Posadas County Mystery

Former Posadas County Sheriff Bill Gastner, now a New Mexico Livestock Inspector, is enjoying a day on Herb Torrance's Ranch. But Bill soon finds himself ferrying a broken cowpuncher in the back of his SUV, headed out to meet an ambulance.

Not one, but two dead bodies are found in the harsh New Mexico desert. The first man's face is smashed beyond identification, and the second one appears to have been forced to dig his own grave before being murdered...execution style.

As Bill Gastner, recently retired sheriff lurks diplomatically in the background, Estelle must deal with the disappearance of a local insurance broker who was about to be indicted for fraud.

To most people, hat pins are vestiges of the past, used now only by elderly ladies who don't leave home without a hat. But recently the notion store in Posadas County has been doing a good business selling hat pins to teenage girls.

It's Christmas in Posadas County, and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is settling down to a quiet evening with her family and friend ex-Sheriff Bill Gastner, that is until her doctor husband gets a disturbing call.

The day of the big race brings a tragedy that doesn't look like an accident, and as the investigation continues, puzzling connections surface deep in Mexico.

A truck has gone off the road and the driver's body found near the wreck. Back on the job, Estelle drives to the scene, where she finds more questions than answers. Was the truck going over the hill really an accident?

A rattlesnake fang pegged in a teenager's eye is just the beginning of a spring day for Posadas Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. The injured lad's older brother goes missing, and is found dead in an arroyo, apparently killed by his cartwheeling ATV. But most puzzling is what the dead boy found moments before he was killed...an astonishing discovery that takes deputies back to a five year-old killing. Estelle and the now retired Bill Gastner find themselves looking for a murderer altogether too close to home.

When a county employee is found shot to death in sun-drenched daylight while sitting in his county road grader, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is faced with puzzling questions. The simplest explanation--that an errant bullet from a careless target shooter's rifle blew out Larry Zipoli's brains--is soon discarded as inconsistencies surface. The fatal bullet shows no rifling marks, an investigation reveals that the shooter walked directly toward the road grader, in full view of the victim--who did nothing to defend himself. In addition to the demands of the investigation, Gastner learns that Sheriff Eduardo Salcido has hired a new deputy without discussing the matter with his undersheriff. And Gastner learns that the new hire is destined to be the first female road patrol deputy in the history of Posadas County. Thus begins Gastner's relationship with Estelle Reyes, whose shrewd observations shed important light on a crime that rattles all kinds of skeletons lurking in Posadas County closets.

What do you do when you inherit $330 million after taxes? If you're New Mexico rancher Miles Waddell, you build a dream. A flat-topped mesa and a third of a billion dollars equals Nightzone, an astronomy-based theme park, complete with giant radio telescope, a bank of smaller scopes linked to a theater, five-star dining in a restaurant with retracting dome ceiling, a hotel/resort, tram car access, and a narrow gauge steam locomotive to carry tourists to the mesa top. Glorious. And too ambitious for many residents of Posadas County. Waddell's dream begins to sour as one night two eco-terrorists make an opening statement by chain-sawing down power lines that feed the development. One of the terrorists is killed by a bucking power pole. From 20 miles away, former Posadas Sheriff William K. Gastner spots a pair of headlights as the dead man's companion speeds from the scene. Charges quickly include murder when the fleeing conspirator is stopped by a cop and guns the lawman down. Hours later a second shooting occurs when Gastner stops to assist Sgt. Jackie Taber during an unrelated traffic stop. Always the last to pull a trigger, the now 74-year old Gastner becomes the focus of a second investigation by the over-stressed District Attorney and Sheriff's Department. Meanwhile, Waddell's troubles with rumor-mongers and anti-government thugs continue. A tired Gastner is unwilling to work security for Nightzone, but security has become essential. There is a bright spot: Gastner's godson, 13 year-old Francisco Guzman. The musical prodigy's conservatory has scheduled a double concert in Posadas, part of a national tour. Yet the timing of this stellar event could not be worse with the retired Gastner and the whole community tangling with lethal avengers and agendas.

