“I’m sure no one considers it meddling, Christine,” Gastner said. “Damn hard times for everybody involved.”
“It is.” She turned as her father reappeared from the house, then looked back at Estelle. “Any notions about Johns? Who he tangled with?”
“Not yet,” Estelle replied.
“He talked about his connections south of the border.”
“So I understand. We’re looking at that, but it’s a slim trail.”
“He was shot?”
“It appears so.”
Christine shook her head slowly. “Makes you wonder. Shows that I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t inquire about Eddie Johns going missing. Doesn’t look like anyone missed him enough to look into it.”
“We’re getting a late start,” Gastner said. “Like five or six years too late.”
“You think it happened that long ago?”
“It could have,” Estelle said. “You were full time at the saloon around then?”
“I was. I just quit last year, you know. And here I am, twenty-seven years old, and only a sophomore in college.” She chuckled. “Slow starter, that’s me.”
“What do you think of this college kid?” Gus Prescott said as he approached. Christine reached out and hooked his arm once more, a protective gesture as if she were the parent and he the child. Estelle slipped her notebook into her hip pocket.
“You must be proud, sir. I may need to talk with you again.” When Prescott nodded, he was looking at Gastner, not her. “Christine, how long will you be home?”
“Just this week, probably. I really need to get back to class. I’m not one of those fireballs who can miss half the lectures and still sail through. I want to be able to go to Freddy’s funeral with Casey. I think it’s on Thursday.”
“Well, we’re gonna talk about that,” Prescott muttered, but Christine ignored him.
As they walked back to their respective vehicles, Estelle noticed that Gastner’s gait was even more leisurely than before, but his face wasn’t its usual cheerful self, despite a warm final hug from Christine Prescott. His brow was furrowed in thought and she recognized the vexed set of his mouth and heavy chin. He walked with head down, not soaking in the pleasures of a sunny day on the prairie.
“Check with you in about a mile,” he said cryptically, and headed for his truck. Behind them, Stub Moore was putting the finishing touches on the top of the load, adding the remains of a Chevy Suburban to even the pack. “Oh,” and he stopped short. “You got your camera?”
“Of course, Padrino. ”
“ Do me a favor and take a good picture of that load before Florek gets here with the tractor,” he said. He pointed his index finger pistol-fashion at the trailer.
“Easily done.”
“I’ll meet you in Moore.”
Estelle watched him settle into the truck, and saw him glare at the steering wheel for a moment, then shake his head in disgust. Bill Gastner’s usual unflappable humor had been flapped by something. She unzipped her digital camera and walked off to one side, framing the loaded trailer neatly from margin to margin using the zoom. Both Stub Moore and Gus Prescott watched her, but didn’t intrude. She took a series of a dozen shots, and by the time she closed up the camera, the dust from Bill Gastner’s pickup had dissipated across the prairie.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“You know,” Bill Gastner said, “there’s a lot to be said for being wrong.” He leaned hard against Estelle’s county car, both hands flat on the roof above the window. “I hope to hell that I am.” He nodded toward her camera, still sitting in its boot on the center console. “Lemme have a look at what you took.”
The camera’s preview window was tiny, and when she found the first of the series taken of Florek’s trailer, she held it out toward him, earning a disgusted grimace.
“God damn it, how am I supposed to see that,” he said. “Do some magic or something.”
The “magic” was a simple connection to her lap top computer. Gastner drummed his fingers impatiently on the sedan’s roof. Eventually, the photo popped up in brilliant color. Gastner reached in with his hand and gestured for her to advance the image. Two of the photos included both Stub and Prescott, both staring directly at the camera. Gastner peered at them, frowning. “Back,” he said, and she scrolled the photos back to the first.
“Can you make it bigger?” he asked. “Take my advice, and don’t ever get old.” He touched the screen, indicating the front half of the trailer. “I want to see that.” The image expanded, cropping the edges away. “More. More. And down a little bit.” For a long time, Gastner rested on the window sill as Estelle held the computer balanced on the steering wheel.
“See,” he said, and touched the screen. “This first vehicle. The very bottom one.”
“Not a lot to see,” Estelle said.
“Exactly. Can you tell what it is?”
“No. It appears to be burned, though. Burned and rusted. They’re all rusted. If I had to guess, I’d say that it was a pickup. That’s what Gus Prescott seems to prefer.”
“Don’t think he ever sold one in his life,” Gastner said. “They crap out, and he parks the damn things. ‘Oh, I’ll fix it someday.’ And the someday never comes.”
“The country is littered with them, Padrino. You know, when Francis and I were up in Minnesota, I thought at first that they didn’t collect junk. Everything so clean and green. And then one day I had the opportunity to hike a long, wooded hedgerow between a couple of fields? From a distance, so picturesque. And sure enough…the hedgerow was full of junk.”
“Down south, that’s what the damn kudzu is good for,” Gastner said. “And that’s the whole point. There’s people who trade in their vehicles when they get a new one, and there’s people who don’t. People like Gus Prescott just park the dead stuff. And you know what? They never get rid of it.” He thumped the door sill. “That’s my theory. Even a row of junk is part of their wealth…their accumulated wealth. And then they die before they ever have the chance to clean up their mess. They leave hedgerows of junk behind.”
Estelle looked up at him, and saw that he was staring off across the prairie, jaw set.
“I’m not seeing what has you so upset, Padrino. ”
“ Well, hell. Look at what we got here. Maybe you can’t see it in the picture so well, but I took a good long look. Damned odd that Gus chooses to take this day to get rid of old junk, don’t you think?”
“He wants the money, maybe to fix his grader.”
“ Hell, that grader’s been out of commission for a couple of years. He’s no more going to do a deep overhaul on a big diesel engine than I am.” He reached across and tapped a finger on the screen, none too gently. “That’s a crew cab,” he said, and slapped the door frame with his other hand. “A God damn crew cab. And right there,” and he touched the image again, “you can see the end of the tailpipe.”
“The tailpipe?”
“See it? Crunched up right into the fender?”
“All right.”
“Diesel,” Gastner said. “Turbo diesel with a tail pipe as big as a sewer line. They didn’t do that on older trucks.”
“What are you saying, sir?” Estelle asked, even though she knew exactly what had turned his mood upside down. “That this is Eddie Johns’ s truck?”
He slapped the roof. “I hope to hell not, but…” He turned as the sound of a large truck floated toward them, and in a moment an aging semi without a trailer slowed and pulled off the paved road. In the cab, they could see the heavy, mountain-man image of Cameron Florek. He raised a hand in salute as he drove by, massive tires kicking up a cloud of dust.
“He’s going to be able to cross the arroyo?” Estelle asked.
“He got in with the trailer, so he can get out,” Gastner said. “It’s wide enough that he won’t scrape much.” He patted the door again. “Look, I may well be wrong as hell, but it’s something that needs scrutiny, sweetheart. What color was Johns’ truck?”