Dead Weight Read Free Page A

me.”
    “Oh,” she said.
    I didn’t know her name, and although her name tag said
Judy,
that didn’t ring any bells. Royce Kealey had owned the place for all of the thirty years I’d been bringing my weekly load of shirts there, and I knew Judy wasn’t family. Trying to know every living soul in a tiny village became an occupational hazard after a while. If I worked at it hard enough, I could be a walking gazetteer of who was who in Posadas County, New Mexico. Not that it all mattered much in the great scheme of things.
    “Would you like a drink of ice water or something?” Judy asked, and I shook my head.
    “You’re a sweetheart for asking, though,” I said.
    In less than two minutes, a white Continental slid to the curb. I turned to the girl as I headed toward the door. “Thanks.”
    “You have a nice day, Sheriff. Come back and see us.” She sounded as if she really knew who I was, and that puzzled me even more.
    Arnold Gray touched the electric door lock button of the Continental just as I reached the curb.
    “Hot, eh?” he said when I opened the door.
    “It’s a dry heat,” I replied as I slid into the cool leather. I slammed the door, and the armrest cracked my elbow hard enough to make me wince.
    “So’s the Sahara,” Gray said, and pulled the Continental away from the curb. “Patrol car broke, eh? Just like you said it would.”
    I grinned. “You’ve got a good memory,” I said.
    Two meetings previous, I’d given the county commission hell for not allowing adequate funding for four new vehicles beyond the one already in the budget. Somehow, the concept of police cars actually wearing out was a novel idea, even though every county in the United States went through the identical process on a routine basis.
    Two of the commissioners, Gray and Janelle Waters, had been in favor of spending whatever it took to buy the new units. They were a minority.
    “How many miles on that thing now?” Gray asked cheerfully.
    “A hundred and eighty-seven thousand,” I said, and reached out a hand for support as we wafted into the parking lot of the Don Juan de Oñate Restaurant, just six blocks west of Kealey’s Kleaners. “I’m the only one who drives it,” I added. “I don’t let any of the road deputies use it.” We pulled into a parking place in the shade of the building. “I move slowly enough that it can keep up with me…most of the time. But you didn’t take time out from cracking bones to talk about old cars. What can I do for you?”
    Arnold Gray frowned and shoved the car into park. “Let’s go inside and find a quiet corner.”
    In midafternoon of a July Tuesday in Posadas, that wasn’t hard to do, even in the most popular restaurant in town.
    The place was cool as a refrigerator, and the bright yellow plastic booth benches were downright cold. I slid in until I could turn sideways and lean against the dark wood wainscoting.
    Even as I came to a comfortable halt with one arm stretched out across the back of the booth, JanaLynn Torrez appeared around the partition.
    My undersheriff’s cousin grinned but otherwise refrained from mentioning that I’d left that very spot not an hour before.
    “What can I get you gentlemen?”
    “Two iced teas?” Gray said, glancing at me. I nodded.
    She disappeared, and Arnold Gray leaned both forearms on the table. He had either hemorrhoids, gas, or something serious nagging at his insides. I pulled my arm down from the booth and straightened up, attentive and serious.
    “So what gives?” I asked.
    “God, I hate this,” Gray said, and grimaced. He looked off to the right at the empty tables surrounding us.
    I shrugged. “Just say it, then.”
    Gray regarded me thoughtfully. “This is between us,” he said, and I frowned impatiently. We hadn’t gone out of our way to make it a public meeting, unless we invited JanaLynn to sit in when she returned with the tea. She arrived and set the two extra-large, perspiring glasses in front of