Dead Weight

Chapter Twelve

Jim Sisson’s death hadn’t attracted much press, to Frank Dayan’s relief. His major competition, the Deming newspaper, stumbled across the incident in the course of their routine morning phone call to check the blotter.

The story didn’t make the front page. The episode was tucked under several obits more local to Deming than Posadas. If it had been a hot news week, we wouldn’t have made it at all.

The headline was artfully evasive across two columns:

Posadas Contractor Dies Following Shop Incident

Most of the grim details were there, with the exception of any speculation about how the “incident” might have happened.

The fundamental conundrum-how a five-and-a-half-foot man managed to be crushed under a fifty-four-inch-tall tire and wheel assembly-was not mentioned, other than the cover-all expression that “investigation is continuing into the incident that claimed the life of James L. Sisson.”

Apparently the use of the word incident rather than accident hadn’t been lost on Posadas Chief of Police Eduardo D. Martinez, who waddled into the Public Safety Building with a copy of the Deming paper under his arm. He appeared in the door of my office shortly after 3:00, brow furrowed and mouth working either a wad of chewing tobacco or a rehearsal of what he wanted to say.

The chief was fifty-six, with about the same dimensions in the torso as a fifty-five-gallon oil drum. His large, square face, with dark eyebrows, wide, heavy-lipped mouth that winked gold, and enough chin for three people, would have made him perfect casting as the Mexican bartender in one of those grade-D spaghetti westerns.

I liked Eduardo, even though I’d never been sure just what purpose his tiny department served-especially since he made no effort to grab his share of the law enforcement turf. But state law was clear: Incorporated villages had to have a police department. A decade before, back when the copper mines were open and fat paychecks flowed directly from payroll office to bank to saloons, the police department had kept busy.

But that was before Eduardo’s tenure as chief-back when he was still earning a living driving a road grader for the village street department. Now Chief Martinez and two part-time patrolmen kept themselves busy making sure that we had one of the best patrolled fifteen-mile-an-hour school zones in the state. Eduardo’s philosophy seemed to be that if the kids could cross the street safely, what else mattered?

Chief Martinez was so adept at staying backstage that I sometimes forgot that he was there. If he took offense at that, he never let it show.

He ducked his head and smiled ruefully. “You busy?”

“No, no,” I said quickly and got up, motioning toward one of the leather-backed chairs. “Come on in. Pull up a seat and rest the bones.”

He did so and unfolded the newspaper. “This is sure something, eh?” he said, his soft voice carrying that wonderfully musical border cadence.

“Just about the goddamnedest thing I ever saw.”

“You know,” he said, looking up at me, “when Bobby answered that call, it was the third time yesterday.” He frowned and tried again. “Three times he went out to that place.”

“Out to the Sissons’, you mean?”

“Yes.” The chief nodded vigorously. “You know, there have been days when I went out there myself, three, four times.”

“They put on quite a show from time to time, that’s for sure.”

He frowned again and scooted his chair forward. “What do you think happened?”

I leaned back in my chair and regarded Martinez with interest. The chief was adept at staying out of the way-he had never been the sort to weasel his way into an investigation that another agency was conducting, for limelight or any other reason. In fact, this was the first time that he’d ever taken the initiative to come to my office and ask to be brought up to speed.

The manila folder that included the set of photographs rested at my elbow, and I flopped it open. “Take a look,” I said. “Tell me what you think.” Like any of us, the chief enjoyed a little deference now and then, and instead of just handing him the folder, I selected several photos, reached across, and spread them out on my desk, facing him.

He leaned forward with his hands tightly clasped between his knees, as if afraid that touching the prints might smear the images.

“Linda shot this one before the tire was moved,” I said. “And these were taken at the hospital.”

Martinez grimaced. “Hm,” he said, and blinked.

“Here’s our problem,” I continued. “See the way he’s scrunched up against the wall? There just isn’t very much space there. About four feet or so. And that’s how tall the tire is, give or take.”

“I don’t get it,” Martinez said.

“Me, neither. We picked up that tire with a chain, just the way Jim Sisson might have. We can’t be sure, of course, but the chain marks on the tire,” and I tapped another photo, “indicate that Sisson-or someone-lifted the tire with a chain that in turn was looped around the bucket teeth of a backhoe. From what we could pry out of Grace, old Jim was working alone out back. And that tire is flat, so it’s logical to assume that’s what Jim was doing.”

“And the chain just slipped off?”

