Dorsey opened up, let them in, and Kerney introduced him to Clayton. For a moment, they stood and talked in the small, dingy front office, which was badly in need of a paint job and some housecleaning; then Dorsey ushered them into his equally shabby private office.
Kerney asked how the interviews with Craig Larson’s former friends and associates were going and Dorsey shook his head.
“All the publicity has made people around here tight-lipped,” he said. “Folks that knew him in the old days aren’t talking. I don’t think they’re hiding anything from me. It’s more like they don’t want to admit any kind of past personal association with a cop killer who has a price on his head.”
The reward for Craig Larson had started at ten thousand dollars after the shooting of Paul Hewitt and had now climbed to twenty-five thousand.
“Major Vanmeter says the psychologist thinks Kerry Larson knows something about his brother’s whereabouts,” Clayton said.
Dorsey perched on the edge of the dinged-up surplus desk that dominated his cramped office. “That well may be. I told Vanmeter to send that psychologist packing and leave Kerry to me if he wanted to get anywhere with it, but he wouldn’t listen. Kerry suffered brain damage at birth. He looks as normal as anybody, but he isn’t real bright, can be as stubborn as a four-year-old, and he’s real suspicious when it comes to strangers. I don’t see him opening up to a shrink, especially when it comes to his brother.”
“I take it the psychologist knows all this?” Clayton asked.
“I told him so to his face.”
“What if you were allowed to take another crack at Kerry?” Kerney asked. “Could you get him to open up?”
“Possibly, but not with the shrink present,” Dorsey replied.
“I’ll talk to Vanmeter,” Kerney said. “Now, before we go out to the Lazy Z, walk us through what you saw when you first arrived on the scene.”
Dorsey grunted in disgust. “You’ve seen the crime scene photos I took?”
Kerney and Clayton nodded in unison.
“I don’t ever want to see anything like that again,” Dorsey said before beginning his narrative.
Parked a block away from the Springer town hall, Larson watched and waited. Following the two cops from Raton had been a breeze, and although he’d been a little uneasy about driving into Springer, people in their cars and those few ambling down the sidewalks had paid him no mind.
After watching the morning exodus of cops at the motel, he’d expected the town to be crawling with police. But there weren’t any fuzz on the streets. Maybe he’d stay better hidden if he broke into some old lady’s house right here in town, took her hostage, and just laid low until the pigs gave up and called off the manhunt.
Larson’s attention swung back to the two plainclothes cops, who’d left the police department and were about to get in their vehicles. He remembered the older cop’s name, Kerney or something like that. They drove away but he didn’t follow. Best not to push his luck.
He figured the cops were keeping a close watch on his brother, Kerry, hoping he’d show up. Well, there were a couple of ways to get to Kerry’s place the cops didn’t know about. Maybe it was time to get his younger brother to help him out. When it came to killing, two shooters would be better than one, and he’d never known Kerry to go against his wishes. Like Jesse and Frank James, the Larson brothers would show Malvo and Muhammad how to do it.
Larson fired up Pettibone’s Buick, made a U-turn, and headed for an old, seldom-used dirt road that would take him within a half mile of Kerry’s digs.
Late in the morning, Claudia arrived in Raton and used her own key to let herself into Tami’s house, which was located in a foothill subdivision overlooking the small city. Quickly she checked for any signs that her daughter had packed for an out-of-town trip or had left in a hurry. All her clothes were in order, the house was tidy, and nothing seemed disturbed. Stacked in the two-car garage were boxes of Tami’s husband’s things he’d yet to pick up.
Last month, Claudia had told Tami to have Goodwill come and take it all away. That Tami hadn’t done so confirmed Claudia’s suspicion that she still wasn’t over the SOB.
In the kitchen, the message light on the wall phone blinked. Claudia pushed the play button. All she heard was breathing for a few seconds before the caller hung up. It gave her an eerie feeling.
She tried hard to contain her growing anxiety by telling herself she was just being silly. Maybe the police were right and Tami had spent the night with a new boyfriend or gone to Colorado Springs or Denver for a real estate conference or some such.
Claudia dialed Tami’s office and let the phone ring until the message machine clicked on and she heard her daughter’s cheery voice say she was out of the office but could be reached on her cell. But she couldn’t get a connection when she tried the cell phone number.
Back in her car, Claudia drove to the real estate agency Tami owned. The door was locked. Through the big plate glass window Claudia could see clearly that the front room Tami used as her office was unoccupied.
Tami had no employees, so it wasn’t unusual for the building to be locked when she was out showing property or getting new listings. And on the wide open spaces of the northeastern plains, cell phone reception was spotty at best.
At the rear of the building Claudia expected to see an empty space where Tami always parked her Yukon. But to her surprise the SUV was there, missing Tami’s vanity license plate, “COWGIRL,” which she’d had for almost twenty years.
Claudia had seen enough. With her hands shaking on the steering wheel, she drove directly to the Raton Police Department and told the civilian receptionist that her daughter was in danger and she needed to speak to an officer “right now.”
