Everyone Dies (19 page)

“We’re patrolling the tribal roads that lead to the trails into the mountains behind us,” Paul Hewitt said. “But nobody has been spotted, and the perp’s had more than enough time to clear the area. The feds are on the way, and once they get here, it’s their ball game. So for now, we’ll seal off the crime scene and get the sketch distributed to all personnel. That’s the best we can do until daylight.”

Kerney nodded and turned to Clayton. “I’d like a minute of your time.”

The officers, including Paul Hewitt, took the cue and filed out.

“Thanks for calling Grace,” Clayton said when they were alone.

“How is she doing?”

“She’s pretty shook up, but coping.”

“And the children?”

“Hannah’s too young to know what really happened, but Wendell’s taking it hard.”

“What about you?”

Clayton glanced away. “I’m trying not to think about it.” The strain showed clearly in his eyes.

Kerney changed the subject. “Aren’t you and the sheriff outside your jurisdiction?”

“No, all department officers are cross-deputized under an agreement with the tribal government.”

“Do you want me to talk to Grace?” Kerney asked.

“Yeah, she wants to know what’s going on. She’s at the back of the house with her parents and my mother.”

“I’d like to help out financially. After all, I’m the reason you’re all in this mess.”

Clayton shook his head. “We’ll be okay.”

He took Kerney into a family room where Grace, her parents, and Clayton’s mother, Isabel Istee, were waiting. Clayton introduced him to his in-laws, Orlin and Lillian Chatto, while Isabel took Hannah and Wendell out of the room. When she returned, Grace raised her dark eyes to Kerney’s face.

“Why has this happened?” she asked. She wore borrowed clothes that hung loosely on her slender frame, and her narrow-eyed gaze held a tangible pain.

“It’s complicated,” Kerney replied. “To put it simply we have a killer who’s seeking revenge. Who he is and why he’s doing it are still unknown.”

“Why did he try to kill us?” Grace asked.

“Because I’m Clayton’s father,” Kerney replied. “He wants all my blood relatives dead before he attempts to kill me. But I’m not his only target. He’s already murdered three people, and we believe the killings have something to do with an old criminal investigation of mine. Two of the victims worked with the courts. One was a former prosecutor and the other was an ex-forensic psychologist.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“It narrows down the field considerably,” Kerney answered. “We’re reviewing every possible suspect.”

“Will he try to hurt us again?”

“We won’t let him do that,” Kerney replied. “You’ll be protected.”

Grace looked at Clayton for confirmation, who nodded his head. “If you don’t know who he is, how can you stop him?” she asked in a disbelieving tone.

“He’ll make a mistake,” Kerney replied, “or the evidence we’ve collected and the work we’re doing will lead us to him.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I am.”

“You said he wants to kill everyone related to you.”

“Yes.”

“Including Sara?”

Kerney nodded. “She has twenty-four-hour police protection, just as you and the children will have as soon as you leave here.”

“And your baby. Has he been born yet?”

“He’s due any day.”

“Yet, with all of that you came here.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Kerney looked at Clayton. “Because for the sake of us all we have to catch this man.”

“Yes, you must,” Grace said, forcing a smile. “You saved our lives.”

“I think it was more a question of lucky timing,” Kerney said, as he looked directly at Clayton. “I would like to help you and your family recover from this.”

Orlin Chatto stood up before Clayton could respond. Probably Kerney’s age, he was barrel-chested with a slim waist. His nose was broad above a round, full chin.

“Perhaps such talk should wait,” he said, “until all of us have had time to think about what has happened.”

“Yes, of course,” Kerney replied, getting to his feet.

Orlin nodded. “It is late and we should go. Grace and the children will stay with us.”

“You’ll have a police escort and an officer will be on duty outside the house,” Clayton said to his wife.

“Will I see you in the morning?” Grace asked him.

“As soon as I can get free,” he said.

