Dead Weight pc-8

by Steven F Havill

  A mechanic at the Ford garage had replaced some part deep in the car’s guts, and it was almost eager. Still, fifteen miles an hour was just fine, a perfect match for my mood.

  By habit, I drove with the windows open and the two-way radio turned low, listening to and smelling the night. In the past, that had always accomplished one of two things: It either cleared my mind or made me drowsy enough that I could go home and grab an hour’s sleep. This time I couldn’t even make myself hungry.

  Turning south at the intersection with MacArthur, I cruised past the Sissons’ driveway. Bob Torrez’s old pickup truck squatted in the driveway, well back from the street. He’d been using that oil-burning, huge-engined heap since earlier in the day, his idea of an unmarked car.

  Farther south on MacArthur, I passed the neighborhood where the undersheriff lived with his wife, Gayle. It was a scattering of squat, old adobe houses that sat helter-skelter with a spiderweb of dirt streets. The oldest neighborhood in the village, it had once been called La Placita and nestled right up to the banks of Posadas Creek. The creek became a dry arroyo, mines opened, Posadas bloomed, and MacArthur sliced through La Placita’s vitals and killed it.

  A couple dozen families lived in that part of town, and Bob Torrez was related in one way or another to most of them.

  As I drove past, I caught a glimpse of 308, his county car, parked under the big elm tree in his front yard.

  Reaching Grande, I turned north and a few minutes later completed the short loop by crossing Bustos. Salazar and Sons Funeral Home loomed, the lights in the manicured front yard washing up the white marble facade. The place was garish and prosperous. A black Cadillac hearse was parked under the wrought-iron portico, no doubt waiting to be polished and prepped in anticipation of Jim Sisson’s last ride.

  The lights were on at 221 Third Street. The streetlight half a block away cast vague shadows, but even in the poor light I could see that Carla Champlin would disapprove. While she lived in a manicured terrarium, this place was as desolate as the day it was built thirty years before as low-rent housing for copper miners. She may have been right-perhaps at one time the tiny yard had bloomed as a showplace, with a putting-green lawn. I couldn’t remember.

  The front yard was dirt, basically a parking lot. A single scraggly, thirsting elm managed a few green leaves in the postage-stamp backyard. If the house was more than eight hundred square feet I would be surprised-not much larger than my kitchen and living room combined.

  Linda Real’s Honda station wagon was parked in the narrow driveway, and pulled in beside it was Deputy Pasquale’s old Jeep Wrangler.

  “Huh,” I said aloud.

  Beyond the casual arm-on-shoulder I’d seen in the darkroom, there had been few other hints that indicated any particular relationship between Linda and Tom-although they had known each other back when he was still flipping cars as a part-timer for the village PD and she was a reporter for the Posadas Register. It was as a reporter that she’d been riding with one of our deputies when he’d stopped a suspect vehicle. A shotgun blast had killed the deputy and another had mangled Linda.

  Her convalescence from long, complicated corrective surgery after the shooting had taken her out of Posadas, to live with her mother in Las Cruces.

  Earlier in the spring, I’d hired Linda, despite her left eye blindness and left ear deafness. She could work wonders with a camera, was bright and quick, and had the potential to be the best dispatcher we had, next to Gayle Torrez.

  In her complaint, Carla Champlin hadn’t mentioned that 221 Third Street was no longer bachelor’s quarters. I remembered her remark about the happily married McClaines and their one child and wondered if that had been a left-field way of voicing her disapproval of Linda and Tom’s cohabitation, if that’s, in fact, what was going on.

  Parked to the right of the front door was a large motorcycle. I almost snapped on the spotlight but thought better of it. It was a Harley, but how new I couldn’t tell.

  “Huh,” I said again. I hadn’t known that Pasquale fancied motorcycles-and didn’t know that he could afford a big, expensive road bike. If he was still making payments on the Jeep, that, coupled with his rent, would leave him just about enough from his meager county paycheck for one meal a week. No wonder he was prompt at the doughnut box when some kind soul brought them into the office.

