Statute of Limitations

Chapter Twenty-five

Jana Lynn arrived with the food, but didn’t linger. The burrito, thoughtfully reduced in size from the dish that would have brought a grin of anticipation to Bill Gastner’s face, rested fragrant and daunting in front of Estelle. She had ordered it only to encourage Mike Sisneros to eat, and now the idea of trying to work her way through its ten thousand calories cramped her stomach. The omelet parked in front of Mike Sisneros could have nourished a small army.

“Tell me about her,” Estelle said as she started to unwrap one end of the burrito, exposing the filling without having to eat the thick tortilla or the blanket of cheese that held it all together. The request prompted silence. “Mike, look,” Estelle said. “You’re a good police officer. You know what we’re up against. We have a victim. We have precious little forensic evidence. We have no one who has stepped forward and presented himself as a suspect. There’s a missing gun in the picture. The gun belonged to the victim’s fiancé. Do you want to quote me some statistics about domestic violence?”

“I’m the most likely person to have killed her,” the deputy said dully. “That’s what the statistics say.”

“That’s right. That’s what they say.”

“Captain Mitchell didn’t arrest me last night, and here I am, trying to stuff my face this morning. The undersheriff hasn’t arrested me either, so I guess I’m off the hook, huh?” He almost managed a tired smile. “For a while, anyway.”

“So it appears. But you’re a good cop, Mike.”

“That’s what you said.”

“So you tell me where we should start.” She pushed her plate to one side. “Mike, I don’t know anything about Janet. Let’s start that way. I haven’t met her half a dozen times in the last six months. I know she worked at A amp; H. Doing what, I don’t know. And I sure don’t know why anyone would want to kill her.”

He shook his head slowly, the omelet growing cold after the initial explorations. “I went to school with her,” he said, and Estelle could see that he wasn’t seeing the designs his fork drew in the omelet’s crusty surface. “Well, sort of. She was a year behind me. I didn’t hang out with her or anything. She was one of those kids that…well, that nobody really notices. She had her friends, I had mine. She went to work for the welding shop right out of high school. I know that, ’cause my father’s a welder and taught me how, and we used to buy supplies and stuff like that over there. I’d see her once in a while.”

“When did you start going out with her?”

He heaved a sigh. “Remember that nasty fire over at the Popes’ place a couple of years ago?”

“Of course.”

“She was one of the ones who helped round up some of the horses and donkeys that got loose after that. She lives in that trailer park right there when you turn off from Grande to Escondido? I mean, she did. Anyway, she broke her ankle that night. Stepped crooked or something, walking back home along the road. I was the responding officer to that.”

“Ah.” A damsel in distress does it every time, Estelle thought.

“We got to talking, and it just kinda grew from there. At first, she didn’t seem too excited to have anything to do with a cop, but she came around.” A ghost of a smile touched his face.

“She was never married before?”

“No. Kinda took our time, didn’t we?”

“I wouldn’t call thirty-one over the hill, Mike.”

“I’m thirty-two. She’s a year younger.”

She grinned. “Well, then. That’s over the hill. I speak from painful experience. She has family?” The night before, Mike Sisneros had been vague about Janet Tripp’s relatives.

“She has one sister.” Sisneros frowned at the table. “She lives over in Kansas. I know Janet has her address and number in her little book. But they don’t talk much.”

“Parents?”

“I…well, her mom died ten years ago or so. They were divorced. I know that. Her dad just walked out on ’em one day a long time ago. Left ’em high and dry. Janet doesn’t like to talk about it. So we don’t. I mean we didn’t.”

“Sometimes this is a hard time of year for folks with family problems,” Estelle said.

“Yep. That’s what the textbooks say.” He glanced up and shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Why didn’t she go with you to Lordsburg on Christmas Day? Wasn’t she planning to originally?”

“Maybe. Yeah. I guess she was. But I know that sometimes she’s a little uncomfortable around my mom. It’s one of those things-she has to kind of work up to it, you know? My mom is…well, she’s bossy. And she doesn’t like it much that I’m living with a white girl. And not married to boot. Mom is the Catholic of all Catholics when it comes to things like that.”

“A white girl?”

“What can I say. To Mom, there’s Indian, and there’s white, and never the twain.”

“She’s Hopi?”

“Zuni.”

“And your dad?”

“My stepdad is Zuni. My dad-dad is just plain old Mexican. That’s white as far as Mom is concerned.” He grinned but his eyes didn’t go along. “Maybe that’s where all the problems start, huh? A psychologist would have a ball.”

“So Janet decided not to go over to Lordsburg at the last minute?”

“Yep.” He worked the fork into the omelet until the utensil could stand upright by itself. “That was something that we were going to have to work out.”

“Your mom, you mean?”

“Yep.” He gave the fork a twist and withdrew it and put it down on the tablecloth. “I don’t see it,” he whispered. “Who’d want to do…”

“Who had access to your apartment, Mike?”

“Access?”

“I’m talking about the missing gun. People don’t just lose guns, Mike. And I’m not suggesting that your gun was used as the murder weapon, either. But it’s a loose end. Do you see? We have a weapon missing that’s similar to what might have been used in a homicide.”

“Janet had a key for the apartment. She was living with me.”

“I understand that. And I find it hard to believe that Janet took the gun.”

“She didn’t take it. She didn’t like guns.”

