One Perfect Shot

Chapter Twenty-one

I might not have been able to wear out my passenger, but I’d done a fair number on myself. I’d talked with nervous, apprehensive folks long enough that if I kept it up, I’d be next. What I really wanted was a dark hidey-hole where the phone wouldn’t ring, where I could growl and prowl and ruminate, sheltered from the blistering, late afternoon sunshine. I could never guarantee the phone unless I unplugged the damn thing, but I could hope. A good green chile burrito grande at the Don Juan de Oñate would provide fuel for the rumination, gas for the prowling and growling.

Dispatch accepted my out-of-service announcement without comment. I noticed no particular eagerness on Estelle Reyes’ part to finish her day, but I figured that she had her own thinking to do, including instructions to return in the morning for the dayshift with dispatcher T.C. Barnes. She’d had a hell of an introduction to Posadas County affairs, and dispatch would be a good change-up. Barnes was steady, happily married to Ethel, a young lady whose old-fashioned name had always tickled me. She was the only Ethel I knew. The two Barnes youngsters, Kit and Paul, enjoyed school to the point where I actually had an autographed Paul Barnes fingerpainting on my office wall, created nearly a decade ago. I’m sure the little kid had confused me for someone else-Santa Claus, maybe, but what the hell. The painting was a splash of color in an otherwise monotonous institutional scheme.

T.C. could be counted on to give the new hire a thorough orientation during his shift. He might not be entirely immune to having someone who looked like a damn movie star sitting at his elbow all day, but it would be a good test of his concentration.

By the time I finished my dinner and headed home, comfortably overfed and feeling sleepy, the village had settled into the evening.

Cruising under the street lights, I let the car barely idle along, ten, fifteen miles an hour on a four lane street that headed east, then took the intersection south on Grande. A handful of youngsters, all ready to face their first day of school, lounged in the parking lot of Portillo’s Handi-Way. If they were bored before the first day, it was destined to be a long year. One of them glanced my way-Luis Fernandez, whose father Benny owned the Burger Heaven on Bustos-but the kid was far too cool to raise a hand in greeting or even recognition. Somewhere in that group of five teenagers there might be an interesting crumb of information, but at that moment I was too tired to pursue the opportunity.

I wasn’t a fan of night lights. They played hell with my bifocals. With some relief, I headed south away from the commercial glitz of what passed for a downtown in Posadas, crossed under the interstate and a block or two south turned left onto Escondido Lane, then an immediate right after the Ranchero Mobile Home Park to Guadalupe Terrace. My own old adobe huddled secluded on five acres, nestled under a spread of old cottonwoods that blanketed out moon and starlight. The nearest streetlight was a single unit a hundred yards away over the trailer park’s driveway.

Before getting out of 310, I found the house key so I wouldn’t have to fumble in the dark. Closing the car door gently so as not to awaken all the spirits, I stood for a moment with one hand on the front fender and listened to the night. Traffic on the interstate was never light, but in this secluded spot it was far enough away that the noise blended into meaningless background that my tinnitus had no trouble covering.

At the trailer court, someone was being needlessly loud, and the voice drifted across, thankfully incomprehensible. I navigated the stone walkway around the garage by feel. The front door loomed in front of me, and I snapped on the tiny key-ring flashlight just long enough to find the keyhole.

The heavy, hundred year old hand-carved door-once gracing the entrance of a now crumbled Mexican mission-yawned open on noiseless hinges, and as my left boot touched the saltillo tile of the foyer, the damn telephone welcomed me home.

I didn’t have an answering machine, having long ago decided that talking to a detached, electronic, soulless voice was an affront. Eight rings later, it was still ruining the silence, and I made it to the kitchen without breaking my neck over obstructions.

“Gastner.”

A chuckle greeted that. “You always sound like you want to punch someone,” Sheriff Salcido said.

“Not so, Eduardo. I just had a sumptuous dinner, the day wasn’t an entire waste, and I’m drowsy enough to imagine that, if not interrupted, I might manage some sleep. What’s up?”

He laughed gently again. “Us old guys march to a different drummer, no?”

“I’m too tired to march at all.”

“It’s been a long day. What’s your impression of Reuben’s niece after this? Grandniece,” he corrected.

“Sharp kid. Not blabby, which is a blessing. She has some good ideas, but I damn near had to pry ten words out of her. I’d still like to know the real reason that she wants to work for us. With her background, her grades, one of the big metro departments would snap her up. Maybe even the FBI. Certainly the INS or the Border Patrol.”

