Double Prey (5 page)
Former sheriff of Posadas County William K. Gastner stood under the row of framed photographs in the Public Safety Building’s spacious foyer. He was examining the portrait of Eduardo Salcido, four sheriffs in the past. In the photo, Salcido was sitting behind his huge desk—the same desk that now graced undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s office—hands folded in front of him on the blotter, gazing directly into the camera. He reminded Estelle of a
patrón
waiting to hear complaints from the peasants.
Gastner turned as Estelle approached from the narrow passageway past the dispatcher’s island. He tapped the corner of Salcido’s portrait. “Way back in 1965. That’s the first time I met him.” The state livestock inspector’s grin widened, and he ran a hand across the burdock of his salt and pepper hair. “And you know, this looks like it was taken on that very day. That’s what he was doing when I came into his office for an interview, you know? Sitting there like the grand poobah.”
“That’s what he was doing when
I
interviewed,” Estelle offered.
“A man of infinite good taste in his hires. And that was a long time ago.” He stepped back and looked to his right, past the portraits of Martin Holman, himself, and the current sheriff, Robert Torrez. “What a rogue’s gallery.” He turned and regarded Estelle. “You’re about settled on a new hire or two?”
“Yes. I think so. I was working on the applications yesterday and got sidetracked. One or two of the applicants look strong.”
“The Veltri kid? It’s always nice to hire local.”
“He’s on the list for sure.”
“That’s interesting. I half expected him to stay with the military.”
“A homesick wife, I think.”
“Ah…the wife. You have time for breakfast?” Gastner patted his ample girth. “I got a late start this morning, and the tank’s empty.”
“I’ll keep you company, but Irma made sure I didn’t skip out hungry.”
“Ah. Speaking of Irma, an interesting thing came in the mail yesterday.” Gastner looked at Estelle, one bushy eyebrow raised.
“A wedding invitation?”
He nodded. “It wasn’t exclusive to me? I’m crushed.”
“Mine was hand-delivered,” Estelle said. “I knew it was coming someday, but I’m not ready for it.”
“I can imagine.”
“The wedding is only the tip of the iceberg, sir. She told me this morning that Gary has been accepted into an MFA program at Stanford. She’s going to study Spanish out there.”
“Well, my, my. Changes and rearranges. Happens, doesn’t it.” He followed her back through the offices, and they headed out the back door for the parking lot. “And that’s easy to say, of course. What are you guys going to do?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Gastner chuckled. “Guess who else is finished.”
“Finished?”
“Changed and rearranged. September thirtieth is my last day.” He reached out and patted the fender of the state truck as they walked past it toward Estelle’s county car. “And it feels absolutely wonderful.”
“Something prompted this?” She paused at the door of her car as Gastner walked around to the other side. “Not that it’s a bad thing, sir.”
“Ah.” He waved a hand with impatience. “You know, just too much nonsense. I got a notice here a day or two ago discussing electronic tagging, and everything else we’re going to have to do to accommodate that. Jesus, it’s just a goddamn cow, for Christ’s sakes. It seems to me that we ought to be able to manage a goddamn cow without a digital infrastructure.” He said the last two words with considerable distain.
“One would think so.”
“You know, it’s just because they can. No reason other than that. So I told ’em to hell with it. Next they’ll think about implanting a GPS chip in each little calf ear. Nah, they can have it. I got things to do.”
They settled in the car, and Estelle took a moment to clear with dispatch and make her log notations. “What’s your next project?”
“I don’t know why I’m so damned interested in history, but I am, so there it is. Did Irma pass on my message to you, by the way?”
Estelle nodded. “She mentioned your interest in the jaguar. And then I got side-tracked when I saw the wedding invitation. I should have called you, but I didn’t.”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “I wouldn’t have answered anyway. I was out roaming. Did you see it?”
“It?”
“The jaguar skull.”
“Not yet.”
“I stopped by yesterday afternoon and what’s-his-name, the teacher, showed it to me, along with all the measurements that they took. He and his class, I mean.”
“Nathan Underwood.”
“Yup. He says that they did a quickie class project with it, right there on the spot. Pictures, measurements, the whole nine yards. They’re sending all the information to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and over to the university.”
