Blood Sweep (5 page)

“I've failed you,” Estelle said with deep, mock sympathy. “I was going to propose that when you break out of here that you buy yourself one of those luxury RVs and park it right in the Don Juan's parking lot. That way, your restaurant therapy would be just a shout away.”

His eyes narrowed in speculation. “That's a profoundly good idea, sweetheart.”

“Dennis Mears sends you his best, by the way.”

“He's worried I'll fall behind on some payment now? We gotta keep
him
happy, except I don't owe him a goddamn cent. He's the one who will finance the RV that you're suggesting, though.”

She laughed. “I want to see that.”

A knuckle rapped on the door and Melinda Gabriel bustled in. As wide as she was tall, the ICU nurse advanced to the head of the bed so that her face was a foot from Gastner's. “We're gonna get you ready to fly, lover,” she said. “Fun times, huh?”

She reached out and tapped the IV feed. “You're doin' okay?”

“As long as I don't move.”

“Boy, oh boy, roger that. Well, Doc wants you snoozing through the whole trip, so we'll get started with the goodies.”

Gastner turned his head and nodded at Estelle. “We'll see you when I get back from drug rehab,” he said.

“So
you
think,” Melinda scoffed. “She's flyin' with us the whole way, just to make sure you don't try something foolish like hatching some weirdo escape plan.” She patted his left arm affectionately. “I've heard about you.”

That brought a deep frown from the patient, who glared at Estelle. “You're not going to waste all that time….”

“A little R and R,” the undersheriff said. “Anyway, I want to chat with Camille when she gets in, and this will work out just fine.”

“Camille?”

“That would be your oldest daughter, sir.”

“I know who the hell she is. You called
her?
Jesus.
”

“
The other way around. She called me,
Padrino
. That's why I happened to show up at your place when I did.” She watched as Melinda introduced a new medication to the drip line. “We've hatched a grand conspiracy, you see.”

“Oh, for God's sakes,” Gastner whispered. “Now I'm really finished.” He looked up at Melinda. “My daughter is a professional Jewish mother.”

Melinda squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe that's what you need just now.” She grinned at Estelle. “You have your over-nighties and all that?”

“I'm on my way to do just that. How much time do I have?”

“The plane left Gallup a few minutes ago, taking a youngster back to Chinle. So what, two hours?” Gastner muttered something, and reached out a hand to point toward the door. The burly, bearded Dr. Francis Guzman had entered as silently as a cat, and after picking up the bedside chart, surveyed the various monitor screens.

“Things are lookin' good.” Guzman moved to Estelle and hooking an arm through hers. In his hug, she look tiny and frail. His left hand settled on Gastner's wrist as if checking to see if the overhead monitor was correct.

“You should have told my daughter to stay in Michigan,” Gastner rasped. “She's going to set my convalescence back a month.”

“I don't have the nerve to tell Camille
anything,”
Dr. Guzman said. “You can try when you see her.”

Gastner relented a little. “Oh, she's not that bad, really. But just fix me up here, Doc. I have a whole can of screws and bolts in my garage you can use. Christ, we don't need to tie up a goddamn med-evac airplane for a busted hip.”

“Normally, that's exactly what I'd do,” Dr. Guzman said. “Raid the hardware store and get on with it. But some folks luck out and get the full VIP treatment.” As he said that, he turned and urged his wife toward the door. “I'll be back in a minute,” he said to Gastner, and ushered his wife out into the hall, closing the door to Gastner's room behind them. “Camille's flying in as soon as…?”

“Tonight, probably. Or tomorrow morning. She'll rent a car in Albuquerque, so maybe she and I can drive back down here together the day after tomorrow. We'll just have to wait and see.”

Enveloped in her husband's bear hug, she lingered for a moment, letting his strength bolster her own optimism. Nothing was ever simple.
Padrino
had pulled on a brave face, but with his health on the edge, he faced a dangerous surgery—and then a long recuperation and a troublesome road of physical therapy. All of those complications would present the challenge of a complete lifestyle change, from ambulatory and independent to dependence on home health care. She thumped her forehead against her husband's chest and then drew back a little.

“I need to talk with Bobby before I go. He's got something going on with a couple of the deputies out at Waddell's. And I need to talk with
Mamá
, too,” she said. “Dennis Mears came to see me.”

