Everyone Dies

Chapter 14

S ome years before Clayton met his father, Kerney had worked as a temporary forest ranger in Catron County and conducted an investigation into endangered wildlife poaching. Members of the county militia who were behind the poaching scheme had tried to kill Kerney by rigging an explosion and fire at his rented house trailer, which destroyed all his personal possessions. Because of the militia’s involvement, the incident had captured national media attention.

As he stood at the counter of the western-wear store in Socorro paying for some new clothes, Clayton suddenly realized that Kerney was the only person he knew other than himself and his family who’d suffered a devastating loss of property. What if Kerney had come to Mescalero not out of guilt about what might have happened to Grace and the children, or simply to offer money? What if he’d come because he cared, wanted to lend support, and Clayton had been too thick-headed to see it? Maybe his stupid pride had gotten the better of him again.

He took his parcel of clothes, walked out into the hot morning sun, and drove back to his motel room. Six hours of sleep had refreshed him, and his earlier phone call to Grace had reassured him that they would be able to make a fresh start. Paul Hewitt had started a fund on the family’s behalf, and an anonymous Ruidoso businessman had donated fifty thousand dollars to kick it off. But even more encouraging was the news from Grace that Wendell had calmed down, Hannah was acting less clingy, and the tribal council had voted to give them a choice building lot and free use of a double-wide mobile home until they could rebuild.

Clayton peeled off his grubby uniform shirt and dirty blue jeans and dressed in the new clothes. The Olsen crime scene had shut down at two in the morning, with the understanding that the investigation was shifting back to Santa Fe. Paul Hewitt had given Clayton the green light to stay with it.

Grace hadn’t been happy with the news, but Clayton appeased her by promising to be gone only one or two more days, which wasn’t a dodge on his part. Because of what had happened, he desperately missed his family.

He stuffed his dirty clothes into the plastic garment bag, left the room card key on the bedside table, and went to his unit. He’d gas up and head for Santa Fe.

A late night report from Santa Fe had brought unsettling news. An unknown trespasser had been spotted late in the day on Kerney’s ranch, and a possible suspect, not thought to be Olsen, had been seen at the hospital shortly before Sara went into labor.

Clayton left the hotel parking lot fairly certain he now had a baby brother. It was weird to think he actually had a sibling. As a child, he’d yearned for one. Because of the age difference, he couldn’t be a brother in any ordinary way. But he could do his very best to be Patrick Brannon Kerney’s friend.

He thought about Grace’s reaction if he did anything less and laughed out loud. She’d hand his head to him on a platter.

Carol Jojoya was late on her morning rounds due to the arrival of another baby. Kerney used the time to tell Sara about the unknown subject he’d seen in the admitting area and the unsuccessful search for him.

“Also, Andy’s people found blood traces on the barbed-wire fences near the train tracks,” Kerney said, “and the man I saw here had a bandaged hand. Enlargements of those pictures you took show the back of a bald-headed man.”

“Is it Olsen?” Sara asked.

“We’ve yet to ID him,” Kerney answered. “But I doubt it. The blood stains found in Olsen’s utility room match his type. Forensics has sent his hair samples and the blood work analysis to the FBI for DNA analysis.”

“There are two killers?” Sara asked.

“Each with a completely different MO,” Kerney said. “Personally, I think whoever is hunting us has been using Olsen as his cover.”

“This isn’t what I wanted to hear,” Sara said, with a shake of her head.

Jojoya’s arrival interrupted the conversation. She examined Sara and Patrick Brannon, proclaimed them to be healthy, and signed the discharge form. Kerney drove away from the hospital with Sara in the backseat next to Patrick, who was securely fastened into an infant carrier. They had a police escort fore and aft. On the floorboard at Sara’s feet were three floral arrangements that had been sent to the hospital, including one from Andy and Gloria.

“Have you called my parents?” Sara asked.

Kerney shook his head. “Not yet. I wanted to get you safely home first.”

“I’ll do it,” Sara said as she adjusted Patrick’s blanket to free his little arms.

“Unless you ask them not to come, they’ll be on the way here with your brother and his wife as soon as you hang up,” Kerney said.

