Taffy Hines, in the wee hours of the morning, had walked her dog up the back-lot lane and stopped to visit Grace Sisson. As careful as Taffy had been, I could see a couple of shoe prints that were fresh and clear and about the right size for a woman. The soles were a neat, shallow waffle pattern that would track mud into the house almost as well as the mutt would.
Other than the hour, the visit wasn’t surprising. Of course Taffy Hines knew the Sissons. Everyone who lived on MacArthur, and a host of others, did, too. That they were close enough friends for a drop-in visit wasn’t surprising, either, although the pleasant, almost dreamy Taffy didn’t seem like a natural match for friendship with the fiery Grace Sisson.
I stopped short, my memory finally kicking into gear. The chow. I remembered his big, flat face thrust against the back door of the Sissons’ house that first night, beady little eyes watching us, a low chesty hooof of doggy puzzlement now and then.
Taffy Hines either owned a similar dog or was canine-sitting for the Sissons during their upset. I pulled the gate closed and continued up the lane toward Bustos. There were no sidewalks on Bustos until the intersection with MacArthur. East of that point, basically for the depth of Sisson’s lot, Taffy Hines would have had to walk on the curbing or in the street-not that traffic would have been a concern.
If Deputy Taber’s observation had been correct, and I had no reason to doubt it, Taffy Hines had continued her nocturnal stroll back around the long block, walking down the sidewalk on MacArthur, past the front of all her neighbors’ homes, including the Sissons’.
I stood on the corner of Bustos and MacArthur, looking down the long, straight, empty four-lane street that cut east-west through the heart of Posadas, wondering if Taffy’s nocturnal strolls were a habit. The supermarket where she was the senior cashier opened at 6:00 a.m., so she had another hour or so before facing the public.
I crossed the intersection and strolled down the west side of MacArthur, inspecting each quiet house in turn, recalling to mind who the occupants were and what they did for a living. Nothing was out of place, nothing amiss. I’d walked almost a block before I glanced down the street toward 310.
A lone figure was standing beside the patrol car, leaning against the front fender. I’d walked to within a dozen feet before I recognized the plump, short figure.
“Well, good morning, Ms. Hines,” I said, and my voice sounded unnaturally loud after the long moments of dark silence.
“Hello yourself, Sheriff. What in heaven’s name are you looking for?” She said it with good humor, the same tone she might use when she said, “Here, let me get that for you” to a customer at the store who wanted to make an exchange after reaching the checkout with the wrong brand of soap.
“Just enjoying a beautiful night, ma’am,” I said.
She laughed a sort of oddly sad little chuckle and rested a little more weight on the Ford’s fender. “Oh, sure. Word around is that Jim Sisson’s death was a homicide, after all.”
“Word around, eh?” I said.
“Well, otherwise you people wouldn’t be tying up Sisson’s property and your detectives scouring everything, looking for who knows what.”
“That’s our job, Taffy. I’d say you’re not such a bad observer yourself.”
“I happened to be looking out the window when you drove up to chat with Jackie a little bit ago, that’s all. And then you walked around back, and up the lane.”
“Like I said, you’re observant, Taffy.”
“Well, it’s a neighborhood, you know. Lots of us nosy folks like to know what’s going on. Especially after such an awful thing happens.”
“And yet…” I paused.
“And yet what?”
“And yet none of you, not one, saw or heard anything when Jim Sisson was killed. No one saw anyone unusual drive up, no one heard Jim arguing, no one heard a scream or a shout, no one heard a vehicle leave or the sounds of a person fleeing on foot.”
“That’s not surprising,” Taffy Hines said.
“Tell me why it’s not,” I replied. “When I arrived just now, my headlights were off, and I made a point to tiptoe.” I swung the flashlight up and tucked it under my left arm and thrust my hands in my pockets. “And you heard me.”
“I just happened to look out,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” I took a deep breath and pivoted at the waist a few degrees each way, scanning the neighborhood. “Listen.”
We stood in companionable silence for a few heartbeats before Taffy said, “It’s my favorite time of day.”
“Quiet, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“I think I could hear a dime drop up on Bustos right now.”
Taffy Hines shook her head with impatience. “And so you imagine that half the neighborhood would hear the ruckus up at the Sissons’?”
“That’s what bothers me.”
“Well, from what I’m told, it happened in the evening, not a whole long while after dark. Folks are still up, televisions are on, kids are playing…all that stuff. This is a whole different world, right now.”
“I guess,” I said. “Is that your dog?”
She turned quickly, looking down the street in the general direction of my gaze. “What dog?”
“No, no. The one you were walking earlier this morning. At about two or so. I think he’s a chow.”
Taffy Hines crossed her arms over her ample chest. “My goodness,” she said with more good humor than I would have been able to summon had I been in her shoes, “such efficient surveillance. You people must know all my dark secrets by now.”
“Please, Taffy. Give us a break. You make it sound like Jackie Taber and I are members of the secret police from some third world country with this ‘you people’ nonsense. There’s been a questionable death, as you apparently already know. What do you want us to do, sit in our offices and hope that someone comes in and confesses out of a sense of good citizenship?”
“Sheriff,” she said, and her tone softened, “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. In fact, I almost came out to offer Jackie a cup of coffee. But I didn’t, you know, because I wasn’t sure just what she was doing and I didn’t want to interfere.”
“To pass the time and stay alert, she was drawing pictures,” I said, then added, “in her most creative secret police style. That’s how I knew about the dog. She saw you, obviously, and included you and pooch in the drawing she was doing.”
“I’d like to see that,” Taffy said. “And the dog’s name is Rufus, by the way. He’s one of the sweetest dogs on the planet.” She laughed. “And probably one of the dumbest, too.”
“Is he yours?”
“No. He belongs to the Sissons. I’ve been taking care of him. I asked Gracie just a bit ago if they’re ready to take him back, but…”
She shook her head. “That poor family.”
“Did Deputy Mears, or any of the others, talk to you Tuesday night?”
“No,” she said. “Nobody came by.”
I turned and calculated the distance. Taffy Hines lived eight houses south of the Sisson property, hardly close enough to be considered an immediate neighbor.
“When did you hear about Jim’s death?”
“Gracie called me early yesterday morning, just before I was going to work. She could hardly speak, poor thing. She asked if I could drive her to her parents’ house in Las Cruces.”
“And did you?”
“No. She drove herself. I was all ready to go, though. I’d called Sam at the store and told him that I wouldn’t be in until probably midmorning sometime, and he said that was fine, to go ahead and take my time. But then Gracie called back and said she’d be fine, that she was going to drive herself and the kids. That the kids would keep an eye on her.”
“So she drove herself.”
“Yes.”
“The deputies understood that a friend had taken them.”
“That was the plan originally. But as far as I know, she drove herself. Now I could be wrong.”
“Huh.”
“Whoever killed Jim could have parked in the lane behind the Sisson property, you know,” Taffy said. “No one would see or hear anything if they did that.”