A Discount for Death

Chapter Thirty-four

The county car nosed down against the hard pull of its brakes, then swung right onto Grande, followed by an almost immediate sweeping turn onto the eastbound entrance ramp of the interstate. If Barbara Parker’s “ten minutes” was accurate, Kenderman would have a substantial lead, even if he wasn’t pressing the speed limit.

“Posadas, three ten.” Estelle waited for dispatcher Ernie Wheeler’s foot to find the transmit remote.

“Three ten, Posadas.”

“I need a BOLO on a 1968 Mustang, color red, license Ida Mary Boy Adam David. Operator is Richard Kenderman. One passenger, a four-year-old male. Ten eighty-five. Make sure the state police out of Deming understand the situation.”

“Ten four.”

A second voice broke in. “Three ten, three oh six.”

“Go ahead, three oh six.”

“Three ten, I’m parked on Alamo Drive, looking across Grande at the parking lot of Portillo’s. The vehicle in question is parked there. The driver is out of the car and inside the store.”

Estelle glanced in the mirror, stabbed the brakes, and dove the car across the rough center median of the interstate. With a howl of tires, the Ford leaped back up onto the pavement and headed back toward Posadas. “Three oh six, can you tell if the little boy is still in the vehicle?”

“Affirmative. I can see the kid. He’s standing on the front seat.”

“Box the car in and take the child into custody. Keep the subject away from him and don’t leave him unattended. ETA one minute.”

“Ten four.”

The unmarked car swept down the exit ramp from the interstate, and Estelle looked far ahead down Grande Avenue. The wide, four-lane street that formed the north-south arterial through Posadas was deserted. A mile ahead, Alamo Street, a tiny alleyway behind the hardware store, provided a diagonal view of the Portillo’s convenience-store parking lot, a popular hangout that was one of Deputy Thomas Pasquale’s favorite hunting grounds.

As she passed the intersection of Grande and McArthur, Estelle saw Pasquale’s unit far in the distance, the glint of streetlights off its broad, white roof as he eased across Grande and into Portillo’s parking lot.

“Posadas, three oh six is ten six Portillo’s.”

Estelle’s radio barked again, this time the voice of Chief Eddie Mitchell. “Three, ten, P.D. 1 copies. I’m north of the hospital. ETA about a minute.”

“Posadas, three oh six, ten seventy, ten twenty-six.” Deputy Pasquale’s voice was calm despite the code for crime in progress and the request that responding officers not use lights and siren. Estelle’s pulse leaped. “He’s after more than Twinkies,” Pasquale added.

Estelle leaned forward, trying to will the last half mile away. “Tom, I want the boy out of that car.”

“Ten four. I’ve got him. Kenderman saw me. He’s going out the back of the store.”

Estelle stood on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right, lunging the county car into Rincon Avenue, the narrow lane south of Portillo’s. She had a brief glimpse of Deputy Pasquale bundling little Ryan Parker out of the Mustang. “Don’t leave the boy alone, Tom,” she snapped, and then tossed the mike on the seat.

Traveling too fast when it hit the gravel of the lane between Portillo’s and the Posadas Register building, the unmarked car slid sideways and smacked into the concrete-block wall hard enough to thump Estelle’s head against the driver’s side window. She mashed the accelerator, and the car shot forward toward the intersection of Rincon and the alley behind the buildings.

Richard Kenderman had dodged out of the store’s back door and turned right. He appeared at a full sprint just as Estelle’s car slid into the alley. Unable to stop, he crashed into the front fender of her car. He catapulted across the hood, arms flailing, white T-shirt bright in the glare of headlights.

Estelle jammed the gearshift into Park and threw her weight against the crumpled door. It groaned open enough that she could slide out. With flashlight in one hand and Beretta in the other, she darted to the front fender.

Richard Kenderman had managed to land face first on the broken asphalt of the alley, and he staggered to his feet. Blood ran into his right eye, and when he raised his right hand to wipe the blood away, Estelle saw the gouge in the muscle of his forearm. He backed up awkwardly until he could lean on the concrete-block wall. He turned at the sound of Chief Mitchell’s patrol car as it nosed into the other end of the alley, then looked up the alley in the opposite direction, beyond Estelle.

“Don’t make things worse for yourself, Richard,” Estelle said as she advanced around the mangled fender of her car. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

Kenderman slumped a little lower against the wall, arms against his sides. He blinked hard. “What?” he panted. “You’re going to shoot me, or what?” His eyes flicked to Eddie Mitchell. The chief was using his own squad car for cover, advancing along the wall. Mitchell’s left hand rested on his holstered service automatic.

“Turn around and put your hands on the wall,” Estelle repeated, but even as she said it, she saw the motion of Kenderman’s right hand, a slight curling of the wrist toward the tail of his T-shirt. Kenderman’s body blocked the movement from Mitchell’s view.

As soon as she saw the hand move, Estelle flicked off the Beretta’s safety, and her right index finger curled into the trigger guard. Her wrist locked.

