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  Death Song

  ( Kevin Kerney - 11 )

  Michael Mcgarrity

  Michael McGarrity's eleventh novel in the acclaimed Kevin Kerney series achieves a new depth of masterful storytelling and a plot that will captivate readers. With McGarrity's rich, personal knowledge of police work displayed on every page, and his stunning visual sense of place in the vast New Mexico landscape,Death Songfirmly proves that he deserves his place among the great mystery writers today.

  The bushwhack killing of a deputy sheriff in Lincoln County and the brutal murder of the deputy's wife in Santa Fe bring Police Chief Kevin Kerney and his Mescalero Apache son, Sergeant Clayton Istee, back together in a double homicide investigation--an investigation that is soon linked to a major drug trafficking scheme and the cold-blooded slaughter of two women in Albuquerque. With few clues, no known motives, and no suspects, the investigation turns into a search for the son of the slain officer, eighteen-year-old Brian Riley, who left Santa Fe under suspicious circumstances before his father's death.

  Due to retire at the end of the month, Kevin Kerney isn't about to let the murder of a police officer's wife go unsolved on his watch, especially since the dead woman was the sister of a dear friend; and crime scene facts strongly suggest that the killer may have also ambushed the deputy sheriff. Kerney assumes command of the combined investigation and calls upon Clayton to find Brian Riley, discover what triggered the murders, and give him the ammunition he needs to bring a multiple murderer to justice.Death Songis McGarrity in full stride and at his best.

  DEATH SONG

  Also by Michael McGarrity

  Tularosa

  Mexican Hat

  Serpent’s Gate

  Hermit’s Peak

  The Judas Judge

  Under the Color of Law

  The Big Gamble

  Everyone Dies

  Slow Kill

  Nothing but Trouble

  MICHAEL McGARRITY

  DEATH SONG

  A KEVIN KERNEY NOVEL

  DUTTON

  Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Copyright © 2008 by Michael McGarrity

  All rights reserved

  For Elizabeth “Betsy” Reed

  Thanks go to James and Lynda Sanchez of Lincoln, New Mexico; Peter Rogers and Carol Hurd Rogers of San Patricio, New Mexico; former Capitan police chief Robert Bird; former Capitan mayor Steve Sederwall; Capitan municipal judge J. D. Roehrig; and retired Lincoln County sheriff Tom Sullivan.

  Chapter One

  The week had been a long grind for Sergeant Clayton Istee. On paper he’d been scheduled to pull four ten-hour shifts, but the demands of the job had turned his workweek into five twelve-hour days.

  In small, underfunded, undermanned law enforcement agencies, officers routinely carried out multiple assignments that required constant juggling of their time and priorities. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office was no different, and while Clayton’s primary duties consisted of supervising patrol deputies and serving as lead investigator for all major felony cases, he’d recently taken on the additional responsibility of training supervisor for the department. As a result, he’d been forced to work overtime and put in an extra day on the job to get a newly hired deputy up to speed.

  In general, Clayton enjoyed the variety that came with his job and had no complaints, other than he didn’t get to see his family enough. From a professional standpoint, the time he’d spent with the Lincoln County S.O. had been much more satisfying and rewarding than the years he’d worked as an officer with the Mescalero Apache Tribal Police. But five twelve-hour days in a row was pushing it even for Clayton, and he was eager to end the week and get home at a reasonable hour.

  The new deputy, Tim Riley, a certified police officer with six years’ experience, had spent most of the week in Clayton’s company learning the ropes. Clayton had toured Riley through the back roads and out-of-the-way places in the county, introduced him to criminal justice and law enforcement personnel, walked him through the county jail, and showed him some of the best places to run radar.

  He coached Riley on department protocols and procedures, watched him conduct traffic stops, had him handle a report of a gas skip at a convenience store, and showed him where some of the badass felons and sexual predators on parole from the state pen lived. Now the only thing that stood in the way of turning Riley loose on his own was getting him certified with his department-issued firearms.

