Prolonged Exposure (20 page)

“Holman?” I said as I started to walk into my office.

“No, Bernalillo,” Ernie said.

Chapter 34

I snatched the telephone off the hook. “This is Gastner.”

There was an amused chuckle at the other end. “Now that was fast. You must have been right outside the door when Dispatch called you.”

“Just about,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“This is Richard Steinberg with Bernalillo County. You’ve got yourself a mess. I just got the bulletin about the Guzman child, and everyone’s got a sharp eye open. I won’t take much of your time, but let me shoot this by you. You may remember your sheriff asked us to locate one Paul Cole?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the bad news is that we haven’t been much help,” Steinberg said. “But that may change. We’ve talked to several people, and the general consensus is that he went elk hunting up in Wyoming.”

“The other bad news is that he didn’t,” I said. “Not unless he went up without a license. Wyoming has no record of him.”

“Well now, that’s the interesting part,” Steinberg said, and his mild west Texas drawl made it sound as if we had all day to chew the fat. “A piece of information from down in Posadas County dovetails in with this Cole business. You have a Deputy Edwin Mitchell working for you?”

“Yes. Eddie Mitchell.”

“He asked us to verify a license-plate number for him, and an address. We were able to do that.”

“A plate and address for whom?”

“Apparently you have an RV parked down there that belongs to Bruce Elders, a Corrales resident. The tag is Bruce Elders zero zero one.”

“That’s correct.” I wondered how many other officers had wandered around the big RV, each one of them thinking they’d been the first to check.

“I talked to Mr. Elders earlier this evening. I gotta tell ya, under normal circumstances Posadas doesn’t get mentioned once a year around here. I’m not much for coincidence.”

“What did Elders tell you?”

“Bruce Elders owns a couple of liquor stores here in town. Pretty straight-up kind of guy, as far as I know. Big chamber of commerce booster, big athletic booster, all that kind of good shit. He’s also Paul Cole’s brother-in-law.” The phone went silent as I caught my breath. Detective Steinberg enjoyed the moment and let the silence ride.

“No shit,” I said finally.

“No shit. Mr. Elders says that he loaned his brother-in-law his RV for a special elk hunt up in Wyoming. He expected him back this past Sunday, but he says that Cole told him not to worry if he was late. Cole said he planned to stay in the field until he got his elk. Or until the season ended.”

“He loaned his brother-in-law an expensive RV to take hunting?”

“They’re close,” Steinberg said, and chuckled again.

“Must be goddamn Siamese twins,” I said. “And he claims that he didn’t go with him?”

“Elders says he’s not much of a hunter.”

“And Cole’s wife didn’t go with him, either, it seems.”

“Apparently not.”

“How long have they been married?”

“I couldn’t tell you. And so…you folks have that RV parked down there, eh? That sure as hell isn’t Wyoming. I wonder if Elders knows that his unit is wandering all over southern New Mexico.”

“I don’t know. Do us a favor and don’t mention anything to him just yet. But that ocean liner isn’t wandering, either. It’s up on jacks, parked in the yard of a guy named Andrew Browers. I don’t know how long it’s been there, either.”

“Who’s this Browers person?”

“He’s Tiffany Cole’s boyfriend.”

“Mother of the missing kid,” Steinberg said, making me jealous as hell of his memory for names. I could imagine him hearing Tiffany Cole’s name on the television news, then filing it away in some discreet corner of his brain for later reference. “And Paul Cole’s ex,” Steinberg added. “That sure makes life interesting, trying to unsnarl all that. Deputy Mitchell filled me in. No word on the youngster yet, either, I assume? Either one of them?”

“No.”

“How big a village is Posadas?”

“Two thousand on a good day. Give or take.”

“Well, if the RV is there, and the Cole kid is missing, then you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that one of those two thousand souls is Paul Cole. Or
was
Paul Cole. And I’ll bet this month’s paycheck that you don’t have two child abductions in a small town in the same week that aren’t related, either. Shit, send the whole mess up north to us. We haven’t had a really interesting day for months. We’re getting tired of drive-bys.”

“Believe me, I wish I could.”

“Keep me posted, Sheriff. I’ll keep nosing around at this end. Let me give you my home phone, just in case.”

