Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [40]
“So he burns all the information she’d gathered over the years just before their divorce,” Kerney replied with a shake of his head, “and openly denigrates her to their mutual friends. I don’t buy it.”
“People do ugly things when they get divorced,” Andy said.
“I also have trouble with the scarcity of information contained in the police file I reviewed. There was no documentation that Alice Spalding’s assertion that a newspaper photograph showed her son to still be alive had ever been proven false. The photograph was missing, as were the statements of people who identified the subject as someone other than George Spalding.”
“So track them down and talk to them,” Andy said. “That should satisfy your curiosity about whether or not Clifford Spalding was hiding something from the ex.”
“Can’t,” Kerney said. “Neither were identified by name, just referenced in passing by the police captain I spoke with, who seemed a little uncomfortable with my questions.”
“Do you think this captain was helping Spalding keep the truth from his ex?” Andy asked.
“I don’t know,” Kerney said. “But another point troubles me. Look at the sequence of events. Thirty-some years ago, George Spalding allegedly dies in Nam.”
“Verified by military authorities,” Andy said.
“Soon after the helicopter crash, George Spalding’s girlfriend goes missing, never to be found, and his father, owner of a mom-and-pop Albuquerque motel, starts building a hotel empire.”
“Which means what, if anything?” Andy asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Maybe Spalding cashed in his son’s G.I. life insurance policy and parlayed it into his first big step up the corporate food chain.”
“Maybe, but again, I don’t know,” Kerney answered.
“You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
“Not yet. I’ve started background checks on all the players, but I could use some help from your department.”
“To do what?”
“To chase down information on Clifford Spalding’s early business dealings in New Mexico,” Kerney said. “Can you free up some of Joe Valdez’s time to take a look?”
Agent Joseph Valdez, a certified public accountant with a master ’s in business administration, handled most of the financial crime cases for the state police, which meant he was usually overworked.
“Not easily,” Andy said.
“It doesn’t have to be given priority,” Kerney said.
“Here’s what I’ll do,” Andy said after a pause. “You talk to Joe. Tell him what you know and what you want to know. If he’s interested and willing to peck away at it, then it’s okay with me. But don’t expect too much. He’s a busy man.”
Kerney smiled. “That went a lot smoother than I expected. Thanks.”
Andy paid the check and stood. “I know how you are, stubborn and bullheaded. Why should I waste my time letting you wear me down until I finally give you what you want?”
Kerney laughed and added some money to the tip. “Come on, admit it. This is worth taking a look at.”
“Either that, or you have an overactive imagination,” Andy replied with a grin.
Ramona Pino brought in a squad of four detectives to assist in the hunt for Dean and the search of his pharmacy and residence. She assigned two of them to work the pharmacy. The others followed her to Dean’s house in Canada de los Alamos, a small settlement in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains a few miles southeast of Santa Fe.
Once part of a land grant, Canada de los Alamos had remained a sleepy, forgotten place well into the 1960s. Situated next to the national forest in a protected valley, it held a mixture of mobile homes, small adobe houses, and a growing number of more upscale residences that had been built by newcomers over the past forty years. Anchored by a pretty church along a dirt road that cut through the center of the valley, the settlement had no businesses or stores.
Old fences, corrals, sheds, and outbuildings that bordered an arroyo still gave the area a rural feel. But the landscape was changing, and it wasn’t only because of a recent increase in population. Drought had so dried out the piñon and ponderosa forest that the