Twice Buried

30

“Iain’t going to take the blame for no burglaries and then have him turn around and get away with what he done,” Richard Staples said.

“Who are you talking about, Richard?” I asked.

“Kenny. He ain’t puttin’ the blame for everything on me.”

“Kenny who, Richard?” Deputy Torrez prompted.

“Kenny Trujillo.” None of us had mentioned Trujillo’s name to Staples and I glanced at the tape player to make sure the gadget was still spinning.

“Richard, is it true that you worked a time or two out at Florek’s wrecking yard? With Kenny Trujillo?”

“Yeah, I been there,” Staples said. “I was thinkin’ of workin’ out there full time, startin’ this summer.”

Robert Torrez pulled a manila envelope from his briefcase. He shook several instant photos from the envelope into his hand, selected one, and slid it across the table to Staples.

“Is this the engine hoist that was stolen from Wayne’s Farm Supply?”

Staples glanced at the photo carelessly. “Yeah, that’s the one he took, not me.”

Torrez retrieved the photo and handed it to me, knowing that I was waiting. The photo showed a chain hoist resting amid a sea of other automotive detritus on a grease-covered workbench. A tag attached to the bottom of the photo gave the date and time the photo was taken, along with the description: chain hoist, sn567901, Florek Auto Wrecking.

I handed the photo back to Torrez. I wasn’t interested in hardware.

“You started to tell us what Trujillo was blaming you for,” I said. “As it is, he says you were involved with Todd Sloan in several of the burglaries.”

Staples shook his head. He leaned forward, his arms on the table, and held his hands about a basketball apart, as if to say “This is the way it is.”

“Todd Sloan didn’t have a damn thing to do with any of them burglaries,” Staples said.

“Is that a fact.”

“Yes, sir. Me and Kenny did.”

“We know that,” I said, not adding the now that would tell Staples how much of a wrong tree we’d been barking up…unless this simple son of a bitch was lying as effortlessly as breathing.

I took the plunge. “Who killed Todd Sloan, Richard?”

“Kenny Trujillo and his mom.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kenny and Todd’s mom. Miriam Sloan.”

“They both did it?”

“Yes, sir.”

The room was so quiet we could hear the roaches breathing. “Tell us,” I said.

“Okay, see-” Richard Staples pawed around for a good starting place. “Todd hated Kenny’s guts.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “More than he hated mine, I guess. I hung around out there some, ’cause of what Kenny and me was doin’. But Todd?” He shook his head with disdain. “We sure weren’t friends. No sir. But he sure didn’t like Trujillo.”

“Was he jealous?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said slowly, “did Todd dislike Kenny because Trujillo was Miriam Sloan’s live-in boyfriend?”

“Yeah, that,” Staples said. “I guess that was it, mostly. Todd was all the time talking about how great his old man was, the one who moved to Florida. Him and Kenny’d get into these arguments, and once Kenny smacked him clear across the room. I thought it was kinda funny, myself. The little shit had it comin’.” Staples looked up quickly. “Bein’ hit, I mean.”

“And then?”

“Well, things got worse and worse, far as I could see. Course, I didn’t care much. Kenny and me was doin’ all right. But I was there one night when Todd didn’t leave…he usually did that, you know, when Kenny came home. Got so the two of them couldn’t be in that trailer at the same time without a fight startin’. Anyways, about two weeks ago, Todd comes up with this thing that he’s going to turn both Kenny and his mom in to the welfare department for somethin’…I don’t remember.”

“Welfare fraud?” Estelle prompted.

Staples nodded vigorously. “That was it. Yep. He kept sayin’ that with what Kenny made down to the wreckin’ yard and what his mom made workin’ part time, they didn’t qualify for all they was gettin’. Kenny told him that if he said anything he’d fry him for sure. That was the night he smacked him a good lick.”

“What happened the day Todd was killed, Richard?”

“We just come back from messin’ around downtown, and Todd was there. We was showin’ Miriam what all we had-”

“Are you talking about what you got in a burglary?”

Staples nodded again. “Yeah. Anyways, Todd went off on this thing about how we was going to get everyone in trouble. He kept sayin’ like how Kenny just wanted his mom in jail so he could have the trailer and all.” I glanced at Estelle. These boys set their sights high, I thought.

“And then he got off on that welfare shit again, how he was goin’ to cut ’em all off and send ’em to jail. I guess Kenny just had all he could take.”

“What happened?”

Staples coughed and Holman said, “You want a soda or something?”

“You got a cigarette?”

