Convenient Disposal

Chapter Twenty-three

William Page sat with his elbows on his knees, head bowed, eyes closed. As Estelle approached, his eyes opened groggily. He lifted his head just enough to be able to turn and look at the undersheriff.

“A long day, Mr. Page,” she said. She noticed that he’d changed his clothes. He was now in faded blue jeans and a carefully wrinkled, outdoorsy, brown cotton shirt. Estelle sat down in the hard plastic chair beside him. “Any thoughts?”

He shook his head, discouraged. “You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever spent a longer day than this one.”

“Let’s take a ride,” Estelle said. “Are you up for that?”

“Anything,” he replied. “I’ve never felt so useless in my life.”

Page rose stiffly and followed her out of the building. He settled cautiously into the passenger seat of the unmarked county car. Estelle smiled sympathetically. “There’s not a whole lot of room, I’m afraid.” She reached back and tapped the heavy steel screen and framework that separated the rear passenger compartment from the front. “This keeps the seats from going any further back.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, and shifted his knee away from the shotgun that stood vertically on his side of the computer and radio cluster. He fell silent, watchful as Estelle pulled the car over to the fuel island where she pumped in fourteen gallons before the filler snapped off. She settled back in the car, flipped open the cover of the aluminum clipboard, and made the required notations.

She closed the log and lifted the mike. “PCS, three ten.”

“Go ahead, three ten.”

“PCS, mileage is eight seven seven thirty-two. I’m ten-eight, ten eighty-four. Phone’s fine.”

There was a pause before Gayle Torrez acknowledged. Estelle could picture her glancing over at the ten-code reminder card taped to the corner of the dispatcher’s desk. Informant in unit wasn’t a call that was used routinely enough that it would pop quickly to mind.

“Okay,” Estelle said to Page. “Bureaucracy is satisfied.”

“Have you been able to establish any leads at all?” Page asked as they pulled out onto Bustos Avenue, eastbound.

“We’ve established that we’re frustrated, Mr. Page,” she replied. “I’m sorry that I can’t be anymore forthcoming than that. I thought that it might be useful if you would help me locate some of the places that Kevin would be likely to frequent around the area.” She glanced over at Page. “Some of the favorite spots that you and Kevin might visit when you’re out hiking, or out on your bikes.”

“We head up the mesa a lot,” he said.

She slowed the car as they approached the intersection of MacArthur and Bustos. “County Road Nineteen goes off to the north here,” she said, and he nodded as she turned left.

“We ride this way all the time,” he said. “For one thing, there aren’t any dogs.” Within a thousand yards of the intersection, the village gave way to scruffy prairie. The road was traveled so infrequently that grass tufted through the asphalt along the shoulders. Estelle slowed the car to a crawl as they passed the remains of the VistaPark Drive-in, the huge, looming screen nothing but a ragged framework, all its panels blown out long ago. The speaker posts had all been removed, leaving the ocean-rolls of the parking lot to be taken over by kochia, greasewood, and tumbleweed.

At the entrance a single, rusted chain hung loosely between two posts fabricated out of concrete-filled steel pipes. The midpoint of the chain sagged to within six inches of the ground.

“What do you suppose was The Last Picture Show they ever showed?” Page mused.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Estelle said. “Labor Day weekend of 1970.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Now you’re going to tell me that you went to that very one.”

“No, I wouldn’t tell you that.” Page waited expectantly, but Estelle didn’t offer the details. She’d been five years old that weekend, a little girl enjoying the simplicity of playing among the aging cottonwoods along the river in the tiny Mexican village of Tres Santos. Posadas, and her life in the United States, was still down a long road ahead. “The Consolidated Copper Mine closed that summer,” she said.

“Kevin told me about that. It took the heart right out of the village.”

“Yes, it did.” She pulled the car into the outdoor theater’s driveway, angling in so she could look at the ground. There were no fresh vehicle tracks except for the well-worn path the four-wheelers took around the end posts. The drive-in was a favorite spot for kids to crank open the throttle, blasting across the undulations.

