Red, Green, or Murder

Chapter Fifteen

We searched, and we searched hard. Frustration grew as we discovered nothing that I hadn’t already seen: a few scuffs in the dirt, tire marks, the sudden appearance of hoof prints at the spot where the twenty-four cattle had disembarked from the stock trailer. Estelle found a single print that featured a clear heel mark, made by typical work boots such as those that Patrick Gabaldon would wear. Despite the cowboy legend, he’d taken time to slip out of his pointy-toed, high-heeled riding boots when the corral work was finished, and into the comfortable, blunt-toed, waffle-soled, lace-up Wellingtons.

I showed Estelle the smaller print that the deputy’s sharp eyes had found by the ant mound, and we agreed it might be a woman’s size. It wasn’t clear enough to make out tread patterns, but it lacked distinctive, elevated heels. And that was it.

As the light mellowed toward twilight and the breeze swept the mesa from the northwest, we widened the search area, hoping to find signs of a scuffle or something that might give us a hint of what had happened on this lonely spot.

Deputy Pasquale backtracked and, as Sheriff Torrez had suggested, drove down Forest Road 128, and I could hear his vehicle clearly as he idled it along the narrow two-track that paralleled the rim of Cat Mesa. I knew that it was a long shot that Patrick would drive Herb’s rig that way. For one thing, the fifth-wheel stock trailer was a monster-twenty-four feet at least. Once committed to FR 128, it would be a challenge to find a place to turn the rig around. There was no other way off the mesa rim that would be practical with a truck and trailer like that.

Sheriff Bobby Torrez stood with his hands on his hips, apparently absorbed in watching the last of the sunshine filtering through the piñons and junipers. He switched his gaze to me as I ambled up to him.

“Busy dog.” He pointed a toe at a welter of dog prints near the gate. “Why would Pat let the dog out when he was unloading the cattle?” He waited as if I had the answers.

“I can’t imagine why he would,” I said. The unloaded cattle didn’t need to be herded anywhere-once out of the trailer, they were free to roam and munch. They didn’t need their heels nipped.

“But somebody did,” the sheriff said. “And that’s interesting. Why leave the dog behind?”

“Any number of reasons. He’d yap and fuss and fight, especially if Pat wasn’t with him. Hell, the mutt knows me, sort of, and he and I were together most of the afternoon. But I gotta tell you, it was an uneasy truce, Bobby. And I like dogs, even though they plug up my sinuses. Now, you take somebody who doesn’t, and the first thing they’re going to do is kick the little nuisance out of the truck.”

“Maybe so. Pat wouldn’t let them do that, if he was still able.” He leaned his back against the gate post and rocked back and forth to scratch his back.

“My point exactly,” I said.

“I put all the information out,” the sheriff said. “Every agency in the southwest.”

“The truck’s not coming back,” I said. “Naranjo told me that he’d check with the rancher down in Janos, and in the meantime, he has all his officers looking in the dark corners, too.”

“Both officers,” Torrez quipped. “With all the problems they have, they aren’t going to put much effort into looking for a pickup truck. Or a single kid.” Estelle Reyes-Guzman was standing a dozen yards away near a slate-gray stump, cell phone stuck to her ear. My own phone chirped, and I dug it out of my shirt pocket, the ludicrous notion shooting through my mind that she was calling me.

“Bill,” Herb Torrance said. “You’re up on the mesa?”

“We are,” I said. “Chasing our tails. There’s no sign of Patrick, Herb. What have you heard?”

“Well, not a damn thing,” the rancher replied.

“Look, there’s one major bit of news, though, and you’re not going to like it. Your rig is in Mexico. One of the Mexican cops remembers it at the crossing.”

“Well, hell.” He fell silent for a moment. “I don’t see Patrick doin’ that.”

“I don’t think he did. It’s looking like someone took the truck. Somebody who was with him up here on the mesa. You have any ideas how that might have worked? Patrick had friends he take along on a ride like this?”

“Well, hell,” he said, “I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t think so. But what, like somebody hijacked him, you mean? The border cops actually seen this, or what?”

“Yes, they’re sure. Two people in the truck. The descriptions don’t fit Pat. He sure as hell wasn’t driving. Go figure that. A young couple, the Mexican cop says. He says there was a girl behind the wheel, a real looker. He remembers the long blond hair. But no sign of Patrick.”

“You’re kiddin’.”

“No. Did you ever see Pat spending time with someone like that? The border cop says the other one was a young man with hair back in a pony tail, wearing a black cap. Not much to go on.”

“Well, I can’t figure that. You know, Pat, he don’t romp around much. Kind of quiet and steady.” Herb almost laughed. “Not like my boys. Kind of worries me, something like this.”

“You’re in good company, Herb. But that’s where we’re at. You remember Captain Naranjo?”

“Why, sure I do.”

“He’s looking into it. He’ll play straight with us.”

“But no sign of the boy?”

“Not yet.”

