Under the Color of Law Page 23

  Kerney rolled to a stop in Stewart's driveway. "Let me girl-talk with Mrs. Stewart," Sara said.

  "Are you feeling up to it?"

  Sara ate a saltine cracker, gave Kerney a winsome smile, swung her legs out of the truck, and said, "I'm fine."

  Kerney hung back and let Sara take the lead. The older woman who let them into the foyer spoke in hushed tones. Her daughter couldn't possibly be disturbed, the family was in mourning, the children would become even more upset than they already were.

  Sara countered with a sympathetic smile and reassurances. She understood completely, the visit would be brief, there was new information to be shared.

  The woman left to consult with her daughter. She came back and took them down a long hallway past a kitchen where an older man was preparing breakfast for two silent young boys sitting at a long country-style table. They climbed stairs to a second-floor master suite where Mrs. Stewart sat on a couch in a sitting room clutching a pillow around her stomach. A long velour skirt covered her legs. Her hair, parted in the middle, fell loosely across her shoulders. She had a sharp nose that didn't detract from her wholesome good looks, and eyes that seemed slightly tranquilized. An untouched cup of coffee sat within arm's reach on an end table.

  "Lori, are you sure you want to talk now?" the older woman asked.

  "It's all right, Mother."

  "Do you want me to stay with you?"

  "No, you go on."

  The woman left and Sara sat on the far end of the couch. Kerney moved to a horizontal window that framed the valley panorama below and perched silently on a low ranch-style bench.

  Sara turned to face Lori. "Thank you for seeing us. I know this must be hard."

  "What do you want to tell me?"

  "We have evidence that strongly suggests your husband was with Phyllis Terrell the night she was killed," Sara said. Lori Stewart studied Sara unflinchingly.

  "What bearing does that have on Randall's death?"

  "You're not surprised?"

  "From what I've read, her killer was identified by the FBI," Mrs. Stewart replied.

  "Randall may have been many things, but he was not a murderer."

  "Many things?" Sara echoed. "I'd rather not go into it."

  "I can understand how you might want to keep family matters private," Sara said.

  "My parents adored Randall," Lori said. "Now that he's gone I see no need for them to feel otherwise."

  "He was with Phyllis the night she was murdered."

  "I'd rather not comment."

  "I know how difficult it can be to talk about personal matters with strangers," Sara said.

  "If you wish, for the sake of your parents and your children, what you tell us doesn't have to be made public."

  Lori reached for her coffee with a shaky hand. She clasped the cup with both hands, took a sip, and said, "You can promise me that?"

  "Yes," Sara said. "Please tell me about Phyllis and Randall."

  "I never wanted Randall dead. I only wanted him out of my life. I knew he was sleeping with Phyllis. It wasn't the first time he'd been unfaithful."

  "Tell me how you knew."

  Lori Stewart put the coffee cup down. "It started six months after Phyllis moved in. We'd met her socially at neighborhood gatherings, and I could see that Randall was drawn to her. She started calling and asking if she could borrow him to help her with her computer. He liked to think he was something of an expert. Soon after that it became obvious what was happening."

  "How so?" Sara asked.

  "He changed his jogging schedule. Said he thought it would be better to go running later at night, especially during the warm weather. He'd be gone much too long."

  "Did you confront him with your suspicions?" Sara asked.

  Lori Stewart shook her head. "No. I talked to an attorney about divorcing him. He said I'd be much better off to wait until after our tenth anniversary to do it. The court takes a more favorable view of equitable settlements if the marriage has had longevity."

  "Was that your plan?"

  "Yes, I was going to file for divorce in six months."

  "And Randall didn't know about it?" Sara asked.

  "No one did. It would've been hard enough to face my parents and the boys when the time came. As far as Randall was concerned, he was happily married with a nearby honey pot to dip into."

  "On the night Phyllis Terrell was murdered, did you know he was with her?"

  "Yes. He said he had to stay up late to do some work. I went to bed. After he thought I was sleeping, he left the house. I saw him cut across the arroyo to the Terrell property. I stayed awake until he came back. He was gone for an hour."

  "What time was that?"

