Slow Kill

Chapter 5

T he next morning, Kerney’s flight took him over the oak woodlands and chaparral-covered hill-sides east of Santa Barbara, the evergreen coastal mountain forests, and the glittering low California desert. He changed planes in Phoenix and from his window seat looked down on the high mountains and rolling grasslands of the remote Gila Wilderness, which gave way to mesquite-covered desert scrubland cut by wide, sandy arroyos. It felt good to be going home.

After landing, Kerney went straight to his office. Within minutes, Helen Muiz, his administrative assistant, swooped in bearing paperwork. She immediately asked about his California misadventure, currently the hottest back-channel gossip topic in the department.

In her late fifties, Helen had worked for the PD for over thirty-six years, longer than any other employee, civilian or commissioned. Stylish, witty, and a grandmother twice over, among her many duties Helen served as the lightning rod for rumors, hearsay, and prattle that circulated throughout the department, all of which came to her sooner rather than later. She dispensed with it quickly, separating fact from fiction and squelching the falsehoods.

In private, Helen dealt with Kerney as an equal, which he didn’t mind at all.

“Well, are you having an affair with a woman currently under suspicion for the murder of her husband?” Helen asked from the comfort of the chair at the side of Kerney’s desk.

Kerney tried hard to act put-upon by the accusation. Instead, he broke into a smile and laughed. “Not guilty.”

“Does your lovely wife know about this?” Helen asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Not yet,” Kerney said.

“I shouldn’t wait too long to tell her, if I were you. Some evil person might delight in putting a nasty spin on what happened in California, and feed Sara some misinformation.”

“Who would do something like that?” Kerney asked.

“Not everyone in this department loves you as much as I do, Kevin,” Helen said with a devilish wink.

“Name these malcontents,” Kerney jokingly demanded.

Helen laughed. “And destroy my network of informants? Never.”

She handed him a number of letters on department stationery, each neatly paper clipped with file copies and addressed envelopes. “Please sign these so they can go out today.”

“Perhaps I should read them first,” Kerney said.

Helen rose to her feet. “Good idea. Do you have anything for me?”

Kerney gave her the cassette tape of his recorded notes on the Spalding affair. “Have it transcribed and ask Sergeant Pino to come see me in ten minutes.”

“As you wish,” Helen said from the doorway.

“Did you buy any horses, or were you too busy professing your innocence to the police?”

“I got four good ones,” Kerney said.

Kerney’s open office door signaled that all were free to enter without knocking. Sergeant Ramona Pino stepped inside to find Kerney reviewing and signing letters. He smiled at her and raised an index finger to signal he needed a minute to finish up.

She took a seat at the small conference table that butted against Kerney’s desk, opened her notepad, and quickly reviewed her activity log on the Spalding case to make sure she was totally up to speed for her briefing report.

Ramona had stumbled badly on a major homicide case late last summer, but that hadn’t kept the chief from approving her promotion to sergeant. Since earning the new shield, Ramona had returned Kerney’s vote of confidence by doing her best possible work.

Kerney signed the letter, tossed it in the out basket, and sat back in his swivel chair. “So, where are we?”

“According to the pharmacist here in town who filled Clifford Spalding’s prescription, his wife called to say that the pharmacy in Santa Barbara was faxing the refill information to him, and she would pick it up when it was ready, which she did. She paid by credit card. Just as a matter of interest, I queried the credit card company and got a copy of her charges for that monthly billing cycle. On that same day, twenty minutes later, she charged a bottle of expensive perfume at Kim Dean’s pharmacy.”

Kerney’s eyes glinted with pleasure at the news. He interlocked his fingers, and tapped his thumbs together. “Go on.”

“A clerk who works at the pharmacy and knows Mrs. Spalding as a customer said Dean waited on her personally. The clerk found that odd, because Dean never bothers with customers who come in to buy sundries. She thinks, but isn’t sure, that Dean left Spalding at the perfume counter for a few minutes to do something in the back before he rang up the sale.”

“Did Sergeant Lowrey inform you about the pill found in Spalding’s possessions?” Kerney asked.

“She did,” Ramona said. “Not only is it a fake, but the analysis of the active ingredient in it perfectly matches the medication level in the blood sample that was drawn during the autopsy.”

“Which suggests Dean and Claudia Spalding switched the pills,” Kerney said.

