“That’s what Clark said.”
“And then there’s this,” Estelle said, and found the photo she wanted. It was a close-up of the right shoulder of the T-shirt, taken from the rear. The fabric wasn’t torn, but it was scuffed. Estelle handed me another picture, this one of the victim’s shoulder. A small scrape, just a mild abrasion of the skin was visible. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t have thought anything about that, but I also found this.” She held out another photo. “That’s a piece-small, I admit-of asphalt. A little pebble.” I looked at the picture and frowned. “This is where it came from.” The photo she handed me this time showed the right side of Salinger’s head. A pencil was holding a spray of hair out away from the skull, and another pencil pointed at the fragment of paving in situ next to the skin. “My guess is that he fell backward. His head hit the ground pretty hard. The ME will have more for us, I’m sure. But he hit his head hard enough to imbed that gravel in his scalp. I could see the mark.”
“Good work, Estelle.” That’s all I could think to say.
“On the victim’s lower back is some paint residue.”
“I saw that.”
“The most interesting thing is what I found this morning.” She looked at me, and I could see the excitement of the chase in her eyes. “There were powder marks on the outside of his left arm. The outside.” She pointed to her own arm, and then handed me a picture. “They don’t show up well. I asked the ME to take some that would. And to make sure to run the NAA tests there, too. I think that the gun was fired more than once.”
“No shit?”
She nodded. “I talked to Mr. Salinger yesterday afternoon.”
“How are they doing?”
“It’s rough for them. But Scott’s father said the gun is his, and that he hasn’t loaded anything but jacketed hollowpoints for that revolver since he bought it more than four years ago. So it would be unusual to find lead residue in the bore, wouldn’t it? If it only shot brass-jacketed bullets?”
“I would think so, unless the gun was so badly out of time that it shaved the lead tip before the slug got into the bore.”
“The cylinder timing is almost perfect.”
“Was there lead in the barrel?”
“Yes. I asked the crime lab in Santa Fe to do me a rush-rush. That’s what they said.”
“Rush is right. How’d you get the gun up there so fast?”
Estelle Reyes looked sheepish. “Sheriff Holman almost went into orbit when he heard. I had Bob Torrez take it.”
“He drove it up?”
“No. Jim Bergin flew him up. I wanted an answer, and fast. A guy up there owes me a favor or two. We printed the gun, and he took powder samples. The only results I got back so far are the prints-they’re all Scott Salinger’s-and the positive test for bore lead.”
My forehead was flushed, and the weariness was competing with my attention. Helen Murchison was going to tackle Estelle any minute. “So tell me what you think happened.”
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions, sir. But if I had to write a script, it would go like this. I think Scott Salinger walked into the middle of something. He parked just off the edge of the road. Whoever it was somehow either talked the gun out of Scott’s possession, or took it from him without a struggle that left marks…unless that’s where the lightly skinned shoulder and head bruise came from. Then the killer shot Salinger. There’s a very small powder-burn corona around the hole in the T-shirt. It looks like the revolver barrel was almost actually touching him. The body was moved to behind the shed, and whoever it was had the brainstorm of making it look like a suicide. Maybe whoever it was knew the Salinger kid, knew that he was depressed. Maybe whoever it was even knew Salinger had talked about suicide.”
At that point, Helen opened the door. Without breaking stride, Estelle turned and held up a hand. “Two minutes, Ma’am. Please close the door.” Helen did so without question. I was surprised at the steel in Estelle’s voice.
“Whoever it was plopped him down behind the shed, scuffing his lower back against the building. Then the killer got smart…too smart. He wanted the NAA to be positive. But he couldn’t shoot the gun again with Salinger’s ammunition. As dumb as we are, we’d notice two rounds missing. My guess is that whoever it was had a gun of his own. If it was any thirty-eight caliber, it would work. And that’s the most common cartridge. So he took out a round, put it in Salinger’s Magnum, folded the grips in the boy’s hands and fired once off to the side. He pops open the cylinder, takes out his casing and puts the live round back in. Closes the cylinder and his tracks are covered. Real cute.”
“One cold son of a bitch, if that’s the case,” I said quietly.
Estelle Reyes got up. “That’s for sure. Gayle said you wanted your briefcase. I sealed it.”
“No need, Estelle. In the top pocket is an evidence bag. The contents were in Scott Salinger’s back pocket.”
Estelle snapped the seal and opened my briefcase. “In the top pocket,” I repeated, and she pulled out the small bag. She held it up and frowned.
“This was in his back pocket?”
“Right side. About an inch of it was protruding. That’s why I saw it. When I moved the body forward, I saw it there.”
She turned the bag over and over, puzzled. “A piece of wood and a piece of what looks like plastic.”
“Junk.”
“Why would he pick it up and put it in his pocket?”
“If he was intent on suicide,” I said, “I don’t think he would.”
Estelle relaxed back on the edge of the bed, leaning on one elbow. “It wasn’t suicide,” she said flatly. It was the first time either of us had come right out and said it. “And that leaves us only two choices for something like this. Somebody put it in Scott’s pocket, maybe after the shooting, maybe before. Why, we don’t know. Or Scott picked it up and put it there himself.”
“Why?”
She tossed the bag back in the yawning briefcase. “Who knows? Good citizen picking up litter?”
“Just this, and not everything else that trashes up that mesa?”
“When we find out what it is, or what it was, maybe we’ll have part of the answer,” Estelle said. “Did the doctors say how long they were going to keep you cooped up here?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “What do you plan to do next?”
Estelle hesitated. “It’s got to be somebody in town,” she said. “That’s what I think. I’m proceeding on the assumption that, one, it was murder,”-she ticked off a finger-”and, two, it was somebody from around here. Or at least somebody very familiar with the area.”
“And you’ve given up any thought of its being suicide?”
“It wasn’t,” Estelle said immediately. “NAA and ballistics will confirm that. But for right now, I want that between you and me. I haven’t told anybody else.”
I frowned. “That’s going to be a rough road for the family.”
“Yes, it is. But I think it’s to our advantage. Everyone I’ve heard talking assumes it was a suicide. I’m thinking we can just leave it that way for a while…just a few days. We might catch somebody off guard.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to jerk the Salinger’s chains like that, Estelle. They’ve got to know.”
“If they know, so will everyone else.”
“I think we can give them more credit than that.”
The door opened and Helen Murchison marched in. She didn’t give Estelle a chance this time…and next to Helen, Detective Reyes looked like a junior high school cheerleader. “Out,” she said. “It’s been far too long.” She began checking me and my machines.
As my cheerleader moved toward the door, I said, “Talk to them, Estelle. Convince them of the importance of going along with you. And if they want to talk to me, encourage that. We’ll just find a minute when Helen here steps out to lunch, if I’m cooped up in here that long.”