Twice Buried (16 page)

28

I knew I had precious little time for mental celebration…maybe the six minutes it would take to drive to the sheriff’s office. Estelle rarely volunteered information, even to me—hell, maybe not even to Francis. I had gotten used to asking questions, whether the topic was any of my business or not.

“What are you going to study?”

“I’d like to eventually get into law,” she said.

I almost swerved into the big cottonwood whose roots were heaving Fernando Stewart’s sidewalk up out of the ground at the end of Guadalupe Lane.

“Law? You mean like in lawyers?”

“Right.”

“Christ, Estelle. You don’t read much Shakespeare, do you.” She smiled. “Well,” I added, “I guess there’s always room for a good one, and you’ll be a good one, gal.”

“I hope so.”

“Where are you going to school?”

“I’m going to start at Cruces in the fall.” She grimaced. “It’ll take three years or so to get my bachelor’s. That’ll give me time to decide if this is really something I want to do.”

“And then? After law school? Where are you going to make your millions? Wall Street?”

“Sure. I can see me in New York City, sir.”

“You’ll do fine anywhere. For selfish reasons, I can always hope you guys end up out here.”

“We’ll be here for a while,” she said. “One step at a time.”

I pulled into the parking lot of the sheriff’s office and cursed. Someone’s green Mitsubishi was in my parking spot. The sheriff’s Buick was carefully parked so that it took up not only Holman’s spot but half of another. All of the other spaces were taken as well.

“Don’t these people have anything goddamned better to do?” I muttered, and parked directly in front of the gasoline pumps.

As we got out of the truck and walked toward the building, Estelle hooked her hand through my elbow for ten paces and gave my arm an affectionate squeeze. “Take a deep breath and count to fifty, sir,” she said.

We walked through the door and instantly I wanted to be back home, snuggled in my warm, quiet den watching the second two-thirds of my one movie. Martin Holman stood in the short hallway that led to the dispatcher’s office. He was leaning with one elbow on top of the filing cabinet, the other hand hooked in his belt. His back was to the door.

Facing him, broad of beam and steel gray hair tied up in a tight, determined bun, was Marianna Perna. She was talking and Holman was listening, nodding in rhythm as if he was directing a band in two-two time. I didn’t know Mrs. Perna well, but had crossed tracks with her a time or two in the village offices where she worked as one of the billing clerks.

She was wagging her index finger under Holman’s nose, and I wondered how long she’d had him pegged there. Eight steps beyond Mrs. Perna and her hostage stood Robert Torrez. At first glance it looked as if he had wadded up and crumpled Glenn Archer into a corner, but I realized the high school principal was sitting on the edge of the small reports table, his arms folded across his chest. What surprised me most was that he was listening…and Deputy Torrez was talking.

Standing half in and half out of the dispatch room, which meant the rest of her was in my office, was Linda Rael. She had to be talking with someone interesting, since she wasn’t haunting either Holman or Archer.

Holman turned at the sound of the storm door slamming and relief flooded his face.

I nodded at Mrs. Perna, making sure my own expression was set in stone.

“Ma’am, I’ll need to talk with you in a bit,” I said before she had a chance to launch an attack at her new target. “Sheriff, can I have a minute? Let’s use my office.” I continued past them and beckoned to Glenn Archer. He wasn’t a happy camper, but he followed me without question.

“Bob, make sure Mrs. Perna stays close,” I said as I walked past the deputy. He nodded, but I was already headed for Linda Rael. She turned, saw me, and raised both eyebrows as if to say, “
Ah, here’s the scoop
.”

“Ms. Rael, you’ll have to excuse us for a few minutes,” I said. Sitting on the edge of my desk, looking as unperturbed as only a lawyer can, was Ron Schroeder, the district attorney we shared with two other rural counties who couldn’t afford their own.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I liked Schroeder. He worked hard, was a good listener, and didn’t make too many mistakes. Some of his plea bargain deals left me a little cold, but I knew the pressures on his office from district court.

“Bill, how you doin’” Schroeder said, pushing himself away from the desk. We shook hands.

“Ron, you know Glenn Archer, don’t you? Principal at the high school.”

