Dead or Alive

by Michael McGarrity

  Throughout the morning he’d paid close attention to state police radio traffic, listening for an update on the status of the dragnet for Craig Larson. Although Larson had subsequently killed two people, there had been no confirmed sightings of him since he kidnapped the owner of a Springer auto body shop, left him in the desert, and stole his truck.

  Hewitt parked on the shoulder of the highway a few miles north of Carrizozo, near the White Oaks turnoff, checked in with dispatch, asked if there were any updates on Larson, and got a negative reply. He was about to start up the road to the old mining town, which was trying to reinvent itself as an arts and crafts center and tourist attraction, when a blue Chevy with Oklahoma plates flew by.

  Hewitt’s radar clocked the vehicle at 85 in a 55-mph zone, way above his tolerance level for speeders. He swung around and followed the Chevy, closed the gap, and called dispatch.

  “This is S.O. One,” Hewitt said. “I got a blue Chevy with Oklahoma plates traveling south at a high rate of speed on Highway 54 past the White Oaks turnoff. Requesting wants and warrants.” He read off the license plate information.

  “Ten-four, S.O. One. Stand by.”

  “Ask Carrizozo PD to assist in making a traffic stop,” Hewitt added. He needed a uniformed officer in a marked unit to write the citation in order to make it stick in court.

  “Ten-four.”

  Less than a mile outside of the town limits, the Chevy slowed. Hewitt came up behind the driver unannounced just as Carrizozo Police Chief Oscar Quinones’s unit came into view with emergency lights flashing.

  Hewitt hit the switch to the emergency lights mounted in the grill of his unit and gave a short siren blast to get the driver’s attention. He was close enough to see the driver’s head snap in the direction of the rearview mirror. But instead of slowing and pulling off the highway, the driver accelerated, swerved into the oncoming traffic lane to pass a slower moving vehicle, and headed right for Oscar’s police cruiser. Quinones turned sharply to avoid the crash and his vehicle left the pavement, slammed into a guard-rail, and nose-dived into an arroyo.

  Hewitt tried to contact Oscar by radio as he gave chase. At the town limits the driver blew through the traffic light, made a wide turn on U.S. 380 heading west, and accelerated around a tractor-trailer pulling out from a gas station at the intersection. Hewitt stayed on the Chevy’s tail and tried reaching Quinones again with no luck. He told dispatch to send first responders and emergency personnel to Oscar’s twenty ASAP, and requested backup assistance from any and all available units.

  Hewitt sat right on the Chevy’s rear bumper, with his speedometer at 110 mph. The Chevy veered over the centerline, forcing oncoming traffic off the pavement. Hewitt eased off, hoping the driver would move back into his lane, but instead the driver braked hard, spun the Chevy around in a tight one-eighty, and came at him head-on.

  Paul cursed and turned to avoid the impact, but the Chevy swerved and torpedoed into the side of his unit. Side and front air bags deployed, metal crunched, buckled, and squealed. The unit tilted up on two wheels, did a complete flip, and landed right-side-up with a bone-shaking jolt.

  Stunned and shaken, Hewitt reached for the seat-belt latch, but it was wedged tight against the mangled door. He reached for the glove box, found the pocketknife he always kept there, cut through the seat-belt webbing, and was about to scramble out the passenger door when a shadow in the rear window made him reach for his sidearm and duck. Glass shattered with the booming retort of a large-caliber handgun. Hewitt freed his weapon and tried to plaster himself against the floorboard under the steering wheel, which proved impossible.

  The sharp sounds of gunfire continued, the rounds tearing into the Plexiglas-and-metal cage behind the seat back. Hewitt opened the passenger door and scrambled out just as something hit him like a sledgehammer in the back of his neck. In an instant, a shock wave of searing pain ran through his body before he passed out.

  Still somewhat groggy from the Chevy’s impact with the unmarked police cruiser, Larson threw the empty handgun away when he saw the unconscious cop with a bullet hole just below his neck lying half-in, half-out of the vehicle. He grabbed the cop under the arms, pulled him the rest of the way out of the vehicle, and flipped him over on his back. He looked dead, but even if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter. In fact, nothing much mattered to Larson anymore.