  On Friday afternoon Clayton drove Riley to the range the S.O. used for weapons recertification, where a state police firearms instructor from Roswell was standing by to test Riley’s proficiency with a .45 semiautomatic and a pump-action shotgun.

  A quiet man in his mid-forties, Riley was more than ten years older than Clayton, but the differences in their rank and age didn’t appear to be a problem. Riley had a low-key, pleasant personality, wasn’t bothered by long periods of silence, and rarely made small talk. By the end of the week, Clayton knew very little about the man other than he was married, had a grown son from a prior marriage, and was a retired air force master sergeant.

  Riley’s five foot, ten inch frame matched Clayton’s height, and although he carried a few extra pounds around his gut, he looked to be in good physical shape. He had brown eyes and a long narrow face that gave him a somewhat serious look that was offset by an easy smile.

  At the firing range, Clayton turned Riley over to the instructor, and watched from his unit to avoid the swirling, chilly March wind. First the instructor went over the range protocols and walked Riley through the outdoor combat pistol range, showing Riley what to expect on the course. Just as Riley was about to start a dry-fire practice run with the pop-up targets hidden from view, the wind kicked up a dust devil that obscured him from Clayton’s sight. When the wind subsided and the dust settled, Riley ran the course with ease, holstering his weapon while moving from one concealment point to the next, assuming a proper shooting stance at each firing station.

  Riley returned to the starting line, where he donned protective eyewear, loaded his weapon with live ammo, put extra magazine clips in the pouches on his belt, and waited for the instructor’s signal to go. When it came, Clayton tracked Riley’s progress with binoculars. After Riley finished, the instructor inspected the targets, tallied the score, and gave Clayton a thumbs-up sign. Then he moved Riley over to the adjacent stationary target range and tested him with the shotgun. Once live firing ceased, Clayton joined the instructor behind the firing line while Riley went downrange on the handgun course to pick up his spent brass.

  “Good shooting,” the state cop said, handing Clayton the paperwork. Riley had qualified as an expert marksman with both his department-issued 45-caliber semiautomatic and the twelve-gauge pump shotgun.

  “Excellent,” Clayton said as he slipped the signed paperwork into Riley’s training file, went downrange, and gave his new deputy the good news.

  Riley smiled slightly as he dumped his spent brass into a rusty coffee can. “I thought I did okay.”

  Clayton nodded. “More than okay. Let’s head back to the office. Sheriff Hewitt will want to talk to you.”

  Riley feigned a worried look. “Am I in trouble already?”

  Clayton laughed and shook his head. “No, he just wants to give you his traditional pep talk before he cuts you loose on patrol.”

  “The new guy speech?” Riley asked as he slipped a fresh magazine into his .45.

  “Exactly.”

  Riley holstered his weapon. “Thanks for your help this week.”

  “Not a problem. Welcome to the Lincoln County S.O. I think you’ll do just fine.”

  Riley laughed. “Believe me, I’m glad
to be here.”

  On the drive to the sheriff’s office in Carrizozo, the county seat, Clayton glanced at the dashboard clock. It looked like he would actually keep his promise to Grace to get home on time, so he could look after Wendell and Hannah while she attended an evening meeting of the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council.

  Grace ran the child development center on the reservation and was scheduled to give her annual report and submit a budget request for additional funding. She’d been working hard on the project all week long.

  In Carrizozo, Clayton took Riley into Sheriff Paul Hewitt’s den of an office and sat quietly while Hewitt gave the new deputy his spiel about teamwork, the importance of the chain of command, his vision of community policing, and other weighty matters. The meeting ended with Riley amiably agreeing to work a double that evening to cover for an officer who’d called in sick.

  Hewitt held Clayton back after Riley left. In his fifties, Hewitt was serving his last term as sheriff and would retire when it expired. He sat behind his big desk, kicked back in his chair with his cowboy boots up on the desk, rubbed his chin, and shot Clayton one of his patented “give it to me straight” looks.

