One Perfect Shot

Chapter Twenty-seven

Talking to Mark Arnett would have involved a trip to Deming, where he was estimating a roofing job. Mom Mindy was in her office at the rectory of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and I wasn’t in the mood to confront her. She ran the church with an iron fist, leaving Father Vince Carey free to save souls. Mindy knew everything about church operations, about every member of the congregation. But first, I was interested in what young Mo had to say without mom hovering over his shoulder.

We cruised around the block to north Fourth. No one appeared to be home at the Arnett casa, and I parked just around the corner on Blaine with a clear view of Zipoli’s place and the various neighbors, including Jim Raught’s address. A short stroll took me across the street, and I knocked on front, side, and back doors of the Arnett’s trim little place. Nothing. The garage was closed and dark.

As I recrossed the street, I was close enough to the office to use my handheld on car-to-car, where there were fewer eavesdroppers. “PCS, three ten.”

“Go ahead, three ten.”

“PCS, find out what vehicles are registered to Mark or Mindy Arnett.” I spelled the last name for him and provided the address. Deputy Robert Torrez’s oldest sister was manager of the local Department of Motor Vehicle office, and on several occasions she had made investigations a whole lot easier than us trying to stumble through the computer’s innards to find what we wanted.

“Ten four, three ten.”

Back in the car, I dug the Posadas phone book out of the center console. Rebecca Pasquale was listed at 313 South Tenth, just a few blocks south of Bustos, the main east-west drag through the village. She worked at one of the dry cleaning establishments, and her ex-husband Manny tried his best in Las Cruces. The last time I had seen Manny, he was selling newspapers at one of the major intersections near the plaza.

But it was the Pasquales’ cycle-riding son, Thomas, who interested me at the moment.

I’d like to claim that brilliant detective work located the kid. Not so. We were rolling across the old irrigation bridge, headed for the intersection of Twelfth and Bustos, when I saw the bike rider. Dressed in bumble bee Spandex, with helmet low over his eyes and hi-tech riding glasses reflecting the sun, the kid blew through the stop sign, weaved around first one car and then another, and sprinted across Bustos, taking the right hand lane westward. I was sure he didn’t see us-by that time, my county car had drifted into the shade of the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant.

As he passed directly in front of us, I recognized Tommy Pasquale, focused on the highway in front of him, oblivious to traffic from the side roads. Maybe his peripheral vision was gecko-sharp. He didn’t look my way, but powered west. Bustos eventually left the village and became the pothole studded state highway 17, heading westward out of Posadas County.

“One of our boys,” I mused, and watched the kid crank up to speed. Traffic was light, of course-other than a few ranchers or lost tourists, there was little reason to take this particular route. A high school kid playing hooky might head out to the desert for some personal reflection. Maybe. I had had intimate experience with four teenagers when my own brood worked their way through the impossible years, and deep reflection wasn’t a common course of action. Tommy Pasquale was riding as if he needed to burn out the kinks.

When the certified speedometer in the LTD touched twenty-one miles an hour, I was pacing the kid, holding fifty yards behind him. Twenty-one may not seem like light speed, but young Thomas was burning the calories. I’d read enough sporting magazines to know that maintaining anything over twenty miles an hour on the flat and level-and with a hint of head wind-took conditioning and muscle. How long this kid could keep it up was anyone’s guess, but his whole body spoke determination.

The young man never looked behind him. He hunched into the breeze, hands down on the drops, pumping like a machine. Keep that up, and in an hour, he’d be in Arizona.

“Let’s see what he has to say,” I said, and reached for the switch on the radio console. I waited a moment until an oncoming pickup truck towing a stock trailer rumbled past east bound, and then waited again until a long stretch of guard rail slipped by. I lit the roof rack and touched the siren’s yelp mode for a single whoop. That won the cyclist’s attention. His rhythm broke and he cranked around on the saddle to look at us.

I pointed at the shoulder, and he collected his balance again and paid attention as he slowed without turning off the pavement. In a moment he twisted his feet sideways to pop the pedal clips and drifted to a stop. He hopped off and lifted the bike from the macadam onto the grass-dotted shoulder, setting the machine down as carefully as if it were made out of glass.

The county car’s tires crunched off the pavement, cutting through the grass, goatheads, broken bottles and all the other crap that lines our nation’s highways. No wonder the kid was so careful. I lifted the mike.

“PCS, three ten is ten six with a bicyclist, mile marker 34, State 17.”

“Ten four, three ten.” T.C. Barnes didn’t ask what I was doing, but the ten-six request meant we wouldn’t be interrupted unless a storm broke loose somewhere in the county.

