The Fourth Time is Murder pc-15

by Steven F Havill

  “And the leg?”

  “I managed that when I got drunk after I was diagnosed and drove into an arroyo on my way back to the base. Maybe I was trying to kill myself. Who knows. I don’t think I was. The shrink thought I was, though. Pretty glamorous, huh?”

  “And that’s what the two of you talked about?”

  “Mostly.” He looked off into the distance. “Is she hurt pretty bad?”

  “I would guess so. We’ll know more here in a little bit.”

  He looked back at Estelle. “You still haven’t told me what she’s done.” An LCPD patrol car pulled into the street.

  “That’s Detective Nilson,” Abeyta said.

  “I told you, you don’t need a warrant,” Young said.

  “This is your house?” Estelle asked.

  “No. It’s CJ’s.”

  “Then we need a warrant. I’m going to ask that you remain here for a little longer.”

  “I got all the time in the world,” he replied.

  She reached out a hand and took his shoulder, giving it a gentle, sympathetic shake. “That’s what we always think,” she said.

  A moment later, Estelle had time to open the front door and step over the threshold, breathing in the light aroma of deodorant and other potions and fragrances that lingered throughout the little house. In time, they’d all fade, leaving this address on Capulin just another empty shell waiting for a family.

  As she had that thought, her phone chirped. Hearing Eddie Mitchell’s quiet voice, she instantly felt a wave of apprehension.

  “You clear?” he asked.

  “We’re about to go through the house, Eddie. What’s the word?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Your husband says that it’s going to be several hours before we’re able to talk with her. Preliminaries show that her spine is busted in two places. Dr. Guzman thinks that she’ll be paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “Ay. Is she conscious?”

  “Not yet. But he’s talking about transporting her to Albuquerque if we can get the medivac down here. But look, her car’s over in impound, and Mears, the sheriff, and I were going to head over that way right now. If you have a wrap down there, or if you can leave Tony to do it, you might want to pay a visit at the hospital. Just in case.”

  “That’s a good idea. Leave someone in the room with her when you go over to impound, though. All right?”

  “She isn’t going anywhere.”

  “No, I mean just so that…just so someone is with her.”

  “Yeah, I can do that. Taber came in, so she can swing by there.”

  “That’s good. I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

  “One thing, though,” Mitchell said. “You might be interested to know that she didn’t have so much as an overnight bag with her. But she had something like twenty-one thousand dollars in her purse.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Just a newly issued New Mexico driver’s license, good for eight years. One or two credit card receipts. And four credit cards and two debit cards. That’s it. Oh, and a couple of family photos. One of what I would guess to be parents. Another of a good-looking kid that might be her brother. No names or the like on the back sides.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Eddie. I’m on my way.” Estelle turned in place. “I see she has a computer and a pretty nifty printer. I’ll make sure Tony brings those along as well as anything else he might turn up. Maybe there are some answers here.”

  “Take your time,” Mitchell said, still at ease with command, his days as chief of police for the village of Posadas recent history.

  “We will.” She folded the phone and slid it back into her pocket. Walking through someone else’s home was always an odd experience for Estelle, and she took a few moments now to make a quick tour. Detective Nilson, a little wizened man who looked twenty years older than he was, stood outside the door, sucking on a cigarette, staring down at the cement step. Jack Young didn’t get up from the running board of his truck.

  “I want that,” Estelle said to Tony Abeyta, pointing at the computer. “Maybe somewhere around here she’ll have an address book, some kind of record. Something. One connection we’re looking for is the brother. The boyfriend says that CJ mentioned a brother living in Canada.” Estelle lifted a small sheaf of bills from the desk. “Phone records, anything like that.”

  Putting the paperwork down, she walked the length of the living room to the bedroom. From all appearances, it was temporary quarters-nothing frilly, nothing extra.

  “If you want Mr. Young to stay while you go through the house, that’s fine,” Estelle said as she headed toward the door. “I don’t need to talk to him again. As far as I’m concerned, he’s free to go.”

