Come Dark (21 page)

“Francis said they were working on Efrin Garcia last night in the ER,” Estelle said. “He's about eighteen or a little older…Art's younger brother? You would remember Art Garcia, I think. He had a passionate love affair with trying to manufacture his own meth. Not especially successful, either.”

“Oh, indeed, I do remember the lad. Art's father skipped to Mexico, leaving wife and kids behind. We thought he was probably the brewer behind the meth. It would have been better if he'd taken Art with him. But that was a while ago—I wasn't even sheriff then. But Efrin? How'd he get into trouble? Miles was wondering why he wasn't working today up on the mesa. He mentioned it to me when we were over in the theater on the tour. I think he wanted to show the kid off to the press. I mean, that's
quite
the mural he's got going.”

“Sir?” Estelle pushed herself upright, leaving a hand firmly on her husband's shoulder.

“The kid is an amazing artist, if we're talking about the same Efrin Garcia. He's working on a huge mural that will circle the planetarium theater from one end of the curved screen all the way around the audience to the other end. What I saw was a section he just finished that features the Horsehead Nebula.
Most
impressive work, I gotta tell you. But Miles was a little concerned because the kid has about a hundred feet to go in order to finish up, and he decides to take a day off. But he's pretty quick with his airbrushes.”

“He won't be finishing up any time soon,” Francis said. “If he's very lucky, he'll live.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Way too fast on one of our excellent county byways. First it's a deer, then he loses it and clips a utility pole. No seat belt, and he was tossed out. We shipped him off to UNMH. He might make it. We managed to stabilize him for a little bit.” Francis grimaced. “Bad deal.”

“Well, shit. Does Miles know?”

“We didn't know he worked for Miles, Bill. And he was in no condition for conversation.”

“And now he's up in Albuquerque?”

Francis nodded. “Medevac transported him last night.”

Gastner relaxed back in his chair, regarding the empty pie plate almost wistfully. “I was glad to see him hooked up with Waddell's project. There's lots of opportunity there for a talented artist. Kid gets in on the ground floor of a project like this, and there's no limit for him.”

Estelle stared at Gastner for a moment, then rose suddenly and left the room. She returned in a moment with a photograph. “Did you get one of these earlier?”

“I did. Nice shot. They found that this morning on one of the railcars. There's another one on the dish itself, if you can figure that one out. Waddell was going to have a chat with Efrin later today.”

“So he thinks Efrin did this?”

“We
know
he did. Well, let me amend that.
I
know he did. That's the first thing I told Miles, but he's one of those nice guys who would rather deny the possibility that somebody has crossed him. But he'll come around. You take that photo up to the theater and compare it with Efrin's mural and decide for yourself.” He traced around the photo of the graffiti with his finger. “Same brilliant colors, same heavy use of deep space blacks. Same washes of really clean shades of gray. That's what drew my eye. Same clarity of design. I mean, I don't care much for modern art, and I sure as hell don't care much for gang graffiti, but this is a cut above, right? The kid is an airbrush artist.”

Estelle remained silent.

“So you heard about the dish being defaced?”

“Both Bobby and Frank mentioned it.”

“Yeah…I was thinking of breaking Frank's camera arm so he wouldn't get a photo of it, but right now the design is so high up, I don't think he can. Too far away. They had the dish parked like this,” and he cut his hand sideways through the air, indicating a horizontal attitude, “while they worked on something or other. It's been that way for several days. And then they were doing something with the azimuth hardware this morning and tipped the dish almost all the way upright, as if it was listening to something just over on the horizon.” He hand-chopped the air in a vertical line. “So there's the big dish facing out for the whole world to see, and what do you suppose is painted high up on the rim?”

He shrugged and added, “Were it not for my new job with Waddell, I would never have seen it.” He held up two fingers, one to each eye. “But the crew sure as hell did.”

“Your new job?”

“Of vast importance, too. Waddell wanted my input and advice about where to locate the new benches. See,” and he drew a circle on the table, “this is the dish and the fence around it. Miles wants places for tourists to stop, rest, and gawk when they take a break from hiking the access trails. He's got a really nice, really ugly, and really insecure chain-link around the dish itself right now, and outside of that, he's marked about eight places where he's planning to put benches around the circumference of the site when the new arty fence is built. So, I go up there and sit and ruminate at different times of the day, making sure we don't install permanent benches that put the person staring right into the sun or some dumb thing.” He shrugged again. “I'm good at sitting and ruminating.”

“So you think Efrin Garcia painted the dish as well as the railcar.”

