“You said that you have the keys?” Pasquale asked.
“Yes, I do,” Estelle replied. “But I’m not there yet.”
“This is fresh,” Jackie said. She brought her light close to the door jamb. The wood was scarred, with a chip gouged out and hanging by a strand.
“Ay,” Estelle breathed. “Look at that.” She bent close and saw that the rip was indeed recent, the wood gouged right through the surface stain into the soft pine underneath. “Tomás, was Linda still over at the bank?”
“I think so. You want her here?”
“Yes indeed. Use the phone, though. Not the radio.”
“You got it.”
With a hand on Jackie Taber’s shoulder, Estelle said, “You’re about Padrino’s height. Let’s try this.” She maneuvered the deputy into position, imitating Gastner’s position as he reached for the lock. “If you’re bent over trying to find the keyhole, that puts you just about like this,” she said. Raising the plastic evidence bag, she held the rebar out, as if clubbing the deputy on the back of the head. “And there you are. It would have been easy for the bar to strike the door jamb, maybe at the same time as he hit Padrino.” She held the position for a moment. “Lean a little against the jamb,” she instructed, trying to imitate the position she’d seen Gastner assume innumerable times as he slumped against the short wall while sorting keys.
“It’s a good thing, then,” Jackie said. “If the end of the rebar hit the jamb at the same time as the rest of it struck him in the skull, it might have saved his life.”
“That close,” Estelle whispered.
“You might get a matching impression in the wood.”
“Maybe. Not in this light, though.” With the sides of both thumbs, she gingerly tried the door latch, keeping her touch on the outside edge of the flat brass surface. “Still locked.”
“Unless he went inside, did his thing, and made sure it was locked on the way out.”
“Maybe. And then he just drops the keys. Maybe.”
“Any prints, you think?” Tom Pasquale asked, returned from his brief conversation with Linda Real.
“I would bet not,” Estelle said. She drew out the wad of keys. “There’s also the matter of the clumsy responding officer,” she said. “I picked these up when the EMTs were here. I assumed that Padrino had fallen, and…” She shrugged. “My prints are on them, that’s for sure.” She selected the key with the blue plastic marker and slid it into the door lock. It opened easily, and with one finger she pushed the door open a foot until it hit the resistance of hinges long in need of lubrication. The resulting creak was eerie and loud, a sound Bill Gastner had found amusing and friendly.
The scent from inside the house was familiar-old wood, old leather, musty carpets too long from a cleaning, the hint of Gastner’s characteristic aftershave.
“Let me go in,” Estelle said. She bent down, letting her flashlight beam angle across the age-polished Saltillo tile of the foyer and hallway. Damp footprints would show like neon signs. “I don’t think he came inside,” she said, and reached across to flip on the hall and foyer lights. Nothing appeared out of place, and she walked down the hallway toward the sunken living room and kitchen, staying close to one wall.
A half pot of coffee sat cold on the kitchen counter, a habit Gastner had cultivated in an effort to remember to turn off the coffee maker when he left the house, having burned up several in recent months. The back door leading from the kitchen out into the overgrown patio was locked.
She crossed the living room and checked the guest bedrooms, finally peering into Gastner’s office. Nothing appeared out of place. An expensive Civil War musket that had been stolen and retrieved once before still hung over the east-facing window. The light gray sifting of dust on his massive mahogany desk was undisturbed. She crossed to the far corner and a four-drawer filing cabinet with a locked security rod that Gastner had purchased several years before. It was secure.
On the other side of the house, Gastner’s bedroom appeared normal enough, right down to the fastidiously made bed, its corners still tucked in the military fashion.
“All clear,” she said, and relocked the front door.
“You think he was scared off somehow?” Pasquale asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t much like the other possibility.”
“What, that somebody just wanted to bash his head in?” Pasquale said, and Estelle winced at the blunt assessment.
“Maybe that,” she said.
“The sheriff still had his wallet and money?”
