Convenient Disposal (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

The sheriff relaxed in his favorite thinking posture—boots crossed over the corner of his desk, the old swivel chair leaned back far enough that he could rest his head on the heating duct. He had remained so quiet during the portion of Crowley’s video that she had played for him that at times she thought he had fallen asleep.

“It’s all guesswork, isn’t it?” he said. He reached out and nudged a copy of the
Posadas Register
toward Estelle as if with that one comment, discussion of the tape was concluded. “You saw that?”

“Not yet.” While Bob Torrez waited, Estelle scanned the front page. It featured a terrible digital photo of Kevin Zeigler on one side of the page and a yearbook photo of Carmen Acosta on the other. Carmen’s picture had been cropped out of a larger group photo and then enlarged. Bannered over the photos was the stark headline:

Girl Assaulted, Manager Missing

Although the article never said so, the implication was easily made that Zeigler’s sudden departure was somehow related to the assault. Details were meager, but Pam Gardiner—or perhaps Frank Dayan himself—had obviously not been content with the release that Estelle had provided.

The article included speculation from several folks, including County Commissioner Barney Tinneman, who made the point that he hadn’t really known Kevin Zeigler all that well…taking the politically safer road of distancing himself immediately when the first sign of trouble arose. The article even featured a wandering, anguished quote from Freddy Acosta, who certainly had no idea “who would do such a thing” to his daughter. Freddy had provided the lurid detail that a hat pin had been used.

“I guess it’s the best we could hope for,” Estelle said. She folded the paper and placed it carefully on Torrez’s desk.

He nodded at the tape. “That’s guesswork, I mean,” he said.

“For now it is,” Estelle persisted. “But there’s a pattern, Bobby. For the first time, we’ve got a motive. Hiring a private company to manage the landfill was Kevin Zeigler’s idea…it’s not something that the commissioners asked him to investigate. If Zeigler could push it through, guess who stands to lose his job.”

“Don Fulkerson, maybe.” Torrez nodded judiciously. “And we don’t know that, either. There’s the chance a private company would hire him.”

“True, that’s a chance. But he has a nice little empire up there on the hill. In fact, it’s a monopoly. Skim the cream off the top, and he can haul a load to the flea market every week. That’s a pretty good deal.”

“He ain’t gettin’ rich,” Torrez said skeptically.

“No, but it’s all his. He says that Zeigler was up there early Tuesday to pick up paperwork of some kind. I believe him. There’s no reason for him to deny that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kevin was trying to make sure he had the most up-to-date paperwork on the tonnage that passes through that place. Kurtz told me that they weigh everything, and charge if the load exceeds five hundred pounds.”

“Depends who you are,” Torrez said. “Do you think Zeigler went back later in the day?”

“I think that could have been one of Zeigler’s noontime errands. What if he didn’t have everything he needed? What if Fulkerson didn’t provide all the data that he wanted? Zeigler was a number cruncher, Bobby—and I don’t think Don Fulkerson spends his days in front of a computer. I think it would be natural to have friction between the two men. I can see Kevin zipping up there at lunch to meet with Fulkerson, to get the correct paperwork before the agenda item comes up. Maybe while he was there, the two of them had an argument, and whether by accident or design, Fulkerson took his chance. I get the impression that there was no love lost between them.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Torrez smirked.

Estelle felt double relief that she hadn’t bothered to pass on Fulkerson’s “Miss Ziggy” comment. “The landfill is closed on Tuesdays,” she said, “so there’s no witnesses. Fulkerson dumps the body, and then he’s left with a problem.”

“No shit, he’d have a problem. For one thing, there’s the truck.”

Estelle nodded. “Don Fulkerson is one of those clever people, Bobby. I think that he has a pretty high opinion of himself. He’s one of those country sages who is quick at contempt for strangers, outsiders, or just plain fancy folks. He
doesn’t
have a high opinion of Kevin Zeigler. I can easily imagine sparks between those two. And I can see Fulkerson thinking to himself, what would present more of a clever puzzle than us finding Zeigler’s truck right in his own driveway. It would be sure to throw us off.”

