Hermit's Peak (21 page)

“Anything else, Dr. Pino?” Reese called after her.

Ruth turned and smiled. “We're going to have a post-setting, wire-stringing party this weekend. Bring the family, your camping gear, and enough food for two days.”

“You are something,” Reese said.

“Is that an RSVP?”

“I'll be here.”

Although Carl Boaz's cabin had been thoroughly tossed during the original search, Gabe felt he'd missed something. If Boaz's journal truly reflected the amount Rudy Espinoza had agreed to pay for access to the woodcutting area, Boaz had settled for chump change.

It was hard to believe Boaz had been that stupid. Boaz had a doctorate, and had put together a sophisticated marijuana production scheme that might have gone undetected if Rudy hadn't blown him away.

Beyond that, Gabe still couldn't figure out why Rudy had iced Boaz. Why would Rudy want to kill a conspirator in what amounted to nothing more than a low-grade felony? Assuming Rudy knew about the marijuana cultivation, wouldn't he think Boaz had every reason to keep his mouth shut about the wood poaching?

He checked the time. He had hours before the phone company records on the women who attended the singles parties would be ready. He searched every
nook and cranny of the cabin, the greenhouse, and Boaz's truck, looking for hiding places that might have been missed. He tore out sections of the cabin walls, shoveled topsoil out of the greenhouse nursery tables, and stripped the interior of the truck down to the metal. He found nothing.

Frustrated, Gabe leaned against the front fender of the truck, and scanned the meadow and the buildings waiting for inspiration. What was he missing? He was about to give up when his gaze settled on the gas-powered electric generator installed on a concrete pad halfway between the cabin and the greenhouse.

He walked to it and took a closer look. The generator, expensive and fairly new, sat on two long metal runners that were bolted to the pad. He found the manufacturer's plate and a metal tag from an electrical supply company in Lubbock, Texas.

Why would Boaz buy a generator from a company hundreds of miles away when he could get the same item locally? He wrote down the information, went to the greenhouse, and climbed on the roof to inspect the bank of south-facing solar panels. All of them were tagged by the same Lubbock company.

At the water well, he disconnected the power supply, removed the housing cover, pulled up the submersible pump, and found another tag from the Lubbock supply house.

In the cabin, Gabe sat at the table and went through Boaz's cancelled checks, cash purchase receipts, and lists of expenditures for construction costs he'd checked out of the district office evidence room. Boaz had kept
detailed records of his costs to get the operation up and running. None of the items from Lubbock showed up as purchases.

Gabe looked around the cabin. The propane refrigerator and the propane stove looked new. He ran through Boaz's records again and found no documentation for the purchase of either item.

Where did Boaz get all this stuff?

He pulled the stove and refrigerator away from the wall, wrote down the make, model, and serial numbers, and used his cellular phone to call Russell Thorpe.

“Where are you?” Gabe said, when Thorpe answered.

“Lunch break at the Roadrunner.”

“I need you to run some information through NCIC. Have you got a pen and paper?”

“Roger that.”

Gabe read off the make, model, and serial number for each item and had Thorpe repeat the information back to him.

“How soon do you want this, Sarge?”

“ASAP.”

“I'll call you right back.”

Gabe used the time waiting for Thorpe to call going over Boaz's journal line by line, looking for anything that might give him an insight into the murder.

The phone rang and Gabe answered. “What have you got?”

“Three hits, Sarge. The gas-powered generator, solar panels, and the pump were stolen from a Lubbock electrical supply company. The propane refrigerator was boosted from a freight car on a railroad siding in Amarillo,
and the propane cooking stove was taken from an appliance store in Midland, Texas. All within the last year. All major heists.”

“Good deal,” Gabe said.

“Where did you find this stuff?” Thorpe asked.

“I'll tell you later.”

“You got something else you need me to do?”

“I'll call you back,” Gabe said as he hurried out the cabin door to his vehicle. Angie Romero had a large-screen television in her living room that he wanted to check out.

