'He has a cabin outside of Ruidoso. But he always tells me when he's planning to go there.'
'Do you have a phone number for it?'
'Yes, of course.'
Kerney got the number, thanked the woman, and hung up. Why would Danny Hobeck tell Margie's neighbor he was taking his sister back to Albuquerque and tell his office manager a completely different story?
It didn't make any sense unless Hobeck had something or someone-like Margie-to hide.
He tried the Ruidoso phone number, hung up after a dozen unanswered rings, got on the horn to Lee Sedillo, and gave him a summary on Hobeck's connection to Vernon Langsford.
'I'll nail down the location of the cabin,' Lee said.
'Put full-time surveillance on it as soon as you do,' Kerney said.
'And I want the same coverage at his Albuquerque house and office.'
'That means pulling in some additional help from the districts,' Lee said. 'Do you want him picked up?'
'Don't pick him up.'
'Roger that.'
'Any news from your end?' Kerney asked.
Lee sighed heavily. 'I wish there was, Chief.'
Assigned to look for Eric Langsford in Cloudcroft, Mary Margaret Lovato had been to every bar, business, and government office in the village trying to get a lead on him.
Eric was known throughout the community as a screw up who couldn't hold a job, who moved around a lot, and who would disappear for months at a time. He didn't date, had no close male friends, and the people he hung with were hard-core barflies and dopers.
No one she talked to admitted knowing where he might be. She did learn that when Eric was in town, he liked to drink with Willie Natter, an ex-felon and drug user who had done time for forgery.
Natter had moved from the address supplied by his parole officer, and Mary Margaret was deep into the morning, still trying to find him.
High on the western slopes of the Sacramento Mountains, twenty miles away from Alamogordo, Cloudcroft was a resort community surrounded by National Forest. It wasn't at all like the isolated, pastoral northern New Mexico high-country village where Mary Margaret had been raised.
Here, it seemed as if every bit of privately held land had been turned into subdivisions for vacation cabins, year-round homes, golf courses, hunting lodges, sportsmen's ranches, campgrounds, and mountain retreats on five-and ten-acre parcels.
Mixed in with the vacation chalets, condominiums, and high-end homes on heavily timbered lots were scuzzy rental cabins, old camping trailers on permanent foundations tucked into hillsides, and economy tourist parks that looked right out of the 1950s.
With the information supplied by people who knew Natter, Mary Margaret tracked him from job to job, slowed down by traffic pouring into the area for a bluegrass music jamboree, a chamber of commerce-sponsored art gallery extravaganza, and a mountain-bike rally that had drawn over two hundred enthusiasts grinding their way up and down narrow mountain roads.
In a small settlement east of Cloudcroft marked with a plaque commemorating a site where paches had seriously kicked some U.S. Army butt during the Indian Wars, she found Natter washing dishes in a restaurant. She cuffed and marched him out the back door, where last night's raccoon raid on the garbage cans had not yet been cleaned up. A hair net covered Natter's greasy ringlets, and old needle tracks ran up his arms.
'What are you busting me for?' Natter whined through a mouth full of chipped and stained teeth.
'Parole violation,' Mary Margaret said. 'You moved without reporting it to your PO. But maybe we can work something out.'
'Like what?'
'Where is Eric Langsford?'
'I haven't seen him.'
'That's not good enough,' Mary Margaret said, yanking Natter along by the cuffs in the direction of her unit. 'Wait a minute,' Natter said.
'Give me something.'
'He's got a place in Cloudcroft. An old trailer he turned into a recording studio. He doesn't like people to know about it. Sometimes he stays there when he wants to hide out or when he's working on his music.'
'Where is it?'
Natter gave Mary Margaret directions. She took off the cuffs, marched him back inside the diner, and had him call and report to his parole officer.
Natter hung up the phone, relief showing on his face. 'He won't violate me if I go see him after work today.'
'Be a good boy,' Mary Margaret said, 'and do as you're told.'
The road to Langsford's secret recording studio wound past a nineteenth-century resort hotel with a lush nine-hole golf course into a wooded area away from the center of the town. The trailer was stepped down on the hillside so that only the roofline and stairs leading to a wooden deck showed from the road.
Mary Margaret approached cautiously, hand on her holstered 9 mm. From the stairs to the deck, electric lanterns strung on over head wire glowed dimly in the bright afternoon light. She heard music coming from inside as she moved quietly across the deck, ducking under the trailer's windows. It was combination of flamenco and jazz chords played flawlessly on an acoustic guitar.
She eased up to the side of the door and saw a note taped on it that read COME IN. She took out her weapon, turned the knob with her free hand, and pushed the door open. The music grew louder. Crouching low, she called out Eric's name and got no answer. But the guitar playing continued. Raising her voice, she identified herself and ordered Langsford to step outside. Nothing happened.
She took a quick look and pulled her head back. Inside against the far wall was a built-in soundboard on a long table, with green dials glowing on the control panel. She looked once more and saw two monitor speakers mounted on a side wall. White light coming from an interior window made the silver-colored soundproofing on the walls and ceiling glisten. She called out again, and the music continued uninterrupted without response.
She sank down on her knees and considered her options-go in alone or call for backup. As she reached for her handheld the music stopped and a hushed hissing sound began, followed by a repeat of the same melody playing again.
Staying low, she ducked inside, plastered herself against a wall, and scanned for movement. After visually clearing the room she looked through the interior glass window of the sound studio. What might have been Eric Langsford was sitting in a straight-back chair.
It was impossible to tell for sure. There was a shotgun on the floor, and the lower half of the man's face had been blown off. Above the closed door glowed a red warning light. She opened the door and almost stepped in a pool of sticky blood. On the ceiling were wads of flesh, clumps of hair, and what looked like fragments of bone and teeth.
Mary Margaret took a deep breath, finished a sweep of the trailer, keyed her handheld, and reported the death of an unknown subject-possibly Eric Langsford-to Lieutenant Sedillo.
'Is it Langsford?' Kerney asked, as he signed the crime scene log.
'Positively,' Mary Margaret replied. 'Major Hutchinson is flying in from Santa Fe. Lieutenant Sedillo is picking him up at the airport. ETA fifteen minutes.'
Kerney figured Nate was probably coming down to pull the plug on the investigation. An onsite briefing was unnecessary, and no other reason for his visit made sense. He'd have to convince Hutch to give him more time.
'Was it a suicide?' he asked, as he entered the trailer.
'Without a doubt,' Mary Margaret said, following along. 'He's been dead for less than six hours. Langsford videotaped it, Chief, and left the time and date stamp running on the camcorder.'
