Michael McGarrity - Death Song

Mielke moved on to photograph the horse trailer, the drag marks in the dirt, and the interior of the tack room, while Ramona Pino inspected the victim and made a list of the woman’s clothing, which included notations of the condition of the garments and any visible damage and stains. The woman’s jeans barely covered her buttocks, and flecks of straw adhered to exposed skin at the small of her back.

Ramona wondered if the woman’s jeans had been rearranged by the perpetrator. If so, it signaled that the killer probably knew the victim. She made a closer visual inspection of the victim’s exposed right forearm and left hand and saw what appeared to be bruising—quite possibly defensive wounds. Had the crime started out as a sexual assault and escalated to murder?

She wrote down her observations and speculations, drew a rough sketch of the body in relation to the corral and tack room, measured off all distances, and then began a search for trace evidence on the surfaces of the horse trailer.

When the MI arrived and declared the victim dead, the body was turned faceup and two facts became readily apparent. First, comparison with the driver’s license photo Ramona had found in the purse inside the double-wide showed that the dead woman was indeed Denise Riley. Second, her throat had been cut.

Salgado promptly called off the search and released all off-duty and nonessential personnel who had volunteered their time. As the searchers returned to the staging area and quietly began to disperse, Kerney, Salgado, and Jessup thanked each of them personally for coming out. The three men silently watched as the searchers loaded gear and equipment into their police units and emergency vehicles and left the area in a line of cars that stretched the length of the long dirt driveway.

As the last vehicle turned onto the county road, Sheriff Luciano Salgado turned to Kerney. “Are you going to tell Helen Muiz?” he asked.

“I’ll go over to her house right now,” Kerney replied.

“Let her know that I’ll be in touch with her real soon,” Salgado said.

“Maybe you’ll have some answers for her by then.”

“God, I hope so,” Salgado replied with a sigh. “How long can I use Sergeant Pino and your detectives?”

“As long as you need them,” Kerney replied, thinking it was unlikely that the two separate homicides of Riley and his wife would be cleared anytime soon.

“Thanks,” Salgado said.

Kerney nodded in reply and headed to his unit. Before driving off, he tried reaching Sara at home by phone. There was no answer, so he called her cell phone and got a voice message that told him that Sara and Patrick were off on an early morning horseback ride.

The message pleased Kerney. Being with Patrick was the best medicine for what ailed Sara. That sweet, happy, smart-as-a-whip little boy buoyed her spirits and got her thinking about all the good things life had to offer.

He put the unit in gear and headed for town, his thoughts turning as dark as the gunmetal gray March sky that masked the morning sun. Far too often over the course of his career, he’d brought the news of a loved one’s death to family members. Most times, they had been complete strangers or only slightly known to him through the course of an investigation. But it was never an easy thing to do.

This time it would be worse. He would have to tell a woman he’d known, liked, and respected for over twenty years that the death of her brother-in-law was not the worst of it. The kid sister she’d adored was dead, murdered just as her husband had been hours ago in Lincoln County.

Ruben and Helen Muiz lived in a historic double adobe home that had been in her family since the early twentieth century. Ancient cottonwoods and pines screened the house from the dirt lane that ran around the back side of the hill to a new fourteen-thousand-square foot adobe mansion built by a Chicago real estate developer who came to Santa Fe every summer for the opera season.

The cars that lined the driveway to the Muiz residence told Kerney that the family had gathered in the wake of the bad news of Tim Riley’s murder and Denise’s disappearance. He parked on the lane and walked toward the house, thinking that over the years his friendship with Helen had been basically work-related and he knew very little about Helen’s siblings or her extended family. The circumstances of the last eight hours were about to change all that.

He rang the doorbell and was soon greeted by Ruben Muiz, who stared at him with bleary eyes ringed with dark circles. Beyond the entry hall in a nearby room, he could hear the low sounds of hushed conversation.

“What have you learned?” Ruben asked.

“Is Helen sleeping?” Kerney countered.

“Nobody’s sleeping,” Ruben said tersely. “Everybody’s here. Tell me what you found out about Denise.”

Kerney touched Ruben on the shoulder. “Take it easy,” he said gently as people began crowding into the entry hall.

“Sorry,” Ruben said, lowering his voice.

“Why don’t you get everyone together and let me talk to them as a group.”

“Yes, of course,” Ruben said, ushering Kerney into a large living room filled with twenty-some somber people who stopped talking and stared at him with great intensity.

Helen sat on a couch with several women and a man clustered nearby who looked to be her sisters and brother. Other men hovering close by Kerney took to be the sisters’ husbands.

He crossed the room, trying to keep his expression passive, reached Helen, took her by the hand, and shook his head once. She gasped and began sobbing. He stepped away as the sisters closed in around Helen, the women choking back tears, crying, reaching to embrace one another and clasp hands. He backed off to a far corner of the room and waited patiently for the grieving to subside and the questioning to begin. The family’s anguish was about to become a hell of a lot more distressing once they learned how Denise had died.

The report that Tim Riley’s wife had also been murdered reached Clayton by way of a phone call from Sergeant Ramona Pino. Clayton had worked with Pino once before, on a case involving a revenge killer intent on wiping out Kevin Kerney and his entire bloodline, including Clayton and his family. The perp had almost succeeded, but Clayton had gunned him down in Santa Fe before he could kill Kerney, Sara, and their brand-new baby boy, Patrick.

After winding up the search for evidence at Tim Riley’s rented cabin, Clayton convened a meeting of his team at the Capitan town hall and brought them up to speed on what he knew about Denise Riley’s murder in Santa Fe County.

“I doubt that these murders are coincidental,” Clayton told the group, “but until we have either a motive or a suspect, I want some people backtracking on Tim Riley’s time here in Lincoln County. I want an accounting for every minute of every day in the week Riley was here.”

Clayton paused and looked around the room, which contained every available deputy plus Paul Hewitt, Craig Bolt, and the two Capitan village officers. “I’ll get to the assignments in a minute, but remember this: I don’t want reports coming in with any gaps,” he warned. “I want his entire week reconstructed. Names, dates, times, places—you all know the drill. You’ll be looking for any unusual event, altercation, heated exchange, or misunderstanding that may have happened which could have led—no matter how remotely—to his murder.”

“What if Riley’s murder has nothing to do with anybody in Lincoln County?” Chief Craig Bolt asked.

“It’s very possible,” Clayton answered. “When a husband and wife get murdered in separate locations within hours of each other, it makes you wonder if maybe all was not sweetness and light on the home front. But with no motive and no suspect, we have to focus on the victims for now. So as soon as this meeting is over, some of you are going to start an all-out, deep background check on both Tim Riley and his wife. I’m sure the Santa Fe County S.O. will be doing the same.”