“Of course. Glenn, good to see you.”

Holman started to close the door in Estelle’s face and I said, maybe just a shade too sharply, “I need the detective in on this, sheriff.” Holman looked at me, frowned, shrugged, then held the door for Estelle.

“I’m glad you showed up,” Holman said. He latched the door and leaned against it. The subconscious action wasn’t lost on me…Marianna Perna was on the other side, and she was pissed.

“How long have you been holding the kid?” Schroeder asked. He hooked one of the straight chairs over and sat down, leaning it back against the wall.

“We took him into custody at about two minutes after five,” I said. “Glenn, as the deputy no doubt told you, Richard Staples was arrested in the basement storage room under the gymnasium.”

“The deputy didn’t tell me much,” Archer said. He rubbed a hand across his bald head.

“I’m telling you now,” I said as pleasantly as I could. Archer always reminded me of the mousey little guys who played accountants for the mob in grade B movies. He’d been principal for eleven years, something of an accomplishment in Posadas…and he’d proven himself a bright, innovative educator.

“It appeared that Staples was hiding in the basement for protection. He was uncooperative when we found him.”

“That place is locked in a dozen places,” Archer said. “How’d he get in?”

I looked across at Estelle. “Would you go ask Deputy Torrez if he has had time to conduct a personal inventory search of Staples, and if he has, would you bring the envelope?”

She slipped out, closing the door quietly behind herself. I continued, “There was no sign of forced entry. The way that building is put together, there’s only one answer that’s plausible. Now, the reason I needed to meet with all of you gentlemen is a little sticky.” I stopped as the door opened. Estelle had a manila envelope in hand.

I took it and walked around behind my desk. The contents were lean—one thin wallet, three dimes, a nickel, seven pennies, a Buck pocket knife, and a key ring with six keys. I picked up the key ring.

“Best?” I said, glancing up at Archer. “The school keys are Best?”

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a jangling wad. “Yes,” he said, “and key shops won’t duplicate them, either.”

I held out Staples’s key ring to Archer. He took it and grunted. “How the hell did he get his hands on a double A master?”

“Maybe he’ll tell us that. What will that key open?”

“Anything on the west end of the campus, from the gymnasium to the kitchen. Even the little storage building behind the kitchen.”

“Any of the office space?”

Archer shook his head. “That’s another key series. But Staples could walk into the gymnasium any time he wanted. Weight room, furnace room, anywhere except the concession storage. That’s a padlock. The Boosters’ Club and I have a key to that.”

“So he had himself his own private hangout after hours,” Holman said. “But he didn’t take anything?”

Archer looked pained. “Who knows what we’ll find out when we really start looking, sheriff. You know how it is. A teacher reports this or that missing and what can we do? We don’t strip search the entire school. We tell the teachers not to leave money lying around, and lock up equipment when it’s not in use. But, like I said…who knows what we’ll find.”

I held up a hand. “We don’t have a whole lot of time until the sheriff, the district attorney, and I have to deal with young mister Staples’s guardian, so let me lay the cards out for you.” I sat down behind my desk.

“Estelle and I have good cause to believe that Richard Staples is somehow involved with the murders of Todd Sloan and Stuart Torkelson. I’m sure you’ve heard by the grapevine what’s been going on this weekend.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Glenn Archer said.

“No, I’m not kidding. We don’t have any solid connection yet, but I have a couple reasons to believe there’s an association. First—” I hesitated and looked at Archer. He was listening carefully. “Glenn, you can appreciate the confidentiality of this. Nothing we talk about in here can leave this room.”

“Of course.” He looked pained that I had had to say it.

“Good. First, Estelle and I interviewed Todd Sloan’s mother and her live-in boyfriend, Kenny Trujillo, after she identified the boy’s remains. They both indicated that Todd had been hanging around with Richard Staples a lot recently.”

Archer frowned, but said nothing.

“They said that if Todd Sloan had been involved in any of the break-ins we’ve had recently, that it might be because of that association with Richard.” I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But that establishes some kind of connection between the two, however tenuous. In a community this small, it’s only logical to expect that Richard would know something about Todd’s murder, even if he had no hand in committing it. Everyone follow?” I looked around the room.

