Tony nodded.
“Not your own bike?”
“I ain’t got a bike right now. The frame broke.”
“So you rode Kevin’s mountain bike?”
“Yeah. He let me take it.”
“What did he ride?”
“He took one of the racing bikes. William had the other mountain bike.”
“You had fun?”
Tony hesitated. “Well, it was okay.” A slow rueful smile crept across his face. “Those guys don’t just go out to play around. I mean, they’re fast. ”
“Tough workout, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am. Very tough. I thought I was going to die.”
“All the time you were with them, or any other time, they never talked about trouble with anybody?”
“Trouble?”
“Sure. Arguments they might have had with someone…disagreements, that sort of thing.”
“No, not that I heard. They’re kind of cool.”
“Kind of cool.”
“Yeah. I mean, I know about ’em, you know. I think they’re kinda funny, sometimes. Like a couple of old ladies.” He limp-wristed a small wave. “But they’re okay. They don’t give me a hard time.”
“Why would they?”
“Well,” Tony said, and hesitated. “That’s what people think, you know.”
“Do you know a lot of people who talk about them?”
“No. Not a lot. But it’s not like it’s any big secret or anything.” He shook his head in wonder. “For a long time, my dad didn’t know they were gay. When he found out, he didn’t know what to do.”
“What’s there to do?”
“Well, that’s what my ma told him.”
“Tell me about the last ride you guys did.”
“We just went up on the mesa.”
“Just?” She smiled at Tony. “That’s quite a climb.”
“Yeah. I felt kinda dumb. I had to get off and walk, and here these two old guys are, just cruisin’ right up. Ridin’ circles around me.”
“You didn’t see anybody on that ride? Or when you came back?”
“No. Well, the guys at the dump. We saw them. Kevin said something kinda mad, but I didn’t hear what it was. He said something to William.”
“By ‘the guys at the dump,’ do you mean the landfill manager? Or the young man who works for him?”
“Both. They were both right there at the little house. You know where the scales are? They saw us, and one of ’em lets out this real loud whistle. You know, like you hear on the street.”
“A wolf whistle, you mean?”
“That’s it. One of ’em did that, and Kevin just waved a little, kinda like this”-and he rotated his wrist. “Like he was sayin’ ‘asshole.’ I was a ways behind ’em, and I didn’t hear what he said. Just something to William, you know, like you say to someone when you don’t want someone else to hear.”
“And then you went on up the hill? Up the mesa?”
“All the way to the rim.” He shook his head wearily. “By then I was about half dead.”
“It must have been fun coming down, though.”
“Not really. The road’s rough, and it’s just about as much work as goin’ up.” He flashed braces again. By the time he grew into himself, Estelle decided, Tony Acosta was going to be a lady-killer in his own right. “Maybe a little better on the paved part.”
“That’s the way you came back into town? On County Forty-three?” Tony nodded. “What did you guys talk about, mostly?”
Tony stared at the steps, thinking hard. “Mr. Page talked a lot about his business. What he does with computer imaging and stuff. It sounds neat. He invited me to stop by his place in Socorro if I got up that way. By his business.”
“But neither one of them ever talked about anybody they’ve had troubles with?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Tony, let me ask you something. If Kevin had seen someone-let’s say a stranger-assaulting your sister, what do you think he would have done?”
“He would have climbed right in the middle of it,” Tony said without hesitation. He ducked his head in embarrassment. “Me and my brother were goin’ at it once. My folks weren’t home. He was out back and heard us, and came over. I thought Mauro was going to throw a punch at him when he grabbed him by the arm, but Kevin just climbed into his face, you know? Kinda that wild, ‘go ahead, punk, I dare you’ look? So yeah-he woulda done something. Is that what you think happened?”
“I don’t know, Tony. We’re not sure what happened. We’re hoping that before much longer, your sister can tell us.”
He shook his head slowly in disbelief. “I just can’t see someone doin’ that.”
“Did you know that your sister carried a hat pin in her jeans?”
“That dork,” Tony said. “You know what I told her last week? In fact”-and he suddenly looked very mature and sure of himself-“it was just before that volleyball game where she and Deena had their fight?”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that if she kept wearin’ that stupid thing, someone was going to rip it out of her hand and shove it right up her ass.” He blushed. “Really. That’s what I told her.”
“I’m sorry that you were right, in a manner of speaking,” Estelle said.
“Yeah. Me, too. Too bad it wasn’t her ass.” He held his shoulders up and made a face. “They don’t think it went into her brain though. That’s really gross.”
Estelle handed Tony one of her cards, and he regarded it thoughtfully. “This is just in case you remember something else that you think I should know, Tony.”
“We’re going to miss having them around,” he said. “I mean Kevin and William.”
“We’ll do our best, Tony.”
“Yeah, but how often when someone goes missing like this do you ever find ’em alive? I mean, Kevin didn’t just go to the pizza place and forget to come back.”
“I wish we had an answer for that.” Estelle thumbed the latch on the outside door. “You’d better get back to class.”
“Hey, no rush,” he said with a smile. “It was just a test. I already finished.”
“Aced it?”
He cocked his head in easy self-assurance and stepped back inside, tucking Estelle’s business card in his hip pocket as he did so.
“What a charmer,” Estelle murmured. She walked around the end of the building, cutting cross-lots toward her county car. She didn’t bother stopping to chat with the principal, Charlie Maestas. Back in the car, she keyed the radio.
“PCS, three ten is ten-eight at the high school.”
“Ten-four, three ten.” Estelle waited, but no further message followed. No one else was having any better luck than she was.
Chapter Thirty
A pickup truck loaded with elm limbs towering precariously over the cab was parked on the scales in front of the landfill office, and the attendant leaned on the door, chatting with the driver. His clipboard was tucked under his arm, and when Estelle pulled into the landfill, he glanced back at her and then continued his conversation.
The undersheriff turned hard to the left and parked the county car with its nose to the chain-link fence, beside a flashy motorcycle and a dilapidated imported pickup truck. She got out and stretched. The landfill featured an impressive view, but she knew that its location had been one of Kevin Zeigler’s pet peeves. More than once at county meetings, she’d heard his comments about the location. To bury refuse above the village, even though the location was five miles out of town, made no sense to Zeigler.
An area in the bleak eastern prairie, out beyond the MacInernys’ gravel pit, had been offered to the county. To relocate the landfill, and perhaps to then hire a private contractor to manage it, were decisions toward which the county moved with the speed of an inchworm.
Off to the left, Estelle could see the dirt two-track that wound up the mesa from town, and she could imagine the three cyclists-one pushing his bike, heart pounding in his ears, sweat soaking his shirt.
“Help you?”
Estelle turned and smiled at Bart Kurtz. “I was sightseeing,” she said.
“Hey, no charge for that.” Kurtz turned and watched the loaded pickup waddle over the rough ground toward the edge of the current refuse pit. “They don’t always go where we tell ’em,” he observed soberly. Of medium height and beefy build, Kurtz was working on a potbelly that looked as if he were pregnant.