have happened anywhere, anytime. I could have walked into a convenience store at the wrong time. Or stopped my car at just the wrong intersection at just the wrong time. Or a thousand other scenarios.”

  “So you’re not trying to put something right? Not trying to get back on the horse that bucked you off?”

  “No, sir.”

  “There’s a certain personality profile we look for, Linda. You mentioned Gayle Sedillos. She’s about as good as they come. Levelheaded, commonsensical, quick-thinking, a good communicator.”

  “I think I’m all of those things, sir.”

  “I won’t argue that.” I took a long breath. “And as you suggest, you’ve got some camera skills that we’re going to need when Estelle leaves us. Let me ask you something else. In the event that the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department were to hire you—”

  JanaLynn appeared around the partition, pointed at me and then mimicked holding a telephone to her ear. “Hold that thought,” I said. “Excuse me for a minute.”

  From the booth where we were sitting, I would have guessed that the restaurant was empty. As I walked around the first partition, I was startled to see a fair sea of heads as dinner-hour patrons picked up. JanaLynn reached under the counter by the cash register for the telephone and handed it to me.

  “Gastner.”

  “Sir,” Gayle Sedillos said, “Officer Pasquale reported that with binoculars he can see something that looks like it might be wreckage, and he’s on his way to the site.”

  “How far off road?”

  “He thinks at least three miles, sir. Over north of the Salinas Arroyo fork. He said he’d try to find a route to get him close enough to confirm before dark.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Any fire?”

  “He says not, sir.”

  “Well, he doesn’t have much time. Did you call Jim Bergin at the airport?”

  “Yes, sir. Bergin said there was only one aircraft currently aloft in the area, and he’s trying to contact it now.”

  “You mean a local flight?” I glanced out past the front doors as the wind scudded up the street.

  “Yes, sir. Apparently Philip Camp departed Posadas at sixteen-ten for just a short ride. He hasn’t returned.”

  “Phil Camp? That’s Marty Holman’s brother-in-law.”

  “Yes, sir. Jim Bergin said that Sheriff Holman went with Camp.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Linda Real wasn’t finished with her meal, but she’d have to get used to interruptions. I wasn’t sure why I invited her along, other than that it was as good a time as any to see what her instincts were.

  She and I headed for the airport, and as we drove up Bustos Avenue toward County Road 43, I could tell by the way she sat, stiff-spined and leaning forward slightly, that she was eager to be doing something other than sitting and waiting for damaged cells to mend.

  “Three-ten, PCS.”

  I nodded toward the mike. “Take it,” I said.

  Linda pulled it out of the bracket and promptly dropped it with a loud whack against the radio console. “Sorry,” she said. “PCS, this is three-ten.”

  If Gayle Sedillos was surprised to hear something other than my gruff, monosyllabic radio respo
nse, she didn’t let it show in her voice.

  “Three-ten, be advised that three-oh-three will be on foot with vehicle disabled. He has a handheld, but it doesn’t have the range to reach the repeater.”

  Linda glanced over at me. “Just acknowledge,” I said.

  She pressed the mike key and said, “Ten-four, PCS.”

  By the time we reached the airport, Jim Bergin had the main hangar open and had pulled his new Cessna 210 onto the apron. The fitful gusts rocked the wings and I grimaced as I parked behind the terminal. It was going to be a rocky ride, even with burrito padding.

  “Jim doesn’t have a police radio in the aircraft,” I told Linda, “and the handhelds are useless at any distance and with all the engine noise. We’ll be talking on the aircraft channel, on Unicom, back to the radio here at the airport. I want you on this end, and then you can patch back to Gayle by phone. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Linda said.

  “Just transfer the messages word for word. Don’t get creative.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bergin trotted over toward the car, glancing at his watch as he did so. Short, wiry, and intense, Bergin had eked out a living at the Posadas airport for twenty years. If the place had had to depend on transient av-gas customers for its economic survival, it would have been dead long before. And if Bergin’s survival depended on prompt reimbursement by the county for flights like this one, he’d starve while he waited for the government check.

