Statute of Limitations

by Steven F Havill

  “Could she have survived for any length of time after being shot?”

  A long silence followed, and then Perrone backed out from underneath the Oldsmobile. “Estelle, I can’t answer that,” the physician said. He nodded at Eddie Mitchell, who stood quietly to one side, looking down at Janet Tripp’s hand. “All I can tell you is that a shot like that usually drops the victim like a sack of bricks. Remember RFK?” He tapped his own skull behind his left ear, touching the mastoid tuberosity. “No, you don’t. But that’s where he was hit. Down he went, boom. Didn’t move a step or two past the point where he was shot. At least that’s what all the famous pictures show. But he lived for several hours...what, almost a day, or something like that?”

  He carefully adjusted a strand of blond hair that had fallen across his forehead. “You can imagine any wound you want, and there will be case studies where the victim lived for a while...seconds, minutes, hours, or long enough to heal and have a happy life. It all depends on how fast the blood pressure drops to zero, and how long it stays there without intervention.” He shrugged.

  “It looks as if she raked the sand with her fingers, Alan.”

  “She might have. Maybe just some reflex. Or maybe all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Conscious and looking for a way out. You’re going to bag those hands carefully, I’m sure. But a reflex movement is certainly not beyond what we might expect.” He regarded his rubber gloves. Blood smeared the one on his right hand. “Much of the blood in her hair is comparatively fresh, Estelle. However this happened, it hasn’t been long.”

  The undersheriff calculated backward. “Janet Tripp was seen alive early this afternoon,” she said. “In our office.”

  “Well, then,” Perrone said. “There you go.” He nodded at the Oldsmobile. “I’m clear, if you want the EMTs to remove the body now. Francis is headed home, by the way. Did he get ahold of you?”

  “Yes. The Med-Evac is going to drop him off.”

  “I chatted with him a few minutes ago—maybe half an hour before this call. He says that Bobby is feeling okay. Groggy, but okay. They’ve got him sedated and drugged and God knows what else. His blood will be as thin as distilled water right about now.” He turned and saw Linda, squatting on her haunches out in the center of the arroyo, camera in hand, waiting. “Puzzles,” he said cryptically. “I’m on my way, unless there’s anything else.”

  “Thanks, Alan.” She turned to Mitchell, who hadn’t moved a centimeter since climbing down in the arroyo. He regarded her, his expression expectant.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  “Sure enough.”

  “Where’s Sisneros? Has someone talked with him yet?”

  “No.” Estelle heard the shift, perhaps unconscious, in Mitchell’s tone. The informal “Mike” was replaced with the flat, professional reference to “Sisneros.” “Linda says that he went over to his folks’ place for dinner.”

  “In Lordsburg.”

  “Yes.”

  “Without his fiancée.” Mitchell’s quiet, soft voice made it sound like a simple statement of fact, despite the obvious implications.

  “Apparently.”

  “How long?” He nodded at the victim.

  “Linda saw her at the office in the early afternoon.”

  “Found at?”

  “Shortly after four. By a kid riding a motorcycle.”

  Mitchell mulled that as he watched the three EMTs approach. He moved out of the way, giving them a parking place for the gurney. Matty Finnegan, who approached the front of the Oldsmobile warily as if it might be a den for rattlesnakes, hesitated and looked at Estelle.

  “Okay to go?” she asked.

  Estelle nodded. “There’s a lot of sharp metal there. Be careful.”

  The three EMTs were careful, easing Janet Tripp’s corpse out of its tiny resting place. “Good thing she ain’t frozen up,” EMT Eric Sanchez remarked at one point, and the comment earned him an acidic glare from Matty.

  “Where do you want to start?” Mitchell asked as the gurney began the final trip up and out of the arroyo.

  “It’s just two hours,” Estelle said. “That’s in our favor. From the time Janet left the Sheriff’s Department until she ended up here, maybe two hours. I was going to talk to Linda and get a closer estimate from her. But regardless, that’s not much of a time window.”