“I can’t figure it,” he said again. “He’ll be all right, though.” That was wishful thinking, but I didn’t disillusion the rancher. I hoped he was right.

“I need to take a run up the mesa myself, I guess,” Herb added.

“I can see the cattle from where I’m standing,” I said. “They’re in good shape.” A pair of calves stood near the tree-line at the edge of the pasture, staring at us as their jaws worked in perfect unison.

“Gotta see if the water’s running down at the drinker,” Herb said. “You going to be up there a while?”

“Probably just a few more minutes, Herb. We’re running out of light, and we’re not finding much. One of the deputies is checking down Forest Road 128 to see if Pat went wood hauling or some such, but I don’t hold out much hope for that.”

“Can’t see why he’d try to wrestle the rig down that way,” Herb said. “Sure as hell, we got easier places to pick up firewood.”

“I don’t think that he did. But we have to check it out.”

“Well, don’t forget to close the gate.”

“I’ll make sure,” I said. “Call me if you hear anything. You know, the odds are just as good that he’ll show up back at the ranch.” I didn’t believe that, but it sounded good.

Estelle had approached, and she raised an eyebrow as if to say, “You first.”

“That was Herb,” I said. “He’s coming up to check his livestock.” I had entered Pat Gabaldon’s cell number in the phone, and just to give my frustrations something to do, I selected the number and pushed the auto-dialer. The signals vanished out into the vapors, unanswered. “He says Pat hasn’t shown up back at the ranch.”

“I didn’t expect that,” Estelle said. She thrust both hands in the pockets of her trousers, and I saw her shoulders slump a bit.

“So what’s up, then?” The sheriff directed his question at Estelle, who hadn’t mentioned who she’d been on the phone with. I glanced at him with a little sympathy, since over the years we’d both become accustomed to Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s reticence. It was a tribute to Bobby’s tight rein on his own ego that he didn’t seem to mind when folks called the undersheriff instead of him. He knew that in due time, everything flowed uphill.

“That was Tony.” She let that suffice for a moment, drawing an arc in the dust with the toe of her boot. “Preliminary tests point to the wine.” It was so quiet that we could hear the whisper of the early evening breeze through the piñons.

“Spiked, you mean?” Torrez prompted.

Estelle frowned at his choice of words. “There’s a chemical complex in the wine that is ‘unexpected,’ the med tech says. But not all of the wine, either.”

“Whatever that means,” the sheriff said.

Estelle flashed a rare and thoroughly fetching smile. “No, what I mean is, there’s a complex in the wine spilled on the floor, and from the trace remains in the glass. Nothing in the bottle. Nothing in either bottle. Some of the same chemical also shows up in the victim’s saliva. They haven’t run the tox tests on his blood yet.”

“What about in the food itself?” I asked.

She shook her head. “At this point, that’s all they have. But Dave Hewitt is going to work tonight to see if he can crack it.” I’d seen Hewitt’s name or initials on a crime lab report or two. Most of the time, the state crime lab was prompt, efficient, and accurate. But routinely, toxicology and other complex blood work-or even DNA comparisons-took days or weeks. It helped to have a young kid working there who let himself become excited by the chase…and who maybe didn’t have much of a home life.

“Natural or not?” I asked. “This ‘complex,’ I mean.”

“He can’t say yet.”

“Christ,” I muttered. “First one thing and then another. I don’t know which goddamn way to turn. First George, and now all this.” I turned in a half circle, surveying the shadows. Twilight made it impossible for me to distinguish hummocks of grass from rocks until I tripped over them. In a moment, we heard the whisper of Deputy Pasquale’s unit as he returned from scouting FR 128, but his report didn’t help us. I hadn’t expected any great discoveries. The forest road was pummeled by the tire tracks and foot prints of woodcutters, hunters, and just plain folks looking for places to dump their worn-out mattresses, chairs, and stoves.

“Are you ready to head down?” Estelle’s hand touched my shoulder lightly, and I jerked awake.

“I guess.” I shrugged helplessly and looked at both Estelle and Bobby. “I’m ready to hear bright ideas.”

“He sold the rig and skipped town,” Tom Pasquale offered. “Simple as that.”

“He wouldn’t leave the dog,” I said.

“Why not?” the deputy asked.

“You don’t own a dog, do you?” I replied. “Especially one who works with you every hour of the day and sleeps at the foot of your bed every night. Besides, Patrick’s own pickup truck is still parked down at the ranch.”

“He’s somewhere between here and the border,” the sheriff said. “They might have chucked him in the quarry, or in one of the junk piles down by the mine, or you name it.” He started toward his own truck. “But I think we’re gettin’ ahead of ourselves. It’s only been a few hours…what, three since Diaz waved the truck through the gate? For all we know, Pat might be sittin’ in the Dairy Queen in Deming, counting his money, trying to figure out what to do next.”

“We could wish for that instead of the quarry,” I said. “I know I sound like a broken record, but he wouldn’t have left the dog behind.”