Lies Come Easy

by Steven F Havill

  He did, Estelle thought. “Was Connie Suarez there? Up on the hill with you guys?”

  Maria nodded. “She came up the hill with Myron, like the two of them were just hiking or something. When he was arguing with Al, it seemed like Myron was showing off for her. I mean, that’s the impression I got. All swaggering macho man. And you know, Al…he’s got a little of that himself. The two of them like a couple of roosters, or something. Except Myron was half again Al’s size.”

  “He was wearing a gun?”

  Maria sighed wearily. “That was the whole problem. Yes, he was. And he had a pair of handcuffs hooked on the back of his belt, under his jacket. Like he’s a cop working undercover or something. He brings those out, and everything went to pieces. Myron’s got his hand on his gun, and Al is a couple steps away from where he leaned his little twenty-two. That’s when Al maybe did the wrong thing.” Maria took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. “He laughed at Myron. Just laughed at him. Then he says something like, ‘You are so full of shit,’ and tries to turn away. Myron grabs at him and slaps the cuffs on one wrist, you know—like they do in the movies. The cuffs didn’t lock, and Al jerked away, lost his balance and tripped over something, and ended up going over backward. Myron had his gun out, and it really looked like he was going to shoot. And then he did.”

  “He actually fired at Al? When Al was down on the ground?”

  Maria bit her lip. “I don’t think he meant to. But whatever. The gun went off, and I saw where the bullet hit the ground, about a foot from Al’s head.”

  “Would you be able to show me that exact spot?”

  Maria nodded.

  “So who actually struck Myron with the stick…the cudgel? The dried piece of scrub oak.”

  The girl didn’t answer, and Estelle waited patiently.

  “Maria?”

  “I did.” She looked beseechingly at Estelle. “They were tussling on the ground, because Al tried to grab his rifle, and Myron was trying to roll Al over on his face and jerk his arms behind his back. It looked like he was going to do it, too. And he still had that gun in his hand, and it was pointing all over the place. That’s what petrified me the most. I just knew that if Al managed to reach his rifle, or something like that…” She lifted her shoulders high in a mighty shrug, then buried her face in her hands. “For a minute it looked as if Myron was going to whack Al in the head with that gun.”

  “You found the stick?” Estelle asked gently.

  Maria nodded. “I mean, it was right there. Somebody’s old walking stick or something.” Her left hand dropped from her face and clutched at the religious trinket on the fine gold chain around her neck. “When I was little, I used to think it was great stuff to bat rocks with a stick. Thinking I was some great baseball player or something, I guess. Anyway, I swung as hard as I could.” She transferred the religious medal from left to right hand, and touched the back of her head behind her ear. “It hit him right there. And I mean, I really connected.” She shook her head. “It made this awful noise, and Myron just collapsed like a sack of potatoes. His arms and legs were going, like he was trying maybe to crawl away.”

  “What did Al do then?”

  “He twisted loose and yanked Myron’s gun away from him. It went off once, ’cause maybe Myron’s finger was still on the trigger. I remember seeing wood fly from one of the little trees down below the tank. And then Al twisted the gun loose. I screamed something at him, but it looked like Myron was trying to get back on his feet. That’s when Al shot him.” She stabbed herself in the side with her left index finger, below the armpit.

  “What was Connie doing all this time?”

  “She froze. And then she ran back down the hill. ‘She’ll call the cops,’ Al shouted at me, and then he took off too, straight down the hill.”

  “He took Myron’s gun with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so there you were, left with the dead or dying Myron Fitzwater.”

  “Oh, my God. He was making little groaning sounds, you know. The way game does after you shoot if they don’t die right away. I didn’t know what to do. I went to him, but he was out of it. His eyes were already kinda glazed, you know. There wasn’t a lot of blood. And then clear as anything, I heard him whisper, ‘oh, no.’ Just like that. ‘Oh, no.’ And he was gone.”

  “You followed Al down the hill?”

