Faye Kellerman - Double Homicide

They rented a house off St. Francis, not far from the DeVargas Center. Val went to buy art supplies, and Steve dropped in at the police department.

Teeny little place, plenty of parking out back. Relaxed pace. So quiet.

The chief was a woman. That might be interesting.

He picked up an application form, took it home, found Valerie all excited, emptying a bag full of paint tubes and brushes onto the folding table they ate on.

“I went back to Canyon Road,” she told him. “There’s an art supply store there. You’d think it would be expensive, but it’s like two-thirds of what it cost me back in New York.”

“Great,” he said.

“Wait, I’m not finished.” She inspected a tube of cadmium yellow. Smiled, put it down. “While I’m waiting I notice a check taped to the wall behind the register. Old check, the paper’s yellowed. From the fifties. And guess whose it was?”

“Van Gogh.”

She glared. “Georgia O’Keeffe. She used to live right there, before she bought the ranch. She bought her stuff right there, the same place I did.”

Katz thought: As if that would help.

He said, “That’s awesome.”

She said, “Are you patronizing me, Steve?”

“No way,” he insisted. “I think that’s really cool.”

Bad liar. Both of them knew it.

It took her three months to leave him. Ninety-four days to be exact, during which Katz got a Police Officer III job and a promise to be considered for the detective position within sixty days if no one with more experience showed up.

“I’ve got to be honest,” he told Lieutenant Barnes. “I did undercover but no real detective work.”

“Hey,” said Barnes, “you spent five years in New York. I’m pretty sure you can handle the stuff we get.”

On day ninety-four, he came home to find Valerie’s stuff gone and a note on the folding table.

Dear Steve,

I’m sure this will be no surprise, you’re no happier than me. I met someone and I want a chance to be happy. You should also be happy. Think of me as helping, not hurting you. I’ll pay half of this month’s rent plus utilities.

The someone she’d met was a guy who drove a taxi during the day and claimed to be a sculptor. That was Santa Fe, Katz had learned quickly. Everyone was creative.

Val and Taxi lasted a month, but she had no desire to come back to Katz. Instead, she embarked on a series of affairs with similar types, keeping no permanent address, painting her terrible abstractions.

A small town meant running into her all the time. The guys she was with always started off nervous about meeting Katz. Then, when they could tell he wasn’t going to hit them, they relaxed and got the same sly, contented look on their faces. Katz knew what it meant; he’d experienced Val as a tigress.

He wasn’t getting laid at all. Which was fine. He had no libido, was into his new job. Wearing a blue uniform that fit better than his NYPD duds, driving around and getting to know the lay of the land, enjoying the company of a series of easygoing partners, solving problems that could be solved.

Paying rent on a too big place seemed foolish, but inertia stopped him from taking the initiative to move. Then one night he got a call to check out an intruder at the Rolling Stone Marble and Granite Yard. Mostly, those were false alarms, but this time he caught some kid hiding among the slabs. No big deal, just a loser looking for a place to sniff coke. Katz arrested him and handed him over to Narco.

The owner of the yard, a big, heavy, florid man named Al Kilcannon, showed up as Katz was trundling the kid off. Heard Katz talk and said, “You from the city?”

“ New York.”

“Is there another city?” Kilcannon was from Astoria, Queens, had worked with some Greeks in the stone business. Ten years ago, he had moved to Santa Fe because his wife wanted peace and quiet.

“Same deal here,” said Katz, sticking the kid in the back of his cruiser and slamming the door.

“She like it?”

“Last time I talked to her she did.”

“Oh,” said Kilcannon. “One of those-what, an artist?”

Katz smiled. “Have a good evening, sir.”

“See you around, Officer Katz.”

And he did, a week later, the two of them bending elbows at a bar on Water Street. Kilcannon well in his cups, but a good listener.

When Katz told him he was thinking of moving, Kil-cannon said, “Hey, you know, I’ve got a place out back of the yard. Nothing fancy, my kid used to live there back when he was in college and hated my guts. Now he’s living in Boulder and the place is empty. I’d be willing to make a trade: two hundred bucks a month, including utilities, if when you’re there you watch over the place.”

Katz thought about that. “What about when I’m sleeping?”

“Then you’re sleeping, Steve. The main thing is some-one’ll be there.”

“I’m still not clear what you expect me to do.”

“ Be there,” said Kilcannon. “A cop being there will be a terrific deterrent. Leave your cop car where it can be seen from the street. I got big-time inventory; for me it’d be cheap insurance.”

“My partner and I trade off,” said Katz. “I don’t get to take the car home every day.”

“No sweat, Steve. When it’s there, it’s there. The main thing is you’ll be there and everyone’ll know it. No pressure, but it could work out for both of us. It’s even got cable.”

Katz finished his drink. Then he said, “Sure, why not?”

Since he’d lived here, he’d caught a would-be marble thief, a real moron attempting to single-handedly make off with Kilcannon’s last slab of Norwegian Rose. Nothing else, other than stray dogs and one weird situation where a coyote mom had actually made it all the way down from the Sangres and whelped a litter between two pallets of Brazilian Blue.

A good deal for him and Al, he figured. If you didn’t mind living like this.

He lay on his bed, not the least bit tired. He’d coast through tomorrow on adrenaline, collapse sometime in the evening.

But he fell asleep despite himself. Thinking about Valerie. About why her name had been in Larry Olafson’s Palm Pilot.

Breakfast was a quick affair for the two detectives. Darrel had been the one to get up early and hit the computer. He’d found a recent address for Bart and Emma Skaggs.

“Over in Embudo. Got a unit number, so they’re in an apartment,” he told Katz. “Far cry from running cattle.”

“Embudo’s pretty,” said Katz.

“It’s an apartment, Steve.” Anger flashed in Darrel’s eyes.

“You don’t like our vic.”

Darrel stared at him. Pushed away his plate. “Let’s get going. The highway should be nice and clear by now.”

Embudo was fifty miles north of Santa Fe, right where the highway meets the roiling Rio Grande. Nice little greenbelt town, really more like an oasis in the high desert. Even when the drought was heavy, the river kept the environs lush and moist.

The Skaggs residence was a room over a garage out back of a roadside shop that sold vintage clothing and chilis and pickled vegetables and yoga tapes. The owner was a spaced-out white-haired woman in her fifties with some kind of middle European accent who said, “They clean for me and I give them a deal on the rent. Nice people. Why are you here?”

“We like nice people,” said Two Moons.

Katz examined a packet of chili spices. Blue ribbon prize at last year’s show.

“They’re good,” said the white-haired woman. She wore black yoga pants and a red silk blouse and twenty pounds of amber jewelry.

Katz smiled at her and put the packet down and hurried after Two Moons.

“Police?” Emma Skaggs opened the door and emitted a sigh. “Come in, I think we can find some room for you.”