“No, but we can get you some. We’ll take a break in a few minutes.”

“What did Trujillo do then?” I asked, irritated at the interruption.

“He had this little revolver, this little twenty-two? He had it in his coat pocket. He pulled it out and shoved it in Todd’s stomach and pulled the trigger. Right there in the living room of the trailer. Todd, he’d been gettin’ up when he saw Kenny comin’, and he fell right over the arm of the chair.”

Richard Staples stopped talking and stared down at the table again, picking at his nails. “Kenny got this real funny look on his face, like he was surprised he’d shot Todd, and now what was he going to do. Cause Todd was all curled up on the floor, holdin’ his gut and hollerin’ like a stuck pig.”

“You said his mother was involved. What did she do?”

“We all just sat there, not knowin’ what to do, with Todd layin’ on the floor, screamin’ and swearin’ at us, sayin’ all the things he was gonna do. And Miriam just looks down at him all cold and fishy like and says to Kenny, ‘Kenny, don’t just let him lie there like that. Make him stop.’ That’s what she said. ‘Make him stop.’” Staples bit his lip.

“And he did, too. He got up and put that little gun right behind Todd’s left ear and he shoots him again. Pow. Just like that.”

I took a deep breath. “And then you buried him.”

“Shit, I was so fuckin’ scared I damn near shit my pants.”

“I bet.”

“See, I didn’t know what Kenny was going to do with that gun in his hand. I figure it’d be as easy for him to use it on me as not, bein’ I saw the whole thing. He kinda had a crazy look on his face like he was thinkin’, ‘I gone and done it now and what the hell, it wasn’t all that big a deal.’ Scared the shit out of me.”

“So what did you do,” Estelle prompted.

“Kenny says, ‘We got to bury him,’ and Miriam says, ‘Where? You can’t let no one see you.’ And Kenny decides that right behind the trailer, in that old pasture, is just fine, cause nobody ever goes there. So he tells me to grab the kid’s feet, and I do, and we carry him outside.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Friday night.”

“What time? Late? When?”

“I don’t know. Maybe eight, nine o’clock. Somethin’ like that. And then we set to diggin’ just on the other side of the fence, where it’s real soft and sandy. I did most of the diggin’. Kenny just kept sayin’ ‘Deeper,’ or ‘Over there more,’ or ‘Make it longer.’ I was real tempted to put that shovel up his ass, but he had that gun all the time. I just did as I was told.”

“Smart man,” Torrez said.

“Yeah. And then I about fainted cause Todd made a noise and I dropped the shovel and Kenny he jerks around and shoots with that little gun again. I don’t know if he hit him or not, but I couldn’t believe he done that. It sounded so damn loud outside like that. Miriam, she heard the shot, all right, and she comes out to see what’s goin’ on. We was set to put the body in the hole and I said, ‘What if he ain’t dead?’ Kenny, he says, ‘He’s dead all right. Put ’im in the hole.’ And so I did. And I guess then he was dead all right.”

“And that’s all?” I asked.

“Well, Miriam, she had a light, and she held it to make sure that we had the hole all filled and covered smooth so no one could tell. We was about done but she was lookin’ at something else, cause the light was wanderin’ so it was hard to see. I was going to say somethin’ about holdin’ the light still when she says, ‘She’s watchin’.’”

“Who was watching?” Estelle asked, but with a deep, certain dread, I already knew the answer.

“That old lady across the field. We stopped what we was doin’ and Miriam turned off the light. We could see the old lady standin’ on the back porch, with the light comin’ out the door behind her. Kinda lit her up, just enough so we could see her.”

“Are you talking about Mrs. Hocking? Anna Hocking?”

“Yes, sir. Miriam says, ‘She heard the shot.’ I said, ‘She couldn’t have. She couldn’t see what we’re doin’.’ And Miriam says real quiet like, ‘I’m not taking the chance that she might call the police.’ That’s all she said.”

I slumped back in my chair. “And so Miriam Sloan went over to Anna Hocking’s house?”

“That’s what she did. And that scared the livin’ shit out of me, too…not so much right then, cause I didn’t know what to think, but later on that night, when every cop in five counties was there, shit.”

“When was the body moved?” Estelle asked. She spoke so quietly even Richard Staples’s good teenage hearing didn’t catch it.

“Excuse me?” Staples was now completely comfortable in his new role as Mr. Cooperation.

“When was the body moved?” Estelle repeated. If Staples expected sympathy from her, he was mistaken. Her face was like carved marble, too pale now with suppressed anger.

