Nightzone (25 page)

Chapter Thirty

The incident with George Baum came close to ruining the late evening. The sheriff wanted a deposition from me—the who, what, where, and when of the incident, beginning when I had first seen Baum in the gymnasium, cleverly using a little old lady for cover. Bobby was a little disappointed when I told him that I hadn't recognized Baum at first—it hadn't been a heroically thoughtful choice of mine to avoid an armed confrontation in a crowded venue. I just hadn't recognized him. And if I
had
, the audience would likely have had something to talk about besides the music.

Procrastinating with legal stuff felt good just then, so I put off the deposition until the following day when I could sit back and reflect. But at that moment, my house was full of all kinds of chattering folks. I wouldn't have trusted my home to many people, but Gayle Torrez and Addie Sedillos were two of them. They'd done a nice job planning for the reception, with a flood of goodies temptingly arranged on the kitchen counter and spread down through my sunken library. I don't know how they'd found time to go to the concert.

Francisco Guzman, who had quickly changed out of his penguin suit to blue jeans and a flannel shirt, was holding court in company with Mateo Atencio, who had been content just to loosen his tie. Francisco's brow was furrowed deeply, hands thrust in his pockets as he shook his head slowly in response to something Dr. Lott was saying. He saw Carlos and me walk in, and a look of relief brightened his features.

There had been a few minutes on the way over when I was able to coach Carlos a little. I could imagine his ebullient, story-telling nature taking the incident with Baum and turning it into a tale taller than his imaginary skyscraper.

Obviously
someone
had witnessed, or heard about the event, since it was the topic of conversation. I groaned inwardly and turned to Estelle, who had arrived just seconds after us.

“I'm going to say a few well-chosen words,” I said quietly to her. “Otherwise we're going to have to fuss with it all evening. I don't want that.” She nodded reluctantly.

“Good evening, folks,” I said, my voice a fair imitation of a bullhorn. The place had fallen quiet when we arrived anyway, and my tone surprised them into silence. “First of all, welcome to my home. We're here to congratulate and thank two talented musicians. A stunning concert.” I flashed a smile. “Thanks to them and to Leister, who did all the heavy lifting.” I surveyed the expectant faces. “On the way out of the concert, we had a little parking lot confrontation with a disturbed fellow. I hope he enjoyed the concert, because right now he's in the sheriff's custody.” I smiled again and shrugged. “Everyone is fine, it's all over, so enough said about that. I don't want to talk about it tonight, because this little gathering is planned to honor Francisco and Mateo. Relax, enjoy the treats that Gayle and Addy prepared for you, and leave early.” When the laughter stopped, I held up a hand. “Just kidding about that. Thanks for coming. Enjoy.”

I turned away in time to accept a cup of coffee and a peck on the cheek from Gayle Torrez. “Baum?” the sheriff's department's chief dispatcher whispered toward my ear.

“Yep. All done. Bobby came to the rescue.” I made a chopping motion with my hand. “That's it. And Gayle, thanks for all this. Great job.”

She patted my arm and winked at Estelle. The conversational noise in the library rose as if someone had turned a rheostat. A moment or two later, my mouth stuffed with little green chile things with a hell of a kick, I managed to avoid the knots of conversation—including the big one with Francisco and Mateo at the epicenter. I had questions and congratulations of my own for the musicians, but they could wait for private moments. And I think I resented, just a little bit, having those moments put off not so much by this smiling, happy crowd, as by the other events of the week—a week I was sure would be recorded as one of the crappiest in my autobiography.

I found a dark corner and counted. I couldn't have explained why it was important to know how many people were in my library. Too goddamned many, and they overflowed into my kitchen and down the hall toward the bedroom suite, with a group of them looking at the family photos on my hall wall. I should have put those away for the duration. I started to feel the first twinges of the need to escape.

“You look numb,” Miles Waddell said. Somehow he'd managed to sneak up on my deaf and dumb side, despite hard-heeled cowboy boots on saltillo tile. A flash gun went off, and I turned to see Estelle popping photos of her sons and Mateo, and then her son and the Leister Conservatory folks. Five or six other photographers joined in.

“I am. Completely.”

