Statute of Limitations

Chapter Thirty-two

“Eduardo was very…proud of what he did,” Essie Martinez said with great deliberation.

“He had every reason to be,” Estelle said.

“He was chief of police for twenty-seven years,” the older woman said. “Twenty-seven years. That’s something, you know.” She dug a tissue out of her purse, but only clenched it in her hands as if she needed the soft padding. She lifted both hands and then settled them into her lap, composed and expectant. “The way village boards come and go, elections and all that-to stay for twenty-seven years is quite an accomplishment.”

“Essie,” Bill Gastner said gently, “let me lay this out for you.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Somebody whacked me a good one, and someone killed Janet Tripp. We’re thinking there’s some connection somehow, but I gotta tell ya, we’re up against a hard place with this business.” He leaned toward her. “What we were hoping is that you might have some recollection of something that Eduardo might have said to you, or reminisced about, or worried about…any little something. Any time he might have mentioned Janet, or her family. Or even Mike.”

“You mean from this past week, before…”

“Recent stuff, sure. Anything at all. But also anything you can remember from way back when. From the Stone Age.”

“Me oh my,” Essie said, as if to herself. “How would I even know where to start?”

“Janet Tripp and Mike Sisneros were engaged,” Estelle said. “Let’s start there. Mike worked for the chief as a part-timer a few years ago,” Estelle said. “Do you remember Eduardo talking about him?”

“I know that Eduardo liked Michael,” Essie said with emphasis. “And he is such a nice young man. We were happy when Chief Mitchell hired him on full time. Eduardo said that he should, you know. He told Eddie that on several occasions. If there had been an opening before, Eduardo would have done it himself.” Her eyebrows lifted as she pulled in a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh. “That wasn’t always so, you know. There have been some who worked for the village who…who didn’t work out so well,” she said diplomatically.

“Oh, sí,” Estelle agreed, and Deputy Tom Pasquale’s sturdy face came immediately to mind. “Did you ever meet Janet?”

Essie shook her head so quickly it seemed as if she had been expecting the question. “I know who she is…that’s all I know. If I saw her in the grocery store, I might recognize her.”

“That’s about where we are,” Gastner said. “Did Eduardo ever talk about her?”

“Oh…” She regarded her tissue for a moment, smoothing one small corner against her thigh. “I don’t recall any time, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one, you know.” She smiled, her round face lighting. “These old heads, they’re not good for much.” Her smile faded. “Let me ask you something, and if it’s none of my business, well, you just say so. Is Mike in some sort of trouble over this whole mess?”

“No,” Estelle said without hesitation. “Your husband’s estimation of Mike Sisneros was exactly right.”

“I’m working with Mike on the records deal, Essie,” Gastner added. “Combining village and county? He’s a good man. He’s had good training. Eduardo started him out right when he was a part-timer.”

“Yes, he did,” Essie agreed. “I don’t think that young man as always had it so easy.”

“In what way?” Estelle asked.

“His mother was nice. I always liked her, back when they lived in town. She was Acoma, I think. I think. I’m not sure. Maybe Laguna or Zuni. One of those. But she’s moved. Years go. Maybe Arizona or something.”

“Lordsburg,” Gastner prompted.

“Ah. Okay. I didn’t know that. But I liked her. Irene, her name is. So pretty. Now, I know that Eduardo didn’t have much use for Michael’s father.” She frowned at the floor. “They were divorced, you know. The Sisneros, I mean. Hank and Irene.”

Gastner nodded. “Eduardo had dealings with Hank Sisneros sometimes? If that’s the case, he wasn’t alone. I crossed tracks with him a time or two myself. Old Hank liked the bottle, and he liked the back of the hand.” While he waited for Essie to reply, Gastner drew out a small spiral notebook from his left breast pocket, along with a ballpoint pen, and made a brief notation. “I’m sure Eduardo had far more dealings with him than I did.”

“I don’t know,” Essie said. “I just know that Eduardo didn’t care for Hank. You can tell sometimes, you know? And Eduardo…he was a funny one. When there was something bad to say about someone, he talked to himself. So I suppose he had his secrets.”

“There must have been a time,” Estelle said. She watched Essie’s face, wondering if something bubbled beneath the surface of her memory. For Essie to recall clearly that Eduardo didn’t like Hank Sisneros hinted that she would know something about why.

