Everyone Dies

by Michael McGarrity

  “It’s an indulgence we can do without,” Kerney said. “Plus, even with the recent rains, we’re still in a drought and probably will be for some time to come.”

  “Besides, what would the neighbors think?” Sara said with a teasing laugh. “If we installed a pool, none of them would believe for a minute that either of us was really ranch-raised.”

  Kerney smiled. “It might cause Jack and Irene Burke to wonder.”

  “I’m way ahead of you.” Sara stepped to her grandmother’s desk, gathered up the architectural plans, and brought them to Kerney. The swimming pool had been crossed out.

  “I think a terraced flower garden with a few shade trees off to one side would be nice. It doesn’t have to be something we do right away.”

  “Let’s go see if it’ll work,” Kerney said.

  The doorbell rang. “Whoever it is,” Sara said, “send them packing.”

  Kerney opened up.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have turned off all your phones,” Andy Baca said with a shake of his head. He was dressed in civvies with his sidearm on his belt. Gloria waved at Kerney from the passenger seat of Andy’s pickup truck parked in the driveway.

  “This better be important, Andy,” Kerney said.

  “Look, you don’t have to do anything, but I thought you’d want to know that five bodies, all male, have been discovered buried on Olsen’s property. We don’t know who they are yet or how they died. I’ve got my people working on it with Pino, Thorpe, Istee, and a team of forensic specialists. They’re still uncovering the remains. It will probably take them most of the night to wrap up the preliminary work and get everything up to the medical examiner’s office in Albuquerque.”

  “Dammit,” Kerney said.

  “It’s being handled,” Andy said as he turned to Sara. “You know, Gloria mentioned that we still haven’t seen the new house you’re putting up. She said you’re going out there. How about giving us a tour?”

  “You’re very sneaky, Andy,” Sara said, as she stepped to Kerney’s side.

  Andy grinned. “That’s if you don’t mind us tagging along behind you.”

  “Come along,” Sara said. “Just let me get my purse.”

  Chapter 13

  Fast-moving clouds drifted over the Jemez Mountains, diffusing the glare of the sun in short bursts, revealing it again and again as shafts of brilliant light cut through the billowing white cumulus caps. Not yet low enough on the horizon to light up the sky with colors, it studded the tips and underbellies of the clouds with a soft pink hue. Passing shadows dotting the basin gave way to patches of dense blue sky that turned hot white as the sun broke through, lighting up a distant peak and exposing a carmine-colored hillside in high relief.

  The breathtaking vista pushed all the fears and worries of the week from Sara’s mind. She felt lighthearted as she walked Andy and Gloria through the clutter of what would one day be her very first house, showing them the footprint for each room. The crew had started laying the interior adobe walls, and for the first time Sara could see actual room dimensions rather than have to imagine them from the plans.

  She’d brought her camera, and as she took snapshots, she excitedly pointed out window placements, fireplace locations, how the entry alcove would give way to the great room, and the view she would have from the kitchen window over the sink.

  Finally, she took them out on the recently poured slab for the portal that ran the length of the house, where they stood and looked down on the canyon below. A huge cottonwood glistened pale green along the edge of an arroyo that fanned out across the canyon floor. A slash of exposed limestone glimmered in the escarpment that hid the railroad spur from view.

  “We’ll hear trains,” Sara said, pointing at the ridgeline that hid the tracks from view.

  “I love the sound of trains,” Gloria said.

  “You’ll have clear night skies and the Milky Way above you,” Andy said.

  “And coyotes howling,” Kerney added, squeezing Sara’s hand.

  They stopped talking momentarily to watch a small herd of antelope warily enter the canyon, led by a male who first scanned for danger before beginning to graze. The females and juveniles quickly followed suit.

  Sara adjusted the camera lens to zoom in on the herd and snapped the shutter.

  “How beautiful,” Gloria said in a whisper. “It’s paradise.”