“I wouldn’t think of asking them to stay away,” Sara said.

“Then we’ll just have to fill them in when they get here.”

“Well, at least we won’t have to do that with Clayton and Grace,” Sara said. “Have you called them?”

Kerney shook his head as he turned onto Canyon Road, where tourists jaywalking to get from one art gallery to another slowed traffic on the narrow street.

“Why not?”

“Clayton’s on his way to Santa Fe, and I don’t have a phone number for Grace.”

“You’re not avoiding it, are you?” Sara asked.

Kerney shook his head.

“Don’t go quiet on me, Kerney,” Sara said.

Kerney let out a deep breath. “I’m not going to try to push Clayton into accepting a family he doesn’t want to be part of. He may not want to be Patrick’s brother any more than he wants to accept me as his father.”

“You can’t just leave it at that.”

“I haven’t,” Kerney replied. “I’ve asked dispatch to send him to our house as soon as he makes radio contact. We’ll see what he does.”

The lead unit pulled to a stop on the far side of the driveway. Kerney parked in front of the house and helped Sara out of the backseat as the two units turned around and left. She reached in and released Patrick’s restraints, and he snorted in his sleep as she cradled him in her arms.

“We’re home,” he said, reaching for Sara’s purse and one vase of flowers, “and it’s just us.”

“You’re staying?” Sara asked as she walked to the front door.

“Yes, I am,” Kerney answered as he unlocked the door.

Sara paused in the doorway and kissed him on the cheek.

“What’s that for?”

“Doing the right thing,” Sara said. “This is our first day as a family, and except for the three of us I want the world to go away at least for a little while.”

Patrick opened his eyes, cooed and waved a tiny hand.

“But I’ll make an exception,” Sara said, “if Clayton decides to stop by.”

Kerney smiled, pleased that he hadn’t mentioned the police sharpshooter concealed on the hill behind the house and the detective stationed at a bedroom window of the neighbor’s house across the street.

Samuel Green had gone to bed thinking that it might be best to let time work to his advantage. If he backed off for a couple of weeks, maybe even left town, Kerney and his wife would probably let their guard down. Surely, the new baby would distract them and he could find an opportunity to strike safely and without much difficulty.

In the morning, from his motel room, Green called the hospital, identified himself as a worried relative from out of state, asked about Sara’s welfare, and learned that she’d delivered a healthy baby boy last night.

In the bathroom, he carefully cut down the blond wig so that it just covered the tips of his ears and draped slightly over his shirt collar at the back of his neck, put it on, and added a cap. Then he glued a big fake mole under one eye, added a blond mustache, and admired the results. No cop looking for a bald-headed man would give him a second glance.

In good spirits, he grabbed his backpack and walked past the Indian School to a used car lot, where he spent time picking out a car, haggling over the price, and signing all the required paperwork. After exchanging cash for the car keys, he drove to a diner a block away and ordered breakfast. On the empty table next to him a departing customer had left the daily paper. He scooped it up before the waitress could clear it away, eager to see if the house fire had made the front page. There it was, headline news complete with a color photo of the burned-out wreckage. The caption called it a suspicious fire under investigation.

The story described all the usual stuff: the extensive damage to the structure, the number of fire trucks called out, how long it took to battle the blaze, the neighbors’ reaction to it, and a quote from an arson investigator on the scene, who wanted the unknown occupant to come forward.

Green smirked in satisfaction and turned to an inside page of state roundup news, which carried the headline:

FIVE BODIES FOUND IN SOCORRO

Always interested in murder, Green read the story quickly and stopped short at the mention of Noel Olsen’s name as the primary suspect in the investigation. He almost snarled at the waitress when she slid the plate of bacon and eggs in front of him and refilled his coffee cup.

His breakfast forgotten, Green read the story again, and a deep anxiety washed over him. His choice of Olsen as an unwitting beard had been flawed in an unimaginable way. How could he have possibly known that Olsen had been secretly killing queers for the past five years?

Distressed, Green put aside the paper, pushed his plate away and silently cursed Olsen. If he had it to do all over again, he would kill the son of a bitch much more slowly and painfully.

