Hermit's Peak

by Michael McGarrity

  “Did she ID Rudy?”

  “She doesn’t know his last name. She said Rudy paid Boaz to give him access to the land where he cut the wood. Does that kind of shit really go on out there? Poaching and stuff like that?”

  “All the time. Did you get a description of Rudy?”

  “That, and a composite drawing. Rudy is Hispanic, in his mid-to-late thirties, clean shaven, about five foot ten. He’s stocky—weighs in at between two-twenty and two-forty pounds—and has brown eyes and brown hair cut long below the ears.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “Do you want something even better?”

  “Are you holding out on me, Sergeant?”

  Bloom laughed. “I couldn’t resist, Chief. Wanda’s kid is a miniature toy car nut. You know, those Hot Wheels you can buy just about anywhere. Lane—that’s the kid’s name—is eight years old. He told me Rudy drove a dark blue, three-quarter-ton, long-bed Chevy pickup truck, with a winch on the front bumper, and a hydraulic lift mounted in the bed. The kid really knows his vehicles.”

  “That narrows the field.”

  “You want the license number?”

  “Does your sense of humor get you in trouble, Sergeant?” Kerney asked.

  “All the time.” Broom read off the numbers and letters for the license plate. “According to the kid, the truck has permanently installed wrought-iron side railings that extend above the cab. He even drew me a picture of the truck.”

  “Fax everything you’ve got to me.”

  “It’s on the way. That question you had about those cactus plants you found in the greenhouse?”

  “What about them?”

  “Wanda said she found them in the canyon where Rudy was woodcutting and transplanted them to the greenhouse. She was going to give them as presents. I don’t think you’ve stumbled on a new hallucinogenic.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant.”

  “What do you want to do with Wanda? From what she told me, you can have her arrested for conspiracy to commit a felony.”

  “I take it she was cooperative?”

  “You bet.”

  “Let’s cut her a break, unless something more develops.”

  “Good deal.”

  Melody Jordan stood in the doorway of Kerney’s office. He waved her inside as he hung up the telephone.

  “Here’s your copy of my follow-up report, Chief,” she said, placing the file folder on his desk. “Do you want a summary?”

  “Please,” Kerney replied.

  “We found no trace evidence or foreign matter. Soil samples revealed nothing to suggest the body had been moved, but that doesn’t mean anything. X rays of the bones showed nothing other than the old fracture to the upper arm. It was impossible to match the saw marks to a specific cutting instrument. We don’t have a complete catalogue of hand or power saws. Nobody does; there are just too many of them. The comparisons we could make came up negative.”

  “Fiber samples?” Kerney asked.

  “The denim we were able to identify. It’s either one of two labels marketed by the same maker. The fibers embedded in the bone turned out to be a wool and cashmere blend, light brown in color. There’s no way to tell what type of upper garment it was.”

  “Do you still think the victim’s clothes were expensive?”

  Melody nodded her head. “It’s the kind of clothing I’d like to wear if I could afford it. I’ve got a question about the old fracture to the left humerus. The way the bone was set looks odd to me.”

  “How so?”

  “Either the doctor who did the job wasn’t very good or there was a considerable period of time before the victim received medical attention. I’d like to consult an outside expert.”

  “Whom do you have in mind?”

  “There’s a physical anthropologist from Indiana University in residence at the School of American Research, on a sabbatical. He’s also a medical doctor. I attended one of his seminars on human remains identification. He’s top-notch in the field. I’d like to get his opinion.”

  “How soon can you set it up?”

  Melody’s cheeks colored slightly. “I’ve already spoken with him. He can see me this morning. He’ll do the examination gratis.”

  Kerney wondered what the blush on Melody’s cheek was all about. “Keep me informed.”