“Always,” I said to Estelle Reyes. “No matter how inconsequential, no matter how innocuous. Always keep dispatch informed, especially when you’re going to be out of the car.” Do as I say, not as I do. There were many times when I was loath to blab over the air the details of what I was up to but a rookie didn’t need to start out that way.

Tommy Pasquale watched the performance, standing on the shoulder side of his bike, one hand on the bars, the other on the saddle, probably wondering what he’d done to warrant a traffic stop. I turned off the roof rack, leaving the four-ways on. As I stepped out of the car, he took off his helmet and dark glasses, a courtesy that impressed me.

“Good morning, sir,” he said carefully, and that impressed me even more.

“It is that,” I replied. “You apparently haven’t heard that the minimum vehicular speed on all paved roads in the county is now twenty-five miles an hour? I clocked you at twenty-one.” His face went blank, and I laughed. “Just kidding, Mr. Pasquale.” I stepped far enough off into the bunch grass that I could keep an eye on traffic, should there be any. I let the kid wonder how I came to know his name.

“This is Estelle Reyes, new with the department. We’re doing a little tour this morning, and when I caught sight of you back there crossing Bustos, it reminded me that we had wanted to chat with you.”

He reached out a gloved hand and shook hands with Estelle. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. A husky, powerfully-built kid already breaking six feet tall, Tom Pasquale ran a hand through his rumpled, sandy-brown hair as if concerned that the attractive young lady might catch him at something less than his best.

“Thomas, I wanted to talk with you about Larry Zipoli,” I said, and the kid grimaced, his hand stopping at mid-skull for a second.

“Aw, jeez,” he said, sounding like a teenager from 1955. He dropped his gaze to the grass around his fancy cycling shoes. “That is so bad.”

“You knew Mr. Zipoli pretty well?”

“Sure. Mr. Z was cool.” He glanced at Estelle as if her ears might be too tender for all this. “Well, sort of, anyway.”

“Why ‘sort of?’”

“Well, you know.” I waited for him to finish the thought and could see the march of conflicting emotions across his face. He looked back toward town.

“When was the last time you talked with him?” I prompted.

“Well, it ain’t been too long.”

I smiled. “Up on the mesa the other day?” He looked puzzled at that, so I added, “On the county road out of town?” The light dawned.

“Yeah, me and some of the guys…talked with him for a few minutes. He was workin’ the bar ditch. And he had some trouble with the grader. That old thing leaks like crazy.”

“Some of the guys?”

“Yeah. You know. A couple of us were takin’ the hill.”

The hill. Only an attraction for the young, I thought. Pump up the mesa for five miles, even the paved portion of County Road 43 so steep that the effort threatens to explode your heart, sweat drenching the Spandex, tires cutting groves in the hot asphalt. What fun. Of course, if you were a teenaged adrenalin junkie speed-freak-and I don’t mean the chemical-then maybe the trip down the hill was a fair trade. Glorious wind roaring in the ears, wheels a blur, that patch of sand maybe strategically placed at the apex of a corner…

“Who was with you?”

“Just some of the guys.”

“Just some?”

“Like a couple of the guys.”

“But today you’re solo.”

He ducked his head and glanced back toward town again as if the truant officer might be hot on his trail.

“I’m surprised you’d miss the first day of the first week, Thomas. Kinda tough to slip behind from the get-go, don’t you think?”

“Not much going on, sir.” He made a face. “I was going back this afternoon to catch Spanish and metals.” He shrugged. “Anyway, nobody does anything these two days. Except in Spanish and metals.”

“They hit the ground running, do they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you talked with Mr. Zipoli up on the mesa road, did he mention any kind of troubles he might have had with anybody? Any arguments? Anything like that?”

“No, sir.”

“He didn’t seem worried or apprehensive to you?” The youngster shook his head. “How long did you guys spend there?”

“Just a few minutes. Mr. Z was finishing up something he had to fix on the grader. I think he had a leak somewhere in the hydraulics that was getting worse. We just shot the breeze for a few minutes.”

“Did he have any refreshments with him?”

“Sir?”

“Did Mr. Zipoli offer you anything to drink? It was a hot day, after all.”

“No, sir.” The two words were simple enough to say, but Thomas Pasquale had trouble with them, and his eyes flicked toward Estelle, as if maybe there’d be an ally there. The kid wasn’t a practiced liar.

“What, a can of beer or something like that?”

Pasquale took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

I let that answer hang in the bright sun for a moment. “You’re starting for the Jaguars this year.” I knew the starting line-up, and knew that as a ninth-grader two years before, Thomas had warmed the varsity bench for the first few games, then played a little, and then, the previous year as a sophomore, had hit pay dirt. Big and husky for his age, he loved the tackle business.

