Hermit's Peak

by Michael McGarrity

  “She didn’t know a soul when she started here.”

  “Did Luiza talk about herself or her family in Mexico?”

  Fullerton shook his head. “Not much. She’s a shy girl. Quiet. Keeps to herself.”

  “Did she have any clashes with other employees? Any friction, disagreements, dissension?”

  “Not that I know about. She was pretty even tempered. Got along with everybody.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Except when she got pestered.”

  “Who pestered her?”

  “Well, it wasn’t pestering to start; it was more like skirt chasing. One of the neighboring ranch boys took a shine to her. Luiza didn’t like him at all. But the kid wouldn’t take no for an answer. It really got Luiza’s back up.”

  “What’s the kid’s name?”

  “Bernardo Barela. He works on the next spread over with his uncle.”

  “Nestor Barela’s grandson?”

  “That’s him.”

  “How do I get to their place?”

  “Take the left fork out of my gate and follow the road ten miles due west. They use an old homestead as their line camp. You can’t miss it. They come down from Las Vegas most days. You should find them there. They borrowed my bulldozer this morning to do some road work.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “You’ve got a nice place here, Mr. Fullerton,” Kerney said as he turned and stepped away. “Thanks, again.”

  • • •

  At home, Gabe waited restlessly for Russell Thorpe to deliver the burglary reports that the Texas law enforcement agencies had faxed to the district office. Now that Orlando had announced his intentions to move away, the house seemed too big, and Gabe felt vaguely uncomfortable in it.

  Thorpe arrived and hung around with an eager look on his face, hoping to learn what was up. Gabe thumbed through the papers, verified that the stolen items matched the information out of Texas, and looked at Thorpe.

  “Go recover the stolen property at Boaz’s cabin, and see what else you can find,” he said.

  Thorpe could barely contain a grin. “How do I keep you out of it?”

  “If anyone asks, say you got an anonymous tip. Also, write up a search warrant for Angie Romero’s house, get it signed, and toss the place. Take somebody with you. Who is the shift commander on duty?”

  “Art Garcia is filling in for you.”

  “Tell him—and only him—what’s up, and ask him to go with you.”

  “What’s my probable cause for the warrant?”

  “You have reason to believe that items taken in a Texas burglary are in Angie’s house. Cite the Midland Police Department report. Art can help you fill in the blanks.”

  Gabe waved the Midland Police Department report at Thorpe. “Did you make copies for yourself?”

  Thorpe nodded. “You bet.”

  “Good. Now go do your job.”

  Thorpe strode through the front door and almost bounced his way down the front porch to his unit. Gabe smiled at Thorpe’s rookie enthusiasm, knowing that soon it would get washed away by harsh reality.

  He read the reports again. All three Texas burglaries were professional scores, and the MO on each case was nearly identical. He wondered if the cops in West Texas even knew they had a crime ring operating in their backyards. Maybe, maybe not.

  The thought slipped away as he reached for the ringing telephone.

  • • •

  Several miles west of the Box Z headquarters the ranch road was freshly graded and crowned. Not yet packed down and compressed, the loose dirt was soft under Kerney’s tires, and his vehicle drifted into the old ruts hidden under the fresh topping spread by the bulldozer.

  The road took him away from the open rangeland toward a somber line of steep-walled, forested mesas tinged purple and red. In places the mesa cliffs had been scoured bare by rock slides of massive proportions, and large boulders littered the canyon floor.

  Halfway to the line camp he passed an unattended bulldozer, and the road became a worn indentation of tracks in ground-up sandstone and powder-dry clay. The road veered toward a blocky rimrock mesa, and the clay and sand gave way to shale and cobbles.

  The line camp consisted of a battered mobile home on concrete blocks and a pump shed behind a falling-down single-story house with a spindlework porch. All the windows and doors were missing and part of the brick chimney had crashed through the roof. Across a bare patch of ground, next to a weathered corral containing two saddled mounts, was a horse trailer.

