The Fourth Time is Murder pc-15

by Steven F Havill

  “We got rescue comin’,” Torrez said. “Cut away that door and we’ll be able to tell.”

  With the metal twisted and mangled into a puzzle of interlocked, sharp parts, simply hauling the car upright with a cable from a wrecker was out of the question. The driver was already apt to be impaled on sharp objects. A careless movement of the car’s carcass could finish the job. Estelle circled to the passenger side, but that had taken a number of smashing hits. The car lay more on its right side than left, and the rising ground made it impossible to see inside. From the rear, the trunk lid and its supporting structure had bashed upward, and then driven into the dirt.

  “Don’t let it burn!” The four words came from the core of the crushed wreckage, thin and desperate.

  Estelle darted back to the driver’s side and dropped to her hands and knees. “CJ, can you hear me?”

  “Don’t let it burn!” the voice repeated, and trailed off into a whimper.

  “We’re going to get you out of there. Just hold on. How badly are you hurt?”

  “I…I don’t know. I can’t move.”

  “They’re on their way,” Estelle said.

  The wait was agonizing, even though it was probably no more than a few minutes. By the time the rescue squad arrived, set up a perimeter, made a hasty game plan, and finally fired up the gasoline-powered extraction jaws, Estelle saw what had to be at least sixty-five people standing in the median or beside their vehicles.

  Dennis Collins, dressed in blue jeans and a light windbreaker with sheriff’s department in huge yellow letters across the back, appeared at her side. “We can open the right westbound lane and get most of these guys out of here,” he said. “You want Allen and me to start workin’ on that?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “Until we talk to everyone who saw this, I don’t want anything moved.” She turned and looked to the east. “That freight liner there with the double trailers?”

  “Got it.”

  “I want everyone who isn’t working this, or who doesn’t belong to one of the trucks of this front convoy here, back behind that spot. All the rubberneckers. We’re going to need the breathing space. Run a yellow tape across to my car, if you have to.”

  “Got it.”

  “After she’s out of the car, and after we take some measurements, we can open the right-hand lane.” She turned her attention back to the emergency workers. Jerry Buckman, a big, burly hulk of a man who appeared even larger in his bunker gear, worked the nose of the jaws into the door frame by the lower hinge, and it spread and popped the metal as if it were aluminum foil. He worked this way and that, worrying the metal of the door away from the frame, all the way down to what, in the upright vehicle, would be the top hinge, now forced into the dirt.

  Shifting his stance deftly, he attacked the rear of the door, working down through the door lock itself. Finally, with the jaws between the lower edge of the door and the rocker panel, he eased the door gently away from the frame, always alert that his actions didn’t move the car. Throughout the process, the occupant, crushed into this impossibly small space, kept up a stream of whimpers, cries, and wails, most of them drowned out by the power equipment.

  Finally Buckman stopped and shut down the noisy saw. “We can get us a chain right through here,” he said to Cliff Herrera. Buckman touched the lower edge of the rocker panel, now drawn four or five inches out. “Run it right down and out through the window.” That opening, where the driver’s elbow might rest with the window open, was crushed to within a couple inches of the ground.

  Within seconds, the rescue workers threaded the chain down through the narrow opening and dragged it back out, securing it to a hefty come-along attached to the big rescue truck’s rear bumper.

  With both sides and the bottom can-openered away, the door shifted easily, its crushed top and window frame digging a trough in the dirt. Cliff Herrera, about half Buckman’s size, bellied down on the ground and squirmed up close to peer inside. Even with the door peeled aside, the opening was desperately small. Knowing that Buckman would never allow her to approach in the first place, Estelle forced herself to stand well back as the rescue team worked. “You ain’t dressed for the dance, young lady,” he once had told her years before.

  “Can you hear me?” Herrera asked, his voice loud and carefully enunciated. His head and one shoulder were inside the car, and Estelle could see him trying to shift position.

  “Yes. Oh, please.”

  “Okay, just hold still,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  Estelle moved close enough that she could hear Cliff’s insistent voice with a nonstop conversation, none of it making much of an impression on the car’s occupant.

  “Listen,” he said at one point, then repeated himself as if the young woman were not listening. “Can you move this hand?” Estelle saw Herrera’s body shift as he stretched as far into the wreckage as he could. “Well, sure it hurts. Just try to stay calm. We’re with you.”

  “Don’t go. It’s going to burn.”

  “I’m not going away, and it’s not going to burn, young lady. I’ll be right back to get you out of here. Just hang in there with me.”

  Cliff squirmed backward with alacrity. He lowered his voice, and Buckman and EMT Matty Finnegan drew close.

  “The center console is crushing her against the roof,” he said. “Her head and shoulders are on the passenger side, and at least one foot is caught down by the pedals. I can’t feel around her neck, but everything is twisted up. Her breathing’s ragged.” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “Look, if we lift this thing up any, there’s a good chance it’ll crush her. I think what we need to do is take the seats apart. The roof is actually pretty flat. That’s going to help us.”

