The Santa Fe Community College, a relatively new institution of higher education established some twenty-odd years ago in cramped, temporary quarters in a Cerrillos Road business park, was now located outside town on a modern campus near a rapidly growing residential area that fronted I-25.
At the administration office Ramona was directed to Ms. Carpenter’s classroom, where some twenty culinary arts students, all dressed in loose-fitting cook’s jackets, stood at a food prep area watching their instructor demonstrate how to properly bone an uncooked chicken. Ramona, a notoriously bad cook with little interest in the subject, found Ms. Carpenter’s skill with a knife impressive. Carpenter made short order of the task without slicing any of her fingers. After she’d finished the demonstration, Ramona pulled her aside and asked her to ID Randy Velarde.
“He’s not in trouble,” Ramona added. “I’m trying to locate a friend of his.”
Carpenter, a skinny woman in her fifties, with a wide mouth and big teeth, smiled in relief and called over a plump young man with a fleshy face and the start of a second chin. He looked fretful when Ramona identified herself as a detective and asked him to step into the hallway with her. Outside the classroom she asked Velarde if he knew where Brian Riley was living.
“I’m not sure,” Velarde replied. “Maybe down in Albuquerque. That’s where he said he was living the last time I saw him.”
“And when was that?”
“Three months or so ago at a club in town. He was with some college girl. They’d driven up to Santa Fe to party.”
“Have you heard from him since then?”
“Nope, but we weren’t that tight to begin with.”
“You were tight enough to smoke pot with him on the job and get fired for it,” Ramona rebutted. “Tight enough to let him crash with you last summer for a couple of days.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re bros,” Velarde replied. “Yeah, I smoked pot with him once or twice, and yeah, I let him sleep on my bedroom floor. So what? Why are you looking for him anyway?”
“His father and stepmother have been murdered.”
Velarde looked shocked. “No shit?”
“He needs to be found so he can be told,” Ramona continued. “Did he say anything to you about where he might be staying in Albuquerque?”
“No, but he gave me his cell phone number in case I was in Albuquerque and wanted to hook up. I never called him ’cause I’ve been too busy with school and work.” Velarde unclipped his cell phone from his belt, browsed through the menu, and read off a number.
Ramona scribbled it on the back of her notebook. “Thanks. That’s a big help. Your sister said Brian stayed with you last summer because of an argument he had with his father or stepmother. Was that what went down?”
Velarde shook his head. “Not even. His stepmother gave him money to move out of her house. I mean a wad of money. Don’t ask me why. He stayed with me for two days until the guy he was selling his car to came through with the cash. Then I took him to a motorcycle dealership on Cerrillos Road where he bought a used Harley. That was the last time I saw him until three months ago.”
“Did you actually see him buy the Harley?” Ramona asked.
Velarde nodded. “Yeah, it cost six thousand dollars and he only got fifteen hundred cash for his car. Like I say, he had a wad of money. I don’t know how much.”
“You’re sure Brian told you his stepmother gave him the cash,” Ramona reiterated, wondering if Riley had stolen the money.
“That’s what he said.”
“Did he say why she’d been so generous?”
“Nope.”
“When you last saw Brian, did he mention what he was doing in Albuquerque?”
Velarde shrugged. “Nothing special that I can remember. I asked him if he was working and he just grinned and shook his head.”
“Who was the girl he was with?”
“Some student at the university. She had an unusual name for a girl. I mean, like when she told me her name I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t. Her name was Stanley.”
“Did you get a last name?”
“Na, she never told me what it was.”
“Describe her to me.”
“Maybe five feet five inches, curly light blond hair, real cute-looking. She said she was from Iowa.”
Ramona gave him a business card. “If you think of anything else or if Brian gets in touch with you, call me.”
Randy nodded, put the card in his pocket, and went back into the classroom.
On her way down the empty hallway to the campus parking lot, Ramona called Clayton and filled him in on her discoveries.
“That’s real good work,” Clayton said. “We need to find out what exactly went on between the boy and his stepmother. Did she really give him money, or is he a thief and a possible murder suspect to boot?”
“I can start looking for him in Albuquerque tomorrow morning,” Ramona suggested.
“I’ll take it from here,” Clayton replied. “Chief Kerney has assigned all his available detectives to the case. I need a supervisor to ride roughshod over them. That’s you.”
“Okay.”
“Detective Chacon tells me that the desktop computer Denise Riley used at work that crashed wasn’t tampered with at all. It had an outdated disk operating system that somehow disabled the system restore feature. The files on the hard drive weren’t wiped. He’s working on recovering the data, but what he’s found so far is just insurance business–related stuff.”
“My enthusiasm for new information today has just bottomed out,” Ramona said as she passed through the automatic doors and walked toward her unmarked unit. “I’m going home.”
“I wish I could say the same. Do you have someone there waiting for you?”
“No,” Ramona replied as she slid behind the steering wheel. “I’m going to practice boning an uncooked chicken.”
