Red, Green, or Murder

Chapter Thirty

There was one thing wrong with what I was doing-I was no longer sheriff of Posada County…or undersheriff, or sergeant, or even a rookie deputy. As a livestock inspector, I was sworn to enforce any law, policy, or state edict that applied to the raising, marking, selling, or transferring of livestock.

But I wasn’t ready to quibble over minor points. As I drove toward the Broken Spur Saloon, I searched the electronic phone directory, then punched the right button, pleased that the last time I’d looked the number up in a hard copy directory, I’d added it to the electronic gadget, too. In a moment, Christine Prescott’s cheerful voice answered.

“Christine, this is Bill Gastner. I need to talk with Victor ASAP.”

“He’s in the kitchen, sir.”

“Tell him to pick up.” She didn’t argue, and when Victor came on the line-he took his sweet time doing so-I had slowed with the parking lot less than five hundred yards ahead. It appeared that Anselmo and his two passengers had gone inside.

“What?” Mr. Cheerful would be balancing the phone receiver between shoulder and ear as he worked the grill.

“Victor, Father Anselmo just entered your place with a couple of guys. Take a look through your kitchen door and tell me if they’re the same two that you saw yesterday. The two that Patrick Gabaldon picked up.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“You saw them, Victor. Now go look.”

“What’s it to you, anyway?”

“God damn it, Victor, don’t be an ass. Go look.”

The phone whacked against something, and in the background I could hear the hissing, clanking ambiance of the Broken Spur’s kitchen. Victor’s tone wasn’t quite so grouchy or antagonistic when he came back on the line. “Two young men. Yeah, they could be the ones.”

“Victor, listen to me. Are they the two that Patrick picked up?”

“I think so. Right now, all they’re doing is sittin’ at the bar, looking at the menu. What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Absolutely nothing. Just give ’em whatever they want. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” And I’d feel like an absolute jackass if we were wrong in this.

Victor started to say something else charming, but I disconnected, punching the autodial for the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department. As the phone rang, I drove into the west end of the parking lot, then around the building to park behind Victor’s Cadillac.

“Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, Sutherland.”

“Brent, I need whoever you’ve got down here at the Broken Spur. Silent approach. We may have the two men who attacked Patrick Gabaldon.”

“Yes, sir. Deputy Pasquale is at Moore. He’s closest.”

“That’ll work. No siren. Make sure he understands that. If this is a wild goose chase, I’ll be the first to let you know.”

“Are you inside the building right now, sir?”

“No. I’m in my truck.”

“You should probably stay there, sir.”

“I probably should.” Brent Sutherland was such an earnest kid.

Victor appeared at the back door, his eyes narrowing as I approached.

“It’s them. I’m sure of it.”

I nodded my appreciation at his unembellished statement of fact. “Just be patient,” I said. “I need a couple of minutes, so go back and engage them in conversation.” Victor was ready to nix that idea-there were limits to his cooperation, after all. But I walked around the west side of the building without giving him the chance. There were no windows on that side except the two opaque single panes in the restrooms, high up on the wall. Anselmo’s Chevy was the first vehicle in line, so if the men were sitting at the bar, I was entirely out of their view.

From two strides away, I could smell the old crate. The door locks were down except for the driver’s, and that was pure Anselmo. He wouldn’t even consider locking his car, since he owned nothing worth stealing. The inside of the car was an amazing clutter, with the seats threadbare, oozing stuffing in half a dozen places. What interested me most were the two backpacks on the rear seat.

Glancing toward the Spur, I opened the driver’s door, rewarded with a loud squawk of sagging hinges, and reached around to pop the lock. As I did so, I could imagine Judge Lester Hobart’s dour expression as he mentioned the issue of illegal search and seizure. But I wasn’t sheriff and I wasn’t seizing anything, so I felt no qualms.

Both backpacks were the generic sort of rigs that students use. I unzipped the top of the first and found clothing, one of those cardboard cylinders of potato chips, a small toiletry kit, and various other odds and ends. The large front pocket contained a fat bag of Mexican hard candy and two inhalers of prescription asthma medication. A plastic liter water bottle was shoved into a side pocket.

