Easy Errors Page 4

  “I could smell the booze,” he said. “You think Chris was into it?”

  “I’ll wait for the tests. We found two beer cans, one ruptured. That could account for the smell.”

  “And then?”

  “If alcohol was involved, we’ll want to know the source.”

  “What did they find in the truck?”

  “Sergeant Payson has the inventory. I’ll be meeting with him later today.”

  “But as preliminary…”

  “I don’t want to do ‘preliminary’ without knowing exactly, Willis.” The little carbine was missing from its case, but perhaps it was in the closet at Browning’s home. There would be time to sort all that out. I didn’t want eight different people, some of them so bereaved they couldn’t think straight, trying to play detective.

  Browning made a strangled sound and convulsed into coughing spasms as he sucked tears and snot down the wrong way. “This is my son we’re talking about,” he managed finally.

  “And I’m sorry. Believe me, I am.”

  “They took the wreck to the county yard. Les just had time to drop it off before he had to go out on another call.” Willis leaned so much weight on his Oldsmobile’s fender that the chassis groaned. “I need to drive over there and see for myself.”

  “You can look through the fence, Willis, but we both know that’s as far as you go, the circumstances being what they are.”

  “I guess…” he started to say, and racked another coughing spell. “I guess I need to call Schroeder.”

  “Yes, you should,” I said. “I would be surprised if the sheriff hadn’t done that already.” Dan Schroeder, the district attorney and Willis Browning’s boss, worked out of Deming.

  As if he had to think it through as each nerve synapse fired, Browning shuffled around the driver’s door of the Olds, then collapsed in a weary heap in the seat, both feet still outside on the pavement, the bottom arc of the steering wheel creasing his belly.

  “I don’t much want to go home,” he murmured, and looked up at me. “You ever feel that way?”

  “Sure.” I tried to offer a sympathetic smile. “That’s probably why I’m still standing around out here right now. One of these things hits a little community like ours, and the shock waves go on and on.”

  “Chris was accepted to the pre-law program at Stanford for the fall term. Did I tell you that?”

  “You must have been proud.”

  “And that doesn’t count for shit, does it? Not now.” He grunted loudly as he hauled his feet into the Olds and slammed the door. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you.” The car whispered into life. “And thank God that Darlene Spencer wasn’t with them all.” He looked up at me. “I’d better call Francine and tell her. She’ll have heard about the crash. She’ll think…”

  “Darlene is probably home by now, Willis. But if she’s not, you can reassure Francine. That’s a good thing to do, Willis. And why Lordsburg, do you know? Did Darlene know?”

  “Planning and working on the Fourth of July float. That’s what…” and he choked and coughed again, violent heaves twisting his gut. “Christ, I can’t even say his name.” He tried again. “That’s what my son said they were doing.”

  “In Lordsburg? Why there?”

  He nodded, looking off into the distance, his head ticking a bit side to side like a fat metronome. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? I didn’t even think about it at the time. I know that Giradelli Trucking is lending them a lo-boy to use. Maybe that’s where it’s parked. I don’t know.” He thumped the padded steering wheel. “One favor?”

  “Name it.”

  “When you find out the tox or blood alcohol, will you call me?”

  “Of course.” His request made it sound as if it were a huge favor. Such numbers went to the DA’s office routinely. But the agony in his tone made it clear he was talking as a dad, not an assistant district attorney.

  He nodded and pulled the car into gear. “Thanks.” He let his head fall back against the head rest for a moment, then sighed mightily and straightened up as he let the car drift forward.

  Chapter Five

  By eight the next morning, Sergeant Lars Payson’s desk overflowed with enough paperwork to have killed a forest. He’d been at it deep into the night, then gone home to catch a couple hours’ rest before returning to the Sheriff’s Department at seven a.m. Thursday. As the coordinating officer for this particular nightmare, there were myriad details for him to pursue and record. Lars was good at the job. Most cops abhorred paperwork. Payson might have, but he tackled each scrap with careful diligence, his precise use of language coupled with error-free typing.

