'I'll get back to you,' Kerney said, unwilling to let Cushman completely off the hook.
He left Cushman standing in the driveway and checked with Lee Sedillo by radio, who reported everything was quiet at the stakeouts, nothing had turned up at the trailer search, and the ball was rolling on the Danny and Margie Hobeck background investigations. 'I've got a message from your wife here, Chief,' Lee added. 'What is it?'
'It says pick her up at the Albuquerque airport tomorrow morning or she'll file for divorce. Have you got trouble on the home front, boss?'
Kerney laughed. 'Not yet, Lee. Give me her flight number and ETA.'
After driving the state highway bordering the northern edge of the White Sands Missile Range, Kerney picked up the interstate in the Rio Grande Valley and passed by the suburban communities that oozed along the interstate south of Albuquerque. On once-empty desert rangeland housing tracts now mushroomed, lining either side of the road. To Kerney's eye it was uncontrolled sprawl that lacked any sense of scale, sensibility, or harmony with the land.
He grumbled about it, thinking the world needed fewer roads, fewer cars, and most important, fewer people.
Early in the evening he arrived at Bill Kendell's adobe-style house in Corrales, a semirural community sandwiched between Albuquerque and the burgeoning city of Rio Rancho. Linda's ex-husband, an affable man who seemed settled and comfortable with himself, introduced Kerney to his wife and son, and then took him into a small rear bedroom that had been turned into a home office. A glass door opened onto a covered backyard patio that provided an unobstructed view of the Rio Grande bosque and the distant Sandia Mountains.
'I don't have much time,' Kendell said, easing his lanky frame into an overstuffed reading chair. 'I've got a city league basketball game in about an hour.'
'Tell me about your ex-wife,' Kerney said.
The congenial look on Kendell's face vanished. 'Boy, that was a mistake.'
'In what way?'
Kendell struggled a moment to find the right words. 'We were just incompatible.'
'I sense there was more to it than that.'
'How is knowing about my marriage to Linda going to help you find Vernon's killer?'
'I think the killer knew the judge, and his murder is tied to something in his past, or to his family.'
'I'm not real comfortable talking about my problems with Linda.'
'What you tell me may help keep her safe. Both parents have been murdered, we have reason to believe the death of her older brother Arthur was a homicide, and Eric has committed suicide.'
'Jesus, what a mess,' Kendell said, shaking his head. 'I'll keep whatever you tell me confidential.'
Kendell took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded. 'Nobody deserves that kind of grief, not even Linda.'
'I take it your relationship with her is less than cordial.'
Kendell adjusted his position. 'You could say that. We parted on pretty harsh terms. I'm old-fashioned when it comes to marriage. My parents raised me that way.'
'And Linda wasn't?' Kerney asked.
'I thought she was before we got married,' Kendell replied. 'We messed around a lot before the wedding, if you know what I mean, but we never actually had intercourse. She didn't want to before the wedding, and I respected her decision.'
'What went wrong?' Kerney asked, when Kendell stopped talking.
Kendell blushed. 'This isn't easy to talk about.'
'I understand.'
'No, I don't think you do.'
'I really need your candor, Mr. Kendell.'
'She said she wanted to make me happy-please me sexually-and she did.' Kendell shook his head as though warding off an unpleasant memory. 'But looking back on it, it wasn't right.'
'How so?'
'Well, she would…' Kendell stopped and smiled uneasily. 'Shit.
Okay. She'd give me hand jobs or oral sex. But it wasn't reciprocal, if you know what I mean. I could touch her, but only above the waist. I thought things would change after the wedding. You know, the virgin thing. But she wouldn't let me make love to her. She kept wanting to please me without any intercourse. At first, I just thought she was scared about it-some women are that way. But it never changed.'
'When did things start to go sour?' Kerney asked.
'When I told her I wanted children. She said we could adopt. I didn't want that. I wanted a wife and a family in the full sense of the words.'
'Were you aware of Linda's feelings before the wedding?'
'We never talked about having children. But I assumed we would. Otherwise, why get married? Looking back on it, I think she did it to prove something to herself.'
'Prove what?'
'That she was normal. But she wasn't. The sex stuff she did was like an obsession. I wasn't a person who mattered to her romantically. I don't think she had a clue about what love is.'
'How long did the problem go on?'
'For months. When she realized she couldn't seduce me out of having children of our own, she just walked out one day when I was at work and left everything behind. No discussion, no 'I'm sorry'. nothing.'
'I heard a rumor that the marriage ended because Linda was having an affair.'
'That wasn't it at all. I think Linda started that rumor herself.'
'Was there anything else in Linda's behavior that you found strange or unusual?'
'You know, I never saw her naked-not once. She'd even lock the bathroom door when she brushed her teeth. I teased her about it one time and she almost went ballistic.'
'What did she say?'
'That she needed her privacy; didn't like people spying on her-weird stuff. In a way, she was like two different people. Publicly she'd act all loving and affectionate toward me. But at home she would shut down when it came to snuggling or kissing, or anything romantic. She'd ask me if I needed a blow job maybe three or four times a week. That was the way she treated sex. After a while it made me feel vulgar and cheap.'
'Did she ever talk to you about her family?'
'That subject was pretty much off-limits, and when she did say anything, it always had a double edge to it.'
'Can you give me an example?' Kerney asked.
'It was always a mixed message kind of thing. She'd call Eric a sick little sneak and then say something about how it wasn't really his fault. Or she would chastise her father for not loving her mother and then blame her mother for being frigid. Frankly, I think Linda was frigid herself.'
Kendell checked his wristwatch and stood up. 'I've really got to go.'
'Do you take your family to your ball games?' Kerney asked as he got to his feet.
Kendell's expression warmed. 'They never miss one. They're my biggest fans.'
After repeating his promise not to reveal the particulars of Kendell's failed marriage, Kerney left and checked into a high-rise hotel near the Albuquerque airport. He opened the window drapes in his room and watched the lights of the city wink on as the last bit of dusk vanished in the western sky.
Bill Kendell seemed like a good man, happy with his life and his family, and the thought made Kerney long for similar circumstances.
Having Sara in his life was a delight, but maintaining a long-distance marriage wasn't getting any easier. And Sara's interest in starting a family while continuing to serve on active duty made Kerney wonder how they could pull it off. He had no desire to be a military dependent following Sara from post to post.
