“We think there are some issues,” she said. “We want to make very sure, is all.”
“Ah,” Zeigler nodded. “I suppose so. Nothing is as simple as it seems at the get-go.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“Whatever I can do to help clear things up,” Zeigler said, and I liked him all the more.
“We’re just getting started,” Estelle said. “Give us a few days. Once things are cleared up…” That was as far as she was prepared to go in discussing the case, and Zeigler was astute enough realize it. He settled back in his chair, staring at the mass of paperwork awaiting his attention.
“‘I ain’t going to pay no goddamn lawyers,’” Zeigler said, growling a fair imitation of George Payton’s crusty baritone. “That’s what Mr. Payton told me. That’s why I offered to have Simmons work up the paperwork for him. But that prompts an obvious question.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“Mr. Payton’s daughter is a realtor. It would seem logical to me that he’d just have her take care of the transfer.”
I laughed. “Sometimes being a relative works, and sometimes it doesn’t,” I said. “Maggie Payton is a wonderful lady, Kevin. But she and her dad were about this far apart in personality,” and I held my hands out, spread wide.
“And she might not approve of his giving the property away,” Zeigler added. “We were ready to pay fair market value for it, you know. It’s not as if we were trying to cheat Mr. Payton out of anything. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Once he decided to transfer the property for a dollar, that was that. No more discussion.”
“I’m sure she knew that,” I said. “That may be why she didn’t pressure him.”
“How much was the county going to offer?” Estelle asked.
“Eighty-five,” the county manager said without hesitation. “That’s what we’d penciled in. Just for the lot that borders our current county building property.”
“What was the current assessment on it?”
Zeigler frowned. “You’d have to ask Jack Lauerson to be exact, but the figure I remember is about sixty.”
I whistled. “Well, it’s location, location, location,” he said. “That’s what drives value in these things. The property is right downtown, an obvious addition to the county holdings. In fact, the expansion hinges on that property, so it jacks the value up even more. George could have held out and negotiated us up even more. In fact, if that property was on the open market, I’d expect it to go for close to a hundred. Maybe more.”
“It’s my understanding that George owned a lot of properties around the county,” I said.
“And some outside, I’m discovering,” Zeigler said. “What’s that guy’s name.” He leaned over and pawed through a mound of papers on the left side of his desk. “There’s a rancher up in Newton who wants us to extend a spur from County Road 14 to a piece of his property.”
“Waddell?” I offered.
“That’s it. Miles Waddell. He’s trying to pre-empt some development by the BLM over that way. It’s looking like the feds are going to develop something with the caves, as I’m sure you’re aware. Waddell called me a couple weeks ago and said that he was planning to trade a couple of pieces out of county to Mr. Payton for some little piece over that way.”
“I saw his drill rig,” I said.
“A little premature with that,” Zeigler said. “Anyway, there it is.” He glanced up at the clock. “I just saw Jack walk past, so if you’re needing to see him, this is a good time.”
“It would be,” Estelle said, and pushed herself out of the chair. “Are you going to be free for lunch?”
“I wish,” Zeigler said. “I need to head out to the county maintenance yard to see how much more money they’re going to need.” He smiled ruefully. “It never ends. You guys let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
With the old chair molded around my backside, I was perfectly comfortable, but I could see that Estelle was edgy, so we left the county manager to fight his own fires. A visit to the assessor would add some intriguing parts to the puzzle. It was apparent that George Payton had been a little busier than I ever would have suspected.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Why anyone would want Assessor Jack Lauerson’s job, I didn’t know. Tax is a four-letter word to most folks, myself included. I loved my ancient, sprawling hacienda on Guadalupe Drive, with its too many rooms, sunken library with flagstone floors, all graced with a patio shaded by immense cottonwoods and dense brush that I was going to trim someday. But I cringed every year when Jack’s office sent my tax notice.
By giving Francis and Estelle Guzman the rear four acres of my spread for their new clinic, I’d cut my tax liability a bit…but the annual assessment would still hurt. I felt a little sympathy for the assessor, though. Jack Lauerson must have developed hide tougher than an aging steer. I’d rather deal with armed felons or bovines afflicted with mad cow disease. I couldn’t imagine that the assessor saw many folks who stopped by his office door just to say, “My God, Jack…you did such a great job assessing my house! Thanks a lot! Can I buy you lunch?”
Jack Lauerson’s secretary, a gal who had been in my youngest son’s high-school class and thirty years later still looked like the teenager who’d almost stolen the boy’s heart, beamed at me from behind a mountain of papers.
“Hi, Sheriff!” she chirped, a year behind the loop when it came to titles. “What’s up? Hi, Estelle. Are you keeping this guy on the straight and narrow?” Was I really that wayward, I wondered.
“I’m trying,” Estelle said. And I was trying to remember the young lady’s name. The plaque on the desk said Wanda something, but I couldn’t read the last name. And if my memory served me even a little bit, that last name was the third or fourth for the young lady. “Is Jack available?”
Wanda swiveled her chair to scan the crowded office. One of the other three clerks raised an arm and pointed a finger, and at the same time I spied Jack Lauerson kneeling by a huge file-one of those enormous things with banks of four-foot wide, shallow drawers that stores maps spread out flat and unfolded.
“Caught him,” I said. “May we come around?”
“Of course you can.” Wanda beamed again. Estelle skirted the counter, dodged desks and cabinets and drafting tables, but I paused at the secretary’s desk. “We found this orphan out in the dumpster,” I said, handing her the big stapler. “Thought you might want it.”
Her face crinkled up in astonishment and disbelief. “The dumpster! My God. I wondered where that went.”
“Must have slipped into a trash can,” I said.
“Well, stranger things have happened,” Wanda said, and she turned the stapler this way and that. “My gosh.” She didn’t ask why we’d been rummaging through dumpsters. “Thanks, sir.” I nodded and followed Estelle, arriving at Jack Lauerson’s elbow without trashing half of Posadas County’s records.
Hands deep in the third drawer from the bottom, the assessor looked up at us over the tops of his half glasses as we approached. Small-town folks often wear several hats, and Lauerson was no exception. He’d found the time to coach the high-school varsity girl’s volleyball squad to four state championships, making him the odd combination of hero in one life, villain in another. The fit and trim coach could probably outrun most enraged taxpayers, but I knew he didn’t depend on that. It was hard to stay mad at Jack Lauerson for very long. He’d scratched his head in puzzlement over property values for so long that his hair was thinning to a few strands, combed straight back, stuck to his skull with some kind of shiny gunk.
“You guys have the look,” he said. He extracted a hand from the file, letting a sheaf of maps fall back into place, and shook hands first with Estelle and then with me. His grip was firm and brief, and he took a second to pat the maps back into place before he stood up without a single crack or creak of bones. He nudged the drawer closed with the pointed toe of his boot.