Before She Dies (13 page)

“He thought she was drunk? When?”

This time, the pencil moved slowly, painfully. Linda wrote the sentence with her eye closed. A tear formed under the long black lashes and trickled back toward her ear.

She was parked on Bustos near MacA. Paul stopped, talked to her. She didn’t know how to tune radio. He helped. He laughed
.

“Was this the same truck you saw later out on Fifty-six?”

Yes
.

“And then the deputy headed out on Fifty-six as well.”

He joked
.

She stopped writing and I placed my hand on her right cheek. She opened her eye and gazed at me. Then, ever so slightly, she shook her head. The movement cost her, and she closed her eye again. The pencil wavered and scratched.

He said might as well check on Bob’s drunks one more time
.

“Bob’s drunks.” I smiled. Sergeant Robert Torrez would appreciate that. “Did he have any idea that Tammy Woodruff was headed out that way?”

Yes. We drove around some, saw her later, not too long. Saw truck go under interstate, turn onto 56. Paul checked some buildings near interstate, then we went that way, too
.

She dropped the pencil and her hand curled up on the pad.

I took a deep breath and straightened up. I clicked off the little tape recorder and slid it into my pocket.

“You should leave now,” Mrs. Real glowered. “You’ve put her through far too much already.”

“Lady,” I started to say, then stopped. Instead I touched Linda’s right cheek once more. “Nobody will bother you for a while. You get some rest.”

Her eyelid fluttered. I moved to the door and beckoned Mrs. Real to follow. She did so, and when we were out in the hall, I waved Deputy Howard Bishop over.

Mrs. Real surveyed Howard with distaste and I said, “Mrs. Real, the ICU waiting room is across the hall, right there. You’re welcome to wait there. I’ll remind you that your daughter, besides being gravely injured, is a material witness in a homicide investigation. You’re going to have to wait out here. Deputy Bishop, I want you to arrest anyone who enters that room other than medical staff until I return. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mrs. Real’s jaw dropped. “Now I’m her mother…”

“I don’t care who you are.”

“I have the right…”

“No, ma’am, you don’t. Deputy, any questions?”

“No, sir.” He moved toward the doors of the ICU.

“I’ll be back shortly after noon.” I nodded at Mrs. Real. “Ma’am,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

As I walked off, I heard Mrs. Real mutter, “I don’t have to put up with this.” But she pushed open the door of the waiting room.

Chapter 20

I hustled across the hospital parking lot to 310, anxious to find out what Estelle Reyes-Guzman had tracked down and disappointed that our lead on the stolen Suburban out of Albuquerque had been shot to hell by Linda’s story. I settled into the car’s front seat and wrinkled my nose as a waft of air blew just right to carry the aroma of me upward.

“Christ,” I muttered. “No wonder the woman was so grouchy.”

I drove directly home without bothering to call the office. Hell, Gayle Sedillos was working dispatch, and she always knew exactly where I was. An instinct of some kind. Or maybe just stink. I hadn’t thought of that before.

The long, hot shower was pure bliss, and I damn near fell asleep standing up. Afterward I dressed in comfortable wool flannel pants and my favorite blue-checked flannel shirt. I looked like an ad out of
Retired Lumberjack Magazine
. I sat down on the edge of the bed to draw on a fresh pair of socks and then made the mistake of lying back on the cool bedspread for just a moment.

My eyes slammed shut and that was that. I might have slept all day had Linda Real’s mother not intruded. She appeared vividly in a dream where I was once again a patient. She, of course, was the floor nurse. No matter how much I protested, she still insisted there was nothing wrong with the king-size hypo she was about to jab in my butt. I could see that the tip of the needle was bent, as if it had been dropped point first on a Formica countertop. The needle looked fine to her.

I awoke with a start, paralyzed. My feet were still flat on the floor, my back was flat on the mattress, and my sixty-three-year-old spine had mistaken the resulting curve as a permanent set. I cussed and dragged the arm whose wrist held a watch up close to my eyes. It was quarter to four.

I hauled myself to a sitting position and sat for a while with my head hanging, trying to clear my thoughts. “Tammy, you’re the key,” I said aloud. I pushed myself upright and padded in stocking feet down the long tile hall to the kitchen. I loaded grounds and while the coffeemaker did its thing I telephoned the office. Gayle answered on the second ring.

