Penny Barnes was on the phone when Estelle entered, elbow on the desk, using the phone as a cradle to hold her head. “I know,” she said, and waited a moment. She beckoned toward Estelle. “I know. Believe me, I’ll let you know the instant I hear anything. Okay?” She waited again, looked wearily at the undersheriff, and at the same time mimed biting the knuckles of her left hand in frustration.
“Right. I know. Okay, I’ll get back to you right away, then.” She straightened up, and dropped the phone back into its cradle. “Frank Dayan,” she said. “That’s the fourth time he’s called this morning, and it’s what, not quite nine o’clock? I’m surprised he isn’t hounding you.”
“I’ve made a point not to hold still long enough,” Estelle replied.
Penny’s pleasant face crinkled in misery. “What is going on?” she wailed, and turned to follow Estelle’s gaze. The door to Zeigler’s office was closed, with a large hasp now screwed on the door and an authoritative lock snapped in place. A short length of POLICE LINE-DO NOT CROSS yellow tape was stretched across the door at eye level. Bob Torrez hadn’t lost any time.
“I was so sure that when I walked into the office this morning, Kevin would be sitting in there, all hunched over his computer the way he always is. Instead, all I see is this ugly thing.” She waved at lock and ribbon with distaste.
“We don’t know any more than we knew yesterday, which is nothing.” Estelle drew a chair closer to Penny’s desk and nudged the outer office door shut at the same time. “I saw Kevin at the elementary school, right at noon yesterday. That’s it. His truck shows up at his house, maybe as much as two hours after that. And no Kevin.”
Penny let her hands drop into her lap. She turned and stared through the glass of Zeigler’s office door. “I just don’t know what to think. I look in there and tell myself, ‘Look, it’s just been a few hours. He got called away on some kind of emergency or something.’ I mean look at that.” She held out both hands helplessly. “His reading glasses are lying right there by his computer, like he just dropped them there for a minute, planning to be right back. When I left yesterday afternoon, his computer was still turned on the way it always is. Even that little radio over in the corner is on, just like it always is.” She waved her hands. “Everything is still on, as far as I know.”
“When you saw him yesterday before the commission meeting, was he upset about anything? Did he talk about anything?”
Penny shook her head. “Just nothing, ” she said. “I mean, he’s always talking to people, you know. Always. It seems like every single minute, he’s on that darn phone. That’s the job.”
“No particular arguments lately that you can pinpoint?”
“No. He was excited about the vote yesterday, and Estelle, that’s how I know something is just dreadfully wrong with all this. When the commission broke for lunch, they had some more presentations on the agenda-like you and Bobby and the chief. There were budget questions, a zillion details to discuss. With all that coming up, Kevin would never have willingly missed the afternoon session.”
“And he would have certainly called, in any case.”
Penny’s face crumpled in agony. “I’m scared, I guess. I heard about what happened next door with the Acostas, and it just gives me the willies.”
“Yesterday morning,” Estelle said. “Did anyone call here while the morning session was going on, asking to speak to Kevin?”
“A number of calls,” Penny said. “I know that Kevin had a whole list of things to do over lunch break. One of the things he wanted to do was touch bases with you, and make sure you’d come to the afternoon session.”
“He did that. But what else? Earlier, you mentioned an errand or two, including something at the county barns.”
“He had to see someone over at the maintenance yard about something. Some workman’s comp thing.” She paused and put her hand over her mouth, deep in thought. “He had to go to the bank. He asked me when he came in yesterday morning to help him remember.”
“His own personal banking?”
“Yes. Normal, so normal. Just day-in, day-out kind of stuff.”
“Was there anything in particular that Kevin asked you to do for him?”
Penny swept her hand over the avalanche on her desk. “Just this,” she said. “The county goes on.” She reached out and grasped a fistful of papers. “Bids. That’s always a popular one. We can’t buy a gosh darn pencil without an RFB. Now we have to figure out how to work the village PD financing into the sheriff’s budget. That will be just a wingding. You and I will be losing sleep over that.” She grimaced. “Bobby will just shrug and go hunting.”
“But nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No, nothing.” She picked up another paper. “Not unless you consider the September landfill records interesting and fascinating stuff, second only to October’s landfill records.”
“Yesterday,” Estelle persisted. “No phone calls out of the ordinary. No errands out of the ordinary. How about right out there?” She turned and nodded at the lobby outside the commission chambers. “You have a grandstand view from here. Did you see anyone that you don’t normally see at these things?”
This time, it was a long, slow shake of the head, as if the last straw had been broken. “Same old, same old,” Penny said. “But I have to admit, I don’t pay much attention. If I did, I wouldn’t get anything done.”
“You didn’t happen to see Kevin talking to anyone in particular? Or no one came in here before the meeting, hoping to have a few minutes alone with him?”
“No, no, and no. If they did, they all just passed me by, you know?” She reached out and rested her hand on the impressive pile that filled the “in” basket. “This is what drives my day, this little friend right here.” She fell silent, waiting for Estelle, who was gazing off across the lobby toward the commission chambers.
“You know, if you want to know who attended the meeting, that’s simple enough,” Penny said. “Stacey Roybal keeps notes. Most of the time, she jots down who-all attends. And then they always pass around that sign-in sheet.” She held up a finger in sudden inspiration. “And then, if you’re really desperate, you could ask Milton Crowley. If it moves, he films it.”
“Ah, Mr. Videotape.”
Penny nodded. “I’d like to see the inside of his house sometime.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The bizarre thing is imagining him sitting in his home in the evening, watching old tapes of County Commission meetings. That’s pretty kinky.”
“Milton Crowley,” Estelle repeated.
“You’re really going to talk to him? You’re nuts.”
“Probably.”
Penny looked genuinely alarmed. “You’re not going out there alone, are you? Have you ever seen that sign he has at the entrance to his driveway?”
“No, but I’ve heard about it. Maybe it’s time to see if he really means it.”
Chapter Seventeen
The county car thumped through the potholes and ruts, juddered across patches of loose blow-sand, and kicked gravel over the last steep rise in the two-track. The hill was so steep that for a moment Estelle couldn’t see the tracks ahead over the hood of the car. The narrow path leveled and within a few yards was blocked by a gate in the barbed-wire range fence.
She could not see Milton Crowley’s home. Beyond the gate, the two-track wound through runty pinon and juniper, twisted cacti and creosote bush, skirting the next rise in the prairie. Behind her to the southeast lay the village of Posadas, twelve miles away. She had turned off the state highway a few miles northwest of the airport, following Forest Road 26 around the western flank of Cat Mesa to Crowley’s gate.