Benny Fernandez had opened Burger Heaven seventeen years before, and for a few years the business had blossomed into one of the most successful teen hangouts in Posadas. Benny had understood some basics about a kid business: give ’em lots of food for not very much money and free refills on the watery fountain drinks, and don’t harass ’em when they get so noisy that they drive out the adults. That was his policy.
When Benny died in 1991, his wife had tried to carry on, but she had mistakenly believed that high school kids could be prim and proper, quiet, and well behaved. She’d raised prices and improved food quality, cleaned the place up, and restored order—and lost business. Five years later, she’d sold the place to Nick Chavez’s nephew.
Nick owned the Chevy-Olds dealership across the street, and if nothing else, Buddy Chavez could count on his Uncle Nick to send the salesmen and service crew across at lunchtime. But Buddy Chavez was also smart. He turned up the music, piled on the fries, used humongous cups, and brought back free refills. He didn’t care if kids were rowdy, and he kept the place open at night until the Posadas police cruiser drove by to remind him about the curfew.
I stepped into Burger Heaven and sucked in my gut, remembering with a pang of longing just how good all that stuff with quadruple-digit cholesterol tasted. The smell of deep-frier grease three days past its prime hung heavy in the air.
For a summer weekday dinner hour, the place was busy. Two brave tourists—white-maned, with white pasty northern skin, she in an orange jumpsuit and he in white seersucker trousers and a golf shirt—were the only folks I didn’t know.
Buddy Chavez saw me, gave the table he was wiping a final negligent swipe with the cloth, and headed my way, pausing just long enough to twirl the soggy cloth into a snap for one of the three kids sitting near the jukebox.
“Hey, Sheriff,” he said, and the elderly tourists heard him and gave me the once-over. I sort of wished that I had been wearing spurs or something equally authentic.
“Buddy, let’s talk,” I said, and took him by the elbow, gently steering him toward the small office off the kitchen. He shouted something to one of the counter kids about the air bottle in the diet Coke dispenser and then shrugged at me.
“You got to keep after ’em every minute,” he said. The office door had sagged enough that it wouldn’t latch, but Buddy banged it into the jamb so it stayed closed. He motioned me toward a chair.
“No, I won’t be a minute. I need to know something about Jennifer Sisson, Buddy.”
“Jeez, wasn’t that an awful thing, though,” Buddy said. He was carrying fifty pounds too many, and he dabbed at the sweat on his neck. The closed door shut off the icy cold air from the restaurant, and the west side wall of his office was radiating heat into the room like a sauna.
“Jennifer came in here earlier. In fact, just a few minutes ago.”
Buddy frowned. “She did?”
I smiled at him. “You’ve been here all afternoon?”
“Sure. Since ten this morning.”
“Then you know she was here.”
“Well, okay. I saw her. Sure.”
“Who did she leave with?”
“Hey now, I don’t keep track—”
I cut him off. “Buddy, look. It’s no big deal. You told deputies a couple of days ago that you didn’t hear or see anything across at the Sissons’, and I believe that. Hell, it was dark, and whatever happened over there took place in the backyard, out of sight. But Jennifer Sisson came in here today, sometime around five-thirty.”
He nodded vigorously, and the fat under his chin shook. “She was here, Sheriff. Honest to God.” He held up his hands plaintively, as if he wished the one answer might end the conversation and let him off the hook.
“I know that,” I said patiently. “I asked who she left with.”
“Why would I know that?”
“Because you do, Buddy. You’re being evasive, and you’re sweating like you’re standing out in the sun.” I smiled pleasantly at him again. “And in a minute, I’m going to start wondering why.”
Buddy Chavez leaned against the door. “Look, Sheriff. I don’t want to start anything. I really don’t. Just ask the girl who she was with. That makes more sense. Or Jennifer.”
“It might make sense,” I said, “if I can find her. If some helpful soul hasn’t dumped her in a ditch somewhere.”
Buddy’s eyes opened wide and he paled a shade or two. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m too tired to kid anyone,” I said. “Who was she with?”
He gulped a time or two and then managed to say, “I think it was Sam Carter.” He could see the surprise on my face, I’m sure.
“You think? You
think
that it was Sam Carter?”
“Well, he didn’t actually come in. I was cleaning off a table, and I saw him pull into the parking lot, over there by the light pole. At first I didn’t recognize him…Well, I mean I didn’t recognize the vehicle. Well, I mean I did, but I thought it was somebody else’s. His kid’s maybe. That red Jeep Wrangler that Kenny Carter drives all the time. I thought it was probably Kenny. But then he opened the door just a bit, and he kinda waved, like this.” He held out his hand, palm up, and flexed the fingers rapidly.
