by Aimée Thurlo
She nodded. “So you have a personal stake in this….”
Nakai leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. “I knew the victim through my wife, but I’m the head of the violent-crimes division. That’s the reason I’m working this case, not because I’m worried about who our killer might target next. Judging from what we know about him, this guy isn’t likely to strike in the same place twice.”
“I had a brush with the suspect at the Flagstaff crime scene and I’ve got a feel for him. Is there any way I can take a look at the crime scene where Coach was murdered?”
Nakai considered it, then nodded. “Yeah. It’s still cordoned off but the lab boys have finished going over everything. Not that anyone would go near there now, mind you.”
“Are people afraid the killer might come back?” Laura asked.
“No, it’s because of the chindi,” he said, picking up his keys. “Come on. I’ll take you over. Just follow me. Coach lived in a rural area about ten miles south of Shiprock.”
Driving his department’s SUV, Nakai led the way west over the river, then south in the direction of Gallup. As the miles stretched out she could tell from Travis’s silence that something was bothering him.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“You held out on Nakai by not letting him know that the suspect has you in his sights.”
“He doesn’t, not really. With that rifle, he hit precisely what he was aiming at. The few rounds that got close were only meant to rattle me.”
“I really wish I knew how he’s finding us. More than once now he’s managed to get the intelligence he needed to pinpoint our location.”
“That’s the reason I can’t spend two nights in a row anywhere,” Laura said. “I have to take all the precautions I can until we find answers.”
“Hole up with my dog somewhere for a few days. I’ll stay on the case,” he said.
“That’s not going to happen.” Another silence followed and she turned to look at Ship Rock, that majestic twin-peaked volcano formation that resembled a long-lost sailing vessel.
“Talk to me,” Laura pressed at last. “What’s really bugging you?”
“What do you intend to do once we catch the suspect? Will you step aside and let me take him into custody?” he said, looking directly at her then back to the road.
Now she knew what was troubling him. Travis was afraid of vigilante justice. She understood his concern. Police officers, and those who worked in the field, weren’t immune to it. A close look at a judicial system that often worried more about the letter of the law than the rights of its victims had made cynics out of many.
“I’m not going to throw my life away to exact revenge on this slimeball,” she said.
“All right,” he said with a nod. “I needed to hear you say it.”
“I also won’t betray your trust in me,” she said.
“I know. Something…binds us.”
“Yes,” she answered, but like him she refused to define it. Silencing the yearnings still inside her, she focused on a question he’d never really answered for her.
“You’ve got a steady job and a nice house. How come you haven’t found yourself a wife? I know you’ve got no shortage of candidates.”
He gave her a grin that could have stopped hearts. “I enjoy my freedom too much to be tied down, I suppose. Eventually I’ll settle down, but until then, I can usually find company when I’m in the mood for companionship.”
“I’ll bet,” she grumbled.
Their eyes met and for a brief second awareness charged the air. She fought the desire to touch him, to see if the magic was real.
With effort, she looked away and feigned great interest in the gray-green mountains to the west. If she got too close to the fire she was bound to get burned.
Chapter Ten
After ten more minutes, they arrived at an old stucco house that stood alone in the middle of a long, gently rolling slope. The victim’s screams, had she somehow managed to call for help, wouldn’t have reached her neighbors, even in the dead of night.
Travis parked beside Nakai’s vehicle. The house, with its pitched roof, was small and plain looking, but the blue paint on the wood trim was fresh.
Nakai led them into the living room, where Travis told Crusher to stay.
As Laura glanced around the interior, she began to get a better idea of who Coach had been. She might have excelled as a teacher and out on the softball field, but she sure wasn’t a nest builder. There was barely enough furniture inside the house to get by.
“How long has she lived here?” Laura asked.
“About three months,” Nakai answered after checking his notes. “It’s a rental.”
“Where was her body found and by whom?” Laura asked.
“She was in the bedroom, laid out like the bodies at the other crime scenes. One of her students found her. The boy lives in one of those homes closer to the highway. She’d hired him to help her fix the fence.”
Laura walked into the bedroom, trying to get a feel for the place. Only a mattress on a wood frame filled the room.
“There’s a small photo or painting missing from above the bed,” Travis said, standing at the bedroom door, taking in the room from there. “You can see the outline if you’re standing at just the right angle.”
She looked at the area but it wasn’t apparent at first glance. As she moved in closer, she finally saw what he meant.
Nakai checked his notes. “We never found it, but it was supposed to be a postcard of Times Square in New York City. She wanted to go there someday.”
“Trophy maybe?” Travis asked, looking at Laura.
“It’s possible,” she said. Then, letting instinct guide her, she moved to the closet and studied the shoes at the bottom. Coach hadn’t been a shoe freak. There were only two pairs, a set of pumps and a pair of Western boots. “She wasn’t big on the girlie shoe thing, but she should have at least had a pair of athletic shoes….”