“They’re going to need permission from the feds to keep it, no?”
“Underwood knows all about that. He’s pretty sharp, I gotta say. Anyway, that got me thinking. Those cats haven’t ever been common around here…just way too dry. They don’t have
agua
in their name for nothing. And then I remember your great uncle talking about seeing one. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he’d been in the sauce again. But if he says he saw one, then that’s it. He saw one.”
“Nothing about Reubén would surprise me,” Estelle agreed.
“You still have his journal, I would hope?”
“
Sin duda
. ”
“I’d like to look through that and find a date. I can’t imagine him seeing a cat like that and
not
mentioning it in his diary.”
“I’m sure he would. It’s all in Spanish, you know.”
“Ah, but I have access to a most accomplished translator,” Gastner said. “All I’m after is the date, and that should be easy enough.”
“Odd place for a big cat to show up,” Estelle mused. “The Cristóbals aren’t the most hospitable place in the best of times.”
“For us. For an old kitty being chased, maybe just fine.”
“You think chased?”
“I do. And caught. I’m no forensic specialist, but I know a bullet hole when I see it. The old guy’s last moments weren’t the most peaceful, I’d guess. Some bastard put a bullet in him.” Bill Gastner touched his head just behind his right eye. “Didn’t detonate the whole skull, so it wasn’t a hi-powered rifle. Thirty-eight caliber or a little bigger.”
Estelle looked across at her old friend.
“Interesting, eh?” Gastner said.
“Most,” she replied. “Most people go through an entire lifetime and never see a big cat in the wild, much less up close and personal. And a
jaguar
? That’s not even once in a lifetime.”
“As far as I know, springs are few and far between up there, not that I’ve trekked it all. But Bobby has, and he’s going to be interested in all this, I would think. He’s going to want to know exactly where the Romero kid found it. I was going to ask the boy the same thing, but I got over there after school let out. Didn’t catch him.”
“You’re not the only one,” Estelle said, and briefly related the details of her afternoon.
“A fang in the eye. That’s a new one on me. Freddy’s probably cattin’ about, no doubt. The fair Casey didn’t know where he was?”
“She says not.” That Bill Gastner knew the relationship between Casey Prescott and Freddy Romero didn’t surprise Estelle. The former sheriff and short-time livestock inspector had known the Prescott family for decades. More a walking, breathing gazetteer than a busy-body, Gastner collected information and filed it away. As he cheerfully admitted, accessing those files in a time of need was the challenge.
“Well, maybe he’s back out in the boonies,” Gastner said, and reached out to rest a hand on the dash for support as they jounced over the first speed bump in the parking lot of the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant. “You make a find like that, and the site is an attraction. Pays to scout it out, see if you missed any thing.”
Estelle pulled the car to an abrupt halt in the middle of the small parking lot, and Gastner looked across at her, puzzled.
“Yesterday, I saw a four-wheeler down at the Broken Spur,” Estelle said. “Way, way in the distance. I had just pulled out on 56 from 14, and saw him swing off the shoulder of the highway, into the saloon’s parking lot, then scoot out back, probably across the arroyo.” She reached over and picked up the aluminum clipboard that contained her log. “Two-twenty, yesterday afternoon. I had stopped to make some notes after talking to some references, then saw the four-wheeler just after I pulled back out onto the highway.”
“Could have been anybody,” Gastner said.
“Could have been.” She closed her eyes, trying to coax her mind to replay the bit of memory. She hadn’t watched the four-wheeler because there had been no reason to. Now the incident was an amorphous blur, the details lost. “Ranchers don’t ride like a wild teenager,” she said. “I saw him and assumed it was a kid.”
“If it was Freddy, then his pickup was somewhere down there, too,” Gastner said. “He hauls that ATV around in the back of his truck, then bops out when he’s got something to explore or terrorize.”
“His dad says he wasn’t home last night—at least he didn’t answer his phone. He didn’t call Casey, either. His truck wasn’t in the driveway last night or this morning.”
“Now the worried mom comes out,” Gastner laughed.
She pulled the gear shift back into drive and swung the car around, leaving the restaurant to re-enter the street eastbound.
“So near and yet so far,” Gastner said wistfully. “What now?”
