Statute of Limitations pc-13

by Steven F Havill

  Carlos spent much of his time squatting on his haunches, examining the fine details of the treasures he found. He seemed particularly intrigued with the stink beetles that he uncovered. He would have loved to have brought home a pocketful, but accepted with sober resignation the logic that the little beetles were happier remaining in their own homes.

  Francisco seemed to enjoy the roll and sweep of the lay of the land itself. Perhaps because he knew it made his mother nervous, he skirted the very edge of the arroyo, defying the precarious, sandy overhangs that could so easily collapse under his feet. Once in a while, Sofía would gasp as the boy came too close to disaster, but Estelle remained philosophically quiet. She saw that the six-year-old had brought his music with him, the sounds inside his head providing a framework for what he saw out on the prairie.

  “This is nice,” Estelle sighed at one point, and Sofía glanced at her with amusement. Estelle had stopped, and was watching Francisco, who had found an old cattle path that cut the rim. He didn’t race to the bottom twelve feet below. Rather, he stepped down the trail just enough so that his head was level with the rim. The grass-high view provided an interesting perspective of the arroyo as it swept away, cutting through the flat of the prairie.

  Estelle watched as her son stood still and raised his arms for a moment, like Moses parting the waters, and she saw his head bob.

  “We let ourselves become so busy that we forget what we’re missing,” Sofía said. The sound of a snarling motorcycle blossomed behind them, and Estelle turned to watch its approach up the arroyo from the southwest.

  “Hijo,” she called to Francisco, and he retreated up the cow path toward them.

  “That’s Butch,” he shouted. Fresh paint winking in the late afternoon sun, trailing a plume of blue smoke from its wailing two-stroke engine, the dirt bike catapulted up the narrow arroyo bottom, the rider fighting the loose sand.

  As the biker flashed by, he attempted a wheelie, but the traction wasn’t there and he executed a wild fishtail instead, then raised a hand in greeting. The two boys waved back frantically, but the rider didn’t stop.

  “Their time isn’t far off,” Sofía said, watching the bike disappear up the arroyo.

  “Oh, yes it is,” Estelle replied quickly, and she laughed. “I’m going to be the original ogre mom when it comes to motorcycles.”

  “You believe that, do you?”

  “Oh, sí. I have a short list, you see. And motorcycles are right up there at the top.”

  She watched Butch Romero careen northward, the new Christmas bike freshly shed of its red ribbons and already ingesting sand and dust. The Romero family lived two doors down the street from the Guzmans, and the parade of go-carts, old trucks, and tiny, dilapidated import cars trying to impersonate street rods were a constant source of entertainment for Francisco and Carlos.

  “You may change your mind as he grows older,” Sofía said.

  “Por supuesto,” Estelle replied. “I’m sure I will. When he’s forty-five, he can buy anything he wants, even a motorcycle.”

  They walked for another ten minutes in companionable silence. The sun was still warm, but as it sank toward the San Cristóbal Mountains, the shadows jumped out in stark relief around each clump of prairie vegetation, creating a blanket of geometric patterns.

  When he’s forty-five, Estelle thought. Thirty-nine more years. What a career that might be. And in thirty-nine years, she’d be seventy-seven. Her mother would be long gone-Sofía, too. Estelle glanced at her husband’s aunt with affection. Then again, maybe not. Sofía, a mere seventy-one, was the same age as Bill Gastner. Estelle could picture the boys’ Padrino and Sofía at age 108, trading barbs. She shook her head, derailing that train of thought.

  The yowl of the motorcycle drifted back to them, and out of habit, Estelle glanced up to make sure that Francisco wasn’t standing in the middle of the arroyo bottom, blithely waiting for Butch Romero and his dirt bike to crash into him. After a moment, Estelle stopped and turned, cocking her head to listen. On his trip north, the teenager had obviously finished his familiarization run with the new bike. Now, he was flogging it for all it was worth, the pitch of the two-stroke strained and angry.

  He appeared suddenly a thousand yards away, vaulting the bright yellow bike up and out of the arroyo as he followed a cattle trail, one that would bring him to the same rim path along which Estelle, Sofía, and the two boys walked. The arroyo curved in a long loop toward the east, and the bike hurtled along the trail toward them, dodging clumps of acacia and cholla.