Starting with the crime scenes on the mesa, Clayton and Kerney took their time at the Lazy Z. Using the briefing document supplied by Major Vanmeter, they walked through the trashed-out hunting lodge, looked over the pickup stolen from the Dripping Springs Ranch, examined the spot where Nancy Trimble had fallen, shot dead from behind, and then drove to the site where her body had been dumped.
Fingerprints lifted from the lodge, the ranch house, and the stolen truck left no doubt that the brutal rape and deliberate murder of Trimble were the work of Craig Larson.
With the sun at high noon and a hot breeze freshening from the southwest, Kerney and Clayton stood on the porch of the hunting lodge.
“This kill was different,” Kerney said. “He’s changing.”
Clayton squinted against the windblown sand. “I don’t see it. He shot Officer Ordonez at the roadblock from a distance with a long gun.”
“I would argue that his motive in shooting Ordonez was to escape capture,” Kerney said. “But with Trimble, he first turned her into wounded prey. He’s killing for vicious pleasure now and that’s an entirely different MO.”
“I figured him to be a head case right from the start.” Clayton glanced at the sky. The clear blue morning had given way to a gritty, dusty afternoon.
“Agreed,” Kerney said. “But I think he’s about to take it in a whole new direction.”
“Like what?”
Kerney shook his head. “I don’t know. But let’s assume he’s well provisioned, heavily armed, and is obviously proficient with firearms. That combination scares me. Let’s go down to the ranch headquarters and see what we can discover there.”
Clayton reached down and brushed off some red fire ants that had crawled up his pant leg. The stench from the inside of the lodge was nasty. “I could use a change of scenery,” he replied.
In his cubicle, Sergeant Joe Easley, a twelve-year veteran of the Raton Police Department, read the note that had been brought to him by a secretary. Claudia Tobin was in the reception area waiting to speak to someone about her missing daughter.
From the daily logs, Easley knew that officers had already gone to Tami Phelan’s home and place of business. Although no contact with Tami had been made, nothing suggested any mishap
had occurred.
As a longtime cop in a city of under ten thousand people, Joe Easley personally knew by sight or by name virtually every permanent resident of the community. Thus, Claudia Tobin, who’d for years operated a day-care center in Raton before moving to Albuquerque with a husband dying of cancer, was not a stranger to him. Neither were Tami Phelan and her ex-husband, Brodie.
Until Brodie had moved to Trinidad to shack up with a very hot-looking young barmaid, he’d played second base on Easley’s softball team, and Tami was a member of Easley’s Downtown Rotary Club, which met monthly at Suzy’s Sizzlin’ Steakhouse.
Joe Easley also knew that since being dumped by Brodie, Tami had been throwing herself at every eligible male in town—and there weren’t that many of them—between the ages of twenty-five and sixty, almost as an act of revenge for being done wrong. Or was it an act of self-loathing? Whatever it was, she was most likely shagging somebody in or around the area, which accounted for her being missing.
Furthermore, since the sighting of Craig Larson in the northeast part of the state, there had literally been hundreds of calls to his department reporting strangers resembling Craig Larson lurking about, hiding in the foothills, camped out at a nearby state park, breaking into vacant houses, stalking women and children, cruising by in cars, or eating in the restaurants and registering in the motels near the interstate.
Each and every call had been thoroughly checked out and found to be unsubstantiated. Easley had taken to thinking of the undercurrent of panic that gripped the community as the “Craig Larson Bogeyman Days.”
A distraught-looking Claudia Tobin got to her feet when Easley came into the reception area.
“Mrs. Tobin,” Easley said pleasantly. “Good to see you. I understand that you’re concerned about Tami.”
Tobin nodded. Easley had remembered her as once being a good-looking older woman with some flesh on her bones. Now she was skinny to the point of seeming anorexic, her dyed blond hair was thinning on top, and she was heavily wrinkled around her mouth and eyes.
“Something terrible has happened to my daughter,” Claudia said. “I just know it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s not at home, her office is locked, her car was left at work, and her license plate has been removed and replaced with another one.”
Easley’s interest level rose a thousand percent. Tami’s “COWGIRL” vanity plate was a common sight in Raton. She even billed herself as the “Cowgirl Realtor” in all her print advertising.
“What kind of license plate is on her car now?” he asked.
“It’s a New Mexico plate.” Claudia opened her purse and handed Easley a piece of paper. “I wrote it down.”
Joe Easley gave Claudia an approving smile. “That’s great. Wait right here. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” He paused at the security door. “Would you like some coffee?”
Claudia Tobin smiled weakly. “Yes, please.”
After getting Claudia some coffee, Easley sat at his computer, accessed the Motor Vehicles Division database, and typed in the license number Claudia Tobin had supplied.
In New Mexico, drivers own their license plates, and when Easley got a hit that the plate belonged to Nancy Trimble, the murdered caretaker at the Lazy Z, his eyes widened. He reached for the phone and dialed dispatch.