He forced down thoughts of Olsen and concentrated on his predicament. All he’d learned about crime and cops told Green that Kerney now knew it wasn’t Olsen who was stalking him. He pulled the plate of food to him and chewed a piece of bacon. He had to assume that he was now vulnerable, which meant that time was no longer on his side. He would move fast, get the job done, and vanish.

He reached for another bacon strip and started mulling over a strategy. First on the docket, he had to locate Kerney and his family. Then he needed a way to get to them without raising alarm or suspicion. Finally, and most importantly, he had to escape cleanly.

He broke the fried egg yokes with a slice of toast and started running down schemes in his mind. As soon as Green decided that it really didn’t matter how Kerney died or in what order he killed the family, ideas began to flow.

Propped up on the bed with Patrick in her lap, Sara called her parents in Montana. While she talked, Kerney carried in the two remaining bouquets from the car, placed them on a dresser, and then moved the crib into their bedroom, so that Patrick would be close at hand once Sara decided to let go of him.

He sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and looked at his wife and son. Patrick was sleeping soundly. Kerney studied his face, the little wisps of hair on his head, the shape of his nose and chin, noticing for the first time his resemblance to Sara. He felt a powerful, almost overwhelming connection to his son that came out of nowhere and both surprised and sobered him with its intensity.

He switched his attention to Sara, who smiled at him as she continued talking about the beautiful baby boy in her lap. Her tired eyes sparkled as she stroked Patrick’s head and described once again to her mother how perfect he was, noting his weight, height, and calm disposition, laughing with joy as she said it.

The alarming sound of the doorbell pulled Kerney up short. He walked into the living room reassuring himself that all was well, peeked out the window, and saw a flower delivery truck in the driveway. He opened up, accepted another bouquet of flowers, tipped the driver, and took them to the bedroom. The attached card was from the city manager.

He handed the card to Sara as she passed the phone over to him, and he spent a pleasant few minutes confirming Sara’s assessment of Patrick’s perfection for his in-laws, reassuring them that their daughter was all right, and jotting down their travel plans. They would arrive in two days.

Sara took the phone back, said a long good-bye, and placed a call to her brother and sister-in-law, who would also be coming to Santa Fe, although for a much shorter time, since the ranch needed minding.

After the conversation ended, Sara handed Patrick to Kerney and asked him to put him in the crib. Gently, he took his son in his arms, turned to the crib, and set him down.

“You need to rest,” Kerney said, as he returned to Sara.

“First, a kiss,” she said.

He kissed her on the forehead, eyelids and mouth, and squeezed her hand.

“How do you like fatherhood so far?” she asked sleepily.

He felt his life had changed in a hundred different ways, but didn’t have adequate words to express it.

“You’ve given me a great gift,” he finally said.

“Speaking of gifts,” Sara said, “there’s something in the top dresser drawer.”

Kerney stepped to the dresser and took out a package wrapped in silver paper tied with a ribbon. “What’s this?”

“A birthday present for Patrick. Open it.”

He untied the ribbon, loosened the paper and looked at the glass-framed, velvet-lined box. Inside were duplicates of all of his military decorations from his service in Vietnam. A lifetime ago, he’d buried the original medals in his parents’ freshly dug graves on the Jennings ranch west of the Tularosa.

Speechless, he held the box out, looking at Sara.

“I want our son to know what a remarkable man his father is,” Sara said.

Kerney put the box aside and took Sara in his arms.

Clayton topped out on La Bajada Hill ten miles outside Santa Fe just as the temperature gauge red-lined and steam started seeping from under the hood of his unit. He pulled into the rest stop that gave visitors a view of the city in the distance and the mountain range beyond, checked to see what the problem was, and discovered the water pump had failed.

He called state police by radio, identified himself, and asked to have a tow truck dispatched to his location. While he waited next to his unit, Clayton thought about the unkept promise he’d made to Grace months ago to bring the family to Santa Fe for a weekend outing. As soon as things settled down he’d do it. Actually, with Sara having the baby, he knew Grace would now give him no choice in the matter.

