Steven Havill - Before She Dies

“Yes, sir. I’m fine.”

I didn’t see any point in mincing words. “What are you doing up there, Patrick?”

There was a silence. I pictured Patrick Torrance sitting at an old oak conference table like every sheriff’s department in the world has had at one time or another and staring at the dark, oiled wood in front of him as if the answers might coalesce before his eyes.

“I got scared.”

“I see. Of what?”

“Of what Tammy was doing. Have you talked to her?”

I ignored his question and instead asked, “And what was she doing?” I realized then with both relief and certainty that Patrick didn’t know of the girl’s death.

“I ain’t sure, sheriff. The night the deputy was killed, she stopped at the Broken Spur, all excited like. She came in and she was askin’ me to go along with her.”

“Go along where?”

“She didn’t say. Like I said, she was all excited. Said she had the chance to make more money in one night than I’d ever see in a year.”

“She didn’t say how she was going to make the money?”

“No, but she wanted me to come outside with her, like maybe that might change my mind. She showed me this fancy truck she was drivin’. She said she was deliverin’ it for somebody.”

“Delivering it where?”

“She didn’t say, but she kinda smiled in that way she has, you know. Like maybe I didn’t need to know.”

“What kind of truck was it?”

“Looked like a brand-new Chevy extended cab. Four-wheel drive, the works.” I heard him take a deep breath. “It don’t take a genius to sort out where that truck was headed, sheriff. I figured that’s why she wanted me to go with her, ’cause she knew that me and my brothers go on down to Mexico all the time.”

“She didn’t say where she got the vehicle?”

“No, sir. But she was all excited, like it was some sort of big, important deal. Like she was doin’ me some kind of favor by cuttin’ me in on it.”

“Then what?”

“She got all mad at me, ’cause I wouldn’t go. She said all kinds of things I figured she’d forget later. She’d been drinkin’ kind of heavy, too. I could smell it on her. I just had me a feelin’, is all. I mean, I knew what she was doin’ wasn’t legit. No car dealer operates like that. The truck had to be stole.”

“And then she left?”

“Yeah, she left. In an all-fired hurry, she left. Fishtailed all the way across the parkin’ lot. Bounced out on the highway, and away she went.”

“And you went back inside the saloon?”

“Yes, sir. And it wasn’t too long after that when all the commotion started, with the deputy getting killed and all.”

“Do you remember how long?”

“Maybe five, ten minutes. Fifteen at the most.”

“Patrick, when the detectives talked to you the first time that night, and again on the following Monday morning, why didn’t you tell them all this?”

Again a silence, and I could hear snatches of a conversation on some other circuit, the voices distant and tinny.

“I had a feelin’ that Tammy was involved somehow, sheriff. I mean, she lit out in that truck and all, and just a few minutes later I hear there’s a shooting. There ain’t all that many cars on that road that time of night, sheriff. It’s a hell of a coincidence if she didn’t know anything about it.”

“And so…?”

“And so I tried callin’ her place later that night, and the next day, and I couldn’t get no answer. I was really worried, you know, ’cause if she’d gone and done something, then I hated to see her end up in jail. She’s just harebrained enough not to think things through and get herself in all kinds of trouble. So I didn’t say anything about her and the truck. And then I got scared, ’cause I knew that if I covered for her, that pulled me right into it, same as if I was ridin’ in the jump seat.”

“And so you headed out to Wyoming.”

“No, sir. Not right then. I was gonna drive by her apartment around noon on Monday. Just as I was turnin’ off Bustos Avenue I saw her and some other guy drive by in her truck.”

“In her truck?”

“Yes, sir. I know she saw me, but she didn’t wave or nothin’. They just drove on by.”

“She was driving?”

“No, sir. He was.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No, sir.”

“Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

“I think so.”

“And then you left?”

The words came in a rush, the way people talk when what they’ve got to say doesn’t make any sense to anyone, including themselves. “Yes, sir. I just got to feelin’ like I was caught up in something, you know? I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to say nothin’ about Tammy, ’cause I didn’t know nothin’ for sure. And then I got to thinkin’ that maybe she’d be mad enough at me to say somethin’ she shouldn’t, and pull me in, too.”

“That wasn’t very bright, Patrick.”

“No, sir.”

“And you got yourself arrested for DWI as well.”

“Yes, sir. I drove straight through, and got to this place west of Gillette where the two interstates meet…”

“Buffalo?”

“Yes, sir. I stopped at this little place and bought me some sandwiches and a six-pack. They didn’t card me or nothin’. I was thinkin’ that if I had something to eat, it’d keep me awake. I guess I drank one or two too many. The deputy stopped me and said I was speedin’, and then he had me take a sobriety test, and I guess I flunked that, bein’ tired and all.”

“All right, Patrick, I want you to listen to me very carefully. You say you don’t know who the man was with Tammy on Monday, is that right?”

“No, sir, I sure don’t.”

“Did he see you?”

“Sure. He looked right at me.”

“Did you wave at them, or anything like that?”

“I kinda waved at Tammy, ’cause I was surprised to see her.”

“And he saw you do that?”

“I suppose he did, sir.”

“And you could identify him?”

“Sure. But sir, have you been able to talk with Tammy yet? I mean, what’s she say?”

I told him about Tammy Woodruff. His end of the conversation went dead, and Lieutenant Brennen spoke for the first time.

“It’ll be a few minutes, sheriff.” While I waited for Patrick Torrance to come to grips with the curve ball life had thrown him, I tried to figure out the fastest way to ship the boy south to Posadas. I knew, as surely as I knew anything, that if we worked the boy’s memory just right, we’d have ourselves a face.

I sent Deputy Tom Mears to Gillette, Wyoming, to fetch Patrick Torrance. The manager of the Posadas County Airport, Jim Bergin, accepted the county contract for the charter flight with a wide grin, even though he knew damn well he wouldn’t see a penny of payment for at least 90 days. I had no idea what each hour of flight time was going to cost us, but apparently he did.

What was important to me was that Bergin promised four and a half hours up and four and a half back, door to door, no waiting.

He was as good as his word. Barely ten minutes after Deputy Mears left the office, I heard the throaty moan of Bergin’s Beech Baron as it cleared the mesa outside of Posadas and headed toward the north country.

Nine hours would have Patrick Torrance sitting in my office, early evening at the latest. I had dispatch pull Howard Bishop off road patrol and Tony Abeyta out of bed. While Sergeant Robert Torrez and two highway department employees continued to tear Tammy Woodruff’s crushed pickup truck to pieces looking for evidence, Bishop and Abeyta began the tedious process of scouring the neighborhood around Tammy Woodruff’s apartment, searching for someone who’d seen her anytime after late Sunday night.