Bitter Recoil

by Steven F Havill

  “Scout hunting, probably,” Estelle said.

  “Then the scouts are goddamned lucky,” I muttered. To Garcia, I said, “Did you take a good swing around the area? No other surprises?”

  Garcia shook his head. “No, sir. I spent an hour down here, and I spent it looking. Not a thing. Just the two.”

  “How did the scouts come across this in the first place?” Estelle asked.

  “They’re on a campout just down the mesa. They said about a mile or so.”

  “Then they probably heard this.”

  “They said no. Apparently, they were taking a night hike up the canyon bottom.”

  “A night hike?”

  “Scouts do that,” Estelle said. “So they were down this slope even farther than we are now.”

  “That’s what the counselor said. They were following the watercourse, and one of them flashed her light up here on the slope. That’s when they saw the truck.”

  “Damn strange place to hike,” I said.

  “Not really, sir,” Estelle said. “The watercourse follows the bottom of the ravine and gradually slopes up until it joins the mesa almost at the two-track where we came in. So you can hike it and know right where you are when you surface. Good for orienteering.”

  “And they didn’t think the wreck was just a leftover from the logging days?”

  “It was steaming,” Paul Garcia said.

  “Steaming?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s what they said.”

  “What did they do then?”

  “A couple of them climbed up to the wreck, saw what it was, and then the whole squad beat a trail back to the main camp… straight east as the crow flies. There’s a good trail the scouts have made. They use this mesa all summer. So it’s not bad hiking, even at night.”

  “Especially when you’re in a panic,” Estelle observed. “And they called you from the camp.”

  “That’s right. They gave me directions to find the two-track turnoff from the main road, and they met me right where I’m parked now.”

  “I’d think half the camp would be out here,” I said.

  “The head counselor of this group said the camp director and assistant director are in town for something. She thought it best to keep it kind of quiet until we had a chance to see what’s what. She didn’t want to upset the kids any more than she had to. So she kept her group together and kept a lid on things.”

  “Make sure she gets a medal,” I told Estelle. “Her kind’s rare.”

  “That’s for sure.” Estelle pinned the truck with her flashlight beam again, then swept the light up the steep slope. “Let’s get some pictures and measurements before the coroner gets here.”

  I left the legwork to the youngsters…Garcia didn’t even breathe hard as he worked the idiot end of the tape measure up and down the rock-and stump-strewn path down which the truck had plunged.

  I concentrated on the truck. And I thought about Cecilia Burgess. If she had ridden in this vehicle earlier, who had pitched her over the side…Grider? Waquie? Old Man Waquie had said there’d been five kids in the truck when it disturbed his peace… where the hell were the others? Had they ridden up here on this remote mesa, too? Or had they ditched from the joyride sometime earlier?

  For many minutes I just sat on a rock, my light beam playing around the inside of the bent, twisted truck bed. Plenty of blood smeared the remains of the rear window and the top rails of the bed…but that could be—and probably was—Kelly Grider’s. With better light we could establish blood tracks. We’d see exactly where he crawled and be able to estimate just about how long it took before he collapsed and died.

  Far in the distance a coyote yipped. It was a lonely place to die, and I felt a touch of sorrow for Waquie and Grider. But as drunk as they had been, maybe there’d been no chance for reflection.

  I grunted to my feet. Estelle was starting her photography, and I let Garcia work the lights for her.

  “I’m going to work my way back up to the car,” I said. “Our traffic is due and they might want to talk with us on the radio. The hand-helds don’t reach out so good.”

  “The scouts could use a little company, too,” Estelle said, then added, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Just tired. I need to sit on something soft and think for a while.”

  Sixty yards is not all that far, but I had to stop half a dozen times for breath. By the time I reached the mesa rim, my heart was pounding in my ears. I was so tired I almost turned the wrong way, but caught myself with a start.

  I didn’t try the short cross-country route through the trees but stuck instead to the two-track. I skirted Garcia’s Suburban, saw that there was enough starlight, and flicked off the flash. I sauntered along the Forest Service road until I reached Estelle’s patrol car.

  The scouts were seated in a group under a huge ponderosa, and they stopped their quiet discussion when they saw my dark figure loom out of the darkness.

  “Who’s the head counselor?” I said, keeping my light off.

  “I am,” she said quietly and held her flashlight up so that the beam just nicked her face.

  “You did good,” I said. “We appreciate all your help.”

  “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. But you did all you could.”

  “When will we be free to go back to our camp?”

  “You’re still going to spend the night out here?”

  The girl—I couldn’t tell much about her in the faint light—almost chuckled. “Nobody’s going to get much sleep tonight, so we might as well not get any out here as back at base.”

  “Well, the young woman detective is going to want to talk with all of you, but as long as we know where you are, I don’t see any problem.”

  “You just follow this road another mile beyond the turnaround,” she said. “That’s where we’ll be, then.”

  I opened the door of the patrol car, rolled the window down, and sat down. As the scouts filed out, I said to the counselor who brought up the rear, “You kids stay together tonight. Don’t anyone go wandering off.”

  “No fear of that,” she said quickly.