  “No.” As if any tears she had left had been checked and then released, Maria convulsed in sobs. “I couldn’t, Sheriff. I just couldn’t. I…I got all dizzy, and sat down with my back against the water tank. Just sat there. And there’s Myron, curled up on the ground. But I couldn’t…I didn’t want to just leave him, you know? I knew Al would come back, and maybe he’d have figured out how to make things all right again. Then I started thinking that he would call the police, because of it all being self-defense and all. I just sat there, arms around my knees, like some little kid all lost and stuff.”

  “And Al did come back, didn’t he?” She nodded. “Did you hear any other shooting?” Maria shook her head. “When he returned, did he have Myron’s gun with him?”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “Maria, listen to me carefully now,” Estelle said. “When Al ran down the hill after Connie, after saying, ‘She’ll call the cops,’ did he have Myron’s gun in his possession?”

  Maria nodded. “Yes.”

  “And when he returned, he did not.”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t see it, unless he had it tucked under his jacket or something.”

  “All right. Maria, this is what’s going to happen now. We’ll need for you to make a formal, signed statement. Lieutenant Taber is going to take you into Posadas to our offices so that you can do that without interruption. All right?”

  “I have to do that?”

  “Yes. We’re asking for your cooperation.”

  “What if I don’t want to? I mean, I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Well, not quite, Estelle thought, and glanced at the glacial-faced Jackie Taber, who was probably thinking the same thing.

  “Then you will be arrested, afforded the chance to call an attorney, and in all likelihood end up talking to us anyway.” Estelle slipped the tiny micro-recorder from her jacket pocket again and held it up for Maria to see. “If you decide to say nothing to anyone, if you refuse to cooperate in any way, then a Grand Jury will listen to all the evidence, and decide what charges the District Attorney might pursue.”

  Maria closed her eyes and leaned her head back. For a moment, it looked as if she’d fainted.

  “Let me talk with Al,” she whispered. “He’ll know what to do.”

  “Maria, I’m sorry. That’s the one thing that I guarantee is not going to happen. Lieutenant?”

  Jackie Taber skirted the table and stood beside Maria, one hand on the young woman’s upper arm. “Let’s do this the easy way, Maria.” Taber’s voice was quiet and silky.

  Maria stood, then immediately collapsed into the chair again. “What about White Fang?”

  “She’ll be fine. If all goes well, you’ll be back here in time to feed her dinner.”

  When Maria was safely situated in the caged rear seat of Jackie’s Expedition, Estelle beckoned the officer to one side, away from the truck. With her back turned to the vehicle, she kept her voice just one notch above a whisper. “When you help her with her deposition, keep her going. Find out what Al did when he returned to the scene of the shooting. What she did. All of that. Lead her through it. I didn’t want to take the time to deal with it now, before we round up Al Fisher. The last thing I want to do is deal with that little weasel after dark.”

  “You got it.”

  “And keep your recorder running every step of the way back to the office.”

  “Absolutely. You be careful.”

  “You said it. Absolutely.”

>   Estelle recounted a condensed version of Maria’s story, and Robert Torrez listened without interruption. As Estelle finished, he nodded toward the low, white roofline of Danny Rivera’s shop.

  “I ain’t seen any movement down there, but you ever been inside that shop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know it ain’t much for windows. If they were workin’ on something, they might not even know we’re here. That works for us.” He lifted the mike. “Three oh four, I want you to park just between Serefina’s place and Rivera’s. There’s a back door to that shop. Cover that.”

  “Ten four.”

  “If Danny has a scanner, he knows we’re here.”

  “That’ll work too.” Torrez let the Expedition roll quietly down the narrow lane, past Solomon Apodaca’s walled hacienda, around the curve in front of the late Serefina Roybal’s modest mobile home, and finally drift to a stop in front of Rivera’s.

  “Let me go in and talk to him,” Estelle said as she unlocked her door.

  “This ain’t no time to be a heroeen,” Torrez replied.

