Nightzone (14 page)

Boyd looked pained. “I can't tell you that. I don't know what he was thinkin', Bill. Don't know why he was there. Maybe he didn't know…”

“You know,” I said, “Waddell is playing his cards pretty close to the vest. How would your son have heard about the mesa project?”

“Couldn't tell you.”

“Did he ever discuss the project with Waddell? With him directly? Did he ever talk about that?”

“I guess you'd have to ask Waddell that,” Johnny said.

“He said there was no way a single person could do something like this mesa project,” Maxine said softly. She shifted uncomfortably. “It's just too much money. I mean, no one has those kinds of resources without the government being behind it. That's what Curt said. Nobody in country like this.”

It's so easy to be wrong,
I thought.

“Mr. and Mrs. Boyd,” Estelle said, “did your son ever talk to you about any sort of disruptive activities? Did he discuss the possibility of somehow targeting Mr. Waddell's project?”

“Not directly,” Boyd replied. “He was concerned. Maybe more than that. He was angry.” Boyd sat back in the chair, spine stiff. “See, he grew up in this country. He hunted and rode all over these millions of acres. I guess he's kinda like me in that respect—always assumed that the land would be the way it was. Too far away from the cities for any kind of development.” He almost smiled. “Ain't going to ever be no box stores out here, you know what I mean?”

“So he saw Waddell's project as an intrusion?” I asked.

“Sure enough. Traffic, tourists, trains—hell, tour buses, even. And that's just the start. You get houses, now. I mean hell, his employees will need places to live. They ain't going to drive to hell and gone out here from town every day. First it'll be a sea of trailers, then a goddamn subdivision if the thing works out.” He managed a bleak smile. “And you know what's next. A goddamn
convenience
store.”

I saw a flush creep up Johnny Boyd's leathery cheeks. “My son didn't cut those poles, Sheriff. Without even bein' there, I can tell you that. They say he wasn't the one using the saw. Hell, you don't know. He might have been trying to
stop
the deal, for all we know. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Odd place to be at an odd hour.”

Boyd shook his head slowly. “I'll give you that.” I saw the wrinkles around his eyes deepen a little. “'Course, you've been known to prowl some, too.”

I stared down into my coffee cup. Maxine hadn't offered a refill, and I had the impression they were just waiting us out. It wasn't clear to me why Johnny Boyd had asked us to visit—he hadn't exactly dropped a ton of useful information on us.

“Your son believed that a man ought to be able to do whatever he wants on his own land?” I asked. “Without government intrusion?”

“Fair enough,” the rancher answered.

“That would apply to Miles Waddell as well, wouldn't it? Regardless of his wealth?”

“Depends who he's in cahoots with,” Johnny said, and we were right back at the beginning.

“And your son thought Miles Waddell is in cahoots with somebody, is that it?”

“Hell, you've been up there. You don't think so?”

“What I think doesn't matter, Johnny. But just for the record, to set your mind at ease…no, I don't think Waddell is in league with the devil, no matter how you color him. I think he's becoming a victim of a rumor without substance or logic or even common sense. I mean, be honest. What's there to listen to in this part of the world? Hell, I'm not into all this new technology, but I know that satellites have made any ground-based communication limited to the point of being useless. What, do we think that they're going to point one of those huge radio-telescope dishes at Las Cruces and listen in while Benny tells Bob about the new elk rifle he's going to buy?”

Boyd's lip quivered and he rubbed his face hard. “Well, he's got more money than sense,” he managed.

“So what? It's Waddell's money. It's his land. He doesn't need our approval for what he does. There are no neighbors close by down there, so even his loud music—if he chooses to play some—won't keep anybody awake nights. And if he wants to step outside his travel trailer and let loose a magazine or two from a World War II machine gun at jackrabbits, that's his business. That doesn't make him an anarchist or a collaborator, does it? Any more than your son's historical hardware is any of the government's business.”

“Did your son bring any of his friends or acquaintances out to the ranch?” Estelle asked, and I was glad she did. I didn't need to bore these folks with my own soapboxes.