The second pack was equally uninteresting, until I opened the front pocket. A blonde wig was stowed neatly in a plastic bag. Along with it was a potpourri of gum, tissue, lip balm, and curiously, a wrinkled, drab book. I pulled it out and saw that it was a generically bound stage script for The Andersonville Trials, and, my curiosity tweaked, I flipped it open. The role of Wirz was highlighted in yellow. “And what do we make of this?” I whispered to myself. “In spare moments between heists he’s studying his lines?”

The two weren’t so foolish as to stow large sums of cash in the backpacks, nor any weapons. I tucked things back into place and straightened up, closing the car door gently.

Nothing incriminating, except the wig-which certainly didn’t mean that this was the very blonde over whom the Mexican agente had drooled at the border crossing. No money, no weapon.

What I had was Victor’s word, and he didn’t indict others lightly. These were the two men he’d seen Pat Gabaldon pick up on the state highway. They might be that, all right. But they might have had nothing to do with the cowboy’s misadventure. Sure enough. And one of them might have left nice, clear fingerprints on Pat’s cell phone before heaving it off into the trees. For the moment, that possibility was enough for me.

I walked quickly back to the kitchen door. Before going inside, I took a moment to check that the pudgy Smith and Wesson was still where it always was, just to the right of the small of my back, concealed by my short jacket and not buried under an overhanging belly.

Victor was busy at the stove, and the aroma of burgers, onions, and other wonderful things was strong. He ignored me. I ripped a single page out of my small pocket notebook, and printed a note in block letters, taking my time. Victor Junior came out of the pantry with a tray of hamburger buns, and I folded the note and handed it to him. “Will you give this to Father Anselmo for me? You don’t need to tell him who it’s from.”

Victor Junior took the note and glanced over at his father.

“Just do it,” Victor said without turning around.

“Just give this to Father?” the young man asked. This time, Victor turned and glared at him venomously.

“And ask Christine to come into the kitchen,” I added. My messenger shrugged and headed out through the swinging door.

I waited without giving in to the temptation of looking through the little triangle of glass in the swinging door.

“You got people coming?” Victor asked. He flipped the three burgers and then lifted the basket of fries out of the grease.

“Eventually,” I said. Christine entered the kitchen and favored me with a wide smile.

“Hey, sir. I didn’t know you were back here.”

“Christine, I need to talk with the two men who are with Father Anselmo. They don’t need to know who I am, all right?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t call me sheriff, or anything else. Stay on the opposite side of the bar from them.”

She looked uneasy. “Sure, sir. They’re just grabbing a burger before heading on down the road. They’re hitching to Las Cruces. Father Bert is buying them some lunch.” She glanced at the clock. “Very late lunch.”

“That’s good,” I said. “You have some coffee?”

“Sure thing.”

“I’ll be out in a minute. Remember what I said.” I watched her leave the kitchen, passing Junior in the doorway. He nodded at me and finished it off with a shrug. I turned to Victor. “I don’t want any ruckus,” I said. “I want to make sure of that. Nobody gets hurt.” He didn’t reply, but pointed at the rack of buns. His son unzipped the first package and handed it to his father.

I walked through the swinging doors and down the length of the bar, nodding at two state highway employees who sat at a two-top by the juke box, and a young couple I didn’t know just inside the door. Father Bertrand Anselmo sat at the bar, right where an alcoholic shouldn’t have been, both rms resting on the polished surface. A cup of coffee nestled between his hands. To his right were the two hikers, and they didn’t even glance my way as I passed behind them.

As I did so, I touched Anselmo’s shoulder.

“Well, hello there,” he said brightly, turning to extend his hand. A big, bear-like guy with full beard that his Roman collar, Bertrand Anselmo would have looked at home in the seventeenth century. Always in black, his clothing was threadbare and his shoes on their last mile. “How have you been?”

“Just fine, Father.” How’s your day going?”

“Buying a couple of wayfarers the best burgers on the planet,” he said. “They’re headed on back from south of the border to college in Cruces.” He leaned forward and spread one hand. “Richard Zimmerman and…”

“Rory,” one of the boys said.

“Rory Hobbs,” Anselmo finished. “This is an old friend of mine, Bill Gastner.”