  Fifty yards away, he backed off and headed directly toward them, and Estelle stepped off the trail, Carlos now content to have his hand locked in hers. Butch rolled the bike to a stop, balancing on his right foot, and killed the engine.

  “That’s quite a bike,” Estelle said. “Merry Christmas, Butch.”

  Romero pushed up his face shield, then tore at the helmet’s chin strap. He pulled the helmet off, his hair caked from sweat, his narrow face flushed. It wasn’t exhilaration on his face, though.

  “Sheriff-” he turned and pointed north “-there’s somebody back up there.” He almost lost his balance, and twisted the handlebars sharply to catch himself. “I hit her, I think.” Romero was breathing so hard it looked as if he might pass out.

  Estelle stepped forward and rested a steadying hand on the boy’s left forearm. “A person hurt, you mean?”

  Butch Romero nodded and blinked rapidly. “She’s dead, I think.”

  “Tell me exactly where.”

  The teenager turned and looked back up the arroyo. “See that grove of trees way up there?”

  “I see the desert-willow clump right on the rim,” Estelle said. “Where you came up out of the arroyo. Beyond that?”

  “Way beyond. Go to them, then turn and follow the arroyo,” Romero said. “You can just see the tops of them.”

  “Where the section fence turns east?”

  “Beyond that. Maybe half a mile.” He turned back to Estelle. “There’s a spot where Highland Drive comes out and ends? It’s paved for a ways and then it’s all like dirt and stuff? And there’s all those big old trees right there along the arroyo.”

  “She’s down in the arroyo?”

  “Yeah…there’s some brush there, and a couple junk cars? You want me to take you up there and show you? Or you can take my bike.”

  “Ah, no, as a matter of fact. Thanks anyway. We’ll get someone up there.” She glanced at her watch and saw that it was five minutes after four. Ernie Wheeler would have taken over in dispatch, with Eddie Mitchell and Tony Abeyta on the road, hoping to finish off a quiet Christmas Day. Estelle walked several steps away, her back turned to her family and the teenager as she opened her cell phone.

  Wheeler picked up the phone after two rings.

  “Ernie, this is Estelle. We have a report of a possible body in the arroyo at the north end of Highland Drive. Who’s central, Tony?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Captain Mitchell is down in Regál with a minor MVA. Tony’s standing right here, wishing he had something to do.”

  “Well, he’s got it,” Estelle said. “I’m on foot out behind Twelfth with my family and Butch Romero. He’s the one who made the report, but we’re a ways downstream. I need to walk the kids back home, and then I’ll be up there as soon as I can. Tony needs to lock things up for me, and as soon as Eddie’s clear, give him the heads-up, all right?”

  “Ten four. Ambulance?”

  “Go ahead and alert.”

  “Ten four. Just a second.” She heard mumbled voices and then Wheeler came back on the line. “Tony’s on the way. Tom Pasquale came off shift, but he’s still here. He’s in the conference room with Linda and Bill Gastner.”

  “Thanks. I’m on my way in.”

  She snapped the phone shut and turned to Butch.

  “You want me to ride back up there?” he asked.

  Estelle shook her head. “We’ll go back home first.” Sofía had Carlos in hand on the left, and Francisc
o on the right, and she had already started back down the trail toward home. “Butch, we may need to talk with you again. You’ll be home later this evening?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Okay. I need to hustle,” she said, and reached out to shake Butch by the shoulder.

  “I can go back up there and kinda keep an eye out until the cops get there, if you want,” Butch offered.

  “No…I don’t want you to do that, Butch. One of the deputies will be there in just a minute. He’ll be there quicker than you can make it back up the arroyo. You’re sure it wasn’t a manikin or something like that?”

  Butch shook his head vehemently. “No, ma’am. No manikin.” As if having second thoughts about being caught out on the darkening prairie with a corpse, he said quickly, “I’ll go back with you guys, then.” Estelle couldn’t tell if he felt genuinely protective, or if he was spooked. A fourteen-year-old wasn’t a necessary chaperone, but the two boys would enjoy it as he orbited them with his bike, making the quarter-mile hike back home an unexpected treat.

