Since taking the helm of the satellite office in Cerrillos, Rick Romero spent little time at home. Many nights he stretched out on the office couch, too exhausted to drive back to Santa Fe. Off-duty, he drove a dark green Subaru, a vehicle his nephew called a preppie wagon, favored by WASP couples to drive kids to soccer scrimmage. Maybe it didn’t fit his persona, but Romero liked the car. He’d bought it at a police auction—low mileage and not a scratch on it.
Romero lived in the house where he grew up, a small two bedroom ’30s adobe on a side street in the South Capitol district of Santa Fe, a mile from the downtown Plaza. In recent years, he’d gutted the interior and replaced plumbing and electrical. He did not disturb his mother’s small shrine to El Santo Niño de Atocha, an image of the child Jesus dressed in pilgrim garb. When she was alive, she often prayed to the saint if Romero strayed off-track. He smiled as he recalled how often that became a necessity.
Romero wasn’t particularly religious, though he had been brought up Catholic. The devastating effect crime had on families caused him to wonder what kind of God allowed such atrocities. He stopped attending church when a priest friend was arrested for an affair with a fifteen-year-old girl. Father John endeared himself to many Native American pueblos in northern New Mexico. He grew his black hair long and wore it in braids fastened with sterling silver feathers. Together he and Romero attended many of the pueblo feast day ceremonies.
Romero was part of the task force set up by the FBI to arrest the priest when he met the girl at a local restaurant. She was outfitted with a concealed tape recorder. Subsequently, several other teenage girls claimed the priest lured them into sexual liaisons. Romero was devastated to discover the dark side of Father John. Hell, he had played basketball and gone fishing with this guy. It was also a blow to his professional pride that he hadn’t picked up on the priest’s nefarious activities.
What an asshole, Romero thought. All that time he had hidden his smutty secrets. Last he heard, the priest was serving a long sentence in a California prison while the archdiocese settled—more correctly, tried to avoid settling—numerous lawsuits.
Nonetheless, in spite of his disillusionment, Romero bought a votive candle every week at Walgreen’s and lit it at his mother’s shrine. He didn’t need a church to exercise his faith or to show his mother he loved her.
It was already nine o’clock in the morning. He stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts and picked up a box of assorted donuts and sweet rolls. The Sheriff was coming to the Cerrillos substation for their monthly meeting. Romero drove the seventeen miles to the office, his mind on the McCabe case.
The ring of his cell phone startled him. It was Jemimah.
“Hey, you sound a little distracted; everything all right?” she asked.
“On my way to work. Meeting the boss in an hour to go over my cases. What’s up?”
“Do you have time later today? I have some theories I wanted to run by you on a cold case I’m working on. Maybe you can give me fresh perspective.”
“Fresh perspective? Why do you want my opinion? Is this about McCabe? Maybe you can give me fresh perspective.”
“No, not McCabe. But I need to run this by someone with experience.”
Sheesh, Rick thought. Is she coming on to me, now? This woman didn’t seem to know what she wanted.
“Hey, Jem, listen. I don’t have my appointment book with me. Let me call you later and we can figure something out.” He wasn’t in the mood to play twenty questions. He said goodbye and flipped the cell phone closed. He made the turn into the driveway, gathered his files, and walked in the door.
The reception area was sparsely furnished with two battle-scarred desks that had come out of a warehouse in Santa Fe, two equally scarred Captain’s chairs, a phone, fax machine, two computers, and a coffeemaker. The coffeemaker was new, because he had personally picked it up at Wal-Mart. Three overflowing file cabinets sat in one corner, next to a small nicked-leather couch in the seating area. A jumble of cables dangled over the edge of a desk, uniting the office communication system in a tangle of knots. The walls were a dull army gray, the Sheriff’s idea of a suitable decorating scheme. In Romero’s office, there was little on the walls except framed certificates, various diplomas, and a retablo of San Miguel—the patron saint of detectives and law enforcement. It was painted by his sister who, before she married and moved to Arizona, was a local Santera of some renown and painter of religious icons. He felt badly for not keeping in closer touch and made a note to give her a call. She had never forgiven him for allowing their Aunt Rita to take her home after their mother died.
For the past ten years Romero had been a card-carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous. His drinking escalated after his partner was killed in a motorcycle accident. Alcohol ruined his first marriage. By the time he went into treatment, it was too late to salvage what was left. Months and months of appointments with a therapist brought him to terms with his childhood, his culture, and his father’s own weakness for alcohol. About a year ago, after staying sober for ten years, Romero had slowly started drinking beer and the occasional cocktail, just to take the edge off. Better than Xanax, he thought.
His social drinking was starting to worry him a bit. If he ever got into another relationship with a woman, he would tell her right up front about his struggle. His father lost the battle after years of drinking, and his mother died some years later, probably from a broken heart. Romero was well aware how alcohol had ruined their lives. He sighed as he remembered how dark those days had been.
The sound of his assistant’s tapping on his door made him jump. Clarissa handed him a sheaf of papers and four new case files.
“Why, Detective Romero, I must say you have a special glow about you,” she said. “And is that a new pair of Justin boots you’re wearing?”
He had known Clarissa for the better part of ten years. A friend of his sister’s, she’d worked for the Department since high school. A petite woman, she knew how to push buttons, and the detectives respected her. When she heard he was going to head the Cerrillos satellite office, she volunteered to get things set up. She was still with him.
“Well, my newest pair of boots,” he said.
“Listen, sweetie. You’ve got that faraway look in your eyes. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that. You meet someone special?”
“None of your business.”
“Can’t get her out of your mind, huh?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Professional woman, I would guess.”
“Guess all you want.”
“Divorced, three kids, makes twice what you do.”
“No.”
“No to which?”
“No kids.”
“She’s in law enforcement. Not supposed to date fellow employees.”
“If you have to know, she’s a shrink.
Specializes in criminal behavior.”
“Looking into your dating practices? Those could be pretty criminal.”
“Oh for god’s sake, Clarissa, can we forget my love life?”
“Well, I can, but I’m not sure about you. You’re still carrying a torch for your first wife. What does that make, seven years?”
“I’m getting over it.”
The phone rang.
Clarissa laughed. “Saved by the bell. That woman who discovered McCabe after he was shot, right? The one that the Sheriff hired a while back as a forensic specialist?”
“Yep, that’s the one. Sexy, too, rides a horse like a real cowgirl.”
“So, you asked her for a date?”
“Working on it.”
“No guts. You gonna answer the phone?”
His meeting with the boss turned out to be the usual waste of time. They talked about the same-old same-old. He didn’t have anything to report and was glad Sheriff Medrano didn’t have time to grill him. Romero knew these meetings were the Sheriff’s way of taking the heat off himself with the elected officials and the press, who took advantage of every opportunity they could find to nail him to the cross.
Some shitty day this had been. He was sulking about Jemimah treating him like dirt, blowing up over every little thing he said. Well, she would soon be history. Yeah, he would still have to work with her, but it would be strictly business. He was sick of trying to get something going.
And now, he was going over to McCabe’s to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat. He hadn’t accomplished much lately and the Sheriff was on his ass. McCabe was the Sheriff’s friend, Jemimah’s friend too. Damn, maybe he should have just gone out and had a few drinks, but he had already scheduled the appointment.