Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [56]
“Or maybe she violated the terms of her agreement with Clifford and he found out about it,” Ramona said.
“Exactly,” Ellie said. “If we could prove that, we’d have a solid motive for murder.”
“So let’s find out if there have been any other lovers in Claudia’s life during the past four years,” Ramona said.
“It’s a deal,” Ellie said. “Keep in touch.”
“Talk to you later,” Ramona said.
She disconnected, turned the house search over to a senior detective, and headed back to the jail. Although Mitch Griffin had denied any sexual involvement with Claudia, Ramona decided it was time to push the subject a bit harder with him to see where it led.
Kerney’s house was built on a shallow depression along a gently sloping ridgeline above a red sandstone canyon. From the portal that ran the length of the south-facing house, he could look down on the meadow below. Cut by a wandering, sandy arroyo and bordered by a stand of old cottonwood trees, the meadow was frequently visited by a small herd of antelope that grazed on the native bunch grasses that grew in the poor soil.
Beyond the canyon, the Galisteo Basin stretched out to meet the Ortiz Mountains, which tumbled against the higher peaks of the Sandias, a good fifty miles distant. Behind the house, a swath of pine-studded pastureland rose up a hill, framed in the background by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Santa Fe.
In Spanish, Sangre de Cristo meant “blood of Christ.” Tradition had it that the mountains were so named by the Spanish settlers because of the deep red color that washed over the peaks at sunset. To the native people who had lived at the foot of the mountains for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived, they were “the place where the sun danced.”
To Kerney, both names perfectly described the mountains. At times, he’d seen a deep mahogany-red color tint the peaks, and on certain monsoon days had watched shafts of sunlight flit like nimble waves across the rain-darkened range. One night he’d stood in awe as the full moon rose, backlighting a bank of clouds behind the mountains, creating a creamy white mantle that draped down to the foothills.
With Sara and Patrick on the other side of the country, Kerney filled his free time with home improvement projects that kept his hands busy and his mind occupied. His latest undertaking was a rock wall that, when finished, would enclose a long planting bed on the east side of the house. He’d bought a truckload of flat landscaping rock from a quarry and was teaching himself how to cut, fit, and dry stack the stone to create a three-foot-high wall. So far, he’d trenched the foundation and leveled the grade. Now it was time to start laying in the largest, widest stones as the base course.
He arrived home, changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and started working up a sweat in the late afternoon sun. He’d planned the wall to curve and join up with the end of the south-facing portal, and he found that cutting the stones to make the bend was no easy matter.
He stood up to get another rock and saw a car enter the ranch road through the meadow and move up the hill. Even from a distance Kerney could see it was an unmarked police unit. The make of the vehicle, the spotlight mounted on the driver-side door, and the two trunk-mounted antennas were dead giveaways. But he didn’t have any idea who the driver might be.
At a hose bib, he splashed water on his face, wiped a sleeve over his damp, matted hair, put his cap back on, and walked to the car as it slowed to a stop in the driveway.
Agent Joe Valdez got out and walked to him. “Building a wall?” he asked as he shook Kerney’s hand.
“Trying to,” Kerney asked. “What brings you out to the boonies?”
“I’m driving down to Carlsbad for an early morning meeting,” Joe said as he walked over to the line of rocks Kerney had laid. “Since you’re on my way, I thought I’d stop by to tell you what I’ve learned about Clifford Spalding.”
Valdez knelt down and studied the partial line of rock Kerney had placed in the trench. “Are you planning to dry stack or