“Involved somehow, yes. If not as the pilot, then at least as an accomplice.”
“Why a child, for heaven’s sakes?”
“Not a child, sir. I would guess a teenager. Someone old enough to drive a car. Someone with some experience.”
“My lord. This world is going nuts. What do we do, then? What do you need from us? You’ve got prints and things like that?”
“We’re still processing what we have,” Estelle said, avoiding adding, What little we have. She hesitated again, looking at Grider. “One thing that kids have trouble with is keeping their mouths shut,” she said.
Archer laughed ruefully. “Adults, too.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking, sir. I can’t imagine some teenager who has these kinds of aviation skills being so close-mouthed about it…never letting something slip. Never saying anything.”
“But say again…You’re sure that a youngster is involved? I just can’t believe this. You really are?”
“No. But at this point, that’s what I think.”
“Ah…woman’s intuition,” Grider said, managing to make it sound vaguely condescending. “How do you know it’s some kid from Posadas?”
“We don’t, for sure. But it doesn’t make sense to me that someone from Deming would drive over here to steal your gasoline-and then drive to the airport and know the place well enough to steal the right airplane, and then return it? I don’t think so.”
“What do you want from us?” Archer asked again.
“I’d like you to look through that,” Estelle said, indicating the grade book. “I want you to think about your students. Do any of them fly, or come from families who do? Do any of them talk about flying a lot? Do any of them spend time out back with the smokers?”
“Nobody smokes out there,” Grider said quickly.
“Well, then they’re emptying their ashtrays out by the fence,” Estelle said, and sensing Grider’s animosity, changed tacks. “Or is there anyone who you know who is intimately familiar with Mexico? That’s another angle. Someone who knows the country really well.”
“Huh,” Archer said. He beckoned at Grider, and the teacher handed him the grade book. “I’ve been in this district for a long, long time,” he said.
“I know you have, sir.” In fact, no one was as completely familiar with the demographics of his student body as Glen Archer-a teacher of mathematics and history for years, then high school principal for a decade, he had finally taken the new position when the superintendent’s and principal’s job were combined. Estelle watched the older man thumb through the grade book, and reflected that, between former sheriff Bill Gastner and Glen Archer, there were not many unknown faces in Posadas County.
He scanned each class in turn, running a finger down the names. Finally he flipped the book closed almost too quickly and handed it to Grider. “No bells ring for me,” he said. “How about you?” Grider shook his head.
The superintendent pushed himself up and out of the awkward desk. “Let’s take a walk,” he said to the officers. “Matt, thanks for coming down. Are we finished here?”
“I think so, sir. If you’ll lock things up, we’ll probably come back when it’s light for more photos.”
“Buy a better lock this time,” Archer said with a grin, but Grider didn’t share the humor.
“They cut the chain, not the lock.”
“Ah. We probably need to rethink having that tank,” Archer said, and beckoned at Estelle and Torrez. “If you have a few minutes?”
Out in the hall, Deputy Collins was talking with Linda Real, who had just arrived.
“Tomorrow,” Estelle said to them, “let’s rethink this with some light on the subject. I took a couple shots of the cut chain. Make sure things are secure, and then let’s wrap it up.”
Archer led Estelle and Torrez out of the annex, through a short breezeway, and into the main building of the high school. He fumbled with the keyed light switch for a moment, and then nodded down the hall. “This way.” As he walked, he reached out and touched Estelle on the elbow. “I saw when you left the recital last night,” he said. “Great timing, eh?”
“It never fails,” she replied.
“That’s quite a boy you have there.”
“Thank you, sir. He’s a challenge.”
Archer laughed, the sound echoing in the empty building. “Aren’t they all.” They rounded a corner, and fifty feet of hallway extended in front of them, ending in the main foyer behind the double-glass entry doors. He stopped, surveying a display of artwork that hung on the north wall. “Some really fine things,” he said. “Starts with primary students, and goes right through the high school seniors down at the other end.” He strolled slowly, examining the work as if for the first time. “We have two shows a year, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
He had nearly reached the end of the display, a collection of sophisticated artwork that leaned heavily on fantasy, video game violence, or Middle Earth. Beside one piece, the principal stopped and turned to look expectantly at Estelle and the sheriff. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
The watercolor was large, perhaps eighteen inches wide and thirty inches tall. In the lower left of center was a rambling adobe home, neat and tidy but entirely ordinary with chile ristras hanging from the vigas on either side of the doorway. Two figures were in the front yard, waving wildly. Pulling up steeply to avoid the family and the home was a bright yellow biplane, a crop duster, the mist from its sprayers still wisping off the nozzles.
“Caramba,” Estelle said. “This is amazing.”
“Yes, it is,” Archer said. “You know, when I first saw it, my reaction was a bit negative. For one thing, I’ve seen the picture before, only in different form. There’s a picture that I’ve seen several times in some of those aviation junk-mail catalogs-the crop duster pulling up sharply to miss the barn? This is the same perspective. He’s changed the barn into a house, changed the Stearman, I think it is in the original, into a Grumman Ag Cat. But technically, he’s really got the touch, doesn’t he?”
“Hector Ocate,” Estelle read from the label, and her stomach felt as if it were full of lead.
Chapter Sixteen
“I didn’t say this back in the classroom, but I need to now, before we go any further with this.” Glen Archer spoke with his eyes locked on the painting. “I guess nothing surprises me anymore in this crazy world, but what you’re telling me…I don’t know what to think.” He fell silent for a moment, still lost in the painting.
“I want to be sure that Mr. Grider has nothing to do with any of this,” Archer said. “I sensed some hostility in his attitude toward you folks, and that’s unacceptable. We’re here to cooperate.”
“He’s just protective,” Estelle said. She glanced at Bob Torrez, who had played the role of silent stone-face to perfection. That in itself had been enough to make Grider nervous.
“Well, maybe,” the superintendent said. “I’d like to think that.”
“We appreciate your concern, sir. But a lot of folks don’t care to have us snooping into their lives,” Estelle said. “That doesn’t mean they have anything to hide.”
“I would hope not,” the superintendent said. “But I want to be sure. Mr. Grider does a good job with a difficult program, but we don’t always see eye to eye on things-especially money matters. We just don’t have any extra funding, and Mr. Grider takes any cut or refusal personally, I think. You may remember some of his letters to the editor in the Register.” He made a face of impatience. “But that’s his right, and that’s not why you’re here, is it? This youngster,” and he touched the matting of the picture, “is an incredible talent. He’s an exchange student, as you may already know. Just a wonderful boy. He’s in Mr. Grider’s welding class-I know that for sure. I would hope that he isn’t into something. I can’t even imagine something like you describe. Do you really think that a youngster took that airplane? And murder? That just doesn’t…You really think he did?”