A Discount for Death pc-11

by Steven F Havill

  “It was only by incredible diplomacy on Bill’s part that we didn’t all end up watching the damn thing right then and there.” Francis shifted position slightly so that the side of his face rested comfortably against his wife’s shoulder. “Fortunately, he opened the present from Carlos first. I think Bill was intrigued with the concept of using modeling clay to hold the wrapping paper in place. He liked the knife, though.”

  “He already has about six of those utility tool things,” Estelle said.

  “Eight. He told Carlos that he has one lost in every room of his house. Anyway, he was able to use one of the thirty-nine blades to open the other packages, and Carlos liked that.” He shifted a leg. “Your feet are like ice,querida.”

  “All the blood’s in my head. My brain’s going around in circles.”

  Francis puffed another hot breath against her shoulder. “Maybe if you tell me about it, it’ll put us both to sleep.”

  “Ay,” Estelle murmured. She wondered if Perry Kenderman was lying in bed too, eyes bloodshot, staring upward at the invisible barrier of his bedroom ceiling. “I’ve had better days, Oso.”

  “Nasty crash?”

  “Very.”

  Francis made no response, and she reached across with her right hand and gathered a fistful of hair, tugging it just enough to rock his head gently. “One of the village cops made a bad mistake, querido. ”

  Francis switched to Spanish, the words soft and graceful. “Me puedes decir el como y el porque?” Estelle smiled. Can you tell me the how and the why of it? She had heard her mother, Teresa Reyes, say the same thing countless times to one or the other of the children during moments when something in their universe tangled.

  “The only thing we know right now is el que, querido. We know what happened. I was coming out of Kealey’s and heard what I thought was a high-speed chase between a car and a motorcycle. Then I saw a motorcycle crash at the intersection of Bustos and Twelfth. A village police car entered the intersection at almost the same instant, for all intents and purposes in hot pursuit.”

  “What’s the mistake?”

  “Officer Kenderman says that’s not the way it happened. Except for one little aspect, though, that’s exactly what happened.”

  Francis puffed hot air against her shoulder, then said, “I’m lost.”

  “Kenderman’s version doesn’t match what happened, Oso. I know what I heard, and I know what I saw. He says he only started the chase a couple of blocks north of where the bike crashed. I know that’s not true.”

  “You have other witnesses?”

  “Yes. We talked to two ladies who live right at the intersection of Twelfth and Highland Court. They saw exactly what I heard. Maria Rubay was outside emptying the garbage and saw the whole thing. Ethel Corning lives on the other side of Highland and happened to glance out her window. She said she heard the garbage can lid, saw Maria, and then saw the rest.”

  “Ethel Corning?”

  “Bobby’s second-grade teacher.”

  “She of the cancerous pancreas.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Estelle whispered. “Bobby and I talked to her. She seemed so frail and wasted, but she never mentioned that she was ill.”

  “That she is. Don’t linger in getting a signed deposition from her.”

  “A sharp mind, still. She described the incident exactly the way Maria Rubay did.”

  “And despite all this, Kenderman still maintains that he wasn’t chasing the bike all over town? I guess I’m not surprised. He’s trying to save his sorry ass. He doesn’t know that you heard the whole thing?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, you didn’t tell him?”

  “Nope. And for another thing, Kenderman lied to me about knowing who the victim was. The normal thing to do would be to rush to her side to see if he could administer some kind of first aid. He didn’t do that. He knew who the victim was, and he panicked.”

  “That’s even more support that the three witnesses are right,” Francis said. “The cop and the kid on the bike are having a fun time drag racing, and now the cop knows he’s in deep, deep caca.”

  “It wasn’t fun they were having,” Estelle said. “The girl’s mother says that Kenderman and her daughter were arguing earlier in the evening.”

  “Huh.” His hand moved down so that his index finger tapped the center of her chest. “So was he chasing after her just to talk to her again, and she’s doing her best to ignore him, or,” and he tapped a second finger, “was she running from him, out of fear?” He tapped with his ring finger. “Or, it could have just been a normal chase. Some traffic infraction, and she refuses to stop when he turns on the lights. Off they go.”