“Gayle, it’s Gastner. Any messages for me?”

“Let me check, sir.” An instant later she added, “Nothing while I’ve been here, except the sheriff asked for you a couple of times.”

“Anything important?”

“He’s got Captain Eschevera of the state police with him. They’ve been rummaging around here all afternoon. Eschevera had me in Holman’s office for nearly an hour.”

“Yeah, well, give ’em whatever he wants. Has Estelle checked in?”

“She was in earlier for a few minutes. Let me see.” Voices mumbled in the background and then Gayle said, “Bob Torrez wants to talk with you, sir.” The phone clicked and Sergeant Torrez’s soft voice came on the line.

“Sir,” he said, “did Estelle tell you about the Suburban?”

“No. But I found out that it’s not the vehicle we’re looking for.”

“No, sir. It was recovered in Taos. So that’s that.”

“Bob, when you talked with Tammy over the weekend, did she say anything about getting a new truck?”

“No, sir.”

“Sunday night, Linda Real says that Tammy was driving a white Chevy pickup. Brand-new. Temporary sticker in the window. Linda says that’s the vehicle that Paul stopped to assist. I want that truck, and I want to talk with Tammy Woodruff.”

“Is there any chance she could be mistaken?”

“Of course,” I said cryptically, and Torrez understood the tone of my voice.

“I’ll get a bulletin out, sir.”

“And do you know where Estelle is at the moment?”

“I saw her before lunch. She said she was going home for a little bit. And then she said something about going down to Regal. You want me to flag her on the radio?”

“No. No. I’ll catch her later. What did you find out today?”

“Estelle asked me to try and run down the shotgun ammunition that was used, sir. No number 4 buck has been sold anywhere around here recently. One of the Albuquerque detectives is running a check of dealers up there, but so far nothing. And nothing in Cruces. Not too many dealers sell the stuff in the first place.”

“And they don’t have to keep records of sales anyway.”

“No. It’s just a question of maybe a chance recollection, sir.”

“Well, keep after it. And by the way, while you’re at the office, look at the duty roster and make sure we’re covered tonight by someone who isn’t dead on his feet.”

“Gayle’s working on that, sir. We’re shorthanded. I think she’s got Tony Abeyta on swing, with Mears coming in at midnight. Here, she wants to talk to you again.”

“Sir,” Gayle’s pert voice broke in, “remember the Weatherfords?”

“Sure.”

“The mother called early this morning. I forgot to tell you.”

“What did she want?”

“Just to thank you and the deputies for all the help. Her husband was discharged late yesterday afternoon. She said that they plan to leave today, if things work out. As soon as they can make arrangements. She said he’s still in a lot of discomfort, but apparently he can travel now.”

“Well, good. I’m glad something worked out well. Gayle, if you need me, I’ll be out and about. I’m going to see Karl Woodruff for a few minutes and see if he’s had time to think of a few answers.”

***

If anyone was wishing for answers, it was Karl Woodruff. He hadn’t seen his daughter since bailing her out of the drunk tank Saturday morning.

We stood in the corner of the pharmacy next to the selection of foot pads. Karl’s face was worried as I told him what Linda Real had said.

“She doesn’t have a new truck, Bill. I’d know it if she did. You can guess who holds the paperwork on the one she’s got.” He jabbed his chest with a thumb. “Dear old dad here.”

“Maybe she borrowed it from a friend.”

Karl Woodruff shook his head in disbelief. “Anything’s possible, I suppose.” He reached out and grasped my arm. “But where is she? If what Miss Real says is true, then what did Tammy do? Just drive off? Where?”

“We hope that’s what she did, Karl.”

Woodruff bit his lip. “She could be in some sort of real danger from this, couldn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“My God,” Woodruff said, and looked off into the distance in the general direction of the vitamin supplements. He looked back at me. “What can I do?”

“Karl, we have to find her. We have a bulletin out for her, and for that truck. If you or your wife think of anything in the meantime, get right to us. If you hear from her, we have to know. If you think of any old favorite places she might be, let me know so I can have one of the deputies check it out. If there’s a relative she might have traipsed off to visit out of town, then we’ll look there.”

