Twice Buried

10

By late Saturday night, I’d avoided even a catnap for the better part of thirty-six hours, and even for an old insomniac like me, that was pushing the limit. I parked 310 in the driveway of my house and went inside, welcomed by the dark, friendly silence of the old place.

With the holiday season, I had considered running a string of small Christmas lights around the recessed portal and maybe looping a strand or two over the vigas that faced the lane. A line of luminarias along each side of the driveway would have looked inviting and cheery as well, but I wasn’t in the mood. Make the place look too inviting and I’d end up having company.

I closed the heavily carved front door behind me, knowing that I’d end up not doing any decorating until after Christmas… and then it’d be too late anyway. What the hell.

What I really wanted was twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. That was wishful thinking. I knew exactly what would happen if I stretched out on the bed. The initial bliss as the bones and muscles melted into jelly and the soft aroma of the bedding and the faint mustiness of the house as they blended into a cozy potpourri would be narcotic…for about ten minutes. Then I’d start tossing and turning like an old washing machine out of balance on the agitation cycle.

I walked to the kitchen and put on a fresh pot of coffee. While the brew oozed through the calcium-choked mechanism, I considered telephoning Estelle Reyes-Guzman in Tres Santos.

Her mother didn’t have a phone in her modest little adobe house, but the Diaz family just down the lane from Mrs. Reyes did. If my call managed to be patched through on the vague Mexican system, one of the myriad Diaz kids would sprint a message the hundred yards to the Casa Reyes.

There was no point in bothering them with a call at this hour of the night. Estelle couldn’t do anything about her great-uncle’s dogs anyway. The old man would survive. He’d have the distraction of a visit to Tres Santos in a week, see all his relatives, then dive back into the privacy of his shack, maybe with a truckload of new Mexican puppies to raise.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and settled into the big leather chair in the living room. I wanted a cigarette more than sleep. There were none stashed in the house and I was too tired to go after a pack. I could almost hear my eldest daughter chastising me for even thinking about smoking. I loved my children, but sometimes they ganged up on their old man.

The Christmas before, one of my sons had decided I needed a VCR and a library of videos. He’d started by sending me a copy of The Shootist with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, figuring that a movie with my two favorite stars would start me off. I sensed the fine hand of my eldest daughter, Camille, in the title choice.

My video library hadn’t grown. That one video, lonely and forlorn, sat on the shelf.

Knowing that the results were guaranteed, I got up, switched on the set, and popped the tape in the machine. I’d watched the first part of the movie dozens of times-my record was reaching the point where Jimmy Stewart tells the Duke that the old gunfighter had himself “a cancer.” This time, I was asleep long before that.

I awoke with a start. The television screen was a nice blank blue. The VCR had cycled into patient “wait” mode, the old gunman in the movie blown to hell and gone long before. My coffee was stone cold and I had no idea how many times the telephone had jangled. With a grunt I reached the phone and jerked it off the cradle so hard the base slid off the kitchen counter and crashed to the floor.

“Yep,” I said.

“Sir, this is Gayle Sedillos.” My dispatcher’s voice was about as nice as any can be on a wake-up call.

“Yep. What the hell time is it?”

“Ten thirty-three, sir.” I squinted at my watch and took her word for it.

“What’s up, Gayle?” I was fully awake. Gayle possessed uncommonly good sense. She was worth five times what we paid her, and if she called me at home the message couldn’t wait.

“Sir, Deputy Encinos just radioed in a possible homicide on County Road twenty-seven just beyond the second cattle guard off the state highway.”

“A what?”

“A homicide, sir.”

“I know what you said. Who, I meant.”

“Deputy Encinos didn’t say, sir.”

“All right. I’ll be there in a couple minutes. And Gayle-”

“Sir?”

“Is anyone with Encinos?”

“Deputy Abeyta,” Gayle said. “He wanted to work a weekend four-to-midnight, and you left standing orders that he couldn’t work that shift alone.”

“Okay. Good.” I heard a voice in the background and then Gayle came back on the line, this time a little more tentative.

“Sir, can you stop by and pick up a passenger on your way out?”

“A passenger?” Sheriff Holman didn’t get any kick out of riding in a police car-he avoided the opportunity whenever it presented itself. I couldn’t think of anyone else.

“Yes, sir. Linda Rael is here.” I groaned. The young reporter kept worse hours than I did. But company wasn’t what I had in mind. I started to refuse, then frowned. What the hell.

“Tell her to be standing out on the sidewalk at the corner of Bustos and Third. I won’t slow down much.”

I didn’t bother giving Gayle any other instructions. She knew full well what to do and would make her calls to the coroner, ambulance, and Sheriff Holman in due course. Deputy Encinos would keep the crime scene intact, with the rookie Tony Abeyta to assist.

I headed out the door to 310, my pulse hammering. The second cattle guard on County Road 27 was the one by Reuben Fuentes’s two-track. It didn’t take much imagination to picture a confrontation out there. All that was left was to find out who’d been killed.