A Discount for Death (2 page)

Chapter Two

Patrolman Perry Kenderman’s angular face was pale, and as Estelle approached, she could see his deer-in-headlights gaze shift from the motionless form under the utility pole to the dark figure of Maggie Archer across the street, and then to the rapidly approaching ambulance. Only when Estelle reached out and touched him on the shoulder did he turn and acknowledge her presence.

“Perry, tell me what happened.” She watched his face. His heavy lips moved, but whatever it was that he wanted to say stuck in his throat. Estelle waited. Kenderman had been hired as a full-time village patrolman just months before by Chief Eddie Mitchell, but he’d served long enough as a part-timer to know the job. Perry Kenderman had proved himself steady and dependable. No particular flame drove his ambition—just what the village fathers appreciated.

Estelle glanced back over her shoulder as the ambulance pulled to a stop and the two EMTs bailed out. Deputy Pasquale had been kneeling by the fallen rider, and he rose to step out of the way as the two EMTs approached. Estelle turned once more to the patrolman.

She knew that Kenderman had seen his share of accidents. Less than a month before, he’d responded to the scene of a pickup truck rollover that had killed a two-year-old. Estelle had arrived in time to see Kenderman working frantically with the EMTs trying to save the child’s life. He hadn’t frozen in his tracks then.

But tonight, he’d been struck dumb. There was nothing anyone could do for the motorcyclist, Estelle knew, but Kenderman didn’t. From such a spill, the norm would have been broken bones, pavement burns, maybe some lacerations from the bolts at the bottom of the utility pole. Kenderman could have handled any of those injuries as a first responder. But he had not taken a step. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Estelle could guess why the patrolman had been stunned into silence.

His patrol car, askew in the street, was effectively blocking Twelfth, and Estelle moved past him and leaned inside the vehicle. She turned on the red lights and paused before straightening up, looking at the radio.

“Perry, talk to me,” she said quietly. “I want you to tell me what happened.”

“She wouldn’t stop,” Kenderman said, finally finding his voice. This time he looked fully at Estelle, and she could see that he’d returned from whatever mental hideout he’d initially chosen.

“This started out as a routine traffic stop?” Estelle kept her tone neutral, noncommittal, hoping that the leading question would serve to prime the officer’s pump.

Kenderman’s head bobbed a bit, as if he couldn’t decide whether to nod or shake.

“Where did you first see the bike?”

“Up…up on…” and he paused. “She was comin’ down toward the bridge, there, on Twelfth Street. She run the stop sign at Highland.”

“You were parked there, or coming up behind, or what?”

“I…I was comin’ out of Highland the other way.”

Estelle turned and looked north, past the Don Juan de Oñate Restaurant, toward the small silver bridge. Highland Court, a narrow lane that was actually only five or six blocks long, crossed Twelfth Street a scant two blocks before the bridge. She looked back at Kenderman. His Adam’s apple jumped as he gulped air.

“You knew who the cyclist was?”

He shook his head quickly, and Estelle saw his eyes dance away. She regarded him silently.

“I need to make sure I understand,” she said finally. “Where were you when you first saw the motorcycle?”

Kenderman frowned at the pavement. “I was eastbound on Highlands.”

“On which side of Twelfth?”

“West.” He nodded as if the image had finally coalesced in his mind.

“You were coming up on the intersection of Highland and Twelfth, then?” He nodded again. “And where was the motorcycle?”

“It was comin’ down Twelfth toward me. Southbound.”

“And you said it ran a stop sign?” The question obviously jarred Kenderman, since Estelle was sure he would know as well as anyone that there was no stop sign posted on the through street.

Kenderman ran a hand over his face in frustration. “She was comin’ west on Highland. That’s what I mean. Christ, all this happened so fast.” He put both hands over his face, shuddered a deep breath, and then extended them toward Estelle. “She was comin’ west on Highland, got to the stop sign at Twelfth, and ran right through, right there in front of me.”

“And that’s the first time you saw the bike?”

“What do you mean?”

“You hadn’t been in pursuit earlier? This was your first encounter?”

“The first time.” Kenderman’s voice had firmed up some, and he gazed off into space, his head shaking slowly.

Estelle heard a clatter behind her, and saw one of the EMTs unloading a gurney from the ambulance. “Stay here,” she said, and Kenderman nodded.