He did so, and I hung up. I sat with my head in my hands for a few seconds, thinking. I was sure the answer was staring me in the face, but the day was rapidly stretching beyond my endurance.

I turned away from my desk, thrust my hands in my pockets, and ambled out into the hallway, pausing to inspect the coffee machine. I didn’t really see it, since my mind was a kaleidoscope of possibilities and ideas.

Ernie Wheeler looked up. “Any news?”

I shook my head. “No news. On Estelle’s boy, you mean?” He nodded. “No, no news.”

More to give myself time to think than anything else, I scanned the activity log sheet and stopped with a jerk. I reread the entry.

“Tom Pasquale booked Florencio Apodaca?”

Wheeler leaned over, read the entry, and nodded. “He’s in the front cell, if you want to talk with him. Tom said that when the call came about Estelle’s son being abducted, they were right in the middle of taking the old man’s statement. He’s not saying much, I can tell you that. He refuses to talk about his wife.” Wheeler looked rueful. “Sergeant Torrez said that if they could squeeze in an arraignment with Judge Hobart by this time tomorrow, they’d be lucky.”

“They charged him?”

“Murder one.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“They haven’t had any time to go beyond the initial processing, but old man Apodaca just told them he’d be here when they were ready. He’s a cooperative old cuss. Torrez ran out when the call about the boy came in, and Pasquale had about five minutes until he had to go get Dr. Guzman.”

“What a goddamn mess. Who’s working corrections tonight?”

“No one was. We didn’t have any population. I called Luis Romero and he came in and helped me. Tom just sort of dropped the old man off at a dead run.”

“Romero is with Mr. Apodaca now?”

“I believe so. They were talking up a storm.”

“Have him stay close to him. Don’t leave him unattended for a minute.”

“Suicide watch?”

I shook my head. “I doubt that. But Florencio’s an old man. He’s frail. And he’s not right in the head. And when he realizes what he’s done, he’s going to need company.”

Ernie Wheeler nodded. “Luis said he’d stay as long as he was needed. Oh, one last thing. That guy who was here earlier? Stanley Willit? He wanted to know the minute something happened. Did you want me to get in touch with him? I think he’s down at the motel now.”

I grinned. “No. Give the old man some peace and quiet. If Willit should call again, tell him he needs to get in touch with me.” I turned to go. “And you don’t know where I am.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Estelle and I are in three ten. Francis knows that, and so does the sheriff. If something breaks, give us a call. Otherwise, keep it quiet.”

Ernie Wheeler nodded and glanced up at the clock. The philosophical expression on his face told me that he knew it was going to be a long night.

I left the office and returned to the car. Estelle was sitting there, with her head leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed.

“Steinberg says that the RV belongs to Paul Cole’s brother-in-law,” I said as I got into the car.

“That means Cole’s in town.”

“There’s a possibility that he heard about the search and just drove down here from Wyoming, direct.”

“Not likely,” Estelle said. “That RV has been there for a number of days. If Cole was helping the search teams, we’d have met him by now.” She shook her head, eyes still closed. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “If he’s here, he doesn’t want to be noticed.”

She held up the cellular phone that had been in her lap. “Let’s go take their places apart. Both houses and the RV. There’s got to be something that will help us establish a connection. Judge Hobart has a warrant waiting for us.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline, a buzz about equal to ten cups of coffee, as I started the car and pulled it into gear. “It’s a good thing I was driving. If I’d been another couple of minutes longer, you’d have gone on over there without me.”

Estelle didn’t smile.

We stopped by Judge Lester Hobart’s home on MacArthur, and Estelle was inside for only a minute before she reappeared with the folded paper in hand. Minutes later, we were westbound on Bustos and then turned right on Fifth Street.

The streets were November-quiet, the sort of peace that descended at 5:00 P.M., when the sun set, and persisted until dawn the next day. No parties, no loud music, no barking dogs. Folks were practicing hibernation, preparing for our three weeks of winter in January.

Tiffany Cole’s sedan was parked in the driveway of 392 North Fifth. Andy Browers’s truck and camper weren’t. I slowed down as we approached, letting 310 drift along the curb, lights out. Several lights were on in the house, including the light over the front door.

“Browers’s truck is up at his house,” Estelle said. She pointed up the street. Sure enough, just three houses beyond the intersection the big GMC with the camper was pulled into the driveway. “Let’s visit here first.”