  Melody hurried out and Kerney went to the fax machine, where the last pages of Sergeant Broom’s report were spilling onto the tray. As he waited, he asked the office secretary to run a motor vehicle check on the license plate Broom had provided. He picked up the loose sheets, returned to his office, and started reading through the material. The last page was a handwritten letter from Wanda’s son. It read:

  Dear Chief Kerney,

  Sgt. Broom said that I could rite to you. If you find my dog Buster please send him back to me. He’s mostly black with some brown and white on his legs and tummy. He has realy long hair. He ran away the day my Mom and I left New Mexico.

  I love Buster very much. He is the best dog in the hole world.

  I hope you find him. Thank you.

  LANE KNOX

  He looked up to find Charlotte Flores standing in front of his desk.

  “Here’s the motor vehicle report you wanted, Chief,” Charlotte said.

  Kerney took the papers from the secretary’s outstretched hand. He scanned it, put Lane Knox’s letter to one side, and gave Charlotte the rest of Broom’s report, along with the file he’d received from Melody Jordan. “Fax everything to Sergeant Gonzales at the Las Vegas office. Give it top priority.”

  Charlotte studied Kerney’s face. Usually the chief was cordial and polite. Today he sounded abrupt and distracted. “Are you feeling all right, Chief?”

  Kerney forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

  Charlotte gave him a quizzical look and left.

  Kerney went to the window and watched traffic on the Old Albuquerque Highway. Across the road, the huge American flag at the entrance to the new car dealership flapped and billowed in a gusty wind. Spring winds in New Mexico often rose up without warning, drove dust along at gale force, and threw a brown haze into the sky. He could barely see the foothills below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and all the shiny new vehicles lined up in rows were dulled by a coat of sand. A truck passing down the road had a huge tumbleweed pinned against its grille. The tumbleweed broke free, bounced against the truck windshield, and rolled across the highway, where it landed against a chain-link fence.

  Lane Knox certainly deserved to have his dog back. But sending Shoe, or rather Buster, off to California wasn’t a happy thought. Kerney really liked that mutt.

  • • •

  In the small conference room at the Las Vegas district state police office, Gabe Gonzales thumbed through and rearranged the multiple copies of his case files, thinking he must have been really hammered with fatigue the night before. He’d gone to bed sure that everything had been sorted the way he wanted it for the presentation to his team. He’d made copies for each officer before discovering that Melody Jordan’s preliminary forensic report was out of order in the packet.

  He corrected the error in each packet, held one copy back for Ben Morfin, and passed the rest out to his team. “Look this over and then we’ll talk,” Gabe said.

  Gabe’s team consisted of Russell Thorpe, Ben Morfin—who was off meeting with a botanist at the university—and two agents sent up from Santa Fe, Robert Duran and Frank Houge.

  Gabe didn’t speak until the men finished reading the material. “Let’s get started,” he said. “Technically, we have four different crimes. A homicide of an unknown female, the murder of Carl Boaz, the illegal production of a controlled substance, and wood poaching. Ben Morfin will handle the narcotics case.”

  “Where is Ben?” Frank Houge asked. Houge was a thick-bodied man with a bit of a gut, and a high nasal voice.

  “He went to Boaz’s greenhouse to get the cactus plants we found. Then he’s meeting with a botanist at New Mexico Highlands University
to have them identified.”

  “What’s Ben going to be doing after that?” Robert Duran asked. The opposite of Houge, Duran was small in stature. He stayed lean by running in long-distance and cross-country races.

  “He’ll spend today back at the Boaz crime scene with the lab techs, and then start probing Boaz’s drug contacts on the West Coast, through the Drug Enforcement Agency.”

  “Where do you want us?” Duran asked.

  “I need a man on the mesa looking for more bones. We’ve got some good initial findings from forensics, but I’d be a whole lot happier if we could complete the skeleton.”

  “I’ll take that,” Duran said.

  “Good. I’ve put together a grid sketch of the areas that have already been covered. Don’t go over old ground. You can use the Dodge four-by-four to get up on the mesa. I’ve marked a county map that will take you to the site.”

  “What do you have for me?” Houge asked.

