Double Prey (17 page)
Sheriff Robert Torrez held the plastic evidence bag so that full sun caught it, his eyebrows knit with concentration as he turned the bag this way and that.
“We don’t know if this is the bullet that passed through the victim’s skull,” he said.
“No, we don’t.” Estelle hunched her shoulders. “But it’s
consistent
. ” To even consider that it might
not
be the projectile in question was unthinkable, but she forced herself to remain patient and explore doubts.
“We need more’n that,” Torrez said.
“Yes, we do. But it’s a start.”
“Let’s assume it is the one,” Bill Gastner agreed. He took the bag handed to him by the sheriff and then knelt beside the tarp. He held the little bag close to the frontal bone of the skull. “It had just enough energy to do that, because that exit hole isn’t very big.”
“You’re right about that,” Torrez said. “It ain’t like a magnum shockwave blew off his face. The exit is about the size of a nickel.”
Gastner held the bag up for the gathered officers to see. “The hollow point is mushroomed pretty thoroughly, but it isn’t broken up.”
“So it wasn’t movin’ too fast by the time it busted out of his head.
“So…that’s
consistent
. ” Torrez observed. “And for it to end up where it did, he would have had to be in the process of entering that little cave. At least lying on the slope of rock so he could see in.”
“Why would he have been doing that?” Torrez asked. “What’s he lookin’ at? The dyin’ cat?”
“I don’t know. That, or curiosity at the air flow, maybe.”
“If the same gun killed both the cat and this guy,” Bill Gastner mused, “that’s an interesting scenario. Really interesting.”
“Damn confusing, is what it is,” the sheriff muttered. “Cat ended up over by the packrat nest, not in that cave.”
“That’s where it
ended up
,” Estelle offered. “But it could have crawled into the deepest corner of the cave and died. Our victim went in after it, maybe. When he was convinced that it was dead, he hauled it out. Or somebody did.”
“Would you do that, Madame Spelunker?” Gastner asked. “Intrepid explorer of the earth’s bowels?”
“No,
I
wouldn’t. But a hunter would, right?” She looked at Torrez.
“Sure,” he said. “No big deal. Jaguar’s a hell of a trophy. He sure as hell wouldn’t just leave it.”
“But he’d sure have to be convinced that it was dead, dead, dead,” Gastner said. “Imagine being trapped in that tiny space with 180 pounds of wounded cat?”
“Freddy would have done it if he’d thought that the cat was dead.”
“Sure.”
“Except when that cat died, Freddy Romero was about ten years old,” Gastner laughed.
“Someone
like
Freddy, I mean,” Estelle added. “An intrepid explorer, an avid hunter. Lots of folks would.” She reached out for the evidence bag. “We need a ballistics match. And if there’s some DNA to be had from this, we need that, too. Brain or bone tissue. Something. With the bullet wedged up into the rocks, it’s unlikely that the rodents got to it.”
Torrez stood up, took a deep breath, and hitched up his belt. “All right, listen. We got a whole shitload of stuff that needs to be packed up and taken to the state lab.” He pointed at Tony Abeyta. “You head that up, all right? You’re due a little vacation time.”
Abeyta nodded with resignation, perhaps not seeing fourteen hours on the highway as his vacation of choice.
“While we’re packing that up,” Estelle said, holding up the bagged bullet that Torrez handed to her, “I want Mears to do a comparison with the other slug. That won’t disturb any residue that might be on it. We might get lucky.”
“That’s right. Look,” Torrez said, “there’s sure as hell enough dental work here that we might get a match. There’s for sure enough DNA. But match to
who
? That’s where we’re stuck.” He twisted at the waist, slowly and with care, as if something might snap. He looked down the mesa slope at Miles Waddell. “It’s his property. That’s where we start.”
“He wants to know as badly as we do,” Gastner said. “He hasn’t budged from there all day. And his cell phone batteries must be busted flat by now.”
Miles Waddell’s body language gave no clue as to what he wanted. Estelle saw that the rancher still sat on the tailgate, boots swinging inches off the ground, bracing himself with his hands locked on the edge of the tailgate, arms stiff and shoulders hunched, studying the sparse grass and dirt below his feet.
