Steven Havill - One Perfect Shot

I shot the spot light across the lot, and bounced it off the towering screen. I was waiting for one of our knucklehead gang-bangers to figure out a way to climb up and spray-paint his turf mark on the face of the old screen. Motorbike tracks criss-crossed the lot, and for the young and reckless, I suppose it was a hoot to ride across the rows of swells, dodging the speaker posts.

Beyond the drive-in, the mobile home park was quiet. I swung in and maneuvered down the narrow center lane, headlights off so the beams wouldn’t blast through bedroom windows. After the final reclamation at the mine was finished, I wondered how many empty slots there’d be. Three “For Sale” signs already were posted and more would sprout.

In several units, I could see the spot of color from the television as someone watched the late-late show or an early morning movie. Swinging around the loop end deep in the park, I stopped for a moment and shut off the engine, listening. It’s amazing how sound travels, particularly at night. I could hear the murmurs of the various television sets, and off to the left, a dog inside the last trailer had taken offense at my presence, and yipped up a storm. The door opened and Vernon Chambers stepped out onto the narrow porch. He wore a pair of colorful boxer shorts and no shirt, but didn’t let that stop him. He approached, his slippers scuffing the parking lot.

“You lost?” He bent down, leaning on the window of 310. The slight breeze washed his too-scant deodorant and body odor into the car, and I was tempted to zip up the window.

“Vernon, how the hell are you?” Scrawny to the point of emaciation, Vernon managed to look as if he were in the last stages of chemotherapy. He’d looked that way for the fifteen years I’d known him. His trailer court hosted its share of domestic disputes.

“Well, I’m fine. What’s the law up to?” He asked the question and then I saw his jaw drop a little as the memory hit him. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Say, I heard about what happened down on Highland. What the hell was that all about, anyways?”

“That all depends on what you heard.” One of my life’s ambitions when I retired was to write the definitive textbook on Rumor and the Pathways of Community Intelligence. A bestseller, for sure, except maybe it’s Unintelligence.

“Somebody shot Larry Zipoli?”

“Yes.”

“Hoooooly shit. You’re kiddin’.”

“Nope.”

“Accident, you think? I mean, how in the hell…I mean, who in the hell…”

“We don’t know yet.”

“I heard he was workin’ with the grader. Is that right?”

“It appears so, Vernon.”

“Some one just drove by and took a shot? That’s what I heard.”

I shrugged expansively as if to say That’s all we know. I let Vernon fill in his own interpretation. “Look, if you happen to hear something about all this, I’d like to know.”

Chambers straightened up and rubbed a hand across his shrunken, hairless belly. “Shit,” he said, “he was gradin’ the road out front just yesterday. I mean just yesterday.”

“Is that right?”

“Just yesterday.” He hitched up his boxers again, not having the butt or the hips to keep them in place.

“Did you happen to talk with him?”

“Nope. I went to town just after lunch, and he was makin’ a pass up along the bar ditch. And then a little later, he was on up past Hocking’s place. I don’t know if he had a breakdown, or what. He was down off the grader, talkin’ to a couple kids on bikes. Don’t know who they were, didn’t think nothin’ about it.”

“And why would you.” Another little piece-Bobby Torrez had seen the grader and its operator down on McArthur in the morning, and now we knew that Larry had tackled the larger county road in the afternoon. I surveyed the double row of blunt-snouted trailers. “Are you losing a lot of folks with the mine gone?” I knew the answer, but it was always interesting to hear Vernon’s take on things.

“Oh, God. Got three gone now, another couple before the end of the month. This is going to be a damn ghost town, sheriff.”

I sighed. “I guess.” I didn’t add that a good many folks had lived in Posadas before Consolidated Mining arrived to gouge out the mesa flank north of the village, and a good many would remain after the mine had finished reclamation and locked the gates.

“Folks run out of work, they either leave or start causin’ trouble. Drink too much-don’t know how they afford it.” He rapped 310’s door sill. “Don’t guess you folks will ever run out of work, eh?”

“Unlikely, but we can always hope.” I took my foot off the brake and 310 edged forward. “I need to get,” I said. “You take it easy, Vernon.”

“No other way. Not no more.” He lifted a hand in salute.

The tires rustled along the freshly graded lane as I worked around the east end of the mesa before skirting the county landfill and then joining the state highway out of the county. Far in the distance, a tractor-trailer on the interstate hit its jake brake to take the Posadas exit, the percussive sound carrying easily on the soft air. The radio mumbled as Eddie Mitchell called in another license number, and I nodded in approval. It was possible, I suppose, for the beat to be so quiet, so muted, that cops just stop looking, relaxing out of sheer boredom. And that’s when it turns and bites. I couldn’t remember the last domestic dispute I’d responded to during the bright, cheerful sunshine of mid-morning. Night time brought out the kinks in human behavior.

The dash clock said 1:21 a.m. when I turned onto the smooth pavement of County Road 23 and circled back toward town. Deputy Mitchell had stopped a truck south on State 56. That highway encouraged lead feet, and all the critters who slipped through the right-of-way fence and wandered out onto the warm asphalt gave the speeders an obstacle course to enjoy.

Through the middle of town, I turned north on Twelfth Street and passed the quiet neighborhoods. Hutton Street and its offshoot Hutton Court marked the northern boundary, with Highland just beyond, the first street actually in the county’s turf.

The village had its own tiny department, and the other Eduardo, Chief Eduardo ‘Danny’ Martinez, welcomed our efforts. But he and two full-time officers couldn’t provide 24/7 coverage, and the chief didn’t pretend that he could. He concentrated on school zones and helping stranded travelers, and that was fine with us. Once a decade or so, a good bank robbery might keep them sharp. And they got lots of practice responding to the ubiquitous domestic disputes.

A man who hated to think ill of his friends and neighbors, Chief Martinez might be able to give me a different slant on Jim Raught. But he was off in Albuquerque on some family errand, so he was missing all the fun.

As I drove out Twelfth to Hutton Street to Hutton Court, I punched the lights out and let 310 drift down to a gentle walking pace. Up ahead, starlight glinted off J.J. Murton’s village unit. He was parked facing north, his back to the village, blocking the intersection with Highland. The laid-back police chief was a forgiving boss, but even Eduardo had avoided hiring J.J. Murton as anything more than part-timer.

I knew that Murton wanted to work for us in the worst way-and would, when hell froze solid. I’d kicked Murton off the interstate once, after he’d decided, as a part-timer with a month’s experience, to work radar there. One of the state police officers had seen him swaggering toward a vehicle he’d stopped, walking on the pavement with his back to traffic, ready to get himself killed.

The state officer had hauled around and come up behind Murton, giving him unrequested back-up. And then the officer had stopped by our office and chatted with me. I’d driven out and had a chat with Murton at Chief Martinez’s request. I guess he understood me. I never saw him on the interstate again.