Michael McGarrity: Death Song

“Okay,” Riley said with a sense of relief, “that explains it. Thanks.”

“Do you want me to ask the state police to send a uniform to check on her?” the dispatcher asked.

“Negative,” Tim said. “Thanks anyway.” He dropped the microphone on the seat and dialed his sister-in-law’s number on his cell phone. When Helen answered, he explained the situation.

“She probably didn’t hang up the phone properly,” Helen said.

“I know,” Tim replied. “But I’d feel better about it if you went out and checked on her.”

“Of course.”

“Have her call me right away.”

“I will. She’s going to be upset that she worried you unnecessarily.”

“Tell her not to be. Thanks, Helen.”

Tim disconnected and listened to incoming traffic on his radio. A Carrizozo police officer was en route to a fight in the parking lot of a local bar. Riley turned on his emergency lights, put his unit in gear, accelerated, and alerted the officer that he was on his way to assist.

In the eastside Santa Fe home her grandfather had built eighty years ago, now surrounded by millionaires’ mansions, Helen Muiz found her husband sleeping in his favorite chair in the den with the television turned down low. She shook him awake and told him to put on his shoes and drive her to Cañoncito right away.

“What’s the problem?” Ruben asked grouchily as he laced up his shoes.

“Probably nothing,” Helen replied. “But Tim’s worried because he can’t reach Denise, and the phone company says it’s because the phone is off the hook.”

Ruben shook his head. “It’s pretty late in the evening to go joyriding out to Cañoncito and back.”

“Don’t be such a grump, Ruben. You’re retired, remember? So it’s not like you have to get up in the morning and go to work. Besides, she’s my baby sister and I’m worried about her.”

Ruben knew better than to argue with Helen about her five sisters and one brother, all younger than she was. She was about to turn sixty and had been mother hen to all of them since their parents had died. Denise, the youngest by twenty-one years, was her favorite.

He went to the hall closest, got his jacket, put it on, and held out Helen’s coat. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, turned around, and kissed him on the cheek. “I wish she wasn’t moving to Lincoln County.”

Ruben shrugged. “A wife goes with her husband.”

“Chauvinist.”

“I prefer the term traditionalist,” Ruben replied.

“That may be, but you’re still a chauvinist,” Helen said, patting her husband on the arm. “There’s no earthly reason for Tim to take Denise away to Lincoln County. He could have easily gotten a job with the Santa Fe Police Department.”

Ruben opened the front door and stood aside to let his wife pass. “Yes, he could have. But I don’t think he wanted that.”

Helen looked sternly at Ruben. “Has he talked to you? Do you know why he’s so set on moving away?”

Ruben shook his head. His wife had done her best to change Tim’s mind about the job in Lincoln County. Helen had spent thirty-eight years working for the Santa Fe Police Department. She and her boss, Chief Kevin Kerney, a man she’d known since his first day on the job, were both retiring at the end of the month. She’d spoken to Kerney about Tim, who’d encouraged Helen to have him apply for a transfer to the SFPD. But Tim would have none of it.

“Some people thrive on change and variety,” Ruben said. “Tim spent twenty years in the air force and lived all over the world. Maybe it’s just in his blood.”

Helen sighed and marched down the walkway toward the car. “Well, since her return to Santa Fe, it’s certainly not in Denise’s blood. I think she should come stay with us until Tim finds a place to rent in Lincoln County. I don’t like the idea of her being out in Cañoncito by herself.”

“I’m sure you’ll tell her that when you see her,” Ruben said as he opened the passenger door to the car.

Helen settled into her seat and grimaced at her husband. “I hate the idea of her moving away.”

“I know you do,” Ruben said, gazing at his lovely wife, who didn’t look a day over fifty and had a figure that still earned admiring glances from strangers. “But they’re only going to be living three hours away by car. We can easily visit.”

Ruben got behind the wheel and Helen gave him a smooch. “You’re always so logical,” she said.

“Only when I’m not being chauvinistic.” Ruben buckled his seat belt and cranked the engine. “Okay, let’s go on this rescue mission so we can tell Denise to hang up her telephone.”

A five-minute drive on empty city streets got them to the Old Las Vegas Highway, once part of the original Route 66 and now a frontage road that paralleled I-25. On the map, Cañoncito was a settlement where the pavement dead-ended at a small chapel. But in fact, houses, trailers, and double-wides were sprinkled throughout foothills and mesas all the way to the mainline railroad tracks that followed the Galisteo Creek south toward Albuquerque.

Tim and Denise lived up a small canyon near the creek, on a mixture of pasture and woodland, their double-wide tucked under some trees near a rock outcropping. Helen and Ruben arrived to find Denise’s car parked outside, lights on inside the residence, and the front door ajar.

As soon as Helen saw her sister’s car keys and purse on the kitchen counter and the wall phone dangling from the cord, she started to panic. In a loud voice she called out to Denise, only to be greeted by silence. Nothing appeared to be out of order in the front room, but it was unlike Denise to be gone from her home at such a late hour. Helen hurried through the rest of the house searching for her sister with Ruben at her heels.

“Something’s wrong,” she said when they returned to the front room. Her heart was racing and she patted her chest to catch her breath.

Ruben handed Helen his cell phone. “You call your sisters and brother, and I’ll check the stable.”

“She would have heard us if she was with the horses.”

“Maybe not,” Ruben replied calmly, trying to hide his own growing anxiety. “If I don’t find her, I’ll knock on the neighbor’s front door. She could be just visiting nearby.”

“I didn’t see any lights on in that house when we drove by,” Helen said.

“I’ll check anyway. Call your sisters and brother. They might know where Denise is.”

Helen speed-dialed a number. “Don’t be long.”

“I won’t,” Ruben said. Outside, he took a flashlight from the glove box of his car and walked to the corral and stable. Tim and Denise’s two prize quarter horses were in their stalls. Ruben found the light switch. Both stalls were dirty and stinky from the smell of urine and manure. No feed or fresh water had been put out and the horses were restless, snorting in displeasure.

Ruben released the animals into the corral and walked around the stable. The horse trailer was parked in its usual place next to the old pickup truck Tim used to haul hay and supplies. He made a circle around the double-wide, shining his flashlight on the ground and behind the trees, thinking that maybe Denise had met with some accident. Finding nothing, he hiked down the driveway to the nearest neighbor and pounded on the front door. The porch light came on and a sleepy-eyed man in his fifties opened the door a crack and looked out.

“I’ve got a pistol,” he growled. “What do you want?”

Ruben raised his hands. “I’m not a crook. I’m Denise Riley’s brother-in-law. My wife and I are looking for her.”

The man opened the door. His hair was matted against his forehead, and he had a very large pistol in his hand. “I haven’t seen her drive by recently.”