Everyone Dies kk-8 Page 13

  “Meaning what?” Kerney asked, as he kept writing.

  “Since you deserve to lose the most, I’ve decided to improvise a bit, expand my horizons, and add a few more people to my list. It’s time to wipe out your bloodline completely, Kerney.”

  “Tell me more,” Kerney said.

  “I can’t do that,” the man replied. “Time’s up, Kerney, and the clock is ticking.”

  The line went dead. Quickly, Kerney reviewed his notes, which were almost a verbatim record of the conversation. He underlined the phrases “blow up” and “the clock is ticking.” Had the perp given him a hint? Was there a bomb planted somewhere ready to go off?

  His first thoughts turned to Sara at their rental house on Upper Canyon Road. The impulse to go to her drove him to his feet. He anchored himself back in the chair, used his handheld radio, and made contact with the state police officer on duty outside the house.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “Affirmative, Chief,” Officer Barney Wade replied. “I just made a sweep around the property. It’s all quiet.”

  “Have you seen my wife?”

  “Not since she came home with you earlier, Chief. I think she’s sleeping. I saw the bedroom light go off soon after you left. Do you want me to check on her?”

  “The house may be rigged with a bomb. Wake her up, get her out of the house now, and move away from the property, and stay on the air while you do it,” Kerney said. “I’ll call out the bomb squad. Keep your microphone keyed open.”

  “Ten-four, Chief,” Wade replied.

  With a phone in one hand and his handheld in the other, Kerney listened to Wade pound on the door while the line to the bomb squad commander’s residence seemed to ring endlessly. Finally, Lieutenant Alan Evertson picked up.

  “I want you over at my house, pronto, Al,” Kerney said as he listened to Wade talking to Sara. “The entire team, now. Call out SWAT on my command and clear the immediate neighborhood if you have to.”

  “Roger that, Chief,” Evertson said. “Any idea of what kind of device we’re looking for?”

  “Not a clue, Al. The house is on a concrete pad, so there’s no crawl space or basement.”

  “I’m out the door, Chief.”

  “Stay in close touch,” Kerney said as he disconnected and pressed the handheld’s talk button. “Wade?”

  There was nothing but static from Wade’s open microphone. Kerney’s foot beat a tattoo on the carpet as he waited for the officer or Sara to say something. He could hear the sound of movement, the slamming of vehicle doors, the rumble of an engine turning over, but nothing else. He started breathing again when Wade spoke.

  “Okay, we’re clear, Chief. I’ve got your wife in my unit and we’re proceeding down the street. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Sara?”

  “A bomb, Kerney?” Sara said, her voice anxious and tight.

  “Possibly.”

  “What now?”

  “I’m at the office. Ask Officer Wade to bring you here after my people show up.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You are going to tell me what’s happening, aren’t you?” Sara asked.

  “Yes, of course, when you’re here. I’ll talk to you then.”

  Kerney cut off the handheld and grabbed the phone. The perp had said he planned to add people to his hit list and wipe out Kerney’s bloodline completely. Except for his adult son, Clayton Istee, and his family, Kerney had no other blood relatives.

  Through an unusual set of circumstances, Kerney had only recently learned of Clayton’s existence. A sheriff’s sergeant in Lincoln County, Clayton, who was half Apache, lived with his family on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southern New Mexico.

  How could the killer know about Clayton when so few people did? Not even his staff knew, as far as Kerney could tell.

  There wasn’t time to speculate. Rapidly, Kerney punched numbers on the keypad and gritted his teeth as the phone rang. The sleepy voice of Grace Istee, Clayton’s wife, greeted him on the fifth ring.

  “Grace, it’s Kerney. Let me speak to Clayton.”

  “He’s not here. He started working swing shift today.”

  “When is he due home?”

  “In a hour or so.”

  “Take Wendell and Hannah and get out of the house now,” Kerney said.

  “What?”

  “Grace, just do it. Get far away from the house. Get in the car, go to your mother’s, and don’t stop for anything or anybody.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Grace asked, her voice rising.

