“I know you’re off-shift, Dennis. It’s been a long day, and is going to be longer before it’s over. But wait for us at the office, all right? Finish up the deposition, make sure you dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t.’”
“The sheriff is going to fire my ass,” Collins whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. That was conceivable, Estelle knew. Equally conceivable was that Deputy Dennis Collins would end up being an even better officer than he had been before the incident.
“One step at a time,” Estelle said. “Don’t start making assumptions. I’ll see you in a few minutes in my office. All right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re all right with that?”
“I guess I have to be,” Collins said. He managed a rueful smile. “I’m just glad nobody got hurt.”
“Exactly.”
Linda finished a series of a dozen or more photos of the truck, then stepped back. “You can have it now,” she said. Collins climbed into the Expedition without a word, started it, and backed out of the parking lot. As he drove off, Linda turned to Estelle. “Wow,” the photographer said.
“‘Wow’ is right,” Estelle replied. She opened the trunk of her car and laid the Sam Browne rig inside. Drawing her flashlight, she bent down to inspect what she could see of the officer’s gun without drawing it from its holster. The white paint on the square, sharp corner of the back sight was obvious. “Right here,” she said, and turned both gun and light so Linda could see. “Smacked it right on the back sight.”
“No problems getting that,” Linda said.
Estelle positioned the belt so that the gun was protected from touching anything in the trunk. “Just in case, can you take a picture of the gun now?”
“I can do that.”
Linda tried half a dozen angles, frowning and grimacing as she worked. “We can do better in the lab with the tripod and easel, but this’ll work for now as backup,” she announced finally. When Linda was finished, Estelle shook open a black plastic bag and slid in the belt, heavy with its half-a-hardware load of gun and accoutrements. She slammed the trunk lid shut.
The sheriff and State Trooper Rick Black were conferring well out of earshot of the remaining four teenagers, who still sat like forlorn statues on the store’s sidewalk. Linda headed off toward the fuel pumps to take photos there and at Bernie’s car. The clerk had retreated back inside the store. Estelle wondered what version of the tale he and his teenaged assistant, Stuart Fernandez, were concocting. She shrugged off that thought, since it was something over which she had no control.
Rick Black laughed at something Torrez said, and the two men turned as Estelle approached.
“That one,” Black said, nodding toward his car where a figure slumped in the backseat, “admits to throwing the bottle. All five of ’em have been drinking. Started during the game, is my guess.” He handed Estelle a silver hip flask that had been sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. “Pretty fancy, eh? That belongs to the driver.”
“More likely to the driver’s daddy,” the sheriff muttered.
“All from Lordsburg?”
“Yup. The kid’s name is Tyler Parker,” Black said. “He turned twenty-one last week. So this ain’t just the smartest stunt he ever pulled. He’s so soused he can hardly stand. If he pukes in the back of my car, things are really going to get ugly.” He grinned. “The other four are minors.”
“Whose Lexus?”
“Registered to Elliot Parker of Lordsburg. The daddy, I would guess.”
Torrez beckoned Deputy Pasquale, who had been working with Linda. The deputy held another evidence bag with the single shell casing inside. “Take these three back to the lockup,” the sheriff instructed, counting off the first three teens. “You take the last one there,” he added to Estelle. “That’ll keep ’em a little bit separated, not that it matters much. They can get comfortable in the conference room while they wait for their parents to get over here to check ’em out.”
Estelle could see in the kids’ hangdog expressions that they were past the defiant stage, ready now to accept the end of the world. Sheriff Torrez and Officer Black had intimidated them into compliant silence.
“I’ll take care of Bernie,” Torrez said after the three young men were secured in the back of Pasquale’s Expedition, with the fourth in Estelle’s unit. “I want that slug out of his radiator, too.”
“It’s lying on the ground right under the car,” Estelle said. “Straight down from the fan housing. I asked Linda for photos before we move it.”
“Well, that’s easy, then,” Torrez said. “I called Stubby to come get the Lexus, so I guess we’re all set.” He regarded the expensive SUV. “Maybe he’ll put a few dents in it for good measure,” Torrez added, although they both knew that Stub Moore, handling impounds for the county, would treat the suspect’s vehicle with loving care.
Some parents in Lordsburg were going to be furious, Estelle mused. Arrested children, impounded vehicle…and it would all be the Sheriff’s Department’s fault, no doubt. The department could expect that someone-a parent, perhaps even Marge Chavez when she had some time to think on it-would make the most out of the accidental discharge. They could almost guarantee that would overshadow everything else. Five drunken youngsters driving an SUV on the interstate after midnight would pale in comparison to that single mistake.
Torrez turned to Estelle. “You’re going to talk with Collins?”
“I had planned to.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he can clean out his locker and be out of here.”
“We’ll want to think about that carefully, Bobby.”
“Look, that slug missed hittin’ one of Margie’s daughters right between the eyes by about three feet. There was no reason to have drawn down on those pissants in the first place. A bunch of drunk kids?”
“He didn’t know that at the time,” Estelle said. “And I don’t think he ‘drew down’ on them. I think he reacted with a mistake. He didn’t see the kid throw the bottle, and for just a few seconds, he thought he’d been shot at. He drew his gun as he slid out of the vehicle, saw he was mistaken, and then, in the process of correcting that mistake, fumbled the gun.”
“You sound like a damn lawyer.”
“I’m sure we’ll hear from them before this is all over. Right now, I’m puzzled why the gun went off.”
“’Cause he had his friggin’ finger on the trigger,” Torrez said.
“Maybe so. If that’s the case, then it’s our training and proficiency program that’s at fault. If it was a fault in the gun, then it’s a problem for our equipment maintenance program.” Program? she thought to herself. Like most small, financially strapped departments, the Sheriff’s Department found it was all too easy to use equipment until it collapsed.
“He’s got eyes and ears to use like all the rest of us,” Torrez snapped, and his tone had sunk to little more than a whisper. Estelle recognized the anger and had already decided to let the matter drop for the moment when Torrez added, “But hey. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t explain what the it was but instead turned to the State Policeman, who had remained tactfully silent. “Thanks for your help, Rick.”
“I’ll get my deposition to you ASAP,” the trooper said.
“You pulled in just as Collins got out of his unit?” Estelle asked.
Black nodded. “I did. I didn’t see him fumble the gun, though. I was watching the kids. I was starting to get out of the car when I heard the gunshot. I could tell by the look on Denny’s face that it had been an a.d.” He shrugged. “I told him to stay put until I had a chance to make sure no one had been hit. The sheriff here arrived just a few seconds later.” He held up both hands. “Not much, but it all helps.”