Twice Buried

22

The efficiency of the Posadas community grapevine was astonishing. We were careful. Not once did I or one of my deputies slip and mention murder, corpse, burial, or Reuben Fuentes over the radio. Not once.

And yet, when Robert Torrez finally returned with Gayle Sedillos and Miriam Sloan in the back seat of his county car, he had difficulty finding a place to park. The narrow county road was a dusty bumper to bumper crowd scene.

And the press, damn its efficient hide, was there. Linda Rael had cornered Sheriff Holman, who didn’t want to get anywhere near the burial site or the bagged corpse. He obviously wasn’t giving Linda much satisfaction, because she kept looking our way-probably wondering who the stately Mexican woman in my company was. Or maybe she was wondering why the hell I was walking around holding a sleeping infant.

I handed Francis Carlos to his mother and headed for the roadway.

For his part, Holman kept looking up the road at a large white van with the Channel 3 logo on its side. He patted his hair for the tenth time, always ready should the unblinking eye turn his way. No one was going to cross the fence without my say-so. Tommy Mears had stretched a yellow crime scene ribbon along enough of the barbed wire that everyone got the point.

Torrez parked in the middle of the road and I reached the fence just as he opened the back door of the patrol car for Miriam Sloan and Gayle. Gayle, half Mrs. Sloan’s age and as stylish as the other woman was frumpy, was dressed in civilian clothes. She expertly put herself between Mrs. Sloan and the burly youngster who balanced the large television camera on his shoulder.

Gayle and the deputy led Mrs. Sloan to the spot in the fence where we’d fashioned a narrow gate.

I met them there and reached out to take Mrs. Sloan by the elbow as she slipped past the loose wires.

“Sheriff,” I said loudly enough for Martin Holman to hear. He’d been working his way toward us, trying to stay helpful to Linda and the dozen other curious onlookers at the same time. He excused himself, looking grateful.

Miriam Sloan was wearing a pale blue housedress and a worn cardigan sweater…no coat, typical of long-time New Mexicans who harbored that curious, innate belief that as long as the sun shone, it was shirt-sleeve time. Her shoes-more like slippers-were blue plastic and almost as inappropriate for the hike across the field as if she’d been barefoot.

She was breathing hard but otherwise her face was set in a stolid mask.

“We’re sorry to have to bring you out here,” I said, keeping my hold on her left elbow. Gayle flanked right, and to my surprise Miriam Sloan stepped right out, far more surefooted than I.

We said nothing as we crossed the field. A couple dozen feet from the grave site, I heard Martin Holman behind me say something like, “Hmmmmm,” and I glanced over my shoulder. The sheriff was showing great interest in the limestone patch off to one side, where the first blood traces had been found. The smell had gotten to him.

Mrs. Sloan didn’t hesitate. She stopped abruptly two paces from the grave, with the plastic-wrapped body within kicking distance.

Deputy Torrez had removed the small tape recorder from his shirt pocket. I noticed that Gayle’s was clipped to her belt.

Torrez caught my glance and nodded that he was ready.

I said, “Mrs. Sloan, I know this is difficult for you.” From the expression on her face I would have guessed that she’d find it more interesting to be home washing out empty mayonnaise jars. I stepped forward, bent down, and peeled back the corner of the plastic far enough that Todd Sloan’s entire head and neck were visible.

“Mrs. Sloan, is this your son, Todd?”

I could have counted to five in the heavy silence that hung around us. Then she said, “Yes.”

I snapped the plastic back in place and stood up. “We appreciate you coming out. I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else to say to her, at least nothing that would make her feel any better. She was doing a commendable job of holding herself together in front of strangers. What she’d do in the privacy of her little trailer was her business.

“Mrs. Sloan, if there’s anything I can do, or the department-” Martin Holman had managed to maneuver close enough that he could stand with his back to the grave and still see Miriam Sloan’s face.

She looked up slowly and squinted at Holman, her pudgy, florid face wrinkling against the bright sky. “You can find who did this,” she said. Then she turned and started back toward the car. I nodded at the deputy, and he and Gayle escorted the woman to the road.

Coroner Emerson Clark had come and gone long since, and there was nothing left but to turn the body over to the patient ambulance attendants.

“What now?” Sheriff Holman asked. He had taken the opportunity to distance himself another couple paces from the grave, taking advantage of a slight breeze.

“We see what the medical examiner can tell us,” I said.

“And in the meantime, what about Mrs. Sloan?”

“Bob Torrez and Gayle will take her home. That’ll give her about twenty minutes to do some thinking. Then Estelle and I will pay her a visit.”

Holman looked over at Estelle and the baby. “You’re going to arrest her?”

“Martin, there’s no evidence for that yet. We do want to find out why she lied to me about where her son was.”

“There might be a logical reason,” Holman said.

“There might be. By morning, the M.E. can tell us what killed him, when, how…and where he might have been buried the first time.”

Holman made a face. “That’s really disgusting. That someone would do that.”

I almost chuckled. “Cheer up, Martin.”

“Why?”

“It’s going to get worse.”

“Shit,” he muttered, one of the few times I’d heard him cuss. “I wish I knew what to tell the news reporters.”

“Tell them that the body of Todd Sloan, age fifteen, was discovered this afternoon in a shallow grave seven point eight miles west of Posadas. And tell them that currently we’re investigating possible links between the death of Sloan and the murder of Stuart Torkelson, fifty-four, a prominent Posadas realtor.”

Holman managed a rueful grin. “I can figure that much out for myself, Bill. It’s the questions they ask afterward that get all over me.”

I watched the ambulance attendants trudging back toward the road with the gurney bobbing between them.

“Just tell ’em ‘no comment.’”

Holman fell in step with Estelle and me. “Sometimes this job isn’t all that great,” he said. I shot a quick glance over at Estelle. Ever polite and politic, she was concentrating on where she put her feet.

We reached the road and Holman held up a hand to ward off Linda Rael. “You’ll call me?” he asked me, and I nodded.

“We’re going to the hospital for a minute, then on out to the trailer park,” I said.

“She won’t-”

I shook my head. “Deputy Torrez and Gayle will be with her until we get out there. Not to worry.”

Martin Holman looked relieved. He turned to face the cameras.