“Sir, we have a problem,” Estelle whispered.
Schroeder straightened up.
“George Enriquez’s secretary found his body a few minutes ago.”
The district attorney looked hard at Estelle, the hand holding the papers sagging back toward the table. He drew a slow, deep breath. “Where?”
“In his office, sir.”
Schroeder slumped against the table and dropped the papers. “Christ,” he muttered. “Natural causes?”
“No, sir. The sheriff asked that I break loose here, if that’s possible.”
“Of course it’s possible.” He shook his head in frustration. “Keep me in the loop, all right?”
Estelle nodded.
“I’ll get these folks out of here in the next few minutes.” He flashed a humorless grin and rapped on the table with his knuckle. “I guess we’ll find out what the grand juror’s oath of secrecy is really worth.”
As Estelle turned away, he stepped around the table and touched her elbow, whispering directly into her right ear. “And we need to talk about Officer Kenderman, too. Today sometime, if you can fit it in. I’ll be in Posadas at least until tomorrow morning, so…” He released her elbow. The jurors, sensing that something important had happened, had taken their seats, including the power-walking woman. Estelle nodded at them and left the court.
The sheriff’s office was no more than a hundred steps away, across the small enclosed courtyard. Gayle Torrez, the sheriff’s wife, administrative assistant, and head dispatcher, glanced up as Estelle hurried in.
She made a face of frustration and opened the glass door to the dispatch room. “Bobby just took off,” Gayle said. “Dennis took the first call. Howard’s over there, too.”
“Right at the insurance office?” Estelle asked.
Gayle nodded. “And I called Linda. She’s on her way.”
“Good.”
As soon as Estelle pulled her unmarked car out of the county parking lot, she looked down East Bustos toward the oval sign that announced GEORGE ENRIQUEZ, AGENT-CLU, HOME, AUTO, LIFE INSURANCE. The long, low stucco building was tucked in the lot immediately adjacent to Chavez Chevrolet-Olds, the two businesses separated by a low chain-link fence.
A county patrol unit was parked straddling the street’s center line, facing westbound and nose to nose with one of the village cars. Nate Olguin, a part-time officer with the village, touched his cap when he recognized Estelle, and waved her through. The sheriff’s battered pickup was parked along the curb at the west end of the auto dealer’s lot. The ambulance hadn’t arrived, but Dr. Alan Perrone had, his dark green BMW so close to Deputy Collins’ Expedition that their bumpers appeared to be touching.
As Estelle drove past and prepared to swing a U-turn, she saw two other vehicles in the lot beyond Torrez’s truck. Several people were standing in the parking lot of the car dealership, leaning against the new cars and waiting to see something interesting. As she pulled the car to a halt, Estelle heard the distant wail of a siren from the direction of the hospital.
A yellow crime-scene ribbon stretched from the corner of the car dealer’s fence across the sidewalk to a street sign, then across the westbound lane to Collins’ unit, finally angling back across the street to the corner of a small abandoned building west of the insurance agency that at one time had been a hairdresser’s salon. Deputy Dennis Collins was standing at the front door of the agency, head swiveling this way and that as he watched street and sidewalk. As Estelle ducked under the ribbon and approached, he stepped away from the building.
“They’re all inside,” he said.
Estelle nodded and refrained from smiling at the young deputy’s earnest statement of the obvious. She stepped to the edge of the sidewalk. “Whose vehicles are those?”
Collins turned to glance at the parking lot. “The Subaru belongs to Kiki Tafoya…she’s one of the office staff. And she’s the one who reported finding the body.”
“The SUV is George’s?”
“Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”
Estelle walked the few steps to the corner of the building. The rest of the parking lot was empty. A second yellow ribbon stretched across the alley, looped around a scrubby saltbush, and then disappeared behind the building. “Is someone at the back door?”
“Sergeant Bishop was back there, ma’am. He was kinda scouting the alley.”
“Any signs of forced entry?”
“No, ma’am.” Collins looked puzzled. “He shot himself. That’s what they were saying.”
“Ah.” Estelle nodded, feeling a twinge of genuine sadness. Despite his penchant for fictitious insurance policies, George Enriquez had been a likable fellow-part of his secret as a successful salesman. Estelle realized that the looming threat of a grand jury investigation, with its promise that someone’s life was going to be forever changed, could be cause enough for depression, especially when, in George’s view, he’d done nothing to harm anyone.
The undersheriff snapped on a pair of rubber surgical gloves and then paused with her finger hovering near the door handle. A computer-printed sign was taped to the inside of the window: OUR OFFICES WILL BE CLOSED THIS WEEK DUE TO FAMILY ILLNESS. Two emergency numbers were listed, and Estelle recognized Enriquez’s home number as well as National Mutual’s toll-free number.
“Family illness,” she said aloud.
“Well, in a way,” Collins said cheerfully.
Estelle pulled the outer door open, keeping a single finger on the underside of the latch. The vestibule was no more than six feet square, just enough buffer to keep the sand from blowing into the office when customers opened the door to the street. The ornately carved inner door rested ajar, a rubber stop placed between it and the jamb. A plastic bag enclosed the brass door lever. Estelle nudged the door open with her elbow.
Kiki Tafoya sat in the swivel chair behind her desk, doubled over with her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands. Posadas Police Chief Eddie Mitchell knelt beside her, balanced on one knee so that his face was close to the girl’s, one large arm resting on the corner of her desk for balance. He glanced up as Estelle entered. Kiki nodded at something the chief said, and he patted her shoulder as he pushed himself to his feet.
“Not pretty in there,” he murmured to Estelle as he stepped close. Estelle’s eyes roamed the small office. Enriquez had three employees, the other two working in cubicles whose boundaries were marked by six-foot partitions covered in soft yellow fabric. Behind Kiki Tafoya’s desk, the solid wall of wood paneling angled off to meet a section of tinted glass above three-foot paneled wainscoting. A heavy glass door marked George Enriquez’s private domain.
She saw Sheriff Robert Torrez back partially out of the office doorway, his hands in his back pockets. He shook his head at something someone in the office said, then turned and saw Estelle. He nodded toward the interior of the office.
Estelle stepped around Kiki’s desk. The girl didn’t look up, and Estelle could see her slender shoulders shaking. Kneeling down as the chief had done, she slid her arm across Kiki’s shoulders. The girl was strung as tight as a guy wire, her entire body quivering in shock.
“Try to breathe slowly,” Estelle whispered. The girl uttered a little ummm of distress, refusing to lift her face from her hands.
“Perrone gave her a sedative,” Mitchell said. “Her husband is coming down to pick her up in a few minutes.” Even as he said that, the ambulance arrived outside, its siren dying in a truncated yowl.
“Okay.” She looked up at Mitchell, questioning.
The chief shook his head. “She told Collins that she came in to the office this morning to pick up a jacket that she’d left here yesterday morning. When she was here for a few minutes, catching up on some paperwork, she said that she noticed that the light was on in the boss’ office this morning, and she looked in and saw him.” He shrugged. “That’s what we’ve got so far, anyway.”