Everyone Dies

Chapter 3

M idday turned hot, so Sara sat in the truck with the engine running and the air conditioning on waiting for Kerney to finish his investigation and take her home. The baby had shifted position and was now pressing against her bladder, making her feel a constant need to pee. On top of that, her feet were swollen, her backside hurt, and all she wanted to do was stretch out and take a nap.

Before retreating to the truck, she’d watched Kerney clean up the mess in the barn, dig out the third bullet imbedded in the concrete slab, and dust for fingerprints around Soldier’s stall. Now, he stood next to the patrol car talking to Russell Thorpe, who’d finished taking statements from the construction crew and was loading all the collected evidence into the trunk of his unit.

Sara slipped her shoes off and looked up to see Kerney on his way to the truck. It was wonderful to see him walking without a limp. Some years before she met him, a gunfight with a drug dealer had shattered his right knee and blown a hole in his stomach. The original artificial knee had recently been replaced with a new high-tech model that smoothed out his gait, gave him greater mobility, and squared his shoulders a bit, now that he no longer favored his bum leg.

He got in the truck and gave her the once-over. “I’d better get you home,” he said.

“I do need to put my feet up,” Sara said.

“Sorry it took so long.”

Sara shook her head. “Not to worry. I’m fine.”

At the house, after a late lunch that Kerney prepared, Sara stretched out on the bed and fell asleep for what seemed to be a few minutes. The baby kicked hard and woke her. She went looking for Kerney and found a note from him on the refrigerator. He’d been gone for over an hour, called out to another shooting. This time, a suspect in the murder case had been killed by officers who’d tracked him into the national forest.

She stared at Kerney’s scribbling, wondering if he’d ever have any time for her before the baby was born. She had combined some annual and maternity leave to give them a mere six weeks together before she was scheduled to report back to duty.

She felt a contraction, grabbed her stomach, and held her breath. Dammit, was she going into labor? Would she have to call for an ambulance to take her to the hospital? Anger about Kerney’s absence welled up and made her teary-eyed in frustration. This supposedly happy time in her life was really starting to suck.

The moment passed with no more pains. Her legs ached, so she went back into the bedroom and put up her swollen, ugly-looking feet.

By the time Kerney arrived, police cars and emergency vehicles filled the driveway at the Tesuque house. Several detectives and a search-and-rescue team were busy strapping on backpacks, organizing gear, and getting ready to move out. Kerney spoke to one of the detectives who told him the trail from the house into the mountains was the quickest access to the shooting scene. They would hike up to the officers at the scene, conduct an investigation, and carry out Larsen’s body.

Noting a conspicuous absence of other essential personnel who should have been assembling, Kerney walked up the driveway hoping to find them at the house. All he found were Larry Otero and Sal Molina watching Cruz Tafoya conduct a search of Larsen’s truck. Kerney doubted that Tafoya had secured a signed warrant, but with the suspect dead it probably didn’t matter.

“Are any of our people hurt?” Kerney asked.

“No,” Larry Otero replied.

“What do you know so far?” Kerney asked.

“Larsen ran, Chief,” Molina replied. “Detective Pino had reason to believe he was armed. We sent SWAT into the mountains to track him. They took fire and had to stop the action.”

“Can you tie him to Potter’s murder?” Kerney asked.

Tafoya pulled his head out of the cab of the truck. A box of 9mm rounds sat on the bench seat. “Only circumstantially at this point, Chief,” he said. He gave Kerney a quick rundown of the facts.

Kerney shook his head in dismay. There were times when a criminal investigation went badly off track, and this smelled like one of them. “You’d better hope Larsen killed Potter,” he said flatly.

“He was armed, and he fired at our people,” Otero said.

“That alone doesn’t make him a credible suspect,” Kerney said. “From what I’ve heard, we have a possible motive, conjecture that Larsen could have been at the Potter crime scene this morning, and no hard evidence that puts him there.”

“We have his handgun in custody,” Molina said.

“Do you have the round that killed Jack Potter, so we can make a comparison?” Kerney asked.

Molina shook his head.