Essie’s eyes narrowed, but she seemed reluctant to open the door on indiscretion. “When Hank Sisneros moved out of town, Eduardo said that was a good thing. He thought that maybe Mike would have a chance to make something of himself. But I don’t know what the relationship was between Mike and his father.”

“Hank went to Deming?”

“I don’t know where he went. Just that he went, you know. For a long time, Mike worked at the hardware store, out in the lumberyard. He was still in high school. He took such good care of his mother.” Essie looked wistful. “She remarried, of course.”

“And moved,” Gastner said.

“You know, you ask me what Eduardo talked about. That’s easy. The thing that Eduardo just hated,” Essie said vehemently, “was going on domestic dispute calls. He just hated that.”

He sure did, Estelle thought. Before Chief Mitchell took over, if there had been ten domestics in a month, the sheriff’s department routinely handled nine of them.

“That Hank Sisneros…he and Irene-they were like oil and water. I don’t know how they ever got linked up in the first place, but what a mess. Hank, now, he had an eye for the ladies. That’s what Eduardo used to say. What they saw in him, I don’t know. It’s fortunate,” and she drew the word out, “that Mike takes after his mother in the looks department. The way I heard it was that finally, Irene just gave up and the church looked the other way when she divorced him. The best thing. When he moved out of town, that was a relief.” She heaved another sigh. “And that’s what I know about that.”

“We still have our fair share of folks like that in town,” Gastner said.

“Any town does,” Essie said.

“Mike and Janet were happy together, though,” Estelle said abruptly. “Did you ever meet her, or did Eduardo ever talk about her? Maybe she and Mike weren’t seeing each other that long ago.”

“I don’t think so. Like I said, I don’t think I know her beyond just a face in the store, you know. That sort of thing. But what a shame, no? A young girl like that.”

During the next few minutes, Estelle tried every avenue to explore what Essie Martinez might know about her husband and his relationships, and got nowhere. By and large, Chief Eduardo Martinez kept his own personal thoughts to himself. Or, if there had been long sessions of “pillow talk” between the two of them, Essie guarded those chats closely. And the pressure would have been considerable to be less than discreet when enjoying gossip with the other ladies from the church.

The undersheriff looked up from her notes with annoyance when a loud rap on her office door interrupted her thoughts. “Yes?” she said, but the door was already opening.

Sheriff Torrez leaned heavily on the knob. “Hello, Essie,” he said. Behind him, Estelle saw Eddie Mitchell in the hallway. “Bill, you got a minute?”

“Me?” Gastner said with surprise. “I have all kinds of minutes.”

Torrez nodded at Estelle. “I need a couple of ’em with you guys,” he said. “Essie, they’ll be right back.” He made an effort to sound pleasant and conversational. “Thanks for comin’ down.”

“You just go ahead,” the older woman said, favoring Torrez with a nod of approval.

A moment later, the four of them crowded into Torrez’s office, and the sheriff made a point of latching the door behind him. “You got your keys with you?” he asked Gastner.

“Sure.” The former sheriff hauled his keys from his pocket and held them out toward Torrez, letting them dangle from the ignition key of his Blazer.

“The key to the conference room?” Torrez asked.

Gastner fingered through the keys. After looking through twice, he stopped, puzzled. “It’s not there, Roberto.” He looked again, and the silence was so heavy in the room that the metallic tink of each key turning against its neighbor sounded loud and harsh. “Nope. I don’t have it.” He frowned. “What the hell did I do with it?”

“You’re sure you did something with it?” Mitchell asked.

“Hell yes, I’m sure. Otherwise it would be here.”

Estelle pulled out her own keys and held the conference key out to Gastner.

“I know what it looks like,” he snapped with unaccustomed impatience. “It’s not here.”

“Now we know what he was after,” Torrez said.

“What?” Gastner said. “Who?”

“Whoever assaulted you with that bar maybe wanted you dead,” Mitchell said. “Or maybe he just wanted your key.”

Bill Gastner whispered an expletive, then shook his head. “That’s nuts, Eddie. For one thing, how would he know which one of the goddamn collection is the right one?”

Mitchell extended his hand, and Gastner thumped the bunch into his palm. “This is the ignition and door-lock key for your Blazer, right? This Kwikset is the front door of your house, maybe the back, too. This little Sergent is the key to your wine cellar.” He grinned, but his eyes remained sober. “You got a safety deposit box key here. They’re easy to recognize, especially with Posadas State Bank stamped on the head. This little fart is to a suitcase or something like that. And this is the ignition key and door key to the state pickup that you drive.” He paused, and looked closely at the last key. “I don’t know what that one is, but it isn’t one that fits any doors in the county building.”

