Michael McGarrity - The big gamble

The second letter read: I wrote you before about the illegal things Tyler Norvell is doing. Now my friend is addicted to cocaine and says that Tyler loves her and wants her to enter a treatment program in Denver, which he will pay for. I think he just wants to get her out of town. She's planning to drop out of school and move to Denver. I've talked to a psychologist and have tried to use his advice to help her, but it hasn't changed her mind about going. Can't you expose this criminal in your paper? All students should know about the terrible things he does.

"When did you receive these letters?" Kerney asked.

Shuler checked his file and read off dates that corresponded with Anna Marie's cousin Belinda Louise Nieto's time in Albuquerque.

"Whoever the person was," Shuler added, "I don't know why they didn't go to the police."

Kerney knew the answer to Shuler's question. There were millions of reasons why people shied away from talking to cops. It didn't matter if they were friends, family, relatives, or total strangers. He'd seen women protect abusers; parents lie on behalf of felonious teenagers; people confirm false alibis for friends; and witnesses deny they'd seen a crime occur. The rationales for either lying to or avoiding the police were endless.

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, hold on to everything. You never know when you might need stuff you once thought was useless. Give me a few minutes to search through my old paperwork."

Salas was back in fifteen minutes with a dog-eared pocket notebook in hand. He rattled off the day, time, and place. "The deputy was Ron Underwood. He's still with the sheriff's department. He got bumped up to patrol sergeant about the same time I made lieutenant. We tipped a few together at the FOP to celebrate. I've been catching his radio traffic lately so he's back on day shift. I didn't ID the woman."

"Did you see Norvell?" Kerney asked.

"Yeah. I watched Underwood put him through field sobriety tests. He was almost falling-down drunk."

"Thanks, Nick."

"No problem," Salas said, reaching for the phone. "Where are you going from here, Chief?"

"I should be back in my office in thirty minutes."

"I'll give Underwood a call. Maybe he can dig out his report and get it to you today."

"That would be a big help," Kerney said.

Kerney returned to the crime lab to wait for the document specialist's report, and spent his time chatting with the officers and civilian staff who passed him in the small waiting area. During his tenure as deputy state police chief, he'd worked with all of them, so even though he cooled his heels longer than expected, he enjoyed catching up and making small talk.

Stan Kalsen, the document specialist, a burly man with a raspy voice, finally appeared and led him back to his office.

"Sorry to make you wait," Stan said as he spread out the documents, which had been placed in clear plastic sleeves. "I took a quick look at slant, connection, formation of letters, size of letters, punctuation, and embellishments on the questioned documents." He pointed out each element he'd reviewed with a pair of tweezers. "Comparing the two samples, I'd say they were written by the same individual. If you can get the subject to write out the complete texts of the documents again, I'll probably be able to make an unqualified judgment to that effect."

"I can't do that," Kerney replied. "The subject was murdered."

Kalsen nodded. "I thought so. The note written to her mother was signed Anna Marie, so I figured it had to do with the Montoya homicide. I took photographs of the anonymous documents under oblique light to pull up any indentations on the paper. That's what slowed me down. Take a look at this one."