Statute of Limitations

Chapter Thirty-three

“So,” Bill Gastner said as he followed Estelle back to her office. “What can I help with?” Eddie Mitchell had taken Essie Martinez home, and the sheriff had remained in the conference room, his wife hovering, while he rummaged through files.

“I want to go through our files and the village files again, Padrino.” She opened the top drawer of one of her own office cabinets, riffling quickly through until she found the orange folder that contained the personnel records for Mike Sisneros. “I want you to retrieve any files from that memory of yours, too. About Mike, about Janet…about all their relatives back to the dawn of time.”

“You don’t know what you ask,” Gastner said. “And why the relatives? We’ve got nothing that shows there’s a connection with anything in the family album.”

“Because,” Estelle said. She sat down at her desk with the personnel folder. “Statistics say that the majority of violent crimes are rooted in the family.”

“Ah.” He shrugged. “But that’s true, isn’t it?”

“And that’s the only door I see that’s open, Padrino. We don’t have prints. We don’t have tire tracks. We don’t have DNA. Or a convenient witness. And we don’t have a weapon…other than the tantalizing little itch that at one time Mike Sisneros had a.22 pistol, and now it’s missing-and it’s his girlfriend who was shot with that same sort of weapon.” She held up her hands helplessly. “I have two things I can do. I can sit here and wait for something to happen, wait for something to show itself, or I can poke around. I don’t know where else to poke, other than family.”

Gastner sat quietly, regarding her thoughtfully.

“I know that there’s a Hank Sisneros,” she said. “But I don’t know where he is…except maybe this vague ‘in Deming’ that I keep hearing. I know he was a heller in years past.”

“And a drunk.”

“That, too. He leaves town, and even his own son isn’t on speaking terms with him. When Mike talks about his father, I can see this steel door drop down behind his eyes.” She made a chopping motion. “All that makes me curious. We have mama living in Lordsburg with a new husband. And Janet? What do we know about her? That there’s a sister over in Kansas. I need to call her today.” She looked up at Gastner. “And her parents? Her mother died, and her father took off for parts unknown. I don’t like any of this. Vague is bad, Padrino.”

“None of that means there’s a connection with some thug working in the dark.”

“When he shot Janet, it wasn’t dark, Padrino.”

“True enough.”

She leafed through the folder, trying to force the dry notations to form an image of a living, breathing human being, dimensions beyond what Estelle thought she knew about Mike Sisneros already.

The contents of the folder painted of portrait of a level-headed, small-town kid who hadn’t strayed far from the nest. His high-school record was average, heavy on sports and without any AP or honors courses. He had never failed a class-at least any that were listed. During four years of high school, Michael Sisneros had achieved only two A’s outside of physical education classes: one in American history and the other in consumer math.

“It says here that Mike worked part-time at the hardware and lumber yard since his freshman year in high school.”

“I remember that,” Gastner said. “I think.”

“And then he enlisted in the United States Army in 1992.”

“I guess he did,” Gastner said. “It seems to me that he was overseas for a while.”

“Germany,” Estelle agreed. “He finished out his tour with the military police unit at Fort Bliss.”

“And then came back home.”

“So it would seem. He joined the Posadas Village Police Department in 1998 as a part-time officer and attended the state law enforcement academy in 1999. Eddie hired him full time for the village that fall.” She shuffled through a selection of copied diplomas, certificates of attendance, and certifications. “All the usual stuff. There’s nothing there,” Estelle said, and tossed the folder on the desk.

“I didn’t think Mike was the one at issue,” Gastner said.

“He’s not, at least as far as I’m concerned. I was hoping I had missed something.” She rose and the two of them went back to the conference room. Eddie Mitchell had returned, and he and the sheriff were seated at the long table, a litter of village files and documents spread out in front of them.

“Mike was in the service from 1992 through the spring of 1995,” she said. “What years was Janet in the army? Do we know for sure?”

“I was lookin’ at that,” Torrez mumbled. He leaned forward and shifted papers. “Enlisted in January of ’95. Medical discharge September, ’96.”

“That was in our file? I thought we didn’t have anything on her.”

He shook his head slowly. “Nope, we don’t. I asked Virgil Hardy at A amp; H for her employment records. He didn’t much like bein’ bothered on a Sunday afternoon, and it turns out he didn’t have much on file anyways. Apparently Janet printed up this résumé when she first applied for the job. Eddie just picked it up.” He turned the single sheet of paper and shot it across the table to Estelle. “That ain’t what’s interesting.”

She scanned down the brief form. It was perfectly typed, but so brief that Virgil Hardy could have memorized it in an instant if he had felt the need. “It doesn’t say what the medical discharge was for.”

“Nope. Maybe old Virgil didn’t need to know. Welding rods and bookkeeping don’t much care about things like that.”

“I’d like to know, though,” Estelle persisted.

“I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy,” Gastner said. “Getting anything out of military records is like digging a hole in a lake, but let me give it a whirl.” He motioned toward Estelle’s office. “Use your phone?”

“Of course. Who can you find on a Sunday?”

“We never know,” Gastner said, and left the room.

She turned back to Torrez. “So she and Mike didn’t serve together?”

“Nope.”

“It doesn’t hurt to hope,” Estelle said.

“A coincidence, but that’s about it,” Mitchell said. “Their military service gave ’em something to talk about when they were dating, maybe. And speaking of playing the odds,” Mitchell said, and shifted a boot where it rested on the mahogany table. “Let me fill you in on what we were talking about before you and Bill came back in.” He held up a document that had seen better days, including a ring of coffee stain on the lower left quadrant.

“In 1990, Hank Sisneros was arrested for DWI for the fourth time.” He handed the folder to Estelle. “Interesting little file he has. Eduardo was the arresting officer. It’s also interesting that there’s no disposition of the case. I don’t guess that it was ever prosecuted.” He reached out and touched the corner of the slender folder as Estelle spread it open. “Nothing in here says that it was, anyway.”

