Heartshot (7 page)
“Ten-four, three-ten,” she said crisply. “Three-oh-eight, did you copy?”
“Three-oh-eight, ten-four.” Torrez sounded unexcited. “I’m ten-eight.”
I had ten minutes, or less. I was willing to bet my pension, such as it was, that Torrez was more than just “in service.” He would be on his way through town and up County Road 43, covering the ground a whole lot faster than I had. If the two neckers were still parked on the shoulder, his jet wash was just a few minutes away from rocking their locked lips apart.
People park in the midnight timber for several reasons, but only one or two fit Benny Fernandez that night. If he was out cheating on his wife, I was going to be embarrassed and so was he. But I didn’t even consider that the occupants of the Cordoba might include the steely-faced Mrs. Fernandez.
A Forest Service access road allowed me to circle around so that I could park a few yards behind Fernandez’s Cordoba. The duct tape plastered over the patrol car’s dome light eliminated the blast of light when I opened the door. I walked slowly toward the Cordoba, letting my eyes adjust as much as they could. Benny knew I was coming—unless he was blind drunk or dead. And he would have heard me idle up behind him, as quiet as the night was.
When I reached the back fender, I stopped, flashlight still off. Cigarette smoke wafted out his open window.
“Benny? It’s Bill Gastner.”
“How you doin,’ Sheriff?” he said.
“Fine. Crack your door so I can see, will you?” He did, and the dome light flooded on. I moved up and relaxed a little when I could see both his hands. One held a sandwich of sorts, the other a plastic cup filled with coffee. “Long night?” I asked pleasantly.
“I figure this is as good a place as any,” he said.
“For what? You got insomnia?” I tried to keep my tone light, but it was hard. I could see the black butt of the Beretta. The rest of the gun was covered by his right leg.
“You’re out late too,” he said. “You want some coffee?” He hefted the cup and looked up at me.
“Sure.” I watched him reach for the thermos bottle and the cup-lid. He started to pour and then heard the noise at the same time as I did. “Boy,” he said, “somebody is sure pushin’ it hard on that highway.”
I decided it was time to cut the gab and get on with it. “That’s Deputy Torrez coming up the hill,” I said. Fernandez looked sharply at me. “Standard procedure,” I added. “A cop doesn’t usually go talk with a man with a gun unless there’s some backup…even if they’re all good friends.” Fernandez finished pouring and handed the coffee to me. I laid the flashlight on the roof and took the cup. “Benny, what are you doing up here?”
Fernandez took his time. I had always thought of Benny as something of a marshmallow. He had reminded me of all those Mexicans in the “B” Westerns, the folks who wore white cotton and were always being beaten and whipped by the bad guys. In the end, they rose up, armed with scythes, axes, and garden hoes. Maybe that was Benny’s mood just then. There was a certain hardness about the man. I saw the muscles of his cheek twitch, and he looked down into the dark depths of his coffee cup.
“Is there something illegal about sitting out in the night, Sheriff?” he asked.
“No. And there’s nothing illegal about carrying a gun in this state, either, Benny. Like the one under your leg there. But I kinda start wondering what you have in mind. It’s hard to see rabbits in the dark. It’s illegal to jacklight deer. This isn’t good snake country.” I paused and sipped my coffee, keeping my eyes on his hands. “But as long as the weapon isn’t concealed and loaded at the same time, you can walk down Grande Boulevard with it. You might make a few folks nervous, just like you’re making me nervous right now. You’re hunting, Benny, and that makes me nervous. Who?”
Fernandez reached down and picked up the big Beretta. I wasn’t familiar with the gun, but the hammer was down. Then I saw that the trigger was far forward, and that meant it was double action. I got nervous again. He turned it this way and that in his hands thoughtfully. “You know, Sheriff, for two, maybe three days after Ricky died, I could think of nothing but my own loss. I guess you could say I was feeling sorry for myself. Ricky…I’m sure he felt nothing.” He snapped his fingers. “A fraction of a second, maybe. No more.” He tapped the rim of the steering wheel with the Beretta’s barrel. “But then your people found that bag of cocaine under the seat.” He stopped and shook his head. “For the past few days, I’ve been thinking, Sheriff. That much, it’s worth a lot of money. It’s more than just—what do the kids call it now, a little hit? I mean, somebody is dealing heavy. Maybe not like in L.A. or New York, where they bring it in a ton at a time. I still don’t believe it was my Ricky, but it was in his car…my car. I believe he knew it was there, and ran because of it.”
