One Perfect Shot

by Steven F Havill

  I passed paperwork across to her as I read through Larry Zipoli’s file, keeping my thoughts to myself. A half hour later, I tossed the folder toward her so she had someplace to put the stack of papers that she’d accumulated on her lap.

  “None of this leaves the room,” I said. “Ever. Not to anyone.” Her nod was almost imperceptible, and I suppose I had no reason to be concerned. The day I’d spent with her hadn’t featured much more conversation than if I’d been driving around Posadas County by myself.

  I folded my hands across my gut and relaxed back, closing my eyes. “So here is a man with a dozen infractions,” and I paused and looked at the note pad on my blotter. “Eleven separate incidents over the course of fifteen years.” I held up my hand and ticked fingers. “He wrecks a county dump truck and that’s put down to a ‘shifting load’ by the investigating sheriff’s deputy—who died of cancer a dozen years ago, by the way. You got to wonder how a few cubic yards of gravel shifts suddenly, but there you go. But Larry earns a letter of reprimand from Everett Carlyle, who was superintendent then, a year before Tony Pino got the job.” I closed my eyes again, seeing the parade of paper work as it drew a picture of an employee who might be a wizard with machines when sober, but a genuine liability when soused.

  “Tony Pino is covering his own ass,” I said. “That’s what it amounts to. Ten of those incidents were on his watch. He sticks a letter in the file, but beyond that, what does he do? Does he turned Zipoli over to the county manager? To personnel? To any goddamn body? No.”

  “Is he required to, sir?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” I said. “Common sense would say ‘yes.’ But Tony never does. Larry Zipoli wrecks a truck, a couple of years later parks his county pickup in a bar ditch, ruins a taxpayer’s culvert with the road grader, is reported by a concerned citizen for drinking beer during his lunch hour—and we could fairly ask how many incidents there might have been that didn’t earn the goddamn letter from Pino.”

  “Why didn’t he fire Zipoli long ago, sir?”

  “Good question. The reason might be as simple as Tony Pino’s will power. Firing a long-time employee for something like this is damn hard to do…at least for some folks it is. ‘Well, he’s learned his lesson.’ That sort of thing. Except alcoholics don’t learn any lessons until tragedy forces the necessity. Zipoli could work magic with a road grader or back hoe even when half sauced. It could be as simple as that. Pino is short-handed, and can’t afford to lose an experienced employee. So he turns his back on all this stuff.” I waved a hand at the stack of papers. “No major catastrophes in the record—just a potpourri of little incidents.”

  “It’s interesting that Mr. Pino continues to document all the incidents even though he’s disinclined to do anything further,” Estelle said. I enjoyed hearing the way her melodic Mexican accent touched the syllables. It made an awkward word like “disinclined” sound damn poetic. “I would think that puts considerable liability on him.”

  “One would think so,” I agreed. “A lawyer would have a field day with all this during a trial for civil damages.” I stretched back. “You know what’s interesting? We don’t have a damn thing on Larry Zipoli in our department files. Not a damn thing. That’s how lucky he’s been—or how lucky the unsuspecting public has been.” I straightened the folder. “Going on twenty years on the job, and not a single ticket or violation. That’s a talent all by itself.”

  For a long moment, I remained silent, staring at the front cover of Larry Zipoli’s personnel folder. “I need to talk with Marilyn Zipoli again.” I rested my hand on the folder as if it might levitate off the desk. “This is the kind…” I stopped when Eduardo Salcido appeared in my office doorway. His expression was one of resignation.

  “I’m tired of talking to people who don’t know shit,” he said, and the mild profanity surprised me. He leaned against the door jamb, his hands thrust in his pockets. “I got two—two people who agree on what they heard or saw.”

  “That’s better than none, I suppose.”

  “How can you shoot a high-powered rifle in a quiet neighborhood and not have half the town hear it?” A bemused grin lit his features. “I tell you, jefito—we got to let people know when something is going to happen…tell them when they’re supposed to pay attention, so they can be good witnesses.” His frustration was understandable, of course. Nothing is more infuriating to investigators than witness behavior—those witnesses whose senses are simply turned off as they cruise through life, or those on the opposite end of the scale, who invent juicy tidbits in their eagerness to be of help to the police. And every shade in between.

  “Who are the two?”

  “You know the Deckers?”

  “Sure.” Hugh and Tody Decker were active members in the Posadas County Sheriff’s Posse, a group of civilians who liked to dress up and ride horses in parades. The posse hadn’t chased a killer on the lam since the 1890s, but they were handy for managing traffic control during the Posadas County Fair.

  “Tody says that her husband had just gone outside for something, I don’t know what. He came back in the house complaining about the shooting.”

  “The shooting?” I asked incredulously. “You mean he claims he saw it?”

  “No. He told his wife he heard a shot.” He nodded at my expression of skepticism. “Well, that’s what he said. He looked off that way, and claims that he saw a person walking toward a car parked right at the intersection of Highland and Hutton.“

  The sheriff wagged an index finger. “Tody says she remembers exactly when that was, because Hugh had a dentist’s appointment in Deming, and she was worried about him being late. She looked at the kitchen clock while Hugh was fussing around trying to find his binoculars.”

