Steven Havill - Convenient Disposal

Estelle turned sideways in her chair so that she more directly faced Zeigler’s roommate. “Mr. Page, did Kevin have any enemies?”

“Enemies?” He blinked.

“Yes, sir. Anyone that you’re aware of with a grudge? Any old scores to settle?”

“God, not that I know of…”

“Who was he hooked up with before he met you?” Torrez’s question came so abruptly that Page appeared startled.

“I don’t follow.”

Torrez regarded him expressionlessly, waiting for Page to figure out for himself what the sheriff had meant.

“Any former acquaintances?” Estelle prompted. “Any bad feelings between Kevin and anyone else?”

“No…I mean, I don’t think so.”

“You’re livin’ with him, right?” Torrez asked.

“I visit when I can.”

“You and him spend weekends together?”

“When we can.”

“For instance, were you planning to come down Thursday or Friday, and stay over until Monday?”

Page glanced at Estelle. “Yes,” he said simply. “Those were my plans.”

“Mr. Page,” Estelle said, “when I asked if there were any bad feelings between Kevin Zeigler and anyone else, you replied that you ‘didn’t think so.’ I’d like to ask you to think more carefully about that.” Estelle spoke slowly. “Did Kevin ever talk to you about problems he might have had in the past with anyone-anyone at all? Employees, relatives, special friends.”

“No,” Page said. “Kevin always thought that way,” he said, and stabbed a finger outward. “He thought about the future…like what he was going to do.”

“He didn’t ruminate much about things?”

Page laughed, a quick, loud, nervous guffaw. “ Ruminate . That’s about the last word I’d associate with Kevin.”

Estelle leaned back, and the room fell silent except for the faint, occasional creak of leather as Torrez rocked absently in his chair.

“When the two of you go out socially in Posadas,” Estelle asked, “where do you frequent?”

Frowning, Page looked out through the narrow window at the plastered wall of the county courthouse. “I like to cook, so we don’t ever eat out,” he said. “Unless we go to Cruces or something like that for a show.” He turned away from the window view. “I guess other than when we go riding sometimes around Cat Mesa, sometimes down in the San Cristobals, we don’t go out much. Not here, anyway.”

“Not much to do?”

He shrugged. “I guess you could put it that way.”

“Is there a circle of friends or acquaintances whom you’ve come to know in Posadas?”

“No.” Page’s answer was immediate, and he didn’t amplify the answer.

“Is that because of Kevin’s position with the county?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Mr. Page,” Estelle said, “your relationship with Kevin Zeigler is obviously most discreet.” She watched a faint flush create a small island of white on the arch of each cheekbone.

“My relationship with Kevin Zeigler is no one’s business but our own,” he said evenly.

“Sir, I understand that,” Estelle said. “And our intention is not to invade your privacy. But we’ll dig for any scrap of information that we can. I’m sure you can understand that.”

He sighed deeply. “Of course.”

Estelle leaned forward and lowered her voice. “That’s why I want you to think over every moment you’ve spent in Posadas with Mr. Zeigler. Is there anyone-anyone at all-who Kevin talked about? Any frustrations he brought home from the office and discussed with you? Anything at all.”

“Believe me, Officers, I’ve been sitting out in that lobby now for quite a while, doing nothing but that.” He shook his head, face grimaced. “Of course Kevin and I were discreet , as you suggest. Posadas isn’t exactly the western hemisphere’s cradle of liberal opinion. His job with the county was important to him, if for no other reason than he wanted to do a good job for them, and then move on to something more interesting or challenging.”

“Like what?” Torrez asked.

“He was thinking about applying for an administrative position that one of the state universities has posted.”

“Where?”

“Albuquerque. He thinks he has a good shot at it.”

“He’s done a good job for this county,” Estelle said.

Page smiled at her. “Kevin refers to Posadas County as ‘my problem child,’ Ms. Guzman. He keeps talking about ‘the long, painful trek toward the twenty-first century.’”

Torrez scoffed. “How about the twentieth first,” he said.

“I’m sure that in his work, he’s had plenty of disagreements,” Page said, and Estelle gazed at him speculatively. “The one thing I do know, absolutely for sure, for positive, for one hundred percent, is that Kevin did not go next door to the Acostas’ on some perverted whim and attack that girl.”

“Do the Acostas know you?” Estelle asked.

“What do you mean, do they know me? Of course they do. I’ve been visiting Kevin almost every weekend and on longer holidays for going on two years. We’ve talked with them-the parents, sometimes the kids-a lot, mostly just in passing.”

“Mostly,” Torrez muttered.

Page shot him an impatient look. “Yes, mostly . Once last summer, they invited us over when they were barbecuing a goat. And it was pretty good, too. A couple of times, Tony-he’s the oldest boy-has gone on bike rides with us. He didn’t enjoy it much, I don’t think. He’s got a mountain bike, but it’s one of those really cheap ones. It’s broken half the time. We let him ride one of ours when we all went up on Cat Mesa a few weeks ago. I think the ride was about twenty miles too long for him.”

“Not in shape, eh?” Torrez said.

“No, he wasn’t.”

Estelle could picture the chubby, moonfaced Tony Acosta, sweat pouring off in rivers, pushing his bike up the steep switchbacks of County Road 43 while Zeigler and Page rode patient circles around him.

Page restless on the uncomfortable chair, rose and squared his shoulders. “I would think you’d be investigating the obvious, Sheriff.”

“And what would that be?”

“The Acostas impress me as a noisy, rambunctious family. Their kids are scrappy. I mean, more than a few times Kevin and I heard rows over there, one kid taking out his aggressions on another, or Fred beating on Juanita, or some other round-robin. And the kids all have some pretty squirrelly friends, too. If Kevin came home for a minute during lunch and walked into the middle of something…”

“Was Kevin concerned about the general behavior next door?” Estelle asked.

Page hesitated. “I think that sometimes he was. He saw Mrs. Acosta-Juanita-wallop one of the little girls with the handle of a garden rake once. I mean, that’s not some little willow switch. And a couple of times, the two boys got into a real bloody fistfight, and their parents didn’t do anything to break it up. Kevin thought we should do something, but I sure wasn’t going to step into the middle of that hornet’s nest. If mom and dad don’t mind the kids beating each other to a pulp, then I guess it’s none of my business. It bothered Kevin, though. He told me once that the cops were going to respond to the Acostas’ address sometime, and someone was going out of there in a body bag.”

“They’ve come close,” Estelle said.

By the time Estelle walked through the front door of the Guzman home on South Twelfth Street, the village had settled into late-night silence. Eddie Mitchell was still a passenger in a patrol car somewhere to the north, speeding down the Rio Grande valley. In the basement darkroom of the Public Safety Building, Linda Real had begun processing reel after reel of film. The “two Toms,” Mears and Pasquale, were organizing and processing what little physical evidence had been combed from the Acosta property.