Convenient Disposal (17 page)

Gastner grimaced. “This someone really wanted her dead.”

“You bet.”

“Why?”

“The only thing that comes to mind is that he didn’t want a witness. A witness to whatever he did. Whatever that was,” Estelle murmured. “Whatever happened to Kevin Zeigler happened somewhere else, then. There’s no sign of a struggle in the house, or in the yard, or in the truck.”

“So that narrows it,” Gastner said. “What did she see? She saw the truck. And she saw that Zeigler wasn’t driving it.”

Estelle frowned and shook her head.

“That’s something all by itself,” Gastner added. “It was important to the killer that the truck not be left at the scene, wherever the hell that is. And equally important to him that he not be seen parking it back at Zeigler’s.”

“Risky.”

“Murder is risky business, sweetheart. But it’s a quiet neighborhood. Slip in, park, slip out. Who’s the wiser? He didn’t know that Carmen was home.”

“Freddy could just as easily have seen him, too, sir.”

“Sure enough, he could have. But he
wasn’t
home. Maybe lucky for him.”

Estelle fell silent, her head resting in her hand. After a moment, she turned and looked out the window again, focusing on nothing in particular. Gastner let her ponder uninterrupted for another half cup of coffee.

“Everything is being done for Carmen that can be done,” he said quietly.

“Oh, I know that,
Padrino
.” She turned away from the window in resignation. “Maybe Bobby will find something in Kevin’s office. Nobody says that he had any enemies, but obviously he had at least one.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t live his lifestyle without making some enemies—that’s just the way it is.”

“Hate crime, you mean?” she asked, and Gastner shrugged. “It’s too calculated, sir. If we had found Zeigler’s battered body in some parking lot, then I’d lean that way. Not this time, though.” She pounded the table lightly with both fists, just a faint drum roll of frustration. “See,
Padrino
? I’m sure about what
didn’t
happen. That doesn’t get us anywhere.”

“Sure it does,” he said, digging out his wallet. He slid a twenty-dollar bill under his saucer. “It tells you which road
not
to take. There’s a poem about that somewhere, isn’t there?”

She glanced at her watch. “Let’s plan Friday evening with Sofía. Is that a good time for you?”

“Sure.” He grinned as he pushed himself out of the booth. “You’re going to be there?”

“Yes,” Estelle said with certainty. “I’m going to be there. And I’m going to my son’s open house at school tomorrow night just like a regular parent, and I’m going to enjoy Aunt Sofía’s visit, and we’re going to Las Cruces on Saturday to buy a piano.”

Gastner chuckled. “Don’t make too many best-laid plans, sweetheart. You know how these things work.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, taking Gastner’s arm affectionately. “That doesn’t mean I can’t daydream a little.”

Chapter Twenty-two

A yellow crime-scene tape crossed the outside double doors of the county offices, and Estelle used her own keys to let herself in. Sheriff Robert Torrez was sitting on the edge of Penny Barnes’ desk, munching on a convenience-store burrito.

“I sent ’em all home,” he said when he saw Estelle. “We needed some peace and quiet.” Sure enough, the county offices that ringed the commission chambers, including the wing that housed the county clerk’s and assessor’s domains, stood dark and vacant. County government had been jarred to a halt.

“And by the way,” he added, “Arnie Gray called. He wants to schedule a meeting with the county commissioners as soon as we can. As soon as we know something.”

“I can imagine he’s feeling a little uneasy right about now,” Estelle said. “He’s just going to have to be patient.” She looked into Zeigler’s office and could see Eddie Mitchell inside, kneeling in front of one of the manager’s map cabinets. “Any luck?”