“Let me talk with him,” the undersheriff said. “Join me, sir?” Bill Gastner nodded and drained the last bit of coffee from his Styrofoam cup.
“Sure, why not. I’ve had about all the fun I can stand.”
Waddell turned his head without changing position on the tailgate, watching them approach. His eyes narrowed as if his patience was running thin.
“Yup,” he said.
Estelle looked at him quizzically, but Gastner beat her to the question.
“’Yup’ what?” the older man asked.
“This sure as hell isn’t how I’d planned to spend
my
day,” Waddell said, “I was going to go out and pop some prairie dogs, but I got distracted by this convention.” Estelle leaned against the truck, arms resting on the edge of the bed liner. She looked at the older model rifle in the rear window rifle rack, a light caliber gun with powerful scope. It had ridden in pickup trucks for so many years that she could see the wear polished into the wooden fore-end and butt stock.
“That’s how it happens,” Gastner said. “We get distracted.”
“You guys about to wrap things up?”
“A long, long way from it,” Gastner said. “And that’s how
that
goes, too.”
“Sir,” Estelle said, “when did you actually acquire this property?”
“Up there on the mesa side, you mean? Hell, it’s been…what, Bill? Five years or so? Maybe six.” He looked down at the ground. “I bought it from Herb, you know.
He
got it from George Payton…well, George’s estate, anyway. You remember how that mess went.”
“Did you know about that little cave?”
“Nope. Like I told you earlier, I don’t go hikin’ much. If I do much of that, somebody’s going to find
my
carcass out in the boonies. If I can’t
drive
there, I don’t
go
there. That’s about as simple as I can make it. And no, young lady…number one, if I’d known there was a cave up there, and number two, if I’d known there was a corpse, I would have called you folks myself. Trust me on that.”
“Are you going to be able to help us with this?” Gastner asked.
“What’s that mean, Bill?”
“Well,” the livestock inspector shrugged. “We find a pile of bones, we’re kinda curious about who they belong to.”
“I can make a pretty good guess about who they belong to,” Waddell said, and if his response surprised Bill Gastner, the older man’s face didn’t show it. Estelle had the thought that
Padrino
had been careful to keep his own counsel while the site recovery was in progress, since he had voiced no theories, offered no creative opinions.
“And who might that be?” Gastner asked.
“Look,” and Waddell eased himself down off the tailgate and wiped off the seat of his jeans. “The minute I saw that belt and holster…” He picked up the cell phone that had been lying on the tailgate. “Is this going to get me in Dutch?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Gastner said easily, nodding at the phone. “If you want to call a lawyer, that’s your right. It might not be a bad idea. This is your property, and right now, it’s your corpse.” He smiled engagingly.
“Sir, if you have information that is important to this investigation, we need to know it,” Estelle said.
Waddell ducked his head and held up both hands in resignation. “You remember Eddie Johns?”
Again, Bill Gastner’s poker face didn’t register any surprise. “Sure enough,” he said. The revelation meant considerably less to Estelle, who vaguely remembered a short, powerfully built man, a former cop, real estate entrepreneur of questionable talent, and a one-time associate of the rancher who now sat on the tailgate, looking uncomfortable.
“Bet you dollars to donuts that’s who you got up there,” Waddell said.
“Well, now. I haven’t seen him around in a long time,” Gastner said, and Waddell barked a short laugh.
“Maybe now you know why.”
“What leads you to believe that the bones are those of Eddie Johns?” Estelle asked as she leafed through her small notebook to a clean page, jotting down the date, the time, and the name.
“I remember that holster, for one thing,” the rancher said. “I saw that, and right away…” He took a deep breath. “Johns wore that 24/7, I think. Always wore that damn gun, everywhere he went. Always.” He looked at Gastner. “You probably remember that.”
“I do, as a matter of fact.”
