Bitter Recoil Read online

  “Meaning?” I sat back, my chair leaning against the wall. I wanted a cigarette, but the “Thank You For Not Smoking” sign was staring me in the face.

  “If a car hits you hard enough to do serious damage, to fling you right over a guardrail, there’s usually some clue that that’s what happened.”

  “Well, sure.” I’d seen hundreds of accident victims in twenty years.

  “But there were no paint chips, Sheriff. No chrome. Nothing.”

  I shrugged. “That happens all the time.”

  “Maybe. But there were no sharp lacerations, the sort of injury we’d expect from headlights and rims and bumpers or grill parts. And we’d see those in relationship with traumatic fractures and deep tissue bruising.”

  He paused, then added, “And look at the fractures. Her right hip, Sheriff. The sort of fracture you get in football, when the joint is yanked and wrenched the wrong way. No compression injuries related with the fracture, except minor scrapes. Now, the major lacerations on her broken right arm were contaminated with rocks and dirt. The same thing is true of her broken left ankle.”

  Guzman was warming up and I let him continue without interruption.

  “And see here, on her skull. She took a hell of a rap there. You know what I found in her hair? Besides dirt? Lichen. The stuff that grows on rocks. Flakes of it right in the wound. Her head hit a rock, Sheriff, and hit it hard.”

  “Well, we know that. That’s likely where the other fractures came from…or some of them. When she landed on the rocks. She was walking along the highway and got clipped. The impact threw her over the embankment. She tumbled ass over teakettle down into the rocks, breaking who knows what on the way.”

  Francis Guzman shook his head. “Where did the car hit her?” He stood up and pretended to be walking along the road. “Right hip? She turns and it’s her left hip that’s facing traffic, not right.”

  I grimaced. The young doctor had a hell of an imagination. “Come on, Francis. She could have just as easily turned the other way.”

  “Not likely. And that leg was yanked out of its socket, not impacted.”

  “So what are you saying happened?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet she was never hit by a vehicle of any kind.”

  “What, then?”

  Francis Guzman hesitated. “I think she was thrown over the embankment.”

  “Oh, you do.”

  He nodded. “The rest fits that way, too.”

  “The rest?”

  “There was an attempt at rape, Sheriff. I’m sure of that. And what I’d say were deep fingernail gouges on her back, near the base of her neck. Her hands were busted up pretty badly, and I didn’t have a chance to check under her fingernails. The M.E. in Albuquerque will do that. And it looks like she was punched hard in the mouth. Right here.” He touched the left corner of his own mouth. “Not the sort of injury caused by sharp rocks. But a fist, yes.”

  I toyed with my empty and crumpled coffee cup. “It’s hard to believe the other injuries were caused by sliding down an embankment like that.”

  “Not if she were thrown from a moving vehicle it’s not.”

  I stared at Guzman incredulously. “Tossed out of the back of a moving pickup truck, you mean? Something like that? Jesus. A hit-and-run I can imagine. But the other?”

  Guzman nodded and glanced at his watch. “That’s what I think. You’ve got at least one murder on your hands. I’d bet on it.”

  “She’s not dead yet, Doc.”

  Guzman looked pained. “No, but her baby is. The young lady was four months pregnant.”

  Chapter 4

  I stared at Francis Guzman. He misunderstood my silence and said again, “She was pregnant. Lost the fetus, of course.”

  “I heard you,” I murmured. “Did you know her? Was she from around here?”

  “I think that she’s been living in the village for about six months to a year.” Guzman had gotten to his feet wearily, like a man a decade older than I. With a grunt, he opened the window beside the desk. The air that washed into the room was fresh and tinted with sage.

  “Her name’s Cecilia Burgess. She didn’t have any identification on her when she was brought in last night, but both my nurse and I knew her. I met her about…well, four months ago. She came in for a prenatal checkup.” Guzman stepped out of the room and then reappeared with the coffeepot. “More?”

  “No, thanks. And then you saw her off and on after that?”

  “That’s right.” He smiled but without much humor. “Estelle’s got you drawn right into this mess, hasn’t she?”

