Residue: A Kevin Kerney Novel Page 12

  “You simply say you resigned for personal reasons,” Upham concluded, as he passed a prepared document across the table for Clayton to sign. “Our public information officer will say it was in the best interests of the department, and let it go at that.”

  Clayton’s pen hovered over the signature block. Ten years on the job down the stinking drain. “You really get off on this, don’t you, Upham?”

  “In this case, no,” Upham replied sincerely. “You had a tough call to make, and it went against you when you wouldn’t back down and let go.”

  “That’s comforting,” Clayton said sarcastically.

  “I know your father. He’s a good man, and he was a damn fine officer. I doubt he’s a killer, but if he is, I’d sure like to know the reason.”

  Holding still, Clayton wanted to scream, What in the hell do you think I was doing?

  Upham gestured at Clayton to sign the resignation and agreement form. “I’ve known an officer or two who’s been welcomed back into the department after a misstep. It’s not unheard-of.”

  Clayton signed, stood, and tossed the pen on the table along with his shield, ID, and sidearm. “Are we done here? I’d like to go home now.”

  He didn’t mean Las Cruces.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gary Dalquist’s law offices were in an old red-brick cottage with a picket fence across from the recently abandoned, soon-to-be demolished county judicial building. Dalquist owned the cottage and wasn’t about to move closer to the new courthouse in the revitalized railyard district that bordered downtown Santa Fe. From the shingles on neighboring buildings, several other lawyers apparently shared his sentiment.

  The front room served as a reception and waiting area. It had a tongue-and-groove oak floor, and a hand-stenciled fruit-and-floral motif that ran along the top of the walls under the high plastered ceiling. There was nobody to greet visitors, but the door to Dalquist’s back office was open, revealing him behind an antique oak standing desk with fancy turned legs. He looked up and waved Kerney and Sara in.

  “On time, excellent,” he said, as he sat with them in a comfortable area with a couch and two matching easy chairs. The brief snowstorm at the ranch had completely bypassed Santa Fe, and the long window at the back of the room provided a view of an old apricot tree covered in a riot of pink and white blossoms that draped almost down to the ground.

  “Our enemies have not been forthcoming,” he announced. In Dalquist’s work, prosecutors and the police were adversaries. “Except for a list of all the people who’ve been interviewed, and the affidavit against you, I’ve yet to receive the rest of the discovery I requested. Nevertheless, we can proceed with what we know from the criminal complaint.”

  “Let’s get started,” Kerney said.

  “A great deal hinges on what transpired between you and Kim Ward on the night of her disappearance.”

  “I understand,” Kerney replied. “I’m assuming you want to know exactly what I’ll say during any police interrogations.”

  “Indeed, everything you will say to the police, once we’ve all agreed upon it, word for word if necessary.” Dalquist smiled at Sara, reached for the small digital voice recorder on the coffee table, and turned it on. “But let’s first back up and talk about how you met Kim Ward and the prior relationship you had with her.”

  “We met during my senior year at the annual all-state high school rodeo competition held that year in her hometown of Deming,” Kerney began. “I’d come down from T or C with my friend Dale, accompanied by our parents.”

  With a touch of shyness, he described the dance that was held for all the entrants and their families at the American Legion post the night before the rodeo, and how Kim had spirited him away to her house while her mother was at work. His description of that night in Kim’s arms brought a mischievous little smile to Sara’s face that almost made him stop. But he hurried on with the story, recounting how afterward they corresponded throughout the summer, and rekindled their romance at New Mexico State when they both started college in the fall.

  He explained the affair ended during the second semester when Kim joined the rodeo team and took up with Todd Marks. He admitted she’d broken his heart.

  “She was your first true love,” Sara commented tenderly.

  “She was,” he acknowledged.

  “What was your relationship with Todd Marks?” Dalquist inquired.

