Everyone Dies Read online

  Chacon glanced at the hard copy. Drake had been fingerprinted fifteen years ago. He wondered if she was still employed by the department. He reached for the three-ring binder that contained addresses and phone numbers of every federal, state, and local criminal justice agency in the state and paged through it until he found the listing for the regional office.

  Chacon paused and thought about giving Molina the word first. But since Drake had been a probation and parole officer, the lieutenant would want to know a hell of a lot more than just the woman’s identity. He quashed the idea of calling Molina and dialed the number for the regional probation and parole office instead.

  Sal Molina drove while Matt Chacon briefed him. Victoria Drake, age forty-three, had recently been promoted to a central-office job in the corrections department after serving as a probation and parole officer in Las Cruces and then as the manager of the regional office in Socorro. Divorced with one grown son serving in the armed forces, Drake had moved to Santa Fe less than a month ago and lived alone in a rented town house in a middle-class neighborhood off Rodeo Road.

  Molina thought it interesting that once again the compass pointed south. He wheeled into the subdivision with the crime scene techs following close behind. It was one of those developments with a homeowners association and restrictive building covenants that hadn’t existed in Santa Fe before the early seventies. Now they were sprinkled around the city and in several larger nearby bedroom communities in the county.

  The streets were narrow curving lanes designed to create a tranquil feeling. The native landscaping in the common areas was the low-maintenance variety, with lots of carefully pruned piñon trees and gravel planting beds interspersed with artistically grouped boulders. The houses and town homes had been built in a standard cookie-cutter design, right down to the exterior plaster, trim paint, patio walls, walkways, and street-number signs outside each unit. Molina found it boring.

  He barreled over the last speed bump, turned into Drake’s driveway, and parked behind a late-model imported sedan. “Let’s do a walk-around before we go inside,” he said to Chacon.

  At the back of the unit, they found the gate to the patio ajar and the sliding glass and screen doors jimmied open. They entered the combination living and dining room, an open space with a corner beehive fireplace and a high ceiling of plank wood and beams. To the rear was a long counter that separated the space from a step-up galley kitchen.

  Drake had arranged the furniture in the room but hadn’t finished unpacking from her move. Sealed cardboard boxes were stacked in a line under the counter, several framed posters leaned against a wall by the fireplace, crumpled newspaper littered the carpet, and knickknacks sat haphazardly on the dining table. It was impossible to tell if a struggle had taken place.

  Molina scanned the stairs leading to a second-story landing that looked down on the living room and then dropped his gaze to the hallway off the kitchen that ended at the front door. “We’ll hold the techs outside until we do a visual search,” he said as he slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. “Take the upstairs and look around. See if the perp left us another love note.”

  Chacon went upstairs and Molina started his tour by examining the sliding patio door, which showed tool marks on the jamb, probably made by a knife. The perp had picked the easiest, quietest, and quickest way to break into the house.

  The galley kitchen was neat and clean. There was a kitty-litter box and food and water dishes on the tile floor, but no sign of a cat. In the small second bedroom off the adjacent hall, a computer and printer sat on a desk and three empty freestanding bookcases stood in the middle of the room surrounded by boxes of books. The linen closest in the guest bathroom at the end of the corridor held carefully folded towels. The tub was filled with empty cartons that had been broken down into bundles and tied with twine.

  Molina entered the garage through a door perpendicular to the front entrance and hit the light switch with his elbow. Except for a large, cleared space in the center of the garage floor, it was filled with empty cardboard wardrobe boxes, trunks, lawn and garden tools, and miscellaneous pieces of furniture.

  A small, open box sat in the cleared area. Molina looked inside and found a cat with a broken neck, a package of rat poison, a knife, some rope, and a note, which read:KERNEY

  CAN’T WAIT TO

  MEET THE WIFE

  SEE YOU SOON

  He bagged the note and carried it upstairs to Chacon. “Find anything?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Chacon replied, gesturing at the orderly, organized master bedroom. “What have you got?”

  Molina held up the note for Chacon to read. “Found it in the garage,” he said, “where I think he probably killed her. He’s a tidy fellow; he left everything behind he used to break in, tie her up, and poison her in a box for us to find.”

  “How thoughtful,” Chacon said.

  Molina nodded. “Get the techs started. Maybe he forgot something when he cleaned up after himself.”

  Samuel Green’s mother, his second victim, was buried under some privet bushes that formed a hedge along the backyard wall of the house where she’d lived. He’d killed her five years ago, buried the body, planted the privets, faked her move to Arizona, and arranged for a property management firm to lease out the house and send the rent checks in her name to a post office box in Tucson, which he then easily forged and cashed. After the last tenant had moved out, he leased the property as Samuel Green and moved back to Santa Fe.

  The house was in an older subdivision off Old Pecos Trail on a dead end dirt lane surrounded by a high wall that hid the house from sight. Territorial in style, with brick coping around the roof line, milled woodwork lintels, and a Victorian-style porch, it had been built in the 1960s. Upscale in its heyday, it was in need of serious modernization, particularly the kitchen and bathrooms. When Green was a boy, there had only been two neighbors along the lane. Now the area was built up with newer, expensive pueblo-style homes, all of them behind gated walls.

