Michael McGarrity - Hermit_s Peak

"Are you ready? I've got some work to do."

"More cop stuff?"

"Yeah."

Dale pushed his chair back and stood up.

"What a yarn I have to tell when I get home. And it doesn't need a bit of exaggeration."

"I'm glad you had a good time."

"Did I ever."

In the truck. Dale popped a George Strait tape into the cassette deck and cranked up the volume. Kerney groaned quietly. County and western was his least favorite music.

Shoe crawled out of the backseat, sat on Kerney's lap, and stared at him with serious eyes. Either the dog didn't smell bad anymore, or Kerney was getting used to him.

He was without a doubt the hairiest beast Kerney had ever owned.

Kerney's apartment was a furnished one-bedroom guest cottage in the south capital neighborhood, within a short walk to the Santa Fe plaza.

Although bland and boxy, it had a fireplace, reasonably decent furniture, and a small enclosed patio. Kerney liked the neighborhood with its old houses, narrow streets, and mature trees that gave a small-town feeling to the area. His landlord, Leo Dunn, was a retired cop who had built the cottage at the rear of his property solely for the rental income.

Over the years, most of Leo's tenants were officers going through divorces or just starting out in law enforcement. Leo knew firsthand how poorly cops were paid, so he kept the rent reasonable.

Kerney stopped at Leo's house, an older, pueblo-style single story with a long veranda, to introduce Shoe to his landlord. He got provisional permission to keep the dog as long as it didn't crap on the rug, chew up the furniture, or bother the neighbors.

Before leaving for the office, Kerney got Shoe settled, and left the patio door open to the small backyard so the dog could do his business outside. Since Leo was around most of the time to keep an eye on things, a burglary was highly unlikely. On top of that, Kerney didn't really have much worth stealing.

At the state police headquarters, a building complex that included the Department of Public Safety and the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, Kerney found Melody Jordan in the laboratory.

She looked up from the microscope and smiled when Kerney approached.

"Great timing. Chief. I was about to ask dispatch to track you down."

"What have you got?"

"Several facts that may help. The body was dismembered while clothed.

I found minute fibers embedded in the bones-denim and wool. We might be able to match that fabric scrap you found with the maker. And we may get lucky with the wool fibers."

"Do you have any hunches?"

"The victim wore high-end apparel. Chief. Not the kind of do thing bought at discount stores. But we'll have to wait for our fiber expert to confirm it."

Melody swung her stool to face Kerney.

"More good news: We may not need the skull to make an ID. The left humerus shows a severe old break, about a third of the way down. It isn't the kind of injury that would go unattended."

"That is good news. Have the bones told you anything else?"

"Tentatively. Remember, we have to factor in the weathering of the bones, but I'd give the victim's age between twenty and thirty years, based on the microscopic examination of the fibula we found."

"The victim's race?"

"Probably Anglo or Hispanic, based on the size of the pubic bone. Find the skull and I can narrow it down further.

If you do, I'll have a facial reconstruction made."

"What's next?"

"I want to see if I can match up the saw marks to various types of hand or power tools. That will take some time. I'll also do an X-ray examination to see if I can discover any foreign or metallic objects. I still don't have a due how the woman was killed."

"You do good work, Ms. Jordan." Kerney turned away and started for the door.

"Thanks." Melody pushed her hair away from her forehead and stood.

"Was that a mustang you were riding on the mesa?"

Kerney paused at the door and looked back.

"You know your horses."

"Do you ride a lot?" The thousand-watt smile Dale had noticed on the mesa lit up Melody's face.

"Not as much as I'd like. I don't have the time."

"I have two quarter horses, a mare and a gelding. I stable them at a friend's place. I think you'd like the gelding.

I've been looking for somebody who can give him a good workout. He needs a firm hand. Interested?"

Kerney pushed back the appealing thought of a day in the saddle accompanied by an attractive woman, and chose his words carefully.

"I don't see how I can fit it into my schedule. Thanks again for the good work."

Melody's smile faded. She returned to the stool, low y ered her head over the microscope, and spoke without looking up.

"I'll have a follow-up report for you as soon as possible."

Kerney waited a beat for Melody to say more. She kept her eye glued to the microscope, picked up a pendl, and started writing. He left thinking there were a lot of drawbacks to being a boss.

Sgt Gabe Gonzales arrived at the district office after dark to find a pile of paperwork waiting for him. He thumbed through it quickly. It contained a note from his captain assigning him full-time to the murder investigation, a preliminary report of Melody Jordan's examination of the skeletal remains, a copy of the most recent crime statistics for the San Geronimo area that had been faxed to Chief Kerney, and a list of missing persons reports on women who had disappeared in northern New Mexico during the past ten years. Clipped to the paperwork was a note indicating that investigative reports on the targeted missing women had been received from various law enforcement agencies and could be accessed by computer.

Gabe read Melody Jordan's report first before scanning the computer files on the ten women reported missing from northern New Mexico. He found no medical information on a woman with an old fracture to the upper left arm. It didn't surprise him: that kind of detail usually didn't surface in a preliminary missing persons report.

He scrolled the computer files again. Eight of the missing women were residents of the state, and two were tourists passing through. Only three fell within the age range Melody had established. He would work those three as a short list before moving on to the others.

If nothing promising materialized, he'd access the National Crime Information Center data bank on missing persons and see what popped up.

He checked the time and grimaced. Since his divorce last year, getting home at a reasonable hour had become important to Gabe. He had one child from the marriage, Orlando, who lived with him, attended the local university, and worked part-time.

Both were busy, but when Gabe worked the day shift he liked to get home early and fix dinner for the two of them.

Tonight that wasn't going to happen.

He called home, got the answering machine, left Orlando a message, and started organizing his field notes for his report. It would take a good two hours to do the write-up, make fresh crime scene sketches, and mount the photographs on exhibit forms. Deputy Chief Kerney expected the report on his desk first thing in the morning, and Gabe wanted to make sure it got there complete and on time.

He sat back in his chair, rubbed the back of his neck, and thought about Kerney. He was an outsider who had been quickly elevated to deputy chief, but his reputation as an investigator was outstanding. In short order, Kerney had personally cleared two major cases, a multimillion-dollar Santa Fe art theft and the murder of a small-town cop. But he was also an old friend of the state police chief, Andy Baca, which kept the issue of cronyism alive among the department gossips.

Gabe decided not to waste his time worrying about whether or not Kerney was a good boss. That question would be answered as Gabe learned more about how the chief operated. He picked up the crime statistics report for San Geronimo that Kerney had requested.