Before She Dies

by Steven F Havill

  Helen Murchison was just leaving the auxiliary’s snack bar and gift shop, blowing on the top of a fresh cup of coffee. She stopped when she saw me step into the hallway and her ice-blue eyes followed my shuffling, weary progress down the hall.

  “Working on suicide, are we?” she said when I was within hearing distance of her quiet, withering reproach.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She pointed with her coffee cup. “Over here for a minute.”

  I started to follow her to the Plexiglas enclosure where the nurses routinely planned which patients to torture next. The coffee wafted back as she walked, and it smelled pretty good.

  “Let me get a cup of coffee first,” I said.

  “You don’t need coffee,” Helen said with considerable acid. “Sit down here.”

  I’d known Helen Murchison for twenty years. I’d survived open heart surgery and been battered into a reasonable facsimile of recuperation with the help of her efficiency and sharp tongue. Once or twice, when I’d been a particularly stellar patient, I’d been rewarded with the faint, brief lip twitch that passed for a smile on Helen’s square, strong face. It was easier to cooperate than resist.

  I sat. “Roll up your sleeve,” she said, and I unbuttoned the left sleeve of my flannel shirt. She slapped the blood pressure cuff on and racked the Velcro strap tight, giving the unit a final, motherly pat before she started pumping the bulb.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” I said.

  “Yes, we do. Shut up now,” Helen replied. I watched her face as she listened through the stethoscope and observed the needle jerk its way downhill.

  When she finished, she took a deep breath and held it while she unplugged the stethoscope and ripped off the cuff. She sat with the gadget in her lap, those wonderful eyes of hers assessing my old tired face. She puffed her cheeks and let out her pent-up breath through clenched lips.

  “When’s the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”

  “When I was about six, I guess,” I said. “What are the numbers?”

  “One eighty over one ten.”

  I grimaced. “That’s not so good.”

  “No, it’s not. Why do you do this to yourself, sheriff?” Her tone surprised me, quiet and almost soft. I stood up and buttoned my sleeve.

  “I don’t have a lot of choice at the moment,” I said. “Did you folks move Linda Real out of ICU?”

  Helen reached for her coffee. “She’s in one oh six.”

  “And her mother?”

  “She went to Ms. Real’s apartment a bit ago. She probably won’t be back until this afternoon.”

  I stepped toward the hallway. “I need to talk with Linda again for a few minutes. Helen, thanks for the tune-up.”

  She shook her head in resignation. “If you’re not going to take care of yourself, at least see if you can’t talk some sense into the young lady’s head when you go down there.”

  “Linda?”

  “No. Estelle.”

  “I was told she’d gone home.”

  “However briefly,” Helen said. “Dr. Guzman is furious. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said, and hustled down the hall toward 106. In the hall, Tom Pasquale looked up hopefully from an old copy of Outdoor Life. “Hang in there,” I said, and walked past him without waiting for a reply. I pushed open the door, rapping on it at the same time.

  Estelle Reyes-Guzman was in a wheelchair, parked next to Linda’s bed. The two women looked like members of a disaster survivors’ club.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

  “This is as good a place to rest as any,” she said. The left side of her face was black and blue from above her eye to midcheek, with a small butterfly bandage at the end of her eyebrow. Her busted leg was propped up on the wheelchair’s support, and her left arm was in a sling around her neck.

  I glanced over at Linda. She was awake, her one eye watchful. I stepped over to the bed. “How are you doing, kid?”

  She made a muffled sound with no vowels and reached up her right hand to take mine. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

  “Look at this, sir,” Estelle said, and handed me a yellow legal pad. Judging by the extent of the pencil scratching, the two had been at it for some time. “Linda remembers seeing the headlights of the other vehicle as it pulled up on the opposite shoulder of the highway. She thinks it was a pickup truck, with some kind of rack on the back. A livestock rack, maybe.”

  I scanned on down the page, then turned to the next. “What’s this about a trailer?” I looked at Linda, and she responded with the smallest of nods.

  “She’s sure it was pulling a trailer as well.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “She’s positive, sir.” Estelle shifted in her chair, and winced. “She remembers hearing it, as well, when the truck pulled up to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. She remembers it as being a long trailer, like the kind you haul livestock in.”

  “Not just a horse trailer?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Linda,” I said, and slid the pad under her hand. Estelle picked up the pencil and Linda took it eagerly. “Linda, when I talked to you the first time a day or so ago, you said you didn’t remember anything about the vehicle that pulled up on the other side of the road. Now you’re saying you remember that it was a truck, with a rack, and a trailer?”

  Yes. All I’ve been doing is thinking and remembering. I smiled and said nothing, just gazed at her face. With a little imagination, I could see determination behind that dark brown eye, maybe even some defiance. I saw a tiny crinkle form at the corner of her eye and she wrote, I’m not petrified anymore. Just scared.

  I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Do you remember anything about the truck other than that it was pulling a trailer?”

  I think it was dirty, she wrote quickly. Muddy, maybe.

  “New or old?”

  No.

