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.