Before She Dies

by Steven F Havill

  I shook my head. “We don’t know that either.”

  “Extended cab?” He saw the look on my face and finished for me. “You don’t know that either.”

  “Right.”

  “Bill, the only truck we’ve sold recently is the mother of all Suburbans. You know those nice folks who wrecked their van over the weekend?”

  “The Weatherfords.”

  “Right. They bought a brand-new one, fully loaded. With that cast her husband has on his leg, I guess they want him to be able to stretch out in style. Anyway, they picked that up early this morning. Easiest sale I ever made. The kids loved it—they always make it easy.”

  I whistled silently. “That’s a pretty penny.”

  Nick grinned. “It’ll pay the light bill for a while longer.” His grin widened. “He’s a lawyer. It must be hell not having anyone to sue except his own wife. But that’s it since I sold Penny Samons a little S-10 last week. We’ve moved a couple of cars, and a bunch of used inventory. But as far as trucks go, that’s it for the past month.”

  “Is there any way you can check around for me? Check with other dealers?”

  He frowned. “Sure. I guess. What kind of area are we talking about?”

  “Five state.”

  Nick’s whistle was shrill. “Jesus. Nobody got a look at the sticker to see who the dealer was, then.”

  I leaned forward. “No. We can do it if you don’t have time, but the inquiry might be a little more discreet coming from you. Don’t you folks have some kind of computer network for information like that?”

  Nick shook his head. “What a dealer sells is between him and the customer, sheriff. The only way I can find out what’s sold is by calling each dealer.” He frowned. “And that’s a lot of calling.”

  “Then maybe you have a dealer directory we could borrow for a day or two. I’ll put one of the part-timers on it.”

  “That, I got.” He held up a hand. “But look, I’ll be glad to cooperate with you. I’ll have one of my office staff run down the list. How’s that?” I nodded my thanks, and Nick added, “Do you know yet who was drivin’ the truck?”

  I hesitated, mentally inventorying how many people were privy to this same information. I took the plunge. “Tammy Woodruff.”

  “Tammy? Nah. Her daddy might be rich, but he ain’t going to buy her a new one every year. She just got that Ford of hers in November. I damn near had her in one of mine, but she got a close-out deal on a ’93 from Artie Swanson over in Silver City.” He shook his head sadly. “Drive a hundred miles to save ten bucks.”

  “Well, then she borrowed this one from someone.”

  Chavez sat back, picked up a pencil, and tapped his lower lip. “Brand-new, you say?”

  “We have reason to think so.”

  “And maybe white.”

  I nodded.

  “Whoever saw this truck,” Nick said, and his tone was careful, as if to say that he didn’t want to know, “didn’t get a good look, or what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How come you don’t know if there were any accents, or if it was an extended cab? Somebody just see the back of it?”

  “That’s right.”

  He closed his eyes. “So it could have been one, two, even more years old, then. Maybe a used truck. Maybe somebody bought themselves a cream puff.”

  “It could have been. But we have reason to believe that it was new, or nearly so.”

  Nick leaned back some more, hooked his hands behind his head, and gazed at me as if he were trying to assess just how much more I’d pay for the car of my dreams.

  “What’s Tammy say?”

  “When I find her, I’ll ask her.”

  “Ah…” Nick grimaced. “I probably don’t want to know what’s going on, do I?”

  I grinned. “Probably not.”

  He pulled a pad of paper over and hastily jotted some notes. “Let me get this right. Pickup truck, any style, white-ass end, who knows what’s up front. Probably new, maybe not. Sold within the past thirty days if that temp sticker is any good.” He glanced up and grinned. “Remember Art Beauchamp?”

  “Sure.”

  “He once bought a used car from me and drove for almost two years on his window sticker.”

  “Whatever works,” I said, and got up. I don’t know why I trusted Nick Chavez, but I did. Even so, I didn’t want to tell him any more than he needed to know. I thrust my hands into my pockets and surveyed his office, choosing my words with care.

  “Nick, we’d appreciate your help. And keep your ears open. You hear anything, you give me a call, all right?”