  “You got it.”

  She stopped at the door and extended her hand to Nilson. He looked at her with eyes so light blue that the irises appeared transparent. “Thanks, detective.”

  “Hey, don’t mention it,” Nilson said. His grip was light and faintly clammy. “How are things over in the land of the free and the brave?”

  “Things are interesting.”

  “Oh, I bet,” Nilson laughed. “That’s what our life is…interesting.”

  Intent on her laptop, Madelyn Bolles didn’t look up as Estelle approached the car. Estelle eased into the driver’s seat, and Madelyn finally glanced over at her.

  “Here’s a question for you,” Madelyn said.

  “I hope it’s an easy one,” Estelle replied.

  “It is. As I recollect, I started this day around sixish? Something like that? By nine, we were down in Regál, talking with Mrs. Roybal. And so it goes. It’s now about four fifteen. I’m curious about what’s next.”

  Estelle stretched, pushing both hands hard against the steering wheel. “I need to stop by the hospital in Posadas for a few minutes. The deputy will finish up here.”

  “You think there might be time for me to buy you dinner?”

  “Dinner,” Estelle repeated, as if it were a foreign concept. “Let’s see how things go.”

  “Is that a ‘yes?’”

  Estelle laughed. “That’s as close to a ‘yes’ as I can come at the moment.”

  Her cell phone rang, and she took her time unfolding it. “Guzman.”

  “Hey,” Bob Torrez said. “Eddie just called you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Look, Jackie’s comin’ in to cover at the hospital until you can get up here. We got a match.”

  A match, Estelle thought, caught off-guard. “A match of what, Bobby?”

  “Tom is one hundred percent positive that the print on the beer can belongs to the girl’s left index finger. One hundred percent. Ain’t no wonder why she ran.”

  “I’ll be up there in an hour,” Estelle said. She heard what might have been a groan from Madelyn Bolles.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “She’s conscious and lucid,” Deputy Jackie Taber said. She pulled the door closed behind her. “And frightened. How are you doing, ma’am,” she said to Madelyn Bolles.

  “Keeping up, just barely, thank you.”

  “The docs are in there now doing whatever it is that they do,” the deputy continued. She looked at her watch.

  “What does she have to say?” Estelle asked.

  Taber made a face of exasperation. “I haven’t exchanged more than a few words with her,” she said, and held out an arm, tugging at her own uniform sleeve. “She doesn’t much like the looks of this, is my guess. She doesn’t know what we know, and she’s worried.” The deputy shook her head. “That’s all conjecture on my part.”

  The door of the ICU suite behind her opened, and Jackie stepped to one side to allow the nurse out. “Hi,” the young woman said, beaming at Estelle. Moira Torrez, the sheriff’s youngest sister, was as petite as her brother was huge. Her dazzling smile included Madelyn but immediately turned sober. “You’re going to want to talk with her?”

  “If we can.”

  Moira took a quick step out of the way as the d
oor opened again. Dr. Francis Guzman held the door, blocking the opening. “You want a few minutes?” he asked Estelle.

  “Yes.”

  Still blocking the passage, the physician let the door ease closed behind him. “She’ll be pretty loopy,” he said. “I knew you’d want to talk with her, and we’re keeping the sedation as mild as we can. We’re going to transport her to Cruces here in a few minutes. Pete Vaskos is on hand down there, and he’s going to do an eval and help us with the crushed hip.”

  “Spinal damage?”

  “Not good, querida. That’s what took the brunt of it. We have nasty fractures down at T-twelve and L-one, as well as a broken pelvis and femur.”

  “She’s paralyzed?”

  “Yes. From the waist down.”

  “Is she going to stay that way?”

  “My guess is that she will.” He pushed the door open and held it for Estelle, and as she passed through, she beckoned Madelyn to follow. Dr. Alan Perrone ducked his head in greeting and joined Francis out in the hall, leaving Estelle and Madelyn alone with the patient.

