Out of Season

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I licked dust off my lips and regarded Estelle Reyes-Guzman as she drove back toward Newton.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

We thumped from gravel to pavement at the same time we caught a first glimpse of the “Baca” sign as we came around a row of abandoned, flat-roofed buildings that marked the last vestiges of Newton’s suburbs.

“You’ve always told me that it’s the little things that finally come together to finish a puzzle, sir,” she said. “Something was important enough to Maxine that she tried to contact Sheriff Holman twice yesterday, once at home and once at the office. To me, that’s important.”

“And there are a hundred explanations, too,” I said. “Anything from door-to-door bible salesmen to a family spat that turned ugly.”

“But she didn’t say anything last night at the crash site.” She glanced over at me and then turned the car into the small parking lot in front of Baca’s. As she pushed the gear lever into park, she said, “She and her husband were there most of the night. You said so yourself. She could have talked to you, or to one of the deputies, any time she pleased. She could have called me at the office in Posadas. She didn’t do any of those things.”

“Maybe the problem resolved itself, whatever it was.”

“Maybe. This is the other thing that bothers me. A shot was fired from the ground. If the shot was intentional, it might have been one of a hail of bullets. Maybe only one struck the plane. Maybe it was a single, well-placed shot.”

“A single, extraordinarily lucky shot,” I said. “Or it might have been an accident.”

“It might have been. But so far, no one has turned up anyone who was in that area at the time. It seems big, maybe, but the general area where Philip Camp’s plane was circling was really pretty small. It’s logical that the shot was fired by someone who slipped out of the area without being seen, or it was fired by someone in the area who just isn’t talking.”

“I can understand that whoever it was, he might be reluctant to jump forward and volunteer that information,” I said. “If there was a passel of kids from the various ranches, then that’s a possibility. But the population of that area includes the Boyds…that’s Johnny, Maxine, and Edwin. Their only son is in Las Cruces, at school.”

Estelle opened her door, but made no move to get out of the vehicle. “And the Finnegans have no children,” she said. “Geographically, the only other family who lives within any reasonable distance is the Kealeys. The road into their ranch is on down east of here. Their place is just outside the Posadas County line. In order for any of them to be in the vicinity of the crash site, they’d either have to cross the Finnegans’ or the Boyds’ place.”

“Unlikely,” I said.

Estelle swung her door wider and turned sideways, as if to slide out. She stopped, one hand on the door and one on the steering wheel. “There’s something there, sir. I know there is.”

“Meaning what? That Martin Holman was overflying the area because of something that was concerning Maxine Boyd? Something that she wanted to talk to him in particular about?”

“Yes.”

“And the next connection to consider is whether the person who fired the shot knew who his target was.”

Estelle slid out of the car. “That’s going to be the tough part,” she said. “I’m going to find some iced tea. Do you want anything?”

I shook my head. No sooner had Estelle gotten out of the car and closed the door than the radio squawked, and she halted in her tracks.

“Three-ten, Posadas. Ten-twenty.”

I picked up the mike. “Isn’t that Linda?” I asked, and Estelle nodded. “And why does she want to know where we are? Gayle should have said something. She knows better than to ask that over the air.” I frowned and pushed the button. “Posadas, this is three-ten.”

“Three-ten, can you ten-nineteen?”

“Can I?” I mumbled without keying the mike. “Ten-four, Posadas. ETA about twenty-five minutes.”

“There’s a woman here who said she needs to talk to you, sir.” I looked heavenward, wishing that Gayle Sedillos was standing more firmly at Linda Real’s elbow. “A Mrs. Boyd.”

I swore and rapped the mike against the dashboard sharply. “Ten-four,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

Estelle was in the car and pulling it into reverse before I’d slammed the mike back in the bracket. “She’s trying, sir,” she said.

“Goddam broadcast our business all over the county,” I said and shook my head. “She should have used the phone, anyway.”

The car hit the pavement with a chirp of tires. “And it might be nice,” I added, “if we didn’t poke along, now that the entire world knows what we’re doing.”

From Newton to the Posadas County Public Safety Building was 34.7 miles. We had covered two thirds of that distance when the radio barked again.

“Three-ten, Posadas.”

“Now what?” I muttered and fumbled the mike off the bracket. It was Gayle Sedillos on the air, sounding crisp and formal.

“Three-ten, cancel ten-nineteen. Subjects have left the office.”

“Ten-four,” I said, puzzled. Estelle slowed the car a bit and I looked at her. “She apparently didn’t want to talk to us very badly.”

As we passed the Posadas Municipal Airport on the outskirts of town, I saw activity near the hangar, but my attention was drawn away as a blue-over-white Jeep Wagoneer drove past us headed west.