  “You can count on it.” He held the door for me. “When’s the funeral?”

  “Thursday at ten,” I said. Nick nodded, astute enough to see that I didn’t want to discuss it. I’d done my best so far not to think about that hour of misery.

  Chapter 22

  I settled into 310 and sat for a while, looking west toward where the sun sank over the flank of the San Cristobal Mountains. A couple of answers to a couple of simple questions would shuffle all the pieces into order. But the answers were elusive. I sighed. Even Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s powerful intuition wasn’t helping us much.

  I keyed the mike. “Three oh two, this is three ten.”

  I hoped for an instant response, but the seconds dragged by. I almost keyed the mike again, but thought better of it. Estelle would have heard the first time if she was in the car and if the radio was on. I glanced at my watch.

  “Three ten, PCS.”

  I lifted the mike. “Go ahead.” I recognized Aggie Bishop’s voice. Howard’s wife, who worked occasionally as a matron for the department, had been dragged in to cover dispatch while we used part-timer Ernie Wheeler on the road. She wasn’t very good at it, but she was better than a dead radio. I hoped she wasn’t spreading her flu through the office.

  “Three ten, Dr. Guzman called just a few minutes ago.”

  “Ten-four.” I waited for Aggie to make up her mind about what she wanted to say. Life at the Bishop home must have been fascinating. A one paragraph conversation between Howard and Aggie would last all week.

  Fifteen seconds passed, and I keyed the mike. “PCS, go ahead.”

  “Three ten, a Dr. Guzman called.” She spaced out the words and spoke considerably louder into the radio.

  “Ten-four,” I said again, and chuckled in spite of myself. “What…does…he…want?”

  “Oh. Three ten, is Estelle…is Detective Reyes-Guzman with you?”

  “Negative.”

  “Ah, three ten, do you know…” and she stopped dead in the water, wanting to use one of those wonderful ten codes that spill from cops’ lips with such abandon. But Aggie didn’t have a clue. I could picture her, leaning across the desk, looking at the ten-code chart that was faded to uniform brown on top of the radio housing. “Do you know her ten-twenty location? Where she is?”

  “Negative, PCS.” I glanced at my watch. At 5:13, the streets of Posadas were both rolled up and blanketed in gloomy twilight. I didn’t suggest that she try to call Estelle at home, since it seemed obvious to me that the good doctor would have tried that himself, first.

  It took less than a minute to go around the block and pull into the hospital’s parking lot. I had no intention of grilling Linda Real again that day. She had told me all she could, and probably couldn’t tell me what we most urgently needed to know. And I didn’t want to face another confrontation with her mother. But if Francis Guzman had important information for us, I wanted it fast and firsthand.

  I hustled inside. The main hallway and lobby of the hospital was deserted. Even the reception desk, usually manned by someone from the auxiliary, was empty. I hastened down the hall past radiology, the lab, physical therapy, and all those other little smelly holes where friendly folks with million-dollar machines pry secrets out of a patient’s most private corners.

  When I reached the nurses’ station I glanced toward the intensive care ward. Patrolman Tom P
asquale from the village department was taking another turn staring at floor tiles and loving every minute of it.

  “Are you lost?”

  I turned. Helen Murchison had padded up behind me, and she leaned one hand on the Plexiglas shelf in front of the glass partition of the station.

  “Ah, Helen. Is Francis Guzman handy?”

  “He’s in surgery.”

  “For long?”

  Helen raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. The ambulance just brought in someone who tried to put an ax through his ankle.”

  I winced, and Helen started to smile, then thought better of it. “So he’s tied up,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “He left a message to call him.”

  Helen took a deep breath, signaling that she was much put upon by all this. “I believe,” she said, “that he was wondering where his wife was.”

  “She’s not home?”

  “Evidently not.”

  A mental image of Sofia Tournál as a baby-sitter flashed through my mind. Perhaps she would start el kid off on Blackstone. In Spanish, of course.

  “I’ll run on down to the emergency room and see if I can catch the good doctor.”

