Bitter Recoil

by Steven F Havill

  “It’s all right,” Estelle said. “We’re here.” She saw the blood at the same time I did. A puddle was forming on the gray wood of the step.

  “Move him away from the door so we can get him inside,” I said. I slapped on the overhead kitchen light.

  Estelle put her arm around the man’s shoulder and tried to scrunch him sideways to the edge of the step. His head tipped back, and I saw that he was biting his lower lip so hard that he’d drawn blood.

  With a grunt of agony he pushed himself to his feet, supported by Estelle on one side and stiff-arming the side of the house with his free hand. I held open the door, and the two of them careened into the kitchen. He dropped to his knees, taking Estelle with him, and then slumped over to curl on the floor in a fetal position.

  “The door,” he whispered. “Close the door.” I did so. Now that he was in the light, I could see that he wasn’t more than a kid, maybe twenty at the most. And he was wearing the universal kid’s summer uniform—running shoes, faded blue jeans, and T-shirt. And if he bled much more, he wouldn’t live to be older than a kid. His left side was soaked with blood from lower ribs to knee. And what wasn’t bloody was dripping wet, caked here and there with fresh mud.

  I knelt down. “You hold the flashlight,” I said. The overhead light fixture held one of those useless sixty-watt bulbs that threw just enough light so you didn’t bark your shins on the table and chairs.

  The kid lay with his head on the cool linoleum, eyes closed, breath rapid and shallow. I pulled up the blood-soaked T-shirt. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Hold the light over here.” I pried his right hand loose from where it was clamped to his side.

  He was leaking from two places. The entry would was a pencil-sized, punched hole a hand’s width from his spine, right on the second floating rib from the bottom.

  The projectile had blown right through him, exiting by taking out the front end of the same rib. The exit wound wasn’t neat and was as big as a quarter. It bled copiously, and I guessed the bullet had nicked either the kid’s stomach or kidney or both. I yanked a dish towel off the side rack by the sink and made a large pad.

  “Make sure Francis is still at the clinic,” I said, but Estelle was already moving. “Can you hold that in place?” I asked, and the kid nodded slightly. His hand drifted back and rested on the towel. “I’ll be right back,” I added. He wasn’t going anywhere, but the last thing someone wants who’s hurt badly is to go solo.

  On the way out through the living room, I jerked the old army blanket off the sofa. It only took a minute to arrange the back of the Blazer so he’d have a place to lie, and by the time I trotted back into the house, Estelle was back in the kitchen, kneeling by the kid. She looked up and said, “He’s there.”

  “There’s no time to wait for an ambulance. We’ll take mine. There’s some room in the back.” Estelle helped me pick him up and I carried him out to the Blazer, ducking sideways so I didn’t whack his skull on the doorjambs. It was a good thing for him and me both that he was slightly built.

  Estelle rode in the back with him, keeping the pressure on the dressing. In less than three minutes we were swinging into the parking lot of the clinic. I saw Mary Vallo’s old pickup truck and murmured thanks. I wasn’t much of a nurse.

  Francis Guzman was organized and waiting. He had already called the ambulance for a transfer to Albuquerque. He and Mary Vallo worked quickly to stabilize the kid. Before I had time to catch my breath, he was stuck with needles in both arms, with chemicals going in from one side and whole blood from the other. Guzman debrided the exit wound enough so that he could see what was what.

  At one point he said, “Well, that’s good,” and continued working. I leaned against the wall and watched. Mary Vallo was damned close to a mind reader. Only once or twice did Francis Guzman have to verbalize what he needed.

  “Sir?”

  I turned and looked down the hall. Estelle had the contents of the kid’s wallet spread on the coffee table in the waiting room. It wasn’t much of a display.

  I walked out and sat down beside her. “Who is he?”

  She held up the driver’s license. “Kyle Osuna. San Estevan. He’s nineteen.”

  “I wonder who the hell he crossed,” I said.

