The Fourth Time is Murder

Chapter Two

The San Cristóbal Mountains created an effective border fence between old Mexico and Posadas County, New Mexico. The ragged, rotten granite peaks were inhospitable enough that even the most determined illegal immigrants sought other routes to wealth. Presumably, they thought it more pleasant to die of thirst or snakebite farther west in the Arizona desert than to plunge into a jagged, skin-tearing, bone-breaking crevasse high up in the San Cristóbals, to be soaked, baked, or frozen until the hungry spring ravens arrived to clean up the mess.

State Highway 56 dove south through a dramatic saddle in the mountains at Regál Pass. The highway ended at the village of Regál and the days-only border crossing a hundred yards south of the Regál church. A dozen feet into Mexico, the highway faded into the gravel road that passed as the highway southbound to Janos, Buenaventura, and Chihuahua.

Estelle let the heavy sedan settle in at 85, with the spotlight playing ahead to catch the reflection from startled eyes.

The highway through Regál Pass was the best that modern design could manage. In fact, the current Posadas county manager, Leona Spears, had been instrumental in the redesign of the route while employed by the state highway department. Still, despite the highway’s wide, paved shoulders, bright lane markings, and rumble strips on both sides and down the center, motorists found a way to vault off into space.

Five miles east of the Broken Spur Saloon, Estelle saw the flashing lights of the ambulance ahead, and she overtook the vehicle by the time they passed the bar’s parking lot.

Beyond the intersection with County Road 14, the highway swept south and began to climb in earnest, widening to include a passing lane that continued all the way to the summit, where the third lane switched sides.

Despite the broad right-of-way, the road became a tortuous serpent as it climbed, including one switchback across a jagged ravine where the highway was posted at 15 miles an hour.

“PCS, three-oh-four is ten-six just south of mile marker zero-five,” Collins radioed. “I’ll be with two civilians. Three-ten, what’s your twenty?”

“Three-ten is just coming up the hill. ETA about five minutes.”

“Ten-four. PCS, ten-forty-five, one and one as far as I can see. Ten-twenty-eight New Mexico Sam Lincoln Charlie two-seven-seven. I think it’s a Chevy S-ten, color white.”

“Ten-four,” dispatcher Ernie Wheeler responded. “Three-ten, did you copy?”

“Affirmative.” One vehicle, one victim. A pickup truck with New Mexico plates could be a local, someone from Regál even, perhaps headed into town to see the basketball game. For more than a mile, the highway headed due west, climbing the flank of the mountain. Then another switchback sent Estelle east, and the highway snaked sharply upward. At regular intervals, the guardrail was scarred with blackened dents and scars, moments of panic when the drivers strayed or slid or swerved from the marked lanes and kissed the steel rail.

The last time she had responded to an MVA on Regál Pass, it had been a trucker who had allowed his rig’s rear tandem duals to catch the end of a guardrail section. The rails had vaulted the trailer up and then refused to let go, the rig riding along like a wild locomotive, pinned to the wrong set of rails. By the time the thirty-ton load of scrapped automobiles jack-knifed and buried the cab under a pile of smoking junk, there wasn’t enough driver left for the EMTs to patch together.

Mist now hung over the peaks, reaching down to the 8,000-foot level, just low enough to blanket the 8,012-foot pass. Estelle snapped on the fog lights, and seconds later the kaleidoscope of emergency lights broke through the mist. She slowed the car to a walk, easing past the bulky propane delivery truck that was parked along the guardrail off the oncoming lanes, its flashers bright. Just behind the big rig, a bright orange State Highway Department truck was marked with its yellow beacon pulsing in the mist.

They were a quarter mile north of the pass itself, and even in clear weather, oncoming traffic would have had little warning when they came upon the scene. Fiery phosphorus flares were stabbed into the shoulder every dozen feet, so bright they hurt the eyes. A few yards uphill from the state truck, and on the other side of the road, Collins had parked his county unit tight against the steep bank. A dead deer lay in the ditch in front of his vehicle.

A bulky figure wearing a bright orange safety vest over his down winter coat approached from behind the delivery truck. “They’re down there,” the man said, pointing over the guardrail. “It’s a bad one.”

Estelle stepped to the rail and looked down through the rocks, brush, and fill left by the highway’s construction. She could see the beams of flashlights, and her own light reflected off the bent license plate. She played the light along the scar left by the truck’s hurtling trajectory. It appeared that this time, luck was not on the driver’s side. The likely scenario was a swerve followed by overcorrection. But when he had lost control and plunged his truck off the road, he had done so right at the beginning of the guardrail. The curved rail had acted as a vault, flipping the truck up and over.

Tracks showed the truck had vaulted over a small hummock left by the original grading, then plunged down through the rocks, tumbling like a small toy. Unfortunately for the driver, it appeared that the truck went off the road with considerable momentum, ricocheting off boulders and trees, strewing parts along the way.

Estelle palmed her handheld radio. “Three-oh-four?”

“Go ahead.”

“What do you have down there?”

“One vehicle. Looks like just the driver. I think he was ejected and then the truck got him. Maybe more than once.”

The ambulance approached, adding another Christmas tree of lights.

“Is there anything I can do?” the trucker asked, and Estelle shook her head.

“I’d like you to move your rig in just a minute,” Estelle said.

“You betcha.”

“Three-ten, PCS.”

