“No.”
“You want me to carry him?”
“He’s fine,” she said. And he was. Once fitted into a gadget that looked like a high-tech cross between a hiker’s backpack and a backboard for a papoose, the kid rode along in style. Estelle Reyes-Guzman shoved her hands in her pockets and followed me across the rough ground.
We stopped at the spot where Stuart Torkelson had fallen for the last time, and from there I pointed out where the small marker flags had been set by each site of evidence.
“Would you characterize the argument between my great-uncle and Stuart Torkelson as violent, sir?”
“When they met that first time? No. The way Torkelson told it, Reuben waited for him to walk to the fence. They exchanged a few words, and Torkelson backed off.”
“And he admitted to you that he’d been in the wrong?”
“Absolutely. He was apologetic.” I pulled my coat a little tighter. The wind hadn’t given up. Another day of overcast would bring the total to three in a row…about all I could stand.
“It’s hard to believe he would poison Reuben’s dogs.”
“Impossible for me to believe it,” I said.
Estelle walked to the edge of the shallow pit and knelt down. I did the same, at considerable expense.
She looked up at the trees that surrounded us on three sides. “A pretty spot.”
“Yes.”
She reached down and picked up a handful of loose dirt from the edge of the hole, rolling it between her fingers. “How much deeper down did you dig…I mean after you reached the bodies?”
“Bob Torrez did most of the digging. He stopped when all three dogs were exhumed and when he was sure that that’s all there was in the pit.”
For a long minute she didn’t respond, then she nodded once, as if what I had said was somehow suspect. “It’s interesting, isn’t it, sir.” She pointed by moving just her index finger while the other fingers held onto the ball of soil.
“What is?”
“The way soil makes layers as it’s formed.”
Goddamned fascinating, I almost said, but a loud bark of radio squelch interrupted me. I grunted upright and turned around in time to see another county car pull to a halt behind my Blazer. I reached around and pressed the mike button on my handheld to let Torrez know we’d seen him.
“Can you come to the car a minute, sir?” Torrez’s voice was restrained. I clicked the handheld again as acknowledgment. Scanner nuts around the county would wonder what the hell kind of conversation we were having.
“Let’s go see what he wants,” I said. As we walked back toward the road, Tom Mears got out of his unit to join us.
Deputy Torrez opened his briefcase on the hood of the car and had a handful of show-and-tell by the time Estelle and I negotiated the fence.
“What’s up, Robert?”
“Some interesting findings came in from preliminary tests, sir.” He handed me a single piece of paper with the letterhead of the office of the medical examiner.
“Huh,” I said after reading the first paragraph. “Huh.” I handed the paper to Estelle.
“Human blood was found on the fur of one of the dogs,” Torrez said.
“So I read.” I waited until Estelle had finished.
“And it’s type B positive.”
“The same as Stuart Torkelson’s,” Estelle added.
“Shit,” I said and turned to lean against the fender of the county car. “They got that information back to us in record time, I’ll say that. We might wait a month for the rest.”
“There wasn’t very much blood found,” Estelle said. She reread the brief report for the fifth time. I didn’t need to see it again.
“One molecule is all it takes,” I said. I looked at Estelle as she handed the paper back to Torrez. “So tell me,” I said.
“If the lab report is correct,” Estelle said slowly, “and if the final analysis-the DNA fingerprint and all-agrees, then it places Torkelson with the dogs.”
“Uh-huh.” I reached over and took the report. “And you read the rest?”
“Yes, sir.”
I held the paper at arm’s length, not bothering to take the time to fish my glasses out of my pocket. “Item 93-1216PC10…blood sample recovered from collar fur of deceased black and tan female collie-cross canine.” I glanced up. “That’s a bit redundant, isn’t it?”
Estelle raised an eyebrow.
I continued reading. “Blood sample typed as B Rhesus positive, preliminary match with Item 93-1216PC06, sample taken from victim identified as Stuart Torkelson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And,” I said, holding the paper another inch farther away, “blood sample obtained from splash pattern measuring approximately two point seven centimeters by eight point eight centimeters on left rib cage of canine. Blood sample contaminated by soil and soil debris located between sample and animal fur.”
Estelle thrust her hands back in her pockets.
“What’s that tell us?” I prompted when I saw the line of her jaw set.
“It’s hard to tell, sir.”
“No, it isn’t, Estelle.”
“Somehow Torkelson’s blood got sprayed on the dog when its fur was already covered with dirt,” Bob Torrez offered.
“Somehow,” I said and handed him the paper. “Estelle, your great-uncle loved his dogs. He buried them here, and the effort will probably end up killing him. The dogs were already covered with dirt when Torkelson was shot. That doesn’t leave many choices.”
“Like they were just in the process of being buried,” Bob Torrez offered.
“Or being exhumed. That’s the opposite possibility.”
“Maybe, sir,” Estelle said.
“Then you tell me.”
“I can’t, sir.”
“There’s one thing that can’t be changed. Torkelson’s blood type is on one of the dogs. That’s a link we didn’t have before.”
“A link?”
“Yes. Until now, it was just supposition that tied Torkelson’s death to your uncle. This makes the connection more tangible.”
“Even if we don’t know how to read the evidence,” Estelle said with considerable acid in her voice.
“Even if.” I turned to Torrez. “Did Holman see this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Va a arruinar esta investigacion,” Estelle muttered and I held up a hand.
“Stop that.”
“I said he’s going to make a mess out of this case, sir. He’s so damn eager to pin this murder on an old man.”
“I don’t think that’s it. But he wants something. He’s got a lot of people breathing down his neck on this one. Torkelson was as close to being a town father as anyone can get. We can’t afford to sit around, waiting for something to break.”
“We’re not going to do that, sir,” Estelle said with a finality that I had long ago learned to accept as damn close to marching orders.
“What do you suggest?”
“We’re going to talk with my great-uncle.”
“That may not be possible.”
“It’s going to have to be, sir.”
19
Reuben Fuentes was waiting for his grandniece. That’s the only way I could describe it. We reached the hospital and entered through a side service door. We had to pass the main nurses’ station to reach the old man’s room, and Evelyn Bistoff cast a glance our way, nodded brightly at me, and then ignored us.
The door of Room 118 was ajar. I could see Reuben from the hallway. His usually tousled, snow-white hair was neatly combed, almost a halo, and his head was turned so he could see out into the hall.
The expression on his face said that he’d been expecting us. I had expected to see Francis Guzman in attendance, but the young physician wasn’t there.
Over the years, both Estelle Reyes-Guzman and I had endured our share of death-bed scenes where the victim gave a final statement of affairs as his fading brain understood them. The statements usually weren’t allowed in court, but that didn’t stop the process. Sometimes valuable information was uncovered, sometimes not. Most often, it was just an experience that left everyone with a little more of an ache, feeling a little more mortal, than before.