Read Online Everyone Dies by Michael McGarrity - Free Book Online Page A

answered as he handed Thorpe a business card. “You can call me here at the office if you’ve got more questions. Good luck with the case. Anybody who puts a good horse down for no reason needs his butt seriously kicked before he gets locked up.”
    “Maybe so,” Thorpe said. “Thanks for your help.”
    Naranjo gave him a tight smile in reply.
    Thorpe left, vowing to bone up on tribal jurisdictions. That issue aside, just maybe he had his first lead. He’d talk to Bobby Trujillo in the morning to see if anyone driving a blue van had been working at the job site. If not, he’d have to look for the vehicle, which could set back his investigation a good bit.
    But either way, he still had a start.
    Tug Cheney looked at the dead rat. “Most likely it was poisoned,” he said. With a gloved hand he picked it up by the tail and put it in a box. “I won’t know for sure until I cut it open.”
    “Can you tell me anything else?” Sara asked.
    “I’m no expert on rodents,” Tug replied. “But I do know rats are nocturnal. They feed at night and usually sleep during the day, so I doubt it crawled onto your front porch by itself. You’re sure there hasn’t been a pest exterminator out here recently?”
    “That’s what I was told by the estate manager,” Sara replied.
    “Let’s look for a burrow,” Tug said, eyeing Sara’s bulging stomach. “If I remember correctly, rats have a fairly limited territory. Are you up for it?”
    “Of course,” Sara said. “I’m pregnant, not disabled. What exactly are we looking for?”
    “Any kind of mound where the earth has been disturbed. It might look like a prairie dog hole, or be a smaller burrow system under a tree or shrub.”
    Tug viewed the lush landscaping surrounding the estate. Whoever owned the property didn’t give a hoot about water conservation. Non-native annuals filled flowerbeds bordering the main house and driveway, a large swath of thirsty blue grass ran down to the adobe wall, and mature fruit trees and several big Navajo willow trees that required intensive irrigation shaded open patios around the huge, rambling structure.
    “I’ve got to tell you,” Cheney said, “this doesn’t look like a good rat habitat to me. They prefer open, native grassland and more arid, sandy places.”
    They walked the property several times and found no evidence of burrows. Back at the guesthouse, Tug took a small address book out of his truck and flipped through the pages. “I know a retired wildlife biologist here in town,” he said. “Maybe he can tell us something about the rat.”
    On his cell phone, Tug spoke to the biologist, a man named Byron Stoll. He described the situation and the dead rodent. The information intrigued Stoll, who agreed to come and take a look for himself.
    Within ten minutes, Stoll arrived on a motorcycle. “Can’t say I’ve heard of many kangaroo rats in Santa Fe,” he said, pulling off his helmet and shaking Sara’s hand.
    A slightly built man in his sixties, Stoll had a full head of gray hair and a neatly trimmed matching mustache and beard. He went straight for the box containing the dead rat and opened the lid.
    “This is a D. merriami, commonly known as the Merriam Kangaroo Rat,” he said.
    “How can you tell?” Sara asked, looking over Stoll’s shoulder.
    “Four toes per hind foot,” Stoll answered. “The Ord rat has five, although that extra toe is sometimes hard to see because it’s so tiny. But this is clearly a Merriam.”
    Stoll looked at Tug and Sara. “This animal shouldn’t even be here.”
    “What do you mean?” Tug asked.
    “There are three species of native New Mexico kangaroo rats. The Ord, Merriam, and the Bannertail. The Bannertail is easy to spot because the last one-third of its tail is white. When you called, I would have bet you had a dead Bannertail on your hands, because they have a preference for places where grass is readily available. But the Merriam is only found from about Albuquerque