  Estelle tossed the license down. It fell on three one-dollar bills. The license and the money were it.

  “Estelle?” Francis beckoned his wife, and I followed her back into the examining room. The young doctor spoke with confidence. “The ambulance will be here any minute and we’ll want to transport. But he’s conscious and lucid so you might take your best shot now. He’ll go into surgery, and it’ll be tomorrow morning before you can talk with him again.”

  “How is he doing, Francis?” I asked.

  Guzman put his hands on his hips and regarded the still form on the table. One of the kid’s hands twitched, and Mary Vallo rested her hand on his forearm. “He’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it probably looked when he was bleeding all over the kitchen floor.” He flashed a grin at me as if this sort of thing happened all the time. “What’s the story?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what Whiz Kid needs to find out.” Estelle stood beside Osuna’s shoulder with Mary Vallo on the other side. Two faces like those would have been enough to convince any patient that he’d died and gone to heaven. I stood at the foot of the bed and took notes in shorthand.

  “Can you tell me your name?” Estelle asked.

  “Kyle Osuna.” The kid’s eyes focused on Estelle’s face.

  “Kyle, do you know who shot you?”

  “No.” He took a shallow breath.

  “Did you see the person who shot you?”

  “Yes.” He frowned, probably trying to think straight as the intravenous Valium fogged more than the pain.

  “Can you describe him for me?”

  “He was…he had long white hair.”

  “White hair? He was an old man?”

  “No.” Kyle closed his eyes, and his right hand lifted and started to drift over toward the dressing covering the wound. Mary intercepted and held his hand in hers, careful that she didn’t dislodge the I.V. “He was young.”

  “Do you mean blond hair? Very light?” I heard the crunch of tires pulling into the clinic’s driveway, and Francis went out to meet the ambulance crew.

  “Yes,” Kyle Osuna said. “Very light.” He took a deep breath, very slowly. “He’s about my age. Thin, not too tall. About my size. I’ve seen him around some.”

  “But you don’t know his name?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where he lives? Does he live around here?”

  Osuna nodded slightly. “I’ve seen him a few times. I don’t know where he lives.”

  “Can you tell me what happened? Why he shot you?”

  “I was walking up the highway from my house. I was going to come talk to you. He was walking the other way, just about by the trading post. He knew my name. He asked if I had a cigarette. I said no and kept walking. That’s when…” He paused and looked over at me. “That’s when I heard this noise. Like a metal latch or something. I turned and saw that he was just standing on the shoulder of the road. And right away I saw that he had a gun of some kind. I freaked, man. So I ran.”

  “You could see the gun in the dark?”

  “There’s that light by the trading post parking lot.”

  “And he chased you?”

  “No. He shot me. I didn’t hear the gun. But it knocked me down. At first I thought maybe he’d chased me and hit me with his fist. But then I looked back and he was still standing there. He hadn’t moved none. Just standing there. And then he started to walk up the road toward me. Real slow.”

  The ambulance attendants brought the gurney down the hall into the examining room. If we wanted to know more, we’d have to ride the ambulance to Albuquerque.

  “What happened then?” Estelle persisted.

  “I got up and ran into the orchard there and made it over towa
rd the river. That’s when it started to hurt. It hurt so bad and I was scared. I thought that maybe with all the brush he couldn’t follow me. There’s a hundred places to hide. After a few minutes I thought I heard him running up the highway. I’m not sure.”

  The attendants moved into position and Estelle held up a hand, gaining a few seconds.

  “Do you know why he shot you, Kyle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was in the truck when the girl was killed, just like them.” He closed his eyes tightly and bit his already bloody lip. “That’s why I was coming to see you. The other four, they got murdered. I heard about Kenny and Cecil…I got so scared.”

  Estelle’s eyes locked on mine, and I could see the triumph on her face. “Arajanian,” she said and headed for the door. I should have shared her excitement, but it was dread that twisted my gut. I knew Estelle, and I already knew exactly what mistake she was going to make.

