Steven Havill - A Discount for Death

“And you’ll charge Richard?”

Estelle frowned. She looked at Barbara Parker for a long moment, trying to imagine what the woman’s thought processes might be.

“No ma’am. Richard Kenderman is dead.”

Mrs. Parker’s hands drifted together palm to palm as if ready for prayer, and she pressed her fingers to her lips and closed her eyes. “Oh…”

“I’m sorry,” Estelle said.

Barbara Parker’s eyes remained tightly closed as she shook her head repeatedly. Finally the oscillation stopped, but her eyes remained closed. “And Perry?”

“I don’t know yet how that will turn out. Perry is in custody. The district attorney is pressing charges against him. That’s all I can tell you.”

“If I’d…” the woman started, and bit it off with another shake of her head.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing , Estelle thought, but she remained silent. Mrs. Parker turned toward the house, hands still pressed to her lips. “I need to be with Ryan,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Estelle said. “You certainly do.” Mrs. Parker heard the clipped edge in the undersheriff’s tone and grimaced. “And Mrs. Parker, if establishing paternity for Ryan is important to you, then you need to contact Judge Hobart first thing in the morning for a court order. Once the body is buried or cremated, there isn’t much that can be done.”

The woman looked as if she’d been stabbed with a fork. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “Would it be possible for you…”

Estelle shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t, ma’am. That’s something that you need to do, Mrs. Parker. Regardless of how we feel at the moment, someday it might be important to Ryan and Mindi to know. Right now, that’s your job.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Parker said. Her shoulders slumped.

“We all are, ma’am,” Estelle said. She nodded toward the house. “Ryan’s going to need a lot of attention.”

“Will you keep me posted about Perry?”

Estelle took a deep breath, forcing herself to say exactly the right thing. “No, Mrs. Parker, I won’t. You know exactly where Perry Kenderman is. You’re free to visit him at the county lockup during regular visiting hours any time you wish. If you want a blood test to establish whether or not he’s Ryan’s father, feel free to ask him to comply. If he refuses, then your next avenue is Judge Hobart.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Barbara Parker hesitated as she glanced toward her house. “He could go to prison, couldn’t he.”

“Yes, ma’am. He could.”

Barbara Parker nodded and gazed off toward the house. “Okay,” she said, and turned to Estelle with a tight, painful smile. “Thank you.”

“Expect either Sergeant Mears or one of the other officers later this evening,” Estelle said. “I’ll be in touch.”

As soon as the car door slammed, she keyed the mike and cleared with Dispatch, her thoughts already back in the dark alley behind Portillo’s.

“Three ten, ten twenty-one Sheriff Torrez,” Ernie Wheeler said.

She acknowledged and switched from radio to telephone, pushing the car back into Park. The sheriff was difficult enough to hear under the best of circumstances, but this time his voice was soft and delivered one notch above a whisper.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir. Ryan’s home and safe. I just left there.”

“Good enough. We’ve got a convention going on over here. Schroeder will be here in a few minutes,” the sheriff said. “You’re on your way back over?”

“In a bit. Can you give me some time?”

“Time for what? The place you need to be is right here.”

“I know that, Bobby, but I just talked to Francis,” she said. “I left him at Bill’s earlier when we went after Kenderman. He says that both Frieberg and Herrera are up to something at the pharmacy. We need to know what’s going on.”

“Great timing.”

“We need to move on that, Bobby. Tonight.”

A long silence followed. “Look, Estelle…Schroeder’s going to have some questions. I got a few of my own. In the first place, any number of people could have taken the kid home. You shouldn’t have left here to do that. You’re one of the principals in this.”

“I understand that, sir,” Estelle said, making an effort to keep her voice even. “But what’s going on at that pharmacy is somehow related to George Enriquez’s murder. There are a number of people who can give you an accurate version of what happened with Richard Kenderman. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get back to you. If there’s something urgent, you’ll be able to reach me.”

“Just a second.” She heard the phone muffled and voices in the background. “You keep the phone handy,” Torrez said when he came back on the line. “Don’t be goin’ Lone Ranger on us. Taber’s comin’ in early to give us some coverage on the road, so you can use her. We’ll clean up the mess here. If Schroeder needs to talk with you right away, I’ll let you know. I don’t think there’s too much question about what happened. The store clerk looked out the back door just as the first of the shots was fired.” Torrez hesitated. “For once everyone agrees. You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, sir.” All right was relative, of course , she thought.

“Okay. Don’t be goin’ without the cavalry. And stay in touch.”

The drive from Barbara Parker’s home on Third Street south to Bill Gastner’s rambling adobe on Escondido, where Francis Guzman waited, was no more than two miles. During those four minutes, Estelle tried to push the Parker family out of her mind. She knew that she could spend fruitless hours wondering and worrying about Ryan and Mindi’s care…about Barbara Parker’s various failings as a guardian, about what Perry Kenderman’s next move might be should he ever be able to post bond.

She also knew, despite the powerful tugs of affection she felt for the children caught in the middle, that the family’s various troubles were none of her business until laws were broken. There was nothing in the statutes that prevented a guardian from doing all the wrong things.

To force the crumpled, bloody figure of Richard Kenderman from swimming back into focus, she concentrated on the mistakes made by George Enriquez-and the mistakes made by the person who had murdered him.

As she turned left on Guadalupe Terrace, Estelle switched off the headlights. She let the Expedition drift along Guadalupe so slowly that a power walker would have left her in the dust. The mobile-home park on the left was quiet, most of the porch lights on, a smattering of vehicles snuggled in beside the trailers. She passed Escondido and saw Bill Gastner’s Blazer parked in his driveway, fifty yards down the lane.

Ahead on the right, just around the gentle southward curve of Guadalupe, the Posadas Health Clinic’s bulk cast a low, squat shadow against the trees. The front of the building featured a series of tall, narrow slots that passed for windows, perhaps the architect’s reminiscence of crevasses in the sides of red sandstone mesas. The clinic doors faced east, into the parking lot.

That apron of macadam curved around the building where the pharmacy’s front door opened to the south. The outside security light over the door washed out any possibility of seeing furtive lights inside, an interesting phenomenon that she had pointed out to the architect during the early planning stages of the building. The architect hadn’t believed her, and neither had the insurance company.

As she approached the clinic’s parking lot, Estelle braked to a gentle stop on the shoulder of the street. She could see the back of Louis Herrera’s yellow Mustang, nosed in close to the private staff entrance on the east side of the pharmacy.