Twice Buried

23

Miriam Sloan hadn’t been home more than half an hour before Estelle and I arrived at the trailer park. Dr. Francis Guzman had remained at the hospital to keep an eye on Reuben, who was still resting peacefully. He also took charge of Francis Carlos, giving the nursing staff at Posadas General a chance to oh and ah.

Deputy Bob Torrez stepped up to the window of the Blazer as I pulled into Miriam Sloan’s yard.

“Now that you’re here, I’d really like to take a run out to the wrecking yard where Trujillo works,” he said.

“Fine,” I said. “What are you hunting?”

“I figure that if Todd Sloan was involved in the farm supply robbery, that’s as good a place as any to start hunting for some of the tools that were taken. I got a pretty complete list from Wayne Sanchez.”

“All right. And stay close to a radio. We don’t know how any of this is going to shape up, Robert. But you’re right. The more loose ends we can nail down, the better.”

We parked the Blazer and got out. Miriam Sloan didn’t greet us at the door this time. Kenny Trujillo did, though. His old Ford pickup, more decrepit by far than Miriam Sloan’s worn-out Oldsmobile, was parked under the kitchen window of the trailer.

“Kenny,” I said. His eyes were watchful with the built-in distrust of someone who’s had a brush or two with the law. “We need to talk with Miriam now, if she’s up to it.”

“She’s inside.”

He stood to one side on the porch as Estelle and I entered the trailer. The floor creaked as the flimsy plywood flexed under my weight.

Miriam Sloan came out of a back room. Her eyes were puffy and she had a ball of tissue wadded in one hand.

“Ma’am, we really need to ask you some questions,” I said. “I know it’s been rough, but the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can be out of your hair.”

She gestured toward the remains of a three-cushion sofa that spanned from the television console to the veneered particle board bookcase that separated living room and dinette. Two of the three shelves were empty except for dust. On the third were two volumes of condensed novels and a blue plastic bowl.

Estelle and I sat on the sofa. Miriam Sloan settled for a metal straight-backed chair near the kitchen counter. Kenny Trujillo got a beer out of the refrigerator and sat on the other side of the counter.

“Mrs. Sloan,” I said, “I’m sure you’ll do all you can to help us find your son’s killer. But I’m going to be honest with you. We’re really up against it. That field out there is about as clean of any clues as it’s possible to be.” I shook my head and watched while Trujillo shook a cigarette out of its pack. He took his time lighting it.

“One thing really puzzles me,” I continued. “You told me earlier that Todd had gone to Florida to live with his father.” I stopped for a few seconds. Miriam Sloan’s knuckles went whiter as she clenched the tissue. She had been holding me in a fixed glare, but now her gaze wavered. She looked down at her hands.

“I thought he had,” she said quietly. “At first, that’s what he said he was going to do. Him and Kenny, here…they never did get along too well.” She glanced over at her boyfriend, a kid young enough to be her son. “I think he was jealous. I don’t know. He was all the time saying he was going to leave, and the last few times, he sounded like maybe he meant it.”

“And you would have let him?” I asked.

“He was old enough to make up his own mind about things,” Miriam replied. “I mean-” she hesitated. “Nothing I could say would change his mind.”

Kenny Trujillo snorted and blew out a cloud of smoke. “That’s for sure.”

I started to say something, but Miriam interrupted me. “He was spending more and more time with that Staples boy. You know him, I’m sure.” I did know Richard Staples and was sure he would be on Robert Torrez’s short list of suspects. “I think him and Richard were planning to leave. And the last few days, he must have been staying over with Richard Staples, ’cause he certainly wasn’t here. That’s why I just thought he’d gone to Florida…like he was promising.” She dabbed at her nose with the tissue.

“We have reason to believe that Todd may have been involved in a series of burglaries, Mrs. Sloan.” She didn’t look up and didn’t look surprised. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I don’t think he’d do that,” she said after a long moment of tissue crumpling. “Now I know-” and she held up a hand to fend off an expected protest from me, “that you people have had your complaints with Todd in the past. But he’s been trying harder lately. He’s been doing better in school. You ask Mr. Archer.”

“He has,” Kenny agreed.

“Did he ever mention friends of his maybe being involved in break-ins?” Estelle asked. Her quiet voice was apparently so unexpected that Miriam Sloan’s head snapped around. She looked long and hard at Estelle.

