The Fourth Time is Murder pc-15 Read online

  Gastner snapped the safety up and down, and Estelle sat silently, watching him. “Ehhhh,” he said, and snapped the safety some more. “That’s a little softer than it should be,” he said finally. “Let me see his rig. You got it here?”

  “Sure,” Estelle replied. She retrieved the deputy’s belt and holster from the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and handed it to Gastner.

  For several minutes, he manipulated the gun and holster, then sat back with a shrug. “It’s conceivable that the thumb safety worked its way out of position against the leather of the holster,” he said. “Especially sitting in a vehicle, with the added nuisance of a shoulder belt.”

  He held up the gun. “I think…you might want to have Robert look at it…but I think this thumb safety is a little softer than it should be. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that over time it worked its way down, into the ‘off’ position. When Collins grabbed the gun, he made one mistake.” Gastner held the gun up and his trigger finger lay along the frame, outside of the trigger guard, well away from the trigger. “Instead of having his finger like so, he curled it into the trigger guard…on the trigger. If the thumb safety had rotated down, guess what.”

  Estelle didn’t see his finger move, but the hammer fell with a sharp snap. “Just like that.”

  “Exactly, just like that.” He reached out and laid the gun on Estelle’s desk. “That doesn’t excuse the a.d.,” he said. “No matter what the gun did or didn’t do, his finger had to be on the trigger. Period. End of story. We could argue physics working against us if the gun had hit nose first, and firing pin inertia was involved. Blah, blah, blah,” and he waved his hand in dismissal. “But that didn’t happen.”

  “Mitigating circumstances,” Estelle said, and Gastner laughed.

  “Mitigate, schmitigate,” he said. “If his finger hadn’t been on the trigger, the gun wouldn’t have discharged, sweetheart. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Just very, very unlikely.”

  “And that means that his training wasn’t adequate.”

  Gastner regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, and she waited. “It could probably be argued,” he said after a moment, “that our training is never adequate, considering the job we do. Consider for instance last spring, when you scared the holy shit out of all of us. There are just those unfortunate moments when events conspire, no matter how adept, no matter how good, we are.”

  “Desperate” was the word Estelle would have chosen to describe the incident to which Gastner referred, and not just the moment itself when the two shots from a 9mm in the hands of a highly competent gunman had bludgeoned her to the ground. The surgery and weeks of convalescence afterward had been the worst moments in her thirty-eight years of life. But that was not the issue here, and she pushed the memory from her mind.

  “Bobby wants to fire him, sir.”

  “His nibs will get over that. That would be a stupid overreaction. Tell him I said so. Hell, can that thought. I’ll tell him I said so.”

  “That’s the catch,” Estelle said, and was about to add that telling Sheriff Robert Torrez anything was usually a waste of breath. “But it can be argued that the fault is not entirely the deputy’s. More intensive training might have resulted in safer gun handling.”

  “Sure. He was rusty, like most of us. And it could be argued that his immediate supervisor should have inspected the firearms more frequently. Who’s his shift sergeant?”

  “We don’t have a day sergeant,” Estelle said, and by the trace of a smile on Gastner’s face she knew that he knew that perfectly well. Both she and Captain Eddie Mitchell served as supervisors during the daytime shift, with Mears assigned as patrol sergeant for swing. Tom Pasquale worked graveyard with Mike Sisneros-with the sheriff and undersheriff on call if they were needed.

  “What I want to-,” and she was interrupted by the phone. Her husband’s voice was like a welcome warm blanket, and she glanced at the clock.

  “Querida,” Francis Guzman said, “I just got back. How are you doing?”

  “I’m sitting here in my office ruminating with padrino. How’s Kerri?”

  “Ah, you heard about that. Well, she’ll be all right, I think. She’s up in Albuquerque at University. Or will be shortly. The flight left almost an hour ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “It looks like a mitral valve prolapse,” he said. “Just like that. If she hadn’t been surrounded by all kinds of people who just happened to do all the right things, she’d be gone. The athletic director was walking right behind her when she went down, and he’s the hero of the moment. She’s a lucky kid.”

  “She’ll be all right, though?”

  “I think so. Look, the reason I called, querida, other than needing to hear your voice, is to mention that Alan wants to talk to you about your car accident victim. He was going to keep him on ice until a more civil hour, but he and I ended up doing a prelim on him. Some interesting things you need to know about.”

  “Does Alan want me to call him right now?”

  “If you can.”

  “Then I need to do that, and then I’ll be home, querida.”

  “I’m on my way there now,” the physician said. “Are you staying warm?”

  “Oh, sure. I’m fine.” She was amused and touched by her husband’s gentle hovering, exponentially increased after her lengthy bout of recuperation.

  “She needs to eat more,” Gastner said loudly, and Francis laughed.

  “He’s right, you know,” the physician said.

  “I am eating more, mi corazón,” Estelle said. “Just not in the middle of the night.” She looked at the clock again. “How long ago did you talk with Alan?”

  “About six minutes.”

  “Then I’ll call now. Thanks, querida. We have a houseful of juveniles that we need to send back to Lordsburg with their parents, and then I’ll be home.”

