The state’s regional crime lab in Las Cruces was efficient and dedicated, but they couldn’t create what didn’t exist.
On the original letters, the fingerprints were easy to match. The addressee’s prints were clear in each case, and in one instance where I’d been careless with Dr. Gray’s copy, one of my own thumbs had left a record. Sam Carter’s letter bore several prints, both his and an unidentified second party’s.
Taffy Hines had been true to her word. She stopped by the Sheriff’s Department on her way to work and allowed Brent Sutherland to lift a set of prints. He managed the task in the sort of self-conscious, clumsy way that rookies do until they’ve processed about a hundred sets. I looked at the card when he’d finished, pretended that I could see all the little swirls, gigs, and arches, and nodded approval.
Deputy Mears was our resident fingerprint expert, and he’d do a formal comparison when he came in at 4:00. But my eyes were good enough to convince me that the unidentified prints were Taffy’s. That made perfect sense and supported her contention that she’d handled the letter when it was offered to her by Sam Carter.
Other than that, nothing. Whoever had sent the letters, or dropped them off, had been careful…very careful. And that in itself answered some questions. Whoever had sent the sorry little notes had been just as concerned that he or she not be caught as with having the notes read by all the right people.
Even before the morning sun had a chance to heat up the garbage and flies in the alley behind Carter’s Family SuperMarket, Deputies Richard Johnson and Sutherland, who claimed to have nothing better to do once Gayle Sedillos took day dispatch, were sifting methodically through the dumpster, looking for a plain, white number-10 envelope.
I was willing to bet a month’s pay that no postmarked envelope existed. What was the point, I reasoned, in hand-delivering all but Sam Carter’s copy, trusting only that one to the postal service? All of the notes had arrived at their destinations in plain white envelopes, unsealed, unstamped, unpostmarked. I had no reason to suspect that Sam’s would be different.
The garbage excavation was probably a massive waste of time, considering the other drains on our resources at that moment. But I had my reasons. Bob Torrez was heading the investigation into the death of Jim Sisson, and when he needed me to do something specific for him, he’d say so.
Much of my interest in the Pasquale notes, I cheerfully admitted, was ego. I wasn’t about to let someone smear a department of which I was justifiably proud during the final months of my tenure—and I wasn’t about to let someone ruin the career of a young man who’d done nothing wrong, beyond having his name come to mind.
If we found the plain envelope, with no evidence of its having been mailed, I knew damn well what Sam Carter would say:
“Sorry, boys. My mistake. I guess it wasn’t mailed, after all. But it came into my office with the mail, heh, heh, so I guess that’s what I meant.”
And if we found nothing at all?
“Well, gosh, boys, I know it was there. You must have just missed it.”
At least the three of us provided some comic relief for folks driving to work who glanced toward the rear of the supermarket and saw me standing beside the dumpster, directing the efforts of the two dump rats inside.
We were lucky—or rather the deputies were lucky, since they were the ones who climbed inside to smell the roses. The dumpsters held primarily commercial waste—crushed boxes and the like, with a few little soggy, smelly, rotting surprises.
By 9:15, we’d—they’d—reached the bottom of all three units. Sam Carter had the grace not to come outside to say,
“Well, you must have just missed it.”
Brent was exploring one last corner when the undersheriff’s patrol car idled to a stop beside mine. Bob Torrez got out, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Now, this is interesting,” he said, and I shrugged.
“You never know where your next meal comes from, Robert,” I said.
“Oh, yes, I do,” he said, and he didn’t have to elaborate. I knew that Gayle Torrez could manufacture her own brand of magic in the kitchen, and I was surprised that the undersheriff’s waistline hadn’t started to spread after even a short period of marital bliss.
“Any luck?” Bob added.
“No.”
“Do you think Sam Carter is lying?”
“Yes.”
“Any ideas why?”
“Other than the obvious political ones, no. Except it might just be in his nature. I think he’s embarrassed that he got caught being indiscreet.”
Torrez leaned against the front fender of his car and folded his arms across his chest. “Speaking of being indiscreet, I’ve got a couple of things that I need to run by you, when you have a chance.”
I grinned at him and stepped away from the dumpster, trying without success to avoid the greasy chocolate puddle strategically placed in front of it. I swore and stamped some of the muck off my shoes.
“What did you find out?”
He turned and reached inside the car for one of his black vinyl notepads. “First of all, I swung by Vicente Garcia’s, just on the off-chance that he might talk to me, and on the off-chance that the Sissons had some other insurance with State Mutual besides their auto policies.”