  “I want you to work a short list of missing women. Forensics reports that the upper left arm bone suffered an old fracture. That, along with the age estimate of the victim and the fiber analysis, may help us make an ID.”

  “I’ll contact the victims’ families, get medical records, and double-check what the women were wearing at the time of their disappearance,” Houge said.

  “Don’t get the families’ hopes up,” Gabe said.

  Houge nodded in agreement.

  “Thorpe will help me develop a list of area woodcutters and firewood sellers,” Gabe said, getting to his feet. “We spend today—and today only—on information and evidence gathering. We’ve got enough right now to suspect that the man who killed Boaz is the wood poacher. Maybe Ben can turn up Rudy’s last name with a second search, or the California authorities will come through with more information from Wanda Knox. But with or without it, tomorrow we go looking for Rudy.”

  Houge waved his paperwork at Gabe. “From what you’ve got here, Rudy could be the key to all these felonies.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a nice early Easter present?” Gabe replied.

  Gabe held Thorpe back after Houge and Duran left. “I want a complete search of newspapers, city directories, and telephone books. Get me names, addresses, and numbers of all the firewood sellers and woodcutters you can find from Santa Fe to Las Vegas.”

  Although it was not what he had hoped to do on his first criminal investigation assignment, Thorpe nodded.

  Gabe read the young officer’s disappointment, and was about to react to it when Captain Garduno walked in.

  “You’ll want to see this stuff right away, Gabe,” Garduno said, dropping some pages in front of Gonzales. “It just came in from Chief Kerney’s office.”

  “Thanks, Cap,” Gabe said as Garduno left the room. He scanned the material in order, passing each page to Thorpe as he finished.

  When Russell handed the last sheet back, Gabe asked, “What information would you act on first?”

  “According to Motor Vehicles, the registered owner is Joaquin Santistevan. His driver’s license photo doesn’t match with the composite drawing of Rudy, and Wanda Knox’s physical description is way off in terms of height, weight, and age. She said Rudy is in his mid-to-late thirties. Santistevan has a date of birth that makes him twenty-seven.”

  Gabe nodded. “What else?”

  “Well, the kid got the truck right. The make and model of Santistevan’s vehicle corresponds with his description.”

  “What would you do with this information?”

  “Find and talk to Santistevan,” Thorpe replied.

  “Why?”

  “Eyewitnesses aren’t always reliable. Maybe Santistevan and Rudy are one and the same person, maybe not.”

  “And if they’re not?”

  Thorpe shrugged. “It could mean anything. Maybe Santistevan is just a pal or a relative who lent Rudy his truck. Maybe he’s Rudy’s partner in the poaching. Maybe Santistevan sold his truck to Rudy, who never bothered to register it in his name.”

  “Those are all good questions that need answers,” Gabe said, holding up his hand to cut Thorpe off.

  Thorpe smiled. “Did I pass the test, Sergeant?”

  “Don’t get cocky on me, rookie,” Gabe said. “Every day you’re on the street, you’ll be tested. You start independent patrol next week, and I want you to survive it.”

  Thorpe coughed into his closed fist to hide his embarrassment. “Sorry, Sergeant.”

  “No harm done,” Gabe said, handing Thorpe the motor vehicle report on Santistevan. “Get me a location for this guy. He’s got a rural route address in the county. Do you know how to do that?”

  “Through the post office,” Thorpe said as he got to his feet.

  “What else should you do?”

  Thorpe studied the report. “Run Santistevan’s Social Security number, date of birth, and vehicle registration through NCIC.”

  “That’s right. If you get any hits, wants, or warrants, call the reporting department and get specifics.” Gabe held out Melody Jordan’s follow-up report. “Have dispatch pass this along to Houge.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” Thorpe took the file and turned to leave.

  “Hey, Thorpe,” Gabe said.

  “Sergeant?”

  “I think you’re going to work out okay.”

  Thorpe nodded his thanks for the compliment, but Gabe didn’t see it. His head was buried in the papers on the table.

