Dead Weight

Chapter Fourteen

“Dr. Gray tracked down and gave me that,” I said. Deputy Pasquale still hadn’t found words, so I continued, “And then Sam Carter caught up with me while I was having dinner last night…or two nights ago. I lose track.”

“All three are the same,” Pasquale murmured. “Except for who they’re sent to.” He looked up. “What’s Frank Dayan planning to do, did he say? Did he give this to you personally?”

“Yes. We spent a good deal of time together last night, wandering around the county and trying to figure out what the son of a bitch who wrote this had in mind. Frank said he has no intention of doing anything about the note.” I managed a smile. “No front-page expose in his paper. Not even the classifieds. And I think he’ll keep his word.”

“I don’t understand, then.”

I turned my chair sideways and hooked a boot up on the corner of my desk. “Neither do I, Tom. It interests me that the creep didn’t just send the note to me in the first place.” I spread my hands. “That would be logical, but a couple of reasons have occurred to me why he might not do that. Instead, he targets at least two of the five commissioners and the publisher of the local newspaper. That’s who I’ve heard from so far.”

“I never did any of this, sir,” Tom Pasquale said.

“You don’t have to convince me.”

But the young deputy obviously felt that he did, and added, “I usually don’t even stop cars with Mexican plates. Not unless they’re doing something really wild and crazy. And every stop I make is logged, so there’s a record.”

I held up a hand. “Relax. This is the way I look at it. Either you’ve got yourself an enemy who’s trying to make your life miserable, or the target is the department that you have the misfortune to work for. Someone’s trying to make us look bad and happened to pick you as a good place to start.” I shrugged and swung the other boot up.

“Who knows who we’ll hear from next? Maybe we’ll start getting cute little letters telling the world that I’m feathering my retirement bed by selling stuff out of the evidence locker over at the flea market in Las Cruces on the weekends.” I paused and regarded Pasquale for a moment, just long enough that he started to twist in his seat again.

“Your landlady would like to crucify you at the moment, Tom, but this crap isn’t the style of a crazy woman. And it’s not the sort of thing some kid that you busted one too many times would do. My suspicion is that some damn fool has a grudge against this department and enjoys making some trouble. Somebody who understands the power of rumor.”

Pasquale took a deep breath. “What should I do, sir?”

I put my feet down, swung around, and leaned forward, clasping my hands together in front of me as if I were about to begin a prayer session.

“My first inclination would be to ignore it, but I’ve been thinking about it some, and damned if I want to do that. What I really want to do is hang the son of a bitch who wrote these.” I picked up the three letters and then let them fall to the desk. “Whoever it is thinks he’s pretty slick. The thought occurs to me that if he’d written one of those notes to me, or to any member of this department, we could try to nail him for filing a false complaint.”

“But he didn’t do that,” Pasquale said. “And those letters aren’t signed.”

“Nope, he didn’t…and they aren’t. There’s a claim of documentation, but obviously we’ll never see any of that.” I leaned back. “And these aren’t signed statements, as you point out. What I’d like to do is find out who wrote the notes-be able to prove it-and then go after ’em for libel. I’ve never sued anybody in my life, but this seems like a good opportunity to start.”

“I don’t have money for a lawyer,” Pasquale said, his voice almost a whisper.

“No. But I do, and it’d give me immense satisfaction to make this bastard squirm.”

“The only trouble is,” Pasquale said, “even being in the right, even being able to prove it’s just libel, some of the shit rubs off.”

I grimaced in sympathy. “Yep. Welcome to the world, Thomas.”

“What if someone really is stopping Mexican nationals?” Pasquale said. “What if someone else is doing it and blaming it on me?”

“Then we try our best to catch ’em at it.” I grinned. “I’d enjoy that, too.” I picked up the copies and slid them back inside the brown case folder.

“Maybe there’s something we could pick up from those,” Pasquale said. “Prints or something? Characteristic letter strikes, something like that?”

