Come Dark (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

At the security gate at the base of the mesa road, Gastner swiped a card through the reader and waved a salute at Lou Haus, the gatekeeper who appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand. Short, impressively round with bulky shoulders, Haus could have been a pro wrestler.

“Is Miles topside?” Gastner asked.

“Yes, sir.” Haus glanced at the wall clock behind him. “Should be, anyway.”

He stepped to Gastner's door and peered in at Estelle. “Nice evening, Sheriff.” He flashed a grin full of perfect false teeth.

“It is that. I have a question for you, sir.”

“Shoot.”

“Efrin Garcia works topside. When's the last time he checked through you?”

“Efrin? He's that artist kid, right? He's staying in one of those contractors' trailers out behind the restaurant complex. He goes into town once in a while.” He held the clipboard at an angle so the light played across it as he ruffled pages. “He came down, let's see. Thursday, it says here. That would be during Ignacio's swing shift. Right at four forty-five in the afternoon.” Haus scanned the other pages. “Hasn't come back up yet, though. Not unless he slipped through without checkin' in.”

“Does that happen often?”

Haus huffed a little. “Not on my shift, it doesn't.” He cocked his head. “He's staying in C-3, if you're looking for him. But I don't think he's topside, though. One of the guys said that he heard the kid took a fall of some kind and ended up in the hospital. I heard that, but I don't know if it's true. We hear all kinds of things, you know.”

“I bet you do,” Gastner said. “We're going to scoot up and have a talk with Miles, and then visit the big dish. They got a crew up there?”

“You bet. They're workin' on that thing twenty-four/seven. Electricians been thick as flies. I heard they got power to it now…so they can move it some.”

“This, I gotta see,” Gastner said eagerly, as if he hadn't seen the huge radio telescope half a hundred times already.

“You got the gold pass, Mr. G.” Haus reached out and patted the gold emblem affixed to the inside corner of the SUV's windshield. “Any time, anywhere, day or night.”

Gastner gave him a brief salute and pulled the car into gear. The gate closed promptly behind them.

“Mr. G?” Estelle grinned.

“Big stuff,” Gastner replied. “It doesn't warm me up the way Padrino does, though. But I
do
have a gold pass.” Around the first curve, he slowed abruptly, giving way to a herd of seven nervous mule deer that skipped off the pavement. “The train and tram are a hell of a lot safer than this road, especially at night.” His headlights illuminated the bright white and yellow pavement markings, all in the European fashion to avoid the clutter of road signs.

“When did they first notice the graffiti on the dish face?”

Gastner made a tipping motion with his hand. “They were testing something about the elevation mechanism. One of the electricians noticed it.”

“They haven't messed with it yet, I hope.”

“I don't believe so. They're waiting for us. Amend that. They're waiting for you or Bobby. But it's a
fait accompli
to figure out who did it. It fits the identical pattern used on the train, and now the school. A very busy little monkey. And by the way, are you going up to interview him, assuming he survives the night?”

“Yes. I'm going to see if Jim Bergin will fly me up to Albuquerque in the morning. He can have me there in two hours at the most. And then two back. I can be home by noon.”

“And then? Suppose Efrin admits to the graffiti. Then what?”

“He was at the school, would have had to have been, shortly before or after Clint Scott was killed. He may have seen something. Heard something. Any little thing. I think Efrin the tagger was interrupted.” She held up both hands as if clutching a softball. “There's just too much going on in too small a space. Somebody knows something.”

“You're thinking the killer saw Efrin—we're assuming now that the boy is for sure the tagger—and scared him off?”

“Maybe. That's the best straw I've got at this point.”

They rounded the final curve, the macadam so smooth that driving on it was like riding in an air car. The road divided, and then narrowed to a single lane that wound across the mesa-top. The edges of the road were marked with double lines that glowed bright blue in the glare of the headlights.

“Have you been here since they finished the roadway?” Estelle shook her head. “I don't know if Miles is right or not in this, but folks who tour the big dish site are going to use company golf cart type thingies. No car traffic. Cars with parasols, and the whole works. Max speed about eight miles an hour.”

