In two more minutes, she was out the door. The snow had stopped, the wind died, and stars lit the clearing heavens. It would be a glorious holiday evening for somebody.
Chapter Eight
County Road 19 began grandly as Camino del Sol, one of those names that developers loved as a reflection of the Southwestern motif, right up there with howling coyotes sporting colorful bandannas around their necks. The illusion lasted to the postal cluster box just beyond Baldridge Mobile Home Park, and then the paved and potholed Camino del Sol gave way to County Road 19, narrow, graveled, and dusty most of the time.
After jouncing onto the gravel, Estelle slowed the county Expedition for the right-hand turn onto Larson, an irregularly graded cul-de-sac that at one time had been home to a dozen or more trailers, but now supported only three—and one of those had stood empty for several years.
Sheriff Robert Torrez’ pickup was parked one lot before 905, and Tom Pasquale’s county unit was turned crosswise in the road just beyond the Fishers’ driveway. Estelle saw the flashing lights of one of the county’s EMS units coming up behind her. Sheriff Torrez, looking immense in his Carhartt hooded parka, gestured for her to stop in the middle of the street. Behind him, Deputy Pasquale had attached a yellow boundary tape to the far corner of the mobile home and was reeling it out across the front yard toward the antelope-catcher on the front of Torrez’ truck.
Darrell Fisher’s pickup sat in the driveway, behind a battered Chevy Cavalier whose wheel-less right rear suspension rested on a concrete block. Just off the small front porch, a six-by-eight metal storage shed missing one of its doors rested under a quarter-inch of melting snow. A small Christmas wreath with a dozen lights graced the front door of the trailer, and another string of lights had been hung from the roof gutter.
“He’s in the truck,” the sheriff said as Estelle approached.
“Where’s Derry?”
“Don’t know.” Torrez glanced at his watch. “I ain’t been in the house yet. I got dispatch lookin’ to see if Penny is at work.” He looked down at Estelle. “This don’t look good.”
“So what do we have?”
“Darrell Fisher is in the truck behind the steering wheel, dead and just startin’ to cool down.”
“Ay, what happened to him, do we know?”
“Don’t know. I’m guessing shot, by the looks of it. Driver’s window is down.”
“Who called this in?”
“Pasquale was doin’ a routine drive-by, ’cause of what went on earlier. He saw ’im in the truck. Here’s Linda.”
Department photographer Linda Real Pasquale guided her red Honda to a stop behind Torrez’ pickup. It somehow fit the ebullient department photographer that a bright holiday wreath was wired to the grill of her tiny car.
Estelle scuffed at the wet gravel underfoot. “It would have been nice if the snow had stayed around.”
“Yeah, well,” Torrez said laconically, “we get what we get.” They moved into the scene behind Linda, letting her rip one photo after another before anything in the immediate area around Darrell Fisher’s truck was disturbed. Less than a minute later, Estelle’s cell phone came to life.
“Guzman.”
“Estelle,” dispatcher Ernie Wheeler said, “Penny Fisher is working tonight at the hospital. The lieutenant just got home from Kansas City, and I sent her over to get Penny. They should be there any minute.”
“Thanks, Ernie.”
“The way you treat a domestic dispute when you first respond will determine what you have to deal with on the second visit.” Former Sheriff Bill Gastner’s words from decades ago were a grim reminder now. Everything that the officers had done, everything that Gayle Torrez had accomplished on behalf of Children, Youth, and Families, everything Judge Tate had tried to guide—all of it was trashed. Out on bail, in all likelihood facing the loss of job and income, Darrell Fisher had had lots of grief heaped on his plate.
Estelle touched Torrez’ elbow. “I need to check inside for the little boy.”
“If the door ain’t open, have Pasquale kick it for you.”
“You bet.”
The door was unlocked, and Estelle opened it cautiously. The entry opened immediately into the living room, where the television was on, volume turned low. Keeping far to the side in the hallway, she moved back toward the bedrooms. The first one on the left, just beyond the bathroom, was small—as was its occupant.
