“We’d appreciate it,” I said.
She turned and bustled off, disappearing through the same doorway the men had used a moment before. She was gone not more than twenty seconds before reappearing and beckoning us into the inner sanctum.
The office was a sea of desks, computers, and drafting tables. Two men were in conference at one of the tables, and they glanced up at us with mild curiosity.
EllenFae LaCrosse led us to a large map of Luna County that was spread out on one of the tables. “The crew he’s with is right here,” she said, and with a shapely finger traced New Mexico 11 south out of Deming. “Just a couple miles the other side of Sunshine,” she said, and grinned again. “They’re putting in a road off to the east, up to that fancy horse barn that the Gunderson group is building.”
“That should be easy to find,” I said.
She rolled up the map efficiently and thrust it in a boot on the side of one of the tables. “We like to keep the high school kids a little closer to home,” she said. “That way there’s not so much travel time for ’em.”
“I’m sure they appreciate that,” I said.
“Well, it works for us,” Mrs. LaCrosse said. “He’s a nice boy, and a hard worker, if that’s the sort of information you’re looking for.”
I nodded. “We appreciate that,” I said, and Bob Torrez and I followed her out of the room. More as an attempt to forestall the blast furnace outside for a few more seconds, I stopped with my hand on the knob and turned to EllenFae LaCrosse. “How many kids do you folks hire during the summer season?”
Without hesitation, she said, “Right now, we have eight kiddos working for us. And that’s a full contingent. They’re good workers, but you know the labor laws. We’re so restricted by insurance and what all about what we can use them for that we have to be kind of careful.” She smiled again. “I know that a lot of the guys like Kenny. He’s a quick study. I know that Pete’s made him an offer to go full-time just as soon as he graduates.”
“Great opportunity,” I said.
She nodded. “We’re always on the lookout for the good ones,” she said. “And we’ve known Kenny for years, of course.” Her brow furrowed slightly. “It’s none of my business, I know. But I hope he’s not in trouble of some sort.”
“We just need to chat with him, ma’am. He might be a possible witness to an incident that needs to be cleared up, is all.”
“Well, that’s good.” She nodded vigorously.
I started to turn the knob. The polished stainless steel was warm to the touch, passing the heat through from the outside. “How did Kenny happen to come to work for you folks? It’s a good commute from Posadas over here every day.”
“Oh, we’ve known the Carters for light-years,” she said. “Sam and Pete go way back.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She nodded. “Back in the stone ages, Sam and Pete were partners, up in Albuquerque. And then things got so expensive, with so much competition, that they moved out of that rat race and came south.” She grinned and leaned closer. “Sam got smart and took up another line of work. Pete stayed out in the sun, sniffing those diesel fumes.”
I laughed, trying to keep the surprise off my face. “He hasn’t done so badly,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”
***
The vinyl car seats were damn near molten, and Bob switched the air conditioner to high with all four windows down to purge the heat.
“New and interesting,” I said.
“Sir?”
“I’ve lived in Posadas for damn near thirty years, and I never knew that Sam Carter had been in the construction business before he started to sell milk, butter, and eggs.”
“I can’t imagine him wanting to get his hands dirty,” Torrez said. “He doesn’t seem like the contractor type.”
“At least not anymore.”
We reached the intersection with New Mexico 11 and turned south, the country flat, hot, and bleak ahead of us. “Maybe he just ran the books,” I added, and took a deep breath. “I get the feeling we’re on a giant lizard chase, Robert.” I held up my hands in frustration. “If Sam Carter knew that his kid had knocked up Jennifer Sisson, I just can’t picture him taking the initiative to visit Jim and have a parent-to-parent discussion. I can see Jim driving over to Carter’s and busting him in the chops, but not vice versa. And I don’t see the son stepping forward. So what’s left?”
Torrez shrugged.
“We’re missing something, somewhere.” I watched the heat-tortured shrubs glide by outside the window of the car.
“Something simple,” Torrez said after a moment. “That’s what it seems to always be. Something simple.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
After a moment, I could look beyond a slight bend in the highway-perhaps put there by the builder for artistic reasons-and see in the distance a collection of machinery and trucks parked near a dirt road that took off to the east. From what I could make out, the entire desert was crisscrossed with dirt roads, a grid that looked like some optimistic soul expected a sea of houses to sprout out of the sand someday.
As we drew closer, I could see a large yellow backhoe working, a section of shiny metal culvert suspended from its bucket with a length of chain. A worker walked with the machine and its load, one hand on the end of the culvert so that it wouldn’t pendulum.
“I don’t see the kid,” I said as we slowed to a crawl.
“Nope,” Torrez said. He swung the car onto the shoulder of the road and stopped. One of the workers waved instructions at the other men, then headed toward us. Torrez ignored him and instead twisted around with an old pair of military binoculars in his hand, looking off to the west. I saw a faint smile twitch the corners of his mouth.
“Help you fellas?” the man said, and leaned down, putting both hands on the driver’s side door.
Torrez turned, dropped the binoculars on the seat, and lounged one wrist over the steering wheel as if he had all the time in the world. “The home office tells us that Kenny Carter is working out here,” he said.
The man nodded. “Was.” His eyes flicked over to me and then back to the undersheriff.
Torrez looked on down the road toward Columbus and then Palomas, across the Mexican border. “But he’s done for the day or what?”
The man straightened up and hitched his trousers a little closer to his impressive belly. “He told me he had a family emergency,” the man said.
Bob turned and looked at him. He could read the name over the man’s pocket better than I could. “Well, Paul…”
“Paul Turner.”
“Paul, what time was this family emergency? They must have called him from the Deming office, unless he walks around with his own cell phone in his jeans.”
Paul looked a touch uncomfortable, having been trapped into implicating his boss. He settled for vague. “Well, I guess they did. He left some time ago.”
“Going home to Posadas?”
“He didn’t say.”
The man stepped back and looked down at the decal on the door of the patrol car, realizing for the first time that we weren’t locals. He was about to say something when I leaned over and asked, “Mrs. LaCrosse told us that the kid was out here. You have the office number handy?”
I had the cell phone in my hand, and Paul Turner obviously didn’t like being caught in the middle. He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it across to me. “Number’s on there.”
“Dandy,” I said, and punched it in. After four or five rings, a pleasant voice announced that I’d reached LaCrosse Construction. “EllenFae LaCrosse, please,” I said. “Sheriff Bill Gastner calling. We were there just a few minutes ago.”
In a moment, Mrs. LaCrosse came on the line. “Yes, Sheriff?”
“Mrs. LaCrosse, is Kenny Carter in the office?”
There was a pause, and then she said, “Well, no, he’s not. Are you calling from the job site?”
“Yes. And he’s not here. Apparently after you called out here, he took off. I just thought he might have headed back to the office.”