Under the Color of Law (20 page)

Search-and-rescue, along with the state police, had been called out, but a heavy snowstorm had blanketed the mountains and stalled overnight efforts to find him.

To have Santiago Terjo go missing was one thing. But to lose a second possible informant in the Phyllis Terrell homicide seemed highly improbable.

He called Glenn Bollinger, the Red River town marshal, who'd served under Kerney back in the days when he'd been chief of detectives.

Bollinger told him that although Stewart had yet to be found, the storm had broken and a search team had just started moving up the mountain.

After asking Bollinger to check carefully for foul play, Kerney left a voice message for Helen Muiz at the office to cancel all his appointments. The phone rang when he hung up.

"You've been busy this morning," Sara said.

"I've been trying to get through to you for the last ten minutes."

"The joys of the job," Kerney said.

"Everybody wants to talk to the police chief. I'm sorry I didn't call you back last night."

"You're forgiven. Are we still on for the weekend?"

"I think so."

"That's not a firm answer, Kerney."

"I'll free up some time for you."

Sara laughed.

"That's very considerate. Do you know what love is, Kerney?"

"Tell me."

"The inability to keep your hands off your sweetie pie. Gotta run.

Another class is about to start."

"I miss you."

"Rest up for the weekend," Sara said.

Sara disconnected and Kerney took off for Red River. *** The curving snow-packed road that followed the Rio Grande River north to Taos made for slow going. Greeted by a clear blue sky, Kerney topped out on the high plateau south of Taos where white-capped mountains dominated to the east and to the west the river cut a deep gorge in the high plains. Snow had rolled down the foothills, cloaked the rangeland, bathed the forest, and drifted against the brown adobe buildings lining the narrow main street that cut through the old part of Taos.

Kerney kept his radio tuned to the state police frequency and monitored the search-and-rescue team's progress. At Questa, a small village economically hammered by the closing of a molybdenum mine, he made the turn for the last ten-mile stretch to Red River just as the report on the state police band came in that Stew art's body had been found. He keyed the microphone, identified himself, and asked the somewhat startled state police officer to leave the body untouched and keep the area clear. Glenn Bollinger cut in at the end of Kerney's transmission and said he had the scene secured.

The walls of the narrow valley pinched together as Kerney ran a silent code three, pushing his unit to the limit on the icy pavement. He passed a mountainous slag pile that had polluted the nearby river for years while mine operators kept insisting that the government's environmental studies were flawed.

The hills closed in around him, hiding the mountains. Wooded slopes buried in fresh powder lined the small river that gave the town its name and hid the watercourse from view. He drove into the village and the valley widened to reveal a towering sub alpine peak with gleaming ski runs glaring white under a full sun. The state highway cut through the town, spoiling the spaghetti-Western motif of the buildings that had sprung up as the local merchants discovered there was more gold to be mined from the pockets of Texas tourists than from the veins of ore left in the mountains.

Kerney pulled into the ski-area parking lot, where he spotted Glenn Bollinger standing at the bottom of the kiddie run. Bol linger waved to him in a hurry-up motion when he got out of the car.

Kerney didn't know what had Bollinger so excited, but he did know that the full-size sedan following him from Santa Fe had turned back at the Questa intersection. He put a small evidence kit he'd taken from the glove box in his coat and crossed the parking lot.

Bundled up against the cold, Glenn Bollinger watched Kerney move carefully across the icy parking lot, favoring his bum leg. He thought back to the time Kerney had been shot by a drug dealer in a Santa Fe barrio. Bollinger had been in the neighborhood doing a burglary follow-up when the officer-down call came in on the radio. He'd arrived at the scene within minutes, to find Officer Terry Yazzi kneeling over an unconscious Kerney, trying to stem the blood flow from a stomach wound that looked fatal. A bullet had also shattered Kerney's knee.

Yards away lay the lifeless body of the drug dealer, with two center-mass shots in the chest. Critically wounded, Kerney had put the asshole down before going into shock and passing out.