  "He left at a quarter to eleven and got back shortly before midnight. The next day, when I learned that Phyllis had been murdered, I thought about telling the police. But I was certain in my mind that he couldn't have killed Phyllis. No one who has done something terrible like that can fall asleep so easily."

  "Could he have left the house again after you went to sleep?"

  "I would've known it. Randall always wakes me up when he gets out of bed. I'm a very light sleeper."

  "Thank you," Sara said.

  Kerney stood up. "What size shoe did your husband wear?"

  Lori Stewart gave Kerney a bewildered look. "A size nine. He had very narrow feet. Why do you ask?"

  "Just curious," he said, stepping to the door. The shoe print found at the Terrell residence was a size larger."

  "That's all for now. We won't take any more of your time."

  ***

  Traffic backed up along the feeder road to the Interstate. Soccer moms cut across lanes, hurrying to get kids to school before the tardy bell rang. Big-rig truckers pulled off on the shoulder of the road at a twenty-four-hour stop-and-rob near the southbound onramp for coffee refills.

  "If you're going to become an alley cat, Kerney, tell me now," Sara said.

  Kerney laughed.

  "I bet Lori Stewart, on advice of counsel, kept a diary of her husband's late-night visits to Phyllis Terrell."

  "What a good idea," Sara said brightly.

  "I'll have to remember that. I almost choked when she said she didn't want her husband dead."

  "At least she managed to keep the dollar signs from flashing in her eyes."

  "Tidy-looking lives can be so messy," Sara said.

  "Let's not do that," Kerney said.

  "Do what?"

  Kerney shrugged. "Fake it with each other."

  Sara patted Kerney's cheek.

  "Not a chance."

  "You don't think it's possible?"

  "Ask me in ten years."

  Kerney accelerated south down the Interstate. It was a good four-hour drive to Ramah, where Proctor Straley lived. None of the vehicles behind him looked suspicious. He kept his eye on the rearview mirror anyway.

  ***

  Sal Molina went to Jake's home, only to be told by his wife that he was up on the mesa for the weekend at the family's ranch feeding cattle. She gave him directions and Molina drove the all-wheel drive minivan up the unpaved rocky country road, skidding over frozen mud bogs, digging through deep snow-covered slushy ruts, until he reached the old abandoned farming settlement of Ojo de la Vaca. Roofless church and schoolhouse walls still stood along the dirt road and a few dilapidated cabins peppered the valley. Molina drove down a dirt track to a cabin where smoke rose from the chimney and a hay trailer hitched to a pickup truck was parked outside.

  An unsmiling Jake waited for him on the front step. Bits of hay clung to his faded sweatshirt and dusted his curly salt-and-pepper hair.

  "What are you doing here?" Jake asked.

  "You've got cows, Jake?" Molina said. "I didn't know that."

  "Yeah, I've got cows. What do you want?"

  Molina looked across the narrow valley to a pine forest that filled a ridgeline. "It's pretty out here. Old family place?"

  "My great-grandfather settled it. Get to the
point, Molina."

  "You know what I want."

  Jake shook his head. "You got your favor for helping my son, so I'm off the hook with you, Molina."

  "Don't put me in a position that could cost you your job, Jake," Sal replied.

  "You've gotta need the money it brings in. Look, up to now, you're a nameless confidential informant. Let's keep it that way."

  "Don't threaten me."

  "Come on, Jake. You were a cop for twenty-five years. How many times did you have to give somebody a little push?"

  "Enough. But I never ratted off a snitch."

  "Neither have I, and I don't want to. I've only got a couple of questions. Did you ever get a look inside the basement room?"

  "What if I did?"

  "I don't care about the people in the room. I'm just interested in the equipment and machines you might have seen, stuff you would have easily recognized."

  "Are you going for a search warrant?"

  "If we do, there will be no names in the affidavit and we'll ask for a sealed order."

  "Good luck," Jake said.

  "Help me out here, Jake. I've got dead bodies piled up and the feds lying through their teeth to me."

  "The way I hear it, the damn case is solved."

  "You heard about the murdered priest? It's part of the same investigation."

