One Perfect Shot

by Steven F Havill

  “You’d be surprised how little motivation is needed sometimes.” I snapped the notebook closed. “How’s your great-uncle, by the way? On your way in from down south, did you take a moment to check on him?”

  She nodded. “He was sleeping soundly. His truck was still parked on the shoulder.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Not long ago. I suppose it was almost six-thirty.” I tried to picture her as a teenager living with her great-uncle, getting ready for school with only a rude sink and sometimes hot water. But for him to actually ponder what his great-niece might need? Not Reubén. I liked the old man, but talking with him was always about Reubén, and what Reubén was doing. He was the solid center of his own universe. A wife would have murdered him long ago.

  “Anyway, we see what the kiddos have to offer today,” I said. “The Zipoli gang. If there were regulars hanging out with him, then we want to know about it. They might have heard something, seen something…who the hell knows in what ugly direction that might lead.” I shrugged. “Or maybe not. It occurred to me sometime last night that we might be chasing just some random thing—some trigger-happy bastard who lets fly with a rifle without a clue about what he’s doing. Like those nitwits who shoot at highway signs.” I glanced her way as I hefted my own briefcase and headed for the door. “In a lot of years in this business, I’ve never caught one of them at work. Don’t know anyone who has. How often does someone call in to report the murder of a stop sign?”

  I didn’t add that it was probably a good thing that taxpayers didn’t know how little crime went unreported, uninvestigated, and unpunished. Most of the time, crime did pay, and sometimes handsomely.

  A moment later, we settled into the car and Estelle watched me as I updated my log, called in the mileage to dispatch for his office log, and reviewed the few questions I had jotted down the day before. None of the other deputies used 310, so the car remained my private mobile office.

  It’s possible to drive from the Sheriff’s Department parking lot to Posadas High School in thirty seconds and never break the speed limit. I made it in something under five minutes. I don’t know what I was looking for, but a couple of nagging thoughts kept playing their loop. When that happens, my pace slows as my gaze drifts into every crack and corner. I drove with the windows down, elbow on the sill, chin propped in my hand, my mind trying to rush in two directions at once. Would Larry Zipoli recognize an Orosco when he saw it? Nah. Not a chance.

  Estelle Reyes patiently endured our idle-along until we parked in front of the school in the No Parking—School Bus Loading Zone. A minute or so later, we sat comfortably in Glenn Archer’s office, and he took a great deal of care in closing the door, standing there with one hand on the knob, the other on the jamb as if making sure no one was going to sneak up and put an ear to the wood. A dapper fellow who took off the prissy edge by favoring comfortable corduroy trousers and a baggy cardigan, Archer had always welcomed a comfortable relationship with the Sheriff’s Department. We provided officers—with the help of Chief Martinez and the village department—for sporting events, tried to be gentle when we had to arrest one of the teenagers who fell into hard times with drugs or alcohol, and offered a sympathetic ear when we arrived on the parents’ doorstep at 3 a.m. to change lives forever. He seemed reasonably calm for the morning of the first day of school.

  Once satisfied with his office security, Archer turned back to his huge desk. A box of tissue graced each front corner, within easy reach of our chairs. Another rested on the bookcase behind my head. I wasn’t planning on breaking into sniffles, but I’m sure such was routine for kids about to be flogged.

  “So…the first day of school, and here we are.” His smile was strained. “I was hoping you’d come today to arrange a series of public service programs for the kiddos. Or maybe talk during our assembly later this morning. But maybe not.” He paused and glanced at the door again. “Ms. Reyes, I’m delighted to see you.” He looked sideways at her, figuring something. “Refresh my memory. What year?”

  “Eighty-four, sir.” I knew from her application that Estelle Reyes had not yet celebrated her twenty-second birthday. Still, it must have seemed like centuries ago that she’d been plowing through the required reading in Mrs. Hammerman’s American History class, or smelling the mid-morning aroma of the cafeteria.

  “Time flies,” the superintendent said. “You’re going to be with this gentleman’s outfit now?” He nodded toward me.