Torrez shook his head, regarding the last bite of burrito before popping it into his mouth. “One thing. The blood spatter on the lamp shade? Number one, it was blood. Number two, it’s type O. And number three, Zeigler’s family doctor says that his blood type is AB positive.” Estelle caught the intentional emphasis on “family doctor” and knew that Torrez was referring to her husband. “So, you were right. Odds are good that it wasn’t our county manager who busted into the house and bashed in the girl’s skull.” Estelle couldn’t tell whether Torrez was pleased or sorry to have reached that conclusion. He chucked the burrito wrapper in the trash can beside Penny’s desk. “What’d Bill have to say?”

“That he talked with Crowley after we did. No luck.”

Torrez nodded, not surprised. “Marens?”

She recounted her conversation with Doris Marens, and Torrez listened impassively. “I think someone brought Zeigler’s truck home,” she said.

“What sense does that make?”

“To make sure that it wasn’t found somewhere else. Somewhere that might be incriminating.”

“What’s wrong with the county building parking lot?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it, Bobby. Maybe too many eyes. I just don’t know.”

“Huh,” the sheriff said. “Did you call Frank yet?”

“I was going to.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“As little as I can get away with,” Estelle said. “That Carmen Acosta is an assault victim from an unknown intruder. That she was airlifted to Albuquerque, where she’s listed in whatever condition she’s in at the moment.”

“And about Zeigler?”

“‘In the meantime, the Sheriff’s Department is investigating the apparent disappearance of County Manager Kevin Zeigler, whose truck was recovered at his residence next door to the Acostas’. Sheriff Torrez declined to comment further.’”

“Damn right, he ‘declined to comment.’” He took a deep breath. “You know the kind of speculation that’s going to be goin’ around.”

“That can’t be helped, Bobby. By now, everyone in town knows that Zeigler is missing. A little publicity might help. Maybe someone saw something, heard something…”

“You never know.” He turned and gazed into Zeigler’s office, at the same time bending down the little finger on his left hand with his right. “This is the kind of thing that we’ve found in this mess. If the administrator of Posadas General Hospital was irritated with Zeigler for ordering a rewrite of the bid specs for the new roof, he might have wanted to kill him.” He bent down his ring finger. “If what’s-his-face out at the landfill didn’t want an outside company takin’ over the county dump, he might have figured on killing Zeigler.”

A third finger followed. “If the County Highway Department was bent out of shape about Zeigler’s refusal to buy another twin-screw dump truck this year, Ralph Johnson might have wanted to kill him.” He turned to force a half smile at Estelle. “That’s the sort of thing we’re finding.” He held his entire left hand. “Zeigler was tryin’ to talk me into accepting compact-sized SUVs for the next round of patrol vehicles.
I
might have killed him for that.”

He dropped his hands in disgust. “What a bunch of shit. Maybe he was tryin’ to cut Bill Gastner’s pension, and Wild Bill bumped him off.”

“I thought
Padrino
was a little shifty-eyed at lunch, Bobby.”

Torrez grunted with amusement. “Yeah, right. And maybe in a day or so someone in the clerk’s office will find a half million in petty cash missing, and we’ll know Zeigler’s sittin’ on a beach down in Colima, sippin’ tequila.” He managed a full-fledged smile. “And then
Mr. Page
will track him down and kill him.” His face almost immediately settled into its usual serious mask. “Jackie and Linda finished up out at the house. Nothing.” He held out a hand. “And Jackie told me about the photo of Mauro.”

“I don’t think it means anything, Bobby.”

“Maybe not.” He gazed at Estelle, eyes heavy-lidded. “You think Mr. Page might be a little torqued to think Kevin’s got another boyfriend?”

“That doesn’t matter, Bobby—if that’s what it means in the first place. And we don’t know that for sure, either. But we do know that William Page was in
Socorro
when Carmen was attacked and when Kevin went missing. He had nothing to do with it.”

To her surprise, Torrez relaxed back against the desk and nodded in agreement. “I know that. We’re not lookin’ at a solution that simple. Might be nice, but it ain’t going to happen.” He shrugged. “Where are you headed now?”