“I want two officers at Tami Phelan’s real estate office right now,” he said. “Have them secure her office and vehicle, and await my arrival. Advise Major Vanmeter of the state police that I have evidence pertaining to the Lazy Z murder investigation and need his assistance at that twenty immediately.”
“Ten-four,” dispatch replied.
At the Lazy Z Ranch headquarters, Clayton and Kerney went through every room of the rambling house, which was filled with the sort of expensive, oversize Western-motif furnishings favored by rich people from somewhere other than the West. Looking for anything that might have been missed by the investigators and crime scene techs, they dug into nooks and crannies. From what they could tell, except for the probability that Larson had taken weapons, provisions, and some camping gear, nothing else appeared to have been stolen. A wall safe behind a painting in the master bedroom hadn’t been tampered with, many valuable rifles and handguns had been left behind, and an unlocked petty-cash box in the office adjacent to the kitchen held over three hundred dollars in currency.
“I wonder why Larson didn’t take the money,” Kerney said as he closed the lid to the petty-cash box and watched Clayton power up the office laptop. “Aside from that,” he added, “why did he feel the need to leave? Trimble was dead and out of the way. Nobody else was around. Did something or someone scare him off?”
Clayton shrugged in response as he accessed the Internet and began scanning the most recently visited websites. “What did the medical investigator give as Trimble’s estimated time of death?” he asked.
Kerney read it off the briefing document.
Clayton smiled.
“What?” Over Clayton’s shoulder, Kerney could see the home page of a northeastern New Mexico real estate company.
“This computer was used hours after Trimble died.” Clayton called up all the web pages that had been recently accessed. “He looked at three rural Springer properties posted for sale. I bet he was surfing for his next hideout.”
“The question is which one he chose,” Kerney said.
Clayton started printing the pages. “The vacant ranch on the Canadian River is the one I’d pick. The other two look occupied.”
Kerney used the office telephone to call the real estate firm. When a man answered, he identified himself as a police officer and asked for directions to the ranch property on the Canadian River.
“It’s off a county road a few miles east of Taylor Springs on Highway 56. About three miles in you’ll see a ranch road on the left. Take that due west. About four or five miles farther, you’ll reach the gate to the property.”
“Thanks.”
“Is there a problem there?” the man asked.
Kerney sidestepped the question. “When was the last time you showed the ranch?”
“About a month ago. There’s a small ten-acre inholding on the ranch owned by a family member who refuses to sell, so that’s been putting off prospective buyers. The place has been vacant for six months. But it’s a multiple listing, so I don’t know who else has been showing it.”
“Okay, thanks.” Kerney dropped the office phone in the cradle and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where is this place?” Clayton asked as he grabbed the web pages he’d printed.
“Off the highway out of Springer that runs to Clayton, near the Texas state line,” Kerney replied as they hurried to their units.
“Ah, yes,” Clayton said, “that’s the town that’s named after me.”
“I don’t think it was named after you. It’s been around a lot longer than you have.”
“Yeah, I know that, but I like to think of it as my town. Actually, it was named for the son of Stephan Dorsey, a former U.S. senator from Arkansas. He built a mansion near the Santa Fe Trail Cimarron Cutoff. I understand it’s still standing and owned privately.”
Kerney veered toward his unit. “I didn’t realize you were such a font of historical knowledge about New Mexico.”
“I was forced to study white man’s history in school,” Clayton replied somberly as he climbed into his vehicle. “To further your education, you might like to know that the town of Clayton got its name in the late nineteenth century. Wasn’t that about the time when you were born, old-timer?”
Kerney looked over the roof of his unit and grinned at Clayton. “Just about, wise guy. Just about.”
The vehicles kicked up clouds of dust along the dirt road until they hit the pavement, and more dust flew when they left the highway and rattled their vehicles over the county road to the ranch turnoff. They stopped short of the gate to the ranch property, at the bottom of a small rise in the road that hid them from view.
“There’s not much cover going in,” Kerney said, flipping to the picture of the barn. “Unless we leave the road, cut the fence behind the barn, drive through, and use the barn as cover to get within striking distance of the house.”
“Then what?” Clayton asked. “Charge the ranch house with our sidearms and shotguns against his high-powered hunting rifles?”
“If he’s got a rifle, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” Kerney said. “Better we should entreat him to give up.”
Clayton opened the passenger door. “Let me take a look at the tire tracks up ahead before we decide anything.”
“While you do that, I’ll call for some backup firepower. Be careful.”
“Always.”
Bent low to stay out of sight, Clayton reached the crest of the small rise in the road, dropped prone to the ground, and belly-crawled in a circle, studying the tire tracks. He returned to Kerney’s unit and brushed a layer of dust off his clothing before settling onto the passenger seat.
“Well?” Kerney asked.
“Two vehicles recently went in, but only one came out. The size of the tread marks show that the vehicle still on the property is a compact or sub-compact passenger car. The vehicle that came and went is either a full-size light duty truck or SUV.”
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