“You got Sutherland trained yet?” Gastner said gruffly. “Goddamned kid can’t figure out how to make coffee.”
“That’s because he doesn’t drink the stuff,” Estelle replied.
“Matters not. He should be able to read my mind, know when I’m going to walk through the door, and have the coffee made. I saw your buggy outside.” He jerked his chin at the stack of photos in her hand. “Progress?”
“Some, I think. Come on in.” She held her office door for him. “I made myself a note to catch up with you today.”
“That’s generally not too tough,” Gastner said. “Consider me caught.”
“Sofia’s coming up for a visit in the next day or two.”
“Well, good,” he said pleasantly. “Hopefully, I can pry myself away from my busy schedule long enough to say hello. No word yet on Zeigler?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It doesn’t look good.”
“I see what’s-his-name out in the lobby…the boyfriend.” Estelle looked up quickly. While it was true that Bill Gastner was a walking gazetteer of Posadas County, it surprised her that he knew about Zeigler and Page. Gastner had been retired for most of Zeigler’s term as county manager, and wouldn’t have worked with him on a regular basis as a livestock inspector. “Has he been out there all night?” Gastner asked.
“I hope not,” Estelle said. “I came in the back, and didn’t even look out that way.”
“You had breakfast yet?”
She grinned at Gastner’s reflex question. Any time between midnight and noon was time for breakfast, as many times as convenient. “You’re going to need breakfast after I get done with you, sir.”
“Uh-oh.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m due out at the Triple Bar T in about…a little while.” He sat down heavily, stretched out his legs, and folded his hands over his ample belly.
“Yesterday, the County Commission put their stamp on consolidation,” she said. “I don’t know if you were able to attend any of the meeting or not.”
“Actually, they agreed to provide services,” Gastner corrected. “And no, I avoided the pleasure of their company.”
“Consolidated or services, it amounts to the same thing,” Estelle said. “And that’s why I wanted to talk to you and twist your arm. What we have to do is merge all of the village records-” She stopped when she saw the grin spread across Gastner’s broad face, and brought her hands together, fingers meshed, “-with ours. The problem is about the size of five big filing cabinets full of confidential information, more or less.”
“Mostly more, stretching back to the Mexican Revolution,” Gastner muttered.
“Just about. All of that has to merge with everything that we have in county records. And you know exactly what’s in those.”
Gastner straightened up, sitting forward in his chair. “The commissioners didn’t think about that little job, did they? In all their infinite wisdom.”
“Of course not, sir. Kevin was well aware of what’s necessary, though.” Estelle saw the older man move his hands to the chair arms and shift his weight forward, preparatory to rising. “The thing is, Padrino, we’re going to have to go through every file, every scrap of hard copy, and merge, and add, and just generally combine, the two record systems.”
“I’m aware of that. More power to you, sweetheart.”
“And the other problem, as I’m sure you know better than I, is that this is something that needs to be done by certified police officers, sir. It’s not something that we can just farm out to a couple of high school kids, or a couple of office temps.”
“God, I hope not.” Gastner rose with a loud cracking of knees. He glanced at his watch again. “I need to find some decent coffee. You got time?”
“No, I really don’t. The Hurtados are coming in at seven-thirty.”
“I don’t envy you that.”
“This is the deal, sir,” Estelle pressed. “You know more about this county than anyone on the planet. You know the law, you know criminal and investigative procedure backward, forward, and sideways, and there probably isn’t a single name in those files that you don’t know.”
Gastner’s eyes twinkled. “I probably talk about half of ’em in my sleep. Thank you. Keep going, though. Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“There’s a time constraint, too,” Estelle said. “This isn’t something that can drag on and on. It’s not something that we can nibble away at, a little at a time. What I need is a team that knows what it’s doing, working full-time until the job is finished.”
“Sounds like a plan. A ghastly plan, but a plan nevertheless.”
“You’ll consider heading it up?”
“I didn’t say that. I said it sounds like a plan…for someone.” He grinned and shook his head. “I think I’d rather go find a nice big pile of rocks and drop ’em on my foot, one at a time, than slog through all that shit.” He stepped toward the door. “How’s your mother doing? I haven’t seen her in a week or so.”
“She’s fine, sir.” She waited patiently. Gastner hadn’t actually walked through the door yet, and she could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Who else?” he asked.
“Mike Sisneros…” She couldn’t help hesitating. “And Dennis.”
“Collins? I don’t think so.”
“It would give him the opportunity to learn the system, for one thing,” Estelle said.
“You’re too generous,” Gastner said. “I’m sure the experience would do him good, but that’s not the point. I can’t see him with that level of concentration.” He held up his right hand, tapping fingers against thumb. “He talks more than he thinks. He’d be the first one to take shortcuts. I’d shoot him out of frustration before we made it through the first filing cabinet.” He held the door thoughtfully, and Estelle waited. “Mike’s good. I like him a lot. In fact, he’s one of the two best things about this whole merger deal.”
“Captain Mitchell is the other,” Estelle agreed.
“Ah, ‘Captain’? Is that what you guys settled on? You bet he’s good. Tell you what. Here’s the deal of the century for you. You spring Mike free, full-time…that’s one. Give me Linda for the other.” He grinned at Estelle’s pained expression. “Look, she’s not a road deputy, so using her won’t cut into your patrol schedule. She’s smart. She’s meticulous. Well hell, why am I telling you all this. You know what she is. She’s probably also indispensable to what you’re doing right now, but in a day or so.…”
“I wish.”
Gastner waved a hand in dismissal. “And guess who also knows how to use a camera, par excellence-who in fact taught Linda most of what she knows about cops and robbers.” He swung open the door. “Give me those two, and I’ll do it for you.”
“I’m not sure Linda-”
“Whoa, whoa,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not going to tell me that you were planning to give these guys a choice, are you? Linda’s a smart girl. She can see that this isn’t just busywork that we’re talkin’ about here.” He grinned and swept one hand grandly through the air. “We’re talking about building the foundation of a modern, cohesive law enforcement department.” He chuckled. “How could she refuse, assuming she had any choice in the matter? Besides, tell ’em I’ll buy ’em lunch every day until we’re done. You’re not going to get a better deal than that today.”
He opened the door fully and glanced out into the hall. “Let me know, all right?”
Estelle nodded and picked up the folder of photographs. “One of the things I was going to talk over with Kevin was how much we have in the budget for this sort of thing.”
“That’s the least of your worries right now,” Gastner said. They heard muted voices, and he added, “The Hurtados are here.” But instead of leaving, Gastner stepped back and gently closed the office door. “Are you giving some consideration to what Bobby thinks happened?”
“He hasn’t talked much about what he thinks,” Estelle said.
Gastner nodded philosophically. “Yeah, there is that. But I chatted with him for a minute out at the gas pumps just a bit ago,” Gastner said. “He thinks there’s reason to believe that it wasn’t Kevin Zeigler who walked into the middle of something as an innocent bystander.”