Death Song (23 page)

“Why don’t you meet and greet the arriving troops,” Clayton finally said, “while I start asking neighbors if they saw or heard anything.”

After arriving in Albuquerque, Kerney ran a gauntlet of APD cops and detectives before he could get close to the crime scene and start looking for Clayton. The entire complex had been cordoned off, and in three of the buildings within Kerney’s field of vision, he could see officers talking to residents outside their apartments.

He found Clayton in front of the building, where a CSI mobile lab was parked, talking with a man in a suit who had an APD captain’s shield clipped to the lapel of his jacket. Another man standing next to Clayton had a unshaven face and long hair that curled over the collar of his leather jacket, and wore a detective’s shield on a lanyard around his neck.

Kerney approached in time to catch an exchange between the captain and Clayton.

“I understand that you have a legitimate interest in this investigation, Sergeant Istee,” the captain said, sounding put out. “But as I’ve already explained, this is my crime scene, my murder investigation, and it’s our dead officer upstairs bound and gagged, sitting on a toilet stool with a bullet hole in her head. Until my people finish with the crime scene and do the preliminary neighborhood canvass, you
will
stay out of the way.”

The captain jabbed his finger twice at Clayton to make his point, a rude gesture that no Mescalero would ever make causally or thoughtlessly.

“These murders are connected to my investigation, Captain Apodaca,” Clayton replied hotly. “I need to be interviewing potential witnesses.”

“You’ll get your chance,” Captain Apodaca replied.

“Starting right now would be good,” Kerney said genially.

The APD captain gave Kerney the once-over, glanced at the chief’s shield in Kerney’s hand, and shook his head. “Sorry, Chief, you’ve got no jurisdiction in this matter.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Captain,” Kerney replied. “Sergeant Istee and I have every right to be part of this investigation and you know it. Now, do I talk to your chief, who’s giving a statement to the media down at the end of the block as we speak, or do you and I reach an understanding here and now?”

Apodaca, a short man with a shaved head and bulgy eyes, glared at Kerney and said nothing.

The man with the stubble on his chin and long hair glanced at Clayton, then Kerney, and patted Captain Apodaca on the shoulder. “Don’t be a dickhead, Jerry,” he cautioned. “Do what the chief asks.”

Apodaca’s face turned beet red. He caught himself just as he started to sputter an angry reply, took a deep breath, and pointed at the man who’d just called him a dickhead. “Detective Armijo here will take you upstairs and sign you into the crime scene. Ask the CSI supervisor your questions, tell him what you’d like his team to look for, and coordinate with my lieutenant any canvassing you want to conduct. Detective Armijo will stay with you.”

“Very well,” Kerney said.

Armijo nodded, Apodaca walked away, and Kerney gave the detective a quizzical look.

“You’re wondering how a detective can call a captain a dickhead and get away with it, right, Chief?” Armijo asked as the three men walked up the stairs.

“Something like that,” Kerney said.

“I was little Jerry Apodaca’s field training officer after he came out of the academy,” Armijo said. “Without going into details, he owes me big-time.”

Kerney nodded. “Enough said.”

Outside Minerva Stanley Robocker’s apartment, the three officers talked to the CSI supervisor and the homicide lieutenant, and after explaining that the murders might be linked to another cop killing, they were able to get both men to agree to make a concerted effort to look for anything that could be a possible tie-in to Brian Riley’s disappearance and the murder of his father and stepmother. The homicide lieutenant also agreed to have his people circulate Brian Riley’s photograph to all the residents in the apartment complex to see if anyone knew him or his whereabouts.

Kerney learned that the dead patrol officer, Judy Connors, was a three-year veteran of the force who had just returned to work from a maternity leave following the birth of her first child, a son. He asked to view the crime scene, and the CSI supervisor gave him a quick tour while Clayton and Armijo waited on the landing. He returned just as the first touch of dawn spread a glimmer of light over the top of the Sandia Mountains. For a moment the sight of the young, dead policewoman and the very attractive, just-as-dead Minerva Robocker stayed with him in his mind’s eye. Not even the bullet holes, their lifeless, bloodless faces, or the dried blood that stained the bedcovers and splattered the bathroom wall could erase the fact that in different ways both had been pretty women in the full bloom of their lives. It made Kerney angry and brokenhearted for the baby boy who would never know his mother, for Minerva Robocker’s parents and Judy Connors’s husband, a county firefighter just back from a six-month overseas deployment with the National Guard. It made him think about how close he and Patrick had come to losing Sara.