  Chapter 21

  Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s first move couldn’t have been more logical. If Kyle Osuna survived, and Dr. Guzman assured us that he would, then he would be charged either with the murder of Cecilia Burgess or as an accessory to murder, depending on how his story developed. Either felony would go a long way toward making Osuna’s convalescence painful.

  Estelle used the telephone in the clinic to call her county dispatch and made sure that two deputies would meet the ambulance when it arrived in Albuquerque.

  We’d been caught unaware, but Tate wouldn’t be. In Albuquerque, the deputies would have a file photo of Arajanian. If Osuna was lucid before he went to surgery, they’d make sure he saw the photograph. If. I knew the odds of that were small, with his system battered by shock and painkillers.

  Estelle wasn’t willing to wait. Her mind was made up, set in concrete.

  By the time we pulled into the driveway of the house, I was ready to yell at her as if she were a wayward teenager.

  I parked the Blazer and she sat in the passenger seat, making no move toward the door handle.

  “In the first place,” she said, “no judge is going to give me an arrest warrant for Robert Arajanian unless Osuna I.D.’s him from a photo. Not on the evidence we have.” She ticked off on her fingers the meager points. “One, we suspect him. Two, Kyle Osuna says his assailant had blond hair and was skinny. That could be Arajanian, or it could just as easily be someone else.”

  “Yeah, there are dozens of blondies in this valley,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Whole tribes of ’em.”

  She ignored that and plunged on. “We know Arajanian has a gun but not what kind. And we don’t know what caliber weapon was used to shoot Osuna.”

  “It wasn’t a .22.”

  “No, it obviously wasn’t.” She opened the door of the Blazer and stepped out. “The only way we’re going to get anywhere is to go up there and confront Arajanian. And Finn. You can bet that he’s behind it…that Arajanian does just what Finn tells him to.”

  I slammed the steering wheel with the base of my hand. “Damn it, Estelle. What’s wrong with you? If we left right now, it’d be two in the morning before we could get there.”

  “That’s what I mean. The darkness would be to our advantage. They’d never expect it.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” I muttered and got out. I followed her into the house. “Think a little. Think about this: If Finn and Arajanian are guilty—and I say if—look at their track record. They managed to lure two healthy young toughs over the edge of Quebrada Mesa. We don’t know how the hell they did that, but it’s a fact. And then, cool as a snake, one or both break Grider’s neck. That’s cold-blooded and they did it under cover of darkness.”

  Estelle raised an eyebrow as if to say, “So what?”

  “And then, if they’re the guilty parties, they somehow managed to bushwhack the Lucero brothers…and neither one of those boys looked like your basic wimp. We don’t know when that happened, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened at night. And notice that seven shots were placed in a saucer-sized target at more than twenty yards…so fast that the victim didn’t have time to twist and vary the wound paths.

  “And then, finally,” I held up a hand to stave off her rejoinder, “if he’s guilty, like you’re sure he is, Arajanian shot Kyle Osuna in the middle of San Estevan…at night, with a silencer-equipped handgun. Hit him pretty solidly, too. But no one can bat a thousand all the time. So the killer screws up just a tad. The bullet is an inch too low and wide. He doesn’t get a chance for another because Kyle Osuna is spooked into being jackrabbit-fast on his feet.”

  “If we wait until dawn,” Estelle said with great patience, “then both you and I know that they’ll be gone. And Daisy will be gone right along with them.”

  “We don’t know that. And I share your concern for the kid. But you’re letting your emotions rule. There’s nothing to be gained by rushing in half-cocked.”

  “Sir,” she said as if I’d added two and two and gotten five. All the time I had been talking, Estelle had been buttoning on her bullet-proof vest.

  “Arajanian knows the boy got away,” she said. “Now maybe he’s stupid enough to think Kyle Osuna crawled off into the bushes and died, but I don’t think so. It’s logical to assume that someone who is fit enough to jump up after being knocked flat by a bullet can maybe make it to help. It’s a good chance. Would you just sit up there in the woods, waiting for us to come and arrest you?”

