One Perfect Shot

Chapter Forty

I agreed with Mark Arnett about one thing. How could a kid take a Winchester from his father’s gun safe, grab a cartridge or two, then stalk Larry Zipoli, finally shooting him where he sat in the cab of the road grader, placing a bullet squarely through the brain, and then say with a straight face that it was all an accident? Trial lawyers were going to have a field day.

A small room full of people interested in that very question gathered an hour later in the conference room of the Sheriff’s Department-not because the boy was being granted special comforts, but because that room was the only one large enough for more than a handful of participants.

District Attorney Dan Schroeder, looking and smelling as if we’d interrupted him from a family barbecue, shuffled papers for five minutes before he clasped his hands together, leaned forward, and fixed his watery blue eyes on what was left of Maurice Arnett.

“Mr. Arnett, you are being charged with the unlawful death of,” and he glanced down at his notes, “one Lawrence C. Zipoli, a resident of Posadas, New Mexico, by rifle shot. You’ve been advised of your rights?”

“Yes, sir,” Mo whispered.

“You understand them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you want an attorney present?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you understand that you may very well be charged as an adult?” At the corner of the table, Ruth Wayand sat with her various notebooks, looking uncomfortable. Ruth and her Children, Youth, and Families outfit were present to guard Mo Arnett’s possible status as a juvenile. By the set of Dan Schroeder’s face, I knew that wasn’t going to fly. And I knew and respected Ruth, too. She’d fight for what she truly believed was right.

“Yes, sir.”

“When is your birthday, Maurice?”

“Next week. September third.”

“And how old will you be?”

“Eighteen.”

Schroeder nodded and glanced across at first the sheriff and then me, indicating that it was now my turn.

I sat on the edge of the table just to Mo’s left. “So, tell us how this miserable event happened,” I said.

Mo whispered something inaudible, and Schroeder reached out and tapped the tape recorder with his pen. “You’ll have to speak up, son. This gadget can’t read your mind.”

“I took one of my father’s rifles and a few cartridges.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Five.”

Five. The kid rode out to do his work with a pocketful of ammo. Some accident. “And then?”

“I borrowed my mom’s car and I was going to go out on the mesa and pop some cans.” He hesitated. “Then I saw where Mr. Zipoli had been working.”

“You went out specifically to find Mr. Zipoli?”

“No, sir.”

“But you knew that he had been working out there?”

“I…guess that I did.”

“How did you know where that might be?”

“Because earlier I saw him driving the grader out that way. And he’d been out there the day before, but the grader broke.” Mo’s voice had taken on a drone, as if he might be reciting a script. Maybe that’s what he’d been thinking about during the flight home.

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know. Early afternoon, I think.”

“Why wouldn’t you know for sure?”

Mo shrugged.

I asked, “Closer to one or closer to two?”

“Maybe one.”

“Maybe. Where did you park the car?”

“Just off the road. By the intersection.”

“Intersection of what?”

“Highland and Hutton.”

“Where were Mr. Zipoli and the grader?”

“The grader was parked a ways down Highland. Half way down the block, at least.”

“You saw him?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you think that he was in the vicinity?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t see him in the cab, and his truck wasn’t there. I mean, I didn’t see his truck. He sometimes tows it behind the grader.”

“What did you do?”

“I walked toward the grader a ways, and when I was sure I could hit it, I tried to shoot out the windshield.”

“How many shots?”

“Just one.”

I straightened a little to relieve my spine. “Now why would you do that? You had how many cartridges with you?”

“Five.”

“Why not fire five times?”

Mo shut his eyes, but that didn’t stop the tears. I reached across and slid the box of tissues within his reach.

“Why not five times, Mo?”

“It was really loud, you know.” He opened his eyes and looked up at me, just a quick glance. “’Cause I didn’t have ear phones or nothing. I thought someone might hear the shots and see me if they looked over that way. So I chickened out.”

“Chickened out? Too bad you didn’t chicken out before that first shot.” I stood up, kicked the chair out, and sat down, leaning my elbow on the table. “So you shot once. One time only.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was the grader running?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you hear it running, or see exhaust from the stack, before you fired the shot?”

“No sir. Only when I walked closer.”

“How close did you get?”

