Statute of Limitations pc-13

by Steven F Havill

  “Caramba,” she said to the quiet night. She leaned her head back against the rest and closed her eyes, but her hands were on autopilot, finding the telephone. She opened one eye and regarded the display, then selected Tom Mears’s number.

  “Mears.”

  “Tom, this is Estelle.”

  “Oh, good. Look, Terry will come over the minute we have that court order,” he said. “I wish I could say that we’ve found a magic bullet of some kind, but we haven’t. We need to know what’s on that ATM receipt.”

  “I’m headed that way, I think.”

  “You think?” Mears chuckled.

  “Yeah. I’m at Bill’s house. He took a tumble.”

  “He what?”

  “He tripped over his front step and cracked his head. The ambulance just took him to the hospital. I really need to go there for a few minutes.”

  “Yipes,” Mears said. “Is he okay?”

  “I think so, but I need to be there.”

  “Yep,” Mears agreed. “This is like dominos, you know that? You think it’s something in the air? We got us quite a run going.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Collins and Taber just showed up, so we can break someone free to go visit the judge if that will help speed things up.”

  “Good idea, Tom. You know, Jackie gets along with the judge pretty well. I think he’s afraid of her,” Estelle said, trying a weak laugh.

  “Then she’s on the way,” Mears said. “By the way, Eddie and Mike are back from Lordsburg. They’re going to be down in Eddie’s office for a bit.”

  “I’ll swing by when I can,” Estelle said.

  “I understand that. I hope things go all right.”

  “Thanks, Tom.”

  She let the telephone fall to her lap, counted to a hundred while forcing slow, even breaths, and then straightened up and started the car. As she pulled out of Gastner’s driveway, she palmed the mike.

  “PSO dispatch, three ten.”

  “Three ten, go ahead.”

  “I’ll be ten-seven at the hospital. Call Lieutenant Adams at the State Police and ask him if we can borrow a couple of his officers.”

  “Ten four. He just called a few minutes ago, asking about that.”

  “Okay. Tell him I’d like one of his guys to patrol central, and the other to give us some help, especially on State 76 down to the border.”

  “Ten four.”

  She racked the mike and drove up Grande toward Posadas General Hospital, so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realize that she’d driven through the red light at the intersection of Bustos and Grande. “Por Dios,” she said aloud with a start. “Pull yourself together.” Her pulse raced, partly from fatigue and partly from the grim image of her patrol car T-boning some innocent old lady out to buy a late-night can of cat food.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For more than an hour, Estelle paced the waiting room at Posadas General Hospital, knowing perfectly well that there were a dozen things more productive that she should be doing, knowing that Bill Gastner would be the first person to call her silly for wasting her time just because he needed a couple of stitches in his scalp. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave.

  It would have been an oversimplification to characterize her relationship with the former sheriff as father-daughter, although there was a strong element of that, especially since Estelle had never known her own biological father…or mother.

  Gastner had served as her mentor, confessor, counselor, friend, and perhaps most important of all he had been a true padrino, or godfather, for both of her children. As she paced the polished tile floor, she thought back twenty-two years, when she had come to the United States at age sixteen to live with her Uncle Reuben and attend the last two years of high school in Posadas. More than once, her uncle had talked about Undersheriff Gastner and El brazo largo de la ley… “the long arm of the law,” and before she graduated from high school, she’d discovered that law enforcement was magical for her.

  When she’d earned her first degree in criminal justice, it seemed only natural that she would seek a job that would allow her to remain close to home and her fiancé, the young doctor Francis Guzman.

  Undersheriff Bill Gastner had pushed the then civilian sheriff to hire twenty-two-year-old Estelle Reyes, and she’d become the first uniformed deputy sheriff in the history of Posadas County. During the nineteen years since then, the bond between Bill Gastner, herself, and her family had only deepened. She’d even been amused at the affection between Francis’s Aunt Sofía and the old lawman.

  During the wait, she had come close to calling Sofía at home, but was loath do to so until she had concrete information about Gastner’s condition. At 10:05, her cell phone rang, and Eddie Mitchell’s calm, quiet voice brought her back into focus.

  “How are we doing?” he asked.

  “We are waiting,” Estelle said. “They took him down to CAT scan, and we’ll see.”

  “Huh. Look, they got the warrant from Hobart, and Mears is down there now with his brother. It looks like Janet withdrew three hundred and fifty dollars at 3:05 p.m.”

  Estelle frowned as she rolled the numbers around in her head, and Mitchell mistook the silence for irritation at not being told sooner. “Mears said that he’d wait to hear from you before he told you,” Mitchell added. “He didn’t want to bother you over there.”

  “I appreciate that, but bother might be better than wearing circles in the waiting room floor,” Estelle said. “Three fifty. That’s a nice, logical number. Enough to get her through a long weekend, and not enough to be suspicious.”

  “Right. At least we have a time now.”

  “Three oh five.” Dead center in the middle of a Christmas afternoon, she thought. Just seven hours had passed. “Are those numbers accurate, do you suppose?”

  “Terry Mears says so.”

  “What about a video?”

