“Seeing something on the ground was the threat,” Estelle said. “It had to be.” She reached out and tapped the schematic. “And it’s an aircraft that locals wouldn’t recognize, unless they’d been down at the airport during the past week. And”-she tapped it again-“look at the registration.”
I took a step closer. “There isn’t anything on the diagram,” I said, but Estelle was already turning away from the table.
“No, but over there-” She pointed at the remains of the Bonanza’s aft fuselage. The large black lettering, torn and bent, was still clear.
“Gulf Victor Mary Alpha,” I said. “With a hyphen between the Gulf and the Victor.”
Estelle nodded. “And even someone without any particular knowledge of airplanes would see a registration number on the rear of an aircraft and assume that it was, in fact, the registration.”
“And so?” I asked.
“Sir, I think that whoever fired the shot saw the one thing that was unique about this aircraft-the large lettering on the fuselage-and made an assumption about who was in the plane. He saw letters, maybe inaccurately, and made an assumption that the aircraft posed a threat to him.”
“It would be easy to think the V was an N-that would make part of the registration NM, or New Mexico,” Buscema said. “And if Detective Guzman is correct, the assumption might have been that the aircraft was an official one. A state plane.”
“And maybe the G represented ‘Game,’” Tom Pasquale said. “And the A for ‘Agency.’”
Despite the edge on everyone’s nerves, I laughed. “Let’s not get carried away,” I said. “Maybe, maybe not. At least it gives us something to think about.”
I dragged the cellular phone out of my pocket and punched the auto-dial button for the sheriff’s office. Ernie Wheeler answered.
“Ernie, have Sergeant Mitchell and the federal agents returned yet?”
“That’s negative, sir.”
I glanced at my watch again and saw that it was pushing seven-thirty. “Have they called in?”
“No, sir. Do you want me to try to raise them? I don’t think the radio repeater carries into some of that area, and Eddie might not have taken the phone from his unit.”
“Do that,” I said and punched off. “They’ve been out there long enough,” I said to Estelle. “If they’ve collected rifle shell casings, the first thing you want to do is a preliminary firing-pin imprint comparison. You can do that with the stereoscope in Francis’ lab. First that, and then extractor marks, just in front of the rim.” Estelle nodded, far more expert with a microscope than I.
“That will give us an idea,” I continued. “In the meantime, Bob, I want you to come with me. We’re going to have a little chat with Mr. Boyd and Mr. Finnegan.” Estelle frowned, but she didn’t say anything. I stepped over to the wreckage and eyed the torn aluminum. “Vince, I want to take this with me,” I said and tried to lift the section of fuselage with the most legible registration. “You got metal shears with you? The skin’s about torn loose anyway. Just this small section. None of the framework behind it.”
“What are you going to do with that?” Buscema asked.
“A little target-recognition contest,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The instant that Sergeant Robert Torrez switched on the ignition of his unit, the radio barked into life, catching dispatcher Ernie Wheeler in mid-sentence.
“…seven, PCS. Try channel two.”
A few seconds of silence followed, and I reached forward and turned the volume up slightly. By then, we were headed out of the airport parking lot onto State 78.
“Three-oh-seven, PCS. Do you copy?”
Static followed, and I keyed our mike. “PCS, three-ten is ten-eight.”
“Three-ten, PCS, ten-four. Did you copy a transmission from three-oh-seven?”
“Three-ten, negative.”
My telephone chirped and I dug it out of the jumble of papers between the seats. “Gastner.”
“Sir, Mrs. Boyd just called.” Linda Real’s tone was clipped and businesslike, but the words came so rapid-fire that I had a hard time keeping up. “I’ve still got her on line one. Apparently her husband received a telephone call-she doesn’t know from who-and then he left the house on the run. Mrs. Boyd said he was really angry. And he took a gun with him.”
“Linda,” I said, “slow down. Boyd left the house with a weapon after receiving a telephone call? Is that what his wife is saying?”
“That’s right, sir.”
I swore under my breath. “And she didn’t know who called?”
“No, sir.”
“Ask her again.”
I heard mumbling in the background, and about a minute later, Linda came back on the line. “She has no idea. She said that her husband listened and that she heard him cuss a couple of times. And then he said, ‘Thanks a lot,’ and hung up.”
“Is Johnny’s brother home? Edwin?”
“Just a minute, sir.”
I could picture Linda with a telephone against each ear. I watched the highway in front of us as the white lines and the double yellows blended into a high-speed blur.
“Sir, she said Edwin’s not home. He went into town earlier.”
“Probably to the goddam bar,” I muttered. Edwin liked the sauce anyway, and a hurting knee would encourage him even more.
“Yes, sir,” Linda said without a trace of surprise in her voice. “Ernie has been trying to raise Sergeant Mitchell on the radio, but apparently they’re in a dead spot. And he hasn’t responded to the phone. Ernie said for me to contact you while he kept on trying the radio.”
I only half heard Linda’s explanation as my mind raced ahead. Bob Torrez had come to the same conclusion I did, because he accelerated hard. “Linda, tell Mrs. Boyd to stay in the house and to stay off the telephone. We’re going to head up that way. And, Linda?”
“Sir?”
“I don’t want any other traffic getting in our way. Tell Ernie that. Everyone stays put until they hear from me. While you’re there, give me the Finnegans’ phone number. Ernie knows it by heart.”
She did so, and before I dialed, I took a second to tighten my shoulder harness, hoping that Torrez remembered that the intersection of State 78 and County 43 involved a right-angle turn.
While I tried to fit my fat finger on the tiny buttons of the damn phone, I glanced at Torrez. “I wouldn’t put it past old George Payton to have called Johnny,” I said. “Maybe he figures it’s the least he could do for him.”
Charlotte Finnegan answered the phone on the second ring. Her “Hello” sounded like the whimper a child might make peeking around a door into a darkened room.
“Mrs. Finnegan, this is Sheriff Gastner. Let me talk with your husband, please.”
“This is Sheriff Gastner?”
“Yes, ma’am. Is Richard there?”
“We don’t have a very good connection,” she said reprovingly. “I can barely understand you.”
“Mrs. Finnegan, this is Sheriff Gastner.” I slowed down and exaggerated the enunciation as if she could read my lips across the phone lines. “I need to talk with your husband.” I braced my feet against the firewall as I saw the signs announcing the intersection with the county road.
Even as we squawled around the corner and emerged wheels-side-down heading northbound on 43, I heard Mrs. Finnegan say, “Richard went into Posadas, Sheriff.”
“He’s in town?”
She laughed apologetically. “I was rearranging the pantry and discovered I was out of canning lids.”
That stopped me short. I frowned and braced my free hand against the dashboard as we blasted up a series of tortuous ess curves below Consolidated Mining’s access road. “You were what?”
“I was out of canning lids. I know it’s early, but I find that if I don’t do things just when I think of them, why, when I need something, it’s not there. Now Richard came in earlier and mentioned that he needed several rolls of duck tape for morning. You know he’s working on that pipeline. And so as long as he needed that, I just added to the list.” She sounded most pleased with herself. “I believe the Day-Night market on Grande has both the tape and the canning supplies.”