Blood Sweep

by Steven F Havill

  He cleared his throat. “Since yesterday afternoon. I think you better just tip me into a hole and bury me. Of all the goddamn times for the bowels to work…”

  Matty murmured in deep sympathy, and half-turned toward her partner, Doyle Maestas. “IV, board, the whole thing. And we gotta get this out of here.” She rapped a knuckle against the slab side of the SUV.

  “The keys are in it,” Gastner said. “But I think my right foot…is under the front tire.”

  “Oh, now don’t worry about that. We’ll just back out right over it.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  Matty stood up and turned to Estelle. “Hop in there and back this boat straight out. I’ll make sure we don’t squish any vital parts. We need room to work.”

  Estelle hustled to her own vehicle, started it, and spun it out of the way.

  Returning to the garage, she slipped through on the passenger side and maneuvered over the center console to the driver’s seat. Only months old, Gastner’s SUV still offered the showroom smell, making for an interesting potpourri. It started instantly with a heavy-engined rumble.

  “Okay, now I have to move this foot just a little bit,” she heard Matty Finnegan say. “Slowly now, just an inch or two. Let me do all the work.” Gastner sucked in a sharp breath and muttered an oath. “Okay, Sheriff. Straight back, nice and smooth.”

  Foot hard on the brake, Estelle pulled the gear selector into reverse. The truck twitched.

  “Slooooowly,” Matty said. “We don’t have any extra room down here.”

  Estelle eased off some brake pressure and the SUV glided back on the smooth concrete.

  “Let’s get that elbow tucked in just an inch or two,” Matty said. In another moment, the Dodge was clear, wheels on the gravel of the driveway. Making sure she had left room for the EMTs and their gurney, Estelle switched off the SUV.

  Back in the garage, she could see that Gastner was lying on his right side, crammed against several boxes, the remains of a power mower, and his collection of empty paint cans. Moving him out on the floor so that he could lie flat was going to be agonizing.

  “We want an IV right now,” Matty said. “What time yesterday did you fall?”

  Gastner closed his eyes. “Since just after four.”

  “p.m.?”

  “Of course p.m.”

  “’Cause you’re never up and about after dark, right?” Matty quipped. She bent down and looked him in the eye, a hand lightly on his forehead. “So you’ve been sacked out here for something like eighteen hours, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  He kept his eyes closed as she went through the string of vital checks. “We’re going to give you a sedative to take off the edge,” Matty said, “and no, it’s not morphine. But it’s pretty good stuff anyway. But then we’ll get you hydrated up.” As she prepped the IV, she studied Gastner’s face. “Are you still on the heart meds?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Don’t be so grumpy. That’s a yes?”

  “Yes.” He took a long, slow breath, as if marshalling his energy. “The three bottles are in by the bathroom sink. Estelle knows where they are. And, no. I’m not too good at remembering to take ’em.”

  Matty cranked her head around so she could look up at Estelle. “Would you? They’ll want them at the hospital.”

  “You bet.” And sure enough, the bottles of blood thinner, anticholesterol, and statin meds were lined up in the bathroom, along with half a dozen others. Beside those was an unmarked and unfilled plastic seven-day meds organizer. She swept the entire collection into a large zip bag.

  As she returned to the garage, Estelle heard Matty chide, “You know, I always expected to find you diving headfirst off some boulder, a thousand miles out in the boonies.”

  “Me too,” Gastner whispered. “Good way to go.”

  “But that’s the way these hips happen,” Matty added cheerfully. “My mom broke hers when she turned to pick up a dish towel. Tripped over her own feet.” She held the IV bag out to Estelle. “You hold that while we work him onto the back-board?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my back,” Gastner groused.

  She knelt beside him and touched his cheek. “This isn’t going to be any fun, but we gotta do it, okay?”

  “Have at it.” His speech was already slurred a little from the sedative.

  With Estelle holding the IV with one hand and preventing an avalanche of garage junk with the other, Matty at his legs and Doyle Maestas at his shoulders, they worked Gastner away from his bed in the boxes. By the time he lay flat on the back-board, a sheen of sweat soaked his forehead. He kept his eyes tightly closed. Matty checked his vitals again, and then glanced up to see a Sheriff’s Department unit slide to a stop on Guadalupe.