  “He found them, I hope.”

  Salcido held out both hands in disappointment. “He saw the person get into his car. That’s all. He decided it was someone taking a shot at a coyote or snake or something.”

  “He saw the gun?”

  Salcido shook his head.

  “Make and model of car?”

  “A small sedan, he said it was.”

  “That’s a goddamn big help.”

  “Well,” Salcido sighed, “it’s something, you know. It rules out all the pickup trucks with the gun racks in the back window. That’s half the town, Jefito.”

  “What time was all this? What did Tody say?”

  “She said it was just after two. If she’s right, that cuts down the window of opportunity.”

  “Huh.” I rested my chin on my fist. “But Hugh never saw the gun? That’s what he says?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Did Tody hear the gunshot as well?”

  “She says she did. A single crack. That’s how she described it.”

  I rose from my chair and walked across the small office to the two framed maps on the wall—one of Posadas County, the other the village itself. “The Deckers live right about there.” I jabbed a finger at the intersection of Sixth and Hutton.

  “On the west side,” Salcido added.

  “Right. He goes outside, looks to the north,” and I stroked a finger across the short distance toward Highland. “If the shooter was about here…” Both Salcido and Estelle Reyes let me muse with the map without interrupting my chain of thought.

  “No one else saw a thing?”

  Salcido hooked one of the military surplus folding chairs with his toe, turned it around and sat down with his arms folded across the back. He drew a small note book out of his shirt pocket and used his thumb to push through the pages. “There are a total…” he lingered on that word… “a total of seven people who heard shots. And the number varies, Jefito. From one to a whole string. Some heard a loud boom, like maybe a shotgun. Some heard what they assumed were firecrackers.” He looked up at me, the crow’s tracks at
the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Now if you hear one rifle shot, how do you translate that into a whole string?”

  “Inventive,” I said. “I don’t know. I need to talk with Hugh. He saw the road grader working?”

  Salcido shook his head. “Tody didn’t know. Hugh wasn’t home when I stopped by.” He made a spinning motion with one hand. “He has this rototiller that he’s trying to make work. He’s in and out all the time.”

  “I’d like to talk with him,” I said, and turned to Estelle. “You ready to roll?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Salcido laughed gently. “Quite a job interview you’re having today.” He regarded Estelle critically. “Did he find a vest that fits you?” This was one of those occasions where it’s do as I say, not as I do, since in all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen Eduardo Salcido wear a protective vest. Maybe it was vanity—a vest would plump out his already blocky shape and make him resemble a gourd—or just the discomfort of the thing, stiff and hot under the shirt. Those were my excuses, anyway.

  In this case, any idiot could see that someone with Estelle Reyes’ body shape wasn’t going to enjoy the unyielding discomfort of the Kevlar body armor.

  “I think we’re going to have to order for you,” I said.

  “Sooner rather than later,” Salcido added gently. “She needs to observe in dispatch in the meantime.” He pushed himself up from the chair.

  “That’s one of the goals for this afternoon,” I said. “I’ll come up with a schedule for her.”

  “This afternoon,” Salcido chuckled. I could see it for myself, that inexorable advancement of the clock when Larry Zipoli’s corpse now lay on a slab at Salazar’s Funeral Home while his killer kept a sharp eye over his shoulder. The passage of time was the killer’s ally.

  “You be careful out there,” Salcido said as he read my mind. “You’re going out to see the Deckers?”

  I nodded. “And then I have a few more questions I want to ask Marilyn Zipoli.” Settling on the corner of my desk, I patted the personnel folder. “Pino had every reason over the years to can Zipoli’s ass. There are a dozen letters of reprimand in his records. And no action taken other than that, Eduardo. Just letters.”

  That earned the familiar “oh well” expression from the sheriff.

  “It’s almost as if Pino was afraid of him. Or at least afraid to face up to him and straighten things out.”

  “Lots of folks find that hard to do,” Salcido mused. “It’s just easier to let it go. As long as nothing happens, you know. I don’t think it’s an issue of fear, Jefito.” And I was willing to bet that the sheriff knew exactly what the issue was. I was also willing to bet that Larry Zipoli’s drinking on the job was not the motive for his murder.

  “I would hope not. Tony Pino certainly would have the county attorney on his side if he wanted to make an issue of personnel matters. And by the way, I talked with Jim Raught earlier. He’s an interesting fellow.”

  “He is that,” Salcido agreed. “Keeps to himself. That’s what I know about him.”

  “We’re stumbling around in the dark,” I said. “I find it hard to believe that Larry Zipoli’s drinking on the job had anything to do with his death, and I don’t believe that a little argument with a neighbor did.”

  “There’s something that we’re missing, then,” Salcido said, echoing my own thoughts exactly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hugh Decker was glad to see us. Just in case we might decide to pass him by, he dropped the rag he’d been using to polish the engine housing of his rototiller—something I would certainly want to do should I own one—and made for the curb to head us off. The Deckers owned the cleanest, most meticulously maintained tiller in Posadas County. Exactly why blow sand needed tilling was a mystery to me.

