“Where’s this he?” I asked.
“Waiting up in the manager’s office,” Holman said. “The body was lying in a fetal position on its right side, facing the bed.” He stepped closer to the outline. “Maybe he was trying to reach the telephone here on the nightstand. I’m not sure.” Holman sighed. “At any rate, he didn’t make it.”
“Who actually came into the room first?” I asked.
“The night manager.”
“The victim was dead?”
“No. The manager-”
“Is this DeWayne you’re talking about?”
“DeWayne Sands, right. He says he entered the room, and that the victim was gasping and appeared unconscious. At any rate, he didn’t respond to questions. The night manager says he saw blood on the victim’s shirt and went directly to call police. Bob Torrez says it was a small-caliber weapon, like a twenty-two. Bob Torrez was the first to arrive, and the man was still alive at that time. EMTs transported him, and they said he was alive when they reached the hospital. Still unconscious, but alive.”
“No blood on the carpet,” I said. “That’s interesting. So who the hell is Roberto Madrid, and what was it that you wanted us to see that’s connected to…” My voice trailed off, refusing to frame the words.
“Look over here.” Holman walked around the outline of the man’s body and circled the bed. “We’ve got a blood splash here,” he said, pointing down by the second nightstand, “that continues up onto the wall. There’s more blood back here by the sink. And then right here, on the entrance to the bathroom.”
I nodded. “Other wounds on the victim?”
Holman shook his head. “He was shot twice, once under the left armpit, once in the back. Like I said, small-caliber weapon. He didn’t bleed much.”
“Then what accounts for all this?” I said.
“Someone else was here, and got hurt,” Holman said. “Badly. Step over here really carefully.” He motioned me toward the bathroom. Estelle hung back, her eyes locked on the chalk outline on the floor.
The doorknob and doorjamb were smeared with blood, heavy smears that indicated serious bleeding. A splatter of blood dotted across the counter and the bathroom sink, and there was a partial handprint on the polished vinyl, smeared into the blood as if the person had staggered and caught himself.
“Right here,” Holman said, and knelt down. The blood on the floor was more than spots. Whoever had been bleeding had fallen, or slumped here. One of the blood sprays had been smeared by a footprint, so clear and well defined that it sent chills up and down my spine. I could see the imprint of the toes, the narrow curve past the high arch.
“Estelle, come in here,” I called. My response to what I was seeing was automatic. It was only after the words were out of my mouth that I regretted them. In a moment, I could feel her presence behind me. I straightened up and stepped out of the way.
She didn’t say anything, but I could hear a little sigh of breath.
The footprint was tiny, no more than five or six inches long.
Estelle stood for almost a full minute, gazing down at it. I could see that her breath was coming in rapid, shallow spurts. Then she turned back toward the doorway, her eyes fastened on the tile floor. She was deathly pale, and with one hand, she reached out to me like a blind person, fumbling her way. The other hand went to the door-jamb.
“Come on outside, sweetheart,” I whispered.
She shook her head. “No. Look. There’s only one print.”
I hesitated, still holding her hand, not sure what to say.
Martin Holman cleared his throat. “The child was picked up,” he said. “If he had walked out of the bathroom, there would be other prints-at least one other footprint.”
He knelt down and pointed. “Here’s a right foot here. It’s almost four feet to the door. That would put a left foot about here,” and he reached out and touched the tile. “And the right foot again, just before the threshold. Or even on the carpet.” He looked up at me. “But there’s just the one print.”
“He was picked up and carried out,” I said.
“Right,” Holman nodded.
“Then whose blood is it?” I asked, and felt Estelle’s grip tighten.
“And which child?” she whispered.
Chapter 33
“Any other blood anywhere else?” I asked.
Holman beckoned, and we followed him out of the room. “First of all, there’s a small smear right here, on the doorjamb,” he said. He pulled out his ballpoint pen and pointed with it. The smear was about five feet up on the jamb, as if someone had leaned there for support.
“And then he turned and went left, out the side door,” Holman said.
“Less risk being seen,” I said. “If he went back up the hall, he’d risk that intersection where other patrons come down to visit the ice machines.”
Chief Eduardo Martinez eased away from the wall as we approached. Eduardo was round and comfortable, given to good humor and easy smiles. He had an endless repertoire of jokes for any occasion. He wasn’t smiling. With him was George Bohrer. If straight, square shoulders counted, Bohrer was a winner. Unfortunately, good posture is about all Bohrer had going for him.
“Chief,” I said. That was about all I could manage, even though I liked Eduardo. He never presumed to be more than he was-the grand marshal for the Posadas Fourth of July parade. Rumor had it that eons before, he had actually spent a year with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“Say, it’s good to have you back home,” Eduardo said, and extended a hand. His grip was warm and friendly. “This is sure a hell of a deal.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No one’s been in or out since you left, Sheriff,” Bohrer said. He had a thick Texas drawl and nodded with every syllable, as if each sound needed hatching by the physical motion of his head. I could guess what instructions Holman had left for him.
“The killer went out this way,” Holman said. “If you look here, you can see a faint smudge on the door. I’m sure it’s blood, but the lab will tell us for sure. And then,” he said, toeing the door open with the tip of one polished boot, “it appears that he fell.”
“Don’t touch the door, George,” Estelle said as she saw Bohrer reaching out to hold it open for us. He jerked his hand back as if struck.
Chief Martinez bent down and slid a pebble into the crack between door and jamb.
The man had made it down the carpeted hall successfully, then collapsed on the concrete just outside the door. Blood was puddled thick and dark, as if the man had rested there, catching his breath, taking time to wish that this day wasn’t going to be his last. A hand-print had smeared blood on the cement, as if the man had slipped while trying to push himself up.
“There’s no sign of a child’s tracks out here,” Holman said. “None at all. We don’t know what happened.”
“Did someone process this boot print?” Estelle asked. She knelt and, using the small black flashlight from her purse, bounced light off the print. Just a small curve of featureless sole had broken the margin of the bloodstain.
“We missed that,” Holman said. He knelt beside her. “Looks like just a smooth leather sole. Not enough to be sure.”
“It could be one of the officers,” I said. “There’ve been people milling around here for an hour.”
“Not milling, Bill,” Holman said, sounding a little testy. “Anyway, this is as far out from the building as the blood went. Either there was a car waiting or one drove up just then. Or maybe he was able to hold himself together and limp off somehow.”
I turned and looked back at the hallway. “This amount of blood means someone is hurt pretty badly. He’s not going to go far. You’ve got everyone who’s not sitting a roadblock or checking door-to-door working this?”
Holman managed a trace of a smile. “We don’t have anyone else, Bill. We’ve got some help coming, but it’s going to take a couple of hours.”
I grimaced. “Who’s working the blood typing for us?”