Torrez had been head-down in the Fusion’s trunk, probing corners, shuffling things around and lifting the corner of the mat. He straightened up.
“Alfalfa.” The one-word pronouncement brought another smile to the sergeant’s face. She rearranged the end of the plant “plug” with the tip of a pencil, examined it closely, sniffed it.
“Best not to taste it,” Pasquale observed.
“Might be poison ivy?” She handed it back to the sheriff. “I think you’re right, sir. But it’s a pretty labor-intensive, expensive way to ship horse feed.”
“So…” Pasquale said.
“So it’s illegal to possess drugs, or possess with intent to distribute drugs, whether they’re real or not. All kinds of trash gets passed off as the real thing.”
“Maybe they’re just usin’ ’em for taste treats when they go to the horse track or something like that,” Pasquale offered.
“Something like that,” the sheriff said dryly. “Gives us an excuse to hold ’em for a little bit, anyway.” Torrez placed the top back on the box. “Read ’em, then book ’em on possession and intent to distribute and auto theft,” he said. “When you’re talkin’ to ’em, keep ’em separate and make sure the recorder works.” He slammed the trunk lid down. “Call Stubby and have the car taken to impound. We might want to look at it again.” He started to turn away. “Oh, and process the pellet gun into evidence, along with the horse feed. Are there personal possessions we need to lock up? What’d she have on her? Anything?”
“I…well, two small bags of groceries. They’re in the backseat. And the two small suitcases in the trunk.”
“You searched her?” Taber asked.
“No, ma’am. I thought that should best wait for you or the undersheriff. She’s cuffed, but I didn’t search her.” That earned a sideways glance of disapproval from Sheriff Torrez, who certainly saw no point in being so politically correct, or at the very least, gender-careful.
“Then let’s do that.”
Sergeant Taber walked around to the passenger side of Pasquale’s Expedition and opened the rear door, holding on to it with her right hand as she faced LeeAnn Swartzman-Bond. Pasquale looped around and positioned himself on Taber’s left. “Step out of the vehicle, ma’am.” Jackie stepped back half a pace to give the woman a small amount of room to maneuver, an awkward task with hands cuffed behind her back. Pasquale stood poised to assist, mindful that the tall step down to the ground gave many passengers trouble—whether inebriated or just plain clumsy.
LeeAnn leaned forward until her head was practically touching the security screen, and contorted her arms, leaning hard to the left. Before the deputies knew it was even there, the little chrome-plated automatic fired one round, incredibly loud within the confines of the SUV. The .25 caliber bullet struck Taber’s heavy leather boot with a glancing blow, then dug into the hot, soft asphalt. The tiny gun promptly jammed, but Pasquale was already in motion. Actually closer to LeeAnn than his sergeant, Pasquale clamped his left hand around the woman’s thin neck and forced her hard forward. With a viselike grip that locked the automatic’s jammed slide open, he twisted the pistol out of her hand, hearing the little “pop” as her right index finger, still locked in the trigger guard, gave up a joint. LeeAnn screamed.
Pasquale handed the little gun to Torrez, who had leaped around the vehicle toward them at the sound of the gunshot. Then, with one hand on the woman’s neck and the other clamped on the cuffs, the deputy eased her out of the Expedition.
“You broke my hand!” she wailed. “Howard, you can’t let them…”
“Howard ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Torrez said. “You okay, Sarge?”
Taber glanced down at her boot. The tiny bullet had raked an inch-long scuff along the leather just above the heavy black sole, hardly breaking the polish. “Nothing,” she said.
Pasquale moved LeeAnn Swartzman-Bond until he could flatten her against the side of the truck. With the motion, she screamed again. Torrez, his phone already against his ear, lowered it for a moment and glowered at the small crowd of friendly shoppers who had gathered to watch the show.
“You all can leave now,” he snapped. “It’s all over.” He turned his back and said to dispatch, “I need that ambulance back here at The Spree. Got a shopper with a broken finger.” He didn’t bother to await dispatcher Esperanza’s response, but snapped the phone closed.
“Let me look.” Taber lifted both of LeeAnn’s hands a bit, prompting another scream.
“You broke it!”
