Murder on Sagebrush Lane (2 page)

3

Caroline Johnson loved her job, and on this particular morning felt grateful for the way fate often served up its surprises. Who would have thought less than three years ago she would be so content at this stage of her life?

She parked her car in front of Southwest Editorial Services and noted it was just before seven. No other cars were there yet, and that suited her. She enjoyed the solitude that allowed her to plan for the day. She could get a head start on whatever problems needed her attention before the rest of the staff arrived at eight. Her daughter-in-law Harrie, and Harrie’s friend Ginger Vaughn, owned the company and worked in the office most days. Caroline, as their Office Manager, had supervised a full staff of editors and typists for more than three years now. She didn’t need the work—she had plenty of money. But she planned to continue as long as Harrie and Ginger needed her.

She wasn’t surprised when she saw the blinking message light on her phone. Clients often called at all hours and left messages. She learned early on that writers were a different breed. Many of them preferred working late at night or in the very early morning hours. If they had questions or problems, they felt free to call and leave messages on voice mail. It worked out fine for everyone.

She dialed the code to retrieve her messages, and jotted down notes as she listened to each. The last message came from Harrie. She sounded breathless and agitated.

“Caroline, I don’t know when or if I’ll be in today. Sorry to dump this on you at the last minute, but we have a tiny situation here. There’s nothing wrong with DJ or me, but we have an unexpected guest to deal with this morning, and I don’t know how long it will take. Could you please call Dr. Mead and tell him I’ll phone him tomorrow and reschedule our meeting? Also I need you to gather up the last hundred pages of his manuscript if it gets typed today. I’ll need it when I meet with him. Don’t worry. I’ll fill you in on everything as soon as I can. Oh, and tell Ginger I’ll call her, too. I just don’t know when.”

The message ended, and Caroline hung up the phone. Her imagination conjured up all sorts of scenarios to explain Harrie’s agitation, and who the unexpected visitor might be. She shook her head and smiled. Life had not been dull since she met Harrie and Ginger.

Ginger arrived shortly before eight, and Caroline went in to give her Harrie’s message.

“What’s going on? Is there a problem? Why didn’t she call me?” Ginger, as usual, went in to her protective mother mode.

Caroline said, “Nothing is wrong, at least not with Harrie or DJ. Beyond that and the message she left, I don’t know. You could try to call her, but she sounded . . . ” Caroline paused and searched for the right words, “she sounded excited and tense at the same time. She promised she’d call you as soon as she could.”

“I don’t know,” Ginger said and frowned. “She knows this kind of thing makes me crazy. Why wouldn’t she just call me on my cell?

Caroline shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. She said she’d call as soon as she could. She must be involved in something important. I’m sure we’ll hear from her soon.

Ginger tapped her index finger on the telephone. Caroline recognized that as a sign she was weighing the pros and cons of preempting Harrie by calling her first. The two friends seem to share a mysterious wavelength that allowed them to function at times by instinct. Ginger tapped the phone firmly one last time and reached for her coffee mug.

“I’ll give her half an hour. If she doesn’t call back by then, I’m heading over there.”

4

It seemed to Harrie that several hours had passed since she found the little girl playing in the flowerbeds. A glance at the kitchen clock told her it had been only three. Her house had become a temporary meeting place for the swarm of police officers sent to the scene. She pulled out another package of Styrofoam cups and filled two of them from the freshly brewed pot.

“Who needs more coffee?” She held out the steaming cups, and attracted the attention of the two closest men.

“You didn’t really have to do this, Ma’am.” Officer Harley, the younger of the two, shyly claimed one of the cups. He blushed furiously when his hand briefly touched Harrie’s.

“But we do appreciate the fact that you did,” said his seasoned partner as he reached for his coffee and frowned at Harley. The young officer blushed again when Harrie flashed him a big smile. The older officer leaned over to him and whispered, “Forget it, Harley. She’s way out of your league, and she’s married to an FBI agent.”

At that moment Lt. Bob Swanson, who was a friend of theirs and a seasoned detective from the Intel Unit, walked into the kitchen from the garage. He frowned at his coffee-sipping colleagues as they passed him, then smiled at Harrie. “You don’t have to wait on us like that. We appreciate your making coffee, but we can serve ourselves. Come sit for a while. You’ve had quite a morning.” He steered her into the family room.

