Michael McGarity - Mexican Hat

It was evening when Kerney got home and found Karen Cox standing next to her station wagon waiting for him. She wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a ribbed scoop-neck shirt. He parked, got out of the truck, and stretched his knee to ease some of the stiffness. He had spent too many hours driving with the leg locked in one position.

"You don't have a telephone," she said as he reached her.

"The phone company is supposed to put in a line, but now I guess I won't need it. Are you here to ask me about Padilla Canyon?"

"Not really. Jim Stiles filled me in. To him you're quite a hero."

"Hardly. I did what was necessary. What can I do for you?"

"Can we talk inside?"

In the trailer, he turned on the ceiling light and offered her the choice of the chair or the couch. She sat on the couch and waited while he opened windows to let out the heat of the day. The metal skin of the trailer absorbed heat like a sponge, and the room was stifling hot.

Except for two Navajo saddle blankets that hung on the walls, the living area held no personal touches. From the weave and the pattern she guessed both were late-nineteenth-century trade blankets, worth a considerable amount of money. The room, a combination kitchen, dining nook, and sitting area, was tidy but bleak in the harsh glow of the overhead light.

Kerney turned on a table fan, sat in the overstuffed chair, and stretched out his legs. It felt good to let the knee rest.

"What's on your mind?" he asked.

Karen smiled apologetically.

"I came to thank you for rescuing Cody. My father told me what you did.

I appreciate it."

"No thanks are necessary. I think your father could have handled it without me."

"That's not the way he saw it. Why did you go to see him?"

"Are you wearing your ADA hat now?"

Karen shifted her weight on the lumpy cushion.

"You could say that."

Kerney nodded.

"Fair enough. I'll trade with you."

"Trade what?"

"Information."

"I don't have to do that."

"What's holding you back?"

"From what I've learned from Jim Stiles, you're still directing the course of his investigation. I can't allow that."

Kerney smiled in amusement.

"That's quite a stretch you're making. Counselor. I've provided nothing more than friendly advice to Jim."

"That doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to tell me what you've learned."

"I've already done that."

"Not completely. You said you had information to trade."

"It's more like a suspicion."

"Of what?" Karen demanded.

"Something happened a long time ago that brought Jose Padilla back to Catron County. It has put your father between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe it ties into the deaths of Hector and Jose Padilla, and maybe it doesn't. But until there is a solid lead on the killer and the motive, it can't be discounted."

"Now you're the one making a stretch."

"I don't mean to put you in an uncomfortable position."

"I didn't say that."

"You got uptight as soon as I mentioned your father in the same breath with Jose Padilla. You did the same thing this morning when we talked about it at the hospital."

Karen looked at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, and forced herself to relax.

"Why are you pushing this?"

Kerney leaned forward in his chair, his blue eyes filled with anger.

"Because whoever shot Jim Stiles was worried about something. But the question is, what? The poaching case? Hector Padilla's murder?

The death of a man your father knew sixty years ago? All of the above?

"I like Jim. He's good people, and he deserves to have the son of a bitch who shot him caught.

Besides, Jim was my partner, and the cop in me won't let it go until I catch the bastard. And that's what I plan to do."

Karen nodded vaguely, thinking he'd been straight with her and deserved the same treatment in return. Maybe it was time to trust him.

"The day Hector Padilla was murdered he left a letter with me to give to my father. He said it was from Jose Padilla."

"Any idea what was in it?"

"None at all. What I do know is that my father hasn't spoken to his brother in his entire adult life.

Whatever was in Padilla's letter broke that silence.

My father paid a visit to Eugene the day he got the letter."

"Something had him worried," Kerney ventured.

"This afternoon I started doing some digging of my own. I got a copy of my grandfather's will from the probate court. He changed it the same month that Uncle Eugene was shot in a hunting accident and my father ran away to join the Army. Grandfather Cox left everything to Eugene. My father was completely cut out of a considerable inheritance."

"Calvin Cox left nothing to his wife?"

Karen shook her head.

"My grandmother died of influenza when the twins were twelve years old."

"So why do you think he did it?"

"I don't know. But cutting a son completely out of an inheritance is the act of a very angry parent."

"I agree. What happened to Phil and Cory's mother? She could be a source of information."

"She left Eugene when Phil was six and Cory was twelve, and just disappeared. It caused quite a scandal. Eugene packed Phil and Cory off to military school in Roswell as soon as they were old enough.

After college, Phil came back to run the ranch. Cory never came back from Vietnam."

Karen waited for a response.

"Well?" she finally asked.

He stood up.

"Are you going to dig into this any deeper?"

"I'd like my father to come to me on his own,"

"I hope he does."

"So do I." Karen got up from the couch.

"Will you keep what I told you confidential?"

"As long as I can."

"Fair enough. You don't remember me, do you?"

"Phil jogged my memory when I had dinner with him," Kerney said.

"I remember three young girls who followed me around the rodeo grounds when I was here for the high school state finals. One of them had black hair and beautiful blue eyes, and made Cousin Cory introduce me to her every chance she got."

Karen laughed and extended her hand.

"That was me. In my age of innocence."

"Innocence doesn't last very long, does it?" Kerney replied, taking her hand in his.

"No, it doesn't. You'll keep me informed of what you do?"

"Of course I will."

Kerney saw Karen to the door, said good night, changed into his sweats, and did a two-mile run. He mulled over his meeting with Karen and came to the conclusion that the woman had some fire and steel to her-appealing qualities that increased her attractiveness.

The knee felt better when he got back to the trailer. Jim's girlfriend, Molly, was sitting on the step.

"Hi, Mr. Kerney. The wounded hero has me running a messenger service."

"Come in," he said.

She sat in the overstuffed chair with an attache case on her lap. Kerney took a seat on the couch.

Molly glanced around the room and made a face.

"This place is a pit."

"You don't find it homey?"

"You have mice."

"The landlord has promised full eradication."

"Good." She cocked her head sideways and studied him.

"You don't talk like a cop."

"Thanks, I think. What have you uncovered?"

Molly quickly turned to business, opening the case and shuffling through some papers.

"You wanted information on the Cox clan." She paused and fixed her gaze directly on his face.

"Do you still want it?"

"You bet I do."

"Haven't you been fired?"

"I'm unemployed," Kerney confirmed.

"Then what good will all this do? Jim's so angry about you getting canned he's spitting bullets. He didn't know about it until he turned on the evening news."

"Tell him to chill out. I'm going to stay with it."

Molly gave him a delighted smile.

"That's great."