“I've never heard a concert like that,” Waddell said. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Of course I did.”

“And did you know the kid plays flute? I thought he was a pianist.”

“We were all surprised, as promised.” I sipped the coffee while I regarded the rancher. “If Elliot Daniel was the one who stole the truck from the dealership,” I said, “number one, why? And number two, where the hell is he hiding it? That's what we need to concentrate on.”

The rancher's head tipped back and he enjoyed a hearty, but silent, guffaw. “Christ, Bill, you're amazing. You can't leave it alone, can you?”

“Nope.”

“Well, in a way, I suppose that's good. I appreciate it. It tells me that you're on the job, but I personally think this Daniel character has skipped the country. You kill a cop, you're on the list.” He nodded grimly. “The
top
of the list. You know that better than I do.”

“If he didn't take the truck, he knows who did.”

Waddell cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why would that be so?”

“I don't believe in coincidence, Miles. Daniel and Boyd took down the power lines. When we get Daniel under the lights, we'll find out exactly why. But then, someone takes the time and risk to steal a Posadas Electric Coop truck…same target, same outfit. My gut tells me it's either Daniel or someone working with him.”

Waddell shrugged helplessly. “Maybe so. Maybe so. Is that what Bobby thinks?”

“I've never known what the sheriff thinks, Miles. But I'll tell you one thing. Of all the hunters I've ever known, Bobby Torrez is the best. Period. Thinking all the time. This deal tonight? During intermission, I saw the sheriff in the gym foyer talking with a couple of his people.” I held up a hand, two fingers extended out from my eyes. “He's looking at
everyone.
Now, if he hadn't seen Baum then, he must have seen him follow us out the side door after the concert, because that son-of-a-bitch didn't have time to squeeze in an extra fart, Miles. The sheriff materialized out of the dark, disarmed him and pitched him into a tree.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”

“Everybody was lucky.”

“Damn right. But what I'm saying is that the sheriff has had the time to think about Daniel and what he might do next. He doesn't need prompts from me.”

“If I was him, I'd take all the help I can get.”

“And he does. He knows how to work interagency; he knows when to scout out alone. And everything in between.”

“I saw Mrs. Browning in the audience.” Waddell surveyed the room. “I was hoping she'd make the reception.”

“No doubt. I heard her say that she has some photos to show you, for one thing.” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “I didn't want to spend the evening beating my brains out with all this shit. I really didn't. But it won't leave me alone.” Punching the rancher lightly on the chest, I added, “It's all your fault, you know.”

“That means I'm making progress.”

“Nothing more irritating than a goddamn optimist,” I grumbled. “If you were going to hide a truck, where would you put it?”

Miles Waddell frowned. “Where there are the fewest prying eyes. The fewest passersby.”

“And what would you do with it?”

He looked bewildered. “I'm not terrorist-minded. What
am
I going to do? Crash it through my gate? Into the well house? Into the new electric substation? I don't know. Roll it off the mesa-top? Sell it in Mexico for a few pesos?”

“Keep thinking. Whatever it is, it's not rocket science. Something simple. He might have been planning to use Curt Boyd's truck, but circumstances forced him to ditch it.”

“So he took the first one he stumbled across.”

“Well, maybe not the first. A Friday night at the dealership? He's reasonably sure he won't be spotted. He sees the truck parked behind the fence, and takes a look. The gate's not locked. No ignition keys, but he knows how to hot-wire…and that's a trick in itself. He figures no one will notice the truck's gone until Monday morning, giving him some time. He figures wrong.”

A burst of laughter interrupted us, and Miles grinned. “The kids are enjoying this.”

“Everyone is,” I said with satisfaction, but then the itch returned. “And to me, that means Daniel was going to use the truck before Monday morning—before anybody noticed it was gone. Before it became a hot issue.”

“You're saying he has something planned for Sunday? For tomorrow?”

“Maybe so. I'd keep my eyes very, very open if I were you.”

“What are you going to do?”

I sighed, looking out at the folks who had flooded my home. “I have a handful of people staying here tonight, so it's really awkward for me to go missing. I mean, I shouldn't. I have some things I want to check out, but…”

“But what?”