  I realized I was grilling the doc as if he were a witness—which he probably would be sooner or later—and as if it were my own investigation, which it certainly wasn’t. “Sorry,” I said. “Occupational hazard.”

  “Can’t help but be curious,” Guzman said and sat down, long legs stretched out in front of him. “There are a lot of answers I’d like, but I’m so damn tired I can’t think straight.” He grinned. “Estelle’s going to bust in here in a few minutes and give me the third degree, so I might as well warm up with you, right?”

  “Might as well. I can’t help being a nosy old bastard. Who was the girl’s husband?”

  “She was single.”

  “Boyfriend, then?”

  Guzman shrugged. “I didn’t know her that well. I didn’t ask, either. She worked some of the time in Garcia’s. That’s the trading post on the south end of the village. You probably saw it when you drove up.”

  “The place with all the Indian drums and pottery in the window?” Guzman nodded. I patted myself on the back. Now I knew where I’d seen the girl before. Up on the mountain where Cecilia Burgess had been knocked over the guardrail, the light had been poor—just the spotlights and flashlights. And when the girl had been placed on the gurney, her profile had been visible to me only briefly. But it was enough to stir a memory.

  Earlier in the day, before I’d started my outdoorsman’s hiking act, I’d stopped at Garcia’s Trading Post, thinking I might find a birthday present for my oldest daughter, Camile. Odds were good I’d find something that she hadn’t seen already in ten department stores near her home in Flint, Michigan.

  The polite young lady who’d let me browse without interference through blankets, beads, and jewelry had been Cecilia Burgess. I was sure of it.

  “What I mean is that she had the opportunity to see all sorts of people,” Guzman continued. “San Estevan is pretty small, but there’s still plenty of the young and willing. My nurse said she’d heard Burgess had been seeing a guy from on up the canyon.”

  Guzman turned and called Mary Vallo, who’d gone back out front. When she appeared in the doorway, Guzman asked, “Who was that kid you said Cecilia Burgess was seeing up north?”

  “I don’t know his name,” Mary Vallo said, keeping her voice and facial expression that wonderful stone neutral that serves Indians as such a perfect barrier when they don’t want their minds read.

  “Yeah, but wasn’t he the one who was living up at the hot springs?”

  “I heard that he was,” Mary said.

  Guzman turned to me. “There’s a little group of leftover hippies who camp out about nine months of the year in the National Forest, up behind the hot springs. They drift in and out of town, work a little, panhandle a little, and generally make the tourists nervous. I heard Cecilia Burgess was hanging around with one of them. I never saw him.”

  “He didn’t wash much,” Mary Vallo said evenly, and when I glanced up, surprised at her opinionating, all I saw was her back as she retreated back down the hall to the front office.

  I chuckled. “Terrific. And hippies? I thought they were twenty years extinct.”

  Guzman grinned. “Maybe that’s the wrong word. But whatever you want to call ’em, then. Squatters. My father used to call them greÑudos hediondos, but then anyone who drove a van without being a plumber was suspect to him.”

  “Is there a colony of them up th
ere?”

  “No,” Guzman said. “Not as far as I know. Just a few individuals, kids who like to spend the summer sacked out under the stars. Some of them live in tents…some just throw a bedroll under the overhang of a rock.” He spread his hands. “It’s just some place to stay where they aren’t harassed. The only time I’ve ever heard that the Forest Service forced anyone out of there was when the fire danger got too high.”

  “Like now?” I asked, remembering the crunch of the needles under my feet.

  “This is wet compared to six years ago, according to some of the locals. Ask Mary. I’ve heard that back then the state cops wouldn’t even let you park along the shoulder of the highway.”

  I fell silent for a moment, deep in thought. “That’s quite a hike, from town up there.”

  “About six miles,” Guzman said.

  I shrugged. “If you’re young, I guess that isn’t so bad. Maybe that’s what she was doing…hoofing it on up there for a little midnight nookey. Did she hang around with anyone else?”