  I chuckled at myself. I was making the same kinds of assumptions for which I chided the deputies. The motorcycle might even belong to Linda. Who knew. Maybe she’d taken up black leather and small cigars during her off-hours. Tom might have inherited the Jeep from a rich uncle who had bought it to go hunting and then promptly dropped dead from a heart attack.

  I idled 310 out of the neighborhood, leaving the kids to some short moments of peace and quiet.

  Back on Bustos, I drove west. As I approached the Don Juan de Onate Restaurant, still two hours from opening, my stomach twinged with conditioned reflex. Turning southbound, I slowed as I approached 410 South 12th, a neat brick-and-stucco place on a double lot. I felt a silly twinge of loss when I noticed that the “for sale” sign was missing. Somehow, as long as that sign had been up, the last connection hadn’t been cut. Estelle Reyes-Guzman and her family had moved to the land of snow and lutefisk, but as long as they still owned 410 South 12th it seemed to me that there was a chance that Minnesota winters and summertime mosquitoes might chase them back to Posadas, where their home awaited.

  A block south the pavement turned to dirt, and my car rumbled along toward the T intersection with State 17, the old highway that paralleled the interstate. Though it was once a major arterial across the country and even across the southern part of the state, only ranchers used it now, to reach their irrigation ditches on those rare occasions when there was enough water to bother.

  “Three ten, Posadas.”

  The voice was so faint I almost didn’t hear it over the crunching gravel. I turned up the volume and keyed the mike.

  “Posadas, three ten.”

  “Three ten, ten-thirty-nine.”

  “I’m wandering,” I said without keying the mike. “I’m without status.” I pushed the button and said, “Three ten is ten-eight.”

  “Ten-four, three ten. Can you…”

  There was a pause, and I could picture young Sutherland leaning forward, looking at the worn copy of the ten code taped to the cabinet beside the radio. Normal conversations over the new cell phone units, despite their limitations and other drawbacks, made the old-fashioned ten-code system seem pretty silly.

  “…ten-nineteen.”

  “Ten-four,” I said. “ETA about six minutes.”

  I reached a wide spot at Kenny Gallegos’s driveway and turned around, and in less than five minutes I pulled into the parking lot of the Public Safety Building. Frank Dayan, the publisher of the Register, stood by the back door, smoking.

  I glanced at the dashboard clock. Four twenty-six a.m. If Frank wanted to talk to me without interruptions, he’d picked a good time.

  I swung around to the curb and stopped, leaving the engine idling. Frank crushed out his cigarette and took his time putting the butt in the trash can by the door. Dressed in his usual khaki trousers and short-sleeved sport shirt, he thrust his hands in his pockets and ambled out to my car. This was not the ballistic Frank Dayan that I knew, rushing from merchant to merchant, pushing those column inches of advertising space for every penny he could squeeze.

  “This meeting of Insomniacs Anonymous is hereby called to order,” I said, and he grinned, looking Irish as hell, more like a Frankie O’Rourke than a Dayan. He leaned both hands against the car door and regarded me with what I took for melancholy. “What’s up? You about ready for breakfast?”

  He freed one hand and looked at his watch.

  “You’ve got time,” I chided. “Don’t give me this ‘I’m busy’ nonsense. The world’s asleep.” I nodded toward the passenger side. “Get in.”

  He did so, settling into the seat with a sigh. He regarded the stack of
radios and other junk with interest. “I’ve never ridden with any of you folks before,” he said.

  “Well, then,” I replied. “Let’s lift your level of boredom to new levels. Put on your seat belt.”

  He struggled trying to find the buckle under all the crap in the middle of the seat but finally managed.

  I jotted the time and Dayan’s presence in my log, clicked the mike, and said, “Three ten is ten eight.” Before Sutherland had completed half of his canned response, I had turned the volume down to a murmur.

  “So,” I said, heading 310 out of the parking lot. “Is there anywhere in particular you wanted to go, or are you just cruising?”

