It didn’t surprise me that Richard Finnegan was a patron of the Pierpoint. Many local ranchers were—their pickup trucks filled the small parking lot at any given hour, the patient dogs that were their constant companions standing in the back of the trucks or lying on the toolbox, waiting with lolling tongues marking time.
Chief Martinez waddled over toward me as soon as he saw me disembark from the Bronco. I always got the impression that crime surprised Eduardo…that he thought of it as something that eventually would just go away if only we had enough nice parades and summer festivals in Pershing Park.
I readily admitted that we treated his department as if it didn’t exist most of the time…which, in point of fact, it didn’t, since a combination of what Posadas could pay a certified officer, and what little area there was to patrol within the village limits, resulted in an officer turnover rate that approached the monthly.
“What the hell happened, Chief?” I said. With the portable radio in one hand and a flashlight in the other, Bob Torrez strode past me, making a beeline for the village officer, who was doing his best to keep the spectators back. I saw a look of relief on Eduardo’s face when he glanced over and saw Torrez’s approach.
“They found him in the parking lot, right next to his truck,” Martinez said. He put his hands on his hips. “Richard Finnegan, from up north of town? You know him, I guess.”
“Of course.”
“He’s got a knife stuck in him. Dead as a fish, man.”
I glanced over toward the corner of the parking lot and caught a glimpse of the body near the back bumper of the truck. Mitchell and Mears were in discussion, and I saw Mitchell point off toward the street.
“I think he got in a fight with somebody. I’m not sure who just yet,” the chief said.
“A fight in the bar?”
“I guess it started there,” Eduardo said. “Then I guess they came outside somehow.”
The absurd image of that in Martinez’s report skirted through my mind. They went outside somehow. I shook my head, trying to focus. “Who’d you talk to?”
“Well…” Martinez pointed off to his left, toward the side door of the Pierpoint, where a group of nervous patrons had gathered “…Lonnie Prior says he saw Mr. Finnegan leave the bar.”
I patted Eduardo on the elbow and strode over to Prior. He was a short, wiry man who didn’t do much of anything other than make a concentrated effort to turn his pension from the U.S. Post Office into liquid good times.
I beckoned him off to the side and he grudgingly complied, keeping his eyes on the action across the lot. “Lonnie, tell me what you saw.”
“Well, shit,” Lonnie Prior said. “Not much, you know.”
One of the Posadas Emergency Services ambulances screamed to a stop on Grande, lights pulsing. At the same time, Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s unmarked unit slipped up to the curb.
“Whatever that ‘not much’ is, I need to hear it,” I snapped, and Prior took a step backward as if I’d slapped him.
“I saw Finnegan inside, that’s all,” he said.
“At the bar or at a table?”
“The bar.”
“Where were you?”
“At the pool table in the back.”
“How’d you happen to notice him?”
Prior looked nervous. “Well, he was there when I come in, you know. You know. All the regulars, and stuff. He was just one of them sittin’ at the bar.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No. Nodded, maybe. Just like to all the others.”
“And then?”
Prior might have been thinking hard, or he might have been concentrating on Estelle’s lithe figure approaching from the street.
“And then?” I prompted.
“He left sometime,” Prior said. “I glanced up and saw him go out the door.”
“With anyone?”
“Now that—” He stopped as Estelle walked up to me.
“Richard Finnegan,” I said to her. “He walked into someone’s knife. I haven’t been over there.”
She nodded and didn’t pursue the vague “someone’s knife.” Instead, she walked back out onto Rincon Street and circled around the crowd of people to reach the scene.
“Did you see him talking with anyone? Arguing? Anything like that?”
“Nothing that drew my attention,” Prior said finally.
“You didn’t see him leave in company with anyone?”
He shook his head. “But I was occupied,” he added.
“Who was sitting nearest him at the bar when you came in? Do you remember?”
Prior took a deep breath and looked off into the distance. “Let’s see. Alex Taylor is workin’ the bar.” He turned and looked at the others who had drifted toward the yellow ribbon like flies to flypaper. “Stubby Moore, over there. Emilio Garcia. His brother there too. Juan. Jim Burdick and his wife. They were all kinda there, but I don’t recall who was sitting where.”
