A Discount for Death

Chapter Twelve

In another hour, Estelle was convinced that George Enriquez’s office was not going to offer any easy answers. Photographed, scrutinized, measured, and probed, the insurance agent’s body was finally released to the EMTs. Dr. Alan Perrone nodded curtly as the gurney was wheeled out the door.

“I’ll let you know,” the medical examiner said. “There are some interesting questions here.” He glanced back at the gore-draped chair, empty behind the spattered desk, as if he’d forgotten something. For a moment he watched as Linda Real maneuvered for a close-up series of the blood and gore spatters across the top of the chair, then turned to watch preparations for the excavation of the bullet lodged in the wall. “Let me know about that, too,” he said. He nodded once again at Estelle and left, black bag in hand.

Working meticulously under the watchful eye of Linda Real’s videotape camera, Sheriff Robert Torrez and Chief Eddie Mitchell spent twenty minutes extracting the mushroomed revolver slug, first carving an impressive hole in the plaster and Sheetrock to give them room to work.

“If we’re lucky, we won’t end up out in the alley,” Mitchell muttered as he nudged the chards of Sheetrock into a neat pile near the baseboard.

“Nah,” Torrez said. “It’s right here.” The victim’s skull had slowed the bullet sufficiently that the wall stud and a section of electrical wiring had finished the job. With the tip of his heavy pocket knife’s blade, Torrez worked around the wiring, removing splinters of the wall stud until the deformed bullet could be nudged gently from its resting place without further damaging the soft lead. As Torrez dropped the slug into an evidence bag, he mouthed something that Estelle couldn’t hear.

The undersheriff raised an eyebrow. “No surprises?”

“I don’t think so,” Torrez replied. “Half-jacketed lead bullet…same general kind that’s loaded in factory ammo.” He held the bag up to the light. “And it’s forty-one.”

“Old micrometer eyes,” Mitchell said dryly, but he didn’t challenge Torrez’s assessment.

“That’s not the most common cartridge in the world,” Estelle said.

“Far from it,” the sheriff said. “This one’s clean enough that we can do a comparison inmediamente.” He slipped the evidence bag into his briefcase and paused for a moment, regarding the bagged and labeled weapon. “We want to know whose forty-one that is,” he said. “Connie might know something about it. At least that’s a place to start. I’ll get Mears on the weapon right away. We’ll see what he comes up with.”

Estelle caught motion in the corner of her eye and turned to see Daniel Schroeder standing in the office doorway. He regarded the chair and desk, his nose wrinkling from the mingled smells. “Wonderful,” the district attorney muttered. “What a goddamn stupid thing to do.” He looked at Estelle. “Frank Dayan is waiting outside when you get a chance, by the way.”

“He’ll be happy that this is a Tuesday,” Chief Mitchell said.

“Hold the presses,” Linda quipped.

“He needs to talk with the sheriff,” Estelle said, knowing full well what Bob Torrez’s reaction would be.

“No, he doesn’t,” Torrez said promptly. “He asked for you ’cause he knows better.”

As Estelle made her way around the desk and toward the door, the district attorney reached out a hand to touch her on the elbow. “I need to talk with you for a few minutes before you take off.” He smiled. “Go ahead and talk to Frank while these guys bring me up to speed on what happened here. I’ll catch up outside.”

The newspaper publisher was leaning against the fender of Dennis Collins’ patrol unit, his hip pushing against the yellow tape. A black Posadas State Bank baseball cap was pulled low to keep the sun out of his eyes. An impressive digital camera hung from his left shoulder, a constant companion whether he was roaming about town selling advertising, attending a Rotary Club meeting, or as now, doing the leg work that his plump, lethargic editor should have been doing.

Estelle knew that the camera amused Linda Real. Now if only Frank would learn how to use it, she was apt to say. Since Linda had left the newspaper four years before, the photos in the Posadas Register tended toward fuzzy on the best of days, and the switch to digital cameras hadn’t helped. But, as Dayan himself had once happily observed, “Our photos may be bad, but at least there are a lot of them.”