  From the corner of his eye he saw an older woman in blue jeans and a Western shirt climb out of a pickup truck parked on the other side of the highway and hurry toward him. From inside the wrecked police vehicle he could hear the dispatcher on the radio talking in “ten”codes.

  Larson reached down, grabbed the .45 semiautomatic from the cop’s hand, turned, and from a distance of ten feet, blew the woman away. He snatched the badge clipped to the cop’s belt, paused to pick up the keys the woman had dropped in the dirt, and gave her a quick look. Spurts of blood running out of the hole in her chest told him she was as good as dead.

  He could hear the sound of a vehicle approaching a bend in the road a quarter mile distant. He ran to the wrecked Chevy, grabbed his stuff, hurried to the woman’s truck, and drove away before the car showed up in the rearview mirror.

  All he could do now, Larson decided, was run and hide, until his luck or the money ran out and he couldn’t go any farther. It wasn’t much of an option, but it was still a hell of a lot better than spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement, or being executed by injection.

  Larson eased the truck over to the shoulder of the highway and rolled to a stop when he saw two cop cars racing at him with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They passed by without slowing, and Larson continued on his way, traveling back toward Carrizozo, thinking he needed to find a place to hide out, and soon.

  Kevin Kerney arrived in Albuquerque to find Andy Baca at the terminal gate in his state police uniform with his four stars on his collars. They shook hands and started down the long corridor toward the public waiting area behind the security screening checkpoint. Kerney’s plane out of Chicago was the last flight of the night, and except for the footsteps of the passengers hurrying toward baggage claim and the exits, the terminal was quiet and empty.

  “How’s Paul Hewitt?” Kerney asked. When he’d last spoken to Clayton, Hewitt was out of surgery, still unconscious, and in critical condition. “Has he pulled through?”

  “Barely,” Andy replied.

  “Meaning?”

  “He’s permanently paralyzed from the neck down.”

  Kerney stopped in his tracks as the color drained from his face. “What?”

  “He’s conscious, in full possession of his faculties, and a quadriplegic.” Andy gave Kerney a minute to collect himself and said, “Did you check any luggage?”

  Kerney shook his head and started moving again. “I’ve got a closet full of everything I need at the ranch. Are Clayton and his family still there?”

  “No, they’re back home in Lincoln County. Paul’s number-two man retired two months ago and moved to Arizona. The job has been vacant ever since, but this morning Paul appointed Clayton to be his chief deputy.”

  “Good choice,” Kerney said. “Clayton can handle the job. Have you spoken to Paul directly?”

  Andy nodded. “I saw him earlier in the evening at University Hospital. He said that with Clayton’s help he’s going to serve out his term in office. He’s trying to be positive, but it isn’t easy on him or Linda. The doctors say he won’t be going home for a while. They want to get him started on a physical therapy program before he’s released.”

  “What about Larson? Have you found him? Last I heard, he was the prime suspect in Paul’s shooting.”

  Andy shook his head. “We’ve lost his trail again, but we do know for certain that he shot Paul and killed the woman who stopped at the crash site. His fingerprints were on the weapon found at the scene and all over the blue Chevy.”

  Andy stepped around two women who’d stopped in front of him to hug and greet each other. “By th
e way, the semiautomatic he used on Paul is also the weapon he used to kill Riley Burke. He used Hewitt’s gun to kill the woman, Janette Evans, a rancher’s widow, aged sixty-eight.”

  “What else can you tell me?” Kerney asked.

  “We traced the stolen blue Chevy that Larson crashed into Paul’s unit to a man from Oklahoma named Bertram Roach. The Albuquerque Police Department found his body in a cheap motel room on East Central Avenue. The night clerk at the motel—it’s one of those fleabag establishments used by hookers, pimps, and their johns—gave them a positive ID on Larson as a paying guest.”

  They were outside in the dry, cool high desert night where Andy’s unmarked unit was parked at the curb, hazard lights flashing.

