Michael McGarrity - Hermit_s Peak

"Where are you?" Gabe said, when Thorpe answered.

"Lunch break at the Roadrunner."

"I need you to run some information through NCIC.

Have you got a pen and paper?"

"Roger that."

Gabe read off the make, model, and serial number for each item and had Thorpe repeat the information back to him.

"How soon do you want this, Sarge?"

"ASAP."

"I'll call you right back."

Gabe used the time waiting for Thorpe to call going over Boaz's journal line by line, looking for anything that might give him an insight into the murder.

The phone rang and Gabe answered.

"What have you got?"

"Three hits, Sarge. The gas-powered generator, solar panels, and the pump were stolen from a Lubbock electrical supply company. The propane refrigerator was boosted from a freight car on a railroad siding in Amarillo and the propane cooking stove was taken from an appliance store in Midland, Texas. All within the last year. All major heists."

"Good deal," Gabe said.

"Where did you find this stuff?" Thorpe asked.

"I'll tell you later."

"You got something else you need me to do?"

"I'll call you back," Gabe said as he hurried out the cabin door to his vehicle. Angie Romero had a large-screen television in her living room that he wanted to check out.

Angie opened the front door a crack and gave Gabe a sour look.

"What is it?"

"Can I come in?" Gabe asked "What for?"

"We need to talk about your car."

"When do I get it back?" Angie asked, swinging the door wide.

"Tomorrow," Gabe said, stepping inside.

Angie's smell almost made him retreat to the front porch. She wore a frayed bathrobe, dingy gray pajamas, and a pair of tattered slippers.

She ran a shaky hand through her tangled hair and looked at Gabe with bloodshot eyes.

"Mind if I look at your television?" Gabe asked as he walked to the set that stood against a wall.

"Why?"

"Did Rudy buy it?" Gabe pulled the set away from the wall.

"He gave it to me as a present."

"When?" Gabe found the manufacturer's information and wrote it down.

"You can't do that," Angle said as she crossed the room.

Gabe pushed the set back to its original position.

"When did Rudy bring home the TV, Angie?"

"Maybe six months ago. You can't come in here and paw through my property."

"Where did Rudy buy it?"

"I don't know. He just brought it home one day."

Angle's closeness made her smell almost unbearable.

Gabe moved quickly toward the open door.

"Sorry to bother you."

Angie followed at his heels.

"I want my car back."

"Tomorrow, Angie." Gabe stepped off the porch.

"It damn well better be here."

"It will be," Gabe said with a smile.

He called Thorpe with the information on the television as soon as he was out of Angle's driveway.

Thorpe called back just as Gabe pulled onto the interstate.

"The TV was stolen from the same store in Midland where the stove was boosted," he reported.

"Ten-four. Get me complete reports from the Texas authorities on all three heists."

"What have you got, Sarge?"

"I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out. Do one more thing for me."

"What's that?"

"Have Angle's Mustang towed back to her house tomorrow morning."

"That car can't be driven until it's fixed. The front end is totalled."

"I know it."

Before leaving for his class, Richard Bingham provided Kerney with his friend Nancy's full name and address.

The girl lived in a dormitory on the college campus.

A private institution with a small enrollment, the school was situated in the Santa Fe foothills. The nearby mountains, million-dollar homes, and an adjacent private prep school insulated the campus and its carefully tended grounds.

Kerney found Nancy Rubin in her dorm room, introduced himself, and asked a few questions. No more than nineteen years old. Nancy had a slim, lanky body, short curly blonde hair, and a heavy New York accent.

She wore three diamond studs in her right earlobe.

The girl confirmed Richard's version of the events at the ranch involving Luiza, and Kerney left feeling fairly certain that he'd gotten candid answers. m Las Vegas, Kerney stopped at the county sheriff's office and got directions to the Box Z Ranch, where Luiza San Miguel had once been employed. The route took him along a state highway that cut through high, rolling plains and onto a narrow two-lane road that provided a panoramic view of the mountains. Where the dun-colored plains ended, massive, dark opal peaks swept beyond the limits of perception and faded into a rippling, mirage like vagueness.

The road curved away from the view and Kerney saw the first sign of a deep trough that pierced the hilly grasslands. Soon he was hugging the lip of a canyon that cut a thousand feet below the plains and opened out in a widening valley flanked by red-rimmed tabletop mesas.

The pavement turned to dirt, and the road crossed and recrossed a rocky, shallow river, and then rose to expose an expanse of rangeland that seemed to push back the mesas. After navigating a boulder-strewn bypass bulldozed around the remnants of a washed-out wooden bridge, Kerney topped out at a small rise, and stopped to take a look around.

Ten miles south, a lone butte towered where the canyon lands ended.

Stands of pifion and juniper trees peppered lush pastures filled with blue stem and Indian rice grass. Patches of spring wildflowers threw color against the foot of the mesas.

Kerney drove toward the butte, taking it all in. Here the land dominated, making the small herds of cattle moving across the valley look like dots; turning the ranch road into a vague incision that faded away to nothing in the distance; putting fences, windmills, feed troughs, and stock tanks into a perspective that made man's efforts seem inconsequential.

Sheltered at the foot of the butte, the Box Z headquarters was surrounded by groves of cottonwood trees. The houses, barns, sheds, outbuildings, and corrals were made of rock and in perfect condition.

Behind the barn stood a pitched-roof garage with a red 1930s gasoline pump off to one side. The main ranch house was a two-story Queen Anne "Victorian. The roofline was broken by two shingled dormers, and round columns supported the deep front porch.

The man who opened the front door wore a straw cowboy hat pushed back to reveal a high forehead and eyeglasses with plastic frames. Somewhere in his sixties, he had straight lips beneath a pudgy nose and deep creases in his cheeks mat ran down to his chin.

Tm looking for the owner," Kerney said.

"You found him," the man replied, glancing at Kerney's open badge case.

"I'm Arlin Fullerton. What brings you out this way, Officer?"

"I have a few questions to ask you about Luiza San Miguel."

"Is something wrong?"

"I just need to find her," Kerney replied.

"She took a job last year at Horse Canyon. My wife sure hated to lose that girl," Arlin said.

"If she's not there, I don't know where she's working now. We haven't kept track of her. Have you checked at Horse Canyon?"

"Yes. What was her reason for leaving the Box Z?"

"She just decided to move on, I guess."

"Did you hear from her after she left?"

"We got a card from her sometime back."

"What did it say?"

"Just that she liked her new job."

"How did you come to hire her?"

"I pay a fair wage, but not too many locals-especially the younger ones-want to work six days a week on a remote ranch. So most of my employees are Mexican.

They've got their own grapevine when it comes to finding work. My wife was looking for a housekeeper when Luiza showed up."

"How did she learn about the job?"

"Word of mouth would be my guess."

"Not one of your employees?"