Heartshot (11 page)
“Funny how?”
He glanced at me and his eyes drifted to my cigarette. “Somehow I just never think of older folks smoking joints. There he is, fretting over his income tax, or oiling his lawn mower, or building one of those model airplanes his shop sells, and he’s sucking in for all he’s worth.” Salinger pressed thumb and index finger against tightly pursed lips and sucked the imaginary joint until his eyes bugged. He let out a hard breath and chuckled bitterly. “Funny.”
“Do you have any direct evidence that the kilo of cocaine was Jenny’s?”
He shook his head. “No. But I know Tommy wouldn’t be able to afford even a down payment, even if he was into that shit. He couldn’t even afford a dime bag. And Isi Gabaldon was so straight she squeaked. The only reason she was in the car is because Hank Montaño was. And Ricky only did what his friends told him to do. No, it was her. Count on it.”
I took another long shot, now that Scott was talking. “Did you know Darlene Sprague?”
“Sure.”
“What about her?”
Scott picked at the grass stem. “We all had ideas about who slipped her that shit. And you know the semester after she died? Last year? I had a creative-writing class. Space case was in it, too.”
“Space case?”
“Barrie. She spent the whole time writing those damn sappy poems. Always the same thing. Death, guilt, suicide.” He made a horrible, twisted face that would have looked about right on a corpse. “We always had to read our stuff in class, you know. And hers. Wow.” He pitched a small pebble down the rocks. “It got so bad that whenever she read something in class, me and a bunch of others would pretend like we were playing violins.” He looked over at me and grinned. “Pretty bad dudes, huh?”
“Well…” I said dubiously.
“We got on her case pretty hard. But it always seemed that she enjoyed it in sort of a screwball way. I got the notion that she just enjoyed being miserable and tragic.”
“Miserable and tragic.”
“Yeah. It got really bad one day, though. The vice-principal came to the door to talk to Mrs. Rosenthal about something, and this one kid, maybe you know him—Terry Semple?”
“I know the family. His dad’s a rancher.”
“Right. Well, Jenny’d just finished reading some damn thing, all full of oh-ah, pain and agony. Just real first-class shit, you know. I didn’t think anybody was really listening, ’cause she was wearing one of those sweatshirts that’s got all the cutouts in it?” Salinger grinned. “And absolutely nothing on under it. That was kinda neat. Anyway, old Semple, he leans across that dumb little circle we had to sit in and says when Jenny finished reading, ‘If you knew you were going to feel so damn guilty and broke up, what’d you deal in that shit for?’”
“Ouch.”
“Jenny just looked him right in the eye and said, ‘Fuck you.’ He turned about eight shades of red, because he didn’t know what to say to that. Then Mrs. Rosenthal came back and we were all acting real normal, like nothing happened. The rest of us about split a gut.”
“And you didn’t have much use for the Barrie girl, did you?”
Salinger hesitated, then said, “Unless you were in her pants, I don’t think there was all that much about her to like.” He looked soberly at me. “I mean, she didn’t deserve to get killed like she did, and I don’t mean to be bad-mouthing her. But…” he looked away for a minute, thinking hard. “I just thought she was a fake, that’s all. I didn’t know her that good, and I never had anything to do with her, until Tommy took up with her.” He still gazed off into space. “She really had him hooked. And now they’re all dead, so maybe it doesn’t matter. But hell. One more year, and then I’m gone.”
Abruptly changing the subject, he pointed off toward Posadas. “I sure like country like this. You sit here long enough, and it seems like you can feel the earth turning. I think I can see the curve in the horizon, and then I can feel the movement. You ever felt like that?”
I didn’t say anything, pretty sure he wasn’t expecting an answer. “I do,” he said. “Every time I come up here. It’s just back down in town that things are all screwed up.”
“That’s where the people are.”
“That’s for sure,” Salinger said with a short laugh.
“Scott, I’ve bothered you long enough, but will you do me a favor? If you think of anything else that we should know, will you call? Now that you kinda have things sorted out? Will you do that? I’d appreciate that. We don’t have any concrete leads, and the last thing I want to see is any more people hurt. We could use the help.”
He gave me the same patient, searching look that his sister had. “All right. I’m sure that stuff was Jenny Barrie’s. But I have no idea where she might have gotten it. Not that much. I can’t believe her family had anything to do with it. Hell, Mr. Barrie is a jerk, but nothing like that.”
I stood up somewhat shakily, careful to stay well away from the jumbled edge. Scott picked up the short Ruger .22 that had been lying beside him. “I’ll walk back with you. I got to get home for supper anyway.”