  “You’ve had Riley under your wing for a week. What do you think of him?”

  “He’s solid, levelheaded, and intelligent,” Clayton said. “Takes direction and supervision well. The only question I have is why he never made any rank at his old job.”

  “Did you ask him about it?”

  “Yeah. He said he likes patrol duty, likes being on the street, doesn’t care much about moving up the chain of command, especially after being a top sergeant in the military.”

  “Do you buy it?” Hewitt asked.

  Clayton shrugged. “Why not? Don’t you?”

  “It’s possible,” Hewitt said as he paged through the training report Clayton had assembled on Riley and the personnel records that his previous employer, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, had sent down. “He got solid performance evaluations in his old job and was promoted to deputy three, which is equivalent to a corporal’s rank.”

  “Did you talk to the Santa Fe County sheriff about Riley?” Clayton asked.

  Hewitt closed the paperwork and got to his feet. “Yep, and he reassured me that I wasn’t getting a reject or a screwup from his department. Said he was sorry to lose him. So let’s hope Riley works out, likes it here, and stays with us.”

  “That would be nice,” Clayton said.

  “Don’t you need to get home so Grace can go to an important meeting or some such?”

  “Affirmative,” Clayton said, rising to his feet.

  Hewitt grinned. “Well, then, get the hell out of here, Sergeant, so I don’t have to pay you any more overtime this week. Enjoy your days off.”

  Clayton threw Hewitt a quick salute on his way out the door, dumped his files into his desk drawer, locked it, went to his unit, and started home to the Rez.

  After an unusually wet summer and fall, winter in New Mexico had failed to materialize. From December on, the days had been unseasonably warm and no measurable moisture had fallen. The mountains were bare of snow, and last summer’s lush grasslands were now straw-colored tinder fields ready to explode into raging wildfires caused by a lightning strike, a careless smoker, or campfire embers kicked up by the wind.

  Clayton took his favorite route home, driving the road that crossed the river by the old stone stables of Fort Stanton, an authentic nineteenth-century U.S. Army fort where General Blackjack Pershing had once served as a young officer. He passed the maritime cemetery where some World War Two German POWs were buried, and navigated a series of curves to the top of the mesa, where two dark and heavily forested mountain ranges filled the horizon east and west, sharp against a clear, cloudless sky.

  A regional airport on the mesa served mainly private planes. Most of the rest of the tabletop land was state and federal, which kept the real estate developers at bay. But in the grassland valleys, vacation homes and five-acre ranchettes dotted the landscape, and on the private land near the town of Ruidoso, high-end gated communities with homes on million-dollar-view lots peppered the mesa.

  Touted by the local politicos as evidence of a growing local economy, more subdivisions to serve the upscale vacation home market were in the planning stage. But Clayton didn’t think that building second and third houses for very rich boomers benefited the area in any meaningful way.

  The sun, bright in a cloudless sky, hovered at the tip of the Sierra Blanca Mountains. Clayton lowered the visor to cut the intense glare and reached for his sunglasses. When he glanced up, a deer attempting to hurdle the hood of his unit slammed into his windshield.

  Clayton stomped hard on the brakes as the animal’s front legs shattered the glass. The impact bounced the deer onto the roof, and Clayton heard the emergency light bar rip free and clatter to the pavement. Through the rearview mirror Clayton saw the deer thud onto the highway.

  He peered as best he could through the shattered windshield, veered back into his lane, and ground to a stop at the side of the road, thankful that there had been no oncoming traffic. Shaken, he got out and walked to the animal. It was a buck with large ears and a white tail tipped with black that identified it as a mule deer. Clayton guessed it weighed about 350 pounds. It was mortally wounded: Blood streamed from its ears and mouth, and bone splinters jutted through the torn muscle and ligaments of its legs. The buck tried to lift its head, and the effort made it convulse in spasms.