  “Grace,” Kerney snapped, “don’t argue. Gather up Wendell and Hannah and leave the house, dammit. Get your cell phone and give me the number. I’ll call you right back.”

  Grace read off the numbers. Kerney disconnected and punched in the new digits.

  “Where are you?” he asked when Grace came on the line.

  “In the children’s bedroom,” she replied, fear cracking her voice.

  “They’re okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Talk me through everything you’re doing.”

  “You’re scaring me, Kerney.”

  He could hear her rapid breathing. “You don’t have time to be scared. What are you doing?”

  “Wendell’s awake and out of bed. I’m picking Hannah up right now.”

  He heard Hannah’s soft moan as Grace lifted her from the bed. “Do you have your car keys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go, go now.”

  “Why am I doing this?” Grace asked hysterically.

  “Are you outside?” Kerney demanded.

  “Just about.”

  “Don’t go to the car,” Kerney said, realizing it could easily be booby trapped.

  “What? I can’t possibly walk to my mother’s.”

  “Do as I tell you, Grace. Go to your neighbor’s. Walk there and wait for Clayton.”

  “That’s a half a mile away,” Grace said. “Tell me right now what is going on.”

  “Are you and the children outside?”

  “Yes,” Grace shouted. “Answer my question.”

  “Someone may be trying to kill you with a bomb,” Kerney said.

  “We’re running,” Grace said.

  “Good. Stay with me on the line until you get to your neighbor’s,” Kerney ordered.

  In the earpiece he could hear Grace’s labored breathing as she ran down the dirt road that led to the state highway that cut through the reservation. It seemed to take forever for her and the children to reach the safety of the neighbor’s house.

  Once they were inside, Kerney relaxed a bit, told her what he suspected, said he would contact Clayton right away, and asked her to stand by.

  It took a few minutes for the sheriff’s dispatcher to patch Kerney through to Clayton, who was in his unit thirty miles from home. Kerney explained the situation and reassured Clayton that Grace and the children were all right.

  “You’re sure about this?” Clayton asked, disbelief flooding his voice.

  “I don’t have time to give you all the details, but this is a serious, credible threat,” Kerney snapped.

  Kerney’s harsh tone erased Clayton’s doubts. “Okay, okay,” he said as he hit his siren and emergency-light switches.

  “I’ll ask the state police to send out an explosive expert,” Kerney said. “You get on the horn to your boss and the tribal police and fill them in.”

  “Ten-four,” Clayton said.

  “Be careful,” Kerney said. “This killer is smart and dangerous.”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Clayton replied.

  The phone went dead. Kerney called Andy Baca, who was still at the crime scene in front of the municipal court building, and gave him the rundown.

  “Have you notified the feds?” Andy asked. “It’s their jurisdiction.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Kerney answered. “They’d be way too slow
in responding. I need the explosives expert who’s stationed at your Las Cruces office dispatched at once.”

  “I’ll get him rolling code three immediately. It should take him about ninety minutes to get there, if he humps it. I’ll put patrol officers ahead of him to clear the route.”

  “Thanks, Andy.”

  “This dirtbag may just be fucking with you, Kerney,” Andy said.

  “Maybe,” he replied, “but I can’t take that chance. Ask Sal Molina to meet me in my office ASAP.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Lieutenant Sal Molina arrived at the chief’s office within a matter of minutes. Kerney showed him the notes he’d taken of his phone conversation with the perp and then told him who was at risk and why.

  Sal Molina sat quietly, his hands folded in his lap, and let Kerney talk. The chief, obviously distracted and on edge, constantly shifted his gaze from the wall clock to the telephone on his desk, as he laid out the facts about Clayton Istee, his family, and his very reasonable suspicion that the perp intended to kill them all.

