Death Song by Michael McGarrity Read Free Book Online

she gone?” Kerney asked.
    “Twelve,” Helen replied. “She left when she was eighteen and didn’t return to Santa Fe until she was thirty.”
    “Not even to visit?” Kerney asked.
    Helen shook her head.
    “She always took the last name of whatever man she happened to be living with,” Ruben added. “We must have gotten postcards and letters from her with at least five or six different surnames.”
    “Boyfriends, not husbands?” Kerney asked.
    “Her marriage to Tim is her first, as far as we know,” Helen said.
    “Did any of those old boyfriends ever come to visit?”
    “Not that I know about,” Helen said.
    “Tell me about Denise’s relationship with Tim.”
    Before Helen could respond, Leonard Jessup stepped through the door.
    Helen jumped to her feet. “Have you found something?”
    “Nothing yet,” he replied, casting a quick look at Kerney. “Can I have a minute of your time, Chief?”
    Kerney nodded and stood.
    “Why do you need to speak privately with Chief Kerney?” Helen demanded as she stepped up to Jessup. “If something is wrong, tell me now.”
    Jessup shot Kerney a questioning look.
    “Tell her,” Kerney said.
    Jessup took a deep breath. “I just got off the phone with the Lincoln County sheriff,” he said. “Tim Riley was killed earlier tonight.”
    Helen gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.
     
     
     
    The news out of Santa Fe that Tim Riley’s wife was missing complicated Clayton’s investigation. The sketchy information he’d received—her purse, wallet, car keys, and vehicle had been found at the family residence—suggested an abduction or worse. But with so few facts available, Clayton didn’t know if Riley’s wife should be considered a potential homicide suspect or a possible double homicide victim.
    The neighborhood canvass was over and nobody interviewed had seen or heard anything until the sound of the shotgun blast had broken the silence of the night. A three-block radius around the crime scene had been searched for any sign left behind by the perpetrator, and nothing had been found. A fresh search would be done in daylight, but Clayton had little hope that any valuable evidence would materialize.
    The state police crime scene techs had collected at least a dozen different fingerprints from the exterior and interior surfaces of Riley’s cabin, which quite probably belonged to Riley and everyone else who had rented the place as a vacation retreat over the last six months. Although there were no signs of a forced entry, Clayton had the techs bag and tag every piece of personal property belonging to Riley, along with the bedding, bathroom towels, and the dishes in the sink that were supplied to renters by the owner of the cabin. When that was accomplished, he had the techs vacuum the floors before turning them loose on Riley’s police vehicle. It was a scatter-gun approach to evidence collection, but Clayton knew that every homicide left a trace, and if one blot, smudge, stain, scratch, fiber, or speck was overlooked, the killer could get away with murder.
    Dawn came with a stiff wind that blew dust, tumbleweeds, and brown, brittle cottonwood leaves across streets, sidewalks, and lawns. Clayton assembled a group of officers, including Sheriff Hewitt and Chief Bolt, and carried out another three-block search for evidence. Every piece of loose trash and litter that hadn’t been blown away by the wind was bagged and tagged, every tire track and skid mark was photographed, and every parked vehicle was inspected and run through Motor Vehicles.
    When the officers returned to the cabin, EMTs were rolling Riley’s body on a gurney to an ambulance that would transport his remains to Albuquerque for an autopsy to determine the cause of death, which in this case would be a formality. All night long Clayton had wondered what had become of the rifled shotgun slug that had taken Tim Riley’s life.
    He stood facing the cabin about six feet from where Tim Riley’s body had