Residue: A Kevin Kerney Novel

by Michael McGarrity

  When Stedman paused for breath, Muniz asked about Jack Page. “I was friends with his son Earl a long time ago,” he said. “I’m hoping to reconnect.”

  “Everyone knew Jack and his daughter, Loretta. They lived up on High Street.”

  “I stopped by there,” Muniz said. “Nothing but rubble.”

  “Place burned down about a year after Jack and Loretta left town. Fortunately, nobody was staying there at the time. Fire chief said it was arson, probably kids.”

  Muniz wondered if Earl had burned the place down. He’d always been attentive to small details. “Do you know where Jack moved to?”

  “I sure don’t,” Stedman replied. “Up until a year or so ago, he’d return occasionally to visit his buddies at the American Legion. I’d see him down at the steakhouse with some of the other old vets, sharing a meal and telling war stories.”

  “I tried the legion hall.”

  “With the old-timers dying off and the younger vets who’ve come home not interested in joining, membership has dropped. Your best bet would be talking to the post commander, Tim Lunt. He’s a Vietnam vet who was a good friend of Jack’s. He manages the county fairgrounds.”

  “Where are the fairgrounds?”

  “Take Main Street across the river, turn left at the church, and you’re there. What’s your connection with Jack Page’s son, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “We worked together in law enforcement. Now that I’m about to retire, I decided to look him up.” Muniz hoped retirement wasn’t imminent. It would be nice to serve a few more years with the stain of Earl’s betrayal scrubbed clean.

  Stedman nodded. “That explains the car you’re driving. I thought it looked very much like an unmarked police vehicle.”

  “It is,” Muniz confirmed as he got to his feet. The black Explorer with the distinctive antennas and U.S. government license plates was hard to miss. “Tim Lunt is the fairground manager?”

  “Yes. He shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Muniz took the first left over the river, drove past the Mormon church, and turned onto the fairgrounds parking lot entrance a few hundred feet down the road. The manager’s office was in a white building next to a racetrack. According to a sign mounted on the wall, the office was open from nine to four, Monday through Friday, and Saturday by appointment. A scribbled note taped to the door read: “Back in Twenty Minutes.” Muniz waited an hour for a white pickup truck to coast to a stop next to his SUV.

  A lanky man in his late sixties got out and asked if he could help.

  “Tim Lunt?” Muniz asked.

  “That’s me,” Lunt said. “Hope I haven’t made you wait too long.”

  “Not at all.” Muniz displayed his credentials. “I’m trying to find Jack Page. I’ve been told you’re a friend of his.”

  “What do you need to see Jack for?” Lunt asked warily.

  Muniz smiled reassuringly. “Nothing bad, I assure you. In fact, it’s good news. Mr. Page is entitled to a supplemental beneficiary payment recently approved by my agency. I just need to get his signature on a few forms so we can cut him a check.”

  Lunt’s concerned look passed. “Jack would never turn down free money. He’s been gone from here a good twenty-five years or more. He lives over in New Mexico, I don’t know exactly where.”

  “Can you point me in a general direction?”

  “It’s a ranch, I know that. He used to come visit at the legion post and brag about it being a big, fancy spread. Never gave us an address, but one time I was driving up to Socorro to see my sister, and he was right in front of me on the highway. Recognized his truck. I was about to wave him over when he turned off onto a dirt road, so I just kept going.”

  “Where was that?”

  “On 180 near Alma. I asked him about it the next time I saw him. Said he was just visiting a friend.”

  “That’s north of Glenwood, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Muniz opened the driver’s door to the Explorer. “I appreciate your time.”

  “Say howdy to Jack when you see him.”

  Muniz responded with a toothy grin. “I sure will.”

  Back at the Hotel Cochran, Oliver Muniz consulted his maps. There were a half dozen county dirt roads that branched off from U.S. Highway 180 near Alma. He’d drive every one of them and probably find a few more that weren’t on any maps. He switched to his tablet, searched for information about Alma, and discovered that the famous outlaw Butch Cassidy had once cowboyed at a nearby ranch. Interesting stuff.

