Steven Havill - Statute of Limitations

“She told me a month or so ago that she was going to apply,” the undersheriff added.

“We’d be interested in what the sheriff has to say,” Dayan said.

“Ay,” Estelle sighed. “Well, ya veremos. ”

“Is he going to be coming in later?” He waved a hand defensively. “I know this is Christmas and all.” Or maybe he didn’t, Estelle thought. Dayan was divorced, and seemed to spend every waking hour hovering over his newspaper…a dedication that was seldom rewarded by the newspaper chain’s corporate owners a thousand miles away. She glanced out the office door toward the dispatch island where Brent Sutherland presently commanded telecommunications. The young deputy had said nothing to Frank Dayan about the sheriff’s condition, and Estelle jotted a mental note to compliment Sutherland on his discretion…and to compliment him for not grumbling about swinging a double shift.

“The sheriff is on his way to University Hospital in Albuquerque, Frank.”

Dayan grimaced. “They’re transferring Chief Martinez up there?”

“No. It’s the sheriff who’s being transferred.”

Dayan’s face went blank. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“For what?”

“The possibility of a blood clot in his lung. We’ll know more later today.” She was almost ready to add, That’s not for publication, but didn’t. The Posadas Register came out on Thursday…five days away. The entire world could change by then-and at the rate things were going, probably would.

“You’re kidding,” Dayan said again. “He was with you down in Regál last night. That’s what I heard.”

“Yes, he was.”

Dayan settled back in his chair. “Huh.” He grinned sheepishly and nodded at the list. “This is going to cause a relapse, that’s for sure.”

“Well, we’ll see,” Estelle said. True enough, Leona Spears was a special case. A talented engineer and skillful planner when it came to asphalt, bridges, and drainage culverts, she still managed to tweak the sheriff the wrong way with her eccentric ways, right down to the bright, floral muumuus that she preferred when not in khaki and hard-hat at work.

More than that, during one memorable election year she had run against Bob Torrez for sheriff, a position for which she wasn’t remotely qualified. In years previous, she had run for county commission, for school board, for village trustee, losing every election in spectacular fashion.

The other names on the commission’s short list for county manager included two applicants from Las Cruces, one from Oklahoma City, and the current acting manager, a nice enough older man who had worked in the village planning and zoning office, but who Estelle knew had significant problems with both basic arithmetic and alcohol.

“The list of finalists is also the entire list of everyone who applied,” Dayan observed. “Posadas County is not everyone’s top choice.”

Estelle nodded, but didn’t volunteer the information that Dr. Arnold Gray, a local chiropractor and chairman of the county commission, had told her the week before-both that Leona had applied for the county manager’s job and that he and at least two other commissioners supported her choice. As Gray had succinctly put it, “When you look beyond Leona’s eccentricities, she’s a good fit. She’s not going to work for us for a couple of months and then go somewhere else.” With their support, Leona was a shoe-in.

Evidently, Dr. Gray hadn’t seen the necessity of tipping off either Frank Dayan or the sheriff himself. Perhaps the commission chairman was trusting Estelle to build some defenses for their decision…not that it mattered to them what the sheriff thought.

“Any comment?” the newspaper publisher asked hopefully. He fished a ballpoint pen and small notebook out of his jacket pocket.

Estelle handed the list back to Dayan. “They’ll do what they do,” she said. “I’m sure the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department will offer full cooperation with whoever is selected.”

Dayan grinned. “That’s nice. You don’t have any concerns?”

“Concerns? Lots of concerns, Frank. I don’t even want to start counting them. But no. None about Leona. Not at this point.”

“Ms. Spears has something of a history, you know. ‘Colorful’ might be a kind way to put it.”

“Yes, it would.” Estelle relaxed back in her chair and folded her hands across her stomach. “I’ve had occasion to talk with her a number of times in the past several years about one thing or another. But at the moment, we have two men in jail for grand larceny, auto theft, and assault, we have a former chief of police who is desperately ill, and Sheriff Torrez has had better days, I’m sure. And as you know from your own well-written front-page story last week, we’ve just started a mammoth records project to consolidate the village records with our own. That all by itself takes time and lots of manpower.”

“How’s that going, by the way?” Dayan asked. “We need to follow up on that.”

“We’ve just started.”

“Bill Gastner?”

Estelle nodded. “He’s fine.”

“No…I meant to ask if he’s still heading up the project.”

“Yes, he is. Thank heavens, too.”

“There’s a good story there,” Dayan said. “I talked to Bill a little bit last week. I don’t think that when the village and county voted to consolidate services, they thought about all the work involved. I’ve never seen so much paperwork.” Dayan’s short article had included a front-page photo that featured the five huge, old filing cabinets that held most of the records, the photo nicely out of focus in typical Dayan fashion. Standing in front of the trove of records were Gastner and his two helpers, department photographer Linda Real and Deputy Mike Sisneros.

“The village was incorporated in 1931,” Estelle said, and held up both hands. “And the Sheriff’s Department has records going back to 1914. Even for a little wide spot in the road, that’s a lot of paperwork that has accumulated over the years.”

“So what do you do with it all?”

“Consolidate it with our own,” Estelle said. “Someone has to decide what is passed along to the state and to the NCIC computerized systems. If John Doe has a file with the county,” and she shifted in her chair, “and also a record with the village, then all of that has to be consolidated in one comprehensive data base.”

“He’s going to be able to do all that?”

“He?”

“Bill.”

“Frank, he’s not working by himself. Mike Sisneros is full-time on the project with him. So is Linda Real…at least as much of the time as we can spare her.”

“What kind of timetable are you looking at?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We’ve never done this before, Frank. We’re sort of feeling our way. What we don’t want to do is end up with some enormous mess on our hands. We want all the files comprehensible and electronically accessible as a useful database. Otherwise, there’s no point in any of it. I’ve made that a priority this year.”

“But you haven’t actually started sifting yet?”

Estelle shook her head. “We’ve done a lot of preliminary work, Frank. For one thing, we moved all the files to this building so that there’s some security. We’ve set up shop in the conference room. It’s a good place to work.” Estelle watched impassively as Frank jotted for a moment.

“I guess I’m going to need to talk with the sheriff, huh?”

“Eventually. That would be a good idea.”

“What’s he think of this consolidation thing?”

“You’d have to ask him, Frank.”

Dayan grimaced. “I mean, does he think it’s a good idea, generally? He didn’t have much to say during the commission meetings.”