“And by the way, Roberto. While you’re digging around on this burglary, there’s something else I want you to do.” I told him about Fuentes’s dogs.
“That’s a new one to me, sir,” he said.
“You haven’t heard any new twists on the dare games at the school? That’s about all that makes sense to me.”
“I’ll ask around,” Torrez said. “Maybe Glenn Archer will know.”
“Which reminds me…I’m supposed to call him. He wants to complain again about why we won’t assign fifty-five deputies to each basketball game.” I waved a hand in dismissal and Deputy Torrez was about to leave when I asked, “Is Miss Reporter still riding around with you?”
Torrez actually blushed. “I dropped her off at her office earlier this afternoon. I think she had enough of waiting in the car.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said.
“And she told me to tell you that the first installment on her series about the department is scheduled to come out in Monday’s paper.”
I grinned. “Along with all the grocery store ads. I can’t wait. Be sure to tell Sheriff Holman if you see him.” That was a dirty trick, but what the hell. Martin would spend two wakeful nights, worrying his way toward an ulcer. Sometime when he was in a good mood I’d tell him that it was payback for smudging the prints on Anna Hocking’s windowsill.
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.