“And at that point you recognized the person as Sam Carter?”
Buddy nodded. “Sure. Jennifer had picked up her order and was sitting with a group of kids over on that six top,” and he motioned toward a table at the east end of the restaurant “over by the door. She got up and left, and I saw her get in the car.”
“Why were you watching her, in particular?”
Buddy Chavez looked embarrassed. “Hell of a body, you know?”
“And fifteen years old, Buddy.”
He shrugged.
“You’re sure about the car.”
He nodded.
“And you’re sure it was Sam Carter. Not Kenny.”
He nodded, pursing his lips as if he knew something else juicy. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“You didn’t hear her say, ‘Here’s my ride,’ or something like that?”
“No. She just got up and I heard her say, ‘I gotta go. My mom’s waiting.’ And then she skipped out.”
“But her mom wasn’t in the car.”
“No.”
“You didn’t see anyone else in that Jeep with Sam? Maybe someone else sitting on the passenger side?”
“He was by himself. The back window on that rig was unzipped. You know the way they drive around with it out. I could see plain enough.”
“And when Grace Sisson called over here, were you the one who answered the phone?”
Buddy took a little bit too long answering but finally nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess I was.”
“And you told her that Jennifer had left.”
“Yep.”
“But you didn’t tell her with whom?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t figure it was any of my business.”
“And Grace didn’t ask?”
“Well…no, she didn’t.”
“So you didn’t tell her that you’d seen her daughter drive off with Sam Carter? Didn’t let his name slip, even casual-like?”
“Nope, I didn’t tell her.”
I had moved to the door, and Buddy stepped aside. I rested my hand on the worn brass knob. “That sort of puzzles me, Buddy.”
He peered out through the dirty window of the door, still leaning hard against it. “It ain’t any of my responsibility,” he said, and glanced at me quickly to see if I’d agree. But then he added, “Besides, I figured she knew.”
I regarded Buddy with interest. “Now why would you figure that, as disinterested as you are in the whole mess?”
“Well, she sees Sam Carter often enough. She can take care of her own business. It’s not any of my concern.”
My hand froze on the knob. “She sees Sam Carter ‘often enough.’ What does that mean? And who do you mean? Grace or Jennifer?” I had the nagging feeling that I knew exactly where the conversation was headed.
Buddy grimaced. “Come on, Sheriff. Please.” I ignored his entreaty and just glared at him. “Shit, they meet here all the time.”
“They who, Buddy?”
“Sam and Grace. I mean, she walks over to pick up some lunch, and Sam, he’s usually waiting out in the car, out in the lot. He never comes in or nothing. Just kind of casual, you know. She gets her lunch, then moseys on out. And ends up in his car. And then they drive off. Or once in a while just sit and talk, I guess. I don’t know.”
I grinned. “It would appear you see quite a bit. How often does this happen?”
He shrugged. “I don’t keep count. Once, twice a week, maybe. Well,” he said, and inadvertently started to look a little pleased with himself. “You know how it is. Like a couple of school kids. They’re tryin’ to be so clever and end up being more obvious than not.”
“And how long’s this been going on?”
“Couple of months.”
I reached out and took Buddy by the shoulder, digging my thumb in by his collarbone just enough that it got his attention. “Thanks, Buddy. And this is between you and me, all right? You don’t tell anybody else.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
“That’s good.” I gave his shoulder a parting shake. “That’s good. Hell, for all we know, the county commission chairman is just helping out with a little baby-sitting.”
“Oh, yeah,” Buddy said, and managed a weak laugh.
Back outside in 310, I turned the air conditioning full up and sat for a minute, staring out across the parking lot. “Sam, you goddamn old fool,” I murmured.
I had little desire to make a bigger fool of myself than I assumed Sam Carter to be, so when I left Burger Heaven I dipped across the street to Grace Sisson’s. I left 310 idling in the driveway, and Grace had the front door open before I’d crossed the sidewalk.
“What did you find out?” she barked.
I wasn’t about to shout across the front yard. She might have been rude, contrary, and stubborn, but Grace Sisson was not stupid. Her puffy eyes narrowed as she watched me silently approaching, and she could see damn well that I had news…none of it good.
“We need to talk,” I said, and for once Grace didn’t argue. She turned on her heel and retreated into the house. I closed the door behind me, took off my hat, and wiped the sweat from my forehead with my shirtsleeve.
