Under the Color of Law Read online

  "Is that unusual?"

  "I've worked for the Stewarts for three years and until now, family vacations have always been scheduled during school holidays."

  "Do you know where they went?"

  "No, and Mrs. Stewart always leaves that information for me in case something important comes up."

  "Any idea when they'll be back?" Kerney asked.

  "The note didn't say. What's this all about?"

  "Just a follow-up to an investigation," Kerney answered.

  "The Terrell murder?" Cabot asked.

  "A completely different matter. Do the Stewarts call in when they're vacationing?"

  "Always. I check the house daily while they're gone, usually in the evening after I've finished with my other clients. If Mrs. Stewart doesn't call while I'm here, I'm sure there will be a message on the

  answering machine tonight."

  Kerney held out his business card. "When they call, ask them to get in touch with me. It's not an

  emergency, but I do need to speak with them."

  Cabot read Kerney's card and gave him a surprised look. "You're the police chief?"

  "Yes, I am," Kerney said. He turned before Cabot could probe further and walked away.

  Through thickening snow Kerney hiked back to his truck, cranked the engine, turned up the heater, and sat for a minute until the throbbing in his knee subsided. His kneecap had been almost completely destroyed by a drug dealer's bullet, and the surgical reconstruction had left him with a limp and a leg that performed poorly. Over the years he'd maintained a fairly rigorous exercise program to keep his legs in good shape. But the pain never completely went away, and his hike up and down the hills had made it worse.

  He used his cell phone to call the electric company and learned that no power outage had occurred in the vicinity of the Terrell neighborhood before or after the holidays. He turned on the windshield wipers and the blades thudded against the wet, heavy snow as he drove out of the parking lot. According to the housekeeper the Stewarts' decision to leave suddenly on an unplanned vacation was completely out of character. He wondered why, and couldn't dismiss the possibility that it wassomehow linked to everything else he'd learned so far about the ambassador and his wife.

  He drove the loop that passed in front of the Terrell residence, stopped a hundred yards down the road from the driveway, and studied the electric transformer on the power pole through binoculars. Mounted above the transformer a tiny video camera was trained on the security gate and

  driveway to the Terrell house.

  Kerney turned the truck around. He needed to find out who had put the surveillance camera in place. But more important, now that the possibility of hard evidence existed that could identify Terrell's murderer, he needed to get hold of the videotapes.

  ***

  Brother Jerome had been unable to give Bobby Sloan any information about a return address on the missing envelope sent to Father Mitchell. He did recall that the envelope had been addressed by hand, not typed, and postage stamps, not metered mail, had been used to send it. Brother Jerome also noted that the quality of the penmanship was excellent and that the hand was most probably a woman's.

  Without a name the information wasn't much help to Sloan's investigation. While he now had a clear-cut link between the priest's murder and the aggravated burglary, he still lacked both a suspect and a viable motive.

  He left the last video store on his list, which, like all the others he'd checked, had no customer record on Father Mitchell, and walked glumly through the snow to his unit. Reduced to chasing down tangential shreds of information, Sloan felt the rhythm of the investigation fading into one of those unsolved murder mysteries that ten years down the road would be featured by the local paper in a Sunday edition.

  He went back to the college and started another round of interviews that focused on the burglary of Brother Jerome's office, sloshing through the wet snow from building to building, meeting with staff and faculty members who'd been on campus around the time of the break-in. He finished up with nothing to show for the effort and walked toward the parking lot, passing a blocky two-story building with a stepped-down entrance that looked like a modern version of an ancient Aztec temple.

  The building housed the Moving Images Arts Department and construction of the facility had been funded by a famous old movie actress named Greer Garson, who'd lived outside of Santa Fe on a ranch until her death some time back. Sloan stopped, went inside, and asked the college student working at the desk if he knew Father Mitchell.

  The young man, who had stringy shoulder-length blond hair and a nose ring, nodded his head.