Isabel, who’d remained frozen in silence on the couch during the conversation, her hands clasped in her lap, rose and went to gather up the children. When they came into the room, Orlin Chatto shook Kerney’s hand, said good night, and ushered his wife outside. Grace, Clayton, and the children followed behind.

Kerney watched from the front door as Clayton put his family in his father-in-law’s car. The state police officer took the lead in his unit and the two vehicles slowly drove away.

Isabel brushed past him in the doorway and turned to face him. An expression of cold anger, which had been carved across her face from the moment she saw him, remained.

Kerney looked at the woman who in his distant past had once meant so much to him. Eyes that had once danced with humor now flared with accusation, and her soft mouth was a thin, angry line.

As a cop, he’d taken the brunt of people’s misplaced outrage many times before. But this time it felt justified. He waited for her to confront him, but she left without saying a word, stopping only to give Clayton a hug before hurrying to her car.

“Are you leaving?” Clayton asked as he drew near.

“Not yet,” Kerney answered. “I want to see what turns up at the crime scene. It could yield some important evidence.”

“Thanks for not going into too much detail with the family.”

“It would have only served to upset them more than they already are. Grace handled it well.”

“She’s a strong person.”

“Yes, she is,” Kerney said, reaching for his cell phone. “I need to make some phone calls.”

“I’ll let you know when the feds get here.”

Kerney searched Clayton’s face. Although he was still keeping the lid on, the strain had become more visible, especially around his mouth. He wondered when Clayton would let himself feel something. It needed to happen soon.

“Good deal,” he said.

Clayton left Kerney at the house and checked in with tribal dispatch on his handheld. Officers were still out on the back roads, the fire was out, firefighters were scouring the surrounding woods looking for any flare-ups, and Perry Dahl had returned to the bomb site, accompanied by officers who’d secured the perimeter.

He disconnected and started walking through the trees in the direction of the spot where his home had once stood. He forced himself to move at a steady pace and tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see. Ahead, the spotlights and headlights of police cruisers and several fire trucks broke the darkness, illuminating the ruins of his home. Crime scene tape had been strung across his driveway, and officers were posted at strategic locations.

He approached quietly, not wanting to be seen. They’d lost all the landscape trees at the front of the house as well as a stand of pines on the back of the lot. The charred trunks of the tallest trees rose thirty feet into the sky.

Where the house had stood there was nothing but rubble. Large, twisted sections of the corrugated metal roof partially covered the few standing walls, and the metal headboard of Wendell’s twin bed jutted through a shattered window frame.

He moved closer and looked away from the light, letting his night vision adjust. What appeared to be the refrigerator lay on its side next to his two burned-out vehicles, both of them resting on wheel rims over black puddles of melted rubber.

He saw a flashlight beam at the rear of the house and Dahl came into view, casting his light over the littered concrete pad where the new tool shed had been, then over the remnants of the propane tank scattered under some trees that had been burned halfway up the canopy. If the fire department hadn’t been standing by before the explosion, the whole forest could have gone up in flames.

The swing set and slide had been taken out by the exploding gas tank, and the vegetable garden was nothing more than a scorched plot enclosed by the post-and-wire fence.

It was worse than he’d imagined. His hands were shaking, so he stuffed them into his trouser pockets. He started to sweat in the cool night as a lump rose up in his throat and he thought about what might have happened to Grace and the children. He waited for the dizzy feeling of shock to pass. Finally, his heart stopped pounding in his chest and the tremors in his arms and legs lessened.

He watched Dahl put his dog in his unit and drive away. Quickly, he made his way back toward the Naiches’ house, trying to convince himself that the burning sensation in his eyes came from the lingering smoke and soot in the air. He saw Perry Dahl talking to Kerney and Sheriff Hewitt at the front of Eugene and Jeannie’s house and hurried to join them.

“What have I missed?” Clayton asked as he reached the men.

Bits of ash clung to Dahl’s short-cropped hair and speckled his unshaved face. His shoes and trousers were caked with black soot and mud. Clementine, his German shepherd, sat at his feet busily cleaning gobs of muck from her front paws.