  “Oh, look at this,” she said. “We’ve got the cavalry. You’re such a lucky guy.” Deputy Brent Sutherland got out of the car and walked quickly to the garage.

  “Hip,” Matty said succinctly to him. “And you couldn’t have timed it better.”

  She glanced at the deputy. “You’re the guy with all the muscles, so you take the head end. Doyle at the other, and fly-weight me hovering.” She looked at Estelle. “And you’re set with the IV. Let’s do it.”

  “How about lunch first?” Gastner whispered.

  “You’ll get lunch, all right,” the EMT said. “A nice bag of potions at the hospital. And maybe if you really behave yourself, some morphine-diluted applesauce.”

  “You’re a cruel woman,” the old man whispered.

  Despite Gastner’s two hundred twenty pounds, the trio managed the lift as if they were using hydraulic assist, and then with a web of straps to hold the boarded patient secure to the gurney, wheeled him out to the ambulance. Matty took the IV from Estelle and affixed it to its stainless tree. “You’re going to follow us in?”

  “You bet. I’ll secure the place and be right behind you.”

  She stepped back and watched as they buttoned up the ambulance.

  “Anything you want me to do?” Deputy Sutherland said. Estelle turned to him and shook her head.

  “Thanks, Brent. Any surprises in court?”

  “No problemo. The sheriff has something going on out at Waddell’s, though. Pasquale is headed out that way.”

  If only it was no problemo here, Estelle thought, unable to imagine how long those eighteen hours must have seemed for Padrino, trapped on that chilly concrete floor. She snugged the SUV back inside, then methodically closed up Bill Gastner’s house and garage. She dropped his key ring in the center console of her car, and sat back. She slumped as the urgency released. She needed to call Camille, but she would do that from the hospital, when she knew the full scope of the patient’s condition.

  Instead, she called Posadas State Bank. Dennis Mears had stepped out, Rosie told her, but she knew that the bank president was planning on meeting with Estelle in just a few minutes. “And if it’s really, really important, I’m sure that Mr. Mears can find you,” Rosie said.

  “I’ll be at the hospital, if you would ask him to stop by there,” Estelle said.

  Rosie sucked in a breath. “Oh, dear. I hope nothing…”

  “Me too,” Estelle said, and let it go at that.

  Chapter Four

  The field-dressed antelope carcass weighed no more than sixty pounds. Torrez carried it over his left shoulder, the damaged rifle in his right hand, and by the time he reached his truck, the sun had burned through the overcast, with the temperature hovering in the low nineties. The large cooler in the back, protected by an old, musty tarpaulin, had been untouched. With deft dismembering and wrapping, he managed to stow the entire carcass. He rearranged the bags of ice to cover the game, and made sure the lid was firmly latched before jerking the tarp back in place. He took a deep breath, regarding the truck.

  “Shit,” he said aloud. The hood sure enough was open. Instead of rounding to the front of the truck, he backed up, retracing his steps until he was twenty paces away. The gravelly dirt o
n the side of the road bore a number of vague prints, but with some imagination, they told the story. They’d be laughed out of court as evidence, Torrez knew. He guessed that someone had pulled in around his truck, parking ahead of it. The single set of boot prints, deep in the heel and smooth-soled, headed directly to the driver’s door. One of them was clear enough that a casting might be possible.

  The driver’s door hadn’t been locked, so it would have been easy to open it and pull the little hood latch handle—it was one of the few accoutrements of the truck that still worked as it should. The tracks then retraced the route to the front of the truck. From five yards away, Torrez could see that the man had stood in front of the old truck, perhaps fumbled for the release, and jerked the hood open, fighting against the bent metal and the dry hinges. To what end?

  Careful to avoid scuffing existing tracks, Torrez slipped his fingers under the edges of the hood and lifted. The hinges squawked. For a few seconds, he saw nothing amiss. “Huh.” He bent his head to one side. Sure enough, the high tension wire from distributor to coil, both tucked at the rear of the engine under the air cleaner housing, was missing. “Ain’t that clever,” he said. It was a simple, surefire technique. He dug out his phone.

