Archer nodded. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
Marianna Perna was one cheerleader who wasn’t in our corner. As far as she was concerned, little Dicky Staples could do no wrong, which explained for me why the kid was in the fix he was.
“Now I want to know what you people think you’re doing,” she said, and her body English, massive in itself, told me she was going to block the hallway until she got an answer.
Sheriff Martin Holman started to hem and haw and I stepped forward to fix Mrs. Perna with my best Marine Corps gunnery sergeant’s glare. “We know exactly what we’re doing, Mrs. Perna. Let me explain something to you.” It wasn’t lost on either of us that Linda Rael was standing quietly in the corner behind Deputy Tony Abeyta, who was taking a turn at dispatch. Linda was holding a small tape recorder.
“We’re up to here,” and I tapped one of the wattles under my chin, “in a murder investigation…a double homicide. We have reliable information that Richard Staples may be aware of some evidence critical to this investigation. And I’ll repeat that for you…
may be aware
.”
She started to squawk and I held up a hand and frowned. “We also have information that Richard Staples may be involved in some way with at least one residential burglary.”
“Now I want to know—” Mrs. Perna began.
“First you need to listen, Mrs. Perna. Detective Reyes-Guzman and I visited your apartment today in order to talk with Richard Staples. Our intent was to seek information only. He could have opened the door, chatted with me for five minutes, and that might have been that. But he chose not to do that. For whatever reason, Richard Staples illegally entered the high school gymnasium, using a master key that he had in his possession.” Mrs. Perna looked more puzzled than brazen when she heard that.
“As an employee of the village, you know full well that a master key in the wrong hands is a problem indeed. Young Staples has no business with that key. The conclusion I would reach is one of two: Either he stole the key from someone, or the key was given to him by someone who in turn stole it. It really doesn’t matter at the moment. At any rate, Richard Staples entered the school and was observed by a law enforcement officer looking out of one of the windows.
“We apprehended him in the basement of the school and took him into custody. That, ma’am, is what is going on.”
Mrs. Perna counted to ten and switched targets from us to Richard Staples. “I want to talk with that young man. I’ll find out what he thinks he’s doing.”
She turned and looked down the hall as if that were the direction of the holding pen.
“No, ma’am, you may not talk with Mr. Staples. He is in our custody and will remain so until his preliminary arraignment this evening before Justice Emilio Gutierrez.”
“I have a right to talk with my nephew, and I want to talk with him right now.”
I looked at Mrs. Perna with considerable exasperation, tinged with just a little admiration.
“Sorry, Mrs. Perna. Number one, and you can check with the district attorney if you feel I’m wrong, you don’t have any right to see your nephew just now. He’s no longer a minor and he’s under arrest.” I glanced at my watch. “We’re due at arraignment at six-fifteen. That’s an hour and a half from now. If you would like to wait, you’ll have a chance to see Richard for a few moments while he’s being transported to Justice Gutierrez’s. Beyond that, you’ll just have to be patient. And now, if you’ll excuse me, we have a great deal to do.” I gestured at the two vinyl-covered chairs between the file cabinets. “You’re welcome to wait there if you like.”
Mrs. Perna looked at me and then at Sheriff Holman, who hadn’t said squat during the entire exchange.
Holman nodded and frowned. “You’re welcome to wait out here,” he said. “Excuse us.”
I turned and beckoned Deputy Torrez and Estelle Reyes-Guzman to follow.
The stairway up to the cells was steep, the wood deeply cupped in spots from decades of traffic. On one side of the upstairs hallway were six small, dismal jail cells. About all that could be said for them was that they were secure. In twenty-three years, I could remember no time when all six had been full.
Across the hall were a storage room, a photographic dark room, and the conference room. District Attorney Ron Schroeder, with other fish to fry who probably paid fifty bucks an hour, begged off.
“Lemme know what you need, Bill,” he said. “I’ll be in my office.”
“And miss all the fun?” I asked.
“Such fun,” he said. “I’ll pass.”