  “In high school, at the rodeos, we were friendly but fierce competitors. He was by far the better cowboy. I wasn’t angry at him for stealing my girl away, more hurt by Kim being so . . .” He struggled for the right word.

  “Promiscuous,” Dalquist suggested.

  “Capricious,” Kerney answered.

  “That’s an interesting distinction to make,” Dalquist commented.

  Before Kerney could respond, Sara shook her head in disagreement and said, “No, it’s not.”

  “A much more forgiving attitude about lost love than one might ordinarily expect,” Dalquist mused, with thoughtful glances at Sara and Kerney.

  “Seasoned by becoming older and wiser,” Kerney explained with a smile.

  “Ah,” Dalquist said, realizing Kerney’s trust in the girl had been misplaced. A hard lesson to learn as a young man, no matter how mature he might have been. “Of course.”

  He probed Kerney about Todd Marks until he was satisfied there had been no animosity between the two prior to Kim Ward’s switching partners. “What about afterwards?” he asked.

  “I guess I brooded for a while, but there was no confrontation, if that’s what you’re getting at. I saw them on campus together occasionally until they dropped out to join the pro rodeo circuit. We may have given a nod or hello as we passed each other. I can’t remember exactly. I never saw Kim again until the evening she showed up at Erma’s.”

  “What about Marks?” Dalquist queried. “When did you see him last?”

  “If you’re asking if I saw him during or after the time Kim spent the night with me at Erma’s, the answer is no. Last time I saw him was while I was a college freshman.”

  “Did you have sex with Kim that night at Erma’s?”

  Kerney glanced at Sara. “Yes.” There was no reaction.

  “Was it consensual?”

  “I thought so.”

  Dalquist pursed his lips. “Thought so?”

  Kerney shifted position. “Let me back up. Kim arrived in a panic after walking out on Todd during an argument. I was only recently out of the army and staying at Erma’s. She’d heard where I was through a mutual friend I’d run into downtown, and wanted to be someplace where Todd wouldn’t find her.”

  “Being in a panic doesn’t tell me much,” Dalquist interjected. “Can you describe her state of mind?”

  “Frantic, frightened, emotionally fragile. I didn’t realize it right away, but she was shooting up on speed—amphetamines—and was just coming down from a huge dose. Todd had gotten her started on drugs while they were working the circuit, driving from town to town for sixteen hours straight, doing rodeo after rodeo. She said she wanted to get away from Todd, rodeoing, and drugs.”

  “She told you this when?” Dalquist asked.

  “Soon after she calmed down.”

  “Before or after you had sex?”

  The question hung over Kerney’s head like an ax. He’d gone to Erma’s to recover from ’Nam, the death of his parents, jungle nightmares, and terrible feelings of loneliness that haunted him. The touch of a woman had been irresistible, the sensation of skin against skin overpowering. It had weakened his resistance despite knowing it was a bad idea.

  “After.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I fell asleep. I thought she had, too, but when I awoke, I found her dressed and shooting up. When the speed kicked in, she went haywire, talking crazy stuff about killing herself, killing Todd, begging me to take her to Mexico—anywhere. Then, out of nowhere, she slapped me, called me a fucker, said all I wanted was sex, and started scratchin
g at imaginary bugs crawling on her skin. She was screaming, ‘Get them off, get them off.’ ”

  “How was she able to get away?” Dalquist asked.

  “She was completely uncontrollable, thrashing around. Because she was sweating heavily, I went to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth to cool her down. When I returned, she was gone, along with my grandfather’s pistol from the nightstand drawer, and the blanket from the foot of the bed.”

  He went on to describe chasing her down the driveway to the county road and losing her in the dark, hearing a distant motor, and seeing tail lights dim in the distance, fading away.

  “I don’t know if she’d parked a car along the road and walked to Erma’s, or if Todd found her. I kept looking until I finally gave up and walked back to the house, where Erma was waiting.”

