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 piñon 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 niños 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 husban
d’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.
10
By late Saturday night, I’d avoided even a catnap for the better part of thirty-six hours, and even for an old insomniac like me, that was pushing the limit. I parked 310 in the driveway of my house and went inside, welcomed by the dark, friendly silence of the old place.
With the holiday season, I had considered running a string of small Christmas lights around the recessed portal and maybe looping a strand or two over the vigas that faced the lane. A line of luminarias along each side of the driveway would have looked inviting and cheery as well, but I wasn’t in the mood. Make the place look too inviting and I’d end up having company.
I closed the heavily carved front door behind me, knowing that I’d end up not doing any decorating until after Christmas… and then it’d be too late anyway. What the hell.
What I really wanted was twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. That was wishful thinking. I knew exactly what would happen if I stretched out on the bed. The initial bliss as the bones and muscles melted into jelly and the soft aroma of the bedding and the faint mustiness of the house as they blended into a cozy potpourri would be narcotic…for about ten minutes. Then I’d start tossing and turning like an old washing machine out of balance on the agitation cycle.
I walked to the kitchen and put on a fresh pot of coffee. While the brew oozed through the calcium-choked mechanism, I considered telephoning Estelle Reyes-Guzman in Tres Santos.
Her mother didn’t have a phone in her modest little adobe house, but the Diaz family just down the lane from Mrs. Reyes did. If my call managed to be patched through on the vague Mexican system, one of the myriad Diaz kids would sprint a message the hundred yards to the Casa Reyes.
There was no point in bothering them with a call at this hour of the night. Estelle couldn’t do anything about her great-uncle’s dogs anyway. The old man would survive. He’d have the distraction of a visit to Tres Santos in a week, see all his relatives, then dive back into the privacy of his shack, maybe with a truckload of new Mexican puppies to raise.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and settled into the big leather chair in the living room. I wanted a cigarette more than sleep. There were none stashed in the house and I was too tired to go after a pack. I could almost hear my eldest daughter chastising me for even thinking about smoking. I loved my children, but sometimes they ganged up on their old man.
The Christmas before, one of my sons had decided I needed a VCR and a library of videos. He’d started by sending me a copy of The Shootist with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, figuring that a movie with my two favorite stars would start me off. I sensed the fine hand of my eldest daughter, Camille, in the title choice.
My video library hadn’t grown. That one video, lonely and forlorn, sat on the shelf.
Knowing that the results were guaranteed, I got up, switched on the set, and popped the tape in the machine. I’d watched the first part of the movie dozens of times—my record was reaching the point where Jimmy Stewart tells the Duke that the old gunfighter had himself “a cancer.” This time, I was asleep long before that.
I awoke with a start. The television screen was a nice blank blue. The VCR had cycled into patient “wait” mode, the old gunman in the movie blown to hell and gone long before. My coffee was stone cold and I had no idea how many times the telephone had jangled. With a grunt I reached the phone and jerked it off the cradle so hard the base slid off the kitchen counter and crashed to the floor.
“Yep,” I said.
“Sir, this is Gayle Sedillos.” My dispatcher’s voice was about as nice as any can be on a wake-up call.
“Yep. What the hell time is it?”
“Ten thirty-three, sir.” I squinted at my watch and took her word for it.
“What’s up, Gayle?” I was fully awake. Gayle possessed uncommonly good sense. She was worth five times what we paid her, and if she called me at home the message couldn’t wait.
“Sir, Deputy Encinos just radioed in a possible homicide on County Road twenty-seven just beyond the second cattle guard off the state highway.”
“A what?”
“A homicide, sir.”
“I know what you said. Who, I meant.”
“Deputy Encinos didn’t say, sir.”
“All right. I’ll be there in a couple minutes. And Gayle—”
“Sir?”
“Is anyone with Encinos?”
“Deputy Abeyta,” Gayle said. “He wanted to work a weekend four-to-midnight, and you left standing orders that he couldn’t work that shift alone.”
“Okay. Good.” I heard a voice in the background and then Gayle came back on the line, this time a little more tentative.
“Sir, can you stop by and pick up a passenger on your way out?”
“A passenger?” Sheriff Holman didn’t get any kick out of riding in a police car—he avoided the opportunity whenever it presented itself. I couldn’t think of anyone else.
“Yes, sir. Linda Rael is here.” I groaned. The young reporter kept worse hours than I did. But company wasn’t what I had in mind. I started to refuse, then frowned. What the hell.
“Tell her to be standing out on the sidewalk at the corner of Bustos and Third. I won’t slow down much.”
I didn’t bother giving Gayle any other instructions. She knew full well what to do and would make her calls to the coroner, ambulance, and Sheriff Holman in due course. Deputy Encinos would keep the crime scene intact, with the rookie Tony Abeyta to assist.
I headed out the door to 310, my pulse hammering. The second cattle guard on County Road 27 was the one by Reuben Fuentes’s two-track. It didn’t take much imagination to picture a confrontation out there. All that was left was to find
out who’d been killed.
11
The headlights of 310 picked up Linda Rael’s slight figure on the corner. The wind tugged at her long coat and her wide-brimmed slouch hat was pulled tightly down on her head. I could see the heavy camera bag slung over her right shoulder. I braked hard and she yanked open the passenger side door and was inside in one graceful, lithe movement. If I’d tried that, I would have ended up in traction for months.
As I accelerated the patrol car away from the curb I snapped on the red lights, and the pulsing beam bounced off the drab buildings as we headed out Bustos Avenue. Holiday cheer.
Clear of town, I nudged 310 a little faster. Traffic was light on the state highway and we flashed along for the first mile or so with Linda remaining silent. Her hands were tightly clasped together in her lap.
“Gayle said this was a homicide?” she asked finally.
“Apparently. Put on your seat belt. And what are you doing out at this hour?” Feeling paternal was a luxury I figured I could afford, even if her response was that it was none of my business.
“Just working…and there’s a deputy already out there?”
“Yes. Paul Encino and Tony Abeyta, both.”
In the dim light of the car, my peripheral vision caught the faint movement of her nod. We hurled past two big RVs driven no doubt by snowbirds trundling west. I wondered what they were doing out so late. When 310 was back in the proper lane, Linda turned slightly toward me. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“If the body is already dead, and there’s an officer already out there, why are we in such a hurry?”
I glanced over at her, amused. She was resting her right hand on the dashboard as if that might stop her from going ballistic if we crashed into something solid.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I thought for a moment, trying to frame an appropriate answer, knowing that whatever I said would probably end up as a quotation in the damn newspaper. She didn’t have her pencil out, though, so maybe I was safe. And I didn’t slow down.
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