“Mrs. Sisson, I can appreciate how difficult this is for you and your family,” I said, “but there are a couple of things I need to ask you that Deputy Mears didn’t.” I flipped a page in the notebook and stared down at the blank lined page.
“The arguments that you had with your husband on Tuesday…did they concern your daughter Jennifer?”
The question fell on silence and stayed there for about the count of ten, and then Grace snapped, “My God, where the hell do you get off?”
“Now, Gracie,” her father said. He’d been leaning against the fireplace, one elbow on the mantle, both hands clasped as if he were deep in prayer. Maybe he was.
“No, really,” Grace Sisson said, getting to her feet. “Now listen, just in case you’re stupid, Mr. Gastner—”
“I’m not.”
“Whatever. I already told you that what my husband and I argued about is no one’s business but our own. Period. End of story.”
She stepped onto the foyer tile with a sideways glance at Linda. I don’t know what kind of expression Grace expected Linda Real to wear in response to the woman’s performance, but Linda looked studiously unimpressed. Who knew—maybe Linda thought I was stupid, too.
Grace would have left the room without another word, I’m sure, but her daughter appeared around the corner, hesitating when she saw the look on her mother’s face. Jennifer Sisson was a cute kid, fifteen years old going on twenty-eight or so. She was barefoot, wearing a white halter top that advertised the considerable extent of her charms and a pair of white shorts that must have chafed like hell in hot weather. Her tanned midriff sported a little roll of fat, and her face was round and full.
“And none of this concerns you,” Grace snapped at her daughter. She took the girl’s elbow and started to turn her around but stopped and looked back at me. “I assume that we’re finished?”
“You assume wrong,” I said.
Grace Sisson didn’t exactly fit the mold of a widow trying to comfort her children from recent heartache, and I wondered what argument had led the pastor’s wife to flee the house with the other two youngsters.
“We’re all under a great deal of strain,” Stevenson said, and he pushed himself away from the fireplace. “Gracie, I really think you should just sit down here for a minute and hear the sheriff out. It won’t hurt to answer a question or two.”
“I’ve answered everything I need to answer,” Grace said. “A stupid accident killed my husband.” She glared at me. “And if you can figure out how to wave a magic wand to pay the mortgage, the car payments, the dental bills, machinery loans, and the God knows what all else, then maybe we’ve got something to talk about. Otherwise, I’m tired.”
“Now that’s interesting,” I said, and grinned a little. I took another step toward Grace and her daughter, thrust my hands in my pockets, and looked at them both over the tops of my glasses.
Grace managed about a three-second scrutiny before she snapped, “What’s interesting?”
I took my time, watching Grace closely, assessing. The woman favored blunt, so that was the way I decided to play it. “Mrs. Sisson, we’re investigating your husband’s death as a homicide.”
The sound of that last word had the desired effect—as if the woman had been struck between the eyes with a ball-peen hammer. Her eyes widened with the initial shock, then narrowed with disbelief. “Now where…now where did this fairy tale come from?” she asked.
“It’s pretty simple, really,” I said gently. “Someone came onto your property Tuesday night while Jim was working out back. The report from the medical examiner isn’t finished yet, but we have every reason to believe that your husband was crushed under that tire intentionally. Someone was there. And someone probably knows who.”
Mel Stevenson strode swiftly across the room and reached out to take his daughter by each arm. He leaned forward and looked hard into her eyes. “Grace,” he managed, and then choked. He cleared his throat. “Sheriff, are you certain of all this?”
“Reasonably so, yes.”
“My God.”
“Mrs. Sisson, you can see why we need to know some basic information. Any detail, regardless of how trivial it may seem to you, might help us find your husband’s killer.”
It was a standard spiel, and I said it in place of what I really wanted to say—something simple like
Mrs. Sisson, do you know how to operate a backhoe?
But there would be time for that later.
“You honestly think that someone came into our yard and killed my husband?” she asked. “While the three children and I were in the house?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why is it impossible?” I asked. “You said yourself that you weren’t aware of what was going on outside.”