“That’s to my house,” Estelle said.

“Oh, there we go,” Mitchell said. “We’re looking for a big Yale, one that is stamped do not duplicate on its face. Convenient, huh?”

“Did you have the conference room key on your ring?” Torrez asked. “On this ring here?”

“Sure.”

“Did you take it off?”

“Don’t think so. Why would I?” Gastner glowered at Torrez, then at Mitchell. “Do you guys take keys on and off your rings?” Estelle felt the intense déjà vu, remembering their talk with Mike Sisneros about his own keys.

“Nope,” Eddie said, as if to say. And that settle that.

“So that poses a goddamn interesting question,” Gastner said. “Number one, if we assume that in the heat of the moment, in the goddamn dark of the moment, this guy can even see to figure out which key is which, that he then-number two-takes the key before dropping the rest of ’em in the bushes.”

“Something like that,” Mitchell said gently. “It could happen. And nobody is going to be the wiser. At least for a day or two. Somebody knew what Janet’s apartment key looked like, too. Right?”

Gastner looked skeptical. “He whacks me, and takes my conference room key? Interesting that he’d know what it’s for.” When silence ensued, he turned to Estelle. “When you found yours truly lying on the front step like a goddamn drunk, did you check my keys?”

“Ah, no sir. I picked them up and put them in my pocket. And then sometime later, after Jackie and I checked out your house, I put them in your trouser pockets in the closet of your hospital room.”

“This is nuts,” Gastner said.

“But it would explain why he hit you, and then didn’t enter your house. If it was the key to the conference room that he was after, he found what he came looking for, didn’t he?” Mitchell said.

“Nobody’s been in there, though,” Torrez said. “If he wanted the key, he ain’t used it yet.”

“You’re sure about that?” Gastner said. “Hell, busy as you gents have been? In and out and around in circles?”

“Dispatch would have seen that,” Mitchell said. “It’s right across the hall.”

“Even if dispatch left his station for a minute to take a crap?” the older man asked bluntly. “You can’t cover something like that every minute of the day. Slip in, then slip out.”

“I don’t think so,” Mitchell said doggedly. “There’s nothing in that room that you could get in and out.”

“The files?”

“Even if you knew what to look for, good luck finding it,” Mitchell said.

“Then he’s waiting for a chance,” Gastner persisted. “Maybe later on, when he has time to search. And the next question is why. If he took my key…” He hesitated. “We’re going to look pretty foolish if I go home and there it is on my nightstand.”

“Where you always leave stray keys,” Estelle said, and Gastner shot her a withering look. “But that’s interesting,” she continued.

“What is?” Gastner asked.

“Janet’s killer took her apartment key. Why would he do that?”

“There’s something in her apartment that he wants,” Gastner said.

“Mike’s apartment also, sir.”

Gastner stood with his fists on his hips, feet planted…the pugnacious stance Estelle had come to know so well over the years. “Maybe he thought Mike had a key to the conference room, and kept it stowed in the apartment.”

“Mike doesn’t have a key to the conference room,” Mitchell said. “The sheriff has one, Estelle has one, and you had one.” It was his turn to receive the withering look, and he shrugged. “That doesn’t make sense, though-for the same reason. If Mike had a key to the conference room, why would he take it off his key ring and leave it in the apartment? Nobody would do that. We put keys on our key rings, and they stay there.”

“Then what was the killer looking for in that apartment?”

Gastner said. “We don’t know if he was. We don’t know for sure that it was him who took the key from Janet’s ring in the first place. Or mine, for that matter. We don’t know if he was even there. Mike says nothing is missing from his apartment, nothing is messed up.”

“There’s something someone wants that he thinks are in those files,” Torrez said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”

“Related to what?” Gastner asked.

“Wish I knew,” the sheriff replied.

“Janet Tripp,” Estelle said, more to herself than anyone. “Number one, I can’t believe that her murder, and the assault on Padrino, were unrelated. The timing is just too close, and I see similarities. Number two, we think that whoever killed Janet took her apartment key…Mike’s apartment key.”

“And you don’t know that for sure,” Mitchell observed.

“No, I don’t. But it makes sense to me. As you say, keys don’t jump off key rings. Especially not two keys, from two key rings, within a few hours of each other. That means there was something in her-Mike’s-apartment that Janet’s killer was after. That he thought might be there. And as you say, Mike didn’t have a key to the conference room files.”

