by Don Travis
“Got you. Was his car still there when you left?”
“Think so, but I’m not sure.”
“Describe it.”
Jazz gave a loose-limbed shrug. “Just a car. Nothing stood out about it. Just a brown, four-door Ford. Taurus, I think. A buddy of mine has one that looks a lot like it.”
“What year?”
“Late model.”
“Any bumper stickers or anything else you noticed about it?”
“Not a thing. Sorry.”
“Thanks, Jazz. You’ve been a big help.”
“I don’t see how, but you’re welcome. Now let me ask you a question. You’re one of us, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Interested?”
“Committed.”
“He must be one hell of a dude.”
LATER THAT night I phoned Paul. I needed him, and if I couldn’t have the physical Paul, at least I could enjoy the sound of his voice, even if it was over a tinny little instrument that did not do justice to the bass notes in his deep baritone. He caught the quiet desperation in my voice, so we talked for an hour about anything and everything.
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Chapter 16
TO MY mind there was ample evidence Chrome Dome had followed Lando and Dana from the Acoma Pueblo Truck Stop all the way to Farmington. If the man had come from somewhere else for the job—say California, for instance—there was a distinct possibility he’d rented that Ford at the Albuquerque Sunport.
Gene Enriquez usually arrived at APD early, and he didn’t disappoint me the next day when I called at 7:00 a.m. He heard me out and agreed to check the local car rentals for a Ford four-door, maybe brown and maybe an ’08 model, to see if he could find one that might fit. My old partner asked some questions about the case and expressed the opinion things didn’t look too good for Orlando Alfano. Either he was a murderer on the run from the police or innocent and on the run from the killer—or worse.
Next I dialed Hazel, and after offering some suggestions on an assignment involving a runaway teenaged girl, which was beginning to look like an elopement with an older boyfriend, I asked her to contact Gilda to see if she’d been able to lay hands on any of Lando’s personal credit card statements. I also asked Hazel to confirm that Dana’s ex, Bruno Wills, was still in the LA area.
I hung up and delayed a breakfast meeting with Aggie to do some thinking. Larry Plainer had already concluded Lando had killed his lover in a fight over a sexy teenager. Lonzo Joe was a more seasoned and careful investigator, but he had to be thinking along the same lines. That was okay—for the moment—because it motivated them to find Lando.
Personally I didn’t subscribe to the theory the kid was Dana’s killer. My conclusion was based on reasoning, not emotions or a bogus sense of loyalty to the client. Three things pointed to his innocence. Lando was still in the vicinity of Farmington the day after Norville’s murder, and if he were the killer, he would have headed for home and daddy’s protection as fast as that fancy automobile would take him. Second, he abandoned a car he loved, something Aggie was convinced he would never willingly do. And third, someone was stalking the two young men and was likely the person who had put two slugs in the Porsche, possibly on the night it was abandoned on Halmstead Road, maybe to keep him from escaping in it.
Any rational person could poke holes in my reasoning, but put together, it made the case Lando was on the run from Dana’s killer. He’d been forced to abandon the car when his pursuer opened fire on him. I didn’t buy that he was dead or in the hands of his stalker either. Mrs. Ingfield’s missing pie argued he was still in the area the day after the car was abandoned. Despite the fact the kid had half the money in the world, he was hungry enough to steal from others—and frightened enough to avoid them.
But that went straight to the heart of the situation. If Lando was free and moving under his own steam, why hadn’t he called his father and yelled for help? Even if he lost his cell phone somewhere along the way, there were other ways to communicate. He’d have been better off asking Mrs. Ingfield for her telephone than swiping her pie. For some reason, he was shying away from the family. Why? Did the danger emanate from someone connected to the Alfanos?
Could Aggie be the one Lando was avoiding? It wouldn’t be the first case of sibling rivalry among the superrich. Aggie seemed reconciled to his younger brother’s sexual orientation, but it could be a sham. Maybe homosexuality was as deeply offensive to him as it was to Anthony Alfano. He didn’t appear to be bigoted on the issue like his father, but he was a twig off the same tree.