  “There’s no such thing as a normal chase, Oso. You chase a bike, especially a kid, and someone’s going to get hurt. We don’t do it, and Chief Mitchell doesn’t allow it. Nor did Chief Martinez before him. Kenderman would know that. Besides, he never turned on his red lights.”

  “He may have just forgotten them.”

  “Not likely, querido.” She fell silent. She could tell that Francis was patiently waiting. “He followed her into the intersection so closely, you can’t believe it,” she said finally. “Right on her tail. It was almost as if he was trying to force her into a crash. Or even hit her.”

  “Maybe he was.”

  “And he lied to me besides.”

  “Well,” Francis said and fell silent. His fingers resumed their gentle tapping. “Then you need to pick through the pieces until you find one that fits, as Padrino is fond of saying.” His fingers slid upward and traced the line of her lower jaw. “And you’re sure it was his car all the time.”

  “Reasonably. It was a start-to-finish thing. I didn’t hear one car chasing, then that one leave off to be replaced by another.”

  “Is that possible, though?”

  When she didn’t respond, he stroked her cheek. “You asleep yet?”

  “Uh uh.” She squeezed his hand and pushed herself to a sitting position.

  “What’s Kenderman likely to do when he knows he’s caught up in a lie?”

  Estelle sighed and swung her legs off the side of the bed. “I don’t know, querido. First I need to make sure I’m right about what happened. Then…” she stood up and flipped the bedding back up to cover the warm spot where she’d been lying. She bent over, found her husband’s face in the dark, and kissed him hard. “Then I can start on the porque.”

  Chapter Seven

  Bustos Avenue was a flat, lonely macadam desert. For the second time in six hours, Estelle Reyes-Guzman stood by her unmarked car in front of Kealey’s Kleaners. The gas station across the street was dark. In the distance, she could hear the bass mutter of a tractor-trailer on the interstate. Above her head, the streetlight transformer fizzed and hummed.

  She waited, leaning against the open door of her car, cell phone in hand.

  “Okay, I’m here,” Deputy Jackie Taber’s soft voice announced. “The Parkers’ house is just across the street.” The deputy was driving Kenderman’s patrol car. Eight blocks and the triangular wedge of Pershing Park separated Taber from the spot where Estelle’s unit was parked in front of Kealey’s-six tenths of a mile on the odometer. More than three thousand feet-ten football fields. Estelle closed her eyes, listening.

  Two miles to the south, another tractor-trailer rode its Jake brake down the interstate exit ramp, a deep, guttural flutter of compressed exhaust that carried effortlessly on the still air.

  “Wait a second,” Estelle said. She listened until the sound of the truck faded. “Okay. Keep the phone open. The street’s clear.”

  “Yep. See you in a bit.”

  Estelle slipped the phone into her jacket pocket and turned so that she was facing west, looking down the tunnel of widely spaced streetlights that was Bustos Avenue. She pictured the amber tail-lights of Maggie Archer’s Volvo, ambling away from her down the street. Off to the north, she heard the faint chirp of tires and a muffled, almost strangled, engine not
e that grew until the deputy backed off for the first corner.

  The undersheriff found herself exhaling an imitation of the high, keening alto of the two-stroke motorcycle, pacing the speeding police car. At the same time, she watched Mrs. Archer’s phantom Volvo make its way down the street. For a second, no sound carried at all as Taber flogged the car through the neighborhood most distant from Estelle’s position, but then she heard the car turn south toward the bridge. Suddenly, even as Estelle’s eyes fixed on the intersection six blocks away, the village car appeared, flashing into the intersection nose down as Jackie Taber braked hard, stopping in the middle of Twelfth Street on the south side of Bustos.

  Estelle realized that she had been holding her breath. She pulled the phone out of her pocket. “That’s it.”

  “Do you want me to put the car back in impound?” Deputy Taber asked. Estelle watched as the village car backed out into Bustos and then drove toward her.

