Steven Havill - Double Prey

“It’s the simplest thing if you just allow us to do our job and get on with it,” he said.

“I don’t have to let you all talk with Casey, do I?” The question was directed to Bill Gastner, but Estelle saved him the trouble of being diplomatic.

“No, ma’am, you don’t,” Estelle said. “And if that’s the route you and your husband wish to take, then two hours from now, we’ll be back with a court order, Mrs. Prescott. You’re perfectly welcome to be present when we talk with Casey. In fact, I encourage it. She’ll probably feel more comfortable with you there.”

Jewell Prescott almost smiled. “Oh, I’m not so sure of that, young lady. There’s a number of things we don’t see eye to eye on.”

Estelle saw movement behind the woman, and both Casey and her older sister Christina appeared.

“Come on, mom,” Casey said. “None of this is going to go away.” Her mother didn’t move her arms, and Casey leaned against her well-padded shoulder, rubbing her cheek on her mother’s arm. “Come on.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she managed a smile for Estelle. “Christine and I will talk with the sheriff.”

“Oh, I just don’t think…” Jewell bit off her words and shook her head vehemently, tears coming to her eyes.

“It’ll be okay.” Casey circled her mother’s shoulders in a hug, and then as her mother turned, slipped past her.

“Is your father home?” Estelle asked.

“He went into town to get a part for the grader,” Christine said. She hugged her mother as well, but Jewell didn’t follow them out the door. She watched with sad eyes, as if she had every expectation of never seeing them again. She lifted a hand once as if she wanted to say something, then thought better of it.

“Thanks, Jewell,” Bill Gastner said.

“I’ve always trusted you,” she said, and it was an admonition rather than a compliment, as if to say, “ I’ve tried…I can’t do it…now it’s your turn . ”

“I appreciate that, Jewell. You hang in there.”

“Oh, boy,” she murmured, and backed away from the door, closing out the intrusion of the outside world.

“Let’s go look at the horses,” Casey suggested, and she walked with her hands shoved in her hip pockets, heading toward the small corral and shed. Two horses stood like statutes, watching their approach, and the mare nickered as they drew near. Christine stooped down and scooped up a wayward treat of hay, a movement not lost on the mare, who crowded the fence.

“I always feel better with these guys,” Casey said, stroking the young bay gelding’s silky neck. “Sis and I were just getting ready to go for a ride. If you’d come ten minutes later, we’d be a dust trail on the horizon.”

“I’m glad we didn’t miss you.” Estelle gently pushed the mare’s head away. Still munching hay, the animal seemed fascinated by the undersheriff’s cap. “Did your father talk to you about Thursday?”

“What do you mean, did he talk? About Freddy, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“When I got home from school, he had the newspaper and had read the article about finding the cat’s skeleton. The first thing he wanted to know was whether I’d gone with Freddy to Borracho. I don’t know why he thought I would have, but parents seem to have this radar , you know? They always seem to know. He was real angry that I might have skipped school. I mean real angry.”

“Did you tell him that you were with Freddy when he found the cat?”

Estelle could see a slow flush creep up Casey’s neck and fan across her peaches and cream cheeks. “No.” She glanced at her sister. “He’d been drinking, and he was upset. I don’t know why the article ticked him off so, except he doesn’t like Freddy, and here’s this neat article and all. But I just said no. I didn’t want to have another argument. I didn’t say we’d been out there together on Sunday, or anything else.”

“Sometimes it’s better just to lie low,” Christine added.

“Did he mention that he’d spoken to Freddy on Thursday or Friday?”

“No. He just saw the article. If he talked with Freddy about anything, he didn’t say so.” She stroked the gelding’s neck with one hand while letting him nuzzle the other palm.

Estelle watched the two girls, both of them deep in the saddest of thoughts, but unconsciously communing with the horses, who sponged up the affection without judgment.

When he’d been sitting in the Broken Spur, listening to Freddy Romero blast by on his four-wheeler, Gus Prescott had been aware, if he’d read the article carefully, that the boy had fabricated the tale of where the jaguar’s carcass had been found.

“Casey, did your father ever talk much about Eddie Johns?”

“Not to me.”

“Christine?”

The older sister frowned. “I don’t know what kind of case you’re trying to build, sheriff. You asked me that earlier, and you also talked to my dad earlier. He told you what he knew.”

Estelle gazed across the yard toward the spot where the line of old vehicles had rusted into the prairie. None of this is going to go away , Casey had said to her mother. None of this.

“We’re just following pathways, Christine. At this point some pretty indistinct trails. I was curious about the circumstances that led to your dad buying that wrecked truck from Johns.”

“I didn’t know that he had done that.”

“The one that burned?”

“Now that I remember. Dad said that he was cutting off some part and started a little fire.” She smiled. “A little fire. Oh, sure. But it wasn’t much loss. It was wrecked anyway.”

“You saw it? Before the fire, I mean.”

“I don’t know if I did or not. It wasn’t something that I paid attention to.”

“I saw it,” Casey offered. “I mean, before he burned it.”

“All bashed up?”

“Well, kinda. It was shiny black, I remember that, ‘cause after he lit it on fire, it was ugly black. He was really ticked.”

“You remember the make?”

“No. Just a wrecked truck. That’s all I remember. He sold a whole bunch of that old stuff so he can buy parts for the grader. But you already know that. You saw it go out this morning.”

The buzz of Estelle’s phone was startling, and the mare jerked her head back, ears pitched forward. Estelle stepped back slowly, and flicked on the phone.

“Guzman.”

“Hey,” Torrez said. “Borderland’s records show a 2004 black Ford 250 crew cab sold to Eddie Johns on November 12, 2003. He got the VIN, but that ain’t going to do us much good. The dealership don’t keep a record of the engine and tranny serial numbers, but we don’t have those anyway. Yet.”

“That’s good work, Bobby. They carried the paper on it?”

“Wasn’t any. Cash deal.”

“ Ay . ”

“Thirty-eight thousand dollar cash deal.”

“Real estate was going well for Mr. Johns, apparently.”

“Something was,” the sheriff said. “Where you at right now?”

“Talking with Casey and Christine Prescott.”

“Gus there?”

“No. The girls said that he went to town to buy some parts for his road grader.”

“Okay. Look, this El Paso mess is gonna take Mears a while. He’s got folks workin’ for him at the bank, at the utilities…everything so far says that Johns just vanished without notice. He didn’t close out any accounts, didn’t clean up any of his mess. Didn’t even clean out the fridge, the landlord says. He was there one day, gone the next. No notes, no nothing.”

“That probably rules out any lingering notion of suicide,” Estelle said, and Torrez grunted with amusement.

“He ain’t no suicide. Suicides don’t crawl back into caves and shoot themselves in the back of the head.”