“Detective Pino is getting a search warrant for Larsen’s apartment,” Tafoya said.

“To look for what?” Kerney demanded.

“Any papers, documents, phone calls, or electronic mail concerning or pertaining to Jack Potter,” Molina replied.

“That sounds like a fishing expedition to me,” Kerney said. “Patterson has a history of serious mental illness. Did anyone stop to consider that when she called Larsen she may have over-dramatized her meeting with Detective Pino and scared him into running?”

“So why did Larsen shoot at our people?” Tafoya asked.

“Perhaps because he’s also not right in the head,” Kerney said through clenched teeth. “What instructions did you give SWAT?”

“To proceed with caution and attempt to apprehend only,” Molina replied. “It was my call, Chief.”

“Were they advised of his mental condition?”

“Yes, sir,” Molina said.

“And told he was wanted for questioning only?”

“Yes, but they never got the chance to talk to him, Chief,” Molina said. “According to the officers on the scene, Larsen spotted them on the trail, took cover, and started squeezing off rounds before they even saw him.”

Kerney turned his attention back to Sergeant Tafoya. “Did you talk to any of Larsen’s clients who saw him today?”

“Three of them, Chief,” Tafoya answered.

“And?”

“The first two said that Larsen seemed okay. He got to his jobs on time, did his work, and left without incident. The third said that Larsen seemed agitated when he told her he needed to take a break and go meet with a prospective client.”

Kerney looked hard at Tafoya. “Did it occur to you that a spooked ex-vet with a mental condition might not react rationally to being the target of a homicide investigation?”

Silence greeted Kerney’s question.

“Or that it might have been smart to just hold back and wait for Larsen to come down out of the mountains on his own when he got tired, hungry, cold, and thirsty?”

Tafoya lowered his head.

Kerney looked at the sky. July was the monsoon month in New Mexico, and thick cumulus clouds were building over the mountains. “Or that maybe the rainstorm that’s coming before nightfall would have driven him out of the forest?”

“What do you want to do, Chief?” Otero asked, in an attempt to buffer Kerney’s displeasure.

“I’m assuming command,” Kerney said. “I want the DA here now. Tell him we’ve got a police shooting that requires his personal attention. I want the crime scene techs rolling and at the shooting site before it starts to rain and destroys or contaminates the evidence. Bring up the mobile command unit. I want it operational in twenty minutes. Have you called for a medical examiner?”

“There’s one on the search-and-rescue team,” Otero said. “Anything else?”

“Hold search and rescue and the detectives back until the crime scene techs arrive. Get the Internal Affairs commander up here pronto. I want an internal investigation started immediately on both the shooting and the SWAT call-out. Get some uniforms to set up a road-block below the house before the news media show up. They’re gonna be on us like flies. I’ll call the city manager and brief him.”

As Molina and Otero reached for their handhelds, Kerney turned on his heel and walked away.

Ramona Pino knew that her affidavit for a search warrant didn’t come close to establishing sufficient probable cause that Larsen had murdered Jack Potter. Barry Foyt, the ADA, approved the affidavit only because Larsen had bolted to elude questioning and had been killed in a shootout by officers attempting to locate and detain him. Likewise, the judge who signed the order had been equally unimpressed with Ramona’s scanty facts, but went along with it because the suspect was dead.

Knowing she’d been cut a break, Ramona left the courthouse with an order in hand that made Larsen a bona fide murder suspect. Whether it would stand up under close scrutiny was another matter.

She made radio contact with Detective Matthew Chacon and asked him to meet her at Larsen’s apartment. It was an ironclad rule to have at least two officers serve a search warrant, one to gather the evidence and the other to inventory seized items and control anyone on the premises, which in Mary Beth Patterson’s case could well turn out to be a handful.

Ramona arrived at the apartment building before Chacon and spoke to Joyce Barbero in the office. She told Barbero about the search warrant, but made no mention of the Larsen shooting.

“Haven’t you upset Mary Beth enough?” Barbero asked disapprovingly as she came to the front of her desk.

