“That deer ran into me. Can I borrow a P.D. vehicle?”
Kerney thought it over. “I’ve got a clunker in the headquarters parking lot that you can use.”
“Thanks a lot,” Clayton retorted, unable to keep a sarcastic tone out of his voice.
Kerney smiled pleasantly and was about to respond when a knock at the command vehicle door interrupted their exchange. The door opened to reveal the arrival of the medical investigator, an MD named Mark Trask who worked full-time for the state health department and did occasional on-call work for the Office of the Medical Investigator, headquartered in Albuquerque.
“Do you have a body for me to inspect?” Trask asked, stomping his boots on the carpet to shake off some clinging snow. Mark weighed in at a hefty two hundred and fifty pounds on a five-six frame, so the RV shook slightly underfoot.
“Not here,” Kerney said.
Trask flipped back the hood of his parka. His gray walrus mustache was wet with condensation and his eyes were tearing from the cold. “Then where might I find the deceased, Chief?”
“About five miles up on top of the mesa,” Kerney replied.
“Ah, and how am I to get there in this blizzard?”
“We’re in the process of securing appropriate transportation for you,” Kerney answered.
“Such as?”
“It could be a road grader, a snowplow, or as a passenger on a snowmobile.”
“Wonderful,” Trask said with a grimace, eyeing Clayton. “And who do we have here?”
Kerney said. “Sergeant Istee, this is Dr. Mark Trask.”
Trask reached out and firmly shook Clayton’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. Have either of you viewed the remains of the deceased?”
“No,” Kerney replied. “Don Mielke and one of his investigators are there now. We’re waiting for a report.”
Feeling as though he could fall asleep on his feet, Clayton was about to step outside and suck down some cold air when the door opened again and a man stepped inside. Tall with an angular face, he quickly took off his coat and nodded at Kerney and Trask before turning his attention to Clayton.
“We haven’t met. I’m Kirt Latimer, ADA.”
“Sergeant Clayton Istee, Lincoln County S.O.”
“Don Mielke told me on the phone this might be a case of justifiable homicide. Is that correct?”
“It’s likely.” Kerney turned to the built-in desk and picked up a palm-size tape recorder and several microcassette tapes, and handed them to Latimer. “Tape one is Clifford Talbott’s voluntary statement made immediately after he was taken into custody. Tape two is an in-depth interview with Talbott conducted soon after his arrest.”
Latimer juggled the cassette tapes in his hand. “But nothing of the suspect’s story has yet to be confirmed.”
“We’re waiting on Don Mielke,” Clayton said, “who is at the crime scene with one of his investigators.”
“What can you tell me about Talbott?”
“I’ll answer that,” Kerney said. “He’s a seventy-something white male, married, with one adult son, who lives in Moriarty. He has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, I think, and was a state livestock inspector for thirty-five years before he retired. He owns a small ranch on the mesa that he inherited from his father and runs a herd of cattle on it during the spring and summer months.”
“How do you know all that?” Clayton asked.
“Because I’ve met Clifford Talbott several times before,” Kerney replied.
“Do you think he’s a cold-blooded killer?” Latimer inquired.
“Cold-blooded, no. But that’s only one of the fifty-seven varieties of killers I’ve met over the years.”
Conversation ended when Latimer started playing the tape recording of Talbott’s confession, and Clayton used the moment to put on his coat and step outside the command center. He took a deep breath and listened for the wind, but all was still and quiet. Heavy snow not only buried everything in a white blanket, it made the world miraculously fall silent for a time. It was a soundlessness like no other and always served to remind Clayton of how needlessly noisy life had become.
The momentary stillness passed with the faint but gradually growing sound of an engine, and soon Clayton could discern the full-throated, barely muffled growl of a snowmobile coming down the long driveway to the Riley double-wide. He watched as Mielke brought it to a stop next to the cluster of police vehicles parked in front of the deck to the double-wide.
