Slow Kill Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Teaser chapter

  More Praise for Michael McGarrity

  Slow Kill

  “McGarrity . . . [at] his most polished and involved. . . . Credit McGarrity for his ability to propel the reader into the next scene.”

  —Albuquerque Journal

  “Combin[es] realistic police procedures with well-drawn characters . . . [a] crisply told story.”

  —USA Today

  “Trademark realism . . . McGarrity [is] a master . . . imaginative, intelligent. . . . Another solidly built tale from McGarrity.”

  —The Santa Fe New Mexican

  “[McGarrity] excels at detailing police procedures as well as creating a homespun, wry tone that suits setting and characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “McGarrity juggles police procedural and domestic story lines effectively, drawing readers into the dynamics of Kerney’s long-distance marriage just as he unerringly charts the painstaking investigative work that defines the lives of real-world cops. Precise realism remains McGarrity’s hallmark; his own experience as a deputy sheriff . . . informs his fiction on every page.”

  —Booklist

  “McGarrity . . . writes with an attention to authentic details that is often absent in procedurals. His characters display flaws and strengths and behave in believable ways in this highly readable series.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  Everyone Dies

  “If you have never read Michael McGarrity, then do yourself a favor and read Everyone Dies.”

  —Harlan Coben

  “Michael McGarrity’s Everyone Dies is a page-turning, spicy thriller that is Southwest hot.”

  —Faye Kellerman

  The Big Gamble

  “Keep[s] you turning the pages.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “McGarrity delivers a breathless urgency.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “McGarrity shines as he portrays the details of a finely wrought murder investigation, bringing to the table his experience on the ‘job.’ . . . There are no stereotypes, just living, breathing people. This is a gripping tale told with intensity and skill.”

  —The Denver Post

  “A straightforward, well-written police procedural . . . a compelling portrait of a simple investigation that unexpectedly mushrooms into a multiagency task force of complex proportions . . . will keep you turning the pages. The action . . . is brisk and nonstop.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “A taut and suspenseful tale, authentic in its portrayal of police procedure, and perceptive in its take on human emotions.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Strong . . . detailed and fascinating. . . . The odds are you’ll find this one a good bet for your summer reading.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “In his trademark style of believable characters and narrative, Michael McGarrity again demonstrates his un-equaled grasp of the Southwest landscape both physically and culturally. His sense of place, inhabitants and police procedure is meticulous and a must read for mystery fans.”

  —Tulsa Word

  “Smooth writing, well-drawn characters and several neat plot twists. . . . This is an exceptionally intelligent, humane mystery in a series that deserves a wide readership.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A convincing story. . . . McGarrity offers insight into how solid police work really happens.”

  —The Colorado Springs Gazette

  “What really sets McGarrity’s work apart is its accuracy and believability. He knows his stuff. . . . This is a great book for a weekend at the beach or a long plane ride.”

  —The Baton Rouge Advocate

  “McGarrity [and] fellow New Mexican Tony Hillerman share admirable strengths: convincing details, complex characters, clean writing and compelling settings. That crime thrives in the Southwest is no blessing; but that such perceptive storytellers tell the tales is pure delight.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “McGarrity brings remarkable verisimilitude to his recreation of police procedures. In fact, this series has come to have an almost-documentary feel to it, something like the television series Cops . . . as fresh and carefully prepared as ever.”

  —Booklist

  “Like Tony Hillerman before him, Michael McGarrity puts the state of New Mexico on the map. . . . A surefire winner for anyone who likes a fascinating police procedural.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Satisfying adventure . . . deft, tidy, and character-driven. . . . No one does the small-city police procedural more authoritatively than McGarrity.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Well-crafted, entertaining, action-packed . . . an intriguing killer.”

  —Lansing State Journal

  ALSO BY MICHAEL MCGARRITY

  Tularosa

  Mexican Hat

  Serpent Gate

  Hermit’s Peak

  The Judas Judge

  Under the Color of Law

  The Big Gamble

  Everyone Dies

  ONYX

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,

  Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Onyx, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Dutton edition.

