Steven Havill - The Fourth Time is Murder

Some parents in Lordsburg were going to be furious, Estelle mused. Arrested children, impounded vehicle…and it would all be the Sheriff’s Department’s fault, no doubt. The department could expect that someone-a parent, perhaps even Marge Chavez when she had some time to think on it-would make the most out of the accidental discharge. They could almost guarantee that would overshadow everything else. Five drunken youngsters driving an SUV on the interstate after midnight would pale in comparison to that single mistake.

Torrez turned to Estelle. “You’re going to talk with Collins?”

“I had planned to.”

“As far as I’m concerned, he can clean out his locker and be out of here.”

“We’ll want to think about that carefully, Bobby.”

“Look, that slug missed hittin’ one of Margie’s daughters right between the eyes by about three feet. There was no reason to have drawn down on those pissants in the first place. A bunch of drunk kids?”

“He didn’t know that at the time,” Estelle said. “And I don’t think he ‘drew down’ on them. I think he reacted with a mistake. He didn’t see the kid throw the bottle, and for just a few seconds, he thought he’d been shot at. He drew his gun as he slid out of the vehicle, saw he was mistaken, and then, in the process of correcting that mistake, fumbled the gun.”

“You sound like a damn lawyer.”

“I’m sure we’ll hear from them before this is all over. Right now, I’m puzzled why the gun went off.”

“’Cause he had his friggin’ finger on the trigger,” Torrez said.

“Maybe so. If that’s the case, then it’s our training and proficiency program that’s at fault. If it was a fault in the gun, then it’s a problem for our equipment maintenance program.” Program? she thought to herself. Like most small, financially strapped departments, the Sheriff’s Department found it was all too easy to use equipment until it collapsed.

“He’s got eyes and ears to use like all the rest of us,” Torrez snapped, and his tone had sunk to little more than a whisper. Estelle recognized the anger and had already decided to let the matter drop for the moment when Torrez added, “But hey. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t explain what the it was but instead turned to the State Policeman, who had remained tactfully silent. “Thanks for your help, Rick.”

“I’ll get my deposition to you ASAP,” the trooper said.

“You pulled in just as Collins got out of his unit?” Estelle asked.

Black nodded. “I did. I didn’t see him fumble the gun, though. I was watching the kids. I was starting to get out of the car when I heard the gunshot. I could tell by the look on Denny’s face that it had been an a.d.” He shrugged. “I told him to stay put until I had a chance to make sure no one had been hit. The sheriff here arrived just a few seconds later.” He held up both hands. “Not much, but it all helps.”

“Thanks again for your help.”

As Estelle walked back to her car, she saw that the sheriff and Bernie Pollis had the hood of the Chevy open and were bent over the engine. Linda Real joined them, and Estelle saw the flash of the photographer’s camera light up the engine compartment. Estelle dug out her cell phone, pushed the auto-dial, and waited for two rings before the connection went through.

“Gastner.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Estelle said. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the youngster in the backseat, behind the security grill that separated front from back.

Gastner chuckled. “I’ve never fallen asleep as long as a green chile burrito is spread out in front of me. I’m still over here.” He didn’t explain where “here” was, but Estelle knew, to the exact booth, where he was sitting in the Don Juan de Oñate restaurant. “You hungry?”

“No thanks. You’re closing the place down?” They were well past the 2:00 a.m. closing time for the Don Juan.

“Fernando and I were solving all the world’s problems.” Bill Gastner and Fernando Aragon, the longtime owner of the Don Juan, were perfectly capable of sitting and eating the night away-two insomniacs with the best restaurant in town right in the family.

“If you have a minute when you finish dessert, would you swing by my office?”

“Of course I would. But good God, you should be home by now, sweetheart.”

“ Sin duda. But we had a nasty little incident.”

“Who?”

“Nobody hurt. I’ll tell you about it when you come over. I’m ten-fifteen, one juvenile.”

“I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t know what an old dumb guy like me can tell you, sweetheart. Especially about the younger generation.”

“A second opinion, is all,” Estelle said.

“Well, hell, I’m all opinions, as you well know. Give me ten?”

“That’s fine. No rush, sir.”

“Not in this lifetime,” he said. “But I’m down to the last morsel.”

“Thanks, padrino .” She switched off the phone just in time to swing the car into the Public Safety Building’s parking lot. Pasquale had parked his SUV directly in front of the side door where they moved prisoners back and forth to the small booking room.

Everyone was inside, including Dennis Collins, whose nicked SUV was pulled in behind the fuel pumps, parked beside a damaged county pickup truck that had languished there for three weeks awaiting parts.

The last of the undersheriff’s worries was a damaged truck. She sat quietly for a moment, mentally putting things in order on her list of priorities before escorting the youngster inside.

Perfect timing, she mused. Although she liked to think that she didn’t care what the media said or did not say, she drew a sigh of relief that the writer from the national magazine hadn’t arrived a day early. The whole mess made her insides ache.

“May I?” Bill Gastner extended his hand and Estelle passed over the.45 automatic that had been holstered on Deputy Collins’ hip…and that had then taken an excursion through space. Gastner laid the gun in his lap and took off his glasses, inspecting the lenses carefully. He wiped away a small spot on the sleeve of his shirt, then replaced the spectacles with care.

The slide was racked back on the handgun, but the empty magazine was in place. Gastner thumbed the release and let the magazine slide into his hand, then laid it on the desk.

“I lived with one of these for a long time,” he said thoughtfully. “A very interesting, very old design.” He turned the gun this way and that, as if admiring it just before a purchase. “Collins fumbled it somehow? Is that the story?”

“He says that he drew the gun as he slid out of his truck, and then when he saw that there was no particular threat, maybe seeing that it was just a beer bottle that hit his truck and not a bullet, he went to reholster it. That’s when he fumbled it. The gun hit the truck-we have a chip in the Expedition’s paint, and there was a tiny speck of paint residue on the back sight.”

Gastner held the gun in two hands and rotated it, imitating its flight toward the truck’s fender. “And then he managed to grab it.”

“Apparently. After it bounced off the fender.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“Well, I’m not, really. We do that all the time, after all. We drop something, and make a grab for it. Sometimes the catches are spectacular, sometimes we don’t even come close.”

“We just don’t do it too often with a loaded and cocked gun,” Gastner said. “Still,” and he took a deep breath, “the gun didn’t go off when it struck the truck.” He turned the gun so Estelle could see the chamber clearly. “Nothing to feed it, nothing in its mouth,” he said, and waited until she nodded. Then he thumbed the slide release, and the slide shot forward with a metallic clang, closing the gun, leaving the hammer cocked. He bent over with a grunt, and whacked the butt of the cocked automatic on the floor, then did it again. The hammer remained cocked. He straightened up, turned the gun over, and tapped the hammer spur itself sharply on the metal edge of Estelle’s desk.