Out of Season (10 page)
“No,” she said. “I was standing out by the car.”
“Maybe you’d show us,” Buscema said.
We walked back around to the front of the trailer, and Charlotte turned and started for the front door. “How about some coffee?” she asked, with the satisfaction of the habitual coffee drinker who knows that the time is perfect.
“Sure,” I said. Vincent Buscema stopped in his tracks and looked back at me. He held up a hand as if to say, “Well?”
“Charlotte,” Richard Finnegan said gently, “they want to know about the plane yesterday.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said. She reached out a hand to Estelle again, and the detective wrapped an arm around the woman’s shoulders.
“Do you remember how high up it was when you first saw it?” Estelle asked quietly, and Charlotte frowned.
Estelle turned her around so that they were facing southwest. “When you first saw it, was it up like so?” Estelle lifted her free hand and held it at a steep angle, pointing at an imaginary aircraft well above the horizon, then dropped her arm down so she was indicating a level just above the distant trees on the back side of Cat Mesa. “Or down low?”
“It came along from that way,” Charlotte said, sweeping her hand from the west. “And right over there”—she pointed to a spot in the sky as if we would be able to return to that particular bit of air space at will—“it turned right up this way, then went back to the west.” She frowned and ducked her head. “And you know, it did that four or five times. Just great big circles like that.”
“When you called the sheriff’s office, Charlotte, you said something about the plane having trouble. Do you remember that?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Now Richard tells me that it was the sheriff who was in that airplane.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s horrible,” she said, and I agreed.
“Could you tell that the plane was in trouble?” Buscema asked.
“It just reminded me of the county fair,” Charlotte said and nodded firmly, diving her hand down and then up sharply.
“That’s what the airplane did?”
“That’s what it did. Just like one of those rides at the fair.
Swoop
. And almost over on its back.
Swoop
. And that’s when I went in and called town.”
“The pilot was doing stunts, like?” I asked.
“And then he swooped right down behind that little mesa there.” She pointed almost due west.
“She told me that it was backfirin’ pretty bad,” Richard Finnegan said. “You tell ’em about that, Char.”
But Charlotte just seemed puzzled. She turned to look at Estelle, and the detective joggled her shoulders as if she were holding a sleepy child. “Did you hear something?” she asked the woman.
“Backfiring, as in engine troubles?” Buscema asked. “Or backfiring like maybe something else?”
“She ain’t going to remember,” Richard said. “Maybe it’ll come to her. If it does, I’ll holler to you.”
“Richard,” I said, “did you see anything? Did you ever see the plane?”
He took a deep, final drag of the cigarette, dropped it beside his boot and ground it into the sand. “Wish I had,” he said. “I got home about six from Belen.” He turned and gestured toward the rolls of black pipe. “Man could spend a fortune on that stuff. Went downtown earlier today and that’s when I heard what happened. Quite an uproar. I was going to drive on over there today and see for myself, but then I got to seein’ all the cars and such and figured it’d be better just to stay the hell out of the way.”
Buscema drew a business card from his wallet and handed it to Richard Finnegan. “We appreciate your help, folks. If you think of anything else, give me a call, will you? You can reach me either through that number there or at the sheriff’s office.”
Charlotte Finnegan was reluctant to have us leave, and she’d forgotten about the offer of coffee. I felt a pang of sympathy for her as she flustered, but Estelle gave her another hug and promised to come visit again when she had time.
As we thumped across the cattle guard, Buscema said, “She’s been around the block a few times, hasn’t she?”
“Yep,” I said. “They had two kids, a boy about sixteen and a daughter who was twenty-one or so. They lost ’em both within two weeks of each other about five or six years ago.”
“Nineteen-ninety,” Estelle prompted.
“Nine years ago, then,” I said. “Time flies. The boy was working on a windmill and got hit by lightning. The daughter was working as a counselor at a church camp and drowned during an outing over at Elephant Butte Lake.”
“Christ,” Buscema said. “No wonder she’s come un-glued.” He rolled down the window. “She saw something, though. Maybe it’ll come to her. But no matter. She’s not what I’d call a credible witness.”
“And it won’t be the first time gunshots have been confused with the backfiring of an engine,” Estelle said.