  Consuela Juanita Vallejos looked tiny, so buried was she under braces, tubes, and wires. Her eyes were open and a little unfocused as the drugs in her system dulled the edges of consciousness. Estelle moved close to the left side of the bed and looked down at the girl, trying to imagine this desperately injured creature as the vibrant, confident young woman whose appearance had managed to shine through even in a driver’s license photo.

  Estelle leaned forward, her right hand resting on the frame near the patient’s head. CJ’s eyes blinked several times as if she was trying to clear the cobwebs.

  “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was husky, just above a whisper.

  “I’m Undersheriff Estelle Guzman,” she said. “With the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “So, you’re a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was going kind of fast, wasn’t I,” CJ said. She closed her eyes and tried a brave smile.

  “Way, way too fast,” Estelle agreed.

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  “You tangled with a truck and then rolled.”

  “All I could think of was that the car was going to catch on fire,” the girl whispered.

  “You’re lucky.”

  “I can’t feel my feet,” the girl said.

  Estelle didn’t respond but let the girl struggle with that thought for a few seconds. She took CJ’s left hand in hers, avoiding the IV feed. “Can you feel my touch?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Estelle held CJ’s hand a moment longer. “That’s good, then.” She turned the fine-boned hand ever so slightly, and saw the scar that began at the corner of the girl’s left index fingernail and arched around to the center of the pad.

  “I need to ask you some questions, CJ,” Estelle said.

  “It was just a dumb thing to do,” the girl said. Her eyes fixed on Estelle, eyes so dark brown and impenetrable that the undersheriff had no difficulty imagining Chris Marsh and Jack Young being swept away.

  “What was?”

  “My driving,” CJ said. Tears welled up, and one tear tracked down an elegant cheek to stain the pillow. “I don’t know why I did that.”

  Still holding the girl’s hand in her left, Estelle slipped the micro-recorder out of her pocket. She held it, a gadget no larger than a deck of cards, so that the girl could see it, then let her hand and the recorder sink to the gurney beside CJ’s head. “I want to ask you some questions, Ms. Vallejos. I know that you’re hurting, but it’s important that we do this now. You’re going to be transferred down to Cruces for surgery here in a few minutes.”

  “The doctor told me,” CJ replied. “Are you and him related?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  The girl’s lips moved to form an oh without actually saying the syllable.

  “Tell me about Chris Marsh,” Estelle said.

  At first, it appeared as if CJ Vallejos hadn’t heard her. She turned her head away and closed her eyes, the room full of the gentle hiss and beep of gadgets. When she spoke, her voice was small and distant. She turned and looked at first Estelle and then Madelyn, her gaze wary and at odds with the sick child’s voice.

  “I haven’t seen Chris since before Christmas,” she said.

  “Is that right.”

  “I think he went home or something.”

  “You didn’t hear about his accident, then.”

  “Accident?” The sick child’s voice went a note or two higher. “My God, what happened?”

  “That’s what we’re investigating, CJ. His truck crashed on Regál Pass Wednesday evening.”

  “Oh, no. How…”

  “It appears that he hit a deer, CJ.”

  “Why was he…?” She stopped as Estelle pulled her cell phone from her belt. It took a moment for the undersheriff to scroll down through the numbers she wanted, and as she did so, CJ whispered, “I don’t understand.” Estelle waited for the connection.

  “Abeyta.”

  “Deputy Abeyta,” Estelle said formally, making no attempt to shield the conversation from CJ, “are you still at the Vallejos residence?”

  “Affirmative,” Abeyta said. “I was going to call in a few minutes. Gayle said you were over there.”

  “What have you found?”

  “A couple of quick things that maybe you can use. Number one, I let the boyfriend go.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t think Jack Young has anything to do with any of this.”

  “And second of all, we found a bunch of stuff that probably was in Chris Marsh’s truck…had to have been. In a black plastic trash bag under the bed.”

