“I have no idea. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he talked to Janet before he shot her.”
“And maybe dumb luck,” Gastner observed. “You don’t have a lick of evidence that she talked to anybody in that bank parking lot. And after he does that, and then steals the gun, which he didn’t need to kill Janet, by the way, he comes over to my house and clubs me on the head.” He looked at Estelle skeptically. “I don’t know, sweetheart.” He sipped the coffee and out of thirty years’ habit as a smoker, his left hand drifted to his left shirt pocket, searching for a phantom cigarette.
After a moment, he leaned back. “You don’t actually have anything that ties the two incidents together, though. Am I right?”
“Nada.”
“If you’re right-and I’ll be the first to admit that your intuition has a pretty good track record-you’re saying that somehow there’s a connection between Janet Tripp and myself. Something in common.”
“It would appear so, sir.”
“Well, you know my shadowy past pretty well, sweetheart. The next step is to find out what you can about Ms. Tripp. Some little thing. What’s Bobby say about all this?”
“He comes home today, Padrino.”
“Well, he’s got a good head on his shoulders, and he’s got a hell of a lot of good connections with all kinds of dark little corners around the county. Go poke around and see what you come up with.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“Of course I’ll be all right.” He patted the smooth maple of the chopping-block counter. “I’m in my castle now.”
“Maybe you’d like to come over for dinner later tonight?”
“Sofía already invited me,” he said with a grin. “She promised something with a name about this long,” and he held his hands a yard apart. “Something that involves red snapper and chile. How bad can that be?”
“Ah, huachinango a la veracruzana,” Estelle said. “She’s been planning that for a while. She complains that there’s no fresh red snapper in Posadas.”
“This is surprising?” Gastner laughed. “Let’s see how the day goes, sweetheart. We all know what happens when we try to plan something.” He rose and stepped to the coffeepot to refill his cup, and Estelle slipped back into her jacket.
“I’ll let you know what Bobby says.”
“Do that,” Gastner said. “I’ll be home all day, and after that, I’ll be over at Twelfth Street as chief taste-tester for the chinchang.”
“Huachinango, Padrino.” He accompanied her to the front door.
“It’s a good thing you guys aren’t going to take her up on her suggestion to move down there. I can just imagine my North Carolina tongue trying to wrap itself around that Aztec language,” he said.
“Mayan, Padrino.”
“But you’re Aztec, aren’t you?” His warm eyes took in the outlines of her face with affection. “You wouldn’t fit in down there, anyway. Wise decision.”
“Nos vemos,” she said with a resigned shrug. “There’s a whole world of things I have to think about. One step at a time. Right now I’m working on making it through to dinnertime.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The expression on Robert Torrez’s face jolted Estelle to a stop at the doorway of the sheriff’s tiny, bleak office. He was always master of the threatening glower, whether there was any bite behind it or not, and the dark storms on his broad, handsome face were now classic in their proportions.
He looked up so slowly it appeared that his neck muscles were actually a set of smooth hydraulic pistons. His skull clicked to a stop as his eyes locked on Estelle’s.
“Welcome back,” Estelle said, although she could plainly see that words of welcome were wasted on the sheriff. Whatever orders the Albuquerque physicians might have given to their patient, it didn’t surprise Estelle that the sheriff had headed for his office the moment he arrived home in Posadas.
“Yeah,” Torrez said. He flipped a piece of peach-colored paper across his desk toward her. “What the fuck is this?” Almost never profane, especially when he knew that women were within hearing range, the sheriff startled Estelle with his word choice.
She picked up the paper as she sat down on one of the military surplus steel folding chairs, immediately recognizing the style of the author. Leona Spears was adept at losing elections, true enough. She’d lost every one she’d tried, including the one against Bob Torrez years before. But Leona was a meticulous planner, never-ever-leaving something to the last moment if it could be planned out, organized, and strategy-checked beforehand.
The paper, perfectly organized onto a single page for maximum effect, was titled “Preliminary Needs Assessment and Budgetary Planning, Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.”
Torrez sat like a lump, glowering, while Estelle read the paper. She understood it immediately, and had to agree that Leona’s logic was unassailable. If Leona was to be considered for the county manager’s position, then it made sense to scope things out before she faced the county commission. What did each department manager or supervisor need or want in order to effectively manage his turf? Leona would have no way of knowing unless she first asked, and then later observed and judged performance for herself.
But Estelle knew that it wasn’t the planning that irked Robert Torrez. Being asked how many new patrol units he anticipated needing for the coming year was not radical. There was no implication that whatever he asked for, he was asking for too much. Asking what kind of units was perfectly logical. Asking the sheriff what he thought to be the weak spots in his organization was eminently practical, and just good management.
Estelle read the paper again. Nowhere on the sheet was there the faintest hint of direction or suggestion from Ms. Leona Spears. It was impossible to judge what Leona thought by what she asked on the paper.
“I got two and a half dead people on my hands,” Torrez said, but there was nothing amused in his tone. “First I find out that Eduardo died, then Janet Tripp gets herself killed, and then Bill Gastner has his skull split open by some whacko with a grudge. I get sidetracked up in the city while a hundred doctors jam needles into me and drain half my blood.”
“Bobby, please…”
“Jesus, Estelle. Leona Spears?” He fairly shouted the woman’s name. “What the hell is going through their little pointed heads?”
“Whose heads?”
“You know whose heads, damn it. The commission. Didn’t you go to the meetings?”
“Yes.” There was nothing prevented him from attending as well.
“Leona Spears…cannot be county manager,” Torrez said emphatically. “That’s just the way it is.”
“She can and will be if the commissioners vote that way, Bobby.”
“Bullshit.” He shifted his weight and rapped his shin against the unforgiving military surplus desk, and he slammed the offending drawer shut with one swift kick of a black boot. “I mean, look at this thing.” He picked up the paper again. “She’s got something against white paper, for Christ’s sakes?”
“Maybe she ran out,” Estelle said, amused.
“Why doesn’t she spray it with perfume while she’s at it. What are they thinking?”
“Well, I talked with Dr. Gray a while ago…I don’t even remember when it was. But a majority of the board is leaning toward giving Leona the job. She has a final interview with them on Tuesday. I suppose that’s the rationale for this.” She nodded at the paper. “It won’t hurt her case if she does some preplanning-if she finds out what we want and need. How long has that been lying on your desk?”
He ignored her question. “Gray said all that, or is that what you think?”
Estelle hesitated, then shrugged. “Bobby, so far, it hasn’t mattered much to us who the county manager is. Kevin was good,” she said, referring to the previous manager, “but the one before him was an idiot. They come and they go. We both know that.”