A block south the pavement turned to dirt, and my car rumbled along toward the T intersection with State 17, the old highway that paralleled the interstate. Though it was once a major arterial across the country and even across the southern part of the state, only ranchers used it now, to reach their irrigation ditches on those rare occasions when there was enough water to bother.
“Three ten, Posadas.”
The voice was so faint I almost didn’t hear it over the crunching gravel. I turned up the volume and keyed the mike.
“Posadas, three ten.”
“Three ten, ten-thirty-nine.”
“I’m wandering,” I said without keying the mike. “I’m without status.” I pushed the button and said, “Three ten is ten-eight.”
“Ten-four, three ten. Can you…”
There was a pause, and I could picture young Sutherland leaning forward, looking at the worn copy of the ten code taped to the cabinet beside the radio. Normal conversations over the new cell phone units, despite their limitations and other drawbacks, made the old-fashioned ten-code system seem pretty silly.
“…ten-nineteen.”
“Ten-four,” I said. “ETA about six minutes.”
I reached a wide spot at Kenny Gallegos’s driveway and turned around, and in less than five minutes I pulled into the parking lot of the Public Safety Building. Frank Dayan, the publisher of the Register, stood by the back door, smoking.
I glanced at the dashboard clock. Four twenty-six a.m. If Frank wanted to talk to me without interruptions, he’d picked a good time.
I swung around to the curb and stopped, leaving the engine idling. Frank crushed out his cigarette and took his time putting the butt in the trash can by the door. Dressed in his usual khaki trousers and short-sleeved sport shirt, he thrust his hands in his pockets and ambled out to my car. This was not the ballistic Frank Dayan that I knew, rushing from merchant to merchant, pushing those column inches of advertising space for every penny he could squeeze.
“This meeting of Insomniacs Anonymous is hereby called to order,” I said, and he grinned, looking Irish as hell, more like a Frankie O’Rourke than a Dayan. He leaned both hands against the car door and regarded me with what I took for melancholy. “What’s up? You about ready for breakfast?”
He freed one hand and looked at his watch.
“You’ve got time,” I chided. “Don’t give me this ‘I’m busy’ nonsense. The world’s asleep.” I nodded toward the passenger side. “Get in.”
He did so, settling into the seat with a sigh. He regarded the stack of radios and other junk with interest. “I’ve never ridden with any of you folks before,” he said.
“Well, then,” I replied. “Let’s lift your level of boredom to new levels. Put on your seat belt.”
He struggled trying to find the buckle under all the crap in the middle of the seat but finally managed.
I jotted the time and Dayan’s presence in my log, clicked the mike, and said, “Three ten is ten eight.” Before Sutherland had completed half of his canned response, I had turned the volume down to a murmur.
“So,” I said, heading 310 out of the parking lot. “Is there anywhere in particular you wanted to go, or are you just cruising?”
Dayan shrugged. “I just wanted to chat with you about a couple of things, if you’re not too busy. Maybe get an update on the Sisson deal.”
No one asks for an update on anything at 4:26 in the morning, and I laughed. I was willing to bet what he wanted, and so I said, “Oh…busy. As you can see, I am awesomely busy, Frank. Tell you what. I was going down toward Regal for a bit. Maybe bust some illegals.” I glanced around toward the backseat, as if someone might be back there listening. “Maybe put the screws on some of them for a quick buck. Know what I mean?”
Frank Dayan’s reaction was just as I had expected. His jaw dropped a fraction and his head jerked. Before he could answer, I added, “You got a note, too, eh?”
My stomach churned again, and not from early-morning hunger, when he didn’t say, “What note?”
Chapter Nine
Dayan reached into his pocket and pulled out a white envelope. From it he removed the now familiar piece of white typing paper, folded neatly in thirds, just like the other two.
“This came to my office today. Plain envelope, just my name typed on it.” He held it up as if I could read it in the darkness. I glanced his way, trying to work out in my mind how much I could trust him. “I gather you’re familiar with the contents?” he asked.
“‘Commissioner, you need to know that Tom Pasquale is a slimeball and is hitting up on nationals and tourists and God only knows who else, blah, blah, blah.’ Is that the gist of it?”
“Yes.” He folded the note, slipped it in the envelope, and extended it toward me. I took it and snapped it under the clip on my log. It lay there, on top of the junk pile, if Dayan wanted it back. “Except it was addressed to me, not a commissioner. You’re saying that they all got one, too?”
“No.” I paused as I cleared the intersection beyond the interstate and turned onto 56, heading toward Regal. “Sam Carter made a point of telling me that he got one. So did Arnold Gray. I haven’t heard from the others yet.”
“But you probably will.”
“No doubt.”
“Did you talk to the deputy yet?”
“No.”
Dayan paused. He reached out and beat a short tattoo on the dashboard with his index fingers. Maybe it helped him think.
“I guess it’s not anyone’s business but yours how you handle it, but are you going to talk to him?”
“When the time comes…if it comes. The first thing that has to happen is that we move beyond the anonymous note stage. If someone wants to come forward with the ‘documentation’ that the note promises and is willing to sign a formal complaint, then it’ll be a different ball game. But a sleazy unsigned note, sent to all the right people? I don’t think so.”
I knew it sounded as if I’d dismissed the contents of the note from my mind, continuing on as if it had never been delivered. If Frank Dayan thought that, it was fine with me. I trusted him as much as I trusted anyone associated with the media, but he didn’t have to know the nagging little seeds of doubt that damn note had planted in my mind. In that respect, the writer had been successful.
“So you tell me, Frank. What are you going to do? Are you going to run a story about it in the Register?”
His reply was snappy. “Come on, Sheriff. We don’t print rumors. We don’t print letters to the editor unless they’re signed and we can verify them. We don’t even print ‘name withheld’ letters when they ask. No guts, no signature, no letter. It’s that simple. And this kind of personal attack, even if it was signed? I don’t think so.”
“Commendable,” I said.
“I don’t think the letter would have been written if it weren’t an election year.”
“Oh? Not for me, it isn’t an election year.”
Dayan turned as much sideways as his seat belt would allow and rested his left arm along the back of the seat. He laced his fingers through the grillwork of the security screen that separated the backseat area from the front.
“Bob Torrez made a lot of people angry when he filed as an independent, Sheriff.”
“Whoopee.”
Dayan laughed. “I know, I know. You don’t care. You were appointed when Sheriff Holman got killed last spring and agreed to serve until after the election. And the first thing you did was appoint Bob as undersheriff.”