  “And you don’t remember the make?”

  No. The pencil hesitated. Sorry.

  I closed my eyes, trying to picture the scenario. “I really don’t understand this,” I said finally. “Tammy Woodruff is on one side of the road in a new pickup that doesn’t belong to her, and then the killer stops…and he’s driving a rig with a livestock trailer.”

  “Rustling livestock is not a new occupation, sir,” Estelle said.

  “You think that’s what the deputy and Linda stumbled on to?”

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s possible.”

  “None of that fits what Patrick Torrance told me earlier this morning,” I said, and I repeated our telephone conversation. “He was afraid that either he’d implicate Tammy in something, or that he’d be blamed. He says that’s why he took off.”

  “He also drives a pickup and pulls a trailer half the time,” Estelle observed.

  “He had nothing to do with the shooting, Estelle. I’m as sure of that as I am of anything.”

  “But you think he knows who did?”

  “All I know is that he may be able to recognize the man he saw with Tammy Woodruff earlier. That may take us somewhere.” I shrugged. “Or it may not. But right now, it’s the first solid lead we’ve had.” I looked hard at Estelle. “Helen tells me that Dr. Guzman isn’t entirely happy with you.”

  Estelle smiled. “A busted ankle is not the end of the world, sir.”

  “And a conked head. And broken elbow.”

  “Not broken. Just bent.”

  “Whatever. I was told you went home.”

  “I did, sir. Tía Sofia and I talked. She said that Linda would remember more and more as she regains her strength. I just thought it might be restful for both of us if I spent some time here, with her. Someone for her to talk to.” She glanced at Linda. “Someone to write to.”

  “You were home for at least an hour, then,” I said.

  “At least.” Estelle laughed and shrugged.

  “How’d you get back here?”
/>   “Sofia drove me. There was some shopping she wanted to do anyway. She took el kid.”

  “Brave woman,” I said, and was about to say something else when the small pager on my belt chirped. “Don’t go anywhere,” I said, and left the room. The nearest phone was at the nurses’ station, and when I dialed the Sheriff’s Department, Gayle Sedillos answered on the second ring.

  “Sir, Nick Chavez asked that you stop by as soon as you can. He says it’s urgent.”

  “At the dealership?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll go over right now. Any other messages that can’t wait?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thanks, Gayle.” I hung up and sat for a minute, deep in thought. After a moment I realized I was being watched, and looked up to see Francis Guzman leaning against the fiberglass window frame. He was wearing his quiet, long-suffering doctor’s face, a little bemused, a little preoccupied, a little concerned.

  He didn’t say anything as I leaned back in Helen Murchison’s chair and rubbed both eyes. “I saw Estelle. Do you want me to take her home?”

  The young physician grinned with resignation. “It wouldn’t do any good. She’d probably walk back. Es una aguila descalza, as my Aunt Sofie would say.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s an old Mexican expression. Roughly translates that she knows what she’s doing.”

  “Yes, she does. And she’ll be all right.” I heaved myself to my feet, saw Francis’s brow furrow with concern, and held up an index finger. “Don’t you start.”

  His frown stayed put. “You be careful, sir.”

  I nodded and slipped past him. “How do things look for Linda?”

  “She’s a fighter.”

  I stopped and looked sharply at Francis. “That’s not really an answer, doctor.”

  He looked down at the floor. “I guess I was just thinking of what she’s still facing down the road. She’s lost an eye and suffered nerve damage to some of the centers that control gross body motion.”

  “She’s paralyzed, you mean?”

  “She’s going to have difficulty walking, yes. And she’s going to face a series of operations to reconstruct the bones of her left jaw and the left side of her face. Like I said…it’s a long road.”

  “She’ll make it.” I glanced down the hall and saw one of the nurses enter 106. “And we’re going to catch the son of a bitch who’s responsible for all this, too.”

  After telling Estelle that I’d stop back around noon, I drove around the block and down Bustos Avenue to Chavez Chevrolet-Oldsmobile. He’d told Gayle it was urgent, but to Nick, everything was urgent. Selecting a luncheon guest for Rotary Club was urgent. Selling me a new truck was urgent. As I pulled into the parking area in front of the small showroom, I was planning to allot him about thirty seconds of my time.

  I got out of the car and he met me at the door. One look at his face told me that he was going to need a hell of a lot more than thirty seconds.

  Chapter 31

  Nick Chavez painted on his glad salesman’s face and ushered me across the showroom floor. We had to skirt a new addition—a brand-new Blazer. Nick patted it affectionately on the hood and at the same time hooked his arm through mine as if we were the oldest of buddies.

  “Have I got a deal for you, Bill,” he said. “Come on in here and let me show you some figures.” One of the other salesmen looked up from his desk and grinned at me—much the same grin a hungry cat might give his still-kicking dinner.

  “I don’t think I have time for this,” I said without much conviction. Nick was smiling his best salesman’s smile from the nose down. His eyes gave him away. I followed him into his office like a docile, committed customer, and he closed the door behind me.