  “Let’s do it,” Buckman said. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a brief symphony of horns and screeching tires erupted from the eastbound lanes, followed by a single loud crash. Knowing exactly what had happened, Estelle turned slowly in place. Two compact cars immediately behind a tractor trailer and in front of a commercial bus had melded into one as the driver in the rear had diverted his attention from traffic to gawk at the crash. The bus had managed to stop well short of the metal and plastic sandwich.

  “Oh, cute,” Buckman snapped. One of the state troopers who had been directing traffic on that section of highway was standing frozen in place, hands on his hips in a momentary display of indignation at such stupidity.

  Captain Eddie Mitchell strode across the median and intercepted Bob Torrez, who looked as if he were intent on killing someone. “Shut it down,” the sheriff snapped. “Goddamn morons.” Leaving Mitchell and the State Police to sort out the traffic snarl, Torrez beckoned to Estelle.

  “What’s the deal?” he asked.

  “They’re going to have to dismantle the car to get her out,” the undersheriff replied. “She’s responsive.…They can’t tell more than that yet.”

  “Okay. I was just talkin’ to Abeyta. I sent him back to Cruces to work with the cops there,” Torrez said. “They got the one in custody, and are securing the house. They’ve got a warrant comin’. Then we’ll see what we can find.”

  He looked past Estelle’s shoulder, and she could see the crow’s-feet deepen around his eyes. “Your passenger’s gettin’ more than she bargained for,” he said.

  Estelle turned and saw Madelyn Bolles standing beside the patrol car, camera in hand, and realized that she had forgotten all about the writer.

  “When all the dust clears, it’ll be interesting to hear her view on all of this,” Estelle remarked.

  “Oh, I can’t wait,” Torrez remarked. He turned to watch the rescue crew. “They say how long it was going to take?”

  “No.” CJ Vallejos’ “golden hour,” that time immediately following an accident when the badly injured victim’s life hung on a slender thread, was ticking away, each moment that medical care was delayed lessening her chances of surv
ival. The girl was still conscious, still frightened that she was going to end up burning to death. The sixteen minutes that had passed since her car had ticked the back of one of the semis and gone ballistic must have seemed hours to her.

  More than anything else, Estelle wanted to talk with her, to learn the answers to a host of still-puzzling questions. But the crash had changed all the rules. Now the center median of the interstate was full of people who had become skillful, compassionate Samaritans, advocates working relentlessly on behalf of Consuela Juanita Vallejos…advocates who for the moment didn’t care what she had done or to whom she had done it.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Jack Young’s expression looked as if he’d barely managed to leap out of the way of a speeding bus intent on turning him into paste. There was no cause to be sweating on this cool February afternoon, but the young man flicked at his forehead and dabbed his eyes. He tried to appear controlled, even casual, but it was an effort. More than anything else, he appeared thoroughly confused by this odd turn of events.

  When Estelle arrived at the address on Capulin Drive off NM28, he was sitting on the running board of his old pickup truck, both hands between his knees. Deputy Tony Abeyta didn’t turn his back on the young man but continued to write on his clipboard. Estelle forced herself to take her time, looking at the house and regarding the young man before getting out of her car.

  “There’s a frightened puppy,” Madelyn Bolles said quietly.

  “Maybe with good cause,” Estelle said. Down the street, two LCPD units were parked facing the house, but she didn’t see Guenther “Grunt” Nilson. One uniformed officer remained in his car, the driver’s door open. A second officer appeared from the rear of the tiny house, walking a careful perimeter around the building.

  Estelle got out of the car and nodded at her deputy.

  “Detective Nilson went to pick up a warrant,” Tony said by way of greeting. “I haven’t been in the house yet. No wants or warrants on this vehicle. And this is Jack Young. Mr. Young, this is Posadas County undersheriff Estelle Guzman.”

  “Mr. Young,” Estelle said. “We appreciate your cooperation.”

  “I’d like to know what’s going on, ma’am,” he replied, and Estelle noted the cadence of his speech, clipped and efficient.

  “May I see your driver’s license, sir?” Estelle asked, and Tony slipped it from his clipboard and handed it to her, along with a military ID. John Elliot Young was twenty-three, with a Sunland Park address on Woodcrest Avenue.

  “You’re at Bliss?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m not stationed anywhere at the moment.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “I’m on a medical discharge,” he said. He swung his right leg out a bit and pulled up the leg of his jeans. An enormous scar began above his ankle and disappeared upward. “Goes to here,” he said, touching his thigh. “That’s the good part of it.”

  “I see.” She handed the license and ID back to Abeyta. “So tell me.”

  “Tell you what, ma’am?”

  “What are you doing here, sir?”

  “I was visiting a friend who lives here.”

  “The friend’s name?”

  He frowned at that. “What’s your interest in her? Is that her with you in the car?” He squinted toward the county car, but the sun reflecting on the windows made it impossible to see who was inside.

  “And who would that be?” Estelle asked.

  “All right, all right. Of course I know her name,” Young replied. “Her name’s CJ Vallejos. I don’t know what the ‘CJ’ stands for.”

  “So you don’t know her all that well, then.”

