Only after I had gotten out and was trotting across the grass did I recognize the man Torrez had pushed as the village cop. He ran past me, eyes wide. “Ambulance,” he yelped, and sprinted on.
I reached the first knot of people, folks from nearby houses and the rapidly gathering cars. “Move it, move it,” I snapped, and shoved through. The victim was lying on his face, but I recognized him immediately. My gut wound itself into a painful ball. The Beretta was in the grass, under the victim’s left shin. Benny Fernandez didn’t need an ambulance.
I stood up. “Now I want you people back. Way back,” I shouted. The state trooper didn’t hesitate to cooperate. He was five times bigger than me, and probably twice as mean. Crowd control was his thing, and he pitched in. I let him work, because Bob Torrez had me by the sleeve.
“Sheriff, over here,” he said. I turned quickly and almost fell, suddenly and violently dizzy. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath, waiting for my eyes to clear. The night air hadn’t felt so close and stuffy before.
“Who’d Fernandez tangle with?” I managed, but Torrez just pulled me along. I recognized one of the paramedics from the fire department, crouched and working furiously. He was off duty, and didn’t have much to work with. Just as intent, and obviously in charge, was Dr. Harlan Sprague, Jr. I recognized first his unruly white hair. His face, unevenly illuminated by the bright sodium vapor lights of the park, was soft and puffy, like that of a man just jerked out of bed. I couldn’t see much of the victim at first, but then I saw the ankle holster, and tasted the bile that welled up in my throat as I bent over.
“Ah, no,” was all I managed to say. Art Hewitt lay on his back, arms outflung. By his right hand was the stubby Magnum.
“Where the hell is that ambulance?” the paramedic muttered. “There ain’t a thing we can do until he gets here.” In the distance, we could hear another siren building.
“How is he?” I said, dropping to my knees beside Sprague.
“His pulse is good. Breathing is ragged. There’s no way of knowing where the bullet went. But I think he’ll be all right.” He was holding a pad made from Hewitt’s own T-shirt against the young officer’s right flank. “He’s conscious.”
Hewitt’s features were rigid, and his eyes were staring wildly up into the night, shifting first one way and then another as if he were searching the heavens for an answer. “Art?” He looked over at me, obviously having trouble focusing his eyes. “Art, what the hell happened?”
He wet his lips and swallowed hard. “Damned if I know,” he whispered. “I was talking with some kids and…and…”
“And what?” The ambulance screamed up to the curb. “And what, Art?”
“He was talkin’ with some guy over by the corner.”
“Who was talking? Fernandez?”
Art Hewitt nodded slightly and swallowed hard. “And then he just came over and jumped me.”
“Jumped you? You mean he threatened you with the gun?”
“No. He just…he just charged me, pushed me real hard. I tripped and fell backward.”
Footsteps pounded toward us, and I looked up. The ambulance crew was sprinting across the grass. I put a hand on Hewitt’s shoulder. “They’ll get you fixed up, Art. Just lie easy.”
“I’ll be okay, Gramps.”
Sprague, an internist by training, and far from being a trauma specialist, stood aside and let the well-equipped EMTs take over.
I moved to give them room to work and gasped aloud, so vicious was the combination of pain and pressure that suddenly and relentlessly clamped me in a vice. “Holy shit,” I breathed, and stood bent over with my hands on my knees.
“Are you all right?” It was Sprague.
“I think so,” I said, slowly straightening up. Air came a little easier and the pain subsided. “Too much running around.”
Dr. Sprague’s eyes narrowed as he looked closely at me. “Chest pain? Pressure?”
Everything was coming back to normal, and I knew that if I answered the doc truthfully, there’d be complications that I couldn’t afford just then. “No. Just a little dizzy. I’m all right.”
Sprague had me by the wrist, and it was only after a few seconds that I realized he had been expertly but unobtrusively taking my pulse. I pulled away. “I’m all right.” They were loading Art Hewitt into the ambulance. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“Probably for more reasons than you think,” Sprague said dryly. “Who’s your doctor?”
I looked at him impatiently. “None,” I said truthfully. I had been ill so rarely that I had never seen the need for a regular physician.
“Find one,” he said cryptically. “If you make it through this night, find one. I mean it.”
I nodded and said, “Sure. And I’m going to need to talk to you. You saw this?” I nodded at the flattened spot in the grass. Even as we talked, a second unit arrived and Fernandez’s corpse, covered with the usual white sheet, was loaded.
“No. I heard the shots. That’s all. As you know, I live just over there.” He indicated a row of town houses that had been built on the east side of the park. “I didn’t even have time to put together something for my bag. I haven’t been in active practice for some time.”
“All right. We’ll want a statement.”
“Certainly.”
I saw that Bob Torrez and the village part-timer were working the other eyewitnesses. I left Sprague and joined them. In the next few minutes, Estelle Reyes arrived, as did Howard Bishop. “I want statements from every living soul within a block of this park,” I snapped at Reyes. I could see, even in the vague light of the park’s sodium vapors, that her face was pale.
“How is he?” she asked, and I shrugged helplessly.
“I’m going on down to the hospital. I’ll call Holman and tell him to get his ass out of bed.”
“He’s already on his way down,” Estelle Reyes said, almost in a whisper.
“Fine,” I said. “Take this place apart. I mean it. I’ll be back to help just as soon as I can.”
I strode across the grass toward my car. But what I’d told Estelle Reyes wasn’t true. It wasn’t fine. I had the goddamned feeling that absolutely nothing was under control.
Chapter 10
Martin Holman walked stolidly toward me. The hard heels of his finely polished boots clicked on the polished hall tiles of Posadas General Hospital. His hands were thrust in his pockets, and he stared at the floor as he walked, ignoring others, letting the few nurses dodge him. I didn’t bother to get up. He stopped a pace in front of my chair and surveyed me with tired, bagged eyes.
“You look like shit,” he said finally.
“Thanks.”
“So what the hell happened?”
“I don’t know yet. Art says Benny Fernandez ran at him. ‘Jumped him’ is how he put it.”
“You got a chance to talk with him, then?” Holman said, relieved.
“Briefly. I didn’t get the whole story. There were at least five witnesses, it looks like. Estelle and Bob Torrez are taking their statements now.”
“Benny Fernandez was killed instantly?”
“Yes.”
“And how does it look for Art Hewitt?”
“I think he’ll be all right.” I glanced at my watch. “He’s in surgery now.”
“Where was he hit?”
I jabbed my right index finger into my side under the ribs. “He was hurting bad, but it’s just about impossible to tell anything, you know. I don’t have any information whatever.”
“We’ll just have to wait,” Holman said. “I called Gallup, by the way. Chief White says the boy’s parents live in Tucson. He said he’d take care of contacts there.”
“That’s good.”
We both fell silent, and after a long moment Holman said, “Hell of a thing.”
“Yes.” A nurse walked by pushing a jingling tray cart. She looked at us and smiled helpfully.
“Hell of a note,” Holman said. I just looked at him. “So Benny Fernandez was killed outright?” he asked.
“Yes. It looked like he’d been shot once in the face.”
Holman winced. “You talked to the widow?” The blank look that settled over my face told Holman all he needed to know. “Christ, Bill, how long’s it been?”