  They walked the perimeter of the house. The curving wall for the courtyard patio had been poured, and Sara showed Gloria where she planned to put the planting beds, how the flagstone walkway would veer off from the main path to an adjacent patio that would be accessed through French doors.

  “With a pergola, it would be a perfect, sheltered place to breakfast,” she said, eyeing Kerney. “We’d have a lovely view of the pasture, horse barn, the hill beyond, and the tips of the mountains in the distance.”

  Kerney laughed, put his arm around Sara’s waist, and patted her tummy. “Okay, we’ll build the pergola,” he said as the early evening shadows began to lengthen. He turned to Andy and Gloria. “Are you up for a short drive? I want to show you something.”

  “What’s that?” Andy asked.

  “A special place.”

  The foursome piled into Sara’s vehicle. Kerney drove up the hill past the spot were he’d buried Soldier, wound through the rolling grassland and into a draw bracketed by a low, rocky ridgeline, and pulled to a stop where marsh grass and cattails encircled a pond at the foot of a hillock.

  “My God,” Andy said, climbing out of the SUV, “you’ve got live water.”

  “Which has never run dry,” Kerney said, following Andy to the edge of the pool.

  “Unbelievable,” Andy said. Any constant source of live water away from the rivers and streams was a rarity to be treasured in arid New Mexico.

  “A hacienda stood here two hundred years ago,” Kerney said, pointing to the rubble of the rock footings. “For a long time, it was the main stop on the cartage road from Galisteo to Santa Fe.”

  “And it’s on your land?” Andy asked.

  Kerney nodded and pointed at animal tracks in the soft earth at the edge of the water. “Yep, and it comes with a resident bobcat, who hunts rabbits here at night. I’ve found fresh tracks and kill sites just about every time I’ve come out here.”

  He watched Gloria and Sara kneel down to examine pieces of partially exposed petrified wood scattered under the base of an ancient willow tree on the other side of the pond.

  Suddenly, Sara stood upright and looked at Kerney with a serene smile on her face. “It’s time to go,” she said.

  “We’ve got a good twenty minutes before sunset,” Kerney replied, glancing at the sky.

  “It’s time to go to the hospital,” she said as she patted her belly and moved toward the SUV.

  “Right now?”

  “I think so.”

  Kerney gave his cell phone to Andy and raced to Sara’s side. “Call the doctor. Press speed dial, then nine. Tell her we’re on the way.”

  Sara laughed. “Slow down, cowboy. I don’t need you four-wheeling me over hill and dale. We’ve got time.”

  “Let’s go,” Kerney said, easing Sara into the vehicle, not realizing that both Andy and Gloria were already on board.

  He ground the gears putting the vehicle into motion, and Andy laughed at him from the backseat.

  Samuel Green left his car on a point beside the railroad tracks where the sand looked too deep to pull through, checked his watch to time himself, and started walking at a fast pace in the direction of Kerney’s property. He ducked through the barbed-wire fence, scrambled to the top of the ridgeline, saw the outline of a pickup truck at the construction site, and dropped quickly to the ground.

  He slipped off the backpack, took out a pair of binoculars and carefully scanned the vehicle. It wasn’t Kerney’s truck. He wondered if security had been hired to watch the place at night after the crew went home. That would put his plan in jeopardy.

  After making sure the
truck was unoccupied, Green scanned the building site and horse barn several times for movement before deciding the pickup had probably been left behind by one of the workers.

  He waited a few more minutes before he moved quickly off the ridgeline, loosening small rocks that cascaded down the slope in front of him. At the base of the incline he zigzagged in a lope across the rangeland, using small stands of piñon trees for cover, keeping his eyes fixed on the truck and house just in case someone came into view.

  Green stopped at the last grove of trees about two hundred yards from the truck and used the binoculars again to search for activity before moving into the open pasture. The dry grass cracked under his feet. It would burn nicely.

  Halfway across the field he heard the sound of a train clattering over the tracks, followed by the blast of its horn. Over his right shoulder the headlights of a car appeared at the top of the hill behind the horse barn. Green wheeled and ran back for the cover of the trees, cursing his bad luck and hoping he hadn’t been spotted.

