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 here soon. They’ll be asking you for a list of everyone you’ve worked with lately.”
Clarence hugged himself around his broad middle. “Me?”
“I told her what you’d told me—that you’d worked with Barney more than anyone else at Southwest Archaeology Enterprises.”
A cloud passed across Clarence’s eyes. “Barney,” he moaned. “There isn’t . . . wasn’t . . . a nicer guy in the whole world.”
Chuck nodded, a grim up-and-down movement of his chin. “Whoever did it got away—for now, at least.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “I want to get them. For Barney. For Audrey
and Jason. And for us, too.” Reaching from the chair, he caressed Rosie’s shoulder. “You have every right to be scared, pequeña. They broke in to our house. They killed a friend of ours in our back alley.”
Clarence frowned. “I’m still not sure why you’re saying the police are going to come here to talk to me so fast.”
“They’re putting together a list of persons of interest. Sandra said someone from the department will be over here as soon as they’ve got the scene secured.”
Janelle leaned toward Chuck from between the girls. “You really think they’ll consider Clarence a person of interest?”
“They’ll consider everyone who’s been working with Barney a person of interest.” Chuck looked at Clarence. “Where have you been today?”
Clarence loosened his arms from around his stomach. “Right here, earning me a few extra bucks. The dig they’ve got me on in Cortez is shut down for the weekend.”
“That’s the one for the new subdivision on the edge of town, right?”
“Sí.”
A land swap between the neighboring town of Cortez and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument had provided additional development acreage for the growing municipality. Southwest Archaeology Enterprises had won the contract to perform the required archaeological survey on the swapped land.
“I’ve been working on the project online today,” Clarence continued. “Cataloging.”
“Have you done any emailing?”
“A few back-and-forths with Michaela.”
Michaela McDermott was the owner of Southwest Archaeology Enterprises.
“During the last few hours?”
