The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,21
carload stocked up on cameras and extra film to capture the sweeping views. The road went mostly through Carson National Forest and mountain towns like Placita and Chamisal.
Gil kept a watch out for black ice as the highway climbed, quickly leaving the desert and making its way into ponderosa pine forest. Signs along the road warned drivers to put on tire chains and watch for snow plows. It hadn’t snowed for more than a month, but because of the high elevation, he could see some ice in the shadows on the forest floor. Keeping an eye out for elk, Gil thought about Melissa Baca. Why had the killer driven more than an hour away to get rid of her body? Was he trying to cover up evidence? The damage to the body from a 650-foot fall would make it hard to determine which injuries had been made postmortem and which had been made pre-mortem. But it had been cold last night, which would have helped preserve the body. He would have to check to see what the temperature had been. That would help the OMI determine what time rigor mortis and lividity had set in.
He thought about Oñate Park, where Melissa’s car had been found. The neighbors had finally gotten tired of the drug dealing there and started a high-profile neighborhood watch a few months ago, but it hadn’t stopped the problems. He thought about the drug connection. The Taos Gorge Bridge had been the site of a few drug-related killings. A few years ago two men had thrown an eighteen-year-old boy alive off the bridge because they wanted to steal his car to pay for Christmas presents and drugs. Gil knew that Ron and Melissa had a brother who had died of a heroin overdose and that addictions ran in the family. But Pollack had said that no drugs had been found on Melissa.
The time frame was what bothered him most. Melissa had left home at 8 P.M. It would have taken her about twenty minutes to get from her house to Oñate Park. She was probably dead by 8:30 P.M. She had to have been at the bottom of the Taos Gorge before 10:30 P.M., when it had started snowing. It was a very tight schedule. It didn’t leave much room for error or second-guessing. Either the killer was a fast thinker or he had planned ahead.
Gil drove into Peñasco, where blue smoke from wood-burning stoves hung in the air. The shadows of the late afternoon made it harder to see the highway.
Down the road a few miles was the turnoff to a small stream that fed Santa Cruz Lake. It was one of his dad’s favorite fishing spots. They would hike in a half mile and make a day of it, casting from one small pool to another. His sister Elena would occasionally come with them, but she would get impatient quickly with all the standing around and being quiet. She would eventually start to climb up the canyon sides and disappear in search of some new path. Once, when Gil was ten, his mother had come with them. Elena, who must have been eight at the time, stayed close to their mother instead of wandering off. They ate leftover empanaditas and drank cold Cokes for lunch. His mother did her embroidery while sitting in her skirt on a boulder. Gil thought that maybe Susan and the girls would like to go there sometime.
His cell phone rang and he pulled over to the side of the road before answering it. It was against the law in the city of Santa Fe to talk on a cell phone while driving. It was still thirty miles to Santa Fe, but rules were rules. He answered, saying, “Hello, this is Detective Montoya.”
“Gil, man, it’s Manny Cordova. I just heard about Melissa Baca. My mom just called and told me. What the hell is going on?” Officer Cordova sounded hollow. His swear words had no strength.
“Manny, I don’t really know anything. The state police are handling it.” Gil hesitated before asking, “Did you know her?”
“We went to high school together and dated a few years ago. Her mom and my mom are, like, best friends. They play bridge together every week. Ron is like my brother. I just can’t believe …”
“What was Melissa like?” Gil asked.
“I don’t know. She was … she was a teacher over at some private school. She lived with her mom and was dating some gringo, some