Heartshot

Chapter 8

Hewitt and I had arranged to meet at home for dinner, and he showed up just about the time the lamb chops turned to charcoal. I had forgotten about teenage-or near-teenage-appetites. He finished three chops to my one.

“You coming off a week-long fast, or what?” I asked.

“I think I got a tape worm or something,” he said. “You cook good, though.”

“Most people who live alone do. It’s either that or eat out all the time. I do too much of that as it is.”

“Your wife died eleven years ago?” He looked at me over the top of an ear of corn.

“Yes.”

“Airplane crash, wasn’t it?” He had done his research thoroughly, but I had no intentions of discussing the past-especially those few minutes long ago when the airliner had fought a wind shear and lost.

“Did you make any progress today?” I asked, ignoring his question. He glanced down at his plate, embarrassed, then shook his head.

“Not really. Well, maybe some. I don’t know. Tonight, maybe. I found out a couple places to check out. The burger place on Grande is one. I can probably even get me a job there. Kids hang out in that parking lot like flies on a dead dog. And there’s a place out in the National Forest, too. I don’t know just where.”

“You mean out at the lake? Up past the old Consolidated mill?”

“No, no. Way the hell and gone out in the forest. There’s some place where they can have campfires and a bunch of rocks keeps the fires out of view of the fire tower.”

“Oh.” I nodded and rescued another chop before they all disappeared down the human garbage disposal. “That’s out County Road 21. Turn on Forest Road 420. About a mile, and turn off on Forest Road 562. Big limestone outcrop on the south side of the canyon. They call it ‘the Rec Room.’ They don’t use it much anymore after the forest fire three years ago. That kinda spoiled the view. And the Forest Service sits on it pretty hard. If you get on the right road, you can’t miss it. All kinds of graffiti on the rocks around there. You got a map?”

“Yeah. But I got to work on getting somebody to take me out there. No way you’re going to let me take your Blazer, is there, Gramps?” He grinned widely.

“You got that right, punko.”

“Maybe I can just hot-wire it sometime.”

I ignored the thoughtful look on his face and asked, “Who’d you talk to, anyway?”

“I only found out this information after hours of resourceful digging.”

“I bet. Who?”

“I stopped by the library. One of the clerks seemed to know all about it.”

“If it was Mary Ellen Coburn, it’s because she has three high-school-age kids. Hefty gal with freckles?” Hewitt nodded. “I’m surprised she talked to you.”

“I was my most persuasive self,” Hewitt said and grinned. “And speaking of persuasive, you never told me your department had the best-lookin’ detective in the state. I saw her riding with Bob Torrez today.”

“You mean Estelle Reyes.”

Hewitt wagged his eyebrows. “How’d someone like her hook up with you guys?”

“She’s from Mexico, about five years ago. Graduated first in her class at the Police Academy in Santa Fe. Hell of a good cop. She does more good in plain clothes than in uniform… spends most of her time as our juvenile officer.”

“Plain clothes…no clothes,” Hewitt said, and grinned some more.

“And her fiancE will slice you thinner than salami,” I said.

Hewitt groaned and looked sickened. “Tough dude, huh?”

“He’s a vascular surgeon in Las Cruces.” I smiled pleasantly. “Keep your mind on your work.”

Hewitt nodded and held up his hands philosophically, then pushed his plate away and stretched like a contented cat. “God, that was good. I wish we could get sweet corn like that up in Gallup.” He glanced at his watch. “Got about two hours till dark. Guess I’ll roam a little, then maybe twist some headlights or something.”

“Twist headlights?”

Hewitt looked startled that I didn’t know. “Yeah. Twist ’em. You get a Phillips-head screwdriver, and when the cop goes in for coffee, or in the office or something, you twist the hell out of the adjustment screws on one headlamp.” He crossed his eyes wildly and cackled. “The cop car cruises around looking moronic. They can never figure out why the kids always know it’s them coming up the street.”

I looked skeptical. “And the cop doesn’t notice? They’re that stupid up in Gallup?”

“No, but, you’d be surprised. With the streetlights and all, it works pretty good with city cars. Not for the country, of course.”

“Of course. I can see that the younger generation of Posadas is going to profit mightily from your sojourn here, however short.”

