Steven Havill - Statute of Limitations

Turning in place, Estelle looked out across the wet, shiny asphalt of the parking lot. A cold, wet place, not the least bit friendly, she thought. After a moment Estelle saw her husband rise to his feet and steady one of the IV bag supports as the gurney was hoisted up onto its wheels. In a few seconds, the EMT team whisked Eduardo Martinez to the ambulance. His face, partially concealed by the oxygen mask, looked like wet alabaster. Dr. Guzman climbed into the ambulance, one hand locked on the chief’s.

Estelle felt as if she’d swallowed a pound of lead. The last time she had seen Eduardo Martinez, a chance encounter during a county commission meeting, he had smiled like a cherub, full of good cheer and excitement about the holidays.

Sisneros interrupted her thoughts. “This vehicle is stolen out of Hickory Grove, Indiana,” he said. He nodded at the Dodge sedan. “Registered to a Harlan Wilson Waid, 229 Sunset Terrace. Reported stolen from an auto parts store parking lot sometime during the evening of 12/21.”

“That’s three days ago,” Sheriff Bob Torrez said.

“That’s right,” Sisneros said, as if the correct arithmetic was a surprise. “That’s all we got on it right now. No who, no why.” He snapped the clipboard closed.

“I don’t care about this car,” Estelle said. “Where’s Eduardo’s vehicle? He didn’t drive down here tonight in a stolen car. What’s going on?”

“That’s just the point. I don’t know,” Sisneros said. “I don’t know what happened. I’m thinking the best guess is that whoever stole this piece of shit in Indiana drove it this far and then took the opportunity to grab himself a new set of wheels while Eduardo was inside or something. That’s what makes the most sense. I don’t know why he came down to the motel in the first place.”

“No one actually saw what happened?” Estelle asked. She glanced back at the ambulance. Her husband, satisfied that the EMTs had everything under control, was stepping down, ready to follow the ambulance to the hospital in his own vehicle. Had Francis seen the chief’s car leaving the parking lot? If not, they had missed crossing paths by only seconds.

“This is as far as we’ve gotten, Estelle,” Sisneros said. “But we wanted to jump on the possibility of the chief’s car being stolen as quickly as we could. He wouldn’t have walked down here from his house. Not in this weather. Anyway, Tom Pasquale headed south on 56 as far as the border crossing. Regál is closest if someone wants to hightail it into Mexico.”

“We got the roads covered,” Torrez said, cutting Sisneros off impatiently. “East, west, north, south…between us, the State Police, and the Border Patrol, it’s covered. This had to happen just a few minutes ago, so whoever took the chief’s car… if someone took his car…they ain’t gonna go far.”

“Or they might be lounging in a motel room, watching television,” Estelle said.

“Well, the chief’s car isn’t here, and he is,” Sisneros said.

“Eduardo called us at home,” Estelle said and glanced at her watch. “About fourteen minutes ago now. He was feeling ill, but he didn’t want to go to the hospital or have Francis call an ambulance for him. Francis did anyway, and then headed over here to check on him, to see what was going on. Apparently the chief had been home by himself. Family at church.” She looked across toward the sidewalk, and then the short distance to the main entrance. “Who called dispatch, do we know?”

“The motel desk clerk, most likely,” Sheriff Torrez said. “But we don’t know that, either. All we got is that dispatch had a man call it in. Didn’t leave his name.” He leaned with both hands on the head of a stout aluminum cane, ignoring the rivulets of water that matted his curly black hair and then ran down his swarthy face. He looked miserable. “He told dispatch that there was a man down out in the parking lot. Then he hung up. That’s what we got at the moment.”

“I rolled in first, then your husband, then Pasquale,” Deputy Sisneros said. “I saw right away that it was the chief lying by the sidewalk and rendered what assistance I could. I saw that this wasn’t his car, and the first minute I had the chance, I called it in.”

Estelle nodded in approval at Sisneros’s quick thinking. A junker car with out-of-state plates, the spare tire, keys in the ignition, no one around other than the chief…

“Tom got here, and then the ambulance,” Sisneros said. “The only thing that makes sense to me is that somebody was after a new set of wheels. Especially now that we know this one’s stolen.” He nodded at the dilapidated Dodge. “They’re sitting here with a flat tire on a stolen car. Eduardo rolls in, and bingo. They find a new Buick as a Christmas present, with a victim who isn’t going to resist much, or at all. There’s no sign of a struggle…no wounds or anything like that.”

There were a dozen routes that someone could use to slip out of Posadas County, but anyone unfamiliar with the bleak, rugged country would most likely stick to the main highways, taking their chances with the thin police coverage on a Christmas Eve.

Estelle slipped under the yellow tape, approaching the spot where Eduardo Martinez had lain. The chief had fallen to the tarmac on the driver’s side of the decrepit sedan from Indiana. Whether Eduardo had struggled with his assailants, or simply been so preoccupied that he had left his keys in his own car while he went inside the motel, was a puzzle. But in the chief’s delicate condition, a struggle wouldn’t have lasted long.

“Did the desk clerk see where the chief parked?” she asked. “Did he see any of this happen?”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk with anyone inside yet,” Sisneros said. “But I don’t think so.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well,” and he stopped, looking back toward the small portico that spanned the front entrance, a structure just large enough for a single vehicle to pull under. He shook his head dubiously. “Unless the clerk stepped outside, he wouldn’t be able to see this spot. That little wall of the foyer would block his view. There aren’t more than a handful of guests, and they’re all parked down at the other end, around the corner. No way to look out and see anything.”

“Something wasn’t blocked,” Estelle said. “Somebody saw something…some reason to call dispatch to report a man down.” She continued around the abandoned car, a four-door K-model Dodge sedan many miles and years past its prime. She paused at the front fender. The right front tire was the tiny space-saver unit intended for limited, short-distance use as a spare. She circled the Dodge slowly and saw that the keys hung from the ignition.

“Call the county barns and have someone come out and pick up this vehicle,” she said to Sisneros. “There’s not much we’re going to get from the outside, but the interior might tell us something.”

She paused and looked hard at Sheriff Torrez. He hadn’t budged, as if his cane had become rooted in the asphalt of the parking lot. In late October, during a confrontation when everything that could go wrong had, Torrez had taken a.223 bullet through the rump, at the same time suffering nasty fractures of his right forearm and right leg. A souvenir of that same incident, a white, half-inch scar marked the right side of Estelle’s upper lip.

In early December, Torrez had returned to work on a part-time basis, shuffling about with an awkward walking cast, out of balance with both arm and leg encased. The casts had been removed in time for the holidays, but Estelle knew that the sheriff had pretty much ignored the ordered physical therapy-regardless of threats, cajoling, and bribes from his wife, Gayle.