Nightzone (6 page)

Dayan grimaced, and I could understand his conundrum. Newspapers didn't relish collaborating with law enforcement agencies. Once independence is lost, once it's more than just buying a cup of coffee for a friend, it is hard to go back. “I thought I'd show you, and let it go at that. I can't return the cash, since I don't know where to send it. Maybe they'll come pick it up in person.”

“Let's hope not,” I said. “I'll mention the ad to the sheriff and undersheriff if you want me to, but beyond that…”

“Well, you know everybody on the planet, and I thought you might have some ideas who would send something like this.” He offered me a sympathetic smile, but it quickly vanished. “You think this,” and he held up the envelope, “is related to this vandalism?”

“At this point, I wouldn't hazard a guess, Frank.” I reached out and tapped him on the chest. “But you be careful.”

He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation, then shook his head. “You haven't had such good luck staying retired lately.”

“I'm just being helpful right now,” I said. “I don't know anyone who would write nonsense like this. But do talk to Bobby or Estelle. They both understand the ticklish position you're in. That's my advice.” I hesitated. “Between you and me, I got roped into this mess just because I was sitting up there on the top of Cat Mesa,” and I turned and gestured toward the northeast, “stargazing and pondering deep thoughts. I saw the flash of the transformer when it hit the ground, and gave the S.O. a shout. And here I am, a material witness now. No good deed goes unpunished, Frank.” As compelling as it might appear in print, I did not add that I'd also seen a vehicle leaving the scene at a high rate of speed.

I nodded at the envelope. “If you want me to talk to Bobby, may I have a copy of that ad?”

“You can take this one, if you want. I have the original in our safe.”

I held the envelope up so the lights caught it. No printing or label on it whatsoever. “Is this the original envelope?”

“Yes. I took the ad and cash out.”

“Who else besides you has handled this?”

Frank looked uncomfortable. “You mean, like fingerprints?” I nodded. “Nobody other than you. I picked it up off the floor below the mail slot. Nobody else in our office touched it. I didn't show it to anyone, because I didn't want office rumors spreading something.”

“Good man. Then it's got your prints and mine, and maybe of someone else interesting.” I held the envelope gingerly by the corners. “You just never know. Leave the money and paperwork in your safe. Don't mess with it until you hear from the Sheriff.”

“I haven't had the chance to talk to Miles Waddell yet. Should I?”

“Well, let me ask you a favor. Of course, you're free to talk with anyone you want, Frank. But it seems to me that the tighter we keep this just now, the better off we are. Let me take this, show it to Bobby and Estelle, and maybe talk to Miles. Whoever wrote this nonsense is talking about Waddell's property, and he should be up to speed on what's going on behind his back.”

“You'll keep me in the loop?”

“Of course.”

“And no word yet on the victim?”

“Estelle will release all of that as soon as she can, Frank.”

He turned and looked east. Dawn was thinking about it. “I'd like to try for some pictures in a bit.”

“Suit yourself.” The image of a power line leg kicked high on top of an old juniper post, with a crowd of folks with bags under their eyes, might make for good camera fodder. I didn't need to be included.

I left Frank with Deputy Sutherland as his escort, and trudged over to the second set of power poles. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman was kneeling at the remains of one of the poles, in conversation with Dick Whittaker, superintendent of Posadas Electric. She would pump him for every scrap of information he knew. When she had to testify, she'd know more about power lines and all their accoutrements than most veteran linemen. Whittaker, a stump of a man with prematurely snow white hair that sprayed out from all sides of his baseball cap, rose and offered a hand as I approached.

“I understand you've been sleepwalkin' again, Bill.” The crinkles around his eyes faded. Nobody was much in the mood for humor. “Bobby tells me that you saw all this go down.”

“Don't we all wish that,” I said. “I saw the flash of the transformer when it hit the ground. And that was from where I was sitting up on Cat Mesa, twenty miles away. That's it.”

“Well, this son-of-a-bitch used a good, sharp saw. I'd guess a fair-sized one, too, lookin' at the size of those chips. Creosote-treated line poles aren't the easiest firewood to take, I'll tell you that. Your man came ready to do business. Damnedest thing. I tell you what, I've known Curt Boyd since he was this big,” and he held his hand at knee level. “Never figured him for something like this.”

