Word: crickets
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...prosperous, sun-baked Las Cruces (pop. 13,500), an agricultural town 30 miles from the Texas border, Cricket had little trouble finding a variety of primrose paths. The town and surrounding Dona Ana County was dotted with bars and gambling joints. The law was administered by big, smiling Democratic Sheriff A. L. ("Happy") Apodaca, a former prizefighter with a great fondness for women...
Under Happy and his political friends nobody cared if a girl like Cricket ran wild. Occasionally, as a matter of fact, flashy politicos from the state capital itself came to Las Cruces and obligingly helped her get drunk. But when she disappeared last spring after staggering away from the De Luxe Café just before dawn, Las Cruces began to burn with curiosity...
Voluntary Suspect. The curiosity gave way to horror and indignation 17 days later Cricket's bruised, partly clothed body had been found in a shallow grave on a mesa twelve miles from town. Happy Apodaca announced that she had been raped and murdered. No autopsy was held. Cricket was just sprinkled with lime and buried again. But Happy did take action-of a sort...
When the town began to resound with rumors that somebody was trying to cover up the crime, the sheriff secretly jailed a fellow who had been drinking with Cricket on the night of her disappearance. The man was one of his own friends, beefy, crop-haired Jerry Nuzum, a professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. For three days no word of the arrest leaked...
...jail under what Happy called "voluntary arrest" because he had been told he would be charged with murder if he objected or tried to see a lawyer. But when Reporter Finley slipped into the jail and talked to Nuzum, he protested convincingly that he had nothing to do with Cricket's murder...