“Yes, it does,” Ramona said. “If Spalding had lived one more day the evidence would have been gone, Chief. According to the Santa Barbara pharmacist Sergeant Lowrey spoke with, Spalding was down to his last pill when he died.”

“Was Dean present when you spoke to the clerk?” Kerney asked.

“No,” Ramona said. “I didn’t talk to her at the pharmacy. I hung around until she went next door to a deli for lunch and spoke to her there.”

“Will she keep her lip buttoned about your inquiry?”

Ramona nodded. “Dean’s a pushy, demanding boss who contradicts himself and then lays the blame on the clerk. She puts up with it because she’s older, divorced, timid, and needs the job. She promised not to say a word.”

“What else have you got?”

Ramona flipped back to a page in her notebook. “I checked with both Dean’s and Spalding’s cellular telephone providers. There has been a flurry of calls between the two, starting almost immediately after Sergeant Lowrey talked with Claudia Spalding in Montecito.”

“How many?” Kerney asked.

“Five yesterday and two this morning. Mrs. Spalding made first contact.”

“Do you have anything that can connect Dean to the fabrication of the pill?” Kerney asked.

“We know the inert ingredients are different, the weight is slightly off, and the shape isn’t uniform based on the manufacturer ’s specs,” Ramona replied. “So, I took a cue from your research into how he might have done it, and called a pharmacist here in town who said that duplicating the exact size and shape of the original pill wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done. He suggested we look for all the compounds Dean used.”

“Did the pharmacist have any idea about how Dean might have shaped and sized the pills?” Kerney asked.

“He said that except for the grooves on either size of the pill, it’s oval in shape, which is very common. Pharmacists use that kind of pill all the time, in many different sizes. He said if he were to do it, he’d make each pill as close in size to the original oval as possible, match the color, and then hand-cut the grooves to make them look right. The tedious part would be the final shaping.”

“How does all of this help us?” Kerney asked

“The analyzed pill shows small striations in the grooves. We’ve got tool marks, Chief.”

Kerney grinned. “Coordinate with Sergeant Lowrey and get an affidavit done for a search warrant at Dean’s home and business,” he said. “We want to look for the tools he might have used and the raw ingredients identified by the lab findings.”

“Will do,” Ramona said.

“Then take everything we have that supports motive, opportunity, and means directly to the district attorney and ask if he’ll approve arrest warrants for Dean and Spalding based on circumstantial evidence. If he agrees that we have probable cause, synchronize the busts with Sergeant Lowrey so both of them are picked up simultaneously.”

“Shouldn’t we take a statement from Dean first?” Ramona asked.

“Normally, I’d say yes,” Kerney said. “But according to Dean’s clerk at the pharmacy, he’s a bully. If we stuff the facts we have down his throat, maybe he’ll crack.”

“I’ll make the collar at his store,” Ramona said, “and tell him Claudia is talking. That should shake him up.”

“Give the newspaper a heads-up and ask them to have a reporter and photographer standing by outside. Take two uniforms with you and have them take their time putting him into a unit.”

“Make it a perp walk,” Ramona said.

“You’ve got it,” Kerney said. “Good work, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ramona said as she closed her notebook and rose. She hurried out of the office before the pleasure she felt at the chief’s compliment turned into a noticeable blush.

District Attorney Sid Larranaga personally scrutinized carefully any arrest and search warrant affidavits prepared and submitted to his office by Sergeant Pino. He held her partially responsible for mistakes in a homicide case last year that resulted in the deaths of two innocent, mentally ill individuals, one in a totally uncalled-for SWAT gun battle, the other by suicide.

Ignoring Pino, who sat quietly in front of his oak desk, Larranaga read through the affidavits a second time, jotting notes as he went. Because of the complexity of the facts, the suppositions, and jurisdictional issues, he wanted to be absolutely clear that probable cause existed.

He punctuated his last entry on the legal pad with a flourish and looked at Pino. “As far as the arrest affidavits go, you and this Sergeant Lowrey have given me only the possibility of a motive for murder. The rest of it is just an interesting theory regarding opportunity.” He tapped the paperwork with his pen.

Ramona waited a beat before responding. She and Ellie Lowrey had each put in at least three hours of intensive work preparing a strong circumstantial case. “The forensic evidence proves the victim was murdered,” she said, “and both Dean and Claudia Spalding had the opportunity to do it.”