  “Take care. Te amo.”

  “Always.” She rang off and, as she dialed medical examiner Alan Perrone’s number, said to Gastner, “Kerri Gardner is going to be all right. Bad heart valve.” He grimaced in sympathy.

  On the third ring, Dr. Perrone found his cell phone. His voice sounded distant and tired.

  “Alan, it’s Estelle.”

  “Hi. Go home and go to bed,” Perrone said without hesitation. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  “Francis said you might have something for me?”

  “Well, it’s preliminary, but interesting. For one thing, I think that you guys are right. That looks like a boot or shoe print on the palm of his left hand. It’s not very clear, but that’s sure what it looks like to me. Your miracle girl spent a lot of time burning film…or digits, or whatever it is photographers do these days. The shoe tread looks like one of those waffle stompers, or even a running shoe with aggressive tread. There was enough mud that it left a pretty good impression. And that’s consistent with the other.”

  “The other?”

  “Look, this guy would have died in minutes or maybe hours at best. He was busted up so badly that any significant movement was out of the question. Multiple fractures and lacerations-just beaten to pieces. His right chest was so badly flailed that if he was breathing at all, it was just out of his left lung. Even if the EMTs had gotten to him seconds after the crash, he wouldn’t have made it to the hospital. Four of his ribs lacerated the hell out of his liver.”

  “I don’t understand why someone would step on his hand,” Estelle said.

  “Two explanations that I can think of,” Perrone said, and yawned loudly. “Excuse me. First, it might have been an accident. The step, I mean. The Good Samaritan witnesses the crash and scrambles down the bank…and steps on him by accident. Or, as I think now, the Good Samaritan used his foot to keep the victim’s left hand out of the way. That arm was busted in a couple of places, but the victim might have been able to move it some. He would have been convulsing, maybe. Flailing a little bit. Or, the killer might have thought that he might.”

 
“You’re kidding.”

  “You know I don’t,” Perrone said.

  “That’s grotesque. And you said ‘killer’?”

  “Well, think on this one, if you want grotesque, my dear. If you were lying on your back in a million pieces, and someone pours beer into your gaping mouth, drowning you in the stuff, you’re going to thrash around a little bit…no matter how it hurts.”

  The line fell silent.

  “That’s what happened?” Estelle asked finally. She pictured a crushed and battered Christopher Marsh lying gurgling and moaning among the rocks, and then the shadowy figure looming overhead. If Marsh had been capable of cogent thought at all, he might have gasped a plea for help. Help was not what he got.

  “I’m thinking so.” Perrone let it go at that without further explanation.

  Estelle sat motionless, staring off into space.

  “You still there?” Perrone asked. “Let me take another gander tomorrow morning. You’ll want to be here.”

  Estelle shook her head to clear the image. “Yes, I will. I have to hope that you’re wrong.”

  “Hey, we’ll see. I’ll have more for you then,” he said. “But I know I’m right with the preliminaries. There was beer in his esophagus, and in his windpipe, and aspirated into his lungs. A lot of beer. It isn’t a question of having just taken a gulp an instant before his truck clobbered that deer. He choked on the stuff, and when he stopped breathing, whoever it was just kept pouring. Not a pretty picture. I’m not sure I’d want to meet up with this guy.”

  “And you’re sure that Chris Marsh was alive at first?”

  “I’m one hundred percent sure. A dead man does not aspirate beer into his lungs. Or lung, I should say. Only one of ’em was working enough to matter.”

  “Ay,” Estelle whispered, and when she saw that Bill Gastner was watching her like an old basset hound, “I’ll be in touch, Alan.” She hung up the phone and sat back. “Our accident victim drowned.”

  Chapter Nine

  There was no point in scrambling up and down the rock-strewn precipices of Regál Pass in the dark, regardless of how Chris Marsh had died. In addition to being drowned in his own beer, the victim had been dead for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. Dr. Alan Perrone was sure of that. The killer wasn’t still lurking at the scene. He was long gone, leaving nothing but puzzles behind.

  Some of the answers, Estelle felt sure, would be found at the accident site, and that required a careful, methodical approach-not a fleet of big feet slipping and sliding, ruining evidence.

  After a brief phone consultation with Deputy Jackie Taber, who reported that Regál Pass was so quiet she could hear the piñons grow, Estelle walked Bill Gastner to his truck, then settled behind her desk to read Dennis Collins’ deposition. The brief document was a masterpiece of garbled syntax. Estelle read it quickly, saw no gaping inconsistencies, and chalked up the lack of grammatical precision to exhaustion tinged with apprehension. Despite the young man’s bravado that might come to his defense, Dennis Collins would suffer the awful bouts of self-doubt that churned the gastric juices into rebellion and drove sleep away.

  Estelle saw that she had two arguments to use when she discussed the young deputy’s future with Sheriff Robert Torrez. That conference would wait, however. Torrez had gone home, as had Collins. Rest would do them both a world of good.

  “Estelle?” The voice jerked the undersheriff out of her musings, and she turned to see Brent Sutherland standing in the doorway of her office. “Elliot Parker is on the phone from Lordsburg. He would like to speak with you.”

