Dead Weight

by Steven F Havill

  Chapter Forty-one

  County Commission chairman Sam Carter would have cringed at the rate at which we emptied the county’s coffers during the next several hours, but he would have swelled at the attention. Of our dozen or so Sheriff’s Department employees, ten were on duty that evening.

  Deputy Taber got to shake out the kinks when she drove to Las Cruces, hand-delivering a briefcase full of evidence for processing by the state’s regional crime lab. Among other things, we had requested a DNA test that would compare the blood from the metal brace on the backhoe with a sample from Sam Carter. I didn’t bother to voice my skepticism about that sort of high-tech testing: Maybe it would produce results, maybe not. But if it could weld a direct link to Sam Carter’s presence in Jim Sisson’s back yard, that was a major step.

  If that was Sam’s blood on the machine, what would still be missing is the when—the smear could have been made anytime, even out on the job site before Jim brought the beast home.

  Part-timer Brent Sutherland took over the odious, deadly boring job of keeping an eye on the Sisson household from a new position a block farther down the street. I wasn’t ready to cancel the surveillance, as unproductive as it had proved so far, but I wanted a wider view—all of the neighbors included.

  Sam and Grace had been hip-deep in an affair, and people had been murdered for a lot less than a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy. Whether or not Grace Sisson was a coconspirator was one of our large, neon, nagging questions. I couldn’t believe that Sam’s dalliance with Grace had been so discreet that it had been witnessed only by Buddy Chavez, the nosy manager of Burger Heaven across MacArthur.

  And who the hell knew what little Jennifer was capable of in her own darker, introspective moments—if, in fact, she had such.

  Four deputies were down at the store with Bob Torrez, meticulously combing the crime scene and trying to reconstruct exactly what had happened. By 8:00 p.m., we knew that Sam Carter had most likely spun around after the impact of the fatal bullet through the base of his skull. His hand had spasmed and grabbed one of the polished chrome door handles of the glass cooler. The door had swung open as he fell away, allowing the ruptured beer bottles to foam and spit across the smooth tile floor.

  A .38-caliber half-jacketed hollow-point bullet was recovered from the insulated wall of the cooler, stopped dead by the appliance’s outside metal casing. The slug was mushroomed and missing fragments of lead, but there was plenty of rifling visible and what must have been bits of Sam’s brain stem and skull embedded in the hollow-point tip. All of that went to Las Cruces as well.

  Torrez could now establish a trajectory, lining up the hole in the door with the hole in the cooler’s cabinetry. The distance between the two was less than eighteen inches, but that was enough.

  The entry wound in Sam’s skull was on the left side, and the trajectory of the bullet was consistent with his facing the back of the store, the beer coolers on his right and the killer behind him and to his left.

  The complete lack of any other evidence suggested to us that Sam hadn’t been caught in a struggle. Shoe soles would scuff that polished tile floor easily, and any flailing of arms would scatter chips and canned dip off the shelves opposite the glass coolers.

  The zippered bank bag produced lots of prints, and sorting those out became Tom Mear’s task.

  If Jennifer Sisson hadn’t been Sam Carter’s major concern just then, the robbery scenario made sense. I could picture Sam Carter walking toward the back of the store, away from the cash registers up front, bank bag in hand, full of the afternoon’s receipts. The killer could have entered the store through the back door if it had been unlocked at the time, or he could have been waiting anywhere in the store at closing time. As Sam walked down the aisle, the killer came up behind him, and that was that. One bullet, down goes Sam, grab the bank bag, stop to remove the cash, fling down the useless paperwork, and it’s over.

  A simple script, and not remotely close to what must have happened. Sam Carter was in the process of arranging some specialized medical treatment for his fifteen-year-old girlfriend. He’d taken the time to reserve a room for her, doing so the day before. He’d picked her up at Burger Heaven when she’d slipped out of the house, heading supposedly for a simple hamburger and some quiet time-out from her mother. Sam had been slick. He knew his wife was busy chasing bowling pins, and he used his son’s Jeep—a nice touch by a caring father.

