“Yes. Or when he was exhausted.”
“Of course. And when he stopped digging, what did he do?”
“He laid the dead dogs in the hole.”
“Right. Regardless of how a person shovels dirt, or how his arms get tired, why would Uncle Reuben take the time to line the bottom of the hole with fresh topsoil?”
“He wouldn’t.” I looked into the hole again, uneasy. The bottom of the hole was certainly darker soil. It wouldn’t take long to find out. “Robert, the shovel.”
Torrez stepped into the hole gingerly, as if he were afraid that the floor was going to cave in. The first shovelful of dirt came out easily, but on the second probe, the clank of metal against rocks was loud.
The deputy grunted, dislodging several rocks. He worked for perhaps ten minutes, clearing out a corner so that he could stand away from a new area. He paused to take a breath and glanced at me.
Estelle stood on the opposite side of the hole from me, expressionless, arms across her chest. When Torrez paused, she said quietly, “See how those rocks aren’t seated?”
“What do you mean?”
“If rocks have been in the ground for thousands—millions—of years, they take some persuasion to bust loose. And the dirt around them is compacted hard. Those rocks Bob just took out were part of the fill.”
“Damn soil scientist now,” I muttered, but I could see her logic was just common sense.
In another thirty minutes, Torrez had deepened the hole another foot and a half. And then his shovel hit serious rock. No matter where he drove the point, it met with the bright, sharp sound of Precambrian resistance.
“What do you think?” he said.
“Can you clean around one of the stones? One of the big ones?”
“They’re all big,” Torrez observed dryly. He choose a spot in the middle of the hole and cleaned the dirt away from a boulder that was nearly two feet long and a foot and a half wide. It was anyone’s guess how thick the rock was.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Estelle.
“I’m sure. Wait a minute.” She turned and started across the field, then stopped. She looked at me, surprised. And then she grinned ruefully. “Sir, I was going to the car for my camera gear—”
***
I laughed. “You forgot what county you’re in, my dear. My camera bag is behind the passenger seat in the Blazer. I’ll go get it. You’re welcome to use it.”
“I’ll do it, sir.” I tossed her the keys and she said to Torrez, “Don’t go any deeper.”
She set off toward the Blazer at a fast jog, the kid riding shotgun enjoying the hell out of police work. I think she’d forgotten Francis Carlos was there.
Torrez stepped up and out of the hole and once more leaned on the shovel. “She’s betting that someone dug up the dogs, buried something underneath, and then reburied them,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“The old man would never do a thing like that.”
“No indeed.”
“Do you think she’s right?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”
Estelle returned with the camera bag and fished out my Pentax. She frowned at the numbers, turning the camera this way and that. I knew what she was looking for. I never remembered to put the end of the film box in the little bracket on the camera back.
“It’s ASA four hundred,” I said. Francis Carlos made a little whimpering sound and I added, “Let me hold Squirt.”
“That would help,” she said, and shrugged out of her backpack. I turned my back to the breeze, held the swaddled infant and made faces at him. His eyes got big, then narrowed, and finally he settled for a gurgle and a toothless smile.
Estelle adjusted the camera settings and shot half a dozen photographs of the grave from several angles. Then she said, “Bob, would you put the tip of the shovel right at the corner of that big rock. I need something for reference.”
Torrez did so, posing the handsome shovel until Estelle was satisfied. “All right,” she announced. “Go ahead and take out that stone.”
“Says you,” Torrez jibed. He was good-humored for someone that close to a shovel.
“No, it’ll move easily,” Estelle said. “Someone put those rocks in there. If they could move them and drop them in the hole, you can move them too. Probably easier.”
Torrez took that as a compliment for his considerable strength. The tip of the shovel did indeed dislodge the rock. He pried one end up then kicked the shovel out of his way and bent down.
With a grunt he upended the stone.
“Oh, si,” Estelle said.
