“Who knows?” Taffy said. “He’s following me, shouting, and I guess ducking and dodging some just comes natural when you’re being chased. He’s shouting all of a sudden about how I live all alone and did I think anyone was going to miss me. That little shit. Excuse me again. All of a sudden, he’s threatening me, for crying out loud. After all he’s done. But he knew damn well I’d do something. I mean, after all, I filed a complaint against him last year with you folks, didn’t I?”
“And what did you do then?” I asked when her torrent of words subsided.
“Then I lost my temper altogether. I still had the dumb money bag in my hand, and it’s my habit to carry that little gun when I have to go make bank deposits. Just habit all these years. Anyway, I turned on him before he had a chance to grab me, and pulled that out, and it was worth the price of admission to see his eyes. Big as cheap pizzas. He kind of backpedaled, and turned, and I didn’t know what he was going to do. But the gun went off just then. I don’t know if I meant to pull the trigger or not. I really don’t. The thing was just clenched in my hand, and bang. Down he went, and what a mess. I just stood there for the longest time, sure I was going to faint.”
“And then you left.”
She nodded. “That’s not what I should have done, of course. I should have just gone to the phone and called you, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes. But instead you decided to make it look like a robbery.”
“The receipts are in the bowling bag, too,” she said, and Torrez nodded. “It was just a dumb idea.”
I sat back. “Taffy, these photos,” and I opened the manila envelope that had been lying on the table at my elbow, “show your shoe prints, where you stepped in the beer.”
She leaned forward with interest, and I handed the photo to her.
“We have a warrant from Judge Hobart. We’d like to see those shoes.”
“For heaven’s sakes. I didn’t even think about that. I didn’t know you people could even do such things.”
“We people can,” I said gently.
“They’re in the hall closet,” she said. “First pair on the left. And I have to apologize, Bill. In the past few hours, I came to the conclusion that I could live pretty easily with what I did, if your department could never solve Sam’s death. I mean, he was a real first-class skunk. And he threatened me. If I’d just blabbed it all out a day or two ago, when you were sitting right there eating cinnamon rolls, then Sam might still be alive.” She tried a grin. “Not that that’s necessarily such a good thing. But I could have saved you some time and work.”
I shrugged. “Saving us work isn’t what’s important,” I said.
“So,” Torrez said. “Let me make sure I understand all this. You felt, number one, that Sam Carter may have been responsible for Jim Sisson’s death?”
“Yes, I did.”
“But you didn’t have any certain proof of that. Nothing he said, or anything like that.”
“No.”
“And number two, you had information that led you to believe that Sam Carter was in the process of arranging for an illegal abortion for Jennifer Sisson, a minor well known to you?”
“Yes.”
“And number three, you felt that Sam Carter had threatened you? In fact, threatened your life?”
“Yes.”
“And that had he continued in his pursuit of you, you might have been in physical danger?”
“Yes.”
“Miss Hines, are you in the regular habit of carrying a loaded weapon when you carry the store’s receipts at night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you realize that carrying a concealed loaded weapon is against the law in the state of New Mexico?”
“No, I didn’t know that. Or care, I guess, would be more like it.”
“Did anyone else know that you carried a weapon in that bag as a matter of habit?”
“Sure. Even Sam Carter knew that. He thought it was funny.”
Torrez turned to me and shrugged. “Seems to me that we have a civilian who interrupted a person in commission of a felony, sir. And in so doing, she put herself in jeopardy, and then defended herself with the only means at her disposal.”
I reached out and snapped off the recorder. The room was quiet for a long time. Finally, I said, “Taffy, we’ll want to talk again in the morning. My first inclination is to agree with the undersheriff, but ultimately it’s the decision of the district attorney. He’ll want to make sure that all the evidence we have corroborates what you say. He’ll be in town either later tonight or first thing tomorrow, and we’ll get together with him and his assistants.”
“What should I do?” she asked plaintively.
“Try to get some rest. I’d prefer that you didn’t discuss the matter with anybody—Grace Sisson included. If you’d just sort of turn off the world until tomorrow, I’d be grateful.”
