Statute of Limitations

Chapter Twenty-nine

The expression on Robert Torrez’s face jolted Estelle to a stop at the doorway of the sheriff’s tiny, bleak office. He was always master of the threatening glower, whether there was any bite behind it or not, and the dark storms on his broad, handsome face were now classic in their proportions.

He looked up so slowly it appeared that his neck muscles were actually a set of smooth hydraulic pistons. His skull clicked to a stop as his eyes locked on Estelle’s.

“Welcome back,” Estelle said, although she could plainly see that words of welcome were wasted on the sheriff. Whatever orders the Albuquerque physicians might have given to their patient, it didn’t surprise Estelle that the sheriff had headed for his office the moment he arrived home in Posadas.

“Yeah,” Torrez said. He flipped a piece of peach-colored paper across his desk toward her. “What the fuck is this?” Almost never profane, especially when he knew that women were within hearing range, the sheriff startled Estelle with his word choice.

She picked up the paper as she sat down on one of the military surplus steel folding chairs, immediately recognizing the style of the author. Leona Spears was adept at losing elections, true enough. She’d lost every one she’d tried, including the one against Bob Torrez years before. But Leona was a meticulous planner, never-ever-leaving something to the last moment if it could be planned out, organized, and strategy-checked beforehand.

The paper, perfectly organized onto a single page for maximum effect, was titled “Preliminary Needs Assessment and Budgetary Planning, Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.”

Torrez sat like a lump, glowering, while Estelle read the paper. She understood it immediately, and had to agree that Leona’s logic was unassailable. If Leona was to be considered for the county manager’s position, then it made sense to scope things out before she faced the county commission. What did each department manager or supervisor need or want in order to effectively manage his turf? Leona would have no way of knowing unless she first asked, and then later observed and judged performance for herself.

But Estelle knew that it wasn’t the planning that irked Robert Torrez. Being asked how many new patrol units he anticipated needing for the coming year was not radical. There was no implication that whatever he asked for, he was asking for too much. Asking what kind of units was perfectly logical. Asking the sheriff what he thought to be the weak spots in his organization was eminently practical, and just good management.

Estelle read the paper again. Nowhere on the sheet was there the faintest hint of direction or suggestion from Ms. Leona Spears. It was impossible to judge what Leona thought by what she asked on the paper.

“I got two and a half dead people on my hands,” Torrez said, but there was nothing amused in his tone. “First I find out that Eduardo died, then Janet Tripp gets herself killed, and then Bill Gastner has his skull split open by some whacko with a grudge. I get sidetracked up in the city while a hundred doctors jam needles into me and drain half my blood.”

“Bobby, please…”

“Jesus, Estelle. Leona Spears?” He fairly shouted the woman’s name. “What the hell is going through their little pointed heads?”

“Whose heads?”

“You know whose heads, damn it. The commission. Didn’t you go to the meetings?”

“Yes.” There was nothing prevented him from attending as well.

“Leona Spears…cannot be county manager,” Torrez said emphatically. “That’s just the way it is.”

“She can and will be if the commissioners vote that way, Bobby.”

“Bullshit.” He shifted his weight and rapped his shin against the unforgiving military surplus desk, and he slammed the offending drawer shut with one swift kick of a black boot. “I mean, look at this thing.” He picked up the paper again. “She’s got something against white paper, for Christ’s sakes?”

“Maybe she ran out,” Estelle said, amused.

“Why doesn’t she spray it with perfume while she’s at it. What are they thinking?”

“Well, I talked with Dr. Gray a while ago…I don’t even remember when it was. But a majority of the board is leaning toward giving Leona the job. She has a final interview with them on Tuesday. I suppose that’s the rationale for this.” She nodded at the paper. “It won’t hurt her case if she does some preplanning-if she finds out what we want and need. How long has that been lying on your desk?”

He ignored her question. “Gray said all that, or is that what you think?”

Estelle hesitated, then shrugged. “Bobby, so far, it hasn’t mattered much to us who the county manager is. Kevin was good,” she said, referring to the previous manager, “but the one before him was an idiot. They come and they go. We both know that.”