Deputy Torrez went down to cell six and after much clanking and door-slamming returned with a somber Richard Staples. I pointed to the straight ladder-backed chair on one side of the oak table.
“Sit there, Richard,” I said. Torrez escorted him to his seat and then joined Estelle and me opposite Staples. After considerable obvious indecision, Sheriff Holman sat at the end of the table, like father at dinner.
I gestured at the tape recorder in the center of the table.
“This interview is being recorded,” I said as I punched the two buttons down. “Has Deputy Torrez advised you of your rights?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to speak louder, Richard.”
“Yes, he advised me,” Staples said and I saw the VU meter on the recorder jump. His former bravado had evaporated. An hour in the dungeon had been the right medicine.
“Richard, I want to make sure you know all the people present.” I pointed at each person in turn. “On my left is Deputy Robert Torrez. This is Deputy Estelle Reyes-Guzman from the Isidro County sheriff’s department.” I saw a flicker in Staples’s expression. Maybe he was wondering what the hell he’d done up north to pull the cops down on him from there. Maybe he was too stupid to know where Isidro County was.
“And this is Sheriff Martin Holman. I’m Undersheriff William Gastner. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Richard, do you know why you’re here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me.”
“For breakin’ into the gym.”
“Can you think of any other reason?”
“No.” His tone was sullen again, and I noticed I wasn’t “sir” any more.
“Why were you in the basement, Richard?” Estelle asked. Her voice was soft and silky, and the VU barely twitched.
We waited a full minute while Richard Staples examined the cuticle of his left index finger. A little sound that might have been a sniffle or just a noisy inhale told me that he hadn’t fallen asleep.
“You weren’t hiding from us, were you,” Estelle said. I half expected Staples to say, “
Hell, who would?
” but he didn’t. He raised his eyes from his cuticle to meet Estelle’s gaze.
“Richard, we need answers that the recorder can hear,” I prompted. Estelle had him locked in, but I wanted the kid to remember that there were other people in the room…and some of them nowhere near as kindly as the young lady.
“No, I wasn’t hidin’ from you,” he said finally.
“Who from, then?”
I saw his jaw tighten and he went back to his cuticle again.
“Has someone threatened you?” Estelle asked.
“I ain’t afraid of nobody,” Richard Staples said without hesitation.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Estelle said. “But you said you weren’t hiding from us. Will you tell us from whom, then?”
He lost interest in his finger and looked off toward the far corner of the ceiling. If he started counting ceiling tiles, we were going to be there all night.
“Richard, what can you tell us about the burglary at Wayne’s Farm Supply last week?” Deputy Torrez said. I tried hard not to grin. His timing was perfect, dropping another bomb in the kid’s lap just when he thought he could bore us more than we bored him.
Staples’s eyes shifted to the table in front of him and he blinked hard.
While he was waiting, Deputy Torrez reached down and lifted his briefcase to the table. He opened it and shuffled papers for a few seconds before selecting the one that had been on top all along. He read it over before laying it on the table in front of him.
“We have information that two male subjects entered the back of the Wayne Supply building sometime between six p.m. Tuesday night and eight a.m. Wednesday morning of last week.”
Torrez looked up and folded his large hands in front of him on the table like a priest about to say blessing for dinner. “We have evidence that tells us what size and brand of shoes one of the suspects wore. We have several sets of fingerprints lifted from the scene. We have a full inventory of goods taken from the scene. Several of the larger tools have not only serial numbers for identification but also the owner’s identification number.”
He paused a moment and regarded Richard Staples with interest. Staples squirmed in his chair and then turned slightly so he could rest his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.
“We haven’t fingerprinted you yet, but we’ll have plenty of time for that after your arraignment,” Torrez continued. “You want to talk to us about that burglary?” Torrez asked.
“I thought this was about the school,” Staples said and even I almost felt sorry for the simple son of a bitch.
