A Discount for Death

Chapter Seven

Bustos Avenue was a flat, lonely macadam desert. For the second time in six hours, Estelle Reyes-Guzman stood by her unmarked car in front of Kealey’s Kleaners. The gas station across the street was dark. In the distance, she could hear the bass mutter of a tractor-trailer on the interstate. Above her head, the streetlight transformer fizzed and hummed.

She waited, leaning against the open door of her car, cell phone in hand.

“Okay, I’m here,” Deputy Jackie Taber’s soft voice announced. “The Parkers’ house is just across the street.” The deputy was driving Kenderman’s patrol car. Eight blocks and the triangular wedge of Pershing Park separated Taber from the spot where Estelle’s unit was parked in front of Kealey’s-six tenths of a mile on the odometer. More than three thousand feet-ten football fields. Estelle closed her eyes, listening.

Two miles to the south, another tractor-trailer rode its Jake brake down the interstate exit ramp, a deep, guttural flutter of compressed exhaust that carried effortlessly on the still air.

“Wait a second,” Estelle said. She listened until the sound of the truck faded. “Okay. Keep the phone open. The street’s clear.”

“Yep. See you in a bit.”

Estelle slipped the phone into her jacket pocket and turned so that she was facing west, looking down the tunnel of widely spaced streetlights that was Bustos Avenue. She pictured the amber tail-lights of Maggie Archer’s Volvo, ambling away from her down the street. Off to the north, she heard the faint chirp of tires and a muffled, almost strangled, engine note that grew until the deputy backed off for the first corner.

The undersheriff found herself exhaling an imitation of the high, keening alto of the two-stroke motorcycle, pacing the speeding police car. At the same time, she watched Mrs. Archer’s phantom Volvo make its way down the street. For a second, no sound carried at all as Taber flogged the car through the neighborhood most distant from Estelle’s position, but then she heard the car turn south toward the bridge. Suddenly, even as Estelle’s eyes fixed on the intersection six blocks away, the village car appeared, flashing into the intersection nose down as Jackie Taber braked hard, stopping in the middle of Twelfth Street on the south side of Bustos.

Estelle realized that she had been holding her breath. She pulled the phone out of her pocket. “That’s it.”

“Do you want me to put the car back in impound?” Deputy Taber asked. Estelle watched as the village car backed out into Bustos and then drove toward her.

“Yes. I’ll meet you there.”

A few minutes later, after parking the patrol car in the locked bay of the county maintenance barn, Jackie Taber slid into the passenger seat of the undersheriff’s car. A faint wave of lavender accompanied her. A stout young woman, long enough in the military to have adopted a precise, economical habit of movement, she spun the key ring on her index finger.

“So,” she said.

“So. What a mess.”

“Tommy tells me that there are some holes in Perry Kenderman’s story.”

“Caverns is more like it. Kenderman is lying. It’s that simple. Colette Parker was running from him.”

“It could be that,” Jackie said.

“Statistics say it is,” Estelle replied, and the deputy grinned. “Colette’s mother said that Perry stopped by the house earlier and had an argument with Colette.” She held up an index finger. “Just a bit later, he chases her half way across town, drives her so hard that she makes a mistake and breaks her neck against the base of a utility pole. He’s so shook that he can’t bring himself to take a step toward her.” She held up a second finger, then bound the two together with her left hand. “I thought maybe there was a chance that it happened some other way.” She shook her head. “Hearing the patrol car again convinced me. I heard it right.”

“What do you want me to check tonight?”

“Nothing. Colette’s two little kids are with their grandmother. You might keep a close watch on their place. That and Kenderman’s apartment. Chief Mitchell said that he’s going to do the same. We want to make sure Perry stays put until we have time to sort all this out.”

Taber nodded. “You look beat.”

“I am. And irritated. I missed a birthday party for Padrino, for one thing. I have grand jury later this morning, and George Enriquez has gone missing just after he tells the district attorney that he’s got something on me that he’ll trade for immunity.”

Jackie leaned forward toward Estelle in astonishment. “No shit?”

“Verdad, no shit.”

“Mr. Enriquez has an active imagination,” Jackie said. “What’s the ‘gone missing’ part?”

“I don’t know. His wife hasn’t seen him since early Monday morning, when he said that he was going down to his office. I was going to swing by the house and talk to her on my way home.”

“You want some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t swing by. Just go home. Get some rest. There’s nothing you can do about him at three o’clock in the morning. Don’t worry about him now. Nail him later in grand jury.” She unlatched the door and swung herself out of the car. “He’s desperate, Estelle. That’s all.”

“That’s what’s kind of scary, Jackie. He’s not the kind of guy who has a whole lot of practice being desperate. The same thing goes for Perry Kenderman. We’ve got two of a kind, Jackie.”

“At least that’s what we think,” the deputy said. She touched the brim of her Stetson and started to close the door.

“And thanks for the demo,” Estelle said.

“Any time,” Jackie grinned. “Tommy Pasquale is going to be irritated if he doesn’t get the opportunity to shave some time off my record.”

Estelle laughed. “He crashed a village car at the bridge once before. I’d hate to have to explain a repeat performance to Chief Mitchell.”

Despite Jackie Taber’s suggestion, Estelle did drive through the quiet neighborhoods of Posadas until she paused in front of 419 Mimbres Drive. The well-kept house was dark, with both garage doors down, handles locked horizontal. A single porch light burned above the front door, and Estelle grimaced. She knew that inside the house, Connie Enriquez was probably lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what had happened to her husband and her world-and hoping that come the wee hours of the morning, George Enriquez would show up under the porch light with nothing worse than the smell of alcohol on his breath.