“Yes, but which one?” Larranaga countered, crossing his hands over his belly. “Dean? Possibly. Claudia Spalding? You can’t seriously expect a judge to approve an arrest warrant for Mrs. Spalding based on the fact that she bought perfume at Dean’s pharmacy after picking up her husband’s prescription somewhere else.”

“It establishes a chain of events,” Pino said. “Quite likely Spalding met with Dean to switch the medication.”

“Or Dean could have switched the medication without Mrs. Spalding’s knowledge”-Larranaga shifted his weight in the chair-“at some other time or location. Dean could have been acting on his own. The fact that Dean left Mrs. Spalding alone for a few minutes in the front of the store to do something in the back room doesn’t establish collusion or conspiracy between the two parties. I’m sure if the clerk had seen the actual exchange you would have included it in your affidavit.”

Larranaga brushed a hand over his new-look, swept-back haircut. “Also, you don’t have a strong motive for Mrs. Spalding to plot and carry out the murder of her husband. In fact, I don’t see that you have one at all. She was literally having her cake and eating it too, and she was bound by the amended prenuptial agreement to keep Dean in the dark about it.”

“What about the arrest and search warrants for Dean?” Pino asked.

“Again, a motive for Dean isn’t clearly articulated,” Larranaga said. “Other than noting he was Mrs. Spalding’s lover, you’ve presented nothing that points to an inducement or reason to kill on his part. Was it jealousy? Money? Did he want Spalding dead so he could marry Claudia? Or was he perfectly happy with the affair as it stood? Why hasn’t he been interviewed?”

“Given how the victim was killed and what went into accomplishing the crime,” Ramona said, “I think probable cause has been established that Dean committed murder, and that the evidence to that effect can be found at his house or business.”

“Even with the lack of a clear motive, I agree that it is probable that Dean, with his expertise as a pharmacist, could have done it. That’s why I’m approving the search and arrest affidavits for Dean only. If he confesses and implicates Mrs. Spalding, then your problem is solved, and the California authorities can pick her up without a warrant.”

Larranaga signed the affidavits and Ramona went to find a judge. During a ten-minute wait outside chambers, she called both Sergeant Lowrey and Chief Kerney to give them the news about the rejected Spalding arrest affidavit. Lowrey promised to take another crack at Claudia after Dean was in custody. Kerney told her to stick with the plan to rattle Dean and break him down if possible.

The judge issued the warrants without any probing questions. Five blocks away from Dean’s place of business, Ramona met up with two uniformed officers and went over how she wanted the bust staged. At the pharmacy, a photojournalist from the newspaper waited in the parking lot. The three officers hustled inside to find only the store clerk, Tilly Gilmore, and a female customer standing at the counter.

Ramona gestured for Tilly to approach her at the front of the store. “Where’s Dean?” Ramona asked when she arrived.

The woman averted her eyes. “He left in a hurry.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago,” Tilly said tentatively, her eyes fixed on the floor. Immobile and hunched, she looked like a tense, frightened animal trying hard to be invisible.

Ramona let out a disgusted sigh. “What happened?”

“He saw you follow me into the deli,” Tilly replied.

“And?”

Tilly looked at Ramona through glasses that magnified her anxious eyes. “I had to tell him,” she said apologetically, like a child hoping to avoid punishment.

Ramona turned to the two officers. “Send the reporter away and put out an all points bulletin on Dean pronto.”

At the drug counter, the middle-aged woman clutched a prescription bottle in her hand and stared at Ramona, unsure of what to do.

“You can leave if you like, ma’am,” Ramona said to her. The woman scurried down an aisle and out the door, her shoes clacking noisily on the tile floor.

Ramona studied Tilly’s drained, beaten-down expression. Had Dean simply bullied the woman into becoming a wet rag over the years, or had she always been easy prey? Ramona guessed the latter, but it didn’t matter. She now had to deal with the consequences of Tilly’s inability to keep her mouth shut.

“Okay,” Ramona said soothingly, as she guided Tilly away from the front of the store. “Let’s talk about what happened.”

At a restaurant on Cerrillos Road close to police headquarters, Andy Baca stirred sugar into his refilled glass of iced tea and listened as Kerney spoke to Ramona Pino on his cell phone.

“Problems?” he asked when Kerney disconnected.

“Our murder suspect seems to have disappeared,” Kerney replied, looking a bit vexed as he hooked the phone on his belt. “Pino has issued an APB and is on her way to search Dean’s house.”

