The Replacement Child by Christine Barber Page A

they were related or knew each other professionally. The OMI tech had decided that they were third cousins when a statepolice officer, a lieutenant by the look of his uniform, approached Gil and led him away from the group.
    “I’m Tim Pollack. Your chief said you were coming.”
    Gil knew of Pollack. He was the temporary public information officer for the state police, which meant that he was the liaison with the media until someone was found to replace him. Pollack had intense blue eyes and his head was shaved, a style that state police officers seemed to favor.
    Gil looked over the side of the bridge; the Rio Grande was more than two football fields below. Someone had tossed a large road-construction barrel over the side. It was a tiny orange dot on the rocks below.
    “Was she alive when she hit?” was Gil’s first question. It was his biggest concern. It was news that he hoped he wouldn’t have to tell. He thought of Maxine Baca as she’d sat in the chief’s office.
    “We don’t think so,” Pollack said. “But we haven’t seen the body yet. We do know there aren’t any bullet holes, but the body is so messed up from the fall that it’ll be hard to say what killed her, until the OMI sees her.”
    “What’s she dressed like?”
    Pollack, snapping his gum, gave him a sidelong glance. “If you’re asking if there was CSP, we don’t think so. All of her clothes, including her underwear, are intact.” CSP stood for criminal sexual penetration. Three big words that meant one thing—rape.
    “Any evidence she was doing drugs?” Gil asked.
    Pollack said carefully, “Not that we’ve seen.”
    “Do we have a time on her death?”
    “Nothing scientific, just my own calculation. It snowed a little yesterday, just a dusting. It started at about ten thirty P.M. Her body still had snow on it when we found her at seven A.M., so she was here before ten thirty P.M. last night.”
    “Do you know when she was last seen?”
    “Her mom is a mess, but from what we could get out ofher over the phone, Melissa left their house about eight P.M. last night. We plan on doing a more in-depth interview with her later today.”
    “Was she brought out here in her own car?”
    “We don’t think so. A woman who lives near Oñate Park saw Melissa’s car there when she came home at exactly nine ten P.M. She remembers because she was late for some TV show she watches. Anyway, the woman remembers seeing Melissa’s car. She thought maybe it belonged to a hooker or a drug dealer. You know what that park is like. Oh, and we found blood on the back bumper that we think is Melissa’s.”
    Gil thought for a minute. “Her body must have been already cold when she was dumped, or the snow on top of her would have completely melted. She was probably killed in Oñate Park around eight thirty P.M. and brought up here in another car.” He watched a sedan full of gawkers slowly roll by.
    She hadn’t been alive when she fell. He felt no relief.
    I t was only one P.M. when Lucy started back to Santa Fe from the santuario. She toyed with the idea of stopping at one of the pueblo casinos, just to see what they were like inside, but she didn’t have enough nerve to play blackjack or enough quarters to play slots. She contented herself with driving too fast and singing along with a 1980s radio station. She was well into an old Journey song when she crested the top of Opera Hill and saw the city of Santa Fe sprawled out below her. There were no high-rises to block the view, only earth-hugging houses that flowed into the curves of the hills. Not obstructing the landscape but being a part of it. None of the usual “we must dominate the world with our massive structures” city-building mentality.
    Santa Fe was set up like an amphitheater, with the Plaza as its stage and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains as its backdrop. Throughout the years, the city had been built in semicirclesaround the Plaza, with the older houses closest to it and the newest