Steven Havill - Double Prey

“You’ve been in the lion’s den,” he said. “I saw your car at the saloon when I drove by. Did you find out anything I should know?”

“First of all, Victor is in Las Cruces and Junior went to Posadas, so I was able to talk with the two girls. Interesting.”

Gastner waited while Estelle joined him in leaning against the fender. An enormous RV rumbled down the highway southbound, and the driver lifted two fingers from the wheel in salute. Gastner returned the salute. “And how interesting was it?”

“Well,” Estelle said, “for one thing, Macie said that Miles Waddell watched Freddy Romero zoom by the Broken Spur on his four-wheeler-at the same time that I was just down the road and caught a glimpse of the ATV. They said that Freddy rode along the highway shoulder, then swerved across the saloon’s parking lot. Mary was standing outside by the back door, taking a cigarette break when she saw him. And when Waddell came out of the restroom, he joked that the boy looked as if he was going to skid right into the side of the building.”

“Huh.”

“Gus Prescott was in the saloon at the time, along with Herb Torrance. They both left shortly after the boy rode by.”

“And you’re assuming… “

“I’m trying not to assume anything, Padrino . But I have this allergy to coincidence.”

Gastner uncrossed his arms and drummed his fingers on the sedan’s fender. “Either the shooter was out near the cave when Freddy arrived, or he followed the kid out there. If he followed him out there, he had to see him go by at one time or another.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, sir.”

“You’re assuming that no one saw him over at Borracho.”

“They could have. I don’t know. But I don’t have any indication that someone did, Padrino . ”

“Huh.” His heavy eyebrows furrowed and he rapped the fender again. “The girl knew, right?”

“Casey? I’m sure she did. She was with him the first time, and they had an argument about both his driving and his spelunking. She helped him pack the skull so it wouldn’t be damaged. She had to know that Freddy wouldn’t be able to resist more exploration.”

“Odd that she didn’t want to go with him.”

“His driving, for one thing, Padrino . On a four-wheeler, he’s close to being a lunatic…well, sadly, was close to it. She didn’t share his enthusiasm for going airborne.”

“Casey reminds me of her older sister in that respect. Christine is about as levelheaded and mature as it’s possible to get.”

Estelle nodded. “Both of them are. Freddy was a polar opposite, which was part of the attraction, I suppose.”

“You gotta wonder…”

“Sir?”

“Now I’m a parent, and so are you. I can’t imagine Gus being too thrilled about young Freddy squiring his daughter around.”

“No, sir. That would be an understatement…and for several reasons.”

Gastner grinned. “You want to go up there now? He might be home on a Monday morning.”

“I would.”

“He’ll be delighted to see you, I’m sure.” Gastner’s light sarcasm wasn’t lost on her.

“Well, it’s hard to live in New Mexico, right up against the border of Mexico, and not run into us Mexicans,” she laughed. “But we get along all right. You might think of something to ask that I miss.”

“Oh, sure.” Gastner laughed and nodded toward his state truck. “I’ll follow you in.”

Just south of Moore, a well-used two-track turned off to the north, crossing the Rio Salinas at a spot where the bedrock had been scrubbed bare by periodic gushers. On the arroyo’s bank, as if the land owner knew that the deep arroyo crossing would intimidate visitors, a neat sign encouraged them: Prescott Ranch, 1.5 mi .

Estelle glanced in the rear-view mirror to see Gastner, always the gentleman, pause at the south arroyo edge as she guided the Crown Vic down the steep slope and up the other side. When she was safely across, he followed, the stiffly sprung, high-clearance rig making short work of the crossing.

The 1.5 mi. promised by the sign took them in a circuitous route around a low mesa and across another much smaller arroyo which, with one more frog strangler, might pose some interesting challenges. From a small rise, Estelle could see the double-wide mobile home, framed on one side by a windmill that was missing half of its blades and off to the left, the scattering of outbuildings, a fair museum of old machinery and vehicles, and at least two corrals.

A plume of dust arose as a front-loader swung in a tight circle, its mammoth bucket loaded. From a quarter mile away, Estelle couldn’t tell what the activity was, but as she drew closer, she saw that the front-loader was stacking junk on the back of a long flatbed trailer. With finesse, the operator set the pancaked car body on top of the load, deftly nudging it into a secure position before backing away.

As she and Gastner approached, she could see the front-loader operator pause. He was working down the line of junked vehicles that Gus Prescott had accumulated over the years, but he stopped the machine, its bucket resting on the roof of an ancient International pickup that appeared to have sunk into the prairie sand over the years.

The operator shut down the diesel and swung down.

“Ah,” Estelle whispered, and glanced behind her again. Gastner was in no rush, several hundred yards behind her, arm out the window, hand draped over the wing mirror. Stub Moore, the front-loader operator and a county employee, was no doubt embarrassed at their arrival. The round insignia on the loader’s door announced the Posadas County Highway Department. Neither Stub nor the loader belonged on Gus Prescott’s ranch doing private work. At the same time, Estelle knew this was not the least bit unusual-a culvert installed here, a ditch there, a surplus load of crusher fines spread on a driveway.

As she slowed the car and swung in behind the truck, Stub pulled off his gloves, dusting his jeans with ineffectual slaps. As the undersheriff shut off the car, she heard a door slam, and saw the lanky figure of Gus Prescott angling out of the house.

“Mornin’, sheriff,” Stub said. He found a handy spot along the flat-bed trailer to lean, and groped a cigarette from his shirt pocket…his county shirt, complete with Posadas County Highway Department embroidered over the right breast pocket flap, and Stub Moore over the left. He watched Bill Gastner park behind Estelle’s county car.

“You folks are hard at it this morning,” Estelle said, keeping any note of reproof or curiosity out of her voice.

“Cleaning up,” Stub replied.

“What a day, eh?” Bill Gastner greeted as he sauntered up. He extended a hand to Stub, then turned just in time to do the same to Gus Prescott. The rancher looked awful, Estelle thought…the gray, sunken skin of either a cancer patient or someone running near the edge of exhaustion. His cheek bones stood out in sharp relief, his eyes sunken. A nasty sore marked the corner of his lower lip. The constant string of cigarettes didn’t help. Gus and Stub matched puff for puff, and Bill Gastner, a recovering nicotine addict himself, shuffled to one side so that he was standing upwind of the effluvia.

“I just decided it’s time,” Prescott said, anticipating the question. “You know, this string of junk’s been collecting since 1951, when old Lewis bought this place. I inherited most of it, but,” and he shrugged, “been addin’ to it some over the years.” Eyeing the trailer load growing behind him, he stepped closer and tapped end of a bumper with all but a postage stamp of chrome missing. What was crushed on top of the bumper was unrecognizable. “This here was a 1946 Chevy pickup. Probably coulda found some son-of-a-bitch who would buy it for restoration, but there wasn’t enough left. Got caught up in that flood on the Salinas.” He looked at Gastner. “You remember that. The one in ’55?”