“You betcha.” He stood up and shook his pant leg as if he had a dog attached. I glanced down and then did a double take.

“You’re kidding,” I said, pointing. He looked down, then up at me, puzzled. “An ankle holster?” I asked.

“Why not?” He pulled up the leg of his jeans. The little Smith amp; Wesson Model 19 rested in a suede holster with the Velcro strap just above his anklebone.

“You can run with that on?”

“Sure.”

“And you can get it out without dancing around on one leg like an awkward ballerina?”

“Sure.” He demonstrated, bending at the waist and pulling up his knee at the same time. One hand pulled pant leg, the other pulled S amp;W, all in one fluid, practiced motion. He snapped it back in.

“Huh,” I said, noncommittal. “I’ve seen ’em in the movies.” I started to gather dishes. “I don’t think I’d be happy with one.” Hewitt’s expression of polite amusement told me that he could imagine the result as well as I. Grab down, suffer back-muscle spasm, throw out trick knee, stagger sideways and sprain other ankle. Fall and land on left wrist, refracturing an old break. At least I would be left with a good right hand and the S amp;W for permanent pain relief.

“I wasn’t going to carry one at all,” Hewitt said, “but then I got to thinking.”

“That’s a good idea, thinking. And by the way, just for passing interest, I found out today that the father of one of the teenagers in that wreck purchased his own arsenal. His name’s Benny Fernandez. He owns the Burger Heaven you were talking about, down on Grande.”

“No shit? I mean, I know who he is, but he bought a gun?”

“No shit.”

“Who’s he going to blow away?”

I shrugged. “No one, we can hope. Perhaps it will rot in his closet until he gets tired of it and sells it.”

“What’d he buy?”

“A Beretta. The big kind. Like the military one.”

“Terrific.”

“He drives a white older model Cordoba, Yankee Charlie Xray one-thirty-six. He also owns a year-old charcoal-gray Continental, Charlie Delta fifty-nine-ninety. Keep an eye peeled when you’re floating around. I don’t know what he’s up to, but it isn’t quail hunting.”

Hewitt nodded and repeated the license-tag numbers, firmly planting them in his youthful memory. I added, “And a reminder about the Salinger kid. He’s mooning over something. Keep that in mind, too. I don’t think you’ll find him out and around much. He works at the home center days, but I don’t think he’s much of a night owl. But you never know.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to sleep for a couple hours or so, then cruise around some.”

“Don’t you have regular-shift deputies out?”

“Yes. Two on the road, four to midnight, and then one, midnight to eight.”

“But you still work all day, and then most of the night?”

“Yes.” I was about to say something more, but just shrugged. It never did any good explaining that work was also hobby, pastime, relaxation, and maybe even a little therapy. “If I see you twisting headlights, you’ll have your first experience trying to undercover yourself out of jail.”

He started with mock horror. “You’d do that, Gramps?”

“Certainly. Let them try to feed you. Probably bankrupt the county.”

***

I slept so hard I awoke soaked with sweat, feeling as if I’d been slugged. The old adobe house was dark as pitch, and I turned to stare at the digital clock on the nightstand. By squinting hard and really concentrating, I could make out that it was after ten. I got up, showered and put on fresh clothes. The hall light near the front door was on so that Hewitt wouldn’t stumble over the uneven floor bricks and break his neck. I left it on and went out. The air was velvety soft, black as pitch with no moon and no streetlights on my block. Not a breath of moving air stirred the cottonwoods that formed a thick umbrella over my house.

I slid into 310 and turned on the radio. It was silent. I almost pressed the mike to go 10-8, but decided against it. Miracle Murton was working, and if he knew I was out on the road, he’d do his level best to find something for me to do. Let him live in blissful ignorance…as usual.

Grande Boulevard dropped out of Posadas toward the east, and as I drove 310 out past the lumberyard, D’Anzo Chrysler-Plymouth, Laundromats, junk shops, tourist traps, and motels, and Benny Fernandez’s burger joint right in the middle of them all, I chuckled. There were about ten youngsters lounging around that parking lot, including a group of four who sat on the hood of a big 4-by-4 suburban. Leaning against the fender of that same vehicle, looking at home like the rest of them, was my “grandson.” Maybe he would do some good after all.

