Statute of Limitations

by Steven F Havill

  “I figured as much.” He sounded weary. “You at the office?”

  “No, but I can be in a few minutes.”

  “Let’s have some peace and quiet. How about a cup of that awful tea that you drink? Over at the house. Mine, that is.”

  “That sounds good. But give me fifteen minutes, okay? I want to stop by the hospital and see what Perrone has for us. Linda’s over there finishing up with her photos.”

  “That’ll work. It’ll give me a few minutes to finish eating and then go home and figure out how to boil water.”

  “Good luck with that,” Estelle said. “If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”

  “Enough’s come up to last a lifetime, sweetheart. This is a goddamn Christmas Day for the record books. See you in a little bit.”

  Estelle switched off and shrugged at Jackie. “If you come up with any interesting theories, I’d like to hear them.”

  “I’m working on it,” the deputy said.

  Estelle drove out of Highland Court wishing that she could force herself to sit still and let the evidence roam around in her mind until something clicked. Even a flash of intuition would have been nice.

  In the reserved staff parking at Posadas General she found Linda Real’s tiny, aging Honda nestled in beside Alan Perrone’s elegant BMW. Entering through the Emergency Room doors, she made her way downstairs. Lights were on in the Coroner/Deputy State Medical Examiner’s office, but the door was locked. Estelle continued down the hall toward a set of double security doors and touched the blue pad on the wall. The doors swung open, and she saw that the morgue lights were on.

  She rapped on the stainless steel door and waited, watching the small speaker by the door as if the words would somehow appear there in print.

  “Yes?” Perrone sounded officious and peeved.

  “It’s Estelle, sir.”

  “Oh, good. My office is open. Get yourself duded up. Yellow cabinet.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Door’s open,” Perrone said.

  Estelle returned to Perrone’s office and found the tall yellow cabinet as organized as everything else in the physician’s life. She donned a blue mesh cap that encapsulated her hair from forehead to the nape of her neck, a long plastic disposable gown, blue booties, and latex gloves. The stainless-steel doors opened soundlessly at the press of another “elbow” button, and she saw the similarly garbed Linda standing close beside the medical examiner, bending slightly at the waist to focus her bulky camera on something to which Perrone pointed with a probe.

  “Come and look at this,” Perrone said. Linda looked up from the camera and stepped back.

  “How are you doing?” Estelle asked. Linda had a brave face painted on, but she was even more pale than earlier, out at the arroyo.

  “Okay,” the photographer said, and she shook her head. “If I just look through the camera, I do all right.” She waved a hand toward Janet Tripp’s shrouded body, now facedown on the table. “It’s hard to believe that just a little while ago...” She let her voice trail off.

  “Estelle, you’ll be wanting this,” Perrone interrupted. He swept a small plastic evidence bag off the stainless-steel table beside him. “Twenty-two hollow point, in three fragments.” He held the bag out to Estelle. “Nothing unusual there. The bullet traveled from left to right, and the major fragment struck the inside of the cranium just above the right eye. That’s an uphill trajectory, and we can assume several scenarios.” He paused for breath. “First, the shooter might have been left-handed. I’m not saying he was,” he added quickly. “But he could bring up the gun and shoot, and the bullet goes in behind the left ear and comes to rest over the right eye.” He shrugged. “He could have been standing behind her, his gun hand a little lower than her ear. Or, she could have been sitting down, head bowed forward. The killer could have shot from behind, either right-or left-handed.”

  “If she’d been sitting in her car...” Estelle offered.

  “That’s possible. But its being a .22 is going to give you trouble. The most common round in the world. And fragmented so that marks are difficult.” He beckoned Estelle closer, and the odd, cloying smell of death rose like a curtain. “The gun was held either right against her skull, or very close...a fraction of an inch. Right there.” He touched the victim’s skull just behind the left ear. “Some characteristic powder stippling, singed hair, nice corona.”

