The Judas judge kk-5 Page 6

  "What do you think the chances are of getting four flat tires simultaneously?" Kerney asked, as he eyed his unit in the parking lot.

  Dale stepped to the window "Somebody doesn't like you, would be my bet."

  "Let's take a closer look."

  The tires had been punctured, but there was no other damage to the car. Kerney took a quick tour of the other parked vehicles and found no additional evidence of vandalism. He called Lee Sedillo and told him what was up.

  "I'll get the tires replaced and send an agent over to ask some questions," Lee said.

  "Don't waste an agent's time on this," Kerney said. "Have a patrol officer take the call."

  "Who did you piss off, Chief?"

  "Good question," Kerney said. "Maybe one of Shockley's buddies."

  "That's a thought that worries me," Lee said.

  Dale Jennings took off his feed store baseball cap, scratched his head, and hoisted a foot on the truck's front bumper. "Finding land that equals what Erma left you isn't going to be easy," he said.

  Kerney nodded in agreement. The two ranches they'd toured held no appeal for him. One, situated on the back side of the Jicarilla Mountains north of Carrizozo, looked promising until Kerney spoke with the owner, who was bailing out of the cattle business because the Forest Service had fenced off the live streams and greatly reduced his grazing allotment.

  The other property was west of Carrizozo, a windswept, poorly managed stretch of land within sight of Chupadera Mesa. In the best of years, four hundred acres would be needed to support one cow-calf unit.

  Kerney looked at the herd of scrawny Brangus cattle moving slowly across the dusty rangeland infested with broom snake-weed. Toxic to cattle and sheep, broom snakeweed caused abortions. What grasses there were-blue grama, silver beard grass and side oats grama-had been pretty much eaten down to the root.

  "What?" Dale finally asked, as he studied the displeasure on Kerney's face.

  "Why bother to put cattle on the land if you have to truck in feed to keep them alive?" Kerney said.

  "Some ranchers don't feed much until it comes close to shipping time," Dale said.

  "That's no way to treat animals," Kerney said.

  "I know it. Maybe this isn't a good time for you to be looking for land."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Kerney asked.

  "Maybe better land will come on the market later down the road. Want to call it a day?"

  "We've got one more to go?"

  "Down by Three Rivers."

  "Let's check it out."

  Twenty sections south of Three Rivers were up for sale, running from the arid basin to the foothills that defined the western boundary of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Once, it had been part of the Albert Bacon Fall holdings that consumed a million acres from the Sacramento Mountains to the westerly San Andres Mountains.

  Fall had been a senator from New Mexico before becoming Warren Harding's Secretary of the Interior. His political career ended with the famous Teapot Dome scandal, amid charges that he had engaged in shady deals regarding national petroleum reserves set aside for the Navy.

  Kerney asked Dale to take the old road to the ranch headquarters. He wanted to see the rodeo grounds that had once drawn ranching families from throughout the area for several days of friendly competition. As teenagers, he and Dale had won the team calf-roping event three years running.

  All that remained under the grove of trees were some rotting boards from the judging stand and a few fence posts.

  "Those were good times," Dale said, staring out the truck window as they drove slowly by.

  "Yes, they were," Kerney answered.

  They got permission from the ranch manager to tour the land, and took off on a dirt road that wound into the hills. Good rains over the summer had greened up the terrain, but the ground was rocky, with sparse topsoil, and only patches of bunch grass thrived.

  Below them, the Tularosa Basin, once a broad savanna, spread out to the far off San Andres Mountains. Not even a half century of protection by the military had restored the fragile basin from years of drought and overgrazing. Where knee-high grasses once grew, now mesquite, saltbush, and creosote bush crowded out the more fragile native vegetation.

  Inside an open gate high in the foothills, Kerney and Dale walked the land, neither of them happy with soil so poorly suited to retain moisture. In front of them, the twin peaks of Sierra Blanca on the Apache Reservation dominated the skyline.

