Steven Havill - Heartshot

Estelle had already covered her mouth with a hand to conceal the grin. She saw through Holman before I did. “So, your oldest son is what, thirty-nine?”

“So?”

“It’s no secret that for the last ten years, he’s had nothing but trouble with his oldest boy. A summer vacation for the rotten kid, away from home, is just the ticket. Who better for him to visit, in lieu of going to some paramilitary camp, than his old granddad, Undersheriff William C. Gastner, famous for his many exploits along the border?”

I looked at Estelle. “Have you been letting this man snort the evidence, or what?” I turned and frowned at the sheriff. “My oldest son doesn’t have a son of any description. Five wonderful girls, yes. A son, rotten or otherwise, no.”

“So who’s to know? I mean that. How many people in this county, in this town, keep track of your grandchildren, Bill? Hell, you never talk about them.”

“That’s because I think that people who corral innocent bystanders with pictures and tales of their grandkids deserve to be shot.”

“Bill,” Holman said patiently, “even you are not that much of a curmudgeon. And once, not more than a month ago when we were all happier and more relaxed than we are now, you showed me a picture of one of yours.”

I shook my head. “I would never do that.”

“Then how do I know that down in Corpus Christi, Lieutenant William Gastner, Junior, and his wife Edie managed to keep little Kendal and Tadd clean long enough for a family picture? Lieutenant Gastner resplendent in flight suit? T2C Buckeye jet trainer in the background?”

“Checkmate, sir,” Estelle said quietly.

“I showed you that picture?”

“Yes.”

“It was a good one, wasn’t it?”

Holman laughed heartily and nodded. “Thank you. That was the first time I’ve felt good in the past two weeks. Anyway, I want White’s peach-fuzz to stay with you. What better yarn for local kids to swallow? A heavy metal shithead of a kid from out of town, occasionally bad-mouthing you as an old, worn-out symbol of law and order. Hell, that line alone ought to be worth five sales.”

Estelle nodded. “Good idea. Better that than trying to hide him in the back room here. Or putting him with strangers.”

“Big help you are,” I muttered.

“You’ll do it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice.”

“I bet. And I suppose you’re going to coach him on how to treat me as an old and worn-out…symbolically, anyway.”

“Bill, your skin is entirely too thin.”

I ignored that. “When’s he coming, Sheriff?”

“I called Chief White yesterday. The officer will meet you at Albuquerque International Airport Saturday at eleven A. M.

“Albuquerque! That’s almost three hundred miles from here!”

“Huh,” Holman said, pretending to be astounded. Then he turned reasonable. “It would look great for the kid to drive into Posadas in a Gallup patrol car, wouldn’t it? Or to drive into town at all, for that matter. Your son wouldn’t let him drive all the way from L.A. by himself, would he?”

“And so the idea is that he has supposedly flown into Albuquerque, and I go pick him up.”

“Right.”

“What’s wrong with Las Cruces?”

“The major airlines from L.A. don’t fly there, for one thing. Bill, picky, picky. Look, if you meet him up in Albuquerque, that gives you six hours or more for a private confab, right? Six hours to lay things out.”

“He’s right, sir,” Estelle agreed. “And besides, between now and then, you could drop a word here and there about picking up this kid. No big deal, but any scat helps.”

I looked at Estelle Reyes in astonishment. “‘Any scat helps?’ Where the hell did you hear that line? Christ.” She grinned, looking about fourteen years old herself. I held up my hands in surrender.

“Great,” Holman said. “And feel free to use a county credit card for gas.”

“You are all heart, Sheriff,” I said. A goddamned kid chasing kids, I thought. Hell, maybe Scott Salinger would talk to him. Maybe Salinger would sell him a nice, fresh kilo and the kid-cop would bust the case wide open. That’s all the little town of Posadas needed.

I reached the airport nearly an hour early, figuring to have time for breakfast and a leg-stretch before the long return drive. The place was busy. Everyone from real weirdos with turbans to an aging-relatively speaking-deputy U.S. marshal I recognized. He didn’t see me, and seemed in a hurry, so I didn’t bother hailing him. I probably missed some good war stories. In the corner of the restaurant, sitting back where it was dark, was a man who looked a lot like the city’s mayor. He was in earnest conversation with another man who looked a lot like a popular U.S. senator. After a few minutes, a local news crew complete with minicam arrived and interrupted the quiet meeting. The senator gave them five minutes, then he and the mayor went out to the plane.

A big family pushed their way into the restaurant: fat father, pudgy mother, and an assortment of youngsters who ranged from three feet six to six feet three. I munched on the wonderfully huge, sloppy Danish and made bets about where the family was from, and where they were bound. From Terre Haute, going to Marine Land. Best bet. They headed for a table back in the area just vacated by the senator. The oldest boy-he was doing a good job of pretending the rest of his family didn’t exist-changed directions without a word and headed straight at me. He was grinning from ear to ear and looking at me.

“Granddad!” he said altogether too loudly. “Here you are, hiding over behind the Danish!” I almost choked.

I wiped my mouth and stood up slowly. He extended his hand, still beaming. I had to take his hand, or it would look as if I were turning away my own kin. He gripped my hand in one of those hard two-handed squeezes, and to prevent him from shattering the arthritis I had been culturing in my right hand, I had to squeeze heartily in return.

“Gosh, you’re lookin’ well,” he said, and motioned at the chairs. “Don’t let me interrupt.” He sat down first, still with that goddamned grin all over his face.

“You’re observant,” I said flatly, and went back to the Danish.

He dropped his voice several levels, all the while looking for the waitress. “Your sheriff told Chief White that all I had to do was just find a man who had an old-fashioned military brush cut and a mustache like Don Ameche’s. I mean-” and he spread his hands expressively-”how many of you can there be?”

“That’s all he said?”

Peach-Fuzz grinned. “No. But…”

“But what?”

He waved a hand in amusement. He was tall and skinny all right, but with the conditioning of a mid-season track star. Fighting with him would be like wrestling a steel spring. He looked sober. “Undersheriff Gastner, it’s going to be a pleasure working for you. I hope we can run this thing to ground.”

“Run to ground?” I said. “You’ve been reading too much Sherlock Holmes. It’s a damn mess, is what it is. But we’re grateful for any help. So, Officer Hewitt, what does a grandfather call you? Arthur? Art?”

Hewitt grinned. “My real granddad called me Punk.”

“Smart man. Is he still alive?”

“No.”

I nodded. “Grandparents have a way of getting old.”

“He didn’t die of old age. He got shot.”

“Cop?”

Hewitt turned on that electric grin again. “No. He landed an oil company plane in the wrong place down in Peru. The natives were unappreciative.”

“You don’t seem overly grieved.”

The young cop shrugged, and when the waitress finally brought his coffee, he took several minutes finding enough sugar. “He wasn’t my favorite person. I’ll tell you about him sometime.”