A Discount for Death

by Steven F Havill

  Beyond the battle scene, the front window looked out on the street. Estelle saw an older-model pickup truck parked behind hers. Perry Kenderman, dressed in civilian clothes, was leaning against the front fender of Estelle’s county car, obviously waiting.

  “Ay,” Estelle whispered to herself. She crossed to Ryan, bent down, and stroked the massive cat’s belly. The animal squirmed and purred. “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “That’s Franklin. He’s lazy.”

  “I see that.” She stroked the cat’s chin, and the animal closed his eyes, turning up the volume until the purr became a rattle. “Hello, Franklin. You take care of Ryan for me, okay?”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “Yes, I am.” She reached over and ruffled the stubble on Ryan’s head, then let her hand rest there motionless for a moment. The boy blinked, and Estelle felt the slight nod.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  Estelle straightened up and turned to Barbara Parker. The woman stood by the front door, Mindi in her arms.

  “You know who’s waiting out front, don’t you?” she said.

  “Yes,” Estelle replied. “I saw him.”

  “I hope things work out for him. You know, I really like him. And none of this is his fault.”

  Estelle nodded. “We’ll just have to see,” she said. “I need to ask you to stay inside with the children.” She stopped short of the front door and pulled out her cell phone. “Brent,” she said when Sutherland answered, “I’ll be talking with Perry Kenderman at the Third Street address. Have a unit circle around that way, code one.”

  “I hope you’re not expecting trouble,” Barbara Parker said as Estelle put the phone in her pocket and reached for the door.

  “I sincerely hope not, ma’am. But I’m not feeling particularly heroic just now.”

  Chapter Nine

  As the undersheriff approached, Perry Kenderman drew himself up so that he wasn’t slouching against the car. One hand rested on the fender, the other was thrust into the pocket of his jeans. That pose didn’t work, and he crossed his arms over his chest.

  Estelle walked up so close she almost stepped on Kenderman’s feet. Her face was less than twelve inches from his. He stood a little straighter and tried to meet her gaze, but looked away after a few seconds.

  She leaned even closer, and when she spoke it was no more than a husky whisper. “I’m testifying before the grand jury in fifty-five minutes, Perry. That’s enough time for you to tell me what happened, don’t you think?”

  “I…” he started to say and bit it off.

  “No, you didn’t,” Estelle said, finishing his thought for him. “You’ve lied to me since minute one.”

  He managed to face her then, so close she could smell his breath.

  “I…”

  “You and Colette had an argument last night. Right here at the Parkers’. Start from there.”

  He looked past her toward the house. “You know about my brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was going to move back to Las Cruces. To live with him.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I…”

  Estelle remained silent, trying to read through the amber-speckled blue of Perry Kenderman’s eyes to the backside of his mind. While they stood there, two vehicles passed, and Estelle heard a third idle to a stop further up the street. She glanced in that direction and saw Deputy Jackie Taber’s unit. Kenderman saw it as well, and that seemed to prompt him.

  “All I wanted was for the kids to be safe,” he said, turning back to Estelle. “That’s all I wanted.”

  “They’re safe with their grandmother, Perry.”

  “No, they’re not. Not if he comes back for ’em. You don’t know my brother.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. Has he threatened them?”

  “No. Nothing outright.”

  Estelle frowned. “It was you who was chasing Colette when she slammed into a utility pole, Perry. Not your brother.”

  The bluntness of her comment brought a flash of pain that made his eyes blink.

  “What was the argument with Colette about?”

  He nodded as if the question put him back on ground that he understood. “She was going to give up her job and everything. Move back to Cruces.”

  “To be with Richard?”

  Perry nodded.

  “And you didn’t want that.”

  He shook his head.

  “So tell me what happened.”

  He looked down at his boots. “She got mad, said some things. I said some things I shouldn’ta said. I tried to talk some sense into her, tried to make her understand what Rick was doin’ to her.”

  “And what was he doing to her?”

  “You been inside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you met Mindi.”

  “And Ryan.”

  “Yeah, well…” he stopped.

  “Did you attempt to physically restrain Colette last night?”

  “No. I tried to take her arm once, when she was gettin’ all wound up. That was all.”

  “And then?”

  “And then she got on her bike and rode off.”

  “That’s it? Nothing else?”

  Kenderman shook his head.

  “What about the taillight of your patrol car?”

  His eyes snapped back to Estelle’s, and then he slumped in resignation. “Yeah, well. She was takin’ off on the bike, and kicked the light. It broke the plastic cover.”

  “Is that why you chased her?”

  “Partly, I guess. I chased her because I was angry. Because I wanted to talk some sense into that stupid little head of hers. If she moves them kids down to Las Cruces, there’s no way to tell what’ll happen. She’ll be stoned half the time; they won’t have nobody to take care of ’em. That’s why I wanted to talk with her.”

  “So you pushed her in a high-speed chase halfway across town…just to talk with her.”

  “I…”

  “You…what?”