“Why shouldn’t Garcia talk to you?” I chuckled. “He’s your cousin.”
“Well, but professional ethics, you know. Vicente did ask me if I was going to get a court order if he didn’t answer my questions, and I told him that either I would or the district attorney would. I told him I’d go get one right then, if it’d make him feel better. I guess that was good enough for him. Besides, it turns out it might be in his company’s best interests.”
“Let me guess,” I said, half-turned to watch Brent Sutherland vault out of the dumpster. “There’s some life insurance.”
“Yep. State Mutual holds the Sissons’ auto, home, business, and life. The whole package.”
“How much life insurance?”
“Not all that big a deal. One hundred thousand is the limit on either spouse.” He flipped open the notebook and scanned his figures. “No double indemnity or anything fancy like that.”
“But still a nice, round figure,” I said. “How old is the policy?”
“They took it out eight years ago.”
I frowned. “Huh. Nothing recent, then.”
“No, sir. They took it out four years after their youngest kid was born. Vicente Garcia said that the kid needed some expensive corrective orthopedic surgery on one leg, and Jim and Grace took out the policy then, in case something should happen to one or both of them. The kid’s needs would be provided for, no matter what.”
“Smart planning,” I said. “If either of them dies, the surviving spouse gets a hundred grand. They had health insurance?”
“Yes, but not with State Mutual. It’s that HMO that the chamber of commerce sponsors.”
“Makes sense. So they were well insured, from A to Z. Someone knew how to plan. Grace and the kids are provided for…at least for the near future. A hundred thousand is no fortune, but it’ll stretch quite a ways, if you do it carefully.”
“Right. Unless there’s a crime involved. Vicente said his company is holding off until we’re finished with our investigation. If it’s murder, then Grace’s only recourse is a civil action against the killer’s estate.”
I nodded. “Interesting. What else?”
Before he could answer, Sutherland and Johnson appeared at my elbow after heaving the last of the boxes back into the dumpsters. I held up my hands helplessly. “Thanks, gentlemen. Sorry it didn’t pay off.”
With exquisite timing, the solid back door of the supermarket opened as the two deputies were driving off in Johnson’s patrol car. Sam Carter raised a finger in salute and minced around the puddles toward Torrez and me.
“So,” he said, “nothing?” He managed to sound disappointed.
“Nothing, Sam. But, as I said before, no big deal. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”
“Well, if it turns up…” he said, and let the thought drift off.
“Robert, how are you?” He stretched out his hand, and Torrez gave it a brief, polite pump, letting a nod suffice as an answer.
“Is Kenny still living at home?” the undersheriff asked, and the question was such an abrupt change of subject that for a few heartbeats Sam Carter went blank.
“Kenneth?”
“Yes. Your son.”
The grocer’s mental gears meshed and he nodded. “Oh, yeah. Well…I should say most of the time. When there’s laundry for his mother to do, and when he gets hungry.” Carter smiled lamely. “You know how they are. Why? I mean, why do you ask?”
Torrez tossed the black notebook back on the front seat of his car and then straightened up. He was a full head taller than Sam Carter, and he leaned his elbow on the roof of the patrol car and regarded the chairman of the county commission for a moment.
“He was spending quite a bit of time with Jennifer Sisson. I’d like to talk with him, see if I can clear up a few things.”
Carter’s head jerked with disapproval. “I guess there are probably a lot of girls that he spends time with, and as far as I know, the Sisson girl might well be one of them. I don’t know. But what did you need to clear up? What kinds of things?”
“One of the deputies saw your son that night and Jennifer Sisson as well. There’s a chance that they spent some time together. If there’s even a remote possibility that Kenny knows something or heard something, then I need to talk to him.”
Carter grimaced. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You guys are really on a wild-goose chase with this one.”
Torrez and I both looked at Carter with renewed interest.
“And now why is that, Sam?” I said.
“Well, Christ, the man got careless and dropped a big tire on himself. Everybody says that’s what happened. Stupid thing to do, working late like that, bad light. Somebody told me they’d been arguing all day, so Jim’s upset. Hell, I can see that. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“Maybe so,” I mused. “But until we clear up all the inconsistencies, then we’re just going to plod along.”
Sam Carter, chairman of the county commission and successful supermarket owner, drew himself up to his full five feet, eight inches and painted on his best sanctimonious face, the one he used in commission meetings when some worthy agency was asking for a budget increase. “Just remember, Sheriff, that you’ve got a widow and four children sitting at home. Don’t plod too slowly.”
