Michael McGarrity - The Judas judge

"Did your witness pass any cars traveling in the opposite direction before he arrived at the scene?"

"He didn't think so, but he couldn't remember for sure. He was pretty shook up. You know how most civilians get when they see a fresh corpse for the first time. Especially one all torn to hell."

"Did you get a name and address of the guy who found Langsford?"

"I didn't have time. I had to block both lanes with flares and cones, handle traffic, and preserve the scene until backup and the first responders arrived. There were cars pulled off to the side for a hundred yards in either direction, and about twenty people trying to see what happened. It took volunteer firefighters and EMTS a good ten minutes to reach my location."

"You got nothing on the witness?" Kerney asked.

"He was a local. Said he worked at a furniture store in Roswell."

"Give me a description."

Waxman rubbed his chin and thought about it for a minute. "Late sixties, gray hair, above average height, mustache. That's all I can remember."

Kerney glanced over Waxman's shoulder at the single wide mobile home. It didn't look like much to live in for anyone, especially a retired cop pushing sixty.

Waxman read the look on Kerney's face and waved a hand in the direction of the mobile home. "Not much, is it? I spent twenty years in the Air Force and twenty more with the county sheriff's department The ex-wife got half of both my pensions. Is this a great country or what?"

"That's too bad," Kerney said. "Did you ID Arthur Langsford at the scene?"

"Nope. He wasn't carrying any identification, just a small fanny pack with some change, bills, a few bike tools, and a first-aid pouch.

His family reported him overdue from his cycling trip about three hours after he got turned into roadkill. We made the ID based on the information they provided."

"In your follow-up, you reported forensics came up empty on any physical evidence."

"That's right. I think the vehicle that hit him had one of those vinyl front end covers and a composition grill and bumper to absorb impacts. I never could determine the make or the model."

"Did you put the word out to auto dealers and repair shops?" Kerney asked.

"You bet. I did phone calls, bulletins, drop-bys, and got zilch."

Waxman watched Kerney thumb through the paperwork. "Any more questions?" he asked, when Kerney looked up.

"That's it."

"This is about the judge's murder, isn't it?"

"Three deaths in one family raise interesting questions," Kerney replied.

"That accident was a clear-cut hit and run."

"You're probably right," Kerney said. "But I'd love to know who was behind the wheel of the car."

Kerney toured the Roswell furniture stores looking for an elderly salesman with gray hair and a mustache. At a downtown family-owned establishment he met up with Harry Bodecker, a part-time employee who matched Waxman's description. Bodecker nodded his head vigorously when Kerney asked about the hit-and-run accident.

"How could I forget that," Bodecker said. "It was just awful. Seeing that young man with his brains splattered on the pavement."

"Not a pretty sight," Kerney said. "You told the deputy you didn't recall a vehicle passing in the opposite direction just before you came upon the accident."

Clearly nervous for some reason, Bodecker cast a glance at the back office, looked around the empty showroom, and fiddled with the cuff of his shirt. "Let me ask the boss if I can take a break. He wouldn't want me talking to you on company time, and I don't want to lose my job. It's hard to get by on Social Security."

"No problem," Kerney said.

"I'll wait."

Bodecker made a short trip to talk to someone in the office and then beckoned Kerney to follow him through double swinging doors into a storage room.

Outside on the loading dock, Bodecker smiled and lit a cigarette. "Too addicted to stop and too old to care," he said, as he sucked in the smoke. "I didn't see a car pass me."

"Are you positive?" Kerney asked.

"Almost certain. There wasn't a lot of traffic on the road. I think the snowstorm in the mountains may have had something to do with it. It was coming down really heavy when I left Ruidoso."

"Didn't you tell the deputy the sun was setting when you got to the accident?"

"It was. You know how it goes out here. Snowing in one place and clear twenty miles away."

"No clouds?"

"Sure, but the sun broke through for a little while right around dusk."

"For how long?"

"About the time I found the bicyclist on the road."

"Did you give this information to the deputy?"

"The only thing he asked me is what time I got there and what the weather was like when I arrived. Then he got busy setting up things so people wouldn't pile into each other."

"You directed traffic until the deputy arrived."

"On the eastbound lane. Another driver stopped and did the same in the opposite lane."

"Did you let cars go through before the deputy arrived?" Kerney asked, wondering if any evidence could have been scattered or destroyed by vehicles passing by.

Bodecker nodded and took another drag. "On the shoulders. It wasn't my place to stop them."

"About how many cars went by?"

"Maybe ten or twelve."

"Did you see anything in the road? A hazard, any litter?"

"Not in the road. There were some cardboard boxes off to one side. I moved them so the cars could get by."

"Where were the cardboard boxes before you moved them?"

"When I first got there? Near the dead man. Then the wind picked up and blew them across the highway."

"Into the eastbound lane?"

"Did you tell that to the deputy?"

"No," Bodecker replied. "Like I said, he was real busy. As soon as the first firefighters showed up I left."

"What about the other driver who stopped?"

"He drove away the same time I did." Bodecker brushed ashes off his jacket, ground out his smoke with the toe of his shoe, and kicked it off the loading dock. "I've gotta get back. I work only the slowest sales days of the week, so I don't earn much in commissions. And the salary isn't all that great, either."

"That doesn't sound fair."

Bodecker smiled ruefully and shrugged his slightly stooped shoulders. "Old geezers like me don't get the gravy jobs. But it beats eating canned pork and beans for a week before my Social Security check arrives."

Kerney sat in the newsroom with the meteorologist of a local television station and asked him to confirm weather conditions on the day of Arthur Langsford's death. Round-faced, with a toothy smile and a swept-back stylish haircut, the man swung his attention to his computer punched up data from the National Weather Service, pointed a stubby finger at the monitor, and traced a series of contour lines.

"A fast-moving low pressure front from the Gulf of Mexico entered the state that morning, crossed the southwest quadrant, stalled over the Sacramento Mountains, dumped eight inches of snow on Ruidoso, and then petered out," he said.

"Did it move east toward Roswell at all?" Kerney asked.

The man shook his head. "It was dry as a bone on the plains. Compared to Ruidoso we had a twenty-degree difference in our high temperature that day. Warm and sunny."

"What about the cloud cover around sunset in the foothills?"

"By the ten o'clock news that night, Roswell was mostly cloudy with a sharp drop in temperature. I'd say we probably had the same conditions in the foothills at sunset. The front slowed as it broke up."

"So with the winter sun low in the sky, it's likely there wouldn't have been a problem with glare or blinding sunshine in late afternoon."

"That would be my bet," the meteorologist said, as he swung the task chair to face Kerney, his television-camera smile firmly in place.