“Not everybody wants grande,” Eduardo mused. “What you just said…I could ask the same thing of you, and look at where we are. Or me. Did I ever tell you that I was once offered the chief’s job in Veracruz?”

“Is that a fact.”

“Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had accepted.”

“They’d have a chief who talked like a gringo.”

“Ay, caramba,” he whispered. “I have to work on that.” In point of fact, Eduardo Salcido never had to worry about being mistaken for a gringo, even in downtown Mexico. “So…what’s tomorrow?”

“I have Ms. Reyes spending the day with Barnes in dispatch. She needs to familiarize herself with the home turf-records, communications, the lockup, the whole ball of wax.”

The sheriff made a little humming noise as if something in all that didn’t sound just right to him, but changed the subject without pursuing it.

“What did you think about the Deckers’ story?”

I leaned my rump against the counter and closed my eyes. “Hugh heard a single gun shot at three minutes after two. Seconds later, he saw someone, a single person, walking west along Highland toward a parked vehicle. Hugh thinks the person was carrying something, but can’t say what. He certainly couldn’t say that it was a rifle. Maybe a walking stick. He didn’t see Larry Zipoli, but saw the road grader.”

“Three minutes after two,” Eduardo whispered. “That’s what he told me, too. Nice that he can be so exact.” He sounded skeptical. “Tony Pino called me, by the way.”

“And?”

“He wonders what’s going to happen to Zipoli’s personnel records.”

“He does, does he?”

Eduardo’s quiet chuckle followed that. “Our boy had trouble with the bottle, no?” Of course the sheriff knew.

“That’s the understatement of the year, Eduardo. Larry Zipoli was a goddamn lush. Tony Pino should have fired his ass after the first incident ten years ago. Instead, Zipoli got a letter in his file. And more letters. And still more. What’s with that? You know Pino better than I do.”

“He’s a soft touch, Jefito. Sometimes it’s hard.”

“Pretty simple, I would think. ‘Take a hike.’ And then it’s over and done with.”

“Nothing is ever that simple.”

“So tell me what I’m missing, Sheriff. What makes it complicated.”

Silence greeted that. I could hear the Salcidos’ television set faintly in the background. After a moment, rapid-fire Spanish followed as Eduardo only half covered the receiver. Juanita-I assume it was the sheriff’s wife who cuddled in his lap-replied with a burst of her own. That went back and forth for a few minutes, and I made my way to one of the kitchen stools, propping my elbows on the counter.

Eventually Eduardo came back on the line, in English.

“You know Tony’s sister?”

“His sister?”

“Well, he’s got seven of ’em, I think. But Efita?” Another string of Spanish conversation with Juanita followed that. “My wife says it’s not Efita.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

The gentle laugh was either aimed at me or maybe he was tickling Juanita. I felt like a goddamn voyeur.

“Crystalita,” Eduardo said finally. “That’s who it was. Remember her?”

“Not a clue.” Every once in a while I was surprised to discover that there were limits to what I knew about the folks of Posadas, New Mexico.

“She almost drowned in the arroyo down behind María. Let’s see, I don’t know. It would have been maybe fifteen years ago. Maybe longer.”

“Was I here then?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then it was more like eighteen years, Eduardo. Or longer.” I admit that I was racking my brains for that memory. I took a good deal of pleasure in knowing history, and even something as common as an arroyo flood in rural New Mexico should have rung a bell. I could lead a tour for arroyo fans. I could show them cuts in the prairie a dozen feet deep and four times wider that had been cut in one night by one of our characteristic frog stranglers.

“Crystalita and her daughter.” I heard more Spanish in the background. “The daughter. That was Efita, and I remember that she was only four at the time. You know, Crystalita was just nineteen, too. She was engaged to marry Hernán Muñoz.”

“Him, I remember,” I said. The Muñoz name was one of the ones engraved on the new veterans’ memorial in Pershing Park, one of the Posadas contributions to Vietnam. I’d attended the dedication of the new memorial, and spent a few minutes reading every name. That’s all it took to put some of the names into my selectively porous memory file. I could remember a name heard in passing a decade before, but not where I put my goddamn eye glasses.

“You knew him?” Eduardo asked incredulously.

