“Oh,” he said. “These days, isn’t there always. What’s Marge Chavez’s connection? I saw her pulling out when I was on my way down Grande. They throw bottles at her car, too?”
“No. We’re always interested in what witnesses have to say. Apparently she was fueling her car at the time the incident happened.”
“Oh,” Dayan said again. “Any injuries? Collins looks all right.”
“No injuries, Frank. I’ll have something for you a little later, but right now I need to talk with the deputy. With juveniles, things aren’t always clear-cut. Will you excuse me?” She touched him on the arm and he nodded vigorously.
“Sure, sure.” He ducked his head and looked toward the State Police car. “You have someone in custody already, it looks like.”
“More for you later, Frank,” Estelle said again. “Okay? And please…give my best to Pam. If there’s anything she needs, have her call me. I’ll stop by and see her in the morning.”
He smiled at the undersheriff, holding up both hands in surrender. “You’re the boss,” he said. “I’m headed home anyway. It’s been a long day. I’ll talk to you later, all right?” He started back toward his car and then paused. Estelle saw him pull a tiny camera out of his pocket and snap several pictures, of what it was impossible to tell. Given his lack of photographic talents, it might be just as impossible after the photos were downloaded. She returned to Collins, who stood quietly by the door of his truck, watching Dayan.
As she crossed back toward the deputy, she was intercepted by Linda Real. The young woman carried a bulky camera bag, with another camera slung over her shoulder. Linda half turned and aimed a cheerful wave at Frank Dayan, her former boss.
“Hey,” Linda said. “How’s it goin’?”
“It’s going,” Estelle replied. She quickly outlined the gist of the scene for the photographer, whose normally unflappable good cheer dissolved when she heard what had happened to Deputy Collins.
“Bobby’s going to have a cow,” Linda said in her habitual straight-to-the-heart fashion, and Collins winced.
“We’ll just have to see,” Estelle replied. The sheriff’s initial choice of “dufus” as a moniker for his deputy didn’t bode well. She could predict that whatever Sheriff Robert Torrez did, he wouldn’t concern himself with politics or image. That in itself was something of a relief. Equally sure was that he wouldn’t shrug his shoulders and say, “People drop things. Happens every day.”
“Let me show you what we need,” Estelle said, and then turned to the deputy. She looked hard at Collins. “And listen to me, now. After Linda takes a photo of that chip in your truck, the broken glass, and the beer puddles, I want you to go back to the office and write a detailed deposition for me. Exactly what happened, from A to Z. Leave nothing out. Take your time and do it right.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t make anything either less or more than it is. Do you understand what I’m saying? This isn’t the time for creative writing. Right now I’m only concerned with the what, not the why. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Again, Estelle was impressed that she had heard no string of excuses from the young deputy.
She turned her attention to his Expedition. The chip in the white paint of Dennis Collins’ county vehicle was tiny-a little, sharp-edged mark just below the right fender logo, immediately in front of the door. Estelle crouched down and trained her flashlight on the spot.
“Can you make a clear photo of that?”
Linda bent down beside her. “Oh, sure,” she said cheerfully. “Holy macro.”
Estelle laughed at the young woman’s easy good humor. Maybe it was for Dennis’ benefit, but it was welcome regardless. “And as long as you’re doing that, I need a good, clear blowup of Dennis’.45. There may be some paint or scratches that will show in a print.”
“Oh, it will.”
“I’ll bring the gun to the office in a few minutes. You can do it there.”
“You got it.”
“You want my gun?” Collins asked, and he made it sounds as if Estelle were asking him to disrobe in public. He started to reach toward his holster protectively and she caught his wrist.
“Just unbuckle the whole belt, Denny.” She could tell he was counting mentally to ten-maybe even twenty or thirty. Finally, he unbuckled the heavy Sam Browne belt, then refastened the buckle deftly and hung the entire heavy rig over Estelle’s extended hand. She felt a pang of sympathy for his humiliation.
