Death Song

Chapter Six

Denise Riley’s former employer owned an independent insurance agency in a huge open-air mall on Cerrillos Road. A few Santa Fe–style touches—earthtoned stucco exteriors, flat roofs, “roughhewn” wooden posts, and fake buttresses—could not disguise the fact that it was a glorified strip mall with a big-box discount department store and a mega-supermarket mixed in with an assortment of franchise restaurants and national chain stores that sold books, electronics, home accessories, and clothing.

Sandwiched between a brand-name shoe outlet and a cellular phone store, the insurance agency had a front window with a lovely view of the parking lot that served the big discount department store. Inside, Matt Chacon encountered a middle-aged man probably in his early forties, who had the muscular build of a welterweight on a trim five-eight frame. He had short brown hair, brown eyes below thick brows, a strong chin, and a pronounced British accent.

“What happened to Denise is bloody awful,” John Culley said after Chacon introduced himself. “I don’t know what I will do without her.”

Major Mielke hadn’t said anything about John Culley being British. Matt wondered what else Mielke might have forgotten or failed to mention. “I understand your parents are visiting from Buffalo,” he said.

“My partner’s parents, not mine,” Culley replied with a wave of his hand. “My dear widowed mother, who is safely ensconced in her Tunbridge Wells cottage, thankfully has no desire to venture forth to visit me in the new world. Have you ever been to Buffalo? No? Regardless what the time of year might be, I cannot recommend it in any season.”

Matt loved the way Brits talked. It wasn’t just the accent he enjoyed hearing; he liked the way they used the language and seemed so comfortable making conversation.

Culley was just one of a number of Brits living in Santa Fe, including prominent artists, successful business owners, scientists who worked at the national laboratory in nearby Los Alamos, and some who were simply filthy rich and hobnobbed with the area’s other wealthy residents at charity events, the opera, and art openings. Members of British nobility—Matt couldn’t remember their names or titles—owned a large, secluded estate outside the city and were occasionally mentioned in the local newspaper.

The Brits composed one part of a rather extensive community of western European expatriates who lived in Santa Fe. Some of the Brits were full-time residents and others part-timers who either regularly returned to Europe or wintered in Florida.

Aside from illegal Mexican workers who’d been coming to Santa Fe forever, the ranks of foreign migrants living in the city had recently swelled, as more and more Middle Eastern businessmen had moved in and opened retail stores that catered to the tourist trade.

“I take it Tunbridge Wells is in England,” Matt said.

“Indeed, it is,” Culley replied. “In Kent, actually. Lovely castles and gardens. Have you been?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t get a chance to travel that much.”

“Pity,” Culley said. “There is so much to see in the world.”

“What can you tell me about Denise’s personal life?” Matt asked.

“Shall we sit?” Culley asked as he stepped to his desk and settled into a chair.

Matt pulled up a side chair and joined Culley at his desk, which was modern, European-looking, and shaped somewhat like an unshelled peanut. On it was a laptop, a cordless phone, a leather desk pad, and a matching leather letter and pen holder. The other desk in the office was of the same design but smaller. Denise Riley’s nameplate was prominently displayed on an otherwise empty desktop. There were framed Southwestern landscape prints on the walls, and a large, freestanding clear plastic rack of randomly arranged boxes that was abstract in design and positioned near the entrance. It served as a display case for various insurance company brochures. A bank of two-drawer black file cabinets lined the wall behind Denise’s desk, and behind Culley’s desk stood a credenza that held several membership certificates from local civic organizations and the photograph of a good-looking man Matt took to be Culley’s partner.

“How long did Denise work for you?” Matt asked.

“I hired her soon after I started the business. I was renting a small one-room office on St. Francis Drive at the time and had placed an advertisement in the paper for a receptionist. Denise was the first to respond and I hired her immediately.”

Matt took a notebook out of his coat pocket and flipped to a blank page. “When was that?”

“I started the business seven years ago this spring.”

“So you knew Denise before she married Tim Riley?”

Culley smiled. “Yes, indeed. I witnessed the entire courtship. It was quite a whirlwind romance. They made a splendid couple.”

“Did the romance last?” Matt asked.

“Well, I suppose the honeymoon phase ended as it always does, but they were very loving to each other as far as I could tell. Telephone calls back and forth, occasional luncheon dates when Tim had days off during the workweek—that sort of thing.”

“Would you say Denise was a faithful wife?”

