Out of Season

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Bronco thumped over the last cattle guard, and Estelle steered onto County Road 43, taking us back to Posadas. We drove in silence for the first couple of miles.

During those infrequent moments when Martin Holman was feeling his administrative oats, he would gently jibe me about my habits-one of which was an aversion to the continual squawking and static of police radios. I routinely left them turned off…leaving the airwaves to the regular road deputies.

Cellular phones in each unit had been one of his solutions, and I suppose it made sense, unless an officer crashed into a tree while trying to punch in a number on one of those tiny pads.

I reached forward and turned on the two-way radio, keyed the mike and said, “Posadas, three-ten.”

Gayle Sedillos was on the air, and from the tone of her voice, I couldn’t have guessed the sort of afternoon that she had had with the federal contingent breathing down her neck.

“Three-ten, Posadas.”

“We’re ten-eight,” I said. “Ten-nineteen.”

She acknowledged without requesting elaboration, explanation, or ETA, as if it were a Sunday afternoon with blooming roses the only source of noise and excitement.

“What?” Estelle asked. She glanced my way and caught the grin on my face as I hung up the mike.

“Just passing thoughts,” I said. “Remember when J. J. Murton worked for us? The Miracle?”

“Sure.” She smiled but kindly refrained from comment.

“The man who actually asked, ‘Do you know what your ten-four is?’ over the air.”

“I remember that.”

“The Miracle was one of Holman’s greater triumphs,” I said. “I could never make either one of them understand that people other than the police listen to radio conversations.”

“You’ll miss Gayle if she and Bobby end up moving away somewhere.”

“I’m hoping they don’t,” I said. “I’m hoping they stay right here and continue the endless Torrez-Sedillos dynasty. Between the two of them, they’re related to half the county.”

“Nearer to two thirds,” Estelle said. “And we’ve got company.” She indicated the rearview mirror, and I turned around to see the dark Suburban coming up behind us. I recognized Neil Costace’s blocky shape behind the wheel. The lights flashed, and Estelle slowed the Bronco and pulled off on the wide shoulder.

“Where did they come from?” I asked.

“Parked in the turnoff to the boneyard,” Estelle said, referring to Consolidated Mining’s access road.

The Suburban slid in behind us, and when Walter Hocker stepped out, his face was grim. He stalked toward us, a manila folder in hand. I rolled down the window and waited. He appeared at the door and nodded at Estelle.

“What did you find out?” he asked without preamble.

“About what?”

A brief flash of irritation crinkled his forehead and then he leaned on the doorsill like a rancher looking for conversation.

“About anything at all, Sheriff.”

I could feel Estelle’s gaze boring into my skull. No doubt she remembered my exact words as we’d left the windmill.

“We just chatted with Richard Finnegan,” I said. “His wife is the one who saw the aircraft and heard the ‘backfiring.’” Hocker nodded impatiently. “We went out there primarily because of this photograph.” I turned, and Estelle snapped open her briefcase and handed me the folder. I handed the blowup of the block house to Hocker, pulled the pen out of my pocket and pointed. “That appears to be a shadow,” I said. “We think it’s of a person standing behind the building.”

Hocker pushed his dark glasses up onto his forehead and bent close, squinting at the photo. “Finnegan?”

“I don’t know. He says not.”

“You believe him?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Hocker turned his head and looked off into the distance, then tapped the photo. “Where’s the negative for this?”

“In our darkroom with our deputy,” I said. “She’s been working most of the day on this.”

“And so what did you find out there?”

“No footprints. Nothing to indicate that someone was there. But the ground is rocky and it’s harder to leave a trace than not. So I’m not surprised.” I reached over and pulled the evidence bag of.223 casings out of the briefcase.

“And these. Twelve rounds.”

“Son of a bitch,” Hocker muttered. He handed the photo back to me and took the bag by the closure. By this time, Neil Costace had ambled his way over to join us, preferring the view on Estelle’s side of the Bronco. “Two-twenty-three,” Hocker said, and nodded toward Costace. “Show those to him. And the picture.”

“The position of the casings is kind of interesting,” I said. I pulled Estelle’s briefcase across my lap like a desk and spread the field drawing she had prepared. “The location of the casings suggests a fan. If the rifle was anywhere near consistent in the way it ejects spent cases, the shooter would have been standing uphill from the block house. Thirty, forty yards or so.”

Hocker shook his head. “There’s no way to tell by that what direction the shots were fired from.”

“That’s true. I’m saying there’s a suggestion there. Nothing more.”

I watched Costace roll the casings this way and that. “South Korean,” he said. “Some of that surplus stuff.”

“You’re sure there weren’t more?” Hocker asked.

“Not that we found. And we swept the area thoroughly.”

He pursed his lips and regarded Estelle. “You’re very quiet,” he said. “What’s your take on all this?”

“Those cases weren’t fired recently,” she said. “They’re reasonably clean, but you can see traces of dirt in the crease around the primer. They’ve been on the ground for a while.”

“So they weren’t involved with this shooting?”

Estelle shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Convenient location, then,” Hocker said.

“Yes, sir.”

He grinned. “You think someone put them there to frame Finnegan? That someone figured we’d find them and put two and two together for the wrong answer?”

“No, sir.”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“Because if that were so, it would assume that the person who planted the cases knew what was on that film. It assumes that he would know we’d be out here, looking around in that very spot. It would assume that the person who fired the shot knew that the occupant in the airplane was taking photographs.”

“A lot of assumptions,” Costace said and handed the bag of casings back to her.

“Yes, sir.”

“So, just a hunter firing half a clip at a coyote?” Hocker persisted.

“Who the hell knows?” I said.

“Well, it gives us something,” Hocker said. “I want to see the rest of that film.”

“Follow us on in,” I said.

Hocker hesitated. “By the way, did Buscema get in touch with you?”

“Not in the last couple of hours.”

“He’s got a probable path for that bullet. They found the point of entry, to the right of centerline, just about where the belly of the aircraft starts to turn upward into the sides.”

“On the right side,” I repeated.

“The right. From there, it deflected off a structural member of some sort, fragmented, and at least one chunk found its way up through the back of the victim’s seat.”

“Did Buscema find any other pieces?”

Hocker shook his head. “Another fragment continued out the left side of the fuselage. He’s got evidence of that, too.” He paused. “Now, let me ask you something. How well do you know this Johnny Boyd character?”

I shrugged. “I’ve known him for twenty years. He doesn’t have a record, if that’s what you mean. He’s a hard-working rancher. Good family. His son’s a student at the state university. The only contact the department’s had with Johnny Boyd over the years was a property-line dispute he had six or seven years ago when the Bureau of Land Management traded for a piece of property that adjoins his. That was resolved.”

Hocker shot a glance at Costace, and I added, “Why?”

“Let me show you something. You might find it interesting.” He slapped the door of the Bronco with the palm of his hand and trudged back toward his own vehicle.