Just as carefully, I leaned around the heater, picked up the dust mop and repeated the performance. This time, when it hit the plastic, a fine spray of adobe brown dirt formed a halo around the mop.
“Gotcha, you son of a bitch,” I muttered.
4
By ten the next morning, we had a fair-sized convocation at Anna Hocking’s. It was too bad that she had to be dead to receive all that attention.
I hadn’t minded the long hours. I could recharge my batteries with a couple minutes of sleep a night. If I got that much I considered myself lucky. But Linda Rael, the young reporter, was among the walking dead. The dark circles under her eyes made her look like she’d been popped twice by an angry boyfriend.
By dawn, Linda was content just to sit in the car, bravely trying not to let her eyelids crash shut. I still refused to let her into the house. The last time we’d talked, her temper was beginning to fray. That made Sheriff Martin Holman nervous. To him, nothing was worse than angry press.
“I think we’re about finished, don’t you?” he asked. He’d cornered me on the back porch, about as close to the inside as I’d let him go. He never seemed to know what to touch and what to leave the hell alone.
“Eddie Mitchell is still dusting for prints in the kitchen. When he’s finished there, we can concentrate on finishing up outside.”
Holman gazed out through the porch screen at the yellow crime scene ribbon that circled the little house-and that included the driveway and the yard. Deputy Tony Abeyta, two months on the force and scheduled to begin academy training the next week, strolled around that circle, eyes watchful. So far, Linda Rael was the only newshound present, but as the word got out others would show up.
Sheriff Holman was unimpressed with my theories. As more of a tip of the hat to his office than his person, I’d taken him down into the cellar briefly and explained what I thought had happened. Holman was no cop-he’d sold used cars before his election first to the county commission and then later as sheriff-but he was smarter than I usually gave him credit for being.
He did have a perfect talent for knowing what to say to the media.
“I can’t tell Linda that we think we’ve got a murder because of some cobwebs and a little dust on a mop.”
“I can understand that,” I said.
“I mean, brooms and dustmops are supposed to have dirt on them.”
“Uh-huh. The lab’s going to tell us that the dirt on that mop came from the cellar floor.”
Holman looked pained. “Come on, Bill. This whole hillside is the same dirt. You sweep the living room floor and you get that dirt.”
I shook my head and fumbled for a cigarette. The pocket was empty. “Nope. That would be blow sand…or light blow dirt. This is old adobe dust, the kind of stuff that sifts gently over the years. Fine as silt.”
“So she swept her cellar.”
I shook my head again. “She hasn’t even been able to go down in the cellar for months.”
“And you’ve found no other evidence?”
“No. Just the mop, the lack of footprints, the disturbed cobwebs, and the open back window.”
Holman took three steps to his right and looked at the offending window. “That’s probably been open for years, Bill.”
“Probably.”
He was about to say something else when Robert Torrez walked quickly along the side of the house to the back porch.
“Sir,” he said, “Gayle wants you to call her.”
“Right now?”
“She said it was important.”
“Excuse me, Martin.”
“And speaking of calls, Glenn Archer called me early this morning,” Sheriff Holman said.
“I’ll bet he did.”
“He wasn’t too happy.”
“I’ll bet he wasn’t,” I said and went inside the house to use the old black telephone in the living room.
The dispatcher answered on the second ring. I said, “What’s up, Gayle?”
“Sir, Carla Champlin called.” I groaned. I didn’t want to see Carla Champlin that morning, any more than I wanted to see Glenn Archer. “She wants to talk to you, sir.”
“What about, did she say?”
“She wouldn’t tell me much, sir. She just said that I should tell you that she wants to file a complaint against an old friend of yours.”
“An old friend of mine?”
“That’s what she said, sir.”
“When did she call?”
“About four minutes ago.”
“And she didn’t want anyone else?”
“No, sir. She said you’d know just what she meant.”
“I don’t know what she means. But call her back and tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I hung up and turned to see Martin Holman inspecting one of the living room windows. He was running his finger along the middle framework as if he were a butler checking for dust instead of ruining prints, which is what he was doing.
“Problems?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Carla Champlin wants me for something.”
“Lucky you.”
I grunted and glanced at my watch. My first inclination was to put Ms. Champlin on hold. But I knew that Bob Torrez was competent. He and the other officers would finish up. I could trust them to be careful and thorough. I glanced at my watch again. The night before, I’d let two hours slide by after Anna Hocking’s call when five minutes might have made a vital difference to the old woman.
“If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the post office,” I said.
5
The post office was a low, dark adobe building tucked between two other drab businesses on the west side of the village square.
On that Saturday morning, the square was quiet and dusty. Dusty in December. That was Posadas’s claim to fame. It was warm enough even with the low winter sun that someone could have been relaxing in the old gazebo centered in the square. No one was.
Come evening, the village crews would light the Christmas luminarias around the park. The candles closed in brown paper bags would cheer the place up a little, their flickering light dancing up through the bare, sere branches of the elms. Cheerful, unless some of the antsy high school kids kicked the bags over and set the park on fire.