Estelle nodded and turned to watch Linda Real add her vehicle to the growing parking lot on Guadalupe Terrace. “Jackie, will you give Linda a hand with what we have here? Tom and I will check the garage and around back. I don’t think we’re going to find anything, but I want to be sure.”
She was halfway to the garage, her flashlight and Pasquale’s sweeping the gravel driveway, when her cell phone chirped. The sound was loud in the quiet night air.
“Guzman.”
“Querida,” her husband’s soft voice said. “You okay?”
“Sure. Are you home?”
“No. Look, Eduardo Martinez died a little bit ago. I wanted to let you know. I set the time at 10:58.”
She stopped in her tracks, and looked up at the night sky. A few stars were showing, the others obscured by traces of wispy clouds.
“You there?” Francis asked.
“Yes, I’m here,” she said finally. “I’ll stop by in a few minutes.”
“That’s not necessary. Essie and the others all went home a few minutes ago.” When she didn’t respond immediately, he added, “Are you all right?”
“Sure. Did you look in on Padrino?”
“He’s fine, querida. He’s going to be just fine. I told him about Eduardo, and he was philosophical about it. He said he’d get together with Essie a little later, after the family thins out some. The hard part will be keeping Padrino from getting up and walking out of the hospital when our backs are turned. You know how he is.”
“We won’t turn our backs,” Estelle said.
Chapter Twenty
“Stay put,” Captain Eddie Mitchell said, looking back over his shoulder into his office. Out in the hall, Estelle’s view was blocked by Mitchell’s husky figure and the door, and she stepped sideways. Deputy Mike Sisneros sat at the end of the large folding table that Mitchell preferred to a standard desk. A tape recorder rested near his left elbow, and his pencil was poised over a legal pad.
Sisneros glanced up and saw the undersheriff. The young deputy’s face was pallid, and a half day’s worth of scruffy black stubble did nothing to hide the exhaustion on his face. Mitchell closed the door of his small office thoughtfully, keeping his grip on the knob even after it latched. “Let’s talk in your office,” he said to Estelle.
“He’s going to be all right by himself?”
“Adams is in there with him,” Mitchell said, and grinned without much humor. “Coiled over in the corner.”
“Ah,” Estelle said. She didn’t ask Mitchell why he had deemed it necessary to have an official witness in the room while he talked with Sisneros, but that was the captain’s call. Mitchell was as careful and methodical as anyone in the department. That he didn’t feel it prudent to leave the young deputy alone at this particular moment spoke volumes, especially since he had left him in the intimidating presence of New Mexico State Police Lieutenant Mark Adams, whom former sheriff Bill Gastner had once described as having the “deadest pair of eyes this side of a corpse.”
Mitchell followed Estelle into her office and sat in the straight-backed chair by the filing cabinet. He rested his head back against the wall and closed both eyes. After Estelle had settled behind her desk, Mitchell opened his left eye and looked at her. Add thirty years of wear and tear and fifty pounds in all the wrong places, and he’d be a fair Bill Gastner impersonator…except for the glacial blue of his eyes. In that respect he was a good match for Lieutenant Adams. Ne
ither gave the impression that they would cut their own mother a deal.
“I am sooooo tired,” he said, and managed a grin. “And you too, I bet.”
“Very,” she said.
“Our young man is a basket case,” Mitchell said, and opened both eyes as he pulled away from the wall. “This is his story so far. He left here about 2:45 or so this afternoon to go back to his apartment, clean up, and then drive to Lordsburg. For some reason, and he doesn’t know why, Ms. Tripp decided at the last minute not to go along. Mike claims he almost canceled the visit, but he knew his mom would be disappointed, so he went over by himself. He arrived at his mother’s and stepfather’s place just about four thirty. They confirm that, although they’re a little fuzzy about the time. He was with them until I arrived there about a quarter to six.” Mitchell shrugged. “And that’s about it. It’s really that simple, if he’s telling the truth.”
“He really doesn’t know why Janet didn’t want to go to Lordsburg with him? No idea at all?”
