Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [44]
“Tell me about Kim Dean.”
“I work for him also, when he needs me. Mostly I haul away manure, or bring fresh straw for the stalls. He does most of the other work himself.”
“What can you tell me about his relationship with Mrs. Spalding?”
Giron shrugged. “Not much. They trail ride together, usually on weekends. Sometimes I see him visiting here, sometimes Claudia is at his house. They’re good friends.”
“Do they have a favorite place to trail ride?” Kerney asked.
Giron pushed his cap back and scratched above his ear. “They like to take the horses on some property Dean owns up on the Canadian River. He bought canyon land that doesn’t have a right-of-way road access to it, so he got it for real cheap.”
“Where is it, exactly?” Kerney asked.
“I don’t know. But Tito Perea, my primo, does. Kim hired him to pack in some building supplies so he could fix up an old cabin. Tito made four or five trips with his mules two summers ago.”
“How can I reach Tito?”
“He lives in Pecos, but he isn’t home. He’s outfitting for a group of turistas who are riding in the mountains for a week.”
“I bet Tito has a cell phone,” Kerney said.
Giron laughed at himself. “I forgot. He gave me the number, but I never use it.” He pulled out his wallet, and read off Tito’s cell phone number.
Kerney helped Giron unload the hay before he left. It was too late in the day to have anyone go looking for Dean on the Canadian. Northeast of Santa Fe, the canyon lands were a place with few roads, bad trails, quicksand, twisting gorges, and dangerous rimrock passages.
If he could contact Tito Perea tonight and get directions, he’d call the Harding County sheriff in the morning and ask him to check out Dean’s cabin.
Chapter 6
Agent Joe Valdez of the state police had grown up on the east side of Santa Fe in an adobe house a few blocks away from Canyon Road. When he was in high school, his parents had sold the house at what was then a tidy profit and moved the family into a new home in a south-side subdivision. Many neighbors followed suit, and the exodus of Hispanic families quickly transformed the area into an enclave for rich Anglos.
Now, whenever a house in the old neighborhood came on the market, it was invariably advertised as “a charming, upgraded adobe within easy walking distance of the Plaza and Canyon Road,” with asking prices in the high six-figure range and beyond.
Only a few of Joe’s old neighbors had stayed put. One family, the Sandovals, still owned two houses on East Alameda, plus a property that had once been an old motor lodge built in the 1930s.
When motels replaced motor lodges, the family converted the units into a number of small retail stores. A later transformation turned the property into a boutique hotel, the very one that, according to Kerney’s notes, Clifford Spalding had leased from the Sandoval family for ninety-nine years.
Trinidad Sandoval, the patrón of the family, had rolled the dice when Spalding made his offer to lease. He mortgaged everything he owned, borrowed more money, then completely gutted the building and made major additions to it, including two-story suites with balconies, fireplaces, and hot tubs.
The risk paid off and the family became wealthy. Trinidad, now in his eighties, still lived up the street from the hotel in the unassuming house where he’d been born.
Early in the morning, Joe Valdez parked his unmarked unit under a cottonwood tree and knocked on Trinidad’s front door. He’d called the night before, asking for a few minutes of Trinidad’s time. Sandoval greeted him quickly with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.
Still arrow-straight, but an inch or two shorter than when he was in his prime, Sandoval had lost weight since Joe had last seen him. He wore a starched white shirt and pressed blue jeans pulled up high above his waist, cinched tight by a belt, and freshly polished shoes.
“What do you need to see this old man for?” Trinidad asked.
Joe smiled. “For a cup of coffee, perhaps?”
Trinidad nodded. “Come in, and tell me about your family.”
A widower for many years but doggedly