New information uncovered by Ramona Pino had caused Kerney to go straight from his office to Helen Muiz’s house. Since the start of the investigation Helen had refused to deal with anyone but Kerney, and he had a few important questions to ask her that simply couldn’t be put off.
Ruben answered the doorbell and took Kerney to the living room, where Helen was stretched out on the couch, covered by a comforter, a box of facial tissue within easy reach. The room was lit by one table lamp, and the window curtains were closed against the darkness of the night.
Helen sat, forced a smile, and made space on the couch for Kerney to join her. Ruben excused himself to answer the telephone ringing in an adjacent room.
“How are you holding up?” Kerney asked as he sat.
“I honestly don’t know,” Helen replied.
“It takes time for everything to settle down.”
“I can’t seem to stop crying.” She gave Kerney a bleak, apologetic smile.
“Crying is a good thing,” Kerney said.
Helen dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “You told Ruben on the phone you had some questions.”
“Fairly important ones,” Kerney said, “that can’t wait.”
“Okay,” Helen replied.
“Did you know Denise was three months pregnant at the time of her death?”
Helen looked shocked. She shook her head in disbelief.
“Tim couldn’t have possibly been the father of the baby, Helen,” Kerney added. “I’m sure you know that.”
Helen’s eyes locked on Kerney’s face. “Of course I know that.”
“Do you have any ideas who the father might have been?”
“Maybe she was raped.”
The comment stunned Kerney into silence.
“You can’t discount the possibility,” Helen added, sounding frenzied. “Can you?”
“Not completely,” Kerney replied. “I’ll grant you that some rape victims hide the sexual assault from spouses and fail to report it to law enforcement. But everything we know about your sister’s attitude toward motherhood argues against such behavior. S
he made it very clear to family and friends alike that having children wasn’t something she wanted to do. If she did become pregnant due to a rape, surely she would have had an abortion, or even more proactively taken a morning-after pill. Why are you trying so hard to protect your sister’s reputation?”
Helen’s shoulders sagged and her eyes moistened. “Because I can’t help myself. I’ve always done it. Denise was the rebellious child in the family: refusing to go to Mass, staying out late, playing hooky from school, drinking, running away from home. Our father would make her stand in the living room in front of the entire family and switch her legs with his belt. It only made her more defiant. When she left Santa Fe after high school I thought she would be gone forever. Now she is.”
Helen’s tears returned. Kerney had learned long ago to be patient with survivors of loved ones who’d died violently and suddenly. The shock was catastrophic. It magnified grief and caused emotional ripple effects that surged uncontrollably.
After a long crying jag, Helen sniffled into a fresh tissue and forced a brave smile.
“Can you think of anybody Denise might have been sexually involved with?” Kerney asked.
“I’d be the last person to know anything about that. Denise was a very private person in some ways, especially about matters she knew the family wouldn’t approve of.”
“Okay,” Kerney said. “Let’s switch gears. What can you tell me about Tim’s son, Brian?”
“I only met him once. He seemed to be a bit of a free spirit. Several times, Ruben and I invited him to come to dinner with Tim and Denise, but he never did. He didn’t seem interested in Denise’s family, and why should he have been? We were all strangers to him and he didn’t stay in Santa Fe long enough to get to know us.”
“Did Denise mention having any difficulty or problems with Brian while he stayed with them in Cañoncito?”
Helen shook her head. “She hardly talked about him at all.”
“Denise may have given him a large amount of cash.”
“What for?”
Kerney shrugged. “We don’t know. But what we do know is that Tim and Denise didn’t have a lot of money to give away. Did Tim talk to you about helping his son financially?”
“No. The only thing Tim said was that Brian’s arrival in Santa Fe had come out of the blue, but they were getting along better than expected and he was hopeful that they might be friends. Why haven’t you asked the boy these questions?”
“We’re trying to find him so we can,” Kerney replied.
Helen paused and studied Kerney’s face. “Do you think he may have killed his father and my sister?”
“We have no reason to believe that.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an uninformed civilian,” Helen said. “I’ve spent thirty-five years working with cops. You’re treating him like a suspect.”
“Of course we are,” Kerney replied, “until we can find him and clear him or book him. Now, I have to talk to you about one more thing, and then we’ll be finished and you can get some rest.”
“What is it?”
“We asked the State Department to give us Denise’s passport records during the years she was a traveling and working outside of the country. They have nothing on file. As far as the federal government is concerned, Denise never even applied for a U.S. passport.”
“That’s impossible,” Helen replied. “She sent me letters from everywhere she lived.”
“Did you keep them?”
“Of course.” Helen pushed the comforter off her lap and stood. “Are you suggesting my sister lied about where she lived and what she did?”
“No, I’m just saying the State Department has no record of her travels. Her letters may go a long way in clearing up the confusion.”
“Many of them were postmarked and stamped in other countries, and as I told you before, she often used her boyfriend’s surnames.”
“I’m sure they will be very helpful,” Kerney said.
“Let me get them for you.”
Kerney rose. “I’d prefer if you would just show me where they are.”
“Are you taking them for analysis?”
“With your permission,” Kerney said.
