Death Song

by Michael McGarrity

“Much better than I anticipated. I think there’s actually a chance we can be friends.”

  “That’s good news.”

  Patrick got down from his chair and went to the glass patio doors that looked out on the meadow and the horse barn. “It snowed last night,” he announced excitedly. “We have to make a snowman.”

  Kerney walked to Patrick, picked him up, and carried him back to the kitchen table. “I can’t help you, sport. I have to go to work today.”

  “That’s okay,” Patrick said, wiggling to be set free. “I can make it myself. Put me down.”

  Kerney lowered Patrick and he ran to get dressed.

  “Will you be working all day?” Sara asked.

  “Yes.” Kerney sat next to her. “Today and every day, if necessary, until we either catch Denise Riley’s killer or I get put out to pasture at the end of the month. Whichever comes first.”

  “That’s a relief,” Sara said.

  “Meaning exactly what?”

  Sara smiled, and for the first time since her return home there was a sparkle in her eyes. “Meaning that I’ve been wanting to tell you for days to just leave me the hell alone until I feel better. Just knowing you’re not going to be around every minute worrying about me has already lifted my spirits considerably.”

  “Have I been that much of a nuisance?”

  Sara shrugged. “In a good way.”

  “But you want me gone,” Kerney added.

  “Not permanently.”

  “How reassuring.” He leaned close and kissed her. “Perhaps retiring is a bad idea. I would be constantly underfoot.”

  “There’s no backing out of that now, Kerney.” Sara poked him lightly on the bicep. “We’re all going to London together. That’s the deal.”

  “Yes, it is.” Kerney stood. “So I’d better get cracking.”

  By the time Kerney left, Sara and Patrick were busy building a snowman in the meadow, unconcerned that it would be a melted puddle by noon. He drove the ranch road to the highway with his spirits lifted for the first time in weeks, hopeful that Sara had turned the corner and was on her way to a full recovery.

  Clayton arrived at the law enforcement center to discover that none of the S.O. honchos were around. When he asked Salgado’s secretary if the sheriff was ready to meet with him, he was told without further explanation that Salgado had been delayed and she didn’t know when he would arrive. Frustrated by the sheriff’s cavalier attitude, Clayton went to his borrowed office, where he found the desk piled high with reports, and started the arduous task of reading through every document. Two hours later he looked up to see a clear-eyed Don Mielke standing in the doorway.

  “Come with me,” Mielke said, and without waiting for a response he started down the hallway.

  In the briefing room he introduced Clayton to a state police crime lab tech named Stan Steiner, who had been sent over to take saliva samples from all male personnel.

  Steiner, a young man with a serious hair-loss problem, a high forehead, and wide-set brown eyes, had the look of a person who’d found his calling among test tubes and microscopes and was completely ill at ease in the alien environment of the sheriff’s department. After a limp handshake and a mumbled greeting, he quickly returned to the task of setting up for the onslaught of male deputies and civilian employees who would soon be lining up to have their mouths swabbed.

  “Just so there is no question about evidence contamination, Sheriff Salgado thought it best to have the state police crime lab gather the saliva samples,” Mielke explained as they left the room.

  “That’s smart thinking,” Clayton said.

  “Also,” Mielke continued, “he decided to order all male correctional officers at the county detention center and all male police dispatchers to give samples. He wants to make absolutely sure every male employee under his command is screened.”

  “That’s good,” Clayton said, wondering what Kerney and Paul Hewitt had already done to cause such a quantum leap in Salgado’s procedural IQ. He briefly considered the possibility that Salgado had wised up on his own. He couldn’t dismiss it out of hand, but it seemed highly unlikely.

  Mielke stopped in front of Clayton’s office. “The sheriff is hiring a private laboratory to do the DNA testing,” he said, “so that we can get a fast turnaround on the results. The medical investigator will send DNA material from the fetus to the private laboratory for comparison.”

  “Excellent,” Clayton said.

  “By the way,” Mielke said, “at the sheriff’s request, the state police will cover our patrol calls while you and your team take statements from on-duty personnel. That should give you and your team adequate time without feeling rushed.”

