Steven Havill - Convenient Disposal

“Sheriff, there’s something kind of interesting out here. You got a minute?” Sergeant Mears asked.

“I’ll be right there,” Torrez said, and he was already striding down the hall. Estelle followed, and he waved toward the kitchen as he passed it. She detoured and checked the back storeroom, the screened porch, even the small closet that contained the hot-water heater. The freezer was too small to hold anything but a thoroughly processed corpse, but she pulled open the double doors anyway. The county manager was omnivorous, and liked a well-stocked larder.

Satisfied that the house was empty, she left by way of the front door, being careful to lock it behind her. She slipped the key back in the lizard’s belly.

As she turned away, she saw that Torrez was standing a pace back from the driver’s door of Zeigler’s county pickup. Sgt. Tom Mears was crouching low, peering underneath. On her side of the truck, Deputy Thomas Pasquale was head to head with Linda Real, the department photographer. Both were on their hands and knees.

Torrez beckoned to Estelle. “Wanna make bets?” he said as she stepped around the front of the truck. He knelt and pointed.

Estelle dropped to her hands and knees as Tom Mears moved a bit to one side. “A lug wrench,” she said. The wrench, one of the generic designs with one end pointed to remove hubcaps and the other with the socket angled off at forty-five degrees, lay in the gravel directly under the small truck’s transmission. It appeared new.

“I can reach it,” Pasquale said, and Estelle shook her head.

“No. Leave it for now.” She glanced at Linda, the photographer’s round face flushed from the awkward position.

“Just pictures for now,” Estelle said. “When we’ve documented the truck, we’ll roll it back a little bit. That way you can do some close-ups.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Good eyes,” she said to Mears. “Does it belong to the truck, do you think?”

Mears frowned at Bob Torrez. “I don’t remember if the Ranger has one of those kind, or one of the foldy-up things. But it won’t take long to find out.”

“It’s behind the seat, I think,” Torrez said. “On the passenger side.”

Pasquale opened the passenger door with a single, gloved finger, and stepped back to hold it out of Mears’ way. The sergeant knelt and examined the passenger seat. He was about to push the small lever that would slide the seat forward when he stopped abruptly.

“Whup,” he said. “The jack’s right here, on the floor. It kinda slid under the seat a little.” He looked up at Estelle. “No handle.”

“What’s behind the seat?” she asked.

He pulled the second release, leaning the seat back forward. “A spot where the jack and the handle clip into place. Nothing there.”

Torrez had walked behind the truck, and he rested one hand on the back bumper as he bent down. “Spare’s gone,” he said. He straightened up abruptly and continued around the rear of the truck. “It’s mounted on the left rear.”

Estelle felt a queasy lurch in the pit of her stomach. Torrez stepped around Linda Real and stood regarding the jack in front of the passenger seat. “He has a flat tire, and tosses the wrench and jack on the floor when he’s done. They’re a pain in the ass to put back just right, and he’s in a hurry.”

“Where’s the flat tire?” Pasquale asked. The bed of the county truck was empty.

“Beats the shit out of me,” Torrez said. “Figure out how the wrench ended up on the driveway under the truck while you’re at it.” He turned to Estelle. “I was thinkin’ about that tore-up Sheetrock in the dining room. Swing a lug wrench hard enough, and that gash wouldn’t be hard to do.”

“This is Kevin Zeigler’s truck, isn’t it?” Pasquale asked.

“Yeah,” Torrez said. “It’s Zeigler’s truck.” He glanced back at the county manager’s house. “It’s his wrench, too.”

Estelle opened the driver’s door. Turning sideways so that she could rest her feet on the driveway, she settled into the seat. Even with both doors open, she could smell Kevin Zeigler…the same cologne that marked the sweater in the house had left its imprint on the little truck’s fabric seats, the headliner, even the vinyl of the doors and dashboard.

On top of the cologne, she smelled the unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke.

She motioned at Tom Mears, and he gently shut the passenger door. Estelle swung her legs into the truck and pulled the driver’s door shut. With her eyes closed, she sat quietly for a moment. The cloying odor of cigarette smoke was faint but obvious, layered with something else. She sat quietly for a couple of minutes until a knuckle rapped on the window.

“You usin’ Zen or something in there?” Torrez said when she opened the door.

“Sit in here a minute,” she said.

“What?”

“Sit in the truck with the doors closed,” she said. “Tell me what you smell.”

Torrez looked skeptical, but he took off his cap and then folded himself into the small truck. He left one leg out, obviously loath to pull himself fully inside.

She reached down and slapped his knee with the back of her hand. “Go ahead. Fold yourself up inside. Close the door.” Torrez did so with evident distaste. She watched his face settle, though, and he remained motionless for a full minute. He lowered his head, and Estelle saw that he had closed his eyes in concentration.

He opened the door abruptly, looking up at Estelle. “Same perfume as in the house. And butts. And somebody’s had happy hour.”

“You smell booze?” Torrez didn’t reply immediately, but Estelle knew that there was more than a kernel of truth in the department joke that Robert Torrez could smell an open beer or whiskey bottle from across the county, upwind, with his head sealed in a plastic bag. The sheriff had no need to ask if a motorist had been drinking.

“I think so,” he said. “Butts, for sure.” He reached out and pulled the ashtray open. It was clean. “It’s going to be a long night,” he muttered.

The painstaking process of combing inside and outside the Acosta household continued until Estelle Reyes-Guzman’s eyes teared from concentration…a few grains of Sheetrock dust here, a hair there.

Although there was no road map, it became clear that the struggle had progressed from the kitchen door, through the house, to Carmen’s bedroom-and nowhere else. That in itself puzzled Estelle. Nowhere else on the Acostas’ property was there a single sign of something out of place, of something tampered with. The backyard was littered with the “stuff” of an active family that didn’t put picking up after itself high on the priority list.

Estelle stood beside the bed, trying to imagine how the battle had progressed. It wasn’t a fight between equals, that was clear. Despite her combative experience, youthful strength, and Acosta temper, Carmen had retreated, perhaps even bolted, toward what she had thought was sanctuary. Maybe at one point she had ducked behind the entertainment center and its television. A flailing lug wrench would make quick work of the wide screen. Carmen had tried for the telephone, too-to call her mother, to call the police-who knew.

A spatter of blood flecked the burlap shade from the shattered bedside lamp, and after Linda Real had photographed it from every conceivable angle, Estelle bagged the entire lamp. That went out to Deputy Jackie Taber’s vehicle, along with the comforter from the bed and the small throw rug from the floor, both soaked with the blood that had gushed from Carmen’s battered head.

The blood flow on the bed and rug had been profuse, most likely from the blow to the back of Carmen’s head that had laid open her scalp. The blood spatter on the side of the lamp shade away from the bed had been tiny, just a couple of drops. Maybe Carmen had gotten in a couple good licks of her own.