“The killer wouldn’t know that,” Torrez said.

“Maybe not. But if he thought Mike had a key, it makes no sense to go through Janet to get it, does it? Mike would have it on his key ring, just like Bill had his.” She held up her own keys. “Just like I have mine, and you have yours. It makes sense to me that he wanted something that Janet had…and not the key. That’s number three.” She held up three fingers. “And that’s what I can’t get past.”

“You think she knows the killer somehow?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh.” He gazed at Estelle, eyes narrowed. “Where the hell do we go with that. There’s nothing in the county rap sheets that mentions Janet.”

“And I haven’t found anything in the village files,” Mitchell said. “Going back to the year she was born-1977.”

“She was born here?” Gastner asked, surprised.

“Yep.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t know that.”

“No reason you should,” Mitchell said. “One of your hobbies isn’t memorizing birth announcements from each year, is it?”

“Not hardly,” Gastner said. “I have enough trivia clogging my arteries.”

“What’s Essie say?”

“Nothing,” Estelle said. “She’s worried about Mike.”

“Aren’t we all,” Gastner said. He started to head around Torrez’s desk toward the chair. “Whoa,” he said, and stopped, looking down at the desk without seeing it. “A thought occurs to me,” he said slowly, then continued around the desk to sit in Torrez’s remarkably uncomfortable swivel chair. He spent a long moment rearranging things on the sheriff’s desk. Finally, he folded his hands and looked at the others, one at a time. “Who are the old farts in all of this?”

“Means what?” Mitchell asked.

“Who are the old farts,” Gastner said again, “who would be apt to know what’s in the village files from way back?”

“Chief Martinez,” Torrez said, then added, “and you.”

“And me. Exclusive club, compared to all you youngsters.” He pushed his glasses up, and peered across at Estelle. “If you had something in those files that you’d just as soon not see the light of day, that you’d just as soon not be remembered and dug up, wouldn’t you be just a little nervous when you saw the article in the newspaper about consolidation? How we were going to merge all those nifty files? How yours truly here was heading up the job? Frank Dayan did a good job with that story, didn’t he.”

“No one attacked Eduardo,” Estelle said.

“True enough. But what happened? He had a public heart attack, and the whole town is bound to know. It was in the metro papers….at least the one from Cruces. It might have made the news on the Cruces or Deming radio. And there’s our own speed-of-sound grapevine.” He held up a thumb. “There’s one down. Eduardo knows what’s in those files. Pardon me. Knew.” He turned the thumb and jabbed himself in the chest. “And I’ve been around for a while. Maybe somebody thinks that I know something.”

“The key?” Estelle asked.

Gastner shrugged. “Don’t know, sweetheart. Unless it’s as simple as this: with Eduardo gone, and me gone, Mr. Slick knows that the playing field has been leveled a little, as politicians like to say. The old farts who might remember something from way back are out of the picture. And with a little luck, nobody’ll notice the missing key for a while, and he’ll have the chance to slip in and do a little file removal. Think on that.”

“Janet,” Estelle said abruptly. “If the files have to do with her, she’s out of the way, too.”

Mitchell chuckled. “Wonderful,” he said. “And if all of this is out in left field somewhere, we’re back where we started.” He held up a hand. “What’s to lose.”

“I’ll get the locks changed today,” Torrez said, but Gastner shook his head.

“Don’t bother, Roberto. It might be kind of interesting to let ’em in. See who it is, and what he wants.”

The sheriff gazed at Gastner for a moment, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepened a little. “If he thinks someone’s going to recognize him, maybe he’ll be a little reluctant anyway,” he said.

“Could be that,” Gastner said.

“We need to talk with Mike again,” Estelle interrupted.

“What do you want to know?” Chief Mitchell asked. “He and I have been over this ground so often we’ve dug ruts.”

“I want to know everything there is to know, starting from 1977,” she said. “For one thing, there’s one obvious little detail nagging me. Mike’s.22 pistol was stolen, and he can’t seem to account for when that happened. For some reason, he goes to Lordsburg without Janet. He claims that Janet doesn’t get along so well with his mother, and maybe it’s that simple. On top of that, Mike is on the transition team, but he doesn’t have his own key…we limited the number of those floating around.” She fell silent while the others waited, hating to voice the thought. “If Mike has himself a key, no one in dispatch is going to wonder when he goes in that conference room.”