Francis stood with his hands featherlight on her shoulders. “What, she tried to rob the bank?”

She laughed. “I wish it were that simple. He's concerned about her request for an eight thousand-dollar withdrawal—all in a negotiable cashier's check. And asap, of course.”

The physician frowned. “New solar-powered hearing aids, maybe? An electric wheelchair with jewel-studded mud flaps? Is she making a down payment on a new golden flute for Francisco?”

Estelle took a fistful of his neatly trimmed beard and twisted. “I don't think so.”

“She hasn't mentioned any of this to you?”

“No.”

“Well, talk to her sooner rather than later, then,” Francis said. “I'm not surprised that Mears came to you if there's a problem, but I'm
very
surprised that Teresa didn't talk to you about it first. I didn't think that you two guys had any secrets from each other.”

“
Yo tambien,”
Estelle murmured. “We'll see.”

Chapter Six

Turning his phone so that the two officers could see the tiny screen, Torrez gave Linda Real-Pasquale and Sergeant Jackie Taber a digital tour of the shooting scene. The phone images were disappointingly flat and featureless.

“You go to the top of this ridge.” He nodded eastward. “And where I was shootin' from about a hundred yards from there, downhill to the east. I left a broken piece of the scope on a rock to mark it. The antelope were another four hundred yards out.” The close-up he had taken of his shattered rifle and jacket was spectacularly blurry. He saw Linda's right eyebrow drift upward. “It's a damn phone,” he said.

“Maybe one day you can move up to a pinhole camera, Sheriff,” Linda said, sober-faced. He gave the pudgy young woman a withering glance. Half his size, she was never intimidated by his glowering, his abrupt manner of speech, his ignorance of tact.

“We'll find where you field-dressed the carcass,” Taber said.

“Yes!” Linda chimed in with mock enthusiasm. “A pile of guts!”

“That's it. Then just back up due west four hundred yards or so, and you'll have the spot where I was shootin' from. I want
pictures
,” and he looked hard at Linda, “that show something.” He swept an arm in a large circle. “And then I want to know where the shot came from. Got to be to the south. I'd guess maybe as far as five hundred yards out. And then here,” and he turned to face the old truck. “Tire tracks, boot prints, see if you can lift a print off the hood release. Maybe off the hood near the latch.”

“Some measurements will be easy,” Taber added. “The way he pulled in there in front of your truck, that's a tight turning radius.”

He held out his hand. “I need to take your unit,” he said to Linda. “If I ain't back right away, you can ride with Sarge.”

“You got it. Let me get my camera bag.”

As she half skipped, half jogged off, little bursts of dust rising from her boot falls, the sheriff regarded Sergeant Taber. “Gonna be hard,” he said. “But from up there, you can get a good lay of the land. Maybe you'll see something.” Torrez was not alone in believing that Jackie Taber saw patterns in the land that no one else did. Her thick sketch pad and art pencils always rode in the patrol unit for those quiet moments when sitting with windows open and listening to the prairie talk was more productive than racing back and forth on the highways.

She hitched her utility belt up on her generous waist, frowning toward the hill to the south. While the pudgy Linda Real looked as if she needed some concentrated time in a fitness center, Jackie Taber carried her heft with power and grace. “The shooter skirted from here around to the south somehow, that's what you're saying?”

“Yep.”

“And you never saw or heard a thing until your rifle scope exploded and then that was followed by the distant gun shot?”

“Suppose so.” That thought irked Torrez, who enjoyed quiet pride in his own hunting skills, his ability to outwait an animal until conditions were just right for the shot. That someone had been able to do that same thing to
him,
taking advantage of the same long-range shots that average hunters would neither consider nor accomplish, made him uneasy.

“And nothing after the shot?” Taber persisted. “No metallic noises of the rifle bolt being racked, or no boots crunching on gravel?”

“Nope.”

“But you're thinking that he missed with that one shot, or just wanted to scare you?”

“
Maybe
he did.”

“Or not. May I see the rifle?”

Torrez opened the truck door and slid the case out. Opening it wide, he spread out the scope pieces. Taber leaned forward, but touched nothing. “Right on the windage adjustment knob, it looks like.”

“Just a little below it. Whole thing burst up and out.”

She reached up and touched Torrez's left eyebrow. “Nice little souvenir.”