“Do you need to go?” Andy asked.

Kerney shook his head and waved off the waitress as she approached to refill his glass of lemonade.

“Well, then, finish your story,” Andy said.

Kerney continued, recounting the events in Santa Barbara that had prompted his request to have Andy meet him.

When Kerney stopped talking and sipped his lemonade, Andy jumped in with a question to back him up a bit. “What made this Sergeant Lowrey think you’d be stupid enough to kill Spalding and then stick around to report it as an unattended death?”

“She didn’t know I was a cop,” Kerney replied, “until she questioned me. Once she picked up on Claudia Spalding’s connection with Santa Fe, she decided to probe it. I probably would have done the same thing.”

“Still, it was no fun,” Andy said.

Kerney pushed the glass aside. “Not really. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Alice Spalding’s thirty-year search for her dead son, George, has some unusual wrinkles to it. I think Clifford Spalding may have sabotaged his ex-wife’s quest for the truth.”

Andy shot Kerney a quizzical look. “From what you said, it sounds more like the woman has been in total denial of the facts for decades.”

“Has she? If so, why would Clifford Spalding continue to maintain a long-term arrangement with a local cop to stay informed of Alice’s activities? Why would he hire a PI to feed false reports to Alice and then fire the gumshoe after he’d done some real work that might have lead to finding the son’s old girlfriend?”

“If the ex-wife was unstable, maybe Spalding was just indulging her and trying to stay on top of her obsession at the same time,” Andy suggested.

“So he burns all the information she’d gathered over the years just before their divorce,” Kerney replied with a shake of his head, “and openly denigrates her to their mutual friends. I don’t buy it.”

“People do ugly things when they get divorced,” Andy said.

“I also have trouble with the scarcity of information contained in the police file I reviewed. There was no documentation that Alice Spalding’s assertion that a newspaper photograph showed her son to still be alive had ever been proven false. The photograph was missing, as were the statements of people who identified the subject as someone other than George Spalding.”

“So track them down and talk to them,” Andy said. “That should satisfy your curiosity about whether or not Clifford Spalding was hiding something from the ex.”

“Can’t,” Kerney said. “Neither were identified by name, just referenced in passing by the police captain I spoke with, who seemed a little uncomfortable with my questions.”

“Do you think this captain was helping Spalding keep the truth from his ex?” Andy asked.

“I don’t know,” Kerney said. “But another point troubles me. Look at the sequence of events. Thirty-some years ago, George Spalding allegedly dies in Nam.”

“Verified by military authorities,” Andy said.

“Soon after the helicopter crash, George Spalding’s girlfriend goes missing, never to be found, and his father, owner of a mom-and-pop Albuquerque motel, starts building a hotel empire.”

“Which means what, if anything?” Andy asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Maybe Spalding cashed in his son’s G.I. life insurance policy and parlayed it into his first big step up the corporate food chain.”

“Maybe, but again, I don’t know,” Kerney answered.

“You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”

“Not yet. I’ve started background checks on all the players, but I could use some help from your department.”

“To do what?”

“To chase down information on Clifford Spalding’s early business dealings in New Mexico,” Kerney said. “Can you free up some of Joe Valdez’s time to take a look?”

Agent Joseph Valdez, a certified public accountant with a master ’s in business administration, handled most of the financial crime cases for the state police, which meant he was usually overworked.

“Not easily,” Andy said.

“It doesn’t have to be given priority,” Kerney said.

“Here’s what I’ll do,” Andy said after a pause. “You talk to Joe. Tell him what you know and what you want to know. If he’s interested and willing to peck away at it, then it’s okay with me. But don’t expect too much. He’s a busy man.”

Kerney smiled. “That went a lot smoother than I expected. Thanks.”

Andy paid the check and stood. “I know how you are, stubborn and bullheaded. Why should I waste my time letting you wear me down until I finally give you what you want?”

Kerney laughed and added some money to the tip. “Come on, admit it. This is worth taking a look at.”

“Either that, or you have an overactive imagination,” Andy replied with a grin.

Ramona Pino brought in a squad of four detectives to assist in the hunt for Dean and the search of his pharmacy and residence. She assigned two of them to work the pharmacy. The others followed her to Dean’s house in Canada de los Alamos, a small settlement in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains a few miles southeast of Santa Fe.

