While the Savage Sleeps (6 page)

“
Mind if I take a look?”

“
Be my guest. Take you all of about … what … like, two seconds? Like I said, kid didn’t have much.”

Cameron walked over to the dresser, pulled open each drawer, and looked inside but found nothing other than a few polo shirts, underwear, and socks. After closing the final drawer, he thought for a moment, then looked at her. “Any idea where he might be right now?”

She threw her hands up. “Damned if I know.”

Cameron nodded, deliberating for a moment. “One last thing. Did Ryan have access to a hunting knife of any sort?”

Bobbi eyed him suspiciously. “Hunting knife?”

“
Yeah. Alma was killed with one,” he said, a reminder, even though he knew she needed none.

Bobbi’s eyes widened and her voice got defensive. “If he did, he sure as shit didn’t get it from me.”

“
I wasn’t suggesting that, ma’am, just wanted to know if he had access to any. If you ever saw him with one.”

She drew a ragged breath and thought—or at least that’s what she appeared to be doing—then said, “My husband had one, but that was a
long
time ago.”

“
Any idea where it is now?”

“
Haven’t got a clue.” Bobbi shrugged. “Wouldn’t even know where’ta start lookin’.”

“
Think harder, Ms. Kimmons.” Cameron took a step closer toward her.

Bobbi stepped back, shot him a look, then reflected. A moment later, she pointed toward the bedroom. “The trunk under my bed—that’s where I saw it last.

“
Can we check?”

She sighed, then gestured toward her bedroom.

Cameron went through. He knelt down by the bed, pulled out the trunk, and opened it.

No knife. Not anywhere.

Cameron looked up at Bobbi.

She said nothing; she didn’t have to, but her eyes revealed plenty: a combination of surprise, edged by uncertainty. Bobbi shifted her weight nervously from side to side.

Cameron closed the trunk.

“
Sheriff,” she said, shaking her head. “I got a strange feeling this is gonna end up bad …
Real
bad.”

Cameron had the same feeling.

Chapter
Ten

Old Route 15

Faith, New Mexico

Eleven-year-old Ben Foley sat straight up in bed. His pores flared open. His breathing accelerated. His heart began to pound.

Then thoughts began flooding his mind, violent ones that grew more volatile, more deadly with each passing second.

A feverish rage—or something like it—burned deep within his gut. The sensation began to rise and swell; it coursed through his veins, gathering intensity, spreading like wildfire. The feeling was now feeding upon itself, wheeling toward the desire to kill.

His energy was changing; he knew it. He felt different now: cool, enormously powerful, and dangerously bent on causing harm. The effect was wild and intoxicating. Eyes cold and vapid, movements robotic, he barely looked human.

He ran out into the hallway and snatched the rifle from a storage closet.

Staring vacantly ahead, the boy moved through the shadows and toward the other bedrooms, each step becoming more determined, more urgent. He dragged the gun behind him, its rusted barrel scraping against the hardwood and producing a high-pitched squeal; it sounded eerie, menacing.

Ben Foley went calmly from bedroom to bedroom. Each time he got to one, he stood in the doorway, raised the rifle, and took aim, gazing with indifference into the pleading eyes of those who loved him. Then, with the pinpoint accuracy of an expert marksman, he fired, extinguishing each life as if it meant nothing.

Nothing at all.

Earsplitting shots slapped at the air and traveled swiftly through the house, bouncing off walls, then moving outside where they evaporated into the evening air.

In a matter of just a few minutes, Ben had done the unthinkable, wiping out his entire family, the ones who had nurtured and loved him all his young life.

Effortlessly.

When he was done, he walked back down the hallway toward his bedroom, calm, detached, as if nothing had ever happened. Then, almost dutifully, he stepped into his closet, closed the door, and sat against the rear wall. Inserting the rigid metal barrel up into the roof of his mouth, he used his toe to engage the trigger. A muffled bang sounded off from inside the closet. And then there was silence.

Complete silence.

Unnatural stillness lingered afterward. The house, once filled with life, joy, and vitality had been transformed into something different—a place of violence, of death.

There was blood—lots of it—spattered in all directions and in every corner; it covered the walls like chaotic graffiti. Bodies lay on the floor in freakish and unnatural positions, as if posed.

But that wasn’t all that was left behind. Along with the carnage, the mess, the utter disarray, was also a question:
Why?

Why would an eleven-year-old boy gun down his whole family, then kill himself?

Only one person knew.

Unfortunately, Ben Foley took that answer with him to his grave.

Chapter
Eleven

Old Route 15

Faith, New Mexico

The neighborhood, once calm and quiet, became a storm of restless activity.

Blinding halogen lights bathed everything in a strange, icy glow, creating an almost theatrical presence. A twisting labyrinth of yellow crime tape wove in and out of trees and bushes, clinging precariously to anything that could hold it in place, encircling the perimeter like a giant tangle of snarled yarn.

News vans dotted both sides of the road. Before long, crews were set up, camped out, and ready to go, in time for the early-morning newscasts.

