Bitter Recoil (11 page)

“No, I suppose he doesn’t,” Parris said. I grimaced, because his tone said clearly to me, “I wish he did.” Estelle read the same message on his face. She didn’t raise her voice, but the words came out clipped and hard.

“Father Parris, I want Daisy out of the woods. And I want her out tomorrow.”

The priest started to waffle. “I was going to talk with you about that,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

The man didn’t know what to say. Maybe he couldn’t face H. T. Finn eye to eye…or maybe he was still unwilling to admit that his uncomplicated life at the retreat was over. I didn’t know what the Catholic Church did to one of its priests who became a parent…and right then, that wasn’t our concern.

“You’re her father,” Estelle said. “You can go up there with us tomorrow morning and take custody of the child. It’s that simple. You are her father.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Parris said, and Estelle locked him with an icy glare.

“It
is
that simple,” she said. “And between now and seven tomorrow morning when we pick you up, you might give some thought to the form your child support is going to take.” She stood up and turned to me. “I have all I need.”

As I stepped by him, I patted Parris on the shoulder. It was the sort of fatherly pat I might have given one of my sons after an ultimatum he didn’t like. “Seven o’clock, Father,” I said.

On the drive back home Estelle didn’t say a word until we turned into the lane to the adobe. And then, so quietly I almost didn’t hear, she said, “The fifth one.”

“In the truck, you mean?”

She nodded. “If we find the fifth kid who was riding in that pickup truck, maybe we’ll find the answers.”

“Paul Garcia’s been talking with Lucy Grider. Maybe he turned up something.”

“I hope so. Otherwise, unless number five comes forward, we’re going to have to sift through this community one person at a time.”

“That won’t be the first time we’ve done that.” I glanced over at Estelle. She was chewing the corner of her lower lip, her forehead wrinkled in thought. I could have counted on one hand the number of times I’d heard Estelle express doubts when she’d been working on a case. She had an excuse this time. We hadn’t enjoyed an extra minute to think things through or hunt for answers.

But this evening, as it turned out, the doubts weren’t necessary. We didn’t have to hunt. Kyle Osuna came to us.

Chapter 20

The light was on over the front door at eleven that night. The good doc was working late, called to the clinic to set a broken arm. The arm belonged to one of the Girl Scouts over at Camp Tracy, who’d done nothing more spectacular than fall off the top bunk during a pillow fight.

Francis promised that he wouldn’t take long—a quick cast, a handful of aspirin, and the little girl would be back in business. In a couple days she’d feel good enough to use the heavy cast as a weapon and inflict some real damage.

Estelle turned the light on after Francis left. I was reading the Albuquerque afternoon paper and Estelle was poring through her notes. She had talked for almost a half hour with Sheriff Tate on the telephone, and Tate was just as frustrated as we were. He told Estelle that all she had to do was say the word and she’d have reinforcements, but she nixed the idea. In fact, leaving men up on Quebrada Mesa was a waste of time. She was sure that what had happened there was finished. Tate didn’t argue. If you put an army in the field, it costs lots of bucks.

“All you can do is keep scratchin’,” Tate had said.

“We’re close,” Estelle had told him. Close to what, I wondered. The wave of murders was three-pronged…Cecilia Burgess pitched out of the truck, Waquie and Grider crushed in that same truck, with a neck snapped for good measure, and now the Lucero brothers.

Estelle was the only one who doubted that Cecil Lucero had pulled the trigger on his brother. I thought she was fishing and told her so. True, the entire scenario was based on assumptions. It was even an assumption—a grand one—that the Luceros had been in the truck with Waquie and Grider. Who the hell knew.

“You don’t think Cecil Lucero is the key?” I asked, laying down the newspaper. Estelle shook her head. “You don’t think he killed his brother?”

“No. It doesn’t make sense, sir. The shots were fired from the lip of the arroyo, approximately twenty yards from where we found Kenneth Lucero’s body. That’s where Paul found the shell casings. Now why would Kenneth Lucero be walking or running up the arroyo bed?”

“He was being chased.”

“By his brother? If his brother took him out there with the intention of killing him, what ruse did he use? That they would go hunting? If that was the case, why didn’t Kenneth have a gun of his own?”

“Maybe he forced him out there.”

“Come on, sir. Cecil would have had to make Kenneth drive and hold a rifle on him in the car. That’s difficult to do. Why didn’t Kenneth try to get away before they got out that far?” She stopped for breath. “You see? It’s got so many holes…”

“Do you think the Luceros were involved in Waquie’s and Grider’s deaths then?”

“Maybe. I don’t see someone who’d push a truck over a cliff, then snap a neck for good measure, using a rifle the next day.”

“That’s what we’re missing,” I said. “There’s no pattern to any of this. You think someone aced the Lucero brothers. All right. Suppose that’s true. If that same person was the one who killed the two in the truck, he was a creative son of a bitch…and he didn’t leave much of a trail. If the incidents are unrelated, it makes even less sense.” As I saw it, our problem was time. Cops like to work methodically, but we’d been chasing one fire after another, without a moment to sit and reflect.

