Double Prey

by Steven F Havill

  Francis and Estelle stood on the grass, watching the odd trio—the uniformed Rick Black, nearly six feet-three and as slender as a track star, Bill Gastner a head shorter, burly, plodding, big buzz-cut head leaning close to George Romero’s right ear, whispering encouraging instructions, and George Romero in the middle, now not much more than a sack of inebriation.

  “Well, that was entertaining,” Francis observed. “Padrino has done that sort of thing a time or two.”

  “Half a million or so,” Estelle replied. “The world is full of drunks.” She shook her head. “Oso, it’s so sad, what’s happened to that family.” The physician put his arm around her shoulders, at the same time bending forward and looking at the Tazer in her belt.

  “You were going to zap him?”

  “If I had to. There’s always room for a lot of talk first. Padrino knows that. But just in case.”

  “Who called the trooper?”

  “I don’t know. Padrino maybe. He has my handheld. He’s very careful about not being a heroic victim himself.”

  “I don’t have a clue what George was trying to say.”

  “Maybe when he’s sober. Right now, in his alcoholic fog, nothing makes sense to him. He seems to think that I was wrestling his son just for the fun of it, when I should have been transporting.” She shook her head wearily. “If I was in his shoes, and I thought that…I don’t know what I’d do. Poor guy.” She slipped her arm through her husband’s. Down the street, lights came on in the Romero home, and a door slammed. “I’m glad the lasagna wasn’t finished a half hour earlier,” she added. “I can’t imagine Francisco walking over to deliver it and stepping into the middle of that.”

  Back inside, Teresa stood in the foyer, braced upright with her aluminum walker.

  “That’s a sad, sad man,” she said.

  “Yes, he is, mamá. Maybe he’ll have a long night’s sleep. That’s what he needs.”

  “He doesn’t need to add to it by being stupid.”

  “I’m sure that deep in his heart he knows that,” Estelle said.

  “Se me encogió el corazón, what that family’s been through,” Teresa said.

  Estelle escorted her mother to the dining room. “Maybe things will get back to normal now,” she said. Both little boys watched her, their eyes big.

  “I can take the lasagna over,” Francisco said.

  “Not tonight, hijo. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe we’ll freeze it and take it some other time. When Butchie comes home from the hospital, maybe.”

  “His dad was ticked. ”

  Estelle laughed. “He was that, hijo. ”

  “He thinks you hurt Butch?”

  Ah, the ears of the young, Estelle thought. “I hope he doesn’t think that, querido. We both would have liked to have seen help get there about ten minutes earlier, though.”

  “He wasn’t hurt ten minutes earlier,” the boy said.

  “Exactly, hijo. ” She hugged him, and directed him to his chair at the table. “And you did everything that you could for him. And I did what I could. So that’s what we all have to live with…Mr. Romero included.”

  “Is P adrino coming back?”

  “Yes. Just as soon as he’s sure Mr. Romero is going to be all right.”

  “Are you going over, too?”

  “Not just now, hijo. Mr. Romero and I will come to terms with all this when he’s sober.”

  “Can we wait for Padrino, then?” Francisco asked.

  “Yes. He won’t be long.”

  “I want him to see what the top looks like before it gets all messed up,” the boy said. They didn’t have long to wait. In ten minutes, the state police cruiser pulled away from the curb, and Bill Gastner returned, frowning so hard his bushy eyebrows almost touched in the middle.

  “Do you hoodlums have any idea,” he said, glaring at first Francisco and then his little brother, “how good this all smells comin’ in from outside? You guys split one between you, and I’ll eat the other one.”

  “That’s for our neighbors!” Francisco screeched in delight, fending the old man away from the lasagna. Gastner spun the boy around and gave him a knuckle sandpaper on the top of his skull before letting him go.

  “He’ll be all right,” Gastner said to Estelle. “Out like a light. I corked up the booze and put it away. Rick’s going to pass the word to Kenderman, and they’ll do a close patrol for the rest of the night.” He set the radio on the counter and grinned at Estelle. “That thing still fits the hand pretty good.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Two elderly women had asked her to move suitcases down from the attic, a cramped dust-laden cavern with impossibly low, rough ceilings. She ended up dragging the suitcases out by crawling backward on her stomach, the wood splinters from the floor tearing her uniform blouse. The two suitcases became entangled in an impossibly long garden hose, unyielding after the freezing temperatures. She jerked awake. The three inch numerals on the clock said 2:13 AM She lay quietly for a moment, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had been in the dream suitcases.