  Kerney took a deep breath and knew he was back home. He looked at Andy over the roof of the vehicle. “How many people has this guy killed?”

  “Four so far that we know about. A couple more of his victims could easily have died.”

  “And he just tossed his murder weapon when he ran out of ammo, took Paul’s sidearm, iced a lady who stopped to help, and stole her truck?”

  “Affirmative. This dirtbag just doesn’t give a shit.”

  Kerney opened the passenger door. “Let’s go.”

  “Where to?”

  “The ranch. I need to take care of the horses and get some shut-eye before I pay my respects to Riley’s wife and parents in the morning. And then I have to check in with Clayton and Grace, let Sara know what’s happening, and come back down to Albuquerque to see Paul and talk to Linda.”

  “And after that?”

  “If Larson hasn’t been captured by the time we bury Riley Burke, I want a commission card and a shield.”

  Andy opened the driver side door. “I figured as much.”

  Chapter Four

  Long before dawn, Kerney was back in the horse barn finishing up the chores he’d started the night before after arriving at the ranch. He mucked out stalls, laid down fresh straw, cleaned water troughs, put out feed, shoveled fresh manure from the paddocks, and curried the horses.

  Every good cowboy and rancher knew that grooming horses wasn’t done to make them look pretty, but to stimulate a healthy coat and treat any small cuts and sores that would otherwise go unnoticed. The process also included inspecting and cleaning hoofs and checking for thrush, a fungus infection.

  Although he enjoyed the pleasure of being close to the animals and the satisfying routine of caring for them, it didn’t keep him from worrying about Riley’s young wife and parents. They had to be devastated at their loss and struggling hard to accept it, and he wondered what he could do to ease their pain and assuage his own sense of guilt about Riley’s murder.

  As a cop who over the years had delivered the news of sudden death to many grieving families, Kerney knew that words of sympathy, no matter how heartfelt, seldom gave relief. Surely there was something more tangible he could do for the family. He just didn’t know what would be acceptable to them.

  Jack and Irene Burke, like many other small ranchers, were land rich and cash poor, and Riley and Lynette had brought more in the way of shared hopes and energy to their young marriage than tangible assets. Should he sell the horses and give the proceeds to Lynette as her share of Riley’s half equity in the partnership? Would Lynette, an excellent horse trainer in her own right and Riley’s unpaid assistant, be willing to step into Riley’s shoes and take over as Kerney’s partner? Or would it be too painful for her to work day in and day out at the very place where Riley had been randomly gunned down?

  He had left for London secure in the knowledge that the partnership was in good hands. But now there was no way without help that he could keep the cutting horse enterprise going and live full-time with Sara and Patrick in England. Maybe it would be best to sell the stock, give the proceeds to Lynette Burke, find a reliable live-in caretaker for the ranch, and wait until Sara retired before trying again to operate the ranch as a business. He decided to hold off on making any decisions until he knew what Lynette wanted to do.

  He finished scraping his stud horse Comeuppance’s hoofs and turned him loose by himself in a large paddock near the barn. Like any stallion, he would attack the geldings and try to drive them away or kill them if given the opportunity.

  On a selfish level, Kerney didn’t like the idea of getting rid of the stock and dissolving the business. He would then have no legitimate reason other than plain homesickness to make frequent trips back to the ranch.

  By sunup the horses were watered, fed, groomed, and inspected. He saddled Hondo, and with the exception of Comeuppance, he trailed the stock up the hill behind the ranch house into the fenced north pasture. He watched them for a while against the backdrop of the morning sun cascading over the slightly misty Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The geldings pranced and high-stepped while Patrick’s pony, Pablito, cantered off in the direction of the windmill. Sara’s favorite gelding, Gipsy, a bald-faced, dark sorrel, trotted back to the gate, snorted, and shook his head as if to signal his displeasure that Hondo couldn’t join him. Then he kicked up his heels and galloped away.

  The fun of being back at the ranch made him feel guilty all over again about Riley’s murder. He dismounted, unsaddled Hondo, and turned him loose in the pasture with Gipsy and the other stock. As he walked down the hill with saddle and bridle slung over his shoulder, he wondered what in the hell he could do about any of it.