“I’m sure they’ll be well taken care of,” I said.
Carter nodded slowly. “I’m asking the Posadas State Bank to initiate an account for them, so we have someplace to put donations.”
“That’s good.” I didn’t bother to add that it was going to be interesting to see just how much sympathy and goodwill Grace Sisson’s acid tongue would reap. “She’s got some close friends, I’m sure.” I knew of one, but Taffy Hines didn’t fit my description of a deep-pocketed financial benefactor.
“Where’s Kenny working this summer? Out of town somewhere?” Bob Torrez asked.
“Yes, he is,” Sam said. “He’s got just a few weeks left until he goes back to school. He’s working with LaCrosse, over in Deming.”
“Then maybe I’ll swing by this afternoon, when he gets home. You might tell him I need to talk with him.” Torrez reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card, handing it to Carter.
“If I haven’t seen him by the time you do, have him give me a call.”
Carter nodded. “OK. I don’t know what he can tell you, but I’ll mention it to him.”
When Carter had gone back inside, Torrez looked at me and grinned. “You want odds that Kenny Carter knocked up the Sisson kid?”
“No,” I said. “And I wonder if Sam Carter knows.”
“Probably not.”
“Parents are usually the last ones to hear the joyous news,” I said. “And I can’t imagine that Kenny would have gone over to confront Jim Sisson, either. That doesn’t fit what kids do.”
“It’s interesting that he works for LaCrosse, though.”
“Which LaCrosse are you talking about?”
“LaCrosse Construction, over in Deming. Lots of heavy equipment.” He smiled and opened the door of his car. “Good place for a little experience. Maybe the kid’s got some talent with a backhoe that LaCrosse doesn’t know about.”
We didn’t wait for the afternoon. Fifteen minutes after we left Sam Carter and his Dumpsters, we were headed up the ramp to the eastbound interstate and the thirty-minute jog to Deming.
It wasn’t that Kenny Carter had jumped to the top of any suspect list we wished that we had. But trouble in the Sisson household either centered around or was at least exacerbated by daughter Jennifer. She was their own little tropical depression, waiting to blossom. Kenny Carter was right smack in the eye of Jennifer.
Years before—hell, decades and decades before—I had been half of the team that coped with four teenagers, including two daughters. And I suppose there had been times when I viewed any teenage boys other than my own who roamed near our home as potential predators who had my daughters’ virtue in their sights.
Those days had passed, and both daughters had managed to survive adolescence, early loves and breakups, the stresses of college, and, finally, the early years of their own marriages without putting the family through seven versions of hell.
The Sissons hadn’t been so lucky, if luck was what it took. The script for
Life with Jennifer
might have been enough to drive Jim out into the dark solitude of the backyard, where he could take his fury out on something that didn’t talk back.
I could well imagine that if Jim Sisson had suspicions about Kenny Carter’s relations with Jennifer and if young Kenny had wandered into the yard that night wanting to talk to his girlfriend’s old man, then fireworks could well have followed.
If that scenario was true, one thing was certain: The boy hadn’t hung around the Sisson premises afterward, holding the grieving Jennifer’s hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually seen Kenny Carter—and I certainly hadn’t caught sight of him that night when we’d responded to the domestic dispute call. If he’d been there, the Sisson women, Jennifer included, were keeping mum. And that in itself was excuse enough for a chat with the lad.
I didn’t know Kenneth Carter well. I could pick him out of a crowd of teens, but that was about all. I didn’t know his habits. But he was a connection, tenuous as it might be. State Trooper Mike Rhodes knew a little of the relationship between his nephew and Jennifer, had seen them together enough that it had lodged in his memory. Sam Carter, the ever patient father, would probably be the last one to know—especially since he impressed me as the kind of father who wore pretty solid blinders when it came to his own kid.
“It’s interesting,” I said to Bob Torrez as we hurtled toward Deming, “that Kenny Carter didn’t work for Sisson.”
Torrez frowned. “Jim had two employees,” he said. “And bank records show that he was overextended. So I don’t know. One more wage, even at minimum, might have been more than he could take.”
“How much extended?”
“For this last financial quarter he had to take out a small loan just to meet the payroll obligations…let alone anything else.”
“You haven’t wasted any time,” I said.
“Judge Hobart was cooperative, as usual.” Torrez grinned. “And so was Penny Arguile, at the bank, once the court order was processed that allowed us in to look at the records.”
“Any big creditors knocking at the door?”
