“Only if you want to. We’re kind of going rogue on this anyway.”
“I can be ready by five in the morning.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that, as she put away the tea and turned off the kettle. Her one morning to sleep late and she’d just given it away.
Chapter 13
When the alarm went off at four-thirty, Sam felt even more frustrated with herself for giving up her free morning. What was she thinking? She brushed her teeth with the idea that maybe it was just an excuse to spend time with Beau, but by the time she’d started the coffee maker and found a Thermos to take with them, she’d concluded that it was really more about solving the murder because the key piece of evidence had come from one of her break-in houses. If she’d accidentally thrown away some other important evidence, she could never live with that. She
Beau looked a little rough around the edges when he picked her up in his blue Explorer. He was in civilian clothes but she noticed that his badge was pinned to his belt and he carried his service weapon.
“Only if necessary,” he explained. “The badge should work to get us in the door, and I’ll make her think we’ve got a subpoena.”
“Jurisdiction?”
“Yeah, that’s definitely fuzzy. Technically, I should get Alamosa PD to work with us, but that would probably get back to Sheriff Padilla. Plus, it seems like overkill when we just want answers to a few questions. It’s not like we’re planning to arrest the lady.”
Sam poured them each a cup of coffee once he’d reached the open highway, and got out the bag of day-old apple cinnamon scones she’d brought from her shop last night.
“I think if I ever get used to being up at these atrocious hours, I might actually like it,” she said between bites. The inky sky filled with billions of pinpoints had a certain mystical appeal, she had to admit.
The plan, loosely, was to arrive at Cheryl’s house around seven, heading her off before she left for the day. The brother who had spoken with Beau didn’t know if she had a job yet. Her normal pattern was to live off unemployment from the last one until it was about to run out. With job skills limited to waiting tables or being a motel maid, the good news was that somebody, somewhere was always hiring. The bad news, for Cheryl, was finding daycare for an infant and keeping the others in school when she moved around so much.
As Sam got bits and pieces of the woman’s life story, she began to see why attempting to fit into the role of homeowner probably wasn’t something Cheryl Adams was cut out for.
The sun glowed slightly above the hills to the east as they pulled into Alamosa. Beau steered to the side of the road and stopped, pulling out a map.
“It shouldn’t be far,” he said, tracing the lines with his finger to show Sam the road they were looking for. “A trailer park. Those aren’t usually in the choice downtown locations.”
He was sure right about that, Sam thought as they drove down a narrow, rutted dirt lane and came upon a cluster of old-style single mobile homes. Signs warned to watch for “Slow Children Playing” and Beau, accordingly, took it easy. Cheryl Adams’s rented trailer was in the fourth row, third space on the right. Crispy dry weed stalks bordered the skirt of the metal shell and a dented blue Chevy Malibu was parked out front. An amazing number of plastic tricycles were scattered about the small area they used as a yard.
“Looks like she’s already begun collecting stuff again,” Sam commented. “There’s no way she brought all this from the old place in that car.”
Beau rolled his eyes but continued picking his way through the mess, heading toward the front door. Sam followed, noting the sounds of high-pitched kid voices from within. After the third, increasingly hard knock the door opened.
A toddler with wide blue eyes stared out at them.
“Is your mommy here?” Beau asked.
The pajama-clad kid continued to stare.
“Billy, you’re letting the cold air in!” The woman looked just like Sam would have imagined—blond hair up in a hasty ponytail at the top of her head, loose shirt hanging off one shoulder, obvious signs of baby spit on one leg of her less-than-clean jeans. Four little ones didn’t allow a mom much time for personal grooming.
“Cheryl Adams?” Beau asked.
“Yeah . . .” She scooted the kid out of the way and placed herself solidly between the door and the jamb.
Beau opened his jacket to reveal his badge. “I have a few questions about someone you knew in Taos. Would you rather we came inside so we don’t waste your warm air?”
“Here’s fine,” Adams said, her eyes narrowing.
“Okay. We’re looking into the death of a man named Bram Fenton. Some of his personal items were found at your house.”
“Who?” She genuinely looked puzzled.
“Bram Fenton. He was a private investigator.”
“Never heard of him.”
“There were some articles of male clothing at your house, the place you abandoned on the south side of Taos.”
Cheryl’s features twisted into a mask of thought. “Well, my ex left some of his stuff behind. I probably never threw it out.”
Sam nearly burst out laughing. This woman had never thrown
“Was there a dark green trench coat?” Beau asked.
“Trench coat? Oh, the private eye thing. I get it. Uh, no. No way Doug woulda worn nothing like that. Strictly a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy. Wore a suit for our wedding but that’s the most dressed-up I ever seen him.” She shook a clinging kid off her leg and tightened the closure on the door. “Look, I got kids to get ready for school.”
“We believe the coat belonged to the private investigator. Any idea how it got into your closet?”
“Not really. I mean, I buy a lot at garage sales and stuff, but I never seen a coat like that.” She raised her voice to be heard over the increasing clamor inside the trailer.
Beau handed her his card. “Call me if anything comes to mind. Maybe you’ll remember someone giving you the coat . . . maybe a visitor left it behind . . .”
“Whatever.” She bit onto the card as she used both hands to grab at another kid who tried to make a break for it between her legs. The door closed and the volume of whining voices diminished a little.
“Any bets on whether you’ll hear from her?” Sam commented as they walked toward Beau’s SUV.
“About a million to one against.” He started the engine and backed out into the narrow road. “She genuinely seemed clueless. Well, maybe that wasn’t the right word. Clueless about life, maybe. But not connected to our case. I didn’t see any signs of deception when we talked to her.”
“So we still have our central question: How did Fenton’s bloody coat get out to Cheryl’s house?”
“There has to be some tie-in. The medical investigator said his artery was cut by a thin-bladed object, probably a small knife. If we could locate that, we might be able to get some kind of trace evidence that would lead us to the killer.”
“I didn’t come across anything like that when I was cleaning.”
“There were a few dull kitchen knives at Cheryl’s place, but I sprayed them and found no blood traces.”
“Plus, she’d moved away at least a month before Fenton’s death, right?” Sam raised her coffee cup but it was stone cold.
“So if Sheriff Padilla’s theory is correct and it was a gang killing, what are the odds of finding either the knife or the person it belonged to? Wouldn’t it have to be a very distinctive knife to tie it to any certain guy?”
“Pretty much. And what are the odds of us ever finding it? You’ve seen that gorge. Miles and miles of boulders, the river running down the middle, eight hundred feet below. There’s an altercation, bad guy whips out a knife, slices the other guy, realizes how bad it is, throws both the vic and the knife over the edge.”
“After going to the trouble to remove his coat?”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” He turned back onto the highway and headed south toward the New Mexico border. “Maybe Padilla is right—we just don’t have the manpower to follow up on this. It would take a dozen searchers to comb the area under the bridge, and a little knife might never be found. Assuming it was thrown over
