“My homicide captain tells me that this Sergeant Istee from Lincoln County says the murder of my officer and the cocktail waitress is directly related to the killings of the deputy sheriff in Capitan and his wife up in Santa Fe.”
“There’s good reason to believe that.”
Kruger grunted. “You mean it’s just a hypothesis?”
“And a very good one,” Kerney noted, already tiring of Kruger’s blustery style. It was a poor substitute for command presence, which the man totally lacked. “It’s one that I agree with, based on Sergeant Istee’s analysis.”
“And this Sergeant Istee, will he walk us through how he arrived at all of his insights?” Kruger asked without trying to mask his sarcasm.
“I’m sure if you ask nicely, he will,” Kerney replied.
“The dead deputy’s son, this Brian Riley, he’s a suspect?”
“Perhaps,” Kerney replied. “We won’t know until we find him.”
Kruger grimaced. “So I got nothing to tell the media, right?”
“After the briefing, I’d like us to make a full-bore effort to find Brian Riley, including asking the media for their assistance. That should make for a juicy breaking-news story.”
Kruger’s expression brightened as he stepped toward the mobile command center’s door. “Okay, Kerney, I’ll stay on the same page with you for a while.”
“That’s great,” Kerney replied, straight-faced.
The mobile command center was an oversize recreational vehicle crammed with communication equipment, computers, workstations, and now several more cops to add to the assembled crowd. Kruger pushed his way to the front of the vehicle, introduced Kerney and Clayton, and asked his homicide captain, Jerry Apodaca, to start the briefing.
Apodaca reported that the sliding glass door to the balcony of Robocker’s apartment showed tool marks and had been jimmied open. He noted that shoe scuff marks had been found on the exterior stucco wall below the balcony and there were telltale abrasions on the balcony’s painted wrought iron railing, suggesting that the perp had used a rope and climbed to reach Robocker’s bedroom. A motion-detection pathway light behind Robocker’s building had been disabled by the perp to provide concealment, and none of the residents with a view of the victim’s apartment balcony reported hearing or seeing anything unusual around the time of the murders.
Although Apodaca wasn’t certain about the sequence of events that occurred after the perp gained entry, the medical investigator had concluded that Officer Connors had suffered a blunt-force trauma to the head prior to being shot, which suggested the perp first disabled and disarmed the officer before proceeding with the executions. There was, Apodaca, said, no other way to describe the killings.
Apodaca reported that given the body temperature of both dead women, the MI estimated the killings took place no more than a hour before Detective Armijo and Sergeant Istee arrived at the apartment. He ended his presentation by noting the perp had to be well trained and in good physical shape to have successfully climbed into Robocker’s apartment.
Next up was Armijo’s lieutenant, Doug Bromilow, who ran down the sequence of events that led to the discovery of the marijuana factory in Four Hills. He deferred to Lee Armijo to provide the alleged tie-in between Morton Birch, Minerva Stanley Robocker, and Brian Riley, and then retook center stage to note that his ongoing investigation had yet to learn anything from the suspects, their known associates, witnesses, or neighbors that connected Brian Riley to any person who was part of the marijuana manufacturing and distribution scheme.
Kerney and Clayton finished up the session with a background synopsis that included the current status of the Santa Fe and Lincoln County murder investigations. Then Kruger asked for questions from the troops. The most persistent issue that surfaced, and rightfully so, was the total absence of a motive that would clearly connect the murders.
A few of the APD brass questioned the theory of a single shooter, but there was consensus that the killings were neither crimes of passion nor the work of amateurs. Kerney almost thanked the group for their stunning insight, but held back on the sarcasm and instead made a pitch to concentrate all efforts on finding the one person who might be most helpful to the investigations, Brian Riley.
The briefing ended with Kruger ordering his troops to go find Brian Riley pronto. After the exodus of officers from the stuffy, sweaty, mobile command center, Kerney watched Chief Kruger hurry down toward a small gathering of news reporters waiting behind a police barrier.