“I do. And the only time the kid could have done it without sliding off into space was when the dish was parked, lying on its back. Even then, he'd have to be like one of those damn geckos that can cling to window glass. Go take a look. Take the photo of the railcar with you. Same use of color. Some design elements that are derivative.” He chuckled. “Don't I sound like some goddamn art critic, though?”

“How would he get up there?”

“Piece of cake. Remember, Efrin is only eighteen or so. Monkey in human clothing. There are access ladderways all over. When the dish is parked the way it was, all the walkways line up. All a kid has to do is a pull-up to reach the first one, and up he goes, one stairway after another. The hatch out to the dish surface is secured with a couple thumb screws.” He smiled. “At the moment, it is, anyway.” He chuckled again. “Miles is going to change the fence, but that's always been in the works. Day by day, though, he's getting a bit less trusting. That in itself is an interesting evolution to watch.”

Estelle frowned. “How'd Efrin avoid all the security to climb up there in the first place? All the workers?”

“Well,” Gastner said dismissively, “dark night, dark T-shirt, dark pants…no problem.”

“And because he works on the mesa, it would be no problem to
be
there at night. He wouldn't have the problem of getting through security down at the gate.”

“Perhaps so. Have you talked with him?”

“No,” Estelle said. “Bobby made sure that everyone saw a copy of the railcar photo, but I didn't give it much thought. I was busy with other things.”

“Efrin's not talking at the moment,” Dr. Guzman offered.

“How long was he without medical attention after his crash?”

“That's hard to say. Not too long, actually. I think that's why he's still alive.” He rubbed his side. “Lots of blood loss from the lacerated spleen. Perrone said he got six more units in Albuquerque, in addition to the four we pumped into him. When he was brought to the ER, his pulse was rock bottom.”

“Well, he'll keep.” Gastner watched Estelle's face as she regarded the tablecloth with more concentration than it deserved. “What?”

“Are you up for going for a ride, Padrino
?”

“
What, you mean right now?” He glanced at his wristwatch. Dr. Guzman groaned, and Estelle clamped both hands on the doctor's forearm.

“I have to do this while I'm thinking about it,” she said. “It won't take long.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Gastner's new SUV was comfortable enough, and Estelle raked the passenger seat up to make it less so. Just being chauffeured was a refreshing change, even though by not taking the Charger, she was leaving her “office” behind.

She reached down and turned on the Sheriff's Department radio. Even though the seventy-seven-year-old Gastner was long retired, both the department and he understood that he was a valuable resource for such an understaffed county. A radio was a cheap price to pay for an extra set of eyes and ears.

“Oh, sure,” Gastner quipped as she did so. “Sometimes I really do remember to turn that damn thing on. Where to?”

“I want to drive by the middle school again. As long as we're talking graffiti, I want to show you what we have there, around by the back door of the middle school. In fact, why don't you go by way of Pershing? We have Esperanza sitting the place until about two, and then he and Jonas will switch. Jonas is covering Scott's. If we don't give the folks some sleep time, the whole department will be a bunch of zombies.”

“She said, doing a fair enough imitation herself.” In a moment, Gastner pointed ahead. “The light's out.” Sure enough, the back of the old middle school loomed dark, not haloed like the rest of the school grounds. He let the SUV idle quietly into the parking lot. Up ahead, nestled into the shadows by the new gymnasium, Deputy Esperanza had parked the older department Crown Vic.

“You want to let him know we're here?”

“No,” Estelle said. “Let him figure out what to do.”

They parked in the corner of the lot, the back of the school just yards away, across a swath of gravel. Before she had the chance to nag Gastner about the insecure, tricky footing, he was pulling himself out of the car, cane-seat in hand. She joined him, slipping her arm through his. “Consider it companionable,” she smiled.

“That's a nice way to put it.”

The light over the door was dark, as was the big sodium vapor light a few yards away. Estelle focused the beam of her flashlight upward, illuminating the parking lot fixture. “Somebody's good with an air rifle,” she said.

“Even those are going high-tech these days,” Gastner said. “I used to think my Daisy Red Rider was the cat's meow.”

Both of their flashlights illuminated the graffiti. “The same, no?”

“I'd say so. Sure. What little of it he managed to finish.”

She stepped closer, and reached up with the light to touch the lower right corner of the design. “Those two parallel marks look like they were scraped across the design. I could imagine a ladder doing that if it skidded out from under him.” She slipped the small digital camera out of her pocket, and it fired up with a jingle that sounded loud in the quiet night. In a moment, she handed it to Gastner. “Maybe you can see the damage more clearly here. I took these when Barry Lavin gave me the tour earlier this afternoon.”

He examined the photo displayed on the small camera's view screen, and then held it up to compare with the wall. “My trifocals aren't made for this.”