  “Yes. I’ll meet you there.”

  A few minutes later, after parking the patrol car in the locked bay of the county maintenance barn, Jackie Taber slid into the passenger seat of the undersheriff’s car. A faint wave of lavender accompanied her. A stout young woman, long enough in the military to have adopted a precise, economical habit of movement, she spun the key ring on her index finger.

  “So,” she said.

  “So. What a mess.”

  “Tommy tells me that there are some holes in Perry Kenderman’s story.”

  “Caverns is more like it. Kenderman is lying. It’s that simple. Colette Parker was running from him.”

  “It could be that,” Jackie said.

  “Statistics say it is,” Estelle replied, and the deputy grinned. “Colette’s mother said that Perry stopped by the house earlier and had an argument with Colette.” She held up an index finger. “Just a bit later, he chases her half way across town, drives her so hard that she makes a mistake and breaks her neck against the base of a utility pole. He’s so shook that he can’t bring himself to take a step toward her.” She held up a second finger, then bound the two together with her left hand. “I thought maybe there was a chance that it happened some other way.” She shook her head. “Hearing the patrol car again convinced me. I heard it right.”

  “What do you want me to check tonight?”

  “Nothing. Colette’s two little kids are with their grandmother. You might keep a close watch on their place. That and Kenderman’s apartment. Chief Mitchell said that he’s going to do the same. We want to make sure Perry stays put until we have time to sort all this out.”

  Taber nodded. “You look beat.”

  “I am. And irritated. I missed a birthday party for Padrino, for one thing. I have grand jury later this morning, and George Enriquez has gone missing just after he tells the district attorney that he’s got something on me that he’ll trade for immunity.”

  Jackie leaned forward toward Estelle in astonishment. “No shit?”

  “Verdad, no shit.”

  “Mr. Enriquez has an active imagination,” Jackie said. “What’s the ‘gone missing’ part?”

  “I don’t know. His wife hasn’t seen him since early Monday morning, when he said that he was going down to his office. I was going to swing by the house and talk to her on my way home.”

  “You want some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t swing by. Just go home. Get some rest. There’s nothing you can do about him at three o’clock in the morning. Don’t worry about him now. Nail him later in grand jury.” She unlatched the door and swung herself out of the car. “He’s desperate, Estelle. That’s all.”

  “That’s what’s kind of scary, Jackie. He’s not the kind of guy who has a whole lot of practice being desperate. The same thing goes for Perry Kenderman. We’ve got two of a kind, Jackie.”

  “At least that’s what we think,” the deputy said. She touched the brim of her Stetson and started to close the door.

  “And thanks for the demo,” Estelle said.

  “Any time,” Jackie grinned. “Tommy Pasquale is going to be irritated if he doesn’t get the opportunity to shave some time off my record.”

  Estelle laughed. “He crashed a village car at the bridge once before. I’d hate to have to explain a repeat performance to Chief Mitchell.”

  Despite Jackie Taber’s suggestion, Estelle did drive through the quiet neighborhoods of Posadas until she paused in front of 419 Mimbres Drive. The well-kept house was dark, with both garage doors down, handles locked horizontal. A single porch light burned above the front door, and Estelle grimaced. She knew that inside the house, Connie Enriquez was probably lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had happened to her husband and her world-and hoping that come the wee hours of the morning, George Enriquez would show up under the porch light with nothing worse than the smell of alcohol on his breath.

  Chapter Eight

  In 1952, after pouring an eight-block series of concrete slabs along North Third Street as the start of a housing development for copper miners’ families, the developer-in an uncharacteristic gesture of generosity-had planted a row of elm trees along the new curb. Somehow, the tree roots had burrowed their way down to adequate water, and while the houses along Third remained scrubby and minimal, the elms flourished.

  The lot at 709 Third Street was blessed with two gigantic trees that straddled the tiny, square residence.

  Estelle stopped the unmarked county car and looked up the short gravel driveway. A dilapidated blue Ford Courier pickup truck was parked behind a tiny imported sedan whose make Estelle didn’t immediately recognize.

