'I wouldn't do that,' Kerney replied.
'That's what I told him.'
Jim's expression softened, and his boyish grin reappeared.
'What I was really worried about was having to solve the damn case by myself with one eye, my arm in a sling, and a face like Boris Karloff.'
'You might be able to frighten the truth out of people,' Kerney acknowledged.
'Good!' Molly proclaimed, clapping her hands.
'You've kissed and made up. I love this male bonding crap. Sorry to leave you boys, but kitchen duty calls.' She pranced out of the room, looking lovely in her tunic top and cut-off jeans that showed her legs to advantage.
The room was the nicest Kerney had been in for some time. It had a high ceiling, a fireplace bordered by a cast-iron surround, oak wainscotting, and two wooden casement windows that faced the street. The modern, comfortable furniture, slightly undersized and placed at angles to the walls, gave the room a feeling of space.
Kerney settled into the chair next to Jim, thinking of the time when he'd been living with Laura, a bright-eyed, feisty woman who seemed to have every desirable attribute he was looking for in a lover.
They had rented a small adobe home on a hill above Palace Avenue near downtown Santa Fe. It was a gem of a house that looked down at a cluster of mud plastered homes and a dirt lane bordered by ancient cottonwoods. But it wasn't a happy place to live as Laura became more and more disenchanted with the demands of Kerney's job as a detective.
He came home one night to find Laura and a stranger packing her belongings into her car. The stranger turned out to be Laura's new юboyfriend, the man she was moving in with.
'Do you want to tell me what you've been doing?'
Jim asked.
Kerney nodded and started talking, leaving out very little. He chose not to mention the tail-which hadn't reappeared-or the way the BLM officer had flinched when Leon Spence's name had been mentioned.
That stuff was in the pending file for items of developing interest.
'So my mustache theory about the shooter didn't hold up,' Jim said, when Kerney finished.
'I guess we can write Steve Lujan off.'
'I'm not so sure,' Kerney replied.
'He was a little too eager to cooperate.'
'Want to check his story out?' Jim said.
'I think so.'
'I'll do it. There's got to be a record of his injury settlement at the company.'
'Get his bank records while you're at it,' Kerney advised.
'What about Eugene's wife? Anything yet?'
'Nada, except for some background. Louise Blanton Cox moved to Pie Town at the end of World War Two and taught school for two years before marrying Gene Cox. She stayed with Gene for fifteen years and walked out on him in the early sixties. I haven't found any record of a divorce, but I still need to check with several more district courts.'
'Maybe she never divorced him,' Kerney speculated.
'Have you traced her family?'
Jim shook his head.
'She came here from Ohio or Michigan. All her family was from back there.' Kerney sighed.
'Keep on it.'
'I will.'
Both men were dejected and unwilling to admit it. Kerney watched Jim fidget with the sling that held his arm secure against his chest before resting his own head against the cushion of the chair and closing his eyes. He was almost asleep when he felt a hand shaking him.
Molly looked down at him, a pillow and a blanket in her arms.
'You're spending the night,' she announced.
'The couch in the study makes into a nice bed.'
'That's not necessary.'
'It is too.' She wheeled and faced Jim.
'Have you seen the pit he calls a home?'
'Just once.'
'He has mice living with him,' Molly said, in a tone of voice suitable for castigating heretics.
'That seals it,' Jim agreed, laughing.
'He stays.'
Kerney took the bedding and followed Molly to the study.
Doyle Fletcher rose every morning before his wife so he could make the coffee while she showered and dressed for work. At thirty-seven, he didn't need a mirror to know he looked older than his years. His prematurely gray hair wasn't the worst of it. The bags under his eyes seemed to get bigger every day.
Doyle had hauled logs to the sawmill until the lumber industry got screwed by the spotted owl and he was laid off' from truck driving. Two years without regular work had battered his once cheerful disposition into a real bad attitude. Lately he had caught himself bitching about everything, criticizing the wife and kids for minor crap, and throwing temper tantrums for no reason.
It was four o'clock in the morning. His wife worked the day shift at Cattleman's Cafe. Her job and food stamps were keeping a roof over the family's head and food on the table. Fletcher hated the situation he was in, hated not being able to contribute to his family, and most particularly hated the United States Forest Service.
Doyle had charged Kerney all he could get for the trailer, and slapped a hefty security deposit on top of the rent. He had been counting on the extra income through the end of summer, but the stupid son of a bitch had gone and gotten himself fired from his job.
To make it worse, the security deposit was gone, used to pay a bill, and there was no way he could scrape together the cash to give Kerney a refund.
Doyle figured cleaning up the mice shit in the trailer would cancel out the deposit. If Kerney didn't agree, he'd have to wait until hell froze over to get his hundred dollars back.
His wife kissed him quickly on her way out the door. He sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee and studying the county health office pamphlet on hantavirus. Cleaning up mice shit was no longer a simple chore; not since the hantavirus outbreak began killing people several years back. Television reporters had yapped endlessly about the mystery killer illness, until the scientists figured out what the hell caused it. According to the pamphlet the disease was caused by airborne particles from deer mice droppings that attacked the pulmonary system in humans.
There were protocols to follow to remove the danger and avoid exposure, and Doyle read them over again carefully. He'd already picked up the rubber gloves, flea powder, traps, bait, paper towels, disinfectant, trash bags, and mask. It looked pretty straightforward.
He put everything in a box and carried it to his truck. In the darkness, he could see a single light on in the trailer window, and he wondered where in the hell Kerney was going so early in the morning. It wasn't like he had a job. Join the club, he thought sarcastically.
He got the kids up, dressed, fed, and ready to go.
Both were enrolled in church camp for the summer on scholarships, but that didn't bother Doyle; half the children in the congregation attended for free, and he had tithed every year when he was still working.
He let the kids watch a little television until it was time to drive them to church. Kerney's truck was gone as he passed the trailer. That was fine with Doyle. Maybe he had moved out and forgotten about the deposit.
He dropped the kids off, spent a few minutes chatting with the youth minister, and went to the trailer. It had to be aired out for an hour before he could go after the mice. He unlocked the door, called out to make sure no one was home, waited a minute, and flipped on the light switch. The explosion that followed blew the roof off the trailer and slammed Fletcher across the hood of his truck into the windshield.
He shattered the glass headfirst, and the impact broke his neck. wind-driven plumes of black smoke forced the onlookers back from the ropes that cordoned off the still-smoldering trailer. Kerney watched unnoticed at the back of the crowd. The trailer lay tipped precariously on its side with most of the roof missing.