“So it would appear. We tried the same thing. Hoisted it up, knocked the chain loose, and let the tire drop. It hit the ground and stopped dead. No bounce. Bob stepped up to it and balanced it in place with one hand.”

Martinez chewed his lip in thought. “He would have to be kneeling down or sitting or something to be caught like that.”

“When we tipped the tire over, it just leaned against the wall. It didn’t slide down. Not until we forced it with the bucket. And that explains the chain marks, there.” I indicated one of the photos.

I leaned back and folded my hands over my stomach. “Bob went out there on three separate occasions yesterday. He never was able to determine what Jim and Grace were arguing about, but apparently it was a doozie. The first call came when a neighbor who happened to be walking by heard a screaming match and the sound of shattering glass. From what we can gather, a large mirror in the living room was the target of a flying object.” I grinned. “And that was the first call. Right after lunch, they went at it again, apparently when Jim returned from a job he was doing at Bucky Randall’s place. The third time was early in the evening, just before dark.”

“When Jim came home again,” the chief said.

“Probably. The interesting thing is that the Sissons wouldn’t tell Bob what the argument was about. Grace still won’t. She took the kids down to Las Cruces, and the city PD there confirms that all four of them are staying with her parents. The city cops are keeping an eye on her for us until we sound the all clear.”

Reaching across the desk, I pulled the photo of the tire hanging from the chain. “We have a video of our little test, Chief. You might want to look at that, too. You asked me what I think happened, and I’m sure of this much: That tire didn’t just drop off the chain and crush Jim Sisson to death. It had help.”

For a long time Chief Martinez looked at the photo as if the still picture might come to life for him.

“Marjorie always gave them troubles,” he said, and glanced up at me. “The oldest daughter.”

“The blond bombshell,” I said. “I remember an episode or two that involved her. But she’s off in college somewhere.”

“Over in California,” the chief said. “But they had three at home, still.”

“Todd, Melissa, and Jennifer,” I offered.

“And when people argue,” he said, “you can bet that it’s about money or their kids. And if I had to bet, I’d find out a little more about that girl.”

“Jennifer, you mean? Or Melissa?”

He nodded. “Jennifer. I see her around town, you know. All the time. Her tail…wag, wag, wag.” He fluttered his hand back and forth but didn’t crack a smile.

“And maybe the argument between Jim and Grace didn’t have a damn thing to do with Jim Sisson’s death,” I said. “There’s always that. He might have been working back there, and someone came in without Grace hearing, without one of the kids looking outside and seeing who it was. We just don’t know. They all say that they didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything.”

Eduardo Martinez settled back in the chair and folded his hands in his lap. “What did Tomas tell you?” he asked, and I didn’t make the connection. Eduardo saw my puzzled expression and quickly added, “Deputy Pasquale.”

“What do you mean, what did he tell me? What should he have told me?” Even before the question was out, I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise.

“A couple days ago-maybe it was Monday, I’m not sure-his unit was parked at Portillo’s and he was talking to a group of kids. I stopped there just to pick up some things, you know. It was kinda late.”

Portillo’s Handy-Way, the convenience store a dusty field and one street east of the high school, was a popular hangout for youngsters-or at least the store’s parking lot was. From there they could watch traffic cruising up and down Grande, an excitement that I somehow failed to appreciate.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “When Pasquale worked for you, Portillo’s was one of his favorite haunts, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, it was. And one of the kids he was talking to the other night was Jennifer Sisson. I happened to notice her. The long blond hair, you know.”

“Huh,” I muttered, then took a deep breath. “Well, I’m sure that if she’d told him anything of significance, he would have mentioned it to me.”

The chief reached out and tidied up the stack of photos, then pushed himself out of the chair. “At least you got one thing,” he said. “Whoever done this is pretty good with a backhoe. To do that…that would never occur to just anyone, you know. They’d have to have some experience…They’d have to know how.”

“So it would appear,” I said. “I’ll check with Pasquale about the Sisson girl. And I’ll keep you posted. If you hear anything else, holler at me.”

As soon as the chief left, I stepped into the dispatch room. Gayle Sedillos turned and raised an eyebrow at my expression.

“Find Deputy Pasquale for me,” I said.

“I think he’s at home,” Gayle replied, and then, having correctly interpreted both the expression on my face and the tone of my voice, she added, “I’ll call him in right away, sir.”

“Send him to my office when he gets here,” I said.