  Dayan shrugged. “I just wanted to chat with you about a couple of things, if you’re not too busy. Maybe get an update on the Sisson deal.”

  No one asks for an update on anything at 4:26 in the morning, and I laughed. I was willing to bet what he wanted, and so I said, “Oh…busy. As you can see, I am awesomely busy, Frank. Tell you what. I was going down toward Regal for a bit. Maybe bust some illegals.” I glanced around toward the backseat, as if someone might be back there listening. “Maybe put the screws on some of them for a quick buck. Know what I mean?”

  Frank Dayan’s reaction was just as I had expected. His jaw dropped a fraction and his head jerked. Before he could answer, I added, “You got a note, too, eh?”

  My stomach churned again, and not from early-morning hunger, when he didn’t say, “What note?”

  Chapter Nine

  Dayan reached into his pocket and pulled out a white envelope. From it he removed the now familiar piece of white typing paper, folded neatly in thirds, just like the other two.

  “This came to my office today. Plain envelope, just my name typed on it.” He held it up as if I could read it in the darkness. I glanced his way, trying to work out in my mind how much I could trust him. “I gather you’re familiar with the contents?” he asked.

  “‘Commissioner, you need to know that Tom Pasquale is a slimeball and is hitting up on nationals and tourists and God only knows who else, blah, blah, blah.’ Is that the gist of it?”

  “Yes.” He folded the note, slipped it in the envelope, and extended it toward me. I took it and snapped it under the clip on my log. It lay there, on top of the junk pile, if Dayan wanted it back. “Except it was addressed to me, not a commissioner. You’re saying that they all got one, too?”

  “No.” I paused as I cleared the intersection beyond the interstate and turned onto 56, heading toward Regal. “Sam Carter made a point of telling me that he got one. So did Arnold Gray. I haven’t heard from the others yet.”

  “But you probably will.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Did you talk to the deputy yet?”

  “No.”

  Dayan paused. He reached out and beat a short tattoo on the dashboard with his index fingers. Maybe it helped him think.

  “I guess it’s not anyone’s business but yours how you handle it, but are you going to talk to him?”

  “When the time comes…if it comes. The first thing that has to happen is that we move beyond the anonymous note stage. If someone wants to come forward with the ‘documentation’ that the note promises and is willing to sign a formal complaint, then it’ll be a different ball game. But a sleazy unsigned note, sent to all the right people? I don’t think so.”

  I knew it sounded as if I’d dismissed the contents of the note from my mind, continuing on as if it had never been delivered. If Frank Dayan thought that, it was fine with me. I trusted him as much as I trusted anyone associated with the media, but he didn’t have to know the nagging little seeds of doubt that damn note had planted in my mind. In that respect, the writer had been successful.

  “So you tell me, Frank. What are you going to do? Are you going to run a story about it in the Register?”

  His reply was snappy. “Come on, Sheriff. We don’t print rumors. We don’t print letters to the editor unless they’re signed and we can verify them. We don’t even print ‘name withheld’ letters when they ask. No guts, no signature, no letter. It’s that simple. And this kind of personal attack, even if it was signed? I don’t think so.”

  “Commendable,” I said.

  “I don’t think the letter would have been written if it weren’t an election year.”

  “Oh? Not for me, it isn’t an election year.”

  Dayan turned as much sideways as his seat belt would allow and rested his left arm along the back of the seat. He laced his fingers through the grillwork of the security screen that separated the backseat area from the front.

  “Bob Torrez made a lot of people angry when he filed as an independent, Sheriff.”

  “Whoopee.”

  Dayan laughed. “I know, I know. You don’t care. You were appointed when Sheriff Holman got killed last spring and agreed to serve until after the election. And the first thing you did was appoint Bob as undersheriff.”

  “All that’s public record,” I said, shrugging. “So what?”

  “If Estelle Reyes-Guzman hadn’t moved out of town, you’d probably have appointed her, right?”