  "You gotta be kidding me," Jake said.

  "I'm not. Cut me a break, Jake. I promise you won't be involved. What's in the room?"

  "I only went in once to do a search when a bomb threat was called in. That was seven, maybe eight months ago. Mostly it's filled with communication gear and computers."

  "Any surveillance equipment?" Molina asked.

  "Some of that too."

  "Like what?"

  "Wand microphones, wiretap units, miniature video cameras, room bugs."

  "Keep going," Molina said, writing everything down.

  * * *

  Blindfolded, cuffed, and shackled, Charlie Perry felt hands lift him off the bed into a standing position. His body felt rubbery, alien, feeble. The heavy dose of muscle relaxants made his knees buckle, his arms flap at his sides. His mind was giddy, untroubled, his thoughts scatterbrained. He could sense the presence of a goofy smile on his face. He giggled and wondered what type of psychotropic drug they'd used on him.

  Two pairs of hands removed his cuffs and shackles and stripped off his clothes. The blindfold stayed in place throughout. He shivered as the cold metal cuffs and shackles were tightened down and locked around his wrists and ankles. Guided to a chair, he sat and waited. A hand rubbed warm lather with the scent of cheap shaving cream across his face. A razor scraped across his chin. He felt the blade nick his Adam's apple. A hand grabbed his wrist and straightened his arm. He felt the prick of a needle in a vein. The cuffs and shackles came off again. He was lifted to his feet and

  dressed.

  Everything fit perfectly. Keys and a wallet went into his trouser pockets, socks and shoes went on his feet, tape was pressed over his mouth, an empty shoulder holster was strapped on. Restrained again, walked to the bed and laid out, Charlie wondered why the hands didn't just kill him and put him in a coffin. He tried to keeptrack of time, but lost count as a wave of memories flooded his mind. He was back salmon fishing in Alaska with his father, then walking a Jamaican beach with his first girlfriend after college. He couldn't remember her name.

  The sound of chopper blades intruded. He was pulled to his feet and marched outside. The cold air had a parched, dusty smell, his feet crunched on hard-packed sand, the wind whistled relentlessly. Bundled into the helicopter, Charlie knew he was leaving the desert. But he didn't care. He was still trying to remember the name of the girl on the beach.

  ***

  Outside Albuquerque, Kerney and Sara headed west up Nine Mile Hill. Soon the old trestle bridge that straddled the Rio Puerco on a dead-end stretch of old Route 66 came into view. Fifty miles to the south Ladron Peak, a hideout for thieves and rustlers in the territorial days, broke the horizon. They sped through hill country that dipped and rose to reveal the ancient Laguna Indian Pueblo, where low adobe homes clustered around a humble white church.

  Kerney eased off the Interstate at Grants. Established as a coaling station for the railroad, the town had thrived on logging and mining operations for a time, but now survived on the payroll from a state prison and the money travelers left behind as they stopped for meals, gas, or a night's lodging.

  The icy state road to Ramah forced Kerney to slow down. For a while Sara imagined herself simply on a pleasant weekend outing. The porous black lava beds of the malpais mesmerized her. Stark and vast, it had a harsh, unrelenting beauty.

  The badlands drew Sara's thoughts to Kerney. Could he ever be drawn away from a place of such breathtaking horizons, immense spaces, limitless skies, sweeping mountains? Probably not. Much like her father and brother, who ranched in Montana, Kerney's connection to the land was inbred and strong. In her heart that affinity made him even more endearing.

  She rubbed her hand on his leg.

  "What's that for?" he asked.

  "Nothing," Sara said.

  The weather closed in, bringing wind-driven snow. Past the badlands they moved through frosted mountain woodlands that gradually gave way to fallow pastures and glimpses of red rock mesas. The storm lifted outside of Ramah, swirling away to reveal a cold blue sky.

  They passed El Moro National Monument, a massive sandstone butte with Indian ruins on the top and inscriptions carved into the soft rock at the bottom by early Spanish and Anglo explorers. Beyond El Moro giant monolithic figures, carved out of the sandstone by wind and rain, stood like sentinels overlooking a broad valley. They climbed a gentle rise, dropped into a shallow basin, and entered the Mormon settlement of Ramah, a charming village of stone and wood-frame houses with pitched tin roofs, fenced yards, and massive cottonwood trees. The fresh snow made everything look picture-postcard perfect.