Earlier in the evening, Deputy Paul Garcia had stopped by and summarized his interview with Lucy Grider. The girl had given him a list of a dozen people who might have been hanging out with Robert Waquie or the Lucero brothers that night, assuming that they all had been together in the first place. None of the names stood off the page for Estelle.

“Talk to each one of them,” I had said. The idea of overtime didn’t bother either Garcia or Al Martinez, and Estelle had sent them off together.

From out of the blue Estelle announced, “Finn had all the information.” I put down the newspaper. She was staring into the open briefcase, not focusing on any of the papers. “Parris told him about Cecilia Burgess in the truck. He even told Finn that the truck belonged to Robert Waquie. How much work would it be to find out who was involved?”

“Not much, I suppose,” I said. “Although we seem to be having problems.”

“Just suppose Finn is involved,” Estelle persisted. “Just suppose. The priest goes to his camp that night, and Finn learns about the truck. Now, he’s got all the next day…we’re working the case without Parris’s information. Finn finds out that it’s Waquie’s truck. When he catches up with them, Waquie and Grider are together. And maybe he finds out from the two of them who the others were.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe. Come on, Estelle. You saw Finn. He couldn’t care less.”

“It could have happened that way.”

“He’d have to be one fast worker, Estelle. In the first place, we were up at his camp on Saturday, right after the accident with Cecilia Burgess.”

“He may have found Waquie that morning…or later in the afternoon.”

“He would have had to. And then you’re suggesting he finds the Lucero brothers and murders them. Nice theory but no evidence.”

“And he’s got Arajanian to help him.”

“Sure. You don’t have a scrap of evidence to support that.”

“No, but there’s possible motive,” she said doggedly. “And that’s enough for a start.” I was about to question that when we heard the thumping at the back door.

I said, “You got a dog that wants in?”

“Sure don’t.” She got up and went into the kitchen. She pulled the curtain back a little and looked out. There was no outside light over that door, and she couldn’t have seen a train if it had been parked on the step. She pulled the door open and I heard her suck in breath with surprise.

“Sir,” she called and I sprang to my feet, dumping the newspaper on the floor.

A hunched figure was sitting on the single wooden step. He leaned sideways against the screen door, head down. He whimpered a little, then lifted his head and said, “Please.”

My first thought had been that we’d collected a wandering drunk, but there was no inebriation in that voice…just hurt. “Now what the hell.” I pushed past Estelle and tried to open the door, but he was blocking it. From the hunch of his shoulders and the hang of his head, he wasn’t up to moving.

“Let me go around front,” Estelle said, and she darted off, grabbing her flashlight from the kitchen counter. In seconds she appeared in the darkness. When the beam of the flashlight hit him in the face, the man cringed against the door. “No,” he murmured.

“It’s all right,” Estelle said. “We’re here.” She saw the blood at the same time I did. A puddle was forming on the gray wood of the step.

“Move him away from the door so we can get him inside,” I said. I slapped on the overhead kitchen light.

Estelle put her arm around the man’s shoulder and tried to scrunch him sideways to the edge of the step. His head tipped back, and I saw that he was biting his lower lip so hard that he’d drawn blood.

With a grunt of agony he pushed himself to his feet, supported by Estelle on one side and stiff-arming the side of the house with his free hand. I held open the door, and the two of them careened into the kitchen. He dropped to his knees, taking Estelle with him, and then slumped over to curl on the floor in a fetal position.

“The door,” he whispered. “Close the door.” I did so. Now that he was in the light, I could see that he wasn’t more than a kid, maybe twenty at the most. And he was wearing the universal kid’s summer uniform—running shoes, faded blue jeans, and T-shirt. And if he bled much more, he wouldn’t live to be older than a kid. His left side was soaked with blood from lower ribs to knee. And what wasn’t bloody was dripping wet, caked here and there with fresh mud.

I knelt down. “You hold the flashlight,” I said. The overhead light fixture held one of those useless sixty-watt bulbs that threw just enough light so you didn’t bark your shins on the table and chairs.

The kid lay with his head on the cool linoleum, eyes closed, breath rapid and shallow. I pulled up the blood-soaked T-shirt. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “Hold the light over here.” I pried his right hand loose from where it was clamped to his side.

He was leaking from two places. The entry would was a pencil-sized, punched hole a hand’s width from his spine, right on the second floating rib from the bottom.

The projectile had blown right through him, exiting by taking out the front end of the same rib. The exit wound wasn’t neat and was as big as a quarter. It bled copiously, and I guessed the bullet had nicked either the kid’s stomach or kidney or both. I yanked a dish towel off the side rack by the sink and made a large pad.