“Well, it could be about that too,” Robert said easily. “But what we’ve also got is a statement from another party that links you to that burglary. And we do know, Richard, that there are ties to other residential burglaries in the area as well. We’re talking eight or ten counts.”
Even Richard Staples could count from one to two to ten, and before he had a chance to add up his chances, I said, “Where did you get the school keys, Richard?”
He frowned, thinking hard and fast. “I found ’em,” he said without looking at me.
I nodded solemnly, as if I believed that yarn. I examined my little note pad for a full minute. “So tell me about Todd Sloan, Richard.”
The kid’s head snapped around to me so fast I thought I heard his bones pop.
“I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that,” he said, and damned if there wasn’t a hint of a quaver in his voice.
I leaned back in my chair and my hand fumbled around in my shirt pocket for the cigarette I didn’t have. “Nothing to do with what, Richard?”
“Nothin’ to do with him, I mean.”
“But you know who he is?”
“Course I do.”
“And you heard about what happened yesterday?”
“Yes. Everybody in town’s talking about it.”
“Richard,” I said, “We have information that you associated with Todd Sloan on a routine basis at school and outside of school as well.”
“That ain’t true,” Staples almost shouted. His right eye crinkled shut like he had dust in it. He rubbed it with his right index knuckle. “That ain’t true. I didn’t hang around with that little shit at all. There ain’t no way I had anything to do with him gettin’ killed.”
Martin Holman had been leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. He let his chair thump down and he leaned forward. I said a quick, silent prayer.
“Richard, you know, then, that we’re actually investigating a double homicide.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Holman knew that if we kept stacking, eventually Richard Staples’s shell would crack. Just like breaking down a customer until he bought the used Oldsmobile.
This time, it wasn’t a quaver in his voice. Staples’s eyes went wide with pure panic. Any eighteen-year-old fool knows how much of his life could be spent in prison on a double homicide rap.
“Now lookit. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with any of that,” he said.
“But you know who did,” Estelle said. Her black, smoldering eyes must have bored into Richard Staples’s brain. My pulse crept up a dozen notches. “Make it easy on yourself, Richard.”
“This is deep, deep trouble, son,” Holman murmured.
Richard Staples frowned hard, his head down. His lower lip twitched once, jutting out a bit and then jerking back in like he’d given something away. And then, almost in slow motion, he caved in until his head was resting on his crossed arms on the table. None of us moved or said anything.
After a full two minutes, the tape recorder clicked and I reached forward, snapped the eject, flipped the tape, closed the cover, and pressed record/play again.
“We’re ready when you are, Richard,” I said gently.
Richard Staples pushed himself upright and wiped at his right eye again. When he chose to speak, he was looking at Martin Holman. Damned if the sheriff hadn’t made the sale.
“Iain’t going to take the blame for no burglaries and then have him turn around and get away with what he done,” Richard Staples said.
“Who are you talking about, Richard?” I asked.
“Kenny. He ain’t puttin’ the blame for everything on me.”
“Kenny who, Richard?” Deputy Torrez prompted.
“Kenny Trujillo.” None of us had mentioned Trujillo’s name to Staples and I glanced at the tape player to make sure the gadget was still spinning.
“Richard, is it true that you worked a time or two out at Florek’s wrecking yard? With Kenny Trujillo?”
“Yeah, I been there,” Staples said. “I was thinkin’ of workin’ out there full time, startin’ this summer.”
Robert Torrez pulled a manila envelope from his briefcase. He shook several instant photos from the envelope into his hand, selected one, and slid it across the table to Staples.
“Is this the engine hoist that was stolen from Wayne’s Farm Supply?”
Staples glanced at the photo carelessly. “Yeah, that’s the one
he
took, not me.”
Torrez retrieved the photo and handed it to me, knowing that I was waiting. The photo showed a chain hoist resting amid a sea of other automotive detritus on a grease-covered workbench. A tag attached to the bottom of the photo gave the date and time the photo was taken, along with the description: chain hoist, sn567901, Florek Auto Wrecking.