“I'll bet you the farm that Curt was just a bystander,” I said.

“You think?”

In all probability, Estelle hadn't mentioned the accomplice in the speeding truck. She pushed herself off her knees and looked quizzically at the envelope I held.

“You have a minute?” I asked.

She nodded. Whittaker swept his flashlight toward the downed transformer. “I'll see how the boys are comin'.”

The two of us watched Whittaker make his way around the clumps of cacti and stunted prairie grass, and when he was out of earshot, I said, “Frank passed this on to us. To you, I mean. I'm just the postman.” Estelle read the ad copy, sharing with so many people the odd habit of starting at the bottom, skimming here and there, and finally returning to the top of the copy, her flashlight ambling down the lines of type as she read.

“I wonder if Mr. Waddell has any idea what he's set in motion,” she whispered. A couple hundred yards away, the rancher was still rooted in place, now with two or three shadowy figures I couldn't make out.

“Without a doubt. Small as this county is? I'd like a dollar for every time somebody's asked me what the hell Miles Waddell was building out here. I tell 'em that as far as I know, he's erecting an observatory, and the response is usually a scoff of disbelief. ‘He ain't puttin' no telescope up there,'” I said, mimicking an atrocious drawl, “‘not with that fancy road.'”

“When was the last time you were in this area, sir?” I'd known Estelle since she was a child playing in the Mexican dust, adopted by an aging school teacher, and in all those years, my name had never passed her lips—at least not in direct conversation with me. She chose
Sir
or Padrino, the latter being the rough equivalent of
godfather
, which I was to her two boys, Carlos and Francisco.

“As a matter of fact, yesterday afternoon. This past afternoon. I was doing my daily constitutional, checking out a piece of prairie behind Bennett's Fort. I told you I found that old revolver? I had to see if there was anything else in the same spot.” The rugged little mesa to the north had captivated my attention ever since I'd found an axe-head there the previous summer that was the right vintage to belong to a homesteader—perhaps Josiah Bennett himself. And with it sprang the intriguing idea that the axe-head
might
have some century-old blood on it. Pulling in a few favors, the resulting lab tests had been negative.

“You didn't see anyone?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Waddell and I talked for the better part of an hour.” I pointed at the cattle guard. “Right over there, where he's standing now. It was so quiet we could hear the transformer humming. He told me the power company has him scheduled for a new one. Bigger and better. A whole goddamn substation. You need to talk with him.”

“No one else?”

“Nope. No figures skulking around with a concealed chain saw. And you know, on the way back into town yesterday, I caught a glimpse of Perry Kenderman. He was just pulling out of the parking lot behind the dry cleaners.” I winced at the memory. “You never know, do you? You never know when it's the last time you're going to see somebody.”

And that prompted the thought that within minutes, if he hadn't already heard, rancher Johnny Boyd would learn that his son was lying dead on the prairie, sucker punched by a utility pole. I wondered what father and son had talked about the last time they were together, whether they had argued, reminisced, planned for a big day sometime soon…all those things humans do.

“This sort of night makes me want to crawl back into my cave,” I said, and Estelle smiled in sympathy. She reached out a hand and held me by the elbow.

“Thanks for coming out, Padrino. Remember we had green chile stew and corn bread planned for tonight. Six o'clock…or so.”

I sighed. “We might make it. You're going to be out here a long time, sweetheart.” She had never minded my pet name for her, used in the privacy of our own company. I guess I could have called her
ahijada,
the Mexican for
goddaughter,
but “sweetheart” was easier to pronounce. “Bobby has the road into town locked up. Who the hell knows what direction this is all going to take. I'll be around later in the day to type up a formal deposition. That won't take long.”

“There's always time to eat.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that. And I look forward to coaxing some of these deep, dark concert secrets out of Carlos.” I touched the button on my watch and saw the faintly illuminated 4:41 a.m. The Don Juan de Oñate restaurant's back door would open in another hour as Fernando Aragón, his wife and daughter, arrived to start prepping for the day. They'd find time to make me a proper breakfast. Maybe that would suggest some sleep.

