Everyone Dies kk-8

by Michael McGarrity

  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, filled 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.”

  “Why don’t you find something to do?” Sara said. “I don’t need a nervous, expectant father hovering over me.”

  “Am I acting silly?” Kerney asked.

  “Almost.”

  Kerney sat in the chair next to the bed, called Sal Molina and told him to gather up Cruz Tafoya plus all the case materials from the Socorro crime scene investigation and get to the hospital pronto.

  Sara smiled as he hung up. “That’s better.”

  “I’m staying until the officer arrives.”

  “You’re damn right you are,” Sara replied.

  Samuel Green quickly paid his urgent-care bill with cash and returned to the waiting area to find Kerney nowhere in sight. His initial shock of seeing Kerney had rapidly given way to the happy thought that he no longer needed to search for him. But now Kerney was gone, and Green wondered if he was back to square one. He decided not to hang around inside hoping Kerney would reappear, and walked through the automatic doors to the parking lot just as two city police squad cars pulled to the curb.

  Green tensed up until the two cops passed him without a second look. He stepped between one of the police cruisers and the SUV parked in front of it and stopped. The temporary license sticker in the rear window of the SUV was made out to Sara Brannon. Because of the pain in his hand, he’d paid no attention to the vehicle on his way in.

  Had Kerney brought his wife in to have the baby? Or had she called Kerney and driven herself to the hospital? Were the two cops inside to provide security, or was Kerney there on official business?

  Samuel Green needed clarity. He walked to the side of the building. There were no ambulances, police, or fire department vehicles outside the emergency room entrance, and he couldn’t find Kerney’s unmarked unit in the almost empty parking lot.

  Kerney might have left, but Green doubted it. He sat in his car waiting to see what happened next. Within several minutes, a hospital security officer took up a position outside the urgent care entrance, and a second security guard entered the lot in a hospital vehicle, cruising past parked cars.

  Green drove off the hospital property to a nearby medical office building where he had a clear view of the entrance, and settled down to watch. When Kerney came outside, moved his wife’s vehicle from the curb to a parking space, an
d went back into the hospital, Green knew for sure the baby was on the way.

  Now he could start thinking about the exciting times that lay ahead. The mental picture of a helpless Kerney watching as he brought the hammer down on the baby’s head made Green chuckle in anticipation.

  After the officer came, Kerney got permission from the hospital administrator on duty to use a staff training room. Sal Molina and Cruz Tafoya showed up within minutes and immediately asked Kerney about Sara’s condition. Although he remained anxious and concerned, he told them everything was just fine.

  They joined him at the long table and Molina arranged a number of digital photographs in front of Kerney.

  “Pino sent these up by computer,” Molina said, as he leaned over Kerney’s shoulder. “They’re shots of five circular burial mounds, about ten feet in circumference and three feet tall, taken before excavation began.”

  Molina lined up another set of pictures. “These are shots of the individual mounds with the remains exposed. We don’t yet know the causes of death, and it will take dental records to identify the victims. But we do know that Olsen mined rock from a nearby quarry to build them. His fingerprints were all over the wheelbarrow and tools left at the pit.”

  Molina took a seat and continued. “Based on the decomposition of the bodies, the ME thinks there’s about a five-year span between the earliest and most recent burial, which he believes is no more than six months old, but that’s a guess.”

  Cruz Tafoya passed Kerney a list of names on a printout. “All the victims are male,” he said. “Using that information, the ME’s suggested time frame for the burials, and statements by Olsen’s friends that he didn’t like gays, we searched the missing-persons data banks. Hits came back on five gay, single men who’ve gone missing from Albuquerque over the last four and a half years; a hair stylist, bartender, nurse, bank clerk, and flight attendant.”

  “It’s like Olsen built a burial shrine to commemorate each murder,” Molina said.

  “And he probably isn’t finished killing,” Tafoya said. “Clayton Istee located another sandy shelf about a hundred feet away from the existing cairns where Olsen had dug a sixth circular round hole down to bedrock.”

  “We’re guessing it’s for the prisoner Olsen had chained up in the utility room,” Molina said. “The techs say the bloodstains probably post-date the last burial.”

  “Which may explain who Olsen had in the back of his van when he went to get money at his bank,” Tafoya said.

  “That makes no sense,” Kerney said. “Why would Olsen take a prisoner he plans to murder with him to Santa Fe just before he embarks on a killing spree?”

  “Maybe he likes to play with them before he kills them,” Tafoya said.

  Kerney shook his head. “I don’t buy it. The Santa Fe killings are motivated by revenge, and the Socorro murders are clear-cut serial sex crimes. These are two distinctly different signatures.”

  “Which gets us back to the notion that Olsen either has an accomplice or is acting on someone’s behalf,” Molina said. “Remember, we’ve got two sets of footprints and so far only one suspect.”

  “What is the lab telling us about the new evidence that’s been collected?” Kerney asked.

  “There are no fingerprints on the scrapbook found in Olsen’s house,” Molina said. “But Olsen’s prints are all over Manning’s cell phone, and the hair and fiber from the wig found in the van match some found in Olsen’s bathroom.”

  “Olsen wears a wig?” Kerney asked.

  “Not according to his mother,” Tafoya said. “He’s got a full head of shiny, blond, baby-fine hair.”

  “Do we have anything new that absolutely puts Olsen in Santa Fe?” Kerney asked.