“Thanks. Don’t go anywhere,” I said. I strode over to Jim Burdick, who was standing near the back bumper of one of the patrons’ vehicles, an arm protectively around his wife Peggy’s plump shoulders.
He still smelled faintly of automotive grease and his face was pale. He didn’t release his hold on his wife when he turned to greet me.
“Jim, who was Finnegan with tonight?” I said without preamble.
“He come in alone, as far as I know,” Burdick said.
“Did you talk with him?”
“I was going to. He’s ordered a rear axle seal for that truck of his, and I was about to tell him it come in today. But then he up and left, just all of a sudden.”
“Had he been talking to anyone?”
“No, not that I remember.”
“He looked like he wanted to say something to that rancher,” Burdick’s wife said.
“What rancher, Peggy?”
She looked up at her husband. “Who was that? Sitting at the table by the window? Remember? He was all by himself and when we came in, you kind of waved at him?”
“At the table?” Burdick said, puzzled.
“Right by the window.”
“Oh. That was Ed Boyd. But he left.”
“And then so did Mr. Finnegan,” Peggy Burdick said. “I remember, because I heard Mr. Finnegan mutter something. I couldn’t hear what it was. But I remember that he’d ordered a drink, and he left before Alex could get it to him. He tossed a couple bucks on the bar and just left.”
“Edwin Boyd was here?” I glared hard at Burdick.
“Yeah,” he said helpfully. “But he left.”
“I bet he did,” I muttered and spun around, only to crash into Neil Costace. I pointed across the lot at Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s figure as we both regained our balance. “Go get her,” I said. “Meet me at her unit right there.”
I slipped into Estelle’s sedan and grabbed the mike.
“Three-oh-three, three-ten.”
“Three-oh-three.”
“Tom, has there been any vehicular traffic past you in the last few minutes? Going northbound on Forty-three?”
“That’s negative, three-ten.”
“All right. I want you to go inside the Legion Hall and find Johnny Boyd. Tell him that I need to talk with him right now. We’ll be there in less than a minute.”
“Ten-four.”
Neil Costace and Estelle appeared at the car door, and I pushed myself out.
“Edwin Boyd,” I said and for the first time, saw a look of surprise on Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s face.
“What’s Johnny Boyd doing here?” Costace asked as we turned left at the end of Pershing Park and headed toward the American Legion Hall half a block ahead.
“He’s angry,” I said. “That’s my best guess. Instead of going home and stewing, and facing questions from Maxine, he came down to the Legion Hall to cool off.” I glanced around at Costace in the back seat. “And no doubt he’s telling some wonderful tall tales about what happened tonight.”
“They don’t have to be too tall,” Costace murmured. “And his brother is at one bar, he’s at another. It’s odd that they’re not drinking buddies.”
“Evidently they’re not,” I said. “Each to his own.”
Tom Pasquale had pulled his patrol car up so that he was parked nose to nose with Boyd’s truck, and in the wash of light cast by the sodium vapor light, I could see the young deputy standing beside Boyd. As we approached, a bright glow marked the end of Johnny Boyd’s cigarette. Estelle braked hard and pulled to a stop.
“Now what the hell is going on?” Boyd asked as we got out. A scant three blocks’ distance and a handful of trees in Pershing Park separated us from a view of the Pierpoint, and the winking emergency lights were clearly visible.
“Johnny,” I said, and reached out a hand to take the rancher by the shoulder. “Where did Edwin go tonight when he left the house?”
“Why?” The answer came out automatically, a standard response to questions that Johnny Boyd considered no one’s business but his own. And then he glanced to the south, toward the congregation of flashing lights. I saw the expression on his face change as he put two and two together. “What’s happened?”
“Richard Finnegan is dead, Johnny.”
He looked at me quickly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just that. He’s dead. I don’t know the details, except that he was stabbed to death outside of the Pierpoint Bar and Grill just a little while ago.”
He took an involuntary step backward, and when he reached for the cigarette in his mouth, he fumbled it and it fell to the sidewalk in a cascade of sparks. Tom Pasquale was standing beside him and evidently thought the man had lost his balance. He reached out a hand to take Johnny by the elbow, and the rancher reacted as if he’d brushed against an electric fence.
“Now wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve been inside the Legion Hall ever since I drove into town.”