  "Yeah, he was in here all the time, mostly in the evenings after classes ended. That's when I'm usually here working on my own stuff."

  "Did he talk to you about what he was doing?" Sloan asked.

  "No, but he spent most of his time in an editing suite, so he must have been producing something. I never saw him in the screening room or in the archives."

  "Is there someplace in the building where he might have stored his materials?"

  "There are dozens of places like that where we can lock up film, videos, and shooting scripts. All of the post production rooms have built-in locking cabinets, and there are lots of storage lockers for students to use all over the building, on a first come, first served basis."

  The kid opened a drawer and pulled out a loose-leaf binder. "But since Father Mitchell had faculty status, he probably got an assigned locker. Yeah, here it is. One seventy-six. You go past the production rooms and the soundstage down to the end of the hall. You'll find his locker there."

  "Who can open it?" Sloan asked.

  The kid shrugged.

  "Beats me."

  "Find out who can open the locker, okay?"

  It took ten minutes with the kid calling around and then another ten before a harried-looking female faculty member with big hair showed up carrying a key ring. She immediately asked Sloan why he needed to get into the locker.

  Sloan told her to chill out. "There may be evidence in the locker important to Father Mitchell's

  murder, and I need to search it now."

  "Show me your credentials," the woman said.

  Sloan flipped open his badge case.

  "Good enough?"

  "Follow me."

  At no. 176 Sloan held his breath while the woman opened the locker. In it were a briefcase and a stack of videocassettes. He wrote out a receipt, gathered everything up, thanked the woman, and left the building, oblivious to the full-fledged blizzard that had settled over the city.

  ***

  Kerney made stops at the electric, phone, and cable companies. He asked about a special law-enforcement request to install a surveillance camera on the utility pole near the Terrell driveway. Clerks studied work orders, pulled files, and shook their heads. Security personnel fanned through court orders and shook their heads. Maintenance supervisors licked their thumbs, paged through smudged paperwork, and shook their heads.

  He borrowed an office phone and called all local police agencies within the jurisdiction. No one knew anything. He stopped at Phyllis Terrell's alarm company. Her contract called for burglary and fire monitoring, gate control, and driveway sensors to warn of vehicle approach. No audio or video services were included.

  He drove to city hall, parked in his reserved space, and crossed the street to the post office, an ugly 1960s era building that looked incongruous next to the stately old stone federal courthouse.

  Once, on one of her long weekends in town, Sara had asked to see something in Santa Fe tourists didn't know about. After an elegant lunch at a nearby restaurant, he'd walked her to the courthouse and shown her the old wooden telephone booth that stood in the lobby.

  Sara had laughed, marveling at the sight of it. Then she had pulled him into the booth, closed the accordion door, and pressed herself against him. The guard sitting at the end of the hall had grinned insipidly at them when they emerged.

  Kerney
found the resident FBI agent, Frank Powers, in his small third-floor suite at the post office building.

  "I get to see you twice in one day," Powers said, unwinding his long legs and getting to his feet to shake Kerney's hand. "Boy, am I one lucky SOB."

  In his early fifties, Powers was on his final duty assignment before retirement. Powers and his wife were ballroom-dance fanatics. Kerney and Sara had watched the couple put on quite a show one Saturday night when they'd stopped at a club for an after-dinner drink.

  "As the new police chief I thought it was time to touch base with you," Kerney said.

  "Yeah, sure," Powers said with a smile.

  "What do you really want?"

  "Did Perry keep you in the loop on his investigation?" Kerney asked. Powers chuckled sarcastically.

  "Me? You've got to be kidding. All he asked me to do was give him a ring if you paid me a social call, and be the ambassador's bodyguard at the funeral."

  "Well, here I am," Kerney said. "Call him up."

  "What for? From what I've heard, the case is closed, the task force is disbanded. That means I'm once again free to assist local law-enforcement representatives such as yourself without dropping a dime on you."