Karl Woodruff buried his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat. I could see that his fists were clenched.

“I’ve never been so frightened,” he said finally. When he looked at me, his eyes were pleading. “For her, I mean.”

I nodded and patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll do what we can, Karl. What’s important is that you keep in touch with us. Don’t let anything wait. If you think of something that might be of help at three in the morning, give the department a call.”

I left the drugstore thinking about forks in the road. The myriad possibilities had narrowed to two that nagged. If Tammy Woodruff had been an innocent bystander that night, an unwilling, unlucky witness, then the odds were excellent we’d never see her alive again. And that shiny new truck she’d been driving, no matter whose it was, would be deep in Mexico, out of our reach, a nice bonus for the killer’s night of work.

The other possibility was that Tammy Woodruff had been party to the shooting in some way.

Karl Woodruff had every reason to be frightened.

Chapter 21

Tuesday afternoon in February wasn’t a time of unrelenting sales in any store in Posadas, and folks sure weren’t standing in line to buy cars. Shoehorned into the showroom of Nick Chavez’s auto dealership were four vehicles, their svelte plastic bumpers a hair’s breadth from touching. Not a single customer salivated over the prospect of adopting one of those machines.

I let the door close behind me and had time for two deep breaths before a tall young woman I didn’t know meandered her way across the showroom toward me. The cars were perfectly placed. In order to avoid a collision of thigh and plastic, she had to waltz her rump first one way and then another. I trudged forward and met her at the Olds station wagon.

Her smile was megawatt as she tried to read first impressions. Was this old man dressed up in his go-to-town clothes ready to buy himself a new sedan? Maybe one of those humongous pickup trucks with four doors and dual back wheels, powerful enough to haul any stock trailer all the way up Regal Pass without dropping out of overdrive.

“May I help you, sir?” she said. Her voice was the kind of husky that takes hours of practice at home in front of a mirror.

“Nick Chavez, please.” I offered her a friendly smile.

Immediately her radiant expression wilted a touch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chavez is with…” That’s as far as she got before Nick stuck his head out of an office door at the other end of the showroom, behind the blue Camaro.

“Bill!” he bellowed, and beckoned with both hands.

The girl nodded brightly. “I guess he’s free now,” she said.

I thanked her and waddled my way across the showroom, zigzagging around the polished automotive snouts and rumps with far less grace and elegance than the girl.

Nick stretched out a hand as if to save me from drowning. His handshake was one of those rock-crushers that my arthritic knuckles dreaded. “Bill, come on in. By God, I didn’t think I’d ever get you back here.”

Two other men were sitting in his office and Nick introduced them as if they were going to take part in the feeding frenzy. “Bill, you know Rusty Archer, my service manager.” Archer stood up and stretched a hand across the desk. He looked like a thirty-years-younger version of his father, high school principal Glen Archer. Rusty had attended the same school of knuckle-dusting handshakes as his boss, and I flinched involuntarily.

“…and Carlos Sánchez, our business manager.” As we shook, this time with courtesy but no agony, I reflected that young Carlos had been spared his father’s looks. While Victor Sánchez bulled around his saloon like an old grumpy rhino, Carlos was lean, almost fine boned. The slight aquiline curve of his nose set off an intelligent, aristocratic face.

“Sit down, sheriff, sit down,” Nick said, gesturing toward one of the conference chairs. “We were just putting a new ad campaign together.” He smoothed his glossy black hair and then remained for a moment with his hand locked to the back of his head, brow furrowed. “Bad season of the year, Bill,” he said. “One good sale yesterday, and son of a gun, that’s it for the past week.” He grinned toward Sánchez and Archer. “These guys are going to get hungry if we don’t do something to lure you hard cases in.”

He beckoned toward the chair again. “Sit down. Take a load off.”

“I don’t really have the time, Nick,” I said. “I wonder if I could talk with you just a bit.”

Nick Chavez looked momentarily surprised, then nodded vigorously. “Sure, sure. Guys,” he said, “give us a few minutes.”

When we were alone, I closed the glass door.

“Nick, we’re looking for a 1994, white Chevrolet pickup truck. Temporary sticker in the back window.”

He sat on the edge of his desk, face serious. “Is this the one involved out there?” He waved a hand toward the west.

“We think it might be.”

