Less Than a Moment Read online

  Another eight miles brought her around the end of the mesa and the observatory’s parking lot. Estelle slowed her county patrol car as a handsome young fellow ducked out from the low adobe building that nestled among the rocks by the gate. He wore the official NightZone summer uniform…lightweight blue windbreaker—­with the NZ emblem on the left breast—­that he would shed as the sun found its way past the rocks, a light-­blue shirt also carrying the NZ emblem, khaki chino trousers, and black hiking shoes. His black hair, comfortably individual, peeked out in curls from under his dark blue ball cap. Rafael Gonzales looked fit enough to sprint up to the mesa top if called to do so.

  “Buenas dias, Sheriff,” he greeted with an enormous, toothy smile. “It is so good to see you out here today.”

  “Thank you, Rafael.” She switched off the Charger’s burbling engine, letting in the quiet of the prairie. “How’s your day going?”

  He frowned and marked on his clipboard, then the smile returned as he looked up. “You know, we have had some very interesting people visit our park this past week. Very interesting. Right now, there’s a large contingent”—­he said it as if he had just learned the word and was proud of it—­“of birders who are doing the south rim walk. Some of them may be just a little bit elderly for such a thing. But they’re from New York City, you know. Indomitable.” He emphasized each of the five syllables. “And they enjoyed an early start, before it becomes too hot. Efrin went along with them. He knows where all the shady rest spots are along the rim walk. You know him, I think.”

  “I do. I’m glad he’s working here.” Efrin Garcia was one of NightZone’s success stories, after coming perilously close to spending the rest of his life in prison after being caught up in some really bad choices, thanks to a bozo for an older brother. The giant mural painted on the wall inside the observatory’s auditorium was testimony to Efrin’s talents.

  Estelle was not surprised that a young man with such an artistic, quick hand with a pen, pencil, or brush would be a good escort for a bunch of less-than-surefooted ornithologists. He could dash off autographed cartoons of them as they lugged their cameras equipped with monstrous lens, along with binocs, water, iPads, and the ubiquitous, much marked-­up copies of Field Guide to Western Birds.

  Rafael stepped closer to the car and turned the iPad that had been resting on his clipboard so that Estelle could see it.

  “Dōmo Arīgatō,” he said, with a stiff bow. “Except I have no idea how to say it. I don’t know what those little bar doohickeys over the letters mean.” He pinched the image to enlarge it.

  “You’re studying Japanese now?”

  “You recognized it!” Rafael exclaimed with delight. “I’m studying hard, because next week, there’s a trainload of tourists from Tokyo coming for a week’s stay. Can you imagine! Thirty in the group. I have to have a few words down, at least.”

  “Mrs. Burns at the high school can help you. She spent two years in Japan before she was married. I’m sure she’d be delighted.”

  Rafael’s face lit up. “You think?”

  “I do. Mrs. Charlie Burns. She’s in the book. You knew her as Ms. Stiles, I would guess.”

  “Ah, that’s right,” Rafael said, brightening at the revelation. “I almost earned an F in her biology class.” He grinned. “My fault, though. Thanks for the tip. That’ll sure help.” He bowed again. “Dōmo Arīgatō.”

  Estelle laughed. “You’re welcome.”

  He turned and chin-­pointed toward the mesa top. “Señor Dayan from the newspaper just went up a few moments ago.” He nodded and smiled again. “And Señor Waddell asked if you would kindly meet him in the admin building. The fastest way is to take the left loop when you break out on top. Or if you prefer, you may park over in staff parking and ride the tram up. Someone will be up-­top to greet you.”

  “I’ll drive, thanks.” She nodded at the computer terminal that dominated the center console of her vehicle. “I need to have my office with me.” She glanced in the rearview mirror at the staff parking facility, a long carport roofed in tan metal, giving ample room for thirty vehicles. Half a dozen SUVs were parked in the shade there.