  “Tell the sheriff this helps a lot,” Clayton said.

  “Then you’re all set,” Mielke turned on his heel and walked away.

  Clayton checked the time. Ramona and her two detectives were due to arrive in thirty minutes. He needed to create an interview outline along with questions to be asked before they began talking to all the male deputies, correctional officers, and dispatchers.

  While welcome, the sudden and unexpected high level of cooperation from Salgado made the task before him only more daunting. With an inner laugh, he reminded himself that Kerney was apparently doing what he had asked. He looked forward to learning exactly what tactics had been employed.

  Late last night, the trucker Ramona Pino had been unable to make direct contact with had called the Santa Fe P.D. and left word that he would be home no later than 7 A.M.

  In the morning, Ramona sent her two detectives off to link up with Clayton at the S.O. and drove out to Cañoncito to interview the trucker. On the way, she mentally reviewed the substance of the statement that the man, Roy Mirabal, had given to a deputy. An independent livestock trucker, Mirabal had supposedly been gone from his residence during the time the murder occurred, hauling a load of cattle from Las Vegas to a Roswell feed lot, although no attempt had been made to verify the information. Additionally, Mirabal, who lived alone, said he’d been home the night that Denise Riley had been reported missing, and had been awakened by a man who’d asked him if he’d seen Denise or knew where she might be. According to Mirabal, the man pounding on his front door had identified himself as Denise Riley’s brother-in-law.

  Last night, Ramona had called Ruben Muiz and asked him about his late-night conversation with Roy Mirabal. Ruben had confirmed the story, but added a comment that ratcheted Ramona’s interest in Mirabal up a few notches. Ruben said that after learning that Denise was missing, Mirabal had asked if she’d run off. Ramona was eager to find out why Mirabal asked such a intriguing question.

  She pulled to a stop next to an older-model tractor trailer and knocked on the door of a rather run-down double-wide mounted on concrete blocks. Mirabal opened up and inspected Ramona’s police credentials before stepping aside to let her enter.

  In his late fifties, he had a round face, a heavy two-day beard, and a trucker’s potbelly that spilled over a large fake rodeo belt buckle. He wore a badly wrinkled Western shirt, blue jeans, and scuffed steel-toe work boots.

  The inside of the double-wide looked no better than the outside. Cheap floor-to-ceiling wood laminate paneling darkened the front room, and a long sectional couch with tattered armrests positioned in front of a large-screen television dominated the space. Stretched out on an overstuffed easy chair covered in a dull gray throw was the largest domestic cat Ramona had seen in a very long time. It raised its head, cast a lazy look in Ramona’s direction, and promptly lost interest. From somewhere inside the trailer came the smell of a litter box that desperately needed emptying.

  Ramona thanked Mirabal for meeting with her. “Have you been driving all night?” she asked in an attempt to put him at ease.

  “No,” Mirabal replied. “I took a rest break in Lubbock. Your message said you had some questions for me about the Rileys.”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” Ramona replied with a smile. “But first could
you show me your trip paperwork for the load you hauled during the time Denise Riley was murdered?”

  Mirabal licked his upper teeth with his tongue and looked slightly confused. “I don’t know exactly when she was murdered. The deputy who came here just asked if I’d been home two or three days ago—I don’t remember the exact date—and I told him no, I’d been on a run to a Roswell feedlot, and from there I picked up a load of cows in West Texas for delivery to a rancher down in Fort Sumner. I was gone at least thirty-six hours.”

  Ramona nodded understandingly. “I’m sure there isn’t a problem, Mr. Mirabal. If I can just take a look at your paperwork, we can clear this up right away.”

  Mirabal reached for a briefcase on the couch, snapped it open, pulled out a clipboard, and gave it to Ramona. “Look all you want,” he said.

  A quick scan of the documents confirmed Mirabal’s story, but Ramona’s cop instincts weren’t completely satisfied. Paperwork could easily be forged. Mirabal could have deliberately cast an aspersion on Denise to deflect suspicion from himself. Ramona decided to contact the feedlot operator and the rancher to make sure his story checked out 100 percent. She jotted down names and phone numbers before returning the clipboard to Mirabal.

