Michael McGarrity - Everyone Dies

Thorpe checked his watch and said he would meet Burke at headquarters in two hours. That would give him time to brief Chief Baca and do his paperwork.

“I’ll see you then,” Burke said.

Russell nodded and drove off. Before returning to Santa Fe, he made a quick stop at the construction site, and spoke to Bobby Trujillo, Kerney’s general contractor. As expected, nobody matching Burke’s description of the driver of the blue van was or had been working on the job.

Awake and up before Kerney, Sara stepped out of the shower, toweled herself dry, and stood in front of the mirror, examining her body. Her face was just a tiny bit fuller, her breasts had gotten huge, but her belly looked enormous. At least her legs hadn’t changed during pregnancy, and her arms were still firm. It was a small consolation; she was retaining fluids and felt like a bloated cow. She wondered how long it would take to lose the extra weight she’d gained after the baby was born.

Kerney knocked on the bathroom door and opened it a crack when she answered. His hair stood up in a cowlick on the back of his head and his blue eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“Are you all right?” he asked, peeking inside.

“You’ve got to stop asking me that,” she replied. “I’m fine. The baby will let me know when it’s time to go to the hospital.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the baby,” Kerney replied.

In the background, Sara could hear the voice of an early morning local televison news anchor reporting the breaking story of the Manning homicide. “Stop staring at me,” she said, wrapping the towel around her body.

“I think you look beautiful,” Kerney said.

“Thank you. But as far as I’m concerned, the beauty of impending motherhood is nothing more than a male myth.”

“Meaning?”

“How would you like it if, within a matter of months, your face puffed up, you grew a pot belly, and your chest looked like milk-cow teats?”

“I thought being pregnant was supposed to be a sensual experience for women.”

“I’m still waiting for that to happen. Can I have a few minutes alone in the bathroom?”

Kerney nodded sheepishly and closed the door. Sara put on a loose-fitting short-sleeved summer dress that accented her legs and softened the roundness of her stomach. She applied a bit of mascara, a touch of lipstick, ran a comb through her short, strawberry blond hair, and decided maybe she didn’t look so bad after all. At least, not when she was fully clothed.

In the kitchen, Kerney served her breakfast, a heaping concoction of scrambled eggs, melted cheese, and bits of ham, onions, and green peppers. He seemed very pleased with himself, so she thanked him with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, wondering where men got the idea that a pregnant woman needed to eat meals fit for a starving stevedore.

She took a bite and chewed slowly, nodding her head. “Very good.”

Kerney accepted the compliment with a smile.

“After the baby is born, and I feel normal again, I want you to take me out dancing. Now that you have a new knee, there’s no excuse not to.”

“I think I can do that,” Kerney said. He started to say something more and stopped, and his smile vanished, replaced by a preoccupied look.

“Have you gone quiet because you want to preserve an illusion of normalcy before we start talking about who’s trying to kill us?” Sara asked.

“Something like that. Mary Beth Patterson committed suicide in her hospital room late last night. I got a call from Sal Molina confirming it while you were in the shower.”

Sara reacted to the news without emotion. Since last night, her only focus had become survival for her family. That wasn’t about to change until the problem got solved.

“You’re going in to work, I take it,” she said.

“I have to,” Kerney said apologetically.

“I wouldn’t expect you to do anything less,” Sara said. “What happened after you sent me home last night?”

Kerney told her about setting into motion a records search for the killer, and the mysterious disappearance of Jack Potter’s dog.

Sara shrugged off the tidbit about the dog as she pushed food around the plate with her fork. It fit the killer’s already established pattern, but added nothing of substance to the investigation. “Assigning only two detectives to do a records search seems a bit skimpy on the resources to me.”

“More people will be assigned,” Kerney said, “and I plan to help out myself.”

Sara wiped her lips with a napkin and shook her head. “Think about it, Kerney. We’ve got two homicides, one police shooting, a suicide, the killer’s promise to carry out two more murders-which could very well mean our son and me-and his threat against you.”

“I know all that, Sara.”

“If anyone else were the target, you’d be calling out the cavalry. Do you think you can’t ask for help because you’re the police chief? Or is it because you don’t think you’re allowed to be scared about what’s happening to us?”

“I am scared. But that isn’t going to get in my way of doing the job.”

“It’s my job too. I’m going to work with you.”

“This is a police matter.”

“I’ve got a valid United States Army criminal investigator ID card in my wallet. Give me a desk, a computer, and a telephone, and I can run every potential suspect you have through the military records center in St. Louis to see if they have prior service. Under federal law, none of your people can do that. Who knows what we might learn? Wouldn’t you like to have that information?”

Kerney bit his lip and nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Well then, shower, get dressed, and let’s go.”

Sara scraped and stacked the breakfast dishes while Kerney got ready. He returned in uniform, freshly shaved, with his cowlick now firmly under control. He stopped her as she moved toward the front door and hugged her for a long minute.

“What’s this for?” she asked, looking up at him.

He could feel the hardness of her belly against his body. He kissed her gently on the lips. “I just needed a hug.”

Outside, a state police cruiser was parked conspicuously across the street, positioned to allow the occupant a full view of the driveway to the house. Kerney got Sara settled in the passenger seat of his unit and pulled out into the road, flashing his headlights at the vehicle. The officer, a young woman who Kerney knew in passing from his time as deputy chief of the state police, got out of the unit and came around to Kerney’s window.

“What brings you to my driveway, Officer Rasmussen?” he asked.

Yvonne Rasmussen bent low to look at Kerney, touched the brim of her cap, and nodded to Sara. “Chief Baca’s orders, sir.”

“Which are?”

“Twenty-four-hour security at your house until further notice.”

Sara smiled approvingly.

“I see,” Kerney said. “What else has Chief Baca arranged?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Rasmussen replied. “He did ask me to remind you that you have no authority to countermand his orders.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Kerney replied, as he waved at Rasmussen and drove off.

Sara laughed and broke into a big smile. It was the first genuinely happy sound either of them had made since yesterday morning.

“What?” Kerney asked.

“He knows you well,” Sara said, “and he isn’t about to let you play the lone wolf this time. I’m going to shower him with kisses the next time I see him,” Sara replied.

“That will embarrass him.”

“He’ll just have to cope with it.”

At headquarters, the parking lot for official vehicles contained an unusually large number of units, including some unmarked sheriff and state police cars, one of which Kerney recognized as Andy Baca’s. They went in through the back entrance to find cops everywhere, working at folding tables set up in hallways, filling the first-floor conference room, and spilling over into the reception area of Kerney’s second-floor office suite. Most were off-duty personnel, but Barry Foyt and two other lawyers from the district attorney’s office were there along with several sheriff’s investigators and state police agents. All were busy on telephones or reading case files.