“I know you’re off-shift, Dennis. It’s been a long day, and is going to be longer before it’s over. But wait for us at the office, all right? Finish up the deposition, make sure you dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t.’”
“The sheriff is going to fire my ass,” Collins whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. That was conceivable, Estelle knew. Equally conceivable was that Deputy Dennis Collins would end up being an even better officer than he had been before the incident.
“One step at a time,” Estelle said. “Don’t start making assumptions. I’ll see you in a few minutes in my office. All right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re all right with that?”
“I guess I have to be,” Collins said. He managed a rueful smile. “I’m just glad nobody got hurt.”
“Exactly.”
Linda finished a series of a dozen or more photos of the truck, then stepped back. “You can have it now,” she said. Collins climbed into the Expedition without a word, started it, and backed out of the parking lot. As he drove off, Linda turned to Estelle. “Wow,” the photographer said.
“‘Wow’ is right,” Estelle replied. She opened the trunk of her car and laid the Sam Browne rig inside. Drawing her flashlight, she bent down to inspect what she could see of the officer’s gun without drawing it from its holster. The white paint on the square, sharp corner of the back sight was obvious. “Right here,” she said, and turned both gun and light so Linda could see. “Smacked it right on the back sight.”
“No problems getting that,” Linda said.
Estelle positioned the belt so that the gun was protected from touching anything in the trunk. “Just in case, can you take a picture of the gun now?”
“I can do that.”
Linda tried half a dozen angles, frowning and grimacing as she worked. “We can do better in the lab with the tripod and easel, but this’ll work for now as backup,” she announced finally. When Linda was finished, Estelle shook open a black plastic bag and slid in the belt, heavy with its half-a-hardware load of gun and accoutrements. She slammed the trunk lid shut.
The sheriff and State Trooper Rick Black were conferring well out of earshot of the remaining four teenagers, who still sat like forlorn statues on the store’s sidewalk. Linda headed off toward the fuel pumps to take photos there and at Bernie’s car. The clerk had retreated back inside the store. Estelle wondered what version of the tale he and his teenaged assistant, Stuart Fernandez, were concocting. She shrugged off that thought, since it was something over which she had no control.
Rick Black laughed at something Torrez said, and the two men turned as Estelle approached.
“That one,” Black said, nodding toward his car where a figure slumped in the backseat, “admits to throwing the bottle. All five of ’em have been drinking. Started during the game, is my guess.” He handed Estelle a silver hip flask that had been sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. “Pretty fancy, eh? That belongs to the driver.”
“More likely to the driver’s daddy,” the sheriff muttered.
“All from Lordsburg?”
“Yup. The kid’s name is Tyler Parker,” Black said. “He turned twenty-one last week. So this ain’t just the smartest stunt he ever pulled. He’s so soused he can hardly stand. If he pukes in the back of my car, things are really going to get ugly.” He grinned. “The other four are minors.”
“Whose Lexus?”
“Registered to Elliot Parker of Lordsburg. The daddy, I would guess.”
/> Torrez beckoned Deputy Pasquale, who had been working with Linda. The deputy held another evidence bag with the single shell casing inside. “Take these three back to the lockup,” the sheriff instructed, counting off the first three teens. “You take the last one there,” he added to Estelle. “That’ll keep ’em a little bit separated, not that it matters much. They can get comfortable in the conference room while they wait for their parents to get over here to check ’em out.”
Estelle could see in the kids’ hangdog expressions that they were past the defiant stage, ready now to accept the end of the world. Sheriff Torrez and Officer Black had intimidated them into compliant silence.
“I’ll take care of Bernie,” Torrez said after the three young men were secured in the back of Pasquale’s Expedition, with the fourth in Estelle’s unit. “I want that slug out of his radiator, too.”
“It’s lying on the ground right under the car,” Estelle said. “Straight down from the fan housing. I asked Linda for photos before we move it.”