  “You gonna check up on me?” Mirabal asked.

  “Yes, and that should take care of it, if you’re telling the truth,” she said. “Except I do have one more question.”

  “What that?”

  “When Mr. Muiz came to your door looking for Denise, you asked him if she’d run off.”

  “Yeah, I remember saying that.”

  “I’m wondering why you weren’t surprised to learn that Denise had gone missing.”

  Mirabal shrugged. “I can’t say I know anything for sure. It was just some things I saw and heard.”

  Ramona gestured at the couch. “Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” Mirabal hoisted the cat off the easy chair, dumped it on the carpet, and plopped down. The cat arched its back, stretched, looked insulted, and padded away to the kitchen.

  Ramona took a cautious seat on the edge of a couch cushion. “What exactly did you see and hear?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t work regular hours; no long-haul trucker does. So I’m home at different times, day and night. With Riley a deputy sheriff and all, his schedule would change from days to swing to nights. Sometimes I’d be here when he was working graveyard or swing shift and I’d see Denise walking down her driveway at night. I’d hear a car engine on the country road, see headlights. When the wind was right, I’d hear voices. Then the car would drive away and an hour or two later come back. Before you know it, there would be Denise walking back up the driveway to her house.”

  “You could tell it was Denise?” Ramona asked.

  “On moonlit nights I could. Other times I just figured it had to be her. When I could hear voices, it was her voice for sure. The other voice was a man’s.”

  “Did you hear what was said?” Ramona asked.

  Mirabal shook his head. “Not really. Sometimes they would laugh, or I’d catch a word to two on the wind.”

  “Did you ever see the man, see the vehicle?”

  “Nope.”

  “How often did Denise walk down the lane to the county road at night?”

  “I can’t say for sure, because I’d be gone a good deal of the time. But I do know she was meeting somebody who she didn’t want visiting her at home and didn’t want to be seen with, so I’m thinking she’s probably screwing around with a guy her husband knew. Least ways, that’s the way I saw it.”

  “That makes sense. When was the last time you saw Denise walking down the lane?”

  “Three nights before her brother-in-law came pounding on my door. I saw the beam of her flashlight from my kitchen window as she walked down her driveway. Five minutes later, I saw her coming back toward her double-wide.”

  “Can you be sure it was Denise?”

  “No, but who else would it be? Anyway, she was gone and back in a hurry, which was real unusual.”

  “As far as you know, whenever she met somebody at the end of her driveway it was always at night,” Ramona said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yeah, if you put it that way. I know she worked during the day. But I can’t tell you where she went when she drove away in her car by herself.”

  “Did you ever visit socially with the Rileys?”

  “Never did. Every now and then, I’d see them at the supermarket or the gas station and we’d say howdy and spend a few minutes passing the time of day. When they were together they seemed happy enough. I never saw them arguing or fighting.”

  “Did you ever talk to Riley about his wife’s nocturnal behavior?”

  “I don’t butt into other people’s business. Like I said, I had my suspicions, but that’s all. Besides, they weren’t real friendly neighbors. Can’t say that I’m very friendly either.”

  “Was there any hostility between you and the Rileys?”

  Mirabal shook his head. “Nope.”

  Ramona went over Mirabal’s story with him again to jog his memory in case he’d forgotten something. The only new bit of information he recalled was that he’d started noticing Denise’s late-night rendezvous behavior about two years ago.

  She thanked Mirabal for his time, gave him her business card, and left Cañoncito. By the time she reached the sheriff’s office, she’d talked by cell phone to the rancher and the feedlot operator. Not surprisingly, Mirabal’s alibi had held up.

  Inside the S.O., Ramona swung by the regional dispatch center and asked for the whereabouts of Deputy John Quintana, the officer who’d initially interviewed Roy Mirabal. The supervisor, Joanne Bustos, a tiny, middle-aged woman who bordered on being anorexic, told her that Quintana was in the building meeting with the lieutenant in charge of training and planning.

