Scavengers pc-10

by Steven F Havill

  It made sense that any number of things might cause an explosion in an old propane heater. The Guzmans had removed a unit from their own home when it started to whump uncomfortably each time it lit. Worn-out baffles, the dealer had said and Nestor Salazar obviously agreed. It made sense that, on a brisk February night, with his elderly mother soon to return from bingo, Denton Pope might have wanted the house warm and cozy.

  Estelle could picture Denton, cussing the aging heater, cussing the faulty pilot light. She could picture him, screwdriver in hand, advancing to adjust the relic, perhaps even smelling the propane as he did so. But there was a catch in that scenario, a nagging catch. No one thought much of the risk when they did things like that. There was no reason for Denton to turn all the animals loose before working on the furnace, unless he was sure that the aging appliance was going to explode and take most of their little ranchito with it.

  “Denton, what were you doing?” Estelle said aloud.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Estelle started when a knuckle rapped against the driver’s-side window of her unmarked car. She wasn’t sure where she’d been for the past several minutes, and she hadn’t seen her visitor approach.

  “So what have you decided?” Bill Gastner asked when she opened the window. “I saw you sitting over here in this dark corner, all by yourself. I could hear the brain waves.”

  “I wish I could hear them,” Estelle said, and Gastner grinned. She motioned toward the passenger seat, and he settled into the car with a groan of relief. “How goes the rodeo, Padrino? ” The smell of smoke and char was strong on his clothes.

  “The rodeo.” He laughed. “We’ve got thirteen mean little donkeys corralled up the arroyo a ways. One of the neighbors had some livestock panels we commandeered for a temporary pen. They ought to be fine until we can decide what happens next. Lots of good dog food there.”

  “Don’t let Eleanor Pope hear you say that. It’ll finish the job. And thirteen is a long way from all of them, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” Gastner twisted in the seat and leaned against the door, hooking his arm across the back of the seat. “This is a mess, that’s for sure. And speaking of their owner, what’s the word on Eleanor? One of the firemen said she was in the hospital. Is that true?”

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  Gastner grimaced. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me. You ever seen the oxygen tank that woman lugs around with her?”

  “Actually, I’ve never met Mrs. Pope, sir. But Chief Martinez visited with her for a bit just a little while ago. He filled me in.”

  “See,” Gastner said, and reached out to thump the dashboard with his right hand, “if she’d been the one at home, I would have had it figured out in a heartbeat. She smokes, you know.”

  “While she’s on supplemental oxygen?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Every time I see her, it makes me feel in such good shape that for a few minutes I think I’m a teenaged track star. She’s got congestive heart failure, she’s got emphysema, she’s got every goddamn thing that it’s possible to have, and she still smokes like a chimney. How she’s able to waddle around and feed all those critters is beyond me. I have visions of that oxygen tank of hers igniting one day and taking a tour of the neighborhood, with her hanging by her tubes, trailing behind.”

  “She was out playing bingo with the lady friends,” Estelle said. “She was at the Don Juan, celebrating her winnings. A hundred and ten bucks. That’s where she was when they broke the news. She collapsed right there.”

  “A hundred and ten won’t even pay for an aspirin at the emergency room,” Gastner said. “Have you talked to her yet?”

  “No. Later, maybe. I was just sitting here, watching. Alan hasn’t been here yet.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  Estelle glanced at him quizzically. “Sir?”

  Gastner looked at her over the tops of his glasses. “I can hear the gears grinding, sweetheart. You haven’t found out who turned the critters loose yet, have you?” He grinned at her.

  “That’s the major thing,” Estelle said. “No one seems to know.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It bothers me, is all.”

  “I would think so. It bothers me, too.”

  “I can understand the first fireman on the scene making a dash through the backyard, flipped doors open, shooing all the livestock to safety. That’s a firemanly thing to do.”

  “Except he’d have to run between a burning house, burning car, and a threatening propane tank to do it, and I would argue that’s more stupid than heroic. Plus, Salazar was over there before the fire department arrived. He would have seen something.”