As skeptical as I might have been, even I could see what excited her. The bottom of the rock—that portion that should have been in soil-packed darkness for eons—was covered with loose dirt, as one might expect. But clinging to the stone’s surface was the multicolored lichen that dots most of New Mexico’s exposed rock surfaces.
“Well, son of a bitch,” I said and bent down. Francis Carlos let out a squeal and then a fretful monosyllable. I knew what that meant even before glancing down to see the puzzled look on his face.
“The lad committed an indiscretion,” I said.
“He’ll have to wait a minute,” Estelle said. “I want pictures. Don’t move it, Bob.”
That left Deputy Torrez in an uncomfortable crouch, balancing the rock on its end. Estelle burned more film.
The lichen still displayed its potpourri of colors, from bright yellows to murky browns and russets. It hadn’t been in the ground long.
“All right,” Estelle said. She moved to one side as Torrez heaved the rock up and out of the hole. “Trade?” she said, holding out the camera. I gladly passed over the infant.
The capital murder investigation came to a fragrant halt as Estelle unswathed, cleaned, and changed the baby. It had been many years. I’d managed to forget that part.
Refreshed and heavy-lidded with accomplishment, Francis Carlos was once more deposited in my arms.
Estelle shot photos as Torrez worked, his pace stepped up by anticipation. He cleared an area nearly the width of the hole and another ten inches deep, a layer of jumbled rocks that evidently had been tossed into the grave after being gathered from the nearby flank of the mesa.
“We can search under the oaks over there and find the impressions where all these came from,” Estelle said, but Torrez interrupted my reply.
“Something,” he said. He dropped the shovel and crouched down, brushing with his bare hands. “It’s plastic,” he said. He pulled at a corner and we could see the black plastic, still glossy. Estelle took more pictures.
“What do you think, sir?” Estelle asked.
“I think this is a hell of a time to hesitate.”
“Be careful, then,” Estelle said, and Torrez nodded. He worked around the plastic, using hands and shovel with care. After a couple minutes he paused.
“This may be a corner,” he said. “This is where part of the bag is tied off.” He knelt down and worked on a knot. “It’s more like a garden drop cloth,” he added. “At first I thought it was a garbage bag, but the plastic’s heavier.”
“Here,” I said, and extended my pocket knife toward him.
“No, I got it.” He parted a corner of the plastic and recoiled. “Uh,” he said with a grimace.
“Well, we know now someone didn’t bury money or drugs out here,” I said. Torrez was leaning away from the bag, holding the plastic at arm’s length.
“Close it up until we finish uncovering the whole thing,” I said. “Estelle, you want to go down to the car and call in? We’ll want the coroner out here.”
She looked at me quizzically and I realized I’d made the same natural mistake that she had.
“Forget it. I’ll do it.” I lateraled Francis Carlos over to his mother. By the time I returned, Bob had uncovered most of the bag. It appeared to be a piece of garden plastic about ten feet square. The plastic was tied around itself with no other ropes or twine visible. The
body inside wasn’t large.
“We don’t want to move it yet,” Estelle said. She reloaded the camera and took portraits of black plastic from every conceivable angle.
“After the coroner finishes, we’ll lift it out,” I said.
“We’re covered. I’ve got plenty of shots.”
Estelle’s impatience was unusual, but I didn’t argue. I couldn’t recall a single case she had ever lost through faulty or incomplete evidence.
“All right. You ready, Roberto?”
“I guess.”
We each took one end of the bundle and lifted it out of the hole, a grave now almost three and a half feet deep. The plastic-wrapped corpse landed with an unceremonious thud on the hard surface.
“So,” I said. “Let’s find out who we’ve got.”
Robert Torrez drifted backward, away from the bundle. It was a moment when we could have used a stiff portion of New Mexico’s wind. But the afternoon was dead calm.
21
Todd Sloan had run out of luck. He’d ended up stuffed in the ground under three dead hound dogs with nothing but a piece of garden plastic for a comforter.
