“Doctor, we’ll need to try again in an hour or so. He was able to write answers for us, so that’s a help. One more session, maybe two.”
“He’s in a lot of pain,” the physician said. “There’s nothing we can do, short of inducing a coma, that will relieve all of it. He’s going to be in a narcotic fog for quite a while. And there will be further operations to repair the damage to his face and shoulder.”
“Weeks?”
“Most certainly. Maybe more. And extensive therapy after that. Months and months.”
Estelle lowered her voiced as she moved toward the door. She held the page so the physician could see Al’s awkward responses. “A suicide watch would be warranted,” she said. “He’s hurting, and knows that barring a miracle there’s significant jail time waiting for him when and if he gets out of here.”
The physician frowned at the faint writing. “He asked for your gun? Is that what this says?”
“And only half kidding, I’m guessing. I’ll talk with the officers standing guard, but they need to be careful. What’s the schedule for him now?”
“As soon as we’re convinced that his condition is stable, he’ll be going back into surgery for the first procedure on his face. As you know, a significant portion of his lower jaw was amputated. It’s going to be a significant challenge to reconstruct both jaw and cheek. We’ll start that process tomorrow morning, if there are no complications today.”
“And the shoulder?”
“That’s like any serious war wound, Sheriff. Long-term and painful. In several weeks, maybe months, we’ll see where we are with an artificial limb. But there’s no stump, in addition to which, much of the base musculature and bone support of the shoulder girdle was mangled. Summer, perhaps. We all have to be patient—Mr. Fisher most of all, of course.”
“I understand that.”
Dr. Oromatsu managed a thin smile. “And the justice system must be patient as well. And all of that is predicated by his winning the battle with infection. That’s always a danger…a most significant one.”
Chapter Forty-one
i don’t have to talk to you, the pencil scratched.
“No, you don’t. But you have everything to gain and nothing to lose, Al.” She reached out and touched his right cheek, a light stroke to establish sympathetic contact. “Tell us where you and your brother put Myron Fitzwater’s body.”
Instead, he wrote, Darel was an accident.
“But you were there.”
so????? The pencil continued drawing progressively larger question marks until he dropped it. Estelle picked it up and slid it between his fingers. He said hed call the cops. The pencil paused. He couldnt take it.
“Then what happened?”
we both got mad.
“You were in the truck with him? With your brother?”
i follow him from house.
“He had the gun?” There was a long pause, as if Al Fisher was considering how to answer. Finally he groaned and shifted just a little.
In truck. Said he shudnt came with me.
“He helped you with Fitzwater, didn’t he? That’s what he couldn’t face.”
wuss. Then he added a string of ssss after the word.
“He threatened to shoot himself?”
yes.
“You believed him?”
He was scared.
“Of getting caught?”
Al’s fingers bobbled the pencil a little, as if saying “yes” without actually writing the word.
i laugh at him and jab him with the gun. it went off. an acident.
“You jabbed him under the chin?”
so?
“He struggled with you then?”
He’s a wuss. He paused after each word, but remained determined. I nocked him away and jab him in the gut. The gun went off. Al Fisher flung the pencil away, uttering another agonizing groan.
“Where’s Myron, Al? Where did you put him?” She slid the pencil back between his fingers, but for a long time he ignored it.
they got something. for the hurt.
Estelle reached up and pushed the buzzer without taking her eyes off Fisher’s face.
“They’re coming. Tell me where Myron is, Al.”
He grabbed the pencil this time and printed in large block letters, ASK TORRES.
Dr. Oromatsu appeared, frowning darkly.
“Just a moment, Doctor. Listen, Al. Listen to me. Are you talking about the sheriff? Sheriff Bob Torrez?”
The pencil drew a series of light circles, just formless doodling, then paused before writing, with a hesitation after each word, Coyot hotel. He flicked the pencil away and whimpered. Oromatsu prepped an injection and slipped the needle deftly into the IV plumbing on the back of Al’s hand.
“He’ll sleep now,” she said. Estelle watched Al carefully, and saw the line of tension in his right cheek relax a little. “You need to leave him,” Oromatsu directed.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Estelle said. “We’ll be back in a bit.” She followed Lieutenant Jackie Taber out into the hall. “What do you think?”
Taber took a moment to organize her thoughts, a characteristic Estelle had always appreciated. “I think Al Fisher is the kind of kid who will be clever to the very end.” She lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper as one of the APD officers appeared in the ward.
“He isn’t worried about Maria, or at least doesn’t seem to be. He never has struck me as being overly concerned about losing his brother, and who knows? Maybe it was an accident of sorts. ‘Here, you want to kill yourself? Let me show you how.’ That sort of thing, and it backfires on him. It’s possible that he didn’t even know for sure that the handgun was loaded.” Taber shrugged.
“Every gun we looked at down in Regál was loaded,” Estelle observed.
“Yes, well…now he plays riddles about Fitzwater. Anything to stay center stage for a little longer.” She extended her hand to the young Albuquerque cop, whose name tag announced “R.O. Bateson.” Without the cop outfit, he could have been a stand-in for a California surfer dude.
