Twice Buried Read Online Free PDF

of unwanted mail-order catalogs weighted down one end of the courtesy counter. I leaned on the window shelf.
    “Just one moment,” a high, thin voice warbled from the back room.
    “No hurry, Carla,” I called. “It’s Bill Gastner.”
    She appeared carrying her right arm outstretched toward me as if she wanted to shake hands from twenty feet away. “Catalogs,” she said, and cast eyes heavenward.
    “Catalogs?”
    “Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. I think every boxholder in Posadas County receives five thousand catalogs. Big ones. As if the usual holiday package rush wasn’t enough.”
    She pushed a strand of steely gray hair back under a hairpin. Her head was narrow and her face angular. The Postal Service blouse hung over a bony body. I always thought that hugging Carla Champlin would be like fondling a bundle of construction rebar. She was three years older than me, but a hands-down winner if the two of us were ever paired in a physical contest.
    “Uh-huh,” I said, for want of anything more sympathetic. I pushed my Stetson back and rubbed my forehead and the stubble of gray hair above. “Gayle Sedillos said you needed to see me about something?”
    Carla Champlin leaned out the window and eyed the vacant little lobby with all its polished brass-doored boxes. “Is it true what I heard about Anna Hocking?”
    “That she died last night? Yes, that’s true.” The efficiency of the Posadas grapevine was astounding.
    Carla looked at me hard for a minute, then said, “Such a dear, dear lady.”
    “Yes, ma’am. She was a wonderful person.”
    “Last night, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    She tsk-tsked and then leaned a little farther out the window. I almost backpedaled a step, thinking she was going to grab me. But I stood my ground, both hands on the window sill.
    “Sheriff, now listen.” She began as if my attention might stray. Her perfume was stout. And I wasn’t the sheriff of Posadas County. I was undersheriff, one of those awkward titles that the public can’t manage.
    “Gayle said you had a complaint.”
    Her eyebrows knitted together. If I cut short her story, she would be really pissed.
    “Sheriff, now, you know,” and she accented know as if the word were biblical in its authority, “that it is a violation of federal law to carry a weapon on post office property.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “A violation of federal law,” she repeated. To her, federal law and Moses’ commandments were carved from the same clay.
    “Sure.”
    “Unless you’re a law officer.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, you certainly know Mr. Reuben Fuentes.” She wrinkled her slim nose. Her lips pursed. Maybe she was planning to whistle “White Christmas.”
    “Indeed I do. He was carrying a firearm?” I hated to cut short the pleasure of her storytelling, but I had work to do. And then maybe a serious nap to take.
    “Well, now, he came in here shortly after nine…I was just finishing sorting. He is so crippled that it took him nearly five minutes just to cross to this counter. And that’s when I saw it. He had this enormous holster on his belt. And of course I could see the gun in it.”
    Reuben Fuentes had been carrying a weapon of one kind or another since he was six years old. “Yes, ma’am,” I said patiently.
    “He’s worn it in here before and I’ve never said anything.” She lifted her chin, proud of her generosity. “But this time—”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He came to the counter here and asked to purchase five stamps. I took the stamps from the drawer. He hung his cane on the counter lip and fumbled in his pocket for money.”
    “His cane?” I’d never seen Reuben with a cane, drunk or sober.
    “Indeed. He fumbled for his money and then he discovered it was in the pocket covered by the gun and holster.” She pantomimed Reuben’s absentminded fumbling.
    I raised an eyebrow and waited for the punch line with a straight, official