Michael McGarrity - Everyone Dies

He scratched out a note amending the order he’d told Larry Otero to pass on to Sal Molina, and called Helen Muiz, his office manager. He asked to have her staff get all in-house documents gathered and on Sal Molina’s desk by mid-morning with instructions to conduct both a combined and separate assessment of perps who might have reason to seek revenge against any one of the targets.

Molina wouldn’t like getting Kerney’s orders through Helen Muiz, but right now he didn’t give a dead rat’s ass about Sal’s feelings. The SWAT screw-up still stuck in his craw and the jeopardy to Sara and the baby was too great to waste time worrying about protocol.

“I’ll call my staff and have them get to work early,” Helen said. “You’ve got me worried about you and your family, Kevin. Is Sara all right?”

Kerney smiled at her rare use of his given name. “She’s doing okay.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to have Larry Otero pass on your orders to Lieutenant Molina?”

“Larry’s got enough to do, and there isn’t time for niceties,” Kerney replied. “I’ll leave my note on your desk. Wave it at Molina if he gets uppity.”

“What a terrible day you’ve had,” Helen said.

“It hasn’t been a good one. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

Soon after he hung up, the animal control supervisor called.

“We haven’t had any calls to that address, Chief,” he said. “But I just checked the animal shelter’s lost dog reports. Three days ago Jack Potter called asking if a five-year-old, mixed-breed, female Border collie named Mandy had been picked up or brought into the shelter. He said she’d gotten out of his backyard. She’s still active on the lost animal list.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” Kerney said, pushing back his chair.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Chief, first I get a call from your wife about a dead rat, and now you want to know about a lost dog. Does all this have something to do with Potter’s murder?”

“You’ll read about it in the papers soon enough,” Kerney said. “Thanks.”

Jack Potter’s house sat on a hill above the Casa Solana neighborhood, once the site of a World War II Japanese-American internment camp. A newer adobe structure with large glass windows, the house commanded a view of the mountains and downtown Santa Fe.

He could see headlights of cars traveling on Paseo de Peralta, a street that looped around the historical core of the city, and a few of the traffic lights along Saint Francis Drive, the state road that led north to Taos. Behind the city the mountains were soft, obscure shapes in a star-filled night sky, and the semicircular sliver of the moon looked like the cutting edge of an old-fashioned sickle suspended in the air.

Kerney didn’t bother ringing the doorbell; Norman Kaplan was still on a plane flying home from England. He walked around the darkened house and encountered a high six-foot fence and a locked wooden gate that enclosed the backyard. Kerney wondered how Potter’s mixed-breed collie, which wasn’t a big dog, could have jumped the fence. It didn’t seem likely.

The closest house was about a hundred yards away. Kerney spoke to Potter’s neighbors, a younger couple who were surprised to find him at their doorstep. He showed his shield and explained the reason for his visit.

“What does Mandy have to do with Jack’s murder?” the man asked. A chocolate-colored Labrador padded to the open door and sniffed at Kerney’s knee.

“Behave, Herschel,” the man said.

The dog sat and smiled up at Kerney.

“I’m just wondering how Mandy managed to go missing from the backyard,” Kerney said. “I didn’t see any evidence that she’d dug her way out under the fence. Was the gate left unlocked?”

“Mandy isn’t a digger, and Jack always kept the gate locked when he wasn’t home and Mandy was outside,” the woman replied.

“We don’t know how she got out,” the man said. “It’s never happened before, and we’ve been Jack and Norm’s neighbors for three years.”

“I think Mandy was stolen,” the woman said.

“What makes you say that?” Kerney asked.

“How else can you explain it? Mandy is an absolutely beautiful dog, very well behaved, and has a large, secure backyard to romp in when Jack and Norman are at work.”

“Did he search the neighborhood for the dog?”

“Yes, along with Norman and the two of us,” the woman said. “We went house to house, passed out posters, and even walked through the arroyos.”

“I think a coyote got her,” the man said.

“Perhaps,” Kerney said, doubting it. Coyotes rarely took down large prey, unless it was sick or wounded.

“Do you think whoever took Mandy killed Jack?” the woman asked.

“Anything’s possible.”

Kerney thanked the couple and went home, where he found Sara asleep in the bedroom and two uniformed officers on duty. After being assured that the house was secure and all windows were closed and locked, he released them to return to patrol.

Unwilling to risk waking Sara, he sat quietly on the living room couch and mulled over the pattern that seemed to be developing in the cases: dead kangaroo rats delivered to doorsteps, a prized horse killed, a cherished dog stolen. All seemed acts intended to intimidate, to create a climate of fear, and demonstrate the killer’s superiority and intelligence.

The threatening note left on his door announcing two more deaths before his own meant that he was supposed to be the final target. Did it also mean the killer wanted Kerney to lose Sara and the baby before he died himself? Or was it a ploy to throw him off?

He used the cell phone and called Larry Otero, who was still at the Manning crime scene.

“Jack Potter had his dog stolen three days ago,” he said. “Have the detectives find out if Manning had a pet, was a recent crime victim, or had suffered any kind of personal or family loss.”

“Will do,” Otero said. “She didn’t have any pets, so that’s one thing we can forget about. How far back do you want them to go?”

“Six months, for now,” Kerney said. “Do we have flight information on Norman Kaplan?”

“Nothing specific, just that he’s on his way.”

“Put someone on it,” Kerney said. “I want him met at the Albuquerque airport, accompanied home, and given protection.”

“I’ll see that it’s taken care of,” Otero replied.

“Where are you with the crime scene?”

“Molina and his people are still gathering evidence and talking to neighbors. You were right about the time of death; Manning was killed before Potter was shot.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

He checked the lock on the front door one more time, pulled off his boots, and stretched out on the couch. With all that had happened, with all there was still to face, he wondered if he could sleep. It didn’t seem possible.

When the nurse brought the sleeping medication, Mary Beth kept her mutilated arm under the covers, tucked the pill under her tongue and pretended to swallow it. She spit it out as soon as the nurse left the room, her mind racing with images of Kurt dead, all cut up and bleeding. He was dead, dead, dead.

Had she killed Kurt? She decided no one else could have done it. But how and when?

For hours, she moaned quietly into the pillow, stuffing it in her mouth, covering her face. But she still kept breathing, kept thinking, kept seeing Kurt standing naked like a statue with his arms at his sides, bleeding from every pore of his body with a sickly smile on his face until he disappeared behind a creamy red shroud.

Her visions never lied. She needed to stop her mind from remembering how she’d killed her Kurt.

She waited until the nurse made a late-night round, then got out of bed and went to the bathroom. The mirror was metal and fixed to the wall. The toilet had no tank, just a flush valve. The light fixture had a plastic cover screwed in place over the flourescent tube. There was nothing around she could use to stop the bad vision of Kurt and the terrible thoughts about herself.