  “Not really,” Molina said. “The enhancement of the video surveillance tape outside the municipal court building was inconclusive. What we do have are eyewitness descriptions of an unknown male subject who looks like Olsen, evidence seized in Socorro that ties him to the crimes, and the blue van he left behind with Drake’s body in it.”

  “Which, according to the entry and exit visa stamps in Olsen’s passport,” Tafoya said, “was purchased from the El Paso junk dealer while he was out of the country.”

  “He could have bought it from another party after he returned,” Kerney said.

  “That’s what we thought,” Molina said, “until the Tucson PD got back to us on their meeting with the ex-con who installed the rebuilt engine. Allegedly, he never met with the customer in person. One morning when he came to work, the vehicle was outside his shop with the keys in it and a new engine in the back. The transaction was conducted entirely by phone. He got a money order in the mail for the labor, and when the work was done, he was told, again by phone, to leave the van outside with the keys under a floor mat. The next day it was gone.”

  “The calls to the mechanic were made from public pay phones in Tucson,” Tafoya said, “on days when Olsen was working at his job in Socorro.”

  Kerney glanced nervously at the cell phone on the table next to his hand and then looked away at the chalkboard, which was filled with notes on how to evaluate terminally ill patients for placement in hospice care. It seemed like a dismal way to end a life.

  He pulled his thoughts back to the subject at hand. “We saw a trespasser on my property just before sunset,” he said. “The distance was too great to make an ID, but Sara was able to take a few telephoto pictures as he ran away. Chief Baca is having them developed.”

  “Do you think it was Olsen?” Molina asked.

  “Whoever it was, it’s highly suspicious,” Kerney said. “The property is posted and there’s no access for a casual hiker to get on the land easily, other than by fence-jumping.”

  “Speaking of photos,” Tafoya said, “do you want to look at the ones we took at headquarters during the protest demonstration?”

  Kerney nodded and Tafoya handed him a packet, telling him each unidentified subject was marked by a small X. He fanned through them, and froze at the closeup image of the bald-headed man he’d seen in the waiting area outside the urgent care center.

  Kerney had screwed up big time by not looking at the pictures earlier in the day. His face flushed in silent anger at the blunder. Put a blond wig on his shaved head and the man could easily pass for Noel Olsen. Or maybe it was Olsen.

  He pushed back from the table, got to his feet, and tossed the photograph on the table. “This man was in the hospital less than an hour ago. Get a search started, secure his admission and treatment records, talk to security and medical personnel, and look for somebody with a bandaged left hand.”

  Kerney’s cell phone rang before Molina or Tafoya could react. He picked up, and Carol Jojoya told him the baby was on his way.

  “Make it snappy, Chief,” Jojoya said, “we’re going into delivery right now.”

  “Are there any bald-headed strangers near your location?” he demanded, thinking about the knitting needle in Victoria Drake’s abdomen and the killer’s two-for-one threat.

  “No,” Jojoya said.

  “Where’s the uniformed officer?” Kerney said, striding for the door.

  “Right behind us,” Jojoya replied.

  “I’m on my way.” He turned to the two detectives, the blood from his pounding heart thundering in his ears. “The baby’s coming. Find the son of a bitch now.”

  He raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time with Molina and Tafoya on his heels, calling for backup on their cell phones.

  Sara didn’t give a damn that her legs were spread wide open and people were staring at her crotch. She was sweating profusely and panting hard. Deep heaving sounds in a stranger’s voice came booming out of her chest.

  What was taking so long? Why was Jojoya telling her to relax when she wanted it over and done with?

  The last contraction hit like a great purging that emptied her from head to toe. All she could think of was meeting Patrick Brannon Kerney, seeing him, holding him, talking to him face-to-face for the very
first time.

  Without thinking, she let go of Kerney’s hand and reached out for her baby, who seemed to be singing instead of crying, making the sweetest little la-la sounds.

  With her arms still outstretched, she watched Kerney cut the umbilical cord and Jojoya wash the waxy, blood-drenched coating off her son as the pain of the after-birth hit her.

  “He has your hands and feet,” Sara said with a gasp as Jojoya wrapped Patrick in a blanket and handed him to her. “Quite the handsome lad.”

  “That’s because his mother is a beauty,” Kerney said, as he sponged her face with a towel. “How are you?”

  Sara gazed at Patrick Brannon, who stared at her peacefully with pretty blue eyes as if to say everything was going to be just fine. “I’m very happy to finally meet our son,” she said.

  Kerney touched his son’s cheek with a gentle finger. “Me too.”

  The baby gurgled and Kerney quickly pulled his hand away.

  “He won’t hurt you, Kerney,” Sara said with a giggle.

  Kerney’s eyes danced as he squeezed her hand. “I’m overwhelmed by it all. It’s a miracle.”

  Sara’s expression turned serious.

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s keep him safe,” she said in a whisper.

  “Always,” Kerney whispered back.

  When more police cars arrived at the hospital, Samuel Green went back to the house. In the war room he sat on the mattress, snacked on canned sardines and crackers, and mulled over his fuck-ups. Doing a reconnaissance of Kerney’s ranch hadn’t been a bad idea, but he should have thought things through better before acting. He was pissed off at himself for not checking the train schedule for the spur line.

  He’d caught a look at it before it had rounded a bend. The engine had been pulling two old Pullman cars and a flatbed filled with tourists taking a sunset excursion ride. The way the train had crawled along the tracks, only a blind person would have missed seeing his car.