  There wasn’t much to the unincorporated settlement, and the only lodging he could find was a rental bunkhouse at a ranch a few miles away. It offered a stocked pantry and advertised a once-in-a-lifetime cowboy experience. He called, and fortunately it was available.

  He opened the bottle of scotch he’d packed in El Paso and poured himself a generous shot. Not to celebrate, but as a reward for progress made.

  Muniz raised his glass and said, “Here I come, Earl, ready or not.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Paul Avery waited an hour to interview Bud Elkins at the Fort Bayard Veterans Center. When he finally showed up the meeting started out poorly.

  “I’ve got nothing more to say to the police,” Elkins sputtered.

  Avery put his shield away. “Why is that, Mr. Elkins?”

  “I read in the paper yesterday that a magistrate judge dismissed the charges against one of those jokers who came here impersonating cops.”

  “I can understand how that would upset you.”

  Elkins leaned forward in his wheelchair. “Cops, lawyers, judges. Phooey!”

  “He’s an ex-cop trying to solve a murder. That’s not a bad thing, is it?”

  Elkins raised an eyebrow. “You’re on his side.”

  “No, I’m not,” Avery replied emphatically. “He screwed up and lost his job. But I also want to solve the murder. I’ll do it the right way, if you’ll help me.”

  Elkins gripped the arms of his wheelchair. “Jack Page is no killer. He’s a good man.”

  “I believe you.” Avery shifted closer. “I’m not looking at Jack as a murderer. That hasn’t entered my mind. But he—or someone in his family—might know who killed a pretty, young woman many years ago. I just need to find them and ask a few questions.”

  Elkins sneered. “You’re trying to clear that ex-police chief’s name.”

  Avery shook his head. “If he’s guilty, I’ll gladly do my best to make sure he goes to prison and stays locked up for a long time.”

  Elkins looked doubtful.

  “I mean what I say.” Avery paused to let his words sink in and then took a different tack. “Jack was a good friend, wasn’t he?”

  Elkins’s expression softened. “Damn good friend, while he was here. Least he got to leave. I ain’t going nowhere. Got Lou Gehrig’s disease. Pretty soon I won’t be able to get out of this damn wheelchair and walk around.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. That’s got to be hard on a man like you.”

  Elkins nodded appreciatively. “Jack knew how much I hated the idea of becoming completely housebound. We’d talked about me going to the ranch on a furlough before it got too bad. Man, I was really looking forward to it.”

  “Maybe you can still go,” Avery suggested. “I’ll remind him about the furlough idea when I see him. Did he ever talk about the ranch?”

  “He was real proud of it. Said he had his own place, and his boy lived with his wife in a beautiful ranch house a mile away. They even have a ranch manager.”

  “Did he say where it was?”

  “Not really, except one time he grinned and said it was near where the Wild Bunch once roamed.”

  “The Wild Bunch?”

  Elkins nodded. “An old-time cowboy gang of thieves and robbers, is what he told me.”

  “Have you been in touch with Jack since he left?”

  “I sent him a note and he called after he got it.”

  “Why did you write?”

/>   “So that he’d know cops were looking for his boy. At the time, I didn’t know they were imposters.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Same thing, those two ex-cops who came here pretending to be the real McCoy.”

  “That’s it?”

  “More or less.”

  “Do you have his address?”

  “In my room.”

  Avery followed Elkins, who refused to let him push the wheelchair, into the patient living area, down a long hallway with private rooms on each side. Bud’s room had a shelf of paperback novels and a large reproduction of an old navy recruiting poster featuring a pretty WAVE, framed and hung on the wall. A photograph of young Elkins in uniform standing on the foredeck of a destroyer sat on his bedside table. On the table was a cell phone.

