Come Dark (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

“What's the matter?” Gastner said. He held the ignition key in place but didn't turn it. Instead, he frowned at Estelle, who was gazing out the windshield at nothing.

“One more thing,” she said.

“This is the best time, while the world is quiet and dark.”

“Efrin Garcia. The ambulance picked him up at his home when his mother called 911. By the time he made his way home after crashing into the pole, he was coughing blood. She didn't waste a second, and she did the right thing. EMTs said that his blood pressure was close to nil by the time he arrived at the hospital.”

“So let me get this straight. He hits the pole, gets thrown from the truck, and still drags himself a couple hundred yards home, then collapses?”

“That's what I'm told. Complete with a ruptured spleen and some bad fractures.”

“Ouch.”

“Now, his brother Arthur has been seen around town. The sheriff knows their old car, and apparently Arthur is using that from time to time. But he didn't show up at the local hospital—Efrin's mother rode in the ambulance from their home, then she flew with him on the medevac to Albuquerque, but Arthur didn't. That's odd, don't you think? That he doesn't show his face?”

“But he wasn't in the truck with Efrin.”

“Well, maybe he's out carousing and doesn't even know that his baby brother bought the farm. I mean, there's normal folks who think, and then there's Arthur Garcia, who isn't the sharpest tool in the box. Ask Jamie Herrald, his parole officer. That's who he's reporting to.”

“He's just another square in the checkerboard, sir. I'd like to talk with Arthur, too. See what he has to say for himself. If we keep turning over rocks, eventually we might get lucky and hit the right one.”

“What's he going to tell you?”

“I have no idea. Suppose he was with Efrin when he was working on tagging the middle school. I mean, that's possible. Help hold the ladder. Pass up paint cans? Maybe the tagging was Arthur's idea in the first place. But regardless, there's the possibility one or both of the brothers saw something at the middle school.”

“Maybe, maybe. They live over on Fifth Street, as I recall.”

“All the way at the south end.”

He nodded and started the SUV. “We'll swing by there on the way back into town.” At the bottom of the hill, night shift Security Officer Juan Ignacio stepped out to meet them, in no hurry to raise the gate. He ducked his head and smiled at Gastner, then tipped his cap in salute to Estelle.

“Long day?”

“You bet. Juan, when was the last time Art Garcia was up topside?”

“Art?”

“You know him, Juan. Efrin's older brother.”

“Yeah, I mean I
know
him. But no…I haven't seen him since…” and he looked uncomfortable. “Gosh, a long time. He doesn't come out here much.”

Gastner's eyes locked on the security guard's face, his jaw thrust out pugnaciously. ‘“Much' means he comes out once in a while. When was the last time?”

Ignacio looked down at the clipboard, as if trying to decide if the list was high security. “I didn't see him cleared to go
up,”
Ignacio said. He ruffled pages. “He came in with his brother on Tuesday, it says here. My guess is that he was helping Efrin work on the mural at the theater. They were putting up a scaffold and everything.”

“What time did he leave?”

Ignacio turned his Maglite for a better view of the pages. “Says here that both him and Efrin left around seven p.m.”

“Long day.”

“You guys should know. That's the normal way now,” Ignacio nodded. “There's a big push to have this place one hundred percent by Christmas. I think they'll make it.”

“When was the last time you saw Efrin come through?”

“I usually don't. See, I go on shift at midnight, so if he went through earlier than that…” He splayed the pages again. “Haus has him comin' down Wednesday night at eleven thirty-five. And then Cooper signed him in again on Thursday morning at ten after eight.” He looked up first at Gastner, then at Estelle. “So he's in and out all the time.”

“Thanks, Juan,” Gastner said. As Estelle's passenger-side window spooled up, he added, “I arrested both Juan Ignacio and Art Garcia one night when they were both in elementary school. I think they were third-graders, maybe fourth. They were trying to hot-wire a pickup truck parked over near Grundy's on Bustos.” He laughed at the memory. “They saw me coming eastbound and ducked down so I wouldn't see 'em. Boy genius Arthur had his foot sticking out the door, and he forgot to pull it in. Two fourth-graders heading for the big-time.”