In his crib, Derry Fisher slept deeply, on his stomach with his butt hiked into the air like a caterpillar caught in mid-stride. Estelle had seen her own younger son sleeping in the same position. She stroked a light finger down the little boy’s cheek as she watched his even breathing. “That’s one favor, at least,” she whispered. A quick check revealed that the other rooms were unoccupied.
The country lane had become a fair-sized parking lot by the time Estelle left the house. Torrez beckoned to her. “Perrone is hung up with something down in Deming, and there’s no assistant available for a little while. We got the coroner comin’ out of Grant County.” He pointed with his chin to a gathering spot across the road. Lieutenant Jackie Taber, who wouldn’t even have had time to stretch her legs after her trip, was standing beside Penny Fisher, with Tom Pasquale flanking the woman on the other side.
“Give me a minute,” Estelle said, and Torrez nodded toward the cab’s occupant.
“He ain’t goin’ nowheres.”
“No one heard anything?”
“Neighbor right over there.” He pointed at the trailer on the opposite side of the street, the cul-de-sac’s only other resident. “He thinks he heard a gunshot.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.” Torrez almost smiled. “He was worried, with the Fishers fighting most of the time. And he used to be a hunter. A single shot like that…means the target got nailed. No follow-up.”
“But he didn’t see anything?”
“Nope.”
“We’ll talk with him again in a bit. I need to go talk with Penny. And the boy is sleeping, but she needs to be with him when he wakes up.”
Even as Estelle approached Penny Fisher, the woman’s right index finger rose as if fixing to issue commands, at the same time as she tried to jerk her elbow out of Lieutenant Taber’s grip.
“My son’s in there,” she raged, and Estelle held up a hand.
“Mrs. Fisher, Derry is just fine. He’s sound asleep in his crib, and we’d like to keep it that way.”
“Well, this circus…what’s Darrell done now?” She squinted at the truck, but the angle was such that she couldn’t see Darrell Fisher’s body slumped low against the steering wheel.
“It’s not a circus, ma’am. We’re waiting on the coroner. I regret to tell you that your husband is dead. I’m sorry.”
“What?” Her eyes grew big as the light from Linda Pasquale’s strobe broke the darkness again and again. Without warning, Penny lost her balance and fell straight down, as if someone had kicked her knees out from under her. Both deputies knelt with her.
“Oh, now what am I going to do?” Penny wailed. She choked back another sob. “In the truck? What’s he doing in the truck?”
“We don’t have any answers for you yet, Penny. What we…”
“No. I need to…” Penny Fisher said, and struggled to her feet.
“Mrs. Fisher, the first thing I want you to do is go in the house and be with your son. With all this commotion, it’s likely he’ll awaken. You need to be with him.”
“Yes.” With that purpose guiding her, she burst into an awkward trot toward the house with Lieutenant Taber close behind. She never looked in the pickup’s direction.
“You were just cruising by?” Estelle asked Tom Pasquale.
The deputy nodded. “You know how domestics go. I kinda had a feeling, after meeting with the judge when the bail came in, that Darrell was goi
ng home to some hard times. That woman…” He shook his head in resignation. “I don’t know. But she was at work, though. Kinda bizarre.”
“All right. I want Jackie to stay with the mother.” She nodded at the fire engine that had idled up behind the EMTs’ rig. “We have a good road block, anyway.” A State Police cruiser pulled onto Larson. “Dull night for everybody else.”
“I think we’re ready,” Linda Pasquale said as Estelle walked back to the pickup. Estelle didn’t need to ask Linda if she had taken establishing shots of the scene in general. A magician with the camera, Linda would have covered every angle.
“Let’s take the driver’s door first,” the undersheriff said. Torrez waited until Linda was in position, then touched the seam between door and truck body with one gloved index finger, holding it there while Linda worked the camera.
“Door isn’t latched hard,” he said, and the flash punctuated his comment.