“Just plain white? No accent colors?”

“We don’t know.”

“Half-ton? Three-quarter?”

I shook my head. “We don’t know that either.”

“Extended cab?” He saw the look on my face and finished for me. “You don’t know that either.”

“Right.”

“Bill, the only truck we’ve sold recently is the mother of all Suburbans. You know those nice folks who wrecked their van over the weekend?”

“The Weatherfords.”

“Right. They bought a brand-new one, fully loaded. With that cast her husband has on his leg, I guess they want him to be able to stretch out in style. Anyway, they picked that up early this morning. Easiest sale I ever made. The kids loved it—they always make it easy.”

I whistled silently. “That’s a pretty penny.”

Nick grinned. “It’ll pay the light bill for a while longer.” His grin widened. “He’s a lawyer. It must be hell not having anyone to sue except his own wife. But that’s it since I sold Penny Samons a little S-10 last week. We’ve moved a couple of cars, and a bunch of used inventory. But as far as trucks go, that’s it for the past month.”

“Is there any way you can check around for me? Check with other dealers?”

He frowned. “Sure. I guess. What kind of area are we talking about?”

“Five state.”

Nick’s whistle was shrill. “Jesus. Nobody got a look at the sticker to see who the dealer was, then.”

I leaned forward. “No. We can do it if you don’t have time, but the inquiry might be a little more discreet coming from you. Don’t you folks have some kind of computer network for information like that?”

Nick shook his head. “What a dealer sells is between him and the customer, sheriff. The only way I can find out what’s sold is by calling each dealer.” He frowned. “And that’s a lot of calling.”

“Then maybe you have a dealer directory we could borrow for a day or two. I’ll put one of the part-timers on it.”

“That, I got.” He held up a hand. “But look, I’ll be glad to cooperate with you. I’ll have one of my office staff run down the list. How’s that?” I nodded my thanks, and Nick added, “Do you know yet who was drivin’ the truck?”

I hesitated, mentally inventorying how many people were privy to this same information. I took the plunge. “Tammy Woodruff.”

“Tammy? Nah. Her daddy might be rich, but he ain’t going to buy her a new one every year. She just got that Ford of hers in November. I damn near had her in one of mine, but she got a close-out deal on a ’93 from Artie Swanson over in Silver City.” He shook his head sadly. “Drive a hundred miles to save ten bucks.”

“Well, then she borrowed this one from someone.”

Chavez sat back, picked up a pencil, and tapped his lower lip. “Brand-new, you say?”

“We have reason to think so.”

“And maybe white.”

I nodded.

“Whoever saw this truck,” Nick said, and his tone was careful, as if to say that he didn’t want to know, “didn’t get a good look, or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“How come you don’t know if there were any accents, or if it was an extended cab? Somebody just see the back of it?”

“That’s right.”

He closed his eyes. “So it could have been one, two, even more years old, then. Maybe a used truck. Maybe somebody bought themselves a cream puff.”

“It could have been. But we have reason to believe that it was new, or nearly so.”

Nick leaned back some more, hooked his hands behind his head, and gazed at me as if he were trying to assess just how much more I’d pay for the car of my dreams.

“What’s Tammy say?”

“When I find her, I’ll ask her.”

“Ah…” Nick grimaced. “I probably don’t want to know what’s going on, do I?”

I grinned. “Probably not.”

He pulled a pad of paper over and hastily jotted some notes. “Let me get this right. Pickup truck, any style, white-ass end, who knows what’s up front. Probably new, maybe not. Sold within the past thirty days if that temp sticker is any good.” He glanced up and grinned. “Remember Art Beauchamp?”

“Sure.”

“He once bought a used car from me and drove for almost two years on his window sticker.”

“Whatever works,” I said, and got up. I don’t know why I trusted Nick Chavez, but I did. Even so, I didn’t want to tell him any more than he needed to know. I thrust my hands into my pockets and surveyed his office, choosing my words with care.

“Nick, we’d appreciate your help. And keep your ears open. You hear anything, you give me a call, all right?”

“You can count on it.” He held the door for me. “When’s the funeral?”

“Thursday at ten,” I said. Nick nodded, astute enough to see that I didn’t want to discuss it. I’d done my best so far not to think about that hour of misery.