  “I didn’t see it as me chasin’ her. She was runnin’, wouldn’t listen to sense. I was just tryin’ to keep up. I figured that maybe she’d cool down a little. Maybe we could go somewheres and talk it out.”

  “When she crossed the Twelfth Street bridge, how close were you, Perry?”

  He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. “I hit the bridge just as she went off the south end. I was about a hundred, maybe two hundred feet behind her.”

  Estelle regarded him for a moment and then stepped back to give him room. “Tell me something, Perry.”

  “What?”

  “If Colette didn’t want to live with you, if she wanted to live with your brother, didn’t she have the right to do that? That was her choice, wasn’t it?”

  “I thought that maybe I could talk her around to my way of thinking.”

  “Were things different between the two of you once upon a time?”

  Kenderman grimaced. “A whole lot different.”

  Estelle shifted position ever so slightly, watching the light play on Perry Kenderman’s eyes. The rest of him wasn’t much to look at, at least not now, with all the steel taken out of his spine. His eyes, though…

  She reached out a hand and rested it on his shoulder. He was taller than her by a good six inches, but slumped half off the curb, his butt resting on the car, the two of them were eye to eye. He started to twist away, and she dug her thumb in just above his right collarbone—not enough to hurt, but enough to weld them together for that brief moment.

  “Perry,” she said. “I need to know one more thing.” She jogged her grip on his shoulder until his eyes met hers.

  “Nothing you or me has got to say is going to bring her back,” he said.

  “No, it’s not. But you and I both know there’s some unfinished business, or you wouldn’t be standing here right now.” Perry Kenderman didn’t respond, and Estelle released her grip on his shoulder. “Ryan’s your son, isn’t he.”

&n
bsp; She watched his throat work, but no sound came out. Up the street, another car backed out from a driveway and drove off. The neighbor’s dog had returned and taken up his sentry post under one of the elms, patient and watchful.

  “I think so,” Perry said finally.

  “You think so?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You of all people should know how simple it would be to establish paternity, Perry.”

  “I just…” and he shrugged helplessly.

  “Let me lay it out for you in a nutshell, Perry,” Estelle said. “If you are Ryan’s father, that gives you some rights in this whole mess. Not to mention a few minor responsibilities.” He heard the acid in her tone and met her gaze. “That’s important,” she continued. She held out her hands. “Just as your brother’s paternity of Mindi gives him some legal leverage. Unless both of you agree to leave Ryan and Mindi with their grandmother, the courts are going to have to decide who gets custody of whom.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “That’s the simple part,” Estelle said. “The kids are fine with their grandmother. They stay with her until you have time to unsnarl the rest of the knot. There’s a possibility that your brother isn’t the least bit interested in the kids.”

  The young man looked pained.

  “And we don’t know what Perry Kenderman wants to do either, do we?” she added. He didn’t reply. “What I want you to do right now is go home. Go about your business. Hash things out in your mind so you know where you stand…so you know what you want to do.”

  “I want what’s best for those two kids.”

  For an instant, a half smile of sympathy softened Estelle’s face. “That’s easily said, Perry. It’s the doing of it that’s the hard part.” She reached out again and lightly punched his arm. “You decide what you want to do. And work up a plan for how you’re going to do it. Judge Hobart will want answers, Perry. It would be a good idea to find yourself a lawyer.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “You don’t have much choice, Perry.”

  “What about last night?”

  “I don’t know,” Estelle said. “I’m going to talk with the sheriff, and I’ll be seeing the district attorney in about…” She glanced at her watch. “…thirty minutes. He was there last night, too. We’ll have a chat and see what he wants to do. And I’ll almost guarantee, from the way they were talking last night, that your lawyer’s going to be doing double duty. You made some mistakes, Perry. It’s that simple. That’s the fairest answer I can give you.”

  “If it was up to you…”

  Estelle could see the agony in Perry Kenderman’s eyes. “Just hang in there, Perry,” she said. “I’m not promising anything. You made some mistakes, and there’s no way to brush them under the rug. Right now, go home, get yourself together, and be thankful for grandmothers.”

  Chapter Ten

  The district attorney hesitated in mid-sentence, one hand poised in the air as if his orchestra was locked in a pause before the next movement. His other hand shuffled the notes on the lectern. Estelle Reyes-Guzman waited, aware that District Attorney Daniel R. Schroeder knew exactly what he wanted to ask, that the notes he wanted were right there on top of the heap. The grand jurors sat silent and watchful, eager to hear secret testimony that was better than the juiciest gossip.

  Schroeder finally looked up, his hand still raised. He looked at the jurors as if surprised to find them still in attendance, grimaced, and dropped his hand.

  “Undersheriff Guzman, when did your department commence its investigation into the affairs of Mr. George Enriquez?”

  “In early February of this year, sir.”

  “Would you explain for the jury what it was that prompted that investigation?”

  “We were in the process of investigating the circumstances of a fatal fire that destroyed the home of Eleanor Pope. Mrs. Pope’s son, Denton, died in that fire.”