I handed the photo back to Torrez. I wasn’t interested in hardware.
“You started to tell us what Trujillo was blaming you for,” I said. “As it is, he says you were involved with Todd Sloan in several of the burglaries.”
Staples shook his head. He leaned forward, his arms on the table, and held his hands about a basketball apart, as if to say “This is the way it is.”
“Todd Sloan didn’t have a damn thing to do with any of them burglaries,” Staples said.
“Is that a fact.”
“Yes, sir. Me and Kenny did.”
“We know that,” I said, not adding the
now
that would tell Staples how much of a wrong tree we’d been barking up…unless this simple son of a bitch was lying as effortlessly as breathing.
I took the plunge. “Who killed Todd Sloan, Richard?”
“Kenny Trujillo and his mom.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Kenny and Todd’s mom. Miriam Sloan.”
“They both did it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The room was so quiet we could hear the roaches breathing. “Tell us,” I said.
“Okay, see—” Richard Staples pawed around for a good starting place. “Todd hated Kenny’s guts.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “More than he hated mine, I guess. I hung around out there some, ’cause of what Kenny and me was doin’. But Todd?” He shook his head with disdain. “We sure weren’t friends. No sir. But he sure didn’t like Trujillo.”
“Was he jealous?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I said slowly, “did Todd dislike Kenny because Trujillo was Miriam Sloan’s live-in boyfriend?”
“Yeah, that,” Staples said. “I guess that was it, mostly. Todd was all the time talking about how great his old man was, the one who moved to Florida. Him and Kenny’d get into these arguments, and once Kenny smacked him clear across the room. I thought it was kinda funny, myself. The little shit had it comin’.” Staples looked up quickly. “Bein’ hit, I mean.”
“And then?”
“Well, things got worse and worse, far as I could see. Course, I didn’t care much. Kenny and me was doin’ all right. But I was there one night when Todd didn’t leave…he usually did that, you know, when Kenny came home. Got so the two of them couldn’t be in that trailer at the same time without a fight startin’. Anyways, about two weeks ago, Todd comes up with this thing that he’s going to turn both Kenny and his mom in to the welfare department for somethin’…I don’t remember.”
“Welfare fraud?” Estelle prompted.
Staples nodded vigorously. “That was it. Yep. He kept sayin’ that with what Kenny made down to the wreckin’ yard and what his mom made workin’ part time, they didn’t qualify for all they was gettin’. Kenny told him that if he said anything he’d fry him for sure. That was the night he smacked him a good lick.”
“What happened the day Todd was killed, Richard?”
“We just come back from messin’ around downtown, and Todd was there. We was showin’ Miriam what all we had—”
“Are you talking about what you got in a burglary?”
Staples nodded again. “Yeah. Anyways, Todd went off on this thing about how we was going to get everyone in trouble. He kept sayin’ like how Kenny just wanted his mom in jail so he could have the trailer and all.” I glanced at Estelle. These boys set their sights high, I thought.
“And then he got off on that welfare shit again, how he was goin’ to cut ’em all off and send ’em to jail. I guess Kenny just had all he could take.”
“What happened?”
Staples coughed and Holman said, “You want a soda or something?”
“You got a cigarette?”
“No, but we can get you some. We’ll take a break in a few minutes.”
“What did Trujillo do then?” I asked, irritated at the interruption.
“He had this little revolver, this little twenty-two? He had it in his coat pocket. He pulled it out and shoved it in Todd’s stomach and pulled the trigger. Right there in the living room of the trailer. Todd, he’d been gettin’ up when he saw Kenny comin’, and he fell right over the arm of the chair.”
Richard Staples stopped talking and stared down at the table again, picking at his nails. “Kenny got this real funny look on his face, like he was surprised he’d shot Todd, and now what was he going to do. Cause Todd was all curled up on the floor, holdin’ his gut and hollerin’ like a stuck pig.”
“You said his mother was involved. What did she do?”
