Michael McGarrity: Death Song

“Very good.”

“Also, the state police report that the governor is going to declare a state of emergency. He’s calling out the National Guard to assist.”

“That will help a lot.”

“Sergeant Pino and Detective Chacon are on their way to the Cañoncito crime scene. Pino wants to know if you have contact with Sergeant Istee.”

“Tell her affirmative and to proceed without us. We’ll be at her twenty later in the morning. Speaking of Sergeant Istee, he needs to borrow a vehicle. What do we have on the lot?”

“If he can get here, there’s an unmarked Crown Vic with a rebuilt motor he can use.”

“I’ll let him know,” Kerney said. “Thanks, Larry.”

“I’m here if you need me,” Otero said before disconnecting.

Kerney checked the pantry and refrigerator to see what he could whip up for breakfast. He had no idea how long Clayton would sleep, so he decided he would make blueberry pancakes—one of Patrick’s all-time favorite meals—and keep a batch warming in the oven for Clayton.

He put the teakettle on the stove, got the coffeepot started for Sara, and was halfway through his prep when Patrick came into the kitchen still wearing his pajamas and holding his copy of Herman and Poppy Go Singing in the Hills , a storybook of the friendship between a horse and a pony.

“Good morning, scout.” Kerney picked up his son and gave him a smooch. “It’s blueberry pancakes for breakfast.”

“Yummy.” Patrick grinned and threw his arms around Kerney’s neck. “Mom says it’s a snow day and everybody has to stay home.”

“Some of us can’t, sport.” Kerney lowered Patrick to the floor. “But the time is coming when I won’t have to go to work anymore.”

“And you won’t be a police chief anymore,” Patrick added.

“That’s right,” Kerney said, wondering how that was going to feel.

He poured Patrick a glass of orange juice and sat him at the kitchen table. Between sips of his juice, Patrick read the fantastic adventures of Herman and Poppy aloud. Only Sara’s arrival temporarily interrupted the telling of the tale. Clayton followed along soon after, looking a whole lot better after a good night’s sleep.

Kerney put the finishing touches on breakfast and served it up while Patrick regaled the table with the part of the story where Poppy the pony goes missing and Herman the horse goes looking for his friend.

Clayton said it was one of the best stories he’d ever heard.

Patrick replied there was one that was even better and hurried off to his room. He returned with his all-time favorite book, a dog-eared copy of Pablito the Pony , and promptly started reading it to Clayton.

After breakfast, all hands pitched in to clear the table and stack the dishwasher. Chores done, the foursome went to the barn to put the horses back in their stalls. On their return to the house, Jack Burke and his road grader came into view. From the front courtyard they watched as he cut a swath in the snow wide enough for one car to get through and cleared the driveway to the ranch house.

At Sara’s insistence, Jack came inside for a cup of coffee. Patrick promptly climbed onto Jack’s lap as he sat at the kitchen table and asked if he could have a ride on the road grader. With Sara’s permission, Jack agreed to give him a short ride to the lip of the canyon and back.

“Can I drive it?” Patrick asked.

“You sure can,” Jack said, getting a nod from Kerney.

Patrick’s eyes lit up. He jumped off Jack’s lap, ran to the mudroom, returned with his boots and cold weather gear in hand, and started getting ready to go back outside.

“Guess I’d better hurry up and finish this coffee,” Jack said with a grin.

“We have to go as well,” Kerney said, gesturing toward Clayton. “Thanks for plowing our road.”

“No need for thanks,” Jack replied. “I like driving that big old grader about as much as Patrick does.”

Bundled up and ready to go, three men and one excited little boy trooped out into the fierce glare of sunlight bouncing off the thick layer of snow.

In the truck, Kerney lowered the visor, honked the horn, waved at Patrick and Jack, and started down the road. Even with the plowing Jack had done, it was slow going. Kerney made the turn onto the highway, looked at Clayton, and grinned.

“What?” Clayton asked.

“I was just thinking that you look a hell of a lot better once you get a good night’s sleep.”

Clayton smiled slightly. “Too bad it didn’t make me any smarter. Maybe then I’d have some ideas of what we should do to solve the murders.”

“Sometimes the solution is in the little details.”

Clayton nodded. He’d slept hard until just before he woke, when the dream of Tim Riley dressed as an Apache warrior and the faceless, laughing woman had returned. What did it mean? Why couldn’t he shake free of Riley’s ghost? Today he’d worn black jeans and a black wool sweater to protect himself from ghost sickness. But maybe it was too late.

“Are you okay?” Kerney asked, noting the dark expression on Clayton’s face.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Clayton replied, forcing a smile, trying to make himself believe it.

At the Cañoncito double-wide Ramona Pino and Matt Chacon found an empty fifty-five-gallon oil drum in the stables and rolled it over the snow to the well house. At the woodshed they gathered up and carried armloads of kindling and firewood until they had enough to keep a good fire going for several hours. Matt got the fire started with blank paper from a writing tablet, and soon the warmth from the drum had noticeably raised the temperature under the improvised canopy that had been put up hastily during yesterday’s storm to protect the area from additional moisture contamination. But the canopy kept the smoke from rising, and after deciding the extra warmth wasn’t worth smoke-filled lungs and watery eyes, the two detectives cut it down.

Once the smoke had dissipated, Ramona crawled into the well house and turned on the battery-powered camping lantern. The partial roof on the structure and the temporary canopy had helped to keep deep snow from covering the dirt floor, but with a probe she could tell there was still a good twelve inches to dig through.

With the lantern instead of a flashlight and the morning sunlight streaming through the damaged roof, illumination inside the well house was much improved. Ramona did a careful visual inspection of all the surfaces that might have been touched by Brian Riley or anyone else who’d entered the structure, paying particular attention to the door, walls, and the metal parts of the old well motor and pipes that were exposed.

A good investigator knew that a person coming in contact with anything could leave a trace. Knowing what to look for could turn up a critical piece of evidence. It could be a hair, a fiber, a drop of blood, a mark left by a tool, a fingerprint, a footprint, or a toothpick with dried saliva on it. Cases had been solved and murderers convicted based on plant life, insects, and soil samples found at crime scenes.

On the rough-cut boards to the door there were what looked like some short dark hairs, quite possibly from rodents, stuck to the wood. It would be up to the lab to decide if the hairs were human or not. Using tweezers, Ramona removed each hair and bagged it separately.

She dusted for prints on likely surfaces and lifted several good ones from the metal door latch, the old motor, and one of the broken roof joists that hung down five feet above the dirt floor.

The snow accumulation behind the motor had an uneven indentation that Ramona closely examined. There were several scoop marks in the snow, made possibly by gloved hands. Brian Riley had come here yesterday looking for something, and this looked to be the likely spot.