Slow Kill - Michael Mcgarrity [87]
By the time he reached the turnoff to Canyon Road the brief moment of serenity had passed. People wandered up the middle of the narrow street snapping pictures of the quaint pueblo-style adobe buildings, drivers backed up traffic waiting for parking spaces to become available, and the open-air sightseeing trolley just in front of Kerney’s unit was filled with visitors listening to a tour guide’s thumbnail sketch of Santa Fe history blaring out from a loudspeaker.
Santa Fe, a city of 65,000 people—not counting the untold numbers of undocumented residents from Mexico and Central America—was the third largest art market in the country. It was awash with art galleries, private art dealers, art consultants, conservators, appraisers, and studio artists. There were foundries, lapidaries, glass-blowing studios, weaving shops, wood-carving shops, and ceramic studios all over town. But the largest concentration of businesses that made Santa Fe an art mecca were to be found around the Plaza and on nearby Canyon Road.
Years ago, old-timers had decried the rapid changes to the street, once a quiet, sheltered neighborhood of adobe homes, a bar or two, and a small grocery store along a dirt lane. Now the transformation was complete: shops, studios, galleries, and restaurants dominated, and the tourist dollar ruled.
Kerney parked illegally in a loading zone and walked over to the art gallery next to the restaurant where Mrs. Kessler had last seen Debbie Calderwood’s college roommate. The gallery was gone, replaced by an upscale boutique that sold fringed leather jackets, handmade western shirts, silk scarves, flowing dresses, gaudy, flowered cowboy boots—everything a gal needed to show that she had Santa Fe style.
Kerney wasn’t surprised; retail shops along the road came and went with such frequency it was almost impossible to keep track of them.
The store owner told Kerney she’d been in the same location for five years, didn’t know who had leased the space before her, and had never met the prior occupants. However, she did provide Kerney with the name of her landlord.
Kerney called the landlord from his unit and learned the building had previously been leased by a woman who now ran a gallery out of her house in the village of Galisteo, southeast of Santa Fe.
“She deals in abstract, modern art,” the man added. “A lot of it by well-known European and East Coast artists.”
“How long did she lease from you?” Kerney asked.
“About ten years.”
“What’s her name?”
“Jennifer Stover. Her number is in the business directory under the Stover-Driscoll Gallery. Driscoll is her ex-husband’s name. She sees clients only by appointment.”
Kerney got the listing from information, dialed the number, listened to a recorded message, and disconnected. He called information back and learned there was no published residential listing for either a Stover or a Driscoll in Galisteo.
When he got to his office, he’d ask the phone company to search for an unlisted number and then try to make contact with Stover again. If that didn’t work, Galisteo was ten minutes away from Kerney’s ranch. He’d swing by the village before going home in the evening and track Stover down.
From a distance, Ellie Lowrey and Lieutenant Macy watched the hushed, somber crowd assembled at the grave site. Men and women dressed in dark blue, black, and charcoal outfits stood quietly, eyes cast downward. The young children present were anchored close to their mothers’ sides to keep them still. Claudia Spalding held a bouquet of flowers and a pure white linen handkerchief in her gloved hands. An ocean breeze ruffled skirt hems, jacket lapels, and ties, and carried away the minister ’s words.
The wind died away, and for a moment the gathering looked like a staged movie scene. The open grave, the casket of polished wood with brass handles, the abundance of carefully arranged funeral