Before She Dies (21 page)

“She couldn’t stand vodka, officer.” He reached up and touched his own forehead between his eyes. “It gave her an instant headache, right here. Made her sick.”

Estelle leaned back. “Then someone else was either drinking with her at the time, or Tammy was planning to join someone and knew what his…or her…favorite drink was.”

Karl went back to kneading his invisible ball of putty. “I wish to hell I could believe that in a few minutes I was going to wake up,” he said. “Goddamned nightmare. I realize, sitting here, that my daughter is dead, and I can’t tell you people one thing about her life the past couple years. I don’t know who her circle of friends is. Hell, I don’t even know if she
had
a circle of friends. I don’t know what she was doing. I don’t know how she was spending her time. Or what trouble she was in.” He looked across at me, his eyes tortured. “And now she’s gone.”

“I’m sorry, Karl,” I said.

“And I can’t help her.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say.

Chapter 34

An impossibly fat woman looked me up and down, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the lid of a commercial washing machine.

“She called in sick today,” she said. “She ain’t here.”

“She’s home, then?”

“If she’s sick, that’s likely,” the woman said. “Her gal friend died, you know.”

“You don’t say,” I replied. “I’ll check her house. Thanks for your time.”

The fat woman watched without shifting position as I walked out of the Laundromat. As I pulled 310 away from the curb, she was still standing, watching.

The telephone book listed Elena Muñoz at 223 Garfield, a little dead-end street that angled off of Pershing, two blocks east of the hospital. The address was a cinder-block house that had been a rental unit for twenty years.

I stood on the concrete step and waited. The doorbell button lit when I pushed it, but I heard nothing. After a minute, I rapped hard on the door. While I waited, I turned and looked at the older model Ford Escort in the driveway. The tires were bald, and one taillight unit had been replaced with red plastic and duct tape. Life at the Laundromat wasn’t making Elena Muñoz rich.

The door opened against the security chain, and I could see about two-thirds of Elena’s pretty face. Her hair was a mess, and the makeup around her eyes had blurred and run, no longer covering up the red from crying. She lifted her chin a little when she saw me, and said, “I wondered when you’d show up.”

Elena Muñoz didn’t look like she needed threatening just then, so I smiled and thrust a hand in one of my pockets, trying to look a little more casual—like maybe I’d just stopped by on a lark.

“Me in particular, or just the cops?” I asked.

She looked past me at the Sheriff’s Department patrol car parked at the curb. “I thought maybe Bobby would stop by.”

“Bobby?”

“Bob Torrez. He’s my cousin.”

“No kidding?”

“Well, sort of.” She slipped the chain and opened the door. “More like third or fourth cousin. Come on in.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Elena turned and smiled, lighting up the tear stains a little. “I got nothing but time, mister.”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Why should I?”

“You don’t have any idea who killed Tammy Woodruff?”

Her lower lip jutted out like a second grader deprived of morning milk break. I thought for a minute that she was going to start crying again. A box of tissues sat on a small coffee table, and I pulled one out and handed it to her. She waved it away and sat down on the sofa with a thump, hands folded between her legs.

I sat in a fake leather monstrosity opposite and waited.

“Sure, I got an idea,” she said.

“Who?”

“Well, it happened up on Fourteen, didn’t it?” She shrugged and turned away as if that were all the answer I needed.

“Yes, it did.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

She turned her head and glared at me through eyes brimming with tears. “So he lives up there. That’s what.”

“Who lives up there?”

“Torrance. That son of a bitch.”

“Patrick Torrance, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded. “You think he killed Tammy?” She nodded again. “Why would he do that?”

For a long time, she looked off to her right, eyes locked on something far beyond the cinder-block walls, beyond the yard outside, beyond Posadas.

“I just think he did.”

“Why?”

“She said he threatened her.”

“She told you that?” Elena nodded. “Why would he threaten her?”

After taking a deep breath and wiping a drop off the end of her nose with the back of her hand, Elena said, “Because she was through with him.”

“Come on, Elena. Tammy didn’t make a hobby out of monogamous relationships. We both know that. She’d broken up with him before. She left Brett Prescott and went back to Patrick. He knew what to expect.”

“She was pregnant. She just found out.”

“So what?” My response jarred her, and her mouth opened as if to say something. Nothing came out. “She was twenty-three years old, Elena. There’s no mystery about a pregnancy. It’s not like she was a twelve-year-old midschooler.” She looked down at the floor and her forehead furrowed. I continued, “Was it Patrick Torrance’s child? Did she say?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Who was she seeing this weekend, then? If she’d broken up with Patrick, who was she seeing?”

Elena Muñoz frowned again, as if all the pieces of the puzzle were floating around in her brain, refusing to fall into place or pattern.

“Tammy’s mother said she saw the two of you last week, coming out of one of the stores.”

“So?”

“And all the time you were with her last week, she never said who she was seeing?”

“Sure, she talked about it.”

I spread my hands, waiting.

“She was all excited.”

“About what?”