“That’s been known to happen,” Torrez growled. “Eduardo was from the ‘escort ’em home’ school of drunk management.”

“Well, he’d know the way,” Mitchell said. “Sisneros’s home address is listed as 412 South Sixth Street. That ring a bell with anyone?”

“Next door to the chief,” Estelle said, looking up quickly. “Eduardo’s place is 410. Did Hank Sisneros have a rap sheet? I don’t see one in this folder.”

Mitchell laughed. “You’re kidding. The chief didn’t bother with summary paperwork, Estelle. At least not back then. We got what we got, which isn’t much. It looks like the chief’s habit was to make an incident report, file it, and that was that.”

Those incident reports showed that Hank Sisneros had tried Chief Eduardo Martinez’s patience half a dozen times for various petty complaints before his arrest in May 1990, for DWI. That arrest was the last one recorded in the folder.

“This is it? Nineteen ninety is the last entry? Fifteen years ago? What does the county have on him?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Mitchell said. “I checked. Unless Bill remembers something.”

“Just a vague recollection that Hank was both a drinker and a fighter. He must have moved to Deming about then, or what?” Estelle asked. “This is the last entry. He suddenly starts on the straight and narrow after this DWI arrest in 1990. Either that, or he moves.”

“Something like that,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know the details. All this is before my time.”

“And I don’t remember,” Torrez said when Estelle looked his way. “Ask the walking directory,” he added, nodding in the direction of Bill Gastner’s exit.

“I will, when he comes back from his call. So…the Sisneros family were the chief’s neighbors. That’s interesting. When I was talking to Essie Martinez, I wondered why she should remember so much about Hank Sisneros. She knew that Hank didn’t get along with his wife, for instance. With Irene.”

“At least half the town would have known that,” Torrez said.

“I suppose that’s true. Not the half I live in, though.” She shrugged. “But it makes sense if Hank and Irene Sisneros lived right next door to the Martinezes. They’d hear every word.”

“Essie didn’t volunteer that they were neighbors. That’s kind of interesting.”

“No, she didn’t.”

Mitchell made a face. “How discreet.” He pursed his lips and whistled tunelessly. “Maybe there are other things that Mrs. Martinez conveniently didn’t notice or remember.” He pointed at the folder. “Take a look at the fence incident. About the third item from the back.”

“The fence incident?” She replaced the 1990 DWI report and leafed backward.

“That one,” Mitchell prompted. “Also 1990, by the way.”

Chief Martinez had been economical with words, with one brief paragraph written in tiny, neat block letters that used only a small portion of the space that the Uniform Accident Report form allowed:

Operator says he had borrowed dump truck from Wilton Griego, and was attempting to dump load of fines on driveway. Operator said parking brake failed, and vehicle rolled across the street and into fence and corner of tool shed at 407 South Sixth Street. Vehicle undamaged. Altercation with owner of shed. Counseled both operator of truck and owner of shed. Owner of shed says he will file will insurance company. Photo attached.

Estelle turned the report sideways so that she could examine the faded instant photo that had been stapled to the bottom of the form. The older-model dump truck had been moved by the time the photo was taken, and was parked at the curb. It appeared from the chief’s diagram and notations that Hank Sisneros had backed the loaded dump truck into his driveway, parked, and gotten out to release the tail gate prior to engaging the dump box. The old truck had lurched out of gear, ambled down the slight gradient of the driveway, bumped across the street and over the curb, and nosed into the neighbor’s decorative fence and the metal storage shed.

“‘Owner of shed,’” Estelle read, and looked up at Mitchell. “Brad Tripp.”

“Ain’t that interesting?” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “‘Altercation with owner of shed.’ I like that.”

“Really descriptive, isn’t it?” Mitchell said.

Bill Gastner thumped into the room, and Estelle could see by the scowl on his face that he’d been less than successful in finding a short cut to Janet Tripp’s military records.

“Long shot,” he grumbled. “I called a sergeant buddy of mine who just retired. He’s got connections, still. He says that if I send in an official written request and call again a week from whenever, there might be someone who knows something who isn’t on vacation until the end of winter.”

He stopped short when he saw the three silent faces. “What?”

Estelle held out the accident report and he took it, taking a moment to shift his trifocals so could read the tiny print.

“This is the goddamnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said after a minute. “‘Counseled both’? Christ.” He shook his head. “But Eduardo was good at that. Counseling.”

“Did you know that at one time, all three lived door-to-door?” Torrez asked. “The chief, Sisneros, and the Tripps?”

Gastner’s face wrinkled in perplexity. “I’ll be goddamned,” he said. “No, I didn’t know that. What’s Essie say?”

“No mention.”

“Let’s ask her again,” Gastner said, and handed the accident report back to Estelle. “And ask the Tripp sister. What’s her name?”

“Monica. We haven’t talked to her yet,” Mitchell said.

“I’m not sure I’d wait until tomorrow,” Gastner said. “And I’ll be the bad guy and bring this up…. Mike didn’t mention any of this either.”

“On its own merits, there’s not much here to remember,” Estelle said. “This long ago, maybe there’s no bearing on anything that happened this weekend. Why would he remember this stuff?”

“That’s one way of looking at it. I’ll talk to Essie again, if that’s what you want,” Gastner offered. “It might turn out that she really does have a bum memory for things that happened fifteen years ago. And maybe not.”

“I’ll go with you,” Estelle said.

Torrez pushed himself to his feet with a painful grimace. “You do that. In the meantime, I think we need to find Mike,” he said to Estelle. “In 1990, he would have been a teenager. A kid’s memory is usually pretty good.”