  She shook her head. “Dr. Guzman won’t be able to talk to you just now, though.”

  “I’ll catch him when he finishes.”

  She nodded. “And Bill…”

  “Yes?” I was surprised at being called anything but “sir” or “sheriff” by Helen Murchison.

  “Thanks again for the help with Mrs. Real earlier.” She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “She’s dreadful.” As if that one indiscretion was all she could allow herself for that week, Helen nodded curtly and stalked off.

  She was right, though. Francis Guzman couldn’t talk to me for several minutes. I sat down outside the emergency room and waited while the physician repaired the magnificent damage that George Payson had done to himself with a camp hatchet while trying to split kindling for an evening fire.

  In short order, the yellow plastic chair in which I sat metamorphosed into a lumpy rock, and my initial complacent acceptance of inconvenience drifted toward concern mixed with irritation.

  Squirming didn’t help, so I got up and walked to the door, looking out into the gathering darkness. An ambulance sat under the portico, its four-way flashers pulsing.

  I glanced at my watch, and then walked to the pay phone beside the drinking fountain. I dialed Estelle’s home phone and waited for ten rings before the receiver was lifted.

  “Hello?” The voice was soft and distant.

  “Señora Tournál? This is Bill Gastner.”

  “Ah. Good evening, señor.”

  “I don’t mean to disturb you, but has Estelle called?”

  “No, señor, I have not seen Estelle since…since before lunch, you know.”

  “The minute she comes in, would you ask her to call the sheriff’s office?”

  “Certainly. And señor, I believe Francisco is at the hospital.” Her heavy accent stressed the last syllable, elegantly.

  “I saw him,” I said, not trying to explain that it had been a quick glimpse through the Plexiglas of the emergency room doors. In the background I could hear the sort of ruckus caused by a tower of wooden blocks crashing to the Guzman’s living room floor, followed by a fourteen-month old’s screech of delight. “You’re entertaining the squirt, eh?”

  She laughed. “Ah, el kid. He is a charmer, no?”

  “Indeed. The baby-sitter had to go home?”

  “Yes. She left shortly after lunch, señor. I told Francis that perhaps I could manage this one afternoon.”

  “Charge the good doctor a fancy dinner,” I said, and Sofia chuckled. “Will you please tell Estelle to call me?”

  “I will do that, señor. And perhaps later we can all meet for dinner. Everyone is so…occupado. No, you say, ‘busy.’” Señora Tournál didn’t sound busy—she sounded serene. Hell, one of us had to be.

  After I hung up, I dug out another quarter. I suppose I could have saved a few cents by using the radio in the car, but I despised public announcements. Half the county listened to the police scanner, listened to business that was none of their own. I dropped in the quarter. Aggie Bishop answered after three rings.

  “Aggie, this is Gastner again,” I said. “Has Estelle checked in with you yet?”

  “No sir, she sure hasn’t.”

  “Crap,” I said.

  “Sir?”

  “No, nothing, Aggie. Are you doing all right?”

  “I guess so, sir. Gayle said she was going to come in around eight to relieve me.”

  “Fine. Look, I’m going to stop at Don Juan’s for some food, so I’ll be there for a bit. Then I’ll come on down. If you need anything, ring the restaurant. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Aggie…if Estelle calls, tell her I want to see her right away, if not before. Tell her where I am.”

  “I sure will.”

  The drive across Posadas to North Twelfth Street took only four minutes. By then, it was dark. I pulled into the parking lot of the Don Juan de Oñate Restaurant and parked beside a monstrous RV with Utah plates. That and a white school bus with Chihuahuan tags and several dozen pairs of skis in the top rack were the only vehicles. I hesitated, not sure I wanted to put up with a score of noisy adolescents inside the restaurant, all of them doubly excited to be in a foreign country and headed for the ski slopes up north.

  I did go inside, though, and found myself a dark, quiet corner. I told the hostess that I was expecting a phone call and she promised not to forget me. After ordering a beef burrito plate with green chili, sour cream, beans, and rice, I settled back in the imitation leather booth with a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa. I ate two chips, then turned sideways on the seat so I could look out the window and watch what passed for traffic on Bustos Avenue.