“That’s Maxine Boyd,” Estelle said and slowed to pull onto the shoulder so she could do a U-turn. We had to wait for an oncoming pickup truck to pass before we could swing around. Johnny Boyd was at the wheel of the truck. As he drove by, he smiled and lifted a forefinger in greeting.

With a protest from the tires, Estelle turned around and accelerated, pulling in close behind Boyd’s truck. I could see a handful of oncoming traffic in the distance, and for almost a mile, Boyd drove as if he were unaware of our presence.

Finally, at a turnout for one of the State Highway Department’s stockpiles of crushed stone the brake lights on Boyd’s truck flashed and he pulled over. I expected Estelle to do the same, but instead, she accelerated past, and in another half mile, we were on Maxine Boyd’s back bumper. There we stayed for several minutes.

“She knows you’re here,” I said as the woman showed no inclination to stop.

Estelle nodded and looked in the rearview mirror. “And so does her husband.” Sure enough, Johnny Boyd’s truck trailed us by a dozen car lengths.

“If she doesn’t stop, we’ll just follow her back to the ranch,” Estelle said.

“Stop her right here, if you want to,” I said.

Estelle shook her head. “I don’t want to use the lights, sir. I want to keep this as friendly as possible.”

“The Boyds are friendly,” I said. “As long as it’s coincidence that they’re both downtown at the same time.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Estelle said. “Let’s just be patient and see what happens.”

What happened was that Maxine Boyd ignored us until we reached Newton. Then she pulled into the parking lot in front of Baca’s. Estelle parked on the far side of the Wagoneer, and Johnny Boyd swerved in so that he was angled toward the Wagoneer, fender to fender.

Mrs. Boyd didn’t get out of the Jeep, but her window was rolled down. Johnny Boyd eased himself out of the pickup and sauntered around the front end, then leaned an elbow on the hood of the Wagoneer. The body language wasn’t lost on me. If we wanted to talk to his wife, he’d have to move.

“How you doing?” I said. Without it being offered, I walked over and took up position with my elbow on the Jeep’s hood, too. Estelle was messing with paperwork in the patrol car and hadn’t gotten out.

“I hope you folks got more rest than we have,” I said and pushed my Stetson back on my head. “We needed to see if anything’s jogged your memory”-I turned and nodded at Maxine Boyd as well-“if you folks heard anything the afternoon of the crash. If you heard anything unusual. Even earlier in the day.”

“Unusual? Like how?” Johnny Boyd asked. He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

“Well, we’ve had at least one report saying the engine on that plane was backfiring pretty badly. That gives us a little something to go on. It looks like they might have been having trouble of some kind.”

“If they did, I never heard it,” Boyd said. “You know, I never saw that plane go down. I was up here in Newton just about that time. Right inside the store here. I didn’t know what all the ruckus was until the traffic started to show up and cut tracks through my pasture.”

“Was your wife home?” I asked. Estelle had gotten out of the car and had her clipboard in hand. The expression on her face was thoughtful as she walked around the back of the Wagoneer.

“Well, yes, she was home,” Boyd said and turned. By that time, Estelle was at the driver’s-side window of the Wagoneer. She unclipped a photograph from the board and handed it to Boyd, resting the clipboard on the windowsill as she waited for him to look at the photo.

“What’s this?” he asked and turned the photo against the glare from the sun.

“We were wondering if you could tell us where that windmill is,” Estelle said. “And, ma’am, if you were home, we need to know if you saw or heard anything unusual.”

Maxine Boyd shook her head. “I had that darn old television on,” she said. “And now I sure wish I hadn’t. But I did, you know.”

“So you didn’t hear the aircraft at all?” Estelle asked. Maxine glanced at the clipboard and shook her head.

“Well,” Johnny Boyd said, “this here is the windmill out by what we call the block house. It isn’t in this picture, but just off to the north”-he held the photo toward me and indicated with a stubby index finger-“there’s the remains of an old stone building. Damn thing was built to last forever, thick as those walls are.”

“From your place, where would that be?” I asked.

“East and a bit north. It’s over on the back side of Dick Finnegan’s place.” He shrugged and handed the photo back to Estelle. “There’re old windmills all over. Most of ’em have had the guts pulled off the tower. This one here, though, it still pumps from time to time.” He grinned ruefully. “There ain’t just a whole lot of water ’round about.” He glanced at his wife. “So what’s the significance of that? You want pictures of old windmills, I can show you a couple dozen.”

“We don’t know yet,” Estelle said. She hesitated as if weighing just how much she should say. “This photo was taken by Sheriff Holman during that flight Friday afternoon.”

Boyd grunted. “Maybe he was a collector of windmill pictures.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Estelle had handed the photo to Maxine Boyd, and the woman frowned as she studied it. “This is where Dick was trying to dig that pond, isn’t it?” she asked her husband.