She reached over and touched the screen. “He only finished about a third of the design, and then quit for some reason.”

“Huh. Maybe he ran out of paint. Maybe somebody caught him at it.” He rested his hands on his hips. “So…tell me why we're wasting so much time with just another panel of gang art?”

“The obvious reason is that it's within two heartbeats of a homicide scene, Padrino.”

“Well, sure enough. But so are a lot of other things.”

“There's just too much happening all at once for some of the threads not to be tied together. Scott at the ball game, making friendly with Stacie Stewart. Then she disappears the day after the murder? I don't like that. Now we have gang graffiti that crops up right on the back wall outside the murder scene.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Did Efrin Garcia do this? And the train? And the dish topside?”

“Well, I think he did,” Gastner said. “But I've been wrong before.”

She nodded at the wall. “Okay, say he did, Padrino
.
This panel isn't finished. What interrupted him? Something did, and he goes speeding off home, and piles his truck into a utility pole. All of that is why I'm spinning in circles just now, trying to find a path to follow.”

“It'll be interesting to ask Mike if anyone drove by. I assume he's keeping a list.” The Crown Vic had not moved from its position. As an unschooled rookie, Esperanza's instructions were to use the radio, not to confront. He had either recognized Gastner's vehicle, which was unlikely, or hadn't noticed their arrival.

Back in the SUV, Gastner turned to Estelle. “You want to talk to Esperanza now?”

“I do. But don't pull up beside his car. Maybe just stop out in the bus lane.”

When he did so, Estelle slipped out of the SUV, closing the door gently. She took a path that brought her under the elms beside the gym wall, toward the rear of the Crown Vic. The deputy's window was open, his elbow resting on the sill. He didn't startle when Estelle materialized by his arm. His head was against the headrest, mouth open, sleeping the deep slumber of youth.

For a long moment, the undersheriff stood quietly, then reached past his arm and deftly unclipped the heavy sheriff's badge from his uniform shirt. Minding her footing, she stepped away and returned to Gastner's SUV. He grinned when he saw what she held in her hand.

“I did that once.”

“I know you did. To a young Todd Baker, if I remember correctly.”

“You do.”

As Gastner drove out the back entrance to the parking lot, she slipped the small cell phone out of its belt holster and auto-dialed the Sheriff's Office. Ernie Wheeler answered on the first ring, sounding alert.

“Ernie, how often have you been checking Esperanza's status?”

“Every fifteen,” Wheeler replied.

“Do it every five for a while. He's having a little trouble staying alert. Each time you call, have him change location around the school grounds. Keep him in motion. And Bishop is on tonight, right? Have him swing by Esperanza's location now and then for a little conversation.”

“You got it. Are you ten-eight?”

“Ah, no. Bill Gastner and I are just cruising, checking some things. I think we'll probably head up to the mesa for a few minutes.”

“All right. Stay in touch. The sheriff is out tonight, too. Said he couldn't sleep.”

“I can understand that.” She switched off and smiled at Gastner. “Ernie the Mother Hen.”

“You're serious about going out there? A few minutes ago, you could hardly keep your eyes open.”

“I'm awake now. And I want to see the dish.”

“With it lying on its back staring straight up at the sky, you won't be able to see the graffiti.”

“Then we'll wake somebody up and have them stand it on its ear for us. All this gives me time to think, Padrino
.
And I have an old friend who used to cruise the county in the wee hours, instead of lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling.”

“He still does.”

Southbound on New Mexico 56, they encountered only a solitary SUV, Sheriff's Department emblems on the doors, light bar on top blossoming briefly as Deputy Alan Bishop flashed past them, headed toward town—and no doubt a conversation with Mike Esperanza, whose frantic embarrassment would serve to chase away the drowsiness. The veteran Bishop, well into his second tenure with the department after leaving Posadas County for a stint in Oregon, wouldn't make Esperanza's experience any easier.

Just west of Victor Sanchez's Broken Spur Saloon, County Road 14 headed north from the state highway, and out of long habit, Gastner buzzed down all four windows and opened the sunroof. He let the SUV drift slower and slower, driving on the truck-pounded rock-hard lanes of the gravel road to keep the crunching of tires to a minimum. With plenty of celestial light, he reached forward and turned off the headlights, the dash panel going dark, save for a few idiot lights.

“Back in the day, I would have jerked the wires on those damn lights,” Gastner said. “You wouldn't think a simple ‘everything off' switch would be so difficult.”

The great dome of stars, slashed through one side by the wash of the Milky Way, reached right down to the horizon, without a single porch light out on the prairie to mar the display. Miles Waddell's mesa loomed ahead, just a black shape against the starry sky. By careful design, none of the development was visible from any public highway.