  After Thorpe closed the door, Gabe looked up and smiled. Coaching rookies was a lot like raising kids. The analogy made Gabe think about little Lane Knox in California, who was nuts about toy cars and trucks. At Lane’s age, Orlando collected baseball cards. For years, Orlando had dragged him off every chance he got to buy more cards. He had been crazy about them. There were shoe boxes full of the damn things that Orlando had spent hours poring over, memorizing players’ statistics.

  Those were good years.

  He opened the phone book, turned to the listings for firewood sellers, and started compiling a contact list, which he would give to Thorpe to finish as soon as the rookie returned.

  • • •

  At twenty-six, Agent Ben Morfin looked a good five years younger than his age. When he’d graduated from the academy at twenty-one, his youthful appearance won him a special assignment as an undercover narcotics agent at an Albuquerque high school. During the year he spent back in public school, Morfin had busted a number of pushers and street dealers, which earned him a departmental citation.

  After wrapping up his testimony in the court trials on the cases, Morfin put in almost four years as a patrol officer before returning to narcotics. Assigned full-time to the Las Vegas district, he’d been back in plainclothes for six months and loving it.

  He parked behind the physical science building at New Mexico Highlands University and gave dispatch his location. Gabe Gonzales came on the horn and gave him a quick update on the information received from the Arcadia PD.

  Ben signed off, scribbled some notes, got the flat of cactus plants out of the backseat of his unmarked unit, and walked across the parking lot.

  In the heart of Las Vegas, the campus was situated on a small hill bisected by city streets containing row after row of Victorian houses and cottages. With brick facades, flat roofs, and low parapets, most of the campus buildings had a territorial appearance.

  Morfin found Professor Ruth Pino’s office, put the tray containing the cactus on a hallway chair, and knocked on the door.

  Professor Pino opened the door and looked Ben up and down. “I’m sorry, but I only see students during normal office hours,” she said, “unless it’s an emergency. I don’t believe you’re in any of my classes.”

  “I’m not,” Ben said, showing his shield and ID. “I’m Agent Morfin with the state police. I called you earlier this morning.”

  “You don’t look old enough to be a policeman,” Pino said as she turned away and walked toward her desk. “Come in.”

  “I get that all the time,” Ben
said as he picked up the container of cactus plants and followed Pino inside. A petite, middle-aged Hispanic woman no more than five-two, Professor Pino wore blue jeans, hiking boots, and a lightweight sweater that didn’t detract from her still-youthful figure.

  “So, you have some plants you think might have hallucinogenic properties,” Professor Pino said.

  “I’m hoping that’s what you can tell me.” Ben put the plants on her desk.

  Ruth Pino turned, looked at the plants, and gave Morfin a startled glance. “Where did you get these?” she asked sharply.

  “At a marijuana grower’s greenhouse.”

  Pino made a closer inspection. The clustered stems were about an inch tall, the spines about a half-inch long, and the fruit was green. She reached for her handbook of rare endemic plants and paged through it. “Do you know where these were harvested?”

  Morfin caught the excitement in Pino’s voice. “In a canyon near San Geronimo.”

  “Who collected them?”

  “A woman who lived with the marijuana grower.”

  Pino studied a page in the handbook and looked at the cactus plants one last time. “I need exact information on the location, Agent Morfin.”

  “Wait a minute, Professor. Back up. What has you so excited?”

  “The common name of this plant is Knowlton’s cactus. It’s on the federal biologically endangered species list. There is only one known area in northwestern New Mexico where this cactus has ever been found.”

  “Ever?”

  “In the world. The Nature Conservancy owns the land. It’s on a secret preserve.”

  “A secret preserve for cactus?” Ben asked.

  Professor Pino nodded. “Probably no more than three thousand plants exist in the wild. It’s a variety treasured by collectors. One cactus can bring up to hundreds of dollars, depending on its size. The Knowlton’s cactus has been reduced to near extinction. It’s illegal to harvest it. If these truly came from a second site, you’ve made a very significant discovery.”