“Make sure Francis is still at the clinic,” I said, but Estelle was already moving. “Can you hold that in place?” I asked, and the kid nodded slightly. His hand drifted back and rested on the towel. “I’ll be right back,” I added. He wasn’t going anywhere, but the last thing someone wants who’s hurt badly is to go solo.

On the way out through the living room, I jerked the old army blanket off the sofa. It only took a minute to arrange the back of the Blazer so he’d have a place to lie, and by the time I trotted back into the house, Estelle was back in the kitchen, kneeling by the kid. She looked up and said, “He’s there.”

“There’s no time to wait for an ambulance. We’ll take mine. There’s some room in the back.” Estelle helped me pick him up and I carried him out to the Blazer, ducking sideways so I didn’t whack his skull on the doorjambs. It was a good thing for him and me both that he was slightly built.

Estelle rode in the back with him, keeping the pressure on the dressing. In less than three minutes we were swinging into the parking lot of the clinic. I saw Mary Vallo’s old pickup truck and murmured thanks. I wasn’t much of a nurse.

Francis Guzman was organized and waiting. He had already called the ambulance for a transfer to Albuquerque. He and Mary Vallo worked quickly to stabilize the kid. Before I had time to catch my breath, he was stuck with needles in both arms, with chemicals going in from one side and whole blood from the other. Guzman debrided the exit wound enough so that he could see what was what.

At one point he said, “Well, that’s good,” and continued working. I leaned against the wall and watched. Mary Vallo was damned close to a mind reader. Only once or twice did Francis Guzman have to verbalize what he needed.

“Sir?”

I turned and looked down the hall. Estelle had the contents of the kid’s wallet spread on the coffee table in the waiting room. It wasn’t much of a display.

I walked out and sat down beside her. “Who is he?”

She held up the driver’s license. “Kyle Osuna. San Estevan. He’s nineteen.”

“I wonder who the hell he crossed,” I said.

Estelle tossed the license down. It fell on three one-dollar bills. The license and the money were it.

“Estelle?” Francis beckoned his wife, and I followed her back into the examining room. The young doctor spoke with confidence. “The ambulance will be here any minute and we’ll want to transport. But he’s conscious and lucid so you might take your best shot now. He’ll go into surgery, and it’ll be tomorrow morning before you can talk with him again.”

“How is he doing, Francis?” I asked.

Guzman put his hands on his hips and regarded the still form on the table. One of the kid’s hands twitched, and Mary Vallo rested her hand on his forearm. “He’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it probably looked when he was bleeding all over the kitchen floor.” He flashed a grin at me as if this sort of thing happened all the time. “What’s the story?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what Whiz Kid needs to find out.” Estelle stood beside Osuna’s shoulder with Mary Vallo on the other side. Two faces like those would have been enough to convince any patient that he’d died and gone to heaven. I stood at the foot of the bed and took notes in shorthand.

“Can you tell me your name?” Estelle asked.

“Kyle Osuna.” The kid’s eyes focused on Estelle’s face.

“Kyle, do you know who shot you?”

“No.” He took a shallow breath.

“Did you see the person who shot you?”

“Yes.” He frowned, probably trying to think straight as the intravenous Valium fogged more than the pain.

“Can you describe him for me?”

“He was…he had long white hair.”

“White hair? He was an old man?”

“No.” Kyle closed his eyes, and his right hand lifted and started to drift over toward the dressing covering the wound. Mary intercepted and held his hand in hers, careful that she didn’t dislodge the I.V. “He was young.”

“Do you mean blond hair? Very light?” I heard the crunch of tires pulling into the clinic’s driveway, and Francis went out to meet the ambulance crew.

“Yes,” Kyle Osuna said. “Very light.” He took a deep breath, very slowly. “He’s about my age. Thin, not too tall. About my size. I’ve seen him around some.”

“But you don’t know his name?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he lives? Does he live around here?”

Osuna nodded slightly. “I’ve seen him a few times. I don’t know where he lives.”

“Can you tell me what happened? Why he shot you?”

“I was walking up the highway from my house. I was going to come talk to you. He was walking the other way, just about by the trading post. He knew my name. He asked if I had a cigarette. I said no and kept walking. That’s when…” He paused and looked over at me. “That’s when I heard this noise. Like a metal latch or something. I turned and saw that he was just standing on the shoulder of the road. And right away I saw that he had a gun of some kind. I freaked, man. So I ran.”

“You could see the gun in the dark?”

“There’s that light by the trading post parking lot.”

“And he chased you?”

“No. He shot me. I didn’t hear the gun. But it knocked me down. At first I thought maybe he’d chased me and hit me with his fist. But then I looked back and he was still standing there. He hadn’t moved none. Just standing there. And then he started to walk up the road toward me. Real slow.”

The ambulance attendants brought the gurney down the hall into the examining room. If we wanted to know more, we’d have to ride the ambulance to Albuquerque.

“What happened then?” Estelle persisted.