“Well, then. Someone did, unless you took it out of its plastic case, diddled with it, and then put it somewhere else and forgot about it.” She grinned. “Somewhere safe where you wouldn’t lose it.”

“Diddled with it?”

“Con permiso, Mike. I’m sorry. I have two little boys.” She smiled at the deputy. “Sometimes these things slip out.”

“I didn’t put it somewhere else, Estelle. I kept it in the original box. I never shot it much.”

“How long have you had it?”

“I got it for my twenty-fifth birthday. My dad gave it to me.”

“Ah. This is Mr. Cruz?”

“No. Not my stepdad. My dad. Hank.”

“And he lives in…”

“Deming. He moved there about fifteen years ago when him and my mom split up.”

“You get over to see him a lot?”

“No.” He didn’t amplify, and Estelle saw the muscles of his jaw twitch. She hazarded a guess.

“The pistol was a peace offering of sorts, then? From him?”

“A peace offering?” He shrugged. “Yeah. I guess you could call it that. He gave it to me when I signed on with the village PD.”

“It didn’t work, though? It didn’t work as a peace offering?”

“No, it didn’t work. I was going to sell it, but I never got around to it. It just sat in the box in the back of my drawer. I maybe took it out once or twice. I haven’t shot it for five years.”

“But you still kept it.”

“Well, it was from my dad.”

Estelle took a small, tentative sample of the burrito’s aromatic filling and chewed thoughtfully, letting the essence of the green chile waft up through her sinuses. “What was the deal between you and your dad?”

“We don’t have to go there,” Sisneros said.

She hesitated. “You know we do, Mike.” She let him have a moment to think. “What was the deal?”

“The deal was that he’s a drunk, Estelle. Was and still is. He made my mom’s life a living hell, that’s what the deal was. You’ve rolled on enough domestics that you know the story. Well, my dad’s one of the statistics. Let me put it that way. Just about classic. He’d be the example in every chapter on family disputes. Drink, and a temper to light it with.”

“So you don’t see him much now?”

“I don’t see him at all.”

“You must have seen him when he gave you the gun, what, about six or seven years ago?”

“Yeah. I saw him then. For all of maybe five minutes. I told him at that time that I didn’t need to have him in my life.”

“But you kept the gun.”

“It wasn’t quite like that. He left it behind. I didn’t notice that he’d done that. And yeah, I should have taken the trouble to return it. I didn’t. I just shoved the case in the dresser drawer, and that’s that.”

“Does your dad have a key to your apartment?”

He frowned with surprise. “Of course not. Why would he?”

“Is this because of your mom?”

“Is what because of my mom?”

“The reason you don’t talk.”

His face darkened. “I don’t see how that would have anything to do with any of this.”

“Does he ever talk to your mom? Do you know?”

“No.” His answer was out almost before she had finished her sentence.

JanaLynn appeared by the serving station, hesitant to intrude. Estelle looked at her and nodded, and she stepped up to the table. “Not much in the mood for eating, huh,” JanaLynn said sympathetically. Both dishes looked as if an ambitious mouse had attacked one corner. “How about a take-home box?”

“That’ll work,” Mike replied.

“How about you?” JanaLynn asked Estelle.

“Sure. Why not.” The plates disappeared.

“When was the last time your mom talked to your dad, Mike?”

“I have no idea how I would know something like that. You’d have to ask her.” His tone was clipped and contentious, and Estelle hesitated.

“What year were they divorced?”

“Nineteen ninety-two,” he said without hesitating to calculate.

“Long time ago.”

“Yeah, it’s a long time. Life goes on.”

Yes, it does, Estelle thought. “Tell me about Janet’s friends,” Estelle said. “She’s lived with you for how long now?”

“A couple of months.”

“And in that time, who’s come over to the apartment?”

“Oh, she has a couple of friends that we see now and then. Nobody that has a key.”

“No one she’d lend a key to?”

“What for? You don’t just lend house keys, do you? And there’s the timing thing, too. I don’t know for sure when the pistol went missing. I told Mitchell that, too. I don’t take it out and fondle it on a regular basis, you know. It could have been taken yesterday, or last week, or last month…even last year.”

“Do you have anyone come into your apartment on a regular basis? Cleaning lady, someone like that?”

“Mitchell and I went over every inch of that. No, I don’t. I can’t afford a cleaning lady. The gas guy reads the meter from the outside. So does the electric company.” He grinned and, except for the fatigue, might have looked five years younger. “The Jehovah’s Witnesses knock once in a while, but I don’t let ’em in.” He took a long swig of coffee and grimaced. “The last person in the apartment, other than me and Janet, was Tommy Pasquale. He borrowed the Mustang to take Linda out for a swank dinner in Las Cruces. He didn’t want to take her in his Jeep.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Sometime in early December. I told him that he could just let himself in and toss the keys on the table when he came back.”

“And that’s what he did?”

“That’s what he did. Said ‘Howdy’ to Janet, and went on his way. And if I can’t trust him, then the whole damn world can just come to a stop for all I care.”

“Sure enough,” Estelle agreed, and then she sat back abruptly. A realization stabbed through Estelle’s head like a mini-stroke, so simple and obvious that she felt the surge of blood up her neck. She hadn’t blushed in years, but her face burned now. Everyone was tired, everyone had worked too many hours, everyone-well, she-was preoccupied with a dozen other things, and it all boiled down to missing the obvious.

She pulled her cell phone off her belt and punched the speed dial for Sergeant Tom Mears.