  After making Jennifer comfortable in the motel room, he’d headed back to the store. And that’s where the puzzle remained. Why he hadn’t used the telephone at the motel maybe only Sam knew. It could have been as simple as where he’d placed—or misplaced—the note with the proper telephone number. The puzzling half hour included Sam leaving the motel and arriving back at the store to close up—and keep his appointment with a .38-caliber slug.

  Shortly before 9:00 p.m., Linda Real handed me what I wanted to see. I took the eight-by-ten glossies from her and settled back in my chair. She came around the desk to narrate over my shoulder.

  “Nicely done,” I said.

  In good light, with my bifocals held just so, I could see the distinct shoe sole patterns in the thin film of liquid coating the tiles.

  “There are just four of them that were still damp enough to photograph,” Linda said. She looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes pronounced. “But the first two are really clear.”

  “Clear enough to match for size, I suspect,” I said. “And an interesting tread pattern. A woman’s shoe.”

  “I think you’re right, sir. That’s a utility tread with the diagonal cleats,” Linda said. “More like something a nurse would wear. Not so much a child’s shoe.”

  I leafed through the set until the background changed. “And these are the others that I asked you to take.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been a day or two, and there have been people walking through the area, but it wasn’t hard to find a couple that matched what you wanted.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed. The dried mud had locked in two sets of prints—the prints of the big, flabby-footed chow, so eager for some exercise and not minding a romp in the fragrant mud after a summer shower, and the shoe prints of the chow’s escort. Taffy Hines had been much more careful than the dog about where she’d stepped. The mild waffle soles of her shoes had left distinctive prints, captured easily on the film.

  “No match, sir,” Linda said. “Not even close.”

  I got up, tapping the pile of prints into order. “No, the pattern’s not even close.” I slid out one copy of each shoe print and handed the remaining pile back to Linda. “Outstanding work, Linda. Thanks. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay close, in case someone needs your help.”

  I found Robert Torrez in the small room that we used as a lab, in close conversation with Tom Mears.

  “Can you break away for a bit?” I asked, and Torrez nodded.

  “So far, a good set of Sam’s prints from the bank bag. We’re workin’ on the others. But it’s going to be almost any store employee, first of all.”

  “Yep,” I said. “If you’ve got a few minutes, I’d like you and Gayle to take a ride with me.” The undersheriff looked at me sharply, and I nodded. “We need to make a stop at Judge Hobart’s. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Taffy Hines opened the door on the second knock, and if she was surprised to see the three of us on her doorstep, it didn’t show.

  “Well, now,” she said, holding open the door. “Party time! Come on in.” She was wearing a loose flannel jogging suit that looked more like pajamas. The outfit was complemented by a pair of rabbit-headed slippers. “And I don’t know you, I guess,” she said to Gayle.

  “Gayle Torrez. I’m the undersheriff’s wife.”

  “Ah,” Taffy said. She clasped her hands together, and I saw the tremor there. She looked expectantly at me. “So. What can I do for you all?”

  “I think you know why we’re here,” I sai
d.

  “Well, I know that Jennifer Sisson is home with her mother, and I’m glad about that.”

  “You were at the store all day?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you heard about Jennifer’s little trip nonetheless?”

  “Sure.” She smiled, but there was another little quiver at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes were sad. “Let’s sit. I’m tired.” She led us into the kitchen. The table was clean, no cinnamon rolls this time. The coffeepot was clean and dry, sitting under the drip unit. The kitchen counters were bare, polished dry. The place looked as though the owner was making preparations for a long trip.

  Gayle and I sat down with Taffy. Bob Torrez remained in the doorway between kitchen and living room, hands hooked in his belt.

  “You heard about Sam,” I said. “Or maybe ‘heard’ is the wrong way to put it.”

