Prolonged Exposure

Chapter 16

When we returned home, I inspected the temporary plywood replacement for my bathroom window and decided to call Andy Sanchez the next morning to have a new frame installed. That took ten minutes. I was tired but not the least bit sleepy, and I finally settled in my leather chair in the living room.

Camille settled on the sofa next to the television, the prime minister’s life near at hand.

“I was thinking of going back on Saturday,” she said.

I nodded. “That gives us four more days.” I grinned. “I’m going to miss having you around.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m guessing that Mark will have reached his limit of endurance.” I tried to picture Camille’s husband, the quiet, sober Mark Stratton, arriving home from his dental office each day to a home managed by three teenagers. “Did you have a chance to call Sam Preston this afternoon?”

“No. Well, that’s not true. I had the chance, but I didn’t do it. You never want a real estate agent to think that you’re too eager, you know.”

“Your mind’s still made up, though?”

I nodded. “This old hacienda is too big for me. And I don’t see any of you guys moving back to Posadas anytime soon to take it off my hands.” Camille kept her expression politely blank, but I added, “Or ever, for that matter. And I really like the Gonzales place. So…” I shrugged. “You want some coffee?”

“No thanks. Will you take me over there tomorrow? I don’t remember it at all. I can’t picture it.”

“Sure,” I said. I started to push myself out of the chair, then stopped. “In fact, there are a couple of photos of the house right on that table by your elbow.”

“I saw those earlier,” she said. “It’s neat.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but the two Polaroid photos were typical real estate efforts, making the house look tiny, flat, and unattractive. “You want me to get that?”

“Get what?”

“The door.” She was up and halfway down the front hallway before I had gotten to my feet.

I saw the look on Sheriff Martin Holman’s face from twenty paces away, despite the harsh shadows from the light over the door and the single high bulb in the foyer. He would have made a lousy poker player.

“Good news?” I asked, and waved him inside. He advanced a few paces into the foyer and took off his tan Stetson while he exchanged pleasantries with Camille-altogether too pleasant on his part, I thought. And for a fleeting moment, I found myself wondering what Martin Holman would look like in faded, torn blue jeans and a grease-stained T-shirt, with his hair cut in a burdock buzz. Or even just without a tie.

“Would you drink some coffee if I made it?” I asked, and apparently Holman was more astute than I gave him credit for.

“Sure,” he said. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

Camille grinned and shook her head in resignation. “I’ll make it, Dad,” she said.

“So what’s up?” I lead the sheriff into the kitchen.

“This is a nice place,” he said, repeating the same line he had uttered every one of the dozen or so times he had been in my home.

“Thanks. Any news on the youngster?”

He shook his head. “But what’s interesting is that the deputies couldn’t find Paul Cole.”

“What do you mean, couldn’t find him?”

“Just that. First, a detective went to his home. He lives in one of those new developments down by the bosque.” Holman pulled a small notebook out of the inside pocket of his suit coat and thumbed pages. “Neither he nor his wife were home.”

“He’s married again?”

“Less than a year ago. One of the neighbors said that she thought the wife went to Santa Fe with a girlfriend for a couple of days of shopping.”

“A couple of days? Wow. And Cole?”

“Well, that’s the interesting part,” Holman said. “Paul Cole has two vehicles registered to him. One is a 1996 Pontiac Grand Am, custom tag that says BEAT ’EM. Is he a coach, or what?” Holman grinned. “The other vehicle is a 1972 GMC four-by-four pickup that’s missing an engine.”

“And both were parked in his driveway,” I said. Holman looked up sharply, and I added, “Just a guess.”

“They were. So the detectives figured he was out for an evening run or something. They checked again an hour later, and still no sign of him.”

“There could be a thousand explanations for that,” Camille said.

“Sure could be,” Holman agreed. “But.” He held up the notebook for emphasis. “The Bernalillo detectives contacted the principal of the school where Paul Cole works, figuring that, with the way coaches hang out at school all the time, she might have some information. You know what she said?”

“I have no idea,” I murmured, watching the coffee beginning its rapid drip. Camille had cleaned the pot so that it actually looked like glass instead of crusted concrete.

“Paul Cole took five days’ professional leave to attend a coaching clinic and conference in Anaheim, California.”

“This past week, you mean?”

“From Monday through Friday. The principal said that she thought he was scheduled to fly out last Sunday, and that he was planning to return yesterday or the day before.”

“Football must be even more important than I thought,” I said. “But let me guess again. He hasn’t returned yet.” I shrugged. “What did the airline have to say?”

