Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [27]
Santa Fe’s finest hated fiestas so much that many officers counted their years to retirement by the number of remaining celebrations they would be forced to work before they turned in their pension papers.
The meeting, held in the council chambers at city hall, brought together supervisors and commanders of all local, county, and state law-enforcement agencies, plus fire department, EMT, county jail, and hospital ER personnel. Working through the full agenda took the whole morning. Decisions were made on the streets to be closed and manned by uniformed personnel, where first-aid stations would be set up, how many personnel would be assigned to saturation foot and roving traffic patrols, the number of plainclothes, undercover, and gang-unit teams that would operate during the long weekend, and where DWI checkpoints would be established.
After setting SWAT command-and-control protocols for crowd and riot control, the meeting moved on to a discussion of what bars, liquor establishments, and convenience stores would be targeted for alcohol sales to underage drinkers, and how transportation to the jail and hospital would be coordinated.
Kerney brought the meeting to a close with a word of thanks and the announcement that he would be on vacation during the fiesta, leaving Larry Otero, his second-in-command, in charge. Because his pending retirement was now common knowledge in all the cop shops, the news was greeted with a lot of grins, head shaking, and friendly catcalls.
When the last of the group dispersed, Kerney stopped by the mayor’s office and left word that he would stay on as chief until the new administration came into office. At the personnel office he picked up the application for pension forms that needed to be submitted at least sixty days in advance of his retirement.
Paperwork in hand, Kerney left the building. In six months he would become a civilian. For many cops retirement was a difficult milestone. But with Sara and Patrick in his life Kerney felt ready and eager for the future. He smiled at his good fortune as he walked to his unit.
In preparation for the tech scout Kerney read up on the history of the Bootheel, a part of New Mexico he’d never really explored. He also surfed the Internet for information and bought some maps of the area to study. In 1853, under the Gadsden Treaty, the United States bought from Mexico over twenty-nine-million acres along the border for a paltry ten million dollars. The land purchase stretched from the Rio Grande to the junction where the Colorado and Gila Rivers joined. The deal had been struck by the government on behalf of the railroad barons, who wanted a southern route to California. Thanks to political patronage a new international boundary was surveyed and the Bootheel was born.
Eventually, at the turn of the twentieth century, the railroad had been built not to California, but to the copper mines in Arizona. Just as eventually, some sixty years later, the tracks were abandoned and dismantled, thrusting the small towns that had grown up along the right of way into free-fall decay.
The night before the tech scout was to start, Kerney drove to Deming, a small city on Interstate 10 west of Las Cruces, and stayed in a motel. Although he wasn’t due to meet up with Johnny and the movie-people party until late in the afternoon, he’d come down early so he could poke around and take a quick tour on his own.
On a bright, cloudless Friday morning Kerney rolled into Hachita, one of the Bootheel villages devastated by the loss of commerce after the railroad had pulled out. An old locomotive water tank perched on tall steel pillars stood next to the raised rubble of the railbed, still visible under the weeds and shrubby bushes that had gained a strong foothold amid the rocks. Fronting the highway that passed by the settlement stood a low-slung white building that housed a café and store.