“Maybe…I don’t know.”

“A hundred yards? The length of a football field?”

“No, sir. Not that far.”

“A hundred feet then? Fifty feet?”

“Somewhere around there.”

“And before you fired, you did not see Larry Zipoli sitting in the cab, watching you approach with the rifle?”

A strangled sob shook the kid, and I paused as he dropped his head onto his arms.

“Did you see him?”

“No, sir.”

“I find that hard to believe, son. From a hundred feet away, you couldn’t see him, sitting there in the cab of the grader?”

“No, sir. I mean, after I shot, I walked a little ways off to one side. For a second or two, I was thinkin’ of putting one through the engine block.”

“Why would you do that? Why through the engine?”

Mo shrugged helplessly. “Just ‘cause.”

“But you were afraid someone might hear you.”

“I was thinking that.”

“But…”

“Then I saw Mr. Zipoli in the cab.”

“What did you do then?”

“I left. I drove home, put the gun and shells away, and threw up.”

“Threw up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose when all else fails, that’s the thing to do,” I said. I confess I was having trouble feeling a whole lot of sympathy for this kid. “When your parents came home, they didn’t notice that anything was wrong?”

That wonderful shrug answered the question.

“Why did you decide to run?”

“I heard that you were talking to some of my friends. I figured it was only a matter of time before you got to me. So…”

“Why did you park at the airport, Mo? Were you thinking of taking a flight?”

He shook his head quickly, as if the very thought of flying gave him the willies. He’d been a quiet passenger in Jim’s Cessna, but that happens. Folks can trust a puddle jumper, but not a Boeing at 36,000 feet. “Just ‘cause.”

“You thought that might throw us off?”

Shrug.

“Where did you think you could go?”

Shrug.

“Is there someone out on the coast whom you know?”

“No, sir.”

“Where were you going to live?”

“On the beach.”

“Ah, the beach. Have you ever been out there, Mo?”

“No, sir.”

“So let me ask you,” I said after a pause that stretched so long Mo looked up to see if I’d fallen asleep. “Why, Mo?”

“Why what?”

“Why shoot Larry Zipoli, Mo?”

Down went the head again, his voice muffled against the table’s mahogany veneer. “I didn’t see him.”

“You’ve said that. Why shoot at his road grader?”

Shrug.

“What did he ever do to you that prompted that kind of vandalism, Mo?” Vandalism. That word sounded goddamn odd in the context of that room at that moment. “You wanted to scare him?”

Shrug.

“I think we should take a short break,” Ruth Wayand observed. She was tired? She should have come with us to spend an interminable night and a worse morning in Arizona, fussing with paperwork and phone calls.

“Do you know Jason Packard, Mo?” I asked, ignoring Ruth’s suggestion.

“Yes, sir.”

“A friend of yours?”

Shrug.

“Did Mr. Zipoli encourage the two of you to fight at one point? On a bet?”

After a long hesitation during which Ruth played various tattoos with her pencil eraser until I shot an annoyed look at her, Mo murmured something.

“Say again, son?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“He did that. Mr. Zipoli did. He loved the fights, and he thought it was a great joke, trying to get me and Jason to go around.”

“And you two guys fought for him?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“I left. I…I ran away.”

“And you were angry with Mr. Zipoli for that? Enough to punch holes in his road grader?”

Shrug, then Mo added, “That wasn’t the only time. He was always on my case.”

“In what way?”

“Just stuff.”

“Stuff like what?”

Shrug. Mo had that reply down pat.

“Was Jason willing to fight?”

“Sure. He’d get a dollar.”

“A dollar. That was the purse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re older than Jason, Mo. Bigger, too. But you wouldn’t do it?”

“No.” Probably a wise choice, I thought. Wiry, tough Jason would jangle Mo’s chains.

“Were you two friends before that? You and Jason?”

Shrug. “Sort of.”

“And after?”

That earned a shake of the head.

“Let’s take a short one,” I said. “Then we’ll go through this again.”

Joints cracked as five of us got to our feet. I beckoned to Ruth, and she, Sheriff Salcido, District Attorney Dan Schroeder, and Estelle Reyes followed me from the room, down the short hall and to my office. I made sure the door closed tightly behind us.