  She laughed a quick, nervous little laugh. “Listen,” she said, and closed her eyes for just a moment. “This is going to be hard, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Yes.” I reached across and patted the back of her hand.

  “You want me to make some coffee or something?” She started to get up.

  “No. Thanks.”

  “Let me tell you why,” she said, and then watched as I pulled the small recorder out of my pocket and set it on the table.

  “Before you say anything, Taffy, let’s get the formalities out of the way,” Torrez said, and the undersheriff opened his black vinyl clipboard and extended a form to Taffy, along with a ballpoint pen.

  “Mrs. Hines,” he said, and she looked up, grinned a brave little smile at his formality, and corrected him.

  “Miss Hines,” she said. “Or Taffy is just fine. It’s actually Tabitha, but heavens, who wants to manage that?”

  “Miss Hines,” Bob said, “you have the right to remain silent. If you understand that right, would you please say so for the sake of the recording, and then initial in the space provided after the statement I have just read to you. That’s number one.”

  She did so, and Bob continued, “Do you understand that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law? If you understand that, initial after number two.”

  “Heavens,” she said. “I thought this was the sort of thing you just mumbled off a little card and that was that.”

  “In some cases,” I said.

  “But not this time, eh?” she replied. “How times are changing.”

  Bob continued on, leading Taffy Hines through each statement, finishing with her signature at the end.

  I nudged the small tape recorder. “Now, we’re formal, Taffy.”

  “Am I actually charged with anything?”

  “You’re about to be.”

  She shrugged helplessly. “Where would you like to start?”

  “First things first. Where’s the weapon?”

  She started to rise, but I held out a hand. “Just tell us.”

  “In the bowling bag by the front door.”

  Torrez turned and left the kitchen, returning with a gold-and-blue vinyl carryall. He hooked the tip of his pen in the zipper latch and pulled it open, then reached in and hooked the pen through the trigger guard of the snub-nosed revolver. He held it up.

  “That little thing was my father’s,” Taffy said. Torrez sniffed the barrel and raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes, it’s been fired. But it’s not loaded now. I took the shells out. They’re in the bottom of the bag, too.”

  “Taffy, what happened?”

  “Grace called me at the store. Normally Sam closes on the slow days and I close up on the weekends. But he asked earlier today if I’d mind closing. I said, ‘Sure.’ What’s it to me? Grace called just about six, to tell me that Jennifer was missing and that Sam had taken her, and that you folks were looking for her. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean, you know, she and I had talked and talked over the past month or so about Jim, and about her, and about the affair she was having with Sam. But you know…” she said, and stopped.

  “Know what?” I prompted.

  “Well, I’ve had my share of trouble with Sam’s hormones. As you know perfectly well.” She smiled and looked heavenward. “I just had this nasty feeling that Sam Carter was the one who killed Jim Sisson.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “People are creatures of habit,” Taffy said. “That’s what I figure. Sam is one—was one—of the world’s biggest gossips. He’s forever talking about what’s going on in the town. But the morning after Jim Sisson was found dead? Wednesday, I guess it was? Sam spent most of it in the office. I asked him if he’d heard anything, and all he said was, ‘Well, the village and the county are working on it, and between the two of ’em, they’ll botch things up just fine.’ ” She glanced over at Torrez.

  “That seemed a typically ugly Sam Carter thing to say, even for an election year. And then I wondered afterward why he’d say that at all about something that everyone said was just a careless accident. I mean, unless he already knew otherwise, what would there be to botch up? Even if you did, which obviously you didn’t.” She laughed. “If you follow.”

  “What reason would Sam have to kill Jim Sisson?” I asked. “That’s a hell of a risk.”

  She ticked off on her fingers. “Get Jim out of the way. If Jim’s got insurance and it looked like an accident, then that’s a plus. Maybe it’s even double indemnity, or whatever you call it, for accidents. I don’t know. And Jennifer is pregnant, and Sam knows he can’t get close to do anything about that if Jim is alive. If he tried and Jim found out, that would be the end of old Sam, for sure. Oh, I can think of all kinds of reasons. We could even go to fantasyland and imagine that Sam Carter went over to have it out with Jim, to say, ‘Look, I’m taking your wife, so deal with it.’ But Sam going face-to-face is probably the least likely.”