“Well, that’s easy, then,” Torrez said. “I called Stubby to come get the Lexus, so I guess we’re all set.” He regarded the expensive SUV. “Maybe he’ll put a few dents in it for good measure,” Torrez added, although they both knew that Stub Moore, handling impounds for the county, would treat the suspect’s vehicle with loving care.
Some parents in Lordsburg were going to be furious, Estelle mused. Arrested children, impounded vehicle…and it would all be the Sheriff’s Department’s fault, no doubt. The department could expect that someone-a parent, perhaps even Marge Chavez when she had some time to think on it-would make the most out of the accidental discharge. They could almost guarantee that would overshadow everything else. Five drunken youngsters driving an SUV on the interstate after midnight would pale in comparison to that single mistake.
Torrez turned to Estelle. “You’re going to talk with Collins?”
“I had planned to.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he can clean out his locker and be out of here.”
“We’ll want to think about that carefully, Bobby.”
“Look, that slug missed hittin’ one of Margie’s daughters right between the eyes by about three feet. There was no reason to have drawn down on those pissants in the first place. A bunch of drunk kids?”
“He didn’t know that at the time,” Estelle said. “And I don’t think he ‘drew down’ on them. I think he reacted with a mistake. He didn’t see the kid throw the bottle, and for just a few seconds, he thought he’d been shot at. He drew his gun as he slid out of the vehicle, saw he was mistaken, and then, in the process of correcting that mistake, fumbled the gun.”
“You sound like a damn lawyer.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear from them before this is all over. Right now, I’m puzzled why the gun went off.”
“’Cause he had his friggin’ finger on the trigger,” Torrez said.
“Maybe so. If that’s the case, then it’s our training and proficiency program that’s at fault. If it was a fault in the gun, then it’s a problem for our equipment maintenance program.” Program? she thought to herself. Like most small, financially strapped departments, the Sheriff’s Department found it was all too easy to use equipment until it collapsed.
“He’s got eyes and ears to use like all the rest of us,” Torrez snapped, and his tone had sunk to little more than a whisper. Estelle recognized the anger and had already decided to let the matter drop for the moment when Torrez added, “But hey. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t explain what the it was but instead turned to the State Policeman, who had remained tactfully silent. “Thanks for your help, Rick.”
“I’ll get my deposition to you ASAP,” the trooper said.
“You pulled in just as Collins got out of his unit?” Estelle asked.
Black nodded. “I did. I didn’t see him fumble the gun, though. I was watching the kids. I was starting to get out of the car when I heard the gunshot. I could tell by the look on Denny’s face that it had been an a.d.” He shrugged. “I told him to stay put until I had a chance to make sure no one had been hit. The sheriff here arrived just a few seconds later.” He held up both hands. “Not much, but it all helps.”
“Thanks again for your help.”
As Estelle walked back to her car, she saw that the sheriff and Bernie Pollis had the hood of the Chevy open and were bent over the engine. Linda Real joined them, and Estelle saw the flash of the photographer’s camera light up the engine compartment. Estelle dug out her cell phone, pushed the auto-dial, and waited for two rings before the connection went through.
“Gastner.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Estelle said. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the youngster in the backseat, behind the security grill that separated front from back.
Gastner chuckled. “I’ve never fallen asleep as long as a green chile burrito is spread out in front of me. I’m still over here.” He didn’t explain where “here” was, but Estelle knew, to the exact booth, where he was sitting in the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant. “You hungry?”
“No thanks. You’re closing the place down?” They were well past the 2:00 a.m. closing time for the Don Juan.
“Fernando and I were solving all the world’s problems.” Bill Gastner and Fernando Aragon, the longtime owner of the Don Juan, were perfectly capable of sitting and eating the night away-two insomniacs with the best restaurant in town right in the family.
“If you have a minute when you finish dessert, would you swing by my office?”
“Of course I would. But good God, you should be home by now, sweetheart.”
“Sin duda. But we had a nasty little incident.”
“Who?”