  The scouts stuck so close together they looked like a single shadow, moving on twenty legs down the two-track. Exhausted, I leaned back against the seat. I must have dozed off, because I startled when the red lights of the ambulance bounced off the rearview mirror and winked across my face.

  Chapter 12

  Dr. Elliot Bailey was a man after my own heart. He stood on the edge of the mesa and looked down into the black void where flashlight beams zapped this way and that, punctuated periodically by the fireball of Estelle’s electronic strobe.

  “If you think I’m going to jump down there, you’re nuts,” he said. Both he and Francis Guzman had arrived on the heels of the ambulance, and on the short hike to the mesa edge from where they’d parked Bailey complained to me about every stick and root underfoot. Maybe he figured none of the young pups would listen.

  Guzman and Bailey were opposites. The older doctor was a little gnome of a man, not much more than five feet tall. He wore one of those canvas fishermen’s hats, and when he swept it off to rub his forehead, I saw that he was bald as an egg.

  “What do you think, Francis? Go ahead and bring the bodies up?” He patted his belly, not eager to risk that investment on the sharp rocks below. That’s what ambulance attendants were paid for.

  I interrupted before Francis could answer. “I think Estelle wanted one of you to answer some questions down there before they’re moved. Francis, I’ll show you the way if you want.”

  “You sure you want to go back down there?”

  “Hell, it’s easy going down,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  “If I break my neck, I’m going to sue the county for every penny it’s got,” Bailey said, but he followed us. The ambulance crew, four of them, lugged the body boards and other paraphernalia. They discussed using ropes but agreed finally that the darkness made t
he slope look worse than it was.

  We skirted the rocks that formed the vertical drop-off.

  “I don’t believe this,” Francis said. He spotted Estelle and shook his head. “You sure pick the spots, Officer.”

  “I was afraid you’d still be busy at the pueblo.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” He pointed his flashlight downhill and sucked in a breath. “Wow.”

  “How’s the little boy?”

  “Meningitis is the pits, that’s for sure. But he’ll be all right. What have we got here?” Francis knelt beside Robert Waquie’s corpse. “Did you I.D. this one?”

  “Robert Waquie. From the pueblo.”

  “I know his family,” Guzman said as he examined Waquie’s face. He pointed to a recent scar over Waquie’s left eyebrow. “He did that earlier this summer when he put his dad’s truck into a wash south of San Estevan.” He twisted and played his flashlight back up the rocks, then down the hill at the tangled pickup. “From what I can see, Estelle, his position is pretty consistent with this kind of incident.”

  “He’s not the one that concerns me,” Estelle said quietly.

  “Oh.” Francis let that pass and continued his examination. Bailey bent over and assisted, the two of them reeling off all the gruesome medical details of what the Ford had done to Waquie.

  “So he would have died instantly,” Estelle said when they paused.

  “Absolutely,” Bailey said. “He might as well have been lying in front of a steamroller. Same results.”

  Francis Guzman motioned to the attendants, and while we started down to the truck, they prepared Waquie’s corpse for the rugged trip up to the ambulance.

  Estelle let her husband and Bailey examine Kelly Grider’s remains without interruption for a few minutes, but I could see by the intent expression on her face that she was eager for them to reach the same conclusion she obviously had…whatever that was. They left the piece of Plexiglas in place for the M.E. Bailey lifted the corpse carefully at the hips when they rolled Grider over so the glass spear wouldn’t be damaged or moved.

  Francis Guzman held the light close and examined the corpse’s upper extremities, working his way to the head. He checked the pupils, then moved the corpse’s skull carefully. “Huh,” Francis said finally. “Go ahead and put him down,” he told Bailey. He squatted back on his haunches and looked at the other doctor. “What do you think?”

  “I think he was bleeding to death when he crawled out of the truck,” Bailey said. “He was about exsanguinated by the time he got here. What surprises me is that he made it this far.”

  Estelle stepped closer. “I don’t understand why he crawled over here, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d think someone hurt that badly might try to make it out of the vehicle, but why crawl off in a random direction? The only way there’s help is up the hill.”

  Bailey frowned at her. “Come on. When a person’s hurt that bad, they don’t think. They’re crawling away from the pain, is all. Just motion. You ever see a dog get his legs busted by a car and then drag himself sideways? Where’s he going? Nowhere. Just away from the pain. And this kid didn’t crawl through the window. He was thrown out…or most of the way out, anyway.”

  “His neck’s broken though,” Francis Guzman said. He touched the base of Grider’s skull with his index finger. “Feel right there.” Bailey frowned and placed his hands gently on either side of Grider’s neck as Guzman moved the skull.

  “Son of a bitch,” Bailey said. “You’re right.” He looked up at Estelle. “Third or fourth cervical. The autopsy will tell us for sure. But if the fracture is as complete as it feels, then he didn’t crawl an inch after it happened.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “You’re saying an injury like that is instantly fatal?”

  “No, I’m saying that it’s probably instantly and completely paralytic,” Bailey said.

  “Then if it happened in the wreck, we should have found him immediately beside the truck.”