Estelle reached to the back of her belt and slipped the small hand-held radio free, keying the transmit pad. “Sheriff, can you come down here for a minute?” She watched as Torrez straightened up from what he was doing and looked down the mesa side at her. “We have some information, sir.”
Torrez waved a hand, tapped the transmit pad once so his radio squelched a burst of static, and headed down the hill.
Bill Gastner’s left arm was cradled across his belly, giving support for his right. He rested his chin on the knuckles of his right hand, regarding Miles Waddell like an old Bassett hound waiting for the chase. The rancher started to say something, but Gastner held up his hand, then with a wonderful economy of motion, bent his right index finger to point toward the approaching sheriff.
“Sir,” Estelle said as Torrez drew within easy earshot, “Mr. Waddell tells us that the skeleton may be the remains of Eddie Johns. He has reason to believe it might be.”
“No shit,” Torrez said. Estelle kept her smile to herself. The sheriff
was
surprised by the announcement, since he took a few seconds to kick the toe of one well-worn Wellington boot against the sidewall of Miles Waddell’s back tire, dislodging some non-existent dirt from the waffle sole. “How do you know that?”
“For one thing, the holster rig,” Waddell said. “Like I was telling the young lady here, I’ve seen that often enough. Johns always had that damn gun on, all the time. Never saw him go anywhere without it. Even when we’d drop into the saloon for a beer, you know. He had it. Not supposed to carry in a place like that, I don’t think.”
“Nope. But lots of folks do. You know what kind of gun he carried?”
“I’m not much for handguns, sheriff. But I know it was bright steel, with rubber grips.”
“Stainless steel, or nickel? Something like that?”
“I couldn’t tell one from the other. I remember a time or two seeing him fussing with it. Adjusting it in the holster…that sort of thing. A big, awkward looking cannon. I remember that. Seems like more of a nuisance than anything else.” He chuckled. “Last time I remember any kind of fight in the Broken Spur, it was Victor using a cast iron frying pan.”
“And that’s it? You think the
holster
was like the one that Johns wore?” Torrez didn’t bother to disguise the skepticism in his tone.
“You recognize the boot, too?”
“Ah, no. I’m not sure
anyone
is going to recognize what’s left of that. But Johns
did
wear boots. Always.”
“When did you see him last?” the sheriff asked. “You were partnered up with him now and then.”
Waddell leaned back against the tailgate, face pursed, and looked up at the blank blue sky. “I gotta think about this, now.” The thinking went on long enough that the sheriff let out a sigh of impatience.
“It’s been a while,” Waddell said. “Four, five years, maybe. At least that.”
The rancher’s eyes narrowed a little, and he selected his words carefully. “Look, we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. When he got involved with other deals—down in El Paso, I think, well…it didn’t just break my heart.”
Estelle had been watching Waddell’s face, and then glanced at Gastner, who raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Sir, you’re telling us that you haven’t seen Eddie Johns for five years?”
Waddell nodded. “And he was a whole lot more alive when I last saw him.”
“What were the circumstances of your last meeting with him, sir?”
“Well, we weren’t seeing eye to eye on some things. Let me put it that way.”
“You argued with him, you mean?”
“We had our disagreements. Ask Herb. He knows.”
“Mr. Torrance was present the last time you saw Johns?”
“Herb? Hell, I don’t remember. He might have been.”
“And then after that, you never saw Johns again. Is that what you’re sayin’?” Torrez looked sideways at the rancher.
“Never saw him again.”
“And how would that happen?”
“Well,” and Waddell seemed to stumble on the memory. “I just didn’t, that’s all. I mean, I didn’t see him again. Simple as that. Time went by, and I kinda wondered, you know. I was thinking of giving him a call, but…” He let the thought go unfinished.
“But, sir?” Estelle prompted.
“But I didn’t.” He smiled self-consciously at an answer so obviously evasive. “Not seeing Eddie Johns again wasn’t the worst thing in the world, in my book.”
“You didn’t think it odd when he just dropped from the picture? When he never called you, or visited again? No email, no notes, no nothing?”
“Well…sure, I wondered. A little bit.”
