Michael McGarrity - The Judas judge

"Didn't his problems with his father start long before he began using drugs?"

"That's the way Eric sees it."

"But you disagree?"

"Eric is a troubled person. He can be charming, intelligent, overly dramatic, and totally unpredictable. He also lies a great deal."

"You both stand to inherit considerable wealth from your father's estate."

The morning sun washed into the porch and accentuated Linda's angry eyes. "Look around, Mr. Kerney. Does it seem that I am in dire need of my father's money?"

"Eric's circumstances are quite different from yours."

"Did you come here to tell me about the investigation or to conduct an inquisition?"

"I need a copy of your vacation itinerary," Kerney said.

"Am I now a suspect?"

"It's merely a process of verification, Ms. Langsford. Nothing more."

"I have nothing to hide from you."

"Then it shouldn't be an imposition," Kerney said.

"Wait here."

She left, returned with her purse, emptied it on a table, and began picking through the contents. Finished, she held out a batch of credit card receipts and hotel bills. "I'd like these back," she said.

Kerney quickly fanned through the receipts. "Do these cover your entire trip?"

"Have you had any more hang-up telephone calls?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"I'm worried about the anonymous calls to your house. They were made from pay phones along the killer's route on the night of the murders."

Linda's eyes widened.

"Three members of your family are dead, Ms. Langsford. I can't dismiss the possibility that you might also be a target."

"Do you actually believe someone has been killing off my family, one by one?"

"It's within the realm of possibility."

"Do you have any substantiation for your theory?"

"My assumption is that the murderer knows you. Otherwise, why would he take time from all the bloodletting to call?"

"It could be a coincidence. And my brother wasn't murdered; he was killed by a hit-and-run driver."

"Still, it's troubling. Will Eric be staying with you?" She nodded.

"Until after the funeral."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"My brother isn't a killer, Mr. Kerney. I have nothing to fear from him."

"Do you want police protection?"

"That's totally unnecessary." She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, "Please go, Mr. Kerney. I'll be fine."

Kerney stopped at the Roswell district headquarters, arranged to put Eric Langsford under surveillance, and faxed Lee Sedillo copies of Linda Langsford's credit card receipts along with instructions to start the verification process. From the looks of what Linda had given him, she'd spent the night of the murders in a small Colorado town six hundred miles away.

At the high school, Colby Trumble sat with Kerney and went through the yearbooks, pointing out former students who'd been friends with the Langsford children. As expected, Arthur and Linda had been quite popular, while Eric's buddies-kids Trumble characterized as marginally socialized-had been few and far between.

Kerney asked for the guidance and counseling records on the Langsford children, and after checking with his superiors, Trumble complied, although it took a while to dig the paperwork out of storage. As Arthur and Linda's counselor, Trumble's efforts had been focused on college placement, but with Eric the issues had been mainly disciplinary in nature. Trumble had referred Eric to a private psychotherapist who still maintained a practice in town.

The referral notation in Eric's counseling file cited family problems, and Kerney asked Trumble to elaborate.

"I could never get him to talk to me about it, specifically," Trumble replied. "It came out as generalized anger toward his father, sister, and brother."

"Eric gave you no hints?" Kerney asked.

"No. But he was spiteful about his siblings in a way that went beyond feeling merely alienated or envious, and his reaction to his father bordered on hatred. Only his mother escaped his vindictiveness."

"How did Eric display his anger about his family?"

"With snide remarks, cutting comments, and sarcasm. He called his father the Judas Judge."

"He used the same expression with me," Kerney said. "Do you have any idea what it means?"

"He felt bitterly betrayed by his father, but I never learned why."

It took a while for Kerney to get in to see Dr. Lillian Joyce, the psychiatrist who'd treated Eric Langsford. A tall woman in late middle age, Joyce had a calm, receptive manner and serious, thoughtful eyes.

Her office seemed more like a comfortable sitting room, and Kerney guessed that the expensive armoire against a wall concealed a writing desk and a computer.

Kerney made his pitch for information about Eric Langsford, which Dr. Joyce greeted with a shake of her head.

"You can't possibly expect me to release privileged information to you," she said.

"What can you tell me?"

"Eric was the disruptive member of a dysfunctional family."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, Chief Kerney, that individual work with Eric wasn't the treatment of choice. The entire family needed to be in psychotherapy. That's why my time with Eric was unproductive."

"It sounds like serious stuff," Kerney said.

Dr. Joyce smiled. "Many families need therapy. It's not that unusual."

"What was the degree of family dysfunction?"

"At the time I felt it was severe and persistent."

"Severe enough to lead to violence?"

"Eric didn't stay in therapy long enough for me to find that out."

"Take a guess," Kerney said.

"Determining family psychodynamics isn't guesswork, Chief Kerney."

"Let's step away from the family for a moment. Generally speaking, would current research and case studies lead to you believe an individual with personality traits similar to Eric's might be prone to act violently?"

"The potential for violence would most likely be present. But I couldn't speculate on the degree of it or the direction it might take."

"But it could run the gamut from thoughts of violence all the way up to and including lethal acts."

"Yes, of course. But isn't that true of all of us, given the right set of circumstances?

Kerney left Joyce's office chewing on her words, and the fact that she hadn't shut him down completely. She'd stayed within ethical boundaries during the conversation, but she was clearly troubled by what she knew about the Langsford family.

He needed to put together Joyce's strong hint that what he knew about Eric should be tied to the entire Langsford family.

A few miles past the Mescalero boundary, flashing red lights of a tribal police unit appeared in Kerney's rearview mirror. He pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and watched Clayton Istee dismount and walk toward him.

"Was I speeding, Officer?" Kerney asked, when Clayton arrived, knowing full well he'd been traveling a good ten miles an hour over the limit.

"Yeah, but that's not why I stopped you."

"What can I do for you?" Kerney asked.

"It's more like what I can do for you," Clayton said. "I know somebody you might want to talk to."

"And who might that be?"

"Are you interested or not?"

"I'm interested," Kerney answered.

"Follow me," Clayton said. "But when we get there, let me do the talking at first."

"Does this person have a name

"If he wants to tell you, he will."

Clayton swung his unit around in the direction of Ruidoso, and Kerney followed. They turned off on a graded tribal dirt road that wound through narrow mountain canyons and descended into a large meadow ringed by old-growth pine trees.

A modern wood-frame cabin with smoke drifting from a chimney sat in a clearing at the edge of the meadow. A young man about Clayton's age, wearing jeans and a denim jacket, stepped out on the porch and watched the vehicles approach. Shoulder-length hair fell loose behind his ears.