“Let me check,” Nakai said. After a moment spent going over his notes, he finally answered her. “No athletic shoes of any type were found here at the scene. The victim was barefoot. I should have noticed that discrepancy before. I went through the clothes scattered on the floor and assumed that she’d been going barefoot around the house. My bad.”
Laura turned around slowly, her gaze on the floor. She then got down on her knees and looked beneath the bed, but found nothing there. “A cord was used to strangle the victim?” she asked, standing back up.
“Yes,” Nakai answered.
Travis walked around the house but Laura remained in the bedroom where the crime had gone down. She was missing something important. She could feel it in her gut.
Nakai didn’t interrupt her thoughts; he moved silently out of the room.
Lost in thought, Laura sat on the edge of the mattress and glanced around. The Tribal Police had gone through everything here. She’d find no answers in this room. What she had to do is go where they hadn’t.
“Did you search along the road leading back to the highway, just in case something was discarded by the killer?” she asked, going to the bedroom door.
Nakai checked his notes. “Yes, but only for a hundred yards or so. You think we might find the missing sneakers out there someplace?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but we should give it a try,” she said.
“I don’t see him taking both of them and that postcard.”
Travis released Crusher and let him identify the victim’s scent by showing him one of the available shoes. “He’s a good tracker. If there’s anything out there, he’ll find it.”
Travis allowed Crusher to take the lead as they searched along the left-hand side of the road—the departing driver’s side. Keeping a sharp eye out, they moved parallel to each other, concentrating on the distance they estimated a driver could have hurled a shoe out the car window.
They had walked nearly a half mile when Crusher suddenly raced out ahead of Travis, barking. He sto
pped beside some brush about fifty feet from the road and sat still, waiting.
“Whatcha got, guy?” Travis asked, hurrying up. He reached into the middle of the brush with a gloved hand, and brought out one high-end athletic shoe.
“It’s missing a shoelace,” Laura noted, coming up. “The suspect probably used it to strangle her and kept it as a trophy.”
Crusher ran a little farther ahead, then sat and barked.
“And there’s the second shoe, lying on its side in the dirt. It’s still laced,” Travis said.
“Getting prints from those shoes will be next to impossible, especially since it’s rained since the murder,” Nakai said as they went to retrieve it.
“Even under optimum conditions, this guy never leaves prints behind. He’s an animal, but a cunning one,” Laura said.
They checked a little farther, wanting to make sure they didn’t miss anything, then crossed the road. Under Travis’s watchful gaze, Crusher worked his way back to the house, but there was nothing new to find.
After signing the evidence packet over to Detective Nakai, Travis loaded Crusher into the backseat and, with Laura next to him, drove back to Three Rivers.
They arrived at the station forty-five minutes later and headed directly to Travis’s desk. They’d both been hoping that the Flagstaff police had finally given them full access to their files, but soon found that their request was still pending.
“More bureaucratic nonsense,” Travis grumbled.
Laura sat next to him, looking at the computer screen before them, her hand on Crusher’s massive head. Something about Mister C. always seemed to calm her. “Anything new in the crime reports?”
“One thing. Detective Koval met the owners of the medical-supply place that carries the ether sold in this area, a Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Rice. Something about the husband and wife struck him as off somehow but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Koval had planned a follow-up visit, but the IRS contacted the department and he was ordered to back off.”
“But we haven’t been warned off. So why don’t you and I pay the Rices a visit? It’s after five. They should be home by now. We can pretend to be looking into a neighborhood burglary and play it off-the-cuff.”
They rode across town into a high-end neighborhood near a private golf course.
“I used to dream of living in a place like this,” she said.
“But not anymore?” he asked, reading what she’d left unsaid.
“My priorities have changed. As you get older you realize that it’s what’s in the home that’s important, not what it looks like.”
As his eyes held hers, longings she didn’t dare acknowledge filled her. Yielding to temptation, she reached for his hand. At that instant Crusher pressed a cold nose to the back of her neck and she jumped.
Travis laughed. “He’s trying to tell you that no home’s complete without a cold nose and wagging tail.”
“Agreed,” she said, petting the dog and chuckling.
The Rices lived in an old Spanish-style mansion with a red tiled roof, high wall and a big motorized iron gate. “Looks like their business is doing great,” Laura said.
“Maybe too well. The IRS is after them, so there’s no telling what kind of scam they’re running.”
Before he could pull into the driveway, a flicker of movement among several cars parked to the side caught Travis’s eye. He pressed hard on the accelerator, speeding up and not making the turn.
“What the heck are you doing?” she asked, uncurling her fingers from the armrest.
“Chief Detective Harry Koval. I caught him signaling me from one of those sedans,” he said, gesturing to his left. As he circled the block, a sedan suddenly appeared behind them, Koval at the wheel.
Travis parked on a side street within view of the Rice home, then went out with Laura to meet Koval. A man wearing a gray suit stood beside the detective. Travis didn’t recognize him.
“What are you doing here, Blacksheep?” Koval demanded.
“My leads brought me here,” Travis said in a cool, almost detached tone. “I need to take a look at Rice—the husband—before we can rule him out as the serial killer. What’s going on?”
