Steven Havill - A Discount for Death

“You’re declaring a moratorium?”

“I should have, about thirty years ago. What do you have going on up there?”

“A motorcycle smacked the utility pole on the corner of Twelfth and Bustos. A young woman was killed.”

“Anyone we know?”

Estelle looked down at the driver’s license that Deputy Pasquale had handed her a few minutes before. “Colette Parker,” she said. A small, almost elfinlike face stared up at her, and Estelle turned the laminated license slightly to cut the glare from the flashlight held under her arm.

“Colette Parker. The name rings a really faint bell,” Gastner said.

“She’s twenty-two, worked in the supermarket,” Estelle said. She remembered a slight, quick-moving figure, blonde hair cut in a pageboy and hooked behind jugged ears, a small neat girl in her old-fashioned white apron, far more fetching in person than she appeared in the motor vehicle department photo. “In that little deli the new owners put in.” She turned the license over and saw the motorcycle endorsement.

“Don’t remember. But I don’t hang out in delis much, either. I probably know her folks.”

Estelle heard the small voice in the background again, and Gastner said something unintelligible. “Your bonehead son thinks his bishop is a rook,” Gastner added. “There’s something about diagonal moves that escapes him.” Estelle heard a giggle and then a conspiratorial conversation between the little boy and his father.

“Don’t let him con you, sir. He plays with Francis all the time. He knows what the rules are.”

“You’d never know it. And they’re playing two against one, so that tells you how fair the whole setup is in the first place. Anyway, you about to wrap things up down there? Are we going to see you this evening?”

“Ah, no…probably not. We’ve got a problem or two.”

“There’s always those,” Gastner said, and Estelle grinned at the broad implication in his tone- they’re your problems now, sweetheart . “I’m about to wrap up this important tourney and head for the hills. Anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry I got held up. I had the best intentions.”

“Don’t give it a second thought. I know how these things go. Give my regards to Roberto.”

“I’ll do that.” She turned to glance toward where Sheriff Robert Torrez had been standing talking to Perry Kenderman, and was startled to see that two additional figures had arrived and were hunkered over the motorcycle. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably.”

“Sounds good. Be careful.”

Estelle switched off the phone. She looked across the intersection again and saw that District Attorney Daniel Schroeder had turned his attention from the bike to her. He regarded her thoughtfully from across Twelfth Street. If he was actually listening to what the man standing beside him was saying, he gave no indication. Estelle started across the street, and Schroeder reached out a hand to contact Chief Eddie Mitchell’s shoulder. Mitchell looked up and saw Estelle. The two men waited by the motorcycle as she approached.

Mitchell stood with both hands on his hips, blunt jaw clamped askew as if daring his opponent to throw his best punch. At one point, both Estelle and Eddie Mitchell had been sheriff’s deputies before roads diverged. Mitchell had left to join the Sheriff’s Department in Bernalillo County, an area that included the huge metroplex of Albuquerque. He had passed the lieutenant’s exam and then abruptly quit to return to the village of Posadas to take the chief’s job when Eduardo Martinez retired.

Whatever forces drew Mitchell, a native of Pittsburgh, to the tiny New Mexican village was anyone’s guess. Other than innocuous remarks like “Pretty country,” he’d never bothered to explain.

A stocky bear of a man, Mitchell was as quick on his feet as a dancer. He waited, hands on his hips, brows furrowed.

“Evening,” Schroeder offered. As usual, Schroeder’s suit was immaculate, and the light from the street lamp winked off the polished gold rims of his glasses. The same height as Mitchell, the district attorney gave up a good fifty pounds to the chief of police.

“Hello, sir,” Estelle said. “Chief.” She nodded at Mitchell, and he extended his hand. His grip was firm, and he didn’t let go. His light blue eyes locked on Estelle’s, and for a long minute, he stood silently, as if trying to read her mind.

“Bobby says he’s going to impound the patrol car,” Mitchell said finally. His voice was a light tenor. He released his grip.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there something to make you think that there was contact between the car and the cycle?”

“No. It’s just a very good possibility.”

“A possibility?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mitchell searched Estelle’s impassive face for a moment. “Kenderman tells me that the cyclist ran a stop sign at Highland, right in front of him.”

“That’s not true, sir.”

“Tell me what’s true.”

“She may well have run a stop sign, or half a dozen of them, during the time he was chasing her. But it didn’t happen the way he says it did.”

Schroeder ran his right hand through thinning blond hair. “Did the Volvo lady see anything?”

“Her name’s Maggie Archer. The bike crossed directly in front of her, but she had time to stop. There was no contact. Even as the bike hit the pavement and started somersaulting, the patrol car entered the intersection, right in front of Mrs. Archer’s car. She had a grandstand seat. Mears is talking with her right now.”

“I see he is,” Schroeder said. He thrust his hands into his pockets. “Tell me what you think happened, Estelle.”

Briefly, Estelle recounted what she had first heard, and then seen. “It was a chase over several blocks, sir. If Mrs. Archer traveled six blocks during the time that I heard the police car and the bike, then they could have covered twice that distance.”

“You heard them turning this way and that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mitchell shook his head and gazed down at the bike. He toed the back tire with his boot. “So if Kenderman says that he initiated chase at the corner of Twelfth and Highland, he’d be lying.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you can’t see any way around that.”

“No, sir.”

Mitchell puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly. “And no lights or siren.”

“No, sir.”

“And no conversation with Dispatch.”

“No, sir. The radio in the patrol car was turned off when I looked inside. Even if he had it on during the chase, he didn’t use it. The sheriff was home, monitoring the channel. He says that Kenderman wasn’t talking to Dispatch.”

The chief rocked the cycle’s back tire back and forth against the small amount of slack in the drive chain. “I think we all need to confer with Officer Kenderman,” he said finally. “I’d like both you and the sheriff in on it.”

“Certainly.”

“Right now, Kenderman thinks that it’s his word against yours…and I assume he doesn’t know where you were standing when you heard the chase-or even if you heard it, for that matter. Is that correct?”

“I don’t see how he could.”

“Good. Then let’s leave it that way for a little while,” Mitchell said with a curt nod. “There’s always a chance that there’s a great big unknown in all this mess. We need to give Kenderman every opportunity.” He looked hard at Estelle. “After all, there is the possibility that what you heard wasn’t related to this accident.”

“No, sir, that’s not a possibility,” Estelle replied, but Mitchell shrugged.

“We’ll talk to the officer again and see. Is it all right if he rides down with me?”