  “Oh, the sound of a train,” Gloria Baca said from the backseat as they passed Soldier’s grave again. “How lovely.”

  At the top of the hill, Kerney saw the figure of a man freeze in the pasture, turn, and start running for the trees. He pressed the accelerator.

  “He’ll make the trees before we can reach him,” Sara said, reaching for her camera. “Stop the car.”

  “We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

  “Stop the damn car, Kerney,” Sara said as she set the camera on automatic zoom.

  Kerney hit the brakes. From the backseat he heard Andy calling out his troops on the cell phone. Sara leaned out the passenger window and took pictures just before the man reached the cover of some trees.

  “Okay, let’s go,” she said pulling her head back into the car.

  “Drop me off at my truck,” Andy said, as Kerney drove down the hill.

  “Don’t chase him,” Kerney said.

  “I’ve got units rolling code three,” Andy said. “I’ll head for the highway and coordinate from there.”

  “Have someone meet the train in Santa Fe,” Kerney said.

  “Why the train?” Andy asked as he jumped out of the SUV.

  Kerney watched in frustration as the distant figure of the running man disappeared over the ridgeline. “There’s no reason for the engineer to sound his horn.

  The nearest railroad crossing is several miles from here. Something caught his attention, and the runner is heading for the tracks.”

  “Consider it done,” Andy said, as he held out his hand. “Give me the camera, so I can get the film developed.”

  Sara passed it through the open window. “Don’t you dare lose my pictures of the house.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Andy said as he gave her Kerney’s cell phone and reached for his own. “Gloria will stay with you.”

  “Good,” Sara replied, reaching back for Gloria’s hand to give it a squeeze. “At least I’ll have someone with me who knows what I’m going through.”

  A contraction made her catch her breath and let go of Gloria’s hand. “Start driving, Kerney,” she said. “And this time, please go a little faster.”

  “Catch this guy, Andy,” Kerney said as he hit the gas, leaving Baca standing by his pickup, choking on the dust thrown up by the rear tires.

  Three squad cars with flashing emergency lights sped by as Samuel Green impatiently waited at a traffic light near the Interstate that would take him back to Santa Fe. It wasn’t the cops that worried him; he’d ripped a gash in the palm of his hand climbing through the barbed wire fence to get to his car. A deep cut that bled freely, it had soaked through the rag he’d wrapped around it.

  The light turned green and he drove to town with his hand throbbing in pain. At the hospital parking lot, he inspected the wound. It ran from just above the wrist to his forefinger, and he’d lost a patch of skin. He needed stitches and a tetanus shot for sure.

  He clenched the rag in his hand to slow the bleeding and thought things through. The car at the ranch had been too far away for anyone in it to get a clear look at him. Besides that, the light had faded and he’d been running with his back to the vehicle, so nobody saw his face. Finally, the cops would be looking for Olsen anyway, not him.

  But his plan to burn Kerney’s ranch and bring him out in the open was now off the table. He couldn’t risk going back. He’d have to find another way to learn where Kerney was hiding out.

  He decided to calm down, stop thinking about Kerney, and get his hand fixed. He would use a fictitious name and pay cash for the hospital bill, so he couldn’t be traced.

  Inside the urgent care center, a nurse looked at his hand and took him directly to an exam room. She cleaned and inspected the wound as he fed her a line of bull about cutting himself as he was taking down an old fence on his mother’s property.

  She shook her head sympathetically, placed his hand in a bowl of peroxide solution, let it sit there for a few minutes, and then elevated it on a tray table. “When was your last tetanus shot?” she asked.

  “Years ago when I was a kid,” Green replied.

  “Leave your hand where it is,” the nurse said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to give you a shot and stitch you up.”

  Sara was taken directly from the admitting area to labor and delivery, where the doctor was waiting. Dr. Carol Jojoya finished her exam of Sara, stripped off her gloves, and stepped back from the bed. Jojoya had a slightly dimpled chin, thick, curly dark hair, impish brown eyes, and an easy, calming manner.