The Expedition used by Deputy Dennis Collins during the day shift still smelled new, everything meticulously in place, the four water jugs that were stored in the back full and sealed. Collins had even added a large cardboard box full of military MRE’s to his stash. After her sedan, the big SUV felt like a behemoth.
They pulled out onto Bustos, and Estelle drove west. In less than two minutes, she turned onto Twelfth Street and then pulled in to the curb in front of her home. Two doors down, the Romero house was silent, the driveway empty.
“A moment,” she said. “Need anything?”
“Not a thing,” Gastner replied. “Give my greetings to your mother.”
Inside the house, Estelle found the three volumes she sought in the bookcase by the living room fireplace. Her mother, comfortable in her rocker, was working through an enormous volume of Spanish history, perhaps motivated by Irma’s interests. She tucked a crooked finger in her place as she watched her daughter.
“What’s Reubén done now?” she asked, eyes twinkling. The old man, her uncle, had died eight years before, independent and feisty to the last.
“
Padrino
recalled that Reubén used to talk about seeing a jaguar,
mamá
. If he did, he would have mentioned it in his journal.”
“Not the same one you were talking about yesterday. That’s not possible.”
“No. But
Padrino
was wondering about the date.”
“Don’t lose those. The first one is all before the war anyway. You don’t need that one.”
“Mother, please,” Estelle laughed. “I won’t lose them. And neither will
Padrino
. ” She kissed the old woman on the forehead.
“Irma is coming over for lunch,” Teresa said. “What are we going to do without her?” She raised an admonishing finger. “But she needs to go, you know. She has her own life.”
“That’s right,
mamá
. ”
“But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Teresa Reyes smiled. “You be careful out there. That’s not your car you’re driving. What are you two up to?”
“I don’t think we know. I’ll stop by for lunch if I can.”
“You do that. Bring
Padrino
.”
Back out in the SUV, Estelle passed the three volumes to Gastner. Bound in red and black imitation leather with raised welts on the spines, the books were designed to look like old world masterworks. He opened the first volume.
“January 7, 1916 to…” and he gently fingered to the last page. “June 1, 1936.” He glanced across at Estelle. “He moved here from Mexico in 1940, so that’s in volume two.” The second volume opened with an entry for June 11, 1936. “This is where to start, then.” Estelle heard the excitement in Gastner’s voice.
“He wrote each evening, I remember,” Estelle said. “He always had to have just the right black pen.” Gastner leafed through the pages, shaking his head slowly. The handwriting was angular, bold, easy to read, so uniform that it almost appeared to have been printed.
“You’ve read through these?”
“Skimmed,” Estelle said. “That’s a project I keep promising myself.”
He chuckled. “No more promises for me. I’m going to indulge myself now.”
As she drove south on Grande toward the intersection with State 56, she could see that Gastner was already hooked.
“I knew you had these, but I never looked at ’em,” he murmured. “Not a single entry in English.”
“Reubén used to say that English was not the proper language for written records. He used to talk about all the records that exist in Spain for the various voyages back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, about how he would like to go to Spain and spend a year, just reading.”
“Who wouldn’t.”
“I guess lots of people don’t share an enthusiasm for the past.”
“Unfathomable.” He closed the volume and selected another. “Might as well start at the end and work backward. His last entry was September 12, 1996. It’s hard to read.”
“By then, he was so arthritic that he could hardly hold a pen.” Estelle let the big SUV creep up to seventy on the state highway. She scanned the vast, tawny prairie, watching for the plume of dust that would mark passage of a truck or ATV.
“I knew Reubén as a stonemason,” Gastner mused. “You need a fireplace, Reubén was the one to call. A fancy fence, facing on a house, whatever. I don’t recall that he spent much time hiking and exploring. That about right?”
“He wasn’t a hiker,” Estelle said. “I lived with him for almost four years, and I don’t remember anything beyond a walk to the shed or to the truck. He was fascinated by the night sky, and once in a while we’d go outside with binoculars and see how many constellations we could name. The nearest night light was miles away, and the sky could be so
black
. And meteor showers—when those happened, it turned him into a little child again.”
“So…he didn’t spend a lot of time hiking in the mountains.”