Through the open office door, Ramona saw Matt Chacon pull up to the curb in his unit. “I’ll let you know when we’re finished with the search,” she said as she stepped outside.

Barbero watched from the doorway as Ramona warned Matt Chacon about Mary Beth’s mental condition and went over the specifics of the warrant.

Thin with bushy brown hair, Chacon chewed on a toothpick as he listened and pulled the forms he needed out of his briefcase. He tapped his shirt pocket for his pen, found it, and uncapped the top.

“Are you gonna tell Patterson about Larsen?” he asked.

“I’m going to have to,” Ramona said. “She’s next of kin.”

“Let’s do it,” Chacon said.

At the apartment, Mary Beth opened up the door and winced at Ramona. “Why are you back here?” she asked in a thin voice as her questioning gaze traveled to Matt Chacon.

“We need to look around your apartment,” Ramona replied.

“I know my rights,” Mary Beth said, her trembling hand toying with the doorknob. “You can’t do that.”

“I have a court order from a judge, Mary Beth,” Ramona said.

“You’re lying. Where’s my Kurt?”

“I need to talk to you about him,” Ramona said.

Her eyes dilated. “Why?”

“Because something bad has happened. Kurt is dead.”

Mary Beth sagged against the door, dropped to her knees, her hand clutching the doorknob, and began rocking slowly back and forth.

Ramona stepped behind her, put both hands under her arms, and pulled her upright. She could feel the hardness of Mary Beth’s breast implants against the palms of her hands. She walked her to the couch and sat her down.

“You have to listen to me, Mary Beth,” Ramona said as she sat beside the woman.

Mute, Mary Beth clasped her arms around her waist and continued rocking, bending her torso back and forth, the movement building into a catatonic rhythm.

Nothing Ramona said broke through Mary Beth’s stupor. Uneasy with the situation, she asked Matt to fetch Joyce Barbero, who came hurrying in, breathless and exasperated. She glanced at Mary Beth and shot Ramona an annoyed look.

“What happened?” Barbero demanded.

Ramona explained that Larsen was dead and Barbero’s expression changed to angry condemnation. She asked Ramona to move aside, knelt down, and spent ten fruitless minutes trying to talk Mary Beth back to reality.

“She has to go to the hospital,” Barbero said, shaking her head as she got to her feet.

Ramona called for an ambulance and then dialed Barry Foyt to ask for guidance on the situation.

“You’re sure the woman isn’t faking it?” Foyt asked.

“Positive.”

“Did you tell her you had a search warrant?” Foyt asked.

“I did.”

“And she’s not a target of the investigation, right?”

“Correct.”

“Do the search and leave copies of the paperwork behind,” Foyt said. “I’ll research case law and see if there’s a precedent. If it gets challenged, we can deal with it later. Find something, Detective Pino. The Larsen shooting doesn’t look good. My boss is in Tesuque now and he’s plenty steamed about what happened.”

Ramona held off on the search until the ambulance took Mary Beth away with Barbero in attendance. She spent the next two hours searching for documents, checking with the phone company to get a record of outgoing calls-none had been made to Jack Potter’s office or home since the service had been connected-and looking through the files and e-mail on a laptop computer on a small table in the bedroom.

There was no e-mail to or from Potter, but next to the computer sat an ashtray with a roach clip, a hash pipe, and a closed tin box containing a stash of marijuana.

The only mention of Jack Potter was in Mary Beth’s diary on a bedside table. Several old entries written in a flowery hand expressed Mary Beth’s anger and disappointment with Potter.

Ramona made a final sweep and told Matt to fill out the inventory sheet for the diary, laptop, grass, and drug paraphernalia.

“That’s it?” Chacon asked.

Glumly, Ramona nodded as she surveyed the front room. No matter how meager and dismal, the apartment represented a new life that two emotionally damaged people had attempted to build together. Now, all of that had been destroyed.

As she closed the front door, she wondered-given the mistakes she’d made today-if the same now held true for her career.

