Double Prey

Chapter Thirty-three

Two elderly women had asked her to move suitcases down from the attic, a cramped dust-laden cavern with impossibly low, rough ceilings. She ended up dragging the suitcases out by crawling backward on her stomach, the wood splinters from the floor tearing her uniform blouse. The two suitcases became entangled in an impossibly long garden hose, unyielding after the freezing temperatures. She jerked awake. The three inch numerals on the clock said 2:13 AM She lay quietly for a moment, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had been in the dream suitcases.

And how does a murder happen in a cave? That was a heavy suitcase of puzzle pieces.

To her surprise, Bill Gastner hadn’t been much help, other than to categorically deny that Mexican cartels had anything to do with the killing of Eddie Johns.

“That’s not their way,” he said when the two little boys were occupied helping Irma between main course and dessert. “They’re KISS operators if there ever was. ‘Keep it simple, señor. ’ If they had wanted Johns dead, they would have popped him down in Juarez, or in a quiet alley in El Paso, right then and there. They wouldn’t travel all the way up to Posadas County so that they could crawl after him into a cave.”

“Inspecting their real estate?” Estelle had posed.

“Nah.” Gastner waved a hand in dismissal. “What for? There’s no point. Eddie Johns had nothing to sell but an idea. The land wasn’t his. The cave wasn’t his. And it wasn’t even his idea, for God’s sakes. Maybe he had some contacts for weapons or crack dealing, but I doubt it. Eddie Johns was more talk than anything else.”

He leaned back in his chair, patting his rotund gut and looking wistfully toward the kitchen. “Somebody in the neighborhood took a shot at Freddy Romero,” he said, voice a whisper. “Bender’s Canyon isn’t the sort of place that attracts casual tourists, sweetheart, but it’s amazing how many human beings there actually are in a couple square miles. Jumpy hunters, ranchers, bird watchers, BLM, the list goes on and on. Maybe somebody lay in wait, maybe. And maybe boom! Bobby says it’s a bullet fragment, and he’s never wrong about things like that. But unfortunately,” and he folded his hands in front of him, “you don’t have squat for evidence. What little you have says that’s what happened. And if that shooting is related to the body in the cave, then we’re looking for someone local, sweetheart. Bet on it. Someone’s got himself a secret. Or had one. He got edgy when Freddy’s story hit the newspaper, and more so when he saw him snooping around.”

The boys reappeared with the cherry cobbler and toppings, just seconds after Teresa Reyes had said, with considerable acid, that more of that dark topic didn’t belong at the dinner table.

Someone local. Estelle listened as that thought rolled around in her head for the rest of the evening. It stayed there through dessert, through Francisco’s concert, through small talk and late evening coffee. It stayed there long after Bill Gastner and Irma Sedillos had left, and the house fell quiet.

Local. If taken literally to mean local residents, then the list was short. Herb Torrance owned the pasturage southwest of the mesa, all the way out to Bender’s Canyon Trail. Freddy Romero had died on Herb’s property at the bottom of the arroyo. Miles Waddell owned the northeast side of the mesa, including the cave where Freddy’s apparent efforts at spelunking had taken place-and in all likely hood where Eddie Johns had met his end. Both men knew Eddie Johns-and both men knew Freddy Romero.

“That’s a short list,” Estelle whispered to the darkness. Her husband twitched and stuffed his face even farther into the pillow, but two fingers found her shoulder and tapped gently. “I’m just mulling, querido,” she whispered. “Don’t mind me.” The two fingers tapped once more and curled away. In a moment, his breathing grew deep and regular.

Who else could be considered local? A few Bureau of Land Management employees who roamed the area on a regular basis from their field office in Deming. Members of her own department on occasion, especially the sheriff himself, who could give Bill Gastner a run for his money as a walking, talking gazetteer of Posadas County. A few patrons of Victor Sanchez’ Broken Spur Saloon, who might wander up the canyon once in a while.

Spread the net a little wider and it would catch high school kids who sought secluded spots for partying. Gus Prescott, who sometimes paid attention to his failed ranch and sometimes didn’t. He’d driven his old road grader over to Waddell’s and bladed a ragged scar up the side of the mesa. Maybe he’d known Eddie Johns, maybe not. His daughter had been dating Freddy Romero-Casey Prescott, as delightful as any child who walked the planet.

Estelle turned over with a quick toss, enough motion that her husband’s breathing snorted out of rhythm and then settled again.

Unless he was both supremely confident and a supremely good actor, Miles Waddell was telling the truth. He hadn’t dirtied his trim hands with the murder of Eddie Johns. Bill Gastner had suggested starting the suspect list with Waddell, but it wasn’t promising.

Herb Torrance had the volatile temper, no doubt the opportunity, the savvy. But why would he bother? The fantasy of a mesa-top observatory certainly wasn’t his dream. He would gain nothing from the project except the possible nuisance of more traffic, more folks with cameras, more voices drifting down from the mesa top on the still night air.

Freddy Romero. Estelle closed her eyes against the glare of the clock, trying to recall the last time she had talked with the teenager. Perhaps a month or more, but she couldn’t remember the circumstances. A hand raised in recognition on the street when they passed, or from the field in the dust of a four-wheeler. She remembered one instance, driving by on Twelfth, when she had seen the Romero brothers, along with their father, with truck parts spread on a tarp on the driveway apron.

If Freddy had talked with someone that fateful Thursday, it could have been when he first parked his truck-no four-wheeler tracks led up to the Borracho Springs campground. Or, it could have been on the two-track below the cave. Or…

Estelle rubbed her forehead with frustration. Backtracking the boy’s movements from that awful moment when he’d hurled into the arroyo was going to be a hit-or-miss undertaking. Her hand froze, the light in the room just enough for her to see the shadow of her fingers. She replayed the memory of seeing the boy on his four-wheeler, raising dust along the highway, and knew exactly where to start.