In another block, I had proof that the kid worked fast. The village police car idled out of a side street, another part-time patrolman at the wheel. The car was comically wall-eyed, its right headlamp skewed downward. I didn’t want to be on the radio just then, but someone would tell him before the night was over, I was sure. The village was his problem, not mine. The village department was tiny, but the cops were sensitive. We always had to be careful not to step on their turf, unless asked. My plan was to swing east, gradually taking in the top half of the county.

“Three-oh-eight, PCS. Ten-twenty?”

“PCS, three-oh-eight. I’m about three miles up County Road 43, northbound.”

I listened to the exchange with interest. Bob Torrez couldn’t help sniffing around the accident site. He wanted to find something as bad as any of us.

“Ah, ten-four,” Dispatcher Murton said, and there was a long pause while Miracle’s brain churned. Predictably, he then went through the same routine with Howard Bishop in 307. Bishop responded that he was twenty-one miles southwest of Posadas, which meant he was probably cruising through the little hamlet of Regal. Even Miracle Murton could figure out that Torrez was closer to home. “Ah, three-oh-eight, swing around and ten-sixty-two at Chavez Chevrolet-Olds.”

“Ten-four.” As it happened, there was little that we, or any department, could do about the folks who sat in front of their scanners, listening to our dull number routines. With a half-measure of diligent listening, anyone could know with fair accuracy what we were doing at any given time. That in itself wasn’t so bad, unless the person had the scanner in his car, which was illegal but convenient. Only the big metro sheriffs’ departments had good patrol coverage, especially during the night hours. One deputy, or even none, to cover several hundred square miles was not unusual for us.

On impulse, I swung around and headed north, intercepting County Road 43 just as Torrez flashed by. My radio barked twice as Torrez keyed the mike to acknowledge that he’d seen me. And now any chance was better than none. If someone roaming up on the hill was listening to a scanner, he now knew that both deputies were busy and that he was as safe as church. In a few minutes, I passed Consolidated’s mill. The road was deserted. I slowed down to fifteen, punched off the headlights, lowered the windows and turned off the air-conditioning. The radio crackled, and I reached down and turned it off, too. Smooth as silk, 310 purred up the road, and after a minute my eyes adjusted to the faint light cast by the single small bulb on the underside of the left front bumper-a light Holman liked to call my “perpetrator light.” Hell, it was rinky-dink, but it worked. It threw just enough light in this case to catch the orange center line of the macadam road. The quarter-moon was peeking over the mesa, and before long I could make out outlines here and there.

Two miles below the lake, I damn near rear-ended a parked car. I swerved just in time, not so much because they were almost on the highway but because the sudden shape had taken me by surprise. I could see, faintly silhouetted as I went by, two heads merged as one low on the passenger side. After continuing on a few feet, I stopped, knowing that the flash of my brake lights would spring the two apart. I backed up the Ford until my windows were even with theirs and swiveled the spotlight until it bounced off the hood of their car. I could see clearly the two young guilt-washed faces. The girl was Beth Paige, a kid who worked as an office receptionist for the Forest Service. The boy was a stranger.

I looked Ms. Paige in the eye and asked, “Are you all right, miss?”

It was hard to tell in the harsh bouncing glare of the spotlight, but I’m sure she blushed. “Yes, officer,” she said, and managed a sheepish grin.

I wasn’t too bad at reading faces, and hers told me things were fine. “You might find a safer place to park,” I said. The boy nodded, and had the good sense not to retort that it might be safer if I would turn on my headlights. The spotlight snapped off and I cruised 310 on up the road. I glanced in the rearview and didn’t see any motion. No point in appearing too eager to comply, I suppose.

A few minutes later, gravel crunched under the tires as I swung in the lake road. Even if it’s washed with a full moon, there’s nothing much darker to me than an old quarry. That night, there was no full moon. The water was just a dull, black, shadowless hole. With 310 blocking the road, I turned on the spotlight. The beam lanced out and touched rock palisades, water, trees…and shiny metal. The car was parked well back in the shadows, and I wouldn’t have seen it at all with normally aimed headlights. I didn’t linger with the beam, but let it pass on by. Even in the brief flash, I had recognized the car. Without rolling forward, I turned on the radio and reached for the mike.

“PCS, three-ten.”