“Swank. Company drivers?”

“Yep. And this road on top? It's all one-way, even with the contractors still on site. I'm not sure they like it, especially since the trip back to the restaurant and lodge is along the south edge of the mesa. And that edge is why Miles is requiring company drivers for the carts when things open to the public. I've done the loop, and it's phenomenal.” He grinned at Estelle. “Gold pass, you know.”

The dish loomed ahead, dwarfing the various vehicles parked near its base. It was tipped nearly vertical, and if the taggers had thought that their artwork would dominate the dish, they'd gotten it all wrong. The panel of graffiti was a flyspeck, a small nuisance, high up on the rim.

Gastner parked beside a white Dodge dually pickup with NZ plates. Miles Waddell saw them, and excused himself from the group with whom he'd been talking. He carried a rolled up set of plans, letting it ride on his shoulder as he walked.

“He's got you working these damn odd hours now,” Waddell said as he tucked the rolled plans under his arm and shook hands with Estelle, both of his enveloping hers. “And what a mess
this
day has been, from one end to another.” He flashed a smile. “Good PR, though. Lots of exposure.” He turned to face the dish, neck craned. “You know, I don't have anything to do with this part of the project, but they tell me things are moving right along for them. Lots of computer issues, all that kind of stuff. But the dish looks good, doesn't it?” He put his hands on his hips approvingly, as if watching a favorite child play. “Best darn billboard that I have. I get goose bumps every time I stand under it. I mean, just look at that. Sixty meters across that thing.”

He turned back to them and his expression lost its bonhomie. “I heard about the homicide downtown, at the school? Damnedest thing. I just don't get it. And now you have to waste your time with this crap. You know, Bobby was up earlier, looked at the graffiti and just shrugged.”

“I hope that's what I can do,” Estelle said.

“We're damn lucky we didn't find a body lying under the dish. Kids have no sense of mortality. Come on, let me show you.” He didn't mention Efrin Garcia's name in connection with the tagging.

He strode past the workmen, who regarded Gastner and Estelle with interest.

“Gentlemen,” Gastner said affably. “Didn't Miles warn you about midnight tours?” That earned tentative smiles.

“We need hardhats,” Waddell prompted, and led them into a small equipment room, an entryway into what must have been one of the main control rooms in the base of the dish. It was difficult to tell exactly, since the room looked as if a madman had stored a mile or two of computer cable there, with every flat surface covered.

“Ah, Arnie,” he added as a tall, gangly man with wisps of carrot-colored hair entered behind them. “Folks, this is Arnie Sewell, the stud duck for the mechanics of this project. Arnie, you know Bill already. This is Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who has my personal warrant to visit anything on this mesa any time that she wants. They're interested in our new art up top.”

“Ah.” Sewell's face carried no expression. “The paint isn't much of an issue for us, but the little son of a bitch stepped in a couple of places he shouldn't have. What exactly did you want to do, Officer?”

“If it's possible, I'd like a photo that shows detail,” Estelle said.

“That's a tough call, unless you have a damn good telephoto lens? If we stow the dish so you can access through the hatch,” and he held his hand palm-up, “taking a photo of anything all the way across on the rim is going to be a challenge. If you have a decent telephoto, we can stand it up all the way, and you'll be able to focus in on the vandalism while you stand on the ground down in front. That's what I'd suggest. Standing on the dish itself is possible, but…” He paused and shook his head dubiously. “There are some problems with that.”

“That's what I need, though,” Estelle said. “I need to know how he got up there in the first place.”

Sewell puffed out his cheeks. “That part's easy.” He looked down at Estelle's stout leather shoes as he handed them bright yellow hard hats. “What kind of soles?”

She cocked a foot up, showing the finely ridged crepe.

“That'll do nicely.” He drew out a small phone, tapped a key, and waited for a moment. “Rick, we need the dish parked for visitors topside.” He nodded at her. “Let's wait outside. More fun that way.” He grinned.