  Jack Page’s address was a box number at the Silver City Post Office. Avery wrote it down, and asked Elkins if he’d received Jack’s phone call through the center or on his personal cell phone.

  “On my cell phone, why?”

  “Did you save the number?”

  Elkins grabbed his phone. “I never erase anything.”

  “I’d like to have that number.”

  “I don’t have to give you that. You’ve already got his mailing address.”

  Avery shook his head in dismay. “This is not the time to become uncooperative, Bud.”

  “Why is that?” Elkins snapped.

  “Because it’s a crime not to assist an officer conducting a lawful investigation when you have the ability to do so. It’s called obstructing justice.”

  Elkins snorted and handed Avery the phone. “There’s a law against everything. Damn country is going to hell.”

  Avery scrolled through the incoming call log. There were dozens of entries. “When did Jack call?”

  “I don’t remember, but it was the last call I got.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Bud nodded.

  Avery found it, wrote down the number, which had a 907 area code, and handed the phone back to Elkins. “Thanks.”

  “You gonna leave me alone now?” Bud grumbled.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  He shook Bud’s hand and left. In the parking lot he looked up the 907 area code. It covered Alaska except for a tiny community in the southeastern part of the state near the border to British Columbia. He dialed the number and got a “no longer in service” message. Probably a burn phone, he figured. He headed for the post office.

  North Hudson Street, a major thoroughfare, ran past the historical part of Silver City where the charm of the town was safely encapsulated and out of sight of the sprawl of relentless growth. The post office was a relatively new facility. Inside, Avery learned that Jack Page had been a box holder continuously for over twenty-five years. The street address on the original application was on High Street in Duncan, Arizona. The box had been renewed annually by credit card.

  Without proper authorization from a postal inspector, no further information could be released.

  He left a note asking the inspector to call, and drove to his no-frills budget motel on the U.S. 180 strip. Inside his room, he cranked up his laptop, searched for “wild bunch,” and came up with two different gangs. The Doolin-Dalton Gang had operated out of Oklahoma. Butch Cassidy’s Gang had worked on a ranch near Alma, New Mexico, for a time. Avery knew about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, had seen the movie years ago, but didn’t recall anything about a New Mexico hideout.

  Was it a true story, or just a folktale? He needed verification. He found an online magazine article that gave credence to the story, citing a British army captain who’d met Cassidy at a ranch near Alma, where he’d been employed as the assistant ranch manager under the alias Jim Lowe.

  A website out of Wyoming had Cassidy owning a saloon in Alma, also under the name of Jim Lowe.

  To be certain it wasn’t all malarkey, Avery searched for one more citation, and found it in a South Dakota historical journal. The article said that William Ellsworth Lay, one of Cassidy’s best friends and gang members, had signed on with him at the Alma ranch in 1898.

  That sealed it for Avery. Alma was where he had to go. But first he wanted to pinpoint the location. Nearly all prepaid cell phone providers piggybacked on the major communication networks. He accessed a website that would identify the cell towers between Silver City and Reserve, the county seat of Catron County. Four major cellular phone companies used common towers in the area that extended to Glenwood, sixty miles north. But beyond Glenwood to Reserve it was almost a dead zone, with only two towers operating. Both were rated poorly, with spotty reception and weak signal strength.

  About to give up, Avery scrolled through consumer reviews on the off chance Jack Page may have complained about his service, until an advertisement popped up about cell towers or cell sites private ­individuals could lease. It hadn’t occurred to Avery that ordinary folks could do that.

  Maybe Jack Page was forced to drive somewhere to get adequate reception to make a wireless call. Or maybe he had access to a privately leased cell tower.

  A quick search told him there were over three hundred thousand cell towers in the country. Avery found a federal government website that showed the location of cell towers nationwide. He zeroed in on a map of the western half of New Mexico, and there it was, a cell tower leased and operated by SM Enterprises outside of Alma, New Mexico.