“Maybe.” Torrez still sounded dubious, but Estelle could see the mental gears grinding.

“Look—Doris Marens saw the truck. At least she says that she did. And think about the little things. The truck drives by slowly, not in Zeigler’s usual fashion. The driver spikes the brakes a couple of houses early.”

“None of that…,” Torrez said, and waved a hand. “I’d hate to have this case depend on her testimony. I can imagine what a good lawyer would do with her. By the time he was finished, nothing she had to say would be worth a damn.”

“None of it by itself is worth a damn,” Estelle said vehemently. “But together? He drives the truck back to Candelaria Court, and parks it in the driveway. Bobby, I could
smell
him in that truck. He pulls in, and there’s Carmen Acosta, standing at the kitchen door. She sees him. And the game is up. It’s all over, because what would happen if the most thick-witted cop asks her, ‘All right, Carmen, did you see anyone at Zeigler’s today?’ What’s she going to say? ‘Why, sure. This grubby guy in a greasy coat who sure looks a lot like our landfill manager.’” Estelle snapped her fingers. “Busted.”

“Carmen wouldn’t stand a chance against Don Fulkerson,” Bobby said.

“You bet she wouldn’t.” She balled her fist. “The lug wrench is handy, lying right there on the truck’s floor, in plain sight. He charges after her. Can you imagine him slamming into that door, just as she’s trying to close and lock it? At one point, somewhere in the house, she gets in maybe one good lick with the hat pin before he grabs her hand and
wham
. It’s all over.”

Torrez tossed the pencil down. “I don’t suppose you saw a nice wound on Fulkerson’s arm or something like that.”

“No. But working up there all day long, they probably cut and nick themselves all the time.”

Torrez swung his feet down and stood up. “I have a serious question for you.” Estelle looked expectant. “Why Zeigler’s
driveway
, Estelle. Why not just drive back to the county building?” He held up a hand as he answered his own question. “Sure. Too many people. Too many eyes.”

“I thought of this, too. Remember Freddy Acosta? What if Fulkerson saw Freddy, strolling toward downtown? This is a small town, Bobby. It’s a certainty that Fulkerson knows Freddy, and he may even have a rough idea where he lives. He saw Tony Acosta riding bikes with Kevin and William—it’s entirely possible that he knows where
they
live. Tony told me that when they were out riding, the ‘guy at the landfill’ wolf-whistled at them, and that Kevin then muttered something not very complimentary in confidence to William Page. Well, think about it. Later, Fulkerson sees Freddy, who’s maybe walking right up Bustos, and figures that’s a chance to park the truck without anyone seeing him.”

“Maybe so.”

“And the tire? The tire ends up on the county pile,
not
at the landfill.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Do you want to place bets about that black paint?”

“You think Zeigler had a flat tire up at the landfill, then.”

“What makes more sense? Sure, the tire should have just been tossed in the back of Kevin’s truck. But it
wasn’t
, somehow. Forgotten in the heat of argument, maybe. I don’t know. When it’s all over, what if Fulkerson goes back to the landfill and oops…there it is. He’s got to get rid of it. He wouldn’t want it at the landfill. It’s too risky. If it was found, he’d be implicated right away.”

“I don’t know. I don’t see why it would be apt to be found. He could bury it anytime…”

“Because Fulkerson can’t know if Kevin told someone what his errands were. Did he mention to his secretary that he had to go up the hill? The simplest thing is to get rid of it, just in case someone starts snooping around.”

“Tossing it on the back of the pile down at the county barns sure does that.”

“Even if by chance it’s found, Bobby, it directs our attention that way.”

“The last thing he’d do, though, is toss the tire up on the headache rack of his truck when he’s driving around,” Torrez said.

“Maybe he didn’t do that. Maybe that was just an accidental scrub when he was getting ready to toss it across the fence. I can see him doing that. He stops, tosses the tire up on the rack, climbs up there himself, and over it goes. A nice high vantage point for a hard toss.”