“Go ahead,” Estelle said, and then dispatcher Ernie Wheeler paused.

“Three-ten, be advised that vehicle is registered to Christopher Marsh, DOB six nine eighty-six. An address in Las Cruces.”

“Ten-four. Ten-forty-six.” It would be a challenge for the wrecker to winch this wreck up through the rocks, hoisting it over the guardrail. “And we’re going to have a traffic problem. If you can find me another officer or two, I’d appreciate it.”

Almost immediately, the radio responded, but this time with Sheriff Robert Torrez’s soft voice.

“Three-ten, I’ll be down in a few minutes. You got it until then?”

“Ten-four.”

“You need Perrone?”

Estelle hesitated. The EMTs were as capable as anyone of determining whether the driver was dead-if the driver had been crushed by the flipping truck, odds were good that he was. But the emergency medical staff wouldn’t give up easily. If there was a breath, a whisper, of life remaining, they’d find it and nurture it along until they could transport the broken victim to Posadas General.

“Hold on that call for a minute until we see what we have.”

“Ten-four.”

It appeared that the trucker was going to climb back in his rig, and Estelle took him by the elbow. “Walk with me for just a minute?”

The man bundled along beside the undersheriff as Estelle walked uphill beyond the big rig and the state pickup to the point where the crashed truck’s skid marks were obvious on the damp asphalt. She aimed her flashlight at the deep gouges in the dirt mound where the pickup had catapulted off the pavement, ripping the rail from its supports.

“I bet he swerved to avoid that deer over there,” the man said, nodding across at Collins’ Expedition. “I counted fourteen on my way up the hill just a bit ago.” He pointed into the mist. “Including a mama and twins back by the pass sign.”

“Did the truck pass you coming up from Regál, sir?”

“No. I seen the highway department truck stopped, and the deer, so I pulled over. I figure that’s what he did…clobbered the deer.”

“Hard to tell. But that’s most likely,” Estelle said. She looked at the man, trying to remember his name. “You’re working late tonight,” she said.

“I’m runnin’ so far behind I’m about to meet myself,” he laughed. “This cold weather reminds folks that their tanks need toppin’ off.”

“So you didn’t see any of this.”

“Nope. I stopped ’cause the state truck was here and she was puttin’ out flares. She wasn’t about to climb down in them rocks without some company, but it ain’t gonna be me. I don’t need no broke leg just now.”

“I don’t blame you a bit, sir. If you’d move the truck on out, that’ll help.”

“You got it.”

A car approached from the south, and Estelle watched it go by, tires hissing on the pavement as wide eyes peered at them.

The tanker started with a belch of fragrant propane fumes, and the undersheriff walked to the edge of the highway out of his way. She looked down at the lights far below. Switching the radio channel to local, she keyed the handheld.

“Dennis, what do you have down there?”

For a moment, she was answered only by silence, then Deputy Collins flashed his light up the hill at her. “Estelle, I think before we move the victim, Perrone should take a look. Matty agrees.”

Matty Finnegan, the lead EMT, had voiced opinions many times before that Estelle valued.

“And you, too,” Collins added. Estelle’s curiosity was piqued, but the last thing she wanted was a discussion of the accident scene, and the accident victim, over the public airwaves, even if the local handheld signal was limited in its range.

“I’ll be down in a minute. We need some coverage up here on the highway first.”

“Connie is on her way up,” he said, referring to the highway department worker. “Matty and Cliff will stay here until you say otherwise.”

She watched the flashlight beam wobble its way up through the rocks, marveling again at the wild ride that the truck must have taken as it vaulted into space. In a few minutes, Connie Ulibarri reached the guardrail, grabbed it with both hands, and stopped, winded and red faced. She was a tiny girl, maybe twenty-five years old, her hard hat skewed back from her forehead.

“Dr. Perrone’s not going to like that climb,” she managed. She walked uphill along the narrow lane behind the rail to join Estelle. “The driver’s been dead awhile,” she said.

“Just the one occupant?”

“Yes. He wasn’t wearing the seat belt. The passenger side is retracted as well. He stayed with it for quite a ride,” Connie said. “Steering wheel is bent all to hell where he hung on. But then Dennis thinks that he went out the passenger side window.”

“This evening sometime, you think?”

“Maybe. But he’s stone cold, Estelle. That’s why Dennis was thinking that you and Perrone should take a look.”

“Okay. How’d you happen to stumble on this, Connie?”

Ulibarri took a deep breath and pulled her hard hat straight. “I saw the deer over in the ditch. She was out of the traffic lane, and I wasn’t going to stop, ’cause I could see she was too big for me to pick up alone, but then I saw that she had a Game and Fish radio collar on. I thought I should retrieve that.” She nodded toward her truck. “I got it in the unit. Then I started looking and saw the skid marks and the scuffed dirt by the rail.” She shrugged. “What a mess.”

“The propane deliveryman said he didn’t see the wreck happen, either.”

“No. He stopped after I did. I was settin’ out the flares, after I called you guys.”

Her handheld crackled again. “Estelle, when you come down, you might as well come down loaded,” Collins said. She could sense the excitement in his voice. “I think we got something going on here.”

“God, be careful,” Connie said fervently. “We don’t need you to take a header.”

“No, we don’t,” Estelle said. She left Connie to flag traffic, crossed to her car, and hefted the black field case out of her trunk.