  Estelle bent down. Janet Tripp’s hair was a rich blond, truly the color of clean, fresh oat straw. She had worn it short and casual, the sort of easy style that fell into place with a shake of the head. Now, the hair around her left ear was caked with blood and particulate.

  The coroner glanced at Linda, who was studiously examining the far wall.

  “Nothing else of interest, Estelle,” Perrone said. “Nothing under her fingernails except some arroyo sand. She wasn’t assaulted, or struck, or anything else. Her clothing was intact, and only as disarranged as we might expect from being carried and then dumped. The only blood on her clothing was on the left shoulder and upper left back of her blouse, along with a spot or two on the right. I wish I could hand you something on a platter, but I can’t.”

  “We’ll see,” Estelle said. “Have you fixed a time of death?”

  “I examined her at four forty-five. I would guess that she had been dead less than an hour.”

  “Less than an hour?”

  “That’s right. Butch Romero doesn’t know what a lucky kid he is. If he hadn’t lingered over another piece of fruitcake before going riding, he might have ridden into something pretty nasty.”

  “Ay,” Estelle murmured. “That close.”

  “That close.”

  “Will you process the film tonight?” she asked Linda.

  “Sure.

  “And I’ll get started on everything else,” Perrone said. “Toxicology, whatever. I’ll be surprised if anything comes up. I don’t have a whole lot of lab equipment here. There’s a few simple things I can do, but I think we’re going to end up waiting for the state lab to mull things over. And with the holiday, don’t hold your breath.”

  Estelle grimaced.

  “Is Mike back yet?” Linda asked.

  “On the way, I think.” Her cell phone rang, obscenely loud in the tomblike hush of the morgue.

  “Guzman.”

  “Estelle, it’s Pasquale. We found Tripp’s car.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The moment Estelle saw Janet Tripp’s Jeep Liberty, a small piece of the puzzle, a very small piece, leaped into focus. The little blue SUV was parked in one of the diagonal slots at Posadas State Bank, just a few steps from the automatic teller machine, the only operation of the bank that remained open on Christmas Day. The ATM was inside a small glassed-in foyer, available for foot traffic only.

  If Janet had been headed for the ATM, she would have pulled in, parked, and walked across the small parking lot to the foyer. The Jeep was parked precisely as one might expect if that had happened.

  Estelle’s heart raced at the possibilities. She knew that ATM transactions were routinely videotaped, and if they were lucky, the small camera in the foyer might actually be working.

  Deputy Tom Pasquale stood beside his unit, leaning against the front fender, arms crossed over his chest. He watched Estelle drive in and stop, but he didn’t approach, giving her time to look at the scene without interference. Estelle remained in her car for a moment. She pictured the Jeep pulling into the lot, pictured Janet choosing a parking spot that provided easy access to the ATM, and then easy out. She would have reached across to the passenger seat for her purse, or perhaps unzipped a fanny pack to find her ATM card.

  If robbery was the motive, the killer—if he had half a brain—would have waited until Janet had visited the ATM, and approached her as she returned to the car wi
th ready cash. Had he—or she—been parked toward the rear of the bank’s lot, waiting for a likely candidate?

  Another possibility lay in Pershing Park, just across the street, perhaps a hundred steps from where Janet had parked. It would have taken just seconds to cross the street and the parking lot, stealthily on athletic shoes. Janet might not have heard a thing.

  Estelle twisted in her seat and surveyed the park. The old tank, moldering on its concrete pedestal, the wheat-colored grass, the small gazebo, the dozen elms that all depended on village water—the place was far from being a garden spot. But it did provide a choice of cover.

  A second question nagged Estelle. An obvious possibility was that Janet had been assaulted for her money. The opposite possibility was that someone had assaulted Janet Tripp because of who she was.

  She turned back to the Jeep. Whatever the circumstances, it was easy to imagine the bullet’s path into Janet Tripp’s skull from the left quadrant, and then the projectile’s path slightly upward through her brain. And the attack was as cold-blooded as any underworld execution. The victim may have heard a small click or two and then... nothing.