Torrez nodded toward the television set. “The only thing on that tape is that Fulkerson comes back from lunch way late, and Zeigler doesn’t come back at all. And when he
does
come back, Fulkerson is not wearing his coat. Well, it ain’t exactly cold out, either.”

“No, it’s not. But it’s just one more little point. Why should he be late, on the very day when it’s
likely
that Zeigler’s going to talk about the landfill thing with the commission? It’s not like he has to drive thirty miles to be there, Bobby.”

“Maybe he’s not the punctual sort. Maybe he just likes irritating Zeigler.”

“Maybe.” She ticked off several fingers. “Too many little things that point to him. They’re adding up. Plus, it would be to his advantage to be at the meeting if they started discussing the landfill in Zeigler’s absence. Fulkerson would be in a perfect position to throw a wrench in the whole idea, without fear of contradiction.”

Torrez heaved a deep sigh, glanced at his watch, and leaned back again. “I got one naggin’ question. You want to guess what it is?”

“Just one?”

“Well, let’s start with this one,” Torrez said. “Fulkerson parks the truck in Zeigler’s driveway. Sees Carmen. Does his thing with the handy lug wrench. That’s slick, ’cause folks are going to blame Zeigler, right? Well, then what? Fulkerson is on foot, and the old bat down the street doesn’t see him walk by. No one does. Where’s he go?”

“Do you know where Don Fulkerson lives, Bobby? I didn’t, until I checked this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I know where he lives. I think he’s the last trailer in that mobile-home park off Camino del Sol. He’s got about half of that landfill collected in his backyard.”

“And Camino del Sol becomes County Road Nineteen when it leaves the village limits. He doesn’t even need to go back out Candelaria Court to MacArthur.” She walked over to the small whiteboard bolted to the sheriff’s office wall and quickly drew a simple map. “Right out the back of Zeigler’s property to Arroyo del Cerdo. Cross Bustos out there beyond Sissons’, walk maybe a thousand yards of cross-lots to his place.”

“Yup.”

“His motorcycle was at the landfill today, Bobby. So was his truck. What if on Tuesday, his bike was at his house? I mean, that’s the normal thing, isn’t it? He drops off Zeigler’s truck, runs cross-lots back to his own place, then rides the motorcycle back to the landfill. Maybe that’s when he sees the forgotten tire. He parks the bike and takes the truck. Tire goes on the county pile, he shows up back at he meeting when he’s sure that he’s covered his tracks.”

“Huh.”

“He had the motive, he had the opportunity. And he certainly had the means.”

Torrez studiously regarded a wart on his left thumb knuckle. “You want to go up there?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
so?”

“I want to find Kevin Zeigler, Bobby. Whatever it takes. I’d like to look around up there without either Fulkerson or Kurtz knowing…maybe in the office, around the grounds. Then, if we need to take a crew up there to sift through two days of trash, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Two days? There’ll be more than that.”

“Not if it happened the way I think it did. Bart Kurtz said that they cover the week’s collection on Sunday night when the landfill is closed. It’s closed Tuesday, too. So we have the collection from Wednesday and today uncovered in the pit.”

“Change your clothes, and let’s go take a look,” Torrez said.

Chapter Thirty-three

There was nothing surreptitious about Sheriff Robert Torrez’s approach. He pulled up to the Posadas County Landfill’s main gate, got out with his bundle of keys that included the master for all of the county’s heavy Yale padlocks, popped the lock, and swung the gate wide open.

“Let’s lock it,” he said as he climbed back in the Expedition. “You never know what bunch of kids will be out lookin’ for a place to party.” He pulled the Expedition forward. Estelle climbed down, closed and locked the gate behind them.

“Where do you want to start?”

Estelle nodded at the small shack that served as the landfill office. “Right there.” Torrez swung in close but didn’t switch off the ignition. “You know what you’re lookin’ for?”

“No.”

Torrez swiveled the spotlight to illuminate the little building, then swung the light to the left. “The bike’s not here.”