“Lieutenant Jackie Taber, Officer Bateson. This is Posadas County Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman.”
“Alan BATson,” the cop corrected. “Good to meet you. Dr. Oromatsu said you wanted to talk with me.”
“The patient is gravely hurt,” Estelle said. “Significantly maimed. He’ll be crippled for life—if he survives. Even so, Officer, he’s a danger to himself and to others. Right now, he’s facing three homicide charges, two of which appear to have occurred as a result of a deer poaching incident. The third victim was his brother, and we’re given to believe that the brother was contemplating suicide, maybe out of remorse for the other two killings, or for his part in disposing of the bodies…we’re not sure. Whether our patient in here helped his own brother shoot himself, or whether the brother was simply murdered, we’re also not sure yet.” She turned and looked toward the portion of the ICU where Al Fisher lay motionless in his opiate fog.
“But to give you some idea of this young man’s mental state, the first thing he asked me was if he could borrow my gun for a minute.”
“That’ll work, won’t it? So he can talk okay?”
“No. He manages to write short messages on a pad.” She held up the yellow legal pad for Bateson to see. “He has only one arm—his right, and fortunately for him, he’s right-handed. You have no reason to approach his bedside, but if you have to, keep your right side and your service weapon turned away from him. Pay close attention, every minute.”
“Simple enough.”
“It is, if everyone pays attention. When you’re relieved, pass along these same instructions to the next officer.”
“Yes, Ma’am. You two are staying around?”
“For a time, yes. I want at least one more session with our man. He has information that
we need. He may—” She broke off when she saw three uniformed officers appear in the ward. “Excuse us.”
Craig Stout, who tended to dress down and work in plainclothes, was this time attired from head to toe in the U.S. Forest Service’s best Smokey uniform. He towered over District Ranger Robert Tully, also in full uniform, and a third man in a dark blue business suit whom Estelle recognized immediately.
“Sheriff,” Stout said, “I think you know Neil Gentry from our regional office.”
“Mr. Gentry, it’s nice to see you again,” Estelle said. Gentry worked personnel for the Forest Service, and during the fire season—when Estelle had last met him—was a very busy man indeed.
Gentry smiled. “As I get closer and closer to retirement, I get harder and harder to find. How’s Bill doing?” As a young Forest Service law enforcement officer, Gentry had worked with Bill Gastner on several occasions, earning Gastner’s evaluation that the young Gentry was “a real hotrod.”
“He’s doing all right. The usual aches and pains and tune-ups that come with being eighty-four. Gentlemen, this is Lieutenant Jackie Taber.”
“I’ve heard about you,” Gentry said. “All good things.” He grimaced and rumpled his nose with a forefinger. “I hate the smell of these places. Where can we talk?”
“There’s a small lounge just down the hall.”
“Ranger Tully contacted me when the preliminary search failed to turn up Myron Fitzwater. Am I correct that you’re still thinking that Mr. Fitzwater was killed and his body dumped somewhere?”
“Yes. We are now certain of that. We have an individual who claims that she witnessed the killing, one Maria Apodaca, the patient’s girlfriend. In fact, she admitted that she participated in the killing by striking Fitzwater in the head with a tree limb. She claims that she was afraid for Al Fisher’s welfare as he and Fitzwater struggled, that Fitzwater was attempting to make an illegal arrest, that he possessed both handcuffs and a handgun and was acting in the capacity of a law enforcement officer—which he was not.”
“She’s in custody?”
“No. She came to the city with the ambulance, and at the moment is staying with friends here.” She glanced up at the wall clock. “I would think that she’ll be coming by any time now.”
Gentry looked amused. “You’re such a trusting soul, Undersheriff Reyes-Guzman.”
“She won’t run, if that’s what you mean.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.”
He turned to Stout. “That’s your understanding, Craig? That Fitzwater might have aggravated this incident in some fashion beyond his authority?”
“I’m afraid that’s becoming clear, yes. As I mentioned to you earlier, we have had a conversation with Officer Charles Austin of the New Mexico State Police. On at least one occasion, Officer Austin had a casual roadside conversation with Fitzwater that led him to suspect that Fitzwater might be acting in a capacity inconsistent with his actual position with the Forest Service.”
Gentry looked amused. “’Inconsistent.’ You mean he was impersonating a police officer.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the first time you received that sort of report, or complaint about Mr. Fitzwater, is that right?”
“No. Mr. Fitzwater had a letter of reprimand in his file.”
Gentry regarded the two Forest Service men with interest. “Why didn’t you just fire him? I mean, personnel policies are pretty clear on things like that.”
“Until this recent incident, I thought that the violation of policy was an isolated thing. Mr. Fitzwater was reprimanded, he understood the reprimand, and clearly knew that any further incident of this nature would result in his termination. He’s done good work for us in the past. A hard-working young man. Sometimes just a little too gung-ho.”
“Catching a poacher in the process was just too much of a temptation, right? Is that what we’re saying? That and, as Ranger Tully tells me, the issue of a few gallons of water being stolen from a wildlife tank up in that area.”
“Yes.”
“It seems to me that we have a situation of a federal employee getting in over his head. Mr. Fitzwater seems to have thought that the shoulder patch,” and he touched his own left shoulder, “gave him some sort of authority that he didn’t have.”