“No, not there. He was thinkin’ of putting one in over at William’s Tank. But he gave up,” Johnny said shortly.

“Gave up?” I said.

Boyd shrugged and took the photo from his wife. He glanced at it briefly again and handed it to Estelle. “Dick wastes his time in all kinds of strange ways,” he said. “There wouldn’t have been any water to put in the tank even if he finished digging for it. I guess after a few hours on the dozer, he reached that same conclusion. The way this soil is, it would never have held water anyway. He’d have to line the tank somehow. Bentonite, or plastic, or something. Not worth the trouble for what little water that mill puts out.”

“Wasn’t he going to-” Maxine started to say, but Johnny Boyd cut her off.

“I understand that they’re going to put that plane back together,” he said. “Down in one of those hangars at the airport.”

“That’s right,” I said. “They’re transporting the wreckage this morning.” I grinned. “The detective and I thought it might be a good idea to stay out of their way.”

“What do they expect to find?”

“That’s just it,” I said. “None of us know what we’re looking for. We’d kind of like to have some woodcutter come out of the trees and say, ‘Hey, I saw the whole thing.’ But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Boyd snorted in derision and stamped out his cigarette. “If you found somebody who’d tell you that, nine times out of ten they’d get it all screwed up, anyways.”

“You’re right, but it’s more like ninety-nine out of a hundred,” I said.

“Who told you about the backfiring thing?” Boyd asked. “Or is that privileged information?” He smiled thinly and rummaged in his shirt pocket for another cigarette.

“Mrs. Finnegan,” I said, and Johnny Boyd’s reaction was immediate.

He looked heavenward, then at his wife and grinned. “Christ almighty,” he said and shook his head, chuckling. “She might have told you that the airplane was being chased by a squadron of UFOs, too. Her elevator don’t go all the way to the top floor, that’s for damn sure.” He pointed the cigarette at Estelle’s clipboard.

“That the only picture the sheriff managed to take?” he asked.

“No,” Estelle replied. “There are others, but they don’t show much of interest.” She paused and then said, “Fence lines, that sort of thing.”

“Huh,” Boyd said. He slapped a hand on the fender of his wife’s Wagoneer. “Well, if you need anything, you folks just holler. There’s almost always someone to home. I guess maybe you talked to Edwin already.”

“Yep,” I said and glanced at Estelle. “He was in Drury at the time of the crash, so that’s not going to help much. And who knows,” I said, pushing myself away from my leaning spot on the Jeep’s fender, “we may never know just what happened, or why.”

Boyd chuckled. “I’ll tell you one thing that’s for damn sure true. If you keep those feds around here long enough, they’ll make up a story that fits, whether it’s anywhere close to what actually happened or not. You know how that goes.”

“They’ve got a job to do, like everyone else,” I said.

“Yeah, well,” Johnny said, then shook his head with disgust and dropped the subject. Estelle had turned and apparently said something to Maxine, because the woman nodded briefly before Estelle walked back to the patrol car.

“You just keep ’em away from me,” Johnny said, and I regarded him with interest.

“They’ll talk to you if they think it’s necessary, Johnny. That’s just the way things go,” I said.

The last thing I wanted was to enter into an argument with Johnny Boyd about federal agencies. When it came right down to it, what he thought one way or another didn’t matter much. So I settled for, “Thanks, folks,” and a tip of my hat. As I settled into the car, Estelle was rummaging around in the back seat. Both Boyds had pulled out and left Baca’s parking lot by the time she slid back into the front seat.

She held the clipboard out to me. On it, in inch-high letters, she’d printed neatly: Do you need to talk to me privately?

“She nodded that she did, twice,” Estelle said. “So she knows something that either she doesn’t want her husband to hear or that he already knows and doesn’t want to tell us.”

“Maybe so,” I said.

“And one other thing,” Estelle said as she tucked the clipboard back under the stack of paperwork that filled the center section of the front seat. “No one told him that we’d been talking to his brother.”

“Lucky guess,” I said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a scanner in that rig of his. Half of the ranchers do, along with CBs, cell phones, and God knows what else. If he heard my estimate of how long it was going to take us to get back to the office and then saw us coming in on the state road, he could have put two and two together.”

“I wish we could,” Estelle said and slapped the steering wheel in frustration.

“So how are you going to arrange to meet with Maxine Boyd?”

“First I’ll try the obvious thing. I’ll give her a phone call.”

“That’s not too private.”

“It’ll work. The phone’s in the kitchen. I’ll call right at dinnertime.” She lowered her voice an octave. “Hubby at table, eating steak.” She turned to me and grinned. “He won’t get up to answer the phone. She will.”

I grimaced. “You read too much psychological stuff.”

“It works, though. Watch.”