  “Thanks, Butch. I appreciate that.” She turned away as he kicked the bike into life. Sofía had a short head start, and Estelle jogged after her aunt and the two little boys.

  “Sorry about this,” she said as she fell into step with the group.

  Sofía shrugged. “That’s the way these things go…but how sad for someone.”

  Estelle nodded and looked hard at Francisco, who had broken away from his great-aunt’s grip and was zigzagging through the bushes, watching Butch and the motorcycle blast across the prairie, the scout out ahead of the pioneers. “You don’t go cruising, hijo,” she said. “Stay with us.” By the time they reached the arroyo crossing and were trekking through the Parkmans’ backyard toward their own house, Butch had peeled away with a wave. Estelle scooped Carlos up as the little boy lagged, the fast thousand-yard walk taking its toll on his short legs.

  Francisco reached the house first, and he burst inside with enough breath left to bellow to his grandmother, “Butch has a new bike, Abuela!”

  “I’m so pleased to hear that,” Teresa Reyes laughed.

  Estelle hung Carlos upside down, lowering him headfirst to the foyer floor. “I need to go, Mamá.”

  “Ah, a bad day for someone else,” the old woman said, settling back into her chair. “Is that what I’ve been hearing?”

  Sure enough, her mother’s hearing was keen. Far in the distance, Estelle heard the thin, high warble of a siren.

  “Sorry, Mamá,” Estelle said.

  “Such a Christmas,” her mother said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Escudero Arroyo originated at the base of Cat Mesa north of the village. During rare cloudbursts several generations before, rain had channeled and excavated a scar across the prairie that dodged this way and that, the trickle of water deflected by a cholla here or a greasewood bush there until the arroyo wandered like an old drunk.

  In places where several tributary arroyos had joined forces, the gash was deep, a dozen feet down through sand and gravel to the original bedrock. One such deep cut swerved due west near the end of Highland Drive, a street that, despite its pretentious name, became nothing more than a rough, washboarded dirt two-track before dead-ending at the arroyo. Several retired concrete highway barriers had been dropped haphazardly on the arroyo lip to prevent preoccupied motorists from nosing over into the sandy depths.

  Escudero Arroyo north of the village was one of those eyesores that a few million dollars and a willing Army Corps of Engineers could make go away. But until then, it was part of the landscape, an opportunity for kids with.22s, kids with dirt bikes, and folks too lazy to take their junk up to the official landfill.

  Estelle parked her unmarked car on the pavement a hundred yards south of the arroyo, tucking in behind two other sheriff’s units and Linda Real’s tiny sedan. The back door of Tom Pasquale’s Expedition was open, and the deputy was in the process of unsnarling a wad of yellow plastic ribbon. Halfway back from the arroyo, Deputy Tony Abeyta jogged down the center of Highland Drive toward them, head down and watching his feet.

  Pasquale paused in his efforts with the tape as Linda appeared with her bulky camera case.

  “Hey, the gang’s all here,” Linda said, the armor of her good humor refusing dents even during the worst of times. She smiled sympathetically at Estelle. “So much for peace and quiet, huh?”

  “Oh, sí,” said Estelle. “We’re sure it’s not a manikin or something?”

  “I think we’re sure of that,” Pasquale said. He glanced around the side of the Expedition. “Tony’s headed back now.”

  “Are we far enough back here?” Estelle asked. She turned to look south, down Highland toward the intersection with Twelfth Street.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe we’re going to want to block things off farther back before things start getting’ all scuffed up,” Pasquale said.

  Tony Abeyta reached them, breathing hard. “Estelle, it’s an adult female. The body’s partly stuffed under one of those wrecked cars.” He stopped and heaved a deep breath. “If I had to make a preliminary guess, I’d say either hit in the head with something, or shot. Can’t see her face, but the hair on the back of her head is caked with blood.”

  “Ay.” Estelle thrust her hands in her jacket pockets. “Okay. Tom, let’s put the tape across back there,” and she nodded toward Twelfth. “Maybe you’d man the door for a while until we get the rest of the crew up here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did someone call Perrone?”