“No. To him, the San Cristóbals were something to create the weather. He watched them, watched the clouds form, enjoyed the winds. A couple of times, Bobby tried to get him to go hunting with him. He’d just laugh.”
“Then the odds that he saw the big cat over in the Cristóbals are pretty slim.”
“I would think so.”
“Huh.”
Estelle glanced over at Gastner. He was frowning not at the diary on his lap, but into the distance, his heavy features set in that characteristic bull-dog expression that said he was shuffling puzzle pieces about, looking for a fit. After a moment, he returned his attention to the diaries, running a finger along each line of each entry, looking for the magic word that he would find floating in the sea of elegant Spanish.
Twenty minutes later, Estelle slowed and turned the SUV onto a rough two-track where Forest Service signs announced
Borracho Springs Canyon
. As soon as the truck hit the rough county road, Gastner closed the diary and put it on the floor with the other two volumes. The trail was a welter of tracks, including the periodic knobby prints of a four-wheeler.
In two miles, the road forked, joining Forest Road 122. Bullet-ripped signs announced both the Borracho Springs Campground and the hiking trail that wound up the mountain to join the ridge trail to Regál Pass…a twelve-mile hike through the most rugged country in Posadas County.
As they approached the fork, Estelle saw a flash of metal through the runty junipers and piñons. Just beyond the intersection, an older model Dodge pickup was parked off the two-track. Its tailgate was missing, but two oil-soaked planks with wooden traction cleats ramped into the bed. Tire prints ripped into the dry, dusty prairie behind the truck.
“Freddy’s.” Estelle felt a pang of apprehension. If the boy’s truck had been here all night, something was very wrong. For a moment, both she and Gastner sat in the Expedition, surveying the site.
“He isn’t going up there on an ATV.” Gastner nodded at the vast slab of mountain rising ahead of them. “The road only goes as far as the campground. So why unload here?”
“I don’t know.” Estelle slid out of the SUV, careful where she put her feet. It didn’t take an expert tracker to see where Freddy Romero had driven the ATV. He’d driven it out of the Dodge and then headed back toward the state highway. No tracks led back toward Borracho Springs.
The pickup was unlocked, not surprising since the right-hand wing window was held together by duct tape and didn’t lend itself to security. The driver’s door creaked on bent hinges as Estelle opened it. The cab smelled of motor oil, tobacco smoke, and beer. A small cooler rested on the floor on the passenger side, and Estelle reached across and tipped open the top, revealing a blue freezer pack and two cans of Corona. The cans and freezer pack were cool to the touch.
A cell phone in its nylon holster lay on the seat. Estelle slipped it out and touched the key pad. The small screen came alive promptly, then dissolved into a jumble.
“That’s why didn’t he take it along,” she mused aloud. Gastner moseyed up beside her and leaned on the truck’s door.
“So, where did he go? If that was Freddy that you saw yesterday…” He waved a hand off toward the north. “If that was him, he parked
here
, and then drove the ATV way the hell and gone over
there
. I gotta wonder why he did that.” He pushed himself away from the truck and walked a few feet on Forest Road 122. “And sure as hell he didn’t drive up this way.”
“Let’s hope his luck is better than his brother’s.” She knew there were dozens of ways to come to grief on an ATV—a moment’s inattention, a simple misjudgment, or a mechanical break-down miles from the nearest highway or ranch. With his cell phone left behind, Freddy Romero’s bad luck had only multiplied.
“Let’s see what comes of all this.” Back in the Expedition, she dialed dispatch and waited for half a dozen rings before Gayle Torrez answered.
“Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, Torrez.”
“Gayle, Bill Gastner and I are down at Borracho Springs. We’ve found Freddy Romero’s truck parked down here. It appears he unloaded his four-wheeler and took off somewhere. I don’t think he has his cell phone with him. Would you contact Mr. or Mrs. Romero up in Albuquerque and tell them we’ll be in touch as soon as we have some answers?”
“No Freddy though?”
“No Freddy. At least not yet. He left a pretty clear set of tracks, so we’re going to follow up on that. Has Bobby come in the office yet?”
“In and then out again. He’s back in Cruces, but says he’ll be home this afternoon.”