  “But he doesn’t think I’m much of a threat, Bobby. You are a threat. And if he sees Pasquale at the back door, that’s even worse. If Maria’s story is true, and I think some of it might be, Al Fisher is going to need some talking down.” She twisted in her seat. “We don’t know the circumstances of Darrell’s death, but now we know what Al did with Fitzwater and Connie…at least Maria’s version. And Maria doesn’t know for sure what went on in Connie’s trailer when Al caught up with her.”

  “Pretty obvious.”

  “So we think…it’s not reasonable to imagine that maybe she wrestled Myron’s handgun away from Al, and then turned around and shot herself with it. Right now, Al has to know that there’s no way out for him.”

  “Then we’ll get ’em comin’, just in case.” Estelle knew that the “them” in this case was the whole crime scene team, including the EMTs.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Torrez parked the Expedition directly behind Al Fisher’s pickup, and Estelle waited for him to finish his radio communication before getting out. She had cleared the front fender, and was walking along the slab side of the pickup when the steel man-door of the garage opened and Danny Rivera stepped out, looking to crush out his cigarette in the metal bucket by the door. He flashed his fetching smile at Estelle, and lifted a hand in salute to Torrez, then froze, one hand on the doorknob, when he saw the shotgun in Torrez’ grip.

  “Danny, I need to talk with Al.”

  “Well, sure. He’s inside working on the lathe. What’s going on?”

  She reached out and took him by the elbow. “You need to step away from the building. Wait over by your vehicle so we know where you are.”

  “Holy shit, what’s going on now?”

  “Wait by your truck, Danny.” When she was sure that the young man would comply, she slipped sideways through the open door, taking cover in the dark shadows. The garage had two grimy windows facing northeast, and a bank of LED shop lights along the opposite wall. About forty-by-eighty feet, the shop was so full of vehicles and vehicle parts that narrow walkways provided the only access across the floor.

  Dominating the center of the shop was an older model Oshkosh diesel dump truck with a mammoth snowplow blade. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she saw Al Fisher behind a utility trailer, directly under one of the LED lights. His back was turned to her, and he appeared to be concentrating on the lathe in front of him. The big machine was running smoothly, barely a subdued hum, its jawed chuck a bright blur. Like so much else in the shop, the lathe was clearly an antique—the huge, powerful sort of thing that would be adequate to turn the largest workpieces. Al was turned slightly, his left side toward the machine, a pair of calipers in his right hand.

  The large figure of the sheriff moved through the door, closing it behind him. As Estelle waited, Torrez crossed over to the rear of the Oshkosh.

  For a moment, Estelle watched Al working. The shiny cylinder he was turning was about two inches in diameter and perhaps a foot long. Without moving, she surveyed the interior of the shop. To Al’s right was a parts washer, nothing more than a simple metal sink on a wheeled stand where metal parts could be bathed in kerosene or some other solvent. Leaning against the wall behind the parts washer was the small twenty-two rifle that Al had carried up the mountain earlier. To reach it, he would have to take two or three steps, ducking around the end of the lathe in the process.

  He was wearing the same tan work jacket as before, and if he carried a handgun concealed under its folds, Estelle couldn’t make out its outline.

  Estelle turned and signaled to the sheriff that she was going to move toward the headstock end of the lathe, toward Al’s left, where she would be in his peripheral vision.

  Al turned slightly, his left arm arced over the workpiece. He manipulated the calipers with both hands. The cylinder he was working with was tiny, considering the capacity of the lathe, and that forced him in close. Finally, Estelle had moved far enough that he saw her and looked up quickly. He frowned.

  To see exactly what happened next would have required an extra-slow-motion replay. What Estelle saw was a spray of blood, tissue, and bone as Al’s body was jerked in hard against the machine, his left arm torn and shredded. His scream was piercing even as Bob Torrez sprinted past Estelle to Al’s side, where he punched in the machine’s large, red kill button. With his free hand, he reached past the coasting chuck, twisted and then jerked the large plug out of the service box on the wall.