“I miss the Torrances,” Gastner said, glancing at Estelle. He pointed ahead to where the rancher's double-wide mobile home had rested at the base of a rock jumble below the
NightZone
mesa. “Had some good coffee and pie there a time or two.”

“A couple hundred times, would be more like it.” She reached across and squeezed his forearm affectionately.

“Yep. All gone now, and Miles added those acres to the pot.” He sighed. “A good thing, I suppose. Now, with Prescotts selling out to him, too, he's got room to stretch out to the east. Did you know that Christina Prescott is working topside for him now?”

“I didn't know, but I'm not surprised. She's a jewel.”

“Victor will miss her down at the saloon, but this gives her something a little more interesting. Her parents' ranch never produced much. Other than a couple nice kids, maybe.” Gastner shrugged philosophically. “Of course, Guy Prescott might have been a more successful rancher if he had spent the time and money on his place that went to the Broken Spur Saloon.”

“Christina is working the restaurant?”

“She
is
the restaurant…everything but the kitchen itself. She is the boss, and a damn good choice, too. Waddell has some fancy Italian chef from Florida onboard starting next week. Guess who's going to work hard as the official taster?”

He grinned and slowed the SUV another notch, then pulled far to the left across the gravel road until his tires touched the left shoulder. One of the newer department Expeditions glided up beside them and stopped, Estelle's elbow on the sill almost able to touch Sheriff Robert Torrez'.

“Hey,” Torrez said, “what's goin' on out here now?”

“I want to see the vandalism of the dish. Try for some photos.”

“Huh.”

“Bill is sure the work is Efrin Garcia's.”

“Yep.”

“The docs think he's in pretty tough shape.”

Torrez gazed ahead at the prairie, jaw working. “Perrone mentioned that. The little rat will make it, all right, tough as he is. He ain't the one to worry about, anyways. Art's around now. Mears saw him a day or two ago, cruisin' around in his mother's Lincoln. I drove out to their trailer, but missed 'em.” The sheriff tapped the steering wheel. “Wouldn't be surprised if he headed south. Ain't nothin' for him here.”

“You talked to their mother?” Her
Lincoln
hardly painted an accurate picture. The old barge was a fifty-dollar car, on the good days when it actually ran.

“Nope. If Efrin's up in Albuquerque, that's where she is, too.” He turned to look at Estelle. “Stewart is going to want to talk to you again, as soon as you can.”

“I want a warrant from Judge Hobart to go through her effects.”

Torrez shook his head. “Hobart ain't going to give you that. Leavin' the kid in the car for a few minutes don't add up to felony abuse. Not unless she's tied into something a whole lot worse. Skippin' town ain't going to do it.”

“Did you happen to stop by the office and watch any of the game film that the LT has?”

“Nope.”

“She and Scott were close, Bobby. There's something there.”

“Like some affair or something?”

“Yes.”

“You think maybe Stewart found out about it?”

“They weren't very subtle, that's for sure. Any number of the town's blabbermouths would have seen them. And they'd talk. But I don't see Todd Stewart grabbing a gun and killing the man.”

“It's happened before.”

“Yes. But I can't see it that way this time. Not the way this was done.”

Torrez' shoulders hunched in a sigh. “Yeah, well. Maybe you'll be able to talk Hobart into the paperwork. I wouldn't bet on it, though.”

“You're headed topside?”

Torrez grimaced. “I don't think so. Wasn't plannin' on it. I think now that I'm pointed in this direction that I'll just head on north, then cut back to town past the airport.” He pulled the SUV into gear but held it against the brake. “Your son doin' okay?”

“Yes, they are.”

“I'm talkin' about the one with the girlfriend and the hot car.” The crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes deepened.

“Yes, he is. A surprise visit. They'll head back Sunday.”

“In the 'Vette?”

“Yes.”

“Tell 'em to be careful.”

Estelle patted the windowsill. “As you'll discover in about fourteen years, Bobby, telling teenagers
anything
can be an adventure.”

Torrez actually managed a pained smile and quickly changed the subject. Little Gabe Torrez wasn't walking yet, but the time would come.

“Bill, you doin' all right?”

“Reasonably so, yes.”

Torrez let the Expedition ease forward. “You two stay out of trouble.”

He didn't wait for a response, and Gastner didn't move his own vehicle until the sheriff's dust had settled. For a few moments, the SUV's bulk was silhouetted against the wash of stars, then it disappeared over a rise.

“He's sounding so
sheriff
-like,” Gastner remarked.