"The couch in the study makes into a nice bed."
"That's not necessary."
"It is too." She wheeled and faced Jim.
"Have you seen the pit he calls a home?"
"Just once."
"He has mice living with him," Molly said, in a tone of voice suitable for castigating heretics.
"That seals it," Jim agreed, laughing.
"He stays."
Kerney took the bedding and followed Molly to the study.
Doyle Fletcher rose every morning before his wife so he could make the coffee while she showered and dressed for work. At thirty-seven, he didn't need a mirror to know he looked older than his years. His prematurely gray hair wasn't the worst of it. The bags under his eyes seemed to get bigger every day.
Doyle had hauled logs to the sawmill until the lumber industry got screwed by the spotted owl and he was laid off" from truck driving. Two years without regular work had battered his once cheerful disposition into a real bad attitude. Lately he had caught himself bitching about everything, criticizing the wife and kids for minor crap, and throwing temper tantrums for no reason.
It was four o'clock in the morning. His wife worked the day shift at Cattleman's Cafe. Her job and food stamps were keeping a roof over the family's head and food on the table. Fletcher hated the situation he was in, hated not being able to contribute to his family, and most particularly hated the United States Forest Service.
Doyle had charged Kerney all he could get for the trailer, and slapped a hefty security deposit on top of the rent. He had been counting on the extra income through the end of summer, but the stupid son of a bitch had gone and gotten himself fired from his job.
To make it worse, the security deposit was gone, used to pay a bill, and there was no way he could scrape together the cash to give Kerney a refund.
Doyle figured cleaning up the mice shit in the trailer would cancel out the deposit. If Kerney didn't agree, he'd have to wait until hell froze over to get his hundred dollars back.
His wife kissed him quickly on her way out the door. He sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee and studying the county health office pamphlet on hantavirus. Cleaning up mice shit was no longer a simple chore; not since the hantavirus outbreak began killing people several years back. Television reporters had yapped endlessly about the mystery killer illness, until the scientists figured out what the hell caused it. According to the pamphlet the disease was caused by airborne particles from deer mice droppings that attacked the pulmonary system in humans.
There were protocols to follow to remove the danger and avoid exposure, and Doyle read them over again carefully. He'd already picked up the rubber gloves, flea powder, traps, bait, paper towels, disinfectant, trash bags, and mask. It looked pretty straightforward.
He put everything in a box and carried it to his truck. In the darkness, he could see a single light on in the trailer window, and he wondered where in the hell Kerney was going so early in the morning. It wasn't like he had a job. Join the club, he thought sarcastically.
He got the kids up, dressed, fed, and ready to go.
Both were enrolled in church camp for the summer on scholarships, but that didn't bother Doyle; half the children in the congregation attended for free, and he had tithed every year when he was still working.
He let the kids watch a little television until it was time to drive them to church. Kerney's truck was gone as he passed the trailer. That was fine with Doyle. Maybe he had moved out and forgotten about the deposit.
He dropped the kids off, spent a few minutes chatting with the youth minister, and went to the trailer. It had to be aired out for an hour before he could go after the mice. He unlocked the door, called out to make sure no one was home, waited a minute, and flipped on the light switch. The explosion that followed blew the roof off the trailer and slammed Fletcher across the hood of his truck into the windshield.
He shattered the glass headfirst, and the impact broke his neck. wind-driven plumes of black smoke forced the onlookers back from the ropes that cordoned off the still-smoldering trailer. Kerney watched unnoticed at the back of the crowd. The trailer lay tipped precariously on its side with most of the roof missing.
Scorched metal fragments, strewn in random patterns across the field, showed that the blast had been considerable.
On the hood of a truck next to the trailer, a blanket covered a lifeless body. Near a fire engine, Omar Gatewood talked to a woman who wore a yellow firefighter's slicker. Directly behind them police, emergency, and rescue vehicles were haphazardly parked in the open field. A paramedic, bent over next to the open door of an ambulance, consoled an agitated, sobbing woman who huddled on the ground.
The wind died off and the smoke rose vertically, allowing people to move forward against the ropes. Kerney scanned the crowd. He recognized a lot of faces, most of them people he knew only by sight.
The gathering had almost a carnival air to it as folks shouted comments at the firefighters, who were smothering patches of smoldering grass with dirt.
There were lots of smiles and head-shaking going back and forth. Based on the size of the gathering, Kerney reckoned the event had brought out the entire village.
A voice on his right side spoke.
"Bomb."
Kerney glanced at the man. He wasn't familiar at all.
"Excuse me?"
The man was in his mid to late twenties, with a long ponytail tied back at the nape of his neck, eyes that were filled with amusement, and broad Navajo features. He took a deep drag on a cigarette before answering.
"I said it was a bomb."
"What makes you so sure?" Kerney asked, although he tended to agree with the analysis.
"I spent three years in an Army demolition unit.
No exploding water heater can do that kind of damage unless it's been rigged with a charge."
"You think the water heater was rigged?" Kerney asked.
The young man nodded. Dressed in jeans, a plaid work shirt, and a lightweight black denim jacket, he wore a very old coral-and-turquoise Navajo bracelet made of coin silver.
"I sure do." He dropped the cigarette and ground it under the heel of a work boot.
"See how the roof is torn up? It takes more than exploding propane gas to do that kind of damage."
"What kind of bomb do you think it was?"
"From the blast pattern, dynamite would be my guess."
"Triggered by what?"
"Probably by a spark. It's easy enough to do. You plant your material, short out an electrical switch, and start a gas leak. Whoever turns on the juice becomes a crispy critter."
"Did you do it?" Kerney asked, half seriously.
The young man chuckled and his dark eyes flashed in amusement. With high cheekbones, slightly curved eyebrows, and an oval face that tapered to a round chin, he looked quietly fun-loving.
"I wouldn't be talking about it if I did it, Mr. Kerney.
You've got a rookie on your hands-probably a virgin-and not a very talented one at that."
"You know me?"
The man laughed.
"Hell, man, you're headline news at Cattleman's Cafe."
"You have me at a disadvantage," Kerney said.
"I'm Alan Begay," he replied, raising his chin in a quick greeting.
"From the Navajo Pine Hill Chapter at Ramah."
"What brings you to this party?"
"I'm a surface-water specialist with the state. I work in the Gallup field office. I've been down here for the last three weeks. I heard the explosion and tagged along with the crowd."
"Do you have time to stick around and take a look at the trailer after things calm down?"
"Yeah, I can do that," Begay replied, his smile widening.
"It would be fun."
Kerney chatted with Begay for a few minutes to reassure himself that the man was who he seemed before skirting the fringe of the crowd. He found Sheriff Gatewood by the fire engine, occupying his time watching firefighters roll up hoses and shovel debris from inside the trailer.