“We all split, knowin’ that the cops would be by to talk with anybody in the neighborhood. Miriam, she said she made it look just like an accident, and not to worry. But Kenny, he was spooked, you know? He was sure they’d bring dogs. That’s all he could talk about. So right after dark the next night, we saw things was pretty quiet. Kenny, he handed me the shovel and I dug Todd up and we wrapped him in a piece of plastic that Kenny stole from the wreckin’ yard.

“Then we put the body in the back of Kenny’s truck, and covered it with a bunch of old tires. Then we drove out to that old crazy man’s place.”

“Richard,” I said, “tell me something. How was it you chose that spot? With all the other places in the county you could have chosen?”

Staples made a wry face. “That was Kenny’s brilliant idea. He said he’d been out that road a while back, and saw the old man workin’, buryin’ something. Kenny said no one dared mess with the old man’s property, cause he’d as soon shoot you between the eyes as look at you. So he got this bee in his head that that would be the perfect spot.”

“And so you went out there.”

“Yep. We could see the spot, just like Kenny said. The fresh dirt and all. There was even this little cross made out of two sticks tied together. Kenny pulled it out of the ground and says, ‘Old Todd don’t need this to go to hell.’ We dug down and saw it was three dogs that he’d buried. And Kenny gets this great idea. ‘Ain’t no one ever going to figure this out,’ he says. And he makes me dig to hell and gone deeper, figurin’ to bury Todd and put the dogs on top of him. It woulda worked, ’cept this other old fart comes along, sees our light, and comes over, wantin’ to know what we’re doing on his land.”

“Stuart Torkelson.”

“I guess. Kenny, he tries to sweet-talk the guy, tellin’ him about these dogs that we was buryin’ for the old man who lives in the woods up there. I’m tryin’ to block the hole, ’cause there’s parts of Todd Sloan stickin’ out, even though there’s plastic coverin’ most of him. This guy, he didn’t buy it, and he pushes past me and looks in the hole. He swings around and Kenny, he shoots him clean through with this huge old magnum he stole from some place last summer.

“And the old guy screams and spins like a top, landin’ right on top of one of them dead dogs. But he sure surprised me when he stumbles to his feet and starts down toward the road. He fell a couple times and then Kenny caught up with him and shoots him again in the head.”

Richard Staples stopped talking like someone had shoved a cork down his throat. His jaw worked a couple of times, and then the energy that he’d been using to hold himself together ran out. He hung his head and gulped great lungfuls of air until I was afraid he was going to hyperventilate. He threw his head back so hard it cracked the back of the old chair. He didn’t notice. He was clenching his eyes closed, determined not to let us see him cry.

“Jesus, what’s going to happen to me,” he managed.

I tried to keep my tone sincere and kindly. “Absolutely nothing, Richard, assuming you’re telling us the truth. Nothing, compared to what’s going to happen to Kenny Trujillo and Miriam Sloan.”

“He made me pull the plastic around real tight and then bury Todd. And then he had this idea about fillin’ in part of the hole with rocks. He said no one would ever dig past them. And all this time, I’m worryin’ about that dead body, lyin’ down in the field. But old Kenny, he had an answer for everything. ‘They’ll just blame the old Mexican for it, like always,’ he says.”

“And you believed him,” I said. “Until you heard that we’d found Sloan’s body. And then you figured that you were the only witness. You were waiting for Kenny Trujillo to come knocking on your door, weren’t you?”

Staples nodded. “I was going to wait until dark, and then steal my aunt’s car. I was going to split, man.”

“Where to?”

“It don’t matter. But I know Kenny…he’s crazy. He’d make sure I couldn’t talk to no one.”

“When you saw us, why didn’t you just come and talk to us?”

Staples looked at me as if I were nuts, as if the simplest solution were the most bizarre.

“All right, Richard, thank you. We’ll be talking lots more, be prepared for that.” Staples looked resigned…and relieved. “You understand that we have to hold you in protective custody for a while, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“One last thing.” I tore off a clean sheet of paper from the pad in front of me. I drew a rough sketch of the Sloan trailer and its location in the Paradise View Trailer Park. “Put an X where you dug the first grave,” I said.

Richard Staples scrutinized the drawing. “It’d be right here along the fence line, right opposite the kitchen window,” he said.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I ain’t about to forget.”

How thoughtful Miriam Sloan had been, choosing a spot where she could watch the morning sun come up over her son’s grave while she fixed bacon and eggs for her boyfriend.