“Nope. His best guess is that maybe Janet was uncomfortable around his mother. The two of them don’t hit it off much, he said. Since Mike and Janet started seeing each other back in September, he says that Janet and his mother haven’t spoken more than once or twice.” Mitchell bent his right index finger and studiously examined the short, blunt fingernail. “That’s not anything that surprises me, Estelle. I mean, some folks just don’t care for each other. But there are a number of little things that trouble me.”
Estelle waited, giving Mitchell time to frame his thoughts. “Number one,” he said without looking up, “it appears that Janet Tripp was killed sometime after 3:05 p.m. That’s what the ATM receipt shows, and we have no reason to suppose that she waited around in the parking lot for any length of time after making her transaction. There’s always the chance that the killer took her ATM card after shooting her and did the transaction himself.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Estelle said. “He’d have to have her PIN number, for one thing.”
“That, and other reasons. Number one, why take just $350? The single transaction limit is $500 a day, Mears tells me. And second, once the shot is fired, I would think that the killer would be motivated to split. I can’t see him casually walking over to the ATM, with her lying there, shot and bleeding.”
“He took the time to pull her out of her car and dump her into his…trunk, back of an SUV, whatever it was.”
“Sure, he did. But if we use a couple of minutes after 3:05 as the time of the shooting, that gives us a window of opportunity there. It might be easier if we had a stopwatch timing everything, but nobody pays too much attention to the fine details. The only time we’re sure of is what’s printed on the ATM slip.” He raised his head to look at Estelle. “3:05. She does her business, walks back to the Jeep, and pop.”
“And at that time, Mike isn’t even on his way to Lordsburg yet. He’s still in town,” Estelle said.
“Correct. But…,” and Mitchell leaned forward, shifting his weight on the small chair and pulling at the bottom of his vest where it chafed his belly. “I would be willing to bet every penny that’s in my enormous pension fund that Mike Sisneros didn’t kill Janet Tripp. I talked to him in Lordsburg, and tried to lay things out as gently as I could. I might as well have hit him between the eyes with a baseball bat. And if it was an acting job, I’ll hang up my spurs.”
“What’s he have to say, then?” Estelle asked. “Did Janet have enemies, or does Mike think it was just a random thing…a crime of opportunity?”
“I’m not sure he’s thinking straight at all. Desperate might be a good word. He’d like to wrap his finger around the trigger and put the killer in his sights. If anything, we’re going to have trouble keeping him from mucking around and getting in our way with this thing. He and Janet were closer than I thought, I guess. He said that they were planning to get married this spring sometime.”
“Ay. That’s rough. I’d heard that rumor, but they were keeping their plans close to themselves.”
“He said that he almost decided not to go over to his mom’s, but Janet talked him into it. Mrs. Cruz is ailing, and Janet said that Mike should spend some holiday time with her.”
“Generous girl.”
“I’ve only met her half a dozen times, but I liked her,” Mitchell said.
“And what was she going to do?”
“Do?”
“For the rest of her holiday? She evidently wasn’t in the apartment to see Mike off. Was she going to see relatives of her own? Does Janet have folks nearby? I know about the sister out east somewhere.”
“Mike says not. Her mother died a while ago. Dad walked out on the family when Janet was just a kid, and who the hell knows where he is. Maybe the sister knows. Mike says that Janet told him that she had some errands, and then was going to spend a quiet evening in their apartment. Mike planned to be home by ten or so.” He shrugged. “Finish out their holiday together.”
“Not to be,” Estelle said, more to herself than Mitchell. She glanced at the wall clock, then at the captain. “That’s all?” With it pushing midnight, it wouldn’t have taken Eddie five hours to round out. Mike Sisneros’s simple story…even to the point of double and triple checking times with whoever might have an accurate guess about what might have happened when.
“No,” Eddie said. “We have a few bullet fragments from Tripp’s brain, but I kinda doubt that we’re going to match much of anything. I’m sure it’s a.22, and so is Mears.” He paused, looking down at his hands again. “I asked Mike if he had a.22 of some kind. In point of fact, he has two. Actually, I should say, had two.”