“Not much,” Dahl replied, as he reached down to scratch Clementine’s head. “I just started my briefing. I’m thinking the plastique was homemade, which means there won’t be any detection agent that could lead us back to a manufacturer.”

Dahl unsnapped Clementine’s leash. “The two charges were shaped to do maximum damage upwards through the floor. I’d say they were a pound each. One was placed next to the gas line that ran under and up into the house from the outside propane tank, which guaranteed a secondary explosion.”

“Where was the second charge placed?” Clayton asked.

“Facing the house from here, on the left side,” Dahl replied. He wrapped the leash around his hand and stuck it in his back pocket. “Which I assume is where the bedrooms were located.”

Clayton nodded and said nothing.

“What kind of chemical agents were used?” Kerney asked.

“That will have to wait until we can run some tests,” Dahl answered. “But it could’ve been anything from a potassium or chlorate compound, a phenol derivative, to an antifreeze concoction treated with calcium chloride then filtered to remove the water and the calcium chloride, which is my best guess right now.”

“Why do you say that?” Hewitt asked.

“Because it acts like a nitro-gelatin explosive, which means it’s highly flammable, and there was fire almost immediately after the explosion on both sides of the house.”

“Do you have anything that can help us find the perp?” Kerney asked.

“The hardware that was used is our best bet,” Dahl said. “Based on what I saw, I’m thinking he built everything from scratch, which means he had to buy the components somewhere. But more than that, I’d also be looking for someone with electronics experience, who is good with his hands, has had some formal training, and has a basic understanding of chemistry.”

“An amateur couldn’t do it?” Clayton asked, forcing himself to stay focused on the subject. He wanted to find the asshole and kill him.

“He’d have to be very gifted,” Dahl replied. “No matter what you’ve heard about bomb-making instructions on the Internet, none of this stuff is that easy to do, especially the electronics.”

“Give us an example,” Hewitt said.

“A radio detonator was used to trigger the charges placed inside the house,” Dahl replied. “To do that the perp had to accomplish two things to ensure success: first, use a microwave transmitter so the signal would penetrate into the structure, and second, shield the signal so that a random transmission wouldn’t prematurely set off the plastique. That takes a high degree of knowledge and skill.”

“So we start checking electronic suppliers to see who has been buying what,” Kerney said, “and look for a perp with some formal training or education in the field.”

“Yeah,” Dahl said. “I can work up a list of what I think he used to build the device and start calling supply houses and retailers. And if I can find any intact pieces of the wire he used, that might be helpful. But don’t get your hopes up. If he was smart, he bought from a lot of different places, probably off the Internet and by mail order.”

“What else?” Clayton asked.

“I’ll see what the feds have on known bombers with similar MOs. Also, most of these guys like to watch their shows, especially the big blasts, and this one was designed for maximum devastation. You might get lucky in the morning and find a shoe print or some trace evidence on a trail or at the spot where he detonated the explosion.”

An unmarked car pulled up next to Clayton’s unit and two feds got out.

Kerney looked at Clayton’s mud-caked boots. He’d been to the site, of that he was certain. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“If you want to bail out, you can,” Hewitt added.

Clayton shook his head and managed a thin smile. “I’m just pissed off, big time. It sucks to be a victim.”

The two feds approached, flashed their shields, and immediately started asking questions.

Kerney had been unable to contact only one person on his list of those who knew about Clayton, the executor of Erma Fergurson’s estate, a man named Milton Lynch. Lynch was a probate and tax attorney based in Las Cruces, a hundred miles away.

It was Erma’s legacy that had made Kerney a rich man, and Lynch had handled all the paperwork, including the college funds Kerney had set up for Wendell and Hannah.

At dawn, Clayton went into the mountains hoping to cut the perp’s trail. Kerney radioed the chopper pilot and asked him to get clearance to fly to Las Cruces over the restricted airspace of White Sands Missile Range before he sought out Paul Hewitt.