Twice Buried

21

Todd Sloan had run out of luck. He’d ended up stuffed in the ground under three dead hound dogs with nothing but a piece of garden plastic for a comforter.

With the plastic peeled back so that the pathetic, small corpse was completely exposed, Estelle Reyes-Guzman took photos and measurements. I stood back and wondered what to do next. Robert Torrez kept saying, “Huh,” as if that one grunt summed it all up.

“His mother said he went to Florida to live with daddy,” I said. “She said he went there a couple of weeks ago.” Torrez nodded and offered his one syllable. “But you said he was at the shoe store earlier in the week, buying a pair of shoes that could tie him to the farm supply robbery.”

“So either she was lying, or she really didn’t know that he was still hanging out around town,” Torrez said, finally slipping back into gear.

“She would know,” Estelle said. She knelt down next to my briefcase and rewound an exhausted roll of film.

“Why is that?”

“She just would.”

“A mother speaks,” I said, and pulled a corner of the blanket away from Francis Carlos’ face. He was sleeping through the best part.

“But it’s true, sir,” Estelle persisted. “If her son was in town, she’d know about it.”

“Then there’s only one alternative,” I said.

“She was lying.” I could see the artery in Deputy Torrez’s neck pulse as his blood pressure escalated. He kept shifting position, trying to get away from the smell.

“Could be.”

“There’s a bigger question,” Estelle said, standing up with a freshly loaded camera. She looked at me and raised one eyebrow.

“Does she know that her son is planted up here,” I said.

“Right.”

“Before all the fireworks start, we need to ask her. Robert, pick up Gayle Sedillos to act as a matron and go on out to the trailer park. Pick up Mrs. Sloan and bring her out here. She can identify the remains right here.”

“Are you sure you want to do that, sir?” Estelle asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. If she doesn’t know the boy’s dead, we’ll be able to tell.” I looked at Torrez. “We’ll meet you down at the road. Don’t just lead her up here cold. I want a minute to talk with her first.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Robert-”

“Sir?”

“I do not want the press up here. Not yet, anyway.”

He nodded and trotted off toward his patrol car, glad for the fresh air.

“It would appear he was wounded twice, sir,” Estelle said.

“Not heavy caliber, though?” I was thinking of Stuart Torkelson’s run of bad luck.

“I would guess not. It looks like he was shot once here, behind the ear. It didn’t rupture the vault of the skull, so we should be able to recover a slug. And it looks like he was wounded somehow in the stomach as well. There’s a lot of blood there.”

“The autopsy will tell us all we need to know.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing that I had a cigarette to clean up the fouled air. “You willing to make any guesses?”

“No, sir. I’m sure that Reuben had nothing to do with it. He couldn’t have managed. And he wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Unless he had a partner,” I said and watched the dark expression cloud Estelle’s face.

“That’s not a habit he would be apt to adopt this late in his life,” she said, her tone clipped with annoyance. “He lived alone.”

“Just mentioning all angles,” I said. “That leaves two routes. Torkelson was into something that went sour. Something that involved the kid here. Or…Torkelson just happened to wander into the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Estelle offered a slight smile. “I’m glad this isn’t in my jurisdiction.”

“You’d never guess it. And turnabout is only fair. I’ll get you so wrapped up in this you’ll never go home.”

“You’d do that.”

“Yes, I would.” I looked down at Todd Sloan’s sorry remains and was reaching down with my free hand to flip the plastic back over him when Estelle extended a hand to stop me.

“Wait a minute,” she said. She knelt down, moving to keep her shadow out of the way. “I don’t understand this. Look at his hair.”

I did so and saw sandy blond hair caked with blood and dirt.

“And here,” Estelle said, pointing at Todd Sloan’s face around the eyes. “And here.”

“And everywhere,” I added. “He’s covered with dirt.”

Estelle nodded and rocked back on her haunches. “So tell me what I’m missing,” she said.

“When a body is buried, it gets dirty,” I said. “That might be one of the more predictable things in life.”

Estelle shot me one of her rare withering looks. Behind us on the county road traffic was picking up. The ambulance arrived, with Dr. Emerson Clark’s blue Buick not far behind. I knew the elderly physician would stay with his car until one of the officers arrived to escort him over the uneven ground…after they cut the barbed wire fence.

“Sir,” Estelle said, ignoring the traffic. “Todd Sloan was wrapped in heavy plastic when he was buried here.”

“I see that.”

“It would protect the corpse from the dirt. Somewhat, at least.”

I pushed the black plastic aside with the toe of my boot and looked at Todd Sloan again. “Well, son of a bitch,” I said. And now that I looked, it was as obvious as daylight. The dirt-most of it pale dun yellow in color-was pressed into the clothes, the hair, even remnants of it here and there on Sloan’s face. I bent over and looked closer. “I’ll be damned.”

“What do you think, sir?”

I looked up at Estelle. Her expression was worried. I couldn’t fault her for that. I was worried too. Todd Sloan had been buried once without benefit of the plastic shroud. And then he’d been exhumed, stuffed in plastic, and reburied out here, on the edge of this desolate pasture. For the first time I realized how lucky old Reuben Fuentes had been. He hadn’t heard anything. And he wouldn’t have stood a ghost of a chance against the sort of person who’d killed Todd Sloan.