“No,” I said, and the Realtor laughed.
“You haven’t changed,” he said. “Have you figured out what kind of schedule you’re lookin’ at on the Gonzales place now that you’re back?”
“Sam, you’re supposed to say ‘Welcome back’ first.”
“Welcome back. The surgery went well?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Preston laughed again. “See? I was just saving us time.”
“I told Camille I’d like to take her out to look at it today.”
“That’d be fine. Time?”
“I don’t know. I’ll give you a buzz when we’re ready.”
“Do that. Any word on the youngster?”
“No.”
“What a terrible, terrible thing. The parents must be going nuts.”
“I would think so.”
“Just let me know,” Preston said. “And by the way, it really is good to have you back. What you need to do now is retire and start spending all that stash you’ve been accumulating over the years.”
“Thank you, Sam. I’m touched.”
“You call me, now.”
“I will.”
I hung up, jotted one last remark in the margin, and shoved the last of the paperwork for the proposed January budget into its folder. I did so without hesitation, even though my name appeared several times in the personnel section as a full-time employee. That could be changed with a simple pen stroke, and I confess that the thought gave me a certain amount of comfort.
“Sir?” Gayle Sedillos appeared in the doorway and I looked up. “Sir, you might want to know. Eddie Mitchell is checking out an RV that’s parked in the back of the Posadas Inn’s lot. The sheriff said he wanted at least one deputy available now, while the others are tied up with the search. Eddie was working central and spotted it.”
“And?”
“Apparently it has a Bernalillo County tag. There is also a small child inside. There don’t appear to be any adults in it at the moment.”
My pulse hammered, even though I knew perfectly well what the odds were.
“What’s the tag bring up?”
I followed Gayle into Dispatch and looked at the computer readout. “Registered to a Niel Bronfeld, Corrales, New Mexico.” I took a deep breath. “And no wants or warrants.” I straightened up and looked at Gayle. “Has Eddie talked to them yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Where is he now?”
Gayle slid into her chair, leaned forward, and pressed the mike bar.
“Three oh seven, PCS. Ten-twenty.”
“PCS, three oh seven is at Trujillo Shell.”
“Ten-four.”
“Tell him to stay there,” I said, and reached across in front of Gayle to slip the keys to 310 off the board. Forcing myself to take my time, I trudged out to the unmarked patrol car, unlocked the door, and slid behind the wheel. The last person to use the car had been a smoker, and I grimaced and buzzed down the windows.
It had been five weeks since I’d last sat behind the wheel of 310. Although common sense would explain to even the most feeble-minded that the county couldn’t afford to let expensive patrol units sit idle, I was still irked. I’d driven 310 almost exclusively for the past year and a half and 89,000 miles.
As I pulled out of the parking lot on to Bustos Avenue, the main east-west arterial of Posadas, I turned on the radio.
“Three oh seven, three ten. ETA about a minute.”
“Ten-four.”
I turned south on Grande Avenue and immediately could see, a mile ahead, the interstate ramps. Art Trujillo’s Shell Station was nestled beside the westbound off-ramp, and I saw the county patrol car parked near the car-wash bay on the north side.
Eddie Mitchell lowered his window as I pulled alongside.
“It’s the scruffy-looking WorldWide by the utility pole,” he said. It was no surprise that the deputy had located the RV. Every deputy I’d ever known had a favorite pastime, a way to keep the long, dull hours from piling up to crushing, job-wrecking boredom. One of Eddie’s quirks was cruising parking lots.
Whenever Mitchell was on duty, the dispatcher could count on continuous keypunching as he called in plates.
“And you saw the youngster?”
Mitchell nodded. “I swung around the RV, between it and that retaining wall. He looked out at me through the small back window.”
“Did he wave?”
“No, sir. He just looked at me and then disappeared. He didn’t look happy.”
“No adults?”
Mitchell shook his head. He held up his clipboard and tapped the five-by-eight photograph of three-year-old Cody Cole. The little kid was grinning mischievously, as though he’d just slipped his brussels sprouts under the dinner table to the dog. “I didn’t see him for long, but the resemblance was close enough that I wanted to double-check.”
“How long have you been here?”
Mitchell looked at his watch. “Twelve minutes.”
“They’re probably eating lunch inside,” I said. “Without the kid. That doesn’t make sense, since it’d be a risk to leave the boy unattended. He could attract all kinds of attention.”
“I’m not sure a three-year-old would understand that,” Mitchell said quietly.
“Let’s do it this way,” I said. “I’ll go inside and find this Mr. Bronfeld and have a chat. You might go park near that whale just in case there’s someone inside who’s got a driver’s license.”
Mitchell nodded and I idled 310 across the street to the motel, parking between a custom van from Colorado and a Texas Pontiac station wagon.
“PCS, three ten will be ten-seven at the Posadas Inn.”
“Ten-four, three ten.” If Gayle was feeling any apprehension or excitement, she kept it off the air.
Noontime did not bring a crush of diners at the motel’s restaurant. I stepped inside and Buzzy Ortega grabbed up a menu and greeted me with an enormous smile. The inn had the best iced tea in town, but that was the extent of their accomplishments. The local Lions Club met there, but that was because they didn’t want their meeting interrupted by too much attention being paid to the food.
“Buzzy, how ya doin’?” I said.
He managed to maintain the smile. “I guess walking is good for me, Sheriff.” He patted his midriff. Judge Hobart had jerked his driver’s license for a year after one too many DWIs, but Buzzy Ortega was one of the few people I’d met who’d been able to cope with the inconvenience without getting into even deeper trouble.
I waved away the menu. “I’m looking for a gentleman named Bronfeld,” I said, and stepped past him to look into the dining area. “He’s either checking into a room or eating lunch here.”
“You want me to check the register for you?”
“Just a minute,” I said. Only five of the tables were occupied. One was an elderly couple, a walker standing beside the woman’s chair. Two tables west, a man wearing a trucking company’s logo on his sleeve was eating his way through the soggy, awful burrito special that I’d learned to avoid years before.
Near the window were two young women in animated discussion about who knew what. The table nearest the salad bar was commandeered by five National Guardsmen, looking well rested and clean. A few hours up on the mesa would take out some of the creases.
That left a family two tables behind them, including mother, father, and two children. Both kids were blond.
I ambled over toward them, my hands in my pockets.
“Mr. Bronfeld?”
The man looked up sharply as if I’d jerked his head at the end of a leash. “Yes? I’m Niel Bronfeld.”
I smiled and nodded at the woman sitting beside him. She was pretty and looked ten years younger than she probably was. I kept my voice down and my back to the Guardsmen behind me. “I’m William Gastner, with the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.”
Bronfeld frowned and extended a hand. His grip was limp and nervous.
“Sir, is that your RV out back?”
He leaned over and looked past his wife, out through the elegant fake-wood slotted blinds. He started to nod. Then he saw the county patrol car parked just a few feet in front of the unit, and he turned back to me, concern knitting his brows.