“Just his name on the Pershing Memorial.” By this time, I was regretting not turning on the coffee maker. Between Eduardo’s storytelling pace and my own sympathy for history, this narrative could go on for hours. There was a fresh pack of cigarettes up in the cabinet above the fridge, but I wasn’t that desperate yet.

“So,” I prompted.

“You know that big arroyo just east of the power line down that way? It runs down behind María, and takes that turn to go under the highway. That’s where Crystalita got caught. Dark, por dios it was dark that night, raining and thunder and lightning like I’ve never seen. Crystalita, she missed the little curve in the highway right there, then hit the bridge. That truck just catapulted, Bill. Down she went, and the water in the arroyo was already running high. Hijo, what a night.”

“So she and the child drowned?”

“No, but so close. That truck was wedged by the water, cab nosed down, the water comin’ up, the flood crushing that truck against the abutment. She couldn’t get the little girl out of the child seat, you know. The way the cab was tipped, with all the water…and dark,” Eduardo’s voice fell to a whisper. I could imagine his wife lying there on the sofa, eyes huge as she listened to the memory. “With the truck lights out, the only illumination,” and he damn made a melody out of those five syllables, “could have been the lightning, Jefito. Ay.” His sigh was huge.

“The first driver to stop was Larry Zipoli, Bill. Just seconds later, on his way back home from I don’t remember where. And I don’t remember if he saw the truck’s lights go off the road, or what, but he stopped. First thing he does is slide down to the back of the truck. He sees it isn’t going to be long before maybe the water is going to dislodge it. He can’t reach either window, so he goes through the back. It’s one of those sliding deals, you know.”

“So he gets ’em out,” I supplied.

“He does. You know, Crystalita wasn’t very big. More child than a big woman. And the little girl, well, you know. She’s like a little rag doll. So Larry’s got one under each arm and there it goes. The water rips that truck right off the abutment, and they go under the bridge. How he saved them, nobody knows. A state trooper comes along and stops, and he finds Larry crouched on the concrete abutment just under the roadway, the water right at his knees. He’s still got the two girls, one under each arm, trying to move against the water. They found the truck a quarter mile downstream the next day. Just a ball of useless metal.”

“Tony Pino’s sister,” I said. “And her daughter. Zipoli saved ’em both.”

“That’s right. Saved them both, jefito. There’s all kinds of newspaper clippings about it, you know.”

“I would think so.” The rush of publicity would have been intense, but would fade with time just as quickly. And eighteen years was damn near long enough for a new generation who would never have heard of the rescue. The whole frantic, panic-filled night, with the roar of rampaging water and the bellowing of the storm, would become unimaginable, the stuff of old legends.

I had arrived in Posadas county the year after, and might have heard mention of the rescue, might have heard someone say, “Yeah, hell of a storm. Some guy rescued a couple girls down by María that night. Quite a deal.”

Quite a deal, indeed. Larry Zipoli had taken a job with the county shortly thereafter, even before the grateful Tony Pino had become highway superintendent. Years floated by, and even when the man had grown into an irresponsible lush, Tony Pino hadn’t been able to lift a hand against his behavior…behavior maybe even sparked by that impossible night. Larry Zipoli had certainly been a true hero, but his nightmares afterward-after he’d had time to think about it-might have been epic.

Larry and Marilyn had been married at the time, their youngest daughter maybe six years old. “Interesting that Marilyn didn’t mention the episode to me,” I said.

“That was a long, long time ago,” Eduardo said, his voice soft like a good storyteller wrapping up a fable. “Maybe she doesn’t like to think about what might have happened.”

“Like her husband staying sober and fit after the incident, finding satisfaction leading the Fire Department’s Search and Rescue Squad,” I said without much sympathy.

“Or swept down the arroyo,” Eduardo added, just in case I might not have thought of that by myself.

“So Pino sees his debt to Larry Zipoli as beyond settling. Is that what we’re supposed to think?”

“That could be, Jefito.”

“Well, the debt’s settled now. I’m sure Tony feels badly for Marilyn, but there’s not much he can do for her. Where does Pino’s sister live now, by the way?”

“Well, that’s the sad thing. She got married to a fellow in Lordsburg. And this time it was a snowstorm over by Show Low. A semi jack-knifed on the interstate and burned, and that was that. She and her husband and the two kids. Along with a couple from Indiana. That was about five years after the night in María. Just a real sad thing, Jefito.”