Culley raised his eyebrows. “What an astonishing question. Denise was an extremely attractive woman, and a number of my male clients were very flirtatious with her both on the telephone and when they came into the office. She always handled it with aplomb and never acted inappropriately. But to answer you more directly, I never had an occasion to think of her as the unfaithful type.”

Matt wrote down an abbreviated version of Culley’s remarks in his notebook. “Did you know that she was almost three months pregnant at the time of her death?”

Culley shook his head. “Now you have me totally flummoxed. According to Denise, her husband was unable to give her a child. I suppose that’s why you asked if I thought she might be unfaithful. Could it be that she might have sought out a sperm donor?”

“It’s possible,” Matt said. “Did she talk to you about a desire to have children?”

“We didn’t have that kind of a relationship,” Culley replied. “We got along well as employer and employee, but we were not close personal friends.”

“Are you saying that she didn’t share much of her personal life with you?”

Culley smiled. “Exactly so. Nor did I share much of mine with her. I think both of us liked it that way.”

“Professional relationships at work are always best.” Matt glanced at Denise’s nearby vacant desk. “Still, you worked together in close proximity. I’m sure you took telephone messages for her, greeted friends and family who occasionally dropped by to see her when she was out of the office, overheard snatches of her phone conversations.”

“Yes, of course,” Culley said before Matt could continue, “and I’ve been trying to think of a person, a man perhaps, she might have particularly favored. But no one comes to mind, other than Tim, her sisters, and her brother. They were the ones most likely to call or stop by.”

“If you think of someone, let me know.” Matt closed the notebook and handed Culley a business card. “I’d like to review Denise’s employee file.”

Culley looked slighted embarrassed. “I’m afraid there is no employee file other than salary and income tax information that my accountant maintains.” He wrote down the accountant’s name and phone number on a telephone message slip and handed it to Chacon.

“You didn’t get a résumé, verify her past employment, and check her references before you hired her?” Matt asked.

“I saw no need to, and my intuition about Denise was spot-on. She worked out perfectly.”

Matt glanced at the empty desk again. “Did Denise do her work on a computer?”

“Yes, a desktop model. I tried to use it yesterday and it froze and crashed. Fortunately, I have all my records and files backed up and I can access them from my laptop.”

“Where is the desktop computer now?”

Culley waved his hand. “For all I care, it’s in transit to a computer graveyard in India to be salvaged. The technician who services my computers came out and told me it wasn’t worth the trouble or expense to fix it. I had him take it away. He’s building a new one for me, and I’ve ordered a larger monitor and a faster printer to go with it.”

Matt asked for and got the name of the company Culley used to service his computers. He tore a fresh piece of paper from his notepad and put it in front of the Englishman. “I need your written permission allowing me to take custody of your old computer. Please sign and date the authorization.”

Culley picked up a pen. “Yes, of course, but whatever for?”

“I can’t talk about what we do in ongoing investigations.”

“Of course you can’t.” Culley scribbled his consent and handed it to Matt, signed and dated.

“Have you had any recent break-ins or burglaries?”

“No, not a one.”

“Who else besides you, Denise Riley, and your clients have access to the office?”

“The leasing agent has a key, as does the cleaning lady I employ to tidy up my house and the office.”

“I may need to speak with both of those people,” Matt said.

Culley wrote down names and phone numbers, and handed the slip of paper to Matt. “This is becoming rather worrisome, Detective.”

Matt smiled reassuringly. “Rest easy, Mr. Culley. Sometimes the solution to a crime is in the details, so it’s important not to overlook any information that might be helpful.”

Culley’s worried expression cleared. “I absolutely understand.”

“Are you a U.S. citizen, Mr. Culley?”

“No, I am not, and as long as the current incumbent resides in the White House, I’m inclined to remain a British citizen. However, I do have permanent resident status.”

“What brought you to New Mexico?” Matt asked.

“D. H. Lawrence and the promise of blue skies,” Culley replied.

Although intelligent and knowledgeable in his chosen field, Matt was the product of the local school system and one year of study at the area community college. He flipped open his notepad. “Is this Mr. Lawrence a friend of yours?”

Culley repressed a smile and carefully chose his words. “You could say that, Detective Chacon. He was a very famous and controversial writer born in the Midlands of England who lived in northern New Mexico for a time early in the twentieth century. It was through his writing that I first became fascinated with New Mexico.”

Matt appreciated the fact that Culley had shown no condescension about his scant knowledge of modern literature. He closed the notebook and stood. “That should do it for now, but I may need to speak with you again.”

