Twice Buried

8

As I had begun to suspect, an afternoon’s investigation turned up nothing new concerning the death of Anna Hocking. My deputies found no fingerprints that belonged to anyone other than Anna or Sheriff Holman.

That was predictable, I suppose. After almost three years as sheriff, Martin Holman still didn’t know how to treat a possible crime scene.

Window sills and door knobs were clean, as were light switches and broom handles. Even the clean two-quart bottle of orange juice turned only one set of prints…Anna’s. That set me even more firmly on course. The elderly lady had wanted a late snack of juice and maybe toast with jam. There was no jam in the refrigerator, but lots downstairs.

There’s nothing much stronger than a nighttime snack craving-and so she’d decided against all better judgment to just hobble down the stairs one more time.

Deputy Eddie Mitchell talked with the neighbors, but at the nearby trailer park, the Sloans weren’t home and the Ulibarris hadn’t heard a thing until all the police cars arrived.

It wasn’t a neat and tidy package, but it would do until something else broke. I was satisfied. I wasn’t so confident about Reuben Fuentes.

Late that Saturday afternoon I was sitting in my office with my boots off and my feet comfortably propped up on the corner of my desk. I imagined that I was smoking a cigarette-it’d been five months, seven days, four hours, and twelve minutes since I’d had my last one. I missed them, but doctors told me my heart didn’t. I hooked my hands behind my head, closed my eyes, and thought.

“Sir?” The voice jarred me, and I swung my head to see who’d intruded. Deputy Bob Torrez stood there like a new recruit, file folder in hand, bags under his eyes.

“You need to go home, Roberto,” I said. “There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow or Monday.”

Torrez stepped across to my desk. “I just wanted to show you this picture, sir,” he said. He opened the folder and slid an eight-by-twelve glossy toward me. I swung my feet down and leaned forward. The picture was slightly fuzzy, but I could see the pattern of what appeared to be a tennis shoe print on a clean surface.

I held the picture up and frowned, moving my head a little this way and that until I had the clearest shot through my trifocals.

“Where’d you take this?”

“I was going to show you last night, but we got busy,” Torrez said in his usual serious fashion. “Remember I’ve been checking into the breaking and entering at Wayne Farm Supply? I found this one print inside, on the floor near where they apparently entered the building.”

“How’d you take this? I’m impressed.”

“Sergeant Bishop showed me a trick he’d learned from Detective Reyes when she was here,” Torrez answered. “We laid a flashlight down on the floor and rolled it until the beam picked up what we thought might be footprints. At that kind of an angle, it shows up everything.”

“And this print showed.”

“Right. This is one of two that did. When whoever broke in stepped into the shop proper, where the floor’s real dirty, they didn’t leave any usable traces.”

“Let me guess. The second print was left on his way out, along the same route.”

“Yes sir. It didn’t turn out as good. Smudged.” He dug another photograph out of the envelope and handed it to me. I would have been hard-pressed to tell what it represented if I hadn’t been told.

“So,” I said leaning back. “The kid breaks in by prying open part of the steel siding of the building. He squeezes inside, leaving a print on the polished office floor before he hits the shop. He steals about a thousand bucks’ worth of tools, and then leaves. That about it?”

“That’s it, sir.”

“Anything interesting taken, other than the usual hand tools and such?”

“Not that Mr. Sanchez knows of. He finished up an inventory this afternoon, and I stopped by on my way here. Just hand tools, an engine hoist, and a couple of chain saws.”

“An engine hoist? Isn’t that kind of big to get out through a hole in the wall?”

“It was one of those kind that you hang from the ceiling joist of a garage.” Torrez held his hands up to form a circle about as big as a basketball. “Like so. Couple chains hang down from it.”

“So what’s your next step?”

He tapped the folder. “The print shows that the sneaker wasn’t too worn. The cuts are nice and sharp. So I’m guessing it was pretty new. I was going to go down to Payless tomorrow and see if I can get a match for the brand.”

“What makes you think the kid, if it was a kid, bought the shoes here in town?”

Torrez shrugged. “Just a hunch, sir. I’ve got three or four names on my list, and none of ’em have the kind of money to drive to Cruces to shop. I’ll start here at home.”

“And by the way, Roberto. While you’re digging around on this burglary, there’s something else I want you to do.” I told him about Fuentes’s dogs.

“That’s a new one to me, sir,” he said.

“You haven’t heard any new twists on the dare games at the school? That’s about all that makes sense to me.”

“I’ll ask around,” Torrez said. “Maybe Glenn Archer will know.”

“Which reminds me…I’m supposed to call him. He wants to complain again about why we won’t assign fifty-five deputies to each basketball game.” I waved a hand in dismissal and Deputy Torrez was about to leave when I asked, “Is Miss Reporter still riding around with you?”

Torrez actually blushed. “I dropped her off at her office earlier this afternoon. I think she had enough of waiting in the car.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said.

“And she told me to tell you that the first installment on her series about the department is scheduled to come out in Monday’s paper.”

I grinned. “Along with all the grocery store ads. I can’t wait. Be sure to tell Sheriff Holman if you see him.” That was a dirty trick, but what the hell. Martin would spend two wakeful nights, worrying his way toward an ulcer. Sometime when he was in a good mood I’d tell him that it was payback for smudging the prints on Anna Hocking’s windowsill.