The Fourth Time is Murder

Chapter Thirty-four

“Where are you now?”

The telephone connection was scratchy, and it sounded as if Deputy Tony Abeyta was down in the bottom of a large tank, his voice both faint and echoing.

“I’m at Lawson Brothers Ford,” the deputy said. “The sales manager doesn’t remember anything about a blue Mustang, but he’s checkin’ their records for me.”

“Don’t bother. The MVD says that the car came from Sonoraland Ford. I have a name for you,” Estelle said. “Consuela Juanita Vallejos.” She spelled the first name. “She goes by ‘CJ.’”

“Got it.”

Estelle gave the deputy the residence address. “I don’t have a clue where that is,” she added. “But LCPD will. What we need is a close watch for a little while until we can unsnarl some loose ends. It turns out that Ms. Vallejos is a friend-or at least a classmate acquaintance-of Serafina Roybal’s granddaughter, Irene. She says that CJ’s boyfriend at one time was Chris Marsh.”

“Bingo.”

“Well, maybe bingo. We’ll see. I’m headed to Regál so Irene can ID a driver’s license photo. That’s going to take a half hour, at least. In the meantime, Bobby’s flying your way with whatever Mears has been able to dig out of the wrecked truck. That’s going to be at least an hour, so hang tight.”

“Got it.”

“And Tony…I do not want you making contact with Vallejos. You copy that?”

“Absolutely.”

“No contact at all. If she’s home, I want to know. If not, we need to find her, and LCPD can help with that. Okay? In the meantime, alert the border crossing at Santa Teresa, just to be on the safe side. They can spread the word. The Mustang in question is a 2007 model, color blue, license Mary Yankee Paul Ocean Nora Yankee.”

“Cute. That’ll be hard to find,” Abeyta quipped.

“We hope not. I’ll be back to you. No contact, Tony. I don’t want her knowing you’re there.”

“Ten-four.”

Estelle dropped the phone in her lap and tried to relax back in the seat.

“Flight risk?” Madelyn asked.

“Oh, absolutely that,” Estelle said. “She may be already gone.”

“And then what?”

“Then all the rules change,” she replied.

“I have to ask.…”

“Okay.”

“Why doesn’t…it’s Tony? Why doesn’t the deputy just detain her right now, if he finds her at home? I mean, there’s a fair chance she has no idea you’re on her tail, isn’t there?”

“Better than fair.”

“So…”

“For one thing, other than that a certain CJ Vallejos was once Chris Marsh’s girlfriend, we have nothing on her. If Irene Salas makes a positive ID from the driver’s license photo, then we can put a face to a name. Irene says that CJ Vallejos and Chris Marsh were a couple. That’s a good connection. If Marsh’s neighbors also make an ID, then that’s good corroboration. But other than that…” Estelle shrugged. “We have nothing that directly ties Ms. Consuela Juanita Vallejos to Chris Marsh’s death. To his murder. And we don’t arrest people ‘just in case.’”

“You’re saying that this CJ person might not know a thing about Marsh’s escapades.”

“On the one hand, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Maybe they haven’t been seeing each other since last fall. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All the possibilities. That’s why we don’t just land on someone with both feet…at least before we have probable cause. As our district attorney is fond of telling Grand Juries, ‘I’d rather let ten criminals back onto the street than arrest one innocent person.’ There are a lot of things that the D.A. and I don’t see eye to eye on, but that’s not one of them.”

“So you’re trying to close some doors, as you said.”

“Yes. And that’s not always easy. For one thing, we don’t always recognize the doors when we see them.”

“Ah.” Madelyn fell silent for a few minutes, her right hand straying out to the dash at one point as Estelle drifted out to pass a pickup truck with a livestock trailer in tow. With the highway stretching empty before them for another twelve miles to the saloon, the reporter turned a bit sideways in her seat. “You said ‘on the one hand.’ What’s on the other?”

“Someone climbed down to the wreck shortly after it happened. It’s certain that Chris Marsh was still alive. He was so horribly injured that he couldn’t move. He just lay there, on his back, bashed down between some rocks, bleeding to death. Someone climbed down, ransacked the truck and his person, and finished him off by drowning him with one of his own cans of beer.”

“That’s grim.”

“Yes, it’s grim. Maybe at one point, Marsh spasmed enough that he flailed his left arm.…It was already broken in two places, mind you. The killer stepped on his hand. By accident? To keep it away from the victim’s face while the killer poured the beer down his throat, choking him to death?”

“Okay,” Madelyn said. “It’s guaranteed that I won’t sleep tonight.”

“While you’re lying there staring at the ceiling tonight, consider the killer’s mind-set, Madelyn. Anyone who would kill like that-watching Chris Marsh choke and gag and then die right before her eyes? Kill once in the most cold-blooded, cruel manner possible, you know the killer won’t hesitate a second time.” Estelle glanced across at the writer. “We don’t corner a person like that without holding every card in the deck that we can. Whether it’s to a sleepless night or not, we all want to go home when the shift is done.”

