Twice Buried

24

Herb Torrance’s voice was deep and slow with a hint of west Texas twang. I extended a hand and his grip was firm. “Herb, I haven’t seen you in a while.” He wouldn’t have changed much if I hadn’t seen him in a decade. He was the same lanky, slightly stooped figure, skin pounded to wrinkled brown by sixty years of New Mexico sun and wind.

“It’s been a while,” he agreed, and touched his right index finger to the brim of his soiled Stetson. “Ma’am,” he said.

“This is Detective Estelle Reyes-Guzman, Herb. You probably remember her.”

“Well, sure, I remember this young lady. You’re old Reuben Fuentes’s niece, ain’t you? And as I understand it, my neighbor is giving you folks just a little bit of trouble. That’s why I wanted to talk with you all.”

“Come on inside.”

“Oh, this is fine. It won’t take long.” He leaned against the fender of his truck again and pushed his hat back on the crown of his head in that universal cowpuncher gesture that says, “I’m gonna talk now.”

“I just got back to town from a trip over to Animas. Got me a deal going with the breeder service over there. You probably heard of them.”

“Yes. You’re talking about Porter’s Breeder Service. The artifical insemination folks.”

“Them’s the ones. Anyways, I just got back this morning, and you coulda knocked me down with a feather when I heard about all the ruckus over at Reuben’s place. Damn shame about old Torkelson. I’ve dealt with him a time or two and he didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d get crosswise with somebody.”

“No, he didn’t,” I said.

“And then I drove in this afternoon and my gosh if there ain’t something else goin’ on. I heard you found a kid all dead and buried out there?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head at the wonder of it all. “This world ain’t the same no more, sheriff.”

“It sure as hell isn’t.”

“Well, what I wanted to run by you was about the old man’s dogs. Carla down to the post office told me about Reuben’s dogs, and she was figurin’ that maybe it was because of them that the old man and Torkelson had the set-to.”

“We just don’t know, Herb.” Carla Champlin’s gossip grapevine, whether accurate or not, worked in nearly nuclear proportions.

“Well maybe I can help some. Lookit here.” He turned and made a mark in the dirt on the truck’s hood. “The old Mexican’s pasture kinda fronts on the county road like this.” He drew a line down the hood. “Torkelson’s property is right across the road here, and he also owns that hump of land right here.” He drew a cigar shape that included the limestone ridge at the base of which the dogs-and Todd Sloan-had been buried.

“Now, you come west across that ridge and you’re on Triple Bar T land. Well, no, that ain’t quite true. It’s BLM, but I’ve got the grazin’ lease. And that land goes right up to that new fence they built around Martinez’s Tube, way down the road yonder.”

“Right,” I said. Estelle was watching Herb Torrance rather than the growing map on the truck’s hood.

“All right. Now right here is where I set me some bait last week.” He drew a little circle in the dirt. “See, we’ve been gettin’ a few winter calves and that’s when the coyotes like to come in. They got one of ’em and cut up a cow pretty bad too. So I set me some bait. And I’m thinkin’ that them dogs of Reuben’s probably got into that stuff.”

“They could have,” I said. The distance from Reuben’s to the bait was short enough, even for three spoiled pets that didn’t roam much. “And if the wind was right, the scent of the bait would carry. You weren’t using those charged baits that shoot the stuff into the animal’s face?”

Torrance shook his head. “No. I do that sometimes in the spring if things get real bad. But this was just laced meat. Hell, the other would have killed ’em on the spot.”

“That’s what I was thinking. If they really did get into that stuff, it would explain why one of the dogs made it home. She didn’t get a big enough dose. The others made it back to the pasture. That’s as far as they got.”

“I just wanted to swing by and tell you, ’cause it seems to me that that might make a difference. It’d be a shame if old Reuben up and killed Torkelson because he thought the man killed his dogs. It ain’t too likely. And if I’d known his dogs would go aroamin’ I would have set it a good ways further off.”

“I imagine you’re right, Herb. But these things happen. We appreciate you coming in. I was going to drive out and have a chat with you, but I hadn’t gotten the chance. You saved me a trip. One thing you could do. We sent the dog carcasses to the lab for analysis. If you had the brand name of the stuff you used, it’d help. For comparison. That way, we’d know for sure.”

He nodded vigorously. “I got it right here.” He walked around me, opened the tool box in the back of the truck, pulled out a small carton, and handed it to me. The label was bright yellow with a big red X through the legs-to-the-sky carcass of a black rat. “Rataway,” I read and turned the box over.

The contents were mostly corn meal filler laced with a liberal dose of strychnine and other equally attractive alkaloids. It was one of those products designed for no-nonsense ranch use. If a kid accidentally got into that box, the only antidote would be prayer.

“I didn’t know you could even buy stuff like this anymore,” I said. A notice on the cover and on each side said, Read Warnings and Instructions for Use Inside. I opened the box and pulled out a small paper, similar to those packed with prescription drugs. I handed the box back to Herb and kept the paper. “This will be all we’ll need,” I said.

“Probably can’t buy it in a regular store,” Herb said. “Old Wayne Sanchez keeps some on hand all the time down at the feed store, though.”

“Herb, you’ve been a big help. We appreciate you coming in.”

“You bet. Who was the kid that got killed?”

“Todd Sloan.”

“Don’t know the name. Might recognize the face. What’d he do?”

“We don’t know.”

“And old Torkelson was mixed up somehow, eh?”

“He had the misfortune of being there, yes. We don’t know what his involvement was.”

Herb nodded, smart enough to recognize from the tone of my voice that he wasn’t going to get any other information. “Well, you got your day cut out for you,” he said. He tipped his hat to Estelle for a second time. “Ma’am, nice to see you again.”

After he left, I glanced at my watch. “You want to talk with the Staples kid now, or pick up Francis, or go to the hospital to check on Reuben…or all of the above?”

Estelle puffed out her cheeks. I could see she was suffering withdrawal from Francis Carlos. “You gave Francis a key?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s got a key to the house.”

“They’ll be fine, then,” she said as if she really didn’t believe it. “Let’s try to talk with the Staples kid. It’ll only take a few minutes and then we can swing by the hospital on the way home. I think Richard Staples is important. I’ve got a feeling that he’s a connection somehow.”

“He’s got to be.”

“For one thing,” Estelle added, “Kenny Trujillo and Miriam Sloan were very quick to offer him up as an excuse for Todd’s behavior.”

Long ago, I’d learned to trust most of Estelle’s intuitive leaps. This one made as much sense as any. We drove back to the Casa del Sol.