Some time back at Sara’s urging, Kerney had moved out of his cramped quarters and rented a place on Upper Canyon Road that was more than sufficient to accommodate both of them and the baby while their new home was under construction. It was a furnished guest house on an estate property owned by a mega-rich Wall Street stockbroker who rarely visited Santa Fe. Tucked against a hillside behind high adobe walls, the estate looked down on a small valley that once had been farmland but was now a wealthy residential neighborhood.

On the opposite hillside, trophy homes were perched in full view of the road that circled the valley, so that all who passed by could see the fruits of the owners’ success. Only a very few of the homes on the valley floor were still owned by Hispanics, and those were mostly small and built on tiny plots of land where a half acre could sell for as much as a quarter-million dollars.

On the rear patio of the guest house, Sara waited impatiently for Kerney’s return. He knew damn well she was scheduled to pick up her new car this afternoon from a Santa Fe dealership.

She’d sold her old vehicle at Fort Leavenworth and bought a new one with her own money. Kerney had offered to pay for it. But Sara was unwilling to become dependent on any man, even one she loved and had married. She didn’t make a big salary as a lieutenant colonel, but she’d been raised by frugal ranching parents who’d taught her the value of living debt free. So she’d put aside money every month over the past several years to be able to pay cash when the time came to replace her car.

Kerney, who had also been raised on a ranch, was much the same way about money and had only recently begun, with Sara’s encouragement, to spend some of the wealth he’d inherited from the estate of an old family friend.

Sara thought about the qualities she shared with her husband. Both of them had been raised to value work, thrive on it, take pride in it. That figured into her reluctance to give up her military career for full-time motherhood, just as it kept Kerney unwilling to retire from police work.

Could she really fault him for wanting to continue working at a job he loved? Or for responding to the demands of his job, when she would have done exactly the same thing?

She called for a taxi and within twenty minutes was at the dealership signing the paperwork. The car, a small SUV, was the safest on the market, a perfect size for a small family, and it came with all the bells and whistles. It would serve her well either at the ranch or on the D.C. beltway.

She drove the SUV home, hoping Kerney would be there so she could show it off to him. Instead, she found a dead rat under the portal by the front door. She stepped around it, went inside, and called the part-time estate manager who looked after the property.

“A rat?” the woman said in surprise.

“Yes,” Sara replied. “Does this happen often?”

“No, it’s never happened before. I’ll have it removed.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Sara said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Have there been any workmen or exterminators on the premises today?”

“No one is scheduled to be there.”

“Do you have poisoned bait traps put out?”

“No,” the woman answered. “There’s never been a need for them.”

Sara thanked the woman, hung up, and went back outside to look at the animal more closely. With a small stick she turned the rat over. Its limbs were rigid and splayed out from the torso, the mouth was open, and there were no visible wounds. An experienced military police officer who’d commanded a criminal investigation unit, Sara had seen her share of death, including a few suicides by poison. She had a strong hunch the rat hadn’t crawled onto the front portal to die.

She called Tug Cheney, explained the situation, and asked him to come over.

“Don’t touch it,” Cheney said. “I’ll be there soon. What’s going on? First the horse and now this.”

“I think somebody doesn’t like us very much,” Sara said.

She thought about calling Kerney then dropped the idea, deciding it would be best to wait until Cheney finished his examination.

As a precaution, she locked all the doors and windows and took Kerney’s personal handgun from a box on the bedroom closet shelf. She sat on the living room sofa, checked the rounds in the. 38, and laid the weapon on the end table.

This was no time for someone to be threatening her or her family. Without hesitation, she would blow away anyone who came to do them harm.

She patted her tummy and hummed quietly as she waited for Tug Cheney to arrive.

With the information Bobby Trujillo had provided, Patrol Officer Russell Thorpe found it relatively easy to locate the subcontractors who’d worked on Kerney’s new house. By the end of his shift, he’d interviewed everybody who’d been involved with site preparation, earth moving, concrete pouring, and the rough-in plumbing and electrical work. He’d also checked every possible vehicle for a tread mark match. The sum total of his efforts resulted in excluding everybody he’d interviewed as a likely suspect in the case, which wasn’t a bad thing.