“We never rode in there,” he said. “Kids used it a lot, though. We’d see them there every once in a while.” He leaned forward. “I can’t even tell where the projection house and concession stand used to be.”

“Right by that little grove of elms,” Estelle said, nodding. “All they left behind were some rusty nails.” She tapped the steering wheel. Good for a slow leak, she thought. But the tracks said that Kevin Zeigler hadn’t picked up his nail here.

She pulled back out onto the road.

“We like this route,” Page offered. “Up here about a mile, just on the other side of the arroyo, there’s a dirt road that cuts over past the landfill and comes out on Forty-three, up by the mine. That hill is a real kick in the tail when you’re on a bike.” He looked pained at the memory. “Kevin always calls it the Mur de Dump. ” He glanced at Estelle. “In the European races, they like to name every hill. Mur this and Mur that.”

“Is this the route you took that day with Tony Acosta?”

He nodded. “When we ride the mesa, this is the route we always take. That way, we don’t have to ride through town, and we don’t have to deal with the traffic on the state highways.”

In another half mile, they passed the remains of a mobile-home park, and then a small adobe house. “Kevin told me that the old woman who used to live here was murdered,” Page said.

“That’s true.”

“What happened?”

“An ugly domestic thing with the neighbors,” Estelle said. “She looked out the window at the wrong time.” Just like Carmen Acosta, she almost added. Once more she slowed the car. Fresh tire tracks cut through the weeds that had taken over Anna Hocking’s driveway.

She lifted the mike. “Three oh seven, three ten.”

“Three oh seven.” Sergeant Tom Mears’ voice was clipped and efficient.

“Ten-twenty, three oh seven.”

“I’m up at the old quarry off Forty-three.”

“Ten-four. Did you check Hocking’s?”

“That’s affirmative. I was there about an hour ago.”

She acknowledged and dropped the mike in her lap. “Vacant houses are sort of pesky,” she said. “Kids from town try and use this one for parties when they get the chance.”

“I’m surprised it’s still standing,” Page said.

“So are we.” The dirt road narrowed and then forked, the route off to the left not much more than a rough two-track. It angled across the prairie, gradually winding up the eastern flank of the mesa. Several miles ahead, Estelle could see the flat bench where the county had long ago established its landfill. Beyond that, higher on the mesa, were the scars from the abandoned copper mine, great pyramidal slag piles and a fenced area where equipment gradually aged and settled into the gravel of the boneyard.

The Crown Victoria thumped and lurched as Estelle turned on to the two-track leading toward the landfill and mine.

“This gets sort of rough up here,” Page said. He shifted and stretched upward to watch the ribbon of dried vegetation that the car would straddle. The tracks from Mears’ Expedition were clear in the prairie dirt.

“You came down last weekend?” Estelle asked, and Page looked at her quickly.

“Yes. On Friday. I went back to Socorro late Sunday.”

“Did the two of you ride?”

He nodded. “Sure. We did about a hundred K on the road bikes.”

“That’s quite a ride. Where did you go?”

He shrugged, as if riding a hundred kilometers was an after-dinner sort of lark. “We went south to Maria, then circled back up and rode out west as far as the Broken Spur. We were going to go all the way down through the pass to Regal, but it was so windy it wasn’t much fun going that way.” He grinned. “Sure pushed us back to town, though.”

“Did you stop in either place?”

“We got some water at that saloon in Maria.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. We’ve eaten a couple of times at the Broken Spur, but we didn’t stop there on Saturday.”

Estelle let the heavy sedan find its own route up the two-track, the fragrance from the dried weeds that were crushed by the tires and roasted by the catalytic converter wafting potent through the open window. “Did Mauro Acosta ever ride with the two of you?”

If the question caught William Page by surprise, he didn’t show it. “No,” he said. “Mauro’s not interested in bikes, I don’t think. Tony is. But not Mauro. He likes to work on that old Pontiac they’ve got under that tarp in the backyard.” He grinned. “He’s pretty good at talking his mother into getting the parts he needs. They have rip-roaring arguments about that old heap. She keeps telling him that they’re going to sell it.”