Nobody in the department expected Kerney to recover, let alone resurrect his career, yet somehow he did both. Bollinger found it all totally amazing.

Kerney looked good, Bollinger decided, as he came closer. A little older perhaps, but still fit. His cold-weather gear consisted of blue jeans, a felt cowboy hat, and pair of sturdy hiking boots that showed beneath a rancher's-style three-quarter-length winter coat. He's still doing the cowboy thing, Bollinger thought to himself. Of course, he'd been born to it.

"Damn, I'm glad you called me," Bollinger said with a smile as Kerney drew near.

"If you hadn't, Stewart's death would've been written off as accidental.

Instead I've got myself a homicide. First one since I've been here."

"How was he murdered?" Kerney asked, shaking Bollinger's hand.

"Blunt trauma to the head, made to look like he slammed into a tree at full speed," Bollinger replied.

"His leg hit the tree, all right; you can see little bits of bark in the gash and the blood around the wound, along with pine needles on his clothing below his waist. But the head wound shows only bruising and a deep laceration, with no foreign matter imbedded in the flesh. The new snow kept everything nice, clean, and frozen. There was nothing at the scene that pointed to a collision between Stewart's head and the tree."

Bollinger grinned.

"To the search-and-rescue guys it looked like just another dumb skier who went too fast down a mountain, lost control, and wiped out. The medical examiner thought so too."

"Who's your ME?" Kerney asked.

"We've got several. The guy who took the call is a former Taos County deputy sheriff. You know that department's reputation. Need I say more?"

"Any other physical evidence?"

"Nope. About a foot and a half of new snow fell starting yesterday morning, and the runs were groomed at four this morning before the search-and-rescue team started out. We found no tracks or footprints.

I've got the ski run closed and the crime scene cordoned off."

"Was anyone skiing with Stewart?" Kerney asked.

"His wife said he went up the mountain alone."

"Has she been told?"

"Yeah, but only that her husband is dead, not that he was murdered."

"Where is she?"

"At my girlfriend's place with her two boys."

"You've got a girlfriend, Glenn?"

Bollinger grinned again.

"Had to, Kerney. The winters up here are just too cold and the nights are too long. I hear you got married."

"Had to," Kerney replied with his own grin.

"The woman was just too irresistible."

Bollinger gestured at the ski lift.

"Want to take a ride to the top? The view is real pretty."

Kerney eyed the mountain. It looked extremely cold and uninviting. He had been raised on a ranch in the desert basin of the Tularosa, and while he found winter scenes aesthetically pleasing, he didn't like to do anything more than look at them from a distance.

"Just don't make me ski down that mountain," he said.

Bollinger chuckled.

"We'll get you down safe and sound. But if you come up on your days off, I'll give you some lessons and have you skiing in a couple of hours."

"Not on that slope or on this knee," Kerney replied, tapping his right leg.

"That leg won't keep you from mastering the kiddie run, Kerney."

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Care to tell me what made you suspicious about Stewart's disappearance ?"

"Its probably better if you don't know," Kerney said.

Bollinger's entire contingent of three officers controlled the crime scene, which consisted of keeping a well-equipped group of searchers far away from the body at the edge of the ski run. Standing in a tight circle, the men were jawing over the homicide with a state police officer and the medical examiner, and sipping coffee out of insulated, covered mugs.

Kerney got introduced around and then trudged with Bollinger through the snow to the yellow tape surrounding Stewart's body. There were footprints all around the corpse and the body had been moved from its original position. Except where the snow had been carefully cleaned away from his forehead, Stewart's face resembled a stark white frozen plaster cast. The leg wound had been revealed in a similar fashion.

Glenn told him the scene had been photographed, including a number of close-up shots of the wounds, and the snow he'd removed to expose the wounds had been saved in evidence vials for further analysis.