  “Nothing. For one thing, it’s out of service at the moment. For another, it shows only the interior of the ATM foyer…nothing outside. If the killer nailed her in the car, then it’s out of range of the camera. Of course, he might have talked to her at the ATM. We don’t know.”

  “That’s about an hour between the time she was at the office and when she went to the ATM…and presumably was killed shortly thereafter.”

  “That’s right,” Mitchell said. “Mike’s spending some time by himself in the sheriff’s office, writing out a deposition. We had a good long talk on the way back from Lordsburg. That’s primarily why I called.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “‘Basket case’ might be a good description. He wants to arrest the whole world just now. I don’t want him out on the street, and I don’t want to send him home. I was thinking that maybe he should go back to his folks in Lordsburg when we’re all wrapped up tonight.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anyway, I’d like to go over what he said when you get the chance. We ran through it a dozen times, and now he’s taking a cooler and putting it down on paper.”

  “What do you think, Eddie?”

  There was a pause. “If he killed Janet Tripp, then he deserves an Oscar for best actor. No…I don’t think he had anything to do with Janet’s death. But he’s the logical place to start, Estelle.” He exhaled a little huffing sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh. “I need your intuition.”

  “My intuition,” Estelle said wryly. “I might have had some, once upon a time.”

  “Take a deep breath and get it back in gear, Undersheriff,” Mitchell said. “You got your vest on?” When she didn’t answer instantly, he added, “Things like dark alleys and landfill pits should have made you a believer, my friend,” referring to two previous incidents that could have gone even more wrong than they had.

  “The sheriff should have had an armored butt,” she laughed, knowing perfectly well that Mitchell was right.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Look, we’ll be here for quite a while. If you get a chance t
o break away, we need to talk, okay? And by the way, Frank Dayan’s had his scanner on again. He stopped by.”

  “Use your own judgment,” Estelle said.

  “Yeah, well. I didn’t have much to tell him. But for once he’s got a major story hanging with lots of time before he goes to press…a whole damn week, practically.”

  “I’ll talk to him when I get a chance.”

  “He doesn’t know about Gastner yet.”

  “He doesn’t need to…Bill’s a civilian, and it was a home accident. If I told Frank, Padrino would have my hide.”

  “I can imagine. We have a State Police presence, by the way. Not a good time for folks to be speeding through Posadas. The lieutenant says that whatever we need, we’ve got.”

  “Hopefully, nothing,” Estelle said.

  “You never know, once the bad luck snowball really gets moving downhill. The Christmas from Hell. Look, I’ll catch you in a bit. You’re going to be ten-seven there for a while more?”

  “I think so, Eddie. I keep thinking of a dozen things to be doing, and it’s like I’m stuck in the mud. I don’t want to leave here until I make sure Padrino is going to be all right.”

  She saw a door open down the hall, and her husband stepped out of the emergency room, rubbing the back of his neck. “Here’s Francis,” she said.

  “Catch you later.”

  “Thanks, Eddie.”

  Francis ambled down the hall toward her, both hands hooked behind his head. Estelle reached out and put a hand on each of his hips, using him as an anchor. He grinned.

  “A very hard head,” he said. “CAT shows that he’s got a hairline skull fracture, and we’re a little concerned about intracranial bleeding, querida. That’s always the joker in injuries like this. Eight sutures, and he has some area added to his bald spot now. However…” He stopped, resting his forearms across Estelle’s shoulders. “You need some photos.”

  “I need photos? Why, for when his hair grows back?”

  He laughed. “No. Whatever he was hit with left some pretty characteristic marks. Even the sutures don’t cover ’em up.”

  Estelle looked up into her husband’s dark eyes, her mind churning as if trying to find the right gear. “Whatever he was hit with?”

  Francis nodded. “That’s what Alan and I think. If I had to place bets, I’d say that someone gave him a good one from behind. The wound on the back of his head isn’t like something he might suffer by hitting the edge of that stupid concrete step of his…and if it was, you’d find some hair and blood on that, too.”

  He shook her gently, as if correctly reading the confusion. “You had this locked in as an accident?”

  When Estelle didn’t answer, Francis said, “He’s conscious, if you want to talk with him. Sedated a bit, but conscious. If you want photos, I’ll remove the dressing for you.” He turned and nodded down the hall. “He’s down in OR recovery. We’re going to keep him at least overnight, maybe even a day or two longer, just to be on the safe side. His vital signs are as good as we can expect from someone who thinks the cure-all for any ill in the world is a jumbo green chile burrito.”

  “You really think that someone hit him?”

  “Yes, I do.” He put a hand on either side of Estelle’s face. “And at this point, I’d love to be wrong.”

  “Then let me make a call, oso.”

  To her surprise, Brent Sutherland, the graveyard dispatcher, answered the phone, working his second shift of the day.

  “Brent, we need a unit over at Bill Gastner’s house. Until I have a chance to get back there, I don’t want anyone going in or out, or tampering with anything on the property. If the deputy sees anyone hanging around the place, or scouting it out, I want them detained.” She thought for a second, then added, “In fact, pull Taber off the Highland scene, and if you can’t find anyone else who’s clear, ask one of the State Police to take over for her.”

  “So you specifically want Jackie at Gastner’s?”