“Leona Spears needs to go, not come.”

She laughed. “We’ll see, Bobby. Besides, Leona is local, for one thing.”

“Loco, you mean.”

“Well, maybe. But that’s important to the board, at this point. They don’t want some stranger coming in who doesn’t have some sympathy for the way we do things down here. Maybe they have a point. There’s no one who knows the county better than Leona does, except maybe yourself or Bill Gastner. I can see why they’re willing to give Leona a chance. She’s a professional planner, she’s good at working through budgetary matters, and she has to be pretty good at managing people, or she wouldn’t have been with the highway department as long as she has.”

“She’s nuts,” Torrez said.

“Maybe. She cornered me last week sometime and asked me a couple questions that didn’t sound too crazy.”

“Like what? She never talked to me.”

Small wonder. “For one thing, she wanted some figures on how much it would cost to have enough vehicles for the deputies to take the units home when they were off-duty.”

“You know we can’t afford that.”

“Leona wants to investigate applying for grants. That’s one of her specialties, I guess. Anyway, Bobby, I liked the sound of what she wanted to do. With the county having to provide coverage for the village now, it made sense to me to have each deputy with immediate access to a vehicle. If Leona Spears can make that happen, I’m all for it.”

Torrez flipped the paper off to one side in contempt.

“You want me to go through that and write up some answers?” Estelle asked. “She isn’t asking a lot…and there’s only a day or two left now to put together an answer that might do us some good.” She refrained from adding, We could have talked about this last week.

“If you want to do that, go ahead,” Torrez said. He made no move to hand her the paper, and she reached across and retrieved it. “So fill me in. What’s going on, other than Leona Spears? Christ.”

As succinctly as possible, Estelle reviewed their progress, and he listened without interruption, feet now propped up on his desk. When she’d finished, he let one leg slip off the desk, his boot thumping on the floor.

“Mike stopped by,” he said abruptly. He picked up a 3 x 5 card. “Janet’s sister lives in Kentland, Kansas. Monica Tripp-Baylor. I was going to call her…give me something to do.”

“Okay. When you do that, I’d like to know something about the parents.”

“She died.”

“The mother? So I’ve been told. But Mike says that Brad Tripp just sort of walked out on the family. I’d like to know what the real story is.”

“That’s what happened,” Torrez said. “They didn’t get along, and he moved out. Lived in town for a while, then hit the road.”

“I was trying to recall the incident of him on the stairway in the old building,” Estelle said.

Torrez actually smiled. “He’d been tearin’ up Pike’s Saloon. Remember that place down past the Don Juan that burned a year or so later?”

“Sure.”

“Just a bar fight,” the sheriff said. “I happened to be cruisin’ by, and took the call. When I brought Tripp back to the office, he decided to take me on. Didn’t work,” he added with some satisfaction.

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.” He shrugged.

“And after that incident?”

“Don’t know. I didn’t see him all that often. Eduardo would know, but he ain’t talkin’,” Torrez said bluntly.

“Well, sure, Bobby.”

“No doubt about it. Probably wasn’t a soul in the whole town that Eduardo didn’t know.”

“Agreed. But, as you say…”

“We need to sit down and talk with Essie, if you think you need to know something about Brad Tripp.”

Estelle mulled that for a moment. Essie Martinez was living through the least merry Christmas of her life. Digging through what she recalled of her husband’s tenure as police chief would be painful and, under the best of circumstances, of suspect accuracy anyway. But the sheriff was right. It was another angle, and at this point, any angle could help.

“How about if I do that,” she said. “I’ll take Bill along-he and Eduardo worked together for years. He might think of something to nudge Essie’s memory.”

Torrez glanced at his watch. “This afternoon?”

“Sure. Why not? Bill was going to come over to the house for dinner anyway. We’ll swing by Essie’s first. You’ll be home?”

“Home or here,” Torrez replied. “I got to pay attention to my therapy now, you know.” He said the word with so much venom that Estelle laughed, and that only deepened his glower.