Joseph Kanon - Los Alamos

“Somebody get an ambulance,” the man kneeling over Hector said, feeling the side of his neck for a pulse.

Connolly saw Holliday run into the room, people moving aside in a wave to let him through. He stopped in front of the body, taking in the scene-Connolly with his arms pinned, the statue still dangling from one of his hands, the giant body lying on the floor, blood spreading out from the head in a small lake.

“Let him go,” he said to the man behind Connolly, and Connolly, his arms suddenly free, slumped against the wall. He watched Holliday bend over and examine the pupils, then close the lids of the Mexican’s eyes.

“Oh my God,” someone in the crowd said.

“Call my office,” Holliday said to the man next to him. “Get some of the boys over here. Quick.” Then, turning to Connolly, “You all right?”

Connolly, still breathing heavily, nodded, feeling another wave of nausea as he moved his head.

“This the guy?” Holliday said simply.

Connolly nodded again. The nausea was gone now, and he took a handkerchief from his back pocket to stanch the blood in his nose.

“Broken?” Holliday said. Connolly nodded. “Anything else?”

“Maybe a rib. I don’t know.”

“He’s lucky to be alive,” a woman said. “He was kicking him, kicking him. It was awful.” Everyone seemed to be talking.

Holliday turned toward the guests. “You folks want to give me a little room here?” His voice, easy and unhurried, stopped them. “How about all of you wait outside till the boys get here. But don’t anybody run away now- we’ll need to make a report,” he said, slipping into his small-town police manner.

“I saw everything,” the woman said, beginning to cry. “It was awful. Awful.” Someone took her arm to lead her away. The room began to empty, some people craning their necks to get a last look.

Holliday looked at the body, then up at Connolly. “He’s dead,” he said simply. “You kill him?”

Connolly nodded.

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing. He come after you?”

“It was him. He killed Bruner.”

An ambulance siren wailed outside, rising over the voices on the patio.

“Who was the woman with him?” Holliday said calmly.

“Hannah. His boss.”

But where was she? Connolly looked around the empty room, suddenly panicked. “Where’s Emma?” he said, but Holliday didn’t know what he was talking about. “Doc, come on.” He moved away from the wall, but Holliday stood up, blocking him.

“Take it easy. I don’t want two bodies on my report.”

“I’m all right.”

“Well, we got a killing here.”

“Doc, she’s got the gun.”

“Who?”

“Hannah,” he said impatiently. “The other one. I’ll explain it later. She’s got the gun.”

Holliday stared at him as the ambulance crew rushed into the room, carrying a stretcher. Connolly could see police uniforms moving through the crowd on the patio.

“Doc, now,” he said. “She’ll kill her.”

Holliday looked at him for another minute, deciding. The ambulance crew swarmed around them. Then he said, “I’ll drive.”

On the patio, people moved away as Connolly approached, afraid to make contact with the violence. “Ask them,” he said to Holliday. “Somebody must have seen them leave.” Holliday glanced at him and turned to a group standing next to one of his men, already reporting details of the fight.

But it was Chalmers, finally, who came forward, hypnotized by the blood on Connolly’s face. A black Chevy, yes. Emma’s car. Heading down toward the bridge. Not the Cerrillos Road, to Albuquerque. The bridge. He thought they’d been too frightened to stay. Two of them, yes. He hoped it wasn’t wrong, their leaving the scene-

Connolly grabbed Holliday, moving him toward the street, so that a few people, puzzled, thought, that it was the chief who was being taken into custody.

“They’re going to her ranch,” Connolly said, getting in the car. “Up past Tesuque.”

But when they reached the Alameda, one of Holliday’s men, on traffic duty, had seen the car going west. “Hell of a way to get to Tesuque,” Holliday said.

“The Hill,” Connolly said.

“Now why would they do that?”

“I don’t know.”

Just in case, Holliday ordered the traffic cop to check the road to Albuquerque, then turned sharply onto the Alameda, wrenching the gearshift hard so that the car shuddered as they shot forward.

Connolly was wiping his face, the handkerchief stiff now with dried blood.

“How’s your rib?”

“It hurts. Maybe just a bruise.”

“You ought to get that taped. You could puncture a lung.”

Then they were out of town, rounding one of the low hills to an open stretch of yucca and gray mesquite. “Can’t you go any faster?” Connolly said, still anxious.

“If they’re going that fast, somebody’s likely to pick them up. Save us the trouble.”

“She wouldn’t be thinking that clearly. She just wants to get away.”

“She capable of killing her?”

“Yes,” Connolly said grimly.

“Then we better not let her see us. First rule of pursuit-the minute they see you, they’ll go that much faster.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to slow down.”

“Well, that looks to be them up ahead.”

In the distance, Connolly saw the dark speck of a car heading toward the Jemez foothills. “How long have you known?” he said, looking at Holliday.

“Few miles. You ought to calm down-you’d see more. ‘Course, when you do this for a living you get a feeling for it. Now look at that,” he said, as Emma’s car took a curve wide. “Not a very good driver, is she?”

“No.”

“Someone special to you?”

“Yes.”

“Funny thing. Someone back there thought it was a woman hit him.”

“No. Me. The statue was on the floor. I grabbed it just in time.”

“He was on the floor, was he?”

“Bent over. He was leaning over to pop me.”

Holliday was quiet for a minute. “It could have happened that way, I guess.”

“It did,” Connolly said, looking at him. “I don’t think anybody could’ve seen it clearly. He was blocking the way.”

“And of course it all happened so fast.”

“That’s right.”

“What’d you say to him, got him so excited?”

“I told him we had proof he killed Bruner.”

Holliday paused. “That would do it.”

The road was climbing now, out of the Rio Grande Valley, and it was more difficult to keep the car in sight.

“Sure does look like they’re heading for the Hill.”

“Don’t lose her.”

But a huge cattle truck, lumbering off a secondary road, swung onto the highway to block their view.

“Pass him,” Connolly said.

“Now just where in hell do you expect me to do that?”

They crept up behind the truck, close enough to see the cattle watching them through the slats. The truck ground upward, slowing at each incline, spewing clouds of diesel exhaust. Connolly leaned over to beep the horn, but there was nowhere for the truck to go; the narrow shoulders rimmed the side of the hill. There was an agony of waiting as the truck made its way up the high grades of Highway 4, trapping Holliday’s car and another behind it. Finally, a few miles before the turnoff for Frijoles Canyon, the truck slowed nearly to a stop and turned onto a dirt road that dropped precipitously to some canyon where lonely grazing land was waiting.

Holliday, in a hurry now, lurched forward, spinning around a curve so tightly that Connolly was thrown against the door. Pine trees passed in a blur. Connolly craned his neck, hoping to see the car around each turn, but they still hadn’t spotted it by the time they reached the turnoff for the west gate. Improbably, a sign posted in the middle of the road announced that it was closed.