Deputy Pasquale stood on the sidewalk just beyond the utility pole, a dozen feet from the wrecked bike, conferring with a second deputy, Sgt. Tom Mears. Across the street, a black and white state police cruiser slid quietly to a stop behind Maggie Archer’s Volvo. Bustos Avenue was effectively corked, with what little traffic there might be forced into a single lane.

As Estelle approached, Mears walked to the motorcycle and knelt down beside it. Pasquale followed, hands thrust in his pockets. The “two Toms,” as Chief Dispatcher Gayle Torrez had dubbed them, frequently worked the same shift—Mears methodical and meticulous, the younger Pasquale still tending toward impetuosity.

“Banged it up some,” Mears said to Estelle. He reached out a hand and squeezed the front tire. “You saw it happen?” His right index finger traced over an arc on the tire’s sidewall, high near the edge of the tread. The tire’s black rubber was scuffed and bruised. Mears brought his flashlight close.

Estelle dropped to her hands and knees, focusing her own light. “I was parked in front of the dry cleaner’s, standing beside my car. The bike looked like something caught on the pavement just as she crossed in front of Mrs. Archer’s car. I think the rider was trying to turn left onto Bustos.”

“Foot peg, probably,” Mears said.

Estelle turned and looked across the street. “When the bike entered the intersection, the front tire was off the ground.” She held her hands as if she were pulling up on the bike’s handlebars. “It was cocked. Then the front tire planted and everything went crazy.”

“It’s a dirt bike,” Pasquale offered. “Those knobby tires can be tricky as hell on pavement.”

Mears stood up, hands on his hips. “The bike just sort of somersaulted over itself, then? Tripped over itself?” He looked over his shoulder toward the utility pole. At its base, the two EMTs conferred quietly, all urgency drained from their pace. “If she hadn’t caught the pole, she probably wouldn’t have done much more than skin an elbow.”

Estelle sat back on her haunches, head twisted so that she could see Perry Kenderman. He leaned against the village patrol car, a two-year-old Ford Crown Victoria that sported a fancy blue, white, and gold paint job, including the large
DARE
emblem flagged across the rear fenders. During his last year on the job, the former village police chief had been so proud of the unit that he’d talked the village into buying another one just like it.

“Sheriff, you about ready?” One of the EMTs had stepped close, and he nodded toward the black-shrouded body. No amount of high-tech medicine was going to put the cyclist back together.

“No,” she said quickly. “Not until the coroner gets here.” The EMT nodded and turned away. “We need to tape this area off,” she said. “Did you call Linda?”

“She’s on the way,” Tom Pasquale said. “And Bobby’s on his way down.”

“We’re going to want really careful pictures.” Linda Real would take careful and perfect photos, she knew, in black and white, color, and video. She stood up with her hands on her hips, and Mears followed her gaze as an ancient, rumbling pickup truck pulled to a stop across the street behind the state police cruiser. She took a deep breath. “Let’s see what the sheriff wants to do,” she said and glanced at Mears.

“This ain’t going to be pretty,” Mears said. “What do you want to do with him?” He leaned his head in Kenderman’s direction.

“Just make sure he doesn’t take off,” Estelle replied. “And make sure he doesn’t talk to anyone else. Not even Chief Mitchell when he gets here. There are some questions he needs to answer.”

Posadas County Sheriff Robert Torrez stepped slowly out of his truck, lingering for a moment with one hand on the door as he surveyed the scene. He saw his undersheriff approaching and waited.

“Who is it?” he said without greeting.

“We don’t know yet. We’re waiting on Perrone.” She shook her head. “She broke her neck.”

Torrez slammed the door of the truck. Something clattered inside, but he ignored it. “
Her
neck?” he asked quietly.

“It appears that way.”

“So tell me.”

“Right now, it appears that Kenderman was chasing the bike,” Estelle said. “A close chase. They entered this intersection less than a second apart. But there are some inconsistencies with his story. He says the chase began just a block or two north of this intersection, up by Highlands. I know that’s not true.”

“Oh?”

Estelle nodded down the street toward the east. “I was standing on the street in front of Kealey’s. I heard both the car and the bike. They were quite a distance to the north and east. Much farther than two blocks.”

“You heard the patrol car?”

