Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [83]
A few minutes passed before the door opened to reveal a small, lean, elderly woman with sharp features magnified by a peevish expression.
Kerney held out his badge case. “Mrs. Kessler, I’m with the Santa Fe Police Department.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Mrs. Kessler said, without a hint of humor. “Whatever do you want?”
“I’d like you to tell me what you know about Debbie Calderwood.”
Kessler’s slate-gray eyes registered no expression, but she wrinkled her nose a bit at the mention of Debbie’s name. “Debbie?” she said. “I haven’t seen or heard from her in over thirty years.”
“Is she related to you?” Kerney asked.
Kessler bared her tiny teeth in a tight, polite smile. “Why are you asking me about her?”
“I’m attempting to locate her,” Kerney replied.
“Well, I’m certainly not someone who can help you,” Kessler said, her voice tinged with displeasure.
“Learning about Debbie’s family could be very helpful. I’d appreciate hearing whatever you can tell me.”
Kessler stayed silent for a long moment, so Kerney prodded her a bit. “This is an official police investigation, Mrs. Kessler.”
“Debbie was my first husband’s niece,” Kessler said tonelessly. “Her parents relocated to Arkansas after she finished high school. She stayed behind to go to college and moved into a dormitory on campus. Then she got caught up in all that antiwar, free speech movement that was going on at the time, and started using drugs.”
“You didn’t approve of her behavior?”
“No, we didn’t. Her parents laid the blame for her poor judgment on our doorstep, said we hadn’t looked out for her enough. It caused a rift between my husband and his brother that never healed.”
Mrs. Kessler obviously wasn’t one to forgive and forget. Kerney played into it. “That must have been very unpleasant for you and your husband.”
“Indeed, it was. We tried to help Debbie as much as we could. We gave her things to furnish her dorm room, had her over for Sunday dinners, even paid to have her car fixed when it broke down. All it got us was criticism from her parents, especially after Debbie dropped out of college and ran away.”
“Did she ever correspond with you after she left Albuquerque?”
“Not a word of thanks or anything else,” Kessler said emphatically.
“Young people can be so thoughtless,” Kerney said. It earned him a surprised look of approval. “Did she maintain contact with her parents?”
“I don’t know,” Kessler said as her expression cooled. “After Debbie left, we had nothing more to do with them other than a polite exchange of Christmas cards each year.”
“Are they still living in Arkansas?”
“They’re both deceased.”
“Does Debbie have any siblings?”
“She was an only child.”
“What about a boyfriend?” Kerney asked.
“If she had one, we never met him,” Kessler answered.
“Does the name George Spalding mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Did she ever talk about boys?”
“Not with us,” Kessler said. “She wasn’t close to us in that way.”
“What about girlfriends, or her college roommate?”
She made a bitter face. “In truth, except for the help we provided, Debbie wanted very little to do with us. We were much too conventional and uptight, as she so often liked to remind us.”
“You never met any of her friends?”
“She often brought someone with her when she came to get a free meal. But the only one we saw more than once was her roommate, Helen. She at least had been brought up well enough to say thank you and offer to help with the dishes.”
“What else can you tell me about her?”
“She was from Santa Fe. She was studying art history. My husband liked to tease her about doing something more practical.”
“Have you seen Helen since those years?” Kerney asked.
“Once, in Santa Fe, when I was there for the day with a friend. She was working in an art gallery on Canyon Road. Somehow she recognized me and asked for news of Debbie. They’d lost touch with each other. Of course, I could tell her nothing.”
“When was that?”
“At least ten years ago.”
“Do you remember where you saw her?”
“No, but I