  Dalquist turned off the recorder and stood. “Okay, I could use a cup of coffee. We’ll stop here and take a break.” He smiled at Kerney. “All of this so far is very good.”

  With a sad smile, Sara reached for his hand. “How awful.”

  “For her, not for me,” Kerney rebuffed. “I was a complete jerk.”

  She shook her head in disagreement. “Not true.”

  Before they gathered at the kitchen table, Kerney took a quick look out the front-room window. A surveillance vehicle was still parked down the street. The kitchen, adjacent to Dalquist’s office, was straight out of the 1950s, with black-and-white floor linoleum, matching countertop tile, and mid-century cabinets and appliances, including the sink, all in pristine condition. Through the backdoor window, the apricot tree danced in a slight breeze, hundreds of white petals slowly drifting to the ground. Sara thought it charming. For Dalquist, it was a convenient and refreshing refuge from the burden of office work.

  “We can continue here, if you like,” he said, refilling the coffee cups after some small talk. “There’s not much more to cover.” He went to his office, returned with the recorder, and placed it on the kitchen table.

  “You want to ask about the lie I told that my pistol had been stolen by someone unknown,” Kerney said.

  “Precisely, and why you asked Erma Fergurson to do the same.”

  Kerney shrugged. “I was half convinced Kim would shoot Todd, or that something bad would happen, but I didn’t want any of it to come back on me. I wanted nothing more to do with either of them. Reporting the pistol stolen by an unknown intruder seemed the best thing to do. Besides, I didn’t want it to become a scandal for Erma.”

  “You were embarrassed,” Dalquist suggested.

  “What?”

  “Ashamed of having taken advantage of a vulnerable young woman in crisis who came to you asking for help.”

  Kerney lowered his head and intently studied the yellow Formica tabletop.

  “Perfectly understandable.” Dalquist turned off the recorder. “The pistol story is the weakest part of our defense.”

  Kerney glanced at Sara. Was she okay with a bad mistake in judgment made decades ago, or just holding herself in check? “I know.”

  “We’ll move on for now.” Dalquist pushed a file folder across the table and turned on the recorder. “Inside is the current list of people the police have interviewed. Look at it carefully, and tell me who might be helpful to our side and who is missing that we need to find.”

  Thirty minutes later, they were done, with not a new name added and only a few people checked off as potentially helpful to their case.

  After agreeing to meet again when Dalquist received the rest of the discovery, Kerney and Sara left. In the truck, he put a copy of the list of names Dalquist wanted him to study more closely in the glove box and waited a few seconds before cranking the engine.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Sara nodded. “None of us is perfect, Kerney. I’ve a few indiscretions in my closet you don’t know about. Maybe you never will.”

  He pulled away from the curb and watched in the rearview mirror as the unmarked unit did the same. “God, do I love you.”

  She leaned across the center console and gave him a smooch on the cheek. “Ditto. We will get through this.”

  Juan Ramirez was waiting in his truck when Kerney and Sara got home. Sara gave him a big wave as she scooted inside.

  “Bueno dias,” Kerney said as Juan approached. “What’s up?”

  “Bueno dias,” Juan replied. “Maybe you could tell the security guards at the gate that I’m okay. They keep holding me up and poking around the bed of my truck when I try to get to the cattle.”

  “Sorry about that, amigo. I’ll call down there and let them know you’re family.”

  Juan grinned. “Thanks. Also, when you need me to look after the horses and the ranch, just let me know.”

  “The horses for sure, and pretty soon, I think. But Patrick’s grandparents will be bringing him home this evening and staying over to look after him while Sara and I are gone, so you won’t have to bother with the house.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We don’t exactly know yet. But I’ll give you a heads-up before we leave.”

  “Okay.” Juan looked out over the meadow. “It’s greening up fast. Spring came back in a hurry.”

  “It sure did,” Kerney replied, wondering why Juan was hesitating and making small talk about nothing much, which wasn’t his nature. “I’ll call security for you.”