“Looks like it.” Sure enough, the second joint of LeeAnn’s index finger had been modified so that the finger skewed off to the left. “We’ll have you fixed up here in a minute, ma’am. Just stand still.”
That was hard for the woman to do, wanting nothing more than to dance in painful circles, clutching her injured digit. Replacing Tom Pasquale’s grip with her own, Taber pegged LeeAnn against the Expedition and did a quick search.
The pistol had nestled in a thin chamois holster at the small of the back under the tail of the woman’s blouse, in the soft recess around her left kidney.
“I should have seen that when I put on the cuffs,” Pasquale remarked.
“Yup,” Torrez agreed. He watched as Taber continued her search from head to toe. “Well, well, well,” the sergeant said, and once more the sound of hook and loop announced modifications. Keeping the tail of the blouse discreetly low, she peeled off the waist belt, and LeeAnn immediately shed twenty pounds of belly fat.
She managed a weak cry, tears now abundant.
“Is this yours?” Jackie ran a hand up the woman’s neck and fingered a handful of long, black locks.
“No,” LeeAnn moaned.
“How about it, then?” Jackie eased off the wig, leaving behind a natural head of cinnamon-colored hair cut short. “That looks better, anyway,” the sergeant said, ruffling the top of LeeAnn’s head as if she were a child. “Makes you look twenty years younger.”
She glanced at Pasquale. “Don’t do it until she’s in the ambulance, but as soon as she’s off this hot pavement, make sure the shoes come off. Clunky as they are, she could hide just about anything inside ’em.” She pulled LeeAnn away from the vehicle. “Let’s put her in my unit until the ambulance gets here. You behave yourself,” she said to LeeAnn, “and we’ll put the cuffs around front. Be easier for you. Maybe hurt less.” She waited, watching the woman snuffle. When she didn’t answer, Jackie added, “Are we going to wrestle again?”
“No.” The voice was tiny, the lower lip dancing with pain.
“And when I loosen the cuffs, don’t touch your finger. I know, you’re going to want to grab it with your other hand. You’ll wish you hadn’t. Okay?” The sergeant’s tone was soft, even sympathetic, and LeeAnn glanced at her gratefully.
“Yes.”
Deftly, Jackie unlocked one side of the cuffs, and keeping hold of the injured right hand, swung the left around to be re-shackled in front of LeeAnn’s now flat waist.
“Oh, it’s sooooo broken,” LeeAnn wailed.
“Yes, ma’am, it is. Things could be worse. The deputy could have shot you.”
That set off another cascade of tears. Her wail almost matched that of the incoming ambulance.
“Take a picture of the bullet scar in the asphalt, and the scuff on your boot,” Sheriff Torrez reminded her. Pasquale had anticipated that, and chalked a circle around the imperfection in the hot asphalt.
“Bullet’s still stuck in tar,” he said. “I can see the heel of it.”
“Then, there you go.” Torrez nodded, then sighed. “That’s a lock.” He turned in place, gazing around the parking lot as Pasquale transferred Swartzman-Bond from the Fusion to the Expedition. Torrez nodded across the parking lot toward the now-empty blue Volvo. “So where’s Skippy?”
“In Mexico by now,” Pasquale offered.
The EMT unit idled in, the same two attendants who had responded to the roasting child and pooch.
“You folks hav
ing just a real good time?” Mattie Finnegan helped her assistant Burt Cosgrove roll the gurney out of the back and snap its folding legs down. She beckoned at LeeAnn Swartzman, the sheet-white face, tears, and grotesquely bent finger sure signs of distress. The woman wavered on her feet, ready to collapse, Sergeant Taber providing support.
“Sit, you.” Matty patted the gurney. “Before you fall down.” As LeeAnn did so, Matty caught her right wrist, holding it firmly. LeeAnn whimpered.
“My goodness. Okay, let’s stabilize this with an air splint,” she said to Cosgrove. “Gentle air splint. Sheriff, I need the cuffs off.”
“Nope.”
“Nope,” Matty grunted a fair imitation of the taciturn sheriff, not the least bit intimidated by his size or glower. “Look, turn the right one loose, and latch the left to the gurney, if you have to. That way, if she escapes, she’ll be easy to find.” She raised her voice an octave to imitate a mind-blown shopper. “Look at the girl dragging that bed through the parking lot!”