  “I’m kinda worried, Bill,” Bergin said as we shook hands. “They took off about two hours ago, just to do a little local sight-seeing. No radio response. You say one of the deputies has wreckage spotted?”

  “He thinks he does, Jim. We don’t know for sure.” I shrugged. “It could be anything. Holman and his brother-in-law might have decided to skip over to Cruces or something like that.”

  He shook his head. “I checked to make sure. They didn’t do that.” He looked up at the sky. Thin mares’ tails stretched out from the southwest, their tips shredded by winds aloft. A gust ripped across the apron, pinging sand against the side of the Cessna. “This ain’t going to be fun,” he said.

  “Let’s get with it,” I said, and added, “You know Linda Real. She’s going to sit the radio down here, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure.” He waved a hand toward the mobile home that served as the terminal. “It’s open.”

  When Bergin had predicted that the flight wouldn’t be a pleasure ride, I’d chalked that up to his cautious nature. As far as I was concerned, the less time I spent in an airplane, the better, regardless of the weather.

  The 210 kicked into life with a hearty rumble, and between its vibration and the constant buffeting of the wind against its flanks, the aircraft felt like a living thing.

  We taxied out and I looked down and watched sand and desert litter stream past the tires. The gusts were quartering across the tarmac, and Bergin kept full aileron correction cranked in to discourage the windward wing from lifting.

  At the end of the taxiway, he let the Cessna weathervane, and we parked with its nose into the wind while he completed his checklist. When he was satisfied, he plucked the mike off the console.

  “Posadas Unicom, this is Cessna four-niner Bravo November Mike departing the active straight-out to the east.”

  Linda’s reply was immediate. “Ten-four, November Mike.”

  Jim looked over at me. “Ten-four?” he shouted with a grin. “That’s one we don’t hear much.” He let the Cessna idle forward onto the runway, and with the yoke full over to the left to keep the wing down into the wind, he advanced the throttle. The turbocharged engine bellowed and we accelerated hard.

  The little terminal building was about one third of the way down the seven-thousand-foot runway, and we were airborne long before that. The first updraft slammed the aircraft, and Bergin kept the climb angle moderate, building speed. I looked down just in time to see the landing gear on my side flop backward and disappear, and for a moment, my heart stopped.

  “Where’s the site?” Bergin shouted.

  “You know where the Salinas Arroyo forks? Just south of Finnegan’s place?”

  Bergin nodded and banked to the north. I would have liked to have had a big, padded grab bar across my lap, like on one of those carnival rides. I sucked in my gut and yanked the shoulder harness tighter, then clamped my right hand on the dashboard.

  As we cleared the mesa rim, an updraft kicked the Cessna so hard that we gained a thousand feet. Beyond the mesa, the wind was quartering from the northeast, and we flew crabbed sideways, the piñon and juniper scrub flowing by under my window.

  What had turned into a major undertaking for Deputy Pasquale was a matter of minutes for us. The land sloped away from Cat Mesa, leveling out onto the flat, bleak prairie that stretched to the north, broken here and there by sharp outcroppings and vertical lava plugs.

  Once clear of mesa influence, Bergin kept a thousand feet of air between us and the scrub below. The occasional herds of cattle ignored us. I could see dust and manure mixed into brown billows, kicked up where the cattle congregated for the night. The earth was bare, ribboned with narrow cattle trails that radiated out from the water tanks and windmills that dotted the landscape.

  Off to the west, a clutter of buildings marked the southern corner of Johnny and Edwin Boyd’s place. The Boyds’ Circle JEB Ranch was huge, extending up to the patch of federal lands that split the county line to the north. It was country where ranchers really liked their neighbors…at a distance.

  After leaving the village of Posadas, County Road 43 snaked north this way and that, up and around the east end of Cat Mesa. Crossing the ranch land north of the mesa, the road avoided the trap of Salinas Arroyo, just to the west.