“Maybe.”
“And I tell you this. I know from when I lived in Phoenix. Once the dealers move in, they move in for all they can take. That cocaine you found was not the last of it. Sometime, those bastards will try again.”
“And you plan to be there with that thing when they do?”
Fernandez made a funny little noise that sounded like an effort to laugh. “People who deal in kilos aren’t Boy Scouts, Sheriff.” We both turned our heads as Bob Torrez’s car turned into the lake road.
“Hang on a minute, Benny.” I walked quickly back to my car and fumbled the radio. A minute later, we saw Torrez turn around and head slowly back down the hill. “I think you can appreciate that what you’re doing makes us all a little nervous, Benny,” I said when I returned. “I mean, this is our job, not yours. You’re not trained for it, you’re too involved to think straight. Now let’s suppose a couple cars pulled in down there by the lake and parked door to door. What would you do?”
Fernandez just stared ahead at the imaginary cars. I continued, “I mean, it’s dark, Benny. Are they just necking? Having a beer? Telling dirty jokes? What? And you’re telling me that you’re going to charge down there with a fifteen-shot semi-automatic pistol at the ready? How are you going to know who they are? Are you going to threaten them and force them all out of their cars and then search them? And if they bring suit against you, you’ll probably lose. And I mean lose more than you can imagine. I don’t know how many civil suits you’ve ever been involved in, but take my word for it, avoid them. And what will you do if they just laugh at you, Benny? Shoot them all? Then you’ve got manslaughter charges against you. And if they’re drug dealers, Benny, what will happen is this. We’ll find what’s left of you lying on the gravel down there the next morning.” I stopped. He was looking down at the gun. “Use your head, Benny. When I came up here, I did it knowing I had backup. I had a light. You don’t even have that. If I hadn’t recognized Yankee Charlie Xray one-three-six, I would have called in the plate and had a bunch of information before I stepped out of the car.” Spouting out his license plate like that made a dent. He looked up at me, a little sorrowfully. “And, Benny, I’ve done this before. I don’t think you have. We don’t want to see you hurt, or anyone else.”
He nodded and offered the Beretta to me, butt first. I shook my head. “That’s not necessary, Benny. Take it back to wherever you bought it tomorrow. For now, just unload it and shove it under the seat. Go home and get some rest. Let us work. Hell, I may be fat and old, but I’m pretty damn good at what I do. The deputies are better still. We’ve got some leads. The sheriff told me today that he’s planning to bring in a specially trained dog. The beast sniffs drugs, believe it or not. Even if you just smoked a single joint as much as forty-eight hours ago, this critter will nail you. We’re going to publicize that, and some people are bound to get nervous. The Drug Enforcement Agency is working with us.” That was a lie, but Fernandez didn’t need to know. “Something’s going to break, believe me. Soon.”
He nodded and sighed heavily. “You just feel so helpless sometimes,” he said.
“Sure.” I groped for something to lighten his spirits a little before sending him down the hill. “And my bet is that when this is all over, it’ll be obvious that Ricky wasn’t involved as anything other than maybe an innocent bystander. You’ll be proud of him.”
“You really believe that?”
“Yup. I know what kind of a home he came from.” Even if I didn’t buy that one, Benny Fernandez did. He looked grateful. I pressed the advantage. “I’ll pull back so you can get out of here, Benny. There’s other things I need to check up here. You go on ahead. Go down and get some rest. Being the midnight vigilante isn’t your style.” He laughed and sounded a little relieved.
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll get rid of this thing tomorrow, first item of business. Sell it back to George Payton.”
“I’m sure he’ll give you back every nickel,” I said.
“A man can be stupid sometimes,” Fernandez said.
It was only in retrospect that Benny’s last line really haunted me. If I had been able to replay that scene, I would have grabbed that Beretta at the first offer. But when I next saw the weapon, it was in a plastic evidence bag.
