“Charlotte, did you ever hear the names Vernon Dorrance and Paul Friedel?”
“Mercy, no. Are they coming by?”
“No.” I took a sip of coffee. “Did you know anything about your husband’s selling antelope hunts?”
“Oh, he did that all the time.” She leaned forward and clasped her hands. “See, my sister’s former husband is a travel agent, and he sometimes makes arrangements for guided hunts.”
“Any time of year?”
“Oh, yes. That’s the wonderful thing about it, my husband told me. If the game animals are on your own ranch, on your own land, you can hunt any time of year without a license, just like the Indians do on the reservation. At first, I didn’t believe that. I guess it sounded just too good to be true. So one day I called the sheriff’s office-your office-and spoke to the sheriff himself. He told me that he didn’t know, but that he’d find out for sure and call me back. He didn’t, mind you. But I felt better just having checked.”
“Is that right?” I said, and took a bite of the sandwich, reflecting that the Department of Game and Fish would be amused at the creative interpretation of their game laws. “Do you remember an incident about three weeks ago with any hunters?”
Charlotte looked puzzled. “Three weeks.” She brightened, then almost immediately frowned. “Oh, my, he was so angry. If I’m remembering the same incident you are, that must be the one. My, he was angry. Two men had come to hunt, sure enough. On a Sunday. The first Sunday in April. I remember now. And then Richard said that after they took a really nice trophy antelope, they refused to pay. He showed them just where to hunt, and everything. And then they refused to pay. Honestly.”
I leaned over and held out the two drivers’ licenses to Charlotte. “Are these the men?”
“Oh, I never met them. He just told me that they’d argued, and that finally he’d been able to convince them that New Mexico laws were different than the laws in Texas. I remember that. So they were from Texas.” She nodded and handed the licenses back to me.
“But you never saw them, or their vehicle?”
“I saw the car from a distance. A little blue thing. Really quite pretty.”
Not anymore, I thought. Neither the coffee nor the sandwich sat any too well, and shortly after that, we left Charlotte to Father Starkey.
“With the jack handle that Torrez found beside Finnegan’s truck in town, and with this, I can’t imagine Judge Hobart wanting to bother with a Grand Jury,” I said as we drove back down the hill toward Posadas. “Edwin Boyd just defended himself. It’s as simple as that.” I looked at the clock on the dashboard of the car and groaned.
“My God,” I said, and Estelle glanced over at me.
“What?”
“The county commissioners’ meeting is in about five hours.”
“Are you going to it?”
“Oh,” I sighed, “I don’t know. What’s the point? They’ll do what they want to do whether or not I’m there. Besides, the service for Martin Holman is the day after tomorrow. I’m supposed to attend, and so are you. And Janice asked if I’d say a few words. I need some time to think about that.”
Estelle reached across and patted my arm affectionately. “You’ll come up with something.”
“If I’m awake.”
“A Don Juan de Onate breakfast burrito will see you through today and the commissioners’ meeting,” Estelle said. “And as far as tomorrow is concerned, I think Martin Holman would have been pleased to know that his photos provided the critical evidence to solve a quadruple homicide.”
“Let me write that down,” I said. “Maybe that will make Janice feel just a little better.”
I showered, shaved, and managed a half-hour nap…enough to keep me awake long enough to meet Neil Costace and Estelle at the Don Juan for an early lunch. A blizzard of depositions and reports ruined the rest of the day, along with a twenty-minute meeting with the county commissioners. I was duly appointed sheriff of Posadas County, and Sam Carter looked satisfied. I didn’t ruin his day by mentioning his tape-recorded hobby.
On Tuesday, despite Janice Holman’s wishes, the memorial service for Martin Holman and Philip Camp filled the First Baptist Church on Bustos. At her request, the law-enforcement officers who attended were dressed in civilian clothes.
At the appropriate moment, Pastor Jeremy Hines motioned to me and I got up to face more than two hundred sober faces. Janice Holman, sitting in the front row, was looking down at her hands, and in a moment of cowardice, I found myself hoping that she would continue to do so. I knew that she had never thought much of her husband’s midlife passion for law enforcement.
I looked down at the lectern where, if I’d had any sense, my notes would have been. I thrust my hands in my pockets. “You know,” I said finally, “Martin Holman used to joke that he never seemed to be able to get anything done. Balky legislators, no money, not enough manpower, outdated equipment.” I smiled. “All the rewards of winning a hard-fought political campaign.” Five rows back, Sam Carter looked pained. “But I just want to say that Martin Holman accomplished far more than he would ever take credit for. He brought a small, rural law-enforcement department out of the Stone Age and into the modern world of computers and instant data checks. And he did that despite criticism from several dinosaurs, myself foremost.”
A light chuckle rippled through the audience, and I frowned. “More important, he insisted on the up-to-date training that has created some of the finest law-enforcement officers in the country. The young men and women who work for Martin Holman’s department receive job offers from some of the most prestigious law-enforcement organizations in the country.” I hesitated, then added, “He even made it possible for some of us to continue doing what we love best, long after some other administrator would have told us to go home and take up needlepoint.
“He would have been pleased to know that the evidence he gathered Friday afternoon also made it possible to resolve a most perplexing, tragic case.” I saw Janice Holman shift uncomfortably. She looked up at me, and I nodded at her.
“But most important, Martin Holman was a good, honest human being who tried his best to make this world a better place for his family and his friends and his community. I don’t think we can ask any more of a man than that. I’m going to miss him.”
I nodded again and sat down. Estelle reached over and patted the back of my hand. Knowing the answer perfectly well, I leaned over and whispered, “Have you talked with Sam Carter yet about the tape recording?”
Estelle Reyes-Guzman looked heavenward.
“I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” I whispered. “It’ll be a nice change of pace.”