  "Not much you can do with this," Dale said with a shake of his head.

  "It would take a full section to run one cow." The short wail of a siren cut off Kerney's response. A four-wheel-drive bore down upon them, emergency lights flashing, and ground to a halt next to Dale's truck.

  The man who got out of the truck and moved toward them wore a tribal police uniform shirt. In his mid to late twenties, he was five-ten, with an olive brown complexion and dark hazel eyes.

  "Let me see some ID," the officer said, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered weapon.

  "Is there a problem, Officer?" Kerney asked, flipping open his badge case.

  "You're trespassing on Apache land," the officer said, dismissing Kerney's shield with a glance. "I need a driver's license from both of you."

  Dale fished out his wallet while Kerney did the same. As he watched Kerney hand the officer his license Dale thought there was something familiar about the young man, but he couldn't place it in his mind.

  "We didn't see a sign." Kerney said.

  The officer pointed to a placard fifty yards away and plucked the driver's license from Dale's hands. "Wait here."

  "So much for professional courtesy," Kerney said, as he watched the young officer stand next to the vehicle, open a citation book, and start writing.

  "We're getting tickets?"

  "Looks that way."

  The officer finished up and returned. "You can either pay the fine by mail or appear in tribal court," he said. The name tag over his right shirt pocket read OFFICER CLAYTON ISTEE

  "Is the ticket necessary, Officer?" Kerney asked.

  "Apache land, Apache laws," Istee said, nodding at the open gate.

  "I'll wait here until you leave."

  "Cocky young fellow," Kerney said, as Dale fired up the truck and drove through the gate.

  "Apaches don't like us much," Dale said. "Actually, he reminds me of you."

  "I was never that sassy."

  "Oh, really? I meant his looks. He looks like you. Didn't you notice

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "Same deep-set eyes, same frame, same chin."

  The memory of Isabel Istee, his girlfriend during his senior year in college, ran through Kerney's mind. The only girl he'd been serious about up to that time, she'd dumped him without warning or explanation. Whatever her reasons were, it didn't matter anymore. Or did it? He shook his head. It wasn't possible.

  "So, don't agree with me," Dale said, misreading Kerney's reaction.

  "Let's call it a day, Dale," Kerney said, looking out the window, his thoughts still on Isabel.

  "Whatever you say."

  Dale dropped Kerney off at the command trailer, where Kerneys unit, sporting four brand-new tires, was parked outside.

  On the office desk Lee Sedillo had left a sealed envelope containing his car keys and a note. Nothing had come from the patrol officer's attempt to identify, the person responsible for the vandalism. Since the investigation team was staying at Kerney's motel, Lee had queried each agent about the incident. No one had noticed the damage. Because all personnel had left the motel before Kerney, Lee speculated that the crime occurred after the agents were gone and while Kerney was still in his room. Therefore, it was not a random act.

  Lee and the agents were in the field conducting interviews. Kerney spent the remainder of the day poring over the information that had been gathered in the letter-bombing homicide of Marsha Langsford. He finished up by phoning the senior ATF and FBI agents who had supervised th
e investigation, in the hope that some important shred of evidence had been left out of the case files.

  Both agents had concentrated attention on members of the American Indian Movement, a radical Indian rights organization, most famous for the shootout with U.S. Marshals and the FBI at Oglala, South Dakota, in the summer of 1976.

  The feds had identified an AIM "cell" that had remained active in the Four Corners region of the state on the Navajo Nation. It had two Mescalero members. On the telephone, the FBI agent kept circling back to the AIM group. But all the evidence showed that the group's concerns at the time were treaty rights, not reservation casino gaming.

  When Kerney pointed out that no group had claimed responsibility for the letter-bomb attack, the agent dismissed his observation, arguing that the Apaches were secretive, warlike by nature, and therefore still suspect.