“Johnny—” I started to say.
“No.” He held up both hands and took another step backward. “I know what all of you think, or you wouldn’t have been snooping around my property earlier. But this is just plain crazy. I didn’t have anything to do with Richard Finnegan getting himself killed.”
“Johnny, stop it,” I snapped. “I’m not the least bit interested in what you’ve been doing since you came to town.” That wasn’t altogether true, of course, but it served the purpose, Boyd’s eyes narrowed and he glanced first at Neil Costace and then at Estelle. “We have reason to believe that Edwin was involved somehow,” I said, and Johnny’s head snapped back around.
“What?”
“At least one of the patrons saw your brother at the Pierpoint. Edwin was there, sitting by himself. Richard Finnegan came in, and witnesses say that shortly after Finnegan entered the bar, your brother got up and left. And then so did Richard Finnegan. And now Finnegan is dead.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Boyd moaned.
“Johnny, we need to know—” But that’s as far as I got. Boyd smacked his forehead as if he’d been struck by a vicious migraine, reeled past me, found his balance and dashed to his truck. Tommy Pasquale found his feet before anyone else, but by the time he caught up with Boyd, the rancher was already in the truck and slamming the door.
The electric locks of the fancy rig banged shut before the deputy could grab the door handle, and then the engine sprang to life. Johnny Boyd jerked the vehicle into reverse, trying for some space between his truck and the front of the patrol car. As he did so, I could see Pasquale’s right hand snake down, reaching for the holstered automatic on his hip.
“No!” I bellowed. “Let him go, Tom!” The pistol was out, the momentum of the draw bringing the weapon up so that the muzzle stared Johnny Boyd full in the face, only a single piece of safety glass between the two. “Tom!” I roared again, lunging toward him. “Hold your fire! Let him go!”
Boyd jerked the gear lever into drive, wrenched the wheel, and the big truck roared out into the street.
“Now listen,” I snapped, and held out a hand toward Pasquale. “Put that thing away.” He holstered the automatic and I grabbed him with one hand and Neil Costace with the other as if they were two recalcitrant urchins.
“Here’s what I want you to do. If he goes north past the mine—that’s if he takes the usual route in to his ranch, I want you to follow him, red lights off. Don’t push him. He’s not thinking straight, and I don’t want him shoved into some arroyo, or you either. Just stay well behind. Estelle and I are going to take the state road, the long way around through Newton. Maybe Edwin went that way. It’s smoother, for one thing. If Johnny goes that way too, just let him go. You continue up the hill. Go in the front way.”
“You don’t want us to take him into custody?” Pasquale asked, and even though it was his “I’m just checking to make sure” tone of voice, I damn near lost my temper. I had taken two or three steps toward Estelle’s car, and I whirled around, hands on my hips.
“You don’t get close to him,” I snapped. “You do exactly what I told you to do. You stay behind him and don’t spook him. Keep your eyes open and use your head.”
“Yes, sir.”
I glanced at Costace. “Ride with him,” I said, and if he didn’t nod eager agreement, at least he didn’t say no, nor did he take time to point out to me that he wasn’t one of my deputies. “Now let’s get on with it.”
Estelle was already behind the wheel of her unmarked car when I slid into the seat. Johnny Boyd had a one-minute head start, and considering the way he was flogging his pickup, that was enough to keep him out of sight until we’d cleared the village and hit the two-mile straightaway on County Road 43 that led due north toward the intersection with State 78, at the foot of the mesa just below the landfill entrance.
We covered those two miles in a blur, and as we approached the intersection, I saw a pair of taillights heading up the hill, just entering the first set of switchbacks below the mine. Judging by their rate of speed, they belonged to Boyd.
“We see him,” Costace’s voice said over the radio. Estelle moved into the left lane, giving Pasquale room to pass as we slowed for the turn onto the state highway. He did so, flogging the Bronco until its V-8 screamed.
State Highway 78 cut across the western half of Posadas County diagonally, exiting the county at the northwest corner. About the only road in the county that was straight for any appreciable distance, that night it was devoid of traffic. Estelle was tense, both hands on the wheel, the pencil beam from the spotlight lancing out far ahead, searching for the glint of startled eyes in the road.