“Hello, Frank,” Estelle said. Deputy Collins pushed himself away from his comfortable spot against the wall and touched his Stetson just a shade lower toward the bridge of his nose. Across the street, several “lookie-louies” had gathered, hoping for a glimpse of the corpse.

“Estelle, what in heck is going on?” Dayan stepped away from the deputy’s car and extended his hand. He pumped Estelle’s with a quick, excited shake, then jerked his head toward Deputy Collins. “This one here is just as tight-lipped as the big guy.” Being compared with Sheriff Torrez put another steel support in the young deputy’s spine.

“We have an unattended death, Frank. That’s all I can tell you.”

The newspaper publisher glanced up at the hanging sign over his head as if the name on it might have somehow changed since he last looked. “George?”

Estelle nodded.

“My God. What, this morning sometime?”

“We don’t know.”

“Grand jury was supposed to convene this morning, wasn’t it?”

Estelle let a nod suffice.

“He had a heart attack, or what? Is this related to the jury thing, do you think?”

Estelle hesitated just long enough for the newspaper publisher to notice. “This is one of those times when ‘investigation is continuing’ works pretty well, Frank.”

“Oh, please,” Dayan protested with a roll of his eyes. “Now you sound like Bill Gastner.”

“Cheer up. It’s only Tuesday.” He looked pained, but the expression on Estelle’s dark, sober face held no hint of sarcasm. The undersheriff knew that the Register ’s inexorable decline from a prospering daily during the heyday of the copper mines to a biweekly and then finally to a single edition on Thursday was a sore point with Dayan. He answered to out-of-state owners who had been trying to sell the newspaper since the previous spring.

“You gotta give me a little more than that. Give me something to work with.”

“How about everything I know at the moment,” Estelle said.

“I’ll settle for that.”

“It appears that George, spelled the usual way, Enriquez, spelled with a ‘z,’ sustained a single gunshot wound to the head.” She stopped and regarded Dayan patiently.

“That’s it? You mean he shot himself?”

“He sustained a single gunshot wound to the head.”

“Come on. Was it suicide, or what?”

“We don’t know.”

“And you said ‘sustained,’ ” Dayan added. “Is the gunshot what killed him?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Did he pull the trigger?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“They’re going to put that on your tombstone,” Dayan said, and Deputy Collins laughed. “Was the weapon his?” Dayan persisted, then saw the hint of a smile cross Estelle’s face. He held up a hand to fend off the inevitable. “All right. You don’t need to say it.”

Daniel Schroeder appeared at Estelle’s elbow. “Got a few minutes?”

“Yes, sir,” she said and smiled sympathetically at Frank Dayan. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ll have more for you later in the day.”

“I’ll give you a call this evening,” Dayan countered quickly. “Or maybe first thing in the morning.” He switched his attention to the district attorney. “Today was the first day of grand jury, was it not?” he asked.

“Sure enough, Frank,” Schroeder replied.

“Those proceedings will be interrupted now?”

“Uh, yes,” Schroeder said, frowning as if to add and that’s a really stupid question.

Dayan nodded and turned back to Estelle. “I understand that no charges have been filed yet against Perry Kenderman, by the way. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Are they going to be?” He looked at Schroeder, but the district attorney was content to let Estelle field the question.

“I’ll let you know, Frank. Give us a chance to sort things out.”

“Does that mean they might be? Dan, is your office considering filing charges? I talked with Maggie Archer this morning, and she said that Kenderman’s patrol car was right on top of the bike, practically. No lights, no siren, no nothing.”

Dan Schroeder smiled pleasantly. “Before you run with that, Frank, remember what screwy versions of events we sometimes have to work with when we talk to witnesses.”

“Mrs. Archer is wrong?” Dayan asked, and Estelle saw a flash of irritation on the district attorney’s face.

“We’d appreciate it if you’d wait a bit until we get things straightened out,” he said.

“You go to press tomorrow afternoon, right?” Estelle asked, and Dayan nodded. “I’ll keep you posted,” she added.

“That’s a deal. Can I go inside, or…”

“No, sir, you can’t. But if you wait here, you’ll catch the sheriff when he comes out.”

