As he passed directly in front of us, I recognized Tommy Pasquale, focused on the highway in front of him, oblivious to traffic from the side roads. Maybe his peripheral vision was gecko-sharp. He didn’t look my way, but powered west. Bustos eventually left the village and became the pothole studded state highway 17, heading westward out of Posadas County.
“One of our boys,” I mused, and watched the kid crank up to speed. Traffic was light, of course-other than a few ranchers or lost tourists, there was little reason to take this particular route. A high school kid playing hooky might head out to the desert for some personal reflection. Maybe. I had had intimate experience with four teenagers when my own brood worked their way through the impossible years, and deep reflection wasn’t a common course of action. Tommy Pasquale was riding as if he needed to burn out the kinks.
When the certified speedometer in the LTD touched twenty-one miles an hour, I was pacing the kid, holding fifty yards behind him. Twenty-one may not seem like light speed, but young Thomas was burning the calories. I’d read enough sporting magazines to know that maintaining anything over twenty miles an hour on the flat and level-and with a hint of head wind-took conditioning and muscle. How long this kid could keep it up was anyone’s guess, but his whole body spoke determination.
The young man never looked behind him. He hunched into the breeze, hands down on the drops, pumping like a machine. Keep that up, and in an hour, he’d be in Arizona.
“Let’s see what he has to say,” I said, and reached for the switch on the radio console. I waited a moment until an oncoming pickup truck towing a stock trailer rumbled past east bound, and then waited again until a long stretch of guard rail slipped by. I lit the roof rack and touched the siren’s yelp mode for a single whoop. That won the cyclist’s attention. His rhythm broke and he cranked around on the saddle to look at us.
I pointed at the shoulder, and he collected his balance again and paid attention as he slowed without turning off the pavement. In a moment he twisted his feet sideways to pop the pedal clips and drifted to a stop. He hopped off and lifted the bike from the macadam onto the grass-dotted shoulder, setting the machine down as carefully as if it were made out of glass.
The county car’s tires crunched off the pavement, cutting through the grass, goatheads, broken bottles and all the other crap that lines our nation’s highways. No wonder the kid was so careful. I lifted the mike.
“PCS, three ten is ten six with a bicyclist, mile marker 34, State 17.”
“Ten four, three ten.” T.C. Barnes didn’t ask what I was doing, but the ten-six request meant we wouldn’t be interrupted unless a storm broke loose somewhere in the county.
“Always,” I said to Estelle Reyes. “No matter how inconsequential, no matter how innocuous. Always keep dispatch informed, especially when you’re going to be out of the car.” Do as I say, not as I do. There were many times when I was loath to blab over the air the details of what I was up to but a rookie didn’t need to start out that way.
Tommy Pasquale watched the performance, standing on the shoulder side of his bike, one hand on the bars, the other on the saddle, probably wondering what he’d done to warrant a traffic stop. I turned off the roof rack, leaving the four-ways on. As I stepped out of the car, he took off his helmet and dark glasses, a courtesy that impressed me.
“Good morning, sir,” he said carefully, and that impressed me even more.
“It is that,” I replied. “You apparently haven’t heard that the minimum vehicular speed on all paved roads in the county is now twenty-five miles an hour? I clocked you at twenty-one.” His face went blank, and I laughed. “Just kidding, Mr. Pasquale.” I stepped far enough off into the bunch grass that I could keep an eye on traffic, should there be any. I let the kid wonder how I came to know his name.
“This is Estelle Reyes, new with the department. We’re doing a little tour this morning, and when I caught sight of you back there crossing Bustos, it reminded me that we had wanted to chat with you.”
He reached out a gloved hand and shook hands with Estelle. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. A husky, powerfully-built kid already breaking six feet tall, Tom Pasquale ran a hand through his rumpled, sandy-brown hair as if concerned that the attractive young lady might catch him at something less than his best.
“Thomas, I wanted to talk with you about Larry Zipoli,” I said, and the kid grimaced, his hand stopping at mid-skull for a second.
“Aw, jeez,” he said, sounding like a teenager from 1955. He dropped his gaze to the grass around his fancy cycling shoes. “That is so bad.”
“You knew Mr. Zipoli pretty well?”
“Sure. Mr. Z was cool.” He glanced at Estelle as if her ears might be too tender for all this. “Well, sort of, anyway.”
“Why ‘sort of?’”
“Well, you know.” I waited for him to finish the thought and could see the march of conflicting emotions across his face. He looked back toward town.
“When was the last time you talked with him?” I prompted.
“Well, it ain’t been too long.”
I smiled. “Up on the mesa the other day?” He looked puzzled at that, so I added, “On the county road out of town?” The light dawned.
“Yeah, me and some of the guys…talked with him for a few minutes. He was workin’ the bar ditch. And he had some trouble with the grader. That old thing leaks like crazy.”
“Some of the guys?”
“Yeah. You know. A couple of us were takin’ the hill.”
The hill. Only an attraction for the young, I thought. Pump up the mesa for five miles, even the paved portion of County Road 43 so steep that the effort threatens to explode your heart, sweat drenching the Spandex, tires cutting groves in the hot asphalt. What fun. Of course, if you were a teenaged adrenalin junkie speed-freak-and I don’t mean the chemical-then maybe the trip down the hill was a fair trade. Glorious wind roaring in the ears, wheels a blur, that patch of sand maybe strategically placed at the apex of a corner…
“Who was with you?”
“Just some of the guys.”
“Just some?”
“Like a couple of the guys.”
“But today you’re solo.”
He ducked his head and glanced back toward town again as if the truant officer might be hot on his trail.
“I’m surprised you’d miss the first day of the first week, Thomas. Kinda tough to slip behind from the get-go, don’t you think?”
“Not much going on, sir.” He made a face. “I was going back this afternoon to catch Spanish and metals.” He shrugged. “Anyway, nobody does anything these two days. Except in Spanish and metals.”
“They hit the ground running, do they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you talked with Mr. Zipoli up on the mesa road, did he mention any kind of troubles he might have had with anybody? Any arguments? Anything like that?”
“No, sir.”
“He didn’t seem worried or apprehensive to you?” The youngster shook his head. “How long did you guys spend there?”
“Just a few minutes. Mr. Z was finishing up something he had to fix on the grader. I think he had a leak somewhere in the hydraulics that was getting worse. We just shot the breeze for a few minutes.”
“Did he have any refreshments with him?”
“Sir?”
“Did Mr. Zipoli offer you anything to drink? It was a hot day, after all.”
“No, sir.” The two words were simple enough to say, but Thomas Pasquale had trouble with them, and his eyes flicked toward Estelle, as if maybe there’d be an ally there. The kid wasn’t a practiced liar.