The Jeep’s front door was closed, but not fully latched. Estelle approached one step at a time, watching her footing on the clean asphalt. The insistent bong, bong, bong came from inside the vehicle, but she ignored it. It would continue until either the door was shut, the key was taken from the ignition, or the battery went dead.
Even though the sodium vapor lights around the parking lot were bright and harsh, she used her flashlight as well. Five feet from the driver’s door, she saw the first dime-sized blotch of brown crust on the black tar, and breathed another fervent prayer of thanks that Tom Pasquale hadn’t just clumped over to the SUV, obliterating evidence as he went.
She laid her flashlight on the pavement beside the blood droplet and walked back the way she had come. Tom was standing by his Expedition, talking on the phone with dispatcher Ernie Wheeler, and when he glanced at Estelle, she gave him a thumbs-up. From her own car she retrieved her large field case and returned. Careful that there was nothing else to disturb, she traced a bold circle of white chalk around the blood droplet. Between that spot and the Jeep, she circled four more splotches of blood, one as large as a silver dollar.
“What can I do?” Pasquale asked. “Everyone is on the way except Collins. Ernie’s still trying to get ahold of him.”
Estelle remained kneeling, sorting through her options. “We need to call the State Police again and fill them in, Tomás. They were alerted that we had a homicide, but now that we’ve got Janet’s car, they don’t want to waste time looking for that. That’s one thing off the list. And we might need their mobile CSI unit. I’m not sure yet.”
“Be nice if we knew what we should be looking for,” Pasquale said.
“Yes, it would.” She turned, looking back along the trail of bloodstains. “See the first circle of chalk?” Pasquale nodded. “We have a line of blood droplets leading from the Jeep. I’m assuming from, anyway, at this point. Okay?” Pasquale nodded again. “I need to know where that line of blood ends, Tomás.” She reached out her arm, pointing in line with the ragged trail of five white circles.
“You think she was shot in the car and then carried out?”
“I don’t know what to think yet. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
She rose, moving closer to the SUV. The driver’s window was rolled up. Estelle looked at the door critically. It was almost latched, caught on the last notch before chunking completely closed. The bell continued its gentle reminder. Nothing marred the new vehicle’s paint job, a light blue against which blood smears would have contrasted like neon.
Using her flashlight to eliminate shadows and hiding spots, Estelle worked her way around the outside of the Jeep and found nothing…no marks, no dings, no dents, no bullet holes. The hood was cold to the touch, as was the tailpipe.
The killer hadn’t fired through the window glass. Had he done so, it was likely that he would have had to shoot more than once. The heavy safety glass could easily deflect a.22 slug. That meant that either the window was open, or the door was. Had Janet Tripp just returned to the Jeep from the ATM, it was entirely possible that the door might be open while she fumbled with purse, keys, and seatbelt.
Without touching the door, Estelle played the flashlight around the interior, aided by the dome light. A purse lay on the passenger’s seat, the top of the southwestern beaded fabric unzipped. A wallet lay on the floor in front of the seat. She saw that the Jeep had electric windows. The key was in the ignition, turned to the off position.
“Okay,” Estelle whispered. This assailant hadn’t just reached in and grabbed Janet’s wallet from her hands…or rapped her on the head, or struggled with her in any way. From all appearances, he had padded up behind her while she sat in the car and popped her once through the brain, willing to risk a murder charge for a few bucks. The hair on the back of Estelle’s neck rose.
“Tape’s up,” Pasquale said, and Estelle startled. “Sorry,” the deputy said. “Lieutenant Adams said to let you know that he’s alerted his guys. He said that if you need his CSI team, just let State Police dispatch know. And I found one more blood droplet, about four feet from the last one you marked. That’s all, though.”
“Good. Look, tell me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Why would he shoot her here, and then bother to move the body?”
Pasquale’s eyebrows furrowed quizzically. “Lots of reasons.”
“If the killer was just after the money that Janet removed from the ATM, then why not just take it and be off? As quiet as it is tonight, who’s to notice her car, or even if they do, wonder enough to look inside? She’d slump over and be invisible to a casual passerby.”
“Well, we’d notice,” Pasquale said. “There’s no reason to park here at the bank. We’d kind of wonder when we went by on routine patrol and saw the vehicle, wouldn’t we?”
“I hope that we would. Then, we’d call in the license and find out that the car belonged to Janet Tripp. And then, knowing that she’s Mike’s girlfriend, we’d shrug and let it go.”
“I think that’s just about exactly what I would do-if we hadn’t found her body in the arroyo earlier.”
“Exactly. You wouldn’t look inside?”
“Well, I might.” He nodded. “Sure…I guess I probably would, with the car parked at a bank.”
“And if she’s not in it…”
“I’d do what you said.”
“Even if you saw her purse and what appears to be her riffled wallet lying on the seat and floor?”
Pasquale craned his neck to see past Estelle to the interior of the Jeep. “Well, sure. I’d wonder about that.”
“Yes, you would. I would too. What would you do?”
“I guess I’d try to contact her on the phone to make sure that she was all right. And when she didn’t answer, I guess that I’d probably call Mike. She’s with him more often than not, anyway.”
“Doing all that takes some time, doesn’t it. And that’s if you stopped in the first place to check the car. A unit this new might well belong to one of the bank officers, here to do a little extra work. And that’s if you stepped out of your unit to look inside it, once you ran the computer check.”
“Well, sure.”
“And all that changes if we find the car, look inside, and see a corpse, right?”
Tom Pasquale laughed. “Well, sure,” he said.
“So it might be worthwhile for the shooter to take the body and dispose of it to gain some time-maybe even after weighing the risks of being seen.”
Another county Expedition squealed to a stop at the curb on Pershing, and a slender man in jeans, checkered flannel shirt, and baseball cap got out. “Ah, here’s Tom One,” Estelle said, referring to Gayle Torrez’s habit of calling Mears and Pasquale the Two Toms. Sergeant Tom Mears ambled to the yellow tape that Pasquale had stretched from the front door of Estelle’s sedan to the front door handle of the bank. He stopped there, and Estelle beckoned, swinging her arm in a big circle to the left that would steer Mears well clear of the blood droplets.
When he saw the chalked circles, he angled inward and stooped to examine them. “You’re kidding,” Mears said, straightening up and scrutinizing the small vehicle. “Kinda bizarre, don’t you think?”
“Oh, sí.”
“If that’s her blood, it kinda gives us a link,” Mears said.
“I think so. I mean, it’s Janet’s car, it’s her only car, and it’s logical for her to have been in this spot. If she was going to Lordsburg with Mike Sisneros, then she might have wanted some cash along. But that was early this afternoon. She didn’t do that. She had other plans, same answer.”
“Was she going to Lordsburg?”