We reached the vehicles and he stopped short. “I don’t believe you drove that up here.”
I patted 310’s front fender. “Wanna drag?”
He laughed. “From here to the pavement, sure.”
“No dice. In fact, let me go first,” I said. “That way, if I break an axle, I won’t have to walk back to town.”
I carefully turned the heavy Ford around and idled and bumped out the path through the trees. Scott Salinger’s Bronco stayed a respectful hundred yards behind me all the way. I hit the pavement feeling pretty sure that the kid would be all right. But I had been wrong before. I wasn’t quite ready for a ground swell of confidence. I knew I’d feel better when I had somebody behind bars. But at least now I had some ideas.
The telephone rang five times before my sleep-fogged brain bothered to interpret the noise. Even then, it was slow to issue orders to move. We had gotten back from Hewitt’s funeral at midnight, and even Sheriff Holman had been bone-tired. I had been almost comatose, and driven the last fifty miles by instinct.
I had no idea what time it was, only that the telephone sounded like a fire alarm exploding directly in my ear. Had it been noon already, I wouldn’t have known. My bedroom would have made a good photographer’s darkroom. Some years before, I had installed a really heavy pair of shutters on the window, with the logic that a cop who has to sleep at odd hours should be able to do so in comfortable darkness.
I groped for the nightstand, realized I was on the wrong side of the bed and groaned as the ringing persisted.
“Ga—” I coughed and then managed a squawky, “Gastner.”
“Sheriff, sorry to bother you.”
“Um,” I murmured, more interested in drifting back to sleep than listening.
The voice said something about being Roger Downs, and a lonely, alert synapse somewhere deep in my brain fired promptly. “Are you awake, sir?” Downs persisted.
“What’s up, Roger?” I replied, finally close enough to the surface to remember that Downs was one of our own part-timers, a student at the community college thirty miles away, who found time to study between midnight and eight.
“Sir, Sheriff Holman said to call you. We’ve got a ten-sixty-five, and he says you’d want to know.”
“Umph.” I tried to sound as noncommittal as possible, because I couldn’t remember what a 10-65 was, and found myself wondering what kind of eager beaver would use the cryptic 10-code on the telephone. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll be down shortly.” I hung up the phone without waiting for a response and promptly fell asleep.
“Sir, are you awake?” It was Downs again, and for the life of me I didn’t know how the telephone receiver got up against my ear.
That was, finally, all the disturbance my aching brain needed. I snapped fully and completely awake. Through a narrow crack in the shutter I could see a sliver of white light as wide as a pencil lead that meant the sun was trying to burn off the paint. “What the hell time is it, Roger?”
“Eight-fifteen, sir.”
“Jesus H. Christ. What’s the problem?” I could only vaguely remember the first call.
“We’ve got a missing-person report in, sir. Sheriff Holman said you would want to know.”
“You bet. Who is it?”
“A kid by the name of Scott Salinger, sir.”
For a minute, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Roger Downs finally said into the silence, “Sir?”
“Give me fifteen,” I replied, already moving to hang up the phone. “And I’m awake this time. Thanks for the re-call, Roger.”
Thirteen minutes later, cotton-mouthed and unshaven, I pulled 310 into the small sheriff’s department parking lot. Amy Salinger’s Nova sat two spaces down from my reserved space. I hustled inside.
Amy Salinger was standing with our regular dispatcher, Gayle Sedillos, near the big wall map of Posadas County. They were in earnest conversation, with Gayle pointing out something on the map north of town. I saw no one else in the office. Apparently Roger Downs had already gone home.
“Fill me in,” I said, and both girls snapped around. Neither of them had heard me come in. “Miss Salinger, what’s going on?”
Amy’s face was pale, but she was under control. “Scott went out sometime yesterday afternoon, Mr. Gastner. He never returned.” As simple as that.
“Where was he headed? Did he say?”
“No. None of us were home. This is his favorite time of the year to go hunting.” She tried a semibrave smile. “For whatever screwball reason, he likes the summer heat. That’s what we thought. I checked to see if he had taken his rifle. He never goes without that. It’s still behind the door of his bedroom.”
I turned to Sedillos. “Who’s out and where?”
“Sheriff Holman left early this morning for a meeting in Las Cruces with the DEA. They’re arranging the interagency task force.”
“I know that,” I said quickly.
