Mexican Hat

by Michael McGarrity

  Kerney lashed out with a foot and kicked the wheelchair. It spun Cox around. Eugene pulled the trigger, and slugs dug into the wall, gouging holes and sending plaster fragments flying about the room.

  Omar yanked his sidearm as Kerney swiveled to face him. Before Gatewood could pull off a round, Jim Stiles stepped into view and put two bullets in Omar’s head, blowing his face into a bloody mess. Kerney lunged to his feet and made for Stiles, AK-47 rounds tearing up the floor behind him as Eugene spun the chair back, firing with one hand.

  The AK-47 stitched Omar as he was falling. Kerney slammed into Stiles as Jim swung the pistol in Gene’s direction. He knocked Jim sprawling on his back in the hallway and landed on top of him. AK-47 rounds blew through the wall above their heads as Jim pulled Kerney down the hallway into the kitchen.

  “Get us the fuck out of here,” Kerney hissed.

  Stiles got Kerney on his feet and ran him out the back door into the yard behind a cord of stacked firewood. Kerney fell awkwardly over a power lawn mower and banged his head against a gasoline can.

  “Who is at the front of the house?” Kerney demanded as he untangled himself.

  “Edgar Cox.”

  “What are his orders?”

  “Distraction only.”

  “Do you have a handcuff key?”

  “In my wallet.”

  Kerney turned his back and held out his hands. “Get these damn things off me.”

  Jim released him. Kerney rubbed his wrists and shook his hands to get the circulation going. Another burst came from the house. Eugene was firing out the front door. There were two sharp cracks from Edgar’s rifle as he answered back.

  “Stay here and cover me,” Kerney said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get Gene out of there. Alive, if I can.”

  “How are you going to do that without a gun?”

  Kerney grabbed the gas can, and the liquid sloshed inside. It felt half full. He opened the cap and took a whiff to make sure it was gasoline. It was.

  “That’s not very sporting,” Stiles said.

  “Got a match?”

  “No.”

  “Give me a round from your gun.”

  Jim ejected the chambered bullet, and Kerney pried the cartridge apart with a penknife. “You’re a good shot, I hope,” he said, as he poured the powder into the gas can.

  “I hit Gatewood, didn’t I?” Jim answered.

  “At close range, but remind me to thank you later.” Kerney recapped the can and dragged it along as he crawled on his belly to the open back door. He looked at Stiles, who had taken up a good prone position behind the woodpile with the semiautomatic extended and ready.

  Jim gave him a thumbs-up sign. Kerney pushed the gas can into the kitchen, crouched low, and ran like hell to the woodpile. He jammed his shoulder on a log as he flung himself next to Jim. Stiles cranked off two rounds, and the can exploded. Kerney took a quick look. Fire ate across the kitchen floor.

  Eugene Cox rolled out of the hall into the kitchen and stopped as the fire moved toward him. Kerney pulled his head in. A burst of automatic gunfire tore into the woodpile.

  “Shoot back,” he ordered.

  Stiles held the pistol over the top of the woodpile and squeezed off two rounds. The spent cartridges bounced off Kerney. The AK-47 fell silent.

  “Did you hit anything?”

  “I doubt that I even hit the fucking house,” Jim replied.

  The heat of the fire grew. Kerney took another look. The back of the house was engulfed in flames, and Eugene was nowhere to be seen.

  “What now?” Jim asked.

  The staccato sound of the AK-47 firing at the front of the house came before Kerney could respond. He waited to hear return fire. Two more shots came from Edgar Cox.

  “Time to join the party,” he said.

  Bent low, they used the picket fence for concealment and stopped at the corner by the front yard. The porch was empty. Through a window, they could see flames blazing, flash-burning the curtains and peeling off the wallpaper. Thirty yards away, Edgar’s truck was parked at an angle to the house, slightly to the rear of Gatewood’s police cruiser. The patrol car had taken bursts from Eugene’s AK-47 through the hood and front tires.

  Kerney couldn’t see Edgar, but Cody was running across the open field with Karen hard on his heels. Molly and Elizabeth stood exposed at the edge of the pasture. All of them were well within range of Eugene’s AK.

