The Big Gamble by Michael McGarrity Read Free Book Online Page A

Everybody liked Anna Marie.”
    “It could have been someone she knew slightly,” Kerney said. “A casual business or social acquaintance.”
    “A stalker?” Mr. Montoya asked.
    Kerney nodded. “Perhaps. Or it could have been a premeditated attack carried out for some other reason.”
    “What reason?” George Montoya asked.
    “That I don’t know. But I’m troubled by the fact that the perpetrator took Anna Marie so far from Santa Fe. I’m wondering if it has any significance.”
    “Was our daughter raped?” George Montoya asked, his body tensing in anticipation of Kerney’s answer.
    To Kerney’s mind the indicators strongly suggested sexual homicide. “We don’t know that, and probably never will,” he replied.
    “I saved her wedding dress to put in her casket,” Lorraine Montoya said in a whisper.
    “When can we bring her home?” George Montoya asked, reaching to squeeze his wife’s hand as she cried quietly at his side, her rosary forgotten.
    “In a day or two,” Kerney replied.
    “What will you do now?” Montoya asked.
    “Try to find your daughter’s killer.”
    “Someone she knew, you said.”
    “Possibly,” Kerney said.
    George Montoya’s eyes clouded and his voice dropped to a whisper. “For years I hear her footsteps on the front step, hear her voice, see her in the kitchen talking with her mother and sister, thinking that when the phone rang she was calling.”
    “I am so sorry to bring you this news,” Kerney said.
    “It is best for us to know,” George Montoya replied. “We must tell our son and daughter.”
    “I’ll need to speak to them.” Kerney rose and gave Mr. Montoya his business card. “Are they both still living in town?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll try not to make it too difficult. When would be a good time to call them?”
    “Perhaps tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow, then.”
    George Montoya searched Kerney’s face. “This never ends.” His voice cracked and he turned away to comfort his wife and hide his tears.
    Kerney let himself out and closed the screen door. As he crossed the porch he heard Mr. Montoya’s heart-wrenching sob.

    In Albuquerque Clayton went searching for information about Humphrey from people who knew him. Like most rural New Mexicans Clayton thought nothing about making a four-hundred-mile round trip into the city with the family to shop, take in an afternoon movie, and have a meal, so except for some detours skirting the perennial warm-weather road-and-highway construction, finding his way around town was no big deal. A meeting with Humphrey’s VA case-worker led him to a state-operated alcohol treatment center in the south valley just outside the city limits.
    On about a five-acre campus, the facility consisted of a modern, single-story inpatient center with two old pitched-roof former military barracks at the back of the lot and a modular office building off to one side. Big cottonwoods that were budding out shaded an already green lawn.
    In a reception and staff area inside the treatment building Clayton was directed to Austin Bodean, the supervising counselor. Bodean was a tall, skinny, middle-aged man with two tufts of hair above large ears on an otherwise bald head. His office walls were filled with plaques that proclaimed various twelve-step philosophies and framed certificates of seminars attended and continuing-education credits earned.
    Clayton identified himself and told Bodean about Humphrey’s murder.
    “That’s terrible,” Bodean said. “He didn’t have long to live, you know.”
    “Cancer,” Clayton said. “Shouldn’t he have been hospitalized?”
    “He wasn’t end-stage yet, according to our doctor. But the boozing didn’t help, especially since he was taking painkillers as needed. I was hoping he’d get himself clean and sober—get his life in order, so to speak, before it ended. But the last time he was here, he didn’t seem to give a damn. I guess that’s understandable.”
    “When was that?”
    Bodean