“How is she?” Janelle asked.
Sandra gave Janelle the briefest of glances. “She’s in shock, as you’d expect.” She returned her gaze to Chuck. “She called her son. He’s on his way, driving from Denver, which will take a while. I’m sure others will be here soon, but you’re the first.”
Janelle addressed Sandra, her voice cool. “Thank you for the update.”
Sandra slipped past Janelle, Chuck, and the girls without answering. Leaving the porch, she headed down the walkway to her car.
“And so it continues,” Janelle said beneath her breath, watching the officer depart. She turned to the front of the house, squared her shoulders, and said to Chuck, “Ready?”
Audrey sat on a brick-red leather sofa in the front living room. A pair of matching recliners on either side of the sofa faced a flat-screen television affixed to the wall. A glass-topped coffee table with shiny brass legs sat between the couch and television set, and a woodstove squatted in one corner of the room. An arched opening lined with adobe brick led to a hallway and on to the kitchen and dining area at the back of the house.
Audrey looked up from the couch as Chuck entered the room with Janelle and the girls. She was a stout woman, with a double chin and gelatinous cheeks. She wore dark slacks and a knit sweater. Her dusky blond hair draped limply to her shoulders, and tears streaked the thick makeup on her face. She took shallow breaths, nearly panting.
Audrey had cheered louder than any other spectator at the Four Corners Open, Carmelita’s most recent sport climbing competition at the rock gym last month, and had embraced Carmelita in a smothering bear hug after her victory. At
Rosie’s end-of-the-school-year choir concert in May, Audrey had cheered just as loudly for Rosie’s brief, off-key solo. Now, however, Audrey sat in silence, her hands pressed into her
lap.
Janelle knelt at Audrey’s side, between the couch and coffee table. “Audrey,” she said softly. “We’re so very sorry.”
Audrey tugged her hands from between her legs and clasped Janelle’s hands in hers, squeezing them until her knuckles turned white. “Jason is on his way,” she said. Then, a single, grief-stricken word: “Barney.”
“We’re here with you now, for as long as you need us,” Janelle assured her.
Audrey shook her head vehemently, several hard twists in quick succession. “I won’t cry,” she said. “That just won’t do. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.” Her eyes burned with sudden fury. “Right now, I just want to get the motherfucker who did this to my Barney.”
Rosie, standing next to Chuck, inhaled sharply and grabbed Chuck’s hand.
Carmelita walked to the opposite side of Audrey from her mother and laid her hand on Audrey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, too,” she said.
Audrey grasped Carmelita’s hand, attaching herself to both Janelle and Carmelita. “You’re a sweetheart,” she said to Carmelita. She looked up from the couch at Rosie. “I’m sorry, dear. I shouldn’t have said that bad word. But I’ve never . . . I’m not . . .”
“That’s okay,” Janelle soothed. “We gave the police every name we could think of, too.”
“They broke into your house,” Audrey said, her voice trembling. “That’s what the police said.”
“That’s where Barney was when . . . that’s where it happened.” Janelle paused. “What was he doing there? He didn’t call. We . . . Chuck . . . didn’t know he was going to be there.”
“That’s just it,” Audrey said. “I haven’t the faintest idea. That’s what I wanted to ask you, in fact.” Her voice steadied. “He went out for coffee, his regular afternoon jolt. He said he’d be back in a jiff. That’s how he put it—in a jiff.” She plucked her hands from Janelle and Carmelita and covered her mouth with them, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, dear. Maybe I will have to cry after all.”
“Cry as much as you need to.” Janelle rose from the floor to sit beside Audrey on the couch. “But, if you can, what did the police officer say to you?”
Audrey resettled her hands in her lap, her eyes on the coffee table. “She barely told me anything about what happened. Just that there’d been a break-in at your house and that Barney was . . . he was . . .” She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “She wanted names. I gave her all I could.” She turned to Janelle. “Including Clarence’s, of course. Maybe he knows something that will help. He was friends with Barney. He’s friends with everybody, just like my . . . my . . .” She blinked. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Again, she took Janelle’s hands in hers. “Barney thought the world of Clarence. Every time he said your brother’s name, he just smiled and smiled.”
“What about the others?”
“No one else was as friendly with Barney as Clarence. I’m sure it was the competition between all of them for work hours. Or maybe it was just the opposite—too much work for everybody these last few months. One or the other. That’s how it
always is with SAE, feast or famine. Not enough hours, then way too many. For years, I told Barney he should find something dependable to do, like me at the hospital. I’ve never once regretted being a nurse. I’ve got my regular hours, and I make decent money, too. But he loved what he did. He said he couldn’t imagine giving it up. He said he felt like a kid at Christmas every time he showed up at a new dig site. He promised me he’d find something that paid better and had predictable hours if the work ever got old. But it never did, not for him.”
She released Janelle’s hands, dug a tissue from the pocket of her sweater, and swabbed her nose with it. Tucking the tissue in her sleeve at the wrist, she lowered her face into her hands and sobbed, shoulders heaving.
Rosie looked at Janelle with frightened eyes.
Janelle mouthed, “It’s okay,” to her.
Chuck’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Audrey lifted her face from her hands as he checked its screen. He held his phone up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take this outside.”
“Jesus Christ, Chuck,” Samuel Horvat said over the phone as Chuck stepped onto the front porch and closed the door behind him. “What in God’s name?”
Like Barney, Samuel was another of Michaela McDermott’s
longtime archaeologists. Chuck had worked with him on many occasions over the years. His name was one of those Chuck had given to Sandra, along with the names of several other Southwest Archaeology Enterprises employees.
Chuck rested a hand on the porch railing, his phone to his ear. “What have you heard?”
“That there was a break-in at your place, and that somebody killed Barney.”
“Bad news travels fast.”
“I can’t believe—” There was a break in the call, dropping Samuel’s next words, before he finished with, “—to me, anyway.”
“I lost that,” Chuck said. “Where are you?”
Samuel spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “Mesa Verde . . . western edge of Chapin Mesa . . . spotty signal . . . texts, a whole bunch of them.” A soft hiss filled the line. “I’m so sorry, Chuck,” Samuel said over the hissing noise. “I loved Barney. I know you did, too.”
“We all did.”
A middle-aged woman walked past the house on the sidewalk. A white poodle strained at the end of a neon-pink leash in front of her. A mountain biker in skintight shorts pedaled down the street, hunched over her handlebars.
“Why are you calling me?” Chuck asked.
The