Slow Kill (24 page)

On the other side of the creek two barns faced each other across two large fenced pastures. A tree-lined lane ran between the pastures to a cluster of small cottages, outbuildings, storage sheds, and corrals, then continued on to a dirt landing field at the foot of a hill where a twin-engine plane sat next to a hangar. Sunlight flashed off the metal roof of the hangar like a beacon.

Price pulled to a stop in front of the house, got out of his unit, and watched a pickup truck coming in his direction rattle over the wooden bridge spanning the creek. The man who jumped out of the truck had an agitated expression on his face.

“What do you need to talk to me about?” he demanded abruptly.

“Coe Evans?” Price asked, looking the man over. He was a pretty-boy, with cropped curly hair, symmetrical features, and a solid six-foot frame.

“Yeah, that’s right. What do you want?”

“You sound worried,” Price replied pleasantly. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Evans said, glancing up at the big house. “You tell me.”

“As far as I know, you’re not in any trouble,” Price said. “What can you tell me about Claudia Spalding?”

Evans looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “Not much. I barely know the woman.”

“How did you come to meet her?”

“At the tracks where I used to work. She likes the ponies-owns a few and races them. I’d see her around and sometimes we would chat. Small talk stuff.”

“Just casual conversation about horses and racing,” Price rephrased.

“Horses and racing,” Evans said. “Exactly.”

“That’s it?” Price asked. “You had no social interaction with her outside of work?”

Evans smirked and laughed. “Are you kidding, outside of work? She didn’t hang out with my crowd.”

“So you only saw her at the track.”

“I just said that.”

Evans was repeating Price’s words, averting his eyes, omitting information-all signs of a liar.

Price decided to stop acting so amicable and ask a slightly tougher question. “You never slept with her?”

Evans tilted his head and closed his eyes. “That’s bullshit. Who have you been talking to? Who would say something like that?”

Pleased with the response and convinced he was reading Evans correctly, Price backed off. “When was the last time you talked with Mrs. Spalding?”

“I can’t recall,” Evans replied. “It wasn’t like I kept track of her. She was just another rich bitch who hung around during racing season.”

“Try to remember,” Price encouraged.

Evans gave a slight, cooperative nod of his head. “Probably it was just before she built a house somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Four, maybe five years ago.”

“What would you say if I told you we think Claudia Spalding arranged to have her husband murdered?”

“I heard he died in his sleep.”

“What type of woman would do something like that?”

“Man, who knows why women do anything?”

Price glanced at the gold band Evans wore on his left hand. “You’re married, I take it. Is it the same woman you were living with back when you knew Claudia Spalding?”

Evans stiffened. “Have you been checking up on me?”

Price smiled. “A little bit. Is she?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“Perhaps I should speak with her. Is she here?”

Evans waved off the notion with a wagging finger. “You have no cause to do that.”

“Maybe she’d be interested in learning what your old buddy in Santa Fe, Mitch Griffin, has to say about your relationship with Claudia Spalding, and what you told him about the murder plot she had in mind for her husband.”

The cockiness in Evans washed away, replaced by hot-wired apprehension. “Shit. That crazy bitch. I cut it off with her then and there. I swear, I did nothing. My wife would kill me if she ever found out about Claudia.”

“I believe you,” Price said consolingly as he opened the passenger door to his unit. “Let’s take a ride to my office. We’ll start all over again, and this time you can tell me the truth.”

In a laboratory at the university, Kerney watched Grant assemble the bones into a recognizable partial skeleton, studying each one carefully before he laid it out. After he took measurements, he picked up the breastbone and shattered rib for a closer examination.

“Definitely shot,” he said.

“Not shrapnel wounds?” Kerney asked.

Grant shook his head and put the bones back in place. “No way. It’s a male. Based on my measurement I make him to be between five-foot-eleven and six feet tall. I’m thinking he was probably in his thirties when he died, but it will take some time to confirm it. Since we’re missing the skull, I was hoping I might find an old break that could be compared to medical records, but there are none that I can see. I’ll do X-rays.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“Not much until I do some tests. The important work will be the mitochondrial DNA comparison of the bones to the blood sample provided by Alice Spalding.”

“I only asked for a saliva swab,” Kerney said.

“Normally, that would be good enough,” Grant said. “But for what I have in mind, I’ll need a blood sample.”

“Assuming these aren’t the remains of George Spalding, is there still a chance a positive ID can be made?” Kerney asked.

Grant smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that question. I did postdoctoral work at the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, which has the largest staff of forensic anthropologists in the world. I’d like to query them and ask for a records search of their POW/MIA data bank based on what I can tell them before we get the DNA results back. It might help narrow a search for a likely victim. But don’t expect to get a list of names you can easily investigate.”

“Why is that?” Kerney asked.

Grant walked to a desk and started rummaging through a drawer for some forms. “Because if this is truly an MIA, the man is probably just a name in their system. Or it could well be that the victim isn’t even an American soldier. The laboratory cooperates with over seventeen countries to identify remains of both military personnel and civilians from foreign governments who are unaccounted for in Vietnam. Your task could be daunting.”

“How can I narrow the field?” Kerney asked.

Grant labeled a manila file folder with a marker and put the blank forms in it. “Based on what you told me, George Spalding was handled as a KIA, which means after recovery his remains went to one of two well-equipped mortuaries in-country, Da Nang in the north and Tan Son Nhut outside of Saigon. Mortuary affairs are handled by the Army Quartermaster Corps. Finding out which facility handled these remains could be helpful. They keep excellent records.”

“What better place to switch remains than a mortuary?” Kerney said.

“You got it,” Grant replied. “But we shouldn’t stop there. I can short-circuit the process considerably by sending our DNA results to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory at Walter Reed Hospital. They have thousands of blood samples from POW/MIA family members in their database, and a new high-speed automated robotic processing system in place. Of course, that’s assuming the lab has maternal DNA of the victim on hand.”