“I’m going to take ten minutes and type out a press release for Frank, and hand deliver it. And then go looking, I guess.”

“Everybody who isn’t pinned down with another job is out searching for Zeigler, Estelle. Come here a minute.” He turned toward Zeigler’s office, where a large map of the county rested on an easel. “I got this from the county assessor before I sent him home,” the sheriff said. He reached out and smoothed the plastic overlay. As he did so, Eddie Mitchell stood up, a manila folder in hand.

“Here you go, Holmes,” Mitchell said to Estelle, and held out the folder without waiting for an answer. “The village was trying to convince the county to sign an agreement with the Village of Posadas for maintenance out at the airport,” he said. “It’s a municipal airport, but the land where it’s situated is outside the village limits. So the county collects the gross receipts tax for things like fuel sales, hangar rental, all that stuff, but it’s the village that has to do the maintenance.”

“Whoopee,” Torrez commented dryly.

“Well, it’s one more thing,” Mitchell said. He flipped open the folder. “‘The county is not prepared to assist with Municipal Airport funding at this time,’ “he read. “Signed by Mr. Zeigler.” He shrugged.

“We’ve got a billion letters signed by him, for one thing or another,” Torrez said. He turned to the map and tapped the overlay, where a series of quadrant lines had been drawn slicing up the county. “This is where we’re lookin’,” he said. “Hell, I even sent Linda out.” He covered the far southwestern corner of the county that included the village of Regál. “She took her own vehicle down here, cruisin’ wherever she can get to.”

Estelle grimaced. Linda Real was a civilian photographer, not a deputy. Torrez caught her expression.

“She’s got a radio, a phone, and she’s not in a county vehicle, Estelle. She’ll be all right. She wanted something to do. Anyway, she’s down there. Pasquale is checkin’ all the roads, two-tracks, arroyos, and whatever the hell else, right in here.” He indicated the open country between the fork tines formed by the three state highways, Fifty-six to the south, Seventeen parallel to the interstate, and Seventy-eight, northwestbound out past the airport.

“Bishop is up north around Newton, Taber is takin’ the area around the mesa, and Mears is snoopin’ around between County Road Nineteen and Forty-three, to the northeast. Just lookin’, lookin’, lookin’. Mike Sisneros is staying in the village, checking every alley, every Dumpster, every empty building, every vacant lot, every culvert. He’s got Dennis workin’ with him.”

The sheriff slapped the lower-right corner of the map. “And Abeyta is down in María.” He stepped back and looked at Estelle expectantly. “That’s all the people we got, Estelle. And in between, the State Police are giving us all the help they can. If there’s a better way to organize it, I need to hear it.”

“That’s all we can do,” she said. “Is Zeigler’s truck in the county yard?”

“Yep. We took it over there after Mears was through with it.”

“I want to take a digital picture of one of the wheels,” Estelle said. “Each deputy should have one.”

“A killer’s going to bury a body,” Mitchell observed. He nodded approval at Estelle. “They aren’t apt to bother with a flat tire.”

Chapter Twenty-three

William Page sat with his elbows on his knees, head bowed, eyes closed. As Estelle approached, his eyes opened groggily. He lifted his head just enough to be able to turn and look at the undersheriff.

“A long day, Mr. Page,” she said. She noticed that he’d changed his clothes. He was now in faded blue jeans and a carefully wrinkled, outdoorsy, brown cotton shirt. Estelle sat down in the hard plastic chair beside him. “Any thoughts?”

He shook his head, discouraged. “You’re right. I don’t think I’ve ever spent a longer day than this one.”

“Let’s take a ride,” Estelle said. “Are you up for that?”

“Anything,” he replied. “I’ve never felt so useless in my life.”