Well done, I thought. Zimmerman had a grip like a dead fish, but Hobbs shook my hand with vigor and interest.

“Down here?” Christine asked. She held up the coffee.

“Right at the end, there,” I said. That put me where I could see the two men without leaning past Anselmo. I settled on the stool and added two tubs of creamer to the coffee. By the time I’d done that, Christine had returned with three baskets of burgers.

I regarded the two travelers as I sipped the coffee. Slumped as they were, it was hard to judge height, but Zimmerman was the larger of the two, with long black hair pulled back in a pony tail. His baseball cap, with a logo I couldn’t read, was settled backward on his head. His bony features looked as if he needed more than a few burgers.

Rory Hobbs reminded me of one of those perfect child stars now grown into a young man without losing any of the magic. Large, luminous eyes looked through a thick, dark forest of lashes. A good, strong chin and finely sculpted, small ears were partially hidden by his copper-streaked brown hair-the kid was a publicist’s dream. As he leaned forward to sink perfect teeth into the burger, his expression of pleasure showed a hint of dimples.

“So, how’s Mexico these days?” I asked. “Lots of bad news out of that place.”

“I tell you,” Hobbs said, chewing industriously, “I could live there. I mean, it costs just about nothing, you know?”

“So I’ve heard.” I eyes him critically. His eating slowed as he realized that he was under scrutiny. I remembered Naranjo’s assessment. This was a young man entirely at ease. Deciding to try a tack that might prompt a little discomfiture, I asked, “Why do I think that I’ve seen you before?”

“Really?” Only mild interest slowed the food, and Zimmerman shot him a look that said something like, “you, not me.”

“Did you go down to Cruces for any of the college plays this past year?” Father Anselmo asked. “We have something of a celebrity on our hands, Bill. This young man tells me that he’s a drama major.”

I snapped my fingers, surprising even myself with how easy it was to invent plausible nonsense from a single dim memory. “The Shakespeare Festival this past summer. I saw the excerpts contest. You were in that, if I’m not mistaken.” I hadn’t seen the contest, but I’d read about it-two teams of five actors each, chosen at random from a roster of drama students, given only the time when the other team was on stage to prepare. “They gave you only ten minutes or so for each performance, the winner to be the last team standing, am I right?”

“Last man standing. I like that,” Hobbs grinned. “That’s how it was.”

“Did you make it down for any of the festival?” I asked the priest, and he shook his head.

“So…am I right?” I pursued. “You were in the short scenes?”

“I confess,” Hobbs said. “And maybe you saw the performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

“Didn’t see that,” I said, and smiled at him. If it was a trap, it was a clever one. “I was going to catch the Scottish play, but I missed that, too. So…what did you do for the contest? I don’t remember?”

“Ah.” He leaned far back and stared at the ceiling. “All kinds of stuff. And in a couple of things, I think we faked out the judges.” He smiled, altogether fetching.

“Well, it was remarkable,” I said. “What’s coming up? Anything interesting?”

He took a chunk out of the burger. “Heavy stuff,” he said. “I’m trying out for a couple of things.”

“Can I be nosy?”

He shot me another assessing look. “Like, one of the profs wants to do The Andersonville Trials. I thought I’d try for that.”

I held up both hands, framing his face with my fingers. “I see Wirz,” I said. His delicate eyebrows shot up. “A maligned commandant of a Civil War prison camp would be a challenging role.” But what I really saw was that, replacing the dark hair with a light wig, the kid’s visage could easily fool anyone.

“You’re a history buff?” Hobbs asked.

“Oh, boy!” Anselmo said, well aware of my hobby of tracking down tidbits of frontier legend. For a moment, I thought that he’d forgotten my note.

“Western military history,” I said quickly. “My one hobby, I’m afraid.”

“So you know the play, then.”

“Certainly do. Wirz was an interesting, conflicted character. Even tragic in some ways. You’re going to have a ball with that role.”

“That’s if I get the part.”

“Oh, no doubt about hat.” I grinned at Zimmerman, who didn’t seem to mind being left out of the conversation. “And what’s your story, son?”

He tucked the remains of the burger wrapper into the bottom of the baket. “I’m just in one of the pre-med programs.”