“Can you spring Waddell free for a bit?” I reached out and touched the envelope I'd given to Estelle. It now resided in a large plastic evidence bag. “You know, when Miles and I met out here yesterday, we didn't talk about this. He might not even know that he's in the cros-hairs. He was so excited about a new telescope he's wheeling and dealing for with some folks out in California, that's all we discussed—other than my Bennett project.”

“He's been reminded that he'll need to come in for a deposition as well,” Estelle said.

“You don't mind me prowling around a little? I'd like to know more about that.” I nodded at the envelope. “I know a lot of people, but not a soul who would pull a stunt like this. Most people only rant and rave when it's free. I mean, people enjoy silly rumors.”

“Sir,” she scolded. “You prowl all you want.”

Chapter Six

Fernando Aragón admitted Waddell and me through the back kitchen door of the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant with the dawn, and despite his good-natured grumblings, I knew that we wouldn't have to wait more than ten minutes before Fernando served up the sort of breakfast that warmed the cockles—whatever
they
are. Part of it was curiosity. From the Don Juan, the light show of emergency vehicles was just a quarter-mile down the road. It was too bad that
he
didn't have insomnia. Had he been standing in his dining room, looking out the west window, he might have witnessed Kenderman's ill-fated traffic stop.

Returning to town, I had been able to navigate the roadblocks, but Miles Waddell hadn't. He'd left the scene down at the northern border of his ranch and driven the long way around to Posadas—first south, then twenty-eight miles to the village by way of State Road 56. He was still stopped three times.

When the rancher-now-developer sat in the booth across from me, he stood his impressively buttoned cell phone on the table beside his napkin, turned so that the screen faced him. His trademark purple neckerchief nicely complemented his smooth, tan skin. Somehow, the New Mexico sun, wind, and single-digit humidity had never wrinkled him.

“So how much do you want to know?” Waddell hunched forward, both hands curled around his coffee mug, voice lowered to a husky whisper. “They hauled your ass out of retirement, now? And what the hell were you doing up on Cat Mesa at one o'clock in the morning, for Christ's sakes?”

“It was a beautiful night,” I replied. “Who would want to miss that? At least until about twelve minutes after one. Then it went all to hell.”

Waddell leaned back and swept an arm up to rest on the booth's plastic back. “You can't imagine how
far
to hell this is going.” He patted the neckerchief at his throat as if an errant breeze might have blown it askew. Natty was the word for Miles, with his scarf, pressed shirt, and
almost
creased blue jeans. His expensive boots carried just enough dust, with honest-to-God scuffs above the heels where his spurs fitted. Deep crow's feet around his eyes broke the mahogany of his tan only when he smiled—and he wasn't doing much of that this morning—he'd show a set of teeth just crooked and just white enough for strangers to peg him as a Hollywood character actor.

“Are you…” and he made a come and go motion with his hand, “with the department for this?”

“I have to write a deposition, same as you. I saw the flash when the transformer popped, and I might have seen a vehicle leaving the scene. And that's just between you and me.”

“That's all?” The crow's feet deepened, and the light-blue eyes regarded me with amusement.

“No, that's not all. But nothing formal. I told Estelle I would talk to you.”

He ducked his head and leaned out of the booth, mimicking a search for a hidden microphone.

“Are you okay with that?” I asked.

“Sure. Why the hell not? So the ground rules are that anything I say to you might well be passed on to the sheriff's office.”

“Yes. That's a good way to go. If I think they need it.”

“Better them than some others I can think of,” he sighed. “I haven't even seen Torrez around.”

“He spent most of the night just down the road.” I nodded out the window. “Likely he's gone fishing down in Cruces. That's where Boyd was teaching, and he'll be checking connections down there.”

“Hell of a thing, just cold-blooded…” He let that trail off, then added, “They said it was Kenderman.” Waddell shook his head wearily. “Young, skinny fella?” I nodded. “He tried to give me a ticket once. He didn't like one of my stock trailers. Said the license plate was obscured.”

“Can you imagine?” I laughed. “And was it?”

“Sure. In all fairness, it wasn't on the trailer.”