Aggie was not the man trailing Lando and Dana. Still, he could have hired someone for the job. Of course, that was true of anyone, including the elder Alfano. But it was Aggie who flew out at a moment’s notice and attached himself to me when the Porsche was located in Taos. During last night’s phone report to Alfano, the old man had pressured him to come home to address the buyout they were tussling over. Aggie had resisted. Was he hanging on here out of concern for his brother or to cover his own butt?
When I caught up with him at the café a few minutes later, he was already digging into a man-sized breakfast.
“I waited for you.”
“I can see. Sorry, but I had a couple of phone calls to make.”
A waiter approached, but I waved away the menu and ordered lox and bagel with reduced-fat cream cheese and a cup of coffee.
“Give me your honest opinion of the mess we’re in,” he said.
“The best we can hope for is that the Sheriff’s Office picks Lando up quickly and without trouble.”
“He wouldn’t cause trouble. I mean, he wouldn’t resist arrest or anything. The reason I asked is I have to go back to California this morning. I’ve stalled as long as I can. Papa’s dragging Mama to a board meeting, and that means he’s going to try an end run. I’ve got no option but to attend and protect my position, but I’ll get back as fast as I can.”
“Take your time. It’s all grunt work from here on in. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things.” Mindful of my dark thoughts of a few minutes earlier, I chose my words carefully. “I’ll sniff around and find his trail—hopefully before the cops do. But I’ll tell you one thing, Aggie. I don’t believe he’s dead. I think he’s hiding.”
“Then why doesn’t he call for help?”
“That’s a very good question.”
I must have put some kind of inflection into my voice because his dark eyes came up from his plate and fixed on mine. “You think he’s afraid of his own family?”
I shook my head. “No, I think he’s confused. Or he might be hurt and lost somewhere out there.”
“Jesus, don’t say that.”
“I don’t necessarily believe it, but it needed to be said.”
Aggie tried to muster a smile. “I think that was payback for me raising your anxiety level when we landed at Four Corners. Damn, that seems like a lifetime ago.” He pressed thumbs to his eyes. “Do you need any money or anything before I take off?”
“No, I’m fine. Go take care of business.” I accepted my order and added a little sweetener to the coffee. “Your father’s taking this better than I expected.”
“Don’t bet on it. He developed a damned good poker face a long time ago. Besides, he has a lot of confidence in you.”
“That’s thanks to you, I suspect. I’ll try not to let you down.” I paused to run a hand through my hair. “Aggie, you asked a very perspicacious question a moment ago. Why hasn’t Lando called for help? I’m confident there’s a reasonable answer, but I’ve learned one thing in investigative work: Don’t leave any stone unturned, no matter how small. Describe the Alfano organization to me. Let’s lay that question to rest so I can go on to the next thing.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, I sipped coffee and munched my bagel as Aggie gave me a condensed history of the organization known today as Alfano Vineyards. Born as the A and B Winery in the late 1930s somewhere north of Napa V
alley, it was a partnership between two refugees from the old country seeking to escape the Fascists and the gathering war clouds over Europe. Giuseppe Alfano and Paolo Baratta were lifelong friends who grew up in the Tuscany wine country where they learned their craft. Relying on the fruit of other people’s vineyards, they developed a line of wines, which grew into a brand. As the two partners aged, their interests diverged: Giuseppe remained obsessed with the grape while Paolo became interested in the movie industry, which was in its heyday at the time.
Giuseppe bought most of Paolo’s interests in the business, and A and B became Alfano Vineyards. He acquired some acreage and moved the winery south into the Napa Valley. Although his business prospered, he was not entirely successful in escaping the storm he fled. He lost two of his three sons in the European theater of World War II. When the eldest, Anthony, returned from service in the US Army, he proved to be an even more astute and aggressive businessman than his father—although some considered him simply ruthless. Upon the elder Alfano’s death, Anthony became chairman and CEO.
