Michael Mcgarrity - Slow Kill

“Let’s wrap it up,” Pino said. “We’ll take everything we’ve got to the lab and see what they can make of it.”

“What some folks won’t do to commit murder,” Chacon said with a grin as he got to his feet, holding a dusty, white pharmaceutical packet in his hand. He shook it gently. “It’s got stuff in it.”

“Bag it, tag it, load everything up, and let’s get the hell out of here,” Ramona said, grinning back at Chacon.

Kim Dean was still on the run and, according to Ellie Lowrey, apparently not in hiding at the estate in Montecito. Even with that bit of bad news, Kerney finished up his day at the office feeling good about the progress of the investigation. Thanks to the evidence found at Dean’s house, they now had a much stronger case. Not perfect enough to go un-challenged by a good defense attorney, but compelling nonetheless.

Claudia Spalding’s possible involvement still bothered Kerney. He hoped that once Dean was in custody he’d provide some answers.

Earlier, Kerney had hand-delivered a copy of his transcribed Spalding notes to Agent Joe Valdez and explained his suspicions. Joe agreed to delve into Clifford Spalding’s business and financial dealings in New Mexico as his time allowed, and report back.

A check of public records on the Spaldings and Debbie Calderwood was proceeding. Kerney didn’t expect too much to come from it, but sometimes routine sources yielded valuable information.

The second-floor administrative suite was empty when Kerney left headquarters. He spent a minute chatting with a gang unit detective in the parking lot before heading out to Arroyo Hondo where Claudia Spalding lived. As far as Kerney knew, only one neighbor, Nina Deacon, had been interviewed, and he wanted to see who else might know something about Claudia Spalding and Kim Dean.

Tucked out of view from the highway, Arroyo Hondo contained the ruins of an old pueblo owned by the Archeological Conservancy, and a nearby parcel preserved as open space. The land away from the arroyo was a semirural residential area of ten-and twenty-acre tracts populated by a well-to-do horsey set. Houses, paddocks, corrals, and barns speckled the fenced pastures and pinon-juniper woodlands that flowed down from the foothills.

Kerney found the driveway to Spalding’s house on Laughing Pony Road and paid visits to the closest neighbors on either side. Nina Deacon wasn’t at home, and the people he talked with only knew Claudia Spalding casually and weren’t acquainted with Kim Dean at all. No one told him anything of value.

He drove away from the last house ready to pack in his impromptu canvass, go home, and call Sara. Up the road he saw a pickup truck turn into Spalding’s driveway. He followed and found an older Hispanic man unloading hay bales from the bed of his truck parked next to the horse barn.

“Mrs. Spalding isn’t here,” the man said as Kerney got close.

“I know,” Kerney said, displaying his shield. “Who are you?”

“Sixto Giron. Is there trouble?” Giron dropped a hay bale on the ground and brushed off his dusty shirt. He had a heavily wrinkled face and a guileless manner.

“No trouble,” Kerney said. “Do you work for Mrs. Spalding?”

“Yes, part-time. A few hours now and then every week, and I look after the horses when she is gone.”

“What about Nina Deacon?”

Giron nodded. “Same thing. She’s also out of town, judging a horse show in Canada.”

“Do you know about Mr. Spalding’s death?”

“Yes, Mrs. Spalding called and told me. That’s why I’m here.”

“Tell me about Kim Dean.”

“I work for him also, when he needs me. Mostly I haul away manure, or bring fresh straw for the stalls. He does most of the other work himself.”

“What can you tell me about his relationship with Mrs. Spalding?”

Giron shrugged. “Not much. They trail ride together, usually on weekends. Sometimes I see him visiting here, sometimes Claudia is at his house. They’re good friends.”

“Do they have a favorite place to trail ride?” Kerney asked.

Giron pushed his cap back and scratched above his ear. “They like to take the horses on some property Dean owns up on the Canadian River. He bought canyon land that doesn’t have a right-of-way road access to it, so he got it for real cheap.”

“Where is it, exactly?” Kerney asked.

“I don’t know. But Tito Perea, my primo, does. Kim hired him to pack in some building supplies so he could fix up an old cabin. Tito made four or five trips with his mules two summers ago.”

“How can I reach Tito?”

“He lives in Pecos, but he isn’t home. He’s outfitting for a group of turistas who are riding in the mountains for a week.”

“I bet Tito has a cell phone,” Kerney said.

Giron laughed at himself. “I forgot. He gave me the number, but I never use it.” He pulled out his wallet, and read off Tito’s cell phone number.

Kerney helped Giron unload the hay before he left. It was too late in the day to have anyone go looking for Dean on the Canadian. Northeast of Santa Fe, the canyon lands were a place with few roads, bad trails, quicksand, twisting gorges, and dangerous rimrock passages.

If he could contact Tito Perea tonight and get directions, he’d call the Harding County sheriff in the morning and ask him to check out Dean’s cabin.

A gent Joe Valdez of the state police had grown up on the east side of Santa Fe in an adobe house a few blocks away from Canyon Road. When he was in high school, his parents had sold the house at what was then a tidy profit and moved the family into a new home in a south-side subdivision. Many neighbors followed suit, and the exodus of Hispanic families quickly transformed the area into an enclave for rich Anglos.

Now, whenever a house in the old neighborhood came on the market, it was invariably advertised as “a charming, upgraded adobe within easy walking distance of the Plaza and Canyon Road,” with asking prices in the high six-figure range and beyond.

Only a few of Joe’s old neighbors had stayed put. One family, the Sandovals, still owned two houses on East Alameda, plus a property that had once been an old motor lodge built in the 1930s.

When motels replaced motor lodges, the family converted the units into a number of small retail stores. A later transformation turned the property into a boutique hotel, the very one that, according to Kerney’s notes, Clifford Spalding had leased from the Sandoval family for ninety-nine years.

Trinidad Sandoval, the patron of the family, had rolled the dice when Spalding made his offer to lease. He mortgaged everything he owned, borrowed more money, then completely gutted the building and made major additions to it, including two-story suites with balconies, fireplaces, and hot tubs.

The risk paid off and the family became wealthy. Trinidad, now in his eighties, still lived up the street from the hotel in the unassuming house where he’d been born.

Early in the morning, Joe Valdez parked his unmarked unit under a cottonwood tree and knocked on Trinidad’s front door. He’d called the night before, asking for a few minutes of Trinidad’s time. Sandoval greeted him quickly with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.

Still arrow-straight, but an inch or two shorter than when he was in his prime, Sandoval had lost weight since Joe had last seen him. He wore a starched white shirt and pressed blue jeans pulled up high above his waist, cinched tight by a belt, and freshly polished shoes.

“What do you need to see this old man for?” Trinidad asked.

Joe smiled. “For a cup of coffee, perhaps?”

Trinidad nodded. “Come in, and tell me about your family.”

A widower for many years but doggedly self-sufficient, Sandoval had a daughter who lived next door and kept an eye on him. In the kitchen, a tidy room that reflected Trinidad’s fastidious nature, he served Joe coffee and asked about his wife and sons.