  “Absolutely. I understand completely.” He patted the roof of the car just above the window as the Charger rumbled to life. “Be careful going up. Both the deer and the quail are active today, I’m told.” He looked thoughtful. “I have to learn how to say that in Japanese. Or ‘May you see many birds.’ Something like that.”

  He keyed the small remote that rode on his clipboard, and the massive gate swung inward to allow access to the mesa road—­nearly two miles of circuitous, perfectly maintained macadam, with road markings in the European fashion, painted directly on the pavement.

  Just beyond the gate, a single discreet road sign announced No Vehicular Traffic 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., one of many efforts aimed at reducing light pollution on top. Estelle knew that the roadway, reaching from the base parking lot to the top of the mesa, had cost Miles Waddell more than nine million dollars before he was satisfied with it. Visitors to the park didn’t travel on it, one way to reduce the risk and liability. If they arrived by car, they were directed to park in the lower parking lot, and ride the tram to the top.

  The narrow gauge locomotive with its six classy cars, running twenty-­six miles from the terminal at the Posadas Municipal Airport just northwest of the village of Posadas to the NightZone parking lot at the foot of the mesa, had eaten through almost fifty million dollars. Estelle enjoyed watching the developer’s face light up when he either discussed the locomotive with visitors or as he stood by the track, watching it whisper by.

  Miles Waddell looked at that venture with the same enthusiasm that an eight-­year-­old plays with his new HO gauge train set. The narrow gauge, powered by propane/electric and making six round trips each day, along with extra trips when need arose, was another key part of the effort to keep vehicular traffic off the mesa. On top of that, it was a grand tourist attraction by itself.

  Visitors were encouraged to board the train in Posadas, then were thrilled by the excursion through rugged country to the foot of the mesa. She’d ridden the train half a dozen times, her wonder growing each time. During its route, the train would stop to drop off bird-­watchers, herpetologists, cactus hunters—­any of the naturalists who had adopted the property as their own study area. The three formal stops featured well-­marked trails, shaded interpretive kiosks, and most recently added, propane-­powered refrigerators filled with a supply of bottled water.

  There were even dyed-­in-­the-­wool naturalists who rode out on the midnight run, to sit in the deep quiet of the nighttime desert and listen to the owls converse.

  Upon reaching the terminus parking lot, visitors boarded the spectacular tramway to climb the nearly vertical mesa rise to NightZone.

  Once visitors to the observatory complex reached the mesa top, the reason for the developer’s determination that the facility should live up to its name became obvious. The three domes of the four-meter telescopes, the trio capable of working in unison or individually to transmit their images to the large-­screened auditorium/theater, dominated the east rim of the mesa, along with the squat administration building, the planetarium, and nearest the rim, the futuristic hotel/restaurant.

  Tiny, discreet solar lights at ankle level bled off their energy downward to mark the macadam footpaths at night, but the buildings themselves had no outside lights, and windows were heavily tinted and placed such that interior lights didn’t wash outside. The restaurant featured a polycarbonate ceiling whose exterior cover could retract, revealing to diners a stunning view of the heavens.

  At night, the mesa top was pitch dark, with no sweep of vehicular headlights, individual flashlights, or camera strobes. Tourists and night creatures loved it, including the rattlesnakes, who had a disconcerting habit of enjoying the lingering heat of the macadam walkways as night settled in.

 
The newest addition to the facility, a three-­meter telescope near the south mesa rim, stared at the sun from rise to set, keeping busy with various solar research projects organized by participating universities. The solar research facility, unconcerned with nighttime lighting, was housed in its own observatory a quarter-­mile stroll from the hotel.

  A quarter mile to the southwest, essentially untroubled by issues of light pollution or most weather, the enormous radio telescope was fenced artfully to exclude the general public. The radio telescope listened to deep space, rather than struggling with the complications of optical equipment. It was a project with combined sponsorship by the California State University system, the National Science Foundation…and the ever-­generous Miles Waddell, who made sure the facility’s operation lacked for nothing.

