Before She Dies

Chapter 23

The western side of Posadas County was split by a four-tined fork of major highways. The county couldn’t have afforded to maintain two miles of any of them. The interstate slashed through the county from one side to the other, with one interchange for the village. Two of the state highways snaked into town to converge at that interchange-State 56 headed southwest to Regal and State 17 roughly paralleled the interstate.

Further to the north, State 78 entered the county from the hamlet of San Pasquale to the east, edged around the bottom of the mesa, sped by the airport, and then swung northwest.

If you imagined those highways-three state and one interstate-as the four tines of a fork, then County Road 14 was like a tangled hair connecting the tines at the midpoint.

I drove out State Highway 17, knowing that if I turned south at County Road 14, Herb Torrance’s ranch would be only five miles of jouncing gravel road away. Shortly before seven, I pulled into a narrow lane that passed under an arched, wrought-iron gate. The H-bar-T spread was ten-thousand acres of grazing land leased from the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, tacked onto the original 160 acres Herb’s father had bought in 1920.

If there was a moon that night, it was hidden behind the clouds that earlier had gathered over the San Cristobals and now fanned out across the entire sky. Herb had every light in the house turned on as I approached.

The original Torrance home had burned to the ground on a summer Sunday in 1956, and Herb and his father had done the expedient thing. They’d bulldozed the ashes into a big pit, covered it with topsoil, and planted a garden. The new house, one of those things with too many tiny gables, pitches, and angles, was purchased from the Sears catalog and planted a few yards further up the slope of the mesa.

Estelle’s car was not in the driveway. Herb’s huge pickup, crusted with mud from front grill guard to back bumper, was angled in, crowding his wife’s brown boat of a sedan against the white picket fence. If Patrick’s truck was there, it was hidden out back.

I buzzed down the window and left 310 idling with the radio on when I got out. With all the mesas and canyons, radio reception on this side of the county was uniformly awful, but old habits were hard to break.

Herb had solved the reception problem. Squatting in the middle of his front yard was one of those enormous satellite dishes that allowed him access to 150 channels of what passed for entertainment. By the time I’d let myself through the small swinging gate and skirted the antenna, Herb Torrance was standing in the front doorway, framed by the light.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said by way of greeting. “You’re just in time for some dessert.”

I grunted my way up the six steps to the high front porch and shook Herb’s hand. “How are you, Herb.”

“Fine, fine. Come on in.” He held the door for me but I shook my head.

“I can’t stay. Has Detective Reyes-Guzman been by today?”

Herb frowned and then remembered. “Oh, the young gal. The one who looks like she ought to be in the movies.”

“Right. Has she been by?”

Herb scratched the top of his head like his monumental memory was somehow stuck. “No, not that I know of. The wife was in town most of the afternoon shopping, and I was workin’ in back, in the shop. So, you know, she might have stopped and didn’t think anyone was to home.”

“How about the kids?”

He shook his head. “Three youngest were in school all day. Benny went over to Deming with a load of hay. Ain’t seen Patrick since yesterday.” He didn’t sound pleased about the latter, and he carefully shut the door, as if he didn’t want our words to filter into the house for the wife and kids to hear.

“What the hell happened down south, there, Bill. Where that young cop got shot.”

“We don’t know yet, Herb. That’s why the detective wanted to talk with Patrick. He was at the Broken Spur Sunday night.”

“The officers already talked to him,” Torrance said. “Every which way. He’s so tore up he don’t know what to think.”

“And I’m sure we’ll have to talk with him again, Herb.”

“You think it was just somebody passin’ through?”

“We just don’t know, Herb. Sometimes folks remember things, you know. Little things that they didn’t think of right off. That’s what the detective was hoping was the case with your son. That he’d remember something more. Maybe just some little thing.”

“Well,” Herb said, “I guess.”

“But you say she hasn’t been by.”

“Not that I know of, no.”

“Well, then I’ll leave you in peace.” I started down the steps and stopped halfway. “By the way, when Patrick goes down to the Broken Spur, does he go by himself, or with somebody, usually?”

“Oh, it just depends,” Herb said, and he joined me as I walked back toward the patrol car. “But he sure goes there too much,” he added with chagrin. “Kind of concerns his mother and me. He’s got an older brother and an uncle both who can’t stay away from the stuff. And Patrick’s been awful moody of late.”

“Moody?”

Herb waved a hand in dismissal. “Ah, you know how these young ones get.” He looked at me and grinned. “I think he’s got woman trouble. Mind you, the wife and I don’t pry.” He groped a cigarette out of his pocket and turned his back to the breeze while he lit it.

“Who’s he been squiring around?” I asked pleasantly, as if it were just a passing thought.

“You name it,” Herb said. “Anything with tits, at his age.” He held the door of 310 while I settled into the seat. “The one he’s really moonin’ after at the moment is that little gal from town. The one who used to be hitched up real tight with Gus Prescott’s boy?”

“Tammy Woodruff?”

“Sure,” Herb said. “I guess Brett cut her loose, and now Patrick’s givin’ it a turn.” He smiled again and patted the door of 310. “Or tryin’ to. He tried once before, seems to me. Sure as hell glad I don’t have to go through none of that anymore.”

“Amen,” I said, and pulled 310 into reverse. “But you haven’t seen him today?”

Torrance ducked his head. “No. He sometimes stays with a friend, or somethin’ like that. Him and Benny used to light out to Juarez once in a while, but if that’s where he went, then he went by himself.”

I grinned. “These kids are kind of hard to keep track of, aren’t they.”

“You got that right. But hell, he’s on his own now. I don’t pry. Long as the work gets done when he’s livin’ at home.”

I took my foot off the brake, and 310 started to drift backward. Torrance straightened up. “If the detective does stop by later this evening, tell her to call the office, will you?” I said.

“You bet.”

“’Preciate it. You take care.”

I idled the car slowly out the Torrance driveway, and as I left the circle of light from the house, the blackness was formidable. In the distance, over the mesa to the east, was the dull glow of Posadas, just enough to be noticed out of the corner of the eye. A single light flickered in the west, over where Francisco Pena and his family lived.

I drove south on County Road 14 for two miles until I reached the intersection with County Road 27, another rough gravel byway that cut through the heart of the lava flow. I continued south, idling along 14 as it zigzagged down through first one arroyo and then another.

After five miles I started up the incline of San Patricio Mesa. The road was narrow and rock-strewn, steep enough that the patrol car kicked gravel noisily, lurching now and then as the back tires scrabbled for traction. If the county had ever brought a road grader out here, it hadn’t been in the past six months.

I reached the top of the mesa, and if there had been moonlight, I could have seen the graceful C-curve sweep as the road paralleled the lip of the mesa, to descend on the other side to the flat brush country that was cut by State 56.

I stopped for a moment, looking out into the blackness. If Patrick Torrance cared enough about booze that he took this road frequently to the Broken Spur, then his father had every reason to be concerned.

“Three ten, three oh two.”

I damn near banged the top of my head against the roof.

“Jesus,” I said, and reached for the mike. “Three oh two, go ahead.”

“Are you on top of the mesa?” Estelle’s voice was quiet, but I recognized the scratchy, thin quality of a handheld radio. Her broadcast wouldn’t carry two miles before it would be bounced to death in the myriad canyons that cut the mesa side.

“Ten-four. Where the hell are you?”

“Sir, drive around the rim until you see my car. It’s pulled way in, behind a grove of pinon. I’m down the hill from that.”

“What are you doing?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve got a little problem, sir.”