“How would that happen?”
“I don’t know.”
Estelle frowned. “But it wouldn’t happen if he were holding the gun himself, in his left hand.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Mears said. “And I think the sheriff told you that the gun didn’t have a single print on it. Not one. That’s not possible unless George used gloves, which he didn’t. There are prints on the cartridges, and every one that I can read worth a damn belongs to George.”
“So he loaded it.”
“But didn’t fire it,” Mears said. “The other interesting thing is that there is what appears to be a little hair and some tissue along the side of the barrel, just about where the legend is printed. That’s an odd place for blow-back debris.”
“How is Linda coming with the photos?”
“I know she printed about a jillion. She’s got ’em downstairs.” He glanced at the clock again. “She finally went home about three-thirty.” He grinned and closed one eye conspiratorially. “When she was sure that Tom was going to make it away from Bobby’s aunt in one piece.”
Estelle’s brows furrowed as she looked at the silent revolver, and she slowly sank back against the edge of the desk. “Huh,” she said after a minute, and shook her head. “Georgie, Georgie.” She looked up at Mears, who waited patiently, arms crossed over his chest. “Connie Enriquez has no idea about this, Tom. As far as she knew, her husband didn’t own a single gun. At least she didn’t think that he kept it in the house. She was surprised to see the gun case.”
“I bet she was. And by the way, the only prints on that case belong to George. The case was nicely cleaned and polished. Very thoughtful of him.”
Estelle took a deep breath. “How did Kenderman’s arraignment go?”
“Judge Hobart wasn’t in an understanding mood either,” Mears said with a laugh. “You know how the old man likes being bothered off-hours. Perry’s cooling his heals in the lockup.”
“Bond?”
“Fifty thousand. Ten percent up.”
“Perry’s not going to find five thousand any quicker than he’d find fifty,” Estelle said. “It’ll give him time to think.”
She gazed at the heavy revolver and shook her head. “Now we find out the why, Tom. Perry Kenderman is simple.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Mears said, and grinned.
“That’s not what I meant. I understand him. He was infatuated with Colette and the two kids, and got cross-wise with his brother, who evidently had a weak spot for the girl himself. George Enriquez, though…I just find it hard to believe that a guy like him could do anything dark enough that someone would want to kill him.”
“There’s the other side of that, Estelle.”
“Yes, there is. Maybe it’s not what he did, necessarily, but what he knew. That’s a good place to start.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Estelle turned the county car off Grande onto Escondido, and for a few yards, before the intersection with Guadalupe to the right, the neighborhood looked unchanged since the first time she’d seen it two decades before. Bill Gastner’s sprawling adobe was just visible through enormous cottonwoods overshadowing the narrow asphalt of Guadalupe.
What had been five acres of scrub, brush, and crowded trees behind Gastner’s old adobe was now home to the Posadas Clinic and Pharmacy. Despite the grandiose wishes of the architects, Francis Guzman and Alan Perrone had prevailed. The clinic was low, dark brown adobe with turquoise trim around multipane windows. As many trees as possible had been untouched during construction, and the bulk of the parking lot was behind the building. The result was a new facility that didn’t overwhelm the old neighborhood.
Estelle slowed for the driveway and turned into the packed lot. As she idled the car through the lanes, she saw that nearly a third of the license plates were Mexican. Francis would be swamped. Estelle knew that it was wishful thinking to expect that he could break away for lunch.
The west end of the building was a pharmacy, and she entered there, knowing the back door behind the prescription counter would let her skirt the crowded waiting room, entering directly into the hallway leading to the physicians’ private offices and the lab.
She saw the top of Louis Herrera’s head as the pharmacist concentrated, bowed over his workstation. At the pickup window, one of the girls was explaining something about a medication in Spanish to an elderly woman, and Herrera looked up, interrupting the girl. Even as he talked, he lifted a hand in greeting as Estelle slipped past.
“I think he just got back,” the pharmacist said in English to Estelle. He lightly touched the old woman on the back of the hand as if to keep his place in that conversation, stepped across to the door, and swiped a card through the lock. He pulled the door open and held it for Estelle. “I just saw his car drive in.”
“Thanks, Lou,” she said.
He grinned at the drug reference book as she passed. “You planning to go to work here soon?”
“Not on your life,” she laughed. The door closed behind her with a well-insulated thud and the click of the electronic lock.
As if one door had triggered another, she saw her husband step out of his office down the hall. He stopped, hand on the knob as she approached, and then opened the door for her. “Perfect timing, querida. I’m headed for the war zone.”
“I was going to take you to lunch, Oso, but I can see that’s not going to happen.”
He laughed. “I wish,” he said. He followed her into the office and closed the door. Estelle thumped the heavy volume down on his cluttered desk. Before he had a chance to take a step, she wrapped her arms around him in a ferocious hug. “Whoa,” he gasped. He put a hand on either side of her head, trying to turn her so that he could look into her eyes. Instead, she drove her face hard into his white lab coat, ignoring the pen that pressed into her cheek. The physician locked his arms around Estelle and held her in an “Oso” hug, both of them silent for several minutes.
“I’m turning cyanotic,” Francis said finally.
“Too bad.” Estelle’s voice was muffled in his coat.
“Good morning, eh?”
“Spectacular,” she said. She lifted her head and looked up at him, brushing his lips lightly with hers. “Tell me what you did this morning.” She tightened her grip and Francis smiled.
“The really exciting part was getting called out to do an emergency appendectomy.”
“On who?”
“Her name’s Kittie Wheeler. Ernie’s niece.”
“She’s doing fine?”
“She’s doing fine, querida.” He reached up and moved a stray strand of hair to one side of her forehead.
“Was she at school?”
Francis grinned. “Yes…she was at school. And as the current generation is fond of saying, ‘and this is important becaaaause?’ ”
“I don’t know why it’s important, Oso. I just need to know.”
“Well, that was the highlight of my morning, especially the ten minutes it took to convince the kid that the appendectomy scar wouldn’t show when she wears one of those midriff things. Otherwise, it’s been a steady stream, in one door and out the other. There’s a little community down past Tres Santos that has some water problems, I think. We’re seeing a bunch of nasty gastro stuff that sure reads like they’re drinkin’ something they shouldn’t be.”
Her arms began to ache. She loosened her grip and straightened his collar.
“I really need to get out there,” he said and glanced at the book. “What’d you bring me?”