Vincent Buscema caught a ride up to the crash site, and Estelle and I went to my office. With the flurry of activity nonstop since the crash, we hadn’t had time to find a quiet corner to sit down and take stock.
As I walked past the front desk, Ernie Wheeler lifted a hand and then beckoned to me with a clipboard.
“Gayle Sedillos wanted your okay on this, sir,” he said, “but I haven’t been able to catch you since I came on shift. I’ve penciled Linda Real in to sit this shift with me.” He extended the clipboard toward me.
“Fine,” I said. “Where is she now?” It was six forty-five, and thirty-six hours or more without a catnap were beginning to take their toll. My temper was short and my belly was screaming for a long, quiet dinner at the Don Juan.
“Tom Mears needed a matron for a few minutes. Aggie Bishop wasn’t home, so I asked Linda if she wanted to do it.”
“A matron for what?”
“Mears did a routine traffic check and it turns out the driver—Bea Kellogh, remember her?” I nodded. “She was about passed-out drunk. Apparently she had stopped just off MacArthur Street and was parked in an odd sort of angle, and Mears happened by. She had her thirteen-year-old daughter with her. Mears figured it’d just be easier to take them home, but you know how it is. Linda was handy, so it seemed okay.”
I handed the clipboard back. “It’s not okay on several counts, Ernie,” I said, and he frowned. “First of all, Linda doesn’t work for us.”
“Oh. I thought she was hired on.”
“No. We’re talking about it.” Before he had a chance to bring it up, I added, “She filled in on the airport radio earlier yesterday because it was just a relay job. Any civilian could have done it.” I turned to walk back toward my office. “And second, we don’t have time to run a taxi service for goddam drunks right now. If you’re going to use her, use her here.”
“I guess Mears just thought that he didn’t want to spend time right now with a DWI bust. ’Specially since she’d parked it.” He shrugged.
I waved a hand. “When Linda comes back in, tell her I want to talk with her. But give Estelle and me a few uninterrupted moments first.”
Estelle had collapsed in one of the leather chairs in my office, hands folded over her stomach, head back and eyes closed.
I shut the door behind me. She opened her left eye and regarded me as I crossed to my desk and plopped down in the chair behind it.
“Of all the goddam things I could have predicted, this is about the last,” I said and heaved a huge sigh. “It just goes to show that when you think you have everything all planned out, you’d better think again.”
“What had you planned?” Her voice was quiet and distant.
I chuckled and leaned back so that I could lift a leg up and rest my boot on the edge of the desk. “You’re leaving next week, I turned in my retirement effective September one, Robert’s getting married, Linda’s waiting in the wings. I figured payback time. I could just dump all that in young Martin’s lap and let him figure out what the hell to do.”
Estelle put both hands over her face, her fingertips rubbing her eyes. After a few seconds, she moved her hands just enough so she could stare at the ceiling. “What will you do?” she asked.
“Sam Carter asked me to take the sheriff’s job until the election next fall.” If I thought that would surprise Estelle, I was mistaken. She didn’t reply, but nodded, just a tiny inclination of the head, eyes still closed. I wanted an answer, so I asked, “Does that make sense to you?”
“It’s the best idea Mr. Carter has had in years,” she said.
“I want you to be undersheriff, Estelle.”
This time, she opened her eyes. Her right eyebrow went up in that expression I’d come to know so well. She took a deep breath and pushed herself up in the chair. “Sir, we’re leaving Posadas next week. We’ve already started packing. Mama has been practicing driving her wheelchair back and forth from her bedroom to the front door in anticipation.” Her delightful smile lit up her face.
“I know you’re going,” I said. “I know that.” I swung the other boot up and crossed my legs. “I was a little irritated today when Sam was in such an all-fired hurry to make sure I took the job. He didn’t want you to have it, or any of the three sergeants. I don’t know what his agenda is.”
“I do,” Estelle said, her grin even wider. “Sam Carter’s brother-in-law is Sam Carter’s agenda.”
“Why don’t I know who this brother-in-law is?”
“He lives in Deming, sir. He’s retiring from the state police in July.”
“I see. You think he’s going to move here and run for sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know this tidbit?”