“I said I didn’t hear anything. That’s different.”
I shrugged and glanced at my watch. “Mrs. Sisson, we’re pressed for time. Given the nature of the case, my best advice to you would be to stay available.” I smiled helpfully. “The district attorney will probably want to talk to you about what you remember…or don’t.”
Grace Sisson shook off her father’s hands. “I need to talk with my own lawyer,” she said. “I’m going home.”
She turned and marched out of the room, daughter in tow.
“Grace, I think it’s time. We’re not gaining anything this way,” her father called after her.
The woman turned at the sound of her father’s voice, and I was taken aback at the venom. “Now that’s enough,” she said, and her voice had sunk to a whisper. “I’m going home.”
Mel Stevenson turned away from the hall, and his eyes were pleading. “I guess it would be easier if I just said this was none of my business,” he said. “But it is my business. Grace is my daughter, and I don’t want to see her hurt. Or the children, either.”
The man was obviously working up to something, and I said, “Sir, the more we know, the easier it will be for everyone.”
Stevenson sighed and held his hand to his forehead. “This is easy when it’s someone else.”
“Sure.”
With a final rub of his head, he stepped up close and reached out a hand, letting it rest on my right shoulder. “You have children, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Any teens?”
I smiled. “Grandchildren. My oldest daughter is forty-seven next month.”
“Then you understand just a little of all this.” He dropped his hand. “My granddaughter is pregnant, Sheriff.” He held up a hand when he saw the puzzled look on my face. “I know, I know. In this day and age, it happens all the time. But that doesn’t make it any less crushing. It’s always easy to tsk-tsk when it’s someone else’s youngster—because obviously
they
didn’t do an adequate job as parents.” He smiled thinly. “So there you are. That’s what Jim and Grace were arguing about. I’m sure it was quite a war. I’m glad I didn’t have to hear it.”
He walked off into the middle of the living room and stopped, facing the fireplace. “I really liked Jim Sisson,” he said softly. “He was always such a gentleman around the wife and me.”
I glanced at Linda and nodded at the door. She reached out for the door handle, and the sound of the latch brought Stevenson back to the present. “Do me a favor,” I said. “Do what you can to keep Grace here. She’s talking about going back to Posadas, and she’s in no mental condition to be doing that. If she takes off anyway, give me a call right away.” I pulled a business card out of my shirt pocket and extended it to him. “That way, we can have an officer keep her in sight. Keep her out of trouble, maybe.”
He nodded and took the card. “What a mess,” he muttered.
“And it wouldn’t hurt if she did give her family lawyer a call, Reverend. She’s going to be needing legal advice about a whole slew of things anyway.”
Stevenson frowned and looked sideways at me. “Do you believe she’s involved in some way, Sheriff?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, and it was obvious that wasn’t the answer Stevenson wanted to hear.
He followed me out the door. The evening was still hot, even with the sun ducking behind the houses across the street.
I stopped at the edge of the lawn, looking at the Sisson’s Suburban. “Did you drive up to Posadas to pick up Grace and the kids, or did she drive them down?”
Stevenson shook his head. “One of the neighbors brought them down. I believe one of them drove the Suburban and the other followed in their own car. I appreciated what they did, but I don’t even remember who it was now. Things were so…” He twisted his hand in a whirlwind motion.
“For sure,” I said, “Reverend, thanks a lot. You call me, now, if she does something foolish.”
He nodded wearily and went back inside.
“Wow,” Linda Real said as we settled into 310. I lowered the window while the air conditioning spooled into action. “Wow,” she said again.
“Such fun, eh?” I said.
“She is a real first-class, certified A-number-one witch.” Linda looked over at me in amazement.
“And a great job you did at keeping a straight face,” I added, and pulled 310 into gear.
“Do you think she’s going to drive back?”
“Yes. For one thing, it’s going to take her about fifty years to forgive her father for spilling the beans.”
I drove round the block, took the next two intersections to the left, and pulled up beside the marked Las Cruces police cruiser parked at 2190 Vista del Campo. An officer who made Thomas Pasquale look like a middle-aged veteran peered across at me.
