The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [75]
If the author of the letters had been Anna Marie Montoya—and Kerney was virtually convinced that she was—he would never know why she had chosen to deal with her cousin’s situation so obliquely. At this point it didn’t really matter.
“Who were Norvell’s pals in this enterprise?” he asked.
“Luis Rojas, a football jock from El Paso; Adam Tully, a high school buddy from Lincoln County; and Gene Barrett and Leo Silva, both from Albuquerque. Tully was part of the campus brat pack. That’s how Norvell and the others got accepted into the clique.”
“Barrett and Silva are state legislators, right?”
“That’s right,” Shuler replied.
“I heard they got behind Norvell’s political ambitions big-time after he moved back from Colorado.”
“Right again.”
“Any old rumors about them?”
“Just what I’ve already told you,” Shuler replied. “They were rarely on campus, except to attend classes. I don’t really know how large a role they played in what went on.”
“How do they make their money?”
“Silva has a successful law practice, and Barrett owns a management consulting and CPA firm.”
“What about Cassie Bedlow, Norvell’s sister?”
“I never heard anything bad about her. She had her own circle of friends, mostly sorority types and fine-arts majors.”
“And Rojas?”
“A lady’s man who cut a wide swath. But not your average dumb jock. Along with Tully, he was Norvell’s off-campus roommate. They shared a large house in the North Valley. People thought that maybe some rich alum was subsidizing Rojas. He dressed nice, drove a new car, always had money to spend.”
Kerney held up the handwritten notes. “I’m going to need to hold on to these for a while.”
“Just as long as I get them back,” Shuler said.
Kerney nodded. “Of course. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Maybe I’ll read something about this in the newspaper someday,” Shuler said with a slight smile.
“Maybe you will.”
Kerney found George Montoya outside, planting bare-root rosebushes in a flower bed. He wanted to know why Kerney needed a sample of his Anna Marie’s handwriting. Trying not to raise false hopes, Kerney explained that he’d been given some letters which might have been written by Anna Marie. But he wouldn’t be sure until he could have her handwriting compared and analyzed.
A bright eagerness lit up Montoya’s eyes. “What do these letters say?”
“It won’t matter what they say if Anna Marie didn’t write them,” Kerney replied.
“But you think maybe she did,” Montoya said.
“It’s worth checking into.”
“Why do you tell me so little?”
“Because I want to give you facts when I have them, not unfairly raise your expectations with speculation.”
Montoya’s eyes shifted away and his shoulders sagged a bit. “We want so much for there to be justice.”
“It can happen,” Kerney said. “Always believe that.”
Montoya nodded, pulled himself together, gave Kerney a weak smile, and gestured at his house. “Come inside and take what you need.”
With a handwriting sample and the letters in hand, Kerney met with the state-police-lab documents specialist and asked for a quick turnaround. In Kerney’s case, it paid to be a former deputy state police chief. The man said he’d have a preliminary comparison done in an hour.
Kerney spent his time waiting by questioning Nick Salas, a fifteen-year veteran who now served as a lieutenant in the district headquarters housed next door to the Department of Public Safety. Salas remembered the Norvell DWI incident that had been swept under the rug by the sheriff’s department.
“How did you hear about it?” Salas asked, cocking an eye at Kerney.
“Ellsworth Miller,” Kerney answered.
“You got something going on Norvell, Chief?”
“Maybe.”
Salas laughed. “What do you need to know?”
“Date, time, place, name of the woman with Norvell—if you’ve got it—name of the deputy who made the DWI stop.”
Salas snorted. “You think I can remember all of that?”
“No, but I bet you’ve got the information stashed somewhere. You’re one of the biggest pack rats in the department.”
Salas grinned and got up from his desk. “That’s affirmative, Chief. Like I tell the rookies,