'This wasn't done by your typical addict looking to steal something so he could fence it and score. The incision is deepest right at the jugular. The killer knows his anatomy.'
Kerney agreed, the angled wound was clean, sharp, and long, slicing through the jugular, an axillary vein, and the larynx. The cut had been made where a trained assassin would strike with a knife, and the edges of the wound were close together. Blood had flowed freely.
Kerney scrutinized the dead man's face. His gray hair was cropped short and receded at the temples. Age lines around the mouth and eyes and a fullness to the cheeks suggested the priest had seen the passage of five decades, maybe more.
'Seen enough?' Sloan asked.
Kerney nodded.
Sloan nipped the cover over Mitchell's face and gestured to the two paramedics who waited in the hall with a collapsible gurney. The men stepped inside and removed the body while Kerney and Sloan stood to one side.
The sleeping room was small, no more than a hundred square feet, with a tiny adjacent bathroom. The furniture consisted of a twin bed, a bedside table, a student-size writing desk, and an almost empty bookcase-all obviously postwar items bought at surplus. In one corner a built-in shelf and rod served as a clothes closet.
'We've searched the room, photographed, and vacuumed,' Sloan said.
'The techs are dusting every door to the building for prints,' Sloan said.
'There are no tool marks on the doors or windows suggesting forced entry. The ground froze last night, but we've found no footprints outside the window.'
'What was on the bookcase?' Kerney asked.
'Before he left for his office, Brother Jerome said it was mostly empty.
But you know, Chief, with two computers you'd think there would be a box or two of floppy disks around. There weren't any in the room.'
'Any personal items?' Kerney asked.
'Nothing in his clothes. But we did find some letters from his mother in Houston. He had a Louisiana driver's license with a New Orleans address that checked out to be a Catholic seminary. New Orleans PD is making contact.'
Only a few investigators from Kerney's earlier tenure as chief of detectives still remained with the department, and Sloan was one of them. From past experience Kerney knew him to be reliable, hardworking, and a straight talker.
Somewhat older than Kerney, Sloan had a missing tooth near the front of his mouth and an unconscious habit of probing it with his tongue.
Through the window Kerney saw Officer Herrera lounging against the fender of his squad car, smoking a cigarette, watching the ambulance drive away.
'Tell me about Herrera, Bobby,' Kerney said.
Sloan snorted.
'As a cop he's worthless, Chief, and as a person he's piss-poor company.
The last chief didn't have the balls to can him. His uncle is on the city council. Serves on the finance committee.'
'I see.'
'You need anything else from me?' Sloan asked.
'Continue with the crime-scene work-up,' Kerney replied.
'I'll help Catanach take the witness statements.'
'That's a big help,' Sloan said.
'How do you like being back with the department, Chief?'
'I'm glad to be back, Bobby.'
Sloan grinned.
'Just don't sweat the small stuff, Chief. Most of us know what we're doing.'
'I'll keep that in mind.'
Along with the clerics in residence two women employees worked as housekeepers and cooks. Sergeant Catanach had rounded them up with the brothers and was in the dining room conducting interviews. Kerney took over the lounge, a large room with a stone fireplace, comfortable easy chairs, and an overflowing wall of hook shelves, and began taking statements.
Kerney learned very little about Father Mitchell from the people he interviewed.
An historian working on a compendium of late twentieth-century military aid to South American countries, Father Mitchell had been in residence slightly less than a year. He rarely discussed his work and when engaged in conversation about it responded very vaguely. The brothers knew Mitchell had served as an army chaplain, had taught for a spell at a Midwest Catholic college, and held an advanced degree from an Ivy League university. He'd been murdered a week short of his fifty-ninth birthday.
Brother Jerome, chair of the social science department, was the last faculty member to return from his office. A tall, reserved, intelligent-looking man in his early sixties, dressed in a clerical robe, he sat across from Kerney with his hands folded in his lap. Only the rapid blinking of his eyes gave a hint of his dismay and shock about Father Mitchell's murder.
'You found Father Joseph,' Kerney said.
'Yes. He'd missed morning prayers and didn't appear for breakfast. I thought he might be sick.'
'What time was that?'
'About seven o'clock,' Brother Jerome said, 'There was so much blood I knew he was dead as soon as I stepped into the room.'
'The door was unlocked?'
'Yes, and all his personal possessions were missing. I gave a list of what I knew he kept in his room to the sergeant.'
'How long was it before you called to report the death?'
'Within a few minutes. Almost immediately.'
'Did you see anybody nearby?'
'I saw no strangers, if that's what you mean, and everyone else had been to prayer and breakfast.'
'Your colleagues seem to know very little about Father Joseph.'
'He kept to himself and we respected his privacy. I may know a little more, since I granted Father Joseph's request for a visiting scholar's appointment.'
'So far all I've learned is where he earned his advanced degrees, where he recently taught, and that he served a hitch as an army chaplain,'
Kerney said.
'Father Joseph retired as an army chaplain with the rank of major about a dozen years ago. He was stationed all over the world. He took his master's in history at a university in Georgia while on active duty, and completed his Phd after he retired.'
'What else can you tell me about his professional life?' Kerney asked.
'His research interest was military history. Much of it he did on the Internet.'
'What brought him to Santa Fe?'
'He was gathering oral histories from some significant primary and secondary sources. Mostly retired military officers living in the state, I believe.'
'Did Father Joseph mention any names?'
'Not to me. But he spent a fair amount of time conducting interviews.'
'Did he talk about his personal or family life?'
Brother Jerome shook his head.
'Only in the most general of terms. We shared a few reminiscences one evening shortly after he arrived. He has a widowed mother who lives in Houston. And his only younger brother died while serving as a military attache at an embassy in Latin American some time ago. He wouldn't say more about it and never seemed willing to discuss it again.'
'Did you ever try?'
'Yes. Father Joseph said it was just an everyday sort of tragedy in today's America.'
