The kid shrugged.
'Beats me.'
'Find out who can open the locker, okay?'
It took ten minutes with the kid calling around and then another ten before a harried-looking female faculty member with big hair showed up carrying a key ring. She immediately asked Sloan why he needed to get into the locker.
Sloan told her to chill out.
'There may be evidence in the locker important to Father Mitchell's murder, and I need to search it now.'
'Show me your credentials,' the woman said.
Sloan flipped open his badge case.
'Good enough?'
'Follow me.'
At no. 176 Sloan held his breath while the woman opened the locker. In it were a briefcase and a stack of videocassettes. He wrote out a receipt, gathered everything up, thanked the woman, and left the building, oblivious to the full-fledged blizzard that had settled over the city.
Kerney made stops at the electric, phone, and cable companies. He asked about a special law-enforcement request to install a surveillance camera on the utility pole near the Terrell driveway. Clerks studied work orders, pulled files, and shook their heads. Security personnel fanned through court orders and shook their heads. Maintenance supervisors licked their thumbs, paged through smudged paperwork, and shook their heads.
He borrowed an office phone and called all local police agencies within the jurisdiction. No one knew anything.
He stopped at Phyllis Terrell's alarm company. Her contract called for burglary and fire monitoring, gate control, and driveway sensors to warn of vehicle approach. No audio or video services were included.
He drove to city hall, parked in his reserved space, and crossed the street to the post office, an ugly 1960s era building that looked incongruous next to the stately old stone federal courthouse.
Once, on one of her long weekends in town, Sara had asked to see something in Santa Fe tourists didn't know about. After an elegant lunch at a nearby restaurant, he'd walked her to the courthouse and shown her the old wooden telephone booth that stood in the lobby.
Sara had laughed, marveling at the sight of it. Then she had pulled him into the booth, closed the accordion door, and pressed herself against him. The guard sitting at the end of the hall had grinned insipidly at them when they emerged.
Kerney found the resident FBI agent, Frank Powers, in his small third-floor suite at the post office building.
'I get to see you twice in one day,' Powers said, unwinding his long legs and getting to his feet to shake Kerney's hand.
'Boy, am I one lucky SOB.'
In his early fifties, Powers was on his final duty assignment before retirement.
Powers and his wife were ballroom-dance fanatics. Kerney and Sara had watched the couple put on quite a show one Saturday night when they'd stopped at a club for an after-dinner drink.
'As the new police chief I thought it was time to touch base with you,'
Kerney said.
'Yeah, sure,' Powers said with a smile.
'What do you really want?'
'Did Perry keep you in the loop on his investigation?' Kerney asked.
Powers chuckled sarcastically.
'Me? You've got to be kidding. All he asked me to do was give him a ring if you paid me a social call, and be the ambassador's bodyguard at the funeral.'
'Well, here I am,' Kerney said.
'Call him up.'
'What for? From what I've heard, the case is closed, the task force is disbanded. That means I'm once again free to assist local law-enforcement representatives such as yourself without dropping a dime on you.'
'Can I hold you to that?' Kerney asked.
'Unless I hear otherwise, you can. Why do you ask?'
'Perry is staying in town for a couple more days just to make sure everything's tidied up.'
'I didn't know that,' Powers said.
'Do you know anything about the surveillance camera at the foot of Phyllis Terrell's driveway?'
'You've got the wrong agency, Kerney. You need to talk to the State Department.
Call the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.'
'You know nothing about it?'
'If Ambassador Terrell needed enhanced security at his wife's Santa Fe home, that's who would handle it.'
'I don't think Phyllis Terrell knew anything about the surveillance.'
'What makes you say that?'
'The Terrells were planning to divorce. They'd been living apart for almost two years. The ambassador rarely visited. Phyllis Terrell was known to have entertained several lovers at her home.'
'Well, then, there you have it,' Powers said.
'The ambassador hired himself a private investigator to spy on his wife.'
'I don't think so,' Kerney said.
'Why not? Any sharp PI can put in a good system. The way I heard it, Mrs. Terrell had the big bucks, and was sleeping around. Proof of infidelity could be worth a lot of money to an aggrieved husband.'
'You know nothing about any court-ordered, official surveillance at the Terrell residence?' Kerney said.
'That's what I've been telling you, Kerney. Look, if a court order had been requested by us and not the State Department, I'd know about it.
But then I still couldn't tell you anyway. You know the routine; both the application and order would have been sealed by a federal judge.'
Powers adjusted his necktie.
'Since we're talking about people being watched, here's some advice:
Stay out of this. Agent Perry doesn't like you. I don't know what that's about. But if you're smart, don't give him an excuse to play hardball.'
'Charlie can be obnoxious,' Kerney said.
Powers shrugged.
'There are over twenty-two thousand special agents in the Bureau, Chief, and there is no charm-school requirement for academy applicants.'
Kerney walked down the post office steps. Powers had deliberately warned him that he was being watched. That made Frank's other assertions seem highly questionable.
While his wife skied the mountain, Randall Stewart kept an eye on his two young sons, Lance and Jeremy, as they practiced on the kiddie slope.
The boys, ages six and eight, had improved their technique this season, but they were at least a year away from being able to ski the more difficult intermediate runs.
Stewart's interrogation by the FBI agent had put him into a total panic, and the only thing he could think to do was leave town for a while.
Springing the idea of an impromptu skiing trip on his wife hadn't been easy. Lori liked everything planned and orderly. Keeping up a cheery front, Stewart had prevailed with Lori by pointing out that her business was slow this time of year, both children were doing extremely well in school, and it was time to be a little more spontaneous about family fun before the boys were grown and gone.
He booked a suite in a lodge in Red River, high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos, packed up Lori's Volvo, and drove the family out of Santa Fe as soon as he possibly could.
As Lance, his youngest, took a spill and got up laughing, Stew art tried to contain his worry about the threats
