Before She Dies

Chapter 10

Sergeant Robert Torrez was bent over the fender of 308, his brows knit tightly together in concentration as he peeled the backing off a one-inch bright-blue circular sticker.

“Estelle’s better at this than I am,” he muttered.

I surveyed his handiwork, impressed. Centered over each mark of pellet damage was a colored sticker. He had used yellow dots for the first shot pattern, blue for the second, and red for the third. In place of the atomized driver’s side window, he had stretched a piece of clear plastic and then, by carefully extrapolating where the pellets had struck other surfaces of the car’s interior, he had dotted the probable locations of the pellets’ entry through the window.

I turned and looked at the dozen yard-square pieces of brown butcher paper that were laid on the garage floor. Each one had been blasted once with a shotgun. Each was carefully labeled.

The top six targets had been shot using one of the department’s 12 gauge riot guns, a pump action weapon with a twenty-inch barrel. The shots had been fired at distances beginning at five feet and then extending out in five-foot increments to thirty feet. The diameter of the pattern was clearly labeled.

The second set of targets had been riddled using the same type three-inch magnum number four buck ammunition, but this time fired from a shotgun with a standard length barrel.

“You can see a pretty significant difference in spread between the two guns,” I mused, kneeling down with a grunt and a loud cracking of the knees. “What was the choke on the field gun?”

“Modified,” Torrez said. “There’s a bunch of other combinations I could have tried, but this gives us a pretty clear picture.”

He picked up the last target in the riot gun series, the one fired at thirty feet, and walked to the car. “If you compare the size of the yellow pattern, the one we think was fired from the opposite shoulder of the highway, you’ll see that it’d be pretty easy to imagine a close match.”

“You sound overwhelmed with confidence,” I said. “None of the other series are that large.”

“Right,” Torrez nodded. “In order to get a spread like this with a regular field gun, you’d have to be backed off fifty or sixty feet.”

“You don’t really have very many definite pellet marks on the car to establish that pattern size, though.”

“Eight, sir. That’s why I said you could imagine a match. I’d hate to have to defend this in court.”

“Eight pellets out of a possible…”

“Forty-one. I know that isn’t a very good percentage, but it gives us a starting point. For the round fired through the window, I had only six definites to work with and another half a dozen probables.” He laid down the target and picked up another. “The round fired through the window was really tight when it hit the glass. Just under a foot in diameter.”

“And with a field gun, you’d still have to be backed away twenty or thirty feet for a pattern that big.”

“Right.”

I took a deep breath. “So we’re looking for a sawed-off twelve-gauge three-inch magnum shotgun that ejects its empties to the side.”

“Or a bottom dumper that the killer held on its side, like the Hollywood hotshots do.” Torrez mimed the stance, right elbow cocked high. I grimaced.

“In short, we don’t really know very much, do we?”

“No, sir.”

I straightened up and surveyed the perforated patrol car and paper targets. “We’re going to be able to figure out pretty much what happened from the time the trigger was pulled for the first time,” I said. “And that just about shoots our wad. We don’t know who, we don’t know why, we don’t know how many people were involved.” I looked at Torrez, hoping that he had some other answers that he’d been saving for last. He didn’t.

“Howard Bishop and Bing Burkett are coordinating highway searches, airport checks, that sort of thing,” I shrugged. “Good cooperation all around. I imagine that there’s something like a hundred deputies, troopers-even some of the critter cops working every corner of the state. No one’s turned up anything.” I thrust my hands in my pockets. “Did Sheriff Holman swing by and pick up the tire casts from you?”

“Yes, sir.” Torrez sounded a little skeptical. I grinned at the big deputy.

“The sheriff is not as stupid as we all sometimes think he is, Roberto.” Torrez had the tact to remain silent. “Did you tell the county yard foreman that we’d need this garage bay for several days?”

Torrez nodded. “He said whatever we needed. He said he’s got the only other key, so people won’t be wandering in and out until we give the word.”

The deputy carefully walked around his targets and frowned at me. “Sir, I’ve been wondering about the car, too. You know, we have a couple of coincidences here that are kinda interesting. One, Paul takes three oh eight here, instead of the car he usually drives. Two, he was out in the vicinity of the Broken Spur Saloon, which is where I had my last go-around with Victor Sanchez. And three, this all happened during the swing shift, which is when I work.”

“You’re thinking that maybe someone out there had it in for you and shot at Paul by mistake?”

“It’s possible, sir.”

I shook my head. “Not likely. For one thing, you don’t look a damn thing like Paul Encinos, even from a distance. You’re a head taller and fifty pounds heavier. However, I suppose that maybe at night, with the adrenaline pumping, a cop looks like a cop.”

Torrez turned and surveyed the riddled patrol car. “And what about it being my car?”