  “I just did,” Abeyta said. “I wanted to be sure.” Even as he spoke, an ambulance swung into view, lights flashing.

  Tom Pasquale slammed the back doors of the Expedition. “Did they get lost, or what?” He shook his head in wonder. “I’ll head ’em off.”

  “We’re probably going to need Mike, too,” Estelle said, referring to Deputy Mike Sisneros, who until the consolidation had been one of the village officers. “Wasn’t he at the office with you guys earlier?”

  “He was,” Linda Real said. “He and I were working on trying to reboot one of the computers, and then he and Janet were going over to his folks for dinner.”

  “Maybe we won’t need him,” Estelle said. “We’ll see.” She popped the trunk of her car and picked up a bundle of small surveyor’s flags, each on its own slender wire. She waited until Pasquale had backed his patrol unit out of the way, then beckoned to Abeyta. “You all set?” she asked Linda. The photographer had already unlimbered one of her 35s, and was surveying the terrain through a wide-angle lens.

  “You bet.”

  “Right down the middle,” Estelle said. She handed Deputy Abeyta a bundle of flags, keeping half for herself. “Lead on,” she said, and set off behind Abeyta, placing her steps in his.

  The washboards and ruts of the two-track showed fresh vehicle tracks of several types. Highland Drive was a favorite access route for hikers wanting to reach the base of Cat Mesa, or for neckers in too much of a lustful rush to find somewhere more romantically elegant.

  Twenty-five yards before the discarded concrete barriers, the path widened into a casual parking lot not quite large enough to swing the average vehicle around in a single maneuver.

  Estelle stopped a dozen feet shy of the arroyo edge. Along the arroyo, the prairie was rumpled, dotted here and there with the tough, stunted vegetation that could survive on eight inches of moisture a year. Over decades, cattle had grazed the sparse bunch grass to dust.

  The terrain sloped slightly, and a dozen feet beyond the last concrete barrier, a grove of elms had managed to grab hold and flourish. No one had planted the trees. Perhaps a single seed had blown in, or had been part of a load of yard debris dumped over the side. The grove now provided the illusion of shade in the summer, the illusion that this was a secluded little park that broke through the dreariness of the prairie.

  What could have been a picturesque spot with a commanding view of the jagged buttress of Cat Mesa t
o the north was instead commanded by junk. A selection of crushed cars, some old enough that they were rusted to an even russet patina, had been pushed over the arroyo bank, providing protection against the cut and surge of storm water. The car carcasses were decorated with a selection of snagged flood detritus, as well as a scattering of old tires, stoves, barbecue grills, and enough beer cans to start a museum.

  At the point, the bottom of the arroyo was fairly wide, stretching out nearly sixty feet to the inside of the corner on the other side. The seasonal waters had tried to carve the outside of the sweeping course, keeping the arroyo bottom that lay beyond the average junkster’s toss reasonably clear.

  “There’s a path over there on the left,” Deputy Abeyta said.

  “Okay,” Estelle said. Linda stopped and her camera clicked. Estelle saw that one of the latest automotive contributions was the engineless, doorless carcass of a 1957 Oldsmobile, one heavily chromed winged fender still recognizable. The Olds lay skewed on its top, nose down, the crumpled front end crushed over the innards of the historical layer of metal underneath. The grille, missing its teeth and the chromed front bumper, dug into the sand of the arroyo bottom. The frame was either broken or bent, the engine and transmission missing.

  As Estelle moved to the edge, Abeyta touched her on the arm and pointed. “Right down there.”

  “I see it.” From under the mess of twisted and rusted steel, a single white arm extended, the hand palm-down and the fingers spread as if trying to caress the warm sand.

  The undersheriff glanced at Linda, whose camera was eating through film at a furious rate.

  “I climbed down over there,” Abeyta said. He pointed eastward, where he had found a narrow slip through the trash. “Or, there’s a cattle trail down into the arroyo a little further up the wash.”

  “Let’s do that,” Estelle said, and she followed the deputy east, around the last of the concrete barriers, past the final grove of elms, and then another thirty yards to where the lip of the arroyo had been caved in by cattle traffic. No human shoeprints marked the bare dirt.