“I’m just out prowling, Eddie. I can’t sleep, so I might as well do something instructive. It helps me think.” I looked up at those wonderful heavens again. “And I think I’ll burn some more of the taxpayer’s gas. I’ll be down in the southwest corner of the county if you need anything.”
“Dispatch wants me central, so I’ll be going in circles for a while.”
“Cheer up, my friend. There are some village departments so tiny that the cop has a patrol beat about eight blocks long. He sees every cat and dog twenty times a shift.”
“I’ll take that over Baltimore,” Mitchell said, and once more I wondered what his circumstances had been in that big city. His records, references, and reviews had been nothing but exemplary for the four years he’d been a flatfoot there, but he’d evidently generated no love for the place or the job.
“What time did you see Señor Fuentes at the convenience store?”
“Just a little bit ago. Maybe fifteen minutes. He’s driving that battered white Chevy LUV.”
“I’ll head down his way, I think,” I said, and beamed the flashlight across the open prairie toward Highland once more. “That’ll give me time to think about all this. There’s something we’re missing here, Eddie. When you figure out what it is, let me know.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. And who knew. Maybe over the next seven or eight hours, some flash of brilliant intuition would light up his night sky.
Clear as the night was, what I really wanted to do was cruise along without headlights, enjoying the incredible star display as I drove south. Along State 56, there were long stretches where not a single modest porch light polluted the darkness, where I could see the loom of mesa against the heavens and the star-touched tawny of the prairie. With the windows open, what better elixir could there be.
But Posadas County didn’t pay its undersheriff to spend his time ruminating on the state of the universe overhead, or the fragrance from sage, gramma and creosote bush. So I drove with my headlights on, the damn radio on, my thinking cap on.
Chapter Twenty-three
Reubén Fuentes was a crusty old fellow, seemingly indestructible, battered and brown and wrinkled, reminding me of someone from an earlier century. Some of his escapades south of the border were legendary, and why he wasn’t currently rotting away in a Mexican prison was something of a wonder-except that the Mexican authorities who mattered turned a blind eye to this old guy who preferred to work on the Mexican side, where the language and the law came easy.
But he worried me a little, since in the modern age of mobile phones, computers, credit cards, and just too damn many people, Reubén Fuentes stood out in powerful contrast. He didn’t bathe as often as someone standing next to him in the grocery store checkout might have wished, and the habitual revolver tucked in the ancient leather holster made folks nervous.
He lived with no telephone, no television, and a minimal number of what most of the rest of us considered necessary amenities. I’d had a cup of coffee at Reubén’s place on more than one occasion, and knew that he still brewed the stuff in an old metal pot where the grounds just settled down through the water. Nice crunchy stuff. It complimented his well water, what there was of it, which was as hard as the granite sand through which it passed.
His grandniece had managed to live with the old man for two full years after coming to the United States to finish her high school career, a remarkable accomplishment for a teenager, even one such as herself who’d grown up in a tiny Mexican village with few amenities of its own.
It wasn’t Reubén’s usual day-to-day living habits that worried me. The old man didn’t come into town often, and certainly not in the middle of the night. The drive from his small ranchito to Posadas was a fair chore for someone his age-rough two tracks down to the county gravel, then the miles north to Posadas on a sometimes busy state highway.
I knew the old man to be an early riser, often on the job with the dawn. The border crossing opened at six a.m., and if he was working in Mexico, he and his little white Isuzu-Chevy would be parked there ready to go, loaded with ladders, his battered wheel barrow, shovels, picks, and all the other accoutrements of his masonry. And by that time, he’d have sampled the brew, lacing his morning coffee. He tumbled into bed with the sunset.
His abrupt change of habit tweaked my curiosity. If I drove far enough southwest on State 56, I’d reach Regál, another tiny village nestled on the south flank of the San Cristóbals, within shouting distance of the border crossing that took Reubén to Mexico.
I didn’t let the grass grow, giving 310 a little exercise. Mindful of the desert zoo, I played the spotlight down the shoulder of the road ahead of me, sweeping from side to side to catch the reflection of tiny eyes. They’d bolt, or maybe freeze in place, thinking that the inexplicable oncoming beast would pass harmlessly over their heads. Out past Wayne Feeds, a business that struggled as our county’s economy collapsed, around the bulk of Arturo Mesa to the south and the remains of Moore, a three-family community long turned to dust north of the highway, I crossed the Salinas arroyo on a new state highway bridge that was entirely up to code, unlike the one I’d pondered earlier near María. I saw a set of taillights appear ahead, and overtook the little white truck before we’d covered another mile.
Reubén Fuentes drove like a man who wasn’t sure exactly where he was-and no matter how sober he might be, twenty miles an hour on a state highway was too slow. The truck wobbled now and then, little jerky motions rather than the vague drifting of an inebriated motorist.
A car that comes up behind you like a rocket, then slows without passing, isn’t apt to be your Aunt Minnie. Reubén figured it out without my having to announce my presence with a light display. In a mile or so, his brake lights flared and he pulled onto the wide shoulder. I did the same, keeping a respectful distance behind him when I turned on the flashers.
“PCS, three-ten will be with New Mexico Charlie Frank Nora triple eight, mile marker nineteen, State Fifty-six. Negative twenty-eight.” Ernie didn’t need to run a wants-and-warrant on the registration for me. I didn’t see a current ’89 sticker on the license plate, but the old man probably had it still in the envelope, stuffed in the glove box. Or perhaps not. Just then, I didn’t really want to know. Reubén’s license plate was worn and dented, and of course the little bumper bulb didn’t work.
I’d chewed butt often enough with my deputies, reminding them that, no matter how innocent the circumstances, there was no such thing as a routine traffic stop. I’d told them that enough that I believed it myself. Only one head nodded in the cab, but who knew-an armed felon might be crouched in the passenger seat, waiting for my approach, or lying flat in the truck bed, shotgun at the ready. A little paranoia is a good thing.
“Ten-four, three-ten. When you’re finished there, are you ten-eight?”
“That’s negative.”
“Ten-four.” Ernie Wheeler sounded disappointed that I wasn’t available for calls, as if he’d lined up a fair night’s work for me.
By the time I made sure my vehicular office was secure and stepped out into the night air, Reubén had the driver’s door open, propping it with one boot. As I approached along the shoulder, he turned, putting both feet on the ground and his right forearm on the door.
“Don’t you ever go to bed?” he asked. His absolute calm and innocence might have been the old man’s best defense when dealing with Mexican authorities. A true viejo inofensivo, I’d heard him called. No doubt when he crossed the border, he was a bit more discreet with the handgun.
“Reubén, how are you doing this fine night?” I watched as he pushed himself to his feet, staggered just a little and caught his balance by putting an elbow against the cab. Sure enough, Deputy Mitchell was right-the old man was wearing cheap cotton gloves, and he avoided touching them to the truck.