“Yes, sir. Then I saw the bike enter the intersection and heard the chase car close behind. A split second later, the village unit entered the intersection. The bike hadn’t even stopped moving. The village unit stopped where you see it now.”

Torrez’s face remained impassive as he took a step toward the front of his truck so that he could see around the bulk of the ambulance. A tall, broad-shouldered man, he moved carefully, as if reluctant to intrude. “You heard Kenderman’s siren?”

“No, sir. It wasn’t operating.”

“But his lights were?”

“No, sir. I turned those on myself just a minute ago, when I first went over to talk to him.”

“What does he say?”

“Only that he was eastbound on Highland, near the stop sign at Twelfth. First he said the bike was southbound on Twelfth, then he corrected himself to say that it was westbound on Highland when it ran the stop sign and then
turned
southbound on Twelfth. That’s when he says he initiated pursuit.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“No, sir. I know that’s not the case. Unless there was a sudden switch in cars just before the bridge, that’s not what I heard.”

Torrez muttered something to himself, then said, “I was workin’ on this,” and he patted the primer gray front fender of his truck, “and I had my radio on. Kenderman wasn’t talkin’. Not to Dispatch, anyway.”

“No, he sure wasn’t. His radio wasn’t turned on, Bobby.”

Torrez looked sharply at Estelle. “You’re sure about that?”

“Yes, sir. I checked his car.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Torrez said.

“And there’s another inconsistency that bothers me,” Estelle said. “From the first exchange I had with Kenderman, he referred to the cyclist as
she
. When I asked if he knew who she was, he said no. He’s lying, Bobby.”

Torrez glanced down at Estelle as a grin touched his broad face. “He is?”

“Sure he is. First of all, she’s got short hair, or at least it’s all bundled up under the helmet. She’s wearing blue jeans, running shoes, and a black quilted down jacket, all over a petite build. How is he going to know it’s a girl when she flashes by on the bike? Especially at night. If the bike was coming toward him through the intersection, its headlights would be in his eyes…assuming the incident happened the way he said it did.”

“Fifty-fifty chance,” Torrez said.

“I don’t think so. Besides, motorcyclists are
he
until proven otherwise.”

Torrez grinned again. “Always?”

“Absolutely always.”

They reached the back door of the ambulance and one of the EMTs appeared at Torrez’s elbow. “Sheriff, Dr. Perrone’s on his way, but it’s going to be a few minutes.” The sheriff didn’t reply but stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the shrouded figure under the light pole and then at the crumpled motorcycle beyond. Off to the right, Mears was in the process of marking one of the digs in the pavement where the bike’s foot peg had struck.

“Did someone call the chief?” Torrez asked.

“Dispatch says he’s in Deming,” Mears said. “They’re trying to reach him. Kenderman was the only village officer on duty, Bobby.”

Torrez nodded and twisted at the waist, looking across the intersection toward the bridge. “Did Maggie see all of this?”

“Yes,” Estelle replied. “She drove past me on Bustos as I was coming out of the cleaners. I heard the chase during the entire time it took her to drive from there to this point. That’s six blocks. And she wasn’t in a hurry.”

“So the chase could have been over a considerable distance,” Torrez said. He shrugged. “How long does it take to cover six blocks at thirty miles an hour? That’s about what Maggie was driving? If they were after each other the whole time she was moseyin’ down the street, they could have covered ten or twelve blocks, maybe more.”

“The chase sounded like at least that,” Estelle said.

“Then someone saw it,” Torrez shrugged. “No doubt about it. Has anyone talked to Maggie yet?”

“No, sir.”

“And what’s he doing?” Torrez jerked his chin in the direction of Kenderman’s patrol car. Deputy Tom Pasquale was walking slowly around the village unit, flashlight in hand.

“I told him that he needed to check for contact between the car and the bike, sir,” Mears said.

“Kenderman’s unit collided with the bike?”

“We don’t know that,” Estelle said, and Torrez looked at her with interest. “At least not yet,” she added.

“Well, shit,” Sheriff Torrez said. “He’s runnin’ after her without any of his emergency equipment on, he’s not talkin’ to Dispatch…what does he think he’s doin’?”

“That’s a good question,” Estelle said.

Torrez nodded and ambled toward Kenderman’s patrol car. “Let’s see what he’s got to say.”