  “Holy shit!” Jim spat as he spotted the women and children.

  Ammunition started to blow up inside the burning building. Eugene rolled out on the porch just as it caught fire and flames whipped up to the roof. He jammed in a fresh clip and started firing. Bullets chewed up the ground, sprayed across the police car, and shattered the windshield of the truck.

  Jim steadied the semiautomatic to take Eugene down before he hit one of the women or children. Edgar beat him to it. The muzzle flash came from under the truck, and the bullet took Eugene in the chest. The wheelchair wobbled backward as Gene slumped over and dropped the AK.

  Nobody moved until Edgar crawled out from under the truck. He stood rooted to the ground. Karen covered Cody from danger with her body, and Molly was hunched down with Elizabeth wrapped in her arms. Karen picked up Cody and started running toward Molly and Elizabeth.

  Edgar didn’t move an inch.

  Kerney’s eyes followed Karen. She checked Elizabeth to make sure the girl was all right before turning to take another look at the blazing fire. Then she walked with Cody in her arms and Elizabeth and Molly at her side to cut off Doris Cox and her children, who were running full-tilt across the pasture. With Molly, Karen held Doris back and herded everybody away.

  Stiles and Kerney joined Edgar. He said nothing until the porch roof caved in and Eugene’s body started to burn. The second story blazed. Heat stung their eyes and blew hot against their faces.

  “I can’t believe what I did,” Edgar finally said.

  “You did the right thing,” Kerney replied.

  “There were women and children to protect,” Edgar said softly.

  “I know,” Kerney answered.

  Edgar’s blue eyes snapped back to the burning house. Images sixty years old blended with the sight of his dead brother burning in the fire. “No, you don’t know,” he said in a bitter voice. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Maybe I do,” Kerney responded. “Eugene told me a very interesting story.”

  Edgar stared at Kerney for a long time before he broke eye contact. “Good. I’m glad. It’s time everybody heard that story.”

  “Mind telling me?” Jim inquired.

  “After I talk to my daughter,” Edgar replied.

  “Fair enough.”

  Edgar dropped the Winchester, turned on his heel, and walked away.

  Jim and Kerney moved back from the intense heat. The structure burned like a massive, billowing bonfire. Small-arms rounds randomly exploded inside the house.

  “Where is Phil?” Kerney asked.

  “If Edgar’s truck still runs, I’ll show you.”

  “What happened to Karen?”

  “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  They cleaned the glass off the seat, and Kerney drove. The clouds lifted from the top of Mangas Mountain, and a dim red light flashed from the lookout station. Whoever was up there probably had every piece of fire equipment in the district rolling. The wail of sirens carried by the breeze confirmed it.

  Jim looked at his arm. Blood soaked the sleeve where the stitches had given way. The adrenaline rush had ended, and the wound throbbed like hell.

  “Karen is no lady to mess with,” he began, grimacing in pain.

  “Tell me about it,” Kerney replied.

  13

  After Jim’s briefing and a quick check of Phil Cox, who wasn’t going anywhere, Kerney took control of the arriving fire crews. He posted two Forest Service firefighters with rifles on the hill above the ranch to keep spectators a
way. Then he called Carol Cassidy by radio, gave her a quick rundown on the situation, and asked her to send every law enforcement specialist from the Luna and Reserve districts as backup until the state police arrived. He wanted no repeat of the Elderman Meadows fiasco, and enough cops around to keep the locals at bay, especially any militia members who might show up and cause trouble.

  He left Jim with a paramedic and went looking for Karen. He spotted her hurrying across the horse pasture from Phil’s house.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when she reached him.

  “Fine. How about yourself?”

  Kerney smiled. “I’m okay.”

  “You’re limping badly.”

  “It will pass.”

  She smiled grimly. “My father told me what happened between him and his brother at Elderman Meadows. He said you heard something about it from Gene. Is that true?”

  “Gene told me one hell of a story, and I believed every word of it.”

  “What do you know?”

  Kerney recounted what Eugene had told him.

  “It’s quite a family I’ve got, isn’t it?” Karen said.