  The ATF agent Kerney talked to grudgingly admitted that AIM had never been a suspect in any type of terrorist bombing. But that didn't hold him back from rattling on about the lack of cooperation he'd received from tribal officials during the investigation.

  Kerney hung up feeling that both men wanted a quick and easy cowboy and Indian solution to the case and had conveniently blamed the tribe when their investigation stalled.

  Before Kerney left to return to his motel room, Lee Sedillo arrived and informed him that the subjects known to have visited all the campgrounds on the days prior to the shootings were in the clear.

  "Nothing suspicious at all, Chief," Lee said. "No connections with the victims, and no weak alibis."

  "Well, that's one rabbit trail we don't have to keep following," Kerney said, as he walked to the door.

  "You read my note about the tires?" Lee asked.

  "We'll let the incident slide for now," Kerney said.

  "Unless they know the officer, most civilians don't pay any attention to who drives cop cars. Especially unmarked units like yours."

  "I've thought about that," Kerney said.

  "And you're driving an undercover unit with standard issue motor vehicle license plates, not department plates."

  "That, too."

  "So?" Lee asked, frustration creeping into his voice.

  "So, I agree," Kerney said with a smile. "Whoever doesn't like me may be one of Shockley's buddies."

  "Maybe one of our own," Lee said.

  "I hope not," Kerney said.

  "You still want me to drop it?"

  "For now. We haven't got the time."

  Back in his room Kerney watched the late news, which headlined the breaking story that Vernon Langsford had been one of the spree victims.

  "Team coverage" spun off to review the unsolved letter-bomb murder of Langsford's wife and the search for Langsford's children.

  Kerney killed the TV and the bedside light, hoping the media coverage would at least get Linda and Eric Langsford's attention. He needed to talk to them, and soon.

  St. Joseph's Mission, the most imposing building in the village of Mescalero, stood on a hillside overlooking the settlement. It was built from hand-hewn stone and logs. Kerney had toured it as a child with his parents, and inside on the wall behind the altar an Apache Jesus looked down on the chapel.

  Although the village served as the center of government for the tribe, there were no tidy rows of houses lined up along linear streets. Aside from the few business situated close together along the highway, the schools, government buildings, and tribal enterprises were sprinkled throughout the narrow mountain valley. Most of the homes were located off dirt roads that extended into the forest.

  To Kerney's eye, Mescalero seemed deliberately turned away from the non-Indian world that passed through on the highway. As he pulled into the parking lot of the tribal headquarters building, he decided it would be a good idea to remember that observation. Inside, he found his way to Silas Kozine, a senior tribal administrator.

  Kozine, a man well past middle age, had gray hair and wide, slightly downturned lips that gave his face a somber cast. He tapped his fingers together while Kerney explained the reason for his visit.

  Silas Kozine's expression hardened as Kerney finished, and he said nothing for a long moment.

  "I am sorry Judge Langsford has been killed, but I can't see how a murder spree that occurred off tribal land has anything to do with us. We went through this exercise six years ago, when Judge Langsford's wife was murdered in Roswell. No evidence was ever found that connected any tribal member to the crime, in spite of the FBI's attempts to prove otherwise."

  "I understand the tribal police conducted an independent investigation of Mrs. Langsford's murder that concentrated on possible tribal suspects," Kerney said. "I'd like to review the file."

  "Our chief of police made it clear to the FBI that there were no tribal suspects."

  "It might be beneficial to take another look."

  "It would have no benefit for us, Mr. Kerney. In fact, it would only give those people who think of us as uppity Indians the opportunity to point fingers and start rumors."

  "I'm not looking to politicize anything, Mr. Kozine. The killer could be someone from the tribe he sent to prison, someone who felt unfairly treated in Langsford's court, someone with a personal grudge, or a casino employee who felt Langsford's ruling against gambling would destroy his livelihood. The possibilities are endless."

  Silas Kozine consulted a paper on his desk. "I think your request for our cooperation comes a little too late."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Yesterday morning, you and a man named Dale Jennings were found trespassing on tribal land."