Holman grinned, and I got the impression that he was distinctly proud of himself. “He was never booked out of Albuquerque-on any airline that goes anywhere close to Anaheim.”

“Or booked back to Albuquerque, either?”

Holman shook his head. “They have no record of him flying anywhere.”

“Maybe he drove out with friends,” Camille said. “It’s only a twenty-hour drive nonstop.”

“If he rode with someone else, that would explain both his vehicles being left at home,” Holman said, “but no one else from the school was scheduled to attend the conference. The principal said that as far as she knew, no one else went.”

“Other schools going?” I said. “Did he ride out with coaches from other schools?”

Holman leaned forward across the kitchen table, his voice lowered conspiratorially. “There was no conference in Anaheim.”

“Why did I think that might be coming?” I muttered.

“But it gets even more interesting,” Holman said. “The detective-his name’s Richard Steinberg, by the way-he chatted with a couple of neighbors. One of them, and she’s an elementary school teacher in the same district, said that Cole was excited because he’d been able to get an elk permit in Wyoming.”

“A what?”

“He drew an elk permit for a hunt in Wyoming. She thought that he was planning to go but that he was worried about taking that kind of leave from school. She said there was a stink a couple of years ago when a teacher took a week off to go deer hunting. And she said that Cole’s wife was petrified that he’d get in trouble.”

I leaned back and watched Camille pour the brew into first Holman’s cup and then mine. The coffee looked a few shades weaker than I would have liked, but what the hell. There it was.

“So he either flew up to Wyoming or drove up with a friend,” I said.

“He didn’t fly up.”

I sipped the coffee and couldn’t resist a grimace at the wan bouquet of decaf. “You’ve been busy,” I said, and set the cup down.

Holman grinned his best used-car salesman’s grin. “What I figure is that he either skipped out from school to go elk hunting or he skipped out to do something else.”

I was tempted to say, “Well, duh,” but instead I asked, “What was his football team’s record this year?”

Holman looked puzzled. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“In any event, the season should have been over. I don’t know when the state championship was, but if his team wasn’t a contender, then that’s a complication out of the way. I don’t care what he’s up to, but no football coach is going to miss a play-off, elk or no elk.”

“Do you think he might have taken his own son?” Camille said, and I realized it was the first time anyone had come right out and said it.

“I don’t know. My first guess would be that he didn’t,” and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, Martin Holman looked disappointed. “For a couple of reasons. For one thing, if he just wanted his son, he could have driven down almost anytime, picked the kid up, and gone back home, all in a single day. Making a week-long conspiracy out of it would just attract attention. I know the kid’s only three years old, but there must be a thousand opportunities during the course of an average day when the father could slip in, grab the youngster, and be gone. And there’s always this: The boy’s mother said that Cole isn’t interested in the kid. He won’t even take him for visits when there’s the opportunity.”

“So it doesn’t really make sense that he would do the bit up on the mesa, at night,” Holman said.

“No, it doesn’t. What makes sense is that Paul Cole went hunting with buddies on school time, and made up the conference nonsense to cover his ass. Did you happen to check with the Wyoming Department of Fish and Game to find out if there was an elk season in progress?”

Holman nodded vigorously. “I checked the net. There is an elk hunt in several parts of the state. Stretches to the end of the month.”

“Checked the net?” I said. “Meaning what?”

“Computer, Bill. They have a Web site. You need to join the twenty-first century.”

“No, I don’t. And the next step is to call Wyoming and find out if he actually has a license issued in that state. Cole’s principal is a woman, you said?”

Holman consulted his notes. “Dorothy Nusburger.”

“Then Dorothy Nusburger needs to get a little tighter grip on her staff,” Camille muttered.

“If she’s like any other principal in this state, there’s some pressure to have a winning team,” I said. “It’s the American way of life, let’s face it. So if her head coach says he wants to go to an important conference, then she’ll send him. Athletics might be an area that isn’t her field of expertise. If she trusted Cole, maybe she didn’t look too closely or ask too many questions.”

“Then that fits,” Holman said quietly.

“What fits?”

“Nusburger told the detectives that the school couldn’t afford to pay for Cole’s travel, and that he then agreed to pay his own way. He told her that the school board would probably think the conference was a luxury but that it was important enough that he was willing to pay his own way.”

“And that makes it simple,” Camille said. She sat down at the table opposite Holman. “He doesn’t have the problem of turning in receipts, or per diem, or any of those other things schools would require for bookkeeping.” She looked at me. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Nusburger knew where he was going all along.”

