Gatewood didn't notice Kerney until he was at his side. He cast a glance at Kerney and stifled a reaction of surprise by clamping his mouth shut. It made his chubby cheeks puff out even more.
"Damn, Kerney," he said, "we figured you were burned up inside."
"No such luck. Who got killed?"
"Your landlord, Doyle Fletcher, the poor son of a bitch."
"What happened?"
"Fire chief thinks someone planted a device. She put a call into the state fire marshal to send an arson investigator up from Las Cruces."
Gatewood kept talking, and Kerney's attention wandered. The medical examiner and a paramedic were moving Fletcher's body from the truck hood onto a gurney. He stepped over and pulled the blanket down. Fletcher's face, seared and unrecognizable, made Kerney choke down bile. He flipped the cover back over the face and spent a minute considering whether it had been the blast or the fire that had killed Fletcher. He decided it didn't really matter.
The crowd began to thin out. Slowly people walked away in tight, chatty little groups. Gatewood moved off to speak to a deputy. Soon only a few hangers-on and official personnel remained, most with nothing to do.
Kerney found himself wondering what had happened to the mice, and decided his sense of humor had gone stale.
At the rear of Fletcher's truck a deputy sheriff was using his bulk to block Alan Begay from getting closer to the trailer.
Kerney intervened.
"Sorry for wasting your time," he apologized, as they stepped out of the deputy's earshot.
"But the sheriff has sealed the crime scene. I can't get you in."
"Doesn't matter," Begay said.
"Let me show you something." He walked Kerney thirty feet behind Fletcher's truck, stooped down, and used a stick to turn over the partially melted remains of a light socket.
"Here's your trigger," he said with satisfaction.
Kerney bent over, peered at it, not quite sure what he was looking at, and waited for Begay to explain.
"You take the bulb out and solder filament wire to the hot post. When you turn on the juice it sparks, ignites the gas, and detonates the dynamite," Begay said.
"You can see where its been soldered."
"What about fingerprints?" Kerney asked.
"Don't hold your breath." Begay tossed the stick away, brushed his hands, looked at Kerney, and shook his head.
"So now you're unemployed and homeless."
"I didn't even think about that," Kerney said, as reality sank in.
"I've got a spare bed in my motel room, if you need a place to crash for the night."
Reserve boasted only one motel, so Kerney didn't have to ask where Begay was staying.
"I may take you up on the offer."
Begay nodded.
"I'll tell the desk clerk to give you a key."
"Thanks."
"No problem, man," Alan said as he walked away.
The television crew arrived. A cameraman unloaded equipment while the reporter-one of those bright-eyed, perky women who smiled at the camera no matter what the subject matter might be-hustled off to find Gatewood.
It brought the few remaining onlookers who were leaving scurrying back for more entertainment.
As soon as everyone clustered around Gatewood and the reporter to watch the interview, Kerney took off.
Mom's surgery had gone well-better than expected, according to the doctor-and Karen sat in the waiting room with her father. Even with the good news, his face was filled with worry, and he was fidgety, running his fingers through his gray hair and pacing back and forth across the waiting room, taking big strides with his long legs.
Karen wanted to pass it off as nothing more than Edgar's desire to see Mom as soon as the doctor would let him. She wondered if the love that her parents had-a sweet, absolute devotion-had melted away with their generation and was now nothing more than a cultural icon. The idea of being joined at the hip to a man had always felt stifling to Karen.
Elizabeth and Cody were much calmer than their grandfather. They were playing with a puzzle in the corner of the room with the pieces spread out on the floor between them. Elizabeth was lying on her stomach, knees bent and legs in the air, fitting pieces together, while Cody, stretched out on his side, played tiddledywinks with his pile of the puzzle, trying to vex his sister by skipping shots at her.
The only other person in the room, a woman waiting to take her husband home from outpatient surgery, sat in front of a television at the far end of the room, watching a mindless talk show. The station broke away from the network for a news bulletin.
Karen got to her feet as soon as the anchorman in Albuquerque started talking about more violence in Catron County. A trailer had been bombed and a man was dead. There would be a full report on the evening news.
"Daddy," she called.
Already at her side, Edgar scowled at the television.
"I've got to go," she said.
"Go ahead. I'll take care of the children," Edgar replied.
Karen grabbed her purse, kissed Cody and Elizabeth, and flew out the door.
Thwarted by Molly's refusal to drive him around because she had to work for a living, and because his face would cause a massive traffic accident if she took him out in public, Jim Stiles was forced to do detective work by telephone. The mining company confirmed Steve Lujan's story about his settlement, and the Catron County Bank reported no large amounts of money going in or out of Lujan's account.
Karen arrived at the trailer and quickly grilled Gatewood. She was relieved to learn that Kerney wasn't dead. The devastated trailer had been braced up with scrap lumber so that the crime scene specialists, flown in from Santa Fe by the state police, could work inside the structure. They were laboring cautiously, bagging evidence, dusting for prints, and taking photographs. Karen logged in with the officer in charge and toured the outside area with Gatewood, an arson investigator, and the state police agent assigned to the Padilla homicide. The wall studs of the trailer had been fractured into giant toothpicks, and melted ceiling tiles, warped by heat into bizarre shapes, dangled from the gaping hole in the metal roof. A couch, consumed down to the metal frame, sat next to a badly charred and smoldering mattress.
The arson investigator, in from Las Cruces, took Karen and Omar up a plank board to the hole where the front door had been. His rumpled jacket caught on the sharp edge of a piece of metal, and as he turned to free it, the trailer settled a bit. The movement froze Karen in her tracks.
The man coughed, shook his head, and stepped back down the plank, forcing Gatewood and Karen to retreat.
"Maybe I should just tell you what I found," he said.
"That's a good idea," Karen replied.
On solid ground he inspected the tear in his jacket and tried to pull out a loose thread without success before pointing at the trailer.
"We've got a dynamite explosion triggered by propane gas." He wheezed, took out a tissue, and blew his nose.
"Enough material was used to guarantee nobody inside would survive the blast. Whoever did this wanted to send a message that it was no accident. I'd say the tenant was the target, and revenge or retaliation was the motive."
"Was it a professional job?" Karen asked.
"No way," the investigator replied.
"Does it fit any kind of profile?"
The investigator shrugged.
"Sure. My bet is that we've got a male perpetrator. Women tend to use flammables and burn personal objects, like clothes or bedding. Men go for accelerants and explosives.
The perp was organized about it. Knew what he wanted to do. This is a flat-out murder case."
"Anything else?"
The investigator nodded.
"The landlord probably wasn't the target. I understand the tenant is a single man who worked for the Forest Service. I'd be looking for either an extremist or a jealous husband or boyfriend. Something along those lines."