“And second?” Archer asked.

“Second is even less substantial,” I said. “It was clear to both Detective Reyes-Guzman and me that Richard Staples was hiding when we found him…he sure as hell wasn’t having much of a party down there in the dark with all those antique desks. But he wasn’t hiding from us. At least I don’t think so.”

“What makes you sure?” Holman asked.

“For one thing, he didn’t have any real warning that we were coming. We did pull into the apartment parking lot about fifteen minutes before, but we then left without going in. We returned, as I said, in about fifteen minutes, but Staples wouldn’t have known we were coming back.” I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath.

“And even if he did know, he had no reason to hide. We were driving my civilian vehicle. When I went to his apartment to knock, there was nothing threatening in my bearing. I was in uniform, so he would have known who I was. Estelle remained in the vehicle. He could have just ignored us. He could have ignored my knock. Even an idiot would know that an old fat man isn’t going to break down the door.”

Ron Schroeder was the only one who smiled at that.

“I know it’s tenuous, but there are enough tidbits to warrant a good long talk with Mr. Staples. And that’s where I need some help.”

“Help?” Archer asked.

“Yes. No one throws a kid in jail for hiding in the basement of a school, especially if he used a key to gain entry and didn’t commit any vandalism or theft. He was just there, hiding like a scared rabbit.”

“I can understand that.”

“We need to establish what he knows, and that may take some time, it may take some threats, it may take some sweet talk. I don’t know this kid yet.”

“I can tell you a little about him,” Archer said. “He was suspended for truancy in November.”

“Suspended for truancy?” I said. “That’s an interesting concept.”

Archer was in no mood to discuss educational psychology. “He’s eighteen years old, and has enough credits to be a high school freshman.”

“You don’t need any credits to be a freshman, do you?” Holman asked.

“That’s the point,” the principal said. “Richard Staples attends school for the social and vocational benefits, not for anything else. And by vocational, I mean he’s a hell of a talented salesman. Whether the material he sells belongs to him is of little concern. But one thing surprises me in what you say, Mr. Gastner.” Archer rearranged himself on the chair.

“I’ve known both boys most of their lives. Todd Sloan was showing some signs, however small, of coming around. He’s in trouble a lot—I should say
was
in trouble a lot—for little things. But in the past semester he really showed some signs of trying. He was, what, fifteen? Maybe sixteen? That means he was two grade levels behind his age group. But this past semester he made the merit list. That doesn’t mean he had tremendous grades, necessarily. What it does mean is that at least three teachers singled him out as making commendable progress in some fashion.” Archer shrugged. “So, he was trying a little.”

“Did he hang around with Staples in school?” Schroeder asked.

“That’s what surprises me about all this. No, he didn’t. In fact, both boys were involved really early in the year in a fight of some kind. Sloan was a scrappy little kid. He got into trouble at the middle school for fighting all the time.” Archer shook his head. “I never saw the two together, except that one incident. I think it was in September. It was a ruckus in phys ed class and involved three or four other youngsters as well.”

“So if they were working together after hours, they kept the fact well disguised,” I said.

“Right.”

“Here’s the problem, then. We have no real reason to keep Staples in custody. Yeah, technically, he committed a couple of crimes by being in the school. But he caused no damage that we’re aware of, and no harm to another person.”

Archer nodded. Ron Schroeder leaned forward. “What Bill needs, Glenn, is for you to sign a formal complaint against Richard Staples. That way, he’s got cause to hold the young man until a preliminary arraignment with the magistrate. Granted, that will only take a few hours, or even less…but it might give these folks enough time to make some connections.”

The idea clearly made Glenn Archer uncomfortable. “And if I don’t? I mean, as you say, there isn’t much cause.”

“Well, that’s not really true,” the district attorney said. “We can hold him for questioning, especially since we’re investigating two capital crimes, and there is some probable cause to believe Staples is involved, however tangentially. It’s just that with a formal, signed complaint from you, any problems down the road are ruled out.”

“And think of it this way, Glenn,” I said. “If we’re right, and Richard Staples was hiding from someone else, his being in our custody might well keep him alive.”