“Just?” I said. “Since when did medicine become a just? That’s a handful, son. Congratulations. I’m surprised that either one of you found time to break away from school for a trip to Mexico.”

“Sometimes you just have to get away,” Hobbs said easily. “The opportunity comes along…” and he finished with a shrug.

“You’re smart to recognize it.” I held my coffee mug while Christine refilled it. I cut her off at half. The trouble with this conversation was that I was enjoying the hell out of it, and enjoying the company of the two college kids. That conflicted with the sour thought that, if they were indeed the ones who assaulted Pat Gabaldon, they were carrying thousands of dollars in cash-and still were about to allow a parish priest without an extra two cents to his name to pick up the tab for lunch. They’d laugh about that, no doubt.

Victor Sanchez came out of the kitchen and stood with his hands on his hips, regarding us all as if it was an hour after closing and we should all vanish.

“What do you do, sir?” Hobbs asked pleasantly.

“I’m retired,” I said. “Sort of. I work for the Livestock Board.” I waggled a finger. “Count brands, that sort of thing.”

“You haven’t always done that,” he said.

“Nope.” The young couple by the door rose from their table, the girl making just enough of a detour to hand the ticket and a twenty-dollar bill to Christine over the bar. Neither blonde nor pretty, she wouldn’t have drawn an agent’s attention. She nodded at us, and then the couple left the saloon. That left the two highway department employees, and us. As the door closed behind the young couple, I heard another car swing off the highway, braking hard.

Sipping coffee with one hand, I pulled my phone out of my shirt pocket, looking at it as if it had just announced an incoming call by vibrating. I pushed the autodial.

“Hello?” I said, and dispatcher Brent Sutherland came on the line.

“Sutherland.”

“Hey, you found me,” I said, and if that confused the dispatcher, he didn’t let on. “Where’s Tom at?” In the background I could hear radio traffic.

“He’s in the Broken Spur parking lot, sir,” Sutherland replied.

“Tell him to hang tight.”

“The sheriff just left the airport, so. ETA is forty at least.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch.” I folded the phone and put it back in my pocket. Christine came out of the kitchen, where she’d followed Victor, and as the door swung behind her, I caught a glimpse of Deputy Tom Pasquale. Forcing a confrontation was pointless, since we had all the time in the world and all the space in the world once outside. Rory Hobbs and Richard Zimmerman had no vehicle of their own. They had nowhere to run.

As if sensing an escalating tension, Zimmerman looked down the bar, perhaps wondering where the pretty barmaid had gone. Victor came out of the kitchen, ignored us, and went over to the table where the two laborers were just finishing up. He gathered their burger baskets and nodded at the ticket. The two men conferred over the payment, then tossed down a few bucks, rose, and left the Spur.

Holding the two baskets, Victor paused and nodded at Father Anselmo. “Come back to the kitchen for a minute,” he said. “I gotta talk to you.”

“Well, sure,” the priest said. He rose and almost as an afterthought said to the two young men, “Give me a second. Then we’ll head on up to the interstate.”

“You got it,” Hobbs said. Zimmerman rubbed the palms of his hands on his trousers. I guess that his radar was more finely tuned than his partner’s. He might not have even known why his nerves were twanging, but Rory Hobbs was oblivious.

Now, with everyone out of harm’s way and just the three of us in the bar, I saw no reason to put off the inevitable. I rose to my feet and beckoned toward the kitchen door, hoping that Deputy Pasquale was paying attention. Both young men followed my gaze, and none of us heard the front door behind us.

“Gentlemen, put your hands on the bar in front of you,” the voice commanded, and it startled even me. I pushed away from the bar, right hand flying back to the butt of my revolver. Pasquale had moved with stealth belying his size, and his automatic was drawn. “Right now. I want to see four hands.”

Zimmerman gasped something incoherent and half-turned, his face drained of color. Hobbs rose slowly, an unreadable expression on his handsome features. He looked at me then, and his eyes were chilling. “You old bastard,” he whispered.

“Don’t be stupid,” I snapped. “Hands on the bar, spread the feet.”