Harrie shook her head. “It’s nice of you to look out for me Swannie, but I can’t sit still. I tried, I really did, but I have to keep busy.” She looked at her watch, shook it and looked at it again. Impatience tinged her voice. “Haven’t you found out anything yet?”

Swannie scanned the crowd of people in the family room, then focused his attention on Harrie. He lowered his voice. “Where’s the child?”

“She’s in the guest room. While we waited for you, she fell asleep in my arms. Poor little thing fought it off as long as she could. When I carried her in and put her down, she didn’t even wake up. What did you find in the house?”

Swannie’s jaw tightened, and he put both hands on Harrie’s shoulders. “Lots of blood and the body of a man missing his face.”

Last night’s bloody dream surged back into Harrie’s memory, and she felt her stomach churn. Then another thought occurred to her. “My God! You don’t think that child saw what happened, do you?”

“I don’t know if she saw the murder, but I’d take odds on her being in the house when it happened.” Swannie noticed Harrie’s ashen face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I will sit.” She reached for the nearest chair and dropped into it, shaken by the implication of his words.

DJ hurried over and knelt beside Harrie. “What’s wrong?” He looked up at Swannie. “What happened? What did you say to her?”

Swannie motioned to DJ, and they walked into the kitchen. “There’s a dead guy in that house, DJ. It’s pretty bad. The M.E. can’t say yet how he died, but probably by being bludgeoned. We can’t rule anything out though, until after the autopsy.” Swannie filled him in on more of the details. He looked over at Harrie. “I guess I shouldn’t have told her the part about him having no face.”

DJ shook his head, “No, it’s okay. There’s no way she would have let you out of here without hearing some of what you discovered. Do we know this guy’s identity?”

Swannie took a notepad from his breast pocket and consulted it. “We found a driver’s license in a wallet upstairs in the master bedroom. The name on it is Michael Rinaldi, age 35, five feet eleven inches, 175 pounds, blue eyes, black hair. We’re assuming that’s the body in the living room. We also found a Sandia National Labs security badge on the dresser. I called their Human Resources office and discovered Rinaldi is a kind of super computer geek there. He has a Top Secret clearance, and went to work at Sandia two years ago.”

DJ frowned. “Top Secret? That’s odd. Sandia is Department of Energy and their highest clearance is ‘Q.’ A Top Secret would indicate Department of Defense clearance. What’s his job out there?”

“He’s been working in their high security computer lab.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“They wouldn’t say. I briefly interviewed a neighbor and discovered other information. Seems the little girl’s name is Katie, and she’s just two months past her second birthday. Rinaldi’s wife died of cancer about six months ago. Everything’s been in turmoil since then.”

DJ shook his head. “I’d say that’s an understatement. What about next of kin? Does he have family here in town?”

“Not according to his neighbor to the south. She says she talked to the deceased wife a few times when they first moved in. It seems the Rinaldis moved to Albuquerque two years ago when he got the job at Sandia, and they lived in an apartment until they found this house. They’ve been in the neighborhood about a year and a half. The neighbor said they came from back East but she’s not sure where. She said they had no family and apparently not many friends.”

DJ looked down at his shoes. “Great! The poor kid has nobody.”

Swannie said, “Not so fast. The neighbor across the street said the wife—” he stopped and consulted his notes again— “Laura, had a stepsister. The neighbor said she didn’t know the stepsister’s name, but she’s been hanging around a lot ever since the wife died. Said this stepsister came out of the woodwork and told Rinaldi that Laura wanted her to take care of Katie. The neighbor said Rinaldi didn’t trust the woman and had no intention of turning his daughter over to her.”

“So you’re saying Katie has no family except the supposed aunt, a person the father didn’t approve of?”

Swannie nodded and put the notebook back in his pocket. He took a final swig of his coffee and peered into the empty cup.

DJ said, “Harrie will be all over this. She’ll want to take care of this child.” His face lit up. “Swannie, that’s it. We’ll take care of her until other arrangements are made. Katie is already comfortable with us. She’s been in either Harrie’s or my arms ever since we found her. It’s a perfect solution, don’t you think?”

Swannie frowned and shook his head. “Hang on, there’s one other thing I should have mentioned to both of you.” Swannie turned with his back to Harrie, so she wouldn’t be able to see his face as he spoke.

