“On moonlit nights I could. Other times I just figured it had to be her. When I could hear voices, it was her voice for sure. The other voice was a man’s.”
“Did you hear what was said?” Ramona asked.
Mirabal shook his head. “Not really. Sometimes they would laugh, or I’d catch a word to two on the wind.”
“Did you ever see the man, see the vehicle?”
“Nope.”
“How often did Denise walk down the lane to the county road at night?”
“I can’t say for sure, because I’d be gone a good deal of the time. But I do know she was meeting somebody who she didn’t want visiting her at home and didn’t want to be seen with, so I’m thinking she’s probably screwing around with a guy her husband knew. Least ways, that’s the way I saw it.”
“That makes sense. When was the last time you saw Denise walking down the lane?”
“Three nights before her brother-in-law came pounding on my door. I saw the beam of her flashlight from my kitchen window as she walked down her driveway. Five minutes later, I saw her coming back toward her double- wide.”
“Can you be sure it was Denise?”
“No, but who else would it be? Anyway, she was gone and back in a hurry, which was real unusual.”
“As far as you know, whenever she met somebody at the end of her driveway it was always at night,” Ramona said. “Is that correct?”
“Yeah, if you put it that way. I know she worked during the day. But I can’t tell you where she went when she drove away in her car by herself.”
“Did you ever visit socially with the Rileys?”
“Never did. Every now and then, I’d see them at the supermarket or the gas station and we’d say howdy and spend a few minutes passing the time of day. When they were together they seemed happy enough. I never saw them arguing or fighting.”
“Did you ever talk to Riley about his wife’s nocturnal behavior?”
“I don’t butt into other people’s business. Like I said, I had my suspicions, but that’s all. Besides, they weren’t real friendly neighbors. Can’t say that I’m very friendly either.”
“Was there any hostility between you and the Rileys?”
Mirabal shook his head. “Nope.”
Ramona went over Mirabal’s story with him again to jog his memory in case he’d forgotten something. The only new bit of information he recalled was that he’d started noticing Denise’s late-night rendezvous behavior about two years ago.
She thanked Mirabal for his time, gave him her business card, and left Canoncito. By the time she reached the sheriff’s office, she’d talked by cell phone to the rancher and the feedlot operator. Not surprisingly, Mirabal’s alibi had held up.
Inside the S.O., Ramona swung by the regional dispatch center and asked for the whereabouts of Deputy John Quintana, the officer who’d initially interviewed Roy Mirabal. The supervisor, Joanne Bustos, a tiny, middle- aged woman who bordered on being anorexic, told her that Quintana was in the building meeting with the lieutenant in charge of training and planning.
“How long has Quintana been with the S.O.?” Ramona asked.
“Less that six months.” Joanne opened the door to the hallway and stepped outside. Ramona followed.
“He’s a cadet,” Joanne continued, “so he hasn’t been to the law enforcement academy yet. I think he’s scheduled to start with the next class.”
Ramona had known Joanne Bustos from the day she’d been hired as a night dispatcher back when the P.D. had its own separate communication center. She’d always been a good source of back-channel information and gossip.
“What else do you know about him?” she asked.
Although the hallway was empty, Joanne lowered her voice. “He’s struggling on the job. He gets lost a lot when he’s sent out on calls, still has trouble remembering his ten-codes, and from what I hear his paperwork and reports are totally subpar.”
“So why is he still wearing a shield and carrying a weapon?”
“He’s Sheriff Salgado’s nephew. I understand his patrol supervisor is hoping and praying that he’ll flunk out of the academy.”
“Ah,” Ramona said. “Enough said. Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Not at all surprised by Joanne’s revelation about Deputy Quintana, and encouraged by what Roy Mirabal had told her about Denise Riley, Ramona left Bustos and went in search of Clayton Istee.
After several hours spent interviewing deputies about their relationships with Tim and Denise Riley, Clayton was beginning to think that there was no logical, earthly reason the couple had been murdered. Although the Rileys pretty much kept to themselves, they were well liked, and Tim was considered by his peers to be one of the best—if not the best—patrol officer on the force.
None of the men seemed resistant to questions or defensive, and all seemed equally upset about the murders. Although it was too soon to tell for sure, Clayton wondered if the one man in the department who knew the most about Tim and Denise Riley’s personal life might be Don Mielke.
The high point of his morning came when Ramona Pino arrived and briefed him on the substance of her interview with Roy Mirabal. The downside was not having knowledge of Denise’s nighttime assignations sooner. Now everyone along the stretch of county road to the Rileys’ double-wide would have to be interviewed again, this time to see if they could help ID the mystery driver or provide a description of the vehicle.
It was a possible major lead in the investigation that had remained uncovered due to the incompetence of a cadet deputy and the stupidity of a supervisor who’d had allowed an untrained rookie to conduct a major felony case interview.
Clayton shared his frustration with Mielke, who shrugged it off as an unfortunate event that had occurred in the rush to gather information as quickly as possible after Denise’s body had been found.
Clayton couldn’t believe Mielke’s spin on the event, but given how big-time screwups were being managed at every level of government, he wondered if both Deputy Quintana and the yet-to-be-named supervisor would be commended and promoted instead of censured and sacked.
Noon came and went with no sign of Sheriff Salgado, who’d blown off his early morning appointment with Clayton and still had not yet made an appearance at the office. Furthermore, Clayton hadn’t seen or heard from Kerney or Sheriff Hewitt. He wondered if his assumption that they had already put the squeeze on Salgado was correct.
He was reviewing interview summaries with Ramona Pino when Detective Matt Chacon from the SFPD showed up carting a box containing the computers secured from the Riley residence along with the software and zip drives uncovered in a subsequent search of the double-wide.
Chacon put the box on the table and gave the two sergeants a wan smile. “Here’s everything Major Mielke wanted returned to evidence,” he said. “The bad news is that after an exhaustive examination I’ve found nothing useful at all. But it confirmed my suspicion that whoever erased the hard drives was no amateur.”
“Is that it?” Ramona asked, noting that Matt’s smile telegraphed he had more to tell. She nodded at a straight-back office chair.
Chacon sat, took the toothpick out of the corner of his mouth, and said, “I uncovered some interesting, perplexing information. After I located Denise and Tim Riley’s e-mail, cell phone, and landline telephone accounts, I served a court order to access them. The cell phone and e-mail accounts had been almost completely emptied. In fact, the only calls on file consisted of the unsuccessful half a dozen or so attempts Tim Riley made to reach his wife on the night he was murdered.”
Clayton, who’d been half-listening while working on an updated investigators assignment schedule, gave Matt Chacon his full attention. “What do you mean, the accounts had been emptied?” he asked.
“Except for Tim Riley’s few failed attempts to call home, the records had been purged,” Matt reiterated, “and it was done a few hours after Denise was murdered.”