“How long would we have to wait for a report?” Kerney asked.

“Even with the new system, months, I would imagine. Unless, that is, you know some way to get it bumped up on the priority list.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Kerney replied. “The Army is as interested in this case as I am.”

B y choice, Kerney spent very little time in Albuquerque, driving down from Santa Fe only for necessary business or to catch a plane at the airport. But after leaving Jerry Grant he lingered at a diner over a cup of hot tea and called the half-dozen Calderwoods listed in the local phone book. He made contact with four people who professed no knowledge of, or kinship to, the long-lost Debbie, and left messages for the others.

To make sure he hadn’t missed anyone, he called the phone company and asked for any unlisted numbers under the Calderwood name. There were none. He closed the dog-eared, grease-stained directory he’d borrowed from a waitress, drank his tea, and looked around the diner. By the front cashier station a row of booths lined one wall. Perpendicular to the booths was a serving station in front of swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Behind a long counter with padded stools a waitress refilled a trucker ’s coffee cup.

Kerney liked diners, not for the food but because they made great people-watching places. An elderly couple at one of the nearby tables carefully examined their menus and discussed whether they should order the early-bird dinner special. The woman wore loose-fitting slacks and a summer blouse, the man jeans and a short-sleeved shirt topped off by a ball cap adorned with tourist pins from the places he’d visited.

In one of the booths along the wall, a young couple in shorts, T-shirts, and hiking boots sat next to each other studying a map. By the look of their tanned legs, arms, and faces, Kerney figured them to be college students doing some high country backpacking on summer break.

He picked up the phone directory again and turned to the business listings on the off-chance the name Calderwood would appear. There was a Calderwood Farm Equipment Company on North Second Street. He called and got a recording announcing the business was closed for the day. Since it wasn’t far, Kerney decided to swing by and take a look at the place.

He avoided rush hour on the interstate and found his way to Second Street, an area of seedy commercial buildings, warehouses, and low-end used car lots that paralleled the train tracks a block away. Calderwood Farm Equipment sat across the street from a city vehicle maintenance yard. Tractors, horse trailers, field cultivators, and large metal water tanks filled the lot behind a chain-link fence. The gate was open and a late model cream-colored Cadillac sat in front of a building that had once been a heavy equipment garage, the tall bay doors now replaced with showroom windows.

The entrance was locked and the man who answered Kerney’s knock wore a dress shirt, tie, and slacks that were badly wrinkled around the crotch from too much sitting. Chunky with a fold of loose skin under his chin, the man flashed Kerney a broad smile.

“I don’t suppose you’re interested in that sweet 480-horsepower tractor out on the lot,” he said jovially after inspecting Kerney’s credentials.

“I’m looking for Calderwood,” Kerney said.

“You’re about twenty years too late. I bought him out but kept the company name.”

“Can you point me in his direction?” Kerney asked.

“He died two years after I took over the business. I guess retirement didn’t suit him.”

“Did he have a wife, children?”

The man’s expression darkened. “Don’t get me started on his wife. When I bought the company I couldn’t afford to purchase the property, so Calderwood gave me a two-year option on the building. His wife wouldn’t renew it after he died. Said she needed the rental income. I’ve been paying for her tour ship cruises and European vacations ever since.”

“How can I find Mrs. Calderwood?”

“She got remarried ten years ago to a retired university professor. Now she’s Mrs. Kessler. She lives on Twelfth Street, not too far from here.”

“Does she have any children?” Kerney asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Can you give me her address?”

“Sure, if you tell me what this is all about.”

“I’m looking for a missing person named Debbie Calderwood. Does that name ring a bell?”

The man shook his head. “You know, I worked for Calderwood for five years before he sold me the business. Never once did I meet any of his relatives or get invited over to his house. Both he and his wife were the most private people you could ever know. They never talked about anything personal. I can’t tell you a darn thing about that family.”

Kerney left with an address for Mrs. Kessler and drove to Twelfth Street. Until 1880, Albuquerque had been a small, predominantly Spanish settlement near the Rio Grande River. Within a year after the arrival of the railroad two miles east of the village, a new town sprang up that soon overshadowed the old Plaza as a center of commerce and business.

Over time, the old and new towns began to merge as the city grew. Anglo merchants, bankers, doctors, and lawyers bought up lots near what was to become downtown Albuquerque, and built grand homes for their families. Those houses still stood in a lovely old residential neighborhood that included Twelfth Street.

The Kessler residence was a Victorian classic with a steeply pitched roof running front to back and exposed timbering on the upper story. It had a Palladian window centered in a wall projection that jutted out above a narrow gabled porch supported by heavy square-cut posts.

Kerney climbed the broad porch stairs and turned the crank of the mechanical doorbell attached to the paneled oak front door. The tinny, weak trill of it made him crank the bell again a bit harder.

A few minutes passed before the door opened to reveal a small, lean, elderly woman with sharp features magnified by a peevish expression.

Kerney held out his badge case. “Mrs. Kessler, I’m with the Santa Fe Police Department.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Mrs. Kessler said, without a hint of humor. “Whatever do you want?”

“I’d like you to tell me what you know about Debbie Calderwood.”

Kessler’s slate-gray eyes registered no expression, but she wrinkled her nose a bit at the mention of Debbie’s name. “Debbie?” she said. “I haven’t seen or heard from her in over thirty years.”

“Is she related to you?” Kerney asked.

Kessler bared her tiny teeth in a tight, polite smile. “Why are you asking me about her?”

“I’m attempting to locate her,” Kerney replied.

“Well, I’m certainly not someone who can help you,” Kessler said, her voice tinged with displeasure.