  Kerney stopped at a restaurant and got directions to Proctor Straley's ranch.

  He cut fresh tracks on a snow-covered dirt road that wandered past some ancient cliff dwellings, narrowed down to a fence-lined track, and then opened onto miles of rangeland. The road led to one solitary round-top mesa where a cluster of buildings stood.

  As they drew closer, Sara studied the buildings. The original ranch house had a hand-chiseled stone exterior, an enclosed front porch, and dormer windows. Some distance away on a small rise stood a flat-roof, modern Santa Fe-style adobe home. Beyond it, a little higher still, an estate-size residence with separate guest cottages, a swimming pool and cabana, and a detached six-car garage surrounded by perfectly landscaped grounds sprawled at the foot of the mesa.

  "My, my," Sara said as Kerney braked to a stop, "what a nice place Proctor Straley has here."

  "Where's the barn?" Kerney asked. "The shipping pens? Equipment sheds? Not to mention the cattle."

  "Gentlemen ranchers prefer to have such things out of sight," Sara answered in a highbrow tone.

  "After all, it's a question of ambience."

  Kerney laughed. "You mean they don't want to get cow shit on their boots."

  "Exactly," Sara said, climbing out of the truck. "Let's go see what kind of feed supplement Proctor Straley favors for his herd."

  Kerney laughed again. It felt good.

  * * *

  A housekeeper took them through a great room with an arched wood ceiling offset by pale white smooth plaster walls. Recessed lighting accentuated oversized western paintings by modern cowboy artists. Deep green sofas and chairs were arranged to create quiet conversation areas. Large slabs of polished marble on pedestal bases served as tables, and expensive Navajo rugs littered the hardwood floor.

  Proctor Straley waited for them in front of a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace in a study room. A row of windows gave a view of the open range and forested ridge beyond. Under his feet on the flagstone floor was an early Navajo chief's blanket with strong alternating black and red hori
zontal stripes broken by a series of zigzag diamond motifs.

  Heavyset with a ruddy complexion and closely clipped gray hair, Straley carried his seventy-plus years well. He had the eyes of a man who knew how to watch and listen.

  Kerney flashed his shield and introduced Sara as Lieutenant Brannon.

  Straley moved behind an oval mahogany desk, motioned at two low-back leather chairs, and waited for Kerney and Sara to settle in.

  "Did you get a call that we were coming?" Kerney asked.

  "No," Straley replied.

  "Then I'm sorry if we've inconvenienced you," Kerney said with a smile. "My secretary was supposed to call."

  "She didn't," Straley said. "Why are you here?"

  "We'd like to ask you a few questions."

  "What are they?"

  "Were you aware of your daughter's affair with Scott Gatlin?" Kerney asked.

  "Yes, but what's the point?" Straley asked.

  "We're not convinced your daughter was murdered by Gatlin," Kerney said. "Does that possibility interest you?"

  Intense curiosity flickered in Straleys eyes. "I hired Scott Gatlin, brought him to this ranch, treated him like a member of the family, trusted him. If he killed my daughter, I bear part of the burden. How do you think that makes a father feel?"

  "Terrible," Sara said softly. "How did you learn other affair with Gadin?"

  "Phyllis never hid who she was or what she did from me, although there were times I wished she had. It took me many years to accept that she was a woman with strong appetites who didn't care what other people thought of her."

  "It must have been difficult to raise such a daughter," Sara said.

  Straley smiled wanly. "We were always clashing. She could be as tough minded as any man I've

  known. While her mother was alive, she protected Phyllis from my censure. I was very disapproving of the way she lived. We had what you might call an uneasy truce over the past ten years."

  "But you kept a relationship with her," Sara said.

  Straley nodded. "Absolutely. I did love her and I miss her deeply. She could light up a room with her exuberance. She had a special charisma that drew people to her, especially men."

  "What do you know about her relationships with men?" Sara asked.