  Kerney recognized the truck in front of the mobile home as one of the vehicles he’d seen at Nestor Barela’s family compound. The sound of his arrival brought two men out on the three-step, rough-cut stairs to the trailer. The men studied Kerney as he approached the trailer.

  The older man stepped down to meet him. Kerney ignored the kid, who had to be Bernardo, and kept his attention fixed on Roque.

  Built along the same lines as his father, Roque sported a well-fed belly tightly cinched by a belt. A large silver buckle dug into his midsection.

  “You must be really lost,” Roque said with a shake of his head.

  “I’m Kevin Kerney.”

  The amused expression vanished from Roque’s face. “You’re the cop who lied to my father.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m investigating the disappearance of Luiza San Miguel.” Over Roque’s shoulder Kerney saw Bernardo stiffen.

  “I know the girl,” Roque said. “Haven’t seen her around. I heard she went back to Mexico.”

  “You knew her, too, didn’t you?” Kerney called out to Bernardo.

  “Yeah, I did.” A frown line crossed Bernardo’s forehead and the corners of his eyes tightened.

  Kerney stepped around Roque toward Bernardo. “I understand you were interested in Luiza.”

  “Me? No way.”

  “Really?”

  Bernardo shrugged. “Yeah, well maybe for a little while. But she wasn’t interested in me.”

  Roque snorted. “That’s no lie.”

  Bernardo shot his uncle a dirty look as he walked down the steps. “So I liked her and she didn’t like me. Big deal.”

  “Was it a big deal?” Kerney asked.

  “I don’t have to waste my time with babes that don’t like me.”

  “So, it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Did you see her after she went to work at the Horse Canyon Ranch?”

  “Yeah, once or twice. But not to talk to.”

  “How about last April, outside Ojitos Frios, on the road to Romeroville? Did you see her walking?”

  Bernardo shook his head.

  “Is that a no?”

  “No, okay?”

  “You were seen on that road in your grandfather’s truck with a passenger the day Luiza disappeared.”

  “Maybe I was, but I don’t remember seeing her.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “I don’t know, man, that was a year ago. It could have been a lot of people—one of my bros, one of the family, anybody.”

  “Think back, Bernardo. It was a weekend evening last April. A Saturday.” Kerney gave him the exact date. “Do you have any idea what you might have been doing in the area?”

  “Going to work, throwing a cruise, giving somebody a ride home. What’s the big deal?”

  “What would take you to the mesa in the evening?” Kerney closed in on Bernardo. The boy flinched but held his ground.

  “Maybe I left the gate unlocked. I could have been going to check it. Maybe we had some cattle on the road. That happens a lot.”

  “That all makes sense.” Kerney moved even closer to break into Bernardo’s personal space. He used his height advantage to force Bernardo to raise his head and look him in the eye. “But you didn’t see Luiza?”

  “I already said that,” Bernardo
replied, stepping off to one side.

  “You’d remember if you did?”

  “Sure.”

  “Look,” Roque said, “if Bernardo was driving my father’s truck, he was working. That’s the only time he gets to use it.”

  “But it wasn’t you in Nestor’s truck with Bernardo?” Kerney asked Roque.

  “Not likely,” Roque said. “I always drive my own truck.”

  “So, who was riding with you?” Kerney asked Bernardo.

  “Like I said, maybe one of my bros,” Bernardo said, jamming his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “Maybe I gave somebody a ride. Who said they saw me?”

  “Do you remember if you gave somebody a ride that day?”

  “This is bullshit,” Bernardo said. “Why the fuck are you asking me these questions again? I already answered you.”

  “I’m just trying to find somebody who may have seen Luiza.”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  Roque jabbed his finger hard against Kerney’s shoulder before he could ask another question. “Don’t jack my nephew around because my father won’t turn over his lease to you.”

  “I’m sorry if you have that impression,” Kerney said.

