The Fourth Time is Murder

Chapter Twelve

Coincidence made Estelle Reyes-Guzman uneasy. She had known the Contreras family for years-the elderly and crippled Emilio, who spent practically every waking moment working for the mission in Regál, Iglesia de Nuestra Señora; his wife, Betty, the energetic, bustling lady whose volunteer activism filled her days after a long career in the elementary classroom; even their three grown children, who returned infrequently to the little border village to celebrate the long string of birthdays and anniversaries.

But as Estelle drove south toward the pass, she considered the other odd pieces of this puzzle that had presented themselves. An unidentified man, odds strong that he was an illegal alien, had managed to lose control of a chain saw, which had then chewed him to death. His partner had vanished without lifting a finger to help the mortally injured man. All of this had happened 150 miles to the north, yet the sole documentation on the victim was a slip of paper with the telephone number of Emilio and Betty Contreras in Regál.

The radio and cell phone remained mercifully silent for the twenty minutes during which Estelle’s car sped south on State 56 toward the looming mountain range that formed the southern border for most of Posadas County. During those twenty minutes, she relaxed back in the seat and let her mind roam through the possibilities.

If one were to dial the Contrerases’ telephone number, odds were overwhelming that it would be Betty who answered. Her husband, 20 years older than Betty, was so lame that walking the 300 yards from home to the mission was a major penitence each day. Emilio did not belong to the twenty-first century. He and the little white mission continued on as he had for 88 years, and as it had for 219.

The mission had no electricity, no heating system other than the large potbellied stove that dominated the east wall. It certainly had no telephone. Emilio didn’t carry a cell phone draped on his worn, hand-tooled leather belt. He needed no phone to keep in close contact with his God, with whom Emilio shared most waking moments of each day. If anyone else wanted to talk with him, well…they could meet him at the church, or pass a message to him through his good wife, Betty.

If a stranger carried the Contreras phone number in his pocket, then Betty Contreras would know why. That loose end was what the deputy in Catron County wanted tidied up, and was the sort of thing one county routinely asked of another.

Just before the beginning of the guardrail as the road started its long grade up the pass, Estelle saw the tracks cutting off to the left where the EMTs had pulled the ambulance onto the mining road the night before. Later this morning, the wrecker would unceremoniously bundle the smashed vehicle back up the rugged hillside. What information the little truck might hold needed to be gained before that happened, and Estelle knew that Deputy Jackie Taber, assigned to guard the site during the night, wouldn’t waste any time. The deputy had a keen eye and would have made good use of the long hours during the night.

At one point as the highway swept through a long, graceful turn to the left, Estelle saw the wink of morning sun off vehicles parked down below on the mining road-more just an overgrown path than anything else. In another mile she passed the accident site, then using the turnout just beyond the Forest Service sign that announced the 8,012-foot elevation of the pass itself.

Pulling as far off the pavement as she could, she eased the county car in behind Jackie Taber’s white Bronco.

“I’m coming up.” The disembodied voice crackled out of Estelle’s handheld radio.

“Take your time,” Estelle replied.

“Tom and the sheriff are down below,” Jackie said, and Estelle could hear the young woman’s labored breathing.

“Not to hurry,” Estelle said. She slipped the clip of a small digital camera on her belt, and as she got out of the car, she saw Jackie Taber reach the guardrail and pull herself over.

“Interesting stuff,” the deputy said as she heaved a deep breath. “Let me show you.” She retrieved a large sketch pad from the Bronco and spread it out on the hood of the truck. Her drawing of the accident site was from a raven’s-eye view with the trees in perfect perspective from overhead. The measurements had been neatly penciled in.

“My first thought,” Jackie said, “was that a little truck like that wouldn’t be cookin’ along too fast after climbing a mile-and-a-half grade…and the south side of the pass is the steeper one. But the skid marks say maybe sixty, even a little faster. The truck’s a V-six, so that’s possible. He sees the deer at the last minute,” and the deputy traced the route with the eraser end of a pencil, “swerves, crosses the highway, recrosses the highway, and vaults over at that mound of dirt near the beginning of the guardrail.” She pointed over Estelle’s shoulder with the pencil. “Another foot or two, and he might have just bounced along the rail and never gone over at all.” She shifted the drawing.

“First impact after the jump was right here, downslope just shy of eighteen feet. That hump of rocks and dirt launched him up a bit, but the truck kind of rolled. Like a barrel roll to the left? When we go down the hill you’ll see this set of rocks. The marks are really clear. A nosedive, an impact right there left fender first, and then the truck somersaulted. The driver rode that one out okay, but the hill’s so steep that once the truck started to end-o, there was nothing to stop it. I’m counting five end-for-end flips. Maybe six. He came partially out of the cab on about number three, and all the way on four or maybe five.”

Jackie shifted the drawing once more and touched her pencil to an artistically rendered set of rocks. “This is where the driver hit the first time after being thrown out through the passenger window. The truck crushed him up against the rocks right there. His right foot didn’t come loose right away, which is why we found his shoe down by the truck. His body came to rest where we found him.…That’s forty-one feet from the first bits of blood and cloth to where he ended up on his back.”

“There’s no evidence that he moved at all after that?”

The deputy shook her head and held both hands up as if in surrender. “Where he landed is where he stayed. There’s a scuff mark that would have been under his left heel. He drew his leg up maybe once or twice, and that’s it. Just a reflex.” She turned and surveyed the steep, rock-strewn slope behind them. “I didn’t find anything until I started combing the hillside right after dawn, Estelle. The flags mark points of interest. Bobby and Tom are moving outward and down from where the victim ended up, seeing if they can find anything else.”

“And these?” Estelle indicated the three small numbers drawn on the sketch.