  Estelle allowed the county car to idle along the narrow roadway, enjoying the bursts of horned larks that careened away as she passed. Miles Waddell had predicted great interest in his project by dedicated birders. He’d been correct. “More birders than stargazers,” he would joke, and he was nearly correct.

  When the road divided on top, she stayed left, as Rafael had suggested. Looking north beyond the rim rock, she could gaze over several million acres of Posadas County, including the area that the newcomer developer, Kyle Thompson, had allegedly started to survey—­land originally owned in part by the late Johnny Boyd, a rancher who had died several years before, but a portion of whose land was still tied up in an estate snarl with his children.

  Less than a half mile north of Waddell’s NightZone parking lot, the first strike by a road grader had marked the prairie just east from County Road 14, a scar that joined the huge collection of two-­tracks, ranch roads, woodcutters’ swaths, and cattle paths through the prairie scrub. From that single new cut in the dirt, it was impossible to tell exactly what was planned for the property.

  At one point several years before, when Boyd had been ailing with the cancer that finally killed him, Miles Waddell had considered buying the property himself and turning it into a cactus preserve—­convinced that there were just as many cactus aficionados as there were avid birders. He hadn’t moved fast enough.

  The undersheriff nosed the Charger into a roundabout in front of the administration building, a structure surprisingly not made of adobe, but instead faced with muted brick, each wall featuring a wide roof overhang so that shade was always available. No spot was marked for parking, so she snugged the car in close to the curb behind two twelve-­passenger ATVs, each carrying the NightZone logo on the front fender.

  The heavily tinted front doors of the administration building slid open, and Miles Waddell appeared, walking with one hand on the shoulder of Clay Simmons. Simmons was dressed casually, an iPad holstered on his hip. His sharply creased khaki trousers were adequate to conceal the ankle holster that Estelle knew he favored. The logo of United Securities embossed the left breast of his mauve polo shirt.

  Waddell, as usual, looked as if he’d just left a calf branding operation on his ranch—­well-­used blue jeans, scuffed boots, white shirt slightly frayed at the cuffs, and the predictable sweat-­stained Stetson. Estelle knew that he was equally comfortable attending a Farm Bureau or 4-­H meeting as he was in formal conference with his LLC board of directors in Chicago.

  Years before, even when he’d been operating a successful cattle operation just north of the Posadas County line, he’d discussed his dreams of an astronomy-­based tourist attraction with his widowed mother. When she, a Chicago financier, had retired at age eighty from the rigors of her career in the business world, she’d said to her son, essentially, “Go for it,” and bequeathed most of her fortune to Miles.

  With a third of a billion in liquid assets, and triple that in real estate and corporate holdings, Miles Waddell had not been overwhelmed. He hadn’t bought a yacht, or a year in Paris, or a ticket on the first commercial Earth orbit venture. He hadn’t even bought a new pair of boots. Instead, he set about planning NightZone, buying property, learning all he could from experts in the field—­all of whom found him a fast study.

  “You know, I’m really glad you could break away and come down here for a few minutes,” Waddell said. He pumped the undersheriff’s hand with both of his. His hands were still ranch-­work hard, and the rolled-­up sleeves of his western-­style shirt showed arms bronzed by too much New Mexico sun. “You two know each other, right?”

  “You bet.” Simmons smiled. His grip was firm, and lingered. “We both attended one of the most uninformative county legislature meetings of current record.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s right,” Waddell said. “I wanted to hear what Thompson had to say, but then I got busy, and figured Clay here could report the high spots. And then I learn there weren’t any high spots. Look, our friends are inside. What say we get ourselves out of the sun? When the Thompson people show up, we can…”

  He interrupted himself and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “Yo, Rafael,” he greeted, then frowned as he listened to his gatekeeper. “Sure. Does she want to ride the tram? Well, sure, that’s fine. Send her up. Remind her about the dang deer.”

  He switched off and grinned at Estelle. “I think we’re hosting most of the deer in Posadas County on our mesa.” He gestured for the undersheriff to enter the admin center, and Estelle felt a twenty-­degree drop in ambient air as she did so.