“Officer, I’m Sheriff Gastner from Posadas.”
“Yes, sir,” he said eagerly. “I called in when you arrived, and the sergeant said that you and the detective were here.”
I nodded and gestured at the Suburban down the block. “We’ve got a distraught woman, Officer. She says that she’s going to drive back to Posadas tonight, and she’s about the last person who should be on the highway. The whole mess is a real time bomb. Maybe they’ll sort it all out, I don’t know. Just keep a close watch. If she takes off, I’d appreciate knowing it. And I’d appreciate it if you’d give her a close escort and then hand her over to the state police. Make sure that she can see you. Maybe that will help her pay attention.”
“Yes, sir.”
I nodded. “Good man. And, Officer…kid gloves, all right? That’s a pretty bruised family.”
“Yes, sir.”
I gave him an informal salute and we drove up the street. We passed 2121, and I was glad that I wasn’t spending my evening in that place.
“It’ll be interesting to know who drove her down here,” Linda Real murmured as we drove by the house, and I looked at her in surprise. “She was certainly ready to tell all the neighbors to go to hell. But obviously there’s someone looking out for her.”
I grinned. “The officer was right about you,” I said.
“Sir?” Linda said, but I decided to let her wonder about it.
While Linda and I drove back toward Posadas, Grace Sisson’s Suburban didn’t move from her father’s driveway in Las Cruces. I could imagine the storm clouds that hung inside that house—and I was sure that matters wouldn’t improve when Marjorie, the eldest daughter, arrived home. The raw wounds would be scratched again, with another dose of advice and another round of slammed doors and things said that would be regretted later.
For now, Grace Sisson’s problems with her wayward daughter weren’t my concern—except that it didn’t take a Ph.D. in family counseling to imagine what spark had touched off the day-long war at the Sisson household. I guessed that Jim Sisson had been the last to find out about Jennifer, and when he had, he’d blown his top.
“No wonder Jim wasn’t paying attention where he drove that front loader,” I said to Linda. “If he was fuming all day long about Jennifer, it’s anybody’s guess what kind of plumbing job Bucky Randall was getting.”
Linda was driving—for one thing, she talked a little less when she was behind the wheel. But more important, even with just one eye, her night vision was a thousand percent better than mine, especially when the headlights bounced off the intermittent sheen of water left on the asphalt by the storm.
“Maybe Jennifer’s boyfriend,” Linda mused.
“Maybe her boyfriend what?”
“Maybe he came over to talk with Jim Sisson and the two of them argued.”
“I find that hard to imagine,” I said. “First of all, the usual behavior of the young male is to either deny responsibility or run and hide. No kid is going to seek out an enraged dad late at night to try and smooth things over.”
“Assuming it was a kid,” Linda said.
“Assuming that, yes. And assuming that Jim’s death was linked to his daughter’s entanglements in the first place. I can imagine him wanting to thrash the kid involved with his daughter, and maybe he did take a swing. And maybe the kid swung back. Who the hell knows? But the events that followed don’t fit that picture.” I sighed.
“What a goddam mess. What keeps me thinking that Jim Sisson’s death is somehow linked to his daughter’s love life is Grace Sisson’s attitude. If she’s heartbroken about losing her husband, the heartbreak hasn’t bubbled to the surface yet. She’s clearly in a rage about her pregnant daughter. That’s all she’s thinking about.”
Linda shrugged. “But isn’t that sort of thing always supposed to happen to someone else’s kid, not your own? I can imagine that when Jennifer popped the news, it stopped the Sissons’ world from turning for a while.” She glanced over at me. “I’m surprised that the girl even said anything, knowing what her mom’s reaction was bound to be.”
I frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that. But maybe she didn’t see much of an alternative.”
“And maybe it was the boy’s father who tangled with Jim,” Linda said.
“Maybe, maybe.” I sighed. “What I’d give for a single clear fingerprint right now.”
We started down the interstate exit ramp toward the village of Posadas, the headlights picking up large puddles standing on the uneven pavement of Grande Avenue.