“I sent Baker up the hill. Miss Salinger showed me on the map where some of her brother’s favorite haunts are. Baker said he was familiar with the rim area.”
“Where’s the schedule?” I turned and grabbed the sheet that told me who was supposed to be working. “Terrific.” Todd Baker was the only deputy on duty until 4 P.M. “All right. If we don’t turn anything quickly, we’ll call the others in. Miss Salinger, what was Scott’s mood the last time you saw him?”
“At lunch. He seemed more relaxed than he has in a long time. He told me about meeting with you the other day up on the mesa. He didn’t say what you two talked about, but whatever it was, it helped.”
“That’s encouraging. Does he have any favorite night spots?” She shook her head. “Any friends with whom he’s apt to spend the night?” Again a shake of the head. “As far as you know,” I prompted.
“As far as I know, no. And neither Mom or Dad could think of any place he might have gone. It’s not like him to go out without telling someone. Dad went out to check a couple places where they used to hunt together. Mom stayed at home, in case he showed up or called.”
I walked over and looked at the map. “The most likely thing is that he took a header somewhere, Amy. That happens. If a person’s out a couple miles, it doesn’t take much to incapacitate him to a point where he just has to sit, wait, and sweat it out.”
“He’s got a trick knee from football,” Amy offered hopefully.
“There you go, then. He’s probably sitting somewhere under a tree, waiting for us to find him. What was he wearing?”
“Jeans. Some freaky heavy metal rock T-shirt.”
I smiled some encouragement. “Let’s find him right now.” I’m not sure she bought my feigned optimism, but I didn’t give her a chance to brood. “Gayle, call Jim Bergin at the airport and tell him we’re on the way. He gets to fly a county contract. If he’s not there, call him at home and get him up. Amy, let’s go.”
Technically, I was giving the county commissioners about thirty-seven reasons to put me on the rack. Twenty-four hours hadn’t passed, and Scott Salinger wasn’t a missing person yet. Taking a civilian on an air search was another, especially on a county voucher. The list went on, but I wasn’t about to sit around, waiting for answers. Amy Salinger and I were worried for the same reason—people like her brother didn’t simply walk away without a word unless something was very wrong. We drove quickly to the airport.
“He’s on the ball,” I said, pointing as we drove in toward the parking area. “If your brother drove his car off a rough road somewhere, this is the quickest way to find him. You can see a lot from the air in country like this.” On the apron in front of his small office building was Bergin’s Piper Arrow. He had a small cowl flap up and was peering inside. When he heard us grind to a stop on the gravel, he snapped the flap closed and walked quickly around the wing. He stood at the trailing edge, and the cabin door was open.
“Morning, Sheriff. Your dispatcher said not to linger over coffee. That’s a tough request.”
“We appreciate it.”
“Where are we going?”
“Local search.”
“I guessed right, then. Marijuana field tip-off again?”
“Go ahead and get in back, Amy,” I said, and she stepped lithely up on the wing, then squirmed inside the narrow confines of the airplane. “No marijuana field, Jim. Missing person. We’re looking for a blue-and-white Ford Bronco. Probably one occupant. Probably went hunting. My guess is up on the mesa somewhere. Let’s head that way, and then we’ll play it by ear from there.”
Jim Bergin nodded and climbed in. I followed, settling more stiffly than I would have liked. “You got to slam it,” Bergin said after my first abortive attempt with the door. He reached over and whumped it shut, then stretched to push the top lock closed. He twisted around to make sure Amy was secure, glanced my way, and then busied himself with the plane.
“Amy,” I said, turning so she could hear me, “does Scott usually park and then hike some distance, or is he a dyed-in-the-wool four-wheeler?”
“He loves to hike, Sheriff.”
I nodded and watched Bergin. He was reading a plastic laminated check sheet methodically. After some twisting, pumping, and switch-snapping, he unlatched a small plastic window, craned his head to see as far around the airplane as he could, and then yelled, “Clear” so loud I startled.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” I asked.
“You never know,” he said, and grinned. The engine came to life promptly and settled into a cowl-shaking idle. Bergin seemed to be running most of his checks as he taxied out, and then, with a healthy bellow, we were airborne.
Posadas lost a good deal of its significance from the air. Almost immediately, I could look ahead and see the main Consolidated Mining building to the north, up on the rise of the mesa. We passed directly over the lake and cleared the edge of the mesa behind it by no more than five hundred feet. Bergin came back on the power and began a methodical sweep pattern, flying east-west tracks a mile apart.