  “That’s the way it sounds to me,” Roque said. “You go to my father’s house, lie to him about who you are, and now you show up here playing some sort of hardass cop game. Just leave.”

  “Whatever you say,” Kerney said as he locked on to Bernardo again. “Did Luiza leave her Box Z job because of you?”

  “Because of me? That’s crazy.”

  “We’ll talk again,” Kerney said, to raise Bernardo’s tension. “I’ll listen to anything you have to tell me.”

  Bernardo turned his head, cleared his throat, spit on the ground, and said nothing.

  Kerney waited a few beats, nodded good-bye to Roque, gave Bernardo a quick, even stare, and left.

  • • •

  The grandeur of the valley and canyonlands didn’t hold Kerney’s attention on the drive back. His mind stayed focused on Bernardo. Perhaps the kid had simply made some Don Juan moves on Luiza, got rejected, and—like a lot of young studs—moved on to greener pastures. But too many issues led Kerney away from such a generous conclusion. Bernardo knew the victim, had shown an interest in her, and could be placed near where Luiza had last been seen, on the same day, and at approximately the same time as her disappearance.

  More damaging was the fact that some of Luiza’s bones had been found on land Bernardo’s family controlled. That, coupled with Bernardo’s uneasiness under questioning—his body language, his defensiveness, his vague answers—raised Kerney’s suspicions. He stopped at the Las Vegas district office and called Emmet Griffin.

  “You said you saw Luiza occasionally refuse rides from strangers when she went out walking.”

  “That’s what I said,” Griffin replied.

  “Did you ever see her refuse a ride from someone she knew?”

  “I can’t say that for sure.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Once I saw Nestor Barela’s grandson driving real slow on the wrong side of the road, talking to her while she was walking. It went on for maybe a minute or two. He spun his wheels and threw up a lot of dust when he left. You know, show-off kid stuff.”

  “You mean Bernardo?”

  “That’s the only grandson I know.”

  “Did you ask Luiza about the incident?”

  “No, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. She waved and smiled when I drove by. I figured she was just out on one of her evening walks.”

  Kerney thanked Griffin and hung up. What had Bernardo said at the line camp? He took out the pocketsize microcassette recorder he’d used to surreptitiously tape the conversation with Bernardo and Roque and played it back. On the tape Bernardo said he hadn’t talked to Luiza after she started work at Horse Canyon.

  According to Emmet Griffin’s recollection, that was a lie.

  • • •

  In Anton Chico, Gabe took a look around to familiarize himself with the terrain. The phone company’s records showed a customer named Bernadette Lucero had made a number of calls to Buena Vista Lumber and Supply. Bernadette had been a participant in the singles events sponsored by the Las Vegas newspaper.

  A cross-check revealed frequent calls from Joaquin Santistevan to Bernadette during the workday from his office phone and late at night from his home. The pattern of calls suggested that Joaquin’s reconciliation with his wife hadn’t kept him from keeping company with Bernadette.

  Anton Chico was Spanish for Little Anthony. Some held that the village was named after one of the original Hispanic settlers, others that it was a corruption of ancón chico, which meant “little bend.”

  Gabe cast his vote for the little bend theory. The village sat on a gentle rise above the Pecos River where it curved out of a progression of low-lying barrancas and flowed toward the eastern plains. Old cottonwoods graced the wide fields and pastures along the river, and the houses and farms perched above the flood plain were almost all nineteenth-century stone and adobe structures, with a few modern additions tacked on here and there.

  Anton Chico and the neighboring settlements were part of a Mexican land grant still controlled by the descendants of the original colonists. Halfway between Las Vegas and Santa Rosa—a city that thrived on the tourist traffic along Interstate 40—the village was off the beaten path, and provided no amenities for travelers.

