Brian fumbled to release the strap that secured the revolver to the holster, and as he yanked the pistol free the man pointed the rifle and shot him between the eyes.
Chapter Ten
The bullet from Clifford Talbott’s bolt-action rifle splattered blood and brains against the back of the easy chair. The perfectly centered dark red hole above the dead man’s eyes made him look like a fallen Cyclops.
With shaky hands, Talbott lowered his Remington, walked to the kitchen sink, put the rifle on the counter, and promptly threw up.
During a lifetime of hunting, Talbott had killed untold numbers of varmints, a dozen or more coyotes, brought down his fair share of buck deer in season, bagged an occasional turkey, and had once taken a trophy-size elk, but he’d never before shot and killed a person, much less even pointed a gun at anybody.
He stayed bent over the sink for a long moment with his back to the dead man, smelling the stink of his vomit as he washed it down the drain with the hand pump, wishing he could just as easily wash away the last five minutes of his life.
Thirty-five years ago, Clifford Talbott had inherited the ranch from his father. Since then, in early March of every year, no matter what the weather, he drove up from his home in Moriarty, a town just south of the Santa Fe County line, to air the place out, make necessary repairs, and get it shipshape and ready for a small herd of cattle that he would buy at a spring auction, fatten up over the summer, and sell in the fall.
Most years he broke even on the effort, once in a while he lost money, and some years he made a small profit. But running livestock on the ranch kept his property taxes low and allowed him to renew his Forest Service grazing permit, which was hard to come by and valuable.
He looked out the window over the sink. On the outside sill an inch or more of white stuff had piled up against the glass. If he’d stayed home and waited for the storm to blow over like his wife had asked him to, he wouldn’t be standing in the ranch house his father had built with the still-warm body of a man he’d just shot and killed.
Finally, he turned. The dead man—a boy probably no older than Talbott’s teenage grandson—still clutched the pistol. Clifford recognized the handgun as his old S&W Model 10 revolver, which he’d left behind in the bedroom chest of drawers.
He glanced away from the body. The police needed to be told, but there was no way to call them unless he got back in his truck and drove to Cañoncito, where he should be able to either get a signal for his cell phone or borrow a phone from someone in the village.
Talbott’s wife was a big fan of television detective shows, so Clifford had learned that it was best not to touch anything at a crime scene. He left the Remington rifle on the kitchen counter, banked the woodstove to lower the fire, and went to his truck, wading through a good foot and a half of snow past the motorcycle parked near the porch.
He’d made it to the ranch in four-wheel drive, but it had been slow going. With wet snow still coming down, he decided to put chains on the tires before starting out. He drove the truck into the barn, turned on the single bare lightbulb that dangled from a roof joist, and got to work, his hands still shaking from what he had done.
He got the chains snapped on and started for Cañoncito. Blowing snow cut his visibility down to less than ten feet, and the truck headlights couldn’t penetrate enough to give him a fix on the road. He reduced his speed to a slow and steady five miles an hour and used the vague outline of the fence line bordering the county road to keep himself on track. The bad driving conditions worsened his already jangled nerves. He sat bolt upright, gripping the steering wheel with all his strength, looking for any obstruction up ahead.
An hour passed before he began the descent into the narrow canyon that sheltered Cañoncito. He rounded the last curve where the pavement started. Soon the train tracks and the streambed came into view, and Clifford let out a sigh of relief, which turned into a lump in his throat when he spotted a police car with flashing emergency lights blocking access to a side road.
He slowed to a stop behind the vehicle and flashed his headlights. A deputy sheriff got out and walked to the truck.
“This road is closed, sir,” the deputy said after Clifford lowered his window. “If you live on it, I’ll need to see some ID before I can let you through.”
“I don’t live here,” Clifford said, wondering how to tell an officer of the law that he’d just killed a person.
The deputy pointed toward the paved road that crossed the streambed and the railroad tracks. “Then you’ll have to move on.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Clifford said. “I need you or another police officer to go with me to my ranch up on the mesa.”
“Is there someone in need of immediate emergency assistance?” the deputy asked.
Clifford shook his head, took a deep breath, and worked out what he needed to say before speaking. “I’m trying to tell you that a man broke into my house, started a fire in the stove, cooked and ate some of my food, and tried to shoot me when I showed up. I killed him.”
The deputy’s friendly expression vanished and his hand found the pistol grip of his .45. “When did this happen?”
“Just now,” Clifford said.
The deputy drew his weapon and opened the driver’s door to Clifford’s vehicle. “Keep your hands where I can see them. You say you killed this person?”
Clifford raised his hands above his head. “Yes, with my hunting rifle, right between the eyes.”
“Where’s the weapon?”
“I left it at the ranch.”
“Do you have any other weapons on your person or in the truck?”
“No.”
“Step out of the vehicle,” the deputy ordered.
Clifford climbed down from the cab of his truck. “Are you arresting me?”
“Open your jacket and turn around.”
Clifford did as he was told. The deputy patted him down for weapons, cuffed him, took his wallet, and put him in the backseat of the police car behind a protective cage. He relayed Clifford’s driver’s license information to a dispatcher, asked for a records check, and then turned in his seat and read Clifford his rights.