Posadas, New Mexico, wasn’t high on the list as a setting for a holiday TV special. It would take a hell of a set of camera filters to put color in the place. The even, monotonous tan of sand stretched off to the horizon in all directions. Even the mesas were tan except during those few moments each day when the setting sun swept them with rose hues.
Other towns had Indian pueblos nearby for color and commerce… not Posadas. It was cheaper to go souvenir shopping in old Mexico, just twenty miles south. There were no lakes to lend sparkle to the place, unless you counted the abandoned and groundwater-filled quarry behind Consolidated Mining up on the mesa.
But we weren’t entirely without attractions. The year before, a group of spelunkers had convinced the Bureau of Land Management that a series of caves in the small lava flow west of town was worthy of federal interest. In twenty years, Martinez’s Tube, as we called it, might be elevated to tourist-trap status. No one was holding his breath.
The post office was as quiet as the rest of the town. I entered the cool building and smelled the antiseptic detergent with which Carla Champlin scoured every surface several times a week. I looked around the tiny foyer.
Four strands of tinsel crisscrossed the lobby with little foil stars swinging below. A pile of unwanted mail-order catalogs weighted down one end of the courtesy counter. I leaned on the window shelf.
“Just one moment,” a high, thin voice warbled from the back room.
“No hurry, Carla,” I called. “It’s Bill Gastner.”
She appeared carrying her right arm outstretched toward me as if she wanted to shake hands from twenty feet away. “Catalogs,” she said, and cast eyes heavenward.
“Catalogs?”
“Oh, you wo
uldn’t believe it. I think every boxholder in Posadas County receives five thousand catalogs. Big ones. As if the usual holiday package rush wasn’t enough.”
She pushed a strand of steely gray hair back under a hairpin. Her head was narrow and her face angular. The Postal Service blouse hung over a bony body. I always thought that hugging Carla Champlin would be like fondling a bundle of construction rebar. She was three years older than me, but a hands-down winner if the two of us were ever paired in a physical contest.
“Uh-huh,” I said, for want of anything more sympathetic. I pushed my Stetson back and rubbed my forehead and the stubble of gray hair above. “Gayle Sedillos said you needed to see me about something?”
Carla Champlin leaned out the window and eyed the vacant little lobby with all its polished brass-doored boxes. “Is it true what I heard about Anna Hocking?”
“That she died last night? Yes, that’s true.” The efficiency of the Posadas grapevine was astounding.
Carla looked at me hard for a minute, then said, “Such a dear, dear lady.”
“Yes, ma’am. She was a wonderful person.”
“Last night, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
She tsk-tsked and then leaned a little farther out the window. I almost backpedaled a step, thinking she was going to grab me. But I stood my ground, both hands on the window sill.
“Sheriff, now listen.” She began as if my attention might stray. Her perfume was stout. And I wasn’t the sheriff of Posadas County. I was undersheriff, one of those awkward titles that the public can’t manage.
“Gayle said you had a complaint.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. If I cut short her story, she would be really pissed.
“Sheriff, now, you know,” and she accented know as if the word were biblical in its authority, “that it is a violation of federal law to carry a weapon on post office property.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“A violation of federal law,” she repeated. To her, federal law and Moses’ commandments were carved from the same clay.
“Sure.”
“Unless you’re a law officer.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, you certainly know Mr. Reuben Fuentes.” She wrinkled her slim nose. Her lips pursed. Maybe she was planning to whistle “White Christmas.”
“Indeed I do. He was carrying a firearm?” I hated to cut short the pleasure of her storytelling, but I had work to do. And then maybe a serious nap to take.
“Well, now, he came in here shortly after nine…I was just finishing sorting. He is so crippled that it took him nearly five minutes just to cross to this counter. And that’s when I saw it. He had this enormous holster on his belt. And of course I could see the gun in it.”
Reuben Fuentes had been carrying a weapon of one kind or another since he was six years old. “Yes, ma’am,” I said patiently.
“He’s worn it in here before and I’ve never said anything.” She lifted her chin, proud of her generosity. “But this time-”
“Tell me what happened.”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He came to the counter here and asked to purchase five stamps. I took the stamps from the drawer. He hung his cane on the counter lip and fumbled in his pocket for money.”
“His cane?” I’d never seen Reuben with a cane, drunk or sober.
“Indeed. He fumbled for his money and then he discovered it was in the pocket covered by the gun and holster.” She pantomimed Reuben’s absentminded fumbling.
I raised an eyebrow and waited for the punch line with a straight, official face.
“Sheriff, he pulled out that monstrous revolver and laid it right here on the counter! I could look right down the barrel. And I could see the ends of the bullets.”
“He took the gun out of the holster?”
“He did. And then he rummaged around until he found his coin purse. He paid me for the stamps and put the purse back in his pocket.”
“And then he put the gun away and left?”