I snorted. “First of all, it isn’t your car, Roberto. True enough, you drove it most of the time during your shift. But on days, Tony Abeyta was using it. And half the time Howard Bishop drives it midnight to eight. So…” I strode quickly over to the car. “And finally,” I said, holding thumb and index finger to gauge the height of the black number decals behind the rear window post, “these little numbers are only three inches high. We notice ’em because it’s part of what we do. But to the average civilian, one patrol car looks like any other. Who’s going to notice a number and assume that the deputy inside is Robert Torrez?”

I stepped away from the car. “Victor Sanchez is a hothead, Robert, and that’s what makes a case of mistaken identity even more unlikely. If he’s got a complaint, he’ll climb right into your face. An ambush from across a dark highway isn’t his style.”

“Should I go out and talk with him?”

“No. Let me do that.”

“You want me to come along?”

I smiled and shook my head. “I want you to keep doing what you’re doing. Finish with the car and make sure you have a set of perfect photos. Then, when the sheriff tracks down the make and model of tires from those casts, hunt the right species down and get some photographs of those, too. Estelle is putting the shell casing under the microscope and we should have fingerprints a little later, if our boy got careless. By then, we can start pushing the Office of the Medical Examiner for whatever the autopsy showed.”

I shrugged with resignation. “None of the roadblocks turned up a thing. I canceled them just before I came over here. If the killer was someone just passing through, he’s long gone anyway. If it was someone local, then maybe pulling down the barriers will encourage him to stick his head out. I don’t know. In the meantime, it’s important to pay attention to all the little details.” I nodded at his targets and stickers. “Good work.”

“You sure you don’t want company going out to see Sanchez?”

“I’m sure.”

The late afternoon sun was dipping toward the San Cristobal Mountain peaks to the southwest as I drove out State Highway 56. The air was brilliantly clear with no breeze. For the first four miles, I didn’t pass a single car, coming or going. A handful of cattle didn’t bother to lift their heads as I motored past. Goddamned pastoral, is what it was.

I wondered what Linda Real and Paul Encinos had been talking about as they drove this very macadam twenty hours before. Just kids, I thought. Both of them less than half my age. Kids idling down the highway during a pleasant evening, assuming that come Easter they’d be part of a family gathering, or that they’d be ready for a week’s vacation in June, or that they’d get to see the fireworks put on in the Posadas Village Park on the Fourth of July. I thumped the steering wheel with my fist in frustration.

I looked out across the sweep of prairie, my eyes following the gradual curve of the highway around the base of Arturo Mesa. Two sodium-vapor lights burned brightly and marked the yard and pens of Wayne Feed and Supply, a business that sprawled over a dozen acres.

If you needed a cutter bar for a 1924 Eustice hay-flailer, you could probably find one there. You’d have to tramp out through the creosote bush, cactus, and rattlesnakes to find it yourself on one of the legion of rusting hulks. Toby Sanchez hadn’t bought the business so that he’d have to work.

In another two minutes, I would drive past the empty buildings of Moore, just as Deputy Encinos and Linda Real would have done. I glanced down at the papers beside me.

Deputy Encinos’s patrol log for the evening hadn’t offered much. A photocopy of the last page of that log lay on top of my briefcase.16:06308 starting 98390.816:3810-816:54W/W KGY-399 neg.16:5610-87 Cal Hewlett 10–15 Efren Padilla PCDC17:2510-817:32MVA I-10/NM 5618:18PGH, confer Dr. Perrone, op. Weatherford ng/ba, inf. t/o/t Mears18:3010-7 NSI18:4810-818:5010-19 L. Real19:0010-820:1110-62 Rosalita Ibarra, 579 Serna Place. Animal nuisance t/o/t PPD20:3510-821:0510-62 R. Ibarra, animal nuisance, neighbor threats. Talked with neighbor Saucilito Ortiz, agreed to corral dog. PPD nr21:4010-822:53E. Bustos Ave. ref. afterhours activity. Neg. contact, t/o/t PPD22:5910-8

In his last hours of duty, Deputy Encinos had entered the starting mileage of his patrol car-completely routine. A few minutes later, he’d asked for a wants/warrant check on a license number. There was no hint in his log about whether he had actually stopped the vehicle. The dispatcher’s log had confirmed that he had not.

Cal Hewlett, one of the U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers, had requested assistance in transporting a prisoner, one Efren Padilla, to the county lockup. I knew Padilla. The old man had probably been cutting green pinon again, on the feds’ turf.

At five-thirty-two, Encinos had responded to the Weatherfords’ traffic accident. That had kept him occupied until six-thirty, when he’d eaten dinner at the North Star Inn, the big chain motel near the interstate ramp where the Weatherfords had trashed their van and trailer.

At six-fifty, the deputy had returned to the Posadas County Sheriff’s Office and picked up Posadas Register reporter Linda Real. If she was expecting an exciting night, the first calls didn’t offer a preview. Rosalita Ibarra had been complaining about Sauci Ortiz’s dog for years. She would have complained even if the old man didn’t have a dog. Rosalita and Sauci had been neighbors for sixty years. They’d argued and shouted at each other for sixty years. They loved it. The only thing that made it better was a good audience.

