Come Dark

Posadas County, New Mexico, is in the news. NightZone, a mammoth astronomy theme park, is bringing in jobs, media, and such new infrastructure as a slick narrow-gauge railway to transport tourists from the village of Posadas to the tramway running up the mesa to the project s site. And the Posadas High School girls volleyball team is on a hot winning streak, exciting everyone. But more news, not good, breaks. Volleyball Coach Clint Scott has been found gunned-down in the girls shower room, the victim of four bullets, one fired nearly point blank into his heart. Dead for hours, killed soon after the end of last night s game. And, last night, a homegrown Banksy had tagged both one of the railway cars and a section of NightZone s giant radio telescope dish. Then, apparently, this young artist began work on a section of wall outside the girls locker room at the high school a project that was clearly dramatically interrupted. With morning come two strange incidents. Stacie Willis Stewart, a former Posadas volleyball star, locks up her baby and Jack Russell terrier in her Volvo, walks away to local superstore The Spree and disappears. A former teacher spots the child and dog before the heat can kill them. Deputy Tom Pasquale, in The Spree s parking lot where he s spotted a suspicious Illinois plate on a Ford Fusion, watched it all. He then leads a fruitless search for her inside the store. No luck but he does score a man with an Elvis haircut and his wife when they return to the Fo