  And how does a murder happen in a cave? That was a heavy suitcase of puzzle pieces.

  To her surprise, Bill Gastner hadn’t been much help, other than to categorically deny that Mexican cartels had anything to do with the killing of Eddie Johns.

  “That’s not their way,” he said when the two little boys were occupied helping Irma between main course and dessert. “They’re KISS operators if there ever was. ‘Keep it simple, señor. ’ If they had wanted Johns dead, they would have popped him down in Juarez, or in a quiet alley in El Paso, right then and there. They wouldn’t travel all the way up to Posadas County so that they could crawl after him into a cave.”

  “Inspecting their real estate?” Estelle had posed.

  “Nah.” Gastner waved a hand in dismissal. “What for? There’s no point. Eddie Johns had nothing to sell but an idea. The land wasn’t his. The cave wasn’t his. And it wasn’t even his idea, for God’s sakes. Maybe he had some contacts for weapons or crack dealing, but I doubt it. Eddie Johns was more talk than anything else.”

  He leaned back in his chair, patting his rotund gut and looking wistfully toward the kitchen. “Somebody in the neighborhood took a shot at Freddy Romero,” he said, voice a whisper. “Bender’s Canyon isn’t the sort of place that attracts casual tourists, sweetheart, but it’s amazing how many human beings there actually are in a couple square miles. Jumpy hunters, ranchers, bird watchers, BLM, the list goes on and on. Maybe somebody lay in wait, maybe. And maybe boom! Bobby says it’s a bullet fragment, and he’s never wrong about things like that. But unfortunately,” and he folded his hands in front of him, “you don’t have squat for evidence. What little you have says that’s what happened. And if that shooting is related to the body in the cave, then we’re looking for someone local, sweetheart. Bet on it. Someone’s got himself a secret. Or had one. He got edgy when Freddy’s story hit the newspaper, and more so when he saw him snooping around.”

  The boys reappeared with the cherry cobbler and toppings, just seconds after Teresa Reyes had said, with considerable acid, that more of that dark topic didn’t belong at the dinner table.

  Someone local. Estelle listened as that thought rolled around in her head for the rest of the evening. It stayed there through dessert, through Francisco’s concert, through small talk and late evening coffee. It stayed there long after Bill Gastner and Irma Sedillos had left, and the house fell quiet.

  Local. If taken literally to mean local residents, then the list was short. Herb Torrance owned the pasturage southwest of the mesa, all the way out to Bender’s Canyon Trail. Freddy Romero had died on Herb’s property at the bottom of the arroyo. Miles Waddell owned the northeast side of the mesa, including the cave where Freddy’s apparent efforts at spelunking had taken place—and in all likely hood where Eddie Johns had met his end. Both men knew Eddie Johns—and both men knew Freddy Romero.

  “That’s a short list,” Estelle whispered to the darkness
. Her husband twitched and stuffed his face even farther into the pillow, but two fingers found her shoulder and tapped gently. “I’m just mulling, querido,” she whispered. “Don’t mind me.” The two fingers tapped once more and curled away. In a moment, his breathing grew deep and regular.

  Who else could be considered local? A few Bureau of Land Management employees who roamed the area on a regular basis from their field office in Deming. Members of her own department on occasion, especially the sheriff himself, who could give Bill Gastner a run for his money as a walking, talking gazetteer of Posadas County. A few patrons of Victor Sanchez’ Broken Spur Saloon, who might wander up the canyon once in a while.

  Spread the net a little wider and it would catch high school kids who sought secluded spots for partying. Gus Prescott, who sometimes paid attention to his failed ranch and sometimes didn’t. He’d driven his old road grader over to Waddell’s and bladed a ragged scar up the side of the mesa. Maybe he’d known Eddie Johns, maybe not. His daughter had been dating Freddy Romero—Casey Prescott, as delightful as any child who walked the planet.