The door opened with a screech of misaligned metal as if sometime in the past it had been forced beyond its limits. Darrell Fisher slumped in the seat, his upper body fallen forward, his head turned so that his left cheek rested on the steering wheel. He wasn’t dressed for a formal Christmas party—an old pair of loafers with the backs broken down from being used as house slippers, blue jeans with rips above both knees, and a T-shirt that once had been white many launderings ago. His hands were cupped loosely in his lap. A heavy revolver lay on the floor between his feet.
The back of his T-shirt was blood-soaked starting a scant hand’s-width down from the neck line, and some of the splatter had covered the driver’s side of the back window, marking the empty rifle rack that hung there.
“Linda, take one now, but we’ll want a close-up of this after the body has been removed.” Estelle pointed at the frame around the window where the tough rolled metal was deeply scarred and torn. “The bullet is still in there, I think.”
Torrez stepped away from the truck and swung his flashlight beam across the exterior of the cab above the bed. “Yep,” he said. “No exit.”
Only a modest amount of blood had burst from the front of Darrell Fisher’s body, enough to puddle around the revolver on the floor and soak the T-shirt, the crotch of his jeans, and the seat fabric. A medical examiner’s ruling wasn’t necessary to tell them that the young man’s heart had been shredded by the gunshot.
There was so much to record photographically that they worked in silence for some time, occasionally hearing conversation from the other officers gathered by the EMS vehicle, or from inside the house where Penny’s sobs and lamentations were loud enough for all to hear.
A large BMW turned into Larson, and the driver doused his lights. One of the officers bent down to talk to the driver, then pointed ahead toward Estelle’s car. The sleek sedan eased forward.
“He made it after all,” Estelle said in wonder. Medical Examiner Alan Perrone stepped out of the Beemer and stood rooted in place, surveying the neighborhood. Collegiate tie always neatly in place, he had traded a suitcoat for a tan quilted jacket. Estelle had never seen Alan Perrone with a hat or cap. Instead, his long blond hair was combed straight back and heavily Brylcreemed so that it resembled a shiny helmet.
Estelle caught his attention and indicated a direct line to reach the truck, avoiding any further footprints to contaminate the scene. What little snow there had been was confined to faint windrows along the road and driveway. Footing was wet gravel—a hopeless matrix for shoe or boot prints.
“I thought you were stuck in Deming.” She shook Dr. Alan Perrone’s hand.
“For a while it looked like I would be.” He didn’t explain, but grimaced at the scene through the open truck door. “Who be he?”
“His name is Darrell Fisher. He was twenty-six, worked over at the school in the physical plant. He and his wife and two-year-old son live here.”
“The wife is all right?”
“Yes. She works at the hospital as a night shift custodian. She’s here now. One of the officers brought her home just a few minutes ago. Their boy was asleep in the bedroom.”
He took a step to one side and rested a hand for support on the silent Torrez’ shoulder, leaning into the truck’s cab. “Ah. That’s the handgun involved, probably.”
“Could be,” Torrez said.
“Could. You have reason to think that it isn’t?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
“Well, let’s see then.” Disturbing the position of the body as little as possible, he worked his way through the scene, narrating to himself. Finally, he looked up at Linda. “How are you doing, young lady?”
“I’d rather be home, wrapped around a warm husband.”
“Well, I bet. Except he’s working, too, right?”
“Such is life in the fast lane, Doctor. And Merry Christmas to one and all.”
He smiled at her. “Can you scrunch in from the other side and get a photo of this?” He eased the body away from the steering wheel. “Bobby?”
The sheriff obliged and reached in, holding the body in place with a hand on the left shoulder. Perrone eased the T-shirt up and held it away from the chest wound long enough for Linda to shoot a series. “Now the back,” he said. “Let him ease forward again.” He paused. “No rigor yet. It’ll be interesting to see the body temp. You have a time for this?”
“Nope. Not yet.” The sheriff made no effort to elaborate, but Perrone was used to his taciturn personality.