  “The part of it I like seems pretty solid.”

  She smiled with her eyes, stood on her tiptoes, and gave him a quick kiss. “Thanks.”

  “I should be the one thanking you.”

  “We can sort that out later. I need your help.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Work with me on this,” she replied, pointing at the burning remnants of Eugene’s house. “I need a smart cop at my side.”

  “What you need is a special investigator,” Kerney replied, smiling down at her.

  “I’ve got one. You.”

  “I resigned, remember?”

  “I never officially accepted your resignation.”

  “That puts a different spin on it,” Kerney admitted.

  Karen took him by the arm. “You’re on the payroll. Ready to go to work?”

  “Why not?” Kerney answered.

  IT TOOK FIVE DAYS, working eighteen-hour shifts, before Kerney, Karen, and Jim had everything sorted out. Phil Cox caved in after learning that his father was dead. He confessed to murder, attempted murder, and a host of additional felony charges. Karen offered to drop some of the lesser charges if he rolled over on the militia, and without the iron will of Eugene Cox to shore him up, Phil capitulated.

  Following Phil’s directions, Kerney searched his house and found records that identified the militia members who had built the bombs that had been scattered around the wilderness, as well as the device used to kill Doyle Fletcher. Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents took the ball and ran with federal indictments against the bombers, while Kerney worked on state felony arrest warrants.

  He also came away with the militia membership list and a scrawled note from Eugene to Phil with his recommendations for targets of assassination. Kerney was number one on the list, followed by Charlie Perry and Jim Stiles.

  Doris Cox snapped as a result of the shoot-out at the Slash Z and had to be hospitalized with severe depression in Silver City. Kerney interviewed her just before she was discharged. Tonelessly, she told him of sexual assaults and physical beatings by Phil that made his stomach turn.

  She took the children and left for an extended visit with her sister in Idaho. With Karen, Kerney saw her off. PJ looked desperately in need of a good therapist. Completely shut down, the boy refused to talk and had an angry belligerence stamped on his face.

  All of Gatewood’s deputies were militia members, along with six seasonal Forest Service employees from the Luna and Reserve offices. The deputies were suspended and Karen arranged for a contingent of state police to provide law enforcement protection during the investigation. Carol Cassidy placed the Forest Service workers on administrative leave and started an internal probe.

  Amador Ortiz was found in San Diego, hiding out with a cousin, and brought back to face charges. He corroborated Gatewood’s role in setting up the Padilla Canyon ambush.

  Scooped up by the FBI for his complicity in the Leon Spence–Steve Lujan case, Ortiz was bound over in both federal court and state district court on accessory charges.

  Kerney and Jim coordinated the interviews and interrogations, using state attorney general investigators and state police agents to do the legwork. They concentrated on the militia leadership, a group of twelve men that included a county commissioner, several lesser officials, prominent businessmen, and two of the biggest ranchers in the county. Because they had authorized the plan to kill Kerney, conspiracy-to-commit-murder complaints were in the works on all twelve.

  Kerney handled the Eugene Cox and Omar Gatewood shooting-death investigations. He took the evidence to a hastily convened special grand jury. Jim Stiles was quickly exonerated, and the panel ruled that the killing of Eugene Cox by his brother was justifiable self-defense.

  The night before the grand jury met, Kerney attended a Cox family discussion where Edgar, Margaret, and Karen debated publicly disclosing the sixty-year-old crimes of rustling, homicide, and Edgar’s assault on his brother.

  The family decided to empty the closet of the skeleton that had haunted them for years.

  Under Karen’s orders, and with Edgar and Margaret’s consent, Kerney arrested Edgar for the 1930s crime of attempted murder of his brother as soon as the grand jury recessed and Edgar walked out the door.

  Karen had turned the case over to her boss in Socorro. The DA had traveled to Reserve to depose Edgar personally and then conducted a press conference. He cited Edgar’s military record as a career officer, his public service to the community, and his success as a rancher who had started from scratch and built his spread after retiring from the Army. He finished with a summary of Edgar’s deposition of the murder of Don Luis Padilla and announced that no legal action would be taken.