“Don’t,” she barked, but somewhere deep in his mind, Richard Kenderman had made all of his decisions. Drunk as he was and shaken from his fall, he still managed to slide the heavy revolver out of the waistband at the small of his back, out from under his T-shirt. The weapon swept up and out, the threat directed toward Mitchell. As Estelle’s index finger began the long zip of the Beretta’s heavy double-action trigger stroke, the chief’s figure to her right moved in a blur. The Beretta bucked back and Kenderman twisted right as the 9-mm slug smacked into his upper arm three inches below the shoulder, yanking the gun to the side. An instant later, two shatteringly loud explosions came as one, and Kenderman spun back against the wall. The handgun skittered away. Estelle froze, the Beretta’s trigger a twitch from release.

The young man’s hands flexed against the cold blocks as he settled down on his knees, face against the wall. One of the two.45 rounds from Mitchell’s automatic had exited high on his back to the left of his spine. In seconds, bright arterial blood soaked his T-shirt to the waist. One hand drew back as if the wall were hot to the touch at the same time as a long, rattling gurgle escaped his throat. He coughed hard, and as she moved cautiously toward him, Estelle saw bright blood splatter the wall. His body sagged even as Estelle kicked the revolver further out of his reach, and knelt beside him.

His eyes were closed, and he had stopped breathing.

Behind her, she heard the chief order an ambulance. “Come on, hijo,” she whispered. She gently rested two fingers on the side of his neck as she holstered her automatic. His pulse was thready and weak, and then skipped several beats, to pick up again with a surge, miss again, and stop. A deep sigh bubbled up through his blood-choked windpipe.

She heard Mitchell behind her, and off to the left, the back door of Portillo’s was yanked open. “He’s gone,” she said to the chief. She pulled Kenderman’s right shoulder away from the wall to make sure that his hands were empty. She could feel the grating of the shattered upper arm bone. The two rounds from the chief’s weapon had struck an inch apart, two inches below the juncture of sternum and clavicles.

Mitchell knelt down and examined the revolver without touching it.

“You guys all right?” Tom Pasquale was breathing hard, handgun held high.

“It’s over,” Estelle said. She turned to glance up at the deputy. “Where’s the boy?”

“He’s okay,” Pasquale said. His face was pale.

“All right. Don’t leave him alone in your unit, Tomas. And while you’re at it, put the call in for Bobby and Dr. Perrone.”

“And Schroeder,” Mitchell muttered. He stood up, the revolver still lying at his feet. “This kid wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. He had three rounds in the gun, none of ’em under the hammer.”

“That’s not the first mistake Richard Kenderman ever made,” Estelle said. She stood up and reached out a hand to take Pasquale’s sleeve as he turned away. “And you might as well stay here, Tom. I’ll take the boy home.” Pasquale handed her the keys to his unit.

“What was he up to inside?” Mitchell asked.

“The clerk said Kenderman threatened him, took a swing at him, and then reached across the counter and riffled the cash register.”

“Kenderman threatened the clerk with the gun?”

“I don’t know,” Pasquale said. “I haven’t had time to ask.”

Mitchell turned and gazed at Estelle for a moment, then turned and shook his head in disgust. “You didn’t see a weapon when you looked through the front window?” he asked the deputy.

“No, sir.”

“Where the hell did he think he was going to go?”

“He wasn’t thinking at all,” Estelle said.

“Three ten, Posadas. Ten four?”

Estelle’s hand drifted down to the radio on her belt. The sheriff’s department was a handful of blocks east, and if Ernie Wheeler had a window cracked, he probably would have heard the gunshots.

“Posadas, three ten is ten six. Ten sixty-three alley behind Portillo’s. One adult male. Contact Perrone and Sheriff Torrez.” She started to lower the small radio. “And cancel the BOLO.”

The radio fell silent for the count of four, and then Wheeler’s subdued voice replied, “Ten four, three ten.”

Estelle pulled the small cell phone out of her jacket pocket and dialed Barbara Parker’s number as she walked back toward the convenience-store parking lot. If he was very lucky, little Ryan Parker wouldn’t understand what the loud noises had meant as they echoed from the alley behind the convenience store.

The phone rang nearly a dozen times before Barbara Parker answered it, her voice small and tremulous.

“Mrs. Parker, this is Undersheriff Guzman. I have Ryan with me. I’ll be bringing him home in just a few minutes.”

“Oh…” the woman sighed. “Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you so much.” She hesitated. “I hope that Richard understood.”

“No, ma’am, he didn’t understand,” Estelle replied, and broke the connection. In the distance, she heard sirens, one of them from the direction of Sheriff Bobby Torrez’s home on McArthur, another from far to the west, where Sgt. Tom Mears had been working traffic on State Route 78. As she walked across the lot toward the Expedition, she saw that Ryan was standing on the back seat, peering through the side window. With the security screen between front and back seats, the child looked like a small, caged animal.

As Estelle approached, he backed away from the window and sat down on the seat, both hands clasped tightly between his legs. She opened the door.

She extended her hand toward the child. His eyes were wide and frightened. “Come on, Ryan. You don’t want to ride back there.”

He didn’t move, but both hands came up and cupped under his chin, his tiny, thin arms tight against his chest as if warding off a ripping, cold wind. In that moment, Estelle knew that Ryan Parker realized exactly what had happened. She gathered him up off the seat and felt the shaking through his tiny frame.