twentieth century. Ancient cottonwoods and pines screened the house from the dirt lane that ran around the back side of the hill to a new fourteen-thousand-square foot adobe mansion built by a Chicago real estate developer who came to Santa Fe every summer for the opera season.
The cars that lined the driveway to the Muiz residence told Kerney that the family had gathered in the wake of the bad news of Tim Riley’s murder and Denise’s disappearance. He parked on the lane and walked toward the house, thinking that over the years his friendship with Helen had been basically work-related and he knew very little about Helen’s siblings or her extended family. The circumstances of the last eight hours were about to change all that.
He rang the doorbell and was soon greeted by Ruben Muiz, who stared at him with bleary eyes ringed with dark circles. Beyond the entry hall in a nearby room, he could hear the low sounds of hushed conversation.
“What have you learned?” Ruben asked.
“Is Helen sleeping?” Kerney countered.
“Nobody’s sleeping,” Ruben said tersely. “Everybody’s here. Tell me what you found out about Denise.”
Kerney touched Ruben on the shoulder. “Take it easy,” he said gently as people began crowding into the entry hall.
“Sorry,” Ruben said, lowering his voice.
“Why don’t you get everyone together and let me talk to them as a group.”
“Yes, of course,” Ruben said, ushering Kerney into a large living room filled with twenty-some somber people who stopped talking and stared at him with great intensity.
Helen sat on a couch with several women and a man clustered nearby who looked to be her sisters and brother. Other men hovering close by Kerney took to be the sisters’ husbands.
He crossed the room, trying to keep his expression passive, reached Helen, took her by the hand, and shook his head once. She gasped and began sobbing. He stepped away as the sisters closed in around Helen, the women choking back tears, crying, reaching to embrace one another and clasp hands. He backed off to a far corner of the room and waited patiently for the grieving to subside and the questioning to begin. The family’s anguish was about to become a hell of a lot more distressing once they learned how Denise had died.
The report that Tim Riley’s wife had also been murdered reached Clayton by way of a phone call from Sergeant Ramona Pino. Clayton had worked with Pino once before, on a case involving a revenge killer intent on wiping out Kevin Kerney and his entire bloodline, including Clayton and his family. The perp had almost succeeded, but Clayton had gunned him down in Santa Fe before he could kill Kerney, Sara, and their brand-new baby boy, Patrick.
After winding up the search for evidence at Tim Riley’s rented cabin, Clayton convened a meeting of his team at the Capitan town hall and brought them up to speed on what he knew about Denise Riley’s murder in Santa Fe County.
“I doubt that these murders are coincidental,” Clayton told the group, “but until we have either a motive or a suspect, I want some people backtracking on Tim Riley’s time here in Lincoln County. I want an accounting for every minute of every day in the week Riley was here.”
Clayton paused and looked around the room, which contained every available deputy plus Paul Hewitt, Craig Bolt, and the two Capitan village officers. “I’ll get to the assignments in a minute, but remember this: I don’t want reports coming in with any gaps,” he warned. “I want his entire week reconstructed. Names, dates, times, places —you all know the drill. You’ll be looking for any unusual event, altercation, heated exchange, or misunderstanding that may have happened which could have led—no matter how remotely—to his murder.”
“What if Riley’s murder has nothing to do with anybody in Lincoln County?” Chief Craig Bolt asked.
“It’s very possible,” Clayton answered. “When a husband and wife get murdered in separate locations within hours of each other, it makes you wonder if maybe all was not sweetness and light on the home front. But with no motive and no suspect, we have to focus on the victims for now. So as soon as this meeting is over, some of you are going to start an all-out, deep background check on both Tim Riley and his wife. I’m sure the Santa Fe County S.O. will be doing the same.”
Clayton walked to the whiteboard, drew a line down the middle, and wrote Tim Riley’s name on one side and Denise Riley’s name on the other.
“Here are some things to think about,” he said. “At the cabin crime scene, the killer probably spent a minimum amount of time in the area and quickly killed his victim after he arrived home. Very little physical evidence was left behind. In fact, all we have so far is a partial footprint on the cabin porch that is probably from a man’s boot, size eight, which correlates with my theory that the killer may be small in stature—not more than five seven or eight. Murder weapon, a shotgun, fired at point-blank range of no more than four feet.” Clayton wrote the information under Tim’s name.
“In Santa Fe,” Clayton continued, “Denise Riley’s throat was cut with a knife after she’d been attacked in a tack room in a barn at the couple’s double-wide in Canoncito. She was dragged to a nearby horse trailer, killed there, and then locked in the trailer. It’s possible that she was sexually assaulted either prior to or after her death. A detective at the scene thinks the killer made an attempt to partially cover the lower half of the victim’s body, which suggests the perp knew the decedent. Time of death was approximately sixteen to twenty hours before Tim Riley’s murder.”
Clayton wrote down the information under Denise’s name. “Don’t let the differences in the methods between the two homicides make you think we are dealing with two distinct perpetrators.”
He turned to the whiteboard once again and underlined Tim Riley’s name. “At first glance, our homicide looks professional. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a contract killing carried out by a specialist.”
“But it could mean exactly that,” Paul Hewitt said from the back of the cramped room. “Basically, the killer waited in ambush, fired one shot from close range at a sure kill area of the body, the head, and left behind little physical evidence.”
“I’m not discounting those facts, Sheriff,” Clayton replied. “But from my analysis of the crime scene I think the shooter could have killed Deputy Riley when his back was turned, but chose instead to let his victim see it coming. Additionally, by literally taking Riley’s face off with a shotgun slug, the killer depersonalized his victim. It’s as if he tried to erase the most easily recognizable part of the man. To me, that makes the murder decidedly personal, just as the killing of Denise Riley appears to be.”
“Personal in what way?” Hewitt asked.
“If I knew that, I’d have motive,” Clayton replied. “The one thing I’m fairly sure of, as I mentioned before, is that the shooter is male, possibly slight in build, and shorter than Riley by two to three inches.”
Clayton wrote the physical information of the shooter on the chalkboard. “I’m guessing that we’re dealing with a single perpetrator, and I agree with Chief Bolt that chances are slim to none that our killer is local. With that in mind, we need to be surveying motels, gas stations, eateries, and be talking to people about any strangers who might have recently been asking about Riley or the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.”
Clayton put the chalk on the tray. “Finally, we need to retrace everywhere Riley went while on patrol last night.”
“I’ll do that,” Paul Hewitt said.
“I’ve got you down to handle the news media, Sheriff.”
“The media can wait,” Hewitt growled. “Besides, we’ve got nothing to tell them.” He looked around the room. “So I expect all of you to keep your lips zipped about this case until further notice. It’s ‘No comment’ to any questions. Got that?”
Heads nodded.
“Okay,” Clayton said as he looked at the sixteen officers in the room. Excluding himself, Hewitt, and Bolt, only two of the field officers had any solid investigative experience. “Here are your assignments.”
He read off names and tasks, putting the heaviest burden on himself and the two experienced officers, knowing that it meant double shifts until they broke the case or it became too cold to work full-time any longer.
Clayton closed his notebook, looked at the sober faces of the officers sitting in front of him, and nodded at the door. “Let’s go out and catch this killer,” he said.
Sara’s favorite gelding, a baldfaced dark sorrel named Gipsy, and Patrick’s pony, Pablito, were missing from