  First Onyx Printing, August 2005

  Copyright © Michael McGarrity, 2004

  Excerpt from Nothing But Trouble copyright © Michael McGarrity, 2005

  All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-101-10006-6

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Margaret Ann Lupfer Jameson Casady, aka Ann Casady

  Acknowledgments

  In California, Ed and Charmay Allred graciously allowed me to stay at their beautiful Rolling A Ranch, where foreman Dave Martin gave me the run of the place and educated me about racing quarter horses and breeding stock. Captain Gary L. Hoving of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office brought me up to speed on the workings of his department, as did Captain Robert J. Lowry, Captain Edward P. Szeyller, and Mr. Errol L. Murphy of the Santa Barbara Police Department. Nothing in this fictional work should be viewed as a negative reflection on the professionalism and dedication of the serving officers in either organization.

  At Quantico, FBI Supervisory Special Agent John R. Cantalupo, Stephen R. Band, PhD, and DEA Special Agent Karen I. Flowers loaded me down with information, toured me around the facilities, and made my days there very productive.

  In Santa Fe, pharmacists David Nunez and Cathy Morlock provided me with technical information about their profession and prescription medications; Tom Claffey dug up information on record retention rules for financial institutions; and Ken Mayers, without even knowing it, gave me an excellent idea I immediately put to use in the book.

  Finally, a very special thanks to Major Linda Wrasman of the New Mexico State Police, a good friend who opened many doors for me at the FBI Academy and gave freely of her valuable time and expertise at Quantico and in Santa Fe.

  Chapter 1

  Ten minutes after Santa Fe Police Chief Kevin Kerney picked up his rental car at the Bakersfield Airport, he was stuck in heavy stop-and-go traffic, questioning his decision to take the less-traveled back roads on his trip to the central California coast.

  Congestion didn’t ease until he was well outside the city limits on a westbound state highway that cut through desert flatlands. Ahead, a dust devil jumped across a straight, uninviting stretch of pavement and churned slowly through an irrigated alfalfa field, creating a green wave rolling over the forage.

  Kerney glanced at his watch. Had he made a mistake in trying to map out a scenic route to take to the coast? By now, he’d expected to be approaching a mountain range, but there was nothing on the hazy horizon to suggest it.

  It really didn’t matter if he’d misjudged his driving time. He had all day to get to the Double J horse ranch outside of Paso Robles, where he would spend the weekend looking over some quarter horses that were up for sale. He hit the cruise control and let his mind wander.

  Kerney had partnered up with his neighbor, Jack Burke, to breed, raise, and train competition cutting horses. Kerney would buy some stock to get the enterprise started, Jack would contribute brood mares, pastureland, and stables to the partnership, and Jack’s youngest son, Riley Burke, would do the training.

  The sky cleared enough to show the outline of mountains topped by a few bleached, mare’s-tail clouds. Soon Kerney was driving through a pass on a twisting road flanked by forked and tilted gray-needle pine trees, into a huge grassland plain that swept up against a higher, more heavily timbered mountain range to the west.

  Finally his road trip had turned interesting. He stopped to stretch his legs, and a convertible sports car with the top down zipped by, the woman driver tooting her horn and waving gaily as she sped away.

  Kerney waved back, thinking it would have been nice to have his family with him. He’d arranged the trip with the expectation that he’d enjoy his time by himself and away from the job. But in truth, he was alone far more than he liked. Sara, his career Army officer wife, had a demanding Pentagon duty assignment that limited her free time, and Patrick, their toddler son who lived with her, was far too young to travel alone.

  Kerney had hoped that the new house they’d built on two sections of ranchland outside of Santa Fe would change Sara’s mind about staying in the Army, but it hadn’t. Although she loved the ranch and looked forward to living in Santa Fe full-time, she wasn’t about to take early retirement. That meant six more years of a part-time, long-distance marriage, held together by frequent cross-country trips back and forth as time allowed, and one family vacation together each year. For Kerney, it wasn’t a happy prospect.