  She reached for the mike, then changed her mind, digging out the small cellular phone instead. Brent Sutherland, the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office, answered as if his hand had been poised over the receiver, waiting for the first call since the sun had cracked the horizon.

  “Good morning. Posadas County Sheriff’s Department. Sutherland.”

  “You sound cheerful this morning,” Estelle said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sutherland replied brightly and then, as if reading out of one of his beloved self-motivational books, added, “After all, this is the first day of the rest of our lives.”

  And I wonder if that sunny thought crossed Perry Kenderman’s mind when he got up today, Estelle thought. “Yes, it is. Do you have time to run a couple of plates for me?”

  “You bet,” Sutherland said. “Fire away.”

  “The first one is New Mexico Eight Two Seven Kilo Thomas Lincoln.” While Sutherland repeated the number, Estelle idled the car ahead a few feet so that she could see the license on the little import. “The second is New Mexico One Eight One Thomas Edward Mike.”

  “Ten four. It’ll be just a minute.”

  She settled back in the seat, phone resting lightly on her shoulder. The pickup lacked a tailgate, the left taillight assembly, and the back bumper. What looked like an aluminum ramp lay in the back, the sort of thing a bike owner would use to load a motorcycle up into the truck’s sagging bed. The little truck’s right rear tire was soft, adding to the derelict tilt of the aging suspension.

  In less than a minute, Sutherland’s smooth, efficient voice was back on the phone. “Ma’am, are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Eight Two Seven Kilo Thomas Lincoln should appear on a blue nineteen seventy-seven Ford Courier pickup truck registered to a Richard Charles Kenderman, two four four De La Mar, Las Cruces. Negative twenty-nine.”

  Estelle frowned. Richard Charles, she thought. “Do you know him?”

  “Sure don’t,” Brent said. “But he’s got to be related to Perry. Not that many Kendermans around these parts.”

  “See what you can track down, will you? What’s the other tag?”

  “One Eight One Thomas Edward Mike should appear on a white nineteen ninety-four Nissan registered to a Barbara Cole Parker, seven oh nine Third Street, Posadas. No wants or warrants.”

  “Thanks. I�
�ll be out of the car for a while at that address, Brent.”

  “Okay. And before you go, I have a note here from the sheriff to remind you of your appointment at zero nine hundred.”

  Estelle glanced at the dash clock. In two hours and three minutes, the Posadas County Grand Jury would convene to decide the fate of insurance agent George Enriquez-on the first day of the rest of his life.

  “I’ll be there. Thanks, Brent.” Across the street, a truck started up with a plume of blue smoke, then backed out of a driveway and headed south. From the first house north of the Parkers’, a small, ratty dog trotted out to stand in the street, watching the truck depart. After a moment, the animal turned, glanced at Estelle’s car, and sauntered back onto the brick path that connected house to sidewalk.

  When the undersheriff got out of her car, the dog stopped and regarded her, tail a motionless flag at half-mast. Then the ears dropped, the tail flicked, and the dog approached, nose close to the ground.

  Estelle stopped on the sidewalk and let the little animal sniff the cuffs of her slacks.

  “You know exactly what happened last night, don’t you,” Estelle said. The little dog jumped sideways at the sound of her voice, ears pricked and tail wagging. With no head-scratch forthcoming, the animal turned to pursue interests elsewhere.

  Estelle walked up beside the pickup. It was unlocked, the keys in the ignition. The ashtray yawned open, full to overflowing with cigarette butts. A light film of dust coated the dashboard, the perfect canvas for a welter of finger- and handprints and smudges. A hole gaped in the narrow dashboard where the radio had been.

  The driver’s door was only partially closed, and Estelle lifted the latch. The rich, cloying fragrance of burned hemp wafted out. “Party time,” Estelle murmured and nudged the door shut. She walked forward past the truck and glanced at the sedan. Other than a cardboard carton that had once held canning jars and now might be home to any number of things, the inside of the Nissan was clean.