The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [6]
First he worked on the John Doe case. Based on the remnants of information found in the backpack, the victim was likely one Joseph John Humphrey, a homeless Vietnam veteran originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Among Humphrey’s few belongings was the business card of a Veterans Administration alcoholism counselor in Albuquerque. He spoke to the counselor, faxed a copy of Humphrey’s driver’s license photo to the man, and got a quick identity confirmation. He also learned that Humphrey had been diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer and had no more than three months to live.
After disconnecting, he phoned Shorty Dawson, the ME, for a preliminary cause-of-death report.
“I can’t tell you anything definite,” Dawson replied.
“The victim’s flesh and clothing were melted together.
The body is gonna have to be peeled like an onion.
Then they can open him up and take a look inside.”
“Where’s the body now?” Clayton asked.
“In Albuquerque,” Dawson replied. “We should get the final autopsy results by tomorrow. But, tentatively it sure looked to me like the guy sucked down carbon monoxide.”
“How could you tell that?” Clayton asked. “The flesh was too burned to show any discoloration. Even if the skin had looked cherry red, lividity isn’t conclusive for carbon monoxide poisoning.”
There was a short silence before Dawson replied. “Look, Deputy, I said my opinion was just tentative. My job is to find the victim legally dead and offer an informed opinion as to cause and time of death. We’ll both just have to wait for the autopsy to find out what really killed him.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dawson,” Clayton said.
He hung up wondering if Humphrey had committed suicide to avoid letting the cancer kill him. That didn’t make any sense. Humphrey could have chosen many easier, less horrific ways to die than by smoke and fire. Maybe it was an accidental death. He decided to stop speculating about it until the autopsy report came in.
He filled out his paperwork, including a notation that if no family members could be found—the Harrisburg police were still looking—Humphrey’s VA counselor would arrange to have the body cremated and interred in the National Cemetery at Fort Bayard, outside Silver City.
Humphrey’s status as a Nam vet made Clayton think about his natural father, Kevin Kerney. He knew very little about Kerney’s service experience other than that he’d served as an infantry lieutenant in Vietnam during the latter stage of the war. Until six months ago, Clayton hadn’t even known that much. Then he’d busted Kerney for trespassing on Apache land, which ultimately led to his mother’s disclosure of the long-kept secret of his father’s identity.
Clayton had learned that his mother had once been Kerney’s college sweetheart. She deliberately became pregnant without Kerney’s knowledge just before he’d graduated and gone off to serve in Vietnam. For almost twenty-eight years, neither father nor son knew of each other’s existence.
Clayton was still struggling with it all. He had no idea how Kerney was coping. What he did know was that Kerney had recently been installed as the Santa Fe police chief. He gave a passing thought to calling him to ask for information and assistance in the Anna Marie Montoya case.
He reached for the phone and pulled his hand back. Late last year, Kerney had stood on Clayton’s front porch and given him two ten-thousand-dollar certificates of deposit for Wendell’s and Hannah’s education, with no strings attached. At the time, Clayton had been both stunned by the gift and suspicious of it. Thinking back over the event, which he’d repeatedly played through his mind, Clayton knew he’d handled it badly. Instead of being gracious, he’d challenged Kerney’s gift-giving motives and failed to thank him for his generosity. Finally he’d never followed through on a promise to invite Kerney and his wife to dinner, in spite of Grace’s nagging him to do so.
Because of his bungling, Clayton felt