  After breakfast, Kerney cleaned himself up, called Jack Burke, and asked if he could pay a visit. Usually a man of unbridled enthusiasm, Jack sounded emotionally numb and dispirited as he told Kerney to stop by anytime.

  Kerney said he was on his way and disconnected quickly to avoid blurting out anything about Riley’s death or Jack’s loss. He still had no idea what he might say, only that he needed to say it in person.

  The Burkes lived on a ranch road fifteen minutes from Kerney’s place, in a two-hundred-year-old hacienda sheltered by ancient cottonwoods at the edge of a broad, sandy arroyo. Kerney felt a sudden sense of dismay when he saw Riley’s pickup truck parked in front of the small, enclosed yard that bordered the nearby foreman’s cottage where Riley and Lynette had set up housekeeping.

  Jack greeted Kerney on the steps of the screened hacienda porch, shook his outstretched hand, and explained that Irene and Lynette were meeting with the pastor of their church to discuss the services for Riley.

  “I’m sorry I’ve missed them,” he said.

  Jack nodded listlessly as he ushered Kerney into the living room and gestured at the couch next to his favorite easy chair.

  Kerney sat, waited for Jack to settle himself, and asked, “Have the services been set?”

  “Not yet,” Jack replied. “We’re still arranging for family to come in. Mine from Deming and Lordsburg, Irene’s from Texas, Riley’s cousins from Spokane and Boise, and Lynette’s parents from Wyoming. It takes a while to get everybody together.”

  “I don’t have any words for you, Jack.”

  Burke held up his hand to stop Kerney. “That’s good, because there aren’t any, and they all ring hollow in my ears anyhow. Soon, we’ll gather to celebrate Riley’s life. You, Sara, and Patrick have to join us.”

  Kerney nodded affirmatively. Last night on the telephone, Sara told him her boss, the admiral, had approved her leave request, and she was ready to book a flight as soon as Kerney gave her the date for the funeral. “We’ll all be there.”

  “Good,” Jack replied, gazing down at his tightly clasped hands in his lap. “Good,” he said again, the word barely audible. He tried to brighten. “How is Patrick?’

  “He’s fine, Jack.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  For a long time, Kerney sat in silence with his friend, imagining how horrible it must feel to lose a son who’d grown into such a fine young man. Jack wasn’t crying or blinking back tears, but he was tensed up tight, every muscle in his hands, arms, face, and neck bunched and corded, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes.

  Kerney
wanted to tell Jack to let go, give in to the grief, and have a gut-wrenching cry, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he remained seated and unmoving on the couch for a long, uneasy time until Jack rose, excused himself, walked down the hallway to the bedroom he’d shared with Irene for over thirty years, and closed the door behind him.

  Kerney waited awhile for Jack to return. When he didn’t come back, he quietly let himself out. He drove home with a great sadness pressing down on him.

  After shooting the cop and the old lady on the highway outside Carrizozo, Craig Larson was camped out no more than thirty miles away in some mountains off a seldom-used Forest Service road.

  He didn’t know much about Lincoln County, and he’d been anxious to get off the pavement as soon as possible in case a swarm of cops was converging on him. After passing through the village of Capitan, he left the highway for a well-maintained dirt-and-gravel road that ran directly toward some northerly mountains. For several miles he traveled through grassy rangeland before gradually ascending toward what appeared to be a mountain gap. Soon he was driving through woodlands and he felt safe enough to stop and see what exactly there was in the truck.

  There were grocery bags on the floor in front of the passenger seat that he hadn’t had a chance to look into and others in the truck bed. He pawed through them and found an assortment of canned goods, coffee and other supplies, two large jars of spaghetti sauce, ground beef, eggs, carrots, potatoes, a large bag of apples, cheese, crackers, four gallon jugs of water, and basic toiletries including soap, shampoo, and women’s disposable razors. According to the sales receipt the woman had purchased them at an Albuquerque discount supermarket several hours before he’d shot her dead. The nice timing gave him a chuckle. What a bummer if he’d offed her before she’d done his shopping for him.