The sheriff nodded with irritation, and Jackie Taber unlocked the right side. She held onto it as the two EMTs arranged LeeAnn on the stretcher. As the patient was strapped down, Mattie patted her shoulder. “There now. You can faint all you want. And it’s about two minutes to the ER. They’ll fix you right up.”
“You process Elvis,” Torrez said to Pasquale, and to the sergeant added, “and you’re going to stay with the woman?”
Jackie nodded.
Torrez started to turn away. “I’ll give Stub Moore a call to come and get the Fusion.”
“What about Stewart’s wagon?” Pasquale asked.
“Ain’t likely she’s going to walk out the door. But we’ll see.” Torrez ambled back toward his truck, and Pasquale turned to Jackie.
“We’ll see what?”
“He probably wants to wait and find out what the undersheriff has going at the hospital with Mr. Stewart and CYF.”
“Well, Stewart could just come over and pick it up.”
“Unless there’s more going on than we think,” Jackie said. “Let’s get your catch booked in. Then we’ll see.” She rested a hand on Pasquale’s left shoulder. “So what precipitated all this?”
“The license plate on their Fusion has a dent that doesn’t make sense.”
“Really.”
“Like what always happens when you want to hitch up a trailer and overshoot the ball? The trailer hitch always smacks into the license plate.”
Taber grinned. “Good catch, my friend. Good catch.”
Chapter Seven
It took Todd Stewart five minutes to excuse himself from a mortgage meeting at Posadas State Bank and hustle out into the autumnal blast furnace to drive the two blocks to the Posadas General Hospital Emergency Room. His breakfast kept trying to rise in his throat, even though he told himself that clearly someone had made a mistake, and no matter how soothing the explanation and apology might be, the episode terrified him.
He walked to the ER’s visitor doors head-down, cell phone glued to his ear. He paused as the doors slid open, but turned and surveyed the ER parking lot one more time before entering, searching for his wife’s car. Two police units were parked nearby, and that caused his gut to clamp all the harder as he forced himself not to sprint for the ER doors.
From inside, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman watched him. Maybe calm and cool were part of a banker’s toolbox. She did not know Todd Stewart well, having met him only on occasion, usually just a casual greeting at the bank where Dennis Mears, twin brother of Sheriff’s Department Lieutenant Tom Mears, was bank president.
Stewart was dressed for the heat, his trim, athletic frame in light blue seersucker jacket over light blue shirt and dark blue-and-red tie, with dark blue summer slacks. He took off his dark aviator glasses and looked up at the various signs directing visitors and patients this way or that. He might have chosen the ER waiting room had Estelle not stepped out from the nurses’ station to intercept him.
“Good morning, sir,” she said. His handshake was clammy, and the undersheriff could smell the heat-stirred apprehension overpowering his cologne. He nodded, ignoring the two other officers who lingered in the ER office and waiting room.
“First of all, Ginger is just fine,” the undersheriff said. “A little dehydrated, more than a little frightened, but officers responded before things got out of hand.”
“What do you mean a little dehydrated?” Stewart snapped. “What’s going on?” Estelle pushed the button on the waiting room inner door, and in a few seconds, one of the nurses pushed it open, allowing access to the non-surgical treatment rooms, the white curtains assuring privacy.
“She’s in the last one,” Estelle said. “Just for a little while to make sure she’s all right.”
“My God, what happened?” His gaze was riveted. “Where’s Stace?”
Estelle could think of a dozen ways to answer that, none of them helpful. She settled for blunt. “We don’t know, sir. I was hoping you could tell us that.” She reached out for his elbow, dark eyes sympathetic. “But come see your daughter.” She ushered him past the ER nurses’ station, to one of the curtained cubbyholes.
The ER nurse, Marilyn Michaels, greeted Stewart with a bright smile. “What a sweetheart,” she said. “She didn’t like the IV one bit, but I mean, who does? She’s so brave.” The one-year-old looked lost in the sea of white bedding, pillow-bolstered in the pediatric crib. The crib sides were down, and a teenaged nurse’s aide, whose name tag announced only “Tammy,” stood by the head of the crib, arm resting on the pillow, fingers lightly stroking the child’s forehead.