“He brought Kiran out for Christmas Day,” Maxine said. “That's one of his roommates.”

“One of them,” I prompted.

“Well, four of them have rented this old adobe house over in Mesilla. It's just a beautiful spot. They even have water rights off one of the irrigation ditches.”

“Kiran's last name?” Estelle asked.

Maxine's brow puckered and she looked at her husband for help. He shrugged helplessly. “Some damn foreign thing,” he muttered.

“Oh, stop. No wait. ‘Bhutan'. That was it. He's from New Delhi and studying agricultural engineering at State. I believe he's a PhD candidate. Just a very nice young man. I don't think I've ever met anyone so polite and well-spoken.”

“But you've never met the others?”

“I haven't. And Curt hasn't been home enough to really talk about them. I know that one of them is also a coach—soccer, I think. I don't know about the fourth. Oh…and the young man who plays soccer? He's from Kenya.”

“Kenya,” I repeated in surprise, although why I don't know. All university towns have a large contingent of foreign visitors, and Las Cruces was certainly no exception. “Curt had a real international house going. So India, Kenya, and the other?”

“I just don't recall,” Maxine said.

“Mrs. Boyd,” Estelle asked, “did you contact any of his roommates or friends this morning when you heard of your son's death?”
Not that it would matter much at this point,
I thought. Sheriff Torrez and his multi-agency task force would have long since had the place blanketed. There'd be a warrant to sift through Curt Boyd's belongings, search the house, talk to the roommates.

“We haven't talked with anyone.”

“Any other close friends?” I asked. “Did Curt have a girl friend? Fianceé?”

“He spoke of Julie Warner as if the two of them were making plans.” Maxine looked embarrassed. “We've never met her, but…” She rose quickly and walked across to an elegant rolltop desk where she collected a section of newspaper. “I don't know why all the hush-hush, but I happened to see this in the paper.”

She handed the photo to me, out of deference I suppose, and I promptly passed it to Estelle. She looked closely at the photo and article, then passed it back to me. Coach Julie Warner was caught in mid-yell, shouting encouragement or instructions to her volleyball team from the bench.

“Attractive young lady,” I said. Slim, trim, with a long pony-tail of dark hair, Julie Warner even made the grimace of a coach's holler look good.

“You've never met her?”

“Hell no,” Johnny Boyd said. He stretched one leg painfully. “You know, my son has his own life now, and it ain't what he grew up with. He don't confide much.”

“Did the two of you argue about Waddell's project the last time he was here? At Christmas, maybe?”

“Nope.”

“Did he talk about any other people with whom he might be associating—anyone with similar sentiments?”

“You're talkin' about somebody who might talk Curt into taking a chain saw to power poles? Not hardly, Sheriff.”

“What was on his mind when he visited at Christmas?”

“Can't guess. He talked about his coaching season…he was pleased goin' into the second half of the season five up, I guess. Mostly he went on about a new gun he found. Hell of a deal. He'd bought a handful of shells for it, and was tryin' to talk this Kiran fellow into goin' out to the range to try it out. The kid wasn't much interested.”

“What did he find?”

“One of them French Chitchats. That's what I call it. It's over in the cabinet if you want a look.” He didn't wait for me to accept the invitation, but rose as quickly as his bashed knees would allow, as if eager for the chance to dwell on something other than the death of his son.

The large gun cabinet beside the fireplace wouldn't have been my choice for secure storage, but I knew that the half dozen barrels standing upright were a small fraction of the young man's collection.

Johnny opened the glass door and hefted out a bulky, awkward-looking weapon with a massive crescent magazine.

“I'll be damned,” I said with honest admiration. “Where did he find this?”

“Don't know. But there she is.” He handed it to me, the first time ever that I'd handled the French light machine gun with which allied soldiers had struggled during World War I. The thing was a horror of awful engineering and crude manufacturing, but it's what they had.

“Cost him some,” the rancher offered.