With Bollinger following, Kerney stepped over the crime-scene tape, knelt next to the body, and studied Stewart's face. The hard freeze and new snow had kept swelling around the wound to a minimum, The bleeding out of one ear looked like a long solidified dark crystal droplet. The forehead laceration showed a slightly angled horizontal groove and one circular imprint in the skin. The pattern injury was unusual.

Kerney looked up at Bollinger.

"I noticed that too," Glenn said.

"What do you think?" Kerney asked.

Bollinger unholstered his semiautomatic sidearm.

"Thumped hard with one of these is my guess."

"Mine too," Kerney said.

"I want the body taken to Santa Fe for an autopsy and a forensic work-up. But don't transport right away." He handed Bollinger the small evidence kit.

"Have your search and-rescue people thaw him out enough so the ME can take hair, blood, and skin samples for me."

"We'll put him in a toasty ambulance and warm him up," Bollinger said.

He holstered his weapon and looked quizzically at Kerney.

"Should I even bother asking what you're hoping to learn?"

"Probably not," Kerney said. The knee tortured him as he stood up.

"You did a good job here, Glenn. Can you hold off on telling the news media or anyone else who might be interested that Stewart was murdered?"

Bollinger shrugged.

"If I'm asked, I'll say we're waiting on the autopsy report.

How much time do you need?"

"Eight hours will do. More if you can swing it."

"I'll do what I can," Bollinger replied, glancing back at the group that watched impatiently from a distance.

"All of those guys owe me at least one favor. That doesn't mean that the news won't leak out. This is a small town."

"Just try to keep the leak from spreading to Santa Fe too fast," Kerney said.

In his office at the state police headquarters, Andy Baca took a call from Melody Jordan, a senior crime-scene technician. She curtly asked him to visit her in the lab right away and hung up before he could ask any questions. Andy put the phone down and the button on his very private phone line blinked off.

Only his wife, his secretary, Kevin Kerney, the governor's chief of staff, and a few high-ranking commanders in the department had access to the number. Melody Jordan wasn't one of them.

Andy dialed Melody's extension, dropped the handset in the cradle after twelve unanswered rings, and checked the time. He had ten minutes before a scheduled meeting. The state police lab did most of the forensic testing for local police departments, including the Santa Fe cop shop.

Only Kevin Kerney would've been able to get Melody to pull such a stunt.

He went to the laboratory to find out what Kerney wanted.

Through a window in the lab he saw Kerney and Melody Jordan standing in front of a stainless-steel table in the small clean room, a sterile environment designed to ensure no contaminants adversely affected DNA testing results. He watched as they filled out evidence labels, attached them to fluid vials and evidence bags, and sealed everything in a Plexiglas box.

They stepped out of the clean room and removed their white lab coats and plastic gloves. Melody Jordan gave Andy a disconcerted look.

Kerney had a gleam in his eye.

Ignoring Kerney, Andy smiled reassuringly at Melody.

"You called?" he asked blithely.

Melody blushed in embarrassment.

Kerney intervened.

"Blame Melody's phone call on me, Andy."

"I already had that figured out. Why are you here taking up Ms. Jordan's valuable time?"

"She ran a few tests for me," Kerney said.

"I thought you'd be interested in the results."

"You have my undivided attention."

"I've analyzed the hair, skin, and blood samples taken from Scott Gatlin with the remaining physical evidence we have from the Terrell case,"

Melody said.

"Phyllis Terrell did have sex with Scott Gatlin prior to her death."

Andy shot Kerney a quizzical look.

"So the FBI let you confirm their findings.

What's the big deal?"

"That's not quite how it happened," Kerney said.

"How did it happen?"

Kerney turned to Melody.

"Will you give me a few minutes alone with Chief Baca?"

Melody nodded and left the room.

"Well?" Andy said.

"Charlie Perry faked the DNA findings. The night Phyllis Terrell died her bed partner was a neighbor named Randall Stewart, not Scott Gatlin.

The whole FBI investigation is a scam-their evidence, Gatlin's confession, and his suicide."