As she settled behind the wheel of her own county vehicle, the radio clock flashed to 9:46 AM Less than twenty-two hours before, Estelle had been chatting with Kevin Zeigler outside the elementary school. She started the car, jabbing at the ignition key with impatience, irritated with herself for wasting time counting the minutes, irritated at wasting time hoping for an innocent explanation of the events that had caught up the county manager, impatient with the waiting while a lab tech removed and tested the tiny blood spatter from the lamp shade.
A few minutes later, with no recollection of the twelve-mile drive into town from Forest Road 26, she pulled through the chain-link gate of the county maintenance yard off County Road 43, just north of the Hutton Street intersection on the outskirts of the village. She parked in front of the office, swinging wide so she had an unobstructed view of the yard and the equipment stored there.
To one side of the towering shop doors, a veteran Highway Department dump truck was parked, its left rear hindquarters jacked high and all four wheels rolled to one side. The massive brake drums had been removed.
Across the yard, two men, one on a front loader and another on the ground, were wrestling a twenty-foot-long, four-foot-diameter section of drainage pipe toward a flatbed trailer. The shop doors were open, and Estelle could see three vehicles inside.
A young man appeared in the shop doorway, a Styrofoam cup in hand. He watched Estelle as she got out of the car and offered a tentative, snaggle-toothed smile as she approached.
“Good morning,” Estelle said. “Is Ralph around today?”
“Nope. He’s at a meeting.” The young man sawed the edge of the hand that held the cup across the back of his other hand, the skin no doubt irritated by the substantial amount of “contaminated grease.” Estelle read the stitched name tag on the breast of his dark green work shirt.
“Do you know where that meeting is, James?”
“I think it’s with somebody from the State Highway Department,” he said. “He was having to drive over to Deming.” He crumpled the cup and tossed it in the general direction of a fifty-five-gallon drum near the corner of the building.
Estelle turned and surveyed the yard. It was the sort of place that the meticulous Kevin Zeigler would manage from a distance. “You guys look a little shorthanded today.”
James laughed. “We’re always shorthanded, Sheriff.”
“Did the county manager stop by here yesterday?”
“What time?”
“Anytime.”
“Oh,” he said with sudden comprehension. “That’s right. ”
“What’s right?”
“No, I mean I heard about Zeigler goin’ missing. One of the guys was talking about that when he came in this morning.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah.” James removed a can of tobacco from his hip pocket, and carefully charged his lip. “Weird, huh?”
“I wonder how he happened to hear about it.”
“Scotty? His brother’s with the ambulance thing there.”
“Ah.” Estelle wondered if there was a single soul in Posadas who didn’t know about Kevin Zeigler’s disappearance. The “ambulance thing there” had been called to attend to Carmen Acosta-and at that time, Zeigler had done nothing more curious than fail to return to the afternoon session of the commission meeting. James turned and spat brown juice. He wasn’t very good at it, and wiped his chin with a greasy hand. “So,” Estelle persisted. “Did you happen to see Zeigler yesterday? Did he stop by here?”
“Ah, you know…I don’t know,” James said vaguely. “I don’t pay much attention to who comes and goes. I got me this big old bastard to get out of here.” He nodded at the dump truck with the shattered axle. “You could ask Hobie, over there. He kinda keeps tabs on things when Ralph’s gone.”
“Hobie?”
“The guy on the front loader. Hobie Tyler. He’s one of the foremen.”
“Thanks,” Estelle said. “What’s your name?”
“J.T.,” he said. “Well, James.” He patted his name tag.
“James…”
“Oh. Volpato.” He spelled it quickly without being asked.
“You’re related to Katie Volpato?” Katie had worked as a custodian in the county building for years, a silent presence who kept the building looking fifty years younger than it was.
“She’s my mom.”
“A grand lady,” Estelle said. “Thanks, James.” Across the yard, the huge section of culvert crashed onto the trailer. As the undersheriff approached, the front loader backed off with a blast of black diesel smoke and shrill beeping of its caution horn. The hoist chain dangled from its lower lip.
As he maneuvered the machine away from the trailer, the driver saw Estelle and immediately jabbed the brakes so hard the ponderous loader rocked on its fat tires. The engine died and Tyler swung the cab door open.
“Morning!” he called. “What can I help you with?”
Estelle skirted an impressive puddle of something that would have raised the eyebrows of the EPA and walked up close to the loader. The tires were nearly as tall as she was, and the beast ticked quietly as it cooled, exuding a rich aroma of hot rubber, diesel fuel, and grease.
Tyler leaned out, looking down from on high. At the same time, the other county worker tossed the tie-down chains across the culvert section with a mighty clatter.
“Good morning, sir,” Estelle greeted. She rested a hand lightly on one mammoth tire cleat. “I understand that you might have talked to the county manager yesterday.”
Tyler shot a quick glance at his companion, then eyed Estelle warily. “Well, he stopped by, is all.”
“What time was that, sir?”
Tyler pulled off his left glove and rubbed his cheek with a stubby finger. “He come by yesterday morning early.”
Estelle nodded as if the information was old news. “Do you recall what time that was?”
“Well, I get here at seven-thirty, and it was just a little after that. Maybe quarter till.” Tyler stretched upward in his seat and twisted his head hard to the right as if to ease a painful kink in his spine. “He had a tire on his truck that he thought was goin’ soft.”
Estelle’s pulse kicked. “Had he changed it, you mean?”
“No. But I told him that he needed to.” Tyler shrugged. “I gave him a squirt of air from the pump over there to keep him goin’. He said he’d try to drop it off later in the day. He said he didn’t have a whole lot of time.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. He was down to eighteen pounds, though. In that tire, I mean. I told him that if he put it off much longer, he’d be walkin’.” He twisted his wrist, looking at a nonexistent watch. “He don’t have a lot of extra time.”
“So you aired it up, and he left?”
Tyler nodded emphatically. “That’s what I did.”
“Did you see him after that?”
“No, ma’am.” He leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice. “What’s goin’ on, do you know? Ralph told me this morning that nobody’s seen him since yesterday.”
“That’s exactly what we’re trying to find out, Mr. Tyler. That’s why I appreciate the information.”
“Well, like I said, that’s the only time I seen him, all day.”
“He never came back to have the tire fixed, then.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Was anyone with him at the time?” Estelle asked, and Tyler shook his head. “And he was driving that little white Ford Ranger? His usual county truck?” Tyler nodded. Estelle patted the tire once more. “Did he happen to mention where he was headed after here?”
“Ma’am, if he did, I don’t remember. Old Kevin, you know. He’s kinda different. Keepin’ track of him is like trying to nail down one of them dust devils that goes spinnin’ across the yard here.” He grinned at his own poetic imagery. He reached forward toward the ignition key, but didn’t turn it. The hint was clear.
“Thanks, sir,” she said, and stepped back from the machine, waving a hand in salute as she did so. The diesel fired up, chuffing out a bilious cloud. As she walked back, Estelle found herself wanting to break into a sprint. She had learned only that Zeigler had stopped by the county yards, concerned about an air leak in a tire. Not many hours later, the lug wrench from his truck had been used to mash the back of Carmen Acosta’s skull. The link was invisible, but tantalizing nevertheless.