Paolo Baratta’s son, Franco, who had found the film business boring, was now a vice president of Alfano Vineyards, overseeing sales. Of an age, he and Anthony were often on the opposite sides of issues, but the Baratta family’s strong minority stockholder position guaranteed him a place in the company.
Aggie was vice president in charge of the winemaking. This, he explained, was the basis of his objection to the proposed acquisition of another vineyard in the northern part of the valley. They were the wrong kind of grapes. Working with a new grape entailed a whole new educational process, even if the acquisition brought experienced people with it.
A Swiss Jew named Ariel Gonda was treasurer of the company. He was about fifteen years older than Aggie and was the only true outsider in a senior executive position. Tom Scavo, the present head of the company’s labs, inherited his position from his father, Tomas. At thirty-eight, Scavo was a maverick. He liked to tinker around with the wines and was always experimenting with different tastes. He was, I gathered, a thorn in the side to Aggie, who took a more traditional approach to winemaking.
Aggie lifted his head from his recently refreshed cup of coffee and looked at me. “Maybe it’s my imagination, but I always thought Tom was….” His voice died. He took another sip.
“Tom was what?” I pressed.
“Lando grew up around Tom. My brother worked in the lab all the way through high school. It was the only part of the business that held any interest for him—that and the history of winemaking. He and Tom were… friendly.”
“Friendly, how?”
“I always thought Tom liked Lando too much, if you know what I mean?”
“Is Scavo gay?”
Aggie shrugged and eased back in his chair. “I don’t think so. He’s married and has a couple of kids. His Mary Lynn and my Irena get along great. So do Tom and I, as a matter of fact, except when he goes off on a tangent looking for a new ‘aroma.’ But it seemed to me he was always touching Lando. Not inappropriately,” he rushed on, “but too many hands on the shoulder, mussing the kid’s hair. That kind of thing.”
“You think there was something between them?”
Aggie sighed his frustration. “I honestly don’t know. I never even thought about it until I learned Lando was gay. Tom’s a good-looking guy. I keep remembering what that kid, Jazz, said. You know, about preferring you to me because he didn’t want somebody who looked like himself. If Lando felt the same way, then there was nothing between them. Hell, they could be brothers.” He snorted. “We all could. Maybe if we look into the old man’s background, we’ll find we share a common gene pool. My father’s no saint.”
“How did your dad find out Lando is gay?”
“When Lando was home for Christmas in his freshman year of college, he announced he had a boyfriend. I think the old man already suspected because he continually pressed Lando about the girls he was meeting. Finally Lando got fed up and announced he’d already met someone—a man.”
“Norville? Does Alfano blame Dana for bringing his son out?”
“No, it was someone else. Frankly I’m halfway convinced Lando made him up. You know, for shock value. My brother didn’t meet Norville until about a year ago.”
“Your father believes Lando is going through a phase of immaturity, but you seem to have accepted his homosexuality. Why?”
“Because I know him better than Papa. He sees Lando as he wants him to be, as he fits into the Alfano family tree. I see my brother as a human being.”
PERHAPS IT was my imagination, but Aggie seemed to be a different man on the drive to the airport. He had already morphed back into a high-powered businessman delegating the problem of finding a missing brother to me.
Once the Mitsubishi was safely aloft, I headed back downtown to check out another possibility. Since Lando had lost his means of transportation, maybe he found another. I probably duplicated steps Lonzo Joe was taking, but I contacted every one of the local rental agencies. Dix Lee agreed to check on reports of stolen automobiles while I hit all of the new and used car lots in town.