Gayle Sedillos’s voice cracked back, bless her. She must have come in early, and had taken over from Miracle. I told her where I was and that I would be 11–96 with Yankee Charlie Xray 136. She wouldn’t bother to run the plate, since the number was on a small note on the bulletin board right above the radio.

“Ten-four, three-ten,” she said crisply. “Three-oh-eight, did you copy?”

“Three-oh-eight, ten-four.” Torrez sounded unexcited. “I’m ten-eight.”

I had ten minutes, or less. I was willing to bet my pension, such as it was, that Torrez was more than just “in service.” He would be on his way through town and up County Road 43, covering the ground a whole lot faster than I had. If the two neckers were still parked on the shoulder, his jet wash was just a few minutes away from rocking their locked lips apart.

People park in the midnight timber for several reasons, but only one or two fit Benny Fernandez that night. If he was out cheating on his wife, I was going to be embarrassed and so was he. But I didn’t even consider that the occupants of the Cordoba might include the steely-faced Mrs. Fernandez.

A Forest Service access road allowed me to circle around so that I could park a few yards behind Fernandez’s Cordoba. The duct tape plastered over the patrol car’s dome light eliminated the blast of light when I opened the door. I walked slowly toward the Cordoba, letting my eyes adjust as much as they could. Benny knew I was coming-unless he was blind drunk or dead. And he would have heard me idle up behind him, as quiet as the night was.

When I reached the back fender, I stopped, flashlight still off. Cigarette smoke wafted out his open window.

“Benny? It’s Bill Gastner.”

“How you doin,’ Sheriff?” he said.

“Fine. Crack your door so I can see, will you?” He did, and the dome light flooded on. I moved up and relaxed a little when I could see both his hands. One held a sandwich of sorts, the other a plastic cup filled with coffee. “Long night?” I asked pleasantly.

“I figure this is as good a place as any,” he said.

“For what? You got insomnia?” I tried to keep my tone light, but it was hard. I could see the black butt of the Beretta. The rest of the gun was covered by his right leg.

“You’re out late too,” he said. “You want some coffee?” He hefted the cup and looked up at me.

“Sure.” I watched him reach for the thermos bottle and the cup-lid. He started to pour and then heard the noise at the same time as I did. “Boy,” he said, “somebody is sure pushin’ it hard on that highway.”

I decided it was time to cut the gab and get on with it. “That’s Deputy Torrez coming up the hill,” I said. Fernandez looked sharply at me. “Standard procedure,” I added. “A cop doesn’t usually go talk with a man with a gun unless there’s some backup…even if they’re all good friends.” Fernandez finished pouring and handed the coffee to me. I laid the flashlight on the roof and took the cup. “Benny, what are you doing up here?”

Fernandez took his time. I had always thought of Benny as something of a marshmallow. He had reminded me of all those Mexicans in the “B” Westerns, the folks who wore white cotton and were always being beaten and whipped by the bad guys. In the end, they rose up, armed with scythes, axes, and garden hoes. Maybe that was Benny’s mood just then. There was a certain hardness about the man. I saw the muscles of his cheek twitch, and he looked down into the dark depths of his coffee cup.

“Is there something illegal about sitting out in the night, Sheriff?” he asked.

“No. And there’s nothing illegal about carrying a gun in this state, either, Benny. Like the one under your leg there. But I kinda start wondering what you have in mind. It’s hard to see rabbits in the dark. It’s illegal to jacklight deer. This isn’t good snake country.” I paused and sipped my coffee, keeping my eyes on his hands. “But as long as the weapon isn’t concealed and loaded at the same time, you can walk down Grande Boulevard with it. You might make a few folks nervous, just like you’re making me nervous right now. You’re hunting, Benny, and that makes me nervous. Who?”

Fernandez reached down and picked up the big Beretta. I wasn’t familiar with the gun, but the hammer was down. Then I saw that the trigger was far forward, and that meant it was double action. I got nervous again. He turned it this way and that in his hands thoughtfully. “You know, Sheriff, for two, maybe three days after Ricky died, I could think of nothing but my own loss. I guess you could say I was feeling sorry for myself. Ricky…I’m sure he felt nothing.” He snapped his fingers. “A fraction of a second, maybe. No more.” He tapped the rim of the steering wheel with the Beretta’s barrel. “But then your people found that bag of cocaine under the seat.” He stopped and shook his head. “For the past few days, I’ve been thinking, Sheriff. That much, it’s worth a lot of money. It’s more than just-what do the kids call it now, a little hit? I mean, somebody is dealing heavy. Maybe not like in L.A. or New York, where they bring it in a ton at a time. I still don’t believe it was my Ricky, but it was in his car…my car. I believe he knew it was there, and ran because of it.”