“And he let you talk your way out of it?”

Waddell grinned. “Sure. I had it under the seat of the truck.” His face lost all humor. “Were there signs of a struggle?”

“No.”

“Well, Christ.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Related to the shit down at my place?”

“If I had to guess…”

Fernando brought two loaded plates, enough breakfast for four people.

“You got enough of everything?” he grumbled. “How come you're out so early?” His accent was thick, even though he'd been north of the border for half a century.

“Because we're hungry, Fernando.”

He grinned at that and waved a hand. “You holler at me,” he said. “Jana will be in before long.” The sheriff's cousin had waited tables at the Don Juan for twenty years, and was one of my favorite people. If she had saved all the money I'd dropped on her in tips, she could buy a new truck.

“I wanted to show you this.” The rancher had carried a slender attaché case with him, and around the first bites of his breakfast burrito, slipped a hand in and retrieved a newspaper clipping. “Actually, I have two things, but the good news first.” He passed a folded newspaper page across the table. I saw it was a tabloid from a San Francisco suburb well inland from the bay. The lead headline announced that folks weren't happy with the public school budget. Were they ever?

Down at the bottom, a modest double column headline announced that “
Origins
Project Finds Home.” I read the headline aloud, and glanced up at Waddell. “And
Origins
is…what? That deal you were talking about yesterday?”

Reading a bit further I answered my own question. “A sixty-five meter telescope…my God.”

“The old classic at Mt. Palomar is one hundred inches. Imagine sixty-five
meters,
if you can.”

“I can't. That's a lens more than two hundred feet across.”

“Two hundred fourteen feet, actually. And it's a radio telescope, so there's no lens as we know them,” the rancher said with relish. “Just a big round dish that collects sounds from a gazillion light years away…which means a gazillion years in the past. Imagine that? All the way back to what they call the original microwave background out there in deep space. It's not just a big slab of ground glass.”

I smiled at his enthusiasm. “Has Frank talked to you yet about this?”

“He called me, and we'll get together today sometime. Other than that, not a soul yet.” He reached across and tapped the top of the newspaper page. “And notice that it wasn't important enough to rate the top spot—and the
Chronicle
and the
L.A. Times
haven't run with it. It's in the
who cares
department.”

“I would think the good folks at Walnut Haven would be loath to see a project of this size leave their community.”

Waddell shrugged and shoveled more burrito. “You can have a sky full of smog and junk,” he said around the food, “or you can have the heavens open for viewing. It's hard to have both. They have lots of coastal haze, lots of smog, lots of politics. That's probably the worst polluter. Me, I have clear nights, no traffic, and free land.”

I scanned the rest of the article. “'A ranch in southern New Mexico.' No mention of you.”

“That's part of the deal.”

“You're going to let them install this monster on
your
mesa?”

“Yep.”

“That's got to include a large building, with all the computers and control room and this and that.”

“More like huge,” Waddell said happily. “And some housing.”

I recalled an earlier discussion with Miles Waddell when I'd just come out and asked point-blank what his plans were for the mesa. He'd mentioned an observatory, but implied a private one. The new road up to the top suggested a lot more. Rumors had been rife, of course.

“I've signed a ninety-nine year lease with them,” Waddell lowered his voice. “A seventy-five-acre patch on the southwest corner of the mesa-top. Got 'em to go for a buck a century. They agreed, and now it's official.”

“Well, sure. How could they refuse a deal like that?”

“Exactly the point. No traffic, no lights, no pollution. Flat, dark, and apparently perfect orientation for whatever portion of the night sky they want to listen to.” He glanced toward the kitchen as Fernando appeared with more coffee, and we waited until he'd left us to our little dark corner.

“See, they even drilled a couple exploratory holes in the mesa-top to make sure we weren't sitting on top of a limestone honeycomb. From a geological point of view, it's an unshakeable location, even with the limestone caverns at the north end of the mesa that the BLM is interested in developing someday.”

“As unshakeable as anything is on this old planet,” I observed. I read the story again. “Christ, Miles, it's going to cost a fortune to bring that monster up to the mesa-top. What's it weigh…five hundred tons?”

