Again before Estelle could continue, he added, “You know, I’m not going to let him do that. I’m not. We’re going to work this thing through, and he’s going to understand what he has going for himself here, and by God, he’s going to finish this wonderful thing and go on to bigger and better.” He swept a hand the length of the mural. “He’s going to carry this theme all through the park before we’re finished.”
Estelle handed him the camera, previewing the photo of the defaced NightZone passenger car. “And you’re sure this is his work as well.”
Waddell hardly glanced at the design. “’Course it is. Nobody handles airbrush work like that kid. No one I’ve ever seen.”
She reached across and thumbed the left view button. In a moment, the photo of the middle school wall slid into view. “And this. At the middle school.”
Waddell nodded. “I mean, we can’t be absolutely sure, I suppose, but yes. I’d bet on that. Either him or some copycat.”
“We’re guessing now that he was interrupted before he could finish. I don’t see any other reason for him not to finish the design once he’s started.”
Waddell handed the camera back and then sat with his head supported in both hands, as if he had a sinus headache. “I’ll deal with him when he comes back. We’ll have him clean and repaint the car. I don’t know about the damage to the dish.”
“Mr. Sewell said they’d likely just paint over it.”
“Probably. And he’s hurt badly?”
“He’s listed as critical. Lots of blood loss, and then the surgery. It’s a tough road.”
“Christ. That’s going to put him out of action for weeks.”
“And that’s if he’s very lucky.”
“Shit,” Waddell muttered. He gazed over at the artwork on the wall. “I mean, it’s incredible, isn’t it?” He took a deep breath. “What do you think happened? He got crosswise with some other gang member, or what? Is that what this is all about?”
“We don’t know, Miles. We haven’t seen any significant gang activity in this town for a good long time. Now, all of a sudden.”
He turned his head just enough to be able to look sideways at the undersheriff. “Related somehow? His being at the school and the murder? I mean, that’s why you’re up here in the middle of the night, right? You’re not chasing taggers.”
“We don’t know the relationships. But it’s too close in both time and location to be ignored. Efrin is certainly a person of interest at the moment. He may have seen or heard something. That’s why we need to talk with him. That’s crucial.”
He studied her for a moment. “So…cut to the chase. What can I do to help?”
“If you hear anything, let me know. You know how the rumor and gossip vine works.”
“Do I ever.”
“Anything you hear that you think might link the Garcia boy with Coach Scott’s murder. Was someone else helping Efrin with this mural?”
“Solo all the way. We had a crew in here setting up the scaffolding for him, but other than that, he didn’t want anyone else interfering.”
“What’s he using as a source for the space images? I mean, I’ve seen lots of professional images of Jupiter. That’s not just something from a boy’s imagination.”
“Maybe you’ve seen that big fancy coffee table book that they put out of the Hubbell images? Amazing stuff, right? We’ll be selling them in the gift shop. I gave him one to use. He really took to it. The only directions I gave him was that I wanted science, not science fiction.”
“Did Efrin ever talk about the school? I’m wondering why he would target there, except maybe because of all the publicity they’ve been getting lately.”
“Well, sure. The big spread on the volleyball team? Gotta jump in there and put his mark on that, too.” He shook his head in disgust. “He told me that he was the first one in his family to graduate high school. He was proud of that, and proud of this commission.” Waddell stretched out his legs, sliding down in the seat, hands clasped over his belly. “I don’t think he’s ever managed a bank account in his life.” He shook his head in wonder. “I told him, look…I’m willing to pay you well, but in return, you have to work with me to guarantee both your future and mine.”
Again he turned and regarded the mural project. “I told him that this wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to start, and then have to hire some commercial hack halfway through the project because Efrin couldn’t finish it.”
“You’ve been very generous, sir.”
“Well, yeah. But see, it pays me in return.” He grunted a painful laugh. “And now, look at us. Halfway done, and the kid is in the hospital. Christ.”
“And he agreed with you? About the bank account?”