“He’s had lots of time to take it home in the back of his pickup.”

The sheriff snapped off the spot and then switched off the ignition. “Darker’n shit,” he muttered, and slid the large aluminum flashlight out of its boot in the center console. The new moon was far down on the horizon. A light breeze swirled around the shed, enough to set the symphony of landfill smells into motion.

Torrez unlocked the office door and pushed it open. “Let there be light,” he said, and snapped the switch. One of the two fluorescent bulbs flickered into dust-filtered life. The office was stuffy and cluttered. A constant flow of boots carrying mud and dirt had ground the original vinyl flooring bare, leaving recognizable patterns only in the corners, where feet never ventured.

A set of metal shelves bulged with various tools and machine parts, some boxed, some lying loose in the clutter. A single window on the east wall could open, but probably hadn’t in years. The glass was opaque, crusted on the inside from smoke, dust, and insects; on the outside from the constant clouds of landfill dirt that shifted with the wind.

Estelle opened each of the three desk drawers, lingering at the last one when she saw the half-full bottle of Canadian whiskey. “I could smell an additive in his coffee this morning,” she said.

“Don and the bottle are no strangers,” Torrez observed. “I know that for a fact.” He didn’t say how he knew, but Estelle was well aware that Bobby Torrez was determined when it came to busting drunk drivers; years before, shortly after joining the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, he’d lost a younger brother to a weaving drunk. Other deputies swore that Torrez could now smell an open bottle of beer even before the driver lowered his window. She could not imagine him cutting Fulkerson any slack if he caught the landfill manager—county employee or not—weaving down the highway under the influence.

A computer sat in the middle of the desk, dusty and note-stuck. Directly above it on the wall was the load scale’s read-out, the glass of the digital window as filthy as everything else.

“Hi-tech operation,” Torrez said. He held a small plastic bag as Estelle transferred a dozen of the freshest cigarette butts from the overflowing coffee can that served as an ashtray. “Which ones are his?”

“Today he was rolling his own,” Estelle said, “but he had a pack of Camel filters in his shirt pocket. Kurtz was smoking Marlboros.”

“You know we’re lookin’ at a week or more for a DNA profile off these.”

She nodded with resignation. “I don’t care if it takes a month. I need to start somewhere. This afternoon, I asked Francis to find Fulkerson’s blood type for me, if it was on file anywhere over at the hospital. It’s not. Nothing’s going to be easy.”

“Could be that Bart might have had something to do with all this. That’s a possibility.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, Bobby. Maybe he’s in on it. He was the more reserved of the two when I talked with them today. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or not. But he struck me as a little evasive.”

“Bart’s just plain dumb,” Torrez said. “He’s firing on two out of four.”

“Maybe so, but he wasn’t the one drinking whiskey at nine in the morning.”

“Fulkerson seemed confident, did he?”

“Oh, yes. Pretty smug.” She gingerly lifted a grimy jacket off the back of the swivel chair. “This is Bart’s,” she said. “It’s too small for Don.” She held out the sleeves, then checked the pockets, finding a butane lighter, a quarter, a penny, and a piece of peppermint candy minus its wrapper.

They spent another five minutes in the shed, but found nothing of interest. Once more outside, Estelle took deep breaths, enjoying the relatively clean air and letting her vision adjust once more to the darkness.

“This is Fulkerson’s trailer,” Torrez said. “I’ve seen him pullin’ it around.” He walked across to it, playing the flashlight on the contents. “Lots of good shit. Looks like somebody tore down an old fireplace or something. Old Don scarfed up the bricks.” He leaned on the side of the trailer, methodically examining the load. “I could use some of those.”

“They may end up on sale, cheap,” Estelle said, and Torrez nodded judiciously.

“Yep, they might.” He thumped the side of the trailer, turned and shined the flashlight across the landfill. “Lots of traffic since Tuesday,” he said. “That’s the frustrating part. And it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to find out that Zeigler had a flat tire up here, either.” He walked a couple of paces away from the truck, playing his light on the ground. “Too damn many tracks since then. No way to find where he had the jack.” He directed the light toward the pit and the beam reflected off the bright yellow of the dozer. “I’d like to take a look over there,” he said. “I ain’t walkin’, though.”