Gifted 15-year-old Francisco Guzman has become an internationally renowned concert pianist, touring the world under the auspices of his music conservatory. That gives his mother, Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, plenty of reason to worry - and that's magnified when she learns that he's in Mexico's crime-ridden Mazatlan for a concert series, where he may be the target for scam artists and kidnappers. Estelle's worries go from bad to worse when her uncle - a man she didn't know existed - surfaces in an attempt to mend family ties and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake. Estelle's attempts to glean family history - the story of her childhood in Tres Santos over the border - from her adopted mother, a woman now in her 90s, go nowhere. Meanwhile escalating events put Sheriff Bobby Torrez in jeopardy, as they do newly wealthy rancher Miles Waddell and his pet project, the multimillion-dollar theme park NightZone, set high on a county mesa. Just when his sage advice might be most useful, former sheriff and family friend Bill Gastner takes a dive - in the shadows of his own garage. Now his far-flung family is added to the mix of people and events astir in the bootheel of New Mexico.

Posadas County, New Mexico, is in the news. NightZone, a mammoth astronomy theme park, is bringing in jobs, media, and such new infrastructure as a slick narrow-gauge railway to transport tourists from the village of Posadas to the tramway running up the mesa to the project's site. And the Posadas High School girls' volleyball team is on a hot winning streak, exciting everyone. But more news, not good, breaks. Volleyball Coach Clint Scott has been found gunned-down in the girls' shower room, the victim of four bullets, one fired nearly point blank into his heart. Dead for hours, killed soon after the end of last night's game. And, last night, a homegrown Banksy had tagged both one of the railway cars and a section of NightZone's giant radio telescope dish. Then, apparently, this young artist began work on a section of wall outside the girls' locker room at the high school-a project that was clearly-dramatically-interrupted. With morning come two strange incidents. Stacie Willis Stewart, a former Posadas volleyball star, locks up her baby and Jack Russell terrier in her Volvo, walks away to local superstore The Spree-and disappears. A former teacher spots the child and dog before the heat can kill them. Deputy Tom Pasquale, in The Spree's parking lot where he's spotted a suspicious Illinois plate on a Ford Fusion, watched it all. He then leads a fruitless search for her inside the store. No luck-but he does score a man with an Elvis haircut and his wife when they return to the Ford with stories that don't add up. The lead on the murder is Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, who's still able to call on the retired former sheriff, Bill Gastner-a good thing, for she is surprised by the arrival of her piano-prodigy son, Francisco, age 15, in a sleek Corvette driven some one thousand unchaperoned miles by an eighteen-year-old beauty, a cellist. Their goal: to join the one hundredth birthday celebration for Estelle's mother.

When the first Posadas County Mystery, Heartshot, published in 1991, Bill Gastner was the county Undersheriff. Over time Bill became Sheriff, then retired, and Robert Torrez took over the top spot. But what were Torrez's first days as a rookie officer like? Terrible! It's 1986. Undersheriff Bill Gastner is enjoying his usual insomnia alone inside his old adobe when jolted by a horrendous noise. Dreading what he will find, he hastens to the nearby interstate exit where a violent crash has occurred. Not only is the vehicle that struck the support pillars totaled and the driver and a passenger crushed inside, a dead boy has been ejected. As the appalled Gastner recognizes the youth and swings into action, the first deputy to join him at the scene is rookie Robert Torrez, the department's newest hire. Before Gastner can head him off, Torrez sees that the boy is his spirited younger brother. And the girl crushed inside the SUV is a younger sister. The driver of the Suburban, also dead, is the assistant District Attorney's teenaged son. Two local family tragedies. A shaken couple reports that when the Suburban, careening at nearly 100 miles an hour, passed them on the interstate, activity inside hinted at its occupants' panic. Were the three dead kids running from someone-or something-rather than speeding? Further investigation reveals that a fourth teen should have been in the vehicle but is now missing. Where had the four kids been? And why? It appears they'd lied to their parents. Following his usual meticulous procedure, Gastner traces the vehicle's path to a remote canyon with attractive caves. The discovery he makes there balloons the case and introduces possible murder. Yet with a lack of witnesses hampering Sheriff Salcido, Gastner, Torrez, and other deputies, errors working the case can too easily be made.