  "That was unintentional, and had nothing to do with the investigation."

  "Personally, I see it as a lack of respect. You can pay your fine at the tribal court offices, Mr. Kerney."

  Kerney hesitated, decided there was no use arguing further, and stood up.

  "Is there something else?" Kozine asked.

  "I went to college many years ago with a girl from Mescalero, Isabel Istee. Is Officer Istee her son?"

  "Yes, he is."

  "How can I locate his mother?"

  "Isabel is director of nursing at the Indian Health Service Hospital You'll find her there."

  Before driving to the hospital, Kerney went to the tribal court and paid both his and Dale's trespassing fines. The small, two-story hospital had a rock exterior offset by stark white window frames and an orange metal roof. Kerney announced himself at the reception desk, asked to see Isabel Istee, and nervously waited, not sure if he wanted to voice the question that had to be asked.

  He recognized Isabel as soon as she stepped through the door to the administrative wing. Her small body had filled out a bit, giving her an attractive subtle roundness, and her jet-black hair showed hints of gray. Her face still held an aristocratic, almost haughty appeal, and her eyes, dark as obsidian, were still intriguing.

  She walked to him with measured steps and stopped a few feet away. "I have often wondered if I would see you again, Kevin," she said.

  "It's been a long time, Isabel."

  She nodded and gestured toward the door. "Why don't we talk in my office."

  Once inside, Kerney sat in a chair and watched Isabel arrange herself at the desk. On the bookcase behind her was a framed photo graph of Clayton Istee in uniform. Two framed university degrees were displayed on the same shelf.

  "What brings you to see me?" Isabel asked.

  "I met your son yesterday."

  "You and his father must be very proud of him."

  "Every member of the family is."

  "How long have you been married?"

  "You have something to ask me, Kevin?"

  "Only if you have something to tell me."

  "I'm not married, and never have been."

  Kerney let out a sigh. "You're not making this easy, Isabel."

  "Did you come here to intrude into my life?"

  "Intrude in what way?"

  "We knew each other when we were very young. I have no idea what kind of man
you are."

  "I'm a policeman, like your son." He placed his open badge case on the desk in front of Isabel.

  Isabel picked it up and studied it. "I've read about you occasionally in the newspapers. Weren't you going on to graduate school after the army?"

  "I did. I dropped out."

  "To become a policeman?"

  "Yes."

  Isabel handed back the badge case. "What you do for a living doesn't tell me who you are as a person now."

  "Can words answer that question?"

  "Probably not," Isabel answered, looking at the wedding band on Kerney's finger. "You're married?"

  "Any children?"

  "None that I know of. Is Clayton my son?"

  Isabel studied Kerney for a long, hard minute before answering.

  "Why would that be important to you?"

  "If I have a child I want to know it."

  "I suppose you have a right to know. Yes, Clayton is your son."

  "Does he know who I am?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I've never told him. He only knows that his father was an Anglo boy I met at school. I wanted two things when I went to college, a nursing degree and a baby. I came back to Mescalero with both."

  "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

  "You had no desire to be a father, and I wasn't interested in marriage You gave me what I wanted, Kevin, and I gave you what you wanted."

  "That's cold, Isabel. I liked you a lot."

  "I don't mean it that way. We both enjoyed each other, and I have always remembered you fondly. Every time I look at Clayton he're minds me of you."

  "That's kind of you to say."

  "Now that you know, what will you do?"

  "That question is yours to answer."

  Isabel nodded solemnly. "I appreciate that. I will tell Clayton about you. The rest is up to him. He doesn't need a father, Kevin. He's a grown man."

  "I understand."

  "My son is Apache, Kevin."

  "I understand that, also."

  "I always knew this day would come."

  "I will cause you and your son no trouble."

  "I'd like to believe you." Isabel stood, extended her hand, and Kerney shook it. "Thank you, Kevin."