“She said she had a chance to make all this money.”

“The last thing Tammy Woodruff needed was money,” I said, and instantly regretted it.

“Her own money,” Elena said with considerable acid.

“How was she going to do that?”

“That’s what she said…that no one really thought she was much good for anything. This was her chance.”

“What was she going to do?”

“She didn’t say. It was some big secret.”

“She never told you?”

Elena Muñoz shook her head. “But she kind of had this crazy glint in her eyes, you know? Like it was something she’d never done before? Or even thought about?”

“On Sunday night, Elena, we have evidence that Tammy was the driver of a truck that one of our deputies stopped to assist on State Highway Fifty-six.” The girl blinked but said nothing. “Patrick Torrance told me that he saw Tammy Woodruff driving her own pickup truck around noon on Monday. And there was another man with her.” Again Elena said nothing, and I added, “No one saw her alive after that, Elena. Patrick got scared and ran off to Wyoming.”

Elena looked incredulous. “Wyoming?”

I shrugged. “He has relatives up there. He got scared. For Tammy and for himself.”

“That does a lot of good, the dumb fuck,” she muttered.

“Maybe, maybe not. If you know who she was seeing, we’d like to know. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

“She wouldn’t tell me his name. She said she didn’t want her father to find out.”

“Why is that?”

Elena looked at me defiantly. “Because she said he was a Mexican.”

I frowned, puzzled. “So?”

“So the Woodruffs don’t like Mexicans. He doesn’t like me. His wife doesn’t like me. That’s why Tammy and I aren’t sharing an apartment. He wouldn’t let her.”

“How could he not let her?” I said, puzzled. “She was over twenty-one. She could live where she wanted…and live with whomever she pleased.”

She made a face and dismissed that remark without comment. “I still found out who she was seeing, though. I saw them Sunday. I saw them drive by. I was working, and Tammy looked right at me and smiled this great big old smile like she had it all over everybody.”

“Who was with her?”

This time she didn’t hesitate. “Carlos. Carlos Sánchez.” She mistook the expression on my face for a blank brain, and added, “His father owns the Broken Spur Saloon.”

Chapter 35

I borrowed Bob Torrez’s pickup truck, a ridiculous old Chevy with chrome running boards, twin spotlights, toolbox snuggled in between wrought-iron curlicues in the bed—even one of those web tailgates that’s supposed to boost mileage from ten to twelve. The truck was painted mostly semigloss black, a good grade of house paint slathered on with a high-quality nylon bristle brush.

Everyone in the county who cared about such things knew that it was Bob’s truck, and that was just fine. What I didn’t want was a police car.

I cruised down Bustos Avenue, feeling the throb of the powerful 454 V-8 under the hood and smelling the waft of exhaust fumes from a leaky manifold mixed with the aroma of roasted corn chips long forgotten in a corner between windshield and dashboard.

More expensive than the pickup truck was the small cellular phone unit that rested in the middle of the seat. It, like the ones in my Blazer and Estelle’s little sedan, belonged to Posadas County. If the carbon monoxide didn’t get me, the truck would suit my purposes.

As I passed Nick Chavez’s dealership, I scanned the vehicles parked behind the main building. They ranged from derelict parts cars to vehicles owned by employees—and right smack in the middle, sandwiched between a bent Volvo station wagon and the Weatherford’s crumpled van, was an older model pickup. I couldn’t see much of it as I passed, but I did see the stock racks in the back. I hoped for mud as well, but the truck glinted in the early afternoon sunshine, clean as a whistle, the miracle of a modern drive-thru car-wash.

I turned left on MacArthur, gathering a back view of the dealership. At the fork of MacArthur and Camino del Sol, I swung around and headed back. The dealership wasn’t crawling with people, but there were enough—one salesman talking with an elderly couple outside, one of the servicemen half under a van with out-of-state plates, and Nick Chavez down on the new-car line, talking to a kid who would have traded his little sister for the sleek coupe parked in the end slot. No one paid any mind to the old rattletrap that idled into the lot, around the back of the service building, and out the other side.

As I passed the pickup with the stock rack, I jotted down the license plate number. The plate itself was ancient and hard to read, the corners folded and the letters marred from countless strikes by hay bales, firewood, old car parts, and whatever else twenty years use and abuse had inflicted.

Pulling out onto Bustos again, I pulled the microphone off the dashboard hook and turned up the volume of Bob’s cheap discount radio. I was about to call the plate into dispatch, and then thought better of it. There were too many overeager ears. I drove back to the Sheriff’s Department and ran the plate in person.

The NCIC information came back with no wants or warrants, and that didn’t surprise me. The vehicle, listed as a 1978 Ford three-quarter ton, was registered to Mateo Esquibel, d.o.b. April 6, 1903. Señor Esquibel, if he could still walk that far, picked up his mail from P O Box 6, Regal, New Mexico.

“You slimy son of a bitch,” I said aloud, and Gayle Sedillos turned in her chair.

“Sir?”

“Nothing, Gayle. I’m not here.”