“He did no such thing. You know Ella Fernandez? Well, at that moment she came in with her ailing mother. Mr. Fuentes picked up the revolver-I assume to put it away-and dropped it! Can you imagine that? He dropped it, Sheriff. I thought Mrs. Fernandez was going to have heart failure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well. He’s so crippled. He hung onto the counter with one hand and bent down, trying to pick up the gun. I thought he was surely going to fall. Finally, Ella reached down and picked it up. He mumbled something when she handed it to him. Then he left. And that took another five minutes.”
“I see.”
“Now, Sheriff, that thing might have gone off and killed someone.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I told Ella and her mother that I would talk to you. I’ve heard that you know Mr. Fuentes rather well. I can’t overemphasize how important this is, Sheriff. It is my responsibility to make sure that nothing like this happens again.”
“You did the right thing.”
She softened a little. “I mean, don’t misunderstand me. I wouldn’t want Mr. Fuentes arrested or anything like that. But you must make him understand, Sheriff. And you know-” she leaned forward again and whispered, “he drinks so much.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I pushed away from the counter and straightened up. “I’ll run out and have a chat with him. And thanks for giving me the call. I appreciate it.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” She smiled. She needed new dentures. “I have some coffee on in back if you’d care for some.”
“No, thanks. I had too much for breakfast.” I nodded and did my best to look solemnly official. “I’ll talk to Reuben and let you know.”
The sun was bright through the few skeletal elms when I walked outside. I sat in the county car for a minute, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.
Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember when I’d seen Reuben Fuentes with a gun in recent months, or even years. A week before, I’d seen him hobbling up and down the aisles of Griego’s Big G Supermart. He hadn’t been using a cane then. And he hadn’t been carrying a gun.
Two weeks before that, he’d driven his battered Bronco into a bar ditch. Deputy Eddie Mitchell had turned the front hubs, yanked the old truck into four-wheel drive, and then rocked it free. The deputy said old Reuben hadn’t been drunk that day, or he wouldn’t have let him plod on homeward. Eddie was a methodical, thorough young cop. If Reuben Fuentes had been wearing a gun, the deputy would have mentioned it in his report.
I accelerated the county car away from the curb and headed toward the west edge of town. It wouldn’t take long to swing out past Reuben’s place and have a chat.
I owed him a visit anyway, to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten that he was going with me to his great-grandnephew’s christening. He probably wouldn’t remember the incident in the post office. He could recall everything about the summer of 1916 and nothing about an hour ago.
Reuben Fuentes, in his lilting and fractured Mexican-English, could describe the great Pancho Villa better than any photograph. But about himself, Reuben was not reliable. He was either 84, 96, or 101, depending on when he was asked. He was oldest when he was ailing-as most of us are. He was youngest when wrapped around a bottle of Black Velvet.
His stories over the years had blended into a wonderful hodgepodge of fact laced liberally with whimsy. His grandniece and my former deputy, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, had said that old Reuben was born in 1898. She treasured a yellowed and brittle newspaper clipping from 1899 about a rubella outbreak. That story mentioned the infant Reuben as one of the fatalities. Even then, the media got their facts screwed up.
As I drove through town, I reflected that getting the old man to travel south for his great-grandnephew’s christening was going to be a considerable challenge. Riding in a car with him for even those few miles was going to be worse.
I frowned, curious now why a ninety-four-year-old man had started packing his iron
again.
6
Reuben Fuentes lived eleven miles west of Posadas. If Carla Champlin had called my office as soon as the old man had left the post office, then I was only fifteen minutes behind him. I’d seen him drive before, inching his old Bronco along the county roads as if it were an overloaded, fragile buggy. Fourth gear in that truck was damn near virgin.
By the time I turned off State Road 17, trading the smooth macadam for thick gravel with rocks the size of baseballs, I had already let my mind wander. Sheriff Martin Holman was probably right to be skeptical. Pure mental gymnastics had concocted the entire Hocking affair.
Over the years I’d seen circumstances far more suspicious or even bizarre surrounding what turned out to be an innocent accident. Hell, one icy January several years before, we’d spent two days looking for the car that had smacked old Efren Padilla while he was walking along the county road in front of his ramshackle place south of town.
He’d been found by another motorist, bleeding profusely, his scalp all but torn off the right side of his head. His right arm was snapped in two places. For a few hours the emergency room doctor at Posadas General had had his hands full trying to keep Efren alive.
We’d been so pissed that someone would run down an old drunk that we’d damn near torn the county apart looking for a vehicle with fresh damage to the front end.
And then, after about fifty hours, Efren had regained consciousness and embarrassed the hell out of all of us.
He had decided in the dark of night, he told us, that he wanted to have a talk with his horse. He had stumbled from the house nearly blind drunk and made his way to the little barn and corral. The horse hadn’t shared his enthusiasm for nighttime conversation and had kicked old Efren in the side of the head. The iron horseshoe had laid open the old man’s scalp from eyebrow to crown.
Efren had fallen, yelling like a madman. His cries had spooked the horse and a thousand pounds of animal danced sideways, planting first one hoof and then another on Efren’s arm. The bone snapped like a dry twig.
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