At state police headquarters, Thorpe dropped off the evidence at the lab for analysis. On his way out the door the thought occurred to him that it might be wise to talk to the building suppliers. He called Trujillo on his cell phone, got the names and addresses of the companies that had delivered materials to the site, and set out to make the rounds.

A bachelor with no one waiting for him at home, Thorpe didn’t mind putting out the extra effort. He wanted to show initiative and make an arrest in the case. Besides pleasing Kerney, it would earn him some points with Chief Baca, which might help when he had enough time on the job to apply for a transfer to criminal investigations.

The suppliers consisted of an adobe manufacturer, a lumber company, and a ready-mix concrete outfit. The ready-mix plant and the lumberyard were nearby, so Thorpe checked there first and talked to the drivers, both of whom reported seeing no traffic on the ranch road or any suspicious activity at the job site. The adobe works was run by a tribal outfit on a pueblo outside of Espanola, a small city north of Santa Fe.

The drive to the pueblo took Thorpe along a busy highway that eventually ran north to Taos and then on to Colorado. He passed by two Indian casinos, through some badlands where the roadside businesses looked junky and languishing, and got caught in stop-and-go traffic as the road funneled down to the main drag in Espanola, which seemed to offer nothing more than a combination of strip malls, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and mom-and-pop businesses housed in dilapidated buildings.

On the other hand, the pueblo outside of town had some charm. Located along the river in thick bosque with ancient cottonwoods lining the roadway, the main village was virtually hidden from the outside world.

In a large fenced clearing away from the village, Thorpe found the yard where the adobes were made. It consisted of a metal building and long rows of freshly made mud and straw adobe bricks that were drying in the sun. Bales of straw and mounds of clay were strategically located next to several large, motor-driven mixing tanks used to stir the ingredients to the right consistency. Hundreds of empty wooden forms were lined up ready to be used in the next production run, and a fully loaded flatbed truck was parked in front of the office.

Inside the building he introduced himself to a middle-aged man who didn’t look happy to see a state cop in uniform on tribal land.

“What do you want?” the man asked suspiciously. His face was covered in a film of adobe dust and his large hands were calloused and rough looking.

“I’m investigating a crime in Santa Fe County,” Thorpe said, “and I need to talk to your driver.”

“I’m the manager and the driver,” the man said. “What crime?”

“You delivered to a construction site where a horse was killed sometime yesterday.” Thorpe gave him the location and the contractor’s name.

“I wasn’t at that site yesterday. Trujillo’s next order isn’t due for another week.”

“When were you out there?” Thorpe asked.

“Five, maybe six days ago.”

“Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

The man shrugged. “Not really.”

“What did you see?” Thorpe asked.

“I had three deliveries to make that day so I got out there real early. A vehicle passed me coming down the ranch road. I figured it was one of the crew off to get something he needed for the job. But when I got to the site there wasn’t anybody around. I unloaded where Trujillo wanted the bricks and left before Bobby and his crew showed up. That’s all I saw.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“A van. One of those big, older models, maybe an eighty-two or eighty-three. A blue GMC with a crumpled front fender on the driver’s side. I got a good look at it because he had to slow way down to get past me on the road.”

Thorpe was impressed. The man had a good eye. “Did you see any passengers?”

The man shook his head. “Nope, at least not in the front. The rear windows had curtains.”

“Who was driving?” Thorpe asked.

“A man.”

“Anglo? Hispanic?”

“I didn’t pay any attention to his face.”

“Can you give me the exact date you were there?”

The man looked through his invoices and read off the date.

“Thanks for your help,” Thorpe said.

“Did you stop at the tribal office before you came here?” the man asked.

“No.”

“Well, you should have. This is sovereign land. You’ve got no jurisdiction to be here without permission.”

Thorpe threw up his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry about that.”

The man looked Thorpe up and down. “Dumb rookie mistake.”

“Excuse me?” Thorpe said, taken aback.

“I said you made a dumb, rookie mistake. I spent ten years as a tribal police officer, and met a lot of young state cops who thought they could go anywhere they wanted. Had to throw a few of them off the pueblo a time or two. Would have done the same to you, if I was still in uniform.”