  “We hire only the best and the brightest.” I slipped a page out of my notebook. I handed the list of names to Archer, and he studied it as he circled his desk to sit down in the huge leather swivel chair. The throne.

  “Arnett, Packard, Pasquale, Singer, Zamora, Zapia.” My list wasn’t in alphabetical order, but Archer’s mind was. He found a convenient category for the six. “Good kids, all, Sheriff. What are we fishing for?”

  “Glenn, I’m interested in what they might be able to tell us about Larry Zipoli.” I would hesitate about mentioning a case to ninety-nine percent of Posadas County residents, knowing that gossip made a prairie wildfire seem sluggish. But Glenn Archer had never given me reason to doubt his discretion. His frown was immediate.

  “What a mess,” he whispered. He read the list again, then looked up at me, tapping the little piece of paper against his thumb. “I have to hope that none of these kiddos are in any way involved with that.”

  “We hope not.”

  “Specifically you need…”

  “Whatever you can tell me,” I said. “It would be convenient to chat with each one. We can do that off school grounds, but this will save us some time.”

  “Can you tell me what direction you’re headed with this?”

  I sighed. “Just preliminaries, Glenn. That group of boys has spent time with Zipoli in the past. Recreational trips over to the Butte, that sort of thing. At this stage, we’re just scouting the options. Fishing, like you say.”

  “I heard Mr. Zipoli was killed in cold blood? While he was working?”

  “The victim was minding his own business, grading a county road. Somebody put a bullet through his brain and left him sitting there in the sun.”

  “My God.”

  “Right now, we’re touching bases with anyone who knew Zipoli, who spent any time with him. Maybe it’ll lead somewhere. Maybe it won’t.” I shrugged. “These six were in his circle, so there we are. Until something better comes along, we talk with everyone we meet.”

  Archer pivoted just enough in his chair that he could reach his computer keyboard. He stared at the screen as the program woke up. “We never know, do we.” I didn’t know just what he meant by that, and didn’t ask. “Arnett and Zapia are seniors, the others are juniors. Well, all but Louis.” Archer glanced across at me. “Louis Zamora? He’s a sophomore this year.”

  He frowned at the screen again, then relaxed back in his chair. “They’re not a group here at school, if you know what I mean. Not like it’s the ‘gang of six.’ That’s interesting. I mean, Tommy Pasquale and Matt Singer hang out together some.” He smiled at Estelle. “I’m sure you remember how it was, Estelle. There’s friends,” and he held his arms out wide, encircling a large, imaginary beach ball, then brought his hands together to palm a basketball, “and there’s friends, and then,” he clasped his palms tightly, “there’s friends. Best buds. Go to class together, eat lunch together, hang out at the Handiway together, go to parties together.” He leaned forward and tapped the list. “I’d put these six in the first category.” He spread his arms again.

  His fingers danced on the computer keys, and he leaned his chin in his left hand as he read the results. “And would you believe this…of the six, four are AWOL today.” Archer turned just enough to catch my eye. “Can you believe that? First day of the first week of school, and there they go.” He shrugged philosophically. “We expect absentees, really until
next week. But still…”

  “Which ones didn’t make it today?”

  “Pasquale, Zamora, Arnett and Packard.” He frowned. “Zamora surprises me. He didn’t miss a single day last year, when he was a freshman. And if my memory serves me, he was a star in middle school, too…perfect attendance. Jason Packard is junior, just barely. You probably know him.”

  “The Packard ranch up by Newton,” I said.

  “That’s it.” Archer grimaced. “And caught right in the middle. Jason lives here in town with his grandmother, and I won’t even begin trying to explain the mess that family’s in. Suffice to say that I don’t think we offer a whole lot that’s of interest to the boy. He’s a ranch kid at heart, regardless of how often his stepfather tries to beat it out of him, so there’s no telling what’s keeping him away from school today.”

  Estelle Reyes’ black eye brows narrowed a bit at that. She’d learn soon enough that ninety percent of the criminal cases that the Sheriff’s Department dealt with blossomed first as a family dispute of some kind. And most of the time, kids were caught painfully in the middle.

