“Guzman.”
“Where you at?” Sheriff Torrez asked with his usual lack of preliminaries.
“I’m looking for Casey Prescott. Her mother thinks that she rode out to Lewis Wells. I just left their place. What’s up?”
“Look, I got something you need to look at when you’re finished out there. We’re over at the barn,” Torrez said, referring to the secure Quonset hut at the county boneyard where the Sheriff’s Department kept impounded vehicles.
“Is there something I should know before I talk with Casey?”
Torrez hesitated. “I’m not sure what we’re lookin’ at here, but for one thing, Mears found a little chunk of metal on the inside of the kid’s front tire.”
“Metal?”
“Brass. Sure as hell looks like it, anyway. A little fragment of brass. We’ll put it under a microscope here in a few minutes. I think we still got some diggin’ to do. In the meantime I’m sending Pasquale out to sit the Bender Canyon site.”
For a moment, Estelle didn’t respond, instead letting the front wheels jar this way and that, twisting the steering wheel under her light grip as the Expedition idled along the rough two-track.
“What are you after?” Torrez prompted.
“I want to know if Casey was with Freddy when he found the skull.”
“You think she might have been?”
“I don’t know. But you know how kids work. What are the odds they weren’t together on Sunday? It was a beautiful day, perfect for exploration. Or anything else.”
“Someone sayin’ that’s when he found it? On Sunday?”
“No. Freddy apparently didn’t tell anybody exactly where…or when. He took it to Underwood on Monday. So it makes sense. Saturday or Sunday.”
“Huh. Well, look…we’ll be back at the office when you’re done out there. Swing by.”
“You got it.” She switched off and dropped the phone in the well of the center console. A mile later, reaching the pinnacle of one of the prairie’s undulations, she stopped the Expedition and slipped her binoculars out of the case. The late afternoon shadows shimmered as she scanned the distance. Eventually she found the windmill, its blades idle and facing west. The metal framework, with a ladder running up one side, presented a composition of geometric, harsh lines in an otherwise tawny world.
A saddled horse grazed near the water tank, cropping patches of green that were nourished by tank seepage. Estelle could make out that the animal was saddled but riderless.
The two-track meandered around rises and through swales, and each time the windmill came back into view, Estelle checked to make sure the horse hadn’t wandered. At last the path turned into an expanse of laser-flat prairie, the windmill a hundred yards ahead. The horse swung its head to watch her approach, and Estelle could now see the reins leading into the shadows of the water tank.
Casey Prescott sat with her back against the tank’s water-cooled galvanized steel.
Chapter Fifteen
The teenager didn’t rise as the sheriff’s department vehicle approached, but the horse sidestepped nervously. Estelle stopped twenty yards from the tank and palmed the mike.
“PCS, three ten.”
“Three ten, go ahead.”
“Three ten will be ten-six at Lewis Wells.”
Dispatcher Ernie Wheeler managed to sound completely disinterested. “Ten four, three ten.”
Estelle shut off the engine. Casey might have been watching her, but the wide-brimmed straw hat shaded her face. The horse shifted again, uttering one of those heavy, deep-in-the-throat huh, huh, huh mutters that said she was thinking hard but hadn’t reached any decisions.
As the undersheriff swung out of the SUV, Casey pushed herself upright. With her lithe figure in boots, blue jeans, and a flowery blouse and her strawberry blonde hair braided into a long pony-tail flowing from under her white straw hat, the teenager looked ready for an appearance as a rodeo queen. But her face belied any festive mood. Her flawless complexion was puffy from crying, her green eyes bloodshot, her nose reddened.
“Hi.” She let it go at that. Almost absent-mindedly, she reached out and stroked the mare’s broad, flat forehead.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” Estelle said quietly.
“That’s okay. Am I in trouble?” A logical question, Estelle thought. Cops didn’t drive out across miles of prairie simply to offer condolences.
“Hardly. Your mom said you might be out this way.” The girl nodded but said nothing. “Casey, I am so sorry about all of this. I wish there was something I could say that would make it easier for you.” The girl shrugged helplessly and turned toward the horse, butting her head gently against the horse’s neck in agonized frustration. “Will you try and answer some questions for me?” Casey managed a small nod. “Did Freddy tell you what he was looking for out in the canyon?”
Casey turned away from the mare and slumped against the tank, her elbow resting on the rim. The horse’s ears twitched at the sudden motion. She thought about the question for a long time before answering. “He wanted to find the rest of the skeleton. The jaguar skeleton.” Her voice was small and distant.
“In the canyon?” Estelle asked.
Casey nodded.
“He told Mr. Underwood that he found the skull above Borracho Springs,” the undersheriff added. “Up on the mountain. That’s what the newspaper article quoted him as saying. That’s not what happened?”
Casey brought both hands up and squeezed her cheeks, digging the tips of her fingers into her eyelids. “He didn’t want them to know,” she said. “He didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Know what?” Estelle asked gently.
“He said that there was more stuff in the cave. But he needed…he needed to move a couple of rocks. It was going to take a little time.” The girl took a deep breath. “I told him that he shouldn’t. Like, for one thing, it isn’t on his property. But Freddy didn’t really understand the concept of trespass.” She ground a palm into her right eye.
“You two were out there on Sunday?”
Casey dug out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. “Yes.” The tears wouldn’t stop, and she gave up trying. “Yes. I wouldn’t go in the cave with him.” She managed a ghost of a smile. “Caves are gross.”
“But Freddy had no problems with the spelunking?” Estelle asked. That news about her neighbor didn’t surprise Estelle.
“Oh, no, he sure didn’t. Once he found the cat’s skull…or maybe there’s more skeleton there too…he was so excited. He thought it had to be a mountain lion, and then Mr. Underwood said for sure it was a jaguar. That’s really something, I guess. Everyone got even more excited.”
“And Freddy wanted to go back.”
“I’m sure he did go back, Sheriff.”
“Did anyone see you two out there on Sunday?”
Casey nodded. “Herb came by. Mr. Torrance? Freddy was up in the rocks on the mesa, and I was waiting for him down by the four-wheeler. Mr. Torrance has a little herd out that way, and he said he’d just dropped off a couple nutrient blocks.”
“That’s all he said?”
“That I should be careful of snakes. Like, I needed to hear that. But Freddy wasn’t the least bit afraid.”
“Did he know that Freddy was with you? Did he see him?”
Casey hesitated. “Well, no…I guess not. I mean, I couldn’t see him from where I was standing by the four-wheeler, so Mr. T couldn’t either, I guess.”
“Did you mention to him that Freddy was up in the rocks? That you’d found a cave?”
Casey shook her head. “He probably knows about it, though.”
“Maybe he does. Herb didn’t see the skull?”
“No. He was kinda in a hurry. He had some problem with a calf and he was going out to get some medication. He asked how my mom and dad were doing, and then he left.” Tears seeped from her eyes again, and she turned to the mare, wrapping an arm over the animal’s neck and burying her face in the brown pillow.