  He switched to a search for accommodations in Alma, found only one, a ranch bunkhouse already booked, and settled on a cabin in Glenwood, a few miles south. In ten minutes he was packed, checked out, in his unmarked unit, and on his way.

  The owner of the Glenwood cabins, Darryl Wheatley, took Avery’s state-government-issued credit card, looked at the unmarked police unit parked in front of the office, and shook his head as he processed the charge.

  “What?” Avery asked.

  Wheatley scratched his mustache. “Must be something going on. I had DEA agents staying here. Last one left yesterday. Now you.”

  Avery’s interest was piqued. “DEA? You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, looking for some fugitive hiding out in the woods, or something like that.”

  “That’s what they said?”

  Wheatley nodded in the direction of the diner across the road. “That’s what they talked about over dinner.”

  “You know that for sure?”

  “The wife runs the place. Ask her.”

  “I will. Know of anybody in the area around Alma with a cell tower on their property?”

  Wheatley’s congenial expression faded. “Can’t say that I do.” He handed Avery his credit card and a key. “Cabin three. Enjoy your stay.”

  At the diner, Avery ordered lunch and, while he waited, questioned Wheatley’s wife, Karen, a woman with thick arms and a wide body.

  “They were sure looking for someone,” Karen said, “but I didn’t catch a name. Two of them left that night while the other one stayed on. Are you looking for the same fella?”

  “Right now I’m trying to find a cell tower. Know of any nearby?”

  “Don’t think there is one, or I’d have heard about it. Your meal will be up shortly.” She stepped away to clear a recently vacated table.

  Avery’s cell phone had a signal strength of two, meaning there was wireless service, but not what he’d hoped for. As he waited for his meal he studied the landscape watercolors of local scenes hung on the walls, all painted by Eunice Sommerville, an eighty-nine-year-old resident. He wondered if Eunice would also lie to him if he asked her about a cell tower.

  Who were the DEA agents looking for? Somebody growing pot in the national forest? A Mexican mule running drugs across the border? His meal came, and he dug in. No sense ruminating on an empty stomach. After dinner, he’d get the names of the cops who’d stayed at the cabins and run their license plate numbers from the guest log.

  CHAPTER 30

  Before breakfast, Clayton gave Dalquist his notes and asked him to find a way to
run a quiet background check on Carl Yeager, the salvage yard owner. He reached out to a small-town New Mexico police chief who owed him a favor. When the report arrived, it showed Yeager had lied about never living in Duncan. Plus, he’d been busted twice for DWI and arrested once for failure to pay child support. He was currently thousands of dollars behind in payments for his three children to the California Department of Child Support Services.

  Dalquist decided to pay Yeager a visit. He found him alone in his small office, eating a microwaved burrito.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked between bites.

  Dalquist smiled. “The more important question is, what can I do for you?”

  Yeager looked at Dalquist in his expensive suit, white shirt, and tie, and scowled. “You a lawyer?”

  Dalquist nodded.

  “How did the bitch find me?”

  “She hasn’t yet. That’s entirely up to you.”

  “How so?”

  “Answer a few questions, and I won’t tell her where you are.”

  “What questions?”

  “You spoke to a colleague of mine recently about a man named Jack Page.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Do Jack and his son pay you for your silence?”

  Yeager’s eyes widened. “Not me, but I’ve heard about that from some folks up in Catron County.”

  “Did you hear it from a man named Vic, who might have worked for the Pages?”

  Yeager nodded.

  “Tell me about Vic,” Dalquist said.

  “Like I told the other guy, I just knew his name, that’s all.”

  Dalquist shook his head. “I’m thinking either Vic was a good customer you got to know, or you knew him from before. Why didn’t you admit you’d lived in Duncan?”

  Yeager licked his lips. “Vic isn’t from Duncan.”

  Dalquist smiled. “So you do know him. What’s his full name?”

  “Knew him,” Yeager countered. “Victor Landis. I haven’t seen him in several years.”

  Dalquist pushed. “Why lie about not knowing him?”