Steven Havill: Before She Dies

In the kitchen I made myself a cup of coffee, drank a third of it, and then went to bed. The musty old bedroom pooled all the aromas that were a comfort to me into a potpourri that should have put me to sleep. And they did, for one blissful hour.

At 3:46 A.M., the telephone jangled me awake. For a moment I lay quietly, eyes open wide like one of those jungle lemurs. I answered on the fourth ring.

“Gastner.”

“Sir, this is Gayle Sedillos.” Our dispatcher waited a moment for that to sink in.

“What’s up, Gayle?”

“Sir, you really need to come in. We’ve got a real problem with Sonny Trujillo.”

I snapped fully awake and sat up in bed with a grunt.

“What do you mean?”

There was a slight pause, about four heartbeats’ worth. “He apparently choked to death in his cell, sir.”

The cot was pushed against one wall of the jail cell with the brown wool blanket crumpled at the foot. The sheets and pillowcase told me all I needed to know. The final seconds of Sonny Trujillo’s life had not been a pretty way to go.

“Were you here?” I asked Deputy Tony Abeyta.

He shook his head. “No, sir. Not at first. Gayle called me on the radio for assistance. She was the only one in the building.”

I grimaced. That wasn’t unusual for a tiny department like ours, but it wasn’t going to make Gayle feel any better.

“We both attempted CPR until the ambulance arrived. It was just a few minutes.”

“Is everyone else at the hospital now?”

“Yes, sir. Sheriff Holman went directly there from home. And Gayle called Estelle just after talking to you. She went over to the hospital as well.”

I turned away from the cell and started down the short hallway that led to the front offices and dispatch. “You’ve written up a statement of what happened?”

“Yes, sir. It’s in the folder on your desk.”

“All right. Why don’t you call Bob Torrez back in for a little while to sit the radio. Stay here by the phone until Bob gets here. And then patrol central. We may need…” I waved a hand. “Who the hell knows what we’ll need.” I heard voices out front.

Frank Dayan stuck his head around the corner, saw me, and said, “Ah, here he is.”

“Hello, Frank.”

The publisher backed away to give me room to maneuver in the narrow doorway.

“Some night, huh?” he said.

“Yes, it is.”

“Do you have a couple of minutes?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I was just down at the hospital, and Sheriff Holman said I should come and talk with you.”

That’s because he doesn’t want to be bothered talking to you , I almost said. “Frank, we’re not going to have anything for you for several hours yet. It’s that simple.”

He followed me past the row of bulletin boards and the snack machines by the drinking fountain. “Linda was going to stick around for a little while, if that’s all right with you.”

“Have at it.”

“You’ll have a statement, then?”

I stopped, turned, and looked at Frank Dayan with a combination of weariness, exasperation, and curiosity. If the Omaha, Nebraska, where he was from was not the center of the hot news universe, then where did that put Posadas, New Mexico? Long before first light of a Saturday, Dayan was worrying about his six-page Monday edition.

“Frank…yes. Now give us a break.” He nodded and back-pedaled a step. I caught Gayle Sedillos’s eye and beckoned her into my office.

I closed the door and put my arm around her shoulders as we walked across toward my desk. I saw that she was carrying the brown hardcover ring binder that included the jail activity logs. “You all right?”

“Yes, sir.” She took a deep breath. “I think so.”

“Did you check on Tammy? In the last few minutes?”

“Yes sir. She’s sleeping.” The three upstairs cells were reserved for juveniles and, on the rare occasions when we had them, women. The cells were small, neat, clean, and remote.

I motioned toward the swivel chair by the window. “Do you want anything?”

“To go home and go to bed,” she said. She managed the beginning of a grin.

“Wasn’t Tom Mears supposed to be working desk midnight to eight?”

“He called in sick. Ernie stayed until I came in at two.”

“Half the world is sick,” I said. I leaned back in my chair and tried to twist a kink out of my neck. “So tell me what happened.”

Gayle Sedillos was the best dispatcher and office manager we’d had in years. She had begun working for the Sheriff’s Department the summer of her high school senior year, and for the next six years had been steady, bright, and efficient.

I had tried, along with others, to get her married off on several occasions. We’d had no success. The standard department joke was that Bob Torrez, six-foot-four, movie-star handsome, and eligible, would eventually fall for Gayle Sedillos, petite and pretty, like a Mexican porcelain doll-if only we would schedule them on the same shift often enough.

She opened the log. “I checked the cells at two-oh-five downstairs and two-twelve upstairs. Trujillo was awake and restless. Woodruff was asleep.” Her finger traced the entries down the page. “I checked every fifteen minutes until about three. At that time I heard coughing sounds from upstairs.”

“Upstairs? Miss Woodruff?”

“Yes, sir. When I checked, I found that she had vomited. I asked her if she was going to be all right. She said she was, and that she was sorry about making such a mess.”

“That was at three or shortly after?”

“Yes, sir. I changed her pillowcase and cleaned up the floor by her cot. She kept apologizing for not being able to make it to the sink.”

“Did you call anyone?”

“No, sir.”

I made my tone as gentle as I could. “You should have, you know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Even if it’s just calling the road deputy in for a few minutes. When you have to be in a cell with a prisoner, call someone. You’re not a jailer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If no one else is available, call me. But call someone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what happened?”

She consulted the log again. “I checked every five minutes or less, and by three-twenty she seemed to be resting comfortably. Trujillo was sound asleep. I was more worried about the Woodruff girl. When I checked at three-twenty-five, Trujillo was restless again. He wouldn’t say anything and I was going to call Deputy Abeyta in, but before I got to the radio, I heard violent gagging and choking sounds from his cell.”

“That’s at three-twenty-six or so.”

“Yes, sir. I went back to check and Trujillo was convulsing.”

“He was choking?”

“Yes, sir. I could see that he was turning blue. I tried everything I knew how to do. He lost consciousness and I tried to put a ventilator in place.” Gayle wiped one of her eyes. “It sure wasn’t like the CPR classes, sir.”

“You went into the cell with him, by yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

I shook my head. “And at what time did you call for assistance?”

“Right after that,” she said. “I ran down here and called Tony.”

“And you asked that he call the ambulance?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t want to spend the time at the radio. He called as he was driving back here.”

“And you continued your efforts at resuscitation until the ambulance crew arrived?”

“Yes, sir.”

Deputy Abeyta opened the door long enough to tell me that Bob Torrez had arrived to sit the radio and that he would be on the road.

“Is the young lady riding with you?”

“Sir?” Abeyta asked.

“Miss Real. The reporter.”

“Oh.” The young deputy looked over his shoulder. “I guess so, sir. She’s standing by the front door.”