Clifford said he understood them, didn’t need a lawyer, and would answer any questions.
“This person you shot, did you know him?” The deputy held a tiny tape recorder in his hand.
“No, I never saw him before.”
“In your own words, tell me exactly what happened.”
“I drove to my ranch and when I got there I saw that somebody had smashed the glass to the porch door and the lights were on inside the house. I took my rifle off the rear window rack of my truck and went to see who it was. I was sort of thinking that maybe somebody had broken in to get out of the cold. In this kind of weather it didn’t make much sense to think that somebody had driven to such an out-of-the-way place to rob me.”
“Go on.”
“There was a motorcycle parked outside next to the porch, so I called out a couple of times and even went back and sounded my truck horn hoping to get the attention of whoever was inside. But the wind was howling so bad I guess he didn’t hear me.”
“A motorcycle was parked outside?” the deputy asked with heightened interest. “Do you know what kind?”
“I didn’t pay it no mind. Anyway, I went inside and here was this young kid, no more than eighteen or nineteen. He had my old barn coat wrapped around his shoulders and was sitting in my easy chair with my Smith and Wesson pistol that I keep in a bedroom dresser pointed at me. He raised the pistol as if to shoot me and I shot him first.”
“Do you remember the make of the motorcycle?” the deputy asked.
“I don’t pay any attention to those contraptions,” Clifford said with a shake of his head.
“What did you do after you shot him?”
“I put chains on my truck tires and drove straight here so I could call the police. Then I saw you and stopped. I didn’t touch anything at the ranch, except to thro
w up in the sink and damp down the fire. I just left that boy sitting there, dead in my chair.”
Clifford choked up and paused to collect himself, but his voice broke anyway. “In my mind’s eye it’s a terrible thing to see.”
“Now, just relax, Mr. Talbott,” the deputy said soothingly. He turned away, keyed his radio microphone, and spoke to someone in code.
“Bring him to my twenty now,” a voice on the radio replied when the deputy had finished.
“Ten-four.”
“Will I have to go to jail?” Clifford asked as the deputy drove down the snowpacked dirt road. The thought scared him. Although he was still strong and healthy, he was seventy years old and the only gangbangers, criminals, and drug addicts he’d ever seen were on television news shows or on TV dramas.
The deputy nodded. “At the very least you’ll be transported to the jail and booked.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is. If the facts jibe with the statement you gave me, you may only be held overnight. But if the facts don’t agree, you’ll need to go before a judge and ask for bail.”
“I shot only in self-defense.”
“That may well be,” the deputy said. “But I took you into custody, cuffed you, and read you your rights. That constitutes an arrest and I can’t undo it. You will be booked.”
“What are my chances that I’ll be let go?”
“I can’t say for certain, but the rule of law says that a person has a right to defend himself when his home has been invaded and he has reason to believe his life is in danger. If your story holds up, your chances may be good. But first, you’ll be questioned, officers will be sent to the crime scene, evidence will be gathered, and the district attorney and medical investigator will be called in.”
Clifford sighed. “Can I call my wife in Moriarty?”
“No, sir, that will have to wait.” The deputy slowed to a stop at the end of a long lane where police vehicles were parked in front of a manufactured home with a wooden deck.
Don Mielke followed the yellow crime scene tape that Clayton Istee had strung from the side of the double-wide where Brian Riley had left footprints in the snow to an abandoned well house where the footprints ended. There he found Istee and Ramona Pino working by the light of battery-powered flood lamps, rigging a canvas tarp over the partially caved-in roof of the well house.
“There’s someone you need to talk to right now,” Mielke said when Clayton had finished tying off a rope to the trunk of a nearby tree.
“Who’s that?” Clayton asked.
“A rancher by the name of Clifford Talbott may have shot and killed Brian Riley. He’s in custody at the double-wide.”
Clayton stopped in his tracks. “You’re kidding.”
Mielke shook his head. “Nope.”
“If it’s true, it sucks,” Ramona said.
“Tell me about it,” Mielke replied sourly.
Clayton looked at Ramona. “Can you get started here without me?”
“Sure,” Ramona answered.
Clayton picked up the end of the last rope that needed to be tied off, walked to the tree behind the well house, threw the rope over a low branch, and knotted it. Unless the storm turned heavy again, the tarp would do a fairly adequate job of protecting the well house from further snowfall. He looked at Mielke. “Let’s go.”
Mielke paused as Clayton started toward the double-wide. “Do you want me to send someone help to excavate the snow inside that structure?” he asked Ramona.
“No, thanks,” she replied. “There’s only room inside for one person at a time.”
Mielke turned away and left Pino to her task, which was to first carefully clear out the snow inside the well house, looking for physical evidence along the way. Once the snow was removed, every inch of the structure would be examined, probed, dusted for prints, and if necessary dismantled, in an attempt to find anything that could explain why Brian Riley came back to it during a blinding snowstorm while every cop in the state was looking for him.
Walking through knee-deep snow took effort, and by the time Mielke caught up with Clayton he was short of breath.
“Tell me what you know,” Clayton said as Mielke came abreast of him.