“I can understand your point of view,” Thorpe said, unwilling to apologize twice. He reached for his pocket notebook. “I’ll need your name for my report.”

“Donald Naranjo,” the man answered as he handed Thorpe a business card. “You can call me here at the office if you’ve got more questions. Good luck with the case. Anybody who puts a good horse down for no reason needs his butt seriously kicked before he gets locked up.”

“Maybe so,” Thorpe said. “Thanks for your help.”

Naranjo gave him a tight smile in reply.

Thorpe left, vowing to bone up on tribal jurisdictions. That issue aside, just maybe he had his first lead. He’d talk to Bobby Trujillo in the morning to see if anyone driving a blue van had been working at the job site. If not, he’d have to look for the vehicle, which could set back his investigation a good bit.

But either way, he still had a start.

Tug Cheney looked at the dead rat. “Most likely it was poisoned,” he said. With a gloved hand he picked it up by the tail and put it in a box. “I won’t know for sure until I cut it open.”

“Can you tell me anything else?” Sara asked.

“I’m no expert on rodents,” Tug replied. “But I do know rats are nocturnal. They feed at night and usually sleep during the day, so I doubt it crawled onto your front porch by itself. You’re sure there hasn’t been a pest exterminator out here recently?”

“That’s what I was told by the estate manager,” Sara replied.

“Let’s look for a burrow,” Tug said, eyeing Sara’s bulging stomach. “If I remember correctly, rats have a fairly limited territory. Are you up for it?”

“Of course,” Sara said. “I’m pregnant, not disabled. What exactly are we looking for?”

“Any kind of mound where the earth has been disturbed. It might look like a prairie dog hole, or be a smaller burrow system under a tree or shrub.”

Tug viewed the lush landscaping surrounding the estate. Whoever owned the property didn’t give a hoot about water conservation. Non-native annuals filled flowerbeds bordering the main house and driveway, a large swath of thirsty blue grass ran down to the adobe wall, and mature fruit trees and several big Navajo willow trees that required intensive irrigation shaded open patios around the huge, rambling structure.

“I’ve got to tell you,” Cheney said, “this doesn’t look like a good rat habitat to me. They prefer open, native grassland and more arid, sandy places.”

They walked the property several times and found no evidence of burrows. Back at the guesthouse, Tug took a small address book out of his truck and flipped through the pages. “I know a retired wildlife biologist here in town,” he said. “Maybe he can tell us something about the rat.”

On his cell phone, Tug spoke to the biologist, a man named Byron Stoll. He described the situation and the dead rodent. The information intrigued Stoll, who agreed to come and take a look for himself.

Within ten minutes, Stoll arrived on a motorcycle. “Can’t say I’ve heard of many kangaroo rats in Santa Fe,” he said, pulling off his helmet and shaking Sara’s hand.

A slightly built man in his sixties, Stoll had a full head of gray hair and a neatly trimmed matching mustache and beard. He went straight for the box containing the dead rat and opened the lid.

“This is a D. merriami, commonly known as the Merriam Kangaroo Rat,” he said.

“How can you tell?” Sara asked, looking over Stoll’s shoulder.

“Four toes per hind foot,” Stoll answered. “The Ord rat has five, although that extra toe is sometimes hard to see because it’s so tiny. But this is clearly a Merriam.”

Stoll looked at Tug and Sara. “This animal shouldn’t even be here.”

“What do you mean?” Tug asked.

“There are three species of native New Mexico kangaroo rats. The Ord, Merriam, and the Bannertail. The Bannertail is easy to spot because the last one-third of its tail is white. When you called, I would have bet you had a dead Bannertail on your hands, because they have a preference for places where grass is readily available. But the Merriam is only found from about Albuquerque southward in the Rio Grande Valley, and over by Santa Rosa, along the Pecos River Valley.”

“Which definitely means it was brought here,” Sara said.

“Without a doubt,” Stoll said.

“Maybe it was a pet that was turned loose by its owner,” Tug said.

“That could be,” Stoll replied. “They’re relatively gentle and easily handled.”