  He looked over the plains. The green landscape was pleasing to the eye, deeper in color than the bunch grasses of New Mexico, but under a less vivid sky. He could see a small herd of grazing livestock moving toward a windmill, the outline of a remote ranch house beyond, and the thin line of the state road that plowed straight across the plains and curved sharply up the distant mountains.

  He settled behind the wheel and gave the car some juice, thinking it would be a hell of a lot more fun to drive on to Paso Robles in a little two-seater with the top down and the wind in his face.

  Kerney arrived in Paso Robles and promptly got lost trying to find the ranch. A convenience store clerk pointed him in the right direction, and a few minutes later he was traveling a narrow paved road through rolling hills of vineyards, cattle ranches, and horse farms sheltered by stands of large oak trees amid lush carpets of green grass. He drove with the window down, finding the moist sea air that rolled over the coastal mountains a welcome change from the dry deserts of New Mexico.

  He’d been offered free lodging at the ranch along with a tour when he arrived, and he was eager to see how the outfit operated. The condition of the horses would tell him most of what he needed to know before deciding whether to buy. But the people who cared for the animals and their surroundings would also indicate whether his money would be well spent.

  Kerney turned a corner onto a wide-open vista, eased the car off the pavement, and got out to take in the scenery. On a hilltop behind and above him stood a large mission-style villa with a portal consisting of a series of arches supported by Georgian columns and topped off with a red tile roof and overhanging eaves. Paired bell towers with identical arches rose above either end of the second story. Two vineyards cascaded down the gentle slope on both sides of the villa. Taken as a whole, the place reeked of wealth.

  To the west, densely treed coastal mountains rose up from a green, rolling valley that wandered down to a creek bed. A sign fronting the ranch road into the valley announced the Double J Ranch. In a series of fenced and gated pastures, brood mares and their foals gathered under shady oak trees.

  The ranch headquarters bordered the creek bed and consisted of four white houses around a semicircular driveway within a few steps of a birthing barn and a long row of covered, open-air stalls adjacent to small paddocks. Beyond the stalls was a barn, which Kerney guessed was used to house the stud horses.

  Sara had asked for pictures, so Kerney got the camera from his travel bag and took some shots, doing a rough mental count of the mares and foals in plain view. There were more than a hundred, signifying a very large breeding operation.

  He drove to the ranch and parked near the birthing barn, which had a small office building off to one side. A man in his early forties stepped onto the porch as Kerney approached.

  “Mr. Hilt?” Kerney asked as he approached.

  The man nodded. “The name’s Devin,” he said with a welcoming smile, extending his hand. “You must be Kevin Kerney.”

  Kerney smiled back and shook Devin’s hand. “Thanks for putting me up.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to share the guesthouse with another party,” Hilt said. “The boss has a buy
er coming up from Santa Barbara sometime later today.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Kerney said as he took a look around. “This is quite a place.”

  Hilt laughed. He stood six feet tall in his cowboy boots and had a sturdy frame topped off with curly brown hair cut short. “This isn’t the half of it. Around the bend a mile away we’ve got a training track, stables, and pastures for colts and two-year-olds. That’s where the boss, his wife, his mother, and the ranch manager have their houses. This area is just for my family, the trainers, and guests.”

  “It’s pretty posh,” Kerney said. “I can’t remember ever seeing a more beautiful ranch.”

  Hilt laughed again. “It does make working for a living a bit more pleasant.” He pointed down the driveway to a pitched-roof, single-story clapboard house surrounded by a picket fence. “That’s the guest cottage. Want to settle in first or take that tour I promised you?”

  “Let’s do the tour,” Kerney said.

  “Perfect,” Hilt replied as he moved toward the pickup truck.

  Hilt drove Kerney around the spread, passing on bits of information along the way. It was a quarter-horse ranch with about four hundred head and a breeding program that foaled more than a hundred newborns yearly. Four stallions at stud were syndicated at more than a million each. Most of the horses were owned by the ranch.