Page rose stiffly and followed her out of the building. He settled cautiously into the passenger seat of the unmarked county car. Estelle smiled sympathetically. “There’s not a whole lot of room, I’m afraid.” She reached back and tapped the heavy steel screen and framework that separated the rear passenger compartment from the front. “This keeps the seats from going any further back.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, and shifted his knee away from the shotgun that stood vertically on his side of the computer and radio cluster. He fell silent, watchful as Estelle pulled the car over to the fuel island where she pumped in fourteen gallons before the filler snapped off. She settled back in the car, flipped open the cover of the aluminum clipboard, and made the required notations.

She closed the log and lifted the mike. “PCS, three ten.”

“Go ahead, three ten.”

“PCS, mileage is eight seven seven thirty-two. I’m ten-eight, ten eighty-four. Phone’s fine.”

There was a pause before Gayle Torrez acknowledged. Estelle could picture her glancing over at the ten-code reminder card taped to the corner of the dispatcher’s desk.
Informant in unit
wasn’t a call that was used routinely enough that it would pop quickly to mind.

“Okay,” Estelle said to Page. “Bureaucracy is satisfied.”

“Have you been able to establish any leads at all?” Page asked as they pulled out onto Bustos Avenue, eastbound.

“We’ve established that we’re frustrated, Mr. Page,” she replied. “I’m sorry that I can’t be anymore forthcoming than that. I thought that it might be useful if you would help me locate some of the places that Kevin would be likely to frequent around the area.” She glanced over at Page. “Some of the favorite spots that you and Kevin might visit when you’re out hiking, or out on your bikes.”

“We head up the mesa a lot,” he said.

She slowed the car as they approached the intersection of MacArthur and Bustos. “County Road Nineteen goes off to the north here,” she said, and he nodded as she turned left.

“We ride this way all the time,” he said. “For one thing, there aren’t any dogs.” Within a thousand yards of the intersection, the village gave way to scruffy prairie. The road was traveled so infrequently that grass tufted through the asphalt along the shoulders. Estelle slowed the car to a crawl as they passed the remains of the VistaPark Drive-in, the huge, looming screen nothing but a ragged framework, all its panels blown out long ago. The speaker posts had all been removed, leaving the ocean-rolls of the parking lot to be taken over by kochia, greasewood, and tumbleweed.

At the entrance a single, rusted chain hung loosely between two posts fabricated out of concrete-filled steel pipes. The midpoint of the chain sagged to within six inches of the ground.

“What do you suppose was
The Last Picture Show
they ever showed?” Page mused.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”
Estelle said. “Labor Day weekend of 1970.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Now you’re going to tell me that you went to that very one.”

“No, I wouldn’t tell you that.” Page waited expectantly, but Estelle didn’t offer the details. She’d been five years old that weekend, a little girl enjoying the simplicity of playing among the aging cottonwoods along the river in the tiny Mexican village of Tres Santos. Posadas, and her life in the United States, was still down a long road ahead. “The Consolidated Copper Mine closed that summer,” she said.

“Kevin told me about that. It took the heart right out of the village.”

“Yes, it did.” She pulled the car into the outdoor theater’s driveway, angling in so she could look at the ground. There were no fresh vehicle tracks except for the well-worn path the four-wheelers took around the end posts. The drive-in was a favorite spot for kids to crank open the throttle, blasting across the undulations.

“We never rode in there,” he said. “Kids used it a lot, though. We’d see them there every once in a while.” He leaned forward. “I can’t even tell where the projection house and concession stand used to be.”

“Right by that little grove of elms,” Estelle said, nodding. “All they left behind were some rusty nails.” She tapped the steering wheel.
Good for a slow leak
, she thought. But the tracks said that Kevin Zeigler hadn’t picked up his nail here.

She pulled back out onto the road.

“We like this route,” Page offered. “Up here about a mile, just on the other side of the arroyo, there’s a dirt road that cuts over past the landfill and comes out on Forty-three, up by the mine. That hill is a real kick in the tail when you’re on a bike.” He looked pained at the memory. “Kevin always calls it the
Mur de Dump
. ” He glanced at Estelle. “In the European races, they like to name every hill.
Mur
this and
Mur
that.”