  “No, but as I said, I don’t keep a census. You might find some other answers if you check with the Department of Social Services. The girl might have filed for child assistance. And I don’t know where the other child is or even if it is.”

  “What other child?”

  Guzman frowned and grimaced. “I keep forgetting.” He flipped open the manila folder on his desk, and I wondered what else he’d forgotten. After a minute he said, “This isn’t the first child she’s had.” He held up his hands. “I don’t know what the story is. Or even if the child, assuming it lived, is here in San Estevan.”

  “But she did have one.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Could you tell how long ago? How old the child would be?”

  Guzman shook his head. “I’d guess it wasn’t more than four years or so.”

  I started to fiddle for another cigarette and then changed my mind. “So it’s possible there’s a little kid roaming around somewhere wondering what the hell’s happened to his life.”

  “Possible,” Guzman said, and he held up his hands again in surrender. I was about to shoot another question at the tired young physician when I heard the front door open and then the sound of enough boots on the tiles to herald an invasion.

  Estelle Reyes-Guzman appeared in the doorway, and behind her were two other uniformed deputies, a state trooper, the same Forest Service employee I’d seen up on the mountain, and one other man in plainclothes. It was that man who pushed his way past all the elbows and gun butts and crossed the office to pump my hand.

  “Goddamn, look what crawled in!” Castillo County Sheriff Pat Tate bellowed, and I stood up, hand still locked in his beefy paw. I’d tipped more than a few brews with Pat at law confabs all over the state through the years. “Estelle said you was up this way. How the hell have you been?”

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “No, really,” Pat said, squinting at me like I was lying to him. “The heart and all? That’s fixed up now?”

  “All fixed up. And you?”

  “Fine, until I got jerked out of bed. Hell of a note. Let me introduce you, here.” He jerked a thumb at first one deputy and then the other. “Paul Garcia and Al Martinez. I think you know Al, don’t you?”

  I nodded and shook hands. “It’s been a while,” I said, and Martinez grinned. About six years before, he and I had been involved in a particularly messy prisoner extradition and transfer from my county to Castillo. I was surprised Martinez could still smile when he saw me. As I remember, he’d ended up having to drive the prisoner home in a patrol car that reeked of vomit and it was a six-hour trip. And that was about the best part of the whole deal.

  I didn’t know the state policeman, a hatchet-faced man of thirty-five or so with eyes like ice chips. The trooper, Bobby Padgett, shook my hand impassively, since Sheriff Tate hadn’t told him who I was yet. I didn’t figure him for the sort of man who shed any warmth until he had to.

  “And you met Les Cook up on the mountain,” Tate said, and I shook hands with the pine tree warden. “Gentlemen, this is Bill Gastner, undersheriff of Posadas County, about a thousand miles south of here, down in the frijole district.”

  Tate looked pleased with himself, stepped back, and put his hands on his hips. He was not a particularly big man, maybe five feet seven and 170 pounds. But he managed to look aggressive with his close-cropped and thinning hair, bulbous nose, and stout jaw. “So, you got this goddamned awful affair solved for us?”

  I shook my head and sat down again. Estelle had been using her husband’s shoulder as a leaning post, but now she was no longer in the room. I assumed she had slipped out front, either for coffee or maybe to talk with nurse Mary Vallo.

  Knowing Estelle, she had thoroughly briefed Sheriff Tate. But she’d still know ten times more than he did. As politic as she was, she’d let him lead the way because he was the boss. She’d done the same with me in previous years, making me and the department look good.

  “This is a goddamned mess,” Tate said and found himself a chair. He looked sideways at Guzman. “Did the transfer to Presbyterian go without a hitch?”

  Guzman nodded. “She was losing it, though. Dr. Bailey rode down in the ambulance with her.”

  “The girl’s not gonna make it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Short of a miracle.”

  “That’s what Estelle said up on the hill.” Tate sat forward on the very edge of the chair, one hand on each knee. He lifted one hand to rub his whiskers. “Estelle said she thinks it was murder.”

  I looked at Francis Guzman and wondered how Estelle had jumped to that conclusion without the medical evidence her husband had gathered.