“I am at your disposal, Detective.” Culley rose and came around his desk. “It would be my pleasure to do whatever I can to help advance your inquiries. Whoever did these terrible, murderous acts must be brought to justice.”

The word indeed was on the tip of Matt’s tongue. Instead he asked, “Do you have proof of your permanent resident status with you?”

“Yes,” Culley replied. “Would you like to see it?”

“Indeed I would,” Matt said, unable to resist the impulse.

The computer repair and service company John Culley used was housed in a small adobe building at the back of an industrial lot tucked near the railroad tracks on Baca Street. A small sign on the outside of the building read “Roadrunner Computer Repair and Service.” Matt entered to find a man sitting at a large workbench in the middle of a room filled with monitors, keyboards, printers, laptops, and CPUs. He looked up, saw Matt, and got to his feet.

“Are you Steve Griego?” Matt showed the man his police credentials.

The man, who looked to be in his late thirties, nodded. “I am. Pardon the mess, but it’s always like this around here.”

“You have a desktop computer belonging to John Culley.” Matt held out Culley’s signed consent. “I’ve come to pick it up.”

Griego read the note and pointed to a desktop computer and assorted paraphernalia in a box on the floor near the door. “There it is. Please take it away and don’t bring it back. I’ve got no use for it.”

“Is it intact?”

“I haven’t cannibalized it if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean. Culley told me the unit was completely worthless. When you powered it up, what did you find?”

“Nothing. When it crashed, it took all the files and folders with it. I tried system restore and nothing happened. Tried it again, and the same thing—nada. The operating system and software is so outdated on the unit I told Culley he’d be smart to trash it and get something with greater capacity and speed.”

“Did you run any diagnostics?”

“Culley said not to bother, just to build him a new CPU. The old one is an off-the-shelf discounted model that was out-of-date the day he bought it. What do police want with Culley’s old computer?”

“It’s a secret, so I can’t tell you,” Matt replied. “How would you rate Culley’s skills as a computer user?”

Griego laughed. “At the bottom of the barrel along with ninety percent of all the people who own personal computers. He’s the kind of customer who would have his receptionist schedule a service call because the unit was running slow. I’d go out, run the disk cleanup and defragmenter utilities, and that would be it. It didn’t matter how many times I showed them how to do it themselves, they’d forget or just didn’t want to be bothered.”

“So neither Culley nor Denise Riley was computer savvy.”

“Not so far as I saw.”

“Do you have any employees who may have serviced the Culley account?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Griego said with a hearty laugh.

Griego’s likable personality made Matt smile. “I guess I must have been.” He picked up the box with Culley’s old computer and stood in the doorway. “Thanks for your time.”

“No sweat. Remember to dispose of that CPU properly when you’re done with it. You can’t just throw it in the trash.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Matt replied.

The 4 P.M. meeting with lead investigators and supervisors called by Chief Kerney and Sheriff Hewitt started on time with all present and accounted for and no dillydallying. Kerney and Hewitt impressed Clayton with the way they asked questions, took suggestions, revised task force operations, established targeted goals, gave constructive criticism, and made sure Sheriff Salgado got full credit for putting the new plan in place. Just by watching the two top cops in action, Clayton learned a hell of a lot about the right way to organize a well-functioning major felony interagency task force. The effect on the men and women in the room was palpable. Everybody seemed re-energized, ready to dig in and start over again.

At the tail end of the meeting, Sheriff Hewitt brought the team up to speed on the Lincoln County murder investigation. With significantly less resources and far fewer personnel than the Santa Fe S.O., Lincoln County deputies had pieced together a complete accounting of Riley’s week on and off the job, identified all the persons Riley had come into contact with during his time in Lincoln County, and made substantial headway on Riley’s background check. Information from the air force, including several former commanding officers, Riley’s ex-wife, some old high school mates, and one surviving uncle who resided in an assisted living facility in Dayton, Ohio, seemed to prove that Tim Riley had been exactly whom he professed to be.

After Hewitt finished, Salgado passed out a synopsis of Riley’s known personal history that included updated information. He had entered the air force at the age of eighteen, after graduating from high school. He rose to the rank of master sergeant E-8 and served twenty years and two months before retiring. His service record showed overseas postings to England, Japan, Germany, and Kuwait, where he was stationed during Gulf War One. His last duty assignment was at Holloman Air Force Base adjacent to White Sands Missile Range near the city of Alamogordo, less than an hour’s drive from Lincoln County.

