Residue: A Kevin Kerney Novel Read online

  Clayton took his time with the closets and bathrooms, prime locations for wall or floor safes. He ran his hands over the smooth walls and tiles, hoping to feel a telltale irregularity in the surface. Using his pocketknife screwdriver, he removed the recessed medicine chest behind the sink mirror in the master bath, only to find a run of lath and plaster. He put it back and repeated the exercise in the guest bath, with the same disappointing results.

  The kitchen and studio remained to be inspected. He bypassed the kitchen, where Jones and Davenport were still busy talking, and headed for the studio. It had been emptied after the staging for the groundbreaking ceremony. The view of the Organ Mountains out the two large picture windows continued to be spectacular. The room echoed the minimalist architectural theme of the living quarters, and, as before, Clayton saw nothing on the floor or walls that might signal a hiding place.

  He glanced at the door to the large walk-in closet containing Fergurson’s artwork. Davenport had not yet upgraded the lock or added surveillance cameras. Probably original to the house, the doorknob was of the keyed entry variety, likely with a turn button on the inside. Such locks had only a single cylinder, and were easily picked.

  The door unlocked quickly on Clayton’s first try. The racks, attached to the sidewalls and suspended a foot above the floor, held at least three dozen paintings stored on their edges, with thick pieces of cardboard separating each to prevent damage. He carefully tilted the paintings forward on the racks to look at the walls, and there on the back wall was a built-in safe with a standard tumbler combination lock.

  He stepped out of the closet, locked the door, and went looking for Davenport. She was seeing Jones out the front door.

  “Are you all done?” she asked, standing aside to let him pass.

  “Not quite. I’d like you to open the closet in the studio.”

  She flinched slightly. “Only Professor Fergurson’s paintings owned by the center are stored there.”

  “I’d like to look anyway,” Clayton replied, noting her physical reaction. “Either right now, or within the hour with a court order.”

  “Very well,” Davenport sighed.

  She retrieved a key ring from a hook in a kitchen cabinet and opened the studio closet. Her shoulders sagged when Clayton removed the last painting that concealed the wall safe.

  “Open it,” he ordered.

  “I don’t know the combination,” she blustered, stepping back.

  Clayton closed the distance. “I think you do. If I have to call a specialist to open the safe, I will arrest you.”

  Davenport’s trembling fingers jingled the key ring. “What for?”

  “Concealing evidence, obstructing a criminal investigation, giving false information to a law enforcement officer, and probably a few more charges I’ll think of before I’m done.”

  “You can’t prove I’ve done anything wrong.”

  “I’m betting there are eighty-nine pages from Fergurson’s journals in that safe with your fingerprints all over them. Pages you claim you never looked at. I’m guessing you took them, thinking they wouldn’t be missed, because you planned to write a book about your years with Fergurson as her trusted assistant. A memoir, perhaps, containing some juicy exposés about prominent people she knew and startling new facts about mysterious events, such as the disappearance of Kim Ward.”

  Davenport covered her open mouth with her hand.

  “I believe you didn’t mean to interfere in a homicide investigation,” Clayton added, seemingly sympathetic. “It just happened that way.”

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “If you open the safe, I’d be inclined not to.”

  “Okay.”

  Under Clayton’s watchful eyes, Davenport turned the tumbler, opened the safe, and took out a manila envelope. In it were the missing eighty-nine journal pages.

  To protect the integrity of his investigation, he arrested her anyway.

  CHAPTER 7

  From Erma Fergurson’s journal, Sunday, April 29, 1973:

  I’m drained of emotion, wondering how to make sense of Kevin’s behavior. It’s been four days since Kim arrived unannounced and then vanished that very night, running away in the dark of night, K chasing after, trying to call her back. Her frightened screams, hurried footsteps on the floor, the slamming open of the front door, woke me from a troubled sleep. I heard her shout, “Leave me alone, get away, get away!”