“It runs?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know if it will ever run.” He reached out a stabilizing hand to the dash as the car waddled over two deep ruts cut diagonally across the road, the beginnings of an arroyo that would eventually obliterate the two-track.

“What was Kevin’s relationship with Mauro?” Estelle asked. “Or yours, for that matter.”

Page’s head snapped around as if he’d been punched. “What?”

Estelle repeated the question.

“I don’t follow what you’re asking,” Page said, although the flush on his face said that he clearly did.

“I’m asking if your relationship, or Kevin’s relationship, with Mauro Acosta was anything beyond what we would expect between two neighbors, Mr. Page.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding,” Estelle said.

“Mauro is just a…just a neighborhood kid,” Page said with considerable exasperation. “I mean, what is he, fifteen years old?”

“Just about that.”

Page rubbed the side of his jaw furiously, glaring out the window. “Did you ask me to ride along just so you could talk about that?”

“In part.”

“I’d like to know what you’re getting at.”

Estelle guided the car around a sharp curve as the dirt lane swung toward the corner of the tall chain-link fence bordering the county landfill. “Mr. Page, we’re investigating a vicious assault of a teenaged girl. We’re also investigating the disappearance of her neighbor. There are enough unusual circumstances here to attract lots of attention.” She glanced at Page. “We open every door, Mr. Page. Every one. I can tell you that at the moment, the circumstances of your relationship with Kevin Zeigler are of no particular interest to the Sheriff’s Department. We don’t care what you do in the privacy of your home, or in private moments anywhere else, Mr. Page. We do know that either you, or Kevin, or perhaps both of you, had some interest in Mauro Acosta. That’s a door that we need to open.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Yes, you do. I think it’s interesting that he is the only member of that family whom you-or Kevin-photographed alone. And photographed essentially surreptitiously from behind the blinds of a window.” She looked over at Page. He was squinting straight ahead. “You might remember that Mauro is very much a minor.”

“You’re very thorough,” Page said after a moment.

“I will do everything I can to establish what happened to Kevin Zeigler, Mr. Page. I will do everything I can to find the person who assaulted Carmen Acosta. I believe it’s obvious that the two events are linked. I do not believe that Kevin assaulted the girl.” She hesitated for a minute, trying to assess Page’s churning emotions. “I also do not believe that we will find Kevin Zeigler alive, Mr. Page.”

“Christ, stop calling me that,” he snapped. “You make me feel like I’m sitting on a steel chair, under a bright lamp shining into my eyes.” He heaved a great, shuddering breath. “It’s only been a day.”

“Twenty-eight hours.”

“Christ, you can’t just give up hope that easily.”

“It isn’t easy, William. I liked Kevin. In just two years, he’s reorganized this county, moved us out of the dark ages, done all kinds of wonderful things. As far as I can tell, he relished his personal life with you as well, and I’m happy for you both. I sympathize for your loss. But that will not prevent us from exploring every avenue.”

“I understand that.” He glanced at Estelle cautiously. “I guess.”

“Then you can understand why our curiosity is piqued when we look through the collection of photos on Kevin’s Rolodex and find something like that provocative photograph of Mauro Acosta-taken with a telephoto lens, through the window of Kevin’s bedroom.”

“It’s just…” Page waved a hand in frustration.

“It’s just what?”

“It’s no different than if a photographer saw a beautiful young girl posed in the park, or at the beach. She’s beautiful to look at, so he snaps her picture. There’s nothing wrong with that…and it doesn’t matter if the subject of the portrait is a six-year-old, or twelve, or seventeen, or thirty-five…or eighty. It’s not illegal.”

“Is that what happened? Did you take the photo?”

“What difference does it make?”

“None, I suppose. It would just be helpful to know.”

“Kevin took it. He’s the photographer. Yes, I saw it, and yes, I thought it was a wonderful study. Mauro isn’t much of a deep thinker, Sheriff. But in that photo, he’s…well, he looks like he’s trying to understand the whole world.”