I suppose that Tony Pino had his reasons to be uneasy when I walked out of his office with Larry Zipoli’s records. Why people feel they have to do what they do is always a challenge to figure out, but it was obvious to me that Tony didn’t want Zipoli’s reputation smeared-nothing to overshadow that daring, selfless episode.

“Marilyn had filed for divorce, Eduardo.”

“Ay. I didn’t know that.”

“Zipoli was providing alcohol to some of the local youngsters. Most of the time on the trips to Elephant Butte. Driving the boat under the influence apparently wasn’t uncommon.”

“And the park police never caught him, I guess?”

“Apparently not. It’s a big lake, and not very many of them. He was lucky.”

“And we never caught him either,” Eduardo said philosophically. “Why didn’t she just take the boat keys away from him?”

“One of life’s great mysteries, Eduardo. Sometimes wives can’t be that assertive.”

He fell silent again. “So what now, Jefito?”

“I wish to hell I knew. There’s an interesting connection that I want to check, but I don’t hold out any great hopes. You know Mike Zamora?”

“Sure.”

“He was the one who brought out the new hydraulic hose to Zipoli at the road grader. It’s also interesting that Mike’s brother Louis hangs out at the Zipolis from time to time, working on the ski boat. That’s where I’ll go with it tomorrow. Talk to some of the kids, see what little tidbits I can shake out.”

“It’s a small town, Jefito.”

“Well, maybe I can make that work for us. These little connections make me nervous, Eduardo. It’s likely that Mike Zamora is one of the last people who saw Larry Zipoli alive.”

The sheriff made a little humming noise. “That family has lived here for a long time, Jefito. The Zamoras.”

“That makes a difference?”

Eduardo chuckled. “It’s just the way it is, you know. They’ve been here a long time, lots of things happen.”

“That’s an interesting motive, Eduardo. Lots of things happen. I can hear the defense attorney telling a jury that.”

“They’ll hear some pretty strange things.” He sighed. “I don’t know. It’s frustrating. You’ll let me know what you find out?”

“Of course. How’d your day go?”

“Well, interesting, I guess.” He fell silent for a moment. “I got this bee in my bonnet about that place, you know.”

“What, out on Highland?”

“Sure. I got some little questions, and it isn’t clear how to find out the answers, you know. You either got the killer driving around, looking for a specific target, or you don’t…you got a chance thing. If he’s looking for Larry Zipoli, how does he know where to find him? I mean, Zipoli works all over the county with that grader. How are you going to know, unless you have the county jobs schedule. I got to wonder.”

“Someone like Mike Zamora would know, obviously.”

“Hijole, I hate to think that. I tell you what…let me go talk with Mike come morning. Just sit down with him and see what he has to say. That okay with you?”

Eduardo Salcido hardly needed to ask my permission, but I could see the advantages. I made Mike Zamora’s boss nervous, Eduardo didn’t.

“Is there anything you want me to tell Tony when I’m out there?” the sheriff added.

“Not a damn thing,” I said. Eduardo Salcido’s roots were lifelong in the community, and like crabgrass, there was no way of knowing just where the tendrils went. “We need to know everything that Mike Zamora saw and said when he talked with Larry Zipoli out at the work site. If Zipoli seemed worried about anything-apprehensive, watchful, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t think he ever saw it coming,” the sheriff said.

“Not until the last seconds,” I replied. “That’s what we have to wonder. Did he know why the trigger was being pulled.”

For a few minutes after I hung up the phone, I wondered what it was that Sheriff Eduardo Salcido had actually wanted…other than trying to figure out what rocks I was turning over when he wasn’t looking. But that was something I admired about Eduardo. He could accept almost anything with a philosophical shrug of the shoulders. I could imagine him arresting his own grandmother-were the wonderful woman still alive-and saying as he snapped the cuffs closed, “Well, abuela, I sure hate to do this.”

It was easy to understand why Tony Pino had every reason to be upset and apprehensive. He would worry about that personnel folder and what I might do with it, and I doubted that it had anything to do with Larry Zipoli’s memory, or with protecting the grieving widow. The superintendent himself would never survive an exposé in the Posadas Register. Tony’s own gross negligence was clear in this case, and the superintendent knew it…enough so that he probably invented scenarios of me turning the records over to the local paper, even though that would never happen.

He should have fired Larry Zipoli years before. But if he thought that the sheriff would intercede on his behalf during an investigation, he didn’t know the sheriff very well.