DJ moved closer to Swannie and whispered, “You’d better get it out quick because she’s headed this way.”

Swannie put down his empty coffee cup and said, “Fine, you get to tell her then, because I’m leaving. A representative from the Children, Youth and Families Department will be here in the next couple of hours to take temporary custody of the child.”

5

“They cannot take that little girl and put her in a state facility. I won’t allow it.” Harrie‘s fists clenched so hard her knuckles turned white, and her breathing sounded ragged and shallow. DJ had just filled her in on Katie’s parents, and the lack of extended family.

Now he pulled her to him and put his arms around her. He gently rubbed the space between her shoulders and pressed her head against his chest. “Shhh now,” he whispered. “We’ll figure out a way, but you can’t let the social worker see you this upset. It will only make things worse. You must be calm and rational when they arrive.”

Harrie took a big, deep breath, released it, and with the outflow of air, most of her anger went with it. “You’re right, of course.” She lifted her head and smiled up at him. “Thank you for being so calm and reasonable.”

They were still standing together when Ginger came through the front door and stopped in the hall. “What’s happened? Who are all these people, and why all the cop cars?”

“Oh, not much.” Harrie released DJ and went to hug her friend. “You know, just the usual: a mysterious little girl playing in my flowerbeds this morning, with blood all over her and her stuffed bear, and a dead body in a house down the street. Practically not worth mentioning.”

Ginger took Harrie by the shoulders and looked into her face. “You’d better start ‘mentioning’ or I’m gonna lose it. I’ve been so worried about you all morning. Come on, details, please.”

The two women drifted toward the kitchen. Harrie gave a dramatic account of the morning’s events, with her hands gesturing wildly, and Ginger hung on her words.

DJ slipped out of the house and went in search of Lt. Swanson. He saw him standing by his car, engrossed in a phone conversation. DJ took his own cell phone out of his pocket and pressed in a number.

“Steve, we need your advice. There’s a situation brewing here, and I need an attorney with experience in family law and the CYFD. Can you help me out?”

He briefly explained about the morning’s events and what he had in mind. He listened a few more minutes and said, “Thanks. As soon you as you can get here.”

He returned the phone to his pocket as Swannie approached. The lieutenant did not look happy.

“We have a new problem, I’m afraid. I just got off the phone with the brass. Sandia Labs is having a fit and wants the FBI to take over this investigation. They’re paranoid about a possible security breach, and they don’t want us touching anything else belonging to the victim unless they are at least ‘Q’ cleared. The Lab Director said this guy’s job is super sensitive, and they have to be sure all project-related documents or materials are secured.” Swannie slapped his thigh in frustration. “Damn,” he said, almost under his breath. “I sure as hell don’t need this right now.”

DJ said, “Did the Lab Director call our SAC, or is he expecting you to do it?”

Swannie snorted, annoyance etched in his face. “Oh, hell no. He talked personally with SAC Williams. I’ve been ordered to station our guys at all the entrances and wait until one of your crowd gets here to take over. I told them you were right here, but they said they were sending a ‘special team,’ whatever that means.”

“Look, don’t take it personally, Swannie. I’m sure your guys will still handle most of it. When the Lab Director asks the Bureau to get involved where a security breach might be a possibility, that’s where we’ll focus. You’ll probably still handle the actual murder.”

Swannie rolled his head in a small circle, and smiled when this action produced a noisy ‘crack.’ “Now, that’s much better.” He grinned at DJ. “Excuse the bitch session. I shouldn’t have sounded off like that.”

DJ grinned. “Not a problem. I understand how it is. You don’t like handing over your best cases to the Feds. In your place, I’d feel the same way.”

Swannie motioned with a nod of his head back toward Harrie and DJ’s house. “What did she say when you told her about social services coming?”

“Let’s just say it was not a fun conversation. But I have an idea of a way to handle it that could make it more palatable to her. Steve is on his way over. After we put our heads together, we might be able to brighten her day just a bit.”

Swannie slapped DJ on the back and shook his head. “I gotta hand it to you, fella. If you can do that, it’s no wonder that little gal is so partial to you. Shoot. Maybe you could give me lessons. That is, if I’m ever crazy enough to get married again.”