Clayton walked through deep snow to greet Mielke. He waited to speak until Mielke removed his goggles, flipped back the hood of his parka, and took off his ski mask. “How did it look?” he asked.
“It appears to be just the way Talbott said it would be, and I don’t think anything was staged.”
“Can you confirm that Brian Riley is the deceased?”
“There’s no doubt about it. I saw his body. I searched his backpack and personal items and only found money and a small quantity of grass, nothing else.” Mielke unzipped his parka, reached inside, brought out a digital camera, and nodded toward the command center RV. “Who’s here?”
“Mark Trask, a medical investigator, and ADA Latimer are inside with Chief Kerney.”
“Good.” He waved the camera at Clayton. “I’ve got photographs of the crime scene we can download to a computer.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
Inside the mobile command center, Mielke downloaded directly to a computer software program that ran the photographs as a slide show. The four men clustered around Mielke in front of the monitor as he talked them through his preliminary investigation at the scene.
“Personally,” Mielke said, “I think that if Talbott hadn’t entered his house with his rifle, Riley would have shot him.”
“I believe I’ll declare the subject dead based on your graphic photographs and go home to a snifter of brandy,” Trask said.
“You have to personally inspect the body, Mark,” Latimer replied.
Trask sighed dramatically. “I know, but I’m just not a cold-weather person. Riding on the back of a snowmobile in a blizzard holds no appeal.”
“I’ve got a grader and a snowplow working on the country road from here to Talbott’s ranch,” Mielke said. “We should be able to travel by four-by-four to the crime scene within the hour. If we can’t get an ambulance up there, we’ll bring the body out the same way.”
Trask smiled. “That sounds much more agreeable.”
Mielke eyed Latimer. “Does this give you enough to make a decision on how to proceed?”
“I’ll meet with him, but I’m not willing to decline to prosecute until your investigation is complete. At best, I’ll think about filing an involuntary manslaughter charge, but I want him held overnight and brought before a magistrate judge for a preliminary hearing first thing in the morning. If everything continues to check out by then, I may agree to a reasonable bond.”
“With this storm, the courts may be closed tomorrow,” Mielke said.
“I’ll find a judge.”
Mielke turned to Kerney. “Do you have a question, Chief?”
“Is there any reason to believe that Talbott shot Riley, got his Smith and Wesson revolver from the bedroom, and put it in the dead boy’s hand?”
Mielke used the mouse to scroll through the sequence of photographs taken of Riley’s body. “As you can see, nothing looks staged. Tony Morales, my senior investigator, is dusting for prints. If we find Riley’s fingerprints on the bedroom dresser where Talbott kept his revolver, that will be fairly conclusive evidence that the weapon wasn’t planted on his body.”
Kerney nodded. “That makes sense.” He turned to Clayton. “Is there anything you’d like to add, Sergeant?”
“If anyone has any viable suspects in the murders of Deputy Tim Riley, his wife Denise, Minerva Stanley Robocker, and APD Officer Judy Connors, I’d love to know who they are.”
A tight-lipped silence greeted Clayton’s frustration.
“We’l
l get the investigation back on track tomorrow,” Kerney promised.
Latimer, Trask, and Mielke nodded in agreement and left the command center.
“Let’s call it a night,” Kerney said.
“I’ll sleep here in the command center,” Clayton replied.
“That’s unacceptable. You’re coming home with me.”
“Can we even get to your place?”
“I’ll just bet we can.”
Driving home with three feet of fresh snow on the ground wasn’t the smartest decision Kerney ever made, but he managed to pull it off without getting stuck, although it took almost two hours to travel the fifteen or so miles from Cañoncito to his ranch.
Sara had all the outside lights on, and most of the inside lights were burning brightly as well, so during the slow ascent up the ranch road from the canyon, the house was an inviting beacon in the night.
