surprisingly, Tomas Trujillo hadn’t forgotten his sunglasses. The Ray-Bans were an essential part of his look, as were the short-sleeve shirts rolled up even shorter to reveal the bulging muscles left over from his days as a linebacker on the Santa Fe High School football team that won the state championship a few years back. He didn’t care much for Trujillo—a deputy sheriff from Santa Fe Country—for the simple reason that Trujillo could never stop playing the tough guy. Trujillo had a short fuse and was always getting into trouble with his superiors for slapping people around. One of these days he would slap the wrong person and get his ass suspended.
He patted the pack of Camel Lights in his shirt pocket, always there if he needed them, while he listened to Trujillo and Padilla argue over by the crumbling adobe wall near the house. Padilla was a lousy liar, no doubt about it. He claimed not to have discovered Soto’s body until eight this morning, a few minutes before calling 911. That story wasn’t going to wash with anyone, because Soto had been dead at least eight hours by the time he and the lab technicians arrived.
The Porsche, with Soto’s body inside, had been parked all night in Padilla’s yard, no more than thirty feet from his front door. Not even a jury of his Hispanic peers would believe Padilla slept that soundly.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Trujillo said. “What happened last night? Why did you wait until this morning to call us?”
“I told you.” Padilla nervously glanced from Trujillo to Fidel, who was listening to their conversation and scribbling notes in his small reporter’s notebook.
“I noticed the car when I came out this morning. I was on my way to Santa Fe to buy groceries, and when I opened my gate—”
Trujillo stopped Padilla before he could finish the sentence. “Come on, you’re not dressed to go shopping.”
True, he thought. Padilla didn’t look all that presentable, wearing filthy white painter’s pants and a soiled blue denim work shirt. Not much of a looker anyway, with his wrinkled fifty-something face, he hadn’t helped his appearance any by not shaving or combing his hair. He reeked of smoke, as if he’d just returned from a camping trip. The nights weren’t cold enough for a fireplace or a wood burning stove.
Trujillo tried again. “What was Soto doing here last night?”
“Please,” Padilla pleaded. “I told you. I found him this morning.”
“Then what was Soto doing here this morning?”
Padilla looked at Fidel, as if searching for a friend.
“He came to buy something.”
“Like what?”
“He wanted to buy an old Hopi kachina I was selling. For his gallery.”
Trujillo persisted. “Why were you selling it?”
Padilla shrugged. “Because I needed the money.”
He turned away, letting their voices blend together.
Let Trujillo take care of the interrogation. He didn’t care, because it gave him more time to look around. He walked over to the shiny black Porsche, looking for something he’d missed earlier. Soto’s body had been slumped against the steering wheel when he and Fidel had arrived. The hole in the back of Soto’s head looked like the work of a small caliber bullet, maybe even a .22 fired at point-blank range. Soto was dressed casually, jeans and striped polo shirt, not the usual suits he wore around town playing the dandy.
Now that forensics had taken the body away, he could start his own investigation. Whoever killed Soto had been looking for something, that much was clear. How else to explain why the contents of the Porsche’s trunk had been tossed haphazardly on the ground? He found a duffel bag ripped open with such force that its zipper had torn loose from the leather. Someone had taken everything out of the bag—a freshly laundered shirt, a pair of chinos, and a black leather shaving kit.
There were other items scattered about the parking lot including a first aid kit and a small Navajo rug. He also found tourists brochures from Taos and Acoma pueblos, an AAA envelope stuffed with road maps, and a white cotton bag empty except for a fine brown dust that he couldn’t identify.
Had the killer found what he was looking for? Maybe, maybe not. He lowered his head and climbed into the passenger’s seat. Sitting in a Porsche was a new experience for him. He drove a Plymouth and had never, even in his youth, owned anything more exotic than a Ford Mustang.
Well, he had news for Soto and all the other yuppies. The Porsche was too goddamned small. Why pay ninety thousand dollars or more for a car that was too goddamned small? Soto might be able to answer that, but Soto was dead.
He studied the car. He thought he smelled smoke. Definitely a hint, a faint trace of wood smoke. It was enough to make him wonder if Soto and Padilla had been camping last night. It was a crazy idea, but at the moment he had little else to work with. The interior of the car was clean except for coagulated blood on the driver’s seat and the floor mat below. No apparent clues to what had happened last night. Opening the glove compartment, he found a flashlight and a map entitled “Guide to Indian Country,” published by the Automobile Club of Southern California.
He unfolded the map, which delineated, in great detail and color, the various Indian reservations in the Four Corners area, including parts of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Someone had taken a black felt-tip pen and traced along Highway 53, the back road to Zuni. The black marker followed Highway 53 as it dipped down from Grants, skirted the El Malpais lava flow, passed through El Morro National Monument, and then followed the Rio Pescado into Zuni. He found one other black mark on the map—a circle drawn around the tiny town of Whitewater, a few miles north of Zuni on the highway to Gallup.
He refolded the map and stuffed it in his back pocket.
Before getting out, he checked the pool of blood under the driver’s seat and noticed a few grains of fine white sand on the floor mat. Sand that fine and that white would have to come from the bottom of an arroyo. He climbed out of the car and looked around. He spotted an arroyo that began somewhere behind Padilla’s house and circled around to the west toward Black Mesa. It was worth a try. He stepped between two dusty green chamisa bushes just beginning to flower and walked over to the arroyo. Not surprised, he saw a scattering of footprints in the sand. There was no way to tell how fresh the tracks were.
He heard footsteps behind him.
“Wait up.”
He squinted into the sun, waiting for Fidel to join him.
“What do you think? Is Padilla lying?”
“Of course he’s lying. You think he wouldn’t notice a Porsche with a dead man inside parked all night in his front yard?”
Fidel nodded.
“Where does this arroyo go?” he mumbled, mostly to himself. He turned and walked along the edge of the arroyo, looking for some sign of recent activity, something. Fidel followed a few steps behind, careful to keep his distance.
Up ahead he saw Black Mesa rising from the desert floor, a slab of black rock silhouetted against the blue New Mexico sky.
He carefully made his way over the rough terrain, avoiding patches of cholla