“I remember that,” Estelle said.

“At that point, they both should have been recalled as defective. Would've saved us a lot of trouble later on.”

“Ignacio turned out all right.”

“Yep. Maybe. That's one of my continuing worries, Sweetheart. Miles Waddell is about the most generous human being I've ever met. He's that odd and wonderful combination of being personally driven, but at the same time he really cares about the people in his world. I hate to see him taken advantage of.”

“He's pretty acute that way.”

“He can be. He
can
be. But like Juan back there, what do you want to bet that the boy is on the phone with Arthur right now, telling him that we're curious? Would we be surprised?”

“I wouldn't bet against that,” Estelle said. “But if we swing by Garcia's house, we might get lucky.”

Half an hour later, Gastner slowed the SUV to a crawl as they turned south on Fifth Street, a street that was paved as far as the country club, and then jolted into dirt as it crossed a deep arroyo. He turned off the headlights and lowered all four windows. Surging out of the arroyo, the gravel lane skirted a grove of brush and stunted elms, then swept into a tight curve. The tracks were obvious.

“He lost it here.” Gastner stopped the truck and picked up his flashlight. “And there's Bambi.” The deflated carcass of the smashed deer lay against a spray of cacti.

Across the road, another fifty yards ahead, the utility pole canted to one side, spears of wood splinters jutting. Tire tracks cut through the vegetation.

“They towed the truck to the house?”

“That would be the logical thing to do. It's just on a bit.”

“Don't start expecting logic,” Gastner scoffed. He let the SUV idle down the lane, and slowed when they reached a driveway off to the left, heading toward a veteran mobile home.

“Her car isn't here,” Estelle whispered as they turned into the narrow, rutted driveway. Abundant tire tracks hinted at where the huge, low-slung barge of a sedan would park when it was home, squatted near a cactus bed, nosed up against what had once been a camper trailer. Now, the trailer provided a place for a discarded mattress to lean against.

“
House and Garden
,” Gastner growled. “That's Efrin's truck.” The battered Nissan was parked within two steps of the front door, where the contract tow truck operator, Stub Moore, had dropped it off. The truck was a good two feet shorter than it had been before taking on deer and pole. The left side of the grill was crushed inward, the semicircular imprint of the utility pole bent in to drive the radiator into the engine block.

Estelle slid out of the SUV, flashlight in hand.

Half of an extension ladder rested in the bed of the truck, and the back window was shattered. Pieces of the glass still clung to the window molding, itself partially pulled loose from the cab.

“
Ay,”
she whispered, and she could feel Gastner's presence as he stepped up close behind her.

“Somebody bled like a stuck pig.” He played the light beam around the inside of the cab. The keys hung from the ignition, and what looked like blood had splattered over the seat, on the steering wheel, the dashboard, even on the headliner.

Kernels of busted glass littered the truck bed as well. Estelle brought her flashlight close. The ladder had been shoved into the truck with its plastic feet rearward, out beyond the battered tailgate. “There's dried blood on the ladder itself.” She drew back and looked around at Gastner, then reached out and almost touched the raw aluminum ends of the ladder rails. “Right here at the tip?”

“I'll buy that. Who'd it cut, if Efrin went sailing out the door?” He reached out and rocked the sprung door. Its frame was nearly bent double.

Stepping to the door of the trailer, she rapped on the thin aluminum of the doorjamb. No one stirred. She rapped again, then reached out and tried the knob. The door was locked. Turning in a slow circle, she surveyed the dark neighborhood. Through runty trees, she could see a light in the distance, a single bulb over one of the golf course's storage sheds. Farther down the lane, an older adobe home was dark, with no porch light.

“We need a crew out here, sir. We don't know what happened.”

“Agreed. Who's working graveyard now?”

“Bishop is on by himself tonight.” She had phone in hand, and when he answered, Bob Torrez sounded as if he sat just around the corner.

“Yep?”