  “Get Tom and Danny,” he commanded, shucking open the shotgun and dropping it to the floor in front of the lathe. He held Al upright, tight against the machine. “And tell the EMTs to make tracks. Shit, it’s got him good.” By the time she had reached the door, her radio message had brought Tom Pasquale running, joined by Danny Rivera.

  “Look, you got to support him up against the lathe so he don’t pull on his arm,” Torrez instructed. Al Fisher’s head lolled back, his eyes wide and unseeing, blood pouring down from the hamburger that was the left side of his face. Torrez pulled Pasquale’s arm to command his attention. “Support him under the hip. Don’t let him slide down, don’t let him slide back away from the machine.”

  “Ah, jeez,” Danny Rivera groaned. “I shouldn’t have left him workin’ by himself. And I told him to shed that jacket earlier.”

  “See what you can do,” Torrez said to Estelle as soon as she returned. “Come around the backside, maybe. You got to find a way to stop the bleedin’.” The blood was a torrent, and it was difficult to tell where torn jacket and shirt fabric ended and tissue began. Torrez cradled Al’s head, keeping his face away from the chuck. After grabbing his arm and drawing him in toward the lathe, the polished steel chuck had slammed into the man’s left cheek and jaw, peeling away tissue, teeth, and bone.

  The sheriff glanced up at Danny, the young man’s face ghost-white, and sweat already standing out from his forehead. “Look, pay attention,” Torrez barked. “Can you get that chuck off the machine?”

  “I…”

  “Well, you’re going to have to. He’s all wrapped up in it, and it sure as hell ain’t going to work to unwind him.”

  Estelle sliced fabric with her knife. “The arm is amputated, Bobby,” she said.

  Torrez took a moment to peer into the machine. Sure enough, what was left of Al’s left hand was stuffed up behind the chuck.

  “All right, is all the tissue clear?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “Then cut all the clothing that’s hanging him up so we can ease him down to the floor.” He looked at Pasquale. “You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Danny, forget the chuck for a minute. Get over here and help support him.”

  Al Fisher uttered a long, deep gasp, what was left of his mouth falling slack. Torrez twisted so he co
uld check for pulse. “He’s still with us. Let’s move him while he’s out of it.”

  From deep in the shoulder joint outward, the various parts of Al Fisher’s left arm remained in the machine as they eased him away. “Get your blanket,” Torrez said, and Pasquale darted away, returning from his Expedition less than a minute later with a thick wool Army blanket.

  Estelle stood back, looking hard at Al Fisher. As she did so, she pulled her radio, thought better of trying to reach dispatch with a hand-held in this radio dead-zone, and hustled out to the sheriff’s unit. Brent Sutherland was on dispatch, and answered her call immediately.

  “Brent, we have a shop accident victim with catastrophic injuries down here at Rivera’s, waiting on the ambulance. Contact the hospital and have them start to round up every drop of Type O that they can scrounge. I don’t know what type the victim is, but O will work. My husband should be either home or over at Bill Gastner’s. Have him come to the ER and start prepping.”

  “Ten four, three ten. Who’s the victim?”

  “The victim is Al Fisher, a twenty-eight-year-old male. The injuries are massive to the left side of his body and head, with traumatic amputation of the left arm at the shoulder.”

  “Ten four.” Brent sounded matter of fact. “We’ll see if we can find his blood type stats.”

  “Both the sheriff and I will be ten-six for a while.”

  “Ten four.”

  “Who’s on emergency rotation now?”

  “I don’t know, but I can find out.”

  “If you can, make sure Matty Sheehan is on the response team. She knows where Danny Rivera’s shop is.”

  “Ten four.”

  She tossed the mike on the seat and jogged back inside. Torrez knelt on the floor beside Al, both hands working in the young man’s armpit, blood bright and effusive. “You got smaller hands. See if you can isolate this artery.” The bleeder was the size of a pencil, and the gush of blood would drain Al in another couple of minutes.

  “Danny, I need a clip. Anything with a narrow bite.” She held up one hand, index and thumb half an inch apart. “A paper clip of some kind. Wash it off with something. Gas, kerosene, alcohol, whatever.”