  “Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, Wheeler.”

  Torrez’s handheld police radio was in the glove box, but he was loath to blab over the air.

  “Pasquale made contact yet?”

  “That’s affirmative, Sheriff. Sutherland is headed that way, too, now. It’s a white Ford, 2013 model, Arizona license November…”

  “I don’t need that. Look, I ain’t got wheels. Someone needed my coil wire more’n me.” He turned and gazed down the road at an approaching contractor’s rig—headache rack, side rail tool boxes, mini-crane swung tight in the back. “I need Guzman and her camera out here asap. That’s one thing.”

  “Ah, sir…”

  “And then have somebody swing by the Dick’s Auto Parts and pick me up a coil wire for a ’68 Chevy half ton, 350 box engine and bring it the hell out here. We got a good set of tracks out here, so before Pasquale lets that truck go, we need to take a look at its tire prints.”

  “Sir, the undersheriff is going to be tied up for a while. It looks like Bill Gastner managed somehow to fall in his garage. Broken hip, for one thing. I don’t know just what the deal there is going to be. They’re transporting now.”

  Bob Torrez pushed his cap back and frowned. “Okay. Look, get both Taber and Linda on the road, then. I’m going to need photos, and I sure as hell ain’t going to do it with this Mickey Mouse phone camera. And tell Pasquale to handle that end. How many in the truck?”

  “One, sir. Arizona registration on the truck, a Dominic Olveda, current Arizona license, negative twenty-eight.”

  “New-issue license?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have Pasquale hold him until I get there.”

  “You want him arrested?”

  “Not yet. Just make sure Tom holds him until I get there.”

  “Hope he’s not just a tourist.”

  “Then we’ll all apologize.”

  Torrez switched off, then immediately hit the speed dial to reach his undersheriff.

  “What’s up with Bill?” he said without salutation as soon as the call connected. There was a pause as Estelle Reyes-Guzman took time to make the mental switch.

  “Hip,” she replied. “Somehow he got his feet tangled and fell in his garage. He got stuck on the floor beside his truck…he was there since yesterday afternoon, Bobby. Like eighteen hours or more.”

  “Well, that ain’t good.”

  “No. He’s lucky it was August and not January.”

  “You got everything you need?”

  “I think so. This is going to be one of those wait and see things. I’m sure they’ll transport, but I don’t know yet whether Cruces or Albuquerque. Can you take my meeting with Leona this afternoon at three?” She asked the question more than half in jest, already knowing the sheriff’s answer.

  “County manager will just have to wait,” he said with surprisingly even temper. “Look, I’m going to be occupied out here for a little bit. Taber will handle the meeting if you’re not free by then.” He caught himself. “Scratch that. She’ll be busy out here. Wake up Mears. He can do it.”

  “We’ll see,” Estelle replied. “What do you have going?”

  “I had a good shot at a buck, and then someone took a long-range rifle shot at me just after I fired. Missed me, but wrecked my rifle scope. And then I find out that he stole the coil wire off my truck to give himself a little extra time. Pasquale might have him stopped down on 56 right now. Sutherland’s on his way down, too, and I got Taber and Linda comin’ out here. Lots of tracks, maybe prints. We’ll see. We’re going to need pictures.”

  “Is this likely somebody you had talked to before?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t see him parked down on the road, or hear him before the shot. Just one round. I was kinda startled and fell backward, so maybe he thinks he got me.”

  “Kinda startled,” Estelle repeated dryly. “I would think so. Okay. Let me know. I can break from here if I have to, but this doesn’t look good for Padrino. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Yep. Catch you later.”

  Phone pocketed, he walked over to the juniper and found a spot in the shade. The contractor, driving slowly with his windows open, drifted his rig to a stop beside Torrez’s truck, then pulled past it when he saw Torrez.

  “Need some help, Sheriff?” Carl Bendix peered back at the pickup’s partially raised hood. “Miles told me you might be out here huntin’ today. Any luck?”