Even as they stepped out, motion was obvious—slow, majestic, just a giant moving shadow against the heavens. “Look, I need to finish up what I was doing,” Waddell said, and he shook hands with Sewell. “If you need me, holler. Bill and Estelle, when you're done here, stop by the theater. I'll be over there. More show and tell.”

As Waddell walked off, Sewell said, “So…how did he get up on the dish? I have to admit, that's not hard. For one thing, a lot of this system is automatic. It really has to be, since we're talking
really
fine adjustments when control aims the dish. That's the work of the computer links. To make it simple, when the operator wants to find some coordinate set, he types the coordinates into the computers and they do the rest.”

“I would think some of our winds would be a problem,” Estelle observed.

“Oh, that's right. They can be.” He rocked his hand back and forth. “Wind touches thirty-five knots, and the system automatically calls for the dish to stow. That's a pretty big sail we've got up there. When we ask it to park, all the walkways line up so you don't step into thin air.”

“That would be nice. Where would the kid have to access the walkways?”

Sewell beckoned, and they walked around the base, sidestepping hardware. With no more than a steady hum, the giant dish blanked out the sky, continuing to tilt so that it lay on its back, a dark shadow nearly two hundred feet in diameter. Sewell drew out a flashlight. “Here is the best place.” He illuminated the girders above them. “The normal access to the first ladderway is inside the core…just down where we were a bit ago with Miles. But the kid didn't get in there. He could have gone right up these girders here. It's not much of a climb to the first ladderway. The lowest one.”

“And all the ladderways would have lined up then?”

“Yes. Open pathway.” His hand drew a zigzag. “When it's parked.”

“We think this might have happened this week sometime,” Estelle said. “When did you first discover the vandalism?”

“Could be. The dish has been parked for the past couple of weeks. So anytime in that window. We saw it—actually one of the men working fence saw it—when we rotated up. That would have been yesterday morning.” The shadow moving across the sky paused. “You want to go up?”

“I do.”

He pulled his phone out again. “Can we have all the lights, Rick?”

A circuit snapped somewhere deep in the bowels of the structure, and the walkways were bathed in light. “Every time we turn on the lights, our landlord flinches,” Sewell laughed. “They're hooded, and automatically dim, but still. Most of the time when we're in actual operation, they're all switched off.” He laughed. “The dish doesn't care. It's listening, not looking. But
Miles
cares.”

“I'll watch from here,” Gastner said as Estelle followed Sewell up the narrow ladderway. “Been there, done that.”

Seven ladderways later, with just enough breeze to accentuate the height of their perch, Sewell stopped. Just above them, the vast white underbelly of the dish now rested horizontal with the ground, so huge that in no direction could they see the rim. Up another short passageway, this one enclosed inside a center core that was surprisingly spacious, Sewell nodded at the hatch in front of them. The fit of metal to metal was flawless, with two large knurled thumbscrews the only indication that they'd reached the hatch.

“These dogs are routinely torqued down just about finger-tight…snug but not enough to misshape the panel, although the door is actually pretty heavy. Our little vandal would have had to know that all this was here, and that he could access it.”

“No locks?”

“No.” He spun out the retaining screws and let them hang from short tethers of light-gauge stainless steel cable. The panel hinged silently straight up and then out to one side, the complex hinge mechanism itself a thing of engineering beauty. “If the hatch wasn't actually attached to the framework of the dish, it would be only a matter of time before somebody slipped with it, and the thing would go sliding down the dish face like a toboggan.”

Estelle could feel the change of air as the core room opened to the void. “Let's see what we have.” Sewell reached over, moved a switch guard, and snapped the toggle up. Instantly, the dish was bathed in light from a dozen directions. He moved to one side. “Step up waist-high to the rim. You'll get a view.”

In every direction, the sea of white stretched away from the hatch. When viewed from the ground, the actual superstructure that supported the dish suggested that the dish's curve created a deep bowl, but that wasn't the case. The dish was actually surprisingly shallow, perhaps twenty feet deep from belly to rim. The night air whispered, and Estelle found that both hands automatically clenched the rim of the hatch until her knuckles turned white.