By then Estelle was turning left on Piñon Street with the high school in view on the other side of the athletic field ahead, its security lights making it look like a row of five various-sized boxes attached end to end. “We’re over behind the vo-tech wing,” Torrez said. She could make out the gathering of vehicles as she turned onto Olympic and skirted the athletic field. There were just enough outside lights around the school to make an intruder’s job easier, pools of bright light alternating with inky darkness.
She eased in behind the sheriff’s Expedition, and before she had shut off the engine, Deputy Dennis Collins trotted out of the shadows cast by the nearest building.
“We’re over behind the auto mechanics wing,” he announced as she got out of the car. “The back gate is open.”
“Is that the way they gained entry?”
“We think it is. The lock is cut.”
The chain-link fence started at the corner of the redbrick building, extending outward a dozen yards to enclose an eclectic assortment of junk. Until the chop of budget cuts ten years before, the building had housed the wood and metal shops, auto mechanics, and vocational agriculture, and the area behind the building had been the natural overflow area. The vo-ag program had been the first victim of the budget woes, but the boneyard behind the building still housed a fair collection of portable steel stock panels, two partially disassembled tractors, and one dual-axle stock trailer.
Collins led her around the fence to a rolling gate. He paused, pointing with his flashlight. “They cut this chain. Real tricky.” He held the light close. “See that?” Two links of the chain, almost behind the side post and well away from the padlock, were tied together with a short piece of insulated black electrical wire. “They didn’t touch the lock. If you don’t look close, it looks okay. It’s hidden behind the post.”
“This is what you noticed first?”
Collins nodded. “My brother did this once,” he said. “Back in Akron, though,” he added hastily.
“Ah,” Estelle said. “Clever. Make sure Linda shoots this.” She looked through the fence toward the dark corner of the building where the other officers were gathered. “How do we get in?”
“When I saw this, I called Matt Grider,” Collins said. “’Cause I knew exactly what was happening. The guy can slip through here whenever he wants. No one the wiser.” He flashed the light toward the building. “The gas storage tank is over there beside that metal shed. I called Matt, and he opened the side door of the building for me so I could get in. Sure enough,” he said with considerable satisfaction. “The lock on the tank is cut.”
Estelle turned and looked at the street behind them. The gravel lane provided obvious opportunities-out of the way, out of sight.
“Let’s see the rest,” she said.
The rest was simple enough. The storage tank, a 250-gallon drum on short pipe legs, included a hand pump-the sort of arrangement that was standard on farms and ranches, or anywhere that the long arm of OSHA didn’t reach. Matt Grider, an angular, morose young man with a shaved head that accentuated his speed-brake ears, was talking to Sheriff Torrez as Estelle approached from the back door of the school’s shop.
“Kinda interesting,” Torrez said. He pointed his flashlight first at the padlock on the pump. “The hasp is cut. Just swing the lock off, and we’re in business.” He swung the light to the door of the storage shed. “Matt says there’s a couple of jerry cans in there. We ain’t touched the door yet. Don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what we’ll find.”
“Linda?” Estelle asked.
“She’ll be along. Take a couple of shots, though. We need to get in there,” Torrez said, and Estelle nodded. She rapped the side of the gas storage tank with a knuckle.
“Mr. Grider, thanks for coming out,” she said. “Do you use this often?”
“No, ma’am,” Grider replied. “We used to. When we work on a vehicle, once in a while we need gas.”
“When was it filled last?” Torrez asked.
Grider fell silent, mouth pursed in thought. “Sometime last spring, I guess.”
“Not exactly fresh, then,” the sheriff said. “Not too bright dumpin’ it in an airplane.”
“You guys want to tell me what all this is about?” Grider asked uneasily.
“Someone’s stealin’ gas,” Torrez said, and let it go at that. “How much did you have in this? Do you remember?”
“Honestly, I don’t. Maybe half. Maybe three quarters. Like I said, we don’t use it much. I could look up the paperwork.” He looked first at the sheriff and then at Estelle, perhaps wondering why the theft of a few gallons of gasoline would attract such attention. “What happened?”
“Good question,” Torrez said. He turned to Estelle, ignoring Grider. “Gravel parking lot,” he said. “No tracks for shit.” He took her by the elbow and together they walked toward the gate. “This don’t fit,” he said when they were out of earshot of Grider and Collins. “We’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. This is the work of some kid. Some punk who wants gas for his four-wheeler. At three-fifty a gallon, even old gas is worth takin’.”
“I think that’s who we’re dealing with, Bobby.”
The sheriff stopped short, waiting.
Her stomach tightened its knots now that she had voiced the notion. “Look at the pieces. Number one, he climbs the airport fence, or slips through somehow, and does it with full cans of fuel. Even if he pulls a pickup truck up beside the fence where it’s only four feet of barbed wire, hops in the back, and then goes over, that takes strength and agility.”
The sheriff remained silent, his signal for her to continue.
“That’s one. Number two, he goes through the back of the building, slipping through a small piece of bent siding. That takes strength and agility, too. And he’s no giant. Maybe he only did that once, because after he was inside, he had the keys. Then he takes the plane and, more important, returns it-that takes some guts and some planning, too, and that flair for risk that appeals to kids. He flies a route to who knows where, at night-and then returns, again at night, making a risky landing on a small strip with a plane carrying a heavy load.” She paused. “It just seems to me that the odds are so stacked that most adults would hesitate. This pilot doesn’t. Have you ever met a teenager who didn’t think he was immortal?”
Torrez grunted. “They all do.”
“What’s a professional drug runner do?”
“Meaning what?” the sheriff said.
“Meaning this: They take an airplane, or actually buy one. Load it full. If there’s any sign of trouble, the plane is abandoned. Not a look back. They cut their losses and run to fly another day. But think about it. What’s this guy doing? He’s being cute, Bobby. So clever that he’s leaving kid prints all over everything.”
“Kids don’t shoot whole families.”
“That’s the joker in this. Forget the murders for a minute and concentrate on Jerry Turner’s stolen airplane. It’s a kid. I just feel it. It has all the earmarks. Especially now. Who would be most likely to steal the gasoline from this particular storage tank? Someone who knows it’s there, for one thing. Maybe someone who can figure out that there might be jerry cans in the shed.”
“Yup. That’s teachers or kids.” He turned and gazed across the dark compound to where Collins now talked with Linda Real, with Grider standing by the door, hands thrust in his pockets.
“Cutting the chain and then retying it with a piece of wire? Putting the tank lock back so that it looks okay at a passing glance? It all fits. That’s a kid’s mentality, being clever so he isn’t caught. Collins said his brother did the same stunt years ago.”
Torrez traced idle circles on the gravel with his flashlight beam as he mulled over what Estelle had said. “If we got us a kid flying Turner’s plane, then the pilot ain’t the killer. That’s the work of a professional.”