  “I guess I know her well enough.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  “I met her last night at Waylon’s,” he said, naming a popular nightspot. “We hit it off.” He shrugged. “She invited me back here after we closed the place down.” He shaded his eyes, looking past Estelle at the county car again. “So where is she?”

  “How did you happen to meet her?”

  He shrugged again. “I said, we were at Waylon’s. There she was, there I was. She asked if I was there for the karaoke, and I thought that was pretty funny. I can play the radio pretty good, but that’s the extent of it. One thing led to another.”

  “And you ended up back here.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Not sure how. We were both lit.”

  She looked at him for a long minute, and he returned her gaze without flinch or apology.

  “That’s the first time you met her? Last night?”

  “That’s it. So what’s the big deal? She wanted for murder or something?” He tried a halfhearted smile.

  “What makes you ask that, Mr. Young?”

  “Well, you know. This many cops…and a search warrant? You don’t do that for shoplifting, do you?” A dawning of realization crossed his face. “She didn’t steal that fancy car, did she?”

  “Not as far as we know.”

  “What a machine,” he said in wonder. “I figured that was Daddy’s car.”

  “Daddy’s?”

  “How could she afford something like that? As a college student?”

  “When Ms. Vallejos left the house this morning, what did she tell you?”

  Young hesitated at the sudden change of subject. “She wanted to return a video that she said was overdue. Just down the street. And she was going to pick up a newspaper.”

  “You didn’t think that was odd?”

  He held up both hands. “What’s odd about returning a movie? She seemed preoccupied, maybe. I thought maybe she was having some second thoughts about us…maybe that was all it was. I was going to fix us something to eat, and she said she’d be back in just a couple of minutes. That’s it. That’s the story. I figured that she’d come back and tell me to get lost.” He shifted position with a grimace. “Mind if I stand up?”

  “No.” She watched him push himself up, and for a minute he massaged his right knee with both hands. Then he leaned against the door of the truck. “What’s she done? They don’t send the cops out when a video is overdue. I haven’t done anything wrong, so it isn’t because of me.”

  “Where do you work, sir?”

  “I don’t yet. I’m spending most of my time fighting with the VA. Something will come along.”

  “Did Ms. Vallejos talk to you about any prospects?”

  “No, ma’am,” Young said. “She seemed kind of down in the dumps when I first met her last night. But we hit it off. And then this morning…I don’t know. Maybe she’s having second thoughts.”

  “That happens.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does. I was going to make us some brunch or something, and all of a sudden, she’s all agitated about that video.”

  “What were you looking for in the trunk of her car, Jack?”

  “Jesus. What do you have, spyware or something? Christ, what is all this? Look, she said she thought that she had a loose mounting bracket on her CD changer in the trunk, so I looked for her. She didn’t. What’s she telling you?”

  “She’s not,” Estelle said, and Young heard the implications in her tone. He seemed to slump a little, and leaned his back against the door of the truck.

  “What’s happened? Is she all right?”

  “Ms. Vallejos was involved in a high-speed chase on the interstate a little while ago. She lost control of her car over west of Deming.”

  Young’s eyes grew large. “Are you shitting me? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying just that, sir. She took off westbound, and lost control after her car collided with a semi.”

  “Just now, you mean?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Just now.”

  “My God, where is she? Is she all right?”

  “No, sir, she’s not all right. By now she’s in Posadas General Hospital. I don’t know any more than that.”

  “I don’t believe this. Why would she do that? She was going to return a video, for Christ’s sakes.�
��

  Estelle hesitated, weighing how much to tell the young man. “We had a unit parked at each end of the street this morning,” she said. “That’s when we saw you opening the trunk of her car. I think she might have seen the officers and that tipped her off. The video thing was just an excuse.”

  “An excuse?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “You mean you guys had this house under surveillance?”

  Estelle didn’t respond and he fell silent, sliding back down the truck door to land on his rump, both hands beside his hips on the running board.

  “What’s she done? You’re going to tell me at least that much?”

  “Let me ask you this,” Estelle said. “What did you two talk about?”

  “What do you mean what,” he said with irritation. “Just stuff, you know? We were at a bar, for Christ’s sakes. You just talk.”

  “About school?”

  “Yeah, she mentioned that. She was studying political science, and hated it. She wasn’t going back.”

  “What about her work?”

  “I didn’t get the impression that she had a job,” Young said. “A couple of times, she said that she had plans. She never said what they were.”

  “Did she ever talk about other friends?”

  “No.”

  “Or where she was from?”

  “She said Chicago. She’s got a brother up in Canada somewhere. Look, I gotta tell you…we talked a lot about me, okay? She saw me limping and she wanted to know all about what I’d done. How this happened,” and he patted his leg.

  “And how did it happen?”

  He fell silent. “I was going to tell her this long heroic tale,” he said after a moment. “But I couldn’t.” He closed his eyes. “God, she’s an incredible girl, you know that?” When Estelle didn’t respond, he added, “So I just told her the truth.” He straightened up and lifted his shirt. The scar ran down the center of his body, thick and corded, disappearing below his waistline. “Changes your life, you better believe,” he said. “What do they call it? The young man’s cancer?”