He flinched back, not from any pain, but from the discomfort of the close contact. “Couple of places. Nothin' serious.”

Taber held her index fingers about a foot apart. “That far to the left, and
your
brain pan would have been frying in the sun along with the antelope's.”

The sheriff looked irritated and zipped up the rifle case. “You need anything else before I go on down and see what Pasquale's into?”

“I think we're set, sir. We'll see what we can find.”

“If somebody shows up with a coil cable, just put it on the driver's seat.”

“I have it, sir. The invoice is stuck in the box.”

He nodded “Thanks. I shouldn't be long.”

As he settled into Linda's Expedition, the SUV now a decade and well over a hundred thousand miles old, he smelled the light fragrance of perfume. The girls talked, obviously. The perfume was the same fragrance favored by Gayle, his wife. And that thought brought him up short. He'd come within a few inches of leaving her a widow and his month-old son, Gabriel, fatherless.

Fifteen miles down County Road 14, he paused for the intersection and then turned east on State 56. The engine pulled strong, but at eighty miles an hour the approximate alignment and worn tires set up a shimmy that he could feel both through the steering wheel and his seat. He backed off, settling for seventy.

“304, 308 ETA eight minutes.”

“Ten-four, 308.” Pasquale sounded bored.

There was no point in pestering Pasquale for information—in a few miles he'd know for himself.

Not far southwest of the ghost town of Moore, the Rio Salinas crossed the highway, and just to the west of the sign announcing the grand name for that dry wash, Deputy Pasquale had stopped the Ford pickup. His SUV was parked well off the roadway, front wheels cocked toward the pavement. Sutherland's vintage Crown Vic completed the bookends.

Torrez passed the three vehicles. The tailgate of the pickup was down, and a chubby man with well-oiled hair sat comfortably on it, feet swinging like a kid on a playground swing. The palms of his hands rested flat on the tailgate. His posture said he was merely waiting for a friend, not in the least defensive that the minions of the law were congregating around him. The sheriff swung onto the shoulder and parked.

Torrez was certain that the pickup, shiny new with just a blush of red dust, was the one he had watched through binoculars. Deputy Pasquale stood on the shoulder side of the truck where he could keep the man in view. Brent Sutherland was intent on inspecting the front of the 150, and moved around it as Torrez approached. The man craned his neck as the officers congregated, but none of the activity appeared to make him apprehensive. Pasquale intercepted the sheriff.

“Sheriff, this is Mr. Olveda,” he said quietly. “No wants or warrants, nothing inside the vehicle except personal luggage. He tells me that he drove down here from the airport, and is on his way back to town.”

“Huh,” Torrez murmured. The airport was seven miles out of town on State Road 76, and then from there, several miles west to the intersection of County Road 14. What followed, south to the sheriff's hunt area, was about fifteen miles of dusty road, crowded with lumbering trucks and contractor traffic of all shapes and sizes.

Olveda offered the beginnings of a smile, and then glanced at his large watch and shrugged. When Torrez was within reach, the man bent forward and extended a hand. Torrez ignored it, but his attention was attracted to the gold watch, multi-dialed and probably expensive, nestled in the thatch of wrist hair. A linen short-sleeved shirt with just enough wrinkles to be fashionable, off-white chinos with a black leather belt, and pricey leather running shoes—and the shoes certainly did
not
have raised heels and smooth soles. He was not dressed for hunting.

“I hope you are having a pleasant day,” he said. “But I know how these things can be.” His accent was careful with the English, as if he rehearsed each line before uttering it.

“What things are that?” Torrez's voice was flat and disinterested. Olveda tipped his head and looked at the sheriff curiously, taking in the size, the heft, the stance…even the lack of fashion statement in the sheriff's hunting attire—worn, blood-spattered jeans; a work shirt in even worse condition; baseball cap with the brim crumpled.

“You are looking for something, no? Officer Pasquale stopped me when I was driving but fifty in a sixty zone. What do they say…
rubbernecking
at the countryside.” He mentioned the deputy's name as if they had been acquaintances for years. He raised both hands in surrender. “Seat belt secure, all lights working. I wondered, of course, what he was seeking.” Olveda's accent was modest, certainly not border Mexican. He looked at the watch again. “And now detained for close to an hour.” Again the shrug, as if the hour didn't really matter. “So I assume that not all is as it seems.”