“I can’t be your tour guide anymore, gentlemen,” Armijo said. “My LT wants me to head back to the office and do my shift reports.”
“Thanks for your help,” Clayton said, shaking Armijo’s hand.
“Anytime,” Armijo said as he tossed off a causal hand salute in Kerney’s direction.
Kerney returned the salute. “Thanks, Detective.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” Armijo ambled away in the direction of his unmarked unit.
Clayton turned to Kerney. “Can you drop me off at my motel so I can pick up my stuff and check out?”
“Sure,” Kerney said, “but don’t check out. Get some rack time. You look like you could use the sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re running on fumes,” Kerney countered, “and I don’t need you searching for Brian Riley in that condition. Not when just about everyone who wears a shield in this state is looking for the kid.”
“This is my investigation and I can pull my own weight,” Clayton said hotly, giving Kerney an antagonistic look.
Kerney inched closer. “I’m not asking you, Sergeant. You’re off duty for at least the next eight hours. Do I make myself clear?”
For a moment Clayton remained silent, staring Kerney in the eye. Then for some unknown reason he smiled and started to laugh.
“Okay, you win, what’s so funny?” Kerney asked.
Still laughing, Clayton waved off Kerney’s question. “Nothing. Just a thought I had.”
“What thought?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do.”
Clayton stopped laughing, looked at Kerney, and shook his head. “Well, it may not be funny to you, but for the first time in my entire life, my father just ordered me to go to my room and to go to bed.”
Clayton walked away and started laughing again.
“That is pretty funny,” Kerney said as he caught up.
“And ridiculous too,” Clayton added.
The motel was a short drive from the crime scene, and by the time they arrived, Clayton was asleep and snoring heavily, his head resting against the glass of the passenger-side window. Kerney sat and watched him for a few minutes before gently shaking him awake.
Clayton rubbed his face with his hands, covered a yawn, and gave Kerney a sideways glance. “If it’s all right with you, Chief, I think I’ll catch a couple hours of shut-eye.”
“That’s a good idea,” Kerney replied. “I’ll see you in Santa Fe later in the day.”
Clayton got out of the unit and looked in at Kerney. “See you then.”
On the drive back to Santa Fe, Kerney thought about the letters Denise Riley had written home to her sister Helen Muiz during the years she’d lived away from her family. He’d only given them a quick look and hadn’t formed a clear impression, but there was something hackneyed about them, especially in the later letters Denise had written. It was as though, with the passage of time, she’d depleted her storehouse of fresh things to write home about. He wanted to analyze the letters to see if he could isolate any repetitive words or phrases Denise used, identify any stock comments or observations she made, and find any threads in the letters that might point to thinly disguised, reworked fabrications.
The fact that the federal government had no record of Denise ever applying for a passport, being issued one, or traveling outside of the United States had piqued Kerney’s interest. Once he finished analyzing the letters, he would deliver them to the Department of Pub
lic Safety crime lab and ask the Questioned Documents specialist to do a thorough analysis. He wanted to know what type of pens and inks were used, the manufacture of the paper and envelopes, if the stamps and cancellation marks were authentic, whether the handwriting was Denise’s, and if so, was consistent throughout the letters—everything the specialist could tell him.
And of course, he wanted to have the answers right away.
Chapter Nine
Loud pounding at the motel room door brought Clayton out of a deep, dreamless sleep. He rolled over, opened an eye, and tried to focus on the tabletop clock radio. It was exactly three hours since his head had hit the pillow. Light-headed and groggy, he got out of bed, padded barefoot to the door, and looked through the security peephole. Detective Lee Armijo was about to pound away again on the door.
“Okay, okay,” Clayton yelled, hitting the light switch and opening up. “Don’t you ever sleep?” he asked as Armijo stepped inside.
“I’m a narc,” Lee replied. “We all take drugs to stay awake.” There were dark rings under his eyes. “Get dressed while I make the coffee. I figure that’s probably your drug of choice.”
“I rarely self-medicate,” Clayton replied.