“So it seems,” Tully said gloomily.
“And our young poaching friend? What can he tell us?”
“Not much,” Estelle said. “He’s hurting. Right now he’s heavily sedated, and still faces a long string of surgeries to repair the damage. He’s still in critical condition.”
“A tangle with a lathe, I’m told.”
“Yes.”
“Must have been a big one.”
“It was. A neighbor has a commercial machine shop that the young man was using. He got caught up and the lathe tore his arm off at the shoulder. When it pulled him in, the chuck beat on his face, taking away jawbone and all sorts of other injuries. Under any other circumstance, he would have bled to death.”
“But you and the sheriff were there, somehow.”
“We had just arrived at Danny Rivera’s shop in Regál, where we were told Mr. Fisher was working. In all probability we would have arrested Mr. Fisher, since by then we had substantial information linking Fisher to Fitzwater’s disappearance and the murder of Fitzwater’s girlfriend, Connie Suarez. We were prepared for that, with backup present. As an added precaution, since we were familiar with Mr. Fisher’s volatile temperament, Sheriff Torrez had also requested an ambulance. It was already rolling.”
Tully looked perplexed. “Good heavens, you guys can’t effect an arrest without having an ambulance standing by?”
“As it turns out…” Estelle said, and then let it slide. “When we arrived, we met outside briefly with the shopowner, Danny Rivera, who told us that Mr. Fisher was inside, using the lathe. When we went inside, Mr. Fisher didn’t see or hear us right away. I think that when he did, he startled. That’s when the lathe caught him. That little moment of inattention.”
“So.” Gentry hitched at his trousers and rebuttoned his suit coat. “Any chance we can talk to Mr. Fisher?”
“If you’re patient, a slim one.”
Dr. Oromatsu looked as if she were more than willing to make the chances even slimmer. She regarded the approach of the five visitors and held up a hand.
“I don’t think so,” she said curtly. “He’s sleeping, and that’s the way he can stay.” She frowned at Gentry. “And you are?”
“Neil Gentry.” He smiled patiently. “We’re all with the Forest Service, one way or another. I’m with the Regional Office. We’re all tangled in this together. I see you even have APD here.” He grinned at Officer Bateson, who stood off to one side.
“You all believe in miracles, then.” Oromatsu’s stern expression would have worked well for a primary school teacher faced with lining up twenty-five six-year-olds for lunch.
“If that helps,” Gentry said, undeterred. He sighed and looked at Estelle. “Did you manage any progress?”
Estelle handed him the legal pad. “You can see that at one point, when I asked where Fitzwater’s body might be, he wrote ask Torres. He spelled it with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’ but that’s a common mistake.” She pointed down the page to another scrawl. “Then he wrote, Coyot hotel. That’s as far as he got.”
Tully shook his head. “Come spring, some hiker will find the bones, I suppose. Unless we can get Fisher to talk.”
“You haven’t had a chance to confer with the sheriff about that reference?” Gentry asked. “‘Coyot hotel.’ He should know what that means.”
Chapter Forty-two
“I’m sorry, Undersheriff. The District Attorney Schroeder is in conference right now.” District Attorney Dan Schroeder’s secretary, Kelly Moffitt, was only twenty-four, but already had honed her protec
tive instincts.
“With Sheriff Torrez?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Estelle kept her tone patient and understanding. “I’m up in Albuquerque at the hospital where they took Al Fisher. I need to speak with the sheriff.”
“They should be out shortly. I can have him call you, if you like.”
Estelle took a moment to consider her options, then said, “That would be fine.” She disconnected and scrolled down through her directory until she found the district attorney’s personal cell phone number, and dialed it.
“This is Schroeder.”
“Dan, Estelle Reyes-Guzman. Do you have Bobby cloistered with you?”
He laughed. “You want him?”
“Just for a minute. I’m up in Albuquerque at the hospital with three Forest Service guys.”
“Uh oh. And how are our Smokey brethren doing?”
“As frustrated as we are. They have a man missing, and are beyond nervous about that. May I talk with Bobby for just a minute?”
“Sure. Hang on.”
In a moment, Bob Torrez’ quiet voice came on the line. “Yep?”
“Bobby, I was able to have something of a conversation with Al Fisher before he went back to swim in the drugs. Hurt as he is, drugged as he is, he’s still cagey. When I asked him where he hid Myron Fitzwater’s body, he said, ‘ask Torrez.’ And then he added something about the ‘Coyot hotel.’ That’s coyot without the ‘e’. Does that mean anything to you?”
The phone fell silent. While she waited, she watched Stout, Tully, and Gentry watching Al Fisher’s motionless, sheeted form through the glass partition. APD Officer Bateson watched everyone, including every doctor, nurse, or aide who walked through his territory. If he was bored, he didn’t show it.
“Lemme think some more,” Torrez said finally. “If I come up with anything, I’ll call. What about Maria…anything?”
“Not yet—other than her original story, that she clouted Fitzwater and that Al then was able to gain the upper hand and managed to shoot him.”
Lies Come Easy Page 25
