Tularosa Page 6

  “You liked Sammy, didn’t you?” Kerney said with an understanding smile.

  Steiner relaxed a bit. “Sure I did. He was damn good at his job and easy to get along with.”

  “And you couldn’t change the schedule for one man,” Kerney added sympathetically. “I understand that. I bet Sammy did, too. Police work is the same way. You just can’t afford to play favorites.”

  “That’s right,” Steiner agreed.

  “But somebody like Sammy,” Kerney continued, “a good worker, a team player—if it was me, I’d try to keep him happy, keep him productive.”

  Steiner nodded in agreement. “That’s what being a good supervisor is all about. Is this conversation off the record?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t work for the Army, Sergeant. I’ll make sure it doesn’t get back to anybody on the post.”

  Steiner thought about that for a minute, removed his fatigue hat, and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Okay. Technically, any kind of drawing or photography isn’t allowed uprange. He knew I wasn’t going to change my mind about the duty roster, and I knew he wasn’t going to draw pictures that jeopardized national security. Sometimes the regulations just don’t match the individual circumstance. So when he asked if he could do his artwork on his free time, I said I would allow it, as long as he turned the drawings over to me when he returned.”

  “Returned from where?”

  “I told him he could only sketch away from the compound. He’d hike into the desert and come back in a couple of hours with some drawings. It was all harmless stuff.”

  “What did you do with pictures?”

  “I destroyed them. That was part of the deal.” Steiner put his fatigue cap back on his head and looked at his wristwatch. “I’ve got a long drive ahead of me. Is that all, Lieutenant?”

  “Was Sammy on a hike the day he turned up missing?”

  “Yeah. He always checked in with me before he took off. He was real good about it.”

  “Who went looking for him when he didn’t return?”

  “Half the MPs on the post, plus myself and all the off-duty people at the facility.”

  “How long was he gone before you started looking?”

  “Almost the full twelve hours.”

  Kerney didn’t hold Steiner back from leaving. He ran the information through his mind, his spirits sinking. From what Steiner told him, the probability that Sammy had gone AWOL, no matter what the Army believed, was highly unlikely.

  Kerney cooled his heels in the company orderly room outside Captain James Meehan’s office. Master Sergeant Roy Enloe was at his desk, reading reports and ignoring him. Finally, the phone on Enloe’s desk rang. After answering it, Enloe sent Kerney into the captain’s office.

  The captain, young and engaging, had a thin nose, a dimpled chin, and sandy hair cut short. His uniform was sharply tailored, with airborne jump wings pinned above two rows of service ribbons. Like Sara Brannon, he wore a West Point ring.

  Meehan leaned back in his chair and studied Kerney, his expression somewhat perplexed. “I’m a little confused here, Lieutenant. Is Specialist Yazzi wanted by the civilian authorities?”

  “No. Sammy’s parents are worried about their son. They asked Sheriff Baca to make inquiries. He sent me.”

  Meehan shook his head and smiled. “I don’t see how I can help you. You’ve talked with my first sergeant. I share his opinion that Sammy was a good soldier. Right now he faces company punishment: loss of rank, confinement to barracks. He can still salvage an honorable discharge if he gets his butt back here soon and doesn’t fuck up again.” Meehan smiled. “Let the Army sort it out, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s good advice,” Kerney replied. “Have you been informed that Sammy’s roommate died in an auto accident early this morning?”

  Meehan nodded, a grave look crossing his face. “Yes, I have. Tragic.”

  “Did Jaeger have a drinking problem?”

  Meehan bent forward, arms resting on the desk, his expression filled with candor. “Look, Lieutenant, I can bend the rules a bit and talk to you about Specialist Yazzi, but I’m really in no position to talk about PFC Jaeger. I wish I could be more helpful, but you’ll have to speak with Captain Brannon about the matter.”

  Meehan’s telephone rang, and Kerney used the interruption as his cue to leave. At the main gate he turned in his visitor’s badge and headed for Las Cruces, hoping for better luck in the city. So far, he had fragments of information that added up to a big fat zero.