“You know, my memory is not worth a damn, but the last time I can remember seeing you and Eddie Johns together was that day out at Herb’s place,” Gastner mused. “That day we were talking to Herb about his boy—when he borrowed your cattle. That’s been what, five or six years, at least?”
“
Borrowed
, hell,” Waddell guffawed. “When the little shit
stole
a trailer full of them, you mean. You recall that Johns was with me that day? I couldn’t swear to it. But sure. Except that’s longer ago than what we’re talking about.”
“So you saw him after that, obviously.”
“I couldn’t say, but sure. Probably I did. Eddie and I were working on several projects after that. I guess when I get home, I could check my old day planners. I keep them—whatever for I don’t know. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Interesting that someone could just go missing like that, and no one would report it.” Gastner looked first at Estelle, and then at Waddell. “No one cared enough to inquire? You didn’t wonder where Eddie Johns went?”
Waddell ducked his head in embarrassment. “Look,” he said. “This is complicated in some ways. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, you know. What was his business, was…his business. He and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and some of our last meetings were pretty hot—well, from my perspective, they were. Eddie…well, listening to other people and understanding their point of view wasn’t one of his strong points.”
Estelle tapped the cover of her notebook impatiently. “Sir, we’re going to have to hear about some of those things—your disagreements with him. What you understood he was doing. But not out here. You’ll come by the office later this afternoon? Say at six?”
Waddell laughed weakly. “I have a choice?”
“I can come out to the ranch, sir. Either way. We’d appreciate your cooperation, sir.”
“Miles, there’s no point in skating in circles around this,” Gastner said. “The sooner this is cleared up, the better for everybody.”
“I don’t know who killed Eddie Johns,” Waddell said. “That’s as simple as I can say it.”
“We appreciate your cooperation,” Estelle said. “We have a few things to close out here, and then we’ll be back in town. If you’d stop by, that would be good.”
“I’ll do it,” the rancher said. “You know, you might want to talk with Herb. He might have seen Eddie sometime recently.”
“Not too recently,” Gastner quipped.
“Well, you know what I mean.” Waddell nodded at the procession of people now starting down the hill, laden with equipment. “I’ll get out of your way. Canyon road still closed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’ll head north. You have my cell. If there’s a problem, or you guys get hung up with something so you can’t meet, let me know before I drive all the way into town.”
“We certainly will, sir.”
They stepped back as the rancher climbed into his truck. He swung the vehicle around in a wide circle, and waved a salute as he rumbled off.
“Bobby, what’s the rifle in the back of his truck?” Estelle asked.
“An old 250 Savage,” the sheriff said.
“Drives a really light bullet really fast?”
“Yup. Depending what he’s loading it with, it’s probably a light twenty-five caliber bullet, pushed out there pretty quick for its day. That ain’t the gun used on Freddy’s four-wheeler, though, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
“And we know that because…”
“That big scope? That’s for shootin’ at four hundred yards, maybe more. It’s a prairie dog gun. You try findin’ a target at twenty-five or thirty yards, all you’re going to get is a blur.”
“The scope can’t be focused for short distances?” Estelle was intrigued with how instantly Robert Torrez reached his decisions—especially those involving firearms.
“Could, maybe.” He held up both hands, forming a circle the size of a basketball. “With that much magnification, something movin’ real fast and up close is going to be just a big blur. I don’t care how careful he’s got it prefocused. It ain’t the gun.”
“The bullet hit the fender, then the rim and tire. Whoever pulled the trigger didn’t hit Freddy…if Freddy was the target.”
“I don’t think he was.” Torrez said. “If he really wanted to, he would have tried more than once.”
“Except he didn’t
need
to try more than once. The arroyo finished the job for him.”
“Yup.” He nodded down the two-track toward the southwest. “We need to spend some time down in the canyon. You got time for that?”
“Of course.” They both looked at Bill Gastner.
“Hey, I’ve been fed,” he said, holding up both hands. “I’m ready for anything. Jackie is going to be wondering if she’s been abandoned.”
“She won’t have wasted the time,” Estelle said.