“Do we have this bozo in hand?” Kerney asked.
“Yeah, he’s outside in the panel truck cooling his heels, waiting to give a statement,” Otero said. “He’s not too happy about it.”
“Have a detective take his statement and then arrest him for tampering with evidence and interfering with a criminal investigation,” Kerney said.
“Those charges probably won’t stick, Chief,” Otero said.
“I don’t give a damn if they stick or not,” Kerney said. “Let the DA sort it out.”
Otero eyed Kerney, who was usually levelheaded when it came to dealing with the media. He wondered what was biting the chief. It had to be more than a stupid photographer’s mistakes. “Are you sure that’s what you want us to do?” he asked.
Kerney bit his lip and shook his head. “You’re right. It’s a dumb idea. Put a scare into him, instead.”
“We can do that,” Molina said.
“Get a handle on this fast, Sal,” Kerney said. “Let’s find someone with a motive-friends, clients, enemies, you know the drill.”
Molina nodded.
“I’ll talk to the reporters,” Otero said.
“Give them the usual spiel, Larry,” Kerney said, heading for the door, “and keep me informed. Call me on my cell phone.”
The bald-headed man waited inside the courthouse until the cops finished canvassing the onlookers and moved away. Then he joined a cluster of people who were watching TV reporters talk excitedly into microphones with their backs to the crime scene as camera operators got good visuals of Potter’s tarp-covered body lying on the sidewalk.
He smiled when a stern-looking Kevin Kerney came out of Potter’s office and walked quickly down the street. Several newspaper reporters jogged behind crime scene tape that held them at bay, yelling questions that Kerney waved off.
Soon Kerney would suffer from far more than the unpleasantness of Jack Potter’s death. With all that had been put into play, plus what was yet to come, Kerney would quickly realize his world was about to disintegrate. If Kerney proved slow on the uptake, the bald-headed man had devised ways to give him a little nudge or two in the right direction.
He turned on his heel and walked way. It was time to return to his war room and gear up for the next phase of the plan.
The spat with Sara had put Kerney in a bad mood, and Jack Potter’s murder only added to it. He decided to cool down before going home, and drove to the South Capitol neighborhood where Fletcher Hartley lived. In his seventies, Fletcher was a highly regarded Santa Fe artist, a retired museum director, and an old friend who’d assisted Kerney in a major art heist investigation several years ago, during his tenure with the state police.
A colorful eccentric, Fletcher was a prominent fixture in the gay community and a potential source of good information about Jack Potter’s personal life.
Fletcher’s sprawling adobe was nestled at the bottom of a large sloping lot behind a beautifully landscaped, expansive front yard filled with hedges and trees that screened the house from the street. Situated in a neighborhood of older homes lined up in tidy rows, Fletcher’s hidden rural oasis was the crown jewel of a charming, residential area that still retained a small-town feel.
Kerney rang the doorbell and listened to a Beethoven piano sonata that flowed through the open windows of the front room. Fletcher opened the door clutching a book. He wore his favorite kimono and a pair of screaming-pink silk pajama bottoms. Reading glasses were perched on his nose, which had recently been made perfect by plastic surgery. Fletcher fought the aging process by every possible means. In the past, his cheeks had been lifted and his wrinkles tucked to give him the face of a fifty-year-old.
Kerney had heard about the nose job, but hadn’t seen it until now.
“I know,” Fletcher said with a smile, noticing Kerney’s quick appraisal, “I’m a vain old coot.” He turned to give Kerney a view of his improved profile. “Do you like it?”
“You look great,” Kerney said. “Sorry to bother you so early.”
“Pooh,” Fletcher said, smiling broadly at the compliment. “You know full well that I am always home to visitors. I thrive on distraction. Come in, dear boy. Join me in the kitchen for a cup of coffee.”
Kerney sat at the large antique Spanish Colonial table, where he’d spent many pleasant hours chatting with Fletcher, and told him about Jack Potter’s murder. On an open shelf above a kitchen counter, a small menagerie of hand-carved wooden folk art animal figures-two chickens, a rabbit, and a pig-overlooked the scene.
Fletcher’s cheery expression vanished. “You can’t be serious,” he said, his voice filled with dismay. He filled Kerney’s coffee cup with a shaky hand and replaced the carafe in the coffeemaker. “This is tragic.”
Kerney nodded solemnly. “What can you tell me about Jack that I don’t already know?”
“You can’t be thinking that Norman had anything to do with it,” Fletcher said as he sat across from Kerney.
“Norman is in London. He doesn’t know what happened, unless of course Kaplan hired a contract killer.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Fletcher replied. “This will break the poor man’s heart. They were such a loving couple, perfect for each other. How familiar are you with Jack’s private life?”
“Until he came out, I just figured him to be the confirmed bachelor type,” Kerney said. “I’ve met Norman socially, but Jack never talked to me about any of his personal relationships or his family.”
“Until Jack met Norman he’d kept his sexual orientation out of public view,” Fletcher said. “His love for Norman helped him realize that being gay was something to openly celebrate. As far as family goes, he was an only child and both his parents are dead. He is close to an aunt who is retired and lives in Tucson. Jack and Norman visit her several times a year.”
“Do you have a name?” Kerney asked.
“Maude is her first name, I believe,” Fletcher said. “But I’m sure Norman will know how to get in touch with her, or Jack’s secretary should.”
“Did he have any lovers before Norman who caused him trouble?” Kerney asked.
“He had a long-standing affair with a rather troubled young man whom he supported on the Q.T. for several years. Jack paid the rent, gave the boy expense money when he wasn’t working, and bought his clothes. It was a May-September affair. The lad was a good twenty-five years younger than Jack. It was also common knowledge that the boy was not mentally sound.”
“How so?” Kerney asked.
“He was in and out of the psychiatric ward for fits of depression and suicidal tendencies. When he was stable, he worked as a waiter. But as time went on, he became more unbalanced, less able to hold a job, and totally promiscuous. Jack had no choice but to end it.”
“Did it end badly?”
“In chaotic uproar,” Fletcher replied. “But Jack kept it under wraps from the straight community.”
“Do you have a name to give me?” Kerney asked.
“That’s a story in itself. The young man’s name was Matthew B. Patterson. It’s now Mary Beth Patterson. He had a sex-change operation up in Colorado six years ago. It made a world of difference for him.”
Kerney finished his coffee and put the cup aside. “In what way?” he asked.
“Matthew was small-boned, almost petite, and very feminine, with soft doe eyes and pretty features. But he wasn’t at all the swishy queen type. There was a woman hiding inside his body, and once Mary Beth emerged his depression and self-destructive tendencies seemed to vanish, at least for a time.”
“Aren’t sex-change operations expensive?” Kerney asked.
“Indeed. Jack paid for it as a settlement to the affair.”
“And to keep it quiet?”
“That also,” Fletcher replied. “All this happened before Jack and Norman became an item.”
“So did the problem with Matthew go away?”
Fletcher nodded. “Only to be replaced by the arrival of Mary Beth on the scene. She came back fully expecting Jack to marry her, which of course he did not do.”