  “Do we know Mr. Parker?”

  “He’s the kid’s father. The kid who threw the bottle?”

  “Ah. That’s good,” Estelle said. “Even at two thirty in the morning, that’s good.” The boy’s phone call had been straight to Dad. Deputy Tom Pasquale and Rick Black had taken care of booking Tyler Parker into the detention center’s minimalist facilities. The four others, all minors, were waiting glumly in the conference room. State law prohibited incarcerating or even cuffing children unless they were an obvious physical threat to themselves or others, and Deputy Pasquale had confirmed that the county Juvenile Probation Office wanted the kids sent home with parents, the sooner the better. If there were to be charges against any of them, it would wait until the next day, or the next-on whichever mañana the JPO authorities chose to decide.

  Mr. Parker was the first irate parent to contact the department-perhaps because his son, of age, had the most to lose. His case didn’t fall under the providence of the JPO, but rather that of the district attorney and Judge Lester Hobart.

  She picked up the phone. “Undersheriff Guzman.”

  There was a long pause, then, “May I speak with the sheriff, please. This is Elliot Parker.” The man’s voice was carefully modulated, as if he was putting great effort into self-control.

  “Sheriff Torrez is not in the office, sir. May I help you?”

  “Well, I guess so. Look, my son Tyler is with you folks? Do I understand that correctly?”

  With us. Estelle smiled at the quaint phrasing. Welcome to your local county B and B. “Yes, sir, he is. The deputies are working on an arraignment schedule with Judge Hobart.”

  “He’s all right, though?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The four others are still with you as well?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So they’re all being detained. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re all minors, all under the influence to one degree or another. They will be detained here until parents or guardians arrive to take them into custody.”

  “There’s bond, I assume? For my son, I mean?”

  “At the moment, no. He is being held pending arraignment.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Parker said. “The judge isn’t going to like that much.” Judge Lester Hobart didn’t like much of anything that jarred his strict routine, Estelle knew…least of all being hauled out of bed to tongue-lash drunken youngsters. She offered no comment about what the judge might or might not do.

  “Okay, look,” Parker said. “After my son called, I spoke with some of the other parents. Is it acceptable if I pick the kids up?”

  “No, sir. We will release them to parents or legal guardians. That’s all the law allows us to do.”

  “How about if I have a signed note.”

  Anything for convenience, she thought. “No, sir.”

  “So each of these boys is going to have to be picked up by his own parents?” A note of exasperation crept into the man’s tone.

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “That might not be until tomorrow sometime. I mean, later today. It’s not a convenient drive over there, you know.”

  “I understand that, sir. I’m sure the boys will wait.”

  “My son’s arraignment hasn’t been set?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk with the officers handling that, sir. But it would be better for your son if the arraignment was later in the morning.”

  “Now why is that?”

  “For one thing, sir, your son is intoxicated to the point that he isn’t making intelligent decisions. I’m sure you noticed that when you spoke with him. It wouldn’t be in his best interests to make an appearance before the judge in his present condition. Let him sleep for a few hours.”

  “Huh.” The line fell silent for a few seconds. “Look, what was your name again?”

  “Undersheriff Guzman.”

  “Okay, look. I’m going to bring the kid’s checkbook over. He’s going to have some kind of bond to pay, won’t he?”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “Any idea how much?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And what’s he charged with again?”

  “At this point, assault on a police officer, battery on a police officer, public intoxication, supplying alcoholic beverages to minors, and four counts of child abuse.”

  “Jesus H. C
hrist. Child abuse? Where the hell did that come from? Are we talking about the same case here?”

  “Your son is no longer a minor, sir. When an adult commits a crime that either injures or has the immediate potential of injuring a child…a minor, if you like…that’s the basis for charges of child abuse.”

  The phone went silent again except for a rhythmic tapping in the background, as if fingernails were drumming on a desk. “Why the battery charge? Did he try and fight the officer?”

  “It’s possible that a piece of glass from either the windshield or the bottle struck the deputy in the hand. That’s still under investigation.”

  A long, impatient exhale of breath greeted that. “We’re talking felonies here, aren’t we.” Parker’s tone was no longer as assured.

  “Yes, sir.” They wouldn’t remain that way, Estelle was willing to bet, but she wasn’t about to discuss or try to predict what Judge Parker and District Attorney Dan Schroeder would agree to.

  “All right, then. I’ll bring over his checkbook a little later. He’s going to bail himself out of this one. Maybe that’ll get his attention. He’s working toward buying his own car, you know. This’ll put a damper on those plans, let me tell you. He was driving his mother’s Lexus this time around. Any damage to that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, that’s something. Is he going to be able to drive home?”

  “That will depend on Judge Parker, sir. My suggestion would be that the vehicle’s owner comes and retrieves it.”

  “I guess. His mother’s not going to like that.” Parker waited an instant for another suggestion and, when one wasn’t forthcoming, added, “I’ll call the parents back and tell ’em that I can’t play chauffeur.”

  “That would be good, sir. I appreciate that.”

  Parker sighed. “You have kids of your own, sheriff?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then you know all about it,” he said. “May I give you my cell phone number, just in case you need to reach me?”