Michael McGarrity: Death Song

“Do you speak to her frequently?” Ruben asked.

“No, usually we just wave at each other.”

“Could she be visiting some other neighbors?”

The man shrugged. “This time of night? I doubt it.”

“Okay,” Ruben said. “Thanks.”

“Has she run off?” the man asked.

“We don’t know,” Ruben replied. Back at the house he found Helen standing outside on the deck, about to dial the cell phone.

“Did you learn anything?” she asked, snapping the cell phone closed.

Ruben shook his head. “You?”

Helen grimaced. “Nobody in the family has seen or talked to Denise in the past two days.”

“The neighbor I spoke to asked me if she’d run off,” Ruben said.

“Run off? That’s absurd.” Helen flipped open the cell phone.

“Are you calling Tim?”

Helen shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t want to upset him any more than he already is. I’m calling Chief Kerney.”

By the time Tim Riley arrived at the parking lot outside the Carrizozo bar, the fight had turned into a brawl. Six men and two women were mixing it up big-time. Fists were flying, kicks were landing, and the women were especially hard at it, pulling hair and gouging each other with their fingernails. It took some scuffling with the brawlers by Tim and the Carrizozo cop to settle things down, but eventually pepper spray did the trick. They made arrests, called for EMTs to treat the injuries sustained by the combatants, and took witness statements.

According to all concerned, brawlers and onlookers alike, the fight had started inside the bar when the two women began arguing about who had dibs to play the next game of pool. In all his years as a cop and as a career military criminal investigator, Tim had yet to hear a rational explanation for a bar fight given by drunks. Plausible excuses, perhaps, but never rational reasons.

Tim’s shift had ended by the time the suspects in custody were transported and booked into the county jail. He finished the booking paperwork, went to the sheriff’s department, and put his completed shift reports in the tray on the chief deputy’s desk.

In the silence of the empty offices—there would be no deputies on duty until the morning shift—Tim again tried calling home on a landline, only to get another irritating busy signal. Why hadn’t Denise called him? Or Helen for that matter?

Tim decided he couldn’t wait for a phone call to find out what in the hell was going on at home. He’d go to his rented cabin, change into his civvies, and hit the road for Santa Fe. At this time of night, if he pushed it hard he could make it in under three hours.

In Capitan he rolled to a stop in front of the cabin. The street was dark and there were no lights on in any of the adjacent houses. Before he reported himself home and off duty, Tim searched the backseat of his unit. It was something he always did after transporting perps or prisoners. Experience had taught him that even when cuffed, people would hide items from the cops in police vehicles that had been overlooked in pat-down searches. Over the years, he’d found things like knives, drugs, needles, money, condoms, and wallets stuffed behind cushions and under the seat.

This night he found nothing, signed off with dispatch, locked his unit, and headed for the front door.

Behind him a familiar-sounding voice whispered, “Hey.”

Startled, Tim turned, and the last thing he saw was the flash of a shotgun blast that hit him full force in the face.

Chapter Two

The shotgun blast woke up nearby residents, and in the silence that followed, several nervous but curious neighbors left the warmth and safety of their homes to investigate. Separately they converged on Tim Riley’s body lying in a pool of blood and called 911 to report it, their voices cracking with alarm. Within minutes, Craig Bolt and Paul Hewitt arrived at the scene. After a quick look to confirm that Riley was dead, they covered the body, cordoned off the area, and ordered every available officer under their commands back on duty ASAP.

A number of officers and some emergency personnel had gathered by the time Clayton pulled up to a police barrier on the street to Riley’s rented cabin. In the numbingly cold night, a small crowd of citizens stood quietly gazing at the flashing lights of the police vehicles parked in front of the crime scene.

The deputy manning the barrier waved Clayton through. As he drove slowly down the street, he saw Craig Bolt’s officers interviewing people outside their homes. On the sidewalk in front of Riley’s rented cabin, two male civilians dressed in pajamas, slippers, and winter coats were giving statements to deputies.

Clayton parked his pickup truck next to Paul Hewitt’s vehicle and spotted the sheriff standing near a tree in the front yard talking to his chief deputy and Chief Bolt. Crime scene tape had been strung from the cabin’s front porch, wrapped around the rearview mirror and bumper of Riley’s unit, and tied off on the antenna of a pickup truck parked close by. It formed a triangle that enclosed a body covered by a tarp, illuminated by the headlights of Craig Bolt’s police vehicle.

Deputy Sheriff Bennie Anaya guarded the crime scene. Approaching sixty and close to retirement, Bennie was a jovial, roly-poly man who wasn’t the smartest cop on the street by a long shot, but who did a barely adequate job of transporting prisoners to and from court.

“Who has inspected the body?” Clayton asked as he approached Anaya.

“Just the sheriff and Chief Bolt,” Anaya replied. He held out his clipboard with a crime scene log-in sheet attached.

Clayton noted the time on the form and signed it. “Did you take a look, Bennie?”

Bennie nodded. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

Clayton handed him the clipboard. “Sign yourself in.”

Bennie did as he was told.

“Has anyone been inside the cabin?” Clayton asked.

“I don’t think so,” Bennie replied. He paused and reconsidered his answer. “Maybe, before I got here. But the sheriff didn’t say.”

“Nobody enters the crime scene or the cabin without my permission,” Clayton said, nodding in the direction of Hewitt, Bolt, and Baca. “That includes the top brass who are over there by that tree jawboning.”

“Affirmative,” Bennie replied.

“Do you know who else will be joining us?” Clayton asked.

“The DA and the medical investigator are on the way,” Anaya said, “and state police are sending a mobile crime lab and some techs up from Las Cruces. Every law enforcement agency in the region has offered to help out.”

Clayton ducked under the tape and put on a pair of gloves. “Do we have anything for them to do?”

Bennie snorted. “We don’t have squat. Not yet, anyway.”

“That could change,” Clayton said as he walked to Riley’s body, bent down, and pulled back the tarp. From the looks of it, a rifled shotgun slug fired at close range had almost obliterated Riley’s face. A massive amount of blood from the large entry wound had saturated the ground under Riley’s head. On his forehead, above what was left of his nose and eyes, gray brain matter dripped down like coagulated gobs of cooked pasta.

For a moment Clayton found it hard to remember what Riley had looked like before he’d been murdered. He forced his gaze away, composed himself, and rapped a knuckle on Riley’s chest. As he suspected, Riley had been wearing his body armor. Did the murderer know that and take the head shot to be sure of the kill?

Clayton raised his eyes back to Riley’s mangled face. Earlier, he had apologized to the deer for its needless death. Now he wondered what circumstance had gotten Riley killed. It surely wasn’t a random act. From the position of the body, he guessed that Riley had turned to face his killer. Perhaps a sound had alerted him. He inspected the soles of Riley’s boots, fished out a flashlight from his equipment bag, and went looking for footprints. The ground was too frozen to show fresh impressions, but on the porch he located two partials. One matched the tread on Riley’s boot and the other did not.