“Some shift.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

The writer ruminated on that for a few minutes, and then said, “The sheriff.”

Estelle flashed a quick look her way.

Madelyn held up a hand as if to say, I know, I know. “The sheriff impresses me as being much more on top of things than he would like us to believe.”

That prompted a laugh from Estelle. “That’s an observation, not a question.”

“Exactly. Is it an accurate one?”

“That’s a judgment you’ll have to make, Madelyn. Stick around for a while and then decide. I’d hate to bias you one way or another.”

The reporter shook her head in amusement. “Probably the figure is something like 99.99999 percent,” she said, more to herself than Estelle.

“What figure is that?”

“The percentage of people who will cheerfully talk about someone behind their back when the occasion presents itself.”

“Ah.”

“I have to try, you understand.”

“I do.”

The miles melted behind them, and before long they swept up the north side of the San Cristóbals toward the pass, and then over the top. Minutes later, they eased into Sanchez Lane. Madelyn reached over and patted the top of the computer.

“Tell me something,” she said. “I’m puzzled. How do you decide that the girl…Irene? How do you decide that she doesn’t have anything to do with any of this? Or her sexy grease- and oil-soaked boyfriend, for that matter. How do you know that they’re not working together? That she won’t call CJ.…”

“The same way you do,” Estelle said. She slowed the car to an amble as they passed the Contreras adobe. “For one thing, there is no evidence that they are involved-nada, zip. Nothing. But you saw them. Neither of them has a thing to hide. Their actions and their faces are open books, Madelyn. It takes practice to be a devious liar, and most of the time, lack of practice shows.”

“So, your intuition…”

“Call it that. People with things to hide tend to be either way too clever, or they’re evasive.”

“I’ll buy that. Irene certainly didn’t strike me as evasive. Smitten and madly in love, maybe.”

“See? That’s why I’m sure. We’re in the same business, Madelyn. We’re people watchers. It’s just the outcome that’s different.”

A late model pickup truck was pulled into Serafina Roybal’s driveway, beside the old Wagoneer. The pickup’s tailgate was flopped down, with a toolbox open and in disarray. Estelle pulled in close behind it, and saw Danny Rivera working on the back wheel. The truck was jacked up, and he was spraying some potion on the lug nuts. Irene Salas came out of the house, carrying two bottles of Mexican beer, the distinctive label apparent at a quick glance. She smiled and waved, and detoured first to Danny, giving him one of the bottles.

“You want something to drink?” she said, as Estelle got out of the car. “We got iced tea or Coke. I’m not going to offer you one of these.”

“No, thanks, Irene.”

Danny Rivera didn’t get up but nodded at Estelle.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“One…just one…of the damn lug nuts is frozen,” he said. “Always something.”

“You said you had another picture for me?” Irene prompted.

“I do,” Estelle replied. “I need you to identify this person, if you can.” She handed the photocopy of the driver’s license photo to Irene. She saw the young woman’s face brighten with recognition.

“Sure. That’s CJ. It oughta be a crime to be that pretty. I don’t think she knows it, though.”

Oh, yes, she does, Estelle thought. “Did she ever talk about where she was from?”

“I think Chicago? She doesn’t seem like the Chicago type, whatever that is. But I remember her saying that’s where her family lived now. I know that she was planning to visit back there at Christmas.” Irene looked quizzically at Estelle, and that expression changed to one of slow dawning. “She wasn’t riding with Chris the other night, was she? Oh, God, that would be awful.”

“Chris Marsh was alone in the truck, Irene,” Estelle said. “No one else was involved in the accident.”

“Thank God for that,” she said firmly. “You’re going to let CJ know? Is that it?”

“Yes. We’ll let her know. But let me ask you something. During the time that you knew Chris Marsh, when he would come to the lab to meet with CJ, did you know what he did for a living?”

“I just thought he was another student,” Irene replied. “You know…all of us there are, so I just assumed that he was, too.” She turned and nodded toward the house. “My grandmamá says that he was working for one of the courier companies. He was the one who actually delivered the two little prize checks that she got.” She grinned. “And the biiiiiiig ones that Joe and Lucinda Baca won. Wow.”

Estelle silently watched Danny Rivera for a moment as he slid an enormous cheater bar on the lug wrench and gently bounced his weight on it. The lug nut stubbornly refused to move. “I wouldn’t turn down a prize or two like that,” he said. “I don’t see how they make any money doing that.”

He sat back on his haunches, regarding the lug nut. “Stubby said that he actually crashed Wednesday night. That he wasn’t found until Friday.”

“My God, is that true?” Irene gasped.

“We think so,” Estelle said.

“How double awful, to think he was lying down in those rocks, just waiting for help. And it never came.”

Not the kind of help he would have asked for, Estelle thought. “Guys, thanks a lot. We need to run.” She slipped a business card from her pocket and handed it to Irene. “If you should happen to think of anything else,” she said.

As she slid back into the car, Madelyn lowered her voice. “A hit?”

“A hit.”

The reporter looked at her watch. “This is going to be a very long day, isn’t it.”