  From the open door, I watched them, Kim flying down the driveway as fast as humanly possible, clutching what appeared to be a shawl around her shoulders, K in pursuit, both disappearing into the darkness, voices fading, then silence.

  An anxious sentinel, I waited in the living room until dawn for their return, the front door still flung wide open, the only sound a harsh wind whistling up from Mexico. In the kitchen, my silver chain necklace I’d left on the counter the night before was gone, and all the money in my purse was missing, the contents scattered about.

  K’s bedroom in chaos. Blood on a pillow case, damp bed sheets kicked aside, a table lamp overturned, my small landscape of Hermit’s Peak askew on the wall, a tiny gash in the canvas, pistol cartridges strewn on the floor—from whose gun? The hunter-green wool bedspread missing. (The shawl Kim clutched as she fled? Why did she run?)

  My thoughts so jumbled. K so changed since Vietnam. That warm, open young man now quiet, closed, wary. Tight smiles, stingy conversation, long silences, easily distracted. The week before Kim’s arrival was tense. Not once did he speak of the war or the tragic, heartbreaking death of his parents. Me, quiet, on tiptoes, trying not to console or intrude.

  Hours passed before his return. When he came back, shoes caked with mud, clothes dirty, cactus needles clinging to his pants cuffs, scratches on his arms, his face was flushed and etched with anger. She’d taken some drugs—uppers—and gone crazy, he said. She was an addict, had stolen his grandfather’s ancient pistol to kill her husband, he said. Why, he didn’t know or wouldn’t say. He’d looked everywhere through the surrounding hills to find her, but she’d vanished.

  I said to call the police. He argued against it and wouldn’t relent, until I promised to say nothing other than his pistol had been taken and Kim had spent the night. What was he hiding? Why did he need me to lie? Why, after hours searching for Kim, did he show no more concern for her safety?

  I don’t know if he did violence to Kim that night, but when he returned his fury was palpable. I’d never seen him that way before. I trembled when I asked why Kim had run away from him. His answer, a tortured silence and dark look, left me shaken, fearing the worst.

  Over these last few days, the silence has continued. He’s leaving in the morning. I hope to God I’ve done nothing wrong.

  With a low western sun painting the spires of the Organ Mountains shimmering gold through his window, Chief Deputy District Attorney Henry Larkin read Erma Fergurson’s journal entries for a third time while Clayton waited patiently, seated at the other side of Larkin’s desk.

  In the foothills, he could see flashes of reflected light bouncing off the jib of a construction crane at the Fergurson Center, used to place massive boulders around the edges of the concrete pad at the bottom of the sunken amphitheater. As he waited, Clayton wondered how Davenport was feeling after her brief stint in the county jail. Although he’d made a call on her behalf to the best bail bondsman in town, which got her back on the street in a matter of hours, he doubted she held him in high regard. So be it. Lawbreaking had a price.

  Larkin finally looked up. “This last entry by Fergurson, plus all the rest of the evidence you’ve gathered, doesn’t get us to proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Kerney’s guilt, which makes going to trial a real crapshoot. As it stands right now, even probable cause would be a stretch.”

  Clayton shook his head in protest. “We’ve got Kerney’s revolver as the probable murder weapon, a partial of his fingerprint on the cartridge in the cylinder, a possible match of the fabric fragments found with the body an
d the type of bedspread Fergurson mentions in her journal, a falsified police report made about the revolver, and a handwritten account by Erma Fergurson of what was apparently a struggle or fight between Kerney and Ward.”

  Larkin clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair. “But not an eyewitness account of the events in the ­bedroom, or what happened after Kerney and Ward went running off into the night.”

  Clayton sighed in agreement. “Okay, what Fergurson saw that night could be strongly questioned. There was a waning crescent moon on the night of April twenty-ninth, 1973, that set at five fifty-nine p.m. It was pitch-dark when Ward ran away.”

  Larkin sat up straight. “So Fergurson probably couldn’t tell who was running down the driveway.”

  “She loved Kerney like a son,” Clayton added.

