“What’s up, Gayle?”
“Sir, you really need to come in. We’ve got a real problem with Sonny Trujillo.”
I snapped fully awake and sat up in bed with a grunt.
“What do you mean?”
There was a slight pause, about four heartbeats’ worth. “He apparently choked to death in his cell, sir.”
Chapter 4
The cot was pushed against one wall of the jail cell with the brown wool blanket crumpled at the foot. The sheets and pillowcase told me all I needed to know. The final seconds of Sonny Trujillo’s life had not been a pretty way to go.
“Were you here?” I asked Deputy Tony Abeyta.
He shook his head. “No, sir. Not at first. Gayle called me on the radio for assistance. She was the only one in the building.”
I grimaced. That wasn’t unusual for a tiny department like ours, but it wasn’t going to make Gayle feel any better.
“We both attempted CPR until the ambulance arrived. It was just a few minutes.”
“Is everyone else at the hospital now?”
“Yes, sir. Sheriff Holman went directly there from home. And Gayle called Estelle just after talking to you. She went over to the hospital as well.”
I turned away from the cell and started down the short hallway that led to the front offices and dispatch. “You’ve written up a statement of what happened?”
“Yes, sir. It’s in the folder on your desk.”
“All right. Why don’t you call Bob Torrez back in for a little while to sit the radio. Stay here by the phone until Bob gets here. And then patrol central. We may need…” I waved a hand. “Who the hell knows what we’ll need.” I heard voices out front.
Frank Dayan stuck his head around the corner, saw me, and said, “Ah, here he is.”
“Hello, Frank.”
The publisher backed away to give me room to maneuver in the narrow doorway.
“Some night, huh?” he said.
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you have a couple of minutes?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I was just down at the hospital, and Sheriff Holman said I should come and talk with you.”
That’s because he doesn’t want to be bothered talking to you, I almost said. “Frank, we’re not going to have anything for you for several hours yet. It’s that simple.”
He followed me past the row of bulletin boards and the snack machines by the drinking fountain. “Linda was going to stick around for a little while, if that’s all right with you.”
“Have at it.”
“You’ll have a statement, then?”
I stopped, turned, and looked at Frank Dayan with a combination of weariness, exasperation, and curiosity. If the Omaha, Nebraska, where he was from was not the center of the hot news universe, then where did that put Posadas, New Mexico? Long before first light of a Saturday, Dayan was worrying about his six-page Monday edition.
“Frank…yes. Now give us a break.” He nodded and back-pedaled a step. I caught Gayle Sedillos’s eye and beckoned her into my office.
I closed the door and put my arm around her shoulders as we walked across toward my desk. I saw that she was carrying the brown hardcover ring binder that included the jail activity logs. “You all right?”
“Yes, sir.” She took a deep breath. “I think so.”
“Did you check on Tammy? In the last few minutes?”
“Yes sir. She’s sleeping.” The three upstairs cells were reserved for juveniles and, on the rare occasions when we had them, women. The cells were small, neat, clean, and remote.
I motioned toward the swivel chair by the window. “Do you want anything?”
“To go home and go to bed,” she said. She managed the beginning of a grin.
“Wasn’t Tom Mears supposed to be working desk midnight to eight?”
“He called in sick. Ernie stayed until I came in at two.”
“Half the world is sick,” I said. I leaned back in my chair and tried to twist a kink out of my neck. “So tell me what happened.”
Gayle Sedillos was the best dispatcher and office manager we’d had in years. She had begun working for the Sheriff’s Department the summer of her high school senior year, and for the next six years had been steady, bright, and efficient.
I had tried, along with others, to get her married off on several occasions. We’d had no success. The standard department joke was that Bob Torrez, six-foot-four, movie-star handsome, and eligible, would eventually fall for Gayle Sedillos, petite and pretty, like a Mexican porcelain doll-if only we would schedule them on the same shift often enough.
She opened the log. “I checked the cells at two-oh-five downstairs and two-twelve upstairs. Trujillo was awake and restless. Woodruff was asleep.” Her finger traced the entries down the page. “I checked every fifteen minutes until about three. At that time I heard coughing sounds from upstairs.”
“Upstairs? Miss Woodruff?”
“Yes, sir. When I checked, I found that she had vomited. I asked her if she was going to be all right. She said she was, and that she was sorry about making such a mess.”
