“A warrant? Jesus H. Christ, what for?” Page said.
“It’s imperative that we talk with Kevin, Mr. Page.”
“Well, I can see that, but look. If he’s not at home, then he’s not at home, right? He’s off somewhere, running errands. His secretary should know.”
“His secretary doesn’t know, sir. And his vehicles are both here.”
“The county has more than one truck, for God’s sake.”
“I realize that, Mr. Page,” Estelle said patiently. “And I realize he has a cell phone, and he has a pager. And the county vehicles all have radios. Mr. Page, it’s this simple. We need to talk with Kevin, and no one knows where he is. I thought there might be an outside chance you could help.”
“Look, you don’t need a warrant to get inside the house, sheriff. There’s a key under that tin lizard on the front window-sill. Just use that. What happened next door, anyway? You said one of the kids was involved in something?”
“That’s how it appears,” Estelle said.
“And that’s all you’re going to tell me? It sounds like I should come down.”
“Actually, that would be helpful.”
“Absolutely, then,” he said. “I can be out of here in ten minutes. Just a second.”
Estelle heard the telephone mouthpiece covered, and then distant voices. Page came back on the line. “If I leave here at four, I can be in Posadas by seven. How would that be?”
“That would be just fine, Mr. Page. I’d appreciate it if you’d check in at the Sheriff’s Office when you come into town…before you do anything else.”
“I can do that. Now let me ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Will you at least wait until I’m there before using that search warrant?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Page. That’s not going to work.”
She heard what might have been a sigh of frustration over the line. “Look, it just seems to me that if Kevin saw something next door, if he was a witness to something, he would have let you know,” Page said.
“That’s what I would have thought, sir.”
“There’s more to this than what you’re telling me.”
“We don’t know yet what happened, Mr. Page. As far as the county manager is concerned, it may turn out to be nothing at all. If I need to reach you in the next couple of hours, will you have a phone in your car?”
“Of course.” He gave her the number. “I’ll be there by seven,” he said.
“Be careful on the highway, sir.” She switched off the phone and remained sitting on the small stoop, lost in thought. Finally, she dialed the county office again.
“Penny, any word from his nibs?” she asked, keeping her tone light.
Penny Barnes didn’t buy it. “Not a thing, Estelle. What is going on? You know, this isn’t like him. Not like him at all. Did you find his friend?”
“No, it’s not like him,” Estelle said. “And yes, I talked with Mr. Page. Did you happen to think of anyone else to check with?”
“No. But I’ve called everyone, everywhere. He hasn’t been at the county barns, he’s not out at the landfill-I even called Jim Bergin out at the airport. Nothing. He isn’t answering his cell, or the radio. I’ve got everyone looking and calling. Like I said, he’s playing hooky somewhere.”
I hope so, Estelle thought. A still-warm truck with the keys in the ignition, parked next door to an attempted murder, wasn’t her definition of hooky.
Chapter Eight
The house key was where William Page had said it was, tucked in a slot in the belly of the small tin lizard on the windowsill. Not allowing her latex gloves to touch the brass doorknob, Estelle turned the key and nudged the door with her left elbow. She could hear Bob Torrez’s breathing behind her. Pausing at one side of the doorway, she inhaled deeply, scanning what she could see of the living room at the same time. Nothing appeared out of place, and the air carried the faint, clean aroma of a well-tended home.
“He ain’t here,” Torrez murmured.
“I don’t think so.” Estelle moved fully into the living room, and Torrez followed, shutting the front door and leaving Deputy Thomas Pasquale standing outside on the steps.
Loath to probe deeper into Kevin Zeigler’s home, Estelle waited. Apparently the sheriff felt the same awkwardness, because he made no move to press by her.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Estelle shook her head, jolted by the intrusion of Torrez’s voice. Her senses told her nothing except that the house was most likely as it had been when the county manager left for work that morning. She turned in place, inventorying the living room. Zeigler was a movie fan, and the room was arranged so that all seats, including the large, plush sofa, faced the enormous entertainment center on the east wall, with speakers surrounding the room.
On a small shelf to one side of the VCR, the tape-rewinding machine yawned open, a videotape visible inside.
The curtain was pulled securely over the west-facing window, and much of the remainder of that wall was taken up with a twelve-foot span of bookshelves. An old-fashioned wooden coat-rack stood between the window and the corner nearest the door, the hooks empty except for a single dark brown sweater. Estelle stepped to the window and examined the curtain. The pleats hung straight and true, the center seam overlapping precisely.
She slipped a finger between the two curtain halves and pushed one far enough out of place to see outside. The view was directly toward the Acostas’ kitchen door.
“There’s always the possibility that Freddy is a lying sack of shit,” Torrez said matter-of-factly. “He says Zeigler’s truck wasn’t parked there when he left for the store. He says it was in the driveway when he came home and found Carmen. Maybe that’s not the way it was at all.”
Estelle let the curtain slide back into place. “Freddy might have done a lot of things, but what happened to Carmen isn’t his style,” she said. “He might not have noticed the truck the first time. Things like that are easy to miss.”
She lifted one sleeve of the sweater. Made of lightweight wool, it smelled faintly of Kevin Zeigler’s musky cologne. No blood, no gunpowder aroma, no rips or tears. Leaving the sweater hanging on the rack, she turned and walked quickly past the shelves. This wasn’t the time for a full inventory, despite her curiosity. She scanned the books and videos as she passed. Zeigler was an organized soul, books alphabetically by author, videos alphabetically by title. By and large, both books and films were all new releases.
The living room fronted a hallway leading to bedrooms and bath on one side, and a large, well-appointed kitchen, utility, and laundry on the other. As Estelle moved through the house, it struck her as clean, neat, and entirely unremarkable, the sort of place where the frenetic county manager alighted for a few minutes out of each twenty-four hours to recharge.
The first bedroom on the right served as an office. The same make and model of computer terminal used in Zeigler’s office in the county building dominated the far wall. The metallic county inventory sticker was displayed prominently on the side of the computer’s beige tower. Filing cabinets, a map hanger on wheels, even a large copier had all been wedged into the small room-the county manager’s office-away-from-office.
The small window that faced the Acostas’ was shaded by a standard venetian blind. To open it, Zeigler would have to reach over the top of the copier.
“So much for not taking work home,” Estelle said. She turned in time to see Torrez nudge open the bathroom door across the hall. The glass shower door gaped open a couple of inches, and he slid it further, examining the tiled tub.
“Not used much,” he said.
With careful planning, the second smaller bedroom could have served as a guest bedroom, if the guest wasn’t either claustrophobic or a sleepwalker. In the far corner, a small bunk bed-the kind that would have fitted Estelle’s two small boys perfectly-served as a rack for two new-style stunt kayaks. One above and the other below, neither kayak was more than six feet long. They looked like two large fiberglass slippers upended on the beds.