With the shirt hiked up in the back, the exit wound was revealed as almost half-dollar size and ragged, having blown through the body of one of the heavy upper thoracic vertebrae. Perrone looked hard at the back window frame where the bullet had lodged after driving through both body and seat.
“Huh,” he said. “Well, all right.” He took a moment to run his gloved fingers around Fisher’s skull, probing here and there. Then he picked up each hand in turn, turning them this way and that. “Tox is going to be interesting.” He let the hands return to their original position and straightened up. “The smell of marijuana is strong. And beer. And who knows what else. Did this young man have a narcotics history with you folks?”
“Nope,” the sheriff replied.
Eventually Perrone stood back. “Let’s get him out of the truck first. Take a body temp, check for other wounds or injuries, and go from there.”
Sheriff Torrez pulled his hand-held radio off his belt and turned toward the ambulance. He pressed the transmit and said, “Gurney.” Someone popped the transmit button a couple of times in reply. In a moment, two EMTs appeared and lugged the gurney across.
“Merry Christmas.” EMT Matty Finnegan Sheehan favored everyone with one of her kilowatt smiles. “This is Bruce Cutler. He just started with us.” Bruce glanced at the corpse, and his face turned a shade paler in the glare of ambulance lights.
“Bruce, welcome aboard,” Estelle said. “This gentleman needs to be off-loaded.” She turned to Alan Perrone, and he nodded agreement. “But before you do, Thomas?”
She waited as Pasquale stepped past the sheriff and approached the truck. “Thomas, secure the handgun first. I’ll want it in a suspension box. There’s one in the back of Taber’s unit if you don’t have one. And use the larger dowel to fit the barrel. It’s a forty-four.”
Pasquale returned with the gun cradle, nothing but a sturdy cardboard box with a network of support cords made from forty-pound test monofilament fishing line. The others watched silently as he slipped a stout dowel down the muzzle of the blood-caked revolver and lifted it out of the truck. He looked at it closely.
“Still loaded with five more.”
“Huh,” Torrez grunted.
“Be sure to indicate that on the box,” Estelle reminded the deputy. “Tag it clearly as loaded.”
“I don’t know this young man,” Dr. Perrone said. “Is there reason to think he might have been suicidal? There’s a record of
that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Torrez replied.
Estelle touched Perrone’s sleeve. “A domestic earlier yesterday, arraignment this morning on charges of endangerment and child abuse, continuing fight with his wife. Low-paying job in maintenance at the junior high. And the holiday season on top of all of that. So, yes. He had lots of reason to think that life had handed him a raw deal.”
“Sad.” Perrone stepped out of the way as the two EMTs worked first Fisher’s feet and legs out of the truck, and then his upper torso. With helping hands from Torrez and Pasquale, they positioned the corpse on the body bag that had been spread on the gurney. “As long as it’s handy, let’s get a preliminary temp.” He pulled up the T-shirt again, and ever so gently slipped the long probe of a thermometer into the gunshot wound. He frowned as he waited. “That’s interesting. Thirty-five point two.” He glanced at Estelle and made a face as he calculated. “That’s ninety-six point four or so Fahrenheit. So…in this weather, in a cool truck, with the victim being slender of build, and he’s wearing only a T-shirt—I’m guessing this didn’t happen very long ago.”
“The deputy’s discovery call came into dispatch at six fifty-five.”
“And I got here at what, about eight? He hasn’t dropped much core temp. I’m guessing he was shot just moments before Pasquale came on the scene. Would that be about right?”
“Just about.”
“And no witnesses.”
Torrez turned and chinned toward the mobile home across the cul-de-sac. “Over there. Old man might have heard the shot. He said that he didn’t look.”
“He heard, but didn’t see what happened?”
“Nope. That’s Ollie Escobedo. He’s eighty-two and legally blind.”
“But he knows a gunshot when he hears it? And a muffled gun shot, at that?”
“Well, a forty-four magnum toots pretty loud, Doc.”
Lies Come Easy Page 5