I dug a toe of my Wellington boot into the dirt. “The list of what we don’t know is much, much longer. Were there other shots fired that didn’t hit the grader? What kind of gun was it? Did the victim know the shooter? Hell, did the shooter know who the hell he was shooting at? Or that she was shooting at? We could go on and on with questions, like the basic one…why.”
Salcido reached out and took the bundle of unused flags that Estelle had collected. “I’d like to have that list,” he said. “You’re assuming it was no accident.”
“I don’t believe it was,” I said. “I hope I’m wrong.” I turned to Bob Torrez. “Today I want to know everything there is to know about that recovered bullet, Bobby. That’s a start. That’s something we have. I want a firmer handle on the trajectory. That would be your best guess how far away the shooter was standing, if you take five feet from ground to rifle barrel as an average.”
I turned to the other deputy. “Tom, the thought occurred to me that you could borrow a laser from one of the county surveyors and shoot a beam to establish a trajectory. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe that wouldn’t work. Lasers don’t drop over distance, bullets do…and there’s the issue of deflection when the bullet hit the glass.” I waved a hand, orchestrating frustration. “Hell, I don’t know. But try it. Try anything.”
Tom Mears nodded as if he perfectly understood my ramblings. I glanced at my watch. “I’m headed over to the county yard to talk with Zipoli’s supervisor. Tony didn’t have much to say about any maintenance issues, or with something broken on the grader, but if there was, they’ll have some record of it. He’ll have scouted that out. Somebody will remember something. I want to know what Larry Zipoli was doing when he was shot. The grader was running, but the transmission was in neutral. Go figure that one. He wasn’t stopped to talk with someone, not with that noisy diesel running. So why? And it’s a start with one fundamental question…does anyone have a single notion about why somebody would want to shoot Larry Zipoli.”
“Would want to?” Salcido frowned.
“Sure as hell, would want to,” I replied. “If it’s not an accident, then the shooter has to want to pull the trigger. That’s not rocket science, is it. But it gives us a trail to be followed. And I had an interesting conversation with Marilyn Zipoli last night. Her husband had some issues with a neighbor. We’ll see about that. I’ll talk to that neighbor today and see where that takes us.” I slapped my belly. “I wish my gut told me something intuitive, but it doesn’t. So we plug along, check under all the rocks and in the dark little corners.”
“And my gut…I wish it would go away.” The sheriff rubbed his girth. “This neighbor…you’re talking about Jim Raught?”
“That’s the one.”
“I don’t know him very well.” But obviously he did know Raught, after a fashion. Eduardo Salcido probably knew ninety percent of the Posadas County residents.
“I don’t either, Eduardo. But we’re going to know him.”
Salcido laughed ruefully. He regarded Estelle Reyes for a moment with an expression of almost paternal pride. He knew Estelle’s great uncle Reuben better than I did, enough to consider him an old friend. “Are you ready for all this?”
She didn’t just belt out a chirpy, enthusiastic, unthinking “Yes, sir.” Instead her face darkened a bit, eyebrows knitting. “No one should get away with something like this,” she said.
“Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo,” the sheriff murmured, and Estelle smiled.
“That’s one of my mother’s favorite sayings,” she said.
“Well, you listen to her. And you listen to this one.” He nodded toward me before starting to turn away, then paused. “We all pay attention, and the son of a bitch won’t get away with pulling that trigger.”
Eduardo Salcido didn’t cuss much, but he was as frustrated as I was. He settled his Stetson again and nodded at the young lady. “And my best wishes to your mother.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He grinned at me and pulled his Stetson down the military two fingers above his eyes. “I heard about last night,” he said. “With Officer Murton.” Again, he enjoyed each of the three syllables. I’m not sure what kind of off-i-cer he thought Murton to be. “Those badges…they sometimes take a walk, don’t they.”
“Minds of their own,” I replied.
“I’m going to work this section of the village.” Salcido swept a hand to include the houses just to the south of us, where he and I had spent time the evening before. “One at a time. Somebody heard something, you know. You can’t fire a high-powered rifle this close to houses and not hear it. All those folks yesterday who claimed not to hear nothing…maybe they’ve had time to think it over.” He turned back with a look to include us all. “Anything at all…I want to hear about it sooner rather than later.”
As he trudged back toward his car, I turned to Estelle. “What’s the dicho mean?” I didn’t know much Spanish-what three years in a North Carolina high school forty years before could teach. I didn’t mind when others settled into their home language, leaving us gringos behind. After all, it was my choice to remain so clumsy and inept in that language of the border.
“Literally, ‘the devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil.’ A colorful way to say that experience is the best teacher.“
“Ah. Well, we’ll see. Right now, I’m feeling just this side of stupid.” I sighed. “Are you ready to meet some people who may not be so excited to meet us?”
“Yes, sir.” No hesitation there.
Chapter Ten
The Posadas County maintenance barns were on north Third Street. If Third had crossed the big arroyo that scarred the north side of the village, it would have intersected Highland in a quarter mile or so. The county barns and bone yard were close enough to Highland that anyone working outside should have been able to hear a rifle shot clearly.
But this was the rural southwest. Shooters abounded, whether slaying beer cans on the mesa, rattlesnakes invading the yard, or ravens ravaging a song bird’s nest. No one took particular notice of gun shots. Shots.
This had been, as far as we could tell, a single shot, in my book one of the most lethal sounds. One bullet was all it took if the shooter knew what he was about and conditions were right. During hunting season, if I heard blam, blam, blam, blam, I could guess that the deer or elk or antelope had probably escaped unscathed, the flurry of bullets kicking dust. But one, solitary, definitive blam…that was a different scenario. A critter dropped in his tracks. Or Larry Zipoli dead before he could move a hand to the gearshift, or duck to safety.
I swung 310 through the boneyard’s generous gate in the chain link and razor wire boundary fence, and drove cautiously through all the junk before reaching the maintenance office, housed at the north end of a long, steel building with four gigantic bay doors. Two were up, two down. In one, a twin-screw dump truck was resting on jacks, its hind-most differential in a thousand pieces. One of the county pick-up trucks was backed into the other open bay.
Parking directly in front of a single door marked Office, I lowered the front windows on both sides, then nodded at the mike without reaching for it. “PCS, three ten is ten six, county barn.”
Without hesitating, Estelle slipped the mike off its hook and repeated the message, her tone measured and pronunciation distinct without being exaggerated.