“He did. Eagerly, he agreed. We set him up an account at Posadas State, and I do direct deposit with him. I don’t just hand him a wad of money at the end of the week. It goes in the bank, and he’s got to think a little before he takes it out. You haven’t been able to talk with the boy yet?”
“Not yet. He was out of it by the time they brought him to the ER, bleeding profusely from the head, coughing up blood—and it went downhill from there. They transported him to Albuquerque as soon as they could. If there’s any chance he can talk, I need to run up today.”
Waddell glanced at his watch, and then grimaced at Gastner, who had remained seated in one of the plush theater chairs throughout the conversation. His eyelids drooped, but he jerked alert when he realized he was the focus of attention. “All your bad habits,” Waddell chided. “Going on midnight, and most normal folks would be home blowing Zs.”
“We all learn the art of sleeping with our eyes open, and an attentive expression on our faces,” Gastner said.
“I’ve noticed that about my crews,” Waddell laughed. “Now, let me help, all right? You need to go to Albuquerque? Let me help you get there and back without wasting time. My contractor has his X at the Posadas Airport. It’s at your disposal.”
“The X?”
“A Cessna Citation Ten. What a rocket.”
“I didn’t know you flew, Miles.”
“I don’t. My head honcho contractor does, though. He’s offered the plane and crew any number of times, and I’ve used them now and then to coordinate stuff that doesn’t work well over the phone. That big dish? That cost about five trips to California, on top of a thousand phone calls and teleconferences.” He shrugged. “With what I’m paying for this job, big deal, right? So, you want Albuquerque? That’ll take an hour or less each way. Just say when.”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly. “You can tell Grand Dame Leona Spears that there will be no charge to the county. Consider it my personal thanks for all you do.”
Estelle closed her eyes for a moment, visualizing the staff roster for the approaching day shift.
As if sensing her hesitation, Waddell added, “I get the impression that this is no time to be turning down a favor. Let me help.”
“Can we leave here at eight this morning?”
“Done.” Waddell pushed out of his chair with his typical frenetic energy. “Only one catch…I want to go along. If the kid is conscious, I want to talk with him.”
Estelle turned to Gastner, but he was already shaking his head. “No thanks, Sweetheart. So much I have to do, plus I have an appointment for lunch I can’t miss.”
“An appointment with a green chile burrito?”
He grinned and said to Waddell, “She knows me too well.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“What’s the matter?” Gastner said. He held the ignition key in place but didn’t turn it. Instead, he frowned at Estelle, who was gazing out the windshield at nothing.
“One more thing,” she said.
“This is the best time, while the world is quiet and dark.”
“Efrin Garcia. The ambulance picked him up at his home when his mother called 911. By the time he made his way home after crashing into the pole, he was coughing blood. She didn’t waste a second, and she
did the right thing. EMTs said that his blood pressure was close to nil by the time he arrived at the hospital.”
“So let me get this straight. He hits the pole, gets thrown from the truck, and still drags himself a couple hundred yards home, then collapses?”
“That’s what I’m told. Complete with a ruptured spleen and some bad fractures.”
“Ouch.”
“Now, his brother Arthur has been seen around town. The sheriff knows their old car, and apparently Arthur is using that from time to time. But he didn’t show up at the local hospital—Efrin’s mother rode in the ambulance from their home, then she flew with him on the medevac to Albuquerque, but Arthur didn’t. That’s odd, don’t you think? That he doesn’t show his face?”
“But he wasn’t in the truck with Efrin.”
“Well, maybe he’s out carousing and doesn’t even know that his baby brother bought the farm. I mean, there’s normal folks who think, and then there’s Arthur Garcia, who isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. Ask Jamie Herrald, his parole officer. That’s who he’s reporting to.”