  He glanced up from a potpourri of eight-by-ten glossies as I walked in.

  “You know,” he said, tapping the set of photos into a neat packet, “the instinctive thing to do when you hit an exit ramp is to lift your foot. I mean, there’s a friggin’ stop sign at the bottom, for Christ’s sakes. Everybody knows that, no matter how much of a newbie he is.”

  “Good morning, Sarge.” I picked up a coffee cup and eyed the cannister.

  “I just made it.” Payson retrieved the preliminary police report. “It’s interesting that in this case, the driver didn’t appear to do that. There’s no evidence that he ever tapped the brakes.”

  “Inexperienced kid. He froze at the wheel,” I offered.

  “Maybe so. Panic time. Maybe so.”

  I turned when I felt someone in the doorway behind me. JJ “Miracle” Murton, one of our part-time dispatchers, looked at us, hesitant to interrupt. As always, he ducked his head before trying the first word. Unless the world was ending and I had no one else to choose, I refused to allow JJ on the dispatch desk during swing or graveyard, when most of the actual emergencies happened. On rare occasions, he worked dispatch for the village as well. I suppose to their credit, County Sheriff Eduardo Salcido and Posadas Police Chief Eduardo Martinez—aka “the Two Eduardos”—were more tolerant of the man’s shortcomings than I was. Maybe he was related to them somehow.

  “Uh, Francine Spencer asked that you call her, Sheriff.”

  “She asked for me? Not Sheriff Salcido?” Undersheriff must head the list of most awkward titles, and almost no one acknowledged it. Even Sheriff Salcido, the one legitimately elected to the office, called me “Sheriff.”

  “She asked if you’d call her just the moment you came in.”

  “All right. Thanks.” I turned back to Payson. “You sent Torrez home?”

  “He went with his folks and the sheriff when they left the hospital. The sheriff went with them. The good Father Anselmo was headed that way as well,” he added, referring to Bertrand Anselmo, the local Catholic priest. “They both talked with Browning. The sheriff’s concerned about him.”

  “A rough deal.”

  “Yep. But Torrez will be all right. He’s tough for a Mexican.” He managed to say the nationality as if it were somehow an insult. Payson was fond of ethnic jokes, even targeting his own Swedish heritage just to keep things in balance. “The kid wanted to work today. I told him to give it a break, take some time off, be with his family. I told him that a week or two off would be even better, but he didn’t seem interested in that.”

  “Maybe in a case like this, it’s better if he keeps busy,” I suggested. “Before somebody corners me, let me give Francine a call. Put her mind at ease. Browning told me last night that the Spencer girl was supposed to be riding with Chris. Obviously she wasn’t.”

  “Uh, oh. She was out all night, though?”

  “Apparently so. Francine heard about the crash and because the daughter hadn’t come home, I suppose that tripped mom’s worry switch.”

  “Lucky little Darlene, then. She sure as hell wasn’t at the crash scene.” He shrugged with his version of sympathy. “That doesn’t mean she isn’t shacked up with somebody else, gettin�
� into all kinds of trouble.”

  He grinned up at me and changed the subject. “Are you going to the meeting? The sheriff said he wasn’t, and if I saw you first, I was supposed to remind you about it. Consider yourself reminded, sir.”

  “I suppose I’ll make an appearance, if I can’t find a good excuse.”

  “The sheriff says that you’ll know what to say.”

  “He does, does he?” The second Thursday of each month was an opportunity to practice sleeping with my eyes open. On this day, without even a try at sleep all night, I’d be lucky if the eyes didn’t just slam shut with my snores filling the Commission chambers.

