Twice Buried

16

Holman returned to the office a few minutes later, after I told our dispatcher to bring him in. Hell, he’d been out tramping around that field long enough. I didn’t want him dreaming up any more complications. He stood in the doorway of my office, his hands in his coat pockets, Stetson pulled low over his forehead like a real goddamned lawman.

“I don’t think you’re right in this,” he said, sounding like some goddamned counselor.

“Yes, I am,” I said. I was blunt, but sometimes that was the only kind of instrument that worked on Holman.

“And if we wait to arrest the old man, what are you planning?”

“Look,” I said, exasperated. A fleeting memory surfaced of a former sheriff, Eduardo Salcido. Salcido had had the good sense to hire me, twenty-three years before. I’d learned his habit of telling people things once and letting it go at that. Martin Holman liked to hear the same song half a dozen times, maybe hoping that the words would change.

I moved my empty coffee cup two inches to the right, as if it were in my way. “Look, sheriff. We’ve got a uniformed deputy parked at the entrance to Reuben’s property, with the county road sealed off beginning at the intersection with the state highway.” I held up my hands. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a waste. I mean, the damn road was open all night, when we were measuring and popping flashbulbs. Nobody’s going out there. Nobody’s going to touch anything. And most important, Reuben Fuentes isn’t going to slip out from under our noses and slide into Mexico.”

“I don’t see why you have to have Estelle Reyes-Guzman on hand before you do anything. She doesn’t work for us.”

“I know that.” I paused to take a deep breath, my patience running thin. “Reuben Fuentes speaks English about as well as you and I talk Spanish. I need someone he trusts to talk with him. Estelle is nearby, and obviously he trusts her. It just makes sense. I want him to understand what’s happening to him.”

Holman nodded slightly and straightened his Stetson. “I was thinking of signing up for beginning Spanish at the community college this spring.”

I stared at him for a moment in disbelief. I didn’t know what to say, but Holman saved me the trouble.

“So…the minute Reyes-Guzman arrives, we go out,” the sheriff said.

“You’re not planning a cavalcade, I hope?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said, “that just Estelle and I go out and bring the old man in. That’s more than enough. Anything beyond that is just plain silly.”

Holman eyed me askance, his eyes carrying that practiced hard glint that television actors adopt when they’re playing the crusty lawman. “You know, it is possible that the old man did it,” he said quietly. “And if he did, then certain security measures are called for. Completely called for.”

“I suppose so. But he didn’t do it.”

“We’ll see.”

Holman left my office, headed who knows where-maybe to smear more prints out at Anna Hocking’s. And I waited, poring over what information the medical examiner had already sent to our office. It wasn’t much. And now that the long night had worn the first flush of excitement from the chase, Martin Holman and I seemed to be the only ones still worried.

Deputies Paul Encinos and Tony Abeyta went back to the highway, looking for speeders-and no doubt flashing their spotlight into every damn field and yard, hoping for some more action.

Eddie Mitchell, an officer who was even less excitable than Bob Torrez, volunteered to sit out in Fuentes’s driveway until we oldsters finally decided to do whatever it was that we were going to do.

I got the distinct impression that everyone in the department thought I was several cards short. Hell, I suppose the evidence agreed. We’d found a man blown to pieces in a field owned by a known crazy…and I was the one who was refusing to arrest our solitary suspect.

I saw Bob Torrez pass down the hallway and shouted at him.

“Estelle is on her way up, Roberto.” I suppose I wanted at least one person on the staff to agree with me.

“I heard, sir.”

The tall deputy stood in the doorway, a manila envelope under his arm.

“What are you working on?” I asked. I leaned back in the chair and hooked my hands behind my head. He lifted the envelope and gazed at it as if this were the first time he’d seen it.

“The arson investigator from Albuquerque sent back the second set of pictures I took of Sheriff Holman’s house after the cleanup,” he said. “I was going to go through them and see what he said.”

I grimaced. The odds of us ever finding out who flipped the match were slim to none. I had given the case to Torrez because I knew he’d keep plugging. The case wouldn’t end up at the back of a file drawer somewhere, covered with cobwebs.

“That and a million other things,” I said. I took a deep breath and glanced out the doorway toward the dispatch room. “We may need your help this morning.”

“Sure.”

“Estelle and I will go out to talk with the old man. I don’t want a damn contingent following us out there.”

Torrez nodded and I added, “Maybe you can think of something to keep Holman busy if he shows up here in the office again. I really don’t want him out there. Or the press either, for that matter. You may want to run out to the Hocking place again with him…it wouldn’t hurt to look around again. See if we missed anything.”

“He may want to see these photos,” Torrez said, clearly thinking that the Hocking case was closed tight. I could imagine him methodically explaining each photograph to Martin Holman. The sheriff would love it, even if the photos showed next to nothing.

“That’ll be fine. And by the way, I talked with Mrs. Sloan yesterday afternoon. I forgot to tell you.”

Torrez looked uncomfortable. “I had some things I was going to do on that case today, but we sort of got…ah, busy.”

“Well, I can save you some legwork, then. She said the main man went to live with his father in Florida.”

“Todd Sloan? He went to Florida?”

“That’s what she said.”

Torrez frowned.