“Maybe.”

“And I tell you this. I know from when I lived in Phoenix. Once the dealers move in, they move in for all they can take. That cocaine you found was not the last of it. Sometime, those bastards will try again.”

“And you plan to be there with that thing when they do?”

Fernandez made a funny little noise that sounded like an effort to laugh. “People who deal in kilos aren’t Boy Scouts, Sheriff.” We both turned our heads as Bob Torrez’s car turned into the lake road.

“Hang on a minute, Benny.” I walked quickly back to my car and fumbled the radio. A minute later, we saw Torrez turn around and head slowly back down the hill. “I think you can appreciate that what you’re doing makes us all a little nervous, Benny,” I said when I returned. “I mean, this is our job, not yours. You’re not trained for it, you’re too involved to think straight. Now let’s suppose a couple cars pulled in down there by the lake and parked door to door. What would you do?”

Fernandez just stared ahead at the imaginary cars. I continued, “I mean, it’s dark, Benny. Are they just necking? Having a beer? Telling dirty jokes? What? And you’re telling me that you’re going to charge down there with a fifteen-shot semi-automatic pistol at the ready? How are you going to know who they are? Are you going to threaten them and force them all out of their cars and then search them? And if they bring suit against you, you’ll probably lose. And I mean lose more than you can imagine. I don’t know how many civil suits you’ve ever been involved in, but take my word for it, avoid them. And what will you do if they just laugh at you, Benny? Shoot them all? Then you’ve got manslaughter charges against you. And if they’re drug dealers, Benny, what will happen is this. We’ll find what’s left of you lying on the gravel down there the next morning.” I stopped. He was looking down at the gun. “Use your head, Benny. When I came up here, I did it knowing I had backup. I had a light. You don’t even have that. If I hadn’t recognized Yankee Charlie Xray one-three-six, I would have called in the plate and had a bunch of information before I stepped out of the car.” Spouting out his license plate like that made a dent. He looked up at me, a little sorrowfully. “And, Benny, I’ve done this before. I don’t think you have. We don’t want to see you hurt, or anyone else.”

He nodded and offered the Beretta to me, butt first. I shook my head. “That’s not necessary, Benny. Take it back to wherever you bought it tomorrow. For now, just unload it and shove it under the seat. Go home and get some rest. Let us work. Hell, I may be fat and old, but I’m pretty damn good at what I do. The deputies are better still. We’ve got some leads. The sheriff told me today that he’s planning to bring in a specially trained dog. The beast sniffs drugs, believe it or not. Even if you just smoked a single joint as much as forty-eight hours ago, this critter will nail you. We’re going to publicize that, and some people are bound to get nervous. The Drug Enforcement Agency is working with us.” That was a lie, but Fernandez didn’t need to know. “Something’s going to break, believe me. Soon.”

He nodded and sighed heavily. “You just feel so helpless sometimes,” he said.

“Sure.” I groped for something to lighten his spirits a little before sending him down the hill. “And my bet is that when this is all over, it’ll be obvious that Ricky wasn’t involved as anything other than maybe an innocent bystander. You’ll be proud of him.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yup. I know what kind of a home he came from.” Even if I didn’t buy that one, Benny Fernandez did. He looked grateful. I pressed the advantage. “I’ll pull back so you can get out of here, Benny. There’s other things I need to check up here. You go on ahead. Go down and get some rest. Being the midnight vigilante isn’t your style.” He laughed and sounded a little relieved.

“Thanks, Bill. I’ll get rid of this thing tomorrow, first item of business. Sell it back to George Payton.”

“I’m sure he’ll give you back every nickel,” I said.

“A man can be stupid sometimes,” Fernandez said.

It was only in retrospect that Benny’s last line really haunted me. If I had been able to replay that scene, I would have grabbed that Beretta at the first offer. But when I next saw the weapon, it was in a plastic evidence bag.