A state police cruiser came toward him on the Interstate. It slowed, drove onto the left shoulder, cut across the median and oncoming traffic through a break in the northbound flow, and stopped next to him. Russell Thorpe got out.

“Got problems, Sergeant Istee?” Thorpe asked jokingly, gazing at the steam billowing from the engine compartment.

“The water pump went out,” Clayton said, returning Thorpe’s smile, “and you don’t have to be so formal.”

Russell’s smiled broadened. “Good deal. Santa Fe dispatch passed on a request from Chief Kerney. He’d like you to stop by his house.”

“Did the baby come?” Clayton asked.

“Last night,” Russell replied, “and mother and son are fine.”

“Great,” Clayton said.

“I’ll give you a ride there after the tow truck arrives. ETA is ten minutes.”

“I’d like to get briefed on what’s been happening up here first,” Clayton said.

“I can do that while we wait,” Russell said, opening the passenger door to his cruiser.

Clayton nodded and climbed into Thorpe’s unit.

Samuel Green left the diner with a plan in mind. He gassed up his car at a self-serve station, then checked the yellow page listings for florists at a pay phone. After writing down the addresses of several that weren’t in busy retail, shopping mall, or downtown locations, he cruised by the businesses. He decided to use a florist that shared a stand-alone building with a shoe store on Cerrillos Road, where the only vehicle outside either establishment was the flower delivery van.

He drove around the building before parking and found four cars in reserved employee spaces near the back doors to the shops. Inside the flower shop he saw no surveillance cameras. A middle-aged woman and a kid in his early twenties worked at a table behind the customer counter unpacking fresh cut flowers from boxes and placing them in a glass refrigerated display case that stood against a wall.

Green approached them with a smile. “I need to send some flowers.”

“What’s the occasion?” the woman asked, wiping her hands on an apron. She had a soft, placid face and chubby arms.

“A birth,” Green replied. “Put something nice together.”

The woman smiled cheerily. “I’d suggest stargazer lilies, some roses, and spikes of liatrus, set off with ferns and some delicate baby’s breath.”

“That sounds perfect,” Green said. Except for the roses and ferns, he didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. “Can you deliver?”

“Certainly,” the woman replied. “What color roses would you like?”

“Red will do,” Green replied.

She asked him to select a card from the rack on the counter and turned away to begin putting the arrangement together. The kid moved the boxes of cut flowers to a work table and continued unpacking them.

Using a fingernail to hold the card in place, he scrawled congratulations, added an exclamation mark, scribbled an indecipherable name, and left it on the counter. He watched as the woman stuck a stem with a whole bunch of purple flowers into a vase. It only took her a couple of minutes to complete the job. She tied a ribbon around the vase and carried it to the counter.

“That’s so lovely,” she said, as she admired her handiwork.

Green nodded in agreement. “How soon can it be delivered?”

“Is it going to the hospital?”

Green shook his head and gave her Kerney’s address.

“We’ll get it out right away,” she said as she wrote the address on a delivery slip, put the card in an envelope, and attached it to the vase.

“Thanks a lot,” Green said as he paid the bill.

“Thank you,” the woman replied. “We love doing birth bouquets. It’s such a special event to celebrate.”

Green smiled. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

While Sara and Patrick slept, Kerney dozed on the living room couch until the ringing doorbell brought him to his feet. A quick check out the window revealed another delivery truck and a kid standing on the porch holding a vase of flowers.

Kerney opened up wondering if the house would be filled with bouquets by day’s end. It was the third delivery since they’d arrived home.

He tipped the kid, put the vase on the coffee table, and read the card, trying to make out who’d sent it. He couldn’t decipher the name, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Maybe Sara would know. He’d ask when she woke up.

Minutes later the doorbell rang again. This time Kerney glimpsed a state police cruiser in the driveway and Clayton, who was dressed in civvies, standing at the door.

“Where’s your vehicle?” Kerney asked when he opened the door.

“Getting a new water pump installed,” Clayton replied with a wave to Russell Thorpe, who drove away.

“It’s good to see you.”

“I understand I now have a brother,” Clayton said as he stepped inside and shook Kerney’s hand.