  Although he tried to stayed focused on the information pertaining to the investigation, Molina found Kerney’s tale riveting. Who would have ever thought it? It seemed like something right out of a novel or a movie. The college sweetheart, an Apache girl, who’d given birth to Kerney’s son and kept it a secret from him for almost thirty years. The chance meeting between father and son, both of them cops. Kerney’s discovery that he was a grandfather twice over. It was one hell of a story.

  Molina wondered what kind of woman would deliberately get pregnant without a man’s knowledge, bear his child while the father served as a combat infantry officer in ’Nam, and keep it a secret for so many years. It seemed selfish at the very least, perhaps even heartless.

  But was it? Sal didn’t know much about the Apache people or their traditions, so maybe it was a cultural thing. Or perhaps you had to know the woman to understand her reasoning.

  Kerney cast another glance from the wall clock to the telephone and stopped talking. The handheld radio on his desk squawked traffic from bomb squad and SWAT team members en route to Upper Canyon Road.

  “If your theory pans out, and I think it will, I’m going to have to let people know about this,” Molina said.

  “That’s not a problem,” Kerney said.

  “I want to send a detective down there to work the case with the local cops.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you recognize the perp’s voice when he called?” Molina asked.

  “No, but he seemed relaxed,” Kerney said, “like he was totally in control of himself. He also sounded educated, and not very old.”

  “A young man?” Molina asked, as he started taking notes.

  “Hard to say, but he didn’t sound old. He was more a tenor than a baritone.”

  “He didn’t attempt to disguise his voice?”

  “Not that I could tell,” Kerney replied.

  “Why do you think he was educated?”

  “He was articulate and had a good vocabulary.”

  “There are a lot of well-read, educated ex-cons walking the streets courtesy of the taxpayers’ dollars.”

  Kerney nodded. “There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice, sort of a mocking tone. He thinks he’s smarter than all of us.”

  “But he said nothing personal? Nothing that tied him to you?”

  “I tried to get him to open up and talk, but he wouldn’t bite.”

  “Do you think his call was designed to create a diversion?” Molina asked, putting his pen away. “To get you focused on something else?”

  “No, I think he’s raising the stakes. Everything he’s done up to now has been carefully thought out.”

  “How does he know so much about you?” Molina asked. “It isn’t like this thing with Clayton and his family is old news or common knowledge.”

  Kerney shook his head. “For starters, I’d be happy if we could find out how he got the number to my private line. No more than a half-dozen people have it.”

  “I’ll put somebody to work on that.”

  “Was the videotape of the parking lot time and date stamped?” Kerney asked.

  “Yes,” Molina replied, looking at his wristwatch. “The perp left the van outside the municipal court just over three hours ago.”

  “That’s enough time to drive to the reservation if you push it.”

  The phone rang. Kerney answered, listened for a moment, gave a hurried thanks, and hung up. “I asked for a trace on the perp’s call,” he said. “It was long distance, and made from Dora Manning’s cell phone.”

  “Which means he could be in Clayton’s backyard,” Molina said, rising to his feet, “ready to carry out his threat.”

  “Don’t wait to find out if this is a ruse,” Kerney said. “Send a detective down to Mescalero now.”

  He reached for the handheld as Molina nodded and left the office, and called Evertson. The bomb squad and the SWAT team were on-site at his house.

  “What have you got for me?” he asked.

  “I’ll call you back, Chief,” Evertson said. “We’re just starting the search.”

  A uniformed city police officer and Andy Baca were waiting for Sara at police headquarters when Wade dropped her off. The officer opened the back entrance, escorted them to Kerney’s second-floor office, and then left to return to patrol. Kerney tried to smile when they walked in, but it was more a worried grimace, and his normally clear blue eyes looked troubled and uncertain.

  Sara walked to him as he rose and gave him a hug. He held her tight for a moment, patting her reassuringly on the back as though to soothe himself.

  They sat at the small rectangular conference table as Kerney talked over the noise of the radio traffic coming from the handheld on his desk. He told them about the conversation with the perp that had triggered his course of action.