“Down at the Capitan crime scene, didn’t you think it possible that Tim Riley’s killer may have been a professional?” he asked Clayton after a long silence.

“That,” Clayton answered, “or somebody with sufficient knowledge and skill to kill quickly, efficiently, and leave nothing behind.”

“What’s the difference?” Armijo asked.

“Maybe I’m splitting hairs and there is no difference.” Clayton turned and looked across the parking lot and the street at an apartment complex similar to the one that had housed Robocker. It had small, semicircular enclosed patios on the ground level and undersize balconies with wrought iron railings on the second story. “But I didn’t want to dismiss the possibility that the Rileys’ killer is a personal acquaintance, coworker, friend, or relative who just luckily pulled off squeaky clean murders.”

“And now what do you think?” Kerney asked.

“I’m open to suggestions.” The sky began to brighten, and Clayton could see the buildings across the street more clearly. Most of the second-story balconies were empty and only a few apartments had lights on inside. One balcony had a small barbecue grill pushed into a corner by the sliding glass door, and several others had cheap plastic lawn chairs scattered about. He couldn’t see anything of interest behind the high privacy walls of the ground floor unit.

“A cop could make a good killer,” Armijo suggested.

“We’ve been digging deeply into that theory with the Santa Fe sheriff and his personnel,” Kerney said, “and we’ve got nothing so far.” He glanced at Clayton, who was still scanning the apartment buildings across the street. “What are you thinking?” he asked Clayton.

“I’m trying to figure out if there are any similarities in the various crime scenes,” Clayton said, “but there’s nothing I can reach out and touch. About all I can say is the perp is comfortable with killing, including disarming and executing a police officer, which should tell us something. Put that together with everything else we know and what have we got? Virtually no physical evidence has been left behind at any of the crime scenes. Tim Riley’s body was left where he was ambushed, but Denise Riley’s body was moved and left for us to find in a staged scene. Officer Connors’s and Minerva Robocker’s deaths were fast in-and-out killings.”

“Are you talking contract killings?” Armijo interjected.

“That possibility can’t be dismissed,” Clayton said. There was something behind an open sliding glass door of the apartment balcony directly across the street from the Robocker unit, but Clayton couldn’t quite make it out.

“What’s the statistical probability of having four homicides at three different, widely separated locations, occurring within days of each other, with three of the four victims linked to one missing teenage boy, and all of the crimes carried out by different perps?”

“I was never that good at math,” Armijo answered, “but I’d say it ain’t hardly likely.”

Clayton nodded as he studied the object in the open sliding glass balcony door. “Did that homicide lieutenant say anything about canvassing outside of the apartment complex?”

“He wasn’t that specific,” Kerney replied, following Clayton’s gaze. “What are you looking at, Sergeant?”

“I think it’s a telescope on a tripod positioned with a direct line of sight to the front door of the Robocker apartment.”

Armijo turned, took a look, and then started for the stairway. “Let’s go check it out.”

The three men crossed the street, found the resident manager’s apartment, rang the bell, and got no answer. In the parking lot, Clayton asked a woman who was leaving to take her child to day care if she knew where he could find the manager. She pointed to a man standing with a small crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk to watch the action at the crime scene.

The manager, a man with a soft belly, a sunken chest, and acne scars on his face, looked pleased when Clayton showed him his shield and led him away from the crowd to ask a few questions.

“I hear it’s a murder,” the man said in a squeaky, nasal voice, giving a nod of his head in the direction of the squad cars and flashing emergency lights. “Double homicide.”

“Can I have your name, sir?” Clayton asked.

“Bernard Arlinger.”

Clayton asked for some ID.

Arlinger showed Clayton his driver’s license and said, “I didn’t see anything, Officer. Wish I had, so I could help you.”