“That’s what I wanted to show you. I didn’t want to leave ’em lying out in the weather, just in case.” She opened the passenger door of the Bronco and in a moment appeared with a small cardboard box. Pulling out the first plastic evidence bag, she laid it on the hood. Estelle took it by the corner of the label. The beer can was crumpled, the sort of crush that a good grip on an empty aluminum can could easily produce.

“A good toss,” Jackie said. “Eighty-one feet northeast from the truck, and fifty-six feet from the victim. All the other cans from the six-pack are accounted for. Four cans that would have been full had they not broken open in and around the truck itself, one with its zip-top popped upslope a couple dozen feet right in line with the wreckage path, and this one, way off to the side. Makes for an interesting scenario, don’t you think?”

“The force of the truck crashing down the hill isn’t going to throw an empty can more than eighty feet off to one side, perpendicular to the line of travel,” Estelle said.

“I don’t think so. But only fifty feet from the victim?”

The undersheriff scrutinized the drawing, then turned and stepped to the guardrail.

“Look right off to the left, there,” Jackie said. “See the little group of scrub oaks with the juniper in the middle? That’s where the can was, just beyond that, down in the rocks. If you step over this way, you can see the flagging.”

“The other possibility is that it didn’t come from the victim or his truck.”

The deputy looked skeptical. “Same brand, a new can? If we check the beer residue inside, it probably still has its fizz.”

“And it fits what Perrone says.”

“You said last night that the victim had somehow aspirated beer into his lungs. How could he do that?”

“That’s a good question. Perrone says a considerable quantity, in fact. At least into his left lung…the one that still worked.”

“That’s cold, if it happened the way I’m thinking,” Jackie said. “One thing’s for sure.…Chris Marsh didn’t toss a can fifty feet, not with his bones all mush.” She cocked an arm and imitated a pitch. “Not a whole lot of arm to manage that throw, but not just a weenie toss, either. Not what you’d do with the ends of your broken bones grating together.”

Estelle nodded. “What else?” She saw that Jackie was holding another plastic bag and she reached out for it. Inside, the plastic name tag’s metal clip was bent as if ripped from the pocket flap. “‘Barry Roberts,’” she read, and turned the tag this way and that. “Chris Marsh’s face, by any other name. Global Productivity Systems?”

“Sounds nice, but GPS is fictitious, at least in this version,” Jackie said. “I checked on my laptop, and can’t find any reference to it.”

“Where did you find the name tag?”

“Stuck between a couple of rocks right in line with the wreck. It could have torn off when he was taking a somersault, but if somebody had wanted to recover it, it would have been hard to see in the dark. But I’m thinking that they would have wanted it.”

Estelle turned the tag this way and that. “Chris Marsh, what were you up to?” she said aloud.

“If what he was up to was down in Regál, it isn’t going to be hard to find out,” Jackie said. “I spent some more time with the truck, Estelle. I’d be willing to bet that it had magnetic signs on the doors. You can see the marks where they used to be. Want to make bets on what they said?”

Estelle held out the name tag to the deputy. “We’ll want to check Marsh’s shirt pocket. If he was wearing this, there’ll be some tearing of the threads where this was ripped away. We want to make sure of that.”

“That’s easy enough.”

“And you said three things…the marks on the doors?”

“In part,” Jackie said. “I went over that truck with everything but a microscope. There’s nothing in it.”

“Just the beer cans.”

“That’s true. But nothing else, Estelle. And I mean nothing that would do us any good.” She nestled the evidence bags back in her briefcase and laid it on top of her sketch pad. “If Global was a real company, I’m thinking that I’d find a cab full of paperwork, right? I mean, those electronic delivery log thingies that they carry where you sign for a package? Nothing like that. No other packages. No paperwork. I mean, nothing. And nothing in the back. The camper shell was locked, but torn to pieces by the crash. If there’d been packages in the rear, they’d be spread all over the hillside. Nothing. Just a wrecked truck, some beer cans, and a dead driver.”

Estelle stood quietly, looking down the slope. “One of two things, Jackie, and I don’t like either one. If the truck was empty when it went over, what was Marsh up to? Perrone is willing to bet someone else was involved, and it looks as if that somebody wanted him really, really dead,” she said finally. “And somebody wanted to erase any evidence of what he’d been up to. That opens the door for us.”

“Stupid, stupid,” Jackie said. “The killer scrambles down the hill after the wreck, and finds this Marsh guy lyin’ in the rocks, gasping like a dying fish. It should be obvious that he isn’t going to get up and walk out for help. He’s too busted up to even use a cell phone, assuming he had one. Why didn’t the second guy just leave? I can see clearing out the truck of anything incriminating. But why murder a man who’s obviously toast anyway?”

“If Marsh was moaning and whimpering for help, the killer would want to shut him up. Drowning’s pretty quiet, especially when the victim’s too broken up to move in protest.”

The deputy made a face. “I want to meet this guy,” she said.

“Another thing is really interesting,” Estelle said. “The killer wasn’t riding with Marsh. That means he was in another vehicle, or waiting for him somewhere-but close enough that he would know about the wreck.” She looked at Jackie. “That’s bizarre.”

“It is that.” She looked down the hill thoughtfully. “One thing is easy,” she said finally. “Somebody in Regál knows what Chris Marsh was doing the night he was killed…unless he was just plain lost. Maybe he took a wrong turn somewhere.”

“If he did that, he wasn’t much good at reading road signs,” Jackie said. “Anything else you want me to do this morning?”

“Take a break,” Estelle said. “And keep thinking. We’ll have someone work on finding Marsh’s family. That might turn something.”

“You want me to work on that?”

“No,” Estelle laughed. “I want you off-duty for a while. It’d be nice to have at least one fresh face around the joint if things go from bad to worse.”