  Larkin chortled. “You’re not helping your own case.”

  Clayton grimaced. “Kerney’s comment that Ward was an addict was probably correct. Agent Olivas spoke by phone to an old rodeo teammate who reported that Todd Marks was dealing uppers and downers to contestants on the pro rodeo circuit and both Marks and Ward were using.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Ward could have freaked out in the bedroom coming down off drugs, just as Kerney described it to Fergurson.”

  “I’ve never seen you so ambivalent.” Larkin observed.

  “It’s worse than that. This is my father we’re talking about. I don’t know if I want Kerney cleared so I can get on with the investigation, or charged so I can step aside and wash my hands of the whole damn mess.”

  Larkin paused. “It might be wise to recuse yourself now.”

  Clayton shook his head. “Not until that question is answered.”

  “Kerney didn’t raise you, did he?”

  “Through no fault of his own. It’s a long, sad story.”

  “And only yours to tell, if you want to.”

  Clayton smiled. “Don’t go getting touchy-feely on me, Henry.”

  “Why, I’d never,” Larkin replied, acting misunderstood. “Keep Kerney as your primary person of interest and continue digging. If you can’t establish probable cause, maybe we can bring him in as a material witness. But I’d want to take that request to the grand jury, not a judge.”

  “Because?”

  “For the simple reason that I’m not going to put my job on the line because you’re conflicted.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Has contact been made with Kerney to take a statement?” Larkin asked.

  “Not yet. Voice messages have been left. He’s out of the state in Missouri, attending his wife’s retirement ceremony as the commandant of the army’s military police school.”

  “You haven’t been foot-dragging, have you?”

  Clayton shrugged.

  Larkin let Clayton’s admission slide with a slight disapproving headshake. “His wife’s an army commandant, is she? That must be a pretty high rank.”

  “She’s a brigadier general.”

  Larkin whistled. “Gotta have some huevos to be married to a woman warrior.”

  “Tell me about it,” Clayton replied.

  “What do you want me to do with the Davenport charges?” Larkin asked as he rose from his chair. “Her lawyer’s arguing that she had no knowledge of the contents of the safe.”

  “That’s a lie, but she’s no hardened criminal.”

  Larkin nodded. “I’ll give it a week to let her sweat it out and then decline to prosecute. That should serve as punishment enough.”

  “Agreed.” Dusk had shrouded the Organ Mountains, and the lights of Las Cruces stretched like long ribbons into the foothills.

  Larkin walked Clayton to the door. “Enjoy the weekend.”

  “You, too,” Clayton answered, suddenly remembering he’d promised to take Grace and the kids to Mescalero tomorrow for dinner with his mother.

  In tears, Cynthia Davenport left Hadley Hall, the university’s administration building, and drove away fuming at Clayton Istee. Because of her arrest, she’d been questioned, placed on administrative leave, and ordered to stay away from the Fergurson Center until the Office of General Counsel concluded an investigation into the charges against her.

  Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. In her entire life, she’d gotten one traffic ticket for speeding and maybe three parking tickets, which she’d promptly paid. Now, facing the possibility of losing her job, right when everything seemed to be going so well, she was both frightened and angry. She was terrified of being a single, middle-aged woman out of work, with a big black mark on her résumé, and was furious at Lieutenant Istee for heartlessly deceiving her into believing he wouldn’t arrest her.

  In hindsight, it had been a mistake to tell the lieutenant about Fergurson’s journals, and equally stupid to tell him she had no real knowledge of the contents. But who knew a cold-case investigation would become so all-encompassing, and drag her into it? All she’d been thinking was how great it would be to have a sensational, decades-old murder mystery solved to include in her book. In writers’ workshops she’d learned that true-to-life, sensational events made books more marketable, turned them into bestsellers.

  But her memoir hinged on a bigger lie, that of being Erma’s closest confidant for almost twenty years, privy to the most intimate details about the important people in her life. She’d planned to dish all the scandalous stuff Erma had removed from her journals with no single main course, in which her surrogate nephew, Kevin Kerney, was by no means front and center.