  The Posadas County Commission met during a marathon, all-day session that addressed all the monumental issues affecting one of the smallest and least-populated counties in New Mexico: how many weed-whackers to purchase for the cemetery; whether or not to change garbage collection days at the transfer stations; how much monetary support, if any, to give to the public library. In short, all the issues that keep the wheels of county government squeaking.

  This time, they’d want the latest word from us about the horrific crash that would be the talk of the town. People in Hell asked for ice water, too.

  “You could take this pack of morgue photos for show and tell,” Payson said helpfully.

  “You’re a sick man,” I replied. Someone was expected to represent the Sheriff’s Department at the county meeting, no matter what catastrophes were making the news. During the past year, as Sheriff Eduardo Salcido lost interest in politics as he moved ever closer to retirement, I’d often had the short straw selected for me. Even Lars Payson had shared the experience a time or two.

  Dispatcher Miracle Murton reappeared, clinging to the doorjamb as if someone had stolen his knees. “She’s on the line now, sir. Mrs. Spencer, I mean.”

  And indeed Francine was, voice quavery, not sounding like the efficient bookkeeper that Posadas Electric Cooperative paid her to be.

  “Oh, Sheriff, this has been just awful.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, and could guess this wasn’t a conversation to launch by saying, “Francine, how are you?” So I jumped right in. “Have you talked with Darlene this morning?”

  “Sheriff, she hasn’t come home yet.” A loud snuffle interrupted, and after she gathered herself together, she added, “I heard about the accident with Scotty and the others and just…”

  “Francine, Chris Browning’s father tells me that Darlene intended to accompany the Torrez children and his son to Lordsburg. Is that correct, do you know?”

  “She told me she wanted to do that, and I said absolutely not. We argued back and forth, and she said that she was on some 4-H committee, and just had to go. I finally caved, Sheriff, and I’m not…”

  I waited a moment, heard the tissue box rattle and the nose honk. “I mean,” she continued, “why would they have to drive all the way over there to work on a parade float? I told her that she should just drive herself, but she and Chris… they’ve gotten pretty close, and I think it was more that than working on some float thing.”

  “We’re looking into all of that,” I said. “Right now, we don’t have any answers for you, other than that it appears certain that Darlene was not riding in the Brownings’ Suburban at the time of the crash. That’s the extent of what we know.”

  “But where is she, then? It’s not like her to just stay out all night, without a say-so. Although…” She hesitated, and her voice dropped. “She turns eighteen next month, and that’s been hard on her. She wants to be an adult, and she wants to be a kid. I’m not on her ‘first to know’ list. You know what I mean?”

  “I do.” My four, all grown and flown now, had made life interesting for me from time to time. One of them still made it a point not to speak to me.

  “Sheriff, I just don’t know what to do.”

  “She’ll show up,” I said with far more confidence than I felt.

  “If you hear anything that I should know, will you call me? I’ll be at home all day. I just couldn’t face work after hearing about last night. And now, worrying about Darlene.”

  “Of course.”

  “All of this is so sad. And I can’t help but worry. Darlene and Chris were so close, you know. He’s a year younger, but they graduated together, and they’ve been just about in lockstep their entire senior year. But now…and poor Willis…”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Then, with more optimism than I felt, I added, “When you hear from your daughter, and I’m sure you will before long, give me a buzz, all right? If I’m not in, just leave a message with dispatch.”

  When I hung up, I sat silently for a moment, mulling. The simplest answer was that Darlene Spencer had been with her boyfriend earlier in the evening, maybe even riding to Lordsburg with the three kids. But not on the return trip. Riding home with another friend after a spat with Chris? Spending the night with a friend in Lordsburg…or elsewhere? Feeling “almost eighteen”?

  I glanced up at the clock. Down the hall in the commission annex, a room that was as grand as a school’s portable classroom, the supervisors would gather in a few minutes. I wasn’t going to talk about the accident under investigation, so I had nothing out of the ordinary to present. They could read about the crash on Friday in the Posadas Register. That wouldn’t stop them from asking. I attended because the commission room was nicely air conditioned, and on the remote chance that one of the county commissioners had a valid question for us.