“Ruth, this is Estelle Reyes, a new hire,” I said, and didn’t bother explaining why a new hire would be stuck to this case like a burdock. A hell of a ride-along the girl was taking, and as far as I was concerned, she might as well stick to the end.

Mrs. Wayand was fiftyish, stout, and what euphemistically might be called plain. I knew her to be a powerful advocate of children without going all gooey on us, and I hadn’t seen any great wash of sympathy on her face during Mo’s initial interview. The young man deserved every consideration that the law would allow, but there was nothing the least bit cuddly about this kid. That he’d seen nothing wrong with fetching a rifle to use against someone because of some vague personal slight indicated to me that we were damn lucky to have Mo Arnett in custody after a single fatality. I wondered who the other four cartridges had been meant for. I didn’t believe for a moment that he had taken the rifle for a practice session.

“I see no chance that Judge Smith is going to let this go through as a juvenile case,” she said without preamble. “I mean, you folks might unearth something that might change my mind, but at this point? I don’t think so. He’ll be eighteen in just days. I think he’ll take the full ride.”

“He’ll be tried as an adult,” the district attorney said flatly, even though we all knew that decision wasn’t his to make. “I want one piece of information before I proceed, though. I want a perfect photograph of that road grader’s windshield, taken in situ, at the time of day in question. I want to see the reflection.” He smiled without humor. “You’ll get that for me?”

I nodded. “You bet. We have it photographed already from every direction, up, down, and sideways.”

“But at that precise moment when Mo fired? Do we know what the light conditions were?”

“Bright sunshine all day. But we don’t know the precise time yet.”

“But we will. Best guess, anyway. Maybe a sequence, taken every fifteen minutes starting at noon and continuing through the afternoon. That would be the way to do it.”

“We can do that.”

“I’ll bet dollars to donuts that this is going to go through as murder two, with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution thrown in as a kicker. But if it turns out there’s any chance at all that the kid could see the victim before pulling the trigger, then it’s a different ball game.”

We spent another two hours running Mo Arnett through the grinder, with Sheriff Salcido and the D.A. each taking a turn. If we expected a clear explanation, we were disappointed. I’m not convinced that Mo actually understood his own motives. He clearly hadn’t liked Larry Zipoli much, but joined in on some of the trips because that’s what the kids were doing. And after each trip, I guessed, Mo arrived home feeling just a touch humiliated…teased beyond friendship, the butt of jokes, an easy target.

At four o’clock, Maurice ‘Mo’ Arnett was arraigned before District Judge Everett Smith. His father attended the arraignment, his mother did not. Mark sat stony-faced through the whole thing, shaking his head in disgust each time his son answered one of the judge’s questions in that quiet, snuffling voice.

Mark Arnett obviously felt the public defender was entirely adequate, and the elderly fellow, Lucius Salazar, did his best. He didn’t have a lot to work with. The plea for the boy’s release into the custody of his parents fell on deaf ears. Judge Smith refused bail, leaving Mo as the county’s guest until after the Grand Jury deliberations. I wouldn’t have left Mo with his parents either.

The ball was now in the District Attorney’s court as he prepared his case, and our job was simple enough-provide Schroeder with whatever he asked for.

As we left Smith’s chambers, Estelle surprised the hell out of me by touching me on the elbow, obviously intent on initiating a conversation.

“I’ll be happy to shoot the photos for you, sir. We can get that done tomorrow.”

I smiled at her serious enthusiasm. “That would be wonderful, except for one thing,” I said, and saw one of those black eyebrows lift a fraction. “You can’t testify about the photos. Well, you can, but even old Lu Salazar for the defense would shoot us out of the water if you did. You aren’t certified, you haven’t any established expertise-no matter how talented you might be. In point of fact, you haven’t even been officially hired yet, as far as county paperwork is concerned.” I lifted my shoulders in a helpless shrug.

“What I want you to do is take some time to get yourself some rest, then meet me tomorrow at high noon on Highland Avenue. I’ll shoot the photos.” I smiled. “It’ll be your finger on the shutter, all right, but with me at your elbow, there’s no chain of evidence problems. Will that work?”

For the first time since she’d walked into my office, Estelle Reyes smiled broadly, a heartwarming burst of sunshine.