Helen nodded and moved across the living room. Kerney followed her to a small home office next to the master bedroom. It was as neat and tidy as Helen’s office at police headquarters and just as well organized. Family photographs covered wall space that wasn’t given over to bookcases, and a desk was positioned to give a view out a window, where Kerney could see the vague shape of a thick tree trunk in the weak light of a rising new moon.
Helen opened a desk file drawer which held hanging folders. One thick folder labeled in typed bold caps read “DENISE’S LETTERS.”
Kerney asked Helen for a large manila envelope, put the file inside, and sealed it. “I’ll let you know what we find.”
He walked with Helen back to the living room, where Ruben waited. He shook Ruben’s hand, hugged Helen, said good night, let himself out, and hurried to his unit, eager to get home to check on Sara. He hadn’t spoken to her all day, and even though she’d been in a good mood that morning, he still worried about her. Her bouts of depression could recur at any time.
He called in his on-duty status to dispatch as he left Helen’s driveway, and received a back-channel message from Clayton that he’d gone to Albuquerque in search of Brian Riley and would stay there overnight.
Kerney decided to wait until morning to read Denise’s letters before turning them over to Questioned Documents at the lab for analysis. He also decided he would ignore the speed limit on the drive home, and soon he was on U.S. 285 just about to turn off on the ranch road.
Although it had been a very long day and there were still no clear suspects in sight, Kerney felt possible breaks in the case were looming. He also knew that what looked promising at first glance often came to a screeching dead end after closer inspection. He decided not to get too optimistic.
Up ahead lights inside his ranch house winked down at him from the saddleback ridge. Kerney shut down the cop thoughts rattling around in his head and drove up the canyon, happy to be going home to his wife and son.
Chapter Seven
Hoping to locate Brian Riley quickly, Clayton ran down the cell phone number Riley had given Randy Velarde three months earlier. But the account had lapsed and the address Riley had used when purchasing the phone was nonexistent.
After confirming that Riley had paid cash for the motorcycle, Clayton tried to nail down the source of the money Denise had allegedly given the boy. But Denise’s financial accounts showed nothing more than normal credits and debits from direct deposit of her paychecks and the checks she wrote every month for routine bills and credit card payments. There was no record of her borrowing money or purchasing money orders. Additionally, none of the banks in Albuquerque or Santa Fe showed any accounts opened by Brian Riley.
If Riley had lied about Denise being the source of his money, then where did the cash come from? According to the North Carolina police, it didn’t come from Riley’s mother or any of his high school friends, and a check of pawnshops in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and those in Riley’s hometown also drew a blank. Brian had never done business with any of them.
That meant the source of the cash Brian had flashed to his chum Velarde and used to buy the motorcycle might not have been legit. What illicit activity could have provided Riley’s sudden windfall? Drug dealing immediately came to mind, but winnings from area casinos on tribal land couldn’t be discounted. That theory fell flat after calls to the casinos revealed no payouts had been made to Riley.
Before leaving Santa Fe, Clayton tapped into all the usual resources for tracing runaways and people who’d gone missing. The postal service, public utilities, Internet providers, phone companies, and various municipal agencies he called had no record of providing services to Riley. A more thorough state and national criminal records check showed no arrests, wants, or warrants. Motor Vehicles
reported Riley as the owner of a Harley motorcycle bought last summer in Santa Fe. But the current registration listed Brian’s address as Cañoncito, which was no help at all. Because Riley owned the Harley outright, there was no lien on the cycle and thus no lender who might know where he was living.
Clayton checked for traffic violations and found none. He put out a statewide APB on Riley and the Harley, with an advisory that the boy was a person of interest in the investigation of the murders of his father and stepmother. To give his bulletin greater emphasis, Clayton personally called law enforcement agencies in the greater Albuquerque area to give them a heads-up about the search for Riley. He asked each high-ranking officer he contacted to query all sworn personnel to see if anyone had any knowledge whatsoever about the boy.
Still hoping to find an address for Riley, Clayton contacted the company that insured the motorcycle, called cable and satellite companies that provided home television and broadband services, and made inquiries at the circulation desks of local newspapers. He struck out every time and was left thinking that Riley was probably staying under the radar by living with someone—possibly a girl named Stanley.
But why? Was it a deliberate attempt to avoid being found, or simply the footloose lifestyle of a kid out on his own for the very first time? If Riley hadn’t hooked up and moved in with Stanley or some other college girl, Clayton couldn’t discount the possibility that the boy was either homeless or floating from one crash pad to the next in the subculture of dropouts that every college and university attracted. But he wasn’t about to start querying the social service agencies and emergency shelters in Albuquerque that served the down-and-out until all other possibilities were exhausted.
He kept working the phone. Major credit card companies reported nothing useful. No area detention centers had a recent arrest of a Brian Riley that had yet to hit the system. No cell phone providers had signed up a Brian Riley for new service. None of the dozen public, private, and for-profit universities, colleges, and trade schools in Albuquerque showed a past or present enrollment for Brian Riley or a female student with the unusual given name of Stanley.
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