Armijo guffawed, took the in-room coffee carafe off the machine on the dresser next to the cheap twenty-inch color TV, went to the bathroom, and filled it with water.
“What are you doing here, Detective?” Clayton asked as he stuck a leg into his jeans.
“Please, Sergeant, call me Lee. After all, we did spend last night together.” Armijo returned from the bathroom, stuffed two individually wrapped packs of coffee in the machine, poured in the water, and pushed the button. The machine sighed and started to gurgle.
“But to answer your question,” Armijo continued, “I started thinking that maybe Brian Riley might be involved in the drug trade as a user, given his association with Robocker, in spite of the fact that our good pal Mort Birch told us he didn’t know him. So I called some of my snitches.”
Clayton sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots. “And?”
“One of them, Ed Duffy, a good Irish-American lad who sadly turned to a life of crime as a juvenile, swears that Brian Riley is crashing at a house on Cornell Drive near the university. Duffy says he saw him there two nights ago.”
Clayton tucked in his shirt. “How reliable is your snitch?”
Armijo poured Clayton a cup of coffee and handed it to him. “Duffy, bless his heart, provides very good intel because I have him on a short leash and he can’t afford to screw up. If he pisses me off for any reason, I’ll have his probation officer violate him on a commercial burglary beef. He’ll go straight to the slammer and pull a dime.”
Clayton took a sip of coffee, made a face, and put the cup on the bedside table. “This stuff is terrible.”
“It’s my super high-octane formula,” Armijo explained as he threw Clayton his coat, “designed to get your motor running. Let’s go. Bring your coffee with you. On the way, I’ll tell you what else I learned from Duffy. It’s all very interesting stuff.”
Seated in Armijo’s unit, Clayton drank his coffee and blinked against the harsh, cloudless sky, made slightly hazy by a low thin brown cloud of pollution that hung over the city. Albuquerque looked no better to him at midday than it did at night or early in the morning. Central Avenue still had a string of cheap motels near the Interstate, rows of small businesses in a hodgepodge of uninteresting buildings still bordered the boulevard all the way up the hill to the university, and the sounds of traffic on the busy street filled the air like the dull hum of a swarm of angry insects. In truth, Clayton didn’t like cities much.
As Armijo drove, he filled Clayton in. Riley had told Duffy he’d gone into hiding because of something he’d learned that could get him killed.
“At first,” Lee added, “Duffy thought it was just some paranoid, drug-induced bullshit Riley was laying on him. But Riley went on and on about how his father and stepmother had been murdered, and he was next in line unless he could stay out of sight.”
“Maybe it was just paranoia,” Clayton ventured.
“I put the same thought to Duffy myself and he strenuously disagreed. He said Riley told him he knew things about his stepmother that could get him killed.”
“Did Riley say what it was he’d learned about his stepmother?”
Armijo shook his head and slowed as a driver pulled into traffic from a side street and swerved immediately into the left-hand lane. “Nope. Duffy and Riley. Doesn’t that sounds like an old Irish vaudeville song-and dance-team?”
“And this conversation took place two nights ago?” Clayton asked, just a bit weary of Lee’s wisecracking style.
“According to Duffy, that’s a roger.” A break in the traffic flow allowed Armijo to swing into the right lane. “Duffy also told me that Riley gave the guy he’s crashing with money to let him hide out there until things cool down. He’s been laying low since the night his father’s murder made the evening news, and he hasn’t once left the house.”
“So if Riley is supposedly in hiding, how did this Duffy character manage to connect with him?” Clayton asked.
Armijo signaled a right turn. “When he isn’t busy burglarizing homes and businesses, Duffy peddles cannabis to a select group of people he knows and trusts. Brian Riley’s host, Benjamin Beaner—I swear on a stack of Bibles that’s his name—is one of Duffy’s regular customers. Beaner called Duffy, placed an order, and asked him to deliver it. When Duffy arrived with product in hand, Beaner and Riley were already half-wasted. Duffy joined the party, and as the evening progressed Riley started talking.”
