Chapter 8

 

Beau awoke at five a.m. sensing that Sam was finally sleeping peacefully. She’d had a rough night, he knew. Before they’d gone to bed, she’d said only one thing about the plans Darryl had presented after dinner.

“I love his ideas,” she said, “but at this point I only have a one-year contract with Book It. I have to be realistic.”

When he asked if she wanted to talk it over, she merely shook her head and crawled under the covers. But she’d tossed and turned half the night and he knew her disquiet went beyond the physical exhaustion that now threatened her. This was a tough decision, one that could potentially strain a dear friendship.

He rolled over as carefully as possible and got out of bed. He knew Sam; she would work this out in her mind before she talked much more about it. He showered quietly and went outside to tend to Ranger and Nellie and the two horses. By the time the sky had begun to show light in the east his mind was back on the case of the mysteriously appearing cash and he was on the road.

The A-1 Armored Car Company’s head office was in Albuquerque, but since the truck in question had been dispatched that fateful morning out of Springer that’s where law enforcement focused their attention. Yesterday, Tim Beason had suggested he and Beau question the employees together. Each county had a hand in solving the crime; both could potentially contribute something to the direction the questions would take.

He met Beason at the O-Kay Diner at the outskirts of Springer, a town on the plains with a smattering of historic buildings and about a thousand people. It seemed to have hit its heyday in the middle of the last century. The little eatery where the lawmen met was almost eerily the same as Charlotte’s Place in Taos and he supposed every small town had one—the convenient coffee shop and hangout where the locals got far more of their daily news than the papers ever provided. In this case, the owner was a woman who bustled between minding the register, greeting newcomers, telling them to take a seat anywhere they liked, and delivering plates when the cook’s “order up” shout didn’t immediately grab the attention of the establishment’s one waitress.

The two men drank cups of coffee while they brought each other up to date on the case’s developments in the past twenty-four hours. Tim’s men, so far, had primarily focused on the crime scene—the abandoned truck, the blood on the highway and what little forensic evidence they’d gathered: some tire tracks and footprints that might or might not have come from the robbers. He was hoping for fingerprints off the road barricades the men used; those had been appropriated from a real construction site two miles up the road.

Beau assured his colleague the bag of money was safely stowed in the Taos County evidence locker. His own crime scene tech had dusted the bag for prints but nothing showed up. It was hard to get prints from fabric, and a single print from the handle provided no matches.

When Tim questioned why the injured driver had been taken to Taos rather than the hospital in Colfax County, Beau said, “I asked that question myself. Tansy Montoya and her kids live in Taos and since the two facilities are nearly equal distance from the scene of the crime, the ambulance crew went by the identification in her wallet and transported her closest to home.”

“Quite a commute for her to come over here for work,” Tim mused.

“I gather the move is pretty recent, something about an ex-husband getting abusive and her needing to get farther away. I plan to ask her manager more about it.”

“I didn’t see much point in being cagey with the employees at A-1,” Beason said, placing a five dollar bill on the table for their coffees. “They know we’re coming. The manager, a Phil Carlisle, assured me by phone they are every bit as eager as we are to solve this thing.”

They left the diner, got into their respective vehicles and drove the three blocks to the building where A-1 maintained the satellite office that dispatched trucks to the small communities of northern New Mexico.

The facility consisted of a standard metal building with pitched roof, the whole thing painted sky blue. A parking area out front held two vehicles—a white Chevy sedan and an SUV with the vanity plate 4FISHIN. Chain link fencing with razor wire on top ran from one front corner of the building, around a flat patch of ground about two acres in size, ending at the other front corner of the building. A second building sat at the back of the lot with wide garage doors, obviously a maintenance facility. A drive-through gate allowed access for the three armored trucks parked inside.

Beau parked alongside Beason’s vehicle and saw a bald man in a business suit watching through the glass entry door. He held it open as the lawmen approached.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming,” Carlisle said, ushering them inside and leading the way past a wide-eyed receptionist to his private office. “I’ve put the two guards on leave for a few days and recommended counseling for them, but they know they’ll be required to come in this morning and speak with you.”

