Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [58]
It was worth a shot.
He turned to the rock work, and started lifting out the stones he’d so carefully leveled at the bottom of the trench.
Ramona Pino had left Mitch Griffin’s house weighing a question that had troubled her all afternoon. Why had Griffin waived his rights and given carte blanche permission for the search without demanding a deal from the ADA? It made no sense. Surely, Griffin had to know what the cops would find. Was he just plain stupid, or protecting someone or something? If so, who or what?
Pino knew that a successful interrogation never happened unless you had enough information to pursue the facts by asking the right questions. Was Griffin afraid of somebody? His marijuana supplier perhaps? Or was there another, larger issue at stake that had caused Griffin to cave in so readily?
Ramona didn’t think Griffin was stupid, which meant she had to try to get a handle on his motivation before questioning him again. She stopped her unit near the on-ramp to the interstate and thought about what he might be hiding. Nothing came to mind. She decided to make some phone calls to other law enforcement agencies in the morning to see if Griffin’s name rang any bells.
Commuter traffic on the interstate had eased up. Ramona glanced at the dashboard clock, sighed, put her car in gear, and headed toward the office. Her shift had been over for hours and there was still reams of paperwork that had to be done for submission to the DA in the morning.
Sometimes she wondered why she liked her job so damn much.
Chapter 8
Kerney woke up stiff and sore. He’d worked on the garden wall until dusk, removing stones from the trench and expanding it so he could lay in a wider foundation as Joe Valdez had suggested. After a good hot soak in the shower, he dressed and drank a cup of tea at the breakfast table. Before he’d been gut shot by a drug dealer, Kerney had been a heavy coffee drinker, and sometimes he still missed the aroma and taste of it.
Always an early riser, Kerney watched dawn break through the French doors that opened onto the pergola. A thin layer of clouds on the horizon, washed pink by the first light, faded into pale ribbons as the sun bleached color from the dark blue morning sky, foretelling a still, dry day.
Across the pasture, peppered with dull green rabbitbrush and bunches of bluestem grass withered by drought, he could see the horse barn, sunlight now reflecting off the slant of the metal roof. It had stood empty since a day last summer when he’d found Soldier, a mustang he’d bought and gentled some years back, brutally slaughtered by a man who’d then tried to kill Kerney’s family.
Behind the barn at the top of the hill stood an ancient piñon tree. He’d buried Soldier in its shade and placed a boulder on top of the grave.
The tree was dead now, a victim of drought and bark beetles, the bare branches rising and jutting at odd angles against the skyline. He’d lost a lot of trees on his 1,240 acres and had cut most of them down, especially the dead thickets that dotted the land and posed the greatest fire danger. But the tree on the hilltop he’d let stand in Soldier ’s memory.
After rinsing out his cup, he walked into the living room and gathered up his keys, handheld radio, and cell phone. He took his sidearm from the locked gun cabinet, put it in a clip-on holster, and attached it to his belt. Today, he wore civvies, jeans, boots, and a white western-cut shirt, for his trip to Taos. But that would come later. First he’d stop by the office to see where things stood with Griffin and Dean, and make a call to the Taos PD to let them know he was coming and what he was looking for.
He glanced around the room. Sara’s sense of style was everywhere. The matching soft Italian leather couch and love seat were arranged to give a view through the picture window to the canyon below. Cherrywood end tables held handsome pottery reading lamps, and under the glass coffee table