“Bobby, we're over here at the Garcias' on Fifth. Efrin's truck is here, but his mother's car isn't. Bill and I are looking at the truck—broken back window, lots of glass and blood around the interior. There's a ladder in the back, with broken glass in the truck bed and what looks like blood on the ladder itself.”

“Okay.”

“We can't just let it go. None of that jibes with Efrin being pitched out of the truck when it hit the pole.”

Silence greeted that, and then Torrez said, “I'll be over in a couple of minutes,” and disconnected.

“Now is when you wish you had your car,” Gastner observed. “But I'm pretty well stocked.”

“You are?” She couldn't help smiling at the old man.

“Well, you know,” he said offhandedly. “Sometimes, it's handy to have an evidence bag or two. A little this, a little that. I even have a couple blood boxes.”

“That will cover it. Right now, all I want is some of the glass fragments, and some of the dried blood. And some pictures.” She pulled the tiny camera from its belt holster. “And some idea of what happened here. I'd like that.” For a moment she stood quietly, gazing at the truck. “Bishop didn't see any reason not to have the truck just towed the few yards up the road to here. He said it didn't make any sense to take it to a wrecking yard, or to the sheriff's impound.” She shook her head doubtfully. “Maybe, maybe not.” She nodded at the bed of the truck. “Let's start there.”

After a series of general, all-inclusive photos of the area, the truck, and its contents, she had Gastner hold the two flashlights so she could try close-ups of the ladder ends while avoiding use of the flash. A tiny fragment wedged in the junction of the top rung and the left rail winked a reflection in one of the resulting photos.

“Glass,” Estelle said.

“Maybe so.” Gastner remained noncommittal.

Headlight beams touched the unmowed verge as the white county Expedition stopped out on the road. The sheriff got out and strolled over toward them.

“House open?” Torrez asked by way of greeting.

“No, it's locked. No sign of Arthur yet.”

Torrez shrugged and turned in place as if inventorying the neighborhood. “What did Francis say about Efrin. Any guesses?”

“He thinks the young man's injuries were consistent with a truck wreck.” She pointed at the distorted steering wheel. “That nailed him, for sure. The broken elbow too. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, and he got tossed around hard.”

“And mom is up in Albuquerque with him now.”

“Yes.”

“And Arthur ain't.”

“No sign of him.”

Torrez looked across at Gastner. “How are you doin'?”

“It's a gorgeous night to be out and about,” Gastner said. “I'm the official flashlight-holder.”

Torrez actually laughed. “I always knew you were good for something.”

“Damn right.”

“Then let's do it.”

Dried blood samples, looking like microscopically thin brown wafers, lifted easily from the Nissan's plastic seat cover, using a single-edged razor blade. The tiny samples were placed in a series of thin, plastic specimen boxes.

“Right side of the driver,” Torrez observed. “He bled heavy. That don't make sense.”

“And right side is where the severe ear laceration was, Efrin's right ear and scalp.” Estelle agreed.

“How's that gonna work?” Torrez turned in a circle, gazing off into the night. “Truck hits the pole, he goes out the door.” He bent down, aiming his flashlight at the mangled doorframe. “If he twisted around, maybe.” He examined the door for another full minute. “No blood, no tissue on the doorframe itself. If this is where the right side of his head got caught, you'd think there'd be something.”

The three of them stood away from the truck, and Estelle pointed at the back window.

“Something smashes through the back window and hits him. That's the way most of the glass went. Even up on the dash, around the vents.”

“Yep.”

“The ladder, you're saying?” Gastner asked.

“I think so. It hit so hard that a fragment of glass caught in the aluminum.”

“How's that going to work?” the sheriff asked again. “Hold this.” He handed his flashlight to Gastner. “If this is ridin' in the back, one end down against the cab, the other up on the tailgate, what's it gonna do when the truck hits the pole?” He lifted the ladder sharply. “It's gonna pitch right on over the roof. Or swing wild sideways. It ain't going to bust through the window and punch all the way through to the dashboard.”

“Maybe when the truck bounced over the deer,” Gastner offered.