Mesa Verde Victim. Scott Graham
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to the rear fence. “For good reason.”
She followed his look. “I heard he’s in the alley.”
“He?”
Sandra ticked a forefinger back and forth in warning, but Janelle continued nonetheless.
“It’s all over the police radios,” she said to Chuck. “That’s why Mark—” her shift supervisor, Mark Chapman “—sent me home.”
“I’m glad he did.”
With the girls growing older and increasingly independent, Janelle had been accepting every offer of fill-in shifts that came her way, seeking to impress Mark and the other Durango Fire and Rescue supervisors enough to win the next full-time position that opened up with the department.
She took one of Chuck’s hands in hers. Her voice shook. “It’s Barney, Chuck. They’re saying it’s Barney.”
“Barney? That’s insane. Are you sure?”
Barney Keller was a senior archaeologist for Southwest
Archaeology Enterprises, one of several firms in town that, like Chuck’s one-man company, performed site surveys as well as full-on digs throughout the archaeologically rich Four Corners region surrounding Durango, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah met.
Chuck had worked with Barney on a number of combined-
firm contracts over the years. But Barney was more than just an occasional work partner to Chuck. He was one of Chuck’s few close friends, a harmless teddy bear of a guy, jovial and kindhearted. In the years since Chuck had become husband to Janelle and stepdad to Carmelita and Rosie, he credited Barney’s wise counsel with helping him tamp down the hot-headedness he’d displayed all too often during his many years as a bachelor. Barney and his wife, Audrey, had raised a son, Jason, in
Durango. Jason was in his mid-twenties now, living in Denver.
“Barney doesn’t have an enemy in the world,” Chuck said.
“He couldn’t,” Janelle agreed. “Plus . . .” Her voice trailed off. She let go of Chuck’s hand and shot a sidelong glance at Sandra before looking away.
Chuck knew what Janelle was thinking. “Plus, Clarence,” he finished for her. He turned to Sandra. “Assuming that really is Barney Keller out there, I want you to know two things. First, to repeat: no one would ever want to hurt Barney. Everybody loves him, me included.”
He paused.
“Second?” Sandra urged.
“Second is that Clarence Ortega, Janelle’s brother, has been doing a lot of work with Barney over the last few weeks.”
Chuck whirled to Janelle. Clarence’s rotund frame matched that of the corpse beneath the sheet in the back alley. “Have you talked to him? Is he okay?”
Janelle tapped her phone, stowed in the side pocket of her pants. “I called him. He’s at his apartment. He’s fine.”
Chuck pivoted to Sandra. “Barney’s company, Southwest Archaeology Enterprises, has won just about every contract in the area the last few months. They’ve taken on a number of new workers as a result. Clarence is one of them.”
“I’m sorry I can’t confirm what your wife has heard,” Sandra said to Chuck. “But any information her brother can provide will be helpful.”
“Which means,” Janelle said, leaning toward Sandra, “you haven’t arrested anyone yet.”
Sandra lowered her head, an almost imperceptible dip of her chin, but kept her gaze on Chuck. “I can’t officially comment.”
Janelle’s jaw muscles tightened. “Of course, you can’t.” She clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes growing big and round. “I just remembered,” she said. “Barney’s wife, Audrey.”
She reached for her phone.
Sandra lifted her hand to Janelle and said to Chuck, “We’ll get someone over to the house. It’s better to tell her in person.” She lowered her hand. “We’ll need to do a round of questions with you and your wife before—”
“This might help, Kingsley,” a police officer broke in as he entered the yard from the back alley. The officer closed the gate behind him. He was in his thirties, as fit and trim as Chuck but broader at the shoulders. Unlike Chuck’s clean-shaven face, a clipped brown mustache covered the officer’s upper lip. Prominent cheekbones and a squared-off jaw gave him a boxy look.
The police officer carried a ziplock evidence bag. He raised the clear plastic bag as he stopped at Sandra’s side, facing Chuck and Janelle. A three-inch-by-five-inch picture postcard, bent and crumpled, rested in the bottom of the bag. The officer flipped the bag so the creased front of the postcard faced outward. Fresh splotches of blood, bright red in the afternoon sunlight, stained the front of the card.
Chuck gawked at the card, his mouth falling open.
“I take it you recognize this,” the officer said, his eyes on Chuck.
“It’s from my study.”
“Any idea why a murder victim would be clutching it in his hands?”
“None whatsoever.”
“What’s it a picture of?”
Chuck pointed at the front of the card. “You mean, who.”
2
Half an hour later, their house declared off limits to them as the investigation into Barney’s murder got underway, Chuck, Janelle, Carmelita, and Rosie crowded into the cramped living room of Clarence’s one-bedroom apartment, on the ground level of a two-story complex facing busy College Avenue on the edge of the Grid.
“Please, sit,” Clarence said, sweeping crumbs off the sagging sofa and worn easy chair that filled the small front room.
Janelle settled on the couch between Carmelita and Rosie. She gathered the girls close, her arms around their shoulders, the sofa slumping beneath their weight.
Chuck perched on the edge of the torn, vinyl recliner in the corner of the room. Outside the front window of the apartment, a length of rusted, wrought-iron railing separated the narrow entryway from the courtyard of the complex. Clarence stood with his back to the window. He wore a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt. Stud earrings glittered in his lobes. His dark hair, as long and silky as his sister’s, cascaded down his back nearly to his broad hips. He snugged the waistline of his faded jeans to the base of his protruding belly.
“Speak,” he said, his eyes alight.
Janelle filled him in, her sentences clipped, as if reporting by radio from the scene of a Durango Fire and Rescue call. She concluded, “The police asked us a few questions and asked us to leave. They wouldn’t let us inside. I don’t know when we’ll be allowed back.”
Clarence swept his hand through the air, taking in his tiny apartment. “My castle is your castle, for as long as you need it.” He blinked back tears. “Barney? Are you sure?”
Chuck gripped his legs with his hands, his fingers digging into his sweats. “Sandra did everything but say it flat out.”
Janelle nodded in confirmation. “Before I got off my shift, a couple of officers said his name over the police radio. They referred to him only as ‘the victim’ after that.”
Rosie sniffled. “I’m scared.”
Janelle pressed Rosie’s head to her shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re safe. We’re all together now.”
“Sandra?” Clarence asked Chuck.
“Kingsley,” he admitted.
“She’s . . . ?”
“Yes,” Chuck said, the word short and sharp. “She or someone else from the department will be