  “That’s right. ASAP. Cover Highland with whomever you can find.”

  “Ten four. Mr. Gastner’s okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay, I’m on it.”

  “I’m still ten-seven at the hospital, and then I’ll be at Gastner’s. I’ll keep you posted.” She clicked the phone shut, and her husband raised an eyebrow.

  “You have an explanation for all this?”

  “I wish,” Estelle said. “All I can say is that I’ve been trying to talk with Padrino all evening. Now I have a captive audience.”

  “It’s not your fault that he’s here,” Francis said, and Estelle grimaced with irritation.

  “I know that, querido. But if you’re right-and you always are in matters like this-then it’s someone’s fault that he’s here. And that’s a scary thought.” She set off down the hall toward OR recovery, dialing Linda Real’s cell phone as she walked. Dr. Guzman had to quicken his step to keep up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Let’s see how many more people we can fit in here,” Bill Gastner said. He managed a weak imitation of his bulldog frown. “Your hubby is damn quick with those needles, sweetheart.”

  “How are you feeling?” Estelle asked.

  “Like somebody used me as a doormat.” He lifted his right hand, mindful of the various IVs, tubes, and gadgets, and rested the palm on the top of his head. He opened one eye. “Are my glasses around here somewhere?”

  “They’re in the closet with his clothes,” the nurse said, and busied herself searching for Gastner’s trifocals. “Ah, here they are,” she said. “They’re a little bit bent.” She straightened one errant bow, and then slid the spectacles ceremoniously into place, the right earpiece hanging on the outside of the mound of bandages.

  “Thanks,” he grumbled. “Now I can see who the hell is torturing me.” He squinted at the nurse’s nametag. “Anna, give me a few minutes alone with the minions of the law, if you can,” he said.

  “You behave,” Anna admonished.

  “Absolutely,” Gastner said. When she was gone, he looked at Estelle sheepishly. “Sorry about all this.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, sir,” Estelle said. “You scared the ay-ay out of me, that’s for sure.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Do you remember talking to me?”

  “You mean while relaxing supine on my threshold?” Estelle laughed at his exaggerated choice of words. “No, I don’t remember,” he added.

  “You told me that you didn’t fall. You don’t remember saying that?”

  “Well…I’m not always responsible for what I say. We’ve known that for a long time.”

  “And the good doctor Guzman doesn’t think that bash on the back of your head is from falling, either.” She turned as the door behind her opened. Linda Real peeked around the door without entering. “Come in, Linda. He’s ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Gastner said. “Is this another one of those Playboy of the Month calendar shots?”

  “That’s an idea,” Linda said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Gastner snapped.

  “As soon as my husband gets back here to manage the patient, we want to take a photo or ten of the head wound, sir,” Estelle said.

  “Oh.” He frowned and closed his eyes. “Goddamn glad I didn’t get kicked somewhere else. Look, this is what I remember…at least at the moment. I think I know my own name. Bill something. Smith, maybe. I remember clear as a bell trying to find my house keys, and wishing I had fixed that light over the door.”

  “I’ve found myself wishing that more than once, Padrino.”

  “Yeah, well, I remember that. And then, poof. The next image in my mind is of this angelic face close to mine, asking encouraging questions like did I hurt.” He reached out a hand to Linda, and she took it. “How are you doing, young lady?”

  “Fine, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s been a long, nasty day, Padrino.”

  “Yes, it has. One of the worst on r
ecord.”

  “You don’t remember falling?” Estelle persisted.

  “No.” Gastner released Linda’s hand and turned back to Estelle, shifting his head slightly to bring the correct portion of his glasses into position. “The thought that occurred to me here a bit ago was that I had had another stroke. While I was lying here, staring up at the ceiling and ruminating, that thought occurred to me.”

  “We don’t think so.”

  “I’m glad we don’t,” he said, amused. “Or maybe I should hope for that. It might be less bother. What, you think someone whopped me on the head, or what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hubby thinks so, though.”

  “Yes, he does,” Estelle said.

  “Then that’s what happened. He’s not wrong very often. Maybe it will all come back to me in a Technicolor flash, especially if they make me eat hospital food.” He looked over at the small wing table that held a glass of water. Looking at it with distaste, he said, “You want to go out for some dinner?”

  “No, you don’t,” Estelle said. She rested both hands on his right forearm. “He said the head wound had distinctive patterns in the bruising, sir.”

  “He being Francis?”

  “Yes.”

  “Distinctive how?”

  “Kind of a diagonal pattern of bruises. That’s why we need pictures.”

  “Huh. Did someone get inside my house?”

  “I don’t think so. The door was still locked.”

  “And you have my keys?”

  “Yes, sir. They were on the ground. Do you remember what time you arrived home?”

  “Christ, now you’re stretching it, sweetheart.” He pressed a hand over his eyes. “I would guess right about nine. Something like that. How’s that for helpful.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Well, then.” He shifted and let out a little groan. “It sure as hell hurts now, though. Down deep in my head, where the Novocaine doesn’t reach. You know, I haven’t had an argument with anybody in a good long time, at least not enough that they’d want to take something to my head in the middle of the night.”