“That was at three or shortly after?”
“Yes, sir. I changed her pillowcase and cleaned up the floor by her cot. She kept apologizing for not being able to make it to the sink.”
“Did you call anyone?”
“No, sir.”
I made my tone as gentle as I could. “You should have, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Even if it’s just calling the road deputy in for a few minutes. When you have to be in a cell with a prisoner, call someone. You’re not a jailer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If no one else is available, call me. But call someone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what happened?”
She consulted the log again. “I checked every five minutes or less, and by three-twenty she seemed to be resting comfortably. Trujillo was sound asleep. I was more worried about the Woodruff girl. When I checked at three-twenty-five, Trujillo was restless again. He wouldn’t say anything and I was going to call Deputy Abeyta in, but before I got to the radio, I heard violent gagging and choking sounds from his cell.”
“That’s at three-twenty-six or so.”
“Yes, sir. I went back to check and Trujillo was convulsing.”
“He was choking?”
“Yes, sir. I could see that he was turning blue. I tried everything I knew how to do. He lost consciousness and I tried to put a ventilator in place.” Gayle wiped one of her eyes. “It sure wasn’t like the CPR classes, sir.”
“You went into the cell with him, by yourself?”
“Yes, sir.”
I shook my head. “And at what time did you call for assistance?”
“Right after that,” she said. “I ran down here and called Tony.”
“And you asked that he call the ambulance?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t want to spend the time at the radio. He called as he was driving back here.”
“And you continued your efforts at resuscitation until the ambulance crew arrived?”
“Yes, sir.”
Deputy Abeyta opened the door long enough to tell me that Bob Torrez had arrived to sit the radio and that he would be on the road.
“Is the young lady riding with you?”
“Sir?” Abeyta asked.
“Miss Real. The reporter.”
“Oh.” The young deputy looked over his shoulder. “I guess so, sir. She’s standing by the front door.”
“Have fun,” I said. “And when she asks for details about either Tammy Woodruff or Sonny Trujillo, just tell her I’ll have a statement sometime today.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed and I played with a pencil for a few minutes while I framed my thoughts. “When the ambulance arrived, was Trujillo showing a pulse? Were there any signs that he was responding?”
“No, sir. I continued CPR until Deputy Abeyta arrived. He relieved me and worked until the EMTs arrived a few minutes later. Neither of us could find a pulse, and from the time I started CPR, Trujillo never took a breath on his own, sir. I knew he was gone.”
“And after the ambulance arrived, you called Sheriff Holman, me, and Estelle.”
“Yes, sir. I called you first, then Estelle. And then the sheriff.”
“Sonny wasn’t living at home. Did Holman call the Trujillos?”
“He said he would try to locate them, sir.”
“And did someone call from the hospital to let you know that Trujillo had, in fact, been pronounced dead?”
“Yes, sir,” Gayle said softly. “Estelle called.” She scanned down the page. “At four-twenty.”
“Just before I walked through the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gayle, I hope you know that you did everything you could.” She looked down at the floor. “These things happen,” I said. “We can’t have an ambulance on standby for everyone on the planet at every minute.” I glanced at the wall clock. “You can be sure that Sheriff Holman will be stopping back here when they’re finished at the hospital.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Gayle and I talked about inconsequential things until I was sure she was all right. Then I left her alone in my office so that she could write out a detailed statement without interruption of what she had just told me.
Out of habit, I walked upstairs and checked on Tammy Woodruff myself. She was curled in a tight fetal position, sleeping the deep sleep of the truly drunk, still hours away from the dawn of a new day and the new life she’d made for herself. She’d missed all the excitement, and that was just as well.
Try as hard as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to feel too sorry for Sonny Trujillo. As I trudged back downstairs, I did wonder how Frank Dayan was planning to bolt this entire mess together for his newspaper. It would be easy to misunderstand the incident at school with Trujillo, and just as easy to make a cesspool out of his death…even though he’d been given medical assistance for his bruised nose before he was jailed.
The back door opened and Sheriff Martin Holman walked in. Usually, he was as dapper as they come, impeccably dressed and with a catalog of just the right things to say poised at his lips. Like the talented used car salesman he had once been, he could convince almost anyone of almost anything at almost any time.
This wasn’t one of those times.
He saw me and said, “Jesus, Gastner,” as if that just about covered it.