Once part of a land grant, Canada de los Alamos had remained a sleepy, forgotten place well into the 1960s. Situated next to the national forest in a protected valley, it held a mixture of mobile homes, small adobe houses, and a growing number of more upscale residences that had been built by newcomers over the past forty years. Anchored by a pretty church along a dirt road that cut through the center of the valley, the settlement had no businesses or stores.

Old fences, corrals, sheds, and outbuildings that bordered an arroyo still gave the area a rural feel. But the landscape was changing, and it wasn’t only because of a recent increase in population. Drought had so dried out the pinon and ponderosa forest that the trees could no longer stave off their longstanding enemy, the bark beetle. In wetter times, the trees suffocated the beetles by releasing sap. Now, the beetles had the upper hand and were killing whole stands of trees, sometimes turning their needles brown in a matter of days.

The die-off of the forest throughout the mountains and foothills of northern New Mexico was creating a major wildfire hazard. According to the forestry experts, not much could be done about it.

Kim Dean’s house, a solar adobe on five acres, overlooked the old settlement. Two huge dead pinon trees at the front of the property drooped burly barren branches over the driveway. On the off chance that Dean was home, Ramona blocked the driveway with her unit and, accompanied by the two detectives, went in on foot. A quick perimeter check of the house and horse barn turned up nothing other than Dean’s two geldings.

Dean’s flight to avoid arrest and the search warrant for his premises were all the justification needed to enter the house. They knocked first, waited a minute, then kicked in the front door with weapons at the ready, and cleared the house room by room.

In a workshop attached to the two-car garage, Ramona found a number of small knives and cutting tools on a table made of sawhorses and plywood, several of them coated with a thin layer of pale yellow dust. She bagged and tagged them right away.

Six-foot-high steel shelves filled with paint cans, bottles, coffee cans, and plastic storage bins lined one wall. Waist-high, built-in cabinets made from plywood and rough lumber ran along the opposite wall. Boxes of junk were strewn around the floor. From the looks of it, Dean was a total pack rat, which was an encouraging sign.

Ramona put the two detectives to work going through the shelves, the toolboxes, and cabinets. She cleared a space on the floor, covered it with clear plastic, and started emptying the trash basket next to the table piece by piece. She found a crumpled paper bag containing traces of yellow dust and a number of loose, oval-shaped, empty capsules.

Her cell phone rang, and the senior detective at the pharmacy search reported in. In Dean’s desk he’d found a full, unopened packet of the active thyroid ingredient and a copy of the wholesaler’s invoice showing that two packets, not one, had been delivered to Dean a month before Clifford Spalding’s last visit to Santa Fe.

“Describe the packet to me,” Ramona said.

“A small white box, two by three inches, sealed at both ends, with the name of the drug on a manufacturer ’s label.”

“Good deal,” Ramona said. “Make sure it’s dusted for prints.”

“Already done,” the detective replied.

Ramona disconnected, whistled at the two detectives, and told them what to start looking for. Then she called Sergeant Lowrey in California and gave her a status update.

“I hope you find that packet,” Lowrey said.

“If not, we still may come away with enough evidence to tie Dean to the crime.”

“You think Dean may be on his way out here?” Ellie asked.

“Possibly,” Ramona said. “Have you talked to Claudia?”

“Not yet. I’m on my way to her house right now,” Ellie said. “I’ll get back to you.”

Ramona put the cell phone away and went through the trash again until she was satisfied nothing had been overlooked. The two detectives were digging through the cabinets and pulling the plastic containers off the shelves. It would take time to go through everything, but they just might get lucky.

Ellie Lowrey found the Spalding estate no less mind-boggling on her second visit. In the past, she’d read newspaper articles about celebrities and their multimillion-dollar Montecito properties. But it had been impossible for her to imagine what that kind of money could buy until she’d seen it firsthand. In some ways, it still didn’t compute.

The solemn-looking secretary who met Ellie at the driveway took her through the vast living room, down a wide, long, arched corridor with tiny recessed ceiling lights that softly illuminated the paintings on the wall, and into a sunroom filled with exotic plants and wicker furniture that opened onto a patio at the rear of the house.

In the center of the patio were a large swimming pool and a separate hot tub surrounded by marble tile. Scattered around the pool was enough lawn furniture to accommodate forty or more people. Off to one side of the house stood an outdoor kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a built-in gas barbecue grill, and a work island protected by a freestanding pergola.