  Estelle turned over with a quick toss, enough motion that her husband’s breathing snorted out of rhythm and then settled again.

  Unless he was both supremely confident and a supremely good actor, Miles Waddell was telling the truth. He hadn’t dirtied his trim hands with the murder of Eddie Johns. Bill Gastner had suggested starting the suspect list with Waddell, but it wasn’t promising.

  Herb Torrance had the volatile temper, no doubt the opportunity, the savvy. But why would he bother? The fantasy of a mesa-top observatory certainly wasn’t his dream. He would gain nothing from the project except the possible nuisance of more traffic, more folks with cameras, more voices drifting down from the mesa top on the still night air.

  Freddy Romero. Estelle closed her eyes against the glare of the clock, trying to recall the last time she had talked with the teenager. Perhaps a month or more, but she couldn’t remember the circumstances. A hand raised in recognition on the street when they passed, or from the field in the dust of a four-wheeler. She remembered one instance, driving by on Twelfth, when she had seen the Romero brothers, along with their father, with truck parts spread on a tarp on the driveway apron.

  If Freddy had talked with someone that fateful Thursday, it could have been when he first parked his truck—no four-wheeler tracks led up to the Borracho Springs campground. Or, it could have been on the two-track below the cave. Or…

  Estelle rubbed her forehead with frustration. Backtracking the boy’s movements from that awful moment when he’d hurled into the arroyo was going to be a hit-or-miss undertaking. Her hand froze, the light in the room just enough for her to see the shadow of her fingers. She replayed the memory of seeing the boy on his four-wheeler, raising dust along the highway, and knew exactly where to start.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  An hour at the Sheriff’s Office in the quiet of early Monday morning was more than adequate to review the depressingly short list of evidence. The bullet fragment in the front tire of the four-wheeler was brass, which meant a jacketed projectile, rather than the pure lead of a .22 rimfire. The Smith and Wesson that Freddy had recovered offered two clear fingerprints that belonged to the young man, along with some smudgy, useless prints, but nothing more. Fingerprints on the magazine and a thumbprint on each cartridge belonged to the gun’s owner, Eddie Johns, matched to a set faxed to their department by Grant County. No longer did they have to depend on Miles Waddell’s opinion for the corpse’s identity. Where Johns had purchased the weapon was still open to question, but Estelle expected no great revelations there.

  Sgt. Tom Mears had found an address in Las Cruces that appeared to be the most recent residence for Johns, and had set out for the city before dawn to start the process toward obtaining a warrant. The man’s landlord—if there was one—might have interesting things to say, as might a mortgage holder. That no one had reported Johns missing in the first place didn’t surprise Estelle. Johns wasn’t the sort who would be missed—or at least whose absence would be regretted, except by those to whom he owed money.

  The puzzle remained about one boot—the remains found in the cave included remnants of shirt, trousers, and underwear and a sock. Coyotes could account for that, tugging the boots away as playthings, the leather soles offering a pleasant chew.

  The single pistol bullet recovered from the cave ceiling was a tentative match with the slug found in the cat’s skull, and the loaded rounds remaining in the Smith and Wesson. The single .40 shell casing, the packrat’s prize, was a certain match with the handgun.

  Tires had bent grass near the homestead but little else—enough only for a rough measurement that would fit the track of any modern, full-sized pickup, or even some sedans. Nothing linked those tracks to either the evidence in the cave, or for that matter, to Freddy’s fatal dive. The oil seep that Jackie Taber had found was just that, indicating only that someone had recently parked beside the old homestead. Recently, so that the oil hadn’t soaked away. But that was no certain clock.

  Shortly before eight that Monday morning, Estelle left the office and drove south on State 56, mulling the added puzzle of the five years that had passed between the deaths of Eddie Johns and Freddy Romero. Freddy’s lie about the cave location was simple enough—he’d found something intriguing, and with a teenager’s confidence that his actions would prompt no consequences, had kept the cave’s location a secret so he could explore further. He’d then found the pistol, and bolted, speeding back toward town. To inform authorities? Probably not. To return better equipped for exploration and recovery? Probably. Had someone chased him off the site? Had someone chased him toward another party, lying in wait with a rifle?