“Oh, that’s a help,” Dayan said.

Dan Schroeder fell in step with Estelle as she walked back toward her car. When they were well beyond Frank Dayan’s earshot, the district attorney said quietly, “I’m going to file against Kenderman, by the way.”

“I guess I’m not surprised,” Estelle said. She reached the car and paused with her hand on the door. Schroeder’s late-model SUV was parked directly in front of hers.

“I talked with both Bobby and the chief last night, and they haven’t changed their minds this morning. I’d be interested in your thoughts,” he said.

Estelle regarded the juncture of car door and roof, running her finger along the seam. “We have no way of ever knowing if Colette Parker would have crashed at that corner if Kenderman hadn’t been in pursuit,” she said finally.

“That’s not the issue,” Schroeder said. “He was in pursuit. That’s an established fact. And with no lights, no siren-hell, it was just a drag race. You heard the whole sorry episode.”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“I can’t think of a better definition of reckless endangerment,” Schroeder said.

Estelle’s gaze drifted off to the car dealer’s parking lot next door. The bright sea of metal and plastic and the gaggle of curious faces didn’t register. Instead, she saw Colette Parker’s small, delicate face framed by the scarred motorcycle helmet. “Charges of reckless endangerment and vehicular homicide would be appropriate,” she said finally.

Schroeder nodded with satisfaction. “In a way, I feel sorry for the guy,” he said. “I don’t know what he thought he’d accomplish, but whatever it was, it sure went to shit.”

“I feel a little uneasy about his state of mind right now,” Estelle said.

“That’s interesting.” Schroeder’s eyes narrowed. “Because he’s not in custody yet, is he.”

“No, sir.”

“You have plenty to hold him on, you know,” Schroeder said. “You don’t have to wait for me.”

“I understand that, sir. We’re a little bit tied up just now. He’s not going anywhere.” She glanced again toward the car dealer’s lot. Each of those faces represented a pending interview in the search to find someone who had heard or seen something related to Enriquez’s death.

“I can understand you giving him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. But there’s not much doubt anymore, is there.”

“No, sir.”

“You said you felt ‘uneasy’ about him. You saw him this morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s got to know that charges are pending. He’s no rocket scientist, but the formula here is pretty simple. Don’t let it go too long before you guys move on it.”

“I’m sure he knows. He’s a cop, after all.”

Schroeder coughed. “Was a cop.”

“He’s worried about the two kids. Colette’s two.”

“Now, he’s worried. That’s nice. Would that that concern had surfaced before he decided to run their mother off the road.” Estelle remained silent, and Schroeder sighed and shook his head. “How old are they?”

“The little girl is two. The boy is four. I think Perry may be the boy’s father.”

“Ah,” Schroeder said. “The kids’ father.”

“Just Ryan’s. The boy.”

“Really?” The district attorney’s eyebrows arched. “She got around some, then. Who’s father of the girl? She’s the youngest, right?”

Estelle nodded. “I think the little girl’s father is Perry’s younger brother, Rick.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, sir. He lives down in Las Cruces.”

“What a mess,” Schroeder said, and this time, some sympathy crept into his tone.

“Yes, sir. The grandmother is taking care of the two kids for a while.”

“No marriage licenses in all this, though?”

“No, sir.”

“Our lives should be so simple,” Schroeder said.

“I can’t argue that, sir,” Estelle said. “You’re filing this morning?”

“Unless you can convince me otherwise.” He looked hard at Estelle. “I wanted to give you folks some time to clean up this mess first. But don’t wait too long. Perry doesn’t need to have a long leash.”

Estelle smiled wryly. Evidently Bobby Torrez hadn’t shared his concerns about Enriquez’s death with the district attorney. “Thanks, sir.”

“I’ll ask Judge Hobart to schedule a preliminary hearing for this afternoon. You’ll certainly have Perry in custody by then, right? I don’t see any point in dragging our feet.”

“No, sir. We’re keeping an eye on him,” Estelle said. “I don’t know what’s going on between him and his brother. All we know is that Rick isn’t in town.”

“Then let’s hope it stays that way,” Schroeder said.