“He’s just another square in the checkerboard, sir. I’d like to talk with Arthur, too. See what he has to say for himself. If we keep turning over rocks, eventually we might get lucky and hit the right one.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I have no idea. Suppose he was with Efrin when he was working on tagging the middle school. I mean, that’s possible. Help hold the ladder. Pass up paint cans? Maybe the tagging was Arthur’s idea in the first place. But regardless, there’s the possibility one or both of the brothers saw something at the middle school.”
“Maybe, maybe. They live over on Fifth Street, as I recall.”
“All the way at the south end.”
He nodded and started the SUV. “We’ll swing by there on the way back into town.” At the bottom of the hill, night shift Security Officer Juan Ignacio stepped out to meet them, in no hurry to raise the gate. He ducked his head and smiled at Gastner, then tipped his cap in salute to Estelle.
“Long day?”
“You bet. Juan, when was the last time Art Garcia was up topside?”
“Art?”
“You know him, Juan. Efrin’s older brother.”
“Yeah, I mean I know him. But no…I haven’t seen him since…” and he looked uncomfortable. “Gosh, a long time. He doesn’t come out here much.”
Gastner’s eyes locked on the security guard’s face, his jaw thrust out pugnaciously. ‘“Much’ means he comes out once in a while. When was the last time?”
Ignacio looked down at the clipboard, as if trying to decide if the list was high security. “I didn’t see him cleared to go up,” Ignacio said. He ruffled pages. “He came in with his brother on Tuesday, it says here. My guess is that he was helping Efrin work on the mural at the theater. They were putting up a scaffold and everything.”
“What time did he leave?”
Ignacio turned his Maglite for a better view of the pages. “Says here that both him and Efrin left around seven p.m.”
“Long day.”
“You guys should know. That’s the normal way now,” Ignacio nodded. “There’s a big push to have this place one hundred percent by Christmas. I think they’ll make it.”
“When was the last time you saw Efrin come through?”
“I usually don’t. See, I go on shift at midnight, so if he went through earlier than that…” He splayed the pages again. “Haus has him comin’ down Wednesday night at eleven thirty-five. And then Cooper signed him in again on Thursday morning at ten after eight.” He looked up first at Gastner, then at Estelle. “So he’s in and out all the time.”
“Thanks, Juan,” Gastner said. As Estelle’s passenger-side window spooled up, he added, “I arrested both Juan Ignacio and Art Garcia one night when they were both in elementary school. I think they were third-graders, maybe fourth. They were trying to hot-wire a pickup truck parked over near Grundy’s on Bustos.” He laughed at the memory. “They saw me coming eastbound and ducked down so I wouldn’t see ’em. Boy genius Arthur had his foot sticking out the door, and he forgot to pull it in. Two fourth-graders heading for the big-time.”
“I remember that,” Estelle said.
“At that point, they both should have been recalled as defective. Would’ve saved us a lot of trouble later on.”
“Ignacio turned out all right.”
“Yep. Maybe. That’s one of my continuing worries, Sweetheart. Miles Waddell is about the most generous human being I’ve ever met. He’s that odd and wonderful combination of being personally driven, but at the same time he really cares about the people in his world. I hate to see him taken advantage of.”
“He’s pretty acute that way.”
“He can be. He can be. But like Juan back there, what do you want to bet that the boy is on the phone with Arthur right now, telling him that we’re curious? Would we be surprised?”
“I wouldn’t bet against that,” Estelle said. “But if we swing by Garcia’s house, we might get lucky.”
Half an hour later, Gastner slowed the SUV to a crawl as they turned south on Fifth Street, a street that was paved as far as the country club, and then jolted into dirt as it crossed a deep arroyo. He turned off the headlights and lowered all four windows. Surging out of the arroyo, the gravel lane skirted a grove of brush and stunted elms, then swept into a tight curve. The tracks were obvious.
“He lost it here.” Gastner stopped the truck and picked up his flashlight. “And there’s Bambi.” The deflated carcass of the smashed deer lay against a spray of cacti.
Across the road, another fifty yards ahead, the utility pole canted to one side, spears of wood splinters jutting. Tire tracks cut through the vegetation.
