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Authors: Michael McGarrity

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BOOK: Dead or Alive
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A small department, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office had only a few sworn personnel to patrol a county larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined and then some. When first elected, Hewitt had pledged to the voters that his department would provide round-the-clock coverage. Although at times he was stretched thin by officer vacancies, family emergencies, and mandatory training and annual leave requirements, he'd managed to keep that promise, mostly by going out and pulling patrol shifts himself.
Hewitt actually enjoyed working patrol when the occasion arose. It got him back in touch with the rigors of the day-to-day grind his deputies faced and the law enforcement issues and needs that mattered most to his constituents. It also gave him an opportunity to connect with the residents of some of the smaller settlements and villages scattered throughout the county, which often got overlooked until something bad happened.
With three decades of policing under his belt, Hewitt was alert and watchful by second nature as he cruised the county roads in and around the settlements of Tinnie, Hondo, San Patricio, and Glencoe. It had been a quiet morning. He'd stopped several tourists on state highways for speeding, and because he was driving an unmarked, slick-top unit, he issued verbal warnings to them instead of tickets. He'd helped a young woman on her way to work change a flat tire, made a close patrol of several neighborhoods in the fast-growing residential community of Alto, outside of Ruidoso, where some recent burglaries had occurred, and taken a coffee break at a roadside diner owned by a buddy who'd once been a fellow officer in the Alamogordo PD.
Back in his vehicle, which had everything but official police markings and an emergency light bar on the roof, Hewitt drove a long loop that took him from Lincoln to Fort Stanton and on to Capitan, before heading back toward Carrizozo. Traffic had been light all morning, with an occasional big rig on the main east-west, north-south roadways, a few recreational vehicles slowly navigating the climb through the hills to the mesa behind Fort Stanton, and some of the rural folks on their way to town.
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 the 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?
BOOK: Dead or Alive
8.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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