  Green appreciated his neighbors’ need for privacy, although it was unlikely any of them could possibly know his true identity. Almost twenty years had passed since he’d lived in the house as a child and both of the original neighbors had moved away long before he’d murdered Mother.

  He parked in the garage and walked into the house, his footsteps echoing through the dark, empty living room. After disposing of Noel Olsen’s car, he’d taken a morning flight from El Paso to Albuquerque, ridden the shuttle bus to downtown Santa Fe, and picked up his car from the parking lot at a city recreation center within walking distance of the Plaza.

  In the bathroom he peeled off the fake nose, removed the blue-tinted contact lenses, took off the blond wig, washed away the adhesive that had held it in place, and inspected himself in the mirror. It didn’t take much to go from looking like Noel Olsen back to being Samuel Green. He put the disguise in the makeup kit, which also contained the black wig and matching mustache.

  The stubble that had reappeared on his head made him frown. He shaved it with a razor until it was nice and smooth again, smiled at the results, and then stretched. It was time for a well-deserved nap.

  He walked to the bedroom where his father, Ed, had tied a string around his penis and locked him in his room for wetting his bed. Where his mother had starved him for failing to do his chores or for bringing home bad grades. Where his few toys would be taken from him for the slightest infraction of any rule. Where if he “talked back” his father would put duct tape over his mouth. Where he’d been forced to sleep on the floor because he’d played with daddy’s tools or disobeyed him. Where he’d been tied up for running around the backyard pretending to be a choo-choo train.

  The room was his prison until the day he’d told his second-grade teacher about it. After that, it had only gotten worse.

  Now the old bedroom was Green’s war room, filled with all the tools and materials needed to carry out his plan. There were books on police procedures, homicide investigatio
n techniques, and the latest developments in forensic science. Various photographs he’d taken of his targets were taped to one wall along with snapshots of where they lived and worked and corresponding hand-drawn diagrams he’d made of the various escape routes. He’d memorized, driven, and walked all of them repeatedly before striking.

  On the large desk fashioned from plywood and lumber sat the police scanner, a laptop and printer, a camera with various lenses, his handgun, binoculars, a small color television, and brown accordion files that contained pertinent personal and background information on each subject.

  On the wall above the box spring and mattress that served as his bed, Green had tacked up a large map that showed all the roads into and out of Santa Fe. He’d spent hours studying it on the off chance that something went wrong, so he could avoid roadblocks, lose pursuing cops, and get away successfully.

  He grabbed a black marker from the desk, walked to the wall of photographs, and drew an X through all of Victoria Drake’s pictures. He wrote question marks on the photos of Clayton Istee, his wife, and their two children and then quickly blotted them out. It didn’t matter if Kerney wasn’t around to see it. He would finish the job and wipe out Kerney’s bloodline completely. Besides, it gave him something to look forward to.

  He stretched out on the bed and thought about his father, and how much fun it had been to find him in California years after his parents’ divorce, kill him, carve him up, and dump his body parts in the Pacific Ocean. How his mother had squealed when he strangled her. How Olsen had pleaded for his life, and Potter had frozen at the sight of the pistol. How Manning had watched in fright as the knife approached her throat while he held her down, and how Victoria Drake had convulsed on the garage floor like a headless chicken.

  He smiled in the darkness as he thought about more good times to come, then curled up in a ball and went to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Kerney landed in Santa Fe and got briefed by radio as he drove to Andy’s house on Palace Avenue to check in with Sara. Andy and his wife, Gloria, lived within walking distance of the Plaza in one of the few houses that hadn’t been bought up by wealthy newcomers, turned into a bed-and-breakfast, or converted into upscale professional office suites. It was a low-slung, rambling adobe dwelling with a beautiful backyard garden tucked between two large Victorian mansions. The house had been in the Baca family for over a hundred years.

  Gloria Baca greeted him at the door with a smile, took him into the kitchen, poured him a cup of coffee, gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze, and left him alone with Sara. The room was bright and airy, with a skylight above the large, round oak kitchen table, and French doors that led to the portal and the tree-shaded yard beyond. Through the window over the sink, Kerney could see a state police agent roaming along the flower beds in front of the privacy fence at the back of the lot. Behind the closed kitchen door another agent stood guard in the living room. On the street, a city patrol officer was parked curbside at the front of the house.

  Kerney sat at the table, which was large enough for eight people. He took a sip of coffee and tried to read Sara’s mood. He couldn’t tell if she was just worried about the events of the week, physically worn down, or both. Her face was drawn and her green eyes seemed remote, inward looking. Even her greeting had been cursory—a quick hug and the brush of her lips against his cheek.

  He decided to approach with caution. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Her eyes never left his face. “I’m tired,” she said without affect.

  “Has the baby been keeping you awake?”

  “No.”

  Kerney waited for more. Silently, she toyed with her wedding band and looked out the kitchen window for a long moment.

  “Talk to me, Sara,” he said.

