Before She Dies

Chapter 21

Tuesday afternoon in February wasn’t a time of unrelenting sales in any store in Posadas, and folks sure weren’t standing in line to buy cars. Shoehorned into the showroom of Nick Chavez’s auto dealership were four vehicles, their svelte plastic bumpers a hair’s breadth from touching. Not a single customer salivated over the prospect of adopting one of those machines.

I let the door close behind me and had time for two deep breaths before a tall young woman I didn’t know meandered her way across the showroom toward me. The cars were perfectly placed. In order to avoid a collision of thigh and plastic, she had to waltz her rump first one way and then another. I trudged forward and met her at the Olds station wagon.

Her smile was megawatt as she tried to read first impressions. Was this old man dressed up in his go-to-town clothes ready to buy himself a new sedan? Maybe one of those humongous pickup trucks with four doors and dual back wheels, powerful enough to haul any stock trailer all the way up Regal Pass without dropping out of overdrive.

“May I help you, sir?” she said. Her voice was the kind of husky that takes hours of practice at home in front of a mirror.

“Nick Chavez, please.” I offered her a friendly smile.

Immediately her radiant expression wilted a touch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chavez is with…” That’s as far as she got before Nick stuck his head out of an office door at the other end of the showroom, behind the blue Camaro.

“Bill!” he bellowed, and beckoned with both hands.

The girl nodded brightly. “I guess he’s free now,” she said.

I thanked her and waddled my way across the showroom, zigzagging around the polished automotive snouts and rumps with far less grace and elegance than the girl.

Nick stretched out a hand as if to save me from drowning. His handshake was one of those rock-crushers that my arthritic knuckles dreaded. “Bill, come on in. By God, I didn’t think I’d ever get you back here.”

Two other men were sitting in his office and Nick introduced them as if they were going to take part in the feeding frenzy. “Bill, you know Rusty Archer, my service manager.” Archer stood up and stretched a hand across the desk. He looked like a thirty-years-younger version of his father, high school principal Glen Archer. Rusty had attended the same school of knuckle-dusting handshakes as his boss, and I flinched involuntarily.

“…and Carlos Sanchez, our business manager.” As we shook, this time with courtesy but no agony, I reflected that young Carlos had been spared his father’s looks. While Victor Sanchez bulled around his saloon like an old grumpy rhino, Carlos was lean, almost fine boned. The slight aquiline curve of his nose set off an intelligent, aristocratic face.

“Sit down, sheriff, sit down,” Nick said, gesturing toward one of the conference chairs. “We were just putting a new ad campaign together.” He smoothed his glossy black hair and then remained for a moment with his hand locked to the back of his head, brow furrowed. “Bad season of the year, Bill,” he said. “One good sale yesterday, and son of a gun, that’s it for the past week.” He grinned toward Sanchez and Archer. “These guys are going to get hungry if we don’t do something to lure you hard cases in.”

He beckoned toward the chair again. “Sit down. Take a load off.”

“I don’t really have the time, Nick,” I said. “I wonder if I could talk with you just a bit.”

Nick Chavez looked momentarily surprised, then nodded vigorously. “Sure, sure. Guys,” he said, “give us a few minutes.”

When we were alone, I closed the glass door.

“Nick, we’re looking for a 1994, white Chevrolet pickup truck. Temporary sticker in the back window.”

He sat on the edge of his desk, face serious. “Is this the one involved out there?” He waved a hand toward the west.

“We think it might be.”

“Just plain white? No accent colors?”

“We don’t know.”

“Half-ton? Three-quarter?”

I shook my head. “We don’t know that either.”

“Extended cab?” He saw the look on my face and finished for me. “You don’t know that either.”

“Right.”

“Bill, the only truck we’ve sold recently is the mother of all Suburbans. You know those nice folks who wrecked their van over the weekend?”

“The Weatherfords.”

“Right. They bought a brand-new one, fully loaded. With that cast her husband has on his leg, I guess they want him to be able to stretch out in style. Anyway, they picked that up early this morning. Easiest sale I ever made. The kids loved it-they always make it easy.”

I whistled silently. “That’s a pretty penny.”

Nick grinned. “It’ll pay the light bill for a while longer.” His grin widened. “He’s a lawyer. It must be hell not having anyone to sue except his own wife. But that’s it since I sold Penny Samons a little S-10 last week. We’ve moved a couple of cars, and a bunch of used inventory. But as far as trucks go, that’s it for the past month.”

“Is there any way you can check around for me? Check with other dealers?”

He frowned. “Sure. I guess. What kind of area are we talking about?”

“Five state.”

Nick’s whistle was shrill. “Jesus. Nobody got a look at the sticker to see who the dealer was, then.”

I leaned forward. “No. We can do it if you don’t have time, but the inquiry might be a little more discreet coming from you. Don’t you folks have some kind of computer network for information like that?”

Nick shook his head. “What a dealer sells is between him and the customer, sheriff. The only way I can find out what’s sold is by calling each dealer.” He frowned. “And that’s a lot of calling.”

“Then maybe you have a dealer directory we could borrow for a day or two. I’ll put one of the part-timers on it.”

“That, I got.” He held up a hand. “But look, I’ll be glad to cooperate with you. I’ll have one of my office staff run down the list. How’s that?” I nodded my thanks, and Nick added, “Do you know yet who was drivin’ the truck?”

I hesitated, mentally inventorying how many people were privy to this same information. I took the plunge. “Tammy Woodruff.”

“Tammy? Nah. Her daddy might be rich, but he ain’t going to buy her a new one every year. She just got that Ford of hers in November. I damn near had her in one of mine, but she got a close-out deal on a ’93 from Artie Swanson over in Silver City.” He shook his head sadly. “Drive a hundred miles to save ten bucks.”

“Well, then she borrowed this one from someone.”

Chavez sat back, picked up a pencil, and tapped his lower lip. “Brand-new, you say?”

“We have reason to think so.”

“And maybe white.”

I nodded.

“Whoever saw this truck,” Nick said, and his tone was careful, as if to say that he didn’t want to know, “didn’t get a good look, or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“How come you don’t know if there were any accents, or if it was an extended cab? Somebody just see the back of it?”

“That’s right.”

He closed his eyes. “So it could have been one, two, even more years old, then. Maybe a used truck. Maybe somebody bought themselves a cream puff.”

“It could have been. But we have reason to believe that it was new, or nearly so.”

Nick leaned back some more, hooked his hands behind his head, and gazed at me as if he were trying to assess just how much more I’d pay for the car of my dreams.

“What’s Tammy say?”

“When I find her, I’ll ask her.”

“Ah…” Nick grimaced. “I probably don’t want to know what’s going on, do I?”

I grinned. “Probably not.”

He pulled a pad of paper over and hastily jotted some notes. “Let me get this right. Pickup truck, any style, white-ass end, who knows what’s up front. Probably new, maybe not. Sold within the past thirty days if that temp sticker is any good.” He glanced up and grinned. “Remember Art Beauchamp?”

“Sure.”

“He once bought a used car from me and drove for almost two years on his window sticker.”

“Whatever works,” I said, and got up. I don’t know why I trusted Nick Chavez, but I did. Even so, I didn’t want to tell him any more than he needed to know. I thrust my hands into my pockets and surveyed his office, choosing my words with care.

“Nick, we’d appreciate your help. And keep your ears open. You hear anything, you give me a call, all right?”

“You can count on it.” He held the door for me. “When’s the funeral?”

“Thursday at ten,” I said. Nick nodded, astute enough to see that I didn’t want to discuss it. I’d done my best so far not to think about that hour of misery.