  “It’s the missus,” Waddell added. “Thompson’s wife…I’m not sure what her name is, but she’s just coming up from the gate. Have you met her? No, you said that you hadn’t.”

  “I’ve met neither of them,” Estelle said.

  “Ah. Well, I’m in the same boat, but I think it’s time we did. Maybe we can get something done, reach some kind of consensus.” He gestured down a hallway to the right. “Let’s meet in Pleides. Third double doors down thataway.” Turning to Clay Simmons, he added, “Would you meet her out front and bring her in?”

  He slipped a hand through Estelle’s elbow. “I hate all this.” He lowered his voice. “Just hate it. You know, up to this point, zero problems with neighbors. Well, almost zero. And now we have this guy proposing a whole new urban community at my doorstep, if you believe all the rumors.”

  “Lots of rumors, yes, but I haven’t actually heard what he’s proposing,” Estelle said. “Have you?”

  “I thought we were going to at yesterday’s meeting. It was on the agenda, but who knows? I guess I’m just a natural pessimist, expecting the worst.”

  Estelle stopped beside a gigantic photo-­mosaic of deep space that dominated one wall. “Was there something specific that you wanted from me, Miles? You know, what a developer chooses to do with his property is not the concern of the Sheriff’s Department. Unless actual statutes are violated.”

  Waddell hunched closer and lowered his voice, holding both hands inches apart in front of him. “Almost anything Thompson wants to do,” he said, “means a problem for me. You can understand that, I’m sure. Unless he’s going to just leave the acreage alone…or maybe run a few head of cattle.”

  “Yes. Even a simple, conservative subdivision means light pollution. Right on your doorstep. Light and noise both. I understand that.”

  “Exactly so. Maybe I’m just shouting ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater. I don’t know. I just wanted you to be aware of the situation, every step of the way. And I value your opinion. How you see things going.” He grinned sheepishly. “I had to put up with some shenanigans when I first started—­you remember that, I’m sure. I don’t doubt that the Thompsons will experience the same sort of thing. There’s folks out there who don’t want any kind of development.

  “That’s not me. I mean, look at this mesa of mine. But on the other hand, come on. How do you design a whole suburbia without exterior lighting? Streetlights, headlights, porch lights, damn storefront lights, neon signs…jeez, it makes me cringe just thinking about that damn rosy glow. And not a damn thing I c
an do about it.”

  He smiled painfully. “Nothing that’s legal, anyway.” He mock-­shivered. “And you remember the bozos who were cuttin’ down my power poles, way back when? So I want to be proactive. Something happens, I’d rather talk to you than your boss. I guess you can understand that. I mean I like Bob Torrez, but you know what I mean. He’s not exactly the most vocal person on the planet.”

  Estelle smiled gently but tactfully said nothing. Sheriff Robert Torrez struck many people as being rough around the edges—­and not overflowing with sympathy about other people’s problems. But she could clearly understand Waddell’s concerns.

  Waddell turned as the silver, older-­model Explorer parked directly in front of the double doorway, just behind Estelle’s county car. The driver got out and stepped to the curb in front of her SUV, surveying the vaulted architecture of the auditorium. Of medium height and shapely, she wore faded blue jeans with a smudge of something across her left knee and a long-­sleeved shirt buttoned to the throat against the sun. She lifted her camo-­patterned cap, swept a hand through her short blond hair, shook her head, and resettled the cap.

  As if she’d picked up burrs or goatheads on a morning hike through the boonies, she knocked first one work boot and then the other against the concrete curb, and as she turned to do that, Estelle saw the large revolver riding high on the young woman’s right hip.

  Clay Simmons intercepted her before she’d completed three steps toward the building.

  “So wow,” Miles Waddell said as he started toward the door. “Calamity Jane. Here I was kinda expecting some hifalutin society lady, with high heels and lots of turquoise.”