“That’s interesting,” Estelle said. They both fell silent as she drove along the fence of the landfill.

“Mur de Dump,” Page murmured as they nosed up the last hill before the two-track joined with the main, graded county access road to the landfill. “Kevin said this eyesore’s days are numbered.”

“Maybe so,” Estelle said. “He’s trying to talk the County Commission into going with a private management firm-a private company to run the village and county’s solid-waste operations.”

“He was trying to,” Page said glumly.

The county car kicked gravel as they pulled up onto the county road. “From here out to Forty-three, and then up to the top of the mesa?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“This is the route you took that day with Tony?”

He nodded. “With much bitching and moaning,” he said. “That kid needs to ride about a hundred miles a day to get into shape.” He rested his right arm along the windowsill and drummed his fingers on the vinyl. “So why are you here?”

“Here where?” Estelle asked.

He turned as far sideways in the seat as the shoulder harness would allow, regarding Estelle. “Why is someone like you working in a backwater like Posadas? Why aren’t you in Hollywood, or something like that?”

She glanced at him, amused at his frank, open stare. “Hollywood?”

He pursed his lips judiciously. “You can’t be unaware of how attractive you are, Sheriff.”

“Undersheriff. And thank you.”

“So why is Posadas so lucky?”

“Just the luck of the draw, Mr. Page.”

“You’re from Mexico, originally?”

“Yes.”

“How old were you when you came to the United States?”

Estelle sighed patiently. “I was fourteen, Mr. Page.”

Page chuckled dryly at her reserve. “Your background isn’t the subject of discussion today, right?”

“That’s correct, Mr. Page.”

“‘Mr. Page, Mr. Page,’” he muttered. “Your husband is Kevin’s physician. He thinks highly of Dr. Guzman.”

“So do I,” Estelle said.

Page shook his head in amusement and turned back straight in the seat. In another hundred yards, they reached County Road 43, the paved two-lane road that switchbacked up the mesa past the mine, on into the national forest. “We usually ride up here, past the quarry, and on along the rim. There’s that road that parallels the mesa lip that’s really spectacular.”

Estelle pulled to a halt at the stop sign, and waited as another county vehicle approached from the direction of town. In a moment she saw that it was Bob Torrez, and he swung the big SUV into the landfill road, stopping door to door with Estelle’s sedan.

“Anything?” he asked. He dipped his head a little so he could see across the car, looking at Estelle’s passenger.

Estelle shook her head. “No. Mr. Page says that he and Kevin used to ride up here regularly. We’re following their usual route. Tom says that he checked Hocking’s place earlier. No one’s been there.”

“I heard,” Torrez said. “I talked with Brunell at the Border Patrol. I don’t know what he can do, but they’re lookin’. I think we ought to give Naranjo a jingle, too.”

“That’s a good idea. Do you want me to do that?”

“Your Spanish is better than mine,” Torrez said. “Yeah, give him a call. You never know what his federales might stumble on to. Did you talk with Dayan?”

“I wrote a release and left it with Gayle. She was going to call him and tell him it was ready.”

“Okay. I’m headed into the outback for a little bit. I gotta get away from the telephone.” He nodded at Estelle and his eyes flicked to Page once more. “You be careful,” he said. With two fingers lifting off the steering wheel in salute, he backed the Expedition out onto the paved road and accelerated up the hill.

“Interesting fellow,” Page said.

“Sheriff Torrez is one of the good guys,” Estelle said.

“I hope so. I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. But I’m not sure that if he’d been the one to suggest a ride that I would have gone along quite so cheerfully.”

Estelle’s cellular phone chirped just as she pulled out onto the highway. She answered, and almost immediately stepped hard on the brakes, swinging wide.

“I’m on my way,” she said and tossed the phone onto the seat beside her. “Make sure you’re buckled in,” she said, U-turning so hard the tires shrieked in protest. She accelerated hard back in the direction of Posadas. Taking a fraction of a second to check her rearview mirror, she was not surprised to see Sheriff Torrez’s big white SUV charging down the hill behind her.