  "Can I hold you to that?" Kerney asked.

  "Unless I hear otherwise, you can. Why do you ask?"

  "Perry is staying in town for a couple more days just to make sure everything's tidied up."

  "I didn't know that," Powers said.

  "Do you know anything about the surveillance camera at the foot of Phyllis Terrell's driveway?"

  "You've got the wrong agency, Kerney. You need to talk to the State Department. Call the Bureau of Diplomatic Security."

  "You know nothing about it?"

  "If Ambassador Terrell needed enhanced security at his wife's Santa Fe home, that's who would handle it."

  "I don't think Phyllis Terrell knew anything about the surveillance."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "The Terrells were planning to divorce. They'd been living apart for almost two years. The ambassador rarely visited. Phyllis Terrell was known to have entertained several lovers at her home."

  "Well, then, there you have it," Powers said.

  "The ambassador hired himself a private investigator to spy on his wife."

  "I don't think so," Kerney said.

  "Why not? Any sharp PI can put in a good system. The way I heard it, Mrs. Terrell had the big bucks, and was sleeping around. Proof of infidelity could be worth a lot of money to an aggrieved husband."

  "You know nothing about any court-ordered, official surveillance at the Terrell residence?" Kerney said.

  "That's what I've been telling you, Kerney. Look, if a court order had been requested by us and not the State Department, I'd know about it. But then I still couldn't tell you anyway. You know the routine; both the application and order would have been sealed by a federal judge."

  Powers adjusted his necktie. "Since we're talking about people being watched, here's some advice: Stay out of this. Agent Perry doesn't like you. I don't know what that's about. But if you're smart, don't give him an excuse to play hardball."

  "Charlie can be obnoxious," Kerney said.

  Powers shrugged. "There are over twenty-two thousand special agents in the Bureau, Chief,

  and there is no charm-school requirement for academy applicants."

  Kerney walked down the post office steps. Powers had deliberately warned him that he was being watched. That made Frank's other assertions seem highly questionable.

  ***

  While his wife skied the mountain, Randall Stewart kept an eye on his two young sons, Lance and Jeremy, as they practiced on the kiddie slope. The boys, ages six and eight, had improved their technique this season, but they were at least a year away from being able to ski the more difficult intermediate runs.

  Stewart's interrogation by the FBI agent had put him into a total panic, and the only thing he could think to do was leave town for a while. Springing the idea of an impromptu skiing trip on his wife hadn't been easy. Lori liked everything planned and orderly. Keeping up a cheery front, Stewart had prevailed with Lori by pointing out that her business was slow this time of year, both children were doing extremely well in school, and it was time to be a little more spontaneous about family fun before the boys were grown and gone. He booked a suite in a lodge in Red River, high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos, packed up Lori's Volvo, and drove the family out of Santa Fe as soon as he possibly could.

  As Lance, his youngest, took a spill and got up laughing, Stewart tried to contain his worry about the threats the FBI agent had made. To have his affair with Phyllis exposed would most likely mean the end of his marriage, and to be branded a suspected traitor would surely destroy his career. He had no doubt that the threats would be carried out if he ever mentioned anything at all about the envelope.

  Still stunned by the memory of his interrogation, he shook his head in an attempt to wipe it out of his mind. He looked up just as Lori came down the mountain, and fixed a smile on his face when she approached.

  "There's eleven inches of new powder on top of the mountain," she said, eyes dancing, waving at the boys. "It's wonderful."

  "Aren't you glad I talked you into this?" Randall asked.

  "Very," Lori said, brushing his cheek with her lips. "It's your turn on the slopes. But you'd better get up there before the storm closes in. I'll take the boys back to the lodge and get something whipped up for lunch."

  "I'll be back in an hour," Randall said, reaching for his skis. "It's dinner out tonight, just you and me. I've made reservations and the lodge has found us a sitter."

  "This is a lot of fun," Lori said.