Torrez stepped to the truck and leaned an elbow on the side. Olveda could not have failed to notice that he was now flanked, the big, roughly dressed man on his right, the younger deputy in snappy uniform just behind his left shoulder, the second burly deputy filling in the middle.

“Were you on County 14 earlier, sir?”

“I was.” The answer surprised Torrez, who had expected to hear the standard, “
Where's that
?” Olveda shrugged. “It seemed a natural way to go, you know. Earlier this morning, I was at the airport on business, meeting with the county manager. And then I had some questions for the developer who is funding this enormous project of which I've heard so much…this astronomy park? Really quite remarkable, really it is. I drove down then, but was told that the developer was not on site at the moment.” He smiled pleasantly. “Then I proceeded south to this highway, planning to return to Posadas for a late lunch.” He shrugged. “And that's it. That is what I did.” His expression clearly added,
I'm telling you all of this because I'm a nice guy…and I know people.

Torrez was silent, and Olveda shrugged again. “I do not know why the officer stopped me.” He glanced over at Pasquale with good-natured patience. “Of course he has his reasons, and will tell me in due time. And then I was informed that we must wait for you, Sheriff. So here we are. Here
you
are.”

“Mr. Olveda, when you drove down 14, did you see an older model Chevrolet pickup pulled off the road? Maybe a mile short of the project?”

Olveda pooched out his lower lip and frowned. “I did. It was parked with the hood partially up. I wondered if assistance was needed. But there was no driver in sight, so…”

“The hood was
up?”

“
Well, unlatched, so to speak. As if it had been opened, and then not closed completely.”

An observant man. “You didn't stop?”

“No. I slowed, but then continued on when I saw no one. I'm not sure what I could have done anyway, except possibly offer a ride. But, as I say…” Torrez's eyes assessed the clean, neat business man with the immaculate, manicured hands. He didn't look like the sort who stopped to render roadside assistance to strangers.

The sheriff dropped his arm off the truck, glanced back down the highway, and then stepped out so he could see the pickup's tires. The highway tread on the Michelins was clearly no match for the heavier lug impressions left near his own truck.

“What time was that?”

“I did not check the time, Sheriff.”

“From there, where?”

Olveda frowned at Torrez's shorthand grammar. “I drove to the project site, and spent some time there, inquiring about the whereabouts of the owner. I wanted to drive to the top, but it did not seem appropriate at that moment.”

“Mr. Olveda, what other vehicles did you see in that area?”

The man smiled. “That project that is underway…a most busy place. I suppose that from the time I left the state highway—the airport road, that is—to the time I passed the site gate, I was passed by a dozen vehicles of one description or another. And several overtook me.” He shook his head. “They do not waste any time raising a dust. Such enthusiasm!” He chuckled and shook his head.

“Where are you headed now?”

“Well, I'm just exploring. Now tomorrow, I will be talking with your county commission with a proposal for the airport. That's why I was up there a bit ago.”

“Huh.” Torrez nodded. The mesa-top astronomy project had garnered nationwide attention, and with the construction phase now in full swing on several fronts, the population of Posadas County had taken an exponential leap. “What's an Arizona interest in the Posadas Airport?” It was the sort of question that Olveda certainly had no need to answer, but he seemed bothered not in the least.

“Well, Sheriff, we'll see,” Olveda said. “It's a very long runway for such an underpopulated area. Much potential. I have several ideas that could be mutually beneficial to both my associates and the county.”

“Such as?”

Olveda looked askance at Torrez. “It's best that we're not premature,” he said simply.

“I need to see your license and registration,” Torrez said abruptly, as if the man's answer had annoyed him. Before Olveda had a chance to reply, Deputy Tom Pasquale released the documents from his clipboard and extended them to the sheriff. The Tucson address matched what he had been told, the insurance was up to date, and the registration listed the truck as a 2013 Ford, color white. He handed the paperwork to Olveda. “Thanks for your cooperation,” he said. “You're free to go.”

“If I can be of any further assistance,” Olveda said, “I'm staying at the Posadas Inn for a day or two.” He turned and slammed the tailgate closed. “It's been pleasant meeting you gentlemen.” With a deferential nod, he got in the truck, started it, and turned onto the highway.

“What do you think, Sheriff?” Pasquale asked.