“Had?”
“One’s missing.”
Silence hung heavy for a moment.
“You mean stolen?”
“I don’t know what I mean,” Mitchell said. “And neither does Mike. The last time he saw it, the gun was in a dresser drawer in their bedroom. It’s not there now. The plastic box is there. The gun isn’t.”
“What about the other one?”
“He showed it to me. It’s a.22 conversion kit that he bought to fit his duty gun. Kind of a slick little deal. Take the barrel and slide off the.45, and just slip on the replacement.22 kit. Go plink on the cheap. The kit’s clean as a whistle. It hasn’t been fired in a while, unless Mike did the job and then came home and diligently cleaned up.”
“But you said a second gun is missing.”
“Yup. A.22 Ruger.22/45, one of those heavy barreled things that’s supposed to sort of match a 1911 in heft. He says that he’s had it for quite a number of years.”
“He didn’t loan it to anyone?”
“Says not.”
“Janet didn’t use it?”
Mitchell shook his head. “She wasn’t much of a gun fancier. What bothers me is that Mike can’t account for how it might have gone missing. He says that he knew it was in its case, in the drawer. No doubt Janet did too, although he says that she would never use it for anything. He says that he once tried to talk her into carrying a little something for protection, but that she wouldn’t do it. So he doesn’t think she took it. And it doesn’t make sense to me that she would.”
“Somebody did.”
“Sure enough, somebody did,” Mitchell said. “The apartment was locked, with no sign of forced entry. It’s on the second floor, so no one busted in through a window.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Nothing else is missing, as far as Mike can tell. And we really looked.”
“Just the gun.”
“Yup. And Mike claims he doesn’t know how, why, or when. I have trouble with that, Estelle. A gun is not the kind of thing most folks misplace.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Another hour spent with Deputy Mike Sisneros produced nothing that the investigators didn’t already know. Estelle let Captain Eddie Mitchell’s steady, methodical pressure on the young deputy continue uninterrupted. No one in the department knew Sisneros any better than did Mitchell. As the time dr
agged into the early hours of the morning, small bits and pieces of information dribbled in, but Estelle knew, as that awful Christmas Day finally slipped into yesterday, that they’d reached an impasse.
A State Police officer in Lordsburg reported that a careful search of Mike Sisneros’s personal vehicle, still parked at his mother and stepfather’s house, had produced nothing out of the ordinary. It would have been physically impossible to cram a body the size of Janet Tripp’s into what passed for a trunk in the Mustang without leaving traces behind. Samples of human hair on the upholstery were taken, and Estelle had no doubt that they would belong to Mike and Janet. Further search had revealed the usual junk lodged under the seats-popcorn, two wrapped mints, pennies, one dime, an empty.45 ACP casing without even a hint of burned powder aroma, and a broken windshield scraper.
Other than the ATM records and a single.22 long-rifle cartridge casing found in the parking lot, Janet Tripp’s vehicle produced nothing but questions.
The arroyo where the young woman’s body had been found was telling no stories.
Estelle had chafed at the delay, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. Her one contact at the lab who might have considered coming into the state office to work on a holiday was out of town visiting relatives. The wheels of forensic laboratory work ground to a halt on Christmas Day, further hampered by the holiday’s falling on a Saturday. But there was little that the lab could tell them anyway, short of an unexpected curve ball when the toxicology reports came back.
Alan Perrone had called the office earlier with the news that Janet Tripp’s body bore no other wounds or marks that weren’t consistent with being roughly transported and then dumped into a tangle of rusting cars and arroyo gravel. She hadn’t struggled with anyone…her short fingernails were clean with the exception of a small amount of grit from her death spasms in the arroyo. She hadn’t flailed about, grabbing her assailant’s hair, or gouging flesh from his face or arms. Instead, all signs pointed to her sitting in her car in the bank parking lot, head bowed forward as she tucked money and the ATM receipt into her purse. And then…pop. Unconsciousness, if not death, would have been instantaneous.
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