“Grace,” I said, “there are some things you need to explain to me.”
“What are you talking about? Where’s Jennifer?”
“I don’t know. But I’m pretty certain about
who
she’s with. And I think you are, too.”
She wasn’t ready yet. I saw the lines of her jaw harden, and her eyes grew resentful and wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do,” I said. “Tell me about Sam Carter.”
The house was absolutely silent for about the count of ten. The tinnitus in my ears was cranked up as loud as it would go, and I listened to that symphony while Grace made up her mind.
She surprised me. “What do you want to know?”
“Why would he pick up Jennifer across the street?”
If Grace had a ready answer, she wasn’t prepared to share it. She turned, arms crossed tightly across her chest, and walked slowly across the length of the living room. At the far wall, she leaned against the doorjamb, her back to me. Her shoulders jerked every so often, and then she tipped her head until it was leaning against the doorjamb, too, and I knew she was crying.
She wasn’t the sort who invited a warm arm around the shoulders, and I stood silently in the foyer, hat in hand, waiting.
“He and I have been seeing each other,” she said after a few minutes, voice husky.
“All right,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“No, it’s not all right,” Grace snapped, and she had the old nasty twang back. “It’s not anywhere near all right.”
“Did Jim know?”
She turned to face me, making no effort to wipe her face. “I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “But who knows, in a town this small? If he did, he never said anything.” She stepped across and wrenched a fistful of tissues out of the box on top of the television.
“And Jennifer?”
“Sam saw her all the time in the store. Sometimes we’d be in there together, Jennifer and me. Sam would flirt with her.” She turned away again. “I guess I thought it was cute. And then a time or two over here, just in the past few months. And then last week, he offered her a job at the store.” She hauled out more tissue, and her face was flushed red. “That slimy son of a bitch,” she muttered.
“You don’t think the baby is Kenny’s, then, do you?”
“The kids broke up in early June. Jennifer never mentioned Kenny after that. So no…I don’t think so.”
“Sam picked Jennifer up at the burger joint a few minutes ago,” I said. “Any idea where they’re headed?”
“Oh, God,” Grace said, and sagged onto the sofa. She dabbed at her face, but no amount of dabbing was going to do any good. “Jenny doesn’t want to carry the baby. That’s what we were arguing about. My folks and Jim—and he assumed that the baby was Kenny’s, of course—they all see it as some kind of goddamned deadly sin that she might try to get rid of it.” She heaved a deep sigh. “That’s what Jim told her at lunch on Tuesday, in between screaming matches. That it was just bad judgment that she got pregnant…that she wasn’t going to compound that with murder.” She shook her head. “She’s scared, Sheriff.”
“Was Sam Carter over here Tuesday night?”
Grace shook her head wearily. “I just don’t know. I don’t know why he would be. The last person he’d want to cross would be Jim. I think he was afraid of my husband. He always acted like it, so supercautious and all.”
I pictured the wiry, sun-browned Jim Sisson, arm muscles like steel cables, lifting the balding, potbellied Sam Carter off the ground by the scruff of the neck.
“Were you and Jim going to get a divorce?”
“We hadn’t discussed it.”
“Did you discussed it with Sam?”
“He told me that I should leave Jim. That he’d take better care of me.”
“Of course, he didn’t say anything about leaving
his
wife, did he,” I said, and Grace shot me a dark, venomous look. “Where would they go? Jennifer and Carter. Any ideas?”
Grace balled the tissue up into a tight little wad and chucked it into the wicker wastepaper basket by the end table. “Maybe he knows somebody,” she said. “A little money to the right doctor.” She shrugged. “Obviously, he wouldn’t want Jennifer to have the child any more than she does.”
“You’ll sign a complaint against him? Not that we’ll need it if we catch them together. But if you’ll sign a criminal complaint, and if you’ll testify, then that puts the ball in our court. That gives us all the leverage we need.”
She almost smiled. “With pleasure. I hope you find him before I do.”
“There’s no question that we’ll find him, Mrs. Sisson. It’s out of your hands now, though. You let us handle it.”
“He has my daughter, Sheriff. And while we’re standing here talking there’s nothing but harm that can come to her.”
“Stay by the phone,” I said. “I need to know that I can reach you at a moment’s notice. You’ll do that for me?”
She nodded and reached for more tissue. I left the house by the back door, ready to give the troops something more interesting to do than lifting faded prints off hot metal.