Steven Havill - Statute of Limitations

“You have to go at this hour?” Teresa observed, knowing perfectly well that the hour of the day or night didn’t matter.

“ Mamá helps people,” Carlos said, and Estelle felt a twinge at his innocent defense. She clamped a hand on his small skull the way his father did, turning his face up so that she looked directly into his dark brown eyes, so rich and deep that she could become lost in them. Neither of them said a word, and after a moment she kissed him on the bridge of his nose, squarely between the eyes.

“The sheriff’s sick,” she said to her mother, taking her by the hand. “I’ll be back when I can.”

“Ay,” Teresa said, her expression softening. “I bet that stubborn one didn’t get his flu shot.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Estelle said.

A few minutes later, Estelle saw Sheriff Bob Torrez’s heavy-lidded eyes flicker with a touch of irritation as she rapped lightly on the freestanding partition. The sheriff lay in the hospital bed, the skimpy gown looking ridiculous on his large frame. He had kicked the sheet off, and his left leg was flexed with his foot propped up on the bed rail…a pathetic imitation of his habit of thumping a boot across the corner of his office desk.

The crowd around his bed-now grown to three people-surely was stretching Torrez’s patience. Dr. Alan Perrone stood near the sheriff’s left shoulder, regarding the screen that monitored the patient’s vital signs. Gayle Torrez flanked her husband on the other side of the bed.

“What are you doin’ here already?” Torrez asked ungraciously. His voice was husky, and he reached up and fiddled with the oxygen tube in his nostrils. An IV was taped to the back of each hand. “We were just about to wrap all this up.”

“Oh, sure,” the unflappable Dr. Perrone said. He smiled tightly at Estelle. “How are you doing, young lady?”

“I’m okay,” Estelle replied.

“Happy Holidays,” Perrone added. “Or maybe I said that last night…I’m losing track.”

“And Merry Christmas to all,” Estelle said. She rapped a knuckle on the bedframe as she stepped around to stand beside Gayle. “Hey,” she said, and rested a hand on Gayle’s shoulder.

“Some people will do anything to get out of a family gathering,” Gayle said, but she didn’t even try to smile. Christmas with the hugely extended Torrez family meant that Bob Torrez’s mother would host half a hundred people in her modest adobe home on McArthur…and the overflow would reach Bob and Gayle’s mobile home less than half a block away.

“Actually, it’s pretty simple, Estelle,” Perrone said, “We’re in the process of explaining to this guy that there are two easy ways to find what happened…to find where that embolism is and just how nasty it might be. We can do a postmortem, or Robert can let us do our jobs without all the macho fuss.”

His glance shifted to Gayle, who accepted the barb, made only partially in jest, with a nod of agreement. “We took X-rays,” the physician continued, “and they don’t show as much as I’d like. We’re going to get a CAT here in a few minutes, but I’m willing to bet that’ll be inconclusive, too. The best way to see what we’re dealing with is pulmonary angiography…put in a little tracer and watch where it goes.”

“I don’t need to be stuck full of dye,” Torrez grumbled.

“Better a little bit of dye than a gallon or two of embalming fluid,” Perrone said, and Estelle saw Gayle wince. “Anyway, I want all the cards in my hand when we do that, and that means that we cart you up to University Hospital in Albuquerque.” He glanced at his watch. “We’re lucky. The Med-Evac flight crew thought they might get to enjoy Christmas at home, and we were able to round them up in Las Cruces. The plane will be here in a few minutes.”

“I’m not flyin’ to no Albuquerque,” Torrez said, but the protest was without much conviction.

“Oh, yes you are,” Gayle said. “Don’t be so stupid.”

“We’ve already established that you haven’t been taking the meds that were prescribed,” Perrone said. “That didn’t take much detective work. And you haven’t shown your face at physical therapy for the past couple of weeks. Mr. Model Patient, here.” He snorted with impatience, reached out a hand, and patted Torrez on the arm. “We’ll find a blunt needle and fill him full of happy syrup. He won’t even know where he is when we’re done with him.”

“Like hell,” the sheriff said.

“Yep,” Perrone agreed. He beckoned Estelle out of the room, nodding in sympathy at Gayle as he did so. “We’ll be back in a minute. Talk some sense into your husband, okay? And you should plan to go with us, by the way.”

Out in the hall, Perrone walked away from the ICU. He dug in his pocket for a mint and offered one to Estelle. “Francis is on the way down?”

“He’ll be here in just a minute or two,” Estelle said. “What happened?”

“Well, like I told Gayle, I’m sure it’s a clot that broke loose and ended up in his lung. Pulmonary embolism,” Perrone said. “I’m sure of that. Gayle says that early this morning, Bobby woke up and couldn’t get his breath. His heartbeat went wild, and he fell on his face when he tried to climb out of bed. Scared the bejeepers out of her. He wouldn’t let her call an ambulance, and he’s goddamn lucky that stupid little decision didn’t kill him. She drove him down here herself.”

“That sounds like Bobby,” Estelle said.

Perrone leaned against the polished tile wall and regarded the grout between the tiles as if all the answers lay there. “None of this surprises me, I guess. All that surgery he had on his leg and hips, and then he doesn’t take care of himself and pay attention to physical therapy. If he’s not careful, he’s going to end up being forty-five years old and walking like an old man of eighty-five.”

“I thought he looked pretty bad last night,” Estelle said. “We had a little confrontation down in Regál, and even Bill Gastner said that Bobby looked terrible.”

“That sorry affair didn’t do the sheriff any good, I’m sure. He’s in no condition for scuffles.”

“Well, sort of a scuffle, Alan. But that was more me than him.”

“Ah.” Perrone took off his glasses, and Estelle felt his ice-blue eyes assessing her. “And you’re none the worse for wear?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Well, his nibs here isn’t. At the moment, we have him on rat poison and a handful of other things to thin his blood. We need to do a full rundown and see what the hell is going on.” Perrone patted his own right hip. “He’s got a hell of a bruise on his thigh, just above where the break was. Gayle says that somehow he managed to smack himself with the door of his truck yesterday or the day before.”

“He never said anything about that,” Estelle said. “But what else is new.” She glanced at her watch. In another few minutes, the shift at the Sheriff’s Department would cycle from graveyard to days, and Gayle Torrez, office manager and head dispatcher, had been scheduled for duty…the first Christmas tour she’d drawn in several years, thanks to the conspiring of root canals, flu, and various other complications among the small staff.

“So if he goes to Albuquerque, what are we talking about? How long?” Estelle asked.

“He is going to Albuquerque,” Perrone said. “He doesn’t have a choice there. And it all depends what we find. Unfortunately, clots tend not to be isolated events. We’ll just have to see. He’s going to be out of commission for a while…and I’m afraid it’s an indeterminate while just now. That’s the best I can tell you. He might be back on his feet in a day or two, or not.”