  She adjusted a pot of azaleas on the table so that it sat perfectly centered on a handwoven mat, and pinched off a drooping flower. Finally she looked at him. “I’m on edge, Kerney, wondering what’s going to happen next. If I wasn’t pregnant I’d be hunting for this bastard, not sitting here feeling like I’m under house arrest.”

  Kerney nodded sympathetically, lowered his gaze, and took another sip of coffee. He was light-headed from a lack of sleep and ill-prepared to deal with Sara’s complaint. There simply wasn’t a less restrictive alternative he could think of that would keep her out of danger. He drank some more coffee. It wouldn’t sit well in his damaged gut, but maybe it would keep him from nodding off, or better yet saying something testy. When he looked up Sara was smiling apologetically.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t need me sounding whiny. But I have these protective feelings that make me want to tear the throat out of the son of a bitch. I was awake half the night worrying about you, thinking the attack on Clayton was just a feint to draw you into the open.”

  “I had the same feelings about you when I left for Mescalero,” Kerney said, managing a smile. “But the investigation is making some progress. We’ve got an ID on the woman in the van and have located the crime scene. Her name was Victoria Drake—she was a probation and parole officer who’d just transferred up here from Socorro. Sal Molina has people digging into her old cases to see if they can link any of her parolees to me or the other victims.”

  “That could narrow the field a bit,” Sara said. “How many cases need to be reviewed?”

  “Hundreds, probably,” Kerney replied. “But from what I learned in Mescalero, we need to be looking for a suspect who has the skill to build a sophisticated explosive device. There can’t be too many ex-cons like that.”

  “That’s encouraging,” Sara said. “But except for the attack on Clayton and his family, all the victims are from Santa Fe, not the southern part of the state.”

  “I’m thinking our perp was arrested and convicted of a crime here, paroled down south after he did his time, and may still be living there.”

  “Do you have anything to support that?”

  “A biologist found some trace evidence on the van, a plant that’s not native to this area. It matches nicely with the range of the Merriam Kangaroo Rat. Both exist within the Rio Grande corridor down around Socorro.”

  “Do you think he’s been traveling to Santa Fe to commit the murders?” Sara asked as she studied Kerney’s pale face and tired, watery blue eyes.

  “Possibly,” Kerney answered, stifling a yawn. “We’re only a hundred and thirty miles up the Interstate from Socorro, and it’s about the same driving time from there to Mescalero. That’s not much of a haul, yet it’s still far enough away to lie low after each attack. I’ve got Ramona Pino en route to Socorro from Mescalero to start an immediate follow-up on any likely suspects we identify through the records search, and Andy has people standing by to assist her. If we ID him and he’s down there, we’ll blanket the area with personnel until we find him.”

  Sara grimaced and wrapped her arms around her belly.

  “Contractions?” Kerney asked.

  Sara forced a smile. “No, just a swift kick from Patrick Brannon Kerney. I’ll let you know when my water breaks.” She pulled her shoulders back and stretched. “Now, what about Clayton and his family? From what you told me on the phone, they must be devastated.”

  Kerney nodded grimly and slugged down the rest of his coffee. It was going to be another long day and he was already running behind. “They are. But I only have time to give you a quick report right now.”

  After leaving Sara, Kerney went to the house on Upper Canyon Road to shower and shave. For good reason, the place didn’t feel safe. Each sound he heard put him on edge, and he kept the bathroom door open and his semiautomatic close at hand. He dressed quickly in a fresh uniform, holstered his weapon, and walked into the bedroom.

  Sara had asked for some fresh clothes. Kerney packed them in an overnight bag—two days’ worth—along with her toiletries. He zipped the bag, took it into the living room, and dumped it on the couch. On the writing desk were the architectural plans for the new house, which Sara wanted
him to bring to her. Next to the plans was a handwritten list of things Sara wanted for the new house: a kitchen island, lamps and end tables, bedroom linens and a seven-foot sofa, cooking utensils. On the architect’s drawing she’d marked places where she planned to arrange the antique pieces she’d inherited from her grandmother.

  Sara’s wish list made Kerney ache for a return to sanity in their lives, and for everyday conversations about what furniture to buy, what trees should be planted around the house, and their ongoing debate about whether or not they should add a pergola to the patio inside the courtyard entrance.

  Was it really only last night that Drake’s body had been found in the blue van? Time felt drawn out and chaotic, and his life turned upside down by a nameless, faceless murderer.

  He placed Sara’s list on top of the plans, rolled them up, and snapped rubber bands around them, thinking that all he wanted to do was find out who to hunt down and kill.

  Outside, Sal Molina stood waiting by his unmarked unit. “Have you got something for me, Lieutenant?” Kerney asked.

  Sal shook his head. “Nothing about the murders, Chief.”

  “So what brings you here?”

  “You didn’t pull my chain when I sent Ramona Pino down to Mescalero last night.”

  “I thought about doing it,” Kerney said. He debated saying more and decided not to.

  “Bobby Casados is going to recommend that I be officially censured and forced into retirement,” Molina said, as he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “I wanted you to know it was my idea.”

  “Is this what you want?” Kerney asked.