“Maybe you still can, Mr. Arlinger.” Clayton pointed to the apartment where he’d spotted the telescope behind the open sliding glass door. “Who lives there?”

“Nobody, right now. The tenant moved out a week ago and I’m having the unit repainted, new carpet installed, and a new kitchen sink put in. It won’t be ready to rent for another five or six days.”

“Has the work already started?”

Arlinger nodded. “Yeah, the old carpet has been torn out and the painting contractor is patching the drywall.”

“We need to get into that apartment.”

“You think it has something to do with the killings?” Arlinger’s voice rose, tinny and nasal, loud enough to turn the heads of a few people Kerney and Armijo were blocking from getting close during Clayton’s Q&A.

“Can you let us in?” Clayton asked.

A smile broke across Arlinger’s face, and he reached for the key ring attached to his belt. “Sure thing.”

At the apartment, Arlinger unlocked the door and Clayton had to clamp a hand on his arm to keep him from entering. He pulled him aside and unholstered his weapon. Both Kerney and Armijo had their sidearms out.

“I’d like you to gather all the information you have on the previous tenant and hold on to it for me. Will you do that, Mr. Arlinger? Just wait for us downstairs, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Is the electric on inside the apartment?”

Arlinger shook his head. “I turned it off. The panel is in the bedroom closet.”

“Okay, you can go now,” Clayton said.

For several seconds Arlinger stared at the three officers with their drawn weapons before scurrying away.

“Are we set?” Kerney asked from the side of the door, glancing from Armijo to Clayton. Both had flashlights at the ready.

Armijo nodded. “I’m first in.”

“Cover left,” Kerney said to Clayton. “I’ll take right.”

“Roger that.”

The trio went in fast and cleared the apartment quickly. There was no one there. Armijo found the electrical panel and turned on the lights. Except for the telescope on the tripod, some painting supplies, drop cloths, and a chalky residue from the drywall patching on the plywood subflooring, the place was empty.

“Nobody moves out of an apartment without leaving something behind,” Armijo said as he opened a kitchen cabinet drawer and dumped the contents. Several grocery store coupons floated to the floor along with a box of toothpicks and a plastic bottle of over-the-counter medicine. The rest of the drawers and cabinets were empty.

“I’m calling for forensics,” Armijo said.

“First,” Clayton replied, “I want that telescope and tripod dusted for prints. It looks brand-new and it’s not very high quality or expensive. I’ll bet it was bought at either a toy store or at one of those big-box discount retailers. Ask the manager when the last trash pickup was made. We may want somebody to go dumpster diving. It would be great if we can find a sales receipt.”

“I’m on it,” Armijo said as he left the apartment.

Clayton studied the exposed subflooring. A wide swath of the powdery dust from the drywall repairs had been wiped with a rag. He followed the cleanup attempt from the telescope in the bedroom all the way to the front door. Any evidence of footprints in the dust had also been wiped clean around the tripod and on the balcony.

A slight chill went up Clayton’s spine. Had Tim Riley’s killer watched him locate and document the partial footprints left on the cabin porch in Capitan? Is that why the footprints in the apartment had been obliterated? Was the killer watching him now, or was he just being paranoid?

Clayton looked out the open balcony door to the street below. The attention of the crowd was focused on the crime scene across the way, and nobody was looking up in his direction.

“What is it?” Kerney asked as he approached.

“Nothing?”

“It’s something.”

“I can’t be certain,” Clayton replied, “but what if we’re being watched by the killer?”

Kerney stepped onto the balcony and looked over the railing. “If, as you say, we’re dealing with a professional, that would be totally out of character unless it serves some larger purpose. But let’s have officers get names and addresses of the people on the sidewalk just in case.”

Clayton punched numbers on his cell phone and asked Lee Armijo to have APD detectives follow up with the crowd. “What larger purpose?” he asked after disconnecting.

Kerney returned to the bedroom. “Assuming Brian Riley has been the target all along, the murder of Robocker and the officer could be nothing more than some tidying up.”

“How so?” Clayton asked.

“Robocker may have known absolutely nothing, and was killed simply because the police had shown an interest in her.”