With the plastic peeled back so that the pathetic, small corpse was completely exposed, Estelle Reyes-Guzman took photos and measurements. I stood back and wondered what to do next. Robert Torrez kept saying, “Huh,” as if that one grunt summed it all up.
“His mother said he went to Florida to live with daddy,” I said. “She said he went there a couple of weeks ago.” Torrez nodded and offered his one syllable. “But you said he was at the shoe store earlier in the week, buying a pair of shoes that could tie him to the farm supply robbery.”
“So either she was lying, or she really didn’t know that he was still hanging out around town,” Torrez said, finally slipping back into gear.
“She would know,” Estelle said. She knelt down next to my briefcase and rewound an exhausted roll of film.
“Why is that?”
“She just would.”
“A mother speaks,” I said, and pulled a corner of the blanket away from Francis Carlos’ face. He was sleeping through the best part.
“But it’s true, sir,” Estelle persisted. “If her son was in town, she’d know about it.”
“Then there’s only one alternative,” I said.
“She was lying.” I could see the artery in Deputy Torrez’s neck pulse as his blood pressure escalated. He kept shifting position, trying to get away from the smell.
“Could be.”
“There’s a bigger question,” Estelle said, standing up with a freshly loaded camera. She looked at me and raised one eyebrow.
“Does she know that her son is planted up here,” I said.
“Right.”
“Before all the fireworks start, we need to ask her. Robert, pick up Gayle Sedillos to act as a matron and go on out to the trailer park. Pick up Mrs. Sloan and bring her out here. She can identify the remains right here.”
“Are you sure you want to do that, sir?” Estelle asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. If she doesn’t know the boy’s dead, we’ll be able to tell.” I looked at Torrez. “We’ll meet you down at the road. Don’t just lead her up here cold. I want a minute to talk with her first.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Robert—”
“Sir?”
“I do not want the press up here. Not yet, anyway.”
He nodded and trotted off toward his patrol car, glad for the fresh air.
“It would appear he was wounded twice, sir,” Estelle said.
“Not heavy caliber, though?” I was thinking of Stuart Torkelson’s run of bad luck.
“I would guess not. It looks like he was shot once here, behind the ear. It didn’t rupture the vault of the skull, so we should be able to recover a slug. And it looks like he was wounded somehow in the stomach as well. There’s a lot of blood there.”
“The autopsy will tell us all we need to know.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing that I had a cigarette to clean up the fouled air. “You willing to make any guesses?”
“No, sir. I’m sure that Reuben had nothing to do with it. He couldn’t have managed. And he wouldn’t have bothered.”
“Unless he had a partner,” I said and watched the dark expression cloud Estelle’s face.
“That’s not a habit he would be apt to adopt this late in his life,” she said, her tone clipped with annoyance. “He lived alone.”
“Just mentioning all angles,” I said. “That leaves two routes. Torkelson was into something that went sour. Something that involved the kid here. Or…Torkelson just happened to wander into the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Estelle offered a slight smile. “I’m glad this isn’t in my jurisdiction.”
“You’d never guess it. And turnabout is only fair. I’ll get you so wrapped up in this you’ll never go home.”
“You’d do that.”
“Yes, I would.” I looked down at Todd Sloan’s sorry remains and was reaching down with my free hand to flip the plastic back over him when Estelle extended a hand to stop me.
“Wait a minute,” she said. She knelt down, moving to keep her shadow out of the way. “I don’t understand this. Look at his hair.”
I did so and saw sandy blond hair caked with blood and dirt.
“And here,” Estelle said, pointing at Todd Sloan’s face around the eyes. “And here.”
“And everywhere,” I added. “He’s covered with dirt.”
Estelle nodded and rocked back on her haunches. “So tell me what I’m missing,” she said.
“When a body is buried, it gets dirty,” I said. “That might be one of the more predictable things in life.”
Estelle shot me one of her rare withering looks. Behind us on the county road traffic was picking up. The ambulance arrived, with Dr. Emerson Clark’s blue Buick not far behind. I knew the elderly physician would stay with his car until one of the officers arrived to escort him over the uneven ground…after they cut the barbed wire fence.