“That’s being done,” I replied. “These are copies. I sent the originals to Las Cruces. In a day or two, we’ll know all there is to know. But in the meantime, don’t hold your breath. I don’t think we’re going to find that they were printed on a 1936 Royal typewriter with half of its e missing. Life is never that simple. But speaking of little things…” I pushed back my chair and stood up with a crack of joints. “You spend a lot of time down on State 56.” I looked down and regarded the yellow legal pad with my statistical computations.

“Of the 137 registration checks you requested through Dispatch last month, eighty-four were logged while you were working that particular stretch of highway.”

I saw the flush creep up Thomas Pasquale’s neck and cheeks and knew what he was thinking. He started to say something, but I held up a hand. “About the same the month before that, and ditto for May. What your logs show is that you cover that particular highway pretty thoroughly.” I rested a finger on the logs as if marking my place. “What I want you to think about is anything you’ve noticed during that time. Anything that, thinking back now, is a little unusual.”

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“This is what I think, Thomas,” I said, and walked over to the window, hands thrust in my pockets. The sky to the west was dark, just enough to tantalize us into wishful thinking. “You’re down that way a lot. I think someone else knows it.” I turned and regarded him. “Seven or eight calls to Dispatch on any given evening. And each time, when you call in a license plate, you also give your location, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

I held up both hands. “Well, then. Someone with a simple dime store scanner knows your habits. What happens if someone actually investigates? Let’s say there’s a complaint made that at twenty-oh-five hours on a Tuesday you stopped a motorist on 56 and put the arm on them. The obvious thing to do is look at the dispatch log and see if you’re working that area. Sure enough, you are. You’re not dumb enough to log the vehicle that you stop for a little easy cash, but maybe the log will show that ten minutes before you stopped another vehicle…maybe just a tourist headed for Arizona.”

“But there’s no direct proof,” Pasquale said.

“No, there’s not. But the evidence shows that you’re in the area, and what happens? There’s some credence given to the rumor in people’s minds.” I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter if it can be proved or not. The idea is planted.”

“Christ,” the young deputy muttered.

“We’ve got a little ammunition,” I said. “We can guess that someone listens to our radio traffic. And it’s somebody who’s reasonably familiar with the county and the way traffic works. If the lab gets back to me with something interesting from the original letters, that’s another piece.”

Thomas Pasquale took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, finally exhaling with a loud sigh. “I hate this, sir,” he said.

“I don’t blame you. What I want you to do is start thinking and researching. I’ve looked over the logs, and I don’t see any consistency in the vehicles that you’re stopping, except out-of-staters lead the pack, with the greatest share going to Texas plates.” I shrugged. “That’s reasonable. Now I want to know who you see when you’re out and around. Don’t change your patrol habits. Stay heavy on 56 when you can, and stay on the air.”

“Do you think somebody else is hitting up on Mexican nationals and blaming it on me?”

“It’s possible, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. Why not just keep it quiet? None of the Mexicans are going to say anything…Hell, it’s a way of life for most of them when it comes to government officials. Why bother drawing attention to the scam with a bunch of dumb letters?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. Just keep your eyes open. I’ll talk to Bob Torrez about it and see what he thinks. And if you happen to see me parked off in the weeds when you’re down that way, pretend I’m not there.”

Deputy Pasquale gathered his hat and stood up. He was half a head taller than me and with the worry on his face no longer looked as if he were a twenty-year-old. “I guess I should ask, then,” he said.

“Ask what?”

“Two nights ago, down on 56. You were parked up on the mesa? You’d already received one or two of those letters?”

“Yes.”

“You thought there was something to them, sir?”

“I didn’t know what to think.” I reached out and gave him a paternal pat on the arm. “And when that happens, I go out and park in the dark somewhere, roll down the windows, and let great thoughts come to me.” I didn’t know if that answer satisfied him or not, but he nodded and settled the summer-weight uniform hat firmly on his head, the broad brim two fingers above the bridge of his nose.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” I said as he headed toward the door of my office.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, and touched the brim of his hat. He opened the door, and at the same time a muffled drumroll of summer thunder murmured off to the west.