Beyond the swimming pool four cabanas sat near two tennis courts. A large swath of carefully groomed lawn in front of a low garden wall served as a putting green. At the bottom of a gently sloping hill, a gardener pruned shrubbery lining a pathway to a guesthouse three times the size of Ellie’s modest home.

Claudia Spalding stepped out of the guesthouse and paused along the pathway to speak to the gardener. She wore black slacks and a sleeveless black scooped top. At her neck a large solitary diamond glimmered in the sunlight.

“This is not a good time,” Spalding said stiffly when Ellie drew near. Her thin mouth was pinched, but her makeup, right down to the long lashes, eye shadow, and creamy red lip rouge, had been perfectly applied.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Ellie said.

“What do you want, Sergeant?”

“Have you spoken to Kim Dean recently?”

“Yes, I called him yesterday to tell him about Clifford’s death, as I have many other people. We’ve spoken several times since then.”

“Did he say anything to you about leaving Santa Fe?”

Spalding pushed a wisp of hair away from her cheek. “No.”

“An arrest warrant charging him with murder has been issued in Santa Fe,” Ellie said.

Spalding’s aloof expression vanished. She drew her head back sharply. “Impossible.”

“Why is that?”

“Kim is perfectly happy with our relationship as it is. He has no reason to harm my husband.”

“Can you think of any reason for him to leave work suddenly?”

“Perhaps he had an emergency of some sort at home,” Spalding said.

“He’s not at his house,” Ellie replied.

“Have you checked with his ex-wife in Colorado?” Claudia asked. “She constantly calls Kim to come and deal with his son when the boy acts out. The child has serious behavior problems.”

“That’s good to know,” Ellie said. “Where else might he have gone?”

“I have no idea,” Spalding said.

Ellie looked meaningfully at the guesthouse. “Would he be coming here?”

“No,” Claudia said emphatically.

Ellie stared hard at Spalding. “If you know where he is and refuse to tell me, you can be charged as an accessory to murder.”

Spalding waved her hand in annoyance. “You must be joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Then tell me what in the world makes you think Kim killed Clifford.”

“I can’t go into that, Mrs. Spalding.”

“Well, whatever your reasons, it’s all absurd.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Kim isn’t a violent person by nature. He’s very low-key. Calm and easygoing.”

“Why did you go to Dean’s pharmacy immediately after you picked up your husband’s thyroid prescription?” Ellie asked.

Claudia’s eyes turned angry. “I’ll answer your silly question and then you must leave. It’s the only store in Santa Fe that carries the perfume I use. Kim stocks it especially for me. Now, I have a funeral to arrange and a husband to bury. If you have any more questions, speak to my lawyer. Please wait here; Sheila will show you out.”

Ellie watched Spalding move across the patio and into the house. Was Dean a bully who, according to Ramona Pino, browbeat his employees? Or a low-key, pussycat kind of guy, as Claudia Spalding characterized him? The steel inside Claudia Spalding made Ellie doubt the woman would be attracted to a subservient man. But anything was possible. Maybe Spalding was a closet dominatrix.

Ellie tried to visualize Claudia Spalding cracking a whip while wearing spike-heel boots and leather. The idea of it almost made her laugh out loud.

Sheila, the woman who’d escorted Ellie to the patio, arrived and guided her back through the house. Along the way, Ellie learned that Clifford Spalding’s corporation was headquartered in Los Angeles, at Century City, and that Spalding had been in his office briefly the same day he’d driven to the horse ranch in Paso Robles.

Tomorrow, Ellie started her days off. She decided a trip to LA was in order.

The afternoon sunlight drenched the mountains with a golden hue. Cramped from sitting on the floor digging through boxes of junk, Ramona stood, bent over, touched her toes, and stretched. Behind her, Detective Matt Chacon was on his hands and knees with a flashlight trying to fish something out from behind the back of one of the built-in cabinets. Paul Austin, the other detective, was labeling Baggies filled with samples spooned from the various containers for analysis.

“Let’s wrap it up,” Pino said. “We’ll take everything we’ve got to the lab and see what they can make of it.”

“What some folks won’t do to commit murder,” Chacon said with a grin as he got to his feet, holding a dusty, white pharmaceutical packet in his hand. He shook it gently. “It’s got stuff in it.”

“Bag it, tag it, load everything up, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Ramona said, grinning back at Chacon.