“Practice this afternoon, right?” I added.

He nodded. “I won’t miss it, sir.”

“I’m not concerned that you might,” I said easily. “Of course, if Coach Page had driven by while you were hitting the suds with Mr. Zipoli, you wouldn’t have to worry about it, would you?”

The stricken expression on the boy’s broad face gave me a surge of satisfaction. Maybe he’d think a little, now and then. I took a deep breath, head tipped back, examining the kid’s face through the lower choice of my bifocals. “You know, son, at this point, I just don’t care about whether or not you and some of your pals shared a brew with the county road grader operator. Now, if I had driven by while that was going on, Mr. Zipoli would be facing all kinds of charges. At the very least, he’d have lost his job. Maybe even faced some jail time. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” The words came out as a strangled whisper.

“But Mr. Zipoli is dead.” I reached out and tapped the boy gently over the left eyebrow with an index finger. He didn’t flinch. “Somebody put a rifle bullet right through the windshield of his road grader and blew his goddamned brains all over the inside of the cab.” An exaggeration, of course, but it had the desired effect. “That’s what interests us at the moment.”

The kid’s face paled several shades. “I don’t know anything about what happened, sir. I really, really don’t.” His gaze didn’t waver.

“I don’t guess that you do, Thomas. But we’ll talk with every soul we can think of who might have crossed paths with Larry Zipoli just before he was killed. Right now, the list is damn short, son, and you and your friends are included. Who were you riding with the other day?”

“Just the guys, sir.”

I grinned. “Look, son, I know you don’t want to rat anybody out, okay? I understand that. And I already told you…at this point, I don’t care if you guys had a goddamn orgy up on the county road, and wobbled home stinkin’ plastered. You follow me? We already know that Mr. Zipoli had beer with him…maybe some of the hard stuff as well. We already know that. So.” I sighed. “I don’t care what you and your buds did-or did not do-for a few minutes up on the mesa yesterday. But I do need to know who else was there that afternoon. I need to talk with them, but they won’t know you’re the one who gave me the names.” I reached out a hand, made a fist, and thumped him gently on the shoulder. “One way or another, Thomas. And it’ll save a whole lot of valuable time if you’ll tell me what you know.” I thumped him again, just a bit harder.

“See, the thing is, Thomas, the killer is still out there somewhere. Now, exactly why he or she pulled the trigger, we don’t know. But we will know, Thomas. I guarantee you that. Larry Zipoli showed you guys some good times. You owe him for that.”

For a long moment, Thomas Pasquale occupied himself with a bit of loose handlebar grip tape. He smoothed the frayed end in about eight directions, but his mind had no idea what his hands were doing.

“Jason and Mo,” he said finally. “It was just the three of us.”

“Jason Packard and Mo Arnett?”

“Yes, sir. Just the three of us.”

“Mo and Jason…they’re into this as much as you are?”

Thomas grinned, showing a chipped tooth he’d probably earned sometime when he’d taken up aviation with his bike. “Jason more so, Mo hardly at all. We’re trying to get him on the team. Me and Jason.”

Jason Packard, a junior classmate of Pasquale’s, looked like a cyclist-medium height, not an extra ounce of pudge, hair cropped short, a thin, hatchet face that would split the wind. I didn’t know the boy very well, other than being able to pick him out of a crowd when reminded of his name. I knew his stepdad, Lance Frank, a man who was joining the legion of unemployed as Consolidating Mining collapsed. Frank had fallen for Jason’s mother, decided that ranching was the life for him, and made a hash of the whole affair-alienating Jason at the same time.

Mo Arnett had made it to his senior year without drawing the attention of the Sheriff’s Department or the village police. I could pick him out of a lineup as well, but that was the extent of my background on him. A little on the pudgy side, but medium everything else, as I recalled. Medium height, looks, intelligence…nothing to make him a standout. The latest page of my memory had Mo Arnett lighting M-80’s, or cherry bombs, thrilling his neighbors.

“Of the three of you, who’s the fastest?” I asked.

“Jason,” Thomas replied without hesitation. “I can outsprint him for a little bit, but not for any distance. And on hills, forget it.”

“How’s Mo do?”

“He’s…” Thomas paused and made a face. “He doesn’t try very hard. But his bike sucks, so that’s part of it. He’s got this old Schwinn three-speed that weighs a ton.”

“Not a hot rod, eh.”

“No, sir.”

“How often does he go out with you?”

“Just a couple of times.”

“He’s not in school today, Thomas. I’m surprised he isn’t out with you.”

“I don’t know where he is, sir.”

“You didn’t talk with him this morning?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ll see him this afternoon?”

“Hmmm…might.”