“I imagine this has been a nerve-wracking experience for them,” Beau said, taking in the utilitarian furniture and lack of anything more artistic in the office than a couple of colorful safety posters.

“We’re all very shaken by what happened to Tansy,” Carlisle said. “Rudy and Pedro always treated her like a little sister and it really hit close to both of them.”

“How is Mrs. Montoya doing today?” Tim asked.

“I called the hospital this morning. There’s been no change.”

“I understand the reason Tansy moved to Taos was because of an abusive ex who lives somewhere around here? Do you think he could have been somehow involved in this attack?” Beau asked.

Carlisle shook his head slowly. “Doubt it. If I can be frank, the guy hardly has the organizational skills to get dressed in the morning. He’s a drunk—a seriously, passed-out-on-the-couch type. Tansy tried to hide the details of her home life from us here at work, but this is a small town. It’s no secret. She showed up with bruises too often to have walked into that many doors. When she decided to dump the guy for good was when he whaled on their son for the first time. The kid’s only four, for god’s sake. And the little girl is about two. I have to give her kudos for at least considering their safety. She picked Taos because her mother is there to help out with the kids—only family she has. Sad.”

Beau took down the name of the ex, although he saw by Tim Beason’s expression that the local law was already well aware of him.

“So she commuted all the way from there every day? Has to be more than two hours each way.”

“We were working on a new arrangement. The company has a Taos opening coming up soon so right now Tansy’s only having to come over here a couple days a week and then she’ll work out of Taos all the time.”

If she survived.

Carlisle seemed to realize Beau’s thought. He fussed with a little paperclip holder on his desk.

“Let’s talk about the day of the robbery,” Beason said. “These guards, uh … Rudy and Pedro. Was this a regular route and were they the normal crew for that huge amount of cash being transported to the mine company?”

Carlisle took a deep breath, getting down to facts.

“Yes and no. The route is a regular one—we transport large amounts of money to and from the mine once a month. We try not to schedule the same three—it’s a driver and two guards—every time. And I don’t assign the crew any more than a day in advance. No one knows, when they report to work, where they’ll be driving or what they’ll be transporting. Of course, every employee has undergone extensive background checks before they ever get a job with A-1.”

“Of course.” Beau scribbled another note. “So, how many people know exactly what’s in the bags?”

“The bank, of course. The branch manager personally places the cash into the heavy canvas bags, runs a cut-proof cable through grommets in the top, locks the ends of the cable with a shrouded Sobo padlock, and labels the bags. The customer—management at the mine company—naturally knows what they are expecting—how many bags and such. For insurance purposes, I receive a manifest for every shipment. That’s it.”

“The employees in the truck—those actually riding along with the valuables—they don’t know what’s in the bags?”

“Not specifically. It’s not rocket science to figure out that shipments from banks are cash, but the bags often contain other items such as checks, coins, even paperwork. No one aside from the three I mentioned knows whether that’s a bag of pennies or of hundred-dollar bills.”

“Has A-1 ever had an incident where a truck was robbed and it turned out to be an inside job?”

For the first time, Carlisle looked a bit flustered. “Well, I couldn’t say ‘never.’ It’s a big company with a long history. But certainly not on my watch.”

A buzz from his desk phone saved him from having to get specific and the young receptionist’s voice came through, announcing that Rudy and Pedro were here.

“We’ll need separate interview rooms,” Beau told Phil Carlisle.

“Oh, certainly. One of you may use my office and we also have a small break room.” He stood. “If that’s all you have for me?”

“For now,” Beason said. “Depending on what these men tell us, we may need to clarify a few details later.”

Tim Beason walked out of the office first, greeted the two guards and had Carlisle show the way to the break room. Beau turned to the remaining guard.

“Pedro? Right this way, please.” He helped himself to Phil Carlisle’s desk chair and indicated the one he’d just vacated for the guard.

