“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.”
Lights from Alan Perrone’s BMW flashed across their faces as the assistant state medical examiner tucked the car in behind the ambulance. The coroner’s dapper figure joined the shadows under the utility pole.
“Impound the bike and the car both,” Torrez said.
“Impound the patrol car?” Pasquale asked.
“Yep,” Torrez said. “And somebody find Chief Mitchell and tell him that he needs to hustle his ass back here.”
Chapter Three
The phone rang six times before the receiver was picked up. No one came on the line immediately, but Estelle could hear her husband’s soft voice in the background, sounding as if he was explaining something to a small set of stubborn ears. Her mother’s voice surprised her. Normally, Teresa Reyes didn’t bother with the telephone; the modern gadget was a chore for clawed, arthritic fingers.
“Hello?” Teresa sounded as if she were cautiously exploring the inside of a dark, unfamiliar closet.
“Hey there, Mama, ” Estelle said. By looking south, she could see the corner fence a few blocks away that marked the front yard of their house on South Twelfth Street.
“Are you all right?” Teresa asked, switching immediately to Spanish.
“I’m fine, Mama. There was a nasty accident up here on Bustos, so I’m going to be a while.”
“We heard the sirens,” Teresa said.
“I bet you did. From where I’m standing, I can see the front yard. We’re right in front of the Don Juan. How are los hijos?”
“Carlos went to bed about ten minutes ago,” Teresa said, and Estelle smiled. Her youngest son, not yet four, “enjoyed his dreams,” as her husband Francis was fond of saying. “Francisco is learning how to play chess with the grand master.”
“It’s hard to imagine that little anarchist following the rules. He drives Francis crazy.”
“He’s inventive, hija. Padrino deserves a medal for patience.”
“He’s playing with Padrino?”
“Yes. The three of them are in the dining room.”
A voice in the background, intending to be heard on the phone across the room, was unmistakably Bill Gastner’s. “Ask her if she’s going to be home in time for some cake, or if we should finish it up.”
“Tell him to finish it,” Estelle said. “We’ve got a mess.”
“There’s always something,” Teresa said. “We thought you’d be home earlier.”
“So did I, Mama.”
“Here’s your husband,” Teresa said abruptly. “I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay, Mama. I…” Estelle started to say, but the receiver was already in transit. Dr. Francis Guzman stopped what he was saying to his son in mid-sentence, and Estelle pictured him standing beside the kitchen table with the chess pieces strewn here and there, one hand on top of little Francisco’s head, ready to steer the child if necessary.
“Where are you, querida?” Francis asked.
“If you step outside the front door, you could look up the street and see me,” she replied. “Right in the intersection by the Don Juan. It’s going to be a little bit longer, I guess.”
“Bad?”
“One fatal. A girl riding a motorcycle hit the utility pole.”
“Ouch.”
“Verdad, ouch. It looks like there was something going on that involved a village policeman, so it’s getting complicated.”
“Which cop?”
“Kenderman.”
“Huh. He was chasing her, you mean?”
“I’m not sure. But it looks that way.”
“Have you talked with Chief Mitchell?”
“That’s who we’re waiting on right now,” Estelle said. “He’s on his way back from Deming.”
“And sometime soon, we hope.” She heard her son’s voice again in the background, plaintive and high-pitched, and then Francis said, “The kid wants to know when you’ll be home.”
“I have no idea,” Estelle said. “And I know how he loves answers like that.”
Francis chuckled. “We miss you, querida. Want to talk to birthday boy?”
“Of course she does,” Bill Gastner said. “Hey, sweetheart,” he added, and his voice boomed into Estelle’s ear after the quiet, almost-whisper of her husband. “Thanks for all the goodies. But no more birthdays now.”
“You’re declaring a moratorium?”
“I should have, about thirty years ago. What do you have going on up there?”
“A motorcycle smacked the utility pole on the corner of Twelfth and Bustos. A young woman was killed.”
“Anyone we know?”
Estelle looked down at the driver’s license that Deputy Pasquale had handed her a few minutes before. “Colette Parker,” she said. A small, almost elfinlike face stared up at her, and Estelle turned the laminated license slightly to cut the glare from the flashlight held under her arm.
“Colette Parker. The name rings a really faint bell,” Gastner said.
“She’s twenty-two, worked in the supermarket,” Estelle said. She remembered a slight, quick-moving figure, blonde hair cut in a pageboy and hooked behind jugged ears, a small neat girl in her old-fashioned white apron, far more fetching in person than she appeared in the motor vehicle department photo. “In that little deli the new owners put in.” She turned the license over and saw the motorcycle endorsement.