Michael McGarrity - Under the color of law

The walls of the narrow valley pinched together as Kerney ran a silent code three, pushing his unit to the limit on the icy pavement. He passed a mountainous slag pile that had polluted the nearby river for years while mine operators kept insisting that the government's environmental studies were flawed.

The hills closed in around him, hiding the mountains. Wooded slopes buried in fresh powder lined the small river that gave the town its name and hid the watercourse from view. He drove into the village and the valley widened to reveal a towering sub alpine peak with gleaming ski runs glaring white under a full sun. The state highway cut through the town, spoiling the spaghetti-Western motif of the buildings that had sprung up as the local merchants discovered there was more gold to be mined from the pockets of Texas tourists than from the veins of ore left in the mountains.

Kerney pulled into the ski-area parking lot, where he spotted Glenn Bollinger standing at the bottom of the kiddie run. Bol linger waved to him in a hurry-up motion when he got out of the car.

Kerney didn't know what had Bollinger so excited, but he did know that the full-size sedan following him from Santa Fe had turned back at the Questa intersection. He put a small evidence kit he'd taken from the glove box in his coat and crossed the parking lot.

Bundled up against the cold, Glenn Bollinger watched Kerney move carefully across the icy parking lot, favoring his bum leg. He thought back to the time Kerney had been shot by a drug dealer in a Santa Fe barrio. Bollinger had been in the neighborhood doing a burglary follow-up when the officer-down call came in on the radio. He'd arrived at the scene within minutes, to find Officer Terry Yazzi kneeling over an unconscious Kerney, trying to stem the blood flow from a stomach wound that looked fatal. A bullet had also shattered Kerney's knee.

Yards away lay the lifeless body of the drug dealer, with two center-mass shots in the chest. Critically wounded, Kerney had put the asshole down before going into shock and passing out.

Nobody in the department expected Kerney to recover, let alone resurrect his career, yet somehow he did both. Bollinger found it all totally amazing.

Kerney looked good, Bollinger decided, as he came closer. A little older perhaps, but still fit. His cold-weather gear consisted of blue jeans, a felt cowboy hat, and pair of sturdy hiking boots that showed beneath a rancher's-style three-quarter-length winter coat. He's still doing the cowboy thing, Bollinger thought to himself. Of course, he'd been born to it.

"Damn, I'm glad you called me," Bollinger said with a smile as Kerney drew near.

"If you hadn't, Stewart's death would've been written off as accidental.

Instead I've got myself a homicide. First one since I've been here."

"How was he murdered?" Kerney asked, shaking Bollinger's hand.

"Blunt trauma to the head, made to look like he slammed into a tree at full speed," Bollinger replied.

"His leg hit the tree, all right; you can see little bits of bark in the gash and the blood around the wound, along with pine needles on his clothing below his waist. But the head wound shows only bruising and a deep laceration, with no foreign matter imbedded in the flesh. The new snow kept everything nice, clean, and frozen. There was nothing at the scene that pointed to a collision between Stewart's head and the tree."

Bollinger grinned.

"To the search-and-rescue guys it looked like just another dumb skier who went too fast down a mountain, lost control, and wiped out. The medical examiner thought so too."

"Who's your ME?" Kerney asked.

"We've got several. The guy who took the call is a former Taos County deputy sheriff. You know that department's reputation. Need I say more?"

"Any other physical evidence?"

"Nope. About a foot and a half of new snow fell starting yesterday morning, and the runs were groomed at four this morning before the search-and-rescue team started out. We found no tracks or footprints.

I've got the ski run closed and the crime scene cordoned off."

"Was anyone skiing with Stewart?" Kerney asked.

"His wife said he went up the mountain alone."

"Has she been told?"

"Yeah, but only that her husband is dead, not that he was murdered."

"Where is she?"

"At my girlfriend's place with her two boys."

"You've got a girlfriend, Glenn?"

Bollinger grinned again.

"Had to, Kerney. The winters up here are just too cold and the nights are too long. I hear you got married."

"Had to," Kerney replied with his own grin.

"The woman was just too irresistible."

Bollinger gestured at the ski lift.

"Want to take a ride to the top? The view is real pretty."

Kerney eyed the mountain. It looked extremely cold and uninviting. He had been raised on a ranch in the desert basin of the Tularosa, and while he found winter scenes aesthetically pleasing, he didn't like to do anything more than look at them from a distance.

"Just don't make me ski down that mountain," he said.

Bollinger chuckled.

"We'll get you down safe and sound. But if you come up on your days off, I'll give you some lessons and have you skiing in a couple of hours."

"Not on that slope or on this knee," Kerney replied, tapping his right leg.

"That leg won't keep you from mastering the kiddie run, Kerney."

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Care to tell me what made you suspicious about Stewart's disappearance?"

"Its probably better if you don't know," Kerney said.

Bollinger's entire contingent of three officers controlled the crime scene, which consisted of keeping a well-equipped group of searchers far away from the body at the edge of the ski run. Standing in a tight circle, the men were jawing over the homicide with a state police officer and the medical examiner, and sipping coffee out of insulated, covered mugs.

Kerney got introduced around and then trudged with Bollinger through the snow to the yellow tape surrounding Stewart's body. There were footprints all around the corpse and the body had been moved from its original position. Except where the snow had been carefully cleaned away from his forehead, Stewart's face resembled a stark white frozen plaster cast. The leg wound had been revealed in a similar fashion.

Glenn told him the scene had been photographed, including a number of close-up shots of the wounds, and the snow he'd removed to expose the wounds had been saved in evidence vials for further analysis.

With Bollinger following, Kerney stepped over the crime-scene tape, knelt next to the body, and studied Stewart's face. The hard freeze and new snow had kept swelling around the wound to a minimum, The bleeding out of one ear looked like a long solidified dark crystal droplet. The forehead laceration showed a slightly angled horizontal groove and one circular imprint in the skin. The pattern injury was unusual.

Kerney looked up at Bollinger.

"I noticed that too," Glenn said.

"What do you think?" Kerney asked.

Bollinger unholstered his semiautomatic sidearm.

"Thumped hard with one of these is my guess."

"Mine too," Kerney said.

"I want the body taken to Santa Fe for an autopsy and a forensic work-up. But don't transport right away." He handed Bollinger the small evidence kit.

"Have your search and-rescue people thaw him out enough so the ME can take hair, blood, and skin samples for me."

"We'll put him in a toasty ambulance and warm him up," Bollinger said.

He holstered his weapon and looked quizzically at Kerney.

"Should I even bother asking what you're hoping to learn?"

"Probably not," Kerney said. The knee tortured him as he stood up.

"You did a good job here, Glenn. Can you hold off on telling the news media or anyone else who might be interested that Stewart was murdered?"