“Yes, you do,” Kerney said, surprised that Clayton hadn’t stressed a half-blood relationship to Patrick. He looked for an unspoken coolness in Clayton’s expression and saw nothing but genuine pleasure. “Six pounds, ten ounces. Fortunately, he looks like his mother.”

Clayton smiled. “That’s good. Let’s hope he’s not as troublesome to deal with as I’ve been.”

“You’ve been confusing to deal with, not troublesome,” Kerney said with a laugh.

Clayton chuckled in agreement and looked around the room. “So where is he?”

“Sleeping. So is Sara. Come into the kitchen. We can talk there without disturbing them. You did good work down in Socorro.”

“Not good enough,” Clayton replied as he followed Kerney through the living room. “We still haven’t caught him.”

“I’ve got some ideas why,” Kerney said. “Are you up to speed on what happened last night?”

“Yeah, the bald-headed man,” Clayton said as he sat at the kitchen table. “Thorpe filled me in.”

“Good,” Kerney said. He filled two coffee mugs and brought them to the table. “But first, how are Grace and the children?” he asked.

“Doing better,” Clayton answered. He sat back in his chair and talked about how he’d hated to leave them while they were still so upset, how Wendell had gone a bit wild after the explosion, how Hannah had glued herself to her mother, how Grace probably felt abandoned by his decision to go to Socorro.

“Didn’t Grace understand that it was something you had to do?” Kerney asked.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any easier on her,” Clayton replied, launching in to all the things that needed to be done to get everything back to normal.

Kerney nodded sympathetically and listened, thinking maybe something good had come out of all the adversity and chaos of the past week. For the very first time in their relationship, Clayton was really talking to him.

Down the street from the flower shop Samuel Green waited impatiently for the kid in the delivery truck to return. What happened next would all depend on what the kid had to tell him.

Even though there was heavy traffic on Cerrillos Road, nobody had entered the shop since Green left, and only one customer had made a quick stop at the business next door. If the trend held, there shouldn’t be any problem putting the second phase of his plan into action.

After ten more minutes, the kid arrived. Green left his car, circled behind the building to avoid any curious eyes inside the shoe store, and walked into the shop. The bell on the door tinkled and the kid and the woman looked up from the counter and smiled at him.

“Back so soon?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, I need to send some flowers to another friend,” Green said sheepishly as he stepped toward them, looking at the kid. “Were you able to make that delivery?”

The kid nodded. He had a big ugly-looking pimple on his neck. “Yeah, I just finished the run.”

“That’s great,” Green said. “Were there any police officers there?”

The kid gave him a funny look. “Just the one that took the flowers. He wore a badge and a gun on his belt.”

“But it was the father, right?” Green said, describing Kerney to the kid.

“Yeah, it was him,” the kid said, “as far as I could tell.”

“Super,” Green replied, as he pulled the pistol from the waistband at the small of his back. He shot the woman first and then the kid, the silencer flattening the sounds into dull splats.

He stepped around the counter. Both were dead, the kid with a stunned look on his face, and the woman still wearing her frozen, customer-friendly smile. He took the truck keys out of the kid’s pants pocket and concealed the bodies behind the counter.

Moving quickly, he put on a pair of latex gloves, found more keys in the woman’s purse under a small desk, locked the deadbolt to the back door, and turned on the telephone answering machine. He got a wad of paper towels in the small restroom, wiped off the counter to destroy any fingerprints, and put the pen he’d used to write the note in his shirt pocket.

He pulled a piece of plain paper from the tray of the fax machine, and wrote out a message in block letters with a felt-tipped marker. Then he grabbed a fancy floral display from the refrigerated case and taped the message to the inside of the shop’s door.

Green glanced around before locking up. No one was in sight. He wiped his prints from the handle of the door, put the flowers in the delivery van, and drove away unable to resist the laugh that bubbled out of him as he thought about the sign he’d put up. It read:

CLOSED DUE TO A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

That sure as hell was true, and would soon apply to Kerney and his family, too, if all went well.

Green eased into the passing lane, making sure to use the turn signal even though no cops were in sight. Within the hour he’d be done with it, back in his car, and heading for the open road.