Facing a drawn gun, and Tom Pasquale’s was steady and out of reach five paces away, most folks would turn to gelatin. Zimmerman was well on his way to that state, but Hobbs was calculating. I could see it in those dark eyes, shifting this way and that, playing the numbers.

“There’s nowhere you can go,” I said. Pasquale stepped forward, closing the distance. “It’s over, Rory. It’s over. We have good descriptions from the chop shop in Oposura, and from a witness in the parking lot in Cruces where you took the Dodge.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Oh, God, Rory,” Zimmerman whispered.

“The good news is that you didn’t kill Patrick Gabaldon, the cowboy whose truck and trailer you highjacked. I’m sure he’s looking forward to meeting you two.”

Zimmerman’s knees buckled, and he let the bar stool take his weight. Hobbs turned slightly, and in fifty years of paying attention to such things, I have never seen anyone move so fast. With the deputy advancing but still three strides away, Hobbs spun and grabbed his partner in a hammer lock, a blue utility knife appearing in his right hand.

“Back off!” he screamed at Pasquale. The razor tip of the knife dug into Zimmerman’s neck. He hauled his partner to his feet and backed along the bar toward the kitchen. Barstools crashed out of his way. “Back off!” he repeated.

“What’s that going to accomplish?” I slipped around the end of the bar into the bartender’s aisle. “Let him go, Rory.”

“You just back off. I mean it.”

“Where do you think you’re going to go?”

A thin tendril of blood laced down Zimmerman’s neck, and I could see that this time, the small triangular blade was in just the right spot, a thin layer of skin and muscle between it and the young man’s carotid.

“Not across the border,” I said. “They’re waiting for you. And even if you did make it across, Mexican authorities would be delighted to see you.”

“Get the priest out here!” he cried. For the first time, I heard panic in his voice. He jerked upward with his left arm, yanking Zimmerman’s head backward.

“Can’t do that,” I said.

“I’ll kill him!” He jerked his partner again, and Zimmerman let out a cry.

“Well, you can go ahead and do that if you want, I suppose,” I said. Zimmerman’s knees sagged. “I’m not sure what that will accomplish, other than saving the taxpayers a lot of money.” I took a step or two down the bar, keeping my hands in sight.

“Drop the weapon,” Pasquale ordered, but Hobbs ignored him, eyes locked on me. He’d twisted his hold enough that his captive provided effective cover from the deputy’s gun. He was full face to me, though, and maybe could judge that I wasn’t the one to put a bullet between those expressive eyes.

Behind him, the swinging door to the kitchen drifted open, silent and smooth. Victor appeared, face glowering.

If he felt the air change or heard a soft foot tread, I wasn’t sure, but Rory Hobbs turned ever so slightly to his right, arm still locked around Zimmerman’s chin, blade still digging into flesh.

Victor struck with precision, the pan hitting Hobbs squarely on the temple before the boy could life an arm to protect himself. The impact was an ugly, muted thud. Victor hadn’t selected an aluminum pan, or a copper one, or even stainless steel. The old-fashioned cast iron caved in Hobb’s elegant skull like a gourd hit with a baseball bat. Pasquale moved just about as fast. He grabbed Hobb’s right arm even as the kid slid to the floor, twisting the utility knife free. Released, Zimmerman staggered against a bar stool, hand clamped to his neck, then recoiled in horror as he saw Victor’s arm draw back again.

Before I could round the end of the bar, the deputy bulldozed Victor to one side, spun the young man around out of harm’s way and cuffed his hands behind his back. Zimmerman offered no resistance as I reached across with a bar towel and pressed it against the small incision on his neck.

“Back off,” Pasquale snapped as Victor stepped toward the crumpled figure on the floor. The dark pool of blood was spreading inexorably across the wooden floor from Rory Hobbs’ skull.

“Get him off my floor,” Victor ordered.

“I said, back off!” Pasquale roared. “I mean it, Victor. Drop that pan.”

“My Lord,” Anselmo said. He’d swung open the kitchen door and now strode forward, catching Victor by the arm.

The deputy bent down, eyes still locked on Victor, and touched two fingers to the side of Rory Hobbs’ neck. After a few seconds, Thomas looked up at me and shook his head.