  I parked in the shade of an enormous cottonwood whose roots had to be sucking water from five neighboring yards.

  “Keep a straight face,” I ordered.

  Hugh waddled across to us, his thin shorts more like cut-off pajama bottoms and threatened by gravity at each step. His sleeveless T-shirt was inadequate for its task, and hairy pink flesh bulged in some unattractive places. Enormous flat feet splayed his sandals.

  “Tody said you were by,” he rumbled in greeting, and he mopped his forehead with a mammoth wrist.

  “The sheriff was,” I corrected. And who knew. With Hugh’s damaged eye-sight, he might well have mistaken Eduardo for me, or vice versa.

  “Well, lemme show you something,” he said, and then stopped short as he caught sight of Estelle Reyes. “And who are you, young lady?”

  “This is Estelle Reyes,” I said. “New with the department.”

  Hugh thrust out a huge paw, and Estelle’s hand disappeared for several pumps. “Good to make your acquaintance,” he said. “Where do you hail from?”

  “Posadas, sir.”

  Hugh looked puzzled. “Do I know your folks?”

  “I would doubt it, sir.” A safe enough assumption, since Estelle herself didn’t know her folks.

  “What’s to show us?” I prompted, and Hugh nodded vigorously and beckoned for us to follow him around to the back of the house. The place was tidy. The garage door was open to reveal a late-model Ford LTD with Sheriff’s Posse license plates and two whip antennas sprouting from the trunk. In the back yard, half a dozen dwarf fruit trees were making a valiant effort.

  “Oh, hello!” Tody warbled, sticking her head out the back door. “Hugh, remember that you have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Goddamn doctors, excuse my French. They’re never satisfied.” He grinned at me and punched his glasses back up the slope of his fleshy nose. “I expect you’ve had your share.” Not waiting for an answer, he walked to the back block wall and pointed. Over the four-foot barrier, the open prairie stretched uninterrupted to the north. A view of the streets was impossible, the vegetation in the back lots just high enough to block the road surfaces and bar ditches from view, but I could just make out the stop sign at the intersection of Hutton and Highland—and only then because I knew it was there.

  “Car parked right at the intersection,” Hugh said, affecting an officious, clipped delivery. He swept his arm to the east. “Now, the road grader would have been right about over there. The guy I saw was walking back to the car.”

  “Holding something?”

  “I couldn’t swear to it, sheriff.”

  I leaned an elbow on the top row of blocks. “How far do you suppose that is, from here to the stop sign at the intersection.”

  “Two hundred yards, maybe three.”

  “Two or three football fields,” I translated. “Close enough that if the wind was right, you could hear voices.”

  “Didn’t, though.”

  “Could you hear the road grader?”

  “Not when it was just idling. When he was actually grading, I could catch snatches of it.”

  “You heard a gun shot?”

  Hugh held up a single finger. “One. Just one. At three minutes after two.” He held up his left wrist to display the impressive, multi-functioned watch. Again, he adopted the officious tone. “I hear a shot, I look at the clock.”

  “We’re glad that you do,” I said. “When you heard that one shot, where were you?”

  He turned and pointed across the yard at the chaise lounge. “Right there, letting lunch settle.”

  “So you heard it—at three minutes after two—and got up to see what’s what.”

  “That’s exactly what I did. Every once in a while, you know, somebody gets itchy on the trigger just a little bit too close to dwellings. And I tell you…” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Old war time thing—you hear a whole mess of shooting, not to worry. You hear one shot, it’s time to worry. Somebody bought the far
m.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, and Hugh nodded sagely. “You heard the shot, checked the time, and walked over to the fence?”

  “Yes. And I saw one figure—I would guess it to be a man—walking back to a car by the intersection.”

  “The grader was sitting still at the time?”

  “It was.”

  “Running?”

  “I couldn’t swear that it was.”

  “Couldn’t see an operator moving around?”

  “Hell, I couldn’t even tell if there was anyone on board. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. As the man—woman, whoever—walked back to the vehicle, how would you describe his pace, Hugh. Hustling, trotting, sprinting?”

  “Walking. As best I could see. Just walking along.”

  “And carrying…”

  “Nothing that I could see. ‘Course, if he was right-handed and held the rifle in that hand, it’d be hidden mostly by his body.”

  “True enough. You watched him get into the vehicle?”

  “Well, sort of. I mean, it was a small car, you know. We got a lot of weeds and desert shit between here and there. Couldn’t see much.”

  “Heard one door slam?”

  “Didn’t hear any door slam,” Hugh corrected. “Too damn far for that.”

  “You watched him drive off?”

  “I did. He turned around in the intersection and drove back down Hutton into town.”

  “Speeding? Big dust plume?”

  “Nope. Just normal.” He looked askance at me. “You thinkin’ that wasn’t the shooter, then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, like I told Eduardo, I don’t see how it couldn’t be. And that says to me that you’ve got one cool cucumber.”

  I turned around and regarded the house. “Where was Tody, then?”

  “At the kitchen sink, right inside.” He pointed. “See that window that’s a little higher than the others? That’s right over the counter top beside the sink.”