 • • • 

Angie opened the front door a crack and gave Gabe a sour look. “What is it?”

“Can I come in?” Gabe asked

“What for?”

“We need to talk about your car.”

“When do I get it back?” Angie asked, swinging the door wide.

“Tomorrow,” Gabe said, stepping inside.

Angie's smell almost made him retreat to the front porch. She wore a frayed bathrobe, dingy gray pajamas, and a pair of tattered slippers. She ran a shaky hand through her tangled hair and looked at Gabe with bloodshot eyes.

“Mind if I look at your television?” Gabe asked as he walked to the set that stood against a wall.

“Why?”

“Did Rudy buy it?” Gabe pulled the set away from the wall.

“He gave it to me as a present.”

“When?” Gabe found the manufacturer's information and wrote it down.

“You can't do that,” Angie said as she crossed the room.

Gabe pushed the set back to its original position. “When did Rudy bring home the TV, Angie?”

“Maybe six months ago. You can't come in here and paw through my property.”

“Where did Rudy buy it?”

“I don't know. He just brought it home one day.”

Angie's closeness made her smell almost unbearable. Gabe moved quickly toward the open door. “Sorry to bother you.”

Angie followed at his heels. “I want my car back.”

“Tomorrow, Angie.” Gabe stepped off the porch.

“It damn well better be here.”

“It will be,” Gabe said with a smile.

He called Thorpe with the information on the television as soon as he was out of Angie's driveway.

Thorpe called back just as Gabe pulled onto the interstate.

“The TV was stolen from the same store in Midland where the stove was boosted,” he reported.

“Ten-four. Get me complete reports from the Texas authorities on all three heists.”

“What have you got, Sarge?”

“I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out. Do one more thing for me.”

“What's that?”

“Have Angie's Mustang towed back to her house tomorrow morning.”

“That car can't be driven until it's fixed. The front end is totalled.”

“I know it.”

 • • • 

Before leaving for his class, Richard Bingham provided Kerney with his friend Nancy's full name and address. The girl lived in a dormitory on the college campus.

A private institution with a small enrollment, the school was situated in the Santa Fe foothills. The nearby mountains, million-dollar homes, and an adjacent private prep school insulated the campus and its carefully tended grounds.

Kerney found Nancy Rubin in her dorm room, introduced himself, and asked a few questions. No more than nineteen years old, Nancy had a slim, lanky body, short curly blonde hair, and a heavy New York accent. She wore three diamond studs in her right earlobe.

The girl confirmed Richard's version of the events at the ranch involving Luiza, and Kerney left feeling fairly certain that he'd gotten candid answers.

 • • • 

In Las Vegas, Kerney stopped at the county sheriff's office and got directions to the Box Z Ranch, where Luiza San Miguel had once been employed. The route took him along a state highway that cut through high, rolling plains and onto a narrow two-lane road that provided a panoramic view of the mountains. Where the dun-colored plains ended, massive, dark opal peaks swept beyond the limits of perception and faded into a rippling, miragelike vagueness.

The road curved away from the view and Kerney
saw the first sign of a deep trough that pierced the hilly grasslands. Soon he was hugging the lip of a canyon that cut a thousand feet below the plains and opened out in a widening valley flanked by red-rimmed tabletop mesas.

The pavement turned to dirt, and the road crossed and recrossed a rocky, shallow river, and then rose to expose an expanse of rangeland that seemed to push back the mesas. After navigating a boulder-strewn bypass bulldozed around the remnants of a washed-out wooden bridge, Kerney topped out at a small rise, and stopped to take a look around.

Ten miles south, a lone butte towered where the canyon lands ended. Stands of piñon and juniper trees peppered lush pastures filled with bluestem and Indian rice grass. Patches of spring wildflowers threw color against the foot of the mesas.

Kerney drove toward the butte, taking it all in. Here the land dominated, making the small herds of cattle moving across the valley look like dots; turning the ranch road into a vague incision that faded away to nothing in the distance; putting fences, windmills, feed troughs, and stock tanks into a perspective that made man's efforts seem inconsequential.