“They towed the truck to the house?”
“That would be the logical thing to do. It’s just on a bit.”
“Don’t start expecting logic,” Gastner scoffed. He let the SUV idle down the lane, and slowed when they reached a driveway off to the left, heading toward a veteran mobile home.
“Her car isn’t here,” Estelle whispered as they turned into the narrow, rutted driveway. Abundant tire tracks hinted at where the huge, low-slung barge of a sedan would park when it was home, squatted near a cactus bed, nosed up against what had once been a camper trailer. Now, the trailer provided a place for a discarded mattress to lean against.
“House and Garden,” Gastner growled. “That’s Efrin’s truck.” The battered Nissan was parked within two steps of the front door, where the contract tow truck operator, Stub Moore, had dropped it off. The truck was a good two feet shorter than it had been before taking on deer and pole. The left side of the grill was crushed inward, the semicircular imprint of the utility pole bent in to drive the radiator into the engine block.
Estelle slid out of the SUV, flashlight in hand.
Half of an extension ladder rested in the bed of the truck, and the back window was shattered. Pieces of the glass still clung to the window molding, itself partially pulled loose from the cab.
“Ay,” she whispered, and she could feel Gastner’s presence as he stepped up close behind her.
“Somebody bled like a stuck pig.” He played the light beam around the inside of the cab. The keys hung from the ignition, and what looked like blood had splattered over the seat, on the steering wheel, the dashboard, even on the headliner.
Kernels of busted glass littered the truck bed as well. Estelle brought her flashlight close. The ladder had been shoved into the truck with its plastic feet rearward, out beyond the battered tailgate. “There’s dried blood on the ladder itself.” She drew back and looked around at Gastner, then reached out and almost touched the raw aluminum ends of the ladder rails. “Right here at the tip?”
“I’ll buy that. Who’d it cut, if Efrin went sailing out the door?” He reached out and rocked the sprung door. Its frame was nearly bent double.
Stepping to the door of the trailer, she rapped on the
thin aluminum of the doorjamb. No one stirred. She rapped again, then reached out and tried the knob. The door was locked. Turning in a slow circle, she surveyed the dark neighborhood. Through runty trees, she could see a light in the distance, a single bulb over one of the golf course’s storage sheds. Farther down the lane, an older adobe home was dark, with no porch light.
“We need a crew out here, sir. We don’t know what happened.”
“Agreed. Who’s working graveyard now?”
“Bishop is on by himself tonight.” She had phone in hand, and when he answered, Bob Torrez sounded as if he sat just around the corner.
“Yep?”
“Bobby, we’re over here at the Garcias’ on Fifth. Efrin’s truck is here, but his mother’s car isn’t. Bill and I are looking at the truck—broken back window, lots of glass and blood around the interior. There’s a ladder in the back, with broken glass in the truck bed and what looks like blood on the ladder itself.”
“Okay.”
“We can’t just let it go. None of that jibes with Efrin being pitched out of the truck when it hit the pole.”
Silence greeted that, and then Torrez said, “I’ll be over in a couple of minutes,” and disconnected.
“Now is when you wish you had your car,” Gastner observed. “But I’m pretty well stocked.”
“You are?” She couldn’t help smiling at the old man.
“Well, you know,” he said offhandedly. “Sometimes, it’s handy to have an evidence bag or two. A little this, a little that. I even have a couple blood boxes.”
“That will cover it. Right now, all I want is some of the glass fragments, and some of the dried blood. And some pictures.” She pulled the tiny camera from its belt holster. “And some idea of what happened here. I’d like that.” For a moment she stood quietly, gazing at the truck. “Bishop didn’t see any reason not to have the truck just towed the few yards up the road to here. He said it didn’t make any sense to take it to a wrecking yard, or to the sheriff’s impound.” She shook her head doubtfully. “Maybe, maybe not.” She nodded at the bed of the truck. “Let’s start there.”
Come Dark Page 22