I leaned forward, turned on the police radio, and was greeted by silence. “Either it’s a quiet evening or lightning blew out the transmitter again,” I said. “Go ahead and swing by your house. I’ll take the car back. I’ll be at the office for a while if you think of something I missed in our conversation with Mrs. Congeniality.”
The car was rolling to a halt in the middle of a fair-sized lake on 3rd Street when the cell phone chirped.
“Gastner.”
“Sir,” Ernie Wheeler said, “Las Cruces PD called. Mrs. Sisson and one child left the Vista del Campo address and are headed westbound on the interstate. State police are keeping an eye on her for us.”
“All right. Make sure a deputy is clear to take the handoff. And, Ernie…as long as Grace Sisson behaves herself, there’s to be no intercept. Just keep an eye on her. Make sure the deputy understands that. When she’s home safe, we’ll figure out what we want to do.”
“Yes, sir. And you have two other calls. Estelle Reyes-Guzman would like you to get back to her this evening. She said it didn’t matter how late.”
I grinned when I heard that. I had four children, all long grown and gone. I cheerfully counted Estelle as a fifth, and her two Utile monsters were closer to grandchildren than the godchildren that they actually were. “Who else?”
“Leona Spears spent an hour or two in the office earlier this evening, then left. She said that when you got back, she wanted to talk to you. She left a number.”
“I’ll be in the office in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
I clicked off the phone and tossed it on the seat. Linda was already out of the car, stepping carefully to avoid being sucked into the morass of the front yard. I got out, navigating around the lake that Linda had chosen as a parking spot. The air smelled good, heavy with a thousand desert fragrances turned loose by the pummeling rain.
“Linda,” I called, “thanks for riding along. We’ll see you after a bit.”
I had slid halfway into the car when I saw her standing on the small front step, keys in hand, frowning.
“What’s the matter?”
She turned to look at me. “The key doesn’t work.”
“Try the right one.”
“I did.” She bent down, peering at the lock. If she’d left the porch light on, that would have helped. The nearest streetlight was fifty yards away, providing not much more than shadows.
I picked up my flashlight and walked across the yard, grimacing at the squelching sound of mud under my feet. “Have some light.” I said. She held up the small collection of keys—no more than half a dozen at most.
“This is the house key,” she said, and held it up. She turned and tried to thrust it in the front door slot. “No dice. It doesn’t even go in.”
“Let me see,” I said. The key included a large stamped
M
design on the flat just under the ring hole. I bent down and peered at the front door lock. “Bates,” I said.
“That’s not the one that was there before,” Linda said.
I straightened up. “Someone changed the lock?” I turned and looked at Linda Real. “Was Tom going to do that?”
“If he was, he didn’t say anything to me,” she said. “And even if he was, he wouldn’t bother do to it right in the middle of his work shift.” She took the keys from my hand and held up the Martin key. “This one worked when you and I left.”
I chuckled weakly. “Ah.”
“What, sir?”
“I would guess that Carla Champlin has the answer.”
“She can’t do that, can she?” Linda rattled the doorknob. “She can’t just change the locks, can she?”
“Apparently she did just that,” I said. “Did you try the back door?”
“This place doesn’t have a back door.”
“Or a window?”
With a disgusted mutter, Linda made her way around the house. I followed with the flashlight. Sure enough, one of the west windows was open, the curtain hanging sodden and limp.
“Looks like a little rain got in,” I observed, and that prompted another mutter from Linda.
“I forgot to close it when we left,” she said. She pushed the flimsy aluminum window fully open and, with a youthful agility that I could only dream about, clambered inside. The physical therapists had evidently done a fine job on her injured shoulder. In a moment, light flooded the room.
“Yuck,” I heard her say.
“What’s the matter?”
“It really did rain,” she said. “What a mess.”
I refrained from sticking my head through the window to marvel at Linda’s problem. Instead, I rapped the flashlight lightly on the windowsill. “I’ll be at the office if you need anything.” I didn’t offer to call Carla Champlin for her—that was an experience the kids needed to enjoy themselves.