“I’d like to know specifically what killed it,” Sara said, turning to Tug.

“It was undoubtedly poisoned,” Stoll said.

“Where can we have it tested?” Sara asked.

“There’s a lab in Albuquerque,” Tug replied.

“No need for that,” Stoll replied, smiling at Sara. “I’ve got a small lab at home. I’ll run some toxicology tests after dinner and give Tug a call.”

“I think it should be handled by a police lab,” Sara said.

Stoll laughed. “It would still come to me in any case. I do contract work for a number of law enforcement agencies. Don’t worry, I’ll enter it into evidence and preserve the chain of custody.”

“That will work,” Sara said.

Stoll strapped the box with the rat on a rack over the rear wheel of his motorcycle, waved goodbye, and roared off.

“Call me after you hear from Mr. Stoll,” Sara said as she walked Tug to his truck.

“I will,” he said. “I think you and Kerney need to be cautious for a while.”

Sara smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m armed and dangerous.”

Drenching rain beat down on the roof of the mobile command trailer as Kerney and the district attorney, Sid Larranaga, listened to Ramona Pino give her report. The thunderstorm had blown in just as the crime scene techs were finishing up at the shooting site, and the search-and-rescue team was carrying Larsen’s body down the mountain trail, accompanied by detectives and Kerney’s Internal Affairs commander.

“That’s all you got from the house search?” Larranaga asked when Detective Pino stopped talking.

“Yes, sir,” Ramona replied, pushing a strand of wet hair away from her face. She’d gotten soaked running from her unit to the command trailer, which only made her feel more miserable about the situation.

“I’m taking this to the grand jury,” Larranaga said, running a hand over the lapel of his suit jacket. He glanced hard at Kerney and nodded toward the door.

“You’re excused, Detective,” Kerney said. He waited for Pino to leave before addressing Larranaga. “That’s a premature call to make, Sid. Why not wait until you hear what my Internal Affairs commander has to say?”

Larranaga snorted and shifted his bulk in the chair. “It was stupid to call out SWAT and you know it. Even if your IA commander agrees with that assessment, the public is going to want an independent review made on this case. I’m charging the officers who shot Larsen with involuntary manslaughter. This was a lawful act, incautiously done, that resulted in the death of what clearly appears to be an innocent man. The grand jury can decide if it was justified or not.”

“Is that the way you intend to present it?” Kerney asked.

“I don’t know,” Larranaga replied. “But I will tell you this: I’ve got growing reservations about this big love affair cop shops have with special weapons and tactics units. This whole thing with the combat boots, military-style fatigues, automatic weapons, and all that high-tech stuff is getting to be a bit much. You’re supposed to police the community, not act like some sort of quasi-militia.”

“SWAT has a role to play in policing,” Kerney replied.

“Sometimes,” Larranaga said. “But not when a poor, unbalanced sucker who’s scared shitless is hiding in the woods because his deranged girlfriend has blown things all out of proportion.”

“Are you going to sacrifice my people to make your point?”

“Do you disagree with my analysis of the situation?” Larranaga shot back.

“No.”

Larranaga stood up. “Then make damn sure all the facts are available to present to the grand jury. The only defense you’ve got is to provide conclusive proof above and beyond the officers’ statements that they were forced to stop the action when they came under fire. You’d better hope and pray the evidence is there. I want the reports on my desk by morning.”

“What are you going to tell the media?” Kerney asked.

“For now, nothing,” Larranaga said. “I’ll announce my decision tomorrow after I’ve read your reports.”

Larranaga flipped up the collar of his suit jacket and left, running through the rain to his car. Through the open trailer door Kerney saw Otero and Molina sitting in a nearby unit. He gestured for them to join him and spent a few minutes discussing Pino’s report, Larranaga’s reaction, and laying out exactly what he wanted to see on his desk no later than six o’clock in the morning.

Molina opened his mouth to speak, and Larry Otero cut him off.

“I’ll take responsibility for authorizing SWAT,” he said grimly.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Kerney answered sharply, as he moved toward the door. “This is my kitchen, and I’ll take the heat.”