Max felt as if he’d been melted down to the steel of his own core. He tasted it, like metal in his mouth. Determination. Anyone who poked his head into the culvert would risk getting it blown off.
He aimed at the half circle of sunshine and shadow. The white sand of the wash, the weird green cornlike grass, stalks rustling slightly in the ozone-scented breeze. The sky like a dark bruise beyond…
The click of shoes on gravel.
Was he imagining it?
Another shift of the shoe on pavement. No, he was not imagining it.
The kid.
The skinny little kid with the big gun.
We’ll see whose gun is bigger.
The sound of the voice in his own head shocked him.
Whatever was in his head wanted the boy to come down here. Wanted to blow him to kingdom come.
Thunder grumbled.
The air seemed both electric and still. Everything stopped. He was suspended, here in this tunnel made out of corrugated tin, with the accumulated trash hooked onto the rocks, the whole world standing still…
The kid plopped down off the bank. Max saw his elbow and one sneaker-clad foot. Just the side of him. Kid had a purple yo-yo, was playing walk the dog.
Max sighted down the barrel of the Smith & Wesson.
Make my day.
Then he heard canned music—a ringtone.
Max watched the kid’s legs. The knees bent. The kid sat down on the bank of the wash, his legs swinging, kicking back at the dirt. The ringtone stopped. The kid said, “What?”
Then he said, “I was just going—”
Then he said, “OK.”
His knees came into the frame briefly, his elbows flapping, the tip of his head. Then he scrambled up the bank.
Max realized his hands, which had trained the gun steadily on the half circle of daylight, were beginning to shake.
Adrenaline.
He waited. He did not lower the gun.
The Smith & Wesson seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. His arms were tired. He knew it wasn’t the weight of the gun. He knew it wasn’t the way he held his arms out in front of him. He knew it was the weight of anger, fear, and determination.
And he knew that the weight was an acknowledgment of something else: he would have killed that kid.
Killed that kid, and rejoiced over it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
PAT ACTED AS if Tess were still a deputy. That was OK with her. He had his pride. But she didn’t like the fact that he was phoning it in. He stared down at the three bloody corpses in the bomb shelter and said, “This is going to be one bad mother of a day.”
Tess had met Sam P. and Luther. She’d arrested Corey once for assault. She’d had no idea Sam had a bomb shelter, but the house was old and built in a time when bomb shelters were popular.
Tess knew she’d be seeing this tableau in her nightmares—every stark detail. At will, she could see any and all of the crime scenes she’d been called to as a detective in Albuquerque. The familiar stink rose up, a bloated miasma, along with the flies that had already found the dead men. There was the overwhelming stench of death, nine parts spoiled meat and one part the coppery odor of blood, which lay in the membranes of her mouth. She felt her gorge rise but willed it to back down.
“So, what do we do now, hotshot?” Pat said. He kept his voice light, as if it were a joke.
She said, “I’m kind of new on the job.”
“Right.” Pat started giving instructions. Everyone out of the house, now that they’d cleared it. Crime scene tape around the house and yard, make sure to rope off the carport. One deputy to keep people from coming in—that would be Derek, who’d have the police log. Then it was just the two of them. Gloves and booties. “You wanna take the photos?” Pat asked Tess. “Or is just looking enough? You probably have it all memorized down to the fly on ol’ Corey’s ankle.”
Tess took photos.
She kept her mind on the work, careful not to touch any blood, which was tracked all over the bomb shelter floor and bloomed on the wall like an iris where Corey had been hit. Blood spatter everywhere—plenty for an in-depth analysis.
“What do you think?” Pat asked.
Tess knew this time he was serious in his question. He often relied on her judgment. “Looks like a large caliber weapon, maybe a forty-five? They were shot from above.”
“Like fish in a barrel,” Pat said. “We got us a serious killer here.”
It was a large crime scene. The yard out front. The kitchen leading to the pantry leading to the entrance to the bomb shelter. The carport with the shot-up cars. The flurry of footprints and tire prints outside. The investigation would extend into the night and long into the next day.
AFTER THE BAJADA County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bodies, after Tess and Pat had measured the scene and marked the evidence to be bagged, Tess went outside to breathe some clean air.
The cumulus clouds were building up over the mountains and it looked like there might be rain. Right now, though, it was just an electric feeling in the air. The air was heavy and waterlogged from the little bit of rain left over from last night, and the creosote bushes smelled heavenly. But it was hot. She lifted her ponytail off the back of her neck.
She’d seen Max Conroy walking on the road’s shoulder.
She’d seen his look of surprise when he saw them go by.
Now Tess pictured his face in the rearview, tried to peg the expression. He knew he was in deep trouble.
There’d been no weapon on him, but he had a duffel. The duffel looked heavy.
There was the truck too. Dan Jensen’s Ford F-250. Sitting by the road, approximately an eighth of a mile beyond the spot where she’d seen Max standing on the shoulder watching the parade of sheriff’s cars go by.
Max might have left the truck there.
Tess told Pat what she’d seen.
“You think he did it?”
“I think we should check him out. Even if he wasn’t the shooter, he could be a witness.”
“You think he stole the truck.”
She shrugged. “That would be an easy conclusion to jump to.”
They called the crime scene technicians, who were already on the road, and asked them to come back and process Dan Jensen’s truck.
“You going to check it out?” Pat asked Tess.
“Thought I would. You all right here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She nodded.
“I mean, seriously, why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been investigating homicides for twenty-three years.”
Red as a tomato, he brushed at the sweat on his face. His blue eyes angry.
Tess said, “You tell me what you want me to do.”
“Just…just do your job," he said. “Whatever that is.”
TESS WENT AND did her job. She’d need a warrant for the truck left abandoned on the road, since it might or might not be part of the crime scene. The judge was pretty good about these things, would OK it pretty quickly.
She peered into the truck, careful not to touch anything.
There was a Mexican serapelike throw covering the bench seat.
Tess guessed the truck had broken down or was out of gas. Or maybe just abandoned. As soon as the crime scene technicians arrived, she’d go pay Dan Jensen a visit. Just in case he had something to do with this. It was always good to surprise people.
But the dispatcher called her first, to tell her that Dan had reported his truck stolen.
Tess called Pat and asked him if he would take Dan Jensen’s statement.
“Why not?” he asked. “I happened to be as free as a bird today.” Then he hung up on her.