By the end of the day, I knew Lando Alfano had not purchased a car of any type in Farmington through any legitimate dealership. Tomorrow I would visit the local newspaper and search out autos listed for sale by owners. In the meantime I cruised the streets of the town with an eye out for that elusive brown Ford. The only positive development of the day came when Melissa, the desk clerk at the Trail’s End, confirmed Jazz Penrod’s description of the man inquiring about the orange Porsche. No question about it; Lando and Dana had been stalked.
GENE RAISED me on the cell phone midmorning the next day as I sat in the newspaper morgue going through car ads. He had located a lease of possible interest. One Hugo Santillanes with an address in Los Angeles had rented a brown Ford four-door on Thursday, August 2. A quick glance at my calendar showed that was the day before the two boys’ trip to Chesty Westey’s. Ever the cop, Gene took the next logical step and determined Santillanes was a licensed private investigator in the state of California. I then called Charlie Weeks and asked him to find out all he could about the California PI, including where he was at the moment.
As it turned out, he was here in Farmington—or at least in the vicinity. Armed with his name and license plate number, Dix found the motel where he was registered within an hour. A drive past the plain, cinderblock motel two blocks east of the Trail’s End revealed no sign of a brown Ford, so I stopped by the office to ask for his room number. The clerk, a virtual twin of Melissa, informed me that Mr. Santillanes had not been around for over a week, although he was still registered. With a little pressing, I learned they had packed up his suitcase and were holding it in the baggage area. After warning them the County Sheriff might be interested in looking at it, I phoned Lonzo.
He was out of the crime lab—off chasing that despicable dog-fighting ring probably—so I detailed my information to a sergeant and asked him to relay it to Lonzo right away. Frustrated at not being able to speak directly to the detective, I called Alfano’s office and listened to dead air in my cell phone while Gilda searched for him. Finally, Alfano’s rough voice boomed over the line.
“Don’t have a lot of time right now, Vinson. Have you found my boy?”
“No,” I replied, nettled by the man’s attitude. What could be more important than locating a missing son? “But I found out who’s been bird-dogging his steps. Does the name Hugo Santillanes mean anything to you?”
“No, should it?”
“He’s a PI out of LA. Did you hire him to find Lando?”
“We’ve had this conversation before. No, I did not hire the man. Never heard of him. If he comes out of LA, you ought to talk to Bruno Wills. I hear he didn’t take kindly to his lover boy leaving him. I’ll tell you what, Vinson, you tell me Wills is behind all of this, and I’ll take care of it from here on in. Understood?”
“Alfano,” I said, “I have no idea who’s behind Dana’s mu
rder and Lando’s disappearance, so don’t you go off half-cocked. I’ve informed the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office of what I know, so they’re going to be right in the middle of things. If you get out of line, somebody will come down on you hard.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Nope, I’m warning you. You hired me, so that makes me your agent. In that capacity, I owe you the best advice I can give. And right now, that’s to let me do my job. But if you lie to me, I no longer owe you any loyalty.”
I expected him to come at me over the telephone, but he fooled me again. “Why do you think I lied to you?”
“I don’t think it, but I believe you’re capable of it if it serves your interests. I’m merely trying to sort things out, and to do that, I have to know you’re up-front with me.”
“For the last time, I didn’t hire this Santillanes fellow. If I had, why would I need you?”
“Good enough,” I said.
I snapped the cell shut. Why did I suspect he was lying to me? Because he was the kind of man who left nothing to chance. He would have no compunction about doubling up on his options and keeping one party in the dark about the other.
Lando had warned his father he wasn’t going to accept any interference on the trip, and Santillanes was on his son’s trail shortly after leaving on his fateful vacation. It wasn’t a stretch to figure Alfano would put a shadow on his wayward son. From his point of view, it might even be a prudent thing to do. A minder—a guardian—made a certain, perverted kind of sense for a megabucks daddy worried about a son who was passing through a “difficult phase.”
That begged the other question—the one he asked me himself. If Santillanes was his man, why would he have hired me?
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Chapter 17