  Predictably, the headline in the Silver City newspaper read:

  RANCHER SHOOTS TWIN TWICE IN SIXTY YEARS

  The story, along with sidebar editorial pieces on the shoot-out at the Slash Z, remained at the top of the nightly news for several days. Kerney made copies of Edgar’s deposition, the newspaper articles, and Molly’s historical research on the Padilla land swindle and mailed them off overnight express to Dr. Padilla’s daughter in Mexico City. Leon Spence had fingered Steve Lujan as Hector’s murderer, and Kerney included that information in a hand-written note to Señora Marquez. She called the next morning to say she was thinking of retaining an attorney and suing the United States government and Eugene Cox’s estate for damages.

  THE ONLY DECENT FURNITURE in Jim’s living room was an eight-foot sofa, an overstuffed easy chair, a floor lamp, and a framed T. C. Cannon poster of a somber Indian in full regalia sitting in a wicker chair. The rest of the room was taken over by an exceedingly large work table fashioned out of plywood and two-by-fours that Jim had slapped together. What Jim used it for Kerney couldn’t say. It held mostly old newspapers, junk mail, empty drink containers, and an assortment of stuff that needed to be put away.

  Kerney had been bunking with Jim since the day after the Slash Z incident, and he was home before sunset for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

  Stiles found him stretched out on the couch, dead to the world, and shook him awake. When Kerney opened his eyes, Jim flopped down in the easy chair with a shit-eating grin on his face and a paper sack in his hand.

  Kerney groaned in disgust and sat up. Sleep-deprived, he had hoped for a solid eight or ten hours of rack time. “What is it?” he snapped.

  “I’ve been promoted,” Stiles announced in a rush. “You’re looking at the new area supervisor for the Game and Fish Department.”

  “That’s great. You deserve it. Where is home base going to be?”

  “I’m setting up a new office in Silver City. I’m going to move down there.”

  “Molly will like that.”

  Jim’s grin widened. “We’re getting married.”

  Kerney got up, pulled Jim out of the
chair, and pounded him on the back. “Now, that is very good news,” he said, grinning back at Stiles. “When?”

  “Next month. We’d do it sooner, but Molly wants me to heal up a bit more. She said she doesn’t want wedding pictures that make the groom look like he’d been beaten into submission.”

  Kerney laughed.

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Name it.”

  “Be my best man.”

  “It will be my great pleasure.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Great.”

  “Now can I go back to sleep?” Kerney asked.

  Stiles pulled a bottle of whiskey from a paper sack. “Not until we celebrate.”

  “Thank God I don’t have to work tomorrow,” Kerney said as Jim cracked the seal and handed him the bottle.

  “MOM, CODY IS BEING A JERK again,” Elizabeth called out from the kitchen. “He’s teasing Bubba.”

  “I’m just playing with him,” Cody yelled.

  Bubba yelped.

  “Leave the puppy alone and stop acting like a jerk,” Karen said as she entered the kitchen.

  “I’m not a jerk,” Cody retorted, his eyes hurt, his voice quivering.

  Karen knelt down and hugged her son. “No, you’re not. I’m sorry I said that.”

  Cody sniffled and nodded his acceptance of the apology.

  “Did you finish the geography lesson I left for you this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me see it.”

  He got his spiral notebook from the kitchen table and plopped down on the floor, eagerly leafing through the pages to find his work. Karen sat with him. Bubba ran over and crawled into Cody’s lap, his tail slapping happily against Cody’s leg. Elizabeth, standing on a low stool at the kitchen sink, returned her attention to the dinner dishes.

  She went over the lesson with her son, praising his good work and pointing out his misspellings. She decided the next set of lessons would have to be on penmanship and spelling, two areas where Cody was having difficulty. Elizabeth could help. She was excellent at both.

  Karen let the children stay up a little later than usual, mostly for her own sake. She had seen them only in snatches during the last five days, as she ground through the investigations with Kerney and prepared the cases. But the crunch had finally eased. Her boss had assigned another ADA from Socorro to help, and had reassigned all of her pressing trial appearances to other staff.