“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?”