“We all just sat there, not knowin’ what to do, with Todd layin’ on the floor, screamin’ and swearin’ at us, sayin’ all the things he was gonna do. And Miriam just looks down at him all cold and fishy like and says to Kenny, ‘Kenny, don’t just let him lie there like that. Make him stop.’ That’s what she said. ‘Make him stop.’” Staples bit his lip.
“And he did, too. He got up and put that little gun right behind Todd’s left ear and he shoots him again.
Pow
. Just like that.”
I took a deep breath. “And then you buried him.”
“Shit, I was so fuckin’ scared I damn near shit my pants.”
“I bet.”
“See, I didn’t know what Kenny was going to do with that gun in his hand. I figure it’d be as easy for him to use it on me as not, bein’ I saw the whole thing. He kinda had a crazy look on his face like he was thinkin’, ‘I gone and done it now and what the hell, it wasn’t all that big a deal.’ Scared the shit out of me.”
“So what did you do,” Estelle prompted.
“Kenny says, ‘We got to bury him,’ and Miriam says, ‘Where? You can’t let no one see you.’ And Kenny decides that right behind the trailer, in that old pasture, is just fine, cause nobody ever goes there. So he tells me to grab the kid’s feet, and I do, and we carry him outside.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Friday night.”
“What time? Late? When?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eight, nine o’clock. Somethin’ like that. And then we set to diggin’ just on the other side of the fence, where it’s real soft and sandy. I did most of the diggin’. Kenny just kept sayin’ ‘Deeper,’ or ‘Over there more,’ or ‘Make it longer.’ I was real tempted to put that shovel up his ass, but he had that gun all the time. I just did as I was told.”
“Smart man,” Torrez said.
“Yeah. And then I about fainted cause Todd made a noise and I dropped the shovel and Kenny he jerks around and shoots with that little gun again. I don’t know if he hit him or not, but I couldn’t believe he done that. It sounded so damn loud outside like that. Miriam, she heard the shot, all right, and she comes out to see what’s goin’ on. We was set to put the body in the hole and I said, ‘What if he ain’t dead?’ Kenny, he says, ‘He’s dead all right. Put ’im in the hole.’ And so I did. And I guess then he was dead all right.”
“And that’s all?” I asked.
“Well, Miriam, she had a light, and she held it to make sure that we had the hole all filled and covered smooth so no one could tell. We was about done but she was lookin’ at something else, cause the light was wanderin’ so it was hard to see. I was going to say somethin’ about holdin’ the light still when she says, ‘She’s watchin’.’”
“Who was watching?” Estelle asked, but with a deep, certain dread, I already knew the answer.
“That old lady across the field. We stopped what we was doin’ and Miriam turned off the light. We could see the old lady standin’ on the back porch, with the light comin’ out the door behind her. Kinda lit her up, just enough so we could see her.”
“Are you talking about Mrs. Hocking? Anna Hocking?”
“Yes, sir. Miriam says, ‘She heard the shot.’ I said, ‘She couldn’t have. She couldn’t see what we’re doin’.’ And Miriam says real quiet like, ‘I’m not taking the chance that she might call the police.’ That’s all she said.”
I slumped back in my chair. “And so Miriam Sloan went over to Anna Hocking’s house?”
“That’s what she did. And
that
scared the livin’ shit out of me, too…not so much right then, cause I didn’t know what to think, but later on that night, when every cop in five counties was there, shit.”
“When was the body moved?” Estelle asked. She spoke so quietly even Richard Staples’s good teenage hearing didn’t catch it.
“Excuse me?” Staples was now completely comfortable in his new role as Mr. Cooperation.
“When was the body moved?” Estelle repeated. If Staples expected sympathy from her, he was mistaken. Her face was like carved marble, too pale now with suppressed anger.