Kerney parked, breathed a sigh of relief, and looked over at Clayton, who’d fallen asleep ten minutes into the drive, with his head resting against his wadded-up coat. He hadn’t moved a muscle since. Kerney shook Clayton hard to wake him.
Slowly Clayton opened his eyes. “That was speedy,” he said, talking through a yawn.
“Not really. You want something to eat? There’s some leftover green chili stew in the refrigerator.”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll take a shower, call Grace, and go to bed.”
“Okay.” Kerney killed the engine.
Clayton didn’t move.
“What is it?” Kerney asked.
“I’m flat out of ideas on how to catch this killer.”
“We haven’t exhausted all possible leads yet. Denise’s letters could give us something, and maybe the well house will yield some evidence. Sergeant Pino will be out there first thing in the morning.”
“Tell her to be very careful working in that snow,” Clayton said. “Moisture can easily destroy latent fingerprints and make it almost impossible to find any trace evidence.”
“Sergeant Pino is up to the task, Clayton.”
Clayton smiled and put his hand on the door handle. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Inside, Clayton made his excuses to Sara and went immediately to the guest quarters. In the kitchen, Kerney joined Sara for a cup of tea. A partially destroyed gut from a drug dealer’s bullet had pretty much done away with Kerney’s coffee-drinking days.
Sara reached out and touched Kerney’s cheek. “I was starting to get worried about you.”
“It was slow going, but we made it. Clayton needs sleep. I ordered him off duty but that didn’t seem to work. So I decided that I didn’t want him staying anywhere else but here tonight.”
Sara’s eyes danced. “That sounds remarkably like what a concerned parent would do.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“A very good thing. Jack Burke called to say he would be out at first light plowing his roads with his grader. He said if you’re not in a fired-up hurry to get to work early, he’d have ours cleared by eight o’clock.”
Jack was Kerney’s closest neighbor, friend, and the man who’d sold him two sections of ranchland. He owned an old Highway Department surplus road grader that he used to keep his ranch roads in good condition. “Bless him.” He took Sara’s hand. “You seem in a good mood.”
“I’m loving this storm. It reminds me of Montana winters on the ranch when we would be snowbound for a week. There were days when nothing moved, when even my father was forced to stay inside until the sky cleared and the winds died down. Those days were magic for me and my brother. The land an unbroken white blanket. The mountains frosted cones. The ranch house cozy and warm. Me in the kitchen with my mother learning how to make biscuits from scratch.”
“Most people nowadays will never have those kind of memories.”
Sara squeezed Kerney’s hand. “Well, we do.”
Kerney raised his wife’s hand to his lips. The Sara he loved was back, at least for a while. There would be rough spots to come, but it was heartening to see her eyes dance and hear that lovely country lilt creep into her voice. “Let’s keep making those memories,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
Overnight the tail end of the blizzard backed into northern New Mexico and dumped an additional six inches of snow on Santa Fe County. At dawn Kerney broke his way through the frozen crust of deep snow to the barn and spent the better part of an hour cleaning out stalls and feeding the horses and Patrick’s pony.
Kerney had kept the stock inside the barn for protection during the storm, and they were restless and in need of exercise. One by one he turned them loose in the corrals, and they pawed, kicked, pranced, stuck their muzzles into the snow, and high-stepped through the drifts near the fence line. Patrick’s pony, Pablito, bucked his way around the perimeter fence, whinnying as he went.
Kerney watched their spirited antics for a few minutes before deciding to leave them outside until after breakfast. As he trudged back to the house, the depth of the snow made him doubt that Jack Burke would have the ranch road plowed by eight o’clock as he had promised. In fact, Kerney doubted that much of anything would be moving in northern New Mexico for at least another day.
He shucked off his coat and boots in the mudroom, sat at the kitchen table, downed a big glass of orange juice, and listened for sounds of movement from Sara, Patrick, or Clayton. All was quiet. He called the regional dispatch center and asked for a report on road conditions.