The rancher settled back and carefully balanced his fork on the edge of the plate. “Actually, I know
exactly
what it's going to cost.” His tone was cautious, and he'd shed a little of his rancher's accent. “To sweeten the deal for them, I'm paying a portion of the transportation costs.” He held up a hand. “Just a portion. Sure, it'll take a fair chunk of change. That baby weighs nine hundred and sixty tons, Bill. That's when it's all bolted together. Still, there'll be sections of it that come up to thirty tons or more. That's why the new road. You haven't been up there in a while, have you? That old gun you found has you occupied.”

“The road is gated,” I said wryly, not that I was ever averse to slipping over a fence or through a stock gate.

“We'll get you up there.”

“And here all this time, I imagined you were going to buy yourself a ten-inch reflector and a lawn chair.”

Waddell laughed loudly. “You ain't seen the half of it, my friend. But what's keeping you busy after all this?” He held up another loaded fork. “Other than writing a deposition or two? They got you working this case? Or are you settling in with a box of fresh pencils and a stack of legal pads to write your memoirs?”

“No. I told Estelle I'd help where I can, but this is a young man's game. Hell, by the time the morning's over, they'll have
federales
involved, every state agency there is, and enough over-time requistions to make the county legislators quake in their boots.”

“I guess we can expect all that.” He opened the leather case again. “You ready for the bad news?”

“Whether I am or not…”

“See, you mentioned rumors before.” He hesitated with papers half out of his briefcase. “What's your favorite?”

“You mean the most ridiculous one?”

“I'd like to hear that.”

I stirred a puddle of green chile juice with my fork. “I'd have to say that whatever it is you're doing up there is designed to support a United Nations peacekeeping and drug interdiction force, with massive programs to randomly tap cell phone traffic. And on top of that, an airbase for surveillance drones. That tops my list.”

“Mine too.” Waddell slipped another publication out of his briefcase, this time a glossy, well-funded conservative Colorado publication that I recognized. “Friend of mine with the Colorado Livestock Board sent me this.” He had folded the paper so page seven prominently displayed the headline,
“Foreign Domination of Ranchlands Gains Another Foothold.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” I growled. Posadas County's desiccated desert and short bunch-grass prairie country was conspicuously mentioned in the first paragraph, but Waddell was not mentioned by name—much like the ad that Frank Dayan had showed me. Written to imitate a breaking news story rather than a diatribe, the article still accomplished the same thing…spreading nonsense.

“How did they find out about the Walnut Haven project? And since when is California
foreign?
”

“It's not?” Miles laughed. “But look, somebody knows somebody. And you know, that doesn't bother me. It's all coming out here shortly. I plan to let Frank in on the whole thing, by the way, and let him scoop the other papers. I mean, the big dish is hot news, Bill. They'll employ two dozen people, from telescope gurus to janitors.” He took a deep breath and looked out the window at the blank, cold sky. “The thing that irks me is trying to figure out why a project like this has to be a clandestine scheme of some sort.” He turned to look at me. “Why it can't just be what it is?”

“Because most people are devoid of that kind of imagination, Miles,” I said.

“Wish to hell I really did understand. Seems like if it's something that
they
can't imagine, then somehow it must be something dangerous and a threat to truth, justice, and the American way.” He grinned ruefully. “I didn't figure on that at the beginning. I figured they'd just say, ‘Well, that's crazy Miles, but it's his money.'”

I leaned back, letting the pool of chile settle. I had wondered now and then about Miles Waddell's source of income—he didn't earn it punching a small herd of cattle. But that was none of my business. “You know, I've heard a few folks talking about the mesa project. When they ask me what I think is going on, I tell 'em that I've heard you say you're building an observatory of some sort. And that's it.”

Waddell squinted one eye like a wild schemer. “Ah…but observing
what…
that's the paranoid part. Look,” and he laid down his fork. “You have some time this morning, before all this deposition shit lands on our heads?”

“A little time. The depositions are critical, Miles.”

“Run out there with me. For just a few minutes.”

I glanced at my watch and saw six o'clock straight up. The sun was just touching the tops of the buildings across the street. “We can do that.”