Deputy Paul Encinos had provided the audience. Twice. He’d tried to turn the complaint over to the village cops, but they weren’t buying it…if one or the other of them had been on duty. It must have been the deputy’s first time trying to handle the Ibarra/Ortiz show. Otherwise he would have known better.

The last entry was equally routine. At fifty-three minutes after ten, Deputy Encinos had been directed to East Bustos Avenue. The dispatch log, and Gayle Sedillos’s memory, said the call had come from the manager of Mark’s Burger Heaven, one of the teen hangouts.

The manager had said that kids were driving around behind the fence of the business across the street. She didn’t know what they were up to. She didn’t have much imagination if she couldn’t figure out what two kids in a car wanted with darkness, away from streetlights and prying eyes.

Deputy Encinos had checked and then, at one minute before eleven o’clock, he had called in 10-8, meaning that he was in service and free for assignment. That was his last call.

He and his passenger had then driven to the other side of the county and gotten themselves shot.

I drove through Moore, looking hard at the huge dark blob that once had been Beason’s Mercantile and Dry Goods. Until the vein ran out, folks in Moore had assumed their town was going to grow and prosper, maybe even make mention in the 1920 census. Beason thought so, enough to build the two-story edifice that now stood empty and crumbling.

State 56 was so straight between the back side of Arturo Mesa and the banks of the Rio Guijarro that for two and a half miles a laser beam wouldn’t have strayed from the dotted center line.

After crossing the bridge, the highway fishtailed a little, dipping through the grove of cottonwoods that surrounded the Broken Spur Saloon.

Monday at suppertime would be slow, and a good time to capture Victor Sanchez’s full attention, but I didn’t pull off the highway. I scanned the parking lot as I drove by. There were two pickup trucks, one with a long livestock trailer attached. The trailer was empty. Half of the ranchers drove around with the humongous things permanently attached to their trucks, clanging and banging over every bump in the road. I figured it was a kind of status symbol.

Three miles down the highway was the turnoff to the north-County Road 14, a dusty ribbon that wound up through the prairie and the old lava beds, past windmills and stock tanks, and up over the top of San Patricio Mesa. It had been down that jouncing two-track that Francisco Pena’s old GMC pickup had trundled the night before.

I drove southwest, toward that intersection with the county road. My hands involuntarily gripped the steering wheel tighter as the white lines clicked by. Pena would have pulled up at the stop sign, at which point he would have been able to see the headlights of the parked patrol car a quarter-mile east, to his left.

A dark smudge and some white chalk on the pavement, along with a few trampled weeds on the shoulder, were all that marked the spot. I slowed 310 to an idle. An oncoming car dashed by, no doubt curious why anyone would stop in the middle of nowhere.

Paul Encinos and Linda Real would have had no reason to do so unless another vehicle was stopped along the shoulder of the road.

In another quarter of a mile, I turned right onto County Road 14, and as 310’s front tires crunched onto gravel, the late afternoon sun winked off metal to my left, further up the highway. Someone was parked in a small grove of elms that struggled for life near one of the highway department’s stash of crushed stone.

I continued up the county road for half a mile and then turned around, nearly planting the front wheels of my patrol car in a small arroyo. As I drove back, I opened my window and took a deep breath. Francisco Pena said he didn’t see anything until he actually drove by the scene of the shooting. And true enough, most of County Road 14 ambled up and down through dips and cuts and arroyos, around runty stands of juniper and cholla. The state highway intersection wasn’t visible until I approached within a hundred yards of the stop sign.

At any time during that hundred yards, though, I could see east along the state road. Had there been more than one vehicle parked along the shoulder of the highway, Francisco Pena would have been able to see it.

I hesitated at the stop sign and then turned right. The car I had seen was parked behind a mound of crusher fines, impossible to see eastbound, and not much more than a glint for westbound traffic. I circled the pile, drove around a parked asphalt roller, and pulled up beside the other vehicle.

I saw the passenger side window buzz down and I switched off the engine of the patrol car.

In the distance I could hear oncoming traffic, so I waited until it shot past-a single late-model sedan with New Mexico plates. The tire noise faded and that wonderful, heavy silence of the open prairie settled once more.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman looked across at me. From the lack of radio traffic, she knew as well as I did that our roadblocks sealing Posadas County had produced nothing but expense and inconvenience.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to find her parked in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the sound of night winds, coyotes, and rare traffic for company. As a little kid growing up in northern Mexico, Estelle Reyes had probably been the sort to seek out a dark corner for private moments.

I conjured up a mental image of her as she might have been twenty years before and saw a tiny, thin six-year-old waif sitting with her back against a cool, dark adobe wall, arms folded around her knees, skinny elbows jutting out. Under the mop of black hair were those two incredible eyes looking out at the world, contemplating, evaluating.

“What have you decided?” I said, and even though a vehicle’s width and more separated us, my quiet question sounded like a shout.

Estelle Reyes-Guzman didn’t answer for a long moment, but finally she shifted a little in her seat and said, “I think you and I need to go over and talk with Victor Sanchez, sir.”