  “Under the bed,” Estelle repeated, and as she said just those three words, it looked as if someone had reached into CJ Vallejos’ skull and turned the rheostat down for the light in her eyes. “What was in it?”

  “For one thing, the electronic signature device,” Abeyta replied. “We also have the door plaques…pretty professional-looking job, too. Also a white baseball cap with the Global Productivity Systems logo. There’s an empty aluminum clipboard, and an empty manila nine-by-twelve envelope.”

  “You didn’t turn on the computer?”

  “That’s negative. I’m going to bring it along for Tom to mess with. I don’t want to erase anything, which with my enormous computer savvy is exactly what would happen.”

  “Deputy, I’m going to put CJ Vallejos on the line with you. All I want you to do is run down the same list you just gave me.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” CJ whispered.

  “Go ahead,” Estelle said, and held the phone close to the girl’s ear. CJ closed her eyes again, tightly this time, and Estelle watched the water squeeze out from under the girl’s elegant eyelashes.

  Estelle pulled the phone away. “Thanks, Tony. Keep me posted.”

  “Is she going to make it?” the deputy asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Such a waste,” he said. “She was a good-lookin’ kid. I mean, you know what I mean,” he finished lamely.

  “Yes, I do,” Estelle said. “Thanks. Keep in touch.”

  She slipped the phone back on its belt clip. “And CJ…one more important thing,” Estelle said. She reached out and took the girl’s left hand again, tracing the index finger scar. “We have your prints on the beer can.”

  A strangled cry issued from the girl as she jerked her head sideways, and her left hand out of Estelle’s light grip. CJ cried freely then, great gulping sobs. The hospital room door opened, and Dr. Guzman slipped in, but he didn’t interfere.

  “How…how could you know?” the girl sobbed. She raised her right hand and thumped the gurney once in anguished frustration.

  “Chris was still alive when you reached him, wasn’t he?”

  “Oh, God,” CJ wailed, and she drew the word out into a multi-syllabic howl.

  “Why didn’t you help him?” Estelle asked. “Why didn’t you call fo
r help? You had a phone.”

  CJ’s mouth contorted as the tears flooded. “He was so stupid,” she managed. “Oh, God, so stupid. He was going to take the money from me.”

  “Really,” Estelle said, without much sympathy. “And what money was that?”

  “You know what money,” the girl said with surprising venom.

  “How did you know that he was going to take it?”

  CJ sniffed back a sob and made a strangling sound. “I just…know. He joked about it all the time. But I knew.…”

  “You knew he wasn’t joking?”

  CJ nodded. “Oh, God,” she wailed again. “He called and said he was heading up the pass, and when he didn’t show, I drove down to meet him. There was this deer…lying in the ditch, all kicking and still alive. I could see the skid marks.”

  “So you looked down the cliff, saw the truck, and climbed down.”

  “He was lying in the rocks,” CJ whimpered. “Just gurgling and hurt. And I could smell the beer. He drinks all the time.”

  “You want to tell me why? Why drown him in his own beer?”

  “If he went to a hospital, they’d find out. He’d talk. I know he would. He’d been drinking.…I figured that’s what everyone would think when they found him.”

  “Why did you step on his hand?”

  “I didn’t.…” And she cut off the protest. “He kept pushing at my hand, and I could hear the bones grating.” She shrieked the last word, the stuff of her own private nightmares for years to come. “And then he choked, and it seemed like something broke inside him.” The girl looked beseechingly at Estelle, eyes now bloodshot from crying. “He would have died anyway, don’t you see?”

  “Maybe so,” Estelle said.

  “What will happen to me?” CJ asked. The sobs had subsided to little gulps and spasms.

  “You’ll receive the best medical care available,” Estelle said. She straightened up, reached out, and guided a strand of elegant black hair away from the girl’s eyes. Estelle turned to regard the heart monitor that beeped on the wall behind the patient’s gurney. “And when you’re physically able, you’ll be arraigned in district court on a variety of charges. Including murder.”