  Juan tipped his hat in thanks. “Bueno.” He looked skyward as a drone climbed into sight from the canyon below. “What’s that for?”

  “Surveillance.”

  “For you?”

  “Of me.”

  “By the cops?”

  “The enemy,” Kerney corrected, borrowing Dalquist’s characterization. He never thought he’d think of cops that way.

  Inside at the library desk, Kerney called the security guard at the gate and told him to give Juan free and unrestrictive access to the ranch.

  “Pass it on to everyone,” he added.

  “Ten-four. Want me to shoot down the drones?”

  Kerney hesitated. He’d forgotten to ask Dalquist if it would be legally kosher. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  On the desk in front of him was the list of names he needed to go over. He went through it several times, placing checkmarks by names he recognized and people he knew. Some, like Todd Marks’s brother, he’d heard about but never met. Others were complete strangers to him.

  He sat back in the chair and tried to focus on who the investigators were looking for. It had to be those people closest to the victim. Todd and Kim’s mother, most certainly, if they were still alive. Thomas Ward, whoever he was, childhood friend, college friend, rodeo teammate, competitor on the pro circuit.

  According to Kim on that night at Erma’s, Todd had turned to drug dealing after a bad wreck in a rodeo event broke his leg in four places and ended his career. Kerney turned on the desktop computer to start a search for Todd. He knew a lot less than he needed to and it was time to start filling in the blanks.

  As he waited for the machine to power up, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was somebody not on the list he was forgetting. When he finished searching for information about Todd, he’d look for more on Kim. As far as he knew, she’d been raised only by her mother, who’d given birth to her at sixteen or seventeen and never married. He remembered Kim mentioning one or two of her mother’s boyfriends to him, but by first name only. Were those the names he was forgetting? He didn’t think so, but there was somebody.

  The search engine filled the screen and he started typing.

  Sara’s parents, Dean and Barbara Brannon, arrived at the ranch with Patrick several hours early. When everyone was settled in, Kerney turned to Patrick and invited him on a ride.

  “We’ve been neglecting the ponies,” he said. “They need some exercise, and so do we.”

  Patrick replied with an eager grin. “Let’s go out to the old hacienda ruins.”

  “That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

  Lon
g and tall for his age, with his father’s square shoulders and his mother’s green eyes, Patrick had entered adolescence with an amazing growth burst that apparently had no end. His voice had deepened, and his body seemed to be gaining heft by magic.

  In the barn, Patrick scratched Pablito’s forehead, gave him half an apple, and looked him over thoroughly before saddling up. It pleased Kerney to see the care his son took with his pony, a sure sign of a good horseman.

  With the sun hidden behind a single billowing cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky, they rode in silence up the hill behind the ranch headquarters, through rolling grassland. They stopped to open a ranch gate, continued along a trace into a draw bracketed by a low, rocky ridgeline, and drew rein at a pond encircled by marsh grass and cattails. An ancient willow sheltered some scattered foundation rubble, the only visible remains of a two-hundred-year-old hacienda that had once served as an overnight stop on the cartage road from the village of Galisteo to Santa Fe. A barbed-wire fence enclosed the site to keep the cattle away from the live water, but it didn’t keep wild critters from getting to the pond. Fresh bobcat scat and puffs of rabbit fur signaled a recent kill.

  “What was it like to be a policeman?” Patrick asked. “You never talked to me about it.”

  “You never really saw that part of my life, did you? You were just a little guy when I retired.” Hondo pawed the ground, ready to keep moving. “I took pride in my work and enjoyed many things about it, especially helping people and keeping them safe when I could. But that’s not your question, is it?”

  “You’ve killed people,” Patrick noted, eyes downcast.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s that like?”

  Kerney sighed. “I hope you never find out. There’s no simple way to describe it. You tell yourself it was necessary, that you had no choice. But each time it happens, a little bit of you withers away.”