Her choice of the word
visit
had an ominous ring.

She got out of the car. I grabbed my large black flashlight, the only weapon I had with me, and followed. As she walked past Tiffany’s Chevy, she touched the hood lightly. “This has been here awhile,” she said.

The porch light was on. We stepped up to the front door and Estelle rang the doorbell. I could hear the chimes inside, a happy little sequence of notes that probably meant something to a listener with half a musical ear. She pushed the button again. The house was tomb-quiet.

“Stay here, and let me circle around back.”

Estelle nodded, and I stepped off the porch and made my way around the side of the house. The place was tidy, with nothing to trip over—no toys, no tricycles, no sandbox. It was as if the house had been dropped neatly into a quarter acre of perfect grass and nothing else had ever been done.

Around back, there were no trees, no interior fencing, just evenly clipped grass. I opened the back screen door and tried the knob. I expected it to be locked, and I almost lost my balance when the door swung open easily. “Whoa,” I said softly. I stood to one side and pushed the door open with the flashlight, letting the beam jump around the inside of the room.

The back door opened directly into the kitchen, and I realized I was looking at a floor plan nearly identical with the Guzmans’. That shouldn’t have surprised me, since much of the western half of Posadas had been built during the heyday of Consolidated Mining, and tract housing was the most efficient way to go—a generic house, plopped on a slab of concrete.

I stepped into the kitchen, found the light switch, and turned it on. On the kitchen table were the remains of what looked like dog food on a blue plastic plate. Half a plastic cup of milk stood beside it, along with a plastic fork.

Nothing else was on the kitchen counter—no knife or spoon or bowl or box of cereal, no toaster or blender or dishes on the drain-board, nothing. The fake wooden butcher-block pattern of the countertop was clean and dry.

I pivoted in place, looking at the kitchen. The floor was as clean as everything else. I walked from kitchen to dining room, pausing only to touch each light switch with the lip of the flashlight. I could just as well have been walking through a house that had never been occupied.

Tiffany Cole was a hell of a housekeeper, I mused, but the house was more than just tidy. The living room was as neat as something out of a catalog, and just as impersonal.

I walked to the front door and unlocked it. “Bizarre place,” I said. “No one home, no sign of anyone being home, with the exception of the kitchen.”

She stepped inside, and if humans had hackles, hers were up. Her eyes narrowed and her lower jaw thrust forward ever so slightly. She repeated the tour I had taken, but as I watched her silently peruse the house, I noticed that she ignored anything in the upper half of each room. The floor, the furniture, the lower portions of each wall—that’s what she examined, until finally she stood in the kitchen.

“That looks gross,” I said. “Whatever it is.”

Estelle didn’t answer, just stood in place, looking down at the plate, fork, and cup. “Did you check under the sink?” she asked after a moment.

“No.”

The cabinetry was the inexpensive oak style that didn’t have knobs, and Estelle slipped the tip of her pen under the edge and swung the door open. The trash can had a plastic liner, and she slipped the pen under the can’s rim and pulled it out. “Best of Texas brand corned beef hash,” she said, and pushed the trash can back under the sink. “And that’s all that’s in the trash bag, too, sir.”

She saw where my eyes were looking and nodded agreement. I nudged the refrigerator open. Somehow I wasn’t surprised. “This is what you see in those appliance catalog ads for refrigerators,” I said. “The unit that’s standing with the door open so you can see the shelves inside? All the food perfectly arranged by size, color, type.” I nudged the carton of milk. It was nearly empty.

I let the door close. “Estelle, were I to walk through this house any other time, without knowing who lived here, I would be willing to bet a week’s pay—hell, make it a year’s pay—that no child lived here.”

Estelle’s lower lip was trembling. “Bedrooms?” She led the way, but we found only more of the same. The master bedroom contained a queen-sized bed, a nightstand and lamp, a chest of drawers, and a clock. That was it.

The carpet was so clean, you could see the streaks from the vacuum cleaner where the pile had been stroked by the brushes. The closet included a neat row of clothing that I assumed belonged to Tiffany and Andy Browers, neatly ironed, neatly hung. And there wasn’t much there, maybe half a dozen shirts and an equal number of blouses or dresses.