  The tires of her Crown Victoria thumped across the expansion joints of the Rio Guijarro bridge, and Estelle realized that so preoccupied was she that she had no recollection of the twenty-six miles that had passed. As she braked to turn off the highway, she keyed the mike and checked in with dispatch, but the rest of the county was thankfully quiet.

  No patrons were parked in front of the Broken Spur Saloon, but the establishment’s hours were flexible—the bar was open whenever owner Victor Sanchez decided to turn the key—sometimes by seven in the morning to catch the traveling breakfast flock, sometimes by ten. The sign on the front door claimed 8:00 AM to midnight daily except a sleep-in until 1:00 PM on Sunday. Victor managed his somewhat casual version of that 107 hour workweek with assistance from his son, Victor Junior, and the mother-daughter team of Mary and Macie Trujillo, who commuted over the pass from Regál each day.

  The Trujillos had worked at Victor’s for less than a year, hired after Gus Prescott’s eldest daughter Christine had resigned from bartending to attend college in Las Cruces.

  As Estelle pulled into the Broken Spur’s parking lot, she saw the Trujillos’ Jeep nosed in along the east side of the adobe building. Just visible behind the squat saloon was Victor Junior’s aging Dodge Ram Charger. Estelle drove around the rear of the saloon, and saw that Victor’s semi-vintage Cadillac was missing from its usual spot beside the mobile home that teed into the saloon itself.

  She parked beside the Jeep. The dash clock read 8:12 AM, and Estelle made the notation in her log before climbing out of the car. She stood in the blast of morning sunshine for a moment, looking down the highway. The sun would have been at her back on Thursday, when she’d seen the ATV roaring down the highway shoulder. She hadn’t paid any attention at the time. There had been no other traffic that she could remember. If someone had been pursuing Freddy, he wouldn’t have seen the boy turn off the highway, swerving down behind the saloon.

  But someone at the saloon could have. She turned and surveyed the building. Only the small, frosted restroom window faced east, but someone standing in either the saloon’s front door or the kitchen entrance would have an unobstructed view. The undersheriff closed her eyes, forcing her memory to concentrate, but there had been no reason to pay attenti
on at the time. She’d been preoccupied with paperwork, remembered catching a glimpse of an ATV, and that had been it.

  She could imagine the agile little machine cutting across the saloon’s parking lot, but she had no clear recollection of it. The ATV had to have done that—or disappear into thin air. The ATV and rider would have been momentarily obscured by patrons’ vehicles…a handful of pickups and SUVs, perhaps?

  She shook her head with impatience and walked toward the back door. The kitchen door was open, and she rapped on the screen’s frame.

  “Hey, in here,” a husky woman’s voice called, and Estelle tipped the door open and stepped inside. Mary Trujillo was standing on a short, three-step ladder, hard at work on the stainless stove hood with bucket and sponge. “Well, how about that,” she said with a broad smile. She stepped down carefully and set the bucket on the floor. “You come for some coffee? Just made a pot.”

  “No thanks. How are you doing, Mary?”

  “Well, when it comes down to it, I’m just fine. Victor had to go to Cruces, if it’s him you’re looking for.”

  “Probably not,” Estelle replied. Victor Sanchez had not built his moderately successful business with pleasant personality. In fact, his foul temper was legendary. Bill Gastner could usually goad the saloonkeeper to civility, and Bobby Torrez could but didn’t bother. Estelle had noticed that on the rare occasions when she’d been in the Broken Spur, Victor had simply ignored her. He had no love of law enforcement, and Estelle respected his reasons.

  Mary Trujillo, on the other hand, was a plump, bustling ray of sunshine who managed to avoid Victor’s personal cloud of gloom and grump.

  “So, what are you all about this lovely morning?” she asked, and snapped off her rubber gloves. She fetched a coffee mug and held it toward Estelle. “Sure?”

  “Really, no thanks. I’m looking for a little information, Mary. I was wondering if you worked last Thursday?”

  “Thursday?” The woman regarded the ceiling for just a moment. “Sure I worked Thursday.”