“We all split, knowin’ that the cops would be by to talk with anybody in the neighborhood. Miriam, she said she made it look just like an accident, and not to worry. But Kenny, he was spooked, you know? He was sure they’d bring dogs. That’s all he could talk about. So right after dark the next night, we saw things was pretty quiet. Kenny, he handed me the shovel and I dug Todd up and we wrapped him in a piece of plastic that Kenny stole from the wreckin’ yard.
“Then we put the body in the back of Kenny’s truck, and covered it with a bunch of old tires. Then we drove out to that old crazy man’s place.”
“Richard,” I said, “tell me something. How was it you chose that spot? With all the other places in the county you could have chosen?”
Staples made a wry face. “That was Kenny’s brilliant idea. He said he’d been out that road a while back, and saw the old man workin’, buryin’ something. Kenny said no one dared mess with the old man’s property, cause he’d as soon shoot you between the eyes as look at you. So he got this bee in his head that that would be the perfect spot.”
“And so you went out there.”
“Yep. We could see the spot, just like Kenny said. The fresh dirt and all. There was even this little cross made out of two sticks tied together. Kenny pulled it out of the ground and says, ‘Old Todd don’t need this to go to hell.’ We dug down and saw it was three dogs that he’d buried. And Kenny gets this great idea. ‘Ain’t no one ever going to figure this out,’ he says. And he makes me dig to hell and gone deeper, figurin’ to bury Todd and put the dogs on top of him. It woulda worked, ’cept this other old fart comes along, sees our light, and comes over, wantin’ to know what we’re doing on his land.”
“Stuart Torkelson.”
“I guess. Kenny, he tries to sweet-talk the guy, tellin’ him about these dogs that we was buryin’ for the old man who lives in the woods up there. I’m tryin’ to block the hole, ’cause there’s parts of Todd Sloan stickin’ out, even though there’s plastic coverin’ most of him. This guy, he didn’t buy it, and he pushes past me and looks in the hole. He swings around and Kenny, he shoots him clean through with this huge old magnum he stole from some place last summer.
“And the old guy screams and spins like a top, landin’ right on top of one of them dead dogs. But he sure surprised me when he stumbles to his feet and starts down toward the road. He fell a couple times and then Kenny caught up with him and shoots him again in the head.”
Richard Staples stopped talking like someone had shoved a cork down his throat. His jaw worked a couple of times, and then the energy that he’d been using to hold himself together ran out. He hung his head and gulped great lungfuls of air until I was afraid he was going to hyperventilate. He threw his head back so hard it cracked the back of the old chair. He didn’t notice. He was clenching his eyes closed, determined not to let us see him cry.
“Jesus, what’s going to happen to me,” he managed.
I tried to keep my tone sincere and kindly. “Absolutely nothing, Richard, assuming you’re telling us the truth. Nothing, compared to what’s going to happen to Kenny Trujillo and Miriam Sloan.”
“He made me pull the plastic around real tight and then bury Todd. And then he had this idea about fillin’ in part of the hole with rocks. He said no one would ever dig past them. And all this time, I’m worryin’ about that dead body, lyin’ down in the field. But old Kenny, he had an answer for everything. ‘They’ll just blame the old Mexican for it, like always,’ he says.”
“And you believed him,” I said. “Until you heard that we’d found Sloan’s body. And then you figured that you were the only witness. You were waiting for Kenny Trujillo to come knocking on your door, weren’t you?”
Staples nodded. “I was going to wait until dark, and then steal my aunt’s car. I was going to split, man.”
“Where to?”
“It don’t matter. But I know Kenny…he’s crazy. He’d make sure I couldn’t talk to no one.”
“When you saw us, why didn’t you just come and talk to us?”
Staples looked at me as if I were nuts, as if the simplest solution were the most bizarre.
“All right, Richard, thank you. We’ll be talking lots more, be prepared for that.” Staples looked resigned…and relieved. “You understand that we have to hold you in protective custody for a while, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One last thing.” I tore off a clean sheet of paper from the pad in front of me. I drew a rough sketch of the Sloan trailer and its location in the Paradise View Trailer Park. “Put an X where you dug the first grave,” I said.