  A cat nap that resulted only in a crick in my neck didn’t help much, and by the time I cleaned myself up, shaved, and changed clothes, I was resigned to my fate. Deputies all knew that we would have questions for Darlene when she turned up. Sergeant Payson knew where I was—there wasn’t much else we could do at that point. At nine-fifteen, I entered the County Commission chambers as they finished the prayer and pledge, just late enough to miss the gaggle of gossips who waited by the doorway until the gavel rapped.

  Our two-page sheriff’s report had been included in the commissioners’ packet, and no surprise, Randy Murray leaned into the microphone about half an hour into the meeting, after the bills had been efficiently approved and paid, and it was the Sheriff’s Department’s turn to report.

  Murray questioned everything we did, I think because he enjoyed hearing his own voice. This time, it was a bid item for a new patrol unit that drew his attention. Maybe he hadn’t heard about the crash the night before, because he didn’t ask a question about that.

  “I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again.” Murray’s brow furrowed in concentration. Of course he’d “say it again.” And again. And again. “The county would save a basketful of money if Sheriff’s Department cars didn’t go home with the deputies after their shift is over.” He rested his left hand over his heart. “I drive to work. My wife drives to work. I don’t see the point of a county car retiring for the day, sitting in some private driveway until the deputy returns to work.”

  He fell silent, and I assumed that his gaze locked on me meant that some response was expected.

  “And your question is?” I didn’t bother to rise from my seat to use the microphone. I knew I probably sounded insolent, but what the hell. I was too tired to worry about it. The recorder would pick up our conversation just fine. Randy was half my age, and fond of asking the same question month after month until he received an answer he agreed with. A short, sleek man who always reminded me of a harbor seal, the commissioner hiked himself well forward in his chair, careful not to rumple his polished black suit.

  “Well, my question is, Sheriff, why do we still do that?”

  “And we will continue to do it,” I said, keeping my tone reasonable, “as much as we’re able.” This wasn’t County Commission policy, after all. Randy Murray could whine all he wanted, but it was Sheriff Eduardo Salcido who made the decisions for the Sheriff’s Department, including budget matters. “It’s
far more efficient,” I continued, “for the law enforcement officer who’s on call twenty-four/seven to have his mobile ‘office’ near at hand.”

  “Oh, come on. How long does it take to duck over to the department’s parking lot and pick up a car?”

  I smiled slightly and didn’t answer.

  “I’m serious,” Murray persisted. “What’s the deal here?”

  “Now, I…” Commission Chairman Roland Esquibel started to say, then stopped as if someone had pulled his plug.

  “The best thing would be for you to come to the department and do a ride-along for a few nights,” I said. “Then you’d see for yourself what the deal is, Randy. The simplest answer is that there are times when seconds do count.” I shifted to let the hard seat wear another spot. “The sorry truth is that each officer does not take a car home. We like to keep the vehicles strategically placed, though.”

  Murray held up a pencil as if my attention had been wandering. Maybe it was. “Somebody told me that most of the time, we only have one deputy on the road in our county.”

  “That’s an exaggeration,” I said. “Some of the time, that’s correct. Not most. It’s common during the graveyard shift to have just the one officer to cover both the county and the village.” I took a deep breath, thought about more explanation, and decided against it. Nothing I said would convince Murray, once he had an idea in his little pinhead. But he persisted, switching his train of thought effortlessly.

  “I heard sirens all over the place last night.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you did.”

  “So what happened?”

  “An MVA down by the interstate.”

  “That’s the one with the three kids?”

  “Correct.” The community grapevine was a marvel. The dozen or so folks in the commission chambers fell deathly silent, all the usual private whispered conversations jerked to a halt. Murray was bright enough to understand the intent of my clipped reply, and shifted gears yet again. He read my disinterested expression accurately.