For a second, I was ready to ask, “George who?” but then I caught up. “I haven’t,” I said, “but then again, I haven’t heard much of anything from the real world this afternoon. We’ve been chasing shadows.”
“I don’t get it,” Herb said, and he could have been referring to the whole day.
“You have lots of company,” I said. “How’s Dale?”
“He’s a mess. You ought to see the x-ray of his knee.” He shook his head helplessly. “They got pins goin’ every which way.” And he might be the lucky one, I thought.
“It’ll turn out fine,” I said instead. “He’ll sit around the house for a few days until he gets the itch, and then he’ll try to figure out how to ride a horse with his leg in a cast.”
“It’s more’n just a damn cast,” Herb said. “Like walkin’ around with the whole damn hardware store bolted to his leg.” He shrugged philosophically, but I could imagine that his worries were growing. His son Dale and Pat Gabaldon were the sum of his ranch hands, and the work burden on his wiry old shoulders would now triple. On top of that, I couldn’t imagine that Dale had any health insurance, and a new knee didn’t come cheap.
“Lemme know,” Herb said finally, and pulled his truck into gear.
Even as I recrossed the narrow county road, Deputy Tom Pasquale’s SUV cruised down the hill, and he raised a hand in salute as he pulled to a stop. “Sheriff’s hangin’ out for a few minutes,” he called to Estelle.
Bobby Torrez would do that, enjoying some silent time alone, mulling whatever it was that needed mulling. He’d still be there when Herb arrived, and the two of them would mull some more. Maybe something would come of it.
As if she could sense my slump, Estelle said, “We have word out to everyone. State police, Border Patrol, neighboring counties-if Pat’s to be found, it’ll be soon, sir.”
“Sure enough,” I said. “I wish I shared your optimism.” I glanced at the time. “You headed back home now?”
“Yes. Are you ready to finish dinner?”
Normally, of course, that would have been a silly question. “Thanks, but I think I’ll just mosey around for a while,” I said.
Chapter Seventeen
I’ve always been thankful that few clever people turn to a life of crime. Sure, there are some successful criminal minds whose misdeeds never catch up with them-perhaps more than we would like to know. But the vast majority commit the crime when their snowball starts down the hillside, and then they decide to think, often too late-and that’s what makes the cop’s job possible.
The notion that if I could pinpoint the mistakes, that I could find the trail leading to the site of Pat Gabaldon’s misadventure, fed my insomnia. Everyone else had something pressing to do. Estelle was on the phone with Albuquerque and her deputy there, trying to fit pieces into the Payton puzzle. I didn’t know where Sheriff Torrez was prowling, but despite his taciturn nature, he had a good head for puzzles. He also understood that the rest of the county’s activities didn’t come to a stop because of a single incident or two.
I needed to stay out of the way and find something constructive to do. After retrieving my SUV from the Guzman’s, I drove back out to Bustos Avenue and headed east to the intersection of Grande. Why someone would steal a fancy, almost new truck and livestock trailer was obvious-it was worth a ton of money, even south of the border where money wasn’t knee-deep except for the drug cartels. Given the chance, Pat Gabaldon would have had a thing or two to say about that plan-and that was the key…given the chance.
I found myself parked at the intersection of Bustos and Grande, the one traffic light in town, and watched it cycle two or three times.
An infinite number of places around Posadas County would offer good sites to dump a body unseen. In some of them, weeks, even months, might pass before the cluster of ravens and vultures attracted attention. If a killer didn’t want a body to be found, success didn’t require rocket science. A grave only two feet deep would foil the most curious coyote.
A station wagon pulled up behind me, then swung out and passed when the light turned green and I didn’t budge. The driver could have had two heads for all I noticed.
Why would the hijackers bother to haul Pat Gabaldon’s carcass down off the mesa? Why not just drag him off into the trees, well away from the two-track? Somebody was being clever, I decided. But they should have taken the dog along. That was the first mistake. If the whole kit and kaboodle had gone missing-truck, driver, dog-we wouldn’t have known where to start.
Herb Torrance’s rig would have come down off the mesa on County Road 43. That was the only route, other than a Jeep trail or two on the west side. Then, State Highway 56 was the logical route south to the border crossing, where the rig had been spotted next. They’d certainly avoid the huge, international border crossing between El Paso and Juarez, where too many sets of keen eyes and noses guarded the gates.
But only an idiot would approach the border-crossing check point with a corpse in the vehicle, or someone tied up and gagged on the rear floor of the crewcab. If the hijackers had whacked Pat Gabaldon and heaved the body into truck or trailer, they’d grow uneasy as the border approached. The crossing at Regál was open twelve hours a day, six to six. Risking the check station in broad daylight with a corpse or captive didn’t make sense.
The Mexican desert was a great dumping ground, true enough. But the risk of trying to cross was too great. Drivers never knew when a customs agent from either side would point to the parking lot, demanding a search. No. Pat Gabaldon had been dumped somewhere between Cat Mesa and Regál.
I let the SUV idle through the intersection, turning right onto Grande. If the truck thieves knew Posadas, there were any number of alleys and empty lots where a body could be dumped. But they were driving a big rig with an imposing twenty-four-foot long fifth wheel trailer-intimidating if they weren’t used to that sort of thing. City byways and alleys wouldn’t be my choice.
Several blocks south, Grande passed under the Interstate, and once out of the village, I faced almost thirty miles of rumpled country. I slouched in the seat, all four windows down, speed just fast enough that the SUV wouldn’t shift down out of drive.
In the twenty-six miles between Posadas and the Broken Spur saloon, there were less than half a dozen two-tracks off into the rough country. The first was just beyond Moore, the remains of a tiny village that had folded for good in the early 1950s. I slowed and pulled off the highway. Building foundations jutted out of the bunch grass and koshia, and the Moore Mercantile loomed in my headlights, its board and batten skeleton slumping a bit more each season.
Both state police and sheriff’s deputies liked to park in the shadow of the Merc and run radar, and in the glare of my headlights and flashlight, I could see the tire prints where the cops swung in and parked.
Stopping the truck, I shut off the engine. For a minute the ticking of its guts intruded, but then the silence filled in. No ranch dogs barked in the distance, no traffic hissed on the asphalt, no aircraft moaned overhead. The silence was heavy. I found my phone, flipped it open, and touched the choice for Pat Gabaldon’s number. Nothing. I closed my eyes and listened harder. Still nothing.
Snapping the phone off, I started the Chevy and idled back out to the highway. Headlights popped on the eastern horizon, and I waited, my lights off, while the westbound vehicle approached. The lights flooded over me and the large SUV braked hard. Deputy Tom Pasquale swung in so that we were door to door.
“Quiet, huh, sir.” He took the opportunity to pick up his log and jot a note. No doubt, I was now officially recorded. “I was going to take a swing back down through Regál, just to see.”