  Clayton stepped back, unholstered his .45 semiautomatic, chambered a round, and steadied his weapon. The animal’s eyes blinked rapidly at Clayton just before he put it down with a bullet in the head.

  Back at his unit, he assessed the damage to his vehicle. The hood and roof were caved in, the windshield and emergency light bar were destroyed, and a mangled right front fender had chewed up and shredded the tire right down to the rim.

  He got some emergency road flares, put them on the highway to warn oncoming traffic, and called dispatch on his handheld radio to report the incident.

  Paul Hewitt broke in on the transmission before dispatch could respond. “Clayton, are you all right?”

  “Ten-four, Sheriff,” Clayton responded. “But I’ll need a tow truck at this location.”

  “Affirmative,” Hewitt replied. “We’ve got personnel rolling to your twenty.”

  “I’m standing by,” Clayton said as he disconnected. The sun had dropped behind the western mountains, and dusk had started to deepen. He went to his unit, got more flares, put them out, and then stood by the deer carcass with a flashlight to guide the occasional car around the scene.

  Department policy required the state police to investigate any accidents involving on-duty sheriff’s personnel, and Clayton knew it would take a good amount of time for the officer to conduct the investigation once he was on the scene. It didn’t matter that it was clearly a no-fault incident; every detail would be done by the book because it involved another cop.

  Clayton glanced at his watch. Even under the best of circumstances it would be several hours before he could get home. There was no way he’d be there in time to look after the children while Grace attended the tribal council meeting. He called her on his cell phone, explained what had happened, reassured her that he was unhurt, and gave her the bad news.

  “Don’t worry,” Grace said. “I’ll find someone to look after the children.”

  “Call my mother,” Clayton said.

  “I’m sure she’ll be glad to help out. Are you certain you’re not hurt?”

  With his flashlight Clayton waved a slow-moving car around the deer carcass. “Not a scratch, but my unit is a mess and I’m gonna have to hitch a ride home.”

  “How did you manage to run into a deer?” Grace asked.

  “You’ve got it reversed,” Clayton replied. “The deer ran into me.”

  “Still, you killed Bambi’s father,” Grace whispered in mock seriousness.

  Clayton laughed. “Please don’t
tell the children.”

  “Never,” Grace replied. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

  “Good luck with the tribal council.”

  “Thanks. Your dinner will be warming in the oven.”

  Clayton disconnected. He could see flashing emergency lights approaching from both directions. From the west, a volunteer fire department EMT unit slowed and stopped on the shoulder of the road, and two men hurried toward him. From the east, two S.O. units ground to a halt. Paul Hewitt and Tim Riley dismounted their vehicles and moved quickly in his direction.

  There were more flashing lights coming down the highway from Ruidoso, probably the state cop and the tow truck. Or a state game-and-fish officer. Or whoever, Clayton thought as he groaned inwardly. For the next several hours he would be on the receiving end of a police investigation, which was never a happy prospect, especially for a cop.

  Clayton apologized to the dead buck before Sheriff Hewitt and Tim Riley drew near. He was truly sorry the animal had died for no good reason.

  It was a hell of a way to start the weekend.

  After making sure with his own eyes that Clayton was unhurt, Paul Hewitt stayed at the scene with his sergeant until the state police officer’s investigation had been wrapped up, the dead buck had been removed from the roadway, all other emergency personnel had departed, and the tow truck operator had winched the disabled unit onto the flatbed and driven away.

  In the back of Hewitt’s vehicle, a 4×4 Explorer, Clayton had stowed all of his personal gear and the department-issued equipment he’d cleaned out of his unit. The two men sat in the Explorer and watched the blue flashing emergency lights of the tow truck fade down the highway into the night.

  “Have you had enough excitement for one day?” Paul Hewitt asked as he cranked the engine to his unit. “If that buck had come through your windshield, chances are good that I would be on my way to tell your wife that she had just become a widow.”