Riley was the father of one child, an eighteen-year-old son named Brian, whereabouts currently unknown, who had stayed with Tim and Denise for a time last summer. While in Santa Fe, Brian worked for a month as a busboy in a downtown restaurant before being fired for tardiness. A National Crime Information Center criminal records check showed no wants and warrants and no arrest record for the boy.

Tim Riley had moved to Santa Fe soon after his retirement and applied for a deputy sheriff vacancy with the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office. Because of his extensive experience as a noncommissioned military police officer and criminal investigator, he was hired and sent to the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy to complete an accelerated police officer certification course. Upon his return to the S.O., he was assigned to the patrol division, where he remained until he resigned to accept the Lincoln County job.

A year after arriving in Santa Fe, Riley married Denise Louise Roybal in a civil ceremony performed by a county magistrate. Financial records showed that the couple had lived within their means and neither were deeply in debt nor had unusually large unexplained monetary assets. Riley’s vasectomy had been verified by autopsy, and there was no evidence of surgery to reverse the procedure.

Riley had divorced Eunice, his first wife, ten years ago. Eunice, currently living in North Carolina, had been interviewed by the local police. According to their report, she was employed as a veterinarian’s assistant at a small animal clinic and had a live-in boyfriend named Ernest Arnett who worked as an independent electrical contractor. Interviews with the woman’s employer, neighbors, and friends verified that she’d been in North Carolina during the time of the two homicides.

When told of Tim Riley’s murder, Eunice was unable to think of any person who had reason to kill him. However, since she’d had little contact with him for over eight years, she had no idea who Riley’s current friends or enemies might be.

When asked about her son, she stated she had no knowledge of Brian’s whereabouts, noting that the boy had left home soon after turning eighteen because of a personality conflict with her boyfriend. She expressed surprise on being told of Brian’s visit to Santa Fe, saying she had not known about it and stating he and Tim had not been close since the divorce. According to the interviewing officer, she showed little sorrow about her ex-husband’s death.

Kerney and Hewitt ended the meeting with four priority goals established: find Brian Riley as quickly as possible and determine if he was to be treated as a suspect; identify the unknown person Denise Riley had been secretly seeing; delve deeply into Denise’s past, particularly those years when she was living away from Santa Fe; and complete the gathering of saliva samples for DNA comparison testing.

Outside the conference room, Clayton gave Paul Mielke the scoop on Matt Chacon’s conversation with Denise’s employer and the tale of the office desktop computer that had crashed the day after her murder.

“Detective Chacon secured the computer,” Clayton noted, “and will let us know if he finds anything.”

“Do we know if Riley’s son is a computer whiz?”

“That’s a good question,” Clayton replied. “We should ask the North Carolina authorities to check it out.”

“I’ll give them a call,” Mielke said as he walked away.

A few minutes later Paul Hewitt caught up with Clayton in his borrowed office. “We’ve got to find Brian Riley,” he said from the doorway.

“I heard you and Chief Kerney loud and clear on that, Sheriff. I’m on it.”

“How are you on it, Sergeant?”

“Ramona Pino is en route to the restaurant where the boy worked to see if she can scout up some information. Two SFPD detectives are making the rounds of juvie hangouts in the city to locate anyone who knows him or where he is. I’ve got a deputy calling the North Carolina high school authorities and Tim Riley’s ex-wife to get a list of classmates he might have stayed in touch with. We’re also putting the word out to snitches on the street.”

“Very good,” Hewitt said. “I’m heading home to Lincoln County. I want daily updates from you, Sergeant.”

“I’ll route them through Chief Kerney and Sheriff Salgado,” Clayton replied.

Hewitt nodded. “You’re going to make a first-rate police chief someday.”

“Thanks for the compliment, Sheriff, but that’s a long way off, if ever.”

“You never know,” Hewitt said as he waved good-bye.

The downtown restaurant where Brian Riley had briefly worked as a busboy catered to patrons who could easily afford a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine to complement their perfectly plated, expensive gourmet meals. Except for Chief Kerney, who’d inherited some megabucks from an old family friend, Ramona Pino thought it highly unlikely that any member of the Santa Fe Police Department had ever eaten at the establishment.

The swanky restaurant, according to several old-timers on the force, stood on the site of the long-gone downtown bus depot, which had housed a small diner renowned for serving the best green-chili cheeseburgers in town. Back in those days, uniformed officers assigned to Plaza foot patrol almost always chowed down at the diner, which had a varied menu, good food, and reasonable prices.