“This ‘good host' business.” I held out both hands, mimicking a balance beam. “The headmaster and his crew are going to be tired, and won't want to stay up 'til all hours, answering the same questions they always hear. The boys will be over at the Guzmans.” I did a quick head count and came up with forty-seven. “There's enough food here for an army, and nobody's bored. So I guess I'll go missing for a while. I've got some things I need to check out, or I'll spend another sleepless night staring at the goddamn ceiling, listening to Dr. Lott snore. So…you want to come along?”

He thought that he knew me. “Well, it's my mesa.”

Chapter Thirty-one

“Promise me one thing,” Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman said. She pulled gently on my arm, and we found a quiet place in the hallway leading toward my private office…what had once been my oldest daughter's bedroom.

“Just one?”

She smiled patiently. “Miles is going with you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you stay in touch with the S.O.?”

“Of course.”

“You'll have your radio turned on in the truck?”

“Sure. That's two things, though.”

She frowned and looked out at the folks blathering away in my library. Two of them—County Commission Chairman Dr. Arnie Gray and school Superintendent Glenn Archer—were browsing along one of my bookshelves. I was long used to Estelle not sharing every thought that passed through her head, but she was certainly chewing on something. “What?” I prompted.

“You're out looking for the truck?”

I grinned. Actually, that guess wasn't much of a mentalist's trick. George Baum was history for us. That left Elliot Daniel. “Miles and I have a lot to discuss,” I said. “And yes.”

“Pasquale comes on at midnight.”

“All right. I'll try to stay out of his way.”

“I want you to touch bases with him from time to time and let him know where you are.”

I laughed. “You are such a worrywart. That's unlike you.”

“Don't give us any more to worry about, then. You could do the host thing, and stay here. There are a lot of folks who would enjoy talking to you.”

“I get the itch, you know.”

She smiled again. “I know you do. Just be careful, Padrino.”

“You're welcome to ride along. You really are.”

“I appreciate the invite, but no thanks. I have a child celebrity for a son, and I'd like to have the time to talk with him.” She took a long breath. “For the rest of the evening, I'd like to not care about Elliot Daniel and his creepy world.”

“That's what I was going to do. But…Francisco is off to Leister tomorrow?”

She nodded. I started to turn away, and stopped. “Did you know that he was playing the flute now?”

“No.” That brought a smile, though. “Francis and I are thinking of driving him to the Texas concert next weekend just so we can catch up. Unless events conspire against us somehow.”

“But you're going to find the time to go, certainly.”

She nodded. “You be careful, sir.”

“You bet.”

As I turned, she patted me on the small of the back—just an informal, friendly touch, and her hand landed right on the lump that was my Smith and Wesson.

“Did you have that with you this evening? All evening?”

“Sure.” I didn't bother to say that if Baum had pulled away from Carlos, and moved around the SUV to confront me, I would certainly have shot the son-of-a-bitch. And then District Attorney Dan Schroeder would have
two
of my revolvers in custody. Estelle had the good grace not to point that out.

Before we left, I had a little confab with Dr. Lott. He seemed perfectly at ease in my home, and I made sure he knew where all the bathrooms were. Addy Sedillos would be staying to tend to our guests until I showed up, and she knew me well enough not to hold her breath.

Outside, Miles Waddell was standing expectantly beside his pickup, a most agreeable hostage. I shook my head, pointing at my SUV. Waddell squirmed around a bit getting himself comfortable in the vehicle two-thirds the size of his. He watched as I scribbled a couple of notes to myself, and then looked downright amused as I turned on the radio. No radio chatter disturbed us.

“Quiet night so far,” I said, and then noticed Waddell's huge grin. “What?”

“Feels good, doesn't it?”

“What's that?”

“Working. You haven't retired yet.”

I sighed. “I'm trying, Miles. I'm trying. It takes time, you know. Someday you'll find that out.
NightZone
will be up and running, grandly successful, you'll turn sixty-five, and most of the people you know will start carping at you. ‘When are you retiring? You have any buyers for this place?' They won't leave you alone.”

I keyed the mike. “PCS, three zero zero is ten eight.”

“Ten four, three zero zero. Ten twenty?” Ernie Wheeler was working, steady and unflappable.

