Out of Season

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Leo Burkhalter was puzzled, but finally I could hear the shrug of surrender in his voice.

“Whatever Mrs. Holman wishes,” he said. “You don’t want me to call her?”

“If you want to make a brief call expressing condolences, that’s fine. You might tell her that you talked to me and that whatever she decides is fine with you.”

“Well, it isn’t fine with me, but I suppose I can do that. What I meant was, do you think I could talk her into something appropriate?”

I laughed. “What’s appropriate, Leo, is what Janice Holman wants. Not what you and I think she should want.”

“Did she say why she wouldn’t go for any formal contingent of officers?”

“No. And I didn’t ask. It’s none of my business. Or of yours, either.”

“God, I’d forgotten how grouchy you can get, Bill. All right, that’s the way we’ll play it, then. By the way, is the commission going to appoint you as interim sheriff?”

“I guess. They say that’s what they’re going to do. I told the chairman that I’d fill the spot until November.”

“They didn’t ask Detective Guzman?”

“Nope. They should have, though.”

“Damn right. No offense, but your county government’s got the brains of pissants. And while I’ve got you on the line…you’re listed as a supervisor on an application that we received not long ago, so I don’t see the harm in asking. Tell me about an officer of yours. One of your sergeants. Edward Mitchell.”

“Well, son of a bitch. He applied with you?”

“Uh-huh. He lists June first as a date he’s available.”

“He’s one of our best, Leo. And right now, I can’t spare him. Do me a favor and stall on that application for a while. Are you shorthanded?”

“Aren’t we always? Anyway, he’s my top choice. I got a bunch of applications, but they’re all either misfits, rookies just out of the academy, or halt, lame, and blind. I could use somebody with Mitchell’s experience and training.”

“So could I, Leo. At the rate things are going, we’ll have two people working come fall-me and the dispatcher.”

“You’ll survive. What the hell happens in Posadas, anyway?” Burkhalter said.

“Well, for one thing, the coroner dug a chunk of high-velocity brass out of the gentleman who was flying Holman’s plane. That’s why they went down.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“What, did Holman shoot him? As I remember, you did something like that once, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Nothing like that. The bullet came from the ground.”

“Christ. Just a stray shot, eh?”

“Looks like it.”

“What a goddam waste. Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you just holler.”

“Stop pirating my best and brightest, for a start.”

Burkhalter laughed. “He’s the one that applied. I didn’t recruit him. Do me a favor and cut him loose as soon as you can, all right?”

I promised all kinds of cooperation I didn’t feel like delivering, and when I hung up, I damn near cracked the plastic of the phone. With a curse, I pushed myself out of the late sheriff’s chair. “This is a really fine week,” I muttered, and yanked open the office door.

The darkroom was down in the basement, a cool fortress full of dust-covered pipes and endless cartons of obsolete documents. Where plaster had fallen away, the walls showed the old, square-cut limestone that formed the foundations.

I rapped on the darkroom door with a knuckle and waited. After three minutes, I was ready to rap again when I heard the door bolt draw back. Estelle looked out around the black-rubber curtain that hung inside the door as extra protection against stray light.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“Linda still has a couple more to print, but let’s take the ones we’ve got,” she said.

“Do they show anything?”

“Well, that depends,” Estelle said, and I followed her back upstairs.

She spread the collection of eight-by-tens on my desk. With two exceptions, they were sharp and clear. “The camera moved on these,” Estelle said, handing me the first two. “From that distance, the focus would be set on infinity. Everything should be clear and sharp, but he couldn’t hold the camera still against the jouncing of the plane. They’re the first two on the roll, so he took them early in the flight and maybe didn’t use a high enough shutter speed. All of the others are clear. Like maybe he made some adjustments when he realized how rough the ride was.”

I picked up another photograph, a composition in muted shades of gray. “So what’s this? It looks like prairie.”

“It is,” Estelle said. “If you look right there, just to the west of the two-track, you’ll see a little area with what looks like livestock.”

“Sure enough. Pictures of cows.”

Estelle grinned and handed me another. “This is an enlargement of just that area, from the two-track west to the cows.”

“I’m surprised at the quality,” I said.

“A good camera and high enough shutter speed to compensate for most of the bouncing around,” Estelle said.

“And those aren’t cows, either.”

“No, sir, they’re not.”

“They’re antelope. See that one?” I pointed at one animal that had twisted its head around, probably at the sound of the airplane. “Nice set of horns, and its white butt stands out clear as can be. But so what? The range is full of them. Maybe Martin had decided to take up hunting and he was casing the place.” I handed the photo back to Estelle. “What else is there?”

“Several shots of open prairie, with a fence running east-west. The fence is so clear you can almost see the barbs on the wire.”

“And the range is full of fences, too.” I turned the photo this way and that. “And that looks like sheep fencing. There’s a grid pattern. Maybe it’s just the light.”

“And finally this photo, taken looking west. There’s some glare from the side window.”

“That’s the Boyd place?”

“Yes, sir. I think so.”

I sat down, still holding the last picture. I looked at Estelle. “Huh,” I said. I wagged the photo at her. “This is what we’ve got. Maxine Boyd tried to reach Martin yesterday morning at home. He was out, and Janice offered to take a message. Mrs. Boyd apparently didn’t think it was important enough, or she didn’t want to tell a third party. She called Martin’s office sometime later and did talk with the sheriff.”

Estelle nodded and slid the photos into a bundle. “And the sheriff tried to contact Doug Posey, of Fish and Game. He wasn’t successful, but Posey later returned the call.”

“And then Martin talked his brother-in-law into going for an airplane ride,” I said. “All of the other photos just show prairie? You got fences and antelope, probably cattle, too. No other features?”

Estelle separated one photo from the pack. “This one has a windmill, fences, cattle, and trees.” She handed it to me. The windmill’s shadow was stark against the soft background.

“Did Linda do a blowup of this?”

“She’s going to,” Estelle said.

“The windmill’s not in operation,” I said and pointed. “See how its rudder is turned over to the side? And it looks like the tank is dry.” I squinted and tried to pick out detail. “The cattle really stomp the ground to nothing around those water holes, don’t they?” I said. “And what’s this?” I pointed at a dark outline, partially obscured by a rock outcropping north of the windmill.

“It looks like the remains of an old building,” Estelle said. “Linda was going to try for an enlargement of that and the windmill area.”

“And then these pointless pictures of prairie. Open land and fences. That’s all that’s here.” I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “Martin, what the hell were you up to?”