Tularosa

'No.' Enloe stood up and put on a clean shirt that had been draped over the back of the chair.

'But he should be easy to find. Truth or Consequences isn't that big of a town.'

'Why do you call him Bull?' Enloe snorted as he buttoned his shirt.

'Wait till you meet him. He's a foot shorter than me and built like a tank.'

'Is he married?'

'Divorced. That's one reason he's working. The ex-wife gets a third of his retirement pay.'

'Do you know where he works?'

'I haven't a clue. Somebody at the NCO club might be able to tell you.'

'Thanks for your time.'

Enloe smiled. 'No sweat.' He walked out the door behind Kerney and hurried across the compound to the parking lot.

Kerney went to locate PFC Alonzo Tony, who was nowhere to be found. His roommate, a slightly overweight boy with bony hands and a pug nose, arrived just as Kerney was about to leave. The soldier told Kerney that Tony worked swing shift at the post communication center, where he served as a cryptographer, and didn't get off until midnight. Kerney asked where Sammy Yazzi bunked, and the boy took him to a two-man room down the hall. Exactly half the room was empty, except for a bunk. The other half contained a precisely made bed with military corners, a foot-locker, and personal gear. The name on the closet door read PFC Robert Jaeger.

'Where is Sammy's gear?' Kerney asked.

'At the quartermaster's,' the soldier answered.

'They store your gear if you go A.W.O.L..' Kerney could hear the sounds of the troops returning from dinner. A radio was cranked up to a rap music station. Someone shouted to turn down the noise.

'What about his bunkmate?' Kerney asked.

'Bobby? He's on a pass.'

'When is he due back?' The soldier shrugged and looked down the hallway, anxious to be done with Kerney.

'In a day or two, I guess. Anything else?'

'No. Thanks a lot.'

The kid nodded and walked away. Kerney made a quick search of the room, checking the closets, the built-in dressers and desks. The room was completely bare of any trace of Sammy.

Outside, the evening air was cooling quickly and the compound was filled with young men, most of them in civilian clothes, eager for diversion. The Organ Mountains were tipped with a band of pink light as the final shadows of dusk came on.

The post library, within walking distance of the barracks, near the service club and the post movie theater, was not the most popular attraction on the post. Some housewives browsed through the new fiction display, and a few off-duty soldiers were in the reading room. Kerney found the young woman Sammy had briefly dated busily shelving books in the stacks. Carla Montoya was petite, bouncy, and talkative. Long, curly hair framed her rather ordinary features to advantage. She appeared to be in her early twenties. She answered Kerney's questions willingly, creating a sense of drama for herself in the process.

'I met him here at work,' Carla said, responding to Kerney's overture. 'He spent a lot of time at the library when he first came to the base. I thought he was kinda cute. Real quiet-like and serious. He didn't try to hustle me, but was real sincere-like. We dated five or six times. The movies, a couple of dances. Stuff like that.'

'Who broke it off?' Carla shook her head, the curls swirling over her shoulder. She patted them down.

'Nobody. It didn't get that far. It was just dating, that's all. I like him and everything, but…' She shrugged.

'Did Sammy talk about himself? His problems?' Carla chewed on her lip.

'Not really. It wasn't like he was unhappy or anything like that. He talked a lot about how much he wanted to go to art school when he got out. Some place back east. I forget exactly where.'

'Nothing else?'

'He talked about cars,' Carla answered.

'He had an old Chevy sedan.' She rolled her eyes in mock disgust and twirled her finger around a lock of hair.

'It was really a piece of junk. I mean, embarrassing.' She strung the word out.

'He wanted to buy something better.'

'Did he?'

Carla hesitated, her fingers toying with a strand of her hair.

'I'm not sure. I saw him cruising in Las Cruces once after we stopped dating. He was driving a different car. Somebody was with him, but I couldn't tell who it was. I don't think he even saw me. I kinda figured he'd bought himself something better.'

'When was that?'

'About two months ago. Just before he went A.W.O.L..'

'What kind of car was Sammy driving?'

'I think it was a Toyota. Not new. Maybe a couple of years old. Sort of a sandy beige two-door. An economy model.' Carla's tone of voice suggested that the car was not at all cool.

'Have you talked to anyone about this?'

'Sure. Sammy's father. The Army investigator.' She smiled brightly. 'And now you. But I just remembered seeing him in a different car. I'd forgotten about that.'

'Where did Sammy keep his car?' Kerney asked.

'I guess behind the barracks,' Carla answered. 'That's where the enlisted personnel have to park.'

'Tell me about the Chevy,' Kerney asked. Cars meant a great deal to Carla. She described the junky Chevy in detail.

Kerney left her to resume her book-stacking chores and walked back to the barracks. The parking lot was half empty. He looked for a beige Toyota and a beat-up Chevy. There was no Toyota that matched Carla's description, but there was a white Chevy sedan with a For Sale sign in the window parked at the back of the lot. He wiped away the film of dust from the window where the sign was taped. The sign had Sammy's name on it. He circled the vehicle. There was enough light from the streetlamps to see hand and fingerprint smudges in the dust on the door near the handle.

Someone had recently been in the vehicle. He found more smudges on the trunk lid. The car was locked. The interior was clean as a whistle. Kerney found that interesting. The Sammy he knew, on his best days, wasn't that neat. He went to his truck and drove toward the BOQ.

In the foothills that rose to meet the Organ Mountains, lights from the married officers' quarters dotted the landscape. The orderly at the BOQ gave him the key to a room and said there was more than enough time left to get a meal at the officers' club. Kerney's stomach grumbled and his leg ached. The knee just didn't do too well on long trips in the truck. He carried his bag to the room, unpacked a fresh set of clothes, and sat in the tub under the shower, letting the hot water soak away the throbbing in his knee.

While dressing, he had an impulse to check in with Sara Brannon. He rejected the notion. There was absolutely nothing to report. He closed the door and locked it. There was no sense making it too easy for the room to be searched.

Chapter 3

Kerney entered the officers' club to find half a dozen men and women sitting at the far end of the bar away from the door. In the back dining area, separated by a waist-high partition, some junior officers and their wives were celebrating a young child's birthday. Laughter and chatter spilled over to the front of the room. Kerney sat at a small cocktail table in the barroom and received quick attention from a waiter. He ordered a light meal-his stomach, unable to digest any food in quantity, demanded it-and nursed a glass of iced tea while waiting for his food to arrive. The walls of the barroom, paneled in a rich walnut, were decorated with framed prints of nineteenth-century military scenes. Replicas of old regimental cavalry flags hung from the ceiling rafters. His meal, a pasta salad with a