“Okay.” Estelle mentally riffled through the list of available staff. The county was still hers, and if there was a call in the village of Posadas, she was half an hour away.
“Jackie is having coffee with David Miller,” Gayle said. Estelle had noticed with some amusement that of late Deputy Jackie Taber, denizen of the graveyard shift, often managed to find a moment to converse with the young state policeman when their paths crossed—perhaps one or both of them helped managed their activities so that paths
did
cross. Estelle heard a voice in the background. “She says she’ll cover for you until you’re clear,” Gayle added.
“Good enough. And if Freddy has already contacted his parents, let me know.” She switched off and glanced at Gastner. “You want a job?”
The former sheriff laughed. “Not even a
remote
chance, sweetheart. Thirty years is long enough. Now I’m embarking on an in-depth study of life on the sidelines.” He shifted in his seat. “You’ll remember that I came along merely on the promise of some breakfast…which we still have ignored.”
“Have an MRE, sir.”
“You know, the brownies in those things are really pretty good. And the crackers and cheese aren’t bad. So don’t tempt me.”
They followed the ATV’s tracks back to the highway, and then southwest along State 56. A mile beyond, the saloon’s parking lot was heavily graveled, but the ATV’s tracks marked the grass perimeter, then actually passing close to the east wall of the building. Behind the saloon and the owner’s modest mobile home, behind a scattering of defunct cars and trucks some of which had slipped down into the arroyo, a two-track cut sharply down the bank. A brown pond of water marked one of the flats in the arroyo bottom, and tracks crisscrossed the gravel and sand.
“We can assume he went this way,” Gastner said. “Maybe.”
“I saw him turn into the saloon parking lot, and then disappear behind the building.” She urged the Expedition into four-wheel drive and turned into the arroyo. The decent was so steep that the rear bumper gouged gravel at the bottom. A ledge of rock half-way up the other side bucked the Expedition, and it kicked sand and gravel, with nothing but a view of the sky as they reared up and out on the far side.
“I haven’t been here in a long time.” Gastner lowered his window. “It’s going to get hot today.” The two-track meandered across the prairie, already beginning to shimmer in the heat. The lane headed toward the low mesas to the north. For the first half mile, the going was reasonably smooth, the dried vegetation between the tracks raking the underside of the SUV, the fragrance powerful. Sand and prairie scrub gave way to a vast, gentle dome of gravel and rocks where the tracks of the ATV vanished.
“Stop a second,” Gastner said at one point. He twisted in his seat and looked eastward, then reached across for the binoculars that rested in the center console. “It’d be a hell of a walk, no matter which way he went. Herb Torrance’s place is way the hell off to the west, and Prescotts’ is a
long
hike back to the east, off behind those little hills, there.” He searched the prairie for a moment and then shrugged. “The only thing that makes sense to me is that Freddy was headed to where this trail crosses Bender’s Canyon.”
“Maybe so.” She shut off the engine and they sat in silence, letting the breeze waft through the vehicle. In the distance, two ravens made sure everyone knew there were intruders.
“You don’t have a whole lot of choices,” Gastner said. “From here you can cut down this grade and end up T-boning into Bender’s Canyon Trail. Then you hang a left, and head back toward the county road. Or you can go right along the trail and go northeast, around the backside of Herb Torrance’s spread. You’ll swing around to the county road again…eventually…or continue on north to the state highway.” He patted the door sill as if marking time. “Or, we could get out and walk for a bit and make like trackers, trying to pick up the ATV’s footprint.” He squinted up at the blank blue of the sky.
Estelle popped her door, and Gastner grimaced. “That’s what I thought.”
“If Freddy had come home last night, I wouldn’t be concerned,” the undersheriff said. “But I’d hate to think that he might be lying out here somewhere with a broken leg…or worse. That would have made for a long, long night.”
Gastner touched his cap back and wiped his forehead. “No danger of hypothermia, though. You ought to have Bergin up flying if you want to search this country. You could hide a tank out here, you know.”
“That’s next,
Padrino
. ”
For less than five minutes, the two searched the balding top of the rise. The most logical route—straight ahead—turned results. The ATV’s knobbed tracks showed up on the north side of the slope, cutting across the rough terrain to join the two-track that came in from the west.