  “I think we’ll keep you overnight,” Jojoya said to Sara.

  “What’s wrong?” Kerney asked, jitters getting the best of him.

  “Nothing,” Jojoya said with a reassuring smile. Her eyes held a hint of amusement. “The baby isn’t quite ready to make his appearance, but there’s no sense in having Sara go home just to turn around again and come back.”

  “You’re telling us everything?” Kerney asked, as he stepped over to Sara, who shook her head to signal that he was acting silly.

  “My only concerns,” Jojoya said, “are that Sara has a narrow pelvis, and is about to deliver her first child. Sometimes those factors can make childbirth a bit difficult on the mother.”

  “How difficult?” Kerney demanded.

  Jojoya laughed. “Not to worry. Your wife is very physically fit. It’s just that first births can take a little more time. At the worst, your wife will probably be exhausted and sore when it’s all over.”

  “That’s it?” Kerney asked.

  “That sounds like enough to me,” Sara said.

  “Relax, Chief Kerney,” Jojoya said. “Everything is normal. We’ll leave Sara here and wait for nature to take its course.”

  “I want her in a private room,” Kerney said.

  Jojoya shook her head. “She doesn’t get a room until she’s done her job.”

  “Then I’ll stay with her,” Kerney said.

  “Go away, Kerney,” Sara said with a wave of a hand. “Just post a security guard nearby and get back here in time to meet me in the delivery room.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Kerney said, “and it will be a police officer who’s stationed outside, not a security guard.”

  “What on earth for?” Jojoya asked, her voice ringing with surprise.

  “Don’t ask him to explain,” Sara said. “Just accept it as a good thing to do.”

  Jojoya looked at the couple, decided not to probe, and patted the edge of the bed. “I’ll be around,” she said. “Just press the buzzer when the contractions start up again.”

  Jojoya left and Kerney leaned over and kissed Sara’s cheek. “You’re all right?”

  “Peachy,” Sara replied, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  “I’ll arrange a few things and be back in a flash.”

  Sara gave him a weak smile and waved him away with her hand.

  In the area just outside Sara’s exam room, Kerney met with Gloria Baca, fill
ed her in on Sara’s condition, and made arrangements by cell phone to post one officer at the hospital and have another take Gloria home.

  Gloria went in to see how Sara was doing, and Kerney used the time to call Andy Baca.

  “So, are you a father?” Andy asked.

  “Not yet,” Kerney replied. “It may be some time before the baby comes, so I’m here for the duration. I’m sending Gloria home with one of my officers. How’s the search going?”

  “We missed him,” Andy said. “But the train engineer reported he blew his horn as a warning because a car was parked on the railroad right-of-way access road. Maximum speed on the spur line is fifteen miles per hour, so he got a pretty good look at the vehicle. It was an older, full-size domestic sedan, possibly an Oldsmobile or Buick, white in color, with Arizona plates. I’ve got people out there now looking for evidence, but they’re probably not going to find much until daylight.”

  “Where are you?” Kerney asked.

  “Halfway to town, taking Sara’s camera to the lab. I’ve got a tech standing by to print the photos she took. I’ll bring them to you ASAP.”

  “Thanks, Andy.”

  “Best to Sara,” Andy replied before he cut the connection.

  Kerney looked through the open door into the waiting room. A young mother paced the floor holding a crying infant, and an older man with a swollen cheek sat reading a magazine. A bald-headed man with a bandaged hand came out of an exam room, glanced at Kerney, and walked off in the direction of the billing office, holding a piece of paper. From the blood on his pants, it appeared he’d cut himself badly.

  Kerney felt more awake than he had in several days. The pending arrival of Patrick Brannon had gotten his adrenaline pumping. He found Jojoya, who told him it might be some time before the baby was delivered, and went to check on Sara.

  “You again,” she said, as he gave her another kiss.

  “Yeah, me,” Kerney said. “Looks like we’re gonna be here for a while.”