Over a second cup of coffee, Kerney explained why he believed the killer was the bald-headed man and not Olsen.

Clayton, who agreed with Kerney’s analysis, nodded. “So we’re back to having an unknown suspect.”

“Unless we can make an ID, this could drag on for some time,” Kerney said glumly. “But if we stay smart and ask the right questions, we’ll find him.”

“Well, until then we’ll just have to keep our guard up,” Clayton said as he got up and put his coffee mug in the sink.

“I’m sorry all this crap fell on you and your family.”

“It’s not your fault,” Clayton said as he returned to his chair. He leaned forward and gave Kerney a studied look. “Tell me something. Did you go into the delivery room with Sara?”

Kerney nodded, grinned, and his eyes lit up. “You bet I did.”

As Kerney described the experience with unabashed delight, Clayton felt the last of the pinprick anger he’d always felt about Kerney begin to wash away. The thought came to him that his boneheaded rejection of Kerney hadn’t been fair to the man. That it had been ground into him by his mother for as long as he could remember never to question who his father was, no matter how much he longed to know.

For the first time Clayton wondered if he’d been angry with the wrong person. Maybe it was time to stop trying to be the perfect, politically correct Apache man his mother always expected him to be and instead concentrate on being Kerney’s friend.

Clayton smiled as Kerney described his shaking hands and pounding heart when he’d looked at Patrick for the first time and cut the umbilical cord. “Isn’t that a kick?” he said.

“You’ve done it?” Kerney asked.

“Twice.”

The doorbell rang and Kerney got to his feet. “It’s probably more flowers,” he said.

He checked out the window to be sure and recognized the van, although the man waiting with flowers in hand wasn’t the same kid who’d delivered earlier. He took a couple of bills from his wallet and swung open the door.

Green smiled as he brought the pistol from behind the vase and pointed it at Kerney’s gut. “Hello, shithead,” he said. “Try to act natural or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“Don’t do this,” Kerney replied.

“Where’s your bitch and her baby?” Green asked.

“In the bedroom sleeping,” Kerney said, raising his voice slightly.

“Good. Keep your hands at your side, step back slowly, and let me in. Be cool.”

“Whatever you want,” Kerney replied as he backed up.

Green waved the pistol. “Keep moving.”

Kerney stopped when his legs hit the edge of the coffee table.

Samuel Green closed the door with the heel of his shoe and put the flowers on the foyer table. “How do you want it?” he asked. “You first, or the bitch and the baby?”

“I thought you wanted me to watch them die,” Kerney said, raising his voice another notch.

“I’m flexible,” Green whispered. “Keep your voice down.”

“But not very bright,” Kerney said. “You didn’t do your homework with Olsen.”

“Fuck you,” Green said, his voice rising a bit.

“Where is Olsen?” Kerney asked, trying to keep the conversation going. He hoped that sooner rather than later, Clayton would come looking for him.

Green smirked. “Talking won’t keep you alive. But I’ll answer your question. He’s at the bottom of a very deep hole.”

“How imaginative,” Kerney said. “You made all these creative finesse moves, and where did it get you?”

“Don’t try to rile me, Kerney. You still don’t know who I am, do you?”

“I’m working on it.”

Green heard a flush of water running through the pipes beneath the floor. “Sounds like momma is up,” he said, waving the gun. “Take me to her.”

“Kill me now,” Kerney said.

“No way, cowboy.”

Kerney led the way past the open kitchen door. Clayton was nowhere to be seen. He turned the corner of the hallway just as the door to the guest bathroom behind him began to open.

“Hit the deck,” Kerney yelled as Green swung toward the sound and fired two quick rounds, chest high into the door. He reached for Green as the man pivoted back to face him. Two bullets shattered the bathroom door and hit Green in the back.

Kerney stepped away and let him fall. “Clear.”

From the bathroom floor, Clayton reached up and opened the door. He saw Kerney frozen in the hallway, a body at his feet, Sara behind him holding a pistol, and heard the sound of a baby crying.

“Sorry about that,” Clayton said, getting to his feet. “I had to use the bathroom.”

Michael Mcgarrity

Everyone Dies