  I frowned. “Then tell me something, Taffy. If that’s the fantasy, why would he bother to go over there at all that night? Face-to-face with Jim? For what reason?”

  “That’s typical, crafty Sam,” Taffy said. “Why did he use his son’s Jeep a couple of hours ago? Same crafty reason.”

  I regarded her in silence.

  “I can choreograph the scene just fine.” She affected her version of Sam Carter’s West Texas twang. “‘My boy done wrong, Jimbo, and I’m here to see just what we can do about it.’” She leaned her head on one hand and closed her eyes. “And how’s poor Kenny going to deny it so that anyone believes him?”

  “And Jim Sisson goes ballistic,” I said. “Maybe he takes a swing at Sam, or threatens him. When his back is turned, some hard object comes to hand and then clever Sam has a real problem on his hands and has to cover his tracks. The backhoe is idling with the massive tire hanging by a chain.”

  “Maybe that’s the way it happened,” Taffy said. “Remember when we talked last?”

  “Sure.”

  “And I asked you to be mindful of Grace? I was sure, just sure in my heart of hearts, that she had nothing to do with Jim’s death, other than in weak, confused moments maybe wishing it might happen. I just thought that if you kept her in sight all the time, then Sam would trip up somehow. And if you were watching her, then she’d be in the clear.”

  “You knew Jennifer was pregnant?”

  “Sure. Grace told me that some time ago, and that she didn’t know what to do.”

  “Did she think that Kenny was to blame?”

  “At first. At least that’s what she wanted to believe. But, Sheriff, when she called me at the store and told me that Sam had taken Jennifer somewhere, I was just in such a state. I wanted to do something but didn’t know where or how.

  “Anyway, it was a few minutes after six. I had locked up, just in a swivet about what I should do—what I could do—and I was taking the day’s receipts out of the last register when I heard Sam going up the stairs in the back. At least, I assumed it was Sam. Fast-like. Now maybe it wasn’t any of my business, but…well, yes, it was my business.” S
he dipped her head in emphasis. “It was my business. I went to the back, and the door to his upstairs office was open. I could hear him talking on the phone. What I heard him say was that the girl was at the motel, and he gave the room number, two-oh-seven, and that everything was all set.”

  “Do you know who he was talking to?” Torrez asked.

  “No, sir, I don’t. But Sam did ask whoever it was if he thought that there would be any complications, and he used the phrase ‘with it being so early on, and all.’ I distinctly heard him say that, and I knew damn well, excuse my French, that he was talking about an abortion for that poor child.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then he said something like ‘well, that’s good.’ And then I made a mistake, maybe. I saw red. I admit it. I went charging up the last two steps and I heard Sam say, real quick-like, ‘Wait a minute. I’ll call you back. Just hang on.’ When I walked into his office, he was just putting the phone into the cradle. And boy, did we have a go-around.”

  “Physically, you mean?”

  “No. But I called him every name in the book, and told him that by the time I was through with him, he’d be in the state pen for a hundred years for statutory rape and murder, and anything else I could think of. He got all blustery and said I didn’t know what I was talking about. I said, ‘We’ll see about that,’ and went back down the stairs. He followed me, the both of us shouting at each other. What a scene that would have made, if we’d had an audience.” She grinned apologetically.

  “How did it end up in a shooting?” I asked.

  “I was halfway up the side aisle there by the drink coolers. I don’t know where I was going, except maybe to the telephone by the checkout. I wasn’t thinking straight, I was so angry. Too angry to be scared, and I guess with him, if I’d had any common sense, I’d have been petrified.”

  “Why didn’t you just run straight up the first aisle you came to, the one directly opposite the door?” Torrez asked.