  Aside from a modern public school and a post office housed in a mobile home on a large dirt lot, the village center consisted of old territorial buildings. A mercantile store, a church, a rectory, some traditional long adobe houses with narrow portals, and old stone cottages with tin roofs faced two parallel lanes.

  There were no gas stations, motels, restaurants, or markets. Where the lanes converged at the outskirts of the village, the pavement ended, and dirt roads wandered to nearby farmhouses and ranches.

  Gabe stopped at the post office and approached the clerk after waiting for several locals to pick up their mail and leave. A round-faced woman with silver hair, she reached for reading glasses that hung from a cord around her neck and studied Gabe’s credentials.

  “Do you know Bernadette Lucero?” he asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “She applied for a job as a police dispatcher. We do a background investigation on every job applicant. It’s required.”

  “You must mean Gloria’s daughter,” the woman said. She removed her glasses and let them dangle against her chest.

  “Is there more than one Bernadette Lucero living in Anton Chico?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “She’s turned into a real good mother since she had the baby.”

  “How old is her child?”

  “About two months. She had a boy.”

  “Do you know the baby’s father?”

  The woman shook her head. “Berna isn’t married.”

  “How can I find her?”

  “She lives next door to Gloria and Lenny.”

  “Can you give me a last name?”

  “Alarid. Gloria is Berna’s mother. She married Lenny after divorcing her first husband.”

  “What else can you tell me about Berna?”

  “She’s never been in trouble, as far as I know. She went to college up in Las Vegas for a couple of years, driving back and forth to her classes. She dropped out when she got pregnant.”

  “How do I get to Berna’s house?”

  With directions in hand, Gabe sat in his car and thumbed through the quick field notes he’d made after his last visit to Buena Vista Lumber and Supply. Twenty years as a cop had taught him to write everything down, no matter how inconsequential it seemed at the time. Lenny Alarid’s name popped up, followed by the notation that he hauled piñon chips to Texas under contract to Buena Vista.

  He had no idea how everything would shake out when the dust settled. But
he found the developing connections intriguing.

  Bernadette Lucero and the Alarids lived behind the church and rectory. A fenced lot enclosed two houses and a free-standing carport large enough for a semitractor. Surrounding the carport was an assortment of large truck trailers, a stack of spare tires, and accumulated junk. A full-size domestic sedan and a pickup truck were parked in front of a pitched roof adobe house. A smaller double-wide manufactured home, with full skirting and an add-on deck, stood nearby. At the front of the deck steps was a late model sport utility vehicle.

  Behind the carport, among some cedar trees at the backside of the lot, was an old garage with an attached shed. Next to the shed was a major piñon and juniper woodpile.

  Gabe drove past the open gate, turned around, parked between the two homes, and knocked first at the adobe dwelling. After a few minutes and no answer, he tried the manufactured home.

  The young woman who greeted him cradled a baby in one arm. She was bright-eyed, wore her long brown hair in soft curls, and was dressed in a dark blue sweatsuit.

  “Bernadette Lucero?” Gabe gave her a reassuring smile and flipped his badge case open.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have time for a few questions?”

  “I guess so. About what?”

  “May I come in?”

  “Sure.”

  Gabe followed Bernadette inside and waited until she settled on the couch with the baby before sitting across from her.

  “What a beautiful baby,” he said.

  Bernadette’s face lit up. “Everybody says that.” Holding the infant under his arms, she placed him on her knee facing Gabe.

  “You must be very happy.”

  “I am. He’s my little jito.” She kissed the baby on the top of his head.

  “Does he look like you or like his father?”

  “Oh, his father, of course.”

  “Joaquin must be very proud.”

  Bernadette’s smile vanished. “You know about Joaquin?”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Only my mother and Lenny are supposed to know.”

  “Debbie doesn’t know?”

  “Why should she? Besides, Joaquin is leaving her soon.”

  “Is he going to marry you?”

  “In the summer,” Bernadette said, her smile returning. She bounced the baby happily on her knee and it gurgled in response.