  “And in that case,” Schroeder interrupted, “you had reason to believe that Denton Pope might have tried to set that house on fire so that he could collect on the home-owner’s policy held by his mother. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you describe how the fire occurred.”

  Estelle took a deep breath and looked at the jury. A heavy-set, elderly woman in front was either jotting notes or writing a letter to a relative. When the courtroom fell silent, the woman looked up. “It appeared that Denton Pope punched a small hole in the propane line to the wall furnace,” Estelle said. “That caused a massive leak of propane fumes into the house. He also placed a pan of gasoline under the stove, apparently to act as an accelerant. When the thermostat was turned up and triggered the furnace igniter, the whole thing blew up.”

  “The plan being that his mother—or someone—would come home and turn up the thermostat in the chilly house, and the furnace would explode.”

  “It appears so, sir.”

  “And there is some evidence that the late Mr. Denton Pope actually turned up the thermostat himself. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It appears to have been a mistake, sir.”

  Schroeder looked at the jury, the crow’s-feet around his eyes deepening. “So he blew himself up. But that wasn’t his intention, was it.” The question was phrased as an aside, and Estelle didn’t respond. There was no need for the grand jury to indict a dead man. The district attorney shifted his papers again. “Eleanor Pope subsequently died from stroke complications. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not from fire-related injuries?”

  “No, sir. She wasn’t home at the time.”

  “Were you at any time able to interview Mrs. Pope after the fire that killed her son?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She suffered a stroke that night, shortly after receiving news of the fire. She slipped into a coma and never recovered.”

  “During the routine investigation that followed the fatal fire…” and Schroeder paused again. Estelle wondered if he was reflecting on the word routine, since nothing about the Pope case had been “routine.”

  “Would you tell the grand jury what you discovered after the fire relative to the Popes’ home-owner’s insurance.”

  “We could find no record of a home-owner’s policy, sir.”

  “No written record at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So such a policy did not exist. Is that correct?”

  “We did not find one, sir.”

  The half smile again touched Schroeder’s face. “It’s possible that the paperwork burned in the fire?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you make enquiries with various insurance agents to that effect?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And no policy was ever issued, as far as these various agents were concerned?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was one of the agents whom you queried Mr. George Enriquez?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And he told you that no such policy existed?”

  “Yes, sir. The Popes had no home-owner’s policy with his firm.”

  “Did Mrs. Pope have any insurance at all with Mr. Enriquez’s agency?”

  “Yes, sir. She had auto insurance.”

  Schroeder stopped and thrust out his lower lip, regarding the papers in front of him. He patted the lectern and turned to the jury. Estelle glanced at the eight faces and saw the keen interest of a jury that was listening to the first witness in a case destined to be a long one. By the twenty-fifth witness, the open-eyed coma would have set in, and the difficulty of Schroeder’s job would escalate.

  “Did there come a time,” Schroeder said carefully, still looking at the jurors, “when you found evidence suggesting that Mrs. Eleanor Pope in fact had been making payments for home-owner’s insurance?”

  “We were able
to establish that Eleanor Pope had written checks on a monthly basis to George Enriquez.”

  “And you were led to believe that those payments were for home-owner’s insurance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What led you to that conclusion?”

  “On several of the checks, Mrs. Pope had made the notation ‘house insurance.’” One of the jurors chuckled.

  Schroeder lifted a clear plastic folder from the lectern and walked across to the witness stand. He handed the folder to Estelle.

  “Do you recognize these, Undersheriff Guzman?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you identify them for the jury.”

  “They’re several of the checks written by Eleanor Pope to George Enriquez.”

  Schroeder nodded, took the exhibit, and handed it to the jury. “Where were they found?”

  “In a desk drawer in the burned trailer.”

  “A metal desk?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And despite the protection of the metal drawer, we can still see scorching and water stains. But they’re quite readable, aren’t they.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Undersheriff, are those checks written to Mr. Enriquez’s insurance agency?”

  “No, sir.”

  “To whom are they written?”

  “They’re written to Mr. Enriquez personally, sir.”

  “Is that a usual procedure, to write checks to an agent rather than an agency?”

  “I don’t know what the usual procedure is for an insurance agent, sir.”

  Schroeder smiled and ducked his head, then grinned at the jury. “What is your practice when you write checks for your own home-owner’s insurance, Undersheriff Guzman?”

  “I write them to the home office of the insurance company, sir.”

  “And so do I.” He patted the railing of the jury box enclosure. “And so do most of you folks, I’m sure.” Still standing in front of the jurors, he turned to look at Estelle. “During the course of your investigation, you found no insurance policy at all. Is that correct?”

  “We found no policy. That’s correct.”

  “So it appears that Mrs. Pope was writing monthly premium checks…each one for…” and he leaned over the jury box rail, twisting his head so that he could see the checks being scrutinized at that moment by Mark Harrell, a retired cabinet maker. “…eighty-seven dollars and fifty-seven cents, without any policy in hand. Something over a thousand dollars a year.”