  JAMES MEEHAN sat in Sara’s office, looking at her eyes, which, at the moment, were filled with indignation.

  “I don’t work for you, Jim,” Sara said in response to his comment that letting a civilian cop conduct an investigation on the base wasn’t very wise. “It was my call to make.”

  “All I’m saying is I wish you had told me about it before he showed up in my office. Do you have any background on this Lieutenant Kerney?”

  Sara pushed a thin file to the far edge of her desk. Meehan collected it and started reading.

  Aside from his regular duties as a company commander, Meehan ran a covert intelligence operation that was completely separate from Army intelligence. Meehan and his people—whoever they were, Sara thought sullenly—watched everything and everybody, and reported directly to the Pentagon. Sara was one of a few officers at the missile range who knew what Meehan really did. When necessary, he used her resources. It might consist of detaining a suspect, conducting a search, or arranging for a traffic stop. Most of the time, Sara had no idea why, but she had standing orders from the highest authority to cooperate. With AWOL cases, however, the cooperation was supposed to be mutual, up to a point.

  Meehan laughed when he finished reading Kerney’s biography. “This is ludicrous,” he said, replacing the folder on the desk. “It serves no purpose to have him on the base. He’s just a loose cannon.”

  “He may well be,” Sara replied, “but it was my decision to make.”

  “I thought we were cooperating on the AWOL cases, Sara.”

  “Are we? As far as I can tell, it’s a pretty one-sided arrangement. My team does all the grunt work while you stonewall me with need-to-know bullshit. Is Yazzi a security risk or isn’t he? Do you have anything to suggest he may have compromised national security?”

  “That’s not fair, Sara. You know the conditions I have to work under. I’ll answer those questions if and when I can. If your people could find Yazzi, things would go a lot faster.”

  Sara wrinkled her nose. “Right.”

  “I’m not criticizing. I realize it’s a tough case.” Meehan stood up. “I do have some good news for you. You can close the Benton file.”

  Sara arched an eyebrow. Benton was the missing civilian employee. “Really? Tell me about it.”

  “That’s all you get,” Meehan responded.

  “That stinks.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you this. We have Benton in custody, but the situation involves a possible security breach at another research installation. It should be cleared up in a week.”

  Sara gave Meehan a sour look. “That’s better than nothing, I suppose.” She walked to the door and held it open. “Jim, don’t ever come into my office again and try to tell me how to do my job. Understood?”

  “Feeling a little testy?” Meehan asked with a chuckle.

  “Just setting the ground rules, Captain.”

  Meehan smirked. “You really can be a bitch, Sara.”

  “You bring it out in me,” she answered sweetly, closing the door behind him. She hoped Meehan’s assessment of Kerney was wrong. It would give her great pleasure if Kerney turned up something she could stuff it down Jim Meehan’s throat, bit by bit.

  “YOU’RE NOT WALKING with your tail between your legs,” Andy observed, as Kerney came into his office. “I thought for sure Sara would rough you up a bit.”

  “She did,” he said, sinking into the chair in front of the desk. “The lady is an expert butt-chewer.”


  Andy nodded sympathetically. “Don’t feel bad. She jumped down my throat with both feet.” He shrugged philosophically. “Trying to finesse the captain wasn’t such a good idea. I think I underestimated her. After living with Connie for twenty-two years, I should know better. Did she send you packing?”

  “No.”

  “Amazing.”

  “I need your help, Andy. I have one slim lead that may go nowhere and not much time to run it down.”

  “Tell me what you’ve got.”

  Kerney filled him in on everything he knew before getting to his request. The most disquieting fact, Sammy’s disappearance in the middle of the desert from a highly secret test site, raised the chances that the boy was dead. Unhappy with the thought, Andy got out of his chair and walked to the window, wondering what pressures Sara Brannon was facing. It was a standing joke in the community that the missile range had more garden-variety spooks, spies, and intelligence operatives than the Pentagon had two-star generals.

  He turned to Kerney, who was making his pitch.