Torrez shook his head. “It seems to me more like a gradual buildup. Sort of like a rockslide. First a pebble or two, then some bigger, then bigger, then bigger. Pretty soon Jim’s got the whole hillside crashing down on top of him.” He glanced over at me.
“With some help, of course.”
“Grace Sisson was concerned about that,” I said. “That new front loader was one of the first things she mentioned when we talked to her this afternoon in Cruces. I would guess the damn thing was a bone of contention between Jim and her.”
“A twenty-seven-thousand-dollar bone,” Torrez agreed. “God knows what a new machine that size would cost, but a used one is bad enough. The bank records show it’s an ’82 model. Twenty-seven grand for a piece of machinery that’s eighteen years old.” He shook his head in wonder.
“Did you talk with Penny about that loan in particular?”
“She said the bank floated the paper with ‘some misgivings.’ They let Jim sign a five-year note, and she said that was longer than the bank likes to go. He asked for ten, but they refused.”
“So on top of everything else, on top of all his other debts, on top of his payroll, he’s paying out a chunk of money every month for that loan.”
“Five hundred and twenty-eight dollars and eleven cents, give or take. That’s at nine point seven five percent interest.”
“Jesus. He must have been planning to move a lot of dirt to pay for that.”
“Among other things, he was one of the bidders on the village’s project to extend the water line back behind your place, over on Escondido.”
“That’s nickel-dime stuff, though. A single ditch, maybe a mile of pipe at the most. A few trees to knock over, a little arroyo to fill. That’s if he won the bid in the first place. The profit from the whole job wouldn’t pay for one year’s payments on that machine.”
Torrez shrugged. “Maybe he was one of those folks who just loved machines.”
I shifted against the seat belt so I could rest my right elbow on the windowsill. “And young Kenny? What do we know about him?”
“We know that if he’s very lucky, he might graduate next year. He’s about a year behind, give or take.”
I looked at Torrez with surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“An active social calendar.” Torrez grinned. “According to the principal, the kid has taken about all the vocational courses the school has to offer.”
“Which isn’t much.”
“No. But that means Kenny’s stuck with taking stuff like history and English and science if he wants to graduate.”
“Well, gee, what a shame,” I said. “And probably math…and stuff. How unfair can you get. He can’t just weld himself out of high school. At least he’s stuck with it so far. He hasn’t dropped out.”
“So far.”
“And Jennifer Sisson is going to be a sophomore.”
Torrez nodded. “If she stays in school.”
“They’ll be a cute couple along about February,” I said. “What other names do we have?”
“Jim Sisson’s two employees. Aurelio Baca has been with him for almost ten years and Rudy Alvaro is going on three. Both good, steady men. I don’t know too much about Baca except that he’s on a green card and lives just across the border, in Palomas. He’s got his own small plumbing business that he runs down there, on the side.”
“And Rudy?”
“He used to work for the village before he went over to Sisson’s. He’s one of my wife’s cousins.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” I said. “Did both men work Tuesday?”
Torrez nodded. “Baca left for Palomas at about ten after five. Rudy was still finishing up a few things over at the Randall job at six. He went straight home from there. He helped Jim trailer the front loader.”
“Did he come back to the yard to help him take it off?”
“He told me that Jim said he didn’t need to come back to the yard, that Jim thought that he could do it just fine by himself.”
“So nothing about either Baca or Alvaro piques your curiosity,” I said. “No loose ends?”
Torrez shook his head. “Not a thing.”
“Had Jim ever missed a payroll?”
“Nope. The Sissons have been rotating their utilities for a while—make the phone wait a month, then make the electric stand in line—but they’ve paid both Baca and Alvaro each week.”
“Huh.” I let my head slump back against the headrest. In the distance I could see the flat spread of buildings that marked Deming. “You think we’re wrong about this?”
“About Sisson’s death not being an accident, you mean? Not a chance, sir. Not a chance.” He glanced in the mirror and let the car drift into the right lane.
“People have been crushed accidentally by things like that before.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure they have. Heavy equipment thinks up all kinds of neat ways to kill the operator. And if Jim had been found right close to the machine, maybe crushed up against the axle or something, I might have believed it. But not this way. The distances don’t make sense for it to have happened solo. My gut feeling is that someone took an opportunity, figuring that any investigation would just take the easy route. Big machine, dangerous wheel and tire combination, careless chain hookup. A dozen ways an accident could happen. But…” He stopped and thumped the rim of the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “If I’m wrong, you can let Leona Spears have the job in November.”
“Don’t say that, even in jest,” I said.