Steven Havill: Out of Season

Tom Pasquale had pulled his patrol car up so that he was parked nose to nose with Boyd’s truck, and in the wash of light cast by the sodium vapor light, I could see the young deputy standing beside Boyd. As we approached, a bright glow marked the end of Johnny Boyd’s cigarette. Estelle braked hard and pulled to a stop.

“Now what the hell is going on?” Boyd asked as we got out. A scant three blocks’ distance and a handful of trees in Pershing Park separated us from a view of the Pierpoint, and the winking emergency lights were clearly visible.

“Johnny,” I said, and reached out a hand to take the rancher by the shoulder. “Where did Edwin go tonight when he left the house?”

“Why?” The answer came out automatically, a standard response to questions that Johnny Boyd considered no one’s business but his own. And then he glanced to the south, toward the congregation of flashing lights. I saw the expression on his face change as he put two and two together. “What’s happened?”

“Richard Finnegan is dead, Johnny.”

He looked at me quickly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean just that. He’s dead. I don’t know the details, except that he was stabbed to death outside of the Pierpoint Bar and Grill just a little while ago.”

He took an involuntary step backward, and when he reached for the cigarette in his mouth, he fumbled it and it fell to the sidewalk in a cascade of sparks. Tom Pasquale was standing beside him and evidently thought the man had lost his balance. He reached out a hand to take Johnny by the elbow, and the rancher reacted as if he’d brushed against an electric fence.

“Now wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve been inside the Legion Hall ever since I drove into town.”

“Johnny-” I started to say.

“No.” He held up both hands and took another step backward. “I know what all of you think, or you wouldn’t have been snooping around my property earlier. But this is just plain crazy. I didn’t have anything to do with Richard Finnegan getting himself killed.”

“Johnny, stop it,” I snapped. “I’m not the least bit interested in what you’ve been doing since you came to town.” That wasn’t altogether true, of course, but it served the purpose, Boyd’s eyes narrowed and he glanced first at Neil Costace and then at Estelle. “We have reason to believe that Edwin was involved somehow,” I said, and Johnny’s head snapped back around.

“What?”

“At least one of the patrons saw your brother at the Pierpoint. Edwin was there, sitting by himself. Richard Finnegan came in, and witnesses say that shortly after Finnegan entered the bar, your brother got up and left. And then so did Richard Finnegan. And now Finnegan is dead.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Boyd moaned.

“Johnny, we need to know-” But that’s as far as I got. Boyd smacked his forehead as if he’d been struck by a vicious migraine, reeled past me, found his balance and dashed to his truck. Tommy Pasquale found his feet before anyone else, but by the time he caught up with Boyd, the rancher was already in the truck and slamming the door.

The electric locks of the fancy rig banged shut before the deputy could grab the door handle, and then the engine sprang to life. Johnny Boyd jerked the vehicle into reverse, trying for some space between his truck and the front of the patrol car. As he did so, I could see Pasquale’s right hand snake down, reaching for the holstered automatic on his hip.

“No!” I bellowed. “Let him go, Tom!” The pistol was out, the momentum of the draw bringing the weapon up so that the muzzle stared Johnny Boyd full in the face, only a single piece of safety glass between the two. “Tom!” I roared again, lunging toward him. “Hold your fire! Let him go!”

Boyd jerked the gear lever into drive, wrenched the wheel, and the big truck roared out into the street.

“Now listen,” I snapped, and held out a hand toward Pasquale. “Put that thing away.” He holstered the automatic and I grabbed him with one hand and Neil Costace with the other as if they were two recalcitrant urchins.

“Here’s what I want you to do. If he goes north past the mine-that’s if he takes the usual route in to his ranch, I want you to follow him, red lights off. Don’t push him. He’s not thinking straight, and I don’t want him shoved into some arroyo, or you either. Just stay well behind. Estelle and I are going to take the state road, the long way around through Newton. Maybe Edwin went that way. It’s smoother, for one thing. If Johnny goes that way too, just let him go. You continue up the hill. Go in the front way.”

“You don’t want us to take him into custody?” Pasquale asked, and even though it was his “I’m just checking to make sure” tone of voice, I damn near lost my temper. I had taken two or three steps toward Estelle’s car, and I whirled around, hands on my hips.

“You don’t get close to him,” I snapped. “You do exactly what I told you to do. You stay behind him and don’t spook him. Keep your eyes open and use your head.”

“Yes, sir.”

I glanced at Costace. “Ride with him,” I said, and if he didn’t nod eager agreement, at least he didn’t say no, nor did he take time to point out to me that he wasn’t one of my deputies. “Now let’s get on with it.”

Estelle was already behind the wheel of her unmarked car when I slid into the seat. Johnny Boyd had a one-minute head start, and considering the way he was flogging his pickup, that was enough to keep him out of sight until we’d cleared the village and hit the two-mile straightaway on County Road 43 that led due north toward the intersection with State 78, at the foot of the mesa just below the landfill entrance.

We covered those two miles in a blur, and as we approached the intersection, I saw a pair of taillights heading up the hill, just entering the first set of switchbacks below the mine. Judging by their rate of speed, they belonged to Boyd.

“We see him,” Costace’s voice said over the radio. Estelle moved into the left lane, giving Pasquale room to pass as we slowed for the turn onto the state highway. He did so, flogging the Bronco until its V-8 screamed.

State Highway 78 cut across the western half of Posadas County diagonally, exiting the county at the northwest corner. About the only road in the county that was straight for any appreciable distance, that night it was devoid of traffic. Estelle was tense, both hands on the wheel, the pencil beam from the spotlight lancing out far ahead, searching for the glint of startled eyes in the road.

We flashed by the airport, the final set of lights before the darkness of the prairie turned our headlights into a white tunnel.

“If Edwin went this way, he’s got about a fourteen- or fifteen-minute head start, and that means no matter how fast you go, you won’t catch him before he reaches the ranch, unless he’s puttering along at thirty miles an hour.”

“Even with his old truck, he’ll do better than that,” Estelle said.

Eighteen miles out of Posadas, a single set of taillights popped into view. Well before I could judge that they were small, low, and close-set, Estelle had drifted the car into the left lane. I reached down and flipped the switch by the radio console that activated the grille wiggle-waggles, and the little Subaru station wagon jumped to the right like a kicked puppy.

“They won’t be drowsy for a few minutes,” I muttered as we blasted past. I turned the red lights off. For the rest of the run to the Newton intersection, Estelle kept the car ballistic, the speedometer registering well over a hundred miles an hour.

And even as we awakened the sleepy little hamlet with our passing, it was clear to me that Edwin Boyd hadn’t nursed his old truck along. As we turned onto the dirt road southbound from Newton, not a trace of dust hung in the air from his passing.