Meeting Fernandez had set me on edge. I was as wide-eyed as one of those lemurs you see in picture books about the jungle. Any notion that this night might be one with six or eight hours of sleep was just that…a notion. The road down the hill was empty. The night neckers had gone elsewhere. About five miles north of town, I jogged west on State 78. A housing development of new ranch styles sprawled up the side of the mesa. Most of them had “For Sale” signs in front, and a few looked pretty ragged. The mine and mill closing had caught many developers overbuilding. Maybe drug trafficking was the new industry, I thought as I followed the road up the mesa until it topped out by the airport. With headlights off, I drove along a hundred yards of fencing and passed the airport parking area and an apron access gate for pedestrians. The main gate that led to the hangars was wide open. That was normally the case during the daytime when the airport manager, Jim Bergin, was on the premises. But at midnight or after, it was a little unusual unless some charter flight had just come in.
I drove through the gate and saw that the big padlock was hooked loosely through the chain link above the gate latch. Farther on, one arc light blazed, casting hard shadows around the hangars. Light streamed out from one, and I drove over. Bathed in the harsh fluorescent wash from overhead was a pretty tan-and-white Cessna. Its cowl was off, and from an open door on the passenger side a leg and foot projected. As I stopped the car, Jim Bergin pulled himself up far enough so he could see my car, and then he untangled his long frame from the innards of the airplane. I got out and walked over. My left hand groped automatically at the cigarette pack in my shirt pocket.
“Don’t smoke in here,” Jim said immediately. In mock threat, he waved what looked like wire nippers.
I laughed. “You know me pretty well, Jim. How you doin’?” I patted the pocket flap back in place, fighting that strange reflex that smokers have when they’re meeting someone and about to talk. I saw the pan of oil under the plane’s nose and the neat cans of Aeroshell lined up on the floor.
“I’m tired and cranky and tryin’ to keep the customers happy. How about yourself?” Bergin said.
I glanced at my watch. It was twelve forty-six. “Damn picky customers to make a man work this late.”
Bergin offered one of his easy smiles. “Nah. There’s a big bird coming in to pick up about five tons of milling parts from Consolidated. Maybe you saw the truck over on the north side of the parking lot?” I shook my head and Bergin added, “Their plane blew a tire in Pueblo, and that, plus thunderboomers, puts them about five hours late.” He glanced at his watch. “So I figure about three o’clock.”
“And you get stuck waiting for them, huh?” I ran a hand over the smooth alloy of the Cessna’s prop.
Bergin shrugged and wiped his hands on a clean rag. “They want a fast turnaround and fuel. I’ll help get them squared away and sell ’em a few hundred gallons of fuel besides. Hell, might as well make a dime. I don’t have anything else to do.” He grinned. “Corporate schedules assume people are not mortal, you know. What are you sniffin’ around after?”
“Just out, Jim. Swung by here and saw a light. Whose plane is this, anyway?”
“Doc Sprague’s.”
“No shit?” I thumped the end of the spinner. “I didn’t think he was still flying.”
“Oh, yeah. He quit for a little while. About the time his daughter died. Just as well. A man’s got to keep his mind on business up in the air. He just wasn’t in any shape. But he picked it up again about eight months ago. In fact, he just bought this bird in June.”
“Bunch of moola.”
“You’d better believe it.”
I walked around and looked inside at the fancy fabric and all the dials, knobs, and levers. “Wow.” There was a messy hole in the middle of the dash, though, where Bergin had obviously been working. “Something break?”
“Putting in a new radio. He’s got to have the best, you know. I figured I might as well change the oil while I was working and waiting for the charter. It’s due.”
I muttered some pleasantry in agreement and looked back along the fuselage.
“You seen anything of the government yet?” Bergin looked quizzical, and I added, “The DEA is going to be running a plane out of here.”
“That’s good news,” Bergin said, and flapped his eyebrows. “There’s nothing like government credit cards to boost gas sales. I hope they use a helicopter, and not some gas-sippin’ bird. They’re going to push the border again, huh?”
“Yup.”
“I wish ’em all the luck. But unless they can cover the whole thing twenty-four hours a day, it isn’t going to do much good. What are they flying, do you know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it. Just that they’re coming.”