  All the important particulars that were missing from the journals would be included in her book. The outline and proposal she’d submitted to a small university press had attracted the interest of an editor, and she’d hoped to have the book published to coincide with the grand reopening of the Fergurson Center.

  But when Kim Ward’s remains were found, her focus had shifted. Now she had a homicide that would be the centerpiece of her book. She’d tantalize readers with her uncanny ability to put together all the pieces of a missing-person cold case that had stymied the police for decades. And when the missing journal pages were discovered, although she’d yet to work out how exactly that would happen, it would confirm her role as Erma’s most trusted confidant.

  She’d told her lawyer that she had no knowledge of the contents of the safe, a story she stuck to at her meeting with her supervisor. Would it stand up under scrutiny? Lieutenant Istee had watched her open the safe’s tumbler combination from memory. But she could argue that someone else with the combination could have placed the pages inside without her knowledge. She shook her head. It was a lame excuse. Her fingerprints were on every one of those papers she’d deliberately left in the safe to be “discovered” later and used to substantiate the damaging revelations in her memoir.

  Her hands froze on the steering wheel. She was screwed. Lieutenant Istee had screwed her, ruined her life.

  Home at the dining room table, a glass of Merlot in her shaky hand, she powered up her laptop and started an Internet search for Clayton Istee. He’d forced her to open the safe. Bullied and arrested her. What could she find to use against him? He deserved to be punished. There had to be something.

  As expected, recent news stories about him leading the investigation into the cold-case murder popped up first, followed by older cases he’d successfully closed in the recent past. On the state police website only his name, rank, and position were listed, without an accompanying photograph or bio.

  His two college-age children were on the usual social media sites, and his wife’s work experience as a professional preschool educator and college instructor was also easy to access. Although there was little about the lieutenant, there was something familiar about his name. She recalled coming across it somewhere, long before he arrived at the center with his officers to provide additional security for the Spanish ambassador.

  On a hunch, she retrieved a USB flash drive from the living room bookcase that contained the detailed outline of
her memoir and all the names and dates she’d compiled from Erma’s journals before delivering them to Eleanor Robbins at the university. A word search of the unusual surname Istee took her to Isabel Istee, mentioned in the 1969 and 1970 journals. The Internet yielded a news story of a ceremony honoring her for her service as a Mescalero tribal council member. It noted that her son, Clayton Istee, a tribal police officer at the time, and his wife and young children had been in attendance. Years later, there was another brief mention in the Ruidoso newspaper, reporting her retirement as head nurse from the Mescalero Public Health Service Hospital.

  Okay, now she had something. Erma had known Lieutenant Istee’s mother. What else did they have in common? Davenport sipped a second glass of Merlot, her spirits lifting, and went back to the flash drive. Kim Ward, the girl the police had identified as the murder victim, popped up. Now she remembered: Isabel Istee and Kim Ward had both been college girlfriends of the boy Erma suspected might have had something to do with Ward’s disappearance. And his name, according to her outline, was Kevin Kerney, the son of Erma’s oldest, dearest friend.

  Davenport surfed dozens of archived Internet news items that chronicled his storied law enforcement career. So, he’d been a cop like Istee. Was that just a coincidence?

  Nothing surfaced until she came upon an old news report about a manhunt and the killing of a wanted criminal in the rugged mountains of northern New Mexico. The headline stopped her cold.

  FATHER AND SON COP DUO IN SHOOT-OUT WITH WANTED KILLER

  The story recounted how Kevin Kerney and Clayton Istee had tracked and shot to death an escaped convict who’d been on a murderous spree across the state.

  Davenport was elated. Now it all made sense. Lieutenant Clayton Istee was protecting his father, Kim Ward’s suspected killer. She smirked at the duplicity involved. If anyone else had been the suspect, an arrest would have certainly been made. Cops get away with murder. It happens all the time, shown almost nightly on the evening news.