“You holler if you see a vehicle,” he shouted. Almost immediately, I saw Todd Baker’s county car, stark white against the brown and green of the mesa. I keyed the hand-held radio.
“Three-oh-six, Airborne.”
“Three-oh-six, go ahead.”
“We’re over you now. See anything?”
“Negative, Airborne.”
“Three-oh-six, is it possible to tell fresh tracks?”
“Negative. Too dry.”
“Ten-four. I don’t think there’s much more you can do up here. Head back down and stay central. We may need you later somewhere else.”
Baker acknowledged, and on our next pass up the mesa, we saw the dust from his patrol car spiraling up through the trees. “Do you know where your father went?” I shouted back at Amy. She shook her head and leaned forward.
“He didn’t say.”
“Where did they hunt?”
She twisted her face up in thought. “There’s a bunch of old cattle drinkers north and east, over by Bailey. They used to go out there for dove, things like that. I think they hunted deer over by Las Notchas.” I nodded. Bergin continued his tracking, smooth as silk. The wind was blowing slightly, and I noticed he held the plane in a slight crab. I saw a flash of moving metal and tapped Bergin on the arm, pointing. The Arrow immediately stood on one wing and turned so fast my stomach kept going west. We flashed over the treetops, skewed sideways against the wind, and I had a good view of a startled face looking up from the cab of a green Forest Service truck. If he had a radio, he didn’t have our frequency. I bounced a message back to Gayle by way of 306, and shortly we had confirmation from the Forest Service that their man downstairs hadn’t found an unattended Bronco.
All our efforts were concentrated in just
seeing
as the mesa fell away toward the open wide valley to the north. The mat of piñon and juniper below us was broken only by an occasional dirt road. Amy Salinger tapped me on the shoulder. “I know he used to come out here once in a while,” she shouted, pointing at the flat hot prairie. “Rabbits.” It was a rabbit heaven, all right. Stock tanks dotted the landscape, with barbed-wire fences stretching out across the thoroughly grazed bunch grass.
The country was a checkerboard of ownership…some private, some Bureau of Land Management, some state reservation. If a person wanted to get out away from everyone and everything, this was the place. But there was no Bronco. Jim Bergin looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.
I turned to Amy. “I hope somebody checked to make sure he didn’t go back out to the football camp.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t. That was our first thought.”
“How about flying back around the edge of the mesa,” I suggested to Bergin. “Right around the edge.” He nodded and the Arrow turned south. I scanned the trees and brush. I tried to climb inside the adolescent mind for answers, but that was a lost cause. I found myself thinking that as long as we didn’t find anything, or hear from anyone, all was to the good. Deputy Todd Baker scotched that wishful thinking just as we rounded the west end of the mesa, with Posadas still hidden by its center bulge. The reception wasn’t great, but he was understandable.
“Airborne, Three-oh-six.”
“Airborne.”
“Airborne, I have a blue-over-white Bronco, Sam Victor one, five, niner, niner. One-half mile east of County Road 43, on the Consolidated access.” Before the deputy had finished, Jim Bergin pushed the throttle forward and we banked sharply toward the east. Todd Baker was one of those officers whose voice on the radio always sounded like a recording. He would have said, “I don’t like cabbage,” in the same tone as “The world is ending.” Only his pregnant wife could get him excited.
Amy Salinger must have been watching my face, because all she did was lay a small hand on my shoulder. If she hadn’t been leaning forward in her seat, she wouldn’t have heard my exchange with Baker over the loud drone of the airplane’s engine. But she had heard enough, and knew where the Consolidated access road was as well as I…close to town and close to a well-traveled highway. There was no good reason to be stranded there.
In another three minutes, we flashed over the lake at something like 130 miles an hour, and Jim Bergin reached out and pulled back the throttle. My stomach flopped a little as the Arrow nosed up. Our airspeed fell away and we started a big circle around the Consolidated Mines complex. The place had been abandoned for almost four years. A company security man drove through on rare occasions to check the locks. The access road swung off County Road 43 and wound around the complex, gradually dropping down to the huge “boneyard,” where the detritus from thirty years of active mining filled a good five acres: junked machinery; probably thousands of feet of drilling pipe and cable; even a long, neat rick of aspen mine-shaft supports. The access road didn’t belong to Consolidated. In fact, it continued down the hill, rough and rut-gouged, to peter out finally several miles later behind the county landfill. It wasn’t picturesque country.
We looked down and saw Baker’s car parked behind the Bronco. The small vehicle was pulled off the road, nestled in the shade of several small scrub oaks.