Bergin nodded. “Probably bringing in one of their mix-masters. Complete waste.” He shook his head sadly. “You know, if they’d go down into Mexico and bribe the right people, they’d probably be provided with a flight plan for each drug runner. But what the hell.” He waved the wire cutter in disgust, then grinned again. “At two dollars and nine cents a gallon for av-gas, I hope they work the border for about six months. Then I can retire.”
I was about to say something when I heard a car blasting down the state road past the airport. It caught my attention because the sound was that of a big engine being pushed until it howled. About the time I half-turned to look outside toward the road, we saw the flash of red lights. It was a county car, and flying low.
“Your boys are hotdogging it,” Bergin observed dryly.
“Young blood, eager beavers,” I replied. The door of 310 was closed, and I hadn’t bothered to put the radio on PA. “I better go give a listen.”
“Take care.” Bergin went back inside the airplane and I walked out to the car. He called after me, voice muffled, “There’s coffee if you want it.” I waved a hand and then pulled open the door. The night air instantly was filled with radio traffic.
“Three-oh-eight, what’s your ETA?” The voice was shaky, and I recognized it as one of the village part-timers.
“Posadas, three-oh-eight is six minutes out.” It had been Torrez who flashed by.
I was already in gear when Gayle Sedillos came on the air, finding Deputy Bishop as well. “Three-oh-seven, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Three-ten, PCS.”
I keyed the mike as I swerved around the hangar and out the gate. “Three-ten.”
“Three-ten, ten-forty-nine Posadas Village Park code three. Ten-seventy-one.”
“Ten-four. ETA seven minutes.” Every muscle in my body was steel-tight. The innocent numbers Gayle enunciated so clearly on the air meant that somebody had just put bullets into somebody else…and maybe was ready to continue doing so.
I concentrated on driving, nervous because I knew Bob Torrez would arrive at the park first. The part-timer wouldn’t provide much backup. His chief, Dan Martinez, wouldn’t either, since he was off on a week’s vacation. I reached the intersection of State 78 and County 43 and swept down the yield ramp at close to eighty miles an hour. There were three miles of straight paved road to the outskirts of Posadas, and after the first one, 310 felt light on its toes. I didn’t bother to look at the speedometer.
The village park was a triangular affair of two acres, grass and swing sets and a statue or two. It even sported a welded-up, World War I vintage tank—supposedly left over from Pershing’s fruitless dashes across the border after the outlaw Pancho Villa. If Pershing had used that tank in hot pursuit, it’s amazing Villa hadn’t laughed himself to death. The tank faced Pershing Street, and that’s where I saw Torrez’s car, parked diagonally in the street, lights flashing. Beyond was the village car, headlights askew. Pulling in from the other direction was a state police cruiser, no toplight bar but the grille lights pulsating. I skidded 310 to a stop altogether too close to 308. A crowd of people were gathered over on the grass about thirty yards behind the tank. I saw Torrez push someone hard, and the deputy gesticulated toward the village car.
Only after I had gotten out and was trotting across the grass did I recognize the man Torrez had pushed as the village cop. He ran past me, eyes wide. “Ambulance,” he yelped, and sprinted on.
I reached the first knot of people, folks from nearby houses and the rapidly gathering cars. “Move it, move it,” I snapped, and shoved through. The victim was lying on his face, but I recognized him immediately. My gut wound itself into a painful ball. The Beretta was in the grass, under the victim’s left shin. Benny Fernandez didn’t need an ambulance.
I stood up. “Now I want you people back. Way back,” I shouted. The state trooper didn’t hesitate to cooperate. He was five times bigger than me, and probably twice as mean. Crowd control was his thing, and he pitched in. I let him work, because Bob Torrez had me by the sleeve.
“Sheriff, over here,” he said. I turned quickly and almost fell, suddenly and violently dizzy. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath, waiting for my eyes to clear. The night air hadn’t felt so close and stuffy before.
“Who’d Fernandez tangle with?” I managed, but Torrez just pulled me along. I recognized one of the paramedics from the fire department, crouched and working furiously. He was off duty, and didn’t have much to work with. Just as intent, and obviously in charge, was Dr. Harlan Sprague, Jr. I recognized first his unruly white hair. His face, unevenly illuminated by the bright sodium vapor lights of the park, was soft and puffy, like that of a man just jerked out of bed. I couldn’t see much of the victim at first, but then I saw the ankle holster, and tasted the bile that welled up in my throat as I bent over.