“Excuse me. This is Detective Estelle Reyes-Guzman,” I said.

“I remember you,” Miriam said. She didn’t pursue the memory.

“Did he mention friends being involved?”

“He didn’t talk to me very much,” Miriam said. “The only person he ever mentioned was Richard Staples. He spent a lot of time over there.”

“You ought to talk to that kid,” Kenny Trujillo said. “He’s a real little asshole. He worked out at the wreckin’ yard with me a time or two, and he don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Tries to be a big shot, though. Like he knows it all. I told Todd a time or two he had no business truckin’ with that kid, but he wouldn’t listen. You know how they are.” I was amused by Kenny’s social commentary. If he kept working at it, he could take a test to be a juvenile counselor, between beers and his own brushes with the law.

“And you don’t have any ideas about what kind of trouble Todd might have been in? That would prompt someone to do something like this?”

“He ain’t never been in trouble like this before,” Kenny Trujillo said. He ground out the cigarette butt. His brow was furrowed in thought. “Seems to me he must have crossed somebody up.” He looked at me. “Seems to me that’s what had to happen. You got any ideas?”

I shrugged. “Not yet. But we will.” I stood up. “We’ll keep you posted, Mrs. Sloan. If you think of anything we should know-”

“We’ll call. Yes.” She didn’t get up.

We left the trailer park after making sure that Deputies Paul Encinos and Eddie Mitchell were in the area. Paul parked his patrol car on the county road east of the trailer park, just below the driveway to Anna Hocking’s place. From there, he could watch the back of the Sloans’ trailer. Eddie Mitchell, no doubt relieved to be away from the hospital, parked his county car in the driveway of the trailer park, conspicuous as hell.

We pulled out on the county road and Estelle said, “Richard Staples?”

“Yes. Do you want to check back at the hospital first?”

She glanced at her watch. “It’s still early yet. Let’s visit the kid first.”

Richard Staples lived with an aunt, Marianna Perna, in the Casa del Sol Apartments behind the high school. It was one of those dark little corners of the village where I seldom went. Posadas had its own village police force-two full-time officers and three part-timers-and my department tried to leave the village alone unless they requested our help.

An eight-foot chain link and barbwire-topped fence separated the back of the high school gymnasium from the apartment complex’s parking lot. I parked along the fence, scanning the eight front doors of Casa del Sol.

The building was single-story, looking like a motel. Each unit couldn’t have been more than three small rooms. Marianna Perna lived in 104. The number was broken off the blue door, but the paint wasn’t quite as faded where the digits had been. A decrepit Ford Festiva was parked directly in front of the door next to a toddler-sized tricycle, a plastic scooter missing the back axle and wheels, and a small-bore dirt bike missing its back wheel, balanced on two cinder blocks under the engine.

The clutter in front of 104 was repeated, in various colors and details, in front of each apartment.

“Great place,” I said. I jotted down the license plate number of the Festiva and reached for the door handle of the Blazer. The radio interrupted me.

“Three ten, PCS.”

It was Gayle Sedillos.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Three ten, ten nineteen.”

“Is this something that can wait a bit, Gayle?” I asked. She wanted me to return to the office. The only person I could think of who might want to see me was Sheriff Martin Holman, and I wasn’t in the mood.

“Negative, sir.”

“Ten four. We’ll be there in about a minute and a half.”

Gayle knew how I worked. She knew I didn’t like department business blabbed over the airwaves, and so she was as cryptic as she could be on the radio. But her common sense could be trusted. If she said her visitor couldn’t wait, that was that.

I backed out of the apartment parking lot. The sheriff’s department was eight blocks away, and my estimate was just about right. As we pulled into the lot, only one vehicle was out of place. Herb Torrance’s mud-caked Chevrolet one-ton, its fat, dual-wheeled rump projecting six feet beyond the rear of Gayle’s Datsun, was parked in the space reserved for the sheriff.

Herb was standing near the front of the truck, leaning on the hood. He saw us and straightened up.

I pulled in beside his truck. Despite the mud and dirt, the Triple Bar T logo was visible on the door panel.

“Reuben’s neighbor,” I said to Estelle. “Where’s he been all this time?”

“Knowing Mr. Torrance, probably minding his own business,” Estelle replied.

A week before, I might have believed that.