“What’s the matter? As the old joke goes, his leaving raises the average IQ of both places.”

Torrez almost grinned. “That means she and Kenny Trujillo are the only ones living in that trailer, then.”

“I suppose so. Kenny was still at work when I talked with Miriam. She’d just come back from a trip to Albuquerque.”

“Huh,” Torrez said, still frowning. “Well, maybe.”

“Well maybe what?”

“Well, I stopped by the discount store and talked with a couple people. One of the salesladies remembers Todd and three of his friends in the store during the earlier part of the week. She thought one of them was shoplifting, but she didn’t say anything because she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she says Todd Sloan bought a pair of tennis shoes.”

“The same kind as in your photograph?”

“The same kind. Same size. Same everything. And the lack of wear on the ones in the photo would compare with some only a week old.”

“Thin, Robert. Thin.”

Torrez smiled. “But maybe enough to get him to talk.”

“Except he’s in Florida now. And I don’t think you’re going to win an extradition for tennis shoes.”

Torrez took a step nearer the desk. “But I think she’s lying for him again,” he said. “You said that she claims he moved a couple weeks ago? This was Monday, when he was in the store. So he didn’t move…at least not until just a few days ago.”

“Mothers of teenagers are easily confused,” I said. “But it would be convenient to move right after the burglary.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Well, keep thinking. Go out to the junkyard and talk with Kenny Trujillo. Maybe he needed a new engine hoist, so Todd obliged. You might ask Kenny when Todd moved to Florida. It might be interesting to compare his date with Miriam’s. You’ll get your chance to nail the little bastard. I’m sure that after a week or so, the juvenile authorities in Florida will be more than glad to send him back.” Torrez almost grinned.

Unlike Bob, I didn’t have a myriad of little details from other cases to look after-or at least none that I cared to bother with at the moment. By the time fifteen more minutes had passed, I had reached the limit of my patience. My hand kept straying to my shirt pocket, hoping to find an orphaned cigarette.

Finally I gave up. I walked out to the dispatcher’s room and Randy Ames, one of our part-timers, swiveled his chair around at my approach.

“Morning, sir.”

“I suppose. You got a cigarette?”

“No, sir. I sure don’t. I don’t smoke.”

“Good. Don’t start.” A convenience store was kitty-corner from the department parking lot, across the street. I headed for that, and almost made it. Just as I was about to step off the curb, the only vehicle on Bustos Avenue turned from the eastbound lane and pointed its flat nose at me.

I recognized the blue Isuzu Trooper. I grinned widely when I saw that Estelle Reyes-Guzman had brought her entire family with her. Dr. Francis Guzman swung into the parking lot with the easy familiarity of an old-time employee. He pulled into a space marked Reserved for Sheriff.

On those rare occasions of a Gastner family reunion, my eldest daughter Camille was expert at those all-encompassing bear hugs that squeezed out what little breath I had. Camille was twice this slip of a girl’s weight, but Estelle always managed to surprise me. She hugged me so hard one of the ballpoint pens in my shirt pocket cracked. And she did it while holding my godson in one arm.

“I was just headed over to the store,” I said.

She pushed away and looked me up and down. “We’ll walk over with you.”

“That’s okay. It wasn’t important. God, it’s good to see you.” Francis ambled around the front of the Trooper, a wide grin on his handsome, swarthy face.

“Hey, Padrino,” he said, and we shook hands. “You’re lookin’ good.”

Estelle grinned and wrinkled her nose. “You’re still not smoking.” She saw the expression on my face and added, “But if we’d had been ten minutes later, you would have started again, right?”

“Five,” I said. “It’s been one of those days.” I reached out and moved the blue knitted shawl away from the baby’s head. He was sound asleep. “You know this is the first time this kid and I have met?”

“And at work, too,” Francis said with a laugh. “What a start.”

“He’s a good-looking boy.” I frowned. “Were you planning to-” I waved a hand. “I mean, do you want to take him over to my house now, or what?”

“He’s fine. Really. He’ll be just fine. We really do need to talk, sir.”

“Then let’s head out to Reuben’s. I’ll fill you in on the way.” I immediately felt like a louse. I hadn’t seen Estelle since the previous August. And now, she’d been out of her truck for two minutes and I had her working for Posadas County again.

“And let’s take your truck,” I said, starting toward her Isuzu.

“I don’t have this county frequency on my radio,” Estelle said, but I didn’t need reminding.

“I’ve got the handheld,” I said, knowing damn well that it wouldn’t receive out in the rumpled country west of town. That was all right. There were only three people in the world I wanted to talk with just then-and two of them were the parents of my godson. I had been surprised, at first, to see Francis. I guess I had been expecting Estelle to arrive alone.

That was foolish. Estelle wasn’t about to leave her infant son in Mexico in someone else’s care. And circumstances being what they were, Dr. Francis Guzman’s presence might prove useful, since the third person I wanted to talk with was a cranky ninety-year-old Mexican who didn’t know his world was about to shatter into a million pieces.

I had absolute faith that Reuben Fuentes would not be able to hide anything from his grandniece. She would coax the story out of him, one version or another. And if he was guilty, she’d tell me that, too. It was one of those times when I found myself wishing that Estelle Reyes-Guzman wasn’t so damn unflinchingly honest.