  Mitchell looked at his watch. “And now it’s a four-hour head start for somebody,” he said.

  “Or less.”

  “Or less. Did you talk to Bill yet?”

  Estelle shook her head. “That’s ahead. We need to know who was at the office, what time they left...anything that will help us narrow this down. How well did you know Janet?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “Didn’t. She and Mike weren’t the most public couple in the world.” He heaved a deep breath. “You want me to go get him?”

  “Either you or me. I don’t want him to find out about this from a phone call.”

  “I’ll run over. You have enough on your plate.”

  “Thanks.”

  “This could be just some creep passing by, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, it could. I think we’re going to have some tire prints. We know that she was shot somewhere else and dumped here.”

  “Maybe right up there,” Mitchell said, nodding at the rim of the arroyo.

  “Maybe. No blood, but that doesn’t mean anything.” She stepped closer to the tangle of junk. “The scuff marks on the top of this car hint that the body slid down here, and then into that opening.”

  “Odd to be stretched out the way she was if that’s what happened,” Mitchell said.

  “I think she moved some, Eddie. I think she was still alive. I can’t picture the killer climbing down here and stuffing her farther in. Maybe that’s what he did, but I can’t picture it. I see him pushing her down into the junk, and when she slides into the gap between the cars, he’s going to figure that’s enough.”

  “Maybe.”

  “All he needs is some time to slip away.”

  “Then he doesn’t care much if the body is found,” Mitchell said.

  “That’s a little something that bothers me, Eddie. The body was bound to be found...maybe not in hours like it was, but certainly the odds were good, over time.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch is confident or careless, one or the other.”

  “That’s the scary part. Dr. Perrone said that she was popped once, behind the ear. Small caliber, execution style. That’s one thing. Then she’s dumped out here. If this were the swamps of New Jersey or the bay shore of Chicago, I’d say ‘gangland.’”

  “Huh.”

  “Cold confidence,” Estelle said. “Shoot and dump. That doesn’t leave us much.”

  “That’s the whole point, I would guess,” Mitchell said. He twisted and looked up at the sky. “Clear tonight. You want some lights out here, or go over it again first thing in the morning?”

  Estelle hesitated. “There’s nothing magic out here, Eddie. That’s what my first impressions tell me. Someone drove up, and we have tire tracks. Someone lifted Janet Tripp out of the trunk of a car, or the back of a pickup, and lugged her over to the edge. It’d be nice if we had a clear set of bootprints, but we don’t...and I don’t think a set is going to magically appear, either. Her body slid down here, and that’s that.” She shook her head. “We need to button this up, but I’m not sure we can afford to spend more time out here tonight. If we dillydally around, the trail’s going to grow cold. Jackie’s on shift, and there’s nobody better to sit the scene until morning. We won’t lose a thing. If you go to Lordsburg right now and bring Mike back, that’ll be good. We need to talk with him and connect the dots there. While you do that, I’ll sit down with Linda and really nail down what she remembers. And I’ll do the sam
e with Bill Gastner. Then we’ll see where we are.”

  Mitchell hunched his broad shoulders against the growing chill as the heavy twilight crept across the prairie. “And there’s that one nasty possibility, Eddie,” Estelle said. “From what I’ve heard, Mike and Janet were planning to drive to Lordsburg together. They didn’t. Mike went by himself. Janet ended up here.”

  Mitchell nodded morosely. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.” He scuffed the loose sand of the arroyo bottom with the toe of a polished boot. “Are you going to call the sheriff?”

  “That’s next on my list.”

  “Make sure Gayle is right there when you do. Otherwise he’ll be out of bed, trying to find a taxi home.” Mitchell reached out and tapped Estelle at the base of her throat, on the hard plane of her sternum. “And put on your vest, Undersheriff.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sheriff Robert Torrez growled what might have passed for a greeting, and Estelle imagined him as embarrassed at having to talk on the telephone while lying half-naked and helpless in bed.