But that was then, and the new Santa Fe was now a vastly different place. Since the transformation of the bus depot into a world-class restaurant, just about everything else in the downtown part of the city had also changed. Plaza businesses that catered to locals had vanished, replaced by stores and eateries that served the tourist trade. The price of a nice dinner in a fancy Santa Fe restaurant to celebrate a special occasion was now way beyond the means of the average citizen, which definitely included the men and women sworn to protect and serve.

Many officers, including those who had working spouses, were holding down part-time second jobs. A growing number couldn’t afford to live in Santa Fe and were now commuting from the boomtown city of Rio Rancho that sprawled along the Rio Grande west of Albuquerque. The joke going around the department was that when a major disaster hit the city, FEMA would probably lumber into Santa Fe faster than the officers who lived out of town could arrive.

Inside the restaurant, the hostess area at the top of the stairs was unoccupied. Servers were setting up a long row of tables for what appeared to be a large dinner party. At the bar in the back of the room, a bartender was polishing glassware and talking to a man who wore a chef’s coat with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Ramona approached, identified herself, and asked to speak to the manager, owner, or whoever was in charge. The man in the chef’s coat told her the manager, Pearce Byers, was in the back. He went through the kitchen double doors to get him.

While Ramona waited, the bartender, a strapping six-footer with a leering smile on his pretty-boy face, gave Ramona the once-over. The guy looked to be the bad-boy type who preyed on women and lived off them when he could.

Ramona stared him down.

Pearce Byers came out of the kitchen and advanced quickly on Ramona. Dressed in a linen shirt and wool slacks, he had a scowl on his face that pinched his eyebrows together. “What can I do for you, Officer?” he asked.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Pino,” Ramona said as she handed him her business card, “and I need a few minutes of your time.”

Byers glanced at the card and stuck it in his shirt pocket. “Certainly. A few minutes. Sorry to be so rushed, but I have a party of twenty arriving any time now and a number of early pre-concert bookings for the piano recital at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.”

Ramona surveyed the dining room. All was ready for the alleged onslaught and there wasn’t a customer in sight. “I need to talk to anyone on your staff who might be able to put me in touch with Brian Riley. He worked as a busboy here last summer.”

Byers looked thoughtful. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He was here for a very short period of time,” Ramona said. “No more than a month. I was told he was fired for tardiness.”

“Oh, yes,” Byers said, touching his finger to his lips. “I tend to forget the problem children we hire who slip through our screening process. As I recall, we took a chance on him because his father was a police officer. But he wasn’t fired for tardiness; he was canned for coming to work stoned.”

“On drugs or alcohol?”

“Does it really matter?” Byers answered. “But to answer your question, not only did he show up stoned, but he was caught smoking pot on breaks behind the building with an apprentice cook. We fired them both.”

“Who was the cook?” Ramona asked.

“Randy Velarde. He was enrolled in the culinary arts program at the community college.”

“I need to see Velarde’s employment application. Riley’s also.”

Byers looked past Ramona toward a large group of people who’d arrived at the hostess area. “Can’t this wait until later?”

“No, it can’t,” Ramona answered.

Byers sighed in frustration, called one of the servers over, asked him to seat the waiting party, and told Ramona he’d be right back with the employment applications.

The pretty-boy bartender, who’d been listening with great interest, leaned over the bar. “If you can’t find Randy at home, he may be in class at the community college.”

“Do you know that for a fact?” Ramona asked.

Pretty Boy nodded. “When I ran into him a month or so ago, he said he was working days as a grocery store stocker and taking classes at night and one morning on his days off.”

“Did he say what store he was working at?”

“No.”

“Thanks,” Ramona said.

Pretty Boy didn’t answer right away. He was distracted by a very attractive woman with long brown hair who hurried up the stairs and joined the just-seated party. He gave the woman a thorough once-over before returning his attention to Ramona.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Do you know where I can find Brian Riley?”

“Nope, that I don’t know,” Pretty Boy said as he went to the end of the bar to take drink orders from a couple with Palm Springs tans.

Byers returned with the employment applications, slapped the papers on the bar in front of Ramona, and hurried away to greet arriving customers at the hostess area. Ramona copied down the information she needed and made her way to the kitchen, where she asked the executive chef and several of her assistants about Randy Velarde’s work in the kitchen. They characterized him as moody, inconsistent, and a pothead. The one cook who vaguely remembered Brian Riley put him in the same category.