“Yes, sir.”

I closed my office door and locked it, and sat down at my desk. After a minute’s thought, I picked up the phone. Victor Sánchez answered on the tenth ring with a curt “Yeah.”

“Victor, this is Gastner at the sheriff’s office. I’ve got one more question to ask you if you’ve got a minute.” Sánchez said nothing, but he didn’t hang up. “Does Mateo Esquibel still drive?”

After another long silence, Victor managed a single word. “What?”

“Mateo Esquibel? You know? Down in Regal. He’s some relation to you, isn’t he?”

“You mean the old man?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk to him, you’re going to have to drive down there. He’s got a phone, but he don’t use it. He’s deaf now.”

“Oh. No wonder,” I said.

“What do you want with him?”

“Me? Nothing. One of my deputies wanted to buy his truck or something like that. I said I’d ask you about it.”

The line fell dead again. “Thanks a lot,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I telephoned the hospital next, knowing I shouldn’t, but wanting Estelle’s advice. She agreed with everything I wanted to do except my plan for leaving her sitting right where she was. But she had no choice.

In an hour, I felt confident that I had all bases covered. Bob Torrez had changed into civilian clothes, taken his leaky truck back to Chavez’s dealership, and purchased a set of exhaust manifold gaskets from the parts department. On the way out, a casual glance into the business office of the dealership had confirmed that Carlos Sánchez was there and busy with a stack of paperwork.

Bob parked behind his aunt’s house on MacArthur, pushed up the hood of the pickup, and settled down to enjoy the clear, thousand-yard view of the dealership’s two driveways.

Tony Abeyta took 306 and began regular patrol of the county. When he reached the end of a shift at four that afternoon, Tom Mears would relieve him. At midnight, Howard Bishop would take over. All three were instructed to avoid getting themselves tangled in something that couldn’t be dropped at an instant’s notice. All three were told to stay central in the county; to make no effort to avoid State Highway 56, but to give the highway no special attention.

And Gayle Sedillos, caught in the trap of being efficient, smart, and quick-witted, planned to camp out for the duration at dispatch. She kept tabs on the deputies as the day wore on, making sure that their location in the county at any given time was no mystery.

If Carlos Sánchez made any kind of move, he’d know as well as I did exactly where the working deputies were. And that’s what I wanted.

At 5:05, Carlos Sánchez left the dealership driving old man Esquibel’s truck. He drove directly to his apartment at 131 MacArthur Terrace, a short cul-de-sac off the main street. He drove right by Carmine Torrez’s house on MacArthur Street, and if he’d looked to his right, he would have seen Bob Torrez under the hood of the old Chevy, portable radio propped up on one fender, grease up to his elbows.

At five-thirty, I heard the moan of Jim Bergin’s Beech Baron as it circled the village and lined up for final approach. I was at the airport waiting, and I hustled Patrick Torrance into one of the small pilot’s conference rooms in the FBO Building. Without giving either his mind or his stomach time to stop spinning from the trip, I spread out a series of photographs on the table. Several of the photos were meaningless, dug out of files at random.

One photo was a clipping of Nick Chavez’s Christmas advertisement, with all the employees of the dealership gathered in front of the showroom, holding a large wreath.

“Take your time,” I said to the youth. “Examine the faces.”

Patrick sat down, taking each photograph in turn. He hesitated quite a while at one picture taken of Sheriff Martin Holman on the capitol steps with one of our state’s senators. Eventually he put that photo down and picked up the group shot of Nick Chavez’s gang. His forehead furrowed.

“I have a magnifying glass out in the car if you need it,” I said. At the same time I placed my small cassette recorder on the table in front of him and switched it on.

Patrick shook his head. “No.” He drew the photo up close to his nose, squinting. “That’s him, right there.” He picked up a pencil and pointed with the tip. Carlos Sánchez was in front, kneeling at one side of the wreath, looking pleasant and professional.

For the benefit of the tape recorder, I said, “Patrick, you’re pointing at Carlos Sánchez. Are you sure that’s the man that you saw in the pickup truck Monday with Tammy Woodruff?”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“You’ll testify to that?”

Patrick’s eyes opened wider, but he didn’t protest. He nodded slightly and looked back at the photograph. “I’m sure that’s him.”

I reached over and turned off the recorder. “Then that’s all we need, son. I’d like to ask that you go home and stay there until I call you.”

Patrick nodded, and then said, “Do you want me to call my dad?”

“From here? There’s no need. Just go on home.”

He smiled for what I guessed was the first time in many days. “Sir, my truck is in Wyoming. It’s a long walk out to the ranch.”

“Ah,” I said. “I’ll drop you off. When you take the bus back to Gillette to get your truck, save the bills. The county will reimburse you.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Bus, Patrick. Baggage class.”

I didn’t take time to chat when I left Patrick at the driveway of the Torrance ranch. It was already dark when I pulled back out onto the state highway and headed my old Blazer south toward Regal. I was after one final piece of the puzzle, and I knew exactly where to look.