  “That’s why she called me up here before the roosters. Hell, otherwise it’s just another car-pedestrian accident, and in Indian country they’re every other day.”

  “Had Burgess been drinking?” I asked Guzman.

  “Not enough to smell,” he said. “I’m sure the medical examiner will order a full workup, though.”

  “Well then,” I said, “the deputy isn’t alone in seeing this one as murder. So does the doc here. Tell them what you told me.”

  Guzman ran through his findings without wasting a word, and Tate listened without interruption.

  When Guzman finished, Tate asked to see the X rays. “Huh,” he said, standing in front of the lighted viewer. “That’s the sort of damage you’d get in a car wreck, where your knee is slammed up against the dashboard, isn’t it? The big leg bone drives backward and smashes the hip joint all to hell.”

  “Exactly,” Guzman said. He shot Tate a look that said he was impressed as hell at the sheriff’s acumen. “Or from a very bad fall. Rock climbers, for instance.”

  “Estelle!” Tate called. He turned to one of the deputies. “She’s out front. Get her in here, will you?” He turned back to the X ray. “Knee damage?”

  Guzman traced a faint line with his finger. “Fractured patella. Some torsion injury. Lacerations.”

  “That’s consistent, then.”

  “With a fall,” I said. “Not with being hit by a car.”

  “Right.”

  Estelle came in, coffee in one hand, cookie in the other. “These are out front if you want some,” she said, but Tate’s mind wasn’t on breakfast yet. “Look at this X ray,” he said. “Look at that leg.”

  Estelle did so, then turned to her husband. “Were the neck scratches consistent with fingernails?”

  “Yes. I’d say so.”

  “And I started thinking about the way her clothing was torn,” Estelle said.

  “What do you mean?” Tate asked.

  “A fall down a slope doesn’t tear underclothing or the neck of a blouse. Not like that.”

  “All the girl’s clothing went to Albuquerque?” Tate asked Guzman, and the young doctor nodded. To Estelle, Tate said, “You might give the M.E. a buzz and put him on the alert. It might help him find what you need. Make sure he doesn’t miss anyth
ing.” Tate looked out the door.

  I could see the other officers clustered around the coffeepot. The trooper was standing in the hall, his back to us.

  Tate said, “This mess happened on Forest Service turf, so you keep them informed.” He took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes at Estelle. “I’m going to dump this one in your lap, for a couple reasons. Most important, I’m not sure a small, closemouthed community like this one is going to react positively if a whole brigade of lawmen descends on them, tearing the place up and sticking their noses where they maybe don’t belong. It’s a hell of a lot easier just to shrug and say, ‘No se,’ than to cooperate with the government. Do you see it that way, Bill?”

  “Every time,” I said. “And if you get about four agencies trying to work together, forget it.”

  Tate grunted agreement. “If you need anything, just call. I’m going to assign Paul Garcia to you for a few days. He needs experience, and you can work in plainclothes.” He pointed a stubby finger directly between Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s dark eyes and added, “And don’t you decide to get heroic on me. When it comes time for an arrest, you call me first. Do you hear me?”

  “Of course, sir,” Estelle said quietly.

  “Good.” Tate turned around and grinned at me. “How long are you staying up in these parts?”

  “I’ll probably drive back tomorrow or the next day.”

  “You mean you’re not going to stick around and see the action?”

  I grimaced. “Come on, Sheriff. Estelle doesn’t need any help from me. And I’m on vacation, remember? The last thing I need is a busman’s holiday. There’s already been too much excitement around here for me. All I want is the home-cooked dinner I was promised, and then I’m on my way.”

  Tate glanced at Estelle as if to say, “You cook, too?” but had the good grace not to. Instead he turned, extended a hand to Guzman, and said, “Doc, can we buy you some breakfast?”

  Guzman shook his head. “No, thanks.”

  Tate then took me by the arm like a comrade of old and ushered me toward the door. “Let’s give the man his office back and find us some breakfast burritos. Then I need to get back to the city. Estelle, you need to show Paul your plush office and get him set up.”