Dead Weight by Steven F. Havill

happened.
    The fundamental conundrum—how a five-and-a-half-foot man managed to be crushed under a fifty-four-inch-tall tire and wheel assembly—was not mentioned, other than the cover-all expression that “investigation is continuing into the incident that claimed the life of James L. Sisson.”
    Apparently the use of the word
incident
rather than accident hadn’t been lost on Posadas Chief of Police Eduardo D. Martinez, who waddled into the Public Safety Building with a copy of the Deming paper under his arm. He appeared in the door of my office shortly after 3:00, brow furrowed and mouth working either a wad of chewing tobacco or a rehearsal of what he wanted to say.
    The chief was fifty-six, with about the same dimensions in the torso as a fifty-five-gallon oil drum. His large, square face, with dark eyebrows, wide, heavy-lipped mouth that winked gold, and enough chin for three people, would have made him perfect casting as the Mexican bartender in one of those grade-D spaghetti westerns.
    I liked Eduardo, even though I’d never been sure just what purpose his tiny department served—especially since he made no effort to grab his share of the law enforcement turf. But state law was clear: Incorporated villages had to have a police department. A decade before, back when the copper mines were open and fat paychecks flowed directly from payroll office to bank to saloons, the police department had kept busy.
    But that was before Eduardo’s tenure as chief—back when he was still earning a living driving a road grader for the village street department. Now Chief Martinez and two part-time patrolmen kept themselves busy making sure that we had one of the best patrolled fifteen-mile-an-hour school zones in the state. Eduardo’s philosophy seemed to be that if the kids could cross the street safely, what else mattered?
    Chief Martinez was so adept at staying backstage that I sometimes forgot that he was there. If he took offense at that, he never let it show.
    He ducked his head and smiled ruefully. “You busy?”
    “No, no,” I said quickly and got up, motioning toward one of the leather-backed chairs. “Come on in. Pull up a seat and rest the bones.”
    He did so and unfolded the newspaper. “This is sure something, eh?” he said, his soft voice carrying that wonderfully musical border cadence.
    “Just about the goddamnedest thing I ever saw.”
    “You know,” he said, looking up at me, “when Bobby answered that call, it was the third time yesterday.” He frowned and tried again. “Three times he went out to that place.”
    “Out to the Sissons’, you mean?”
    “Yes.” The chief nodded vigorously. “You know, there have been days when I went out there myself, three, four times.”
    “They put on quite a show from time to time, that’s for sure.”
    He frowned again and scooted his chair forward. “What do you think happened?”
    I leaned back in my chair and regarded Martinez with interest. The chief was adept at staying out of the way—he had never been the sort to weasel his way into an investigation that another agency was conducting, for limelight or any other reason. In fact, this was the first time that he’d ever taken the initiative to come to my office and ask to be brought up to speed.
    The manila folder that included the set of photographs rested at my elbow, and I flopped it open. “Take a look,” I said. “Tell me what you think.” Like any of us, the chief enjoyed a little deference now and then, and instead of just handing him the folder, I selected several photos, reached across, and spread them out on my desk, facing him.
    He leaned forward with his hands tightly clasped between his knees, as if afraid that touching the prints might smear the images.
    “Linda shot this one before the tire was moved,” I said. “And these were taken at the hospital.”
    Martinez grimaced. “Hm,” he said, and blinked.
    “Here’s our problem,” I continued. “See the way he’s