  “Sit, sit,” he said, and beckoned me toward his own swivel chair behind the desk. I started to move toward one of the others, and he motioned with considerable impatience. I shrugged and took his chair, commanding a nice view of the showroom, the other salesmen’s desks, and the parking lot outside.

  Nick sat down in the customer’s chair, his back to the world. He ran a hand through his hair, keeping his eyes closed. One hand closed around a pencil, and the point hovered over a salesman’s work sheet. He looked for all the world like a salesman who had negotiated all night, and was now at the point of splitting his commission with the customer just to nail down the sale.

  “I’m really pissed, Bill.” He opened his eyes, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  I leaned forward and rested my hands on the desk like a helpful father confessor. “What’s the problem, Nick.”

  He was one of those people who talked with his eyes closed, as if he were reading a script etched on the inside of his eyelids. “Look, I don’t know why I checked. After you and me talked yesterday, or whenever the hell it was, I got to thinkin’, you know. And the thing that bothered me the most was…ah, to hell with that.”

  I leaned back, unsure of where this interesting flow of disconnected thoughts was leading him.

  “Look at this.” He pulled a bound pad of forms out of a folder and slid it across the desk toward me. “Temporaries.”

  “I see that,” I said. Anyone who purchased a vehicle in New Mexico had seen them—approximately half the size of a standard sheet of typing paper, the temporary permit was filled out by the dealer and taped in the back window of the vehicle until plates could be issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  “Now look here,” Nick said, and leaned forward. He kept his voice low and pointed with the pencil. “Each one of them has a serial number. See that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Consecutive, the whole pad. We buy the pad, and issue the temporaries one at a time.”

  I nodded.

  “So, the numbers should match, right?”

  “Should match what?” I asked.

  Nick frowned with impatience. “If we sell ten cars in a week—and wouldn’t it be goddamned nice if we did that—then we should use ten of these.”

  “All right.”

  “So we’re missing some.”

  “Someone took some, you mean?”

  Nick shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t understand the ‘maybe.’ It seems a pretty simple inventory problem.”

  Nick ducked his head. “Sure. That’s what’s so goddamned embarrassing. And that’s one of the things that’s got me so pissed. I mean, we aren’t required to keep some kind of careful record of these things, you know. I mean, I don’t know anyone who does. We stick one copy in the back window, stick the back copy in the file, and that’s it. Who the hell’s going to spend all day long checking those kinds of goddamned things.” His voice had risen, and he suddenly checked himself. He continued in a near-whisper.

  “And I guess that’s kind of dumb, when you consider that these things are the equivalent of a free license plate for thirty days,” he said.

  “So you think that you’re missing some temps, and you don’t know for sure how many. That’s it?”

  Nick nodded. He turned and reached into the folder again. “The past two months I can account for. Why? Because it’s been slow, and just by chance we’ve been workin’ off this one pad. And I used the first one. I remember havin’ to go get it out of the file.” He slid a piece of paper across and I tilted my head so my bifocals could focus on the neat rows of numbers. “That number there on my list corresponds to this number on the temp.” He tapped the printed number on the first permit of the pad.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Now, from here, count backward,” and his pencil moved up his handwritten list. “If we sold sixteen cars since this pad was new, which we did, then the first number of the pad would be this one.” He circled the top number of the list.

  “And it doesn’t come out,” I said.

  “Right. It don’t come out. And for another thing, look here.” He leaned across and with his pencil eraser drove through what little was left of the pad, rapidly lifting each permit in
turn. He stopped and pointed. “See that number?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Check this out.” He turned to the next permit. “What do you see?”

  “They skipped a number.”

  Nick nodded. “I mean, who’s gonna notice, huh?”

  “You did.”

  “Only ’cause you got me thinkin’.” He sat back with one hand resting on the folder. “And that ain’t all.” He pulled out a second pad of permits. “Brand-new pack.” He tossed them in front of me. “Twenty-five temps there, with copies. Check it out, about a third of the way through the pad.”

  “And there are supposed to be twenty-five here?”

  “Twenty-five. That’s what we pay for, and that’s what shows in the number series.”

  I rifled the pad, watching the serial numbers tick by. “There’s one,” I said, as the digit 4, the last digit in the long state number, was followed by a number ending in a 6. I looked up at Nick. “How many missing from this pack?”

  “Two.”

  I looked at the neat bundle and frowned. “So two missing here, and one or two from the other pack.”

  “That’s right. And these goddamned things are registered with the DMV when you buy ’em. I mean, the serial numbers are recorded by the state against my dealer number.”

  “I can buy one of these myself, can’t I?”

  Nick Chavez nodded. “Sure, one at a time.”

  “And when I do, the DMV takes down all the transfer information.”

  “Right.”

  “I remember. I once gave one of my sons an old truck that didn’t have a plate, and we had to go through the whole rigmarole. Why else would someone steal one?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. So they could drive a vehicle on the highway without goin’ through the DMV, I guess. You tell me.” He paused to take a breath. “You’d stop a vehicle on the highway if it didn’t have no license plate, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “What about if it had one of these?”