The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [53]
“Who are we missing?” Kerney asked.
“Belinda Louise Nieto. She roomed with Anna Marie during a summer session.”
“When was that?” Kerney asked.
“After Montoya’s junior year,” Molina replied.
“What do we know about her?”
“Now it gets interesting, Chief. Nieto was Anna Marie’s cousin. She attended junior college in California for a year and then transferred to the university in Albuquerque. She was supposed to continue living with Montoya, but she never enrolled in the fall semester. When Montoya’s old roommates returned, Nieto had already split.”
“Where to?”
“Denver, supposedly, but nobody knows for sure.”
“There’s been no contact between Nieto and her family for over twenty years?” Kerney asked.
“There really isn’t any immediate family left,” Molina said. “Nieto was born and raised in California. Her father was the younger brother of Montoya’s mother. He enlisted in the navy, pulled a tour in San Diego, and stayed there after his discharge. He married an Anglo girl and got a civilian job as a cargo specialist on the base. The marriage broke up when he caught the wife sleeping with a sailor. Guess she couldn’t resist a man in uniform. The father got custody and the mother dropped out of sight.”
Molina flipped a page. “Allegedly, Nieto had a wild streak, so she was sent to New Mexico by her father in an attempt to settle her down. Everybody thought Anna Marie would be a good influence on her. Three months after Nieto split, her father was killed on the docks while loading supplies on an aircraft carrier. The last time anyone saw her was at her father’s funeral in San Diego. Anna Marie’s mother said she showed up looking like a floozy.”
“Mrs. Montoya is your informant?” Kerney asked.
Molina nodded.
“Tell me what she knew about the girl’s wild streak.”
“The usual stuff: boys, parties, drinking, staying out late, being rebellious,” Molina said, passing Kerney a photograph. “She was quite a looker. That snapshot was taken right after she came to New Mexico. She was nineteen years old.”
Kerney agreed with Molina’s assessment. The photo showed a slender, very attractive young woman with high cheekbones, long curly dark hair and a well-proportioned figure. He passed it on to Detective Piño.
Piño rolled her eyes. “Five eight at least. God, I hate tall women.”
“Why’s that?” Molina asked.
“Because I’m not one of them,” Piño said, dropping the photo on the tabletop.
“Hang on a minute,” Kerney said as he searched his desk for Jeremiah Perrett’s office phone number. He found it, dialed, then hit the speaker button, asked for Perrett, and the secretary rang him through.
“One question, Dr. Perrett,” he said, “when exactly during Anna Marie’s senior year did she talk to you about the young man we discussed?”
“Early in the first semester, as I recall,” Perrett answered.
“Could it have been during the summer session?”
“That would depend on whether or not I was teaching that summer.”
“Can you check on that?”
The three officers heard a sigh, followed by the sound of a squeaking chair.
“Let me look in my records,” Perrett said.
The officers stared at the phone, listening to file drawers opening and papers being turned, before Perrett came back on the line.
“Yes, I did teach that summer,” he said, “and Anna Marie was one of my students. We very well could have talked about the boy during that time.”
“Thanks,” Kerney said.
“Is there anything else, Chief Kerney?”
“That’ll do it.” He disconnected and looked at Piño and Molina. “Do we have a coincidence here?”
“Maybe more than that,” Molina replied.
Kerney nodded. “Let’s assume that Nieto arrives as Anna Marie’s new roommate, gets right into the party scene, and pulls Anna Marie into it with her.”
“Which leads to the appearance of a young man with money who puts the moves on our victim,” Detective Piño said.
“A young man none of Anna Marie’s friends or roommates know anything about because they were away for the summer,” Molina