  Torrez shrugged. “Runty buck is all. I’m just waitin’ on some folks now. How’s your project comin’?”

  Bendix, rotund with a shaved head under his blue cap, shifted in the seat uncomfortably as Torrez finally rose and approached. “You know,” he said, “We’re going to be out on this goddamn mesa project for years.”

  “That’s a good thing, ain’t it?”

  The contractor shrugged in resignation. “Damn hot place to work, if you ask me. Could fry an egg on them rocks when the sun comes out.” He nodded at Torrez’s truck. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Coil cable.”

  “Give you mine, but it’s a Ford. Then I could sit in the shade all day.” Bendix laughed.

  Torrez slapped the truck’s window sill in dismissal. “That’s okay. I got one comin’. You take it easy.”

  “You betcha.”

  Taking a wide circle around his truck as the contractor pulled away, Torrez opened the passenger side door. The door hinges groaned, and not for the first time, Torrez reflected that it would be convenient if the door locks actually worked. Nothing in the glove box had been disturbed. The twelve-gauge shotgun in the rear window rack was still latched in place. The full gas can in back was bungeed tightly in front of the fender well. The rest was junk, not worth the taking.

  “Just to give yourself a little time,” the sheriff muttered.

  Chapter Five

  “He’s comfortable, and will have surgery first thing in the morning, Camille. Up in Albuquerque as soon as we can arrange a transport.” Estelle’s delivery of the news prompted a loud sigh. Gastner’s eldest daughter had married an oral surgeon, and would understand that euphemistic word “comfortable” perfectly well when she saw for herself the X-ray and the illuminated jumble of bone fragments. Unless Padrino was slumbering under anesthesia, he wasn’t comfortable.

  “He just fell in the garage?”

  “That’s how it appears,” Estelle said. “The most dangerous thing is that he spent eighteen hours there, on the concrete floor, wedged between a pile of old boxes and the truck. He couldn’t move himself, so there he was.”

  “Why are they waiting until morning for the surgery, then?”

  “To make sure he’s stabilized before anesthesia, I suppose. And he has a little cough. I think they want to make sure he isn�
��t working on pneumonia or something like that. And his heart issues, you know.”

  “Oh, my. A really bad break, then? Although I guess all broken hips are bad, huh.”

  “Yes. That’s why the choice of UNMH. My husband’s favorite orthopedic surgeon is there.”

  “What’s that, six hours by ambulance?”

  “They’ll fly him up. Maybe an hour.”

  “Well, at least that’s good news.” Camille fell silent for a moment. “He wasn’t wearing his alert call-button, was he?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And the cell phone…”

  “Was in the kitchen. And he couldn’t reach the sheriff’s radio in his truck. He was stuck.”

  “What are we going to do with this old guy, Estelle?” Her tone had softened, her vexation draining away.

  “Just the best we can.”

  “I want to come out for a little while, at least. He’s going to need somebody underfoot.”

  “He’ll enjoy seeing you,” Estelle was not sure if that was the truth. She knew that Gastner was sometimes as much irritated by his eldest daughter as charmed. “Whatever time you can spare would be good.”

  “Well, there’s a whole bunch of things we’re going to have to decide, I suppose. Rehab, things like that. The recovery time for a new hip isn’t just a day or two, after all. Not for somebody his age. He’ll need help even with a walker for a long time.”

  “We’ll just see,” Estelle said. “He’s sedated now, but he’s been lucid. He’ll have time to think about all this. Time to make up his mind.”

  “You have power of attorney?”

  “Yes, I do. He made sure it was active when he had his kidney stone last year. He said he wanted to leave the POA in place. Just in case.”

  “That’s a relief then. Are you going to Albuquerque with him?”

  “I think I’ll be able to, if things stay quiet here. I could fly up with him and figure out the ride home when the time comes.”

  Estelle turned as a couple of chatting nurses walked past the waiting room, and to her surprise saw Dennis Mears sitting across the room in one of the yellow plastic chairs, forearms on his knees, hands clasped together, steady blue eyes regarding her with a mixture of patience and sympathy.