Sheltered at the foot of the butte, the Box Z headquarters was surrounded by groves of cottonwood trees. The houses, barns, sheds, outbuildings, and corrals were made of rock and in perfect condition. Behind the barn stood a pitched-roof garage with a red 1930s gasoline pump off to one side. The main ranch house was a two-story Queen Anne Victorian. The roofline
was broken by two shingled dormers, and round columns supported the deep front porch.

The man who opened the front door wore a straw cowboy hat pushed back to reveal a high forehead and eyeglasses with plastic frames. Somewhere in his sixties, he had straight lips beneath a pudgy nose and deep creases in his cheeks that ran down to his chin.

“I'm looking for the owner,” Kerney said.

“You found him,” the man replied, glancing at Kerney's open badge case. “I'm Arlin Fullerton. What brings you out this way, Officer?”

“I have a few questions to ask you about Luiza San Miguel.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I just need to find her,” Kerney replied.

“She took a job last year at Horse Canyon. My wife sure hated to lose that girl,” Arlin said. “If she's not there, I don't know where she's working now. We haven't kept track of her. Have you checked at Horse Canyon?”

“Yes. What was her reason for leaving the Box Z?”

“She just decided to move on, I guess.”

“Did you hear from her after she left?”

“We got a card from her sometime back.”

“What did it say?”

“Just that she liked her new job.”

“How did you come to hire her?”

“I pay a fair wage, but not too many locals—especially the younger ones—want to work six days a week on a remote ranch. So most of my employees are Mexican. They've got their own grapevine when it comes to
finding work. My wife was looking for a housekeeper when Luiza showed up.”

“How did she learn about the job?”

“Word of mouth would be my guess.”

“Not one of your employees?”

“She didn't know a soul when she started here.”

“Did Luiza talk about herself or her family in Mexico?”

Fullerton shook his head. “Not much. She's a shy girl. Quiet. Keeps to herself.”

“Did she have any clashes with other employees? Any friction, disagreements, dissension?”

“Not that I know about. She was pretty even tempered. Got along with everybody.”

“Everybody?”

“Except when she got pestered.”

“Who pestered her?”

“Well, it wasn't pestering to start; it was more like skirt chasing. One of the neighboring ranch boys took a shine to her. Luiza didn't like him at all. But the kid wouldn't take no for an answer. It really got Luiza's back up.”

“What's the kid's name?”

“Bernardo Barela. He works on the next spread over with his uncle.”

“Nestor Barela's grandson?”

“That's him.”

“How do I get to their place?”

“Take the left fork out of my gate and follow the road ten miles due west. They use an old homestead as their line camp. You can't miss it. They come down from Las
Vegas most days. You should find them there. They borrowed my bulldozer this morning to do some road work.”

“Thanks.”

“Mind telling me what this is all about?”

“You've got a nice place here, Mr. Fullerton,” Kerney said as he turned and stepped away. “Thanks, again.”

 • • • 

At home, Gabe waited restlessly for Russell Thorpe to deliver the burglary reports that the Texas law enforcement agencies had faxed to the district office. Now that Orlando had announced his intentions to move away, the house seemed too big, and Gabe felt vaguely uncomfortable in it.

Thorpe arrived and hung around with an eager look on his face, hoping to learn what was up. Gabe thumbed through the papers, verified that the stolen items matched the information out of Texas, and looked at Thorpe.

“Go recover the stolen property at Boaz's cabin, and see what else you can find,” he said.

Thorpe could barely contain a grin. “How do I keep you out of it?”

“If anyone asks, say you got an anonymous tip. Also, write up a search warrant for Angie Romero's house, get it signed, and toss the place. Take somebody with you. Who is the shift commander on duty?”

“Art Garcia is filling in for you.”

“Tell him—and only him—what's up, and ask him to go with you.”

“What's my probable cause for the warrant?”

“You have reason to believe that items taken in a Texas burglary are in Angie's house. Cite the Midland Police Department report. Art can help you fill in the blanks.”