  “Jason lives and breathes 4-H, and we have fairs coming up. He could be busy with that, although how he does it caught between two places is beyond me.” Archer smiled gently. “That’s one of the amazing things about kids, sometimes. They can bounce back from the darnedest things.” He nodded at the computer. “Now Maurice ‘Mo’ Arnett? There’s no telling. He’s a senior, and I’m proud to report that he has an early admission at the University of New Mexico. He’ll be leaving us in January, and I know he’s pretty excited about it. He’s signed up for R.O.T.C., with a military career in mind. Military might be just what that kid needs. He’s one of those rascals who is seventeen going on eight, if you know what I mean. Some military discipline will do him good. Now,” and he scrolled the computer display to another screenful, “Mr. Thomas Pasquale? Again, who knows. He’s a junior, and if it has an engine, Tommy is operating it.”

  “Let’s start with the other two,” I said. “The ones in school. Matt Singer and the Zapia kid. Two birds in the hand.”

  “We can do that. Hang on just a minute.” He rose and left the office, this time leaving the door open.

  I leaned closer to Estelle. “Something to watch. The Zamora kid? His older brother is Mike, over at the Highway Department. The one who worked directly with Larry Zipoli.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  In the next few minutes, we learned little from Matt Singer and Eric Zapia that we didn’t already know. Both boys certainly knew Larry Zipoli, and had taken part in various recreational outings with him. There was no formal arrangement, no calendaring of events. Their participation was a spur of the moment thing. Eric Zapia’s folks hadn’t been thrilled with his taking part in the excursions over to Elephant Butte, and I got the impression that Eric was kept on a pretty short leash.

  Still, Zipoli didn’t actively recruit these boys from around the neighborhood. It appeared that he was a kid magnet whether he wanted to be or not. Fancy truck, fast boat, not the least bit circumspect about supplying the odd can of suds now and then…and his youngest attractive daughter who was home often enough to inspire lust in teenaged minds.

  During the brief interviews, Estelle Reyes kept her own council. She watched each kid, each twitch of the hand, each squirm in the chair. Matt Singer tried to ignore her for the first few minutes, then ended up talking directly to the young lady, despite the questions coming exclusively from me. Had the opportunity presented itself, he probably would have asked her out on a date.

  Watching the interplay between the two young people—and it was a one-way attraction, obviously—was fascinating. When he’d first come into the room, Matt Singer had been a bit stooped, affecting that backpack induced posture so many teens suffered, but now he sat with shoulders square, trying to add a couple of years of maturity. He had a nice smile, and apparently had decided during a session in front of the mirror that a slight Elvis curl of the lips added to his charm. He tried several versions of that on Estelle, all to no avail.

  For his turn, Eric Zapia impressed me as a harmless airhead, a kid who’d spent too long with the earphones cranked up to ten. It took him a while to find the superintendent’s office, and he sort of sidled through the door as if concerned that he might be entering the wrong room. I didn’t care what he wore, or how ridiculous his spiky hair looked, but he certainly did, and I think he hoped one of us would say something. His favorite word was, “whaaa?” as if either his hearing or his comprehension had headed south. Our interview with him didn’t last long—he was either dim-witted or a consummate actor. Apparently he enjoyed the lake outings because of the “chicks,” the parading laker groupies.

  We left the school with one little tidbit of information that pointed us toward something we already knew. Eric Zapia didn’t ride a bike—I’m not sure his reflexes were sharp enough for that, but he fingered two who did. Both Tom Pasquale and Jason Packard—two of the students enjoying hooky—were cyclists of some repute, and Larry Zipoli had been seem talking to cyclists sometime during his last hours on earth.

  In a world where the automobile was God, here were two kids who still pedaled. Jason missed his horses, I would guess, and Tommy Pasquale would have preferred something with a V-8. But according to Eric Zapia, both Pasquale and Packard were rabid fans of the professional teams—enough so that they wore the bright racing jerseys from time to time, even wore them in public, risking the scorn of peers. They had proposed a bike club at school, and were greeted with underwhelming enthusiasm.