  “Or half in and half out,” Estelle observed. “But the blood trail clearly shows he crawled over here. You can see the bloodstains on his clothing…the bleeding is spread all the way to his shoes, and to me that’s consistent with crawling and hemorrhaging.”

  “You can’t crawl with a broken neck,” Bailey shrugged.

  “If you want a best guess, I’d say someone caught up with him…just about here. And finished him off.” Francis Guzman hesitated before continuing. “There’s no other visible neck trauma associated with this fracture. It’s done neatly, like someone knelt on the victim’s shoulders, took his head in hand, and pop.” He stood up. “And that takes a lot of strength.”

  “Is there any other way it could have happened?” Estelle asked.

  Francis shook his head. “If there is, it’s beyond my imagination. It’s too bad this didn’t happen in the middle of a nice mud flat. Then you’d have some footprints to help out.” He looked first at Estelle and then at me. “But there was a third person around here. Bet on it.”

  “You might want to be real thorough when you dust that truck for prints,” I said to Estelle. “If that Ford didn’t go over by accident, then something has to show up. It’s too heavy to push, but maybe on the gear knob or door handle. Something.”

  Estelle took a deep breath. “It wasn’t an accident.” She examined her flashlight as if the answer were printed on the aluminum tube. “I want the autopsy report on these two the minute it’s finished.” She looked up at me. “And the doors are locked.”

  “Locked?”

  She motioned with her hands. “The lock buttons on the pickup are punched down.”

  “I know what locked means, Estelle,” I snapped. “What I meant was so what?”

  “Can you picture a couple drunks, out on a lark in the middle of the forest, being so safety conscious that they lock their doors? If they did that, they would have worn their seat belts, too…and that’s absurd. And doors don’t lock themselves.”

  “You’re saying that someone didn’t want these two popping open a door when they started over…assuming they were sober enough to think of that. But those locks could have been punched down when those kids were flailing around inside, on the way down.”

  “Maybe. Maybe. But I don’t think so. A warm summer night, no wind…why were the windows rolled up, too? Why would they do that?”

  She had a point. “It wasn’t because of mosquitoes.” I looked up the hill and my fingers fumbled for a cigarette. I snapped my lighter and then a thought brewed in my mind that must have been a holdover from my Marine Corps days. I snapped the lighter shut, wondering if the son of a bitch was out there in the dark somewhere, standing behind a tree, watching us.

  Chapter 13

  “They heard a cough?” Sheriff Pat Tate frowned at Paul Garcia. The Girl Scouts had been chauffeured off the mesa and their camp director told to keep all the youngsters on camp property until our investigation was finished.

  Deputy Garcia consulted the notes he’d made during an hour spent with the youngsters. “Yes, sir. That’s what the counselor said. They were on a night hike, right up the watercourse. They’d been singing to chase away the bears, she said.”

  “Jesus,” Tate muttered. He stood by the tailgate of the pickup truck, trying to make sense of the surrealistic scene. Off to one side a gasoline generator he’d heisted from the highway department chugged away, and the big flood-lamps washed the mesa side in white light.

  “Girl Scouts do things like that,” Estelle said.

  “So what’s with the cough?”

  Garcia continued, “They heard the noise, and one or two of them turned their lights up the hill. That’s when they saw the truck. One of them said she could see a wisp of steam coming from it.”

  “So they went up to investigate?”

  “Yes, sir. The counselor said they could hear the engine pinging, like it was cooling. And then they saw Waquie’s body. They to
ok one look and lit out to camp.”

  “I bet they did,” Tate said. “So it could have been Grider, still alive.”

  “I don’t think so,” Estelle said. “The scouts climbed right up here after they saw the truck. I don’t think Grider would have coughed after his neck was broken…I think they heard the killer.”

  Tate thrust his hands in his pockets and said to Francis, “I told downtown that I want the preliminary autopsy report on Grider sent up by courier just as soon as they have something. But you think it was murder?”

  “Yes.”

  Tate nodded absently. “No other possibility?”

  Francis had been in the middle of a yawn, but he stifled it and shook his head. “None that I can think of.” We were all too tired to be creative. Old Doc Bailey had been the only smart one, going back to town with the ambulance and the two corpses.

  “Stranger things have happened,” Tate said. He looked across at me as I lit a cigarette. “Gimme one of those.” I handed him one, and he took his time. “Hell, textbooks are full of incidents when a soldier suffered some hellacious wound that was bound to kill him, but he kept right on…maybe hundreds of yards.”

  “Anything except a broken neck,” Francis said. “If the spinal cord is torn, no amount of desire or wishful thinking is going to make it possible to crawl anywhere.”

  “So assuming all that’s true, how did the killer get up here, and how did he get away without being seen by the scouts?”

  “We don’t know,” Estelle said.

  “And what the hell’s the motive? Hell, these two were nothing but a couple wild-hare kids. Who’d kill them?”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  Tate crushed out the cigarette in exasperation. “But you think this is the same truck involved in the girl’s death last night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned and regarded the truck. “Then the connection is there somewhere. Somewhere. Make sure you don’t miss one square inch on that thing. We want prints, and we want good ones. If there was a third person up here, maybe he touched something. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”