“Give me a minute,” Mielke replied, gasping for air as Clayton moved effortlessly through the wet, heavy snow without breaking a sweat. He’d read somewhere that during the Indian Wars, Apaches had been known to run fifty miles a day through the blistering summer heat of the Southwestern deserts without stopping for food or water. Watching Istee made him a believer.
As he struggled to keep up with Clayton, Mielke filled him in on Talbott’s statement. When they reached the double-wide, the arresting deputy told them that the old man had identified Brian Riley from a driver’s license photograph.
Clayton’s expression turned sour. “Where is he?”
“In the backseat of my unit,” the deputy replied.
“Bring him inside.”
The deputy fetched Talbott, removed his handcuffs, and sat him at the kitchen table across from Mielke and Clayton, who gave the man the once-over. No more than five feet eight, Clifford Talbott had thick, stubby fingers, a well-formed upper body, a short neck, and a full head of curly gray hair. He sat with his head bowed and had a morose expression on his face.
“Tell us what happened,” Clayton said.
Talbott put his hands in his lap and looked up. “I’ve done that twice already, and all it does is makes me feel worse about shooting that boy.”
“I need you to tell your story one more time,” Clayton replied. “What you have to say to me might help solve several recent murders.”
Talbott’s eyes widened. “That boy killed people?”
“I didn’t say that,” Clayton answered, “and I can’t talk about ongoing homicide investigations. Now, please, tell me with as much detail as you can what happened at your ranch.”
Once again, Clifford recounted the events that had led to the fatal shooting of Brian Riley. When Talbott finished, Clayton asked if the two had exchanged any words.
“Nary a one,” Clifford replied.
“Did you see anything in the room that may have belonged to Riley?”
“I don’t recall anything.”
“Think hard,” Clayton urged.
Talbott brought his hands up from his lap to the table and studied them for a moment. “At the foot of my easy chair there was a backpack. Blue, I think. One of those smaller ones you see high school and college students lugging around.”
Clayton smiled. “That’s good, Mr. Talbott. Anything else?”
Clifford shook his head. “That’s it, I’m afraid. Now am I going to go to jail?”
“We’ll keep you here,” Mielke answered, “until we can get to your cabin, take a look around, and see if what you’ve told us can be verified.”
“You’re going to have a tough time getting to my ranch,” Clifford replied. “I came down the mesa in four-wheel drive with chains on the tires and almost didn’t make it.”
Mielke stood up. “We’ll get there all right. The county has a road grader and a snowplow on the way, and I’m borrowing two Arctic Cat snowmobiles from Search and Rescue.”
As he rose, Clayton gave Mielke an approving glance. Calling for special equipment had been a smart move. He stepped around the table to Talbott and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. He may have killed Brian Riley, but in Clayton’s mind Clifford Talbott wasn’t a murderer.
“Stay with the deputy, Mr. Talbott. If you think of anything else you may have forgotten to tell us, let the deputy know about it.”
“I’ll do it,” Clifford said with great seriousness.
On the deck to the double-wide Clayton stood with Mielke as the snow swirled around them. It was hard to tell how much of it was wind-driven off the fresh accumulation on the ground and how much was falling from the sky.
“I’ll handle the crime scene at the ranch,” Mielke said.
“Good deal.”<
br />
“Our mobile command center will be here in a few minutes,” he added. “There’s a drop-down bunk bed in it. Get some sleep before you drop dead. I’ll wake you if anything important turns up.”
“I need to call Sheriff Hewitt and Chief Kerney.”
“Already done. Chief Kerney is on his way, but it make take him a while. All the highways are dangerous and there are whiteout conditions in some places.”
“Where’s your boss?” Clayton asked.
Mielke looked up at the sky. “Monitoring the situation from home.”
“That’s great.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No, I am not.”
Mielke kept looking at the night sky. “I didn’t think so.” He knew Clayton had been going almost nonstop since the crack of dawn yesterday. “Take a catnap in the mobile command center.”
Although Clayton had no plans to go to sleep, getting off his feet for a spell sounded like a good idea. “I think I will. Send someone to get me when Chief Kerney arrives.”
“Sure thing,” Mielke replied, lying through his teeth.
Kerney wrestled his truck slowly down his ranch road, hoping the highway had been plowed and sanded, only to find it snowpacked and covered in places by drifts that were almost axle-deep. He pushed on, wipers thudding against the accumulation of wet snow on the windshield, heater blasting away to clear the fog off the side windows. In all his years in Santa Fe, he’d never seen a winter storm of such magnitude. It had to be a fifty-, maybe even a hundred-year event.
Where the highway connected to the Interstate, he turned onto the freshly plowed and sanded frontage road and made his way without delay to Cañoncito. At the turnoff to the Riley double-wide, he talked briefly with the deputy at the roadblock. The deputy told him that a grader and a snowplow were halfway down the country road to the crime scene with Major Mielke and one of his investigators following behind on borrowed Arctic Cat snowmobiles, that Clifford Talbott, the confessed killer of Brian Riley, was at the residence under watch, that Ramona Pino was excavating the well house, and Clayton Istee was catching twenty winks in the S.O. mobile command center.
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