I pulled to a halt beside a SCHOOL BUSES ONLY sign. The night air was cool, but the wind had finally given up. I heard another car before I saw it, heard it accelerating hard, its oversized engine howling. Headlights flashed on Pershing and the tires of the village police car chirped as the vehicle swung into the driveway and pulled up beside me, driven like something out of Hollywood.
Patrolman Tom Pasquale looked across at me and raised an eyebrow in what he no doubt hoped was an imitation of his favorite movie star. He opened his window but didn’t get out.
I half wished that Pasquale had been asleep somewhere, skull propped against the seat’s headrest, mouth open and blissfully ignorant of the world around him.
I stepped out of the county car and hitched up my trousers. “Thomas, who’s at the police station?”
“The sheriff’s still there, sir. And Deputy Mitchell. And Cindy.”
The village department’s girl Friday, Cindy Aragon, worked very hard to keep Pasquale out of trouble. “So tell me what happened.”
“Sir, someone called the P.D. to report a possible downer. I took the call. I happened to be the only one in the office at the time other than Cindy. So I drove right over to check it out.”
“And then?”
“I hopped the fence by the track, over there on Olympic. I crossed directly to the bleachers and saw the body by the foundation of the press box. I determined that the subject was deceased. On the way back to my unit I saw another subject over near the east end of the football field. In that small grove of trees by the pump house.”
“You were able to see him in the dark?”
“The field night lights are bright, sir.”
“And that person turned out to be Mr. Crocker?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you took him into custody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he resist in any way?”
“No, sir.” After the briefest of pauses, Pasquale added, “I almost wish he had, sir.”
“No…you don’t.” I started to walk off and then stopped. “On what grounds did you make the arrest, by the way? Did Mr. Crocker admit that he had anything to do with the incident?”
Pasquale’s head jerked forward as if he’d just been startled in the dark. “No, sir, he didn’t say much of anything at all.”
“You read him his rights?”
“Yes, sir. That’s when he said he needed to make a call. That there was someone here in town that would vouch for him.”
“Yeah, well…” I motioned at the walkway between the main building and the gymnasium. “Let’s cut through there.” We left the cars and walked through the inky black passageway between the buildings, Pasquale’s flashlight stabbing into each dark crevice.
A yellow crime scene ribbon stretched across the parking lot, effectively blocking off the rear of the bleachers.
Sergeant Robert Torrez and Chief Martinez appeared out of the shadows, looking like Mutt and Jeff. Torrez, six-four and walking like a hunting cat, led the chubby chief of police.
“Estelle coming?” Martinez asked, sounding altogether too cheerful for the time and the circumstances. I liked Eduardo Martinez as a human being and thought he was ridiculous as a law officer. But Posadas was an incorporated village that budgeted its own law-the chief and two part-time patrolmen.
Most of the village night calls were handled routinely by the sheriff’s department, logical since the P.D. had no dispatcher of its own and not enough manpower to cover twenty-four hours. Martinez was a parade cop…polish the car and turn on the lights for the Fourth of July.
“Yes. Estelle’s on the way. You gentlemen stay here for a minute.” Pasquale wanted to go with me, but I waved him back. I knew perfectly well that he liked to spend time in Sergeant Torrez’s company, but this wasn’t the time for impressions. The chief understood the same thing and put a chubby hand on the kid’s arm to hold him still.
I ducked under the channel-iron braces and worked my way carefully along under the bleachers, keeping my footprints immediately beside the row of concrete pillars. In the center of the structure, a cinder-block foundation arose like a huge chimney, providing support for the press box and announcer’s station above.
The circle of light from my flashlight played around the blocks, and sure enough there was a bundle pressed over in the corner. A casual glance could have mistaken it for a garbage bag left behind by the custodians after the last home football game. Pasquale had good eyes, at least.
I approached to within a dozen feet and stopped, playing the light slowly this way and that, surveying the area. The footing was crushed stone, broken glass, torn Styrofoam, a sock or two-a delightful place. I stepped forward carefully.
The corpse lay like a broken rag doll, flat on its back. A brightly colored coat was bunched around the upper body, concealing the face. I grimaced at the bare knees that looked absurdly small and fragile in the harsh beam of my flashlight.
One arm was twisted under the body, the other was caught up in the loose fabric of the coat, as if the garment had been hastily wrapped around the child.
I turned the light and looked at the only patch of skin I could see besides the two spindly legs-the back of the child’s left hand, fingers dug into the fabric of the coat, dirt caked with blood on the smooth brown skin.
With a grunt, I shifted balance and pulled the coat far enough down that I could see a tangle of long, black hair. Maybe a girl, maybe not. The hand was cool to my touch. I slipped my hand inside the coat and pressed two fingers to the side of the kid’s neck and waited…waited longer than I needed to.
4
Deputy Eddie Mitchell transferred Wesley Crocker out of the small, leak-stained plasterboard and industrial yellow police department office to the county Public Safety Building-more grand in name, but not much more-three blocks down the street.
Dr. Francis Guzman, Estelle’s husband and the county coroner, had ordered the victim’s body removed to the morgue at Posadas General. We still didn’t know who she was, or how she’d died. I sent Deputy Mitchell to shag the high school principal, Glen Archer, out of bed. If anyone knew the girl, he would.
Sheriff Martin Holman met me with a thinly veiled “I told you so” look when I walked into the sheriff’s office at 3:35 that morning. “Is Estelle on the way?” he asked. I nodded and headed for the coffeepot.
“Has Crocker said anything?” I watched the creamer dissolve into the oily surface of the coffee, the brew turning about the color of Portland cement.
Holman snorted derisively. “He’s just sitting there, hoping he can use his ‘get out of jail free’ card. I haven’t let anyone upstairs other than Howard Bishop. Howard’s keeping the suicide watch.”
I sighed and dropped the plastic spoon on the pad of paper towels.
“You ready to go on up?” Holman asked.
“I want to wait for Estelle.”
“Is Chief Martinez still out at the school?”
I nodded. I didn’t add what we both knew…that at the first opportunity, Chief Martinez would turn to Sergeant Torrez and say, “Well, you’ve got this pretty well nailed down,” and than Eduardo would nudge his big, comfortable Pontiac toward home, where he’d have the good sense to jump back in bed with his big, comfortable wife, Essie. Eduardo Martinez was chief because the Posadas council paid him $11,600 a year-three thousand less than a first-day rookie with the sheriff’s department. The village got what it paid for.
“What’s the matter?” Holman asked, and I realized with a start that I was staring vacantly at a spot about three feet under the floor tile. “What are you thinking?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess,” and I started toward the stairs that led up to the three cells and the two small conference rooms on the second floor. With my hand on the bottom of the banister, I stopped and frowned. “Marty, what time did you get to the P.D.?”