Ginger’s little legs had been pumping, but she stopped when she saw her father. Estelle gave them several uninterrupted minutes together, and it didn’t take that long before Todd Stewart had coaxed a giggle from the child. Even as he did that, Stewart glanced at his watch. Estelle shifted her position so that she could more clearly see the man’s face. A doting, worried father, sure enough, but one on a schedule. He made no effort to pick up Ginger, perhaps apprehensive of the IV tubing and the swath of tape that held it in place near the cavity of her left elbow.
He straightened up, Ginger’s tiny right hand glommed onto his left index finger.
“What…?” he started to say, then gently disengaged his hand. “Sheriff, is there somewhere we can talk?”
“We’ll give you a few moments,” the nurse said, and nodded at the aide, who followed her out of the exam room. The curtains didn’t do much sound-dampening, though, and Estelle stepped close to the bed. As she did so, Ginger kicked again and burbled, then said a single word that could have been translated as “da-dee!” Estelle stroked the infant’s silky left cheek, her swarthy fingers in sharp contrast with the baby-blond complexion.
Even though the other ER cubicles were empty, their curtains open, the undersheriff kept her voice low. LeeAnn Bond and her broken finger were still in the ER treatment room through the swinging doors, and when the orthopedist was finished with her, she’d enjoy the county’s hospitality at the lockup along with her husband.
“Deputies were called to The Spree parking lot by a passing civilian who was concerned about the barking dog and a fretful infant, locked in a vehicle, sir. She had no way of knowing how long the child had been inside the car, and its windows were closed. So she did the right thing and called the SO.”
Stewart’s mouth moved as if he were trying to make words, but nothing came out.
“Actually, the sheriff himself responded,” Estelle continued. “He was just a block away at the time of the call. The vehicle was your wife’s blue Volvo, and it’s still parked over at The Spree. With the ambient temperature today, being locked in the car with the windows up is a real danger to both child and pet.”
“Well, God, yes.” His deep blue eyes searched Estelle’s face.
“Your wife was observed entering The Spree by one of our deputies, who happened to be in the parking lot at the time on other business. Just moments later, when t
he abandoned child complaint was called in and the sheriff responded, the deputy searched the store for Mrs. Stewart, and could find no sign of her, even with the cooperation and assistance of the store’s staff. As it turns out, no one else remembered seeing her come or go. Of course, they’re busy, and had no reason to notice.”
“Abandoned child?” Stewart gasped. “I don’t understand this. Ginger wasn’t abandoned. Come on.”
Estelle straightened up but allowed her right hand to remain on the pillow nearest the child’s head. She had heard that familiar Not in my family hundreds of times before. “Did your wife have other errands today? Especially errands that she might walk to when she finished at The Spree? Maybe she was preoccupied with something?”
Todd Stewart shook his head in confusion. “No…well, I mean not that I recall.”
“Do you know what she was planning to purchase?”
“No idea. I didn’t even know that she was going there. Maybe she told me. I don’t know.” He settled in one of the small plastic chairs, elbows on his knees.
“Did the two of you have an argument this morning?”
He scoffed and straightened up. “Come on.”
“That happens, Mr. Stewart. Was your wife upset about anything when you saw her last?”
“No, she wasn’t upset. A little tired this morning, is all. She was at the volleyball game last night, and went out afterward with a couple of friends. I didn’t want to go, so Ginger and I stayed home.”
“Most likely she’ll turn up here in a few minutes with a logical explanation for all this, but at the moment, we’re concerned.”
His pleasant the-customer’s-always-right face hardened. “You’re concerned? How do you think I feel about all this, Sheriff? I mean, it’s just not possible. My God, how long was Ginger locked in that car?”
“Thankfully, probably just a few minutes. Fortunately, the civilian who made the first call used her best judgment. You can understand her concern, I’m sure. She did the right thing by not hesitating for an instant before calling the SO. When he arrived just moments later, the sheriff could see that the child was in some distress, and he made the decision to call the EMTs. In this weather…”
Come Dark Page 5