As they drove across the rough, litter-strewn ground toward the pit, Torrez swung the windshield-post-mounted spotlight this way and that. “Did you walk over there?” he said at one point, holding the spot on the large pile of branches, slash, and limb wood a hundred yards away in the back corner of the landfill.

“No. I visited the appliance showroom and the tires. Then I walked across to the pit.”

“They burn that pile every once in a while,” Torrez said. “Fire department brings the marshmallows and they have a grand old time.”

“That’s a cheerful thought.”

“Next time it’ll be barbecue-flavored smoke.”

Estelle grimaced at the graveyard humor. “If I was going to dispose of a corpse, it wouldn’t be under a pile of branches. That would be both hard to do and time-consuming.”

“Me neither.” He swept the light back, and Estelle saw that the day’s pile of refuse had been dozed into the pit, leaving a neat apron for the next day’s offering. Torrez maneuvered the Expedition carefully between the parked dozer and the side of the pit, the left front and rear tires no more than a stride from the edge. He swiveled the spotlight and played it down into the depths.

With barely enough room to open the door, Estelle climbed out and walked around the front of the truck. The sheriff remained inside, and Estelle crossed through the beam of the spot, keeping a hand on the truck for balance.

“Stay away from the edge,” Torrez said unnecessarily. “That’s a hell of a first step.”

“I was over on the other side earlier,” she said.

Torrez crisscrossed the spotlight beam methodically across the bottom of the pit, pausing now and then at points of interest. After several minutes, he leaned his head on one hand, elbow propped on the doorsill. “How sure are you?” he asked quietly.

“I’m not sure at all,” Estelle replied. “It’s just that in various conversations since Tuesday, the landfill keeps cropping up. It’s the only thing that’s consistent, and that makes me edgy. Hear it one time, that’s one thing. But over and over again, things keep circling back. Tony Acosta mentioned it. William Page mentioned it. The tire shows up down at the county yard, but it’s got a paint smear on it that
might
match the black paint on Fulkerson’s headache rack.” She shrugged and leaned against the truck’s door. “That’s thin, I know.”

“You ain’t kidding. Like it ain’t the only rack in town. It’s going to take the state lab a week to run a match.”

“It’s just that there is a rack here, too, Bobby. And there are some things that are even thinner. Like the smell in Zeigler’s truck. You walk into that shack over there, and it’s a megaversion of that same stink.”

“It’s just cigarettes.”

“Well, no, it’s not. It’s smoke mixed with alcohol, Bobby. I know. I could be wrong. But then you add Fulkerson’s motive. That’s intriguing, and on top of that it’s the
only
motive we’ve stumbled across that’s immediate.” She thumped Torrez on the arm. “We know that there are some ill feelings between Fulkerson and Zeigler. At the very least, some dislike. And it runs both ways, beyond just one man’s contempt for another’s lifestyle. If a private company from out of town takes all this over, Fulkerson stands to lose…and lose big time.”

“‘All this will be yours one day, my son,’” Torrez intoned. “What a kingdom. Too bad he don’t have a son.”

“And Fulkerson comes up again in Crowley’s video.”

“Just because he was at the meeting.”

“A little more than that. He was there and then left the meeting, right at the time that Zeigler disappeared. And returned late. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like he changed his clothes. Or at least took off his coat.”

“He had the opportunity. I agree with that.”

“Sure enough he did. Now think about the grease on Carmen’s bedroom wall? Fulkerson’s the right size, and he works with machines all the time.” She jerked her head toward the bulldozer and shined her flashlight over the roof of the Expedition. “It’s not there now, but he stuffs his jacket under the seat and uses it as a pad for his thermos of coffee. There’s grease all over the place. These little things, Bobby. They just keep adding up. Fulkerson
could
have walked from Zeigler’s to his own place on Camino. It’s only a couple of blocks, and makes sense. He wouldn’t want to be seen. After what happened with Carmen, he’d want to be out of there. He’d be nervous.”