  Estelle pulled her car into gear and backed up, swinging it around to block the entry driveway to the bank’s parking lot. She shut it off and stepped out. As she did so, Pasquale pushed himself away from his backrest. Despite his best efforts, a grin spread across his broad face. During his short career with the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, he had suffered plenty of uncomfortable, sometimes embarrassing, stumbles and blunders. Doing something right was always refreshing—for both him and his colleagues.

  “I didn’t touch anything,” the young man said as Estelle approached. “I knew it was Janet’s SUV the minute I saw it, but I ran the plate just to be sure.”

  “Good work.” She took a few steps toward the SUV and stopped. “What’s the chime?”

  Pasquale looked puzzled. “The what?”

  “I hear bells, like someone left on their lights, or the key in the ignition, or the door ajar.”

  “Oh. I don’t hear it. Maybe they did. You want me to check?”

  “No,” she said quickly as he started to turn toward the victim’s car. She approached slowly and stopped a dozen yards from the Liberty’s back bumper, turning to regard the bank. Situated on Pershing Avenue just a stone’s throw from Bustos, the main east-west drag through the village, the bank was anything but secluded. The ATM foyer, no more than ten feet square, was on the east end, nothing more than a porch enclosed with tinted glass, one exterior door, and no interior entrance to the bank proper.

  Estelle looked back toward the street. Since she had pulled into the parking lot, not a single car had passed on either Bustos or Pershing. No one was in the park. The village was as quiet as only early Christmas evening could be—people full of too much food, lots of football on television, and plenty of gifts whose newness had yet to wear off. Company wasn’t heading home yet.

  Deputy Tom Pasquale waited quietly, in itself something of an accomplishment. “Tomás, Tomás, Tomás,” Estelle said, and smiled at him even as she saw the look of uncertainty cross his face. “You didn’t look inside the car?”

  “I did not approach the vehicle,” Pasquale replied formally, as if he were reading from one of his academy texts, shaking his head for emphasis.

  She nodded with satisfaction. “I think we need to call Sergeant Mears, Tomás.” She took a step toward the SUV. “And...who do we have left?”

  “Ah...”

  “Exactly,” Estelle said. She ran down the mental list. The sheriff was flat on his back in Albuquerque. Captain Mitchell was somewhere between Lordsburg and Posadas, hopefully with Mike Sisneros in tow. Jackie Taber was guarding one crime scene, and she and Pasquale were at another. “We need to call Tony back in. And Dennis is supposed to work graveyard tonight, right? Assuming he gets back from Phoenix in time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, he can start work early if he does. We’re going to need all the crew we can scrounge up, Tomás.” She started toward the SUV. “Oh...and Linda. She’s at the morgue right now. But the minute she’s finished up there, we’re going to want her over here.” Pasquale nodded and turned to his unit to make the calls. “And I want this entire parking lot cordoned off. When the others get here, they can park out on the street.”

  The Jeep’s front door was closed, but not fully latched. Estelle approached one step at a time, watching her footing on the clean asphalt. The insistent bong, bong, bong came from inside the vehicle, but she ignored it. It would continue until either the door was shut, the key was taken from the ignition, or the battery went dead.

  Even though the sodium vapor lights around the parking lot were bright and harsh, she used her flashlight as well. Five feet from the driver’s door, she saw the first dime-sized blotch of brown crust on the black tar, and breathed another fervent prayer of thanks that Tom Pasquale hadn’t just clumped over to the SUV, obliterating evidence as he went.

  She laid her flashlight on the pavement beside the blood droplet and walked back the way she had come. Tom was standing by his Expedition, talking on the phone with dispatcher Ernie Wheeler, and when he glanced at Estelle, she gave him a thumbs-up. From her own car she retrieved her large field case and returned. Careful that there was nothing else to disturb, she traced a bold circle of white chalk around the blood droplet. Between that spot and the Jeep, she circled four more splotches of blood, one as large as a silver dollar.