  Estelle nodded. “And if a neighbor turned the animals loose, someone would say so. But no one did that, apparently. So that’s a puzzle. The logical person would be Denton. But why would he turn them loose, down to the last two ducks, before he worked on the furnace? That just doesn’t make sense, unless he was thinking suicide.”

  “Nobody commits suicide by exploding a propane heater, sweetheart.”

  “I’ve been sitting here stewing about that.” She looked over at Gastner. “One of the assumptions we’ve been making is that Denton was working on the furnace. What if that’s not what he was doing at all? What if he was in the pantry or something, in that little room with the freezer, just trying to pry open a can with a screwdriver?”

  Gastner shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Opening a can of paint or something. I agree that it looks like he was blown through the wall, but it might not have happened that way at all.” Estelle took a deep breath and exhaled, as if trying to clear the greasy smoke from her lungs. “He has a screwdriver clutched in his hand. Like he was going to work on something when the furnace blew up.”

  “Only one small catch,” Gastner said. “Here’s an interesting little piece of information to add to your puzzle mix-it isn’t a screwdriver that he’s holding in his hand.”

  She turned and looked at him. “What is it?”

  “I believe that it’s an awl.”

  “An awl?” She raised her hand and made a twisting motion. “One of those things that you drill holes in leather with?”

  He nodded. “Or in anything else, for that matter. Maybe Denton thought he had a clogged gas line, and was trying to break the obstruction loose. Who the hell knows.”

  Estelle gazed out the window for a minute. She could see Linda Real’s stout figure working around the wreckage, the explosion of white light from her camera flash marking her path. “Take a walk with me,” Estelle said, and opened the car door.

  “I was just getting comfortable,” Gastner replied as he heaved himself out of the car. He turned as more flashing lights swept the area, and stepped around the car as an ambulance pulled up, headed for the yellow tape. “Perrone is not far behind,” he said to Estelle. “What did you want to look at?”

  “Show me the awl, sir,” she said, hefting her flashlight.

  “Okay. Go slow,” he replied, and she gestured for him to lead the way. She fell in step behind him, watching how carefully the older man placed his feet in the vague light. “The Gastner Shuffle,” she had called his manner of moving about a crime scene-hands thrust in his pockets, head down, eyes covering every inch of ground. Occasionally he would stop and look up, scanning the charred remains of the trees, the blackened utility pole, and as they drew closer, the building itself.

  Linda Real was standing at the northwest corner of the burned trailer, the nearest point to Denton Pope’s corpse that she could reach without actually climbing up into the structure.

  “The flooring’s burned away a little further over,” Gastner said as he approached Linda. She held up both hands, camera in one of them, as if she was unsure of what to do. “I think we can pull some of the skirting off, and then we can duck under,” Gastner said. “I’ve got gloves. Let me in there.” He yanked at a piece of thin sheet metal as Estelle held the light. With the skirting peeled back, the space underneath the trailers yawned
black.

  Gastner dropped to his hands and knees, playing his own flashlight through the wreckage. “This is nice,” he muttered. “At least all the spiders are cooked.” He shuffled a few inches and stopped. “We don’t actually have to go under. It’s all right here,” and Estelle could see the beam from his light lance up through the burned floor joints, touching the dark lump that was Denton Pope’s charcoaled head.

  “I’m too fat for this,” he said, and twisted around to wave at Estelle. “You’re nimble. If you watch yourself, you can work your way right where you want to go. Just don’t go under the main structure. Stay on the perimeter here.”

  “Want to go, sir?” she replied, and Linda knelt at her elbow. Wisps of acrid smoke still stung her nostrils, and Estelle could feel the residual heat above her, along with the odd popping and groaning of cooling metal. But the force of the flames had been upward. The bare earth under the trailer was almost cool to the touch.

  “Right there,” Gastner said, pointing with his flashlight.