  Riding bikes didn’t seem a likely thrill for either of them. Maybe some of the roads on the side of Cat Mesa were sufficiently vertical that they could reach escape velocity. Adrenalin junkies, both boys must have loved Larry Zipoli’s boat, with its rumbling V-8, chrome-plated air cleaners, and ear-busting exhaust stacks.

  “What do you think?” I asked Estelle as I eased the county car out of the school’s circle driveway. “Did that little session at the school bring back memories for you?”

  “In what regard, sir?”

  Well, of course she wasn’t going to babble on about her own high school experience, regardless of how recent it might be. I was coming to learn that Ms. Reyes’ reticence wasn’t just a passing phase. Most of us humans took some small delight in chatting about ourselves. Somebody tells us a yarn about their adventures, even if it was just a flat tire on the way to Walmart, and we respond with our own version, usually flavored with a little one-upsmanship. “Why, I had two flats last night in the middle of the worst electric storm of the century.”

  Estelle Reyes apparently didn’t feel even the slightest need to chat about her high school years, challenging as they must have been. I had no doubt that her thoughts were focused on El Jardin de los Tres Santos, but she didn’t continue her suppositions about that, either. She’d spoken her piece, displayed what little evidence there was, and got on with her day. And I liked that, from the very start. She kept her focus on the job at hand. That didn’t mean some small room in her brain wasn’t reserved for the welfare of the three saints.

  “Schools are a culture all their own,” I said by way of explanation.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I chuckled at that. “Who do you want to find first?”

  “The cyclists,” she said, cutting to the chase. The radio crackled, and I slowed and nodded at the mike. Sheriff Eduardo Salcido’s voice sounded tired.

  “Three ten, ten twenty.”

  Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Estelle unclipped the mike and replied, “Three ten is just leaving the high school, eastbound on Piñon.”

  “Stop for a minute at Handiway.”

  “Ten four.”

  I could see the sheriff’s vehicle at the convenience store before the young lady had racked the mike. “He sounds as if he spent a long night,” I sa
id.

  The sheriff leaned against the fender of his unmarked county car, arms folded across his chest, boots crossed at the ankles. He didn’t shift position as I drove up, but surveyed 310 critically.

  “When are we going to get you a new car?” he greeted as I pulled myself out of the low-slung LTD.

  “Any decade now,” I replied, and patted the faded front fender. New vehicles, when they infrequently arrived, went to road deputies. “Old men get old cars.” Salcido smiled at that, and raised a hand to tip his hat at Estelle, who had remained in the car.

  “How is she getting along?”

  “Just fine. She’s a thinker, Eduardo. I like that.”

  Salcido nodded, but it wasn’t the talented young lady whom he had on his mind. “Jack Newton died early this morning.”

  I felt the same pang that most folks my age—or the sheriff’s—feel when someone near our own demographic dies. Mortality is a melancholy thing. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s not surprising, I guess. He was in a bad way.”

  “That’s what Nicky said. It was coming, he said. The old man was just lucky that he didn’t drive that big Caddy into somebody first.” Salcido pushed himself away from the car. “Ay,” the sheriff added, and shook his head. He straightened his shoulders, and I heard weary bones pop. “Bobby is working with George Payton this morning.”

  “What’s George got for us?”

  “I don’t know. Bobby thinks he’s got a lock on the bullet make, and that sent him off, you know. He wanted to paw through George’s stuff.”

  I frowned. “And George?” Payton owned the only gun shops in town, a nifty, memento-filled little place with more inventory than most shop five times its size. And the shop was his turf. George Payton didn’t let anyone forget that. I couldn’t imagine George opening his books to the cops, no matter how well he knew Bobby Torrez, or me, or Eduardo.

  “I think we’re going to need a warrant,” Eduardo said. “Bobby said no, but you know, I’ll be surprised if George opens his books to us. I was thinking that maybe you need to talk with him.”