Double Prey (28 page)

For a long moment, Gus Prescott didn’t answer. His gaze flicked first to Gastner, who stood relaxed but watchful, then to Christine and Casey, and finally back to Estelle. He looked her up and down, and Estelle could see that his eyes watered and wandered…he was so juiced that he would have a hard time passing a field sobriety test.

“I got to get me a beer,” he said flatly, and looked over at Gastner. “You want one, Mr. Livestock Inspector?”

“Appreciate the thought, but no thanks. Too early in the day for me, Gus.”

“Well…it ain’t
ever
too early.” He walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and Estelle could hear the snap of plastic as he pulled a can away from a six-pack. The firearm in the back window was a shotgun, very much like the one in her patrol car rack.

He didn’t close the door, but circled around it, popping the can as he did so. “You’re sure?” He raised the can to Gastner.

“I’m sure, Gus.”

Prescott shrugged and glanced dismissively at the undersheriff. “So, what do you want?” No simple courtesy there, Estelle noted.

“Just to clear up some things, Mr. Prescott,” Estelle said.

“There’s nothing to clear up.”

“I wish that were true, sir.”

Prescott rested his can carefully on the sloped hood, and took his time lighting a cigarette. The blue smoke jetted out against the fender. “You didn’t drive all the way out here just to waste county gas, lady. So if you got something to say, just say it and get it over with.” He took another long pull on the beer. “You’re just enjoyin’ the hell out of all this, aren’t you.”

“Sir?”

“Comin’ out here where you got no business? Stirring things up where you got no cause?”

“That’s an interesting take on it, sir.”

Prescott’s lips compressed into a tight line as if he suddenly realized he’d said too much, and his head jerked to one side as if he were wearing a shirt and tie with the collar too tight.

“Is the diesel engine in this vehicle the one from Johns’ truck, sir?” She pulled the small notebook from her pocket, and thumbed through the pages, not bothering to read the contents. The notion of documentation was not lost on the rancher.

“What, you got to check it now?” Prescott strode around the front of the truck to the driver’s door, jerked it open and yanked the hood release lever. “There,” he said, groping for the safety catch. The mammoth hood yawned up, and he held out a hand, presenting the engine. “Bought that engine years ago. Got a good deal on it. So there you go,
sheriff
. ” His sarcasm was heavy. “And yeah, it
ain’t
the motor that come with this truck. Sure as hell ain’t. You check all you want.”

“How did you happen to come by Johns’ truck, sir? A 2004, I think.”

“Do I got to put up with all this?” Prescott asked Gastner. “I mean, a man’s got rights, don’t he?”

“Indeed he does, Gus my friend. Indeed he does.”

“Well, then?”

“Well, then,” Gastner said calmly, “we’d appreciate some answers, Gus. And I guess you know that you can give ’em now or later.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I said. Now or later, Gus. If not to us, then there’ll be someone else.” Gastner grinned warmly. “I’d sure rather talk with me than somebody else.”

Prescott frowned as he tried to understand that. “Look, I sold that wreck to Florek fair and square. You ask him. I got his receipt right in the house.”

“We did ask him, Gus. Seems like a good thing to be clearing out some old junk. A man kinda gets buried by stuff after a while. But there’s a few little things that don’t square up, and you can understand our curiosity, I would think.”

“What’s your interest in all this?” Prescott asked.

“Me personally? Well, now,” Gastner said, “I’m just lookin’ out for some old friends. I got a right to do that, don’t you think?”

“This Johns a friend of yours?”

“Nope. Never was. And now I have this nagging suspicion that he had some friends south of the border I wouldn’t have cared much for either. That’s why we’re curious how you came by his truck, Gus. Just want to make sure everything is in the clear.”

“I bought it off him.”

“From Eddie Johns, you mean?” Estelle asked.

“That’s what I said.”

“Pricey unit,” Gastner observed.

“Not when I got it.”

“It was one or two years old when you bought it?” Estelle asked.

“More like three or four,” the rancher said, and wiped his mouth again. He regarded the truck’s engine, setting his beer can on the radiator housing. “Took me three days to put that in here. Runs like a charm.”

“Hell of a lot of work,” Gastner said.

“Damn right.” Prescott moved the can and reached up to grab the hood and pull it shut.

“So that’s that. You satisfied?”

“Had the truck been damaged when you bought it?” Estelle asked.