“More’n that. He probably hurt like hell from bein’ jabbed with that freakin’ hat pin.”

“That, too. It makes sense that he’d duck out the back. And suddenly, both his vehicles end up here at the dump. Explain
that
to me.”

“Do you feel sure enough to shut this place down? Put a lock on the gate, close it off for however long it takes to dig it all up? I’m thinkin’ that a dog will help. I know they have a rescue canine in Deming. Get him up here to nose through all this shit.” Estelle didn’t respond. “That’s what you’re talkin’ about, you know. That’s what we do if there’s reason to believe that Zeigler’s buried down in that pit somewhere.”

“Ay
. I really hate thinking that he’s here.”

“Well…” Torrez shot the spotlight all the way down to the far end of the pit again, where the dozer would climb up and out when it dug the pit in the first place, pushing the load of dirt to the storage pile. Each week, a layer of dirt would be graded back as a cover blanket for the trash. “It don’t make any difference to Kevin Zeigler whether he’s lying down there, or under a juniper up on Cat Mesa, or in the bottom of an arroyo someplace. We go with what we got. So you call it. You’ve relied on your intuition before.”

“I feel really, really uneasy about this place.”

He switched off the light and they listened to the silence for a while, broken occasionally by the light rustle of the breeze touching the loose plastic of a garbage bag down below. “That’s good enough for me. Let’s go take a look,” he said after a minute. “What’s to lose? Maybe rummaging through trash in the middle of the night is just the ticket. At the very least, we might find some really good shit, and stiff Fulkerson out of his flea market profits.”

Estelle moved away from the door, careful to stay back from the edge of the pit. “I’m leavin’ the truck right here,” Torrez said. “It’ll give us something to see by.” He turned the spot back on, centering it to cover the most area. “You have your light?”

“Yes,” Estelle said.

“Gloves?”

“Sure.”

He tossed his bulky handheld radio on the seat. “I don’t need to lose that,” he said. He got out and stood for a minute with his hands on his hips. “I think we can just kinda slide down over here.” He walked back toward the drop-off apron of the pit, where the slope was nearly seventy degrees, as opposed to the gently sloped exit end.

The bed of trash was heaped below the drop-off, not yet pushed out and compacted as it would be at the end of the week. Balancing on both feet as if she were sliding down an icy hill, Estelle slipped and slid down to the pile. Because the collection represented only two days, the pile of refuse stretched out for no more than twenty yards. She stopped and surveyed the pile dubiously.

“I think that if I’d dumped somebody here, I’d make a little more of an effort to cover them thoroughly,” she said. “Especially if I owned a bulldozer. I don’t think any of this trash has been spread out yet.”

“Good-sized pile, though. But I was thinkin’ the same thing.”

“A sign of confidence, maybe.”

Torrez flashed light to the far side, where the smooth dirt layer from the week before was still visible. “Could be over there, too. Could be just about anywhere. The only good way to do this is to get Howard up here on one of the county backhoes.”

“He’ll love that,” Estelle said. She could imagine the stolid Sergeant Bishop on excavation duty, reliving his years as a private contractor.

Bent in a crouch with the light in one hand and the other reaching out for something to provide stability, Estelle made her way across the pile, heading toward the west wall of the pit. Torrez went east, moving with more assurance. The light from the Expedition’s focused spot hindered as much as it helped forming harsh shadows that hid treacherous footing.

“Incongruities,” Estelle said aloud.

“What?” Torrez shouted.

“Nothing. I’m talking to myself.” She worked her way beyond the highest mound, toward the open soil that covered the previous week’s collection, and in a moment reached the old refrigerator that she had seen earlier in the day. Battered and dented, the fridge lay facedown, just at the edge of the fresh trash. Several pieces of random-sized, rotted plywood had sailed down on top of it. She pushed the wood aside, and rocked the appliance with one foot. “Why aren’t you with the others?” she said.