One blizzardy New Mexico night, Posadas County Deputy Pasquale picks up a toddler scooting his Scamper along the shoulder of State 56. Yes, it's horrifying - a child apparently dumped out of a truck by his father. Nearly as horrifying is what unrolls while Christmas approaches after dad Darrell Fisher's arrest: a request arrives from the US Forest Service to locate a missing range tech and his unit last reported headed for nearby Stinkin' Springs, and the brutal murder of Constance Suarez in the border town of Regál, population 37. The Sheriff's Department is stretched to its limits as its dedicated personnel juggle working cases and caring for citizens with their own relationships and family celebrations. The irony of so much wickedness at the holidays is not lost on anyone. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman, heading out her door to a crime scene, reflects: "It would be a glorious holiday evening for somebody."

In less than a moment, unexplained intentions, then murder, upend life in Posadas County, New Mexico. Posadas County, sitting along New Mexico's southern border, has enjoyed a surge in visitors, jobs, and prosperity since rancher Miles Waddell used much of his inherited half billion to create an internationally renowned astronomy complex atop Torrance Mesa. Passion, not profit, drives Waddell. Yet benefits include a narrow-gauge train linking the village of Posadas to NightZone. It's a boon to employees and for nature lovers, hikers, and birders as well as star gazers. A ripple of unease is felt across the county with the arrival of developer-no, speculator-Kyle Thompson. Why did he and his wife quietly purchase a large scrubby acreage to the north of NightZone? Any light pollution would jeopardize Waddell's success. "Lights are like cancer cells. One comes, others follow. Unease grows with a drive-by shoot-up at the Posadas Register, its 25 shots wounding a reporter and the paper's editor. Sheriff Bob Torrez and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman see a connection to NightZone...and worse, a connection with Torrez's own nephew. Why? And then murder strikes...

Good cops have no use for coincidence. When a driver slams his pickup truck-twice-into a tandem bike being ridden by Carlos Guzman and his fiancée, Tasha, in Briones, California, it's more than a simple hit-and-run; the driver clearly intended to harm them. Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman gets the call with the news of her son's accident and wastes no time racing to his side. She is greeted by Police Captain Eddie Mitchell, formerly of Posadas County, who allows Estelle to "consult" on the investigation-but only to a point. While Carlos struggles with critical injuries, an employee at the bike shop where Carlos bought the tandem is found shot dead in a dumpster-the same man who had borrowed the truck that mowed down Carlos and Tasha. The local cops aren't convinced there's any connection between the two crimes. Not a believer in coincidence, Estelle pursues every possible angle with a cop's determination to solve the case, and a mother's resolve to keep her son safe at any cost.

The morning after his eighty-seventh birthday bash, former Posadas County sheriff Bill Gastner drives past a couple of vehicles stopped on the highway shoulder. It's not an unusual sight: a sheriff's patrol unit, emergency lights ablaze, pulled in behind a pickup truck. The female deputy hasn't radioed for backup. But there's something about the scene that makes him feel uneasy. The next day, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is called to a rather more dramatic and disturbing roadside scene, with the same truck the star of the show. But this time, its occupant is in no fit state to talk - his dead body stabbed through the chest with a Ka-Bar, a second corpse in the ditch beside the car. What happened to the two men? And what were the dead man and the deputy discussing in the quiet of pre-dawn the previous day? The truth is more twisty and complex than even Estelle and her long-standing friend and former colleague Bill are ready for, and it will take all their combined years of experience to untangle the sorry tale and ensure justice is served.