Byers came bursting through the double doors just as Ramona was writing down names and phone numbers.

“You can’t be in here,” he sputtered angrily. “This is unacceptable.”

“I’m done,” Ramona said with a smile.

“Next time, come back after we’re closed.”

Ramona closed her notebook. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Tranquilo Casitas, Space 39 was the address Randy Velarde had listed on his job application. It was a run-down trailer park on Agua Fria Street just inside the city limits, located between a sand-and-gravel operation and a small subdivision of “starter homes” on tiny lots. Hardly a tranquil place to live, it was a well-known trouble spot. Patrol officers were frequently called to the location to quell domestic disputes, break up gang fights, and investigate break-ins and burglaries that were usually drug-related.

On the way to the trailer park, Ramona ran a check on Randy Velarde. He had a clean sheet, but given the fact that he’d been fired for smoking marijuana on the job, Ramona doubted that Velarde was an upstanding citizen.

She pulled into Tranquilo Casitas and bumped her way down a paved asphalt lane that had so many potholes it resembled a bombed-out Baghdad roadway. All of the mobile homes in the park were older single-wides, and many were in disrepair. Some had plastic sheeting on the roof held in place by automobile tires. Others had broken windows covered with scrap plywood. A few were missing the skirting used to hide the concrete blocks that elevated the trailers off the ground.

The single-wide at space 39 was no better or worse than all the rest. On one side of the trailer jutted a half-finished covered porch made of plywood. Scrap lumber and construction trash littered the area. The hulk of an old Japanese subcompact pickup truck sat in the mud ruts of the parking space. Ramona climbed three rickety wooden steps that rose to the plywood front porch, and with her badge case open to display her shield and police ID, she knocked on the door. A young teenage girl, no more than five-one and a hundred pounds, opened up. She had an infant riding on her hip. The distinctive smell of grass wafted out the door.

“I’d like to speak to Randy Velarde,” said Ramona, who wasn’t at all interested in making a misdemeanor arrest on a pot possession charge.

“My brother’s not here right now. Why do you need to see him?”

Ramona studied the girl’s face. She looked clear-eyed and seemed alert to her surroundings. “I’m trying to locate someone Randy worked with last summer, Brian Riley.”

The girl pushed the baby’s tiny hand away from the front of her blouse. No more than four or five months old, the infant had a dirty face and a urine-stained diaper. “What did Brian do?”

“Nothing,” Ramona replied. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah, sort of. He stayed here for a couple nights last summer before he left town.”

“Where did he go?”

The baby started to cry. The girl pulled a pacifier from her pants pocket and stuck it in the baby’s mouth. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him much.”

“Why was he staying here?”

“I think he had a fight with his father or his stepmother. Something like that.”

“Would Randy know where Brian went?”

The baby spit out the pacifier. The girl picked it up, put it in her pocket, and shifted the baby to her other hip. “Maybe. Look, I’ve got to feed him.”

Ramona heard a toilet flush. “Where is Randy?”

The girl put her hand on the door. “In class at the community college. He doesn’t get home until after nine.”

“Is the baby’s mother working?”

“I’m his mother,” the girl said, jiggling the baby on her hip. “He’s my little hijo.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“Working.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a housekeeper at the hospital.”

“Is there anyone here with you?”

“Javier, my hijo’s father.”

“What’s your name?” Ramona asked.

“Vanessa Velarde.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Are you in school?”

Vanessa shook her head. “There’s no one to look after my hijo during the day but me.”

Ramona smiled understandingly. “A baby is a lot of responsibility to take on. Let me see what I can do to get you some help.”

Vanessa smirked and gave Ramona a sour look. “I don’t need any help. School sucks, so I dropped out. Next year I’ll get my GED and then I’ll get a job.” She closed the trailer door in Ramona’s face.

Ramona walked to her unit and drove away. In her years on the force she’d yet to meet any fifteen-year-olds who were mature enough to know what was best for them. On Agua Fria Street, she pulled to the side of the road, called the lieutenant in charge of the juvenile division, and gave her the heads-up on Vanessa Velarde. The lieutenant promised to contact social services and request that a caseworker make a home visit.

Ramona knew it could be days or weeks before a caseworker showed up at the trailer to determine if Vanessa and her baby needed protective services. She glumly wondered if any good would come from bringing social services into the picture. Even with help, being a low-income, fifteen-year-old dropout with a new baby was a hell of a deep hole to climb out of.

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. She 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.