Twice Buried

9

Anna Hocking’s place became a damn magnet. I had a dozen things I could have been doing that Saturday afternoon-some were even important.

I had Deputy Robert Torrez chasing what was, in all likelihood, a bunch of kids who wanted to be burglars. I had a high school principal annoyed with me for not caring a whole lot about fistfights at basketball games. I had some freak poisoning an old man’s mutts. I had guns being dropped at the post office.

In short, it was a long and frustrating list on my Things to Do Today pad. But I didn’t accomplish any of them. Instead I found myself parking on the shoulder of County Road 19, with Anna’s little adobe house just ahead.

An open chamiso- and cholla-studded field separated the mobile home park from Anna’s property. I got out of the car and walked across the field, cutting a big circle around the old woman’s house. Earlier, deputies with eyes far sharper than mine had searched a generous perimeter around the house, including most of this field. They had turned up nothing.

I thrust my hands in my pockets and ambled along, head down and relaxed. My boots crushed the dried sage and nettles and the aroma wafted up delicate and fragrant. Mix a little pungent pinon pine smoke with it and it would have been goddamn festive. With a start I remembered that I was supposed to pick up the little ropon that Augustina Baca was sewing for me.

This padrino business was serious stuff, I was coming to realize-even though Estelle Reyes-Guzman had given me fair warning. I had made the mistake of saying that I would pay for everything that the godfather normally paid for by Mexican custom…and Estelle had grinned. She’d told me that wasn’t necessary, but I was stubborn. And she grinned wider. She didn’t exactly give me a list, mind you, but it was damn near that bad.

Not a bad custom-talk the old, rich padrino into buying the kid’s first suit of clothes. That was the first step. Estelle had known Augustina Baca for years, and the old woman had agreed to sew the tiny little tunic that the kid would wear to his baptism. The corners of Mrs. Baca’s eyes had crinkled up with pleasure at her assignment. Or maybe it was pleasure at knowing the price tag.

“Ah,” she had said, waving tiny wrinkled hands. “The bautizo is so important.” She clasped her hands as if in prayer…or reckoning. And then she’d explained to me in terms far beyond my patience for listening every detail of the tiny garment that would be the talk of Tres Santos-for one day. What the hell. Estelle and her kid were special to me.

There would be more hidden expenses for the padrino, I had no doubt. Estelle had even mentioned one custom where all the cute little ninos of the village cornered the defenseless padrino and threatened his life until he tossed fistfuls of coins to them. I’d have to change a couple bucks into pennies before I headed south.

A car door slammed somewhere behind me and jerked me back to the field and the present. I realized I had walked nearly to the small arroyo and the row of Russian olives that formed the back boundary of the pasture…and I hadn’t even noticed where I had stepped, let alone seen anything significant.

I glanced toward the trailer park and saw the rear end of a dust-colored sedan pulled up in front of Miriam Sloan’s place. Deputy Torrez had said he hadn’t been able to talk to either the woman or her boyfriend earlier.

I turned and crossed the fifty yards of scrub to the trailer court fence, took one look at the four strands of barbed wire, and grimaced. The wire was too high and tight to straddle and I was too fat and stiff to squeeze through.

With a quiet curse I turned and made my way back to the patrol car.

Miriam Sloan’s trailer had seen better days a decade before. Now it was a faded, depressing shade of blue with little fake wings on the back that had been intended to make it sporty but only looked silly. Holes in the aluminum siding had been crudely patched with discarded printing press plates from the local newspaper.

Someone had started repainting the trailer at one back corner and progressed a dozen feet with the deep blue enamel before running out of either effort or paint…or both. Even that paint was beginning to fade. I guessed the dark blue was the same vintage as the whopper-jawed porch that jutted out from the doorway and then angled down four or five steps to the gravel of the parking lot.

At least the place was neat and orderly. I figured Miriam Sloan to be on the welfare dole, and that monthly check wouldn’t cover much in the way of home maintenance.

I parked behind the tan Oldsmobile and by habit jotted down the plate number on my log. One of our part-timers, a college kid, was sitting dispatch, and chasing plate numbers on the computer was good practice for him. By the time I hung up the mike, the door of the trailer was open and Miriam Sloan was standing on the top step, one hand on her hip and one eyebrow cocked heavenward.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Sloan,” I said, stepping between 310 and the Oldsmobile. She didn’t say anything until I reached the first shaky step of the wooden porch.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked. Her voice was low and husky. I guess there was good enough reason for her calm sarcasm. One officer or another from our department had paid her a dozen visits over the past six years, thanks to the escapades of her son, Todd.