  Estelle could see Denton Pope’s hand. The floor around the mangled propane heater had disintegrated, but portions of it still remained in the utility room where Pope lay. Negotiating carefully, Estelle and Linda were able to approach within a foot or two of Pope’s body. Linda crouched as if ready to dive out from under the hulk at the least provocation.

  On one knee, maintaining her balance with one hand in the soft dirt, Estelle could see that the man’s right hand-at least it appeared to be his right-was a blackened stump, fused tightly to the tool’s handle. Three inches of soot-covered metal projected, ending in a sharp point.

  “Can you get a photo of that?” she asked Linda, and the photographer grunted something as she shifted position.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not.” She knelt for a moment, thinking. “We’ll try a couple different ways.” Estelle cringed away from the flash as Linda shot directly, then tried bouncing the light from various angles. “That’ll work,” she said.

  Voices approached, and then another figure knelt beside Gastner. Estelle turned to see Alan Perrone rest a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Can’t stay away, eh?” the physician said.

  “I’m looking for strays,” Gastner said, and motioned toward the two shadows ahead of him. “They’re trying for a portrait.”

  “I see,” Perrone said. “Just the one victim?”

  “As far as we know.”

  “Denton Pope? That’s what Chief Martinez said.”

  “We think so. There’s not a whole lot left.”

  Estelle crab-scrambled out from under the trailer, followed by Linda Real. Perrone regarded the two skeptically. “You know, the firefighters can lay a couple of nice planks across that floor for us. That might be preferable to risking your necks under all this mess.”

  Estelle nodded and reached for her radio. “It’s an interesting angle, though.”

  “I’m sure it is. But they’re going to have to plank it anyway for the EMTs to remove the body.”

  Estelle favored Perrone with a warm smile, and reached out to tug at his sleeve. “And once they lay those planks in place, the scene is never the same, doctor. I needed to see it before they did that.”

  “Ah,” Perrone said, and glanced at Gastner. “This is something other than a flash trailer fire? It’s pretty common that folks don’t get out of these old tin cans in time.”

  Gastner held up both hands. “I’m just looking for burros and such. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Uh-huh,” Perrone said. Estelle had turned away, talking to dispatch, and he nodded at her as she turned back. She slipped the radio back in its holster.

  “They’re finally able to spring a couple of the firemen clear, Alan. I asked if Mears and Collins could bring a couple of walkways. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “And by the way,” Perrone said, raising a hand as if he expected silence. “Francis said that if you hadn’t left for the hospital yet, to put it on your list of things to do ASAP.”

  “That’s my next stop. I need to see Eleanor Pope, for one thing.”

  “See Francis, too.”

  “He must be in his worry mode,” Estelle said.

  “I think it’s your mother that he’s worried about,” Perrone said, leaning close.

  Estelle looked at him quickly, but his expression didn’t give anything away. She knew that Francis was reluctant to use the Curse, as he called the cellular phones, maintaining that most humans couldn’t resist a ringing telephone no matter how inappropriate the timing.

  She turned to Linda. “I need to go. Would you make doubly sure-maybe even triply-to cover this from every which way? I’m probably just running spooked after this weekend, but I want to be sure. And I’m going to ask Tom Mears to do a preliminary on this mess, too. He’s the closest we’ve got to an arson investigator until somebody from the state shows up, Lord knows when. I don’t know if there’s enough left, but if he can get us started, that’ll help.”

  Estelle took Gastner by the elbow and they walked several steps away. “I can’t believe how shorthanded we are, sir. Is there any way you can…”

  He grinned. “I’ll stick around and be a gofer. Mears is good, Estelle. Not to worry.”

  “I know he’s good. But we’re being drawn fifteen different ways here. The best news I had all night was that Bobby was catching a plane back.”

  Gastner’s eyebrows shot up. “From Virginia?”

  “His flight arrives in El Paso at five-thirty.”

  “Well, good…although that just means he’ll have to catch the class some other time. But we can use him. I mean, you can use him. Knowing him, he couldn’t stand being cooped up in a classroom in Virginia, while you guys were having all the fun.”