  “I think they’re going to unplug me in the morning,” he said. “They aren’t sayin’ much except that I gotta stay overnight.” As if feeling that he’d already passed along more information than necessary, he changed the subject. “What’s up?”

  “Bobby, Janet Tripp has been killed. Her body was found in the arroyo out on Highland Drive.” Silence greeted that announcement, and after a few seconds Estelle added, “One of the Romero boys found the body late this afternoon while riding his motorcycle.”

  Torrez remained silent, and Estelle continued, assuming that the sheriff hadn’t simply passed into an unresponsive, drug-induced fog. “It looks like she was shot once in the head, but we don’t know anything more at the moment.”

  “Where’s Mike?” Torrez asked, his voice husky. Estelle felt a twinge of relief. The sheriff wasn’t so under the weather that he failed to recognize the heart of the matter.

  “Eddie went to Lordsburg to pick him up,” Estelle replied, and immediately realized that that was a poor choice of words. “We think he’s at his parents’ place. We wanted to break the news to him in person, and then make sure he gets back here safely. I don’t think any of us knows how he might react.”

  Torrez grunted something incomprehensible, and it sounded like he was shifting in bed. Estelle heard Gayle’s voice in the background.

  “Janet didn’t go over to Lordsburg with him?” Torrez asked. “Leave it alone,” he added, apparently talking to Gayle. “Who was the last one to see her alive?” Torrez asked, breaking off his exchange with his wife.

  “We’re not sure yet, Bobby. Linda said that she, Bill, and Mike had been doing some preliminary organizational work this afternoon in the conference room. Linda says that Janet showed up for a few minutes around two or so.”

  “Okay. And then?”

  “She left right after that, apparently.”

  “Mike went with her?”

  “No. Linda says that he worked for a bit, then after a while left.... Linda assumes it was to go to Lordsburg to have Christmas dinner with his folks. That’s what he had been planning, anyway.”

  “Huh. They have a fight or something?”

  “We don’t know yet, Bobby. Mike doesn’t know anything about any of this yet.” The sheriff didn’t comment, and Estelle added, “At least we hope he doesn’t.”

  “How long after Janet left the office was it before Mike went?”

  “It couldn’t have been long,” Estelle said. “She was alive at two—and Butch Romero found her body at four or so. A lot can happen in two hours.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Torrez said. “Lemme know later tonight what you find out, all right? What weapon was used, by the way? Could you tell?”

  “Perrone says a small-caliber gun. By what I could see, I’d guess a .22, held close.”

  “Skull damage?”

  “Entry, no exit, and not a whole lot of blood. Little or no back blast.”

  “Could have been a .25, even .32,” Torrez said.

  “Whatever it was, we think she was probably shot somewhere else, and then dumped. We’re looking for her car right now.”

  “Huh. Did you talk with Bill yet?”

  “No. Not yet. I’m headed that way.”

  Torrez exhaled what may have been a melodious growl of irritation or a hum of deep thought. “Huh,” he said again. “So where was Janet headed when she left the office, if she wasn’t goin’ to Lordsburg with Mike?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Linda doesn’t know anything? She’s always blabbin’ with somebody.”

  “She wasn’t sure what Janet’s plans were.... It’s one of those things, Bobby. She wasn’t really paying attention to who was going where. But it seems to me that if Mike and Janet were planning to go to Lordsburg together, Mike would have gone looking for her when he was ready to go.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He wouldn’t have just driven off without her, Bobby.”

  “And we don’t really know that, do we? Somebody sure as hell drove off without her.”

  “Well”—Estelle hesitated—“we’d like to think that Mike wouldn’t.” Hard as it might be to start a nonexistent list of suspects with Mike Sisneros’s name, Estelle knew that the sheriff was right. Everyone, whether cop or not, whether friend or not—everyone had secrets stashed in the closet.