Holman smiled broadly. “You ought to come work for us.”

Camille looked heavenward. “I don’t think so, Marty. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Mr. Cole thinks he’s pretty slick. And I can image his wife being furious with him, especially when he doesn’t come home on time. So she takes a day or two for expensive shopping out of town with her girlfriends. Payback time.”

Holman glanced at me, maybe a little hurt knowing that he hadn’t been elected to genius rank yet. He took a deep breath. “Lieutenant Steinberg said that he was going to nose around a little more and find out where Cole went, for sure. One way or another, he needs to know about his son.”

“And if he went hunting, then he was due back in school today,” I said. “Maybe he’ll show up in the next few hours. No message sent to his school today?”

“Apparently not.”

“That’s interesting. Thanksgiving break doesn’t start for another week or more in most schools. So it’s not like he’s just taking another couple of days to nose into the vacation time.”

“In the meantime,” Holman said, “I think it’s a good idea to keep the search teams up on the mesa. You know, we’ve got all these theories, but the whole thing is really”-he made swirling motions with both hands-“pretty nebulous. We don’t have a damn thing to go on, other than the youngster’s jacket. I’d hate to pull the search off and have the bones found next spring by some turkey hunter. What do you think?”

I shrugged. “It was interesting watching Estelle today. I don’t think there’s any doubt in her mind that Cody Cole was abducted. And after watching the way her own youngster behaved up there, I’m ready to agree with her.”

“Yeah,” Holman said, and sighed. “But she’s got a lot on her mind right now, with her mother and all. I’m not so sure she’s thinking straight.”

“There’s that possibility, but I wouldn’t count on it,” I said. “And think of it this way. By leaving the search teams on-site, all you risk is the budget. If he’s up there and alive, all Cody has going for him is that no one gives up. So it’s worth it until we know for sure.”

Holman showed signs of rising, and I added, “By the way, we need to ask Judge Hobart for an exhumation order.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Holman said.

“No. I went over a bit ago and talked to the old man. There’s some kind of grudge he’s got against his stepson. And the stepson-”

“That’s this Willit guy who called from California?”

I nodded. “He’s coming in a day or two. It’s a mess. And it’s just going to be simpler to move the old lady off my property and plant her in a proper cemetery. That way, everyone will be happy.”

“Except Mr. Apodaca,” Holman said.

“He’ll come around,” I said. “He said he’d file a lawsuit to prevent having the grave disturbed, but he’s got no legal recourse. And any lawyer will tell him so.”

“And you don’t think this Willit person will give in, either? Maybe just drop the issue?”

I shook my head. “No. He thinks his mother was murdered.”

“Well, shit,” Holman said, and stared at me. “Murdered?”

Holding up a hand to reign in Holman’s active imagination, I added, “That’s just what the stepson thinks. He’s dreaming, but you know how it is once somebody like that gets an idea in his head.”

“Dad, is what Mr. Apodaca did actually legal? I mean, can you just bury someone in this state without any formal procedures?”

“Well”-I ducked my head-“that’s the way it used to be, anyway. The state’s dotted with thousands of little family plots, some consecrated, most not. Technically, I suppose that Florencio should have contacted some authority when his wife died, but he didn’t, and Chief Martinez didn’t press the issue. And technically, the old man can’t just dig graves on his neighbor’s property, either. But in this case, I didn’t press the issue, and there wasn’t anything surreptitious about what he did. He dug the grave, even marked it in his own fashion. And he told me that he thought he owned the property. So”-I shrugged again-“it’s no big deal.”

“Unless he murdered her,” Camille said.

“Exactly. He’s not supposed to do that,” I said.

“If he’d buried her in his own backyard, his stepson couldn’t force an exhumation, could he?” Holman said. “Unless the stepson could show cause and get a judge to go along?”

“It doesn’t matter where she’s buried. He’d have to show cause,” I said.

“I don’t understand why he buried her across the street, then,” Camille said.

“He told me that he thought it was his property. Other than that, I don’t have a clue, except it’s more isolated. It’s been a woodlot for generations, and the old man probably figured it would always be.” I pushed my empty coffee cup away. “At first, I was just going to deed a small chunk of land that included the grave site over to the Apodaca family. But I got to thinking about it, and I don’t want the nuisance. I don’t want my property encumbered with some crazy complication. So we’ll move the old lady, and that will be that.”