  “What can I do?” Pasquale asked. “Everyone is on the way except Collins. Ernie’s still trying to get ahold of him.”

  Estelle remained kneeling, sorting through her options. “We need to call the State Police again and fill them in, Tomás. They were alerted that we had a homicide, but now that we’ve got Janet’s car, they don’t want to waste time looking for that. That’s one thing off the list. And we might need their mobile CSI unit. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Be nice if we knew what we should be looking for,” Pasquale said.

  “Yes, it would.” She turned, looking back along the trail of bloodstains. “See the first circle of chalk?” Pasquale nodded. “We have a line of blood droplets leading from the Jeep. I’m assuming from, anyway, at this point. Okay?” Pasquale nodded again. “I need to know where that line of blood ends, Tomás.” She reached out her arm, pointing in line with the ragged trail of five white circles.

  “You think she was shot in the car and then carried out?”

  “I don’t know what to think yet. That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  She rose, moving closer to the SUV. The driver’s window was rolled up. Estelle looked at the door critically. It was almost latched, caught on the last notch before chunking completely closed. The bell continued its gentle reminder. Nothing marred the new vehicle’s paint job, a light blue against which blood smears would have contrasted like neon.

  Using her flashlight to eliminate shadows and hiding spots, Estelle worked her way around the outside of the Jeep and found nothing...no marks, no dings, no dents, no bullet holes. The hood was cold to the touch, as was the tailpipe.

  The killer hadn’t fired through the window glass. Had he done so, it was likely that he would have had to shoot more than once. The heavy safety glass could easily deflect a .22 slug. That meant that either the window was open, or the door was. Had Janet Tripp just returned to the Jeep from the ATM, it was entirely possible that the door might be open while she fumbled with purse, keys, and seatbelt.

  Without touching the door, Estelle played the flashlight around the interior, aided by the dome light. A purse lay on the passenger’s seat, the top of the southwestern beaded fabric unzipped. A wallet lay on the floor in front of the seat. She saw that the Jeep had electric windows. The key was in the ignition, turned to the off position.

  “Okay,” Estelle whispered. This assailan
t hadn’t just reached in and grabbed Janet’s wallet from her hands...or rapped her on the head, or struggled with her in any way. From all appearances, he had padded up behind her while she sat in the car and popped her once through the brain, willing to risk a murder charge for a few bucks. The hair on the back of Estelle’s neck rose.

  “Tape’s up,” Pasquale said, and Estelle startled. “Sorry,” the deputy said. “Lieutenant Adams said to let you know that he’s alerted his guys. He said that if you need his CSI team, just let State Police dispatch know. And I found one more blood droplet, about four feet from the last one you marked. That’s all, though.”

  “Good. Look, tell me something,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Why would he shoot her here, and then bother to move the body?”

  Pasquale’s eyebrows furrowed quizzically. “Lots of reasons.”

  “If the killer was just after the money that Janet removed from the ATM, then why not just take it and be off? As quiet as it is tonight, who’s to notice her car, or even if they do, wonder enough to look inside? She’d slump over and be invisible to a casual passerby.”

  “Well, we’d notice,” Pasquale said. “There’s no reason to park here at the bank. We’d kind of wonder when we went by on routine patrol and saw the vehicle, wouldn’t we?”

  “I hope that we would. Then, we’d call in the license and find out that the car belonged to Janet Tripp. And then, knowing that she’s Mike’s girlfriend, we’d shrug and let it go.”

  “I think that’s just about exactly what I would do—if we hadn’t found her body in the arroyo earlier.”

  “Exactly. You wouldn’t look inside?”

  “Well, I might.” He nodded. “Sure...I guess I probably would, with the car parked at a bank.”

  “And if she’s not in it...”

  “I’d do what you said.”

  “Even if you saw her purse and what appears to be her riffled wallet lying on the seat and floor?”

  Pasquale craned his neck to see past Estelle to the interior of the Jeep. “Well, sure. I’d wonder about that.”