“Is this the route you took that day with Tony Acosta?”

He nodded. “When we ride the mesa, this is the route we always take. That way, we don’t have to ride through town, and we don’t have to deal with the traffic on the state highways.”

In another half mile, they passed the remains of a mobile-home park, and then a small adobe house. “Kevin told me that the old woman who used to live here was murdered,” Page said.

“That’s true.”

“What happened?”

“An ugly domestic thing with the neighbors,” Estelle said. “She looked out the window at the wrong time.”
Just like Carmen Acosta
, she almost added. Once more she slowed the car. Fresh tire tracks cut through the weeds that had taken over Anna Hocking’s driveway.

She lifted the mike. “Three oh seven, three ten.”

“Three oh seven.” Sergeant Tom Mears’ voice was clipped and efficient.

“Ten-twenty, three oh seven.”

“I’m up at the old quarry off Forty-three.”

“Ten-four. Did you check Hocking’s?”

“That’s affirmative. I was there about an hour ago.”

She acknowledged and dropped the mike in her lap. “Vacant houses are sort of pesky,” she said. “Kids from town try and use this one for parties when they get the chance.”

“I’m surprised it’s still standing,” Page said.

“So are we.” The dirt road narrowed and then forked, the route off to the left not much more than a rough two-track. It angled across the prairie, gradually winding up the eastern flank of the mesa. Several miles ahead, Estelle could see the flat bench where the county had long ago established its landfill. Beyond that, higher on the mesa, were the scars from the abandoned copper mine, great pyramidal slag piles and a fenced area where equipment gradually aged and settled into the gravel of the boneyard.

The Crown Victoria thumped and lurched as Estelle turned on to the two-track leading toward the landfill and mine.

“This gets sort of rough up here,” Page said. He shifted and stretched upward to watch the ribbon of dried vegetation that the car would straddle. The tracks from Mears’ Expedition were clear in the prairie dirt.

“You came down last weekend?” Estelle asked, and Page looked at her quickly.

“Yes. On Friday. I went back to Socorro late Sunday.”

“Did the two of you ride?”

He nodded. “Sure. We did about a hundred K on the road bikes.”

“That’s quite a ride. Where did you go?”

He shrugged, as if riding a hundred kilometers was an after-dinner sort of lark. “We went south to Maria, then circled back up and rode out west as far as the Broken Spur. We were going to go all the way down through the pass to Regal, but it was so windy it wasn’t much fun going that way.” He grinned. “Sure pushed us back to town, though.”

“Did you stop in either place?”

“We got some water at that saloon in Maria.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. We’ve eaten a couple of times at the Broken Spur, but we didn’t stop there on Saturday.”

Estelle let the heavy sedan find its own route up the two-track, the fragrance from the dried weeds that were crushed by the tires and roasted by the catalytic converter wafting potent through the open window. “Did Mauro Acosta ever ride with the two of you?”

If the question caught William Page by surprise, he didn’t show it. “No,” he said. “Mauro’s not interested in bikes, I don’t think. Tony is. But not Mauro. He likes to work on that old Pontiac they’ve got under that tarp in the backyard.” He grinned. “He’s pretty good at talking his mother into getting the parts he needs. They have rip-roaring arguments about that old heap. She keeps telling him that they’re going to sell it.”

“It runs?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know if it will
ever
run.” He reached out a stabilizing hand to the dash as the car waddled over two deep ruts cut diagonally across the road, the beginnings of an arroyo that would eventually obliterate the two-track.

“What was Kevin’s relationship with Mauro?” Estelle asked. “Or yours, for that matter.”

Page’s head snapped around as if he’d been punched. “What?”

Estelle repeated the question.

“I don’t follow what you’re asking,” Page said, although the flush on his face said that he clearly did.