“West side,” I replied. Not that that pinpointed much. The west side of Posadas County included a whole lot of empty acres. A thought that had been gnawing was that Elliot Daniel knew plenty about this county…whether from quizzing Curt Boyd, or from firsthand experience. We headed east, until Bustos turned into County Road 43, and then north to the intersection with NM17. That took us northwest. Six miles later, I pulled into the Posadas Municipal Airport parking lot—dark, save for a double set of arc lights over the fuel island, and a bulb above the office and each hanger door. The USR Jet Ranger was parked on the apron. When she arrived at the reception, Lynn Browning would put the gathering to good use, gleaning what information and background she could.

Rummaging in the back, I came up with a plasticized county map rolled neatly in a cardboard tube.

“Your job is to remember anything and everything.” I unrolled the big map with care, keeping the kinks out. “All this courtesy of the county assessor. Now, here you are,” and I touched the purple striations that indicated mesa.

“You don't need to mention the assessor,” Miles laughed. “We're going to be great friends by the time this is over.”

“I bet. I can't even
imagine
. But I've been thinking.” Sweeping a hand across the northern, empty reaches of the county, I mused, “If I wanted to hide something, what better place?”

“The power company's truck, you mean?”

“Yep. And all this is like having a bad itch. I've got a dozen things I should be doing. I have a houseful of guests, my talented godchild is visiting, and…” I waved a hand helplessly. “This is all I can think about. Where this son-of-a-bitch went to ground.”

Waddell shook his head. “So explain to me why he's even in the county. Hell, he could be on the beach in Chiapas by now.”

“Because he's not finished. I think it's that simple. See, when they dropped those poles, that's one thing. If it had all worked out as they planned, they'd have slipped away clean. Ready to crawl back into their holes and plan something else. Maybe
somewhere
else. But Boyd got himself killed, and then Daniel killed a cop on top of it. That changes all the rules.” I looked at Waddell. “
If
it was Daniel who stole the line truck,
if,
then it makes obvious sense to me that he's got plans. Local plans. That means that he's still in the neighborhood. He's not going to risk driving that high-profile truck around in plain sight, and it makes a piss poor getaway vehicle. Our edge is that he doesn't know yet that the theft of the truck has been discovered. He thinks he has the weekend to play.”

“To do what?”

“Damn good question. To do what. But see, that's my theory. He thinks he has about thirty-six hours. Monday morning, the stolen truck is discovered. That means he can't risk driving on the highway. So by Monday morning, he's gone.”

“So until then, where is he, and what's he doing?”

I shrugged. “He only knows, at this point.” I tapped the map. “I want to talk with Johnny Boyd again, and this is a good time to do it. No cops breathing down his neck, and I think—I
think—
that he trusts me. We'll see. This whole area?” And I swept a hand over the northern portions of the map. “Nobody knows it better than Johnny Boyd. That's one thing. Second, I want to push him a little harder about his son.”

“The boy's not even in the ground yet,” Waddell said.

“No. And neither is the cop that Daniel murdered. But Johnny's had time to stew about this whole affair. He may sound like an ignorant old son-of-a-bitch, but he's not. If anybody is apt to take a shotgun after Elliot Daniel, it'll be Johnny Boyd.”

I rolled up the map and laid it on the back seat. The dash clock said 10:35, and by taking the state highway up to Newton and then turning south into the Boyd ranch, we'd save a little time. It would take an hour longer to wind through the maze of dirt roads north of Cat Mesa, pounding the kidneys and choking the lungs with dust.

The headlights cut a long, yellow tube through the night, every once in a while reflecting off some tiny critter's eyes or catching a jackrabbit as he ricocheted across the asphalt in front of us.

“Is Johnny going to be thinking to blame me for all this?” Waddell asked at one point.

“I don't know. Not if he thinks about it.”

Waddell seemed satisfied by that, and slouched in the seat, gazing out into the darkness. I think he was asleep when the sign for Newton flashed into view. I braked and he stirred a little, tipping his hat back away from his eyes.

Just a forlorn wart on the prairie, Newton didn't even host a post office anymore. Budget cuts had closed that, replacing the building and the services with one of those ugly little cluster boxes where patrons could stand out in the wind and the rain, fumbling keys and watching ad circulars scoot away after being nabbed by a gust.