  Estelle grinned ruefully. “I’m never going to complain about peace and quiet again, sir.” She turned to survey the ruins of the Popes’ home. “Ay.”

  By the time she pulled into the hospital’s driveway, the clock on the dashboard had clicked 3:17 AM. She parked in one of the reserved slots near the emergency room entrance, climbed out of the car and stood quietly for a moment, listening. Now out of the south, the wind had dropped to a gentle whisper, and she heard the faint, brief bleat of a siren.

  She turned toward the hospital entrance, forcing her weary body to walk quickly. She had left the house shortly after eight Monday evening, planning a few quick errands. Now, an exhausting seven hours later, the priority list stretched in front of her, running off the bottom of the page. She still wanted to stop by the Public Safety Building to pick up the material that Bob Torrez had sent from Virginia. She wanted to be on hand as Deputy Mears started the laborious job of sifting through the charred remains of the furnace. And somewhere, perhaps, Paulita Saenz was waiting to talk to her.

  Estelle pulled the door handle at the hospital entryway and her grip slipped when the door was halfway open. Jerking to catch it, she rammed her thumb against the polished stainless steel. The stab of pain lanced all the way up to her elbow. “There’s a reason for just shuffling along,” she said aloud, and shouldered the door open.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Are you all right?” Debbie Peterson had watched Estelle’s tussle with the door, and as it opened, had heard the undersheriff talking to herself. Estelle, in midgrimace as she massaged the bruised thumb, looked heavenward when she saw the ER nurse. Debbie’s long, angular face softened in sympathy. “I hate that door,” she added.

  “Early morning clumsies,” Estelle said. The nurse was balancing an impressive array of medical supplies on a clipboard, in the middle of something that didn’t need an interruption. “I’m fine,” Estelle added. “It’s been quite a night.”

  “I’ll say.” Debbie’s gaze inventoried Estelle from head to toe. She saw the grime of the fire scene embedded in the undersheriff’s clothes, and could smell the acrid bouquet. But there were no projecting bones or blood…just the pale complexion of fatigue that the undersheriff’s flawless olive skin couldn�
��t hide. The nurse nodded down the hallway that skirted the two small emergency rooms and the radiology lab. “Your husband was here just a few minutes ago treating the officer. I think when he finished he planned to go back to the ICU.”

  Estelle’s face went blank. “The officer? One of the firemen was hurt?”

  “Collins, I think his name is. The one who ran the nail into his hand.”

  “Ouch. No, I didn’t know about that. He’s all right?”

  “Sure. In fact, he headed back out to the fire.” Debbie adjusted the placement of two of the small bottles on the clipboard.

  “And Eleanor Pope-I understand that she was brought in earlier. Can you point me in the direction of her room?” Estelle asked.

  “She’s the one who’s in ICU right now,” Debbie said. “You might want to check at the nurse’s station to be sure, but that’s where they planned to take her.” She smiled warmly as Estelle nodded her thanks and started down the hall.

  Despite the ruckus at the opposite end of town, Posadas General Hospital was locked in the deep quiet of the predawn hours. The intensive care unit dominated the end of a long hallway out of the heaviest central traffic flow, the double glass doors opening to the ICU nurses’ station.

  Dr. Francis Guzman leaned both elbows on the polished wood of the counter with his face cradled by both hands. He appeared to either be asleep or reading the chart that lay on the counter in front of him. A gray-haired nurse whom Estelle didn’t recognize stood behind the counter frowning at the floor, telephone receiver tight against her ear. The nurse saw Estelle hesitate at the door, and beckoned. Francis glanced up as the door glided open.

  “Ah, good,” he said. Estelle breathed in the aromas of him as he caught her up in a bear hug. Her aromas were a different matter. “You smell as if you’ve been inside somebody’s chimney,” he said. She managed to free her right hand enough to reach up and move the ballpoint pen in his pocket so that it didn’t threaten her eye as he crushed her against him.