“Ah, no,” was all I managed to say. Art Hewitt lay on his back, arms outflung. By his right hand was the stubby Magnum.
“Where the hell is that ambulance?” the paramedic muttered. “There ain’t a thing we can do until he gets here.” In the distance, we could hear another siren building.
“How is he?” I said, dropping to my knees beside Sprague.
“His pulse is good. Breathing is ragged. There’s no way of knowing where the bullet went. But I think he’ll be all right.” He was holding a pad made from Hewitt’s own T-shirt against the young officer’s right flank. “He’s conscious.”
Hewitt’s features were rigid, and his eyes were staring wildly up into the night, shifting first one way and then another as if he were searching the heavens for an answer. “Art?” He looked over at me, obviously having trouble focusing his eyes. “Art, what the hell happened?”
He wet his lips and swallowed hard. “Damned if I know,” he whispered. “I was talking with some kids and…and…”
“And what?” The ambulance screamed up to the curb. “And what, Art?”
“He was talkin’ with some guy over by the corner.”
“Who was talking? Fernandez?”
Art Hewitt nodded slightly and swallowed hard. “And then he just came over and jumped me.”
“Jumped you? You mean he threatened you with the gun?”
“No. He just…he just charged me, pushed me real hard. I tripped and fell backward.”
Footsteps pounded toward us, and I looked up. The ambulance crew was sprinting across the grass. I put a hand on Hewitt’s shoulder. “They’ll get you fixed up, Art. Just lie easy.”
“I’ll be okay, Gramps.”
Sprague, an internist by training, and far from being a trauma specialist, stood aside and let the well-equipped EMTs take over.
I moved to give them room to work and gasped aloud, so vicious was the combination of pain and pressure that suddenly and relentlessly clamped me in a vice. “Holy shit,” I breathed, and stood bent over with my hands on my knees.
“Are you all right?” It was Sprague.
“I think so,” I said, slowly straightening up. Air came a little easier and the pain subsided. “Too much running around.”
Dr. Sprague’s eyes narrowed as he looked closely at me. “Chest pain? Pressure?”
Everything was coming back to normal, and I knew that if I answered the doc truthfully, there’d be complications that I couldn’t afford just then. “No. Just a little dizzy. I’m all right.”
Sprague had me by the wrist, and it was only after a few seconds that I realized he had been expertly but unobtrusively taking my pulse. I pulled away. “I’m all right.” They were loading Art Hewitt into the ambulance. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“Probably for more reasons than you think,” Sprague said dryly. “Who’s your doctor?”
I looked at him impatiently. “None,” I said truthfully. I had been ill so rarely that I had never seen the need for a regular physician.
“Find one,” he said cryptically. “If you make it through this night, find one. I mean it.”
I nodded and said, “Sure. And I’m going to need to talk to you. You saw this?” I nodded at the flattened spot in the grass. Even as we talked, a second unit arrived and Fernandez’s corpse, covered with the usual white sheet, was loaded.
“No. I heard the shots. That’s all. As you know, I live just over there.” He indicated a row of town houses that had been built on the east side of the park. “I didn’t even have time to put together something for my bag. I haven’t been in active practice for some time.”
“All right. We’ll want a statement.”
“Certainly.”
I saw that Bob Torrez and the village part-timer were working the other eyewitnesses. I left Sprague and joined them. In the next few minutes, Estelle Reyes arrived, as did Howard Bishop. “I want statements from every living soul within a block of this park,” I snapped at Reyes. I could see, even in the vague light of the park’s sodium vapors, that her face was pale.
“How is he?” she asked, and I shrugged helplessly.
“I’m going on down to the hospital. I’ll call Holman and tell him to get his ass out of bed.”
“He’s already on his way down,” Estelle Reyes said, almost in a whisper.
“Fine,” I said. “Take this place apart. I mean it. I’ll be back to help just as soon as I can.”
I strode across the grass toward my car. But what I’d told Estelle Reyes wasn’t true. It wasn’t fine. I had the goddamned feeling that absolutely nothing was under control.