Steven Havill - Before She Dies

“She didn’t say.”

“Who was she seeing this weekend, then? If she’d broken up with Patrick, who was she seeing?”

Elena Munoz frowned again, as if all the pieces of the puzzle were floating around in her brain, refusing to fall into place or pattern.

“Tammy’s mother said she saw the two of you last week, coming out of one of the stores.”

“So?”

“And all the time you were with her last week, she never said who she was seeing?”

“Sure, she talked about it.”

I spread my hands, waiting.

“She was all excited.”

“About what?”

“She said she had a chance to make all this money.”

“The last thing Tammy Woodruff needed was money,” I said, and instantly regretted it.

“Her own money,” Elena said with considerable acid.

“How was she going to do that?”

“That’s what she said…that no one really thought she was much good for anything. This was her chance.”

“What was she going to do?”

“She didn’t say. It was some big secret.”

“She never told you?”

Elena Munoz shook her head. “But she kind of had this crazy glint in her eyes, you know? Like it was something she’d never done before? Or even thought about?”

“On Sunday night, Elena, we have evidence that Tammy was the driver of a truck that one of our deputies stopped to assist on State Highway Fifty-six.” The girl blinked but said nothing. “Patrick Torrance told me that he saw Tammy Woodruff driving her own pickup truck around noon on Monday. And there was another man with her.” Again Elena said nothing, and I added, “No one saw her alive after that, Elena. Patrick got scared and ran off to Wyoming.”

Elena looked incredulous. “Wyoming?”

I shrugged. “He has relatives up there. He got scared. For Tammy and for himself.”

“That does a lot of good, the dumb fuck,” she muttered.

“Maybe, maybe not. If you know who she was seeing, we’d like to know. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

“She wouldn’t tell me his name. She said she didn’t want her father to find out.”

“Why is that?”

Elena looked at me defiantly. “Because she said he was a Mexican.”

I frowned, puzzled. “So?”

“So the Woodruffs don’t like Mexicans. He doesn’t like me. His wife doesn’t like me. That’s why Tammy and I aren’t sharing an apartment. He wouldn’t let her.”

“How could he not let her?” I said, puzzled. “She was over twenty-one. She could live where she wanted…and live with whomever she pleased.”

She made a face and dismissed that remark without comment. “I still found out who she was seeing, though. I saw them Sunday. I saw them drive by. I was working, and Tammy looked right at me and smiled this great big old smile like she had it all over everybody.”

“Who was with her?”

This time she didn’t hesitate. “Carlos. Carlos Sanchez.” She mistook the expression on my face for a blank brain, and added, “His father owns the Broken Spur Saloon.”

I borrowed Bob Torrez’s pickup truck, a ridiculous old Chevy with chrome running boards, twin spotlights, toolbox snuggled in between wrought-iron curlicues in the bed-even one of those web tailgates that’s supposed to boost mileage from ten to twelve. The truck was painted mostly semigloss black, a good grade of house paint slathered on with a high-quality nylon bristle brush.

Everyone in the county who cared about such things knew that it was Bob’s truck, and that was just fine. What I didn’t want was a police car.

I cruised down Bustos Avenue, feeling the throb of the powerful 454 V-8 under the hood and smelling the waft of exhaust fumes from a leaky manifold mixed with the aroma of roasted corn chips long forgotten in a corner between windshield and dashboard.

More expensive than the pickup truck was the small cellular phone unit that rested in the middle of the seat. It, like the ones in my Blazer and Estelle’s little sedan, belonged to Posadas County. If the carbon monoxide didn’t get me, the truck would suit my purposes.

As I passed Nick Chavez’s dealership, I scanned the vehicles parked behind the main building. They ranged from derelict parts cars to vehicles owned by employees-and right smack in the middle, sandwiched between a bent Volvo station wagon and the Weatherford’s crumpled van, was an older model pickup. I couldn’t see much of it as I passed, but I did see the stock racks in the back. I hoped for mud as well, but the truck glinted in the early afternoon sunshine, clean as a whistle, the miracle of a modern drive-thru car-wash.

I turned left on MacArthur, gathering a back view of the dealership. At the fork of MacArthur and Camino del Sol, I swung around and headed back. The dealership wasn’t crawling with people, but there were enough-one salesman talking with an elderly couple outside, one of the servicemen half under a van with out-of-state plates, and Nick Chavez down on the new-car line, talking to a kid who would have traded his little sister for the sleek coupe parked in the end slot. No one paid any mind to the old rattletrap that idled into the lot, around the back of the service building, and out the other side.

As I passed the pickup with the stock rack, I jotted down the license plate number. The plate itself was ancient and hard to read, the corners folded and the letters marred from countless strikes by hay bales, firewood, old car parts, and whatever else twenty years use and abuse had inflicted.

Pulling out onto Bustos again, I pulled the microphone off the dashboard hook and turned up the volume of Bob’s cheap discount radio. I was about to call the plate into dispatch, and then thought better of it. There were too many overeager ears. I drove back to the Sheriff’s Department and ran the plate in person.

The NCIC information came back with no wants or warrants, and that didn’t surprise me. The vehicle, listed as a 1978 Ford three-quarter ton, was registered to Mateo Esquibel, d.o.b. April 6, 1903. Senor Esquibel, if he could still walk that far, picked up his mail from P O Box 6, Regal, New Mexico.

“You slimy son of a bitch,” I said aloud, and Gayle Sedillos turned in her chair.

“Sir?”

“Nothing, Gayle. I’m not here.”

“Yes, sir.”

I closed my office door and locked it, and sat down at my desk. After a minute’s thought, I picked up the phone. Victor Sanchez answered on the tenth ring with a curt “Yeah.”

“Victor, this is Gastner at the sheriff’s office. I’ve got one more question to ask you if you’ve got a minute.” Sanchez said nothing, but he didn’t hang up. “Does Mateo Esquibel still drive?”

After another long silence, Victor managed a single word. “What?”

“Mateo Esquibel? You know? Down in Regal. He’s some relation to you, isn’t he?”

“You mean the old man?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk to him, you’re going to have to drive down there. He’s got a phone, but he don’t use it. He’s deaf now.”

“Oh. No wonder,” I said.

“What do you want with him?”

“Me? Nothing. One of my deputies wanted to buy his truck or something like that. I said I’d ask you about it.”

The line fell dead again. “Thanks a lot,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I telephoned the hospital next, knowing I shouldn’t, but wanting Estelle’s advice. She agreed with everything I wanted to do except my plan for leaving her sitting right where she was. But she had no choice.

In an hour, I felt confident that I had all bases covered. Bob Torrez had changed into civilian clothes, taken his leaky truck back to Chavez’s dealership, and purchased a set of exhaust manifold gaskets from the parts department. On the way out, a casual glance into the business office of the dealership had confirmed that Carlos Sanchez was there and busy with a stack of paperwork.