“I don't doubt that.” After a moment, I handed the gun back. The Boyds had a paperwork snarl ahead of them if they wanted to keep their son's collection. As far as I knew, each fully automatic weapon in the collection was papered to the young man. They couldn't just be sold to a neighbor, or given away. Johnny would figure it all out when he could settle his mind.

“This Kiran fellow was one of Curt's roommates, right? Was he the only one who came out with him at Christmas?”

Boyd nodded. “Seemed like a nice-enough fellow. Quiet as hell. I was hopin' that Curt's girlfriend, there, would come along, but she was visiting family. Back in Michigan, I think it was.”

We probed this and that for another fifteen minutes, and then took our leave.

As Estelle idled the stiffly sprung sedan out the driveway, I tried to make myself comfortable. “And I apologize,” I said as we passed under the metal archway that capped the front gate. “I was going on and on there.”

“That's all right, sir.”

“Well, no, it's not. But…” I reached out and slapped the dashboard in frustration. “It's harder than hell to stay on the sidelines with something like this. I've known the Boyds for years. One thing I know for damn sure—it wasn't Johnny Boyd who was with his son last night.”

“It would be easy to invent,” the undersheriff said. “Curt had surrounded himself with foreign roommates—Indian, Kenyan, and Ecuadorian. He…”

I interrupted her. “
Ecuador?
I didn't hear that mentioned.”

“His name is Roberto Esquibel. He's a senior majoring in child psych. He's also a licensed practical nurse.”

I looked at her with amusement, once again left behind by Estelle Reyes-Guzman. “And the guy from Kenya?”

“A junior majoring in physical education. I'd have to read my notes to get his name correct.”

“You're slipping, sweetheart.” And she hadn't blabbed what she knew to the Boyds, either, letting me charge ahead, bull-headed and out of order. “So we have a household full of internationals. Let's stretch the loop a little and include Julie Warner. What's the surprise about her?”

“Originally from Toledo, Ohio. Graduated from New Mexico State two years ago in El Ed. Teaches and coaches varsity volleyball.”

“No surprise there. We've got an international house, and a fair young lady. Any of them wearing chain saw dust?”

“I doubt it, sir.”

“Hot arguments over dinner about the United Nations invading the United States?”

“That may be.”

“None of them owns a Nissan pickup truck?”

“Curt Boyd does. Or did. Color blue, 2009 model, Golf Lincoln Foxtrot Seven Niner Seven.”

I sighed. “And we don't know where it is at the moment, do we?”

“No, sir.”

“There's a connection, then. You have a guy or gal driving it with creosote sawdust spattered on his trousers, splatter of bar oil, maybe some spilled gasoline. Then there's sawdust in his shoelaces, red sand ground into the floor mats, all kinds of shit. And a chain saw in the back. And if he shot Kenderman, then you can mix all of that in with some nitrite residue from the gun shot.”

“And the direction. When he left the scene, he headed north on the county road, not south. Had he gone south, you wouldn't have seen him. You wouldn't have called it in.”

“True…but he couldn't have known I was stroking my insomnia up on Cat Mesa. Which way he headed was a flip of the coin.”

“Unless he was an outsider and didn't know better. If Curt Boyd drove
to
the site because he was familiar with the country, then it makes sense his partner would take the same route going out.”

The reflectors along the side of the state highway flashed by altogether too fast as we headed into town.

“So now what?” I asked.

“Bobby has a meeting called for nine o'clock.” The digital clock on the dash showed we were well past civilized dinnertime already. “You're welcome to come.” She smiled. “Encouraged to come, in fact.”

“I'd rather sleep,” I said. Even insomniacs eventually collapse, and I was reaching that point. Only the whacking of the tar strips on the highway was keeping me awake. “And I need fuel,” I added. “I remember vaguely a promise of green chile stew and corn bread.”

“Yet another in a long string of broken promises,” Estelle laughed. “Carlos is going to be furious.” Her youngest son had an affinity for experimentation in the kitchen, and the nine-year-old's creations were sometimes delectable, sometimes awful. He did hold dear the old-fashioned notion that corn bread should be golden, crumbly, and touched only by real butter, melting down the sides.