  “I want to find the Toyota Sammy was driving and talk to the man who was with him the night Carla Montoya saw them together.”

  “That’s a long shot,” Andy noted.

  “I know it.”

  Andy decided swiftly. “It’s worth a try. I’ll give you two deputies for the remainder of the day. Both are fresh out of the academy. That’s the best I can do.” He picked up the phone and asked for two officers to report to his office.

  Kerney’s temporary detail arrived quickly. Both of the boys, one with peach fuzz on his chin and the other with the gangly look of an awkward adolescent, looked much too young to hold commissions. Andy filled the deputies in on their assignment and told Kerney to use a small office near the radio room.

  Kerney put himself and the team to work immediately, reviewing computerized motor vehicle records on the off chance that Sammy had bought and registered another car, and calling all the dealers in the city to see if anyone remembered Sammy as a customer. It was boring, repetitious work, and after hours on the phone with no success the initial enthusiasm of the deputies had waned.

  He looked at the wall clock. The lunch hour had come and gone. Maybe his guys were simply running out of fuel. He ordered pizza to be delivered and got appreciative smiles. When the food arrived, they kept at it, chasing down car salesmen who were at home on days off.

  Kerney hung up on his last call and rubbed his ear. His team was back to looking wilted. “Let’s try insurance agents,” Kerney suggested, as he flipped through a phone book and reached for the telephone. “Hit the ones that cater to military personnel. Call the national offices if you have to. Ask if Sammy inquired about car insurance or got a rate quote.”

  The deputies nodded dully and got back to work. Kerney was in the middle of his list when the gangly deputy put the mouthpiece against his chest.

  “I’ve got something,” he said.

  Kerney waited impatiently as the deputy asked questions, scribbled some notes, and finally hung up. He almost yanked the piece of paper out of the officer’s hand. At the door, he stopped and remembered his manners. “Thanks. I’ll let the sheriff know that you both did good work.”

  “Any time, Lieutenant,” the gangly kid replied, his face breaking into a big smile.

  The officers watched the door slam shut behind Kerney, looked at each other, and went to find the incoming shift. The troops would definitely want to hear about the new lieutenant with the bad leg, searching for a missing soldier, who seemed to be the sheriff’s friend.

  ACCORDING TO THE INSURANCE AGENT, Sammy had asked for a rate quote for a Toyota he planned to buy from D&B Auto Sales. Kerney found the used-car dealership along a four-lane highway on the outskirts of the city. The business, situated on a long, narrow lot, consisted of an old residence converted to an office, a detached single-car garage that served as a repair shop, and fifty or so cars parked under pennants strung between light poles. On top of the office a billboard announced that the dealer would finance any car with a low down payment.

  Kerney parked on the street and walked between tightly packed rows of cars to the office. It was unoccupied. At the far corner of the lot, a portly older man was talking to a young Hispanic couple and gesturing at a black Pontiac Firebird with a customized paint job. He spied Kerney and waved. Kerney waved back and waited, his attention drawn to the angry yellow sky.

  The evening winds were kicking up a dust storm on the desert beyond the river valley. Billowing plumes of sand diffused the sunlight, creating a false sense of coolness. It was still hot as hell and dry as a bone, but the clouds told of a big blow and the promise of rain sometime soon. As a boy Kerney had stretched his imagination in those clouds, even as he learned to read them from his father, who ranched with one eye on the stock and the other on the weather.

  The salesman walked the young couple to their car, talking vigorously and pointing back at the Firebird. The man shook his hand, got the girl in the car, and drove away.

  Kerney met the salesman halfway across the lot. He was a roly-poly fellow with a chubby face burned bright pink by the sun.

  “How you doing today?” The man asked, extending his hand, “I’m Dewey Boursard.”

  Kerney identified himself and showed Boursard his badge.

  “My lot boy said the police had called here a while ago. I was picking up a new battery at the time. He doesn’t speak very good English, so he didn’t tell me very much.”

  “Do you remember a soldier by the name of Sammy Yazzi who wanted to buy a Toyota?”

