"You don't listen well," she said. "Let me be clearer: Fuck off."
"The more I think about it, the more I believe you never had a sexual relationship with Vernon," Kerney said. "At least, not as an adult."
"Excuse me?" Murray tried to step aside and Kerney crowded her back toward the Explorer.
"I talked to a woman yesterday who told me Langsford had been a pedophile since boyhood. I've been thinking that he used Penelope Gibben as a cover for his pedophilia, and after his wife was killed and he moved here, he used you to fill the same role. Did you ever tell Linda her father was a child molester?"
"I don't have to listen to this."
"Yes, you do," Kerney snapped. "Answer the question."
She winced, fell silent, and lowered her head. "Linda always knew," she finally said in a harsh voice.
"I thought Linda hated her father because he was unfaithful to her mother. Wasn't that the party line you and Penelope gave me?"
Her head stayed down. "Linda always knew," she repeated.
"How long is always?"
Murray's head came up, and she averted her face. "From the time I was eight. Vernon didn't bring Linda to Penelope's house so I could play with her. He brought her there so that he could play with her."
She snapped her cold eyes in Kerney's direction. "Now do you get it?"
"Who else knew?" Kerney asked, his stomach twisting.
"Eric, Arthur, their mother. All of them knew or at least guessed at what was going on."
"How many?" Kerney asked.
"What?"
Kerney couldn't contain his antagonism. "How many little girls did Vernon molest while you and your aunt were busy protecting his reputation?"
She looked over Kerney's shoulder with dead eyes. "He gave that up when I started working for him."
"In exchange for what?"
"My attention."
Kerney studied the woman, looking for anything that signaled regret All he saw was misery.
"Was it worth it? The money? The gifts?"
Her eyes strayed to Kerney's face, remote and narrow. "After Vernon tired of Linda, he grew fond of me, if you get my meaning."
Kerney's anger dissipated as though doused by a chilling rain. He waited for more.
"I've learned to cope with life in my own way," she added.
"Did Penelope know Vernon sexually assaulted you during the summers you stayed with her?"
"She more than knew, she helped it happen. But she also made sure I got opportunities I never would have had otherwise. She's done a great deal for me." There was no gratitude in her voice.
"Help me sort everything out," Kerney asked.
"What purpose would that serve?"
"You really don't have a choice."
"We'll see about that," Murray said.
"You helped Eric rip off his father."
"Inadvertently, Mr. Kerney. I didn't know Eric was planning a robbery. He told me he wanted to ask his father for a few family mementos and some of his personal belongings from his childhood, so I told him what Vernon kept in the house. I never expected him to show up waving a gun around."
"Weren't you angry with Vernon?"
"Whatever for?"
"His demands to have you act out his sexual fantasies about prepubescent girls?"
"His fixation became tiresome, that's all."
"More than tiresome, I'd say. You sought out Joel Cushman to find ways to deal with it. Did Vernon ask you to procure girls for him?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Did he?"
"Never."
Kerney studied her. She was skittery, eager to get away. He wasn't sure if Murray had procured young girls for Langsford. But it wasn't outside the range of possibility. "Think about all the girls Vernon molested," he said. "Don't they deserve to know Langsford has been unmasked? Wouldn't it help them get beyond the trauma?"
"I have to go."
"I can't allow that." He reached out and took Murray by the arm. "I'm placing you under arrest."
She looked at his hand, surprised that he'd touched her. "You're arresting me? What for?"
"Armed robbery," Kerney said, feeling worn down by all the lies and perversion.
"You can't do that," she said, as though the force of her words could stop him.
"Watch me."
He cuffed her, did a quick pat-down search, put her in his unit, and got her purse from the front seat of her vehicle. It contained her passport, an airplane ticket to Amsterdam, and a sterling silver antique cigarette case filled with marijuana.
He drove away with Murray sitting woodenly in the backseat. Only the sound of her rapid breathing signaled any hint of panic. In the rearview mirror her face seemed carved in stone.
He keyed the microphone, reached Lee Sedillo, asked him to rendezvous at the jail, and made the remainder of the trip in silence. Lee was waiting when he arrived.
"Book her on armed robbery," he said, when Murray was out of earshot.
"It's a stretch and she'll walk if we don't get something better He filled out the charge sheet and gave it to Lee. "Search her car. See if you can find more grass we can use to bump a possession charge up to drug dealing. Another ounce will do it. Buy me as much time as you can."
"What does this get us, Chief?" Lee asked.
"I'm not sure yet."
He watched through the thick, shatterproof glass of the booking room as Lee entered the reception area and tried to steer Murray toward a wall phone so she could call an attorney.
She dug in her heels and looked at Kerney. "You motherfucker," she mouthed at him through the glass.
After reviewing the field report filed by the agent who'd checked Linda Langsford's alibi, Kerney called for a department plane, met it at the Ruidoso airport, and flew to Alamosa, Colorado. Not enough good questions had been asked during the agent's phone interviews, and Kerney wanted to fill in the blanks.
He drove seventy miles in a rental car to Creede, where Linda Langsford had started her fall vacation. He followed the grassland valleys along the Rio Grande into the high country, marveling at the remarkable change in the landscape that was so evident every time he crossed over into Colorado. The mountains were higher, the rangeland richer, the forests greener, and seemingly inexhaustible water rushed over rocky stream beds and through fast-moving channels where tall grasses grew thick along the banks.
Since Kerney's last visit many years ago, Creede had been gussied up and turned into a vacation spot. The town stood at the mouth of a narrow canyon that cut into the mountains. Two high peaks dominated the skyline and pressed against the village. At the south end of the village, the terrain fell away to a lush grassland valley.
The main street boasted Victorian buildings on an arrow paved road that petered down to a dirt track at a fire station housed in a converted mine shaft. Gift shops, restaurants, art galleries, and two small hotels, most of them closed for the season, fronted the main street. An old music hall had been renovated for use as a summer repertory theater, and the businesses that were still open catered primarily to local residences. Only a few cars were parked along the three-block strip that defined the town center, and the sidewalks were empty.
A smattering of hillside homes and vacation retreats overlooked the town, and a gushing watercourse roared out of the mountains behind the main drag where neatly tended former miner cabins and older homes on tiny lots fronted an arrow dirt lane.
Kerney found the bed and breakfast where Linda Langsford had stayed. Posted to the front door was a notice that it was closed for the season. A telephone number was listed if people were interested in booking advance reservations for next year.
At a nearby bar and restaurant done up in an old Western saloon motif with sawdust on the floor, two customers and a bartender were watching a sports channel on a wall-mounted television. He asked and got directions to the B amp; B operator's residence.