“Sir,” Estelle said, ignoring the traffic. “Todd Sloan was wrapped in heavy plastic when he was buried here.”
“I see that.”
“It would protect the corpse from the dirt. Somewhat, at least.”
I pushed the black plastic aside with the toe of my boot and looked at Todd Sloan again. “Well, son of a bitch,” I said. And now that I looked, it was as obvious as daylight. The dirt—most of it pale dun yellow in color—was pressed into the clothes, the hair, even remnants of it here and there on Sloan’s face. I bent over and looked closer. “I’ll be damned.”
“What do you think, sir?”
I looked up at Estelle. Her expression was worried. I couldn’t fault her for that. I was worried too. Todd Sloan had been buried once without benefit of the plastic shroud. And then he’d been exhumed, stuffed in plastic, and reburied out here, on the edge of this desolate pasture. For the first time I realized how lucky old Reuben Fuentes had been. He hadn’t heard anything. And he wouldn’t have stood a ghost of a chance against the sort of person who’d killed Todd Sloan.
22
The efficiency of the Posadas community grapevine was astonishing. We were careful. Not once did I or one of my deputies slip and mention murder, corpse, burial, or Reuben Fuentes over the radio. Not once.
And yet, when Robert Torrez finally returned with Gayle Sedillos and Miriam Sloan in the back seat of his county car, he had difficulty finding a place to park. The narrow county road was a dusty bumper to bumper crowd scene.
And the press, damn its efficient hide, was there. Linda Rael had cornered Sheriff Holman, who didn’t want to get anywhere near the burial site or the bagged corpse. He obviously wasn’t giving Linda much satisfaction, because she kept looking our way—probably wondering who the stately Mexican woman in my company was. Or maybe she was wondering why the hell I was walking around holding a sleeping infant.
I handed Francis Carlos to his mother and he
aded for the roadway.
For his part, Holman kept looking up the road at a large white van with the Channel 3 logo on its side. He patted his hair for the tenth time, always ready should the unblinking eye turn his way. No one was going to cross the fence without my say-so. Tommy Mears had stretched a yellow crime scene ribbon along enough of the barbed wire that everyone got the point.
Torrez parked in the middle of the road and I reached the fence just as he opened the back door of the patrol car for Miriam Sloan and Gayle. Gayle, half Mrs. Sloan’s age and as stylish as the other woman was frumpy, was dressed in civilian clothes. She expertly put herself between Mrs. Sloan and the burly youngster who balanced the large television camera on his shoulder.
Gayle and the deputy led Mrs. Sloan to the spot in the fence where we’d fashioned a narrow gate.
I met them there and reached out to take Mrs. Sloan by the elbow as she slipped past the loose wires.
“Sheriff,” I said loudly enough for Martin Holman to hear. He’d been working his way toward us, trying to stay helpful to Linda and the dozen other curious onlookers at the same time. He excused himself, looking grateful.
Miriam Sloan was wearing a pale blue housedress and a worn cardigan sweater…no coat, typical of long-time New Mexicans who harbored that curious, innate belief that as long as the sun shone, it was shirt-sleeve time. Her shoes—more like slippers—were blue plastic and almost as inappropriate for the hike across the field as if she’d been barefoot.
She was breathing hard but otherwise her face was set in a stolid mask.
“We’re sorry to have to bring you out here,” I said, keeping my hold on her left elbow. Gayle flanked right, and to my surprise Miriam Sloan stepped right out, far more surefooted than I.
We said nothing as we crossed the field. A couple dozen feet from the grave site, I heard Martin Holman behind me say something like, “Hmmmmm,” and I glanced over my shoulder. The sheriff was showing great interest in the limestone patch off to one side, where the first blood traces had been found. The smell had gotten to him.
Mrs. Sloan didn’t hesitate. She stopped abruptly two paces from the grave, with the plastic-wrapped body within kicking distance.
Twice Buried Page 13