“Nobody hurt. I’ll tell you about it when you come over. I’m ten-fifteen, one juvenile.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t know what an old dumb guy like me can tell you, sweetheart. Especially about the younger generation.”
“A second opinion, is all,” Estelle said.
“Well, hell, I’m all opinions, as you well know. Give me ten?”
“That’s fine. No rush, sir.”
“Not in this lifetime,” he said. “But I’m down to the last morsel.”
“Thanks, padrino.” She switched off the phone just in time to swing the car into the Public Safety Building’s parking lot. Pasquale had parked his SUV directly in front of the side door where they moved prisoners back and forth to the small booking room.
Everyone was inside, including Dennis Collins, whose nicked SUV was pulled in behind the fuel pumps, parked beside a damaged county pickup truck that had languished there for three weeks awaiting parts.
The last of the undersheriff’s worries was a damaged truck. She sat quietly for a moment, mentally putting things in order on her list of priorities before escorting the youngster inside.
Perfect timing, she mused. Although she liked to think that she didn’t care what the media said or did not say, she drew a sigh of relief that the writer from the national magazine hadn’t arrived a day early. The whole mess made her insides ache.
Chapter Eight
“May I?” Bill Gastner extended his hand and Estelle passed over the.45 automatic that had been holstered on Deputy Collins’ hip…and that had then taken an excursion through space. Gastner laid the gun in his lap and took off his glasses, inspecting the lenses carefully. He wiped away a small spot on the sleeve of his shirt, then replaced the spectacles with care.
The slide was racked back on the handgun, but the empty magazine was in place. Gastner thumbed the release and let the magazine slide into his hand, then laid it on the desk.
“I lived with one of these for a long time,” he said thoughtfully. “A very interesting, very old design.” He turned the gun this way and that, as if admiring it just before a purchase. “Collins fumbled it somehow? Is that the story?”
“He says that he drew the gun as he slid out of his truck, a
nd then when he saw that there was no particular threat, maybe seeing that it was just a beer bottle that hit his truck and not a bullet, he went to reholster it. That’s when he fumbled it. The gun hit the truck-we have a chip in the Expedition’s paint, and there was a tiny speck of paint residue on the back sight.”
Gastner held the gun in two hands and rotated it, imitating its flight toward the truck’s fender. “And then he managed to grab it.”
“Apparently. After it bounced off the fender.”
“You sound skeptical.”
“Well, I’m not, really. We do that all the time, after all. We drop something, and make a grab for it. Sometimes the catches are spectacular, sometimes we don’t even come close.”
“We just don’t do it too often with a loaded and cocked gun,” Gastner said. “Still,” and he took a deep breath, “the gun didn’t go off when it struck the truck.” He turned the gun so Estelle could see the chamber clearly. “Nothing to feed it, nothing in its mouth,” he said, and waited until she nodded. Then he thumbed the slide release, and the slide shot forward with a metallic clang, closing the gun, leaving the hammer cocked. He bent over with a grunt, and whacked the butt of the cocked automatic on the floor, then did it again. The hammer remained cocked. He straightened up, turned the gun over, and tapped the hammer spur itself sharply on the metal edge of Estelle’s desk.
“Solid as a rock,” he said. “See, there’s just an infinitesimal chance that this gun is going to discharge when dropped.” Gastner turned the gun, holding it by the barrel. “It’s not like the old Colt single actions, where the only thing holding that hammer back was a thin little sliver of trigger steel. Drop that sucker on its hammer, and boom. But not this one. You have to be holding it so that the grip safety is depressed.” He pushed that broad, contoured safety on the back of the handle that a shooter’s grip on the gun would activate. “Unless he’s holding it properly, this prevents a discharge. Supposed to, anyway.”
He thumbed on the hammer safety on the side of the broad, flat slide. “You probably know all this better than I do,” he added, then charged ahead. “And if he’s carrying it with the hammer back, ready to go, he has to depress the thumb safety-if he remembered to click it on in the first place the last time the gun was holstered.”
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