“Hell, yes, it was damaged. Johns…well, he wouldn’t say for sure what he did, but he rolled it down into an arroyo. That’s what I think. Wasn’t a body panel left that wasn’t wrecked. Insurance wrote it off.”

“Johns had the salvage as part of the settlement, and you bought it from him.” Gastner made it sound as if the answer to that one question would put a period to the whole discussion, and Prescott nodded quickly.

“Sure. That’s how it was.”

“Giarelli had nothing to do with it, then.”

Gus Prescott shot a quick glance at Estelle. “What makes you think that he—who’s Giarelli?”

“One version of the story has an employee of Giarelli Sand and Gravel in Deming backing into Johns’ truck right there in the company yard, sir.”

“I don’t know where you heard that.”

“That’s a problem, then, sir. If Johns rolled his truck into an arroyo, there’d be a police report on the incident—probably in our files or with the state police. Otherwise the insurance company wouldn’t pay him. They wouldn’t total it out without a report, and Johns wouldn’t stand for that. He wouldn’t get a cent.” Prescott’s mouth worked and he flicked a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “And if the accident happened at Giarelli’s, there would also be an incident report, sir. They’d see to that. Otherwise,
their
company insurance wouldn’t pay.”

“Dig, dig, dig. It’s like a
dog
scratchin’ at a flea bite. You won’t leave it alone.” He licked his lips. “Look, I don’t know about all this Giarelli business. All I know is what Eddie Johns told me. That he’d wrecked the truck and collected a shitload of insurance, and wanted to know if I wanted the salvage. Just a nuisance to him. Maybe he made up a story to tell somebody so he wouldn’t sound like a simple son of a bitch. How the hell would I know.”

“So Johns signed the truck’s title over to you,” Estelle said.

“I didn’t get no title. The thing was wrecked. It was salvage.”

“He removed the license plate?”

“Well, damn, I don’t know whether he did or not. Or the insurance company. Hell, maybe his old aunt Minnie did. Who the hell knows.
I
don’t have it, that’s for sure. Never did.” He huffed with exasperation. “And you know it ain’t on the truck now. You checked thorough enough. That’s what my neighbor tells me.” He squared his shoulders. “Just what are you tryin’ to prove with all this mumbo-jumbo?”

“Do you own a rifle, sir?”

The question took the rancher by surprise. He glanced toward the pickup, then at Gastner.

“’Course I own a rifle. Everybody in this county owns a damn rifle.”

“Is that what you normally carry in the truck, sir? Other than the pump shotgun you have there?”

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. What, now you’re going to accuse me of shooting Johns? Is that what this is all about? First I shoot him, then I steal his truck?” He managed a derisive laugh. Estelle watched as the color ran in splotches up his cheeks, as if he was fighting a fever.

“Mr. Prescott, Eddie Johns wasn’t shot with a rifle, as I’m sure you know by now, neighborhood communication being what it is. So no…I don’t think your ranch rifle shot him.”

“So what’s the point, then? What are you gettin’ at, lady?”

“May I see the rifle?”

“A rifle’s a rifle.”

“May I see it?”

“Well, hell, I suppose so.” He turned toward the truck, going again to the passenger door. Estelle watched him as he bent over and collected the gun, a short, angular weapon that had apparently been lying on the front seat or leaning in the passenger well. With the door open, she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but it appeared he was fumbling out the magazine. She shifted to her left a step or two, away from Bill Gastner, circling so that the rancher would have to turn to face her. Prescott tossed the magazine on the seat and stepped back, his footing not all that steady, the muzzle of the carbine held skyward. She had not heard or seen the bolt drawn back, so if a cartridge had been chambered before, it was still in place. He thrust the weapon out toward her, holding it forward of the trigger guard.

“Ruger ranch rifle,” he said. “Got to be a million of ’em around.”

“I would think so.” Estelle took the gun and turned so it was pointing off toward the distant hills. She racked the bolt back, and a cartridge spun out of the rifle. Bill Gastner almost caught it in midair, then bent to retrieve it and dusted it off before handing it to Estelle.

“Yeah, I shoulda done that,” Prescott muttered.

“I’d like to borrow this firearm for a day or two,” Estelle said. She pocketed the cartridge. “Would that be all right with you, sir? I’ll bring it back out to you tomorrow.”