  Dewey smiled. “Almost closed the deal. He was interested in a nice little Toyota subcompact. Came in twice to look at it. Second time I knocked the price down a little and he gave me a hundred dollars in earnest money to hold it until he could arrange financing.

  “I sure thought I had a sale. Those Army boys don’t get paid enough to give up a hundred dollars that easy. I held that car way past the delivery date. Cherry little vehicle. Low mileage. One owner. I even tried to call him at the base to let him know I’d finance the contract myself if he was having trouble getting a loan.”

  “Did you get through to him?”

  “No. I left a message. He never called back.”

  “Do you still have the car?”

  Dewey smiled and shook his head. “That puppy sold real fast. A college kid from the university bought it. I advertise in the student newspaper. Get a lot of my business from the kids out there.”

  “Did he ever drive the vehicle?”

  “Both times he was here,” Dewey replied. “The second time he came in, he brought a buddy along with him.”

  “Tell me about the buddy,” Kerney invited.

  Dewey pursed his lips. “I didn’t catch his name. He was a black man. A little shorter than you. Maybe six feet tall. He looked to be twenty-five or so, I’d guess. Had an East Coast accent. A mechanic.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He drove a ’68 Ford Mustang he restored himself. I offered to buy it. Mint condition. Real collector’s car.”

  “That doesn’t make him a mechanic.”

  “He knew cars. Went over that Toyota real careful-like. I think he tagged along to check the Toyota out for his friend. I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut he’s a wrench jockey at the missile range.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  Dewey held out both hands, palms down. His nails were dull and dingy. “Grease,” he explained. “I do all the minor work on my inventory. Saves a few dollars. You never get that gunk completely cleaned off. His hands looked worse than mine. Stuff’s like dye almost.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He had a base vehicle sticker on the Mustang.”

  “Do you remember what kind?”

  “Enlisted personnel. I see a lot of those on trade-ins.”

  “Did Sammy talk to you about anything besides the Toyota?”

  “Not that I recall,” Dewey answered. He changed his
mind quickly. “As a matter of fact, he did. I thought he wanted to use an old Chevy for part of his down payment. We’d talked about it the first time he came in. Wasn’t worth much, but I could wholesale it and make a few bucks. When I asked, he said the black guy was gonna buy it.”

  “Thanks for your time.”

  Dewey smiled and glanced at Kerney’s truck. “No problem. If you want to sell that truck, bring it by for an appraisal. If it runs good, I can sell it in a week. Lot of people can’t afford the new ones. I could move a dozen late-model trucks a month if I had them. They go like hotcakes.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Kerney said.

  The dust storm intensified near the mountains that separated the missile range from the rest of the world. An updraft blew sand against the rear window with a faint hissing sound. Kerney topped out at the San Andres Pass. The Tularosa Basin was hidden from view by a grimy sky. He turned off the highway onto the access road to the missile range and checked the time. His twenty-four hours had expired. Captain Sara Brannon wouldn’t be any too pleased at his checking in late, but maybe new information just might cut him some slack.

  CHAPTER 4

  SARA FOUND AN MP buttoned up in his patrol vehicle in front of her house. The dust storm whipped sand at her face that felt like so many hot pinpricks. She took a packet from him, hurried into the house, and went immediately to the bedroom, trailing sand along the way. She dropped the envelope on the bed, stripped off her uniform, and stood under a hot shower, letting the water soak away the dryness. If she stayed in the desert much longer, she thought, she would shrivel up and blow away. If not that, she’d have skin like shoe leather. Naked in front of the bathroom mirror, she worked body lotion into her skin, rubbed on some face cream, and brushed her hair dry.

  Dressed in a tank top, cutoff jeans, and a pair of flats, she took the envelope into the living room and checked for messages on the answering machine. Fred Utley had called to invite her to a movie at the post theater. He continued to show romantic interest in her, and she wished he would just chill out. In a way, it was her own damn fault for sleeping with him once when she couldn’t think of a good reason not to. She’d call him back and decline.