“I’m asking if your relationship, or Kevin’s relationship, with Mauro Acosta was anything beyond what we would expect between two neighbors, Mr. Page.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not kidding,” Estelle said.

“Mauro is just a…just a neighborhood kid,” Page said with considerable exasperation. “I mean, what is he, fifteen years old?”

“Just about that.”

Page rubbed the side of his jaw furiously, glaring out the window. “Did you ask me to ride along just so you could talk about that?”

“In part.”

“I’d like to know what you’re getting at.”

Estelle guided the car around a sharp curve as the dirt lane swung toward the corner of the tall chain-link fence bordering the county landfill. “Mr. Page, we’re investigating a vicious assault of a teenaged girl. We’re also investigating the disappearance of her neighbor. There are enough unusual circumstances here to attract lots of attention.” She glanced at Page. “We open every door, Mr. Page. Every one. I can tell you that at the moment, the circumstances of your relationship with Kevin Zeigler are of no particular interest to the Sheriff’s Department. We don’t care what you do in the privacy of your home, or in private moments anywhere else, Mr. Page. We
do
know that either you, or Kevin, or perhaps both of you, had some interest in Mauro Acosta. That’s a door that we need to open.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Yes, you do. I think it’s interesting that he is the only member of that family whom you—or Kevin—photographed alone. And photographed essentially surreptitiously from behind the blinds of a window.” She looked over at Page. He was squinting straight ahead. “You might remember that Mauro is very much a minor.”

“You’re very thorough,” Page said after a moment.

“I will do everything I can to establish what happened to Kevin Zeigler, Mr. Page. I will do everything I can to find the person who assaulted Carmen Acosta. I believe it’s obvious that the two events are linked. I do not believe that Kevin assaulted the girl.” She hesitated for a minute, trying to assess Page’s churning emotions. “I also do not believe that we will find Kevin Zeigler alive, Mr. Page.”

“Christ, stop calling me that,” he snapped. “You make me feel like I’m sitting on a steel chair, under a bright lamp shining into my eyes.” He heaved a great, shuddering breath. “It’s only been a day.”

“Twenty-eight hours.”

“Christ, you can’t just give up hope that easily.”

“It isn’t easy, William. I liked Kevin. In just two years, he’s reorganized this county, moved us out of the dark ages, done all kinds of wonderful things. As far as I can tell, he relished his personal life with you as well, and I’m happy for you both. I sympathize for your loss. But that will not prevent us from exploring every avenue.”

“I understand that.” He glanced at Estelle cautiously. “I guess.”

“Then you can understand why our curiosity is piqued when we look through the collection of photos on Kevin’s Rolodex and find something like that provocative photograph of Mauro Acosta—taken with a telephoto lens, through the window of Kevin’s bedroom.”

“It’s just…” Page waved a hand in frustration.

“It’s just what?”

“It’s no different than if a photographer saw a beautiful young girl posed in the park, or at the beach. She’s beautiful to look at, so he snaps her picture. There’s nothing wrong with that…and it doesn’t matter if the subject of the portrait is a six-year-old, or twelve, or seventeen, or thirty-five…or eighty. It’s not illegal.”

“Is that what happened? Did you take the photo?”

“What difference does it make?”

“None, I suppose. It would just be helpful to know.”

“Kevin took it. He’s the photographer. Yes, I saw it, and yes, I thought it was a wonderful study. Mauro isn’t much of a deep thinker, Sheriff. But in that photo, he’s…well, he looks like he’s trying to understand the whole world.”

“That’s interesting,” Estelle said. They both fell silent as she drove along the fence of the landfill.

“Mur de Dump,”
Page murmured as they nosed up the last hill before the two-track joined with the main, graded county access road to the landfill. “Kevin said this eyesore’s days are numbered.”

“Maybe so,” Estelle said. “He’s trying to talk the County Commission into going with a private management firm—a private company to run the village and county’s solid-waste operations.”