  “How long has Quintana been with the S.O.?” Ramona asked.

  “Less that six months.” Joanne opened the door to the hallway and stepped outside. Ramona followed.

  “He’s a cadet,” Joanne continued, “so he hasn’t been to the law enforcement academy yet. I think he’s scheduled to start with the next class.”

  Ramona had known Joanne Bustos from the day she’d been hired as a night dispatcher back when the P.D. had its own separate communication center. She’d always been a good source of back-channel information and gossip.

  “What else do you know about him?” she asked.

  Although the hallway was empty, Joanne lowered her voice. “He’s struggling on the job. He gets lost a lot when he’s sent out on calls, still has trouble remembering his ten-codes, and from what I hear his paperwork and reports are totally subpar.”

  “So why is he still wearing a shield and carrying a weapon?”

  “He’s Sheriff Salgado’s nephew. I understand his patrol supervisor is hoping and praying that he’ll flunk out of the academy.”

  “Ah,” Ramona said. “Enough said. Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  Not at all surprised by Joanne’s revelation about Deputy Quintana, and encouraged by what Roy Mirabal had told her about Denise Riley, Ramona left Bustos and went in search of Clayton Istee.

  After several hours spent interviewing deputies about their relationships with Tim and Denise Riley, Clayton was beginning to think that there was no logical, earthly reason the couple had been murdered. Although the Rileys pretty much kept to themselves, they were well liked, and Tim was considered by his peers to be one of the best—if not the best—patrol officer on the force.

  None of the men seemed resistant to questions or defensive, and all seemed equally upset about the murders. Although it was too soon to tell for sure, Clayton wondered if the one man in the department who knew the most about Tim and Denise Riley’s personal life might be Don Mielke.

  The high point of his morning came when Ramona Pino arrived and briefed him on the substance of her interview with Roy Mirabal. The
downside was not having knowledge of Denise’s nighttime assignations sooner. Now everyone along the stretch of county road to the Rileys’ double-wide would have to be interviewed again, this time to see if they could help ID the mystery driver or provide a description of the vehicle.

  It was a possible major lead in the investigation that had remained uncovered due to the incompetence of a cadet deputy and the stupidity of a supervisor who’d had allowed an untrained rookie to conduct a major felony case interview.

  Clayton shared his frustration with Mielke, who shrugged it off as an unfortunate event that had occurred in the rush to gather information as quickly as possible after Denise’s body had been found.

  Clayton couldn’t believe Mielke’s spin on the event, but given how big-time screwups were being managed at every level of government, he wondered if both Deputy Quintana and the yet-to-be-named supervisor would be commended and promoted instead of censured and sacked.

  Noon came and went with no sign of Sheriff Salgado, who’d blown off his early morning appointment with Clayton and still had not yet made an appearance at the office. Furthermore, Clayton hadn’t seen or heard from Kerney or Sheriff Hewitt. He wondered if his assumption that they had already put the squeeze on Salgado was correct.

  He was reviewing interview summaries with Ramona Pino when Detective Matt Chacon from the SFPD showed up carting a box containing the computers secured from the Riley residence along with the software and zip drives uncovered in a subsequent search of the double-wide.

  Chacon put the box on the table and gave the two sergeants a wan smile. “Here’s everything Major Mielke wanted returned to evidence,” he said. “The bad news is that after an exhaustive examination I’ve found nothing useful at all. But it confirmed my suspicion that whoever erased the hard drives was no amateur.”

  “Is that it?” Ramona asked, noting that Matt’s smile telegraphed he had more to tell. She nodded at a straight-back office chair.

  Chacon sat, took the toothpick out of the corner of his mouth, and said, “I uncovered some interesting, perplexing information. After I located Denise and Tim Riley’s e-mail, cell phone, and landline telephone accounts, I served a court order to access them. The cell phone and e-mail accounts had been almost completely emptied. In fact, the only calls on file consisted of the unsuccessful half a dozen or so attempts Tim Riley made to reach his wife on the night he was murdered.”