Read Online Death Song by Michael McGarrity - Free Book Online Page A

soon.
    “Thanks,” Salgado said.
    Kerney nodded in reply and headed to his unit. Before driving off, he tried reaching Sara at home by phone. There was no answer, so he called her cell phone and got a voice message that told him that Sara and Patrick were off on an early morning horseback ride.
    The message pleased Kerney. Being with Patrick was the best medicine for what ailed Sara. That sweet, happy, smart-as-a-whip little boy buoyed her spirits and got her thinking about all the good things life had to offer.
    He put the unit in gear and headed for town, his thoughts turning as dark as the gunmetal gray March sky that masked the morning sun. Far too often over the course of his career, he’d brought the news of a loved one’s death to family members. Most times, they had been complete strangers or only slightly known to him through the course of an investigation. But it was never an easy thing to do.
    This time it would be worse. He would have to tell a woman he’d known, liked, and respected for over twenty years that the death of her brother-in-law was not the worst of it. The kid sister she’d adored was dead, murdered just as her husband had been hours ago in Lincoln County.
    Ruben and Helen Muiz lived in a historic double adobe home that had been in her family since the early twentieth century. Ancient cottonwoods and pines screened the house from the dirt lane that ran around the back side of the hill to a new fourteen-thousand-square foot adobe mansion built by a Chicago real estate developer who came to Santa Fe every summer for the opera season.
    The cars that lined the driveway to the Muiz residence told Kerney that the family had gathered in the wake of the bad news of Tim Riley’s murder and Denise’s disappearance. He parked on the lane and walked toward the house, thinking that over the years his friendship with Helen had been basically work-related and he knew very little about Helen’s siblings or her extended family. The circumstances of the last eight hours were about to change all that.
    He rang the doorbell and was soon greeted by Ruben Muiz, who stared at him with bleary eyes ringed with dark circles. Beyond the entry hall in a nearby room, he could hear the low sounds of hushed conversation.
    “What have you learned?” Ruben asked.
    “Is Helen sleeping?” Kerney countered.
    “Nobody’s sleeping,” Ruben said tersely. “Everybody’s here. Tell me what you found out about Denise.”
    Kerney touched Ruben on the shoulder. “Take it easy,” he said gently as people began crowding into the entry hall.
    “Sorry,” Ruben said, lowering his voice.
    “Why don’t you get everyone together and let me talk to them as a group.”
    “Yes, of course,” Ruben said, ushering Kerney into a large living room filled with twenty-some somber people who stopped talking and stared at him with great intensity.
    Helen sat on a couch with several women and a man clustered nearby who looked to be her sisters and brother. Other men hovering close by Kerney took to be the sisters’ husbands.
    He crossed the room, trying to keep his expression passive, reached Helen, took her by the hand, and shook his head once. She gasped and began sobbing. He stepped away as the sisters closed in around Helen, the women choking back tears, crying, reaching to embrace one another and clasp hands. He backed off to a far corner of the room and waited patiently for the grieving to subside and the questioning to begin. The family’s anguish was about to become a hell of a lot more distressing once they learned how Denise had died.
     
     
     
    The report that Tim Riley’s wife had also been murdered reached Clayton by way of a phone call from Sergeant Ramona Pino. Clayton had worked with Pino once before, on a case involving a revenge killer intent on wiping out Kevin Kerney and his entire bloodline, including Clayton and his family. The perp had almost succeeded, but Clayton had gunned him down in Santa Fe before he could