Kim Dean was still on the run and, according to Ellie Lowrey, apparently not in hiding at the estate in Montecito. Even with that bit of bad news, Kerney finished up his day at the office feeling good about the progress of the investigation. Thanks to the evidence found at Dean’s house, they now had a much stronger case. Not perfect enough to go un-challenged by a good defense attorney, but compelling nonetheless.

Claudia Spalding’s possible involvement still bothered Kerney. He hoped that once Dean was in custody he’d provide some answers.

Earlier, Kerney had hand-delivered a copy of his transcribed Spalding notes to Agent Joe Valdez and explained his suspicions. Joe agreed to delve into Clifford Spalding’s business and financial dealings in New Mexico as his time allowed, and report back.

A check of public records on the Spaldings and Debbie Calderwood was proceeding. Kerney didn’t expect too much to come from it, but sometimes routine sources yielded valuable information.

The second-floor administrative suite was empty when Kerney left headquarters. He spent a minute chatting with a gang unit detective in the parking lot before heading out to Arroyo Hondo where Claudia Spalding lived. As far as Kerney knew, only one neighbor, Nina Deacon, had been interviewed, and he wanted to see who else might know something about Claudia Spalding and Kim Dean.

Tucked out of view from the highway, Arroyo Hondo contained the ruins of an old pueblo owned by the Archeological Conservancy, and a nearby parcel preserved as open space. The land away from the arroyo was a semirural residential area of ten-and twenty-acre tracts populated by a well-to-do horsey set. Houses, paddocks, corrals, and barns speckled the fenced pastures and pinon-juniper woodlands that flowed down from the foothills.

Kerney found the driveway to Spalding’s house on Laughing Pony Road and paid visits to the closest neighbors on either side. Nina Deacon wasn’t at home, and the people he talked with only knew Claudia Spalding casually and weren’t acquainted with Kim Dean at all. No one told him anything of value.

He drove away from the last house ready to pack in his impromptu canvass, go home, and call Sara. Up the road he saw a pickup truck turn into Spalding’s driveway. He followed and found an older Hispanic man unloading hay bales from the bed of his truck parked next to the horse barn.

“Mrs. Spalding isn’t here,” the man said as Kerney got close.

“I know,” Kerney said, displaying his shield. “Who are you?”

“Sixto Giron. Is there trouble?” Giron dropped a hay bale on the ground and brushed off his dusty shirt. He had a heavily wrinkled face and a guileless manner.

“No trouble,” Kerney said. “Do you work for Mrs. Spalding?”

“Yes, part-time. A few hours now and then every week, and I look after the horses when she is gone.”

“What about Nina Deacon?”

Giron nodded. “Same thing. She’s also out of town, judging a horse show in Canada.”

“Do you know about Mr. Spalding’s death?”

“Yes, Mrs. Spalding called and told me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Tell me about Kim Dean.”

“I work for him also, when he needs me. Mostly I haul away manure, or bring fresh straw for the stalls. He does most of the other work himself.”

“What can you tell me about his relationship with Mrs. Spalding?”

Giron shrugged. “Not much. They trail ride together, usually on weekends. Sometimes I see him visiting here, sometimes Claudia is at his house. They’re good friends.”

“Do they have a favorite place to trail ride?” Kerney asked.

Giron pushed his cap back and scratched above his ear. “They like to take the horses on some property Dean owns up on the Canadian River. He bought canyon land that doesn’t have a right-of-way road access to it, so he got it for real cheap.”

“Where is it, exactly?” Kerney asked.

“I don’t know. But Tito Perea, my primo, does. Kim hired him to pack in some building supplies so he could fix up an old cabin. Tito made four or five trips with his mules two summers ago.”

“How can I reach Tito?”

“He lives in Pecos, but he isn’t home. He’s outfitting for a group of turistas who are riding in the mountains for a week.”

“I bet Tito has a cell phone,” Kerney said.

Giron laughed at himself. “I forgot. He gave me the number, but I never use it.” He pulled out his wallet, and read off Tito’s cell phone number.

Kerney helped Giron unload the hay before he left. It was too late in the day to have anyone go looking for Dean on the Canadian. Northeast of Santa Fe, the canyon lands were a place with few roads, bad trails, quicksand, twisting gorges, and dangerous rimrock passages.

If he could contact Tito Perea tonight and get directions, he’d call the Harding County sheriff in the morning and ask him to check out Dean’s cabin.