“Where were you guys headed the other day when you stopped to chat with Zipoli?”

“We were thinking of the mesa top, but Mo was walking more than he was riding. Jason was way out ahead-he said he’d wait on top. So me and Mo were just makin’ it work. I was going to try and take Jason on the hill, but then Mo couldn’t keep up, and I didn’t want to just take off and leave him. I knew Jason wouldn’t wait, ‘cause him and Mo…” He stopped, as if embarrassed by this gusher of information.

“Him and Mo what?”

“They don’t get along so good any more. They used to, I guess, but…”

“So you were riding with Mo, trying to coax him along.”

“Yes, sir. And then we came around that corner there above the old drive-in and Jason was stopped, talkin’ with Mr. Zip.”

Mr. Zip, your friendly circus clown. “For how long?”

“Just a few minutes.”

I leaned back and rested my rump on the front fender of the county car, crossing my arms over my chest. “He offered you guys some refreshment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You accepted?”

That prompted a long, uncomfortable silence. Self-incrimination wasn’t Tom Pasquale’s favorite sport.

“I guess,” he said finally.

“What, a beer or two?”

“Me and Jason shared a beer. Mo didn’t.”

“Really.” That was interesting, peer influence being the super-power that it was.

“No, sir. He was workin’ on his bike, and rode on up the road a few feet. Something with his chain, but I don’t know what. I mean, what’s to go wrong with a chain? It’s either on or it isn’t.”

“What did Zipoli talk about?”

“Oh, just stuff, you know. He wanted to know if I was going to get a job with the county when I graduate.”

“And are you?”

Pasquale frowned in disbelief. “No, sir. I don’t think so.”

“And that’s it?”

“He mentioned that he’d be taking a trip over to the Butte with the boat some Sunday comin’ up. That’d be cool.”

“Indeed. So no mention of any arguments? Nothing like that?”

“No, sir.”

“And then you went on up the hill.”

“Yes, sir. Mo went on ahead some while we was talking, working on his bike, but it only took us about ten seconds to catch him.”

“You went all the way to the top?”

“Me and Jason did. Mo turned back at the intersection with the paved road. That’s a nice coast back down into town.”

“And the two of you-you and Jason-went on to the top of the mesa.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was that the last time you saw Mr. Zipoli?”

He nodded silently and then shook his head. “Is there anything I can do, sir?”

“You’re doing it,” I replied. I fished a business card out of my shirt pocket and handed it to him. “If you think of something else, don’t hesitate to call me. If you remember something that Zipoli said to you, or you hear some rumor at school. Any little nugget.” I pushed away from the car. “We’re in the information business, Thomas.”

He tucked the card into a nifty little plastic container that took the place of a wallet.

“And stop ditching school,” I added. “That’s a given. If I need to talk with you again, I want to know where to find you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jason’s not with you today either? You’re flying solo.”

“He had to go to Cruces with his grandma for an eye appointment.”

“And Mo? You don’t know where he’s at?”

Thomas shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since…Tuesday morning? When the three of us went riding. If I saw him today, I was going to talk with him about a great bike deal for him. Jason’s got this older Peugeot he wants to sell. It’d be a whole lot better than that heap he’s got.”

“Maybe it’ll work out.” I turned to Estelle. “Anything you need to know?”

She’d been working with her notebook, and now regarded Thomas Pasquale curiously. I didn’t expect a flood of questions, but maybe one or two. She snapped the book closed. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“Then we’re off,” I said. “Pedal safe, son.”

“I’ll try to remember the minimum speed,” he laughed.

“And stop signs,” I added. “Stop actually means just that. Even for bikes.”

“Yes, sir.”

He lifted the bike back onto the pavement, and by the time Estelle and I were back in the car, Thomas Pasquale was already a hundred yards down the highway.

“So, there we go,” I said. “Tell me what you think.”

“Well, that’s twice,” Estelle said, and didn’t amplify the thought as I keyed the mike.

“PCS, three ten is ten eight.”

Dispatch acknowledged and went back to sleep.

“Twice what?” I asked.

“When Mo Arnett was having fun with the fire crackers, he made himself scarce when Larry Zipoli came home for lunch. No chit-chat, no greeting. According to Mr. Raught, Mo ran and hid. This time, the three boys come upon Mr. Zipoli out in the country, under relaxed conditions. Two of the boys stay and chat, even share a beer. Mo makes himself scarce again, heading on up the road while he monkeys with his bike.”

I regarded the young lady carefully, damn impressed. “There could be dozens of explanations for that,” I said. “Or not.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If we assume that Mo Arnett was uneasy in Larry Zipoli’s company, then it would be interesting to find out why. Who knows what goes through a kid’s mind.”