W is for Wasted (Kinsey Millhone Mystery)

negotiating the access road along the property line at the back of the zoo. That was the unfortunate occasion when, having suffered a psychotic break, I’d agreed to run interference for Felix and Pearl in their mission to retrieve Dace’s stolen backpack from the Boggarts’ campsite. Those two locations, the strip of parking spaces near the lagoon and the hobo camp up the hill, were perhaps a quarter of a mile apart. Handguns, as a rule, don’t hump from place to place of their own accord. Handgun migration is almost entirely the result of human intervention. But no one had been in the backseat of my Mustang except for Felix that same night.
    Miguel said, “You okay?”
    “I’m fine. Just give me a minute.”
    I remembered stumbling onto the scene, having waded through the shrubs to warn them that the big Boggart’s arrival was imminent. While Pearl was stomping the makeshift incinerator, Felix had overturned a metal footlocker and the contents were strewn across the ground at his feet. At the moment I caught sight of him, he picked up an item and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. From that distance and as quickly as he moved, I hadn’t identified the object, but later, when he blasted the Boggart with a can of pepper spray, I assumed that’s what it was. He’d even admitted stealing the can of pepper spray from them.
    Had the Boggarts stumbled across the .45 at the scene of the crime? The bird refuge was part of their turf, so the idea wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Cheney had speculated that the whereabouts of both missing firearms was the function of how far the guy could throw. If he’d tossed one gun in the lagoon and hurled the second one into the dark, it was possible one of the Boggarts had spotted it by day. If that were the case, and if Felix had managed to steal it from them, then the savage beating he’d taken made a sudden twisted sense. That was “if” piled upon “if,” but that’s sometimes how these things work.
    I closed the car door and locked it. I pulled a ten out of my wallet and pressed it into Miguel’s hand. “Keep an eye on the car. I’ll be right back.”
    I double-timed it into the building and found a pay phone. I hauled out a handful of change, put a call through to the police department, and asked for Lieutenant Phillips. When I had Cheney on the line, I ran through a highly condensed version of what had happened the Tuesday before last and why I thought the presence of a .45 under my car seat was relevant. I could tell the story made no sense, especially given my attempt to downplay both the raid and my part in it. To his credit, he didn’t argue the point. He said he’d be there in twenty minutes and he arrived in fifteen.
    •   •   •
    I sat in his cubicle at the police department, the two of us eyeing one another warily while I went through my story for the second time. I’d left the Mustang where it was so Miguel could finish his work. Cheney identified the gun as a .45-caliber Ruger. Before he removed it from under the seat, he’d photographed it in place, donned latex gloves, and then eased a pencil through the trigger guard to keep the handling of it to a minimum. Once the Ruger was bagged and tagged, he’d asked me to accompany him to the station. I agreed so I’d appear to be morally upright. He said he’d drop me at the car wash later when we had a better sense of what was what.
    The Ruger might not be the missing weapon. It might not be relevant to any ongoing investigation, in which case it could end up in the property room, forgotten on a shelf. But I didn’t see how it could be a miss. The stray casing found at the shooting scene was a .45-caliber ACP, which would have been a nice fit for the Ruger.
    On our way to his desk, he dropped the weapon off in the lab, where a ballistics expert would test-fire it to see if the slug was a match for the one found at the scene. The Ruger’s serial numbers had been noted and someone in Records would run them through the computer in hopes the gun was registered. A superficial examination showed the weapon had been wiped clean of prints and a single round had been fired. When we finally sat down to chat, I said, “How soon will you know who owns the Ruger?”
    “Assuming it’s registered at all, it may take a while. Records is backed up and I didn’t put a rush on the request. I’m fascinated to hear how it ended up in your