Since the day Sara had entered West Point, she’d functioned in a male-dominated world, never once thinking that she couldn’t be a man’s equal. The bureaucratic barriers didn’t faze her, nor did the chauvinistic attitudes of some of her superiors and colleagues. Eventually, the glass ceiling would be shattered and no rank or duty assignment, including combat arms, would be closed to women.
She knew Kerney wasn’t a chauvinist, or simply pretending not to be, as many men did. His endearing ability to accept her as an equal without the need to dominate or control had drawn her to him in the first place.
When Kerney disconnected, Sara decided to approach him head-on with the fact she could no longer tolerate the situation. She held up a hand to keep him from talking.
“We have to reclaim our lives, Kerney,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if a bomb goes off in five minutes, hours, or days and blows us both to kingdom come, I can’t stand being held hostage any longer. I want to go back to our own place, visit the new house, and do some shopping for the baby.”
Kerney put the cell phone down, rubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes, and let out a deep breath. “That’s not such a good idea right now,” he said as he raised his head to look at her.
“Maybe not,” Sara said, “but we’ve come through tough times before and survived them. We can do it again.”
“Under completely different circumstances,” he said.
“I’m not asking for your permission,” Sara said. “I want you to call Larry Otero and tell him we’re not to be bothered for the next twenty-four hours. Then turn off that damn cell phone and we’ll go back to our place and try to organize one day of normal living with no agents hovering around and no interruptions before the baby comes.”
Still thinking of all the reasons it was a bad idea, Kerney studied the determined look on Sara’s face. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“It’s time to stop hiding and go home.”
“Will you accept having an officer stationed outside?” Kerney asked.
Sara nodded. “That’s agreeable.”
“Okay. So what do you want to do first?”
“I’d like to take an evening drive in my new car to see how our house is coming along.”
Kerney smiled and flipped open his cell phone. “Give me a couple of hours in the rack, and it’s a date. Why don’t you tell Gloria about our change in plans, and I’ll let Andy and Larry Otero know.”
Sara got out of her chair, kissed him, and went to speak to Gloria. Patrick Brannon gave a wiggle and something told Sara the twenty-four hours she’d demanded might not be as normal as she hoped.
Doing a comprehensive field search of eighty acres was no small task. Using the boundary fences as a guide, the three officers spread out and walked the perimeter of the property before separating at the back fence to sweep down the hill toward the house.
Shrub vegetation, mostly creosote, sage, and broom snakeweed, dominated several rocky terrace slopes, and there were clusters of hedgehog, prickly pear, and barrel cactus growing in pockets of coarse sand. Limestone, sandstone, and shale lined shallow runoff gullies, and gusts of wind raised dust swirls that dulled the pale-green, drought-stricken bunchgrass.
Halfway down the slope, Russell Thorpe spotted a series of five rock cairns arranged in a neat line on a sandy fold in the hillside. He walked to them, wondering what they signified, and noticed that one looked fairly recent. Each cairn was round and no more than three feet high.
He stepped back, knelt down, and pawed at the sand until he hit rock about a foot down. Fifty feet away from the cairns was a small quarry cut into the hillside. There he found a rock pile that matched the stones on the mounds. A wheelbarrow turned upside down leaned against the pile.
As he retraced his footsteps, marking each one with a stone, Thorpe called out for Clayton and Ramona. They converged on him from the north and south.
“The one on the south side looks to be the most recent,” he said as Clayton made a wide loop around the cairns and Ramona took photographs. “The sand gives way to rock about a foot down.”
“I make each one to be about ten feet in diameter,” Clayton said as he eyed the cairns, “and whatever is under them has drawn coyotes. There’s old scat everywhere.”
Ramona lowered the camera. “Let’s rope off this area and get the techs up here.” She slipped on plastic gloves, walked to the newest cairn, and began carefully removing rocks.
“Shouldn’t we wait for them?” Thorpe asked before he keyed his handheld.
“There’s enough work here for everybody,” Clayton said as he joined Ramona at the mound.
Within two hours, three bodies had been partially exhumed.
Two hours of sleep left Kerney feeling better. He came out of the bedroom determined to put the investigation aside and enjoy the evening with Sara, although he did plan to remain cautious and armed. He clipped the holstered. 45 to his belt.
The bulge of the. 38 in the purse on the kitchen table told him Sara was of a like mind.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked as he entered the living room.
Sara nodded, eased herself off the couch, and held out the car keys.
“Don’t you want to drive your new car?” Kerney asked.
“I do, but I’m afraid Patrick Brannon will be a distraction. He’s getting restless and acting up.”
“Maybe we should just stay here.”
Sara shook her head as she put the keys in his hand. “Not a chance. I need to see a beautiful New Mexico sunset on our land, and talk you into letting me add the pergola on the front patio of the house.”
“I’m having second thoughts about the swimming pool,” Kerney said.
“Because of the water we’d use?” Sara asked.
Since he was warned not to run on the leg, the pool was to be the alternative way to keep his new knee operating at peak efficiency. But he’d been raised on a desert ranch where water was precious, which made the whole idea of a swimming pool uncomfortable.
“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 s
neaky, 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
F ast-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 pinon 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’v
e 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.
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