Steven Havill - Heartshot

GASTNER: So his love life put a dent in his scholarship. That’s not unusual.

SALINGER: No. I guess not.

GASTNER: [ Long pause ] What did you think of Jenny Barrie? [ Pause, no reply ] She was a senior also, wasn’t she?

SALINGER: Yes.

GASTNER: Good student? [ No reply ] I have to have a verbal answer for the recorder, Scott.

SALINGER: She got by.

GASTNER: What does that mean?

SALINGER: She wasn’t too interested in school.

GASTNER: What was she interested in?

SALINGER: You know. Playin’ around.

GASTNER: She wasn’t one of your favorite people, was she.

SALINGER: [ Pause ] No, sir. She wasn’t.

GASTNER: Will you tell me why? [ No reply ] Scott?

SALINGER: I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about it lately. The last week or so. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

GASTNER: About what?

SALINGER: [ Pause ] I don’t know.

Estelle leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She watched the tape machine closely, as if she could see the words coming off the reel.

GASTNER: We need to know, Scott. If it has anything to do with the accident, or the contents of the car, we need to know.

SALINGER: It’s just the pits, that’s all.

GASTNER: What is?

SALINGER: Life. [ Pause ] Maybe it doesn’t matter. Probably be easier just to go away.

GASTNER: Go away?

SALINGER: [ Sigh ] Next year is my last year in school. Get through that, then go away. College probably. Or I was thinking maybe the Air Force.

GASTNER: Scott, listen to me. If you have information about this investigation, you’d be doing everyone a favor by telling us.

SALINGER: Is there anything else you wanted? I need to get back to work.

GASTNER: Don’t hesitate to call me, Scott. When you decide. Anytime of the day or night. It doesn’t matter.

I reached over and snapped off the machine. I lighted another cigarette and Estelle stood up. “Something there,” she said. “I wonder what he knows?”

“Or,” I said, “it could be that he was just bent out of shape about Hardy. They were close friends. They’re both scholars.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. I knew his older sister…she was also a brain.”

“The school guidance office shows he’s held a three-point-eight GPA since his freshman year. Right now, he stands about sixth in his class. He and Hardy were a year apart, but best friends nevertheless.”

“And so your theory is that he resented his friend’s infatuation?”

“Could be.”

“You think there’s more?”

I stood up and tucked in my uniform shirt. “Each of those kids checks out. They seemed to be pretty much normal, party-hardy teenagers, Estelle. Some maybe more than others. Salinger’s open dislike of Jenny Barrie is the first hint of a crack. It may be nothing, who knows. Probably is nothing. But I think we need to pry a little deeper into her background. A couple other kids said she was known as something of a wild hare. And maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe the Salinger kid will decide that it’s time to talk.”

“And if he doesn’t, then we’re going to have to turn up the heat. Holman’s getting impatient. He keeps saying he’s got some ideas. He was breathing down my neck all morning.”

I glanced sideways at Estelle, wondering if she was making one of her rare jokes, but her face was impassive. “Spare us from a politician who thinks,” I said.

***

I was prepared to protest whatever harebrained idea our political sheriff was concocting-it wasn’t that I actually disliked Martin Holman. But old dogs become stuck in ruts. I was used to the oldtime expertise of Holman’s predecessor, Eduardo Salcido. Salcido chased criminals-he didn’t chase block grants. I knew that modern departments without money didn’t function worth a shit. I knew that the civil load of most sheriff’s departments was ten times the criminal load. But it seemed to me that Holman spent too much time talking, and not enough time doing. And as far as I knew, the sum total of Holman’s law-enforcement background was a two-week FBI school for sheriffs-elect.

Still, since he held the life of my contract in his hand, it seemed prudent to hear him out.

“Let me tell you what I plan to do,” he said one afternoon when he’d managed to corner me in my office. Estelle Reyes had tried to slip away down the hall, but he waved her inside. It was very hot, maybe 105 degrees out in the sun. “Yeah, but it’s dry heat,” some airheads might say. One hundred five is hot…dry or not dry. Despite the air-conditioning in the county building, my uniform shirt was a mess of dark circles. Holman, dressed in a lightweight summer suit, looked 60 degrees.

“You no doubt are aware of the interagency drug task forces that have been pretty successful in various parts of the state.” Both Estelle and I were aware, of course…more so than Holman. We were both polite enough not to say so. Estelle had worked records for them for two weeks shortly after she joined our department. I had been half-tempted once to work for the narcs, but the two weeks away from my hovel seemed an awfully long time. Old dogs…

Holman continued, “I thought a minor version of that is something to try. You know Artie White up in Gallup? Chief of Police?” We both did. “I had some time at one of these law-enforcement conventions recently, and we got to talking. I was telling him about all of your experience, Bill, and he laughed and said he had the other side of the coin.”

“How’s that?” I asked politely.

“Chief White said he had a freshly minted patrolman on his force who just turned twenty-one, for one thing…the kid couldn’t even buy a legal beer until a couple months ago. And the chief said what makes it worse is that the kid is one of those long, tall bean poles who looks sixteen. Believe it or not, he’s proving to be a good, careful cop.”

I chuckled gently. “I wonder how he’s going to do when he goes to his first bar fight and his backup never shows.”

“I asked Chief White the same thing. The kid’s been to a couple. The first one, he walked into this real tough joint. The two guys who were dukin’ it out stopped, took one look at him and broke up laughing. He put the cuffs on both of ’em. Pretty effective. He got called to a second one, and damn near got a charge of police brutality on his head. I guess he’s pretty good with a nightstick. Fast as a rattlesnake.”

“And so…” I prompted.

“And so,” Holman said, “I got to thinking. Some undercover work is what we need, and not by some DEA hotshot, or big-time narc from the big city or from the state police. We obviously can’t use our own people. They’re too well known. So, I thought let’s get the kid down here. Hell, we maybe can even plant him in the high school. Who’s to know?”

“Some folks at the school should know, for one thing,” I said.

“Why? What if the dealer is one of them? Hell, what if the damn principal is running drugs? Stranger things have happened.”

“You got a point,” Estelle said. “Would this guy really fit in? I mean, does he really look like a high school kid?”

“That’s what White says.” Holman was obviously pleased with himself.

“Let’s get him down here,” I said. “Maybe he’ll get it all wrapped up before he has to enroll in school. And that reminds me of something we may be forgetting. Whose kid is he? I mean, he’s got to be living with somebody. Nobody’s going to believe a high school kid living by himself in an apartment somewhere.”

Holman grinned and held up an index finger, apparently ready to make his grand point. “You have four grown children, correct?”

“So?”