  “I just heard from Clayton,” he added. “He’s with Grace and the children, the tribal police are on-site in force, and Paul Hewitt, the sheriff, is with them for added protection.”

  “That’s good,” Andy said with a nod. He was one of the handful of people Kerney had told about Clayton. “Everyone’s safe.”

  “For now,” Kerney replied. “When will your man arrive?”

  “He’s got about a sixty-minute ETA.”

  “So now we wait,” Kerney said.

  “While we’re waiting, tell me about the latest murder victim,” Sara said, trying to rid her mind of the panic Grace Istee must have felt during Kerney’s phone call.

  Andy cleared his throat and Kerney’s gaze moved away from her. “What is it?” she demanded, reading their hesitancy. Andy smiled but his eyes didn’t.

  “What are you hiding?” she asked, switching her attention to Kerney. A hand covered his mouth. “Dammit, tell me.”

  “The killer posed his victim,” Andy said, his smile vanishing. “He wrapped her hands around the decapitated head of Potter’s dog.”

  “Wrapped her hands how?” Sara asked.

  “As though she was cuddling a baby against her chest,” Andy replied.

  Instinctively, Sara’s hands traveled to her stomach. She could feel the hard-stretched skin under the fabric of her loose top. “Did he leave a note like before?”

  Kerney nodded. “It was addressed to me, and asked if I knew who he was and who was next to die.”

  Sara’s hands trembled. “That son of a bitch.”

  “The note was found on her lower abdomen,” he continued, “attached by a knitting needle that had been driven, we think, through the stomach wall into the uterus.”

  A sharp pain coursed up Sara’s spine to her neck, as if all the tension of the last few days had suddenly been compressed into one enormous jolt that froze her muscles and immobilized her body.

  “This can’t go on,” she said, forcing her mouth to work. “It has to stop.”

  The phone rang. Kerney turned the handheld radio volume down, punched the button to the blinking line, and
activated the speaker function. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “It’s Lieutenant Evertson, Chief. The house is clean, inside and out, and we didn’t find anything on the grounds. No explosives. But the perp broke the utility company seal on the outside electrical box and left a note. It says, ‘Bang you’re dead.’ ”

  Kerney’s hand squeezed the receiver. He paused a beat before responding. “Get the note to Lieutenant Molina, give everyone my thanks, and send the teams home.”

  “Will do. I’ve got a couple of reporters down at a road-block asking questions. Want me to tell them to call you?”

  “Fuck ’em,” Kerney said without thinking. He rarely cursed, but the words burst out of him as though he was voiding something rancid.

  “Would you repeat that, Chief?”

  “Be nice, but say there is no statement at this time, Lieutenant.”

  Kerney hung up, and Sara said, “I’m not going back to that house tonight.”

  “You can stay with me and Gloria,” Andy said. “Besides, she needs the company and has lots of baby stories that will keep you entertained.”

  “Good idea,” Kerney said before Sara could respond. “Raise your right hand, Sara.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m swearing you in as a police officer. If anyone approaches you in a threatening manner, blow the sucker away.”

  “I can do that,” Sara replied as she raised her hand.

  Clayton’s closest neighbors, Eugene and Jeannie Naiche, were an older couple with grown children living on their own. Until his retirement, Eugene had run the tribal youth recreation program. Jeannie, a skilled basketmaker, operated a studio and gallery out of the house. Built almost forty years ago, the rambling ranch-style residence had a pitched roof, a stone fireplace, a large deck off the back patio door, and a family room filled with books on the history and art of Native Americans.

  Clayton sat on a couch in the family room with Hannah on his lap, Grace next to him, and Wendell snuggled close to his mother’s side. All of them seemed emotionally empty, as though the experience of fleeing the house had transformed them into instantly displaced persons facing a strange, uncertain, and dangerous world.

  Eugene Naiche sat in a rocking chair with a determined look on his usually jovial face, his hunting rifle resting against an end table. He rocked slowly with his hands on the arm rests, his stocky legs planted firmly on the floor.