The only surviving business was Floyd Baca's emporium of junk, featuring a large sign that read only
Baca.
It would have been hard to explain Baca
what—
a few dead tractors sinking into the prairie, a collection of railroad ties too rotted to be of any use, and a mile or so of irrigation pipe in a country where no one irrigated any more. I'd known Floyd Baca well enough to shake a hand for thirty years, and I still didn't know what he did to earn a living.

County Road 805 jounced us south, back into Posadas County, and in a mile or two more, to the entry to the Boyd ranch. In the daytime, the spread of mesas and arroyos and the silvery-black winter colors of sages and creosote brush have an elegance hard to match. At night, it's that yellow tube of lights piercing the peace and quiet. Johnny Boyd would be up, I knew. His problem wasn't insomnia, but the unrelenting pain of joints broken too many times, or chilled by snow squalls, or hatcheted by arthritis. Maybe by one or two o'clock, he'd have enough Jim Beam inside to dull himself to restless sleep.

He'd seen our headlights coming in, and was waiting by the window, backlit by a single table lamp. As I pulled the SUV to a stop, he stepped away and reappeared at the door.

“What in holy hell are you doin' drivin' around at this time of night?” he asked as we approached the front step. The two cow dogs stayed at his heels, heads down, ears unsure. He nodded at Miles and offered a brief handshake.

“I'm selling magazine subscriptions, trying to earn a two-week cruise to the Caribbean,” I said, and he snorted a short laugh.

“Good place to be this time of year. Come on in. Maxine's to bed, but she left some coffee on.” He held the door for us, a boot expertly intercepting the dogs. “You two stay out, now.” As soon as I stepped inside, I heard toenails, and an aging blue heeler appeared at the bedroom door, gazing out blindly, nose working overtime.

“Evening, Dasher,” I said, and he ducked his head at the sound of his name. “Sorry to wake you up.” Dasher sighed mightily and retreated back to bed.

The davenport was way too soft, and I knew I'd never escape. I took the old wooden rocker near the propane heater. Miles Waddell risked the sofa. In a minute, Johnny returned with two cups of coffee, no offer of additives.

Johnny was used to rancher talk—the sort of conversation that winds all over the place, taking excursions here and there, maybe winding down to the point of it all after a couple cups of coffee and too many cigarettes. I decided to try the Bobby Torrez approach—blunt, hard, direct.

“I need to know when you last talked with Elliot Daniel.”

The rancher didn't ask “
Elliot who?”
Instead, he walked back into the kitchen and returned with a full cup and a lit cigarette. Maxine Boyd's efforts to convince him to quit weren't making much headway. He stood by the unlit fireplace.

“Been a long, long time,” he said finally. “Only met him a couple times, anyways.”

“But he was a friend of Curt's.”

“Guess he was.”

“You know, Johnny, we—
I—
have reason to believe that the damage to the power line wasn't the end of it.”

“I can't help you all that much, I guess.”

“Can't or won't?”

Johnny Boyd glanced at me, his expression saying that my tone had pricked his lizard-tough skin. But he made no reply.

“Have you seen Daniel around?”

Again, a long, pensive silence as he pondered how to best build his stone walls.

He found another cigarette, and this time he didn't seem to much care where the smoke went. “This is growin' into one of them things, ain't it?”

“I think it's already there, Johnny. We have a cop shot down in cold blood. We have a hundred thousand dollars in damages to a power line. And you have a son who isn't coming home again.” He flinched when I said that. “I'm the easiest one you have to talk to, Johnny, and now's the time.” I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “Has Daniel been here since?”

A deep draw on the cigarette, and I don't know where the smoke went. He sucked it so deep I think it just seeped into his tissues. When the undersheriff and I had visited a day or so ago, Johnny and Maxine Boyd had been courteous and forthcoming. If anything, he should have been more so this night. He'd treated Estelle with deference that earlier visit—maybe because Maxine was present. Johnny had never tried to hide that he had little use for either the sheriff or undersheriff. In his mind, both of them belonged about 35 miles farther south, on the other side of the fence.