The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [12]
“Oh, stop it, Kerney,” Sara said. “You sound like a little boy with hurt feelings. Just because Clayton didn’t follow through on a dinner invitation he hastily suggested, after you left him speechless by establishing a college fund for his children, doesn’t mean he’s cold to knowing you.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“So?”
“So, I’ll try to be a grown-up.”
“Good. If I were with you, I’d be giving you sweet kisses right now.”
“As a reward for trying to be a grown-up?” Kerney asked.
“No, as a prelude to wild, abandoned sex. I’ll talk to you soon, cowboy.”
Kerney hung up smiling and returned his attention to the Montoya case file. What had he missed in the original victim profile? Unless Anna Marie had been abducted and killed randomly by a complete stranger, events in her life should point to a motive for murder.
He’d found nothing when the case was fresh, and now surely people had scattered, memories had dimmed, and hard physical evidence—if any was to be found—had vanished.
Kerney sat back in his chair and inspected the two framed lithographs Sara had helped him select for his office. One, a winter scene with a solitary horse grazing in a pasture, was centered above a bookcase on the wall opposite his desk. The second image showed an old cottonwood in summer, branches dense with leaves. It hung next to the office door.
At the time, he’d teased Sara about picking out such serene, idyllic images to hang on a police chief’s office walls.
“These are reminders,” she’d replied.
“About?”
“Places we need to find when we’re together.”
“For what purpose?” Kerney had asked.
“Are you dense, Kerney? Look at that cottonwood tree. Look at that pasture. What would we most want to do in either setting?”
“Just checking.”
Kerney put the remembrance aside and flipped through the Montoya case file one more time. It was Deputy Sheriff Clayton Istee’s homicide investigation now. He’d heard through the cop-shop grapevine that Clayton had recently switched from the tribal police to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. He called the sheriff’s dispatch number, left a message advising Clayton he’d be available to discuss the Montoya case first thing in the morning, locked up his office, and walked downstairs through the quiet, almost empty building to his unmarked unit.
Clayton bypassed the office and started work interviewing ranchers and home owners he’d missed yesterday. By the fifth stop, the responses became predictable. The canvass had turned into a see-nothing, know-nothing Q-and-A exercise. Nobody knew diddly or had a shred of useful information.
Once the formality of being questioned was out of the way, everybody tried to get some juicy gossip-talk going. He just smiled and shook his head in reply.
He contacted Sergeant Quinones and Deputy Dillingham by radio, who reported similar dead-end results. Dispatch called to advise that the local crime-stoppers organization had put up a thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to the arrest of Anna Marie’s killer. The news gave Clayton a touch of renewed enthusiasm.
When asked if he’d ever noticed anyone suspicious hanging around the fruit stand, one old rancher took off his cowboy hat, scratched his head, gave a Clayton a sly smile, and allowed that sometime back he’d seen Paul Hewitt nailing an election sign on the building. With a straight face Clayton promised to question the sheriff. In response the rancher grinned and said he’d like to be there to see it.
At the end of a ranch road a pickup truck outfitted with a rack of emergency roof lights and sporting a volunteer-firefighter license plate pulled off the pavement and stopped just as Clayton closed the gate behind his patrol unit. Shorty Dawson, the medical examiner, got out and hurried toward him.
At no more than five feet four inches, it was clear how Dawson came by his nickname.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Dawson said, squinting up at Clayton, who topped out at five ten.
All the firefighters had radios equipped with the department’s police band frequency. “Did you try calling me?