Steven Havill - Privileged to Kill

I could picture the village’s patrol car, a somewhat long-of-tooth Chevy, launching just fine as it roared up onto the bridge, traveling who knows how fast. Unfortunately, Officer Pasquale had forgotten that automobiles aren’t motorcycles. There are no handlebars to haul back on so that the front wheels vault higher than the back for a graceful landing.

The old patrol car had taken the leap, nosed down, and crashed its worn chassis front-end-first on the hard pavement. Various parts gave up the ghost, the front wheels lost interest in working in unison, and after a couple of dramatic swerves that left black rubber cuts in the asphalt, the car tripped over itself and flipped.

I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Just remember,” I said to Estelle. “When you’re elected sheriff in a couple of weeks, reviewing Pasquale’s employment application is going to be one of your first jobs.”

“Sobering thought,” Estelle replied. “But it shouldn’t take long.”

Sergeant Bob Torrez was still working the intersection, tape measure in hand. He’d had nearly half an hour to take a few measurements, and he was making it last. It was probably the most fun he’d had in a long time.

Holding the dumb end of the tape was Posadas Chief of Police Eduardo Martinez. With him was a young state trooper whose patrol car was slotted into the patrons’ parking area of the Don Juan. If the trooper’s dinner was cooling, he didn’t seem to mind. He kept laughing about something. Chief Martinez wasn’t smiling.

I doubted that Thomas Pasquale was laughing either. I could see a dark shape sitting in the sergeant’s county car and assumed that it was what was left of the young officer.

“Give me just a minute,” I said to Estelle, and got out of 310. Torrez saw me and I waved a hand at him, not wanting to interrupt his methodical work pace. The passenger’s window of his patrol car was up, and I rapped a knuckle on the glass.

It buzzed down. Thomas Pasquale looked up at me, his face pale in the dull wash of the streetlights. He was holding a gauze pad above his right eye, and there was what might have been a speck or two of blood on the collar of his uniform shirt.

“Let me see it,” I said, and pulled his hand away. The cut was an inch long, just a nick along his eyebrow. I grimaced with irritation, but it was directed at Bob Torrez and Chief Martinez for letting this kid sit there dribbling blood when he should have been at the hospital.

“I hit the shotgun rack,” Pasquale muttered. “It’s nothing.”

I straightened up and beckoned him out of the car. “Come on,” I said, trying for the right combination of fatherly and brusque.

“Sergeant Torrez told me to-” he started to say, and then stopped, remembering the basics of rank.

As we started back to 310, I caught Chief Martinez’s eye. “We’ll be at the hospital,” I called, and the chief nodded, always perfectly content to let someone else orchestrate.

Torrez continued writing on his clipboard as he walked over toward our car. He looked up from his report as I opened the back door and slid in. I waved a grateful Thomas Pasquale toward the front passenger seat. Torrez correctly interpreted the irritation in my expression and said, “He refused treatment.”

“That’s fine. He’ll live, I’m sure. We need to ask him some questions, if you’re through with him,” I said.

“Who was the pedestrian?” Torrez asked.

“Wesley Crocker.”

“You’re kidding. Killed?”

I shook my head. “Just bruised, is my guess. Help Teddy clean up this mess. And keep your eyes peeled for a vehicle with damage to the right front, and flat black paint scraped off. If you need us for anything, we’ll be at the hospital.”

Torrez touched the brim of his Stetson in salute, and flashed a rare grin at Pasquale. I pulled the door closed and settled back.

During the brief ride, the young officer didn’t say a word. As we rolled past one of the convenience stores, several younger kids were in the parking lot and stared at us as if we were aliens. I’m sure Pasquale was glad that it wasn’t him sitting behind the steel prisoner’s screen in the backseat.

Estelle parked in the slot reserved for the hospital administrator. Two slots down, in another reserved spot, was Sheriff Holman’s brown Buick.

“Somebody let me out of this damn thing,” I said, and Pasquale shot out and unlocked my door. “We’re going to need your help, Thomas,” I said. “First, let’s make sure your eye isn’t going to fall out.”

“It’s fine, sir.”

“No, it isn’t fine,” I snapped. “It won’t hurt you one bit to have it checked. And I’ll sleep better. Humor me.”

He did humor me, and it did hurt. First, an X-ray technician shot a couple of pictures that proved the kid’s head was still rock solid, after commenting dryly that it was a “busy night.” I took that to mean he had finished a series with Wesley Crocker. Then Dr. Alan Perrone poked in three stitches that were as neat as an old lady’s embroidery. Pasquale tried not to flinch.

With the officer sporting a small, rakish bandage that might be mistaken for heroic if one were ignorant of the circumstances, the three of us left the emergency room and tracked down Estelle’s husband.

Patricia Schroeder, a young RN who knew my insides like a road map after my own visits to those hallowed halls, met us at the nurses’ station and pointed down the hall.

“The convocation is in 109,” she said. Her gaze flicked briefly to Tom Pasquale’s war wound and she offered the beginnings of a smile. It seemed to me that the young cop walked just a little straighter after that. Maybe he didn’t know that Nurse Pat was the wife of our district attorney, Ron Schroeder. It took more than three eyebrow stitches to impress her.

Room 106 was occupied by Peggy Hammond and her nervous husband, Leslie. Les saw us walk by and raised a hand in greeting. I nodded but didn’t stop. Les was the dealership service manager where I’d purchased my truck, and I didn’t need an awkward conversation about oil filters or about his wife’s missing gallbladder. Next door, 107 was empty. Room 108’s solitary occupant was an ancient woman with nasal tube, vein tubes, medication drips-the works. She wasn’t conscious as the parade went by.

I pushed open the door to 109 with the toe of my boot. Sheriff Martin Holman was leaning against the wall next to the window, his arms folded across his chest, threatening to crease his impeccable blue suit. His head was tilted in his characteristic “I’m listening closely” expression, and Dr. Francis Guzman was ticking a series of points off on his fingers. Standing near the door was a singularly bored-looking Deputy Howard Bishop.

Bishop turned and saw me and grinned, looking heavenward at the same time.

Holman held up a hand to halt Francis in midsentence as he saw us enter.

Bishop glanced at Pasquale and said, “Cut yourself shaving?” Pasquale had the good sense not to rise to the bait.

I took Bishop by the elbow and steered him toward the door. “We need a vehicle with fresh damage to the right front, and scrapes where it’s missing flat-black paint…like maybe a grill guard on a pickup. Find it for me, all right? Coordinate with Mitchell and Torrez.”

“Yeah, now wait a second,” Holman said, and strode across the room toward Estelle and me. Wesley Crocker was lying in the bed, watching the action with keen interest. He sure hadn’t had this much entertainment up north when he’d been digging postholes for Thomas Lawton. The crow’s feet around his eyes were deep against his tanned, leathery skin. He didn’t look like a patient.

Having been missing most of the day, I thought it best at that moment to let Holman finish one complete sentence.