“And what do you think?” the judge said finally to Jaramillo.
“Well,” he shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess I’m of mixed minds about it, without some rock hard evidence to back it up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. “Last time I looked, Hitler and his gang were dead. I don’t think any court in the state is going to let us run around sticking needles in the bellies of pregnant women to suck out DNA samples. And if we had rock hard evidence, it’d be doubly pointless.”
“Well-” Jaramillo started, but I interrupted him.
“Forget it, Don. Unless Jennifer requests the test herself, with the mother’s written consent, forget it. I’m surprised that Torrez brought it up.”
Judge Hobart almost smiled and gestured toward the waitress, arriving with our food. My ham sandwich was recognizable, a slice of ham on white bread with eight potato chips on the side. Jaramillo looked with something akin to alarm at the thing that was touted to be a fish fillet, floating in a sea of yellow curdled sauce. The judge’s chicken salad looked exactly as I had remembered it.
“What if Kenny Carter is lying, though?” Jaramillo said, tapping the lump of fish tentatively with his fork. “If he knocked up Jennifer, then there’s every reason to think that Jim Sisson would go ballistic when he found out. If the two of them had a confrontation-”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said flatly. “If we can’t solve this thing some way short of the sort of intrusive procedure that I understand amniocentesis to be, then forget it. Jim’s ghost can come back from the grave someday and whisper who did it in our ear. And this is the goddamned worst chunk of ham I’ve ever tasted.” I looked at Jaramillo. “And if that stuff doesn’t kill you, I’ll be surprised.”
“It’s not that bad,” Jaramillo said lamely.
“Jennifer Sisson and the food aside,” Judge Hobart said around a mouthful of chicken salad that clung to his dentures like wallpaper paste, “Bill, we need to decide what to do about Carla Champlin.”
“I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to do, Judge. Except maybe find someone who can make her understand what her legal options are. If she wants Tom Pasquale evicted, then I suppose there’s a process she can follow, isn’t there?”
“Well of course there is,” he said testily. “Damn woman won’t, though.” He put down his fork. “Look-all she needs to do is go see her goddamn lawyer, whoever that is, and have him look over the rental agreement. If there’s something in the lease that Pasquale has screwed up, then she can ask that the lease be canceled, in an appropriate manner. But Jesus, she can’t just go yowling around the neighborhood, changing locks willy-nilly, and yelling threats.”
“You heard about the locks, eh?” I asked.
“Course I heard about it. And I heard about the open bedroom window, and about the kid changing the oil on his goddamn motorcycle in the back bedroom, and on, and on, and on.” He jabbed at the salad. “Christ, she spent nearly the whole morning camped out on the hallway bench in the county building, yammering.” Hobart glanced up at me and grinned. “I should have sent her on over to your office.”
“Thanks. I already talked to her. Apparently it didn’t do any good.”
“Hell, why should you be any different? You know, I always used to wonder about her, just a little. Back when she was running the post office. Licked one too many stamps.”
“I’ll try to talk with her again,” I said. “I don’t promise much.”
“Better still, why don’t you just tell that young deputy to move the hell out and save us all a headache. Before she shoots him or does something equally nuts.”
I swallowed the last of the ham and tongued the slab of white bread paste off the roof of my mouth. “I’m not sure I want to arbitrate housing disputes for my deputies, Judge. They’re all consenting adults, perfectly capable of running their own lives.”
Hobart laughed, a barking rasp that threatened to spray chicken salad across the table. “Don’t be so modest. You’re their goddamn father confessor, and you know it.” He frowned at Jaramillo. “Torrez asked you what you thought about the paternity thing?”
“Yeah, well,” Jaramillo said, “I think Bill’s probably right. We’d be apt to get ourselves in a royal mess, one way or another.”
“Us being in a mess wasn’t what I was worried about,” I said, and looked at the sludge in the bottom of my cup. “And let me talk with Carla again, Judge, and see what I can do.” I pushed myself away from the table and stood up. “No promises.” I glanced at my watch. “I really need to be on the road, gents. Thanks for the company.”
“Bill…” Judge Hobart said, and then finished the thought with just a nod, as if he was sure I could read his mind.
“We’ll keep you posted,” I said to Jaramillo, and tossed a couple bucks on the table for Tamara, who thoughtfully hadn’t tried to inflict any more of the awful coffee on me.
Outside in the sunshine, I looked at my watch again. The Don Juan wouldn’t be crowded, and a fast burrito would settle my writhing stomach. I managed to drive within a hundred feet of the restaurant’s parking lot on Twelfth Street before the telephone rang.
Chapter Thirty-two
I cleared the intersection of Hutton and North Twelfth Street and a quarter of a mile further on managed to turn into Judge Lester Hobart’s driveway without sliding into the bar-ditch.
The judge’s rambling home, one of the first frame houses in the county, had been built in the late 1800s by one of the Bennett brothers…two aging cattlemen who had seen some future for the place that others didn’t understand.
The graveled driveway wound through a collection of old, rusting farm machinery, none of which had been capable of finding much wealth in the raw Posadas soil. The high-wheeled rake and sickle-bar mower, the baler, and a 1927 Ford AA truck without wheels, axles, or bed sank into the desert along with a half-dozen other relics.
If attention was what she was after, Carla Champlin had hit upon a surefire strategy. The blue-and-white RV looked bigger than it had when parked in the grape arbor behind Carla’s house. She’d driven up the driveway and onto the judge’s yard, parked squarely with the vehicle’s big picture window staring into the judge’s front door. One of the vehicle’s front tires had crushed a small cactus planter near the pebbled walkway.
Even as I pulled 310 to a stop, Undersheriff Robert Torrez arrived. As we got out and advanced toward the RV, the judge’s niece stepped out of the house and walked toward us, her hands in the hip pockets of her jeans. A scrawny gal maybe forty years old, she’d inherited the Hobart genes that gave her a face full of angles and planes, with high cheekbones and full eyebrows. I didn’t know Lucy Hobart well but got the impression that she didn’t smile much.
“Lester is on his way,” she said, and stopped a couple of paces from the back of the RV, surveying the towering aluminum sides with distaste.
“Miss Champlin is inside, you say?” I asked, and Lucy nodded.
“I asked her to come on in for coffee, but she refuses to talk to anyone but Lester. That’s one crazy lady in there.”
I turned and looked at Bob Torrez, who shrugged helplessly. He leaned against the fender of 310, crossed his arms over his chest, and appeared to be ready to wait for Christmas.
“Christ,” I muttered, “why us, why now,” and walked to the door of the RV. It was locked. I rapped it with my knuckle and waited. “Carla?” No response. “Carla? It’s Bill Gastner. Let me in.”
I rested my hand on the door frame and felt the slight motion of the RV as something inside shifted.
“Carla, it’s hot out here. Give me a break.” Carla wasn’t about to give anyone a break. “What did she say to you?” I asked Lucy.