Michael McGarity - Mexican Hat

At the administration building, Kerney learned that no information about students could be released without written parental permission. In the business office, he had better luck. After a little cajoling, a billing clerk agreed to pull up financial information on a computer screen and let Kerney read it. None of the Lujan kids, including the oldest one who had graduated, had received student loans, and all payments for tuition, housing, and fees had been made in full and on time by checks written against the account of Steve and Yolanda Lujan. Kerney found that pretty amazing for a couple who lived on the income of a secretary and a seasonal worker with the forest service. Lujan must sell a hell of a lot of flagstone, landscape rock, and firewood during the off-season in order to pay the freight for three kids in college.

The car following Kerney in Silver City was nowhere to be seen on the drive back to Reserve. He pulled to the shoulder of the road near the town limits and waited for it to reappear. It never showed up. Whoever was following him had either switched cars or dropped the surveillance.

The Lujans lived in a settlement south of Reserve called Lower San Francisco Plaza, where the river squeezed into a confined channel and rushed through the mountains toward Glenwood before veering west to Arizona. A bridge crossed the river below the settlement, and a paved road twisted through the high country up to Snow Lake. The plaza, a collection of a half-dozen widely scattered houses and double-wide mobile homes, was one of the last remaining Hispanic enclaves in the county that hadn't passed into Anglo hands. -erney drove from house to house until he found the Lujan residence, a sprawling, un stuccoed adobe dwelling hidden by stacks of seasoned and fresh-cut firewood, piles of flagstone, and mounds of landscape rock on wooden pallets. From the look of it, Lujan had quite an inventory built up, which certainly wasn't putting cash into his pocket.

The property was enclosed by a chain-link fence and steel panel gate.

Inside the fence sat a one-ton truck outfitted with a winch, hydraulic tailgate, and dual rear tires. A load of green pine had been dumped next to a commercial log-splitter. Two vehicles, a late-model Pontiac Grand Am in cherry condition and a beat-up full-size Ford Bronco, were parked facing the front porch. A chained German shepherd sprawled between them. The dog barked angrily as Kerney stepped through the open gate.

Steve Lujan waited on the porch and watched Kerney approach.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked.

"What's your dog's name?" Kerney countered as he walked to the animal.

It stopped barking and sniffed Kerney's hand.

"Loco," Lujan answered. Small-boned and lean, Lujan stood in a defiant pose with his legs spread and his arms crossed. His bushy mustache completely covered his upper lip.

"Does he bite?" Kerney asked cordially.

"Only when I tell him to," Steve replied.

"What are you doing here?"

"Would you mind answering a few questions?"

Steve considered the request.

"I don't have to tell you nothing."

"I know that."

"I've got nothing to hide," he said gruffly.

"Come inside."

Steve led him through the front room, past a big screen television set, expensive-looking reclining chaise rockers, sofa, oak-veneer end tables with ceramic lamps, and a gun cabinet filled with hunting rifles, and into the kitchen. Yolanda was at the sink.

She turned and nodded abruptly at Kerney. A dumpy woman, dressed in leggings and a loose top that covered a thick waist, she had a testy expression.

"Hello, Yolanda," Kerney said.

She cleared her throat and shot a glance at her husband before responding.

"Hello."

Steve settled into a chair at the kitchen table, crossed his legs, and reached for a pack of cigarettes.

"Sit down."

"No thanks. I'll only stay a minute."

Lujan tapped a smoke on the table, lit up, and glanced at Yolanda.

"What do you want to ask me?"

He pulled back his head to look up at Kerney.

Yolanda took the cue, turned back to the sink, and began rinsing off the dinner dishes.

"Where were you when Jim Stiles got shot?"

Steve blew smoke in Kerney's direction and uncrossed his legs.

"Day off. I was cutting wood on a mesa. I always cut wood or haul rock on my free time. I've got a bunch of regular customers down in Silver City. I sell about fifty cords every fall and winter."

"What's the going rate for a cord?" Kerney asked.

"It depends on the weather," Lujan replied.

"Between a hundred and a hundred and twenty. You need some wood? I'll cut the price by twenty dollars a cord if you load and haul it yourself."

"I'll pass, but thanks for the offer." Kerney did a rough calculation in his head. Lujan would be lucky if he cleared three thousand dollars on the wood after expenses.

"Did anybody go with you yesterday?"

"No, I went alone." Lujan took another puff on his cigarette.

"Did you run into anybody?"

Steve stubbed out the cigarette, tilted his chair, and tipped his head so he could look Kerney in the eye.

"No. Do I need an alibi?"

"Are you a hunter?"

Tired of craning his neck, Steve let the chair drop down on all four legs and stood up. Kerney still towered over him. He reached for another cigarette and lit it.

"I take a deer every season. That's all I have time for."

"Nothing else?" Kerney queried.

"Elk, when I can get a permit. I'm not a poacher."

Kerney switched gears.

"You have a boy in graduate school and two kids at Western New Mexico, don't you?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"It must be expensive to put three kids through college at the same time."

Lujan laughed bitterly.

"Don't you mean how can a peon like me come up with that kind of money?"

"I didn't say that," Kerney replied calmly.

Lujan thrust his face forward.

"You don't have to say it to mean it. I had an industrial accident at the copper mine a few years before I got laid off. Hurt my back. The union helped me settle with the company. I got a cash payment. The money went into savings for the kids' education. We don't use it for anything else."

Lujan turned to the sideboard behind him, opened a drawer, pulled out a bank passbook, and flipped it onto the table.

"Check it out for yourself.

Every dollar pays for tuition, books, dormitory costs, and expenses."

Kerney looked. From the amount of the initial deposit it was apparent the Lujans certainly could cover the cost of three children in college.

It had been spent down systematically over a period of years.

"Satisfied?" Lujan asked. He had forgotten his cigarette. It was in an ashtray on the table burning down to the filter.

"Where were you the day Hector Padilla was murdered?" Kerney asked, holding out the passbook.

Steve took it and returned it to the drawer.

"That's a stupid question. You know where I was. I was at the campsite with Amador and the rest of the crew."

He pulled another smoke out of the pack.

"Did you leave the job at any time?"

"No."

Kerney glanced at Yolanda. She stood with one hand on her hip, her eyes darting from him to her husband. Her expression was one of masked resentment.

"That about does it," he said.

"Thanks for your time."

Steve grunted, lit up, and blew smoke in Kerney's direction.

"Let yourself out."

Loco, the German shepherd, wagged his tail when Kerney stepped off the porch. He rubbed the dog's snout and let him sniff his hand again before moving on to his truck. It seemed that Steve and Yolanda had been expecting his visit. Probably Amador had told Steve that Kerney might come around asking questions. But that didn't explain why Lujan had been so forthcoming with someone he thought no longer had any legal authority to question him. And why was he so nervous?