Pedro Hernandez was tall and slim and met Beau’s eye with no problem. His coffee-toned skin was unlined—one of those men who might be anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five years old.

“How’s Tansy?” Hernandez asked before Beau had the chance to formulate his first questions.

“About the same, I’m afraid,” Beau said.

Pedro shook his head. “Hard to believe, man. All the years she lived with that jerk, and now she gets hurt on the job.”

Beau debated whether to follow the thread of Tansy’s ex—there might, after all, be something there—but decided he was better off getting Pedro’s account of the actual robbery.

“Rudy and I are in the back, you know. Mainly we just sit there and shoot the bull during the ride but on those curving roads through the canyon I try to look out the little window slits, keep an eye on the road, cause my stomach gets all twisty. I hate those sections.”

Beau gave him an encouraging smile.

“So, anyway, we slow way down and I see some orange cones. I wasn’t unhappy for the little break in the motion, you know. We come to a stop and I can hear Tansy start to say something. Then bam! And it takes me a minute but then I say to Rudy … I go, ‘That was a gunshot.’ And his eyes are like dinner plates and he rushes to the back door.”

Beau watched for any sign of a lie. Saw none.

“And I’m yelling at him, like, ‘No, man, you can’t open that door,’ and he’s just, like, doing it anyway. A guy in a black ski mask and all-black clothes was standing right there at the door and he whacks Rudy across the wrist. Rudy’s gun goes flying and the guy in black is staring at me with these hard, scary eyes.”

“What color? The eyes.”

“Um, I don’t know … not real light, like blue … maybe light brown or green? I tell you, it was all I could do not to piss my pants, man. He’s got this rifle aimed at my face. He orders me to put down my weapon. I had no thought of being a hero, I’ll tell you. I just did it. When he told me to toss the bags out the door, I did that too.”

Pedro’s hands were shaking as he gestured, acting out the movements of the previous day, and his mouth trembled once he stopped talking.

Beau gave him a moment to process everything. “Was it just the one robber?”

“No. Once the bags were out the door, this guy would reach down with his left hand and toss a bag to another guy. He never took that right hand off the rifle, though. Never aimed it away from us, either.”

“The other guy, the one receiving the bags—what did he do with them?”

Pedro glanced toward the ceiling, remembering. “I never left the truck and the open door was kind of in the way. I heard movements, like footsteps scrambling around on the dirt at the roadside. But the men weren’t talking to each other. I guess they just used hand signals or something. Rudy might of seen them better. When he jumped out of the truck and the guy in black hit him, he fell on the ground. I could see him kind of holding onto his hurt arm but he didn’t dare get up with that gun practically in his face.”

Beau nodded and let him keep talking.

“The bags disappeared, like one-two-three, the footsteps ran a little ways and then a vehicle drove off. Real fast.”

“Did you see the vehicle?” Beau heard the hope in his own voice.

“Nah, man. Time I ran to the side of the truck it had already gone around a bend in the road. Tansy was moaning, still belted in her seat and there was a lot of blood splattered on the windshield and some dripping down the outside of her side window. I reached for my radio and just started shouting for help.”

“From the sound of the getaway vehicle, do you have any idea what type it was? Small, large, diesel …?”

Pedro thought for a moment before responding. “Mid-size or large, maybe a pickup truck or SUV? I’m only guessing, man. I didn’t actually see it.”

“That’s okay. Maybe Rudy did. What you’ve told me is very helpful.”

He gave Pedro a few more minutes in case he thought of anything to add, but the guard was pretty much wrung out. Beau suggested he use his additional days off to rest and to be sure he took advantage of the counseling the company offered. Out in the reception area, he could hear Tim Beason showing the other guard to the door, reminding him to call if he thought of anything else. Beau waited until Rudy drove away before releasing Pedro. Not that keeping them apart these few extra minutes would make any difference at all. If the two planned to cook up a story together, they’d already done it by now.