Did the cops really think he’d killed Potter? Sure, he’d talked about beating the shit out of him for emotionally messing up Mary Beth. But that was in group sessions that were supposed to be confidential. Did Barbero fink on him? Did Mary Beth tell the cops he had a gun?
Larsen knew he wasn’t supposed to own a handgun. But law or no law, it made him feel safe. So what if he was mentally ill? He wasn’t psychotic or something like that, and nobody was gonna take his right to bear arms away from him. Not after what he’d done for his country.
He took the weapon, a Glock 9mm semiautomatic, out of the holster and checked the magazine. The weight of it in his hand felt reassuring.
He put it away, rewrapped the bread slices in wax paper to save for later, and started up the incline. If he just kept climbing he would eventually break through the timberline and get a bearing on the ski basin, where he was sure there was water.
The eggbeater sound of helicopter rotors made him freeze. He hated that sound. Startled, he could feel the panic building. He scanned a patch of sky through a break in the trees looking for the chopper, waiting for incoming enemy mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades to start blowing through the canopy, waiting to get knocked off his feet and feel shrapnel take a three-inch slice out of his left triceps.
Hyperventilating and sweating like a pig, he scrambled off the trail looking for cover, rolled over a dead log, and took out the Glock. The sound of the chopper receded only to be replaced by the crunching of feet through the underbrush.
Come on, you slope gook motherfuckers.
He saw the shape of a man dressed in black, just like a North Vietnamese dink. Saw the muzzle of his automatic weapon.
Where the fuck was his unit?
Three more shapes emerged from the shadows. Larsen squeezed off two rounds at the point man. Bark flew off the tree above the man’s head, and the figure dropped to the ground. The three remaining slopes disappeared in the underbrush. He could hear them crawling toward him.
He screamed profanities at them and they answered with heavy fire from automatic weapons, the slugs pulverizing the decayed log, blowing through it. He belly-crawled backward toward a rock outcropping, firing two more rounds. Above him the chopper’s rotors swayed tree branches and swirled pine needles and dirt into the air.
Larsen saw the point man rise to a kneeling position, saw him bring the weapon to his shoulder. He twisted his body and rolled toward the safety of the rocks.
The last thing he felt were bullets shattering his back.
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?”