  “Tammy Woodruff,” I murmured. What had Tammy Woodruff been doing out there on State Highway 56 Sunday night? She hadn’t simply gone to the Broken Spur to drink with a boyfriend and had another spat. It went beyond that. Into the darkness of that desolate prairie. And down another goddamned fork in the road.

  I ate another chip, the salsa dripping and running down the palm of my hand into my sleeve. Before she had that flat tire, if that was actually what had happened, was she going to turn on Country Road 14, or continue straight?

  I pulled a pen out of my pocket and spread the napkin out flat. I was no artist, but the sketch gave me something to do other than spilling more salsa, and it helped organize my thoughts.

  If Tammy had stayed on the state highway after she passed the Broken Spur Saloon she would have driven about fourteen miles before she reached the tiny hamlet of Regal. From there, Route 80 headed west toward Bisbee, Arizona. Eastward lay Deming, the border crossing at Columbus, or even El Paso. If Tammy had elected to go straight through Regal, she would have run into a dead end. The new border crossing was a mile beyond the ruins of the Nuestra Señora de Tres Lágrimas Mission. But it was a day entry only—at six P.M., the customs agents swung the gate shut and went home.

  If she turned on County Road 14, she’d drive north through seven miles of some of the most desolate country that Posadas County had to offer, including scrambling up the face of San Patricio Mesa. After crossing County Road 27—if she planned to cross it and not turn east or west—she’d drive through the rugged canyon country for three more miles until she came to the gate of the Torrance ranch.

  If Tammy was headed out to visit Patrick Torrance, that’s where she’d turn off.

  I rapped my pencil on the table and stared out the window. I had enough if’s to keep an entire geometry class busy. But of one thing I was certain. Tammy Woodruff hadn’t been headed for the Torrance ranch to see Pat. That particular cowpuncher was drinking himself sick at the Broken Spur Saloon when all those choices presented themselves to the young lady.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The waitress appeared with Don Juan’s specialty,
a mammoth platter of calories guaranteed to cure whatever was the matter with me. “Be careful, now,” she said as she settled the creation in front of me. “It’s hot.”

  The aroma from the meal drifted up to my nose just as my mental wheels kicked into gear.

  Patrick Torrance must have seen Tammy Woodruff at the Broken Spur. The world was just too small for it to be any other way. I chewed the first delectable mouthful and my eyes started to water from the initial blast of chili. Tammy would have seen the young buckaroo’s truck parked there and she would have stopped—and maybe later they’d had an argument and she had gone spinning gravel out of the parking lot, maybe fishtailing a little, maybe cutting a corner, maybe spiking a wheel on an old piece of rebar hiding in the grass.

  All that was conjecture. But by the second bit of burrito, I realized what was not conjecture.

  When news of the shooting spread to the bar, via a babbling Francisco Peña, the place emptied. That was the ghoul in folks. If there was a little blood, they would turn their heads and gawk. But a lot of blood was an irresistible magnet that would pry even the most dedicated barfly off his bar stool, especially since the cops—living ones, that is—hadn’t arrived yet.

  So the patrons of the Broken Spur had adjourned to marvel at all the holes someone had punched in Paul Enciños and Linda Real. They had watched Paul Enciños bleed to death, and were willing to do the same for Linda.

  But Victor Sánchez and Patrick Torrance both told the same story. Patrick had not joined the crowd down at the scene of the shooting. He’d stayed at the bar, as if he knew all along what he might find down the road.

  My appetite vanished as my pulse raced. If my old slow brain could figure it out, Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s would have clicked hours before.

  I pushed myself out of the booth, dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table so that the waitress wouldn’t think that I’d been insulted by the burrito, and hustled outside. The air was cold, with a nasty wind building from the west. If Estelle had driven out early that afternoon to talk with Pat Torrance, she was having a hell of a long conversation with a taciturn cowboy.

  Chapter 23