  I looked over at Dayan, amused. “I did appoint her, Frank. I appointed her for the last week that she was here. If that gave the county fathers conniptions, so much the better. And then she and her family moved, as you said. Torrez was the next logical choice.”

  “Sure he was. And then he files as an independent for the election, with probably as good a chance of winning as anyone, including Mike Rhodes, Sam Carter’s brother-in-law, who just happens to be the only Republican candidate, and Leona Spears, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, even though she doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.”

  “And all of this means…”

  “You’re about as political as the amount of snow we get in the summertime, Sheriff.”

  “Thank you,” I laughed. “I try to lead a clean life.”

  “Have you wondered yet why you didn’t receive a letter?”

  “The thought crossed my mind. But what good would it do to write to me? If there was some grand scheme to fleece the public, wouldn’t I be just as suspect as my deputies? Hell, if it were true, I’d just cover it all up, wouldn’t I? That’s how things are done these days in what little of the political world I ever hear about.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What do you think.”

  “I think it’s someone who knows you pretty well. They know that trying to get a rise, a reaction, out of you is probably a waste of time. Whoever it is knows that they can’t smear you personally. You’ve been around too long. Too many people know you, know what kind of a hardheaded old…” He paused, groping for just the right tone of insult that wouldn’t leave him stranded by the side of the road.

  “Son of a bitch,” I prompted. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess,” I chuckled. “But I think you’re blowing it out of proportion, Frank. If someone’s got valid information on a crooked deputy, then why doesn’t he just come forward and spill the beans? Go to the district attorney’s office, or the attorney general. Sign a deposition. What’s the point in all this anonymous shit?”

  “The county sheriff can be a powerful position, Bill.”

  “I’m overwhelmed with all the power I seem to have,” I said.

  He scoffed with amusement. “You’re a cop. Not a politician. But besides the schools, the other wings of the county government, and the hospital, your department is one of the largest employers in the county. That’s just for starters.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Sheriff sales. Civil work. Bids to important vendors. You can make other politicians look good or bad, your choice. On and on and on. Even the little stuff. You can talk to any service club any time you want as a guest speaker, beating your own drum.”

  “That’s something that’s appealing, all right,” I scoffed.

  “Not to you, maybe, but it’s all part of the package for someone who’s interested. It’s enough to make a regul
ar citizen hesitate before going out on a limb against the county sheriff. There’s probably some fear of retribution, a little bit of paranoia that if they try to stand alone without official support they’re going to get squashed. It’s just easier to have someone else fight the battle for you. Being a whistle- blower is a lonely business. But an election.” He rapped the dashboard again for emphasis. “That changes the whole formula.”

  “How so?”

  “Hey, spread a little gossip, spread a little rumor, and pretty soon what happens? The rumor starts to take on a life of its own.”

  “And so I gather you think these moronic letters are the first stage in some kind of organized attempt to discredit us, discredit Bob, discredit the department, so someone else can win. A little nasty publicity just as the campaign gets under way.”

  “That’s a good guess. Either side stands to gain.”

  “Why pick Tom Pasquale? He’s just a kid.”

  “Assuming he’s innocent? He’s a good target, is why. He might have ruffled somebody’s feathers sometime in the past. There might be a grudge there. If I remember my own newspaper’s files, Pasquale has had his share of scrapes, and just enough heroics that when the story breaks in the newspapers, readers will say, ‘Oh yeah, him…’”

  “When the story breaks?”

  Dayan waved a hand. “A figure of speech. Carter and Gray received letters. They’re both Democrats. That leaves three to go. Tobe Ulibarri and Frank Weaver are Republicans. Janelle Waters is a Democrat. Care to bet who’s going to contact you next?”

  “So why are you betting on the Democrats? Why am I going to hear from Janelle Waters…not that she’s such a bad dish to hear from, mind you.”

  Waters topped the list of Posadas’s eligible singles. Her husband had been building a prosperous dental practice when cancer killed him at age thirty-eight. For reasons unknown to anyone but her, she had elected to remain in Posadas.