Steven Havill - Statute of Limitations

After sucking in air for a moment, Gastner pushed himself away, turning just enough that he could grab first one ankle and then another, pinning the man’s legs with his own. In a moment, the man was hobbled. Gastner stood up and wiped his face.

“You okay?” he asked Estelle. “You’re sure?”

“ I’m fine,” she said.

“My eye,” the man said again, this time with considerably less fight in his tone.

“You’ll get over it,” Estelle said, not changing position. She pulled the.45 away, but just far enough that, when the man’s vision cleared, the yawning muzzle would fill his whole universe. “Sir, will you take the radio? Tom and Jackie are just around the corner.”

Gastner reached down and pulled the hand-held out of the holster at the small of Estelle’s back.

“Three oh two,” he snapped. “Officer needs assistance at Gastner’s. The front door is unlocked. And ten fifty-five. Two down.”

“Three oh two,” Pasquale responded instantly. “ETA ten seconds.”

That brought an attempt at a smile from Gastner, but his expression immediately fell serious. “Mike’s down the hall,” he said, and stepped away, retrieving the automatic. “This is his gun.” He looked at it with disgust, then popped out the magazine and jacked the loaded round out of the chamber. For just a moment, he glared at his prostrate attacker. “And this is Hank Sisneros,” he said. “Shoulda just drowned him with the rest of the kittens long, long ago.”

Estelle hadn’t seen much resemblance between the man on the floor, covered with blood and with a couple of extremities pointing the wrong way, and the man in the instant photo tacked to the accident report in Hank Sisneros’s file-a man standing beside the old, errant dump truck, looking foolish.

“I’ll see what I can do for Mike,” Gastner said. “You all right?”

“Just fine,” Estelle said. “We’re comfortable,” she added, and tapped her prisoner’s eyebrow with the muzzle of the.45. “Aren’t we? You’re getting more of a chance than you gave Janet.” The words were hardly out of her mouth when the front door burst open and Deputy Thomas Pasquale entered, gun drawn. He moved quickly to his left, out of the doorway.

“Over here,” Estelle said. She moved back, lifting her knee but not relaxing her grip on the handcuffs. Pasquale holstered his own weapon and stepped around the table. Grabbing the man by the cuffs as Estelle moved him away, Pasquale turned him on his side, and then, with one hand on the cuffs and the other on the man’s belt, dragged him out away from the furniture. At the same time, Estelle heard someone at the kitchen door. Deputy Jackie Taber appeared, weapon ready.

Moving so deftly and quickly that the man only had time to cough out the restriction in his throat, Pasquale recuffed him with his hands behind his back. The deputy handed the extra set of cuffs to Estelle. “Christ, what’d you do to his knee?”

“I put a.45 through it,” Estelle said. “Maybe he’s lucky I’m not used to the new gun yet. And you probably shouldn’t move him any more than you have to until the EMTs get here.”

“Shoulda aimed for his head,” Pasquale said.

“I wanted to be able to hear what he has to say,” Estelle said. “First, we need to tend to Mike.”

“Sisneros?”

“He’s down the hall with Bill. Keep an eye on this one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How am I supposed to walk,” Hank Sisneros said, finding his voice.

“You don’t walk anywhere,” Pasquale said pleasantly. “You just lie there and bleed.”

“Towels,” Gastner called from the hallway. “In the bathroom there on your right. I need some towels.”

The wall near the hallway and the first bookcase were blood-spattered, and Estelle tried to avoid any of the marks and stains on the polished wood floor as she ducked into the bathroom, emerging with a pile of clean towels.

“He didn’t duck fast enough,” Gastner said, holding out his hand for a towel. “He tried to break away.” He pressed the towel gently against Mike Sisneros’s chin, his other hand steadying the younger man’s shoulder. The deputy lay with his back against the wall, eyes closed, breathing in short, shallow gasps that burbled blood into the towel from the mess that once had been his chin. “You’re going to be okay, Mikey,” Gastner said.

“Here,” Estelle said, and reached across with more padding. “Under his head.” It appeared that the bullet had struck from the back, raking across the young deputy’s neck and throat, exploding out through the point of his chin, a grazing shot that had done a spectacular amount of damage.

Estelle and Gastner knelt silently for a minute, waiting. In the distance they could hear the approaching sirens, a symphony that blended from three different directions. The injured man tried to bring his knees up, and one hand lifted off the floor. Estelle took Mike’s hand in hers, and was surprised at the strength of the grip.

“They’re on the way, Mike. Just hang on.” As she reached to rearrange one of the towels, she saw more blood dripping on the wood, this time from Bill Gastner. He saw her expression and shrugged nonchalantly.

“Nicked me through the fat under the arm,” he said. “Got by a corner of the vest, I guess. Not to worry. Hurts like a pup now, but that’s a good thing. Everything works.”

“How about sitting down,” Estelle said, and Gastner didn’t argue. He slumped back against the opposite wall of the hallway, lifted his left arm, and peered at the damage. Estelle reached across with a towel, but he waved it away.

“Why bother ruining another one,” he said, and sighed heavily. “That son-of-a-bitch brought Mike over here… they broke in the back. They were waiting for me, Estelle. I came in the house, and they were waiting for me. I guess it was supposed to look like Mike and I took care of each other. Do that, and it sure as shit would look like Mike killed Janet.”

“He told you that?”

“He didn’t say a damn thing. He might have, if Mike had given him the chance, liquored up as he was.”

“I didn’t hear the shots,” Estelle said, cringing at the thought of what had been going on in this house while she’d been checking the pharmacy next door.

“You could fire a howitzer inside here, and you wouldn’t hear it outside, at least not with you sitting in a car. He just fired the one time, though…when Mikey made a break for it down the hallway. I think he could see I wasn’t getting anywhere with diplomacy. I tried my best.” He shrugged painfully. “That’s when we went hand-to-hand.” He shook his head ruefully. “Tough little squirt, even drunk.”

The sirens turned into Guadalupe, and in a moment Tom Pasquale reappeared, leading three paramedics. Estelle heard more doors slamming outside, and in a moment Eddie Mitchell and Robert Torrez appeared.

“Jesus,” Torrez said when he limped into the living room. He moved carefully through the scatter of books and knick-knacks, blood and gore until he was standing near Mike Sisneros’s feet. “How is it?”

“I think it looks worse than it is,” EMT Matty Finnegan said. In a moment, Sisneros was IVed, gurneyed, and whisked out of the house. Matty turned her attention to Gastner. “Oh, you look good,” she said.

“Don’t ruin the shirt,” he said.

“It already is, Bub,” Matty replied. “How many times did he hit you?” She industriously scissored his shirt away from his shoulder. “Oh, nice,” she said, pausing when she saw the damage to the vest. “Now, aren’t you the lucky one?”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Gastner grumbled. His luck had nearly run out when one round skipped past the armpit margin of the vest, plowing a path through the pad of fat under his left arm before being stopped by the back side of the vest.