Estelle nodded. “Exactly. And we’re being pushed.” She grimaced as she swung the car into my tree-shaded driveway. “Holman hasn’t learned to bark yet…especially at the press. He’s too concerned with image. But give him time. And we may be able to use all the publicity to our advantage. But let me outline what I’ve got. You’ll be interested.”
That was an understatement. I heaved myself out of the car. Even the cottonwoods smelled good. As I fumbled for the keys, Estelle turned this way and that, looking at the adobe house. “Beautiful place.”
“Yes, it is.”
“How old is it?”
“Built in 1914. I bought it in 1965, just before I retired from the service.”
The front door was heavily carved wood in territorial style, and it swung open silently, like the door to a bank vault. Estelle Reyes had never been to my home, in recent years, few people had been. They’d probably carve “Gastner the Hermit” on my tombstone. What the hell.
“Come on in,” I said. “I’ll put on the coffee.” We walked down the long hallway to where it opened into the kitchen, and off to the right, two steps down, into the living room with its enormous dark ceiling beams. Sunshine flooded through the big kitchen windows and bounced off the colorful Mexican tile countertops.
“Sir, this is fantastic.”
“I like it.”
“Did you do the work?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, and rummaged for the coffee. “I’m allergic to handyman stuff. Every time I pick up a tool, I end up bleeding or bruised. No, I made a lot of money in the service, and we managed to save a chunk. We figured this place was payback for living in government tin for twenty years.”
“It makes my trailer look…look like scrap paper.”
“Hey, you’re young. You and Francis will find something that suits you. Give it time.” I put on the water. “And the last thing you want is for a dream to become an albatross around your necks. You’ve served enough civil papers to see that.” I took a deep breath, glad to be home. “But the hell with all that.” I indicated the kitchen table. “Let’s see what you found out…before the alarm goes out, and we end up with company.” I winked at Estelle. I knew that walking out of the hospital was stupid, even juvenile, but those are the breaks. None of their medicine had made me feel this good.
Like a gambler dealing cards, Estelle Reyes laid out a display of reports, photos, and evidence bags on the table. I pulled up a chair. “First of all, the Magnum was fired twice,” Estelle began. “The ballistics lab report talks about two completely different powder residues. You can see here”-she held up a large close-up photo of the Magnum’s cylinder area and pointed with a pencil. “That is a collection of unburned powder grains, all flat, disk-shaped. That right there, in the juncture of the top strap and the barrel’s forcing cone, is an unburned powder particle that is almost rod-shaped. The chemical residue supports that conclusion.”
“What kind of powder was responsible for the left-arm powder burns?”
“The disk-shaped powder. There were particles imbedded in the skin. It’s a fast-burning powder commonly used in factory loads for handguns.”
“But not home brew, you mean?”
Estelle turned the report over and read a paragraph to herself. “Right.”
“And the other powder was consistent with Magnum performance, obviously.”
“Yes. And it matches the kind of powder that Mr. Salinger said he has used for years. What puts the cap on it is the lead residue. There was a trace of lead along the lands in the barrel. I can’t imagine how a brass- or copper-jacketed bullet could leave lead. The medical examiner also said the checkering on the grips would have left a deeper imprint had Scott actually held the gun when the Magnum was fired the first time. Especially since, with the expected apprehension and all, he probably would have been gripping it tightly.”
“Prints on the gun?”
“Only Scott’s. And some of his had been smudged. As careful as he was, though, the killer got through in a hurry.” Estelle dug out another photograph. The image of a.357 Magnum cartridge casing had been enlarged to nearly poster size. The quality was incredible.
“Did you take this?”
“I wish I had,” Estelle said ruefully. “No, the lab gave it to me. Look here.” Her pencil tip touched the right side of the ten-inch-tall nickel cylinder in the photo. The dust that adhered to the partial fingerprint showed a clear pattern.
“I see it. Not the boy’s?”
“No. And no match yet to anyone else. Plus, it’s only a fragment. But I’m working on it. I think the killer got a case of nerves. He was sharp enough to know that two empties in the Magnum would draw attention. So he used one of his own cartridges. The Magnum is a common caliber, and you can shoot thirty-eights in it as well. Bob Torrez gave me a demonstration of all this. I think the killer removed a live Magnum round, put in one of his own, fired off to one side with Salinger’s hands pressed to the grips. That would make the nitrate test positive in case we were smart enough to bother with the test. He took out the empty casing and put the unfired Magnum round back in. Closed the cylinder, wiped the gun a little, and he was all set. But he started to hurry. He forgot that he had handled the cartridge. He left that fat and clear partial for us.”
“I hope the son of a bitch remembers that and doesn’t get a minute’s sleep right up to the time we knock on his front door. What about the bloodstain?”
“As obvious as can be,” Estelle said, nodding. “The bump on the head with a bit of asphalt caught in the hair, the shoulder scrape…all consistent with going over backward.”
“The killer must have moved quickly then. There wasn’t much blood that went the wrong way.”
“The medical examiner told me that he guessed the killer took enough time to look quickly around. He saw the row of buildings and took his chance. He didn’t drag the body. If he had done that, evidence would have shown on the victim’s shoes. I don’t think you can drag soft running shoes across rough, broken asphalt and not leave something imbedded in the shoe material.”
“No weakling, then.”
“Well, no, but Scott only weighed about a hundred and fifty. With a little adrenaline pumping, most normal adult males could pick up that much weight and stagger a few steps.”
“And then he dumped the kid behind the building.”
Estelle nodded, and finally sat down. “What’s to lose? It was a spot hidden from the road. Even if someone had happened along before the killer finished his business, the odds of the back of the buildings being checked were small.”
I rubbed a hand over my eyes. “What was going on?”
“Something that the killer or killers were ready to murder to protect.”
“I can’t picture the boy turning down that road in the first place. Everyone knows where it goes. His favorite spot was the mesa top. And from the paved road, you can’t see the boneyard, or the dirt road where it runs beside it. You have to drive down in there. He obviously did that, and then very deliberately parked his Bronco. Now, did someone intercept him up on the paved road and force him to drive down there?”
“It’s possible.”
“Did you turn up any prints on the Bronco other than Scott’s?” She shook her head. “Then why? Why did he drive down there?”
“We don’t know.”
“And if they were concerned with not being seen, they would just have let him drive on by, like all the other county-road traffic.”
“Right.”
“So that leaves two logical choices.” I got up to fetch the cups and coffee, and lit a cigarette. “One is that he was meeting someone down there. He wasn’t into anything illegal. I’d stake my life on that. Maybe he was meeting someone with the intent of talking them out of something. Who the hell knows. Or, he somehow got wind that something was going on and just decided to show up.”
“Carrying a three-fifty-seven Magnum?”
I grimaced. “That’s the thing that’s been bothering me all along. Why that gun?” We both fell silent for a minute, looking at the photographs and sipping the coffee. The cigarette didn’t taste very good, and I snubbed it out.