“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No, I am not.”
Mielke kept looking at the night sky. “I didn’t think so.” He knew Clayton had been going almost nonstop since the crack of dawn yesterday. “Take a catnap in the mobile command center.”
Although Clayton had no plans to go to sleep, getting off his feet for a spell sounded like a good idea. “I think I will. Send someone to get me when Chief Kerney arrives.”
“Sure thing,” Mielke replied, lying through his teeth.
Kerney wrestled his truck slowly down his ranch road, hoping the highway had been plowed and sanded, only to find it snowpacked and covered in places by drifts that were almost axle-deep. He pushed on, wipers thudding against the accumulation of wet snow on the windshield, heater blasting away to clear the fog off the side windows. In all his years in Santa Fe, he’d never seen a winter storm of such magnitude. It had to be a fifty-, maybe even a hundred-year event.
Where the highway connected to the Interstate, he turned onto the freshly plowed and sanded frontage road and made his way without delay to Canoncito. At the turnoff to the Riley double-wide, he talked briefly with the deputy at the roadblock. The deputy told him that a grader and a snowplow were halfway down the country road to the crime scene with Major Mielke and one of his investigators following behind on borrowed Arctic Cat snowmobiles, that Clifford Talbott, the confessed killer of Brian Riley, was at the residence under watch, that Ramona Pino was excavating the well house, and Clayton Istee was catching twenty winks in the S.O. mobile command center.
At the double-wide Kerney sat down across the kitchen table from Clifford Talbott. He knew Talbott from several spring and fall works, the semiannual cattle roundups that both men had participated in at ranches on the Galisteo Basin. In the vast stretches of rural New Mexico, there remained a long-standing tradition for ranchers, cowboys, and their families to congregate twice a year at the various spreads to gather, brand, and sort out livestock to be sold at auction, held over for breeding, or kept for private sale to other stockmen.
Talbott’s small ranch bordered the basin, and he had always been a neighbor to count on when it came to lending a hand. Last fall, Kerney had worked a long, dust-choked day with Talbott branding and tagging calves at one of the largest ranches on the basin. Talbott had been cheerful and talkative, and had pulled his share of the weight when it came to getting the work done. Kerney had enjoyed his company.
“How are you holding up?” Kerney asked.
“I don’t know,” Talbott replied, looking rather hangdog. “I sure didn’t set out to kill that boy, Kerney. If he hadn’t raised that pistol at me, I never would have fired. They say I have to go to jail. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me after that.”
“It will all get worked out.”
Talbott looked around the room and glanced at the deputy who’d positioned himself by the front door. “Why are they keeping me here? Whose place is this, anyway?”
“Just be patient,” Kerney replied.
Talbott shook his head. “The idea of jail scares the bejesus out of me, Kerney. I’ve been asking, but they won’t even let me call a lawyer, my wife, my minister, or my son over in Tucumcari.”
“How long have you been held here?” Kerney asked.
“It’s going on two hours since I told the deputy what happened.”
Kerney did a quick mental calculation. Under normal circumstances, Talbott would have been booked and processed at the county detention center and allowed his phone call by now.
“Who do you want me to call for you?” he asked.
“My wife, Enid.”
“Won’t telling her what happened upset her?”
“She’ll be upset some, but she’s a strong gal. Just tell her to trust in the Lord, stay put at home close to the phone, and to call our minister.”
“Give me the phone number.”
Talbott broke into a relieved smile and rattled off his number. Outside on the deck, where the winds had quieted down and light flakes in a clearing night sky were floating lazily to the ground, Kerney made the call. Enid Talbott answered after the first ring. Kerney identified himself, told her there had been a shooting at the family’s ranch, and her husband was unharmed but a police investigation was under way.
“What happened?” Enid Talbott asked breathlessly.
“I’m not at liberty to say, Mrs. Talbott. Your husband would like you to stay at home and not attempt to come to Santa Fe. Do as he asks, ma’am, the highways are treacherous. He also wants you to call your minister and tell him about the shooting. Does he have a special reason to ask you to do that?”
“Probably because our minister is also the chaplin for the Moriarty Police Department and he might be able to find out more about what’s going on.”
“I see.”
“Is Clifford in trouble?”
“That’s a possibility, Mrs. Talbott.”
“Is someone dead?”
“An investigator from the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office will be in touch with you as soon as they know more about the situation.”
“Can’t
“I’m sorry, I cannot.”
After advising Enid Talbott to call a friend to keep her company, Kerney disconnected. He walked to the barn, where Detective Matt Chacon was in the tack room working under the overhead glare of a bare lightbulb. From the doorway Kerney watched Matt use a pry bar to loosen a slat from the wall and poke his hand inside to feel around.
“Find anything?” Kerney asked.
Matt turned around. “Nothing yet, Chief. But the nails holding this board in place were of a different type and looked newer, so I thought I better check to see if something was stashed inside the wall.”
Kerney nodded. “Good thinking, Sergeant.”
Detective Matt Chacon blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”
Kerney smiled. “I’m giving you a heads-up. You’re about to be promoted.”
Matt cracked a big, boyish grin. “Unbelievable.”
“It’s well deserved, Matt. As of next week, you’re the new Property Crimes Unit supervisor.” Kerney paused. “The sky is clearing and the temperature is dropping fast. Don’t stay out in the cold too long, Sergeant Chacon.”
Matt nodded and kept grinning. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Kerney returned to the double-wide and followed the crime scene tape to the well house. Sergeant Ramona Pino was crawling out of the structure on her hands and knees. Her nose and cheeks were bright red from the cold, and the winter coveralls she wore were soaking wet.
“How’s it going, Sergeant?”
Ramona stood under the jerry-rigged canopy, brushed some snow off her coveralls, and shook her head. “It’s too early to tell, Chief. I’m still excavating snow.”
“That’s enough for tonight, Sergeant. This can wait until morning. I want you to head back to the double-wide and get yourself dried off and warmed up.”
“I can keep going, Chief.”
“A half-frozen detective sergeant is of no use to me.” Kerney flipped open his cell phone and asked for a deputy to be sent to his twenty to protect the crime scene. “Head out, Sergeant. I’ll stay here until the deputy arrives.”
The sound of footsteps breaking through the frozen crust of the snow drew Kerney’s attention. Clayton stepped under the canopy into the light. He looked worn down, and in spite of the cold his face had little color to it.
“I thought you were getting some rest,” Kerney said.
“Can’t sleep.” In truth, in spite of trying to force himself to stay awake, Clayton had fallen asleep, only to