  Something that sounded like a bedpan clanging against the side rail of the hospital bed was followed by Gayle’s voice, this time clear enough for Estelle to hear. “You’re not supposed to mess with that,” she said, and Estelle smiled.

  “I’ll check back with you in a bit, Bobby,” she said. “We need to notify Janet’s relatives. Mike may have to help us with that. I don’t know her family.”

  “She’s got a sister, I think,” Torrez said. “Just a second.” A short conversation followed between him and his wife, the phone covered. Then he came back on the line. “Gayle says that she thinks Janet has a sister somewhere in Oklahoma or Kansas...one of those places. Bill would probably know.”

  “Ah, he might. I’ll ask him. I’ll check back with you later, okay? Behave yourself.”

  “Call tonight,” Torrez said, and Estelle could imagine how sidelined the sheriff must be feeling.

  “Sin duda,” she said.

  “Any change yet with Eduardo?”

  “Nope. I’d like to say that he’s holding his own, but I guess that’s not the case. Perrone says he’s just lingering.”

  “Huh.”

  Estelle thought that she detected a touch of wistful regret in that single syllable. “Let me talk with Gayle for a minute,” she said.

  “Tell her that I gotta get out of here,” Torrez said, and then Estelle heard the soft thuds of the telephone being passed.

  “Hey,” Gayle said. “Estelle, what happened? You’re saying Janet Tripp was killed?” Her tone carried enough shock and disbelief to more than make up for her taciturn husband’s gruff calm.

  “Earlier this afternoon, Gayle. And that’s all we know.”

  “How awful.”

  “I wanted to ask you...when Mike was working in the conference room earlier in the week, was Janet there any of the time?”

  “Two or three times,” Gayle said. “She’s been in and out quite a bit the last couple of days.”

  “That shows how much I’ve been paying attention,” Estelle said. “Was there anything going on between her and Mike that you could tell? Any friction? Any arguments?”

  “They’re always lovey-dovey, Estelle. Well, in their own quiet way, they are. In fact, Bill mentioned to Mike a day or two ago that now that they’ve started on the project, he didn’t want anybody else who wasn’t actually working on it to be in the conference room. I guess Bill must have th
ought that Janet was going to end up sitting on Mike’s lap or something. Por Dios,” Gayle murmured, “this is awful. Have you talked with Mike yet? How’s he taking it?”

  “Let her get back to work,” her husband’s voice groused in the background.

  “No, I haven’t,” Estelle said. “Eddie’s on the way to do that right now. And Gayle...I’m sorry to have bothered you guys by calling, but Bobby really needs to know.”

  “Please,” Gayle said quickly. “This will give him something to stew about so he won’t take it all out on the nurses. I wish I could help more with the sister, but all I know is that there is one, and I think she’s in the Midwest somewhere.”

  “Mike will know. I’ll call back in a bit. You guys take care.”

  She switched off the phone and walked outside to her car. The drive to the end of Highland Court took two minutes, and as she reached the end of the pavement, Estelle saw Jackie Taber’s unit parked fifty yards off to the side, tucked under a spray of junipers that had sprung up beside the foundation of a small shed.

  The sedan bumped and pitched as she idled across the prairie so she could park window-to-window.

  “Need a break?”

  “I’m fine,” the deputy said. “It’s very, very quiet.”

  “I brought the sheriff up to date, and we should be hearing from Eddie in a few minutes. I’m going to talk with Bill here in a little bit and then visit with Linda again. Everybody else is trying to track down Janet’s car.”

  “If they stole her car and headed to Mexico, they’re long gone.”

  “Most likely. But I put in a call to Naranjo’s office in Asunción and passed on the information to the judiciales. We’ll see.”

  Her cell phone beeped and she flipped it open. Bill Gastner’s gruff voice greeted her.

  “Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he said. “I heard.”

  “Sir, I was just setting out to track you down.”