“Martin Holman told me a week or so ago. The man’s name is Ellison Franklin. At one time he was chairman of his county’s Republican Club.”
“That would have put him head-to-head with Martin in the primary,” I said. “But that would have been three years from now. After this mess, the field is wide open.”
“Right.”
“So. None of that matters, since I’m not running in the election in November to fill the office and you’ll be in Minnesota. I want you as undersheriff for the rest of the week. How’s that for an offer?”
She chuckled, leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees and ran both hands through her thick black hair. “Is this just to tweak Sam? Make him nervous? Are you sure his bigoted little heart can take it?”
“It’s for selfish reasons, mainly,” I said. “If you’re undersheriff, I won’t have to spend ten seconds training you. Any of the others will flounder some, and we don’t have time for that. And think of it this way: do this for me and you can write ‘undersheriff’ on your resume when you go job-hunting up in Genesee County, Minnesota.”
She smiled again and shook her head. “Maybe I can avoid job-hunting for a while,” she said. “Remember, Erma’s not going with us.” Erma Sedillos, our senior dispatcher’s younger sister, had been a full-time nanny for the Guzman clan for three years.
“But—” I began and stopped when my telephone buzzed. “Sure,” I said, and hung up.
Bob Torrez was at my office door before I had a chance to explain what the call was. In his hand was a manila folder, and trailing behind him was Linda Real.
“Sir,” Torrez said, “we’ve got the prints from the camera.”
I beckoned them in. “And how’s Mrs. Kellogh?” I asked by way of greeting Linda. She looked heavenward.
“Soused. We just dropped her and her daughter at their house. The car was off the right-of-way, so we just locked it and left it there. The daughter said it wouldn’t be a problem to come and get it later.”
“Wonderful.”
“And then I came back and heard about the film. I helped Sergeant Torrez get the prints ready. Sir, the department needs a new print drier. The old one is shot.”
“Uh-huh,” I said and glanced at Estelle. “So, Robert, what have you got?”
He had already opened the folder on my desk, and he handed me an eight-by-ten print. Linda Real reached across and pointed. “The surface gloss is blotched here and there. That’s the old drier,” she said.
“Thank you.” I leaned over so that I could focus the correct part of my bifocals on the print.
“That’s the first one on the negative,” Robert Torrez said. Estelle came around behind me so she could see the photos at the same time. “It looks like his brother-in-law posed by the airplane.”
“That is Philip Camp, sure enough,” I said. I reached out a hand for the next one. Instead, Torrez handed me a set of three.
The terrain in the photos was rugged, and in the first of the three, I could see the road cutting through the trees. “That’s taken from just beyond the mine,” Torrez said.
“And the others are from on top,” Estelle added.
“An aerial tour,” I muttered. “What the hell was he doing?” The next four photos were of prairie—open, rolling prairie. At least, that was my guess. “Are these out of focus, or is it me?”
“Some of them are really bad,” Linda said.
“That,” Torrez said, tapping one of the photos with his index finger, “is Boyd number-two. One of Johnny Boyd’s windmills and stock tanks. I recognize the sharp turn of the two-track just to the south of it.”
“I don’t even see the windmill,” I said. “Where is it?”
Torrez pulled a pen from his pocket and used it as a pointer. I grimaced and shook my head. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“And this looks like the country just to the north of where the plane eventually crashed,” Torrez said. “This black line is one of the boundary fences. Or a section fence. Something like that. It’s a fence, anyway. And those”—he leaned close and jabbed at the tiny figures with the tip of the pen—“are cattle.”
“Whoopee,” I said. I straightened up, and my back popped with an audible crack. “You need to tie these things down and go over them inch by inch with the stereo viewer. I can’t see much detail, but maybe you’ll turn up something. There’s no reason for Martin Holman to be taking aerial photographs of creosote bushes and cattle on a gusty, bumpy afternoon…or at any time, for that matter. We need some hint of what he was about. That’s half of it.”
Torrez glanced at me, questioning.
“The trouble here, folks,” I said to the three of them, “is that the odds of there being any connection—any at all—between what Martin Holman was trying to see yesterday afternoon and the bullet that killed his pilot are slim and none.” I picked up one of the photos again and looked at it. “Unless there’s something here that we’re not seeing.”