“I’ll unplug my phone.”
I laughed. “OK. One of my deputies is going to be staying with you, right here in the house.” I shrugged. “It’s either that or you stay at the Public Safety Building for the night.”
“In jail, you mean,” Taffy said, and I nodded. “I’ll take my own bed, thanks just the same.”
Taffy Hines came around the table and put an arm around me. Both of us were on the fat side, so it was like a couple of bumper cars hugging. “Thanks so much.”
“We’ll see, Taffy. It’s not over yet. But you try and get some rest.”
I followed Bob Torrez and his wife out the door, and as they stepped out into the soft evening, I saw Gayle Torrez reach out and give Bob a gentle, wifely tweak of approval on the back of his arm.
Chapter Forty-three
By midnight, the list of what we knew for certain was almost as long as the collection of questions.
Sam Carter’s fingerprints were etched in blood on the backhoe, and the blood was consistent with his blood type. Since about a billion people around the world shared that blood type, we were going to have to wait for a DNA comparison from the state lab, and who the hell knew how long that was going to take?
Dr. Perrone found a small cut on the underside of Sam’s left middle finger, but there were small nicks and cuts in several other places on Sam’s hands, too—the sort of little inconsequential wounds that could be caused by something no more sinister than being careless while opening a cardboard box.
But since Sam had already stood a brief trial, it didn’t matter much. He’d been on board the machine when he had no reason to be, and there was plenty of motive.
We had witnesses that he’d reserved a room in his brother’s name when he, in fact, had no brother and another witness who’d seen him pick up Jennifer Sisson at Burger Heaven.
Jennifer acknowledged that the child she was carrying was probably fathered by Sam Carter and that if she could find a way, she’d lose it—but that particular snarl was well beyond our province. We left it for Grace Sisson to solve.
Whether Grace Sisson had conspired with Sam Carter to murder her husband was a question that four of us argued and debated for more than an hour in my office. By 1:00 a.m., Bob Torrez, District Attorney Daniel Schroeder, Assistant DA Don Jaramillo, and I reached consensus—we had no evidence that suggested a conspiracy to commit murder.
Crushing someone with a weighted tractor tire was one of those “moment of opportunity” crimes that would be impossible to plan accurately ahead of time. Sam had taken the opportunity, and most likely Taffy’s version of events was correct.
At 2:30 a.m., I called a groggy Frank Dayan and gave the newspaper publisher an abridged version of events as we understood them.
“Good grief,” Dayan whispered when I’d finished.
“And I don’t envy you the job of trying to make sense of all that,” I said.
“It’s one of those stories that has ‘officials said,’ or some other attribution, after about every other sentence so someone doesn’t file eighty-five lawsuits against us,” Dayan muttered. “I think we’ll b
e using a lot of ‘investigation is continuing’ jargon. That’ll let people fill in their own holes.”
“That’s more entertaining, anyway,” I said. “Best of luck.”
“Sam didn’t exactly accomplish what he wanted, did he?”
“Nope.”
“And by the way, I never asked you…What did you find out about those little notes about Tom Pasquale?”
“The original was in the trash in Sam Carter’s computer. Evidently he didn’t realize he had to empty the can. I had no idea someone existed in the world who knew less about computers than I do.”
“You want me to print something about that?”
“I’d rather you let it stay in the trash, Frank. We’ve got a file here, should anyone ever try to make something more out of it. Let it lie.”
“All right. And by the way…I was over at the sheriff’s office earlier this afternoon, or yesterday, or whenever the hell it was, and saw a report about Carla Champlin parking her RV on Judge Lester Hobart’s front lawn. What the hell was that all about?”
“Ah, she just took a wrong turn.”
“No, seriously. What was she doing?”
“I am serious, Frank. That’s about all there was to it.”
“Assault with a broomstick?”
I laughed so loud it probably hurt Frank Dayan’s ears.
“Great headline, Frank. Go ahead and print that. I dare you. About now, the county needs a good chuckle.”
“So what now?”
“I’m going home to bed, if I can remember where I live.”
And for the first time in a long, long time, I did just that.
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