“It’s a big mess, Chief,” the dispatcher said. “The Interstate is shut down, none of the major city arterials have been plowed or sanded, there are six-foot snowdrifts on some of the county roads, and we’ve got people calling 911 to report that they are stuck in their driveways and would I please send someone to help. There are motorists in ditches, none of the tow truck operators are moving, officers can’t make it to work, and those who have are attempting to transport emergency medical personnel to the hospital or rescue stranded motorists along the Interstate.”
“Put me through to the shift commander.”
“Deputy Chief Otero is ten-eighty-one if you want to talk to him.”
Somehow Larry had made it to police headquarters. “Ask him to stand by for my phone call,” Kerney said.
“Ten-four.”
He called and talked to Otero, who told him that the graveyard shift had been held over to pull a double, and only about half of the first shift had reported for duty.
“I’ve told all commanders to respond to emergency calls, only if we can even get to those locations,” Larry added, “and I’ve authorized all nonessential civilian personnel to take a snow day.”
“Very good.”
“Also, the state police report that the governor is going to declare a state of emergency. He’s calling out the National Guard to assist.”
“That will help a lot.”
“Sergeant Pino and Detective Chacon are on their way to the Cañoncito crime scene. Pino wants to know if you have contact with Sergeant Istee.”
“Tell her affirmative and to proceed without us. We’ll be at her twenty later in the morning. Speaking of Sergeant Istee, he needs to borrow a vehicle. What do we have on the lot?”
“If he can get here, there’s an unmarked Crown Vic with a rebuilt motor he can use.”
“I’ll let him know,” Kerney said. “Thanks, Larry.”
“I’m here if you need me,” Otero said before disconnecting.
Kerney checked the pantry and refrigerator to see what he could whip up for breakfast. He had no idea how long Clayton would sleep, so he decided he would make blueberry pancakes—one of Patrick’s all-time favorite meals—and keep a batch warming in the oven for Clayton.
He put the teakettle on the stove, got the coffeepot started for Sara, and was halfway through his prep when Patrick came into the kitchen still wearing his pajamas and holding his copy of Herman and Poppy Go Singing in the Hills, a storybook of the friendship between a horse and a pony.
“Good morning,
scout.” Kerney picked up his son and gave him a smooch. “It’s blueberry pancakes for breakfast.”
“Yummy.” Patrick grinned and threw his arms around Kerney’s neck. “Mom says it’s a snow day and everybody has to stay home.”
“Some of us can’t, sport.” Kerney lowered Patrick to the floor. “But the time is coming when I won’t have to go to work anymore.”
“And you won’t be a police chief anymore,” Patrick added.
“That’s right,” Kerney said, wondering how that was going to feel.
He poured Patrick a glass of orange juice and sat him at the kitchen table. Between sips of his juice, Patrick read the fantastic adventures of Herman and Poppy aloud. Only Sara’s arrival temporarily interrupted the telling of the tale. Clayton followed along soon after, looking a whole lot better after a good night’s sleep.
Kerney put the finishing touches on breakfast and served it up while Patrick regaled the table with the part of the story where Poppy the pony goes missing and Herman the horse goes looking for his friend.
Clayton said it was one of the best stories he’d ever heard.
Patrick replied there was one that was even better and hurried off to his room. He returned with his all-time favorite book, a dog-eared copy of Pablito the Pony, and promptly started reading it to Clayton.
After breakfast, all hands pitched in to clear the table and stack the dishwasher. Chores done, the foursome went to the barn to put the horses back in their stalls. On their return to the house, Jack Burke and his road grader came into view. From the front courtyard they watched as he cut a swath in the snow wide enough for one car to get through and cleared the driveway to the ranch house.
At Sara’s insistence, Jack came inside for a cup of coffee. Patrick promptly climbed onto Jack’s lap as he sat at the kitchen table and asked if he could have a ride on the road grader. With Sara’s permission, Jack agreed to give him a short ride to the lip of the canyon and back.
Death Song Page 24