We had extended the kid every chance too many times-maybe that was part of the problem. Still, the state pen wasn’t the place for most fifteen-year-olds. Miriam Sloan could have been just a little bit grateful.

“I hope we haven’t been too much of a nuisance around here the last day or so,” I said. I tried for my most engaging public servant’s expression.

Miriam Sloan looked puzzled. “I just now got home.” She stepped forward and turned to look up the driveway toward the Ulibarris’ trailer and the expanse of weeds that blanketed the rest of the mobile home park. “What happened?”

“No, it wasn’t anything here, Mrs. Sloan. Mrs. Hocking died last night.” I gestured to the east. “Over across the way, there.”

She frowned. “For heaven’s sake. How?”

“She fell, apparently. In her basement.”

“Umm,” Mrs. Sloan said and grimaced. It was as good a comment as any. She stepped back away from the edge of the porch and the decking creaked under her weight. At one time, she had been an attractive woman. But living on the edge had taken its toll. Too many macaroni meals had swelled her figure and the print house dress she wore stretched its buttons. Her short hair was due for another dye job, the dark roots giving her a two-tone look.

“We wanted to ask if you or Kenny happened to see or hear anything last night.” I already knew the answer to at least half of my question. Kenny Trujillo had blown most of his brain cells on one chemical or another during his twenty-two years. He worked on and off at Coley Florek’s wrecking yard a mile south of the interstate on Butler Avenue. Coley was bright enough to make sure that Kenny never drove the wrecker, but I guess the kid was of some value around the junkyard, stripping door handles and other useful parts off of the battered hulks that were dragged in. He didn’t make enough money to threaten Miriam’s welfare, even if she declared him as official family.

“I just now got home,” Miriam Sloan said. “I spent two days with my sister in Albuquerque.” She frowned. “But I certainly wouldn’t have heard anything from way over here-even if she cried out.”

“I’m sure not,” I said and started to say something else when Mrs. Sloan interrupted.

“I’ve tried to check on Mrs. Hocking once or twice a week recently. She’s been terribly frail. I was always afraid she’d fall and break a hip or something like that and end up lying there on the floor, all helpless.”

I nodded. “I don’t think she suffered long.”

Mrs. Sloan grimaced again. “What happened? I mean, what did she do?”

“Tripped and fell down the stairs leading to the basement. That’s where I found her yesterday.”

“And she broke-”

“Her neck.”

“Oh, my,” Miriam Sloan said. “Well, Thursday night my sister called. Her husband’s been so sick.” She held up her hands. “She needed company so I drove on up.” She looked over at her car. “I had visions of being stranded in this old wreck. I could just picture me in a ditch somewhere, half way between Quemado and who knows where else. But I made it.”

“Long drive,” I said. “I hope everything is going to be all right.” She gave a little noncommittal shrug as if to say that she was used to handling each curve ball as it came. “What about Kenny? Do you think that he-”

“I just now walked in the door,” Miriam said, trying hard not to sound testy. “I won’t see Kenny until tonight.” She didn’t offer to ask him for me. We both knew it would be a waste of breath.

“Was Todd home, or did he go up with you?”

“Todd went to live with his father. He hasn’t been staying with me.”

I knew that Wilson Sloan had split the sheets half a dozen years before and the trace of venom in the way Miriam had said the word father told me the rift hadn’t mended.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I immediately wondered which one of Todd’s worthless friends owned the tennis shoe that Deputy Torrez had printed, if not Todd himself. “When did he move?” I tried to sound as if I wasn’t altogether overjoyed.

Miriam Sloan waved a hand and started back through the door of her trailer. “A couple of weeks ago.” She smiled as if she knew a secret. “It won’t work, either. He’ll be back.” She glanced heavenward. “Like the flu.”

“You never know,” I said. “Where are they at?”

“Orlando…and more power to ’em. They deserve each other.”

I didn’t want into the middle of that one, so I just tipped a finger to the brim of my Stetson. “Well, the Hocking place is standing empty now until her son in California finds time to straighten out her affairs. I’d appreciate it if you’d kinda look over that way once in a while. If you see anyone nosing around where they shouldn’t be, I’d appreciate a call.” I started to fumble out one of my cards.

“I know the number,” she said acidly. “By heart.”

I left the Paradise View Trailer Park nagged by one of those little groundless fears that nevertheless wouldn’t go away. I wondered if, in fifteen years, Estelle Reyes-Guzman and her son would have to suffer the same kind of rift that separated Miriam and Todd Sloan.