  “I might. If I knew there was no direct evidence against me, I might think that it was better to wait and keep my eyes and ears open for movement of the troops.”

  “And all this time Daisy is up there. You know who she’s with, don’t you? She’s with two freaks who have managed to kill five people. I’m not about to wait a minute longer than I have to. If I’m wrong, then I’ll be the first to apologize to Finn and Arajanian, face to face.”

  “No, Estelle. If you’re wrong, you’ll probably get us both killed. And maybe Daisy, too.” I snapped my lighter, touched the flame to the cigarette, and promptly coughed so hard my eyes swam with tears.

  Estelle waited until the spasm passed before saying, “I’m not asking you to go up there with me, sir.”

  “I’m charmed,” I managed to say, and when I caught my breath I held up a hand. “Will you at least grant me a condition or two?”

  That stubborn eyebrow went up, saying, “Let me hear it first.”

  “First, let’s be a little smart and have some backup. Call Garcia and Martinez. Leave Martinez with the vehicles in the campground so we’ve got radio communication with dispatch if we need it. We can reach Martinez with the hand-held.”

  Estelle nodded. “And?”

  “Listen to an old marine, Estelle. If Finn and Arajanian have done what we think they have, we’re going against two cold hands. Unless we can take them completely by surprise, it won’t work. Remember that ridge that runs along the creek, up above the campsite on the west side?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. If we follow that instead of the creek bed, we’ll have some protection and the opportunity to see the camp before we approach it. We’re going to want to make damn sure that we know what’s what before we go in there.”

  Estelle frowned. “That’s all?”

  “All?” I said. “No.…Most important, we aren’t going there at all until dawn, with about thirty-five state police and deputies behind us…and maybe a helicopter or two.”

  “The more people are involved, the more chance there is for Daisy to get hurt. Remember when we busted the gold diggers down in Posadas?”

  I remembered that well. We’d been part of a grand nighttime embarrassment that included, among other things, a customs agent holding a cocked magnum on his spread-eagled prisoner…and then finding out when someone swung a flashlight around that he was guarding nothing but an empty down jacket, crumpled around the base of a cactus. Everybody had been so nervous that if a trigger had been pulled, twenty lawmen would have been plugged b
y their own compadres.

  “We can slip in and out and use the darkness as a cover,” Estelle said. “It’s safer at night with just a few of us.” She added, “I’ve got another vest at the office you can use.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “I suppose the other alternative is to handcuff you to the bedpost,” I said, and Estelle gave me that fetching smile that lighted her face.

  “You could try, sir.” She could melt ice at absolute zero.

  “You and your unborn child…who by the way has nothing to gain from any of this.” As I said that, Estelle’s smile faded and she regarded me evenly.

  “I’m not helpless, sir.”

  “I know you’re not. And sometimes I wish you goddamn were, that’s all.”

  That earned me a fleeting grin, but she was determined. I could call Pat Tate and have him try to order some sense into her head, but her car would be kicking dust before the call was completed.

  I took a deep breath. “That vest had better be size triple X,” I said. Hell, I couldn’t let her go alone. Paul Garcia was a rookie. Martinez had a wife, two kids, and another baby on the way, so he’d stay with the car…at least I could make damn sure of that.

  We walked out to the patrol car. I made sure that the plastic ammo wallet I carried in my hip pocket had all eighteen rounds and that the magnum held its six. I got in, muttering all the while.

  “What did you say, sir?”

  “I said I don’t even work for this county. This is ridiculous.”

  “Yes, sir.” Estelle backed out of the driveway and I tried one last card.

  “If Francis hadn’t gone to Albuquerque with the ambulance, would he have let you do this?”

  “Probably not, sir.”

  “But you would have done it anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.” Her jaw had that stubborn, resolute set. I knew that she intended to rescue little Daisy, just like in the fairy tales. I didn’t like the only ending I could imagine.