“I’m Agent Martin Kincaid—FBI,” the man wearing the suit said. “We’ve combined forces with the IRS and have scheduled a simultaneous raid on the Rice home and their place of business. They’ve got sensitive financial records our agencies need to access and we don’t want to give them time to destroy any documents. The Bureau has reason to believe they’re scamming Medicare with phony claims and then using the money for drug trafficking. Since the IRS has evidence of unreported income, we’re using their clout to look at their books.”
“So why haven’t you moved in? What’s the holdup?” Laura asked.
“The federal judge who was supposed to sign the warrant just had a heart attack. Our people are meeting with another judge right now.”
Laura nodded, understanding. “You’re afraid the Rices might get tipped off and bolt. That’s why you’re watching the residence.”
“We have reason to believe that the incriminating invoices are kept in a safe inside their home office. Unfortunately, we can’t stop them if they decide to shove everything in a suitcase and take off before the warrant arrives. What we can do is stay on their tail until we can move in. Our informant, their housekeeper, has told us that they’re busy packing as we speak,” Kincaid said.
“Why don’t you let Detective Blacksheep and me go in and talk to them about their sales of ether? That links to a different crime. If they think the department’s interested in them for another reason altogether, it might get them to lower their guard and buy you more time.”
Kincaid considered it, looked over at Koval and nodded to Travis. “Go for it,” Kincaid said.
Laura and Travis parked across the street, then, leaving Crusher by the SUV, crossed to the massive wooden double door.
Laura could feel a rush of adrenaline coursing through her body. The thrill of the chase… This was one reason she’d chosen to work criminal investigations as often as possible. She needed something to keep her blood pumping. She glanced at Travis. Of course, after hours, there were other ways…
“I’m taking the lead. Remember you’re not wearing a badge,” Travis said.
“No problem.”
“Stay calm and don’t go off half-cocked if Rice happens to fit the suspect profile.”
Moments later they were ushered inside by a wary housekeeper. As they walked down a long hallway, they saw four large, leather suitcases sitting by a closed door.
“Your business?” the housekeeper asked, her eyes narrowed as they entered what looked like the den. It was obvious Kincaid hadn’t had a chance to let her know what was going on.
“We’re trying to track the theft of a container of ether,” Travis said.
A minute later, a tall man with silver hair walked into the room. His polo shirt accentuated a belly large enough to nearly conceal his silver belt buckle and snakeskin belt. One look assured Laura that he wasn’t their man—even if he had a boatload of charm. A quick glance at Travis let her know that he’d arrived at the same conclusion.
“I’m Daniel Rice. My housekeeper said something about a theft of ether? I spoke to another detective about that just yesterday,” he said, inviting them to sit down with a wave of his hand. “Don’t you officers share your information?”
Travis nodded. “We just needed to follow up on a few more details. You’re the main supplier in this area. Have you sold small amounts of ether to any new customers, say in the past six months?”
“The other detective wasn’t so specific. He only asked if we’d had any thefts at our warehouse,” he said. “To answer your question, I’m going to have to check my records. Does this have something to do with that recent murder over by Shiprock? I read about that in the Totah Times.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Travis answered.
Rice nodded, then walked to a big rolltop desk.
“It’ll take me a minute or two,” he said as he accessed a large-screen laptop computer.
“I’d like a list of your customers, too,” Travis said, “those who’ve purchased ether within the past year.”
“I won’t do that, but you’re welcome to take a look at my inventory sheet. As far as I know, we haven’t had any ether disappear from our facility.” Rice called up a file, then stood and waved for Travis to take a look. “That’s everything. We don’t stock that much nowadays, but as you can see, our sales patterns have held steady and we’ve had no thefts. There’s nothing unusual there.”
Travis took a look. “Thanks for your time.”
Laura and Travis left the house and joined Crusher at the SUV. As Travis placed the key in the ignition, two police cruisers, as well as Koval’s unmarked car, came up the street from both directions.
“I guess they got their warrant,” Travis said.
Almost simultaneously, one of the doors to the Rices’s four-car garage opened. An expensive black sedan raced out, heading for the street.
“Hang on.” Travis reacted instantly, cutting hard to the left and burning rubber as he whipped the SUV around. Swerving to the right, he blocked the gate with the front end of his unit.
The black car screeched to a stop, Marilyn Rice at the wheel. Daniel Rice leaned out the passenger-side window, handgun pointed at them. “Get out of the way!” he yelled.
“Down!” Travis shouted. Crusher obeyed, bending low in the backseat.
Laura ducked and yanked out her weapon as Koval and a dozen other officers ran up and moved into flanking positions, their weapons all aimed at the sedan.
Travis jumped out. Using his door for cover, he added his firepower to the roadblock.
“Place your weapons down on the seat and come out slowly with your hands in the air,” Kincaid ordered Rice and his wife. “You’re surrounded.”
Daniel Rice came out first, followed by Marilyn. As a plainclothes officer handcuffed the pair, Koval joined Travis and Laura.