  Without the wind, the visibility would have been unlimited and someone with sharp eyes could have seen the evening sun wink off Tom Pasquale’s patrol unit the moment the mesa was cleared. But we were flying through tan soup. The elegant, sophisticated Cessna felt like a 1953 Chevy pickup being flogged up a boulder-strewn wash.

  “Lots of fun, eh?” Bergin shouted. He wasn’t grinning at my discomfort. “There’s a supply of bags in the pocket behind your seat, if you need ’em.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” I shouted back as another air pocket shook my teeth and wrenched my spine. “I’m going to need a chiropractor when we’re done. I don’t understand why they went flying in this kind of weather, anyway.”

  “Hell of a good question.” He turned to scan a small hummock of oak trees that rocked by under the left wing.

  The narrow strip of pavement that the county claimed as Highway 43 drifted to the northeast as the Salinas Arroyo picked up several tributaries. Bergin rested one hand on the dash and pointed straight ahead. “That’s the fork,” he shouted.

  The Salinas widened and then, for no apparent reason, divided, with one tine swerving almost due west and the other running due north. Left in the middle was rumpled, inhospitable country with no easy access except for a handful of rough, two-track ranch roads. The main road to the Boyd ranch, County 9010, wandered west from its intersection with the pavement of County Road 43, crossing the Salinas and several other arroyos.

  There were no bridges—arroyos formed and filled on their own vague schedules. When one got in the way, the two-track just plunged down one side and up the other, maybe with a little touch-up from a bulldozer if the arroyo was deep enough. As they crossed, ranchers got used to glancing upstream to make sure that a wall of water wasn’t shooting down on them after a vagrant cloud had dropped its load.

  Tom Pasquale had driven almost three miles west on County 9010, paralleling the smooth-sloping back of Cat Mesa. Then he had turned off the road, heading northwest across open prairie in what must have been a jouncing, kidney-bruiser of a ride.

  After less than a half mile, another arroyo had blocked his path and he had tried to find his way across at what looked like a benign spot. His Bronco sat axle-de
ep in the sand, a target for the next rainstorm.

  We flashed overhead, and Bergin initiated a sweeping turn to the east. I keyed the handheld and kept it against my lips when I spoke.

  “Three-oh-three, three-ten.”

  By holding the speaker against my left ear, I could hear Pasquale’s response clearly. “I’m about a mile and a half due west of where the unit’s parked,” he said. “Right off your right wing the way you’re turning now.”

  Bergin continued the turn and then pulled back the throttle and lowered a notch of flaps. It was like slowing an old pickup from third gear to second…not much improvement, but some.

  Even if I had known exactly where Pasquale was, I doubt that I could have seen him. But Bergin did, and he dipped the wings sharply. “He’s right by that fence line.” He pointed, and I would have been more comfortable if he’d kept his hands on the yoke. I didn’t care where Pasquale was—he wasn’t the target of the search.

  The radio crackled. “I think the site is about a mile or two to the northwest,” Pasquale shouted. “I’m going to make my way over there. Let me know after you take a look.”

  Bergin peeled out of his tight turn and the engine sighed a few RPMs slower. He extended the flaps another few degrees. “Don’t want to go too slow,” he yelled at me.

  I couldn’t have agreed more. “Or too low,” I said.

  We flew west, methodically bucking the wind, until we’d passed the main residence of the Boyd ranch. It was set into the southeast-facing slope of a hill, with a fair-sized collection of outbuildings dotted around it.

  “You’d think maybe the Boyds would have seen or heard something if a plane went down this close to their place.” Bergin shrugged and reached over to twist the throttle a quarter turn. “’Course, in this country, you just never know.”

  He banked the plane nice and easy and we started back east, flying a mile north and parallel to our first pass. Back and forth, east and west, we tracked, moving a mile farther north each time, Bergin skillfully playing the wind.

  On the fifth pass, when the Boyd ranch was hidden behind the long swell of a cattle-trail-scarred hill, Bergin suddenly stood the Cessna up on one wing, pushing in the throttle as he did so.