“What do you know about Beaner?”
“I found one intel report on him,” Lee replied. “Late thirties, bisexual, single, college dropout, heavy grass user with an off-the-charts IQ. Works as a salesclerk at a national chain home electronics and appliance store. In other words, he’s a middle-aged, switch-hitting, pothead geek.”
“Did Riley mention to Duffy or Beaner who he thinks is trying to kill him?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Armijo replied.
“Well?”
“Agents of a foreign government.”
“What?”
Armijo eased to the curb in front of a cottage situated at the back side of a large, packed-dirt lot with one leafless, forlorn, thirty-foot-tall ash tree that overarched the driveway. Large cracked and partially broken limbs dangled dangerously from high branches above the roof of a beat-up silver Honda Civic.
“That’s all I know.” Armijo opened the car door. “Now lets go and see if any of it is true.”
The officers approached slowly, eyeing the cottage as they crossed over the partially exposed, charred foundation of a structure—probably a house—that had burned. The cottage had a screened-in porch, but most of the screens were either missing or badly tattered. The front door, which had been partially painted dark green a long time ago, had a bumper sticker pasted on it that read “Free Tibet.”
Clayton guessed the cottage had probably started life as either a garage, a shed, or an outbuilding for the main house that had once stood along a leafy lane, back in the days when the university was on the outskirts of town.
As he closed in on the front porch, he scanned the windows, looking for any sign of movement, while Lee Armijo kept his gaze locked on the door. They circled the cottage, found no rear exits, and returned to the front. Clayton knocked on the door and called out for Benjamin Beaner. When he heard movement inside, he knocked again.
“Yeah, what do you want?” a voice replied.
“I need to speak to Brian Riley.”
“There’s nobody here by that name.”
“Are you Benjamin Beaner?” Clayton asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Police. Open up.”
The door opened a crack, and Clayton flashed his shield and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office photo ID. The door swung open to reveal a man with a sunken ch
est, round shoulders, a tuft of hair that dangled down from his chin, and pasty skin. He reeked of tobacco smoke mixed with the pungent aroma of marijuana.
“Benjamin Beaner?”
The man nodded. “If you’re looking for Brian Riley, he’s gone.”
“When?” Lee Armijo asked.
Beaner shook his head. “I don’t know. I woke up and he wasn’t here. Took all his stuff with him.”
“Exactly when did you wake up?” Armijo demanded.
“About seven this morning.”
“Was Riley here last night?” Clayton asked.
“Yeah. He crashed before I did.”
“Mind if we look around?” Armijo asked.
“You got a warrant?”
“Do you want to go to jail for felony pot possession?” Armijo countered.
Beaner swallowed hard. “Are you going to bust me anyway if I let you in?”
“We’re not interested in arresting you, Mr. Beaner,” Clayton answered.
Beaner stepped aside. “Look all you want.”
The small front room was completely taken over by a home entertainment system consisting of a DVD player, a cable TV box, a stereo with large floor speakers, a wide-screen high-definition television, the latest video gaming system and a universal remote control. Two beat-up reclining leather chairs were positioned directly in front of the TV, within easy reach of a glass-top coffee table that held an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, a plastic bag about half full of marijuana, a water pipe, and several roach clips.
In front of the coffee table, no more than three feet from the screen, was one of those legless video rocking chairs gamers used to plug themselves into their artificial digital world. Clearly Beaner’s private life was almost completely detached from anything real. The room, the dark eye of the TV screen, the absence of any personal touches reminded Clayton of fanciful and scary Ray Bradbury stories he’d read as a child. He asked Beaner where Riley had slept.
Beaner pointed to a small hallway and said, “Turn left.”
The back room was filled with assorted boxes of salvaged electronics gear, a bookcase made out of stacked concrete blocks and unpainted pine boards, filled with technical manuals, a plywood worktable on sawhorses that held a laptop, scanner, printer, and digital camera, and a twin mattress on the floor that had been pushed up against a wall.
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