  "That's what I wanted to hear," Randall said. He kissed his pretty wife, wondering why he'd been so stupid about Phyllis Terrell. He watched her gather up the boys, and ski them off to the lodge, a short distance away.

  Randall turned his attention to the mountain. A good, hard run was just what he needed. Work up a sweat. He got in the lift line and a woman joined him on the chair.

  "Have you skied Red River before?" she asked.

  Randall nodded and looked at the woman. Rather ordinary in appearance, he guessed her to be about his age. "Several times."

  "Some people who just came down the mountain said the Cat Skinner run is excellent. Have you done that?"

  "It's rated difficult," Randall said, nodding.

  "Are you a good skier?"

  "I am. But I've never skied here before and I'd rather follow someone down who knows the terrain. Would that be an imposition?"

  "Not at all," Randall replied.

  The woman flashed a big smile. "Super."

  They got off the lift. Randall waited while the woman adjusted her bindings. People flowed around them and skied off.

  "New equipment," she explained apologetically as she buttoned up.

  "Cat Skinner is to the left," Randall said.

  "Lead on," the woman said. "Get me pointed in the right direction and I'll beat you to the bottom."

  Randall smiled at the prospect of some friendly competition. "We'll see about that."

  A third of the way down, Randall Stewart picked up good speed. He caught some air on a small bump and the woman stayed right with him. The woman took a quick look back. No one was behind her. She ran Stewart off the powder and into a tree. The glancing impact sent him careening, spinning wildly on his backside, his left ski twisted awkwardly under his body. He slid to a stop and tried to get his leg untangled, but the pain was too intense.

  The woman reached him as he lay in the snow under some trees out of sight of the run.

  "Jesus, why the fuck did you run into me?" Stewart asked, panting from the pain.

  The woman took a handgun from inside her parka, bent over, slammed it full force against Stewart's forehead, and heard his skull bone shatter. That should do it, Agent Applewhite thought, as she watched Stewart's breathing slow and finally stop.

&nb
sp; The snow fell harder now as the cloud dipped over the mountain. Soon their ski tracks would be completely covered. She turned away from the body and continued her run down the mountain, feeling a rush of adrenaline as she cut through the fresh powder.

  Chapter 8

  Detective Bobby Sloan returned to headquarters, took possession of an empty office assigned to the crime prevention unit, and spent the rest of the morning and part of the early afternoon going through the paperwork in Father Mitchell's briefcase, viewing some of the videocassettes found in the locker at the college, and sampling excerpts of what looked to be at least ten hours of audio tapes Mitchell had also stashed in his briefcase.

  In a general way the video- and audiotapes Sloan previewed explained a good deal about Mitchell's research. The priest had been probing into intelligence matters. But it was hard to see what his focus was.

  Mitchell had conducted interviews about the U. S. Army School of the Americas, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Security Agency, the U. S. Army Intelligence and Security Command--Sloan now knew what INS COM stood for--and a host of other agencies that included the departments of state, treasury, and defense.

  A number of interviews touched on a government institution he'd never heard of before, a Joint Military Intelligence College that offered undergraduate and graduate spy-craft degrees to care fully selected military and civilian intelligence personnel.

  It was all eye-opening, informative stuff about the scope of government intelligence operations. But it was also all over the map, and Sloan couldn't get a handle on what the priest had been trying to accomplish. However, he was willing to bet the farm that Mitchell's murder was directly tied to his research. That at least gave Sloan a start on figuring out the motive for the killing.

  Mitchell had kept copies of some important personal and professional documents in the briefcase. His army retirement papers showed that his last posting had been at the School of Americas, at Fort Benning, Georgia. There was a letter from the secretary of the army to Mitchell's mother, expressing condolences regarding the death of the priest's brother, another letter from a U. S. embassy official that reported the colonel had been attacked and killed by bandits, and a copy of the resignation letter Father Mitchell had submitted to the college where he'd been teaching. The priest had quit his job a month after his brother's death.