“Well, no, I don’t guess that would be all right at all. You don’t just wheel in here and confiscate my guns, lady. I mean, just what are you up to?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned to his two daughters, who’d remained silent though the entire conversation, watching the back and forth like spectators at a ping-pong tournament. “I’d kinda like some privacy here,” he said, and his tone had abruptly softened.

“He’s right,” Estelle added, and Christine looked from her father to the undersheriff, eyes pleading. But this was no time for Gus Prescott to be dealing both with the undersheriff’s questions and an audience as well. “I’ll need to talk with both of you again, but if you’d give us a few minutes?”

For a moment it looked as if Christine would refuse, but then she nodded and touched Casey on the elbow. Estelle noticed that the two girls did not walk back toward the house, where their mother waited. Instead, they crossed the yard again to the corral and the horses. No wonder Christine had felt the need to hurry home from college for this mess, Estelle thought. All Christine’s skills honed over years as a bartender would be needed for a family guided by a father who could always find the deepest rut in a mud hole.

“I don’t think it’s right that you come in here and upset everybody,” Prescott said. “It’s a hard time for Casey.”

“I understand that.” She turned the rifle this way and that, and passed the muzzle close by her nose. Turning the rifle, she looked into the dark recess of the chamber. The aroma was not one of bore solvent or oil. In fact, the rifle itself was grubby, the action speckled with dirt, lint, and dog hair. But it had been fired recently enough that the characteristic aroma lingered.

For an instant, she was tempted to hand the rifle to Gastner, who during his many years in both the military and law enforcement had inspected a myriad firearms, but she decided against it. Prescott was watching her as if he’d handed the rifle to a tourist who had never seen one before. His hand kept reaching out, an almost involuntary motion that said he expected her to drop the little Ruger any moment.

“Could use a cleaning,” she said.

He almost sneered. “You’d know about that, would you, lady?”

“Well, probably not, sir.” She smiled at him innocently. “Do you practice a lot?”

“No. You obviously ain’t bought ammunition lately. God damn near have to mortgage the ranch to afford it. When they got any of it, that is.”

“How about on Thursday?”

“Thursday what?”

“Did you shoot this on Thursday, sir?”

Prescott took a long time forming an answer, and Estelle watched a range of emotions on his face, as if he were trying to solve a really tough Sudoku puzzle.

“You ever seen the number of prairie dogs we got, lady? You let them run, and you won’t have a stick of grass for ten miles.”

“You don’t poison ’em?” Bill Gastner asked.

“Sure. Some. It don’t work. We try everything.”

“Doesn’t seem like there’s as many as there used to be.”

“Hopin’ not.”

“So you were out shooting Thursday?” Estelle was facing southeast, with a full view of the two-track that wound in toward the ranch. In the distance, without stirring dust, the county patrol unit had appeared around the end of the mesa and now idled along the road into the Prescott’s. Still too far away for her to recognize which unit it was, she knew that it had to be either Deputy Tom Pasquale or Sheriff Robert Torrez. The sedate approach, like someone out ambling about with no real destination, suggested the Sheriff himself. The breeze, light and fitful, was to her back, and it would be several minutes before Prescott could hear the vehicle.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t keep track of things like that.”

“Sir, we have reason to believe that at least one shot was fired at Freddy Romero when he was riding on the Bender’s Canyon road.”

“What are you sayin’?”

“Just that. Someone took a shot at him.”

Prescott looked across the yard toward where Casey and Christina were standing, communing with the horses. Casey had been watching them, and for a long moment father and daughter’s eyes met across the distance.

“Nobody told me that the kid got shot,” Prescott said finally. “Enough people been out there that talk would go around. Somebody’d know. Nobody said nothin’.”

“I said that someone shot
at
him, sir. He wasn’t struck by the bullet.”

“Then how do you know, lady?”

“His four-wheeler was hit, sir. We have bullet fragments that were found in the front tire.”

“And you think I did that? Is that what this is all about?”

“You left the Broken Spur Saloon shortly after Freddy passed by, sir. You’re not the only one who did, but you’re the only one seen driving across the mesa toward Bender’s Canyon Trail, the same route that Freddy took.” Prescott didn’t respond. “I’d have to wonder what it was that the Romero boy was doing that concerned you so much,” Estelle continued. “I can’t believe that it was just his courting of your daughter.”