The Foley murders were big news, not just for Faith but also for the state of New Mexico, and the media delighted in covering them. In industry jargon, this was a “sexy” story, one with every
element to quench the public’s insatiable thirst
for the proverbial sex, drugs, and rock’n roll—something the stations eagerly sold, charging by the hour, dishing it out like soft-serve ice cream on a hot July day.

Suddenly, the neighborhood felt like a different place, the confusion driving the intensity to newer and higher levels. The accompanying sounds only added to the effect. A car door creaked open, then slammed. Radio chatter jammed the airwaves. A child cried.

All of it seemed surreal.

Closer to the house, a strange, haunting silence lingered thick in the air. The front door hung wide open, so far back on its hinges that it looked almost broken, a yellowy, incandescent light spilling out, bleeding into darkness. Beyond that were the locals—a crowd of them—gathered behind the tape, anxiously waiting and watching, their fearful eyes like mirrors reflecting tragedy.

* * *

6623 Hunter’s Run

Faith, New Mexico

Three-seventeen a.m.

Cameron was wrestling his way through a fitful sleep when the phone rang.

Bentley reacted automatically with a single, sharp bark.

“
Dawson,” he said with a groan, his voice gritty and tight. Calls at this hour spelled trouble. He’d had his share of that for the past few days. He didn’t need any more.

“
Avello, here,” said the deputy.

“
Yeah, Jim.”

“
We got problems, boss, big ones, over on Old Route 15, at the Foley House.”

Cameron could now hear commotion in the background.

“
The
Foleys
?”

“
Yes, sir,” Avery replied.

Cameron ran his palm over his face, then up toward his forehead where he held it for a moment, still trying to get his bearings. “What’s up at the Foley’s?”

“
More like, what went
down
at the Foley’s. Homicide, sheriff, times three.”

“
You’ve
got
to be kidding—”

“
No joke, boss. It’s bad … worst I’ve ever seen.”

“
Good Lord,” Cameron said. “What the hell’s going on around here?”

“
Dunno, but you’ll wanna come down here,” Avery said, “… and quick. Place is a madhouse. Crawling with news media … damned near all of ‘em, looks like.”

Cameron slammed the phone into its cradle and within minutes, was fully dressed, out the door, and on his way.

Chapter
Twelve

Old Route 15

Faith, New Mexico

When Cameron arrived at the house, things were already in full swing and moving quickly toward unqualified chaos.

An on-scene deputy waved him through so he could enter the area. As he pulled up, a few overzealous news crews tried to catch up with him, running alongside the car, shouting, and aiming their cameras directly into his windshield. Cameron had to shield his eyes to see where he was driving.

Deputy Chip Harkins met the sheriff as he stepped from his car.

“
It’s a massacre,” he said, looking at Cameron, then at the house, then back at Cameron again. “Bodies everywhere. And blood … lots of blood.”

Harkins was twenty-four years old and every bit as green as he appeared. A tight crew cut accentuated his boyish appearance, along with high cheekbones, awash in a flush of red—a good-looking kid by most anyone’s standards, in a high-school-football-star-turned-local-cop sort of way. He’d joined the department less than a year before and seemed anxious to prove his worth.

“
We know how all this started … or why?” Cameron asked as they reached the front of the house, stopping at the top of the steps.

Chip shook his head with more enthusiasm than the situation warranted. He was out of breath.

Cameron studied his eager expression, then poked his head through the doorway, peering down the foyer. He looked over the doorframe, following the weather-stripping from one end to the other, searching for signs of a breakin, then leaned in closer, inspecting the locking mechanisms, careful not to touch them with his hands. “How ‘bout a suspect?”

“
Got one,” said Chip, sticking a pen in his mouth and frantically flipping through the pages on his clipboard. “It’s the son, Ben.”

Cameron stopped what he was doing and felt the blood drain from his face. He looked up at Chip. “
Ben
? You’re telling me
Ben Foley
is the cause of all this?”

“
Hell, yeah … I mean … well, sure looks that way,” Chip replied. He frowned. “You know the kid?”

“
Ben, yeah, I knew him,” Cameron said, sighing, nodding. “Coached his Little League team last summer.”

“
Wow
,” the junior deputy said, shaking his head.

Cameron stared at Chip again, then gazed up at the second floor as if it were harboring some kind of secret. Memories of the previous summer flashed through his mind: a balmy evening in a dusty parking lot at the Dairy Queen. Kids in soiled uniforms perched on tailgates, feet dangling as they celebrated victory. Laughing. Hurrying to finish ice cream cones that were quickly melting in their small hands. Ben was there, too.

Chip had been talking, but Cameron barely heard a word of it. He was pretty sure he hadn’t missed much, catching only the tail end of a sentence. “You okay, boss?”

“
Is he in custody? Ben?” Cameron finally said after returning to the present. He surveyed the area, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m gonna need to speak to him.”

“
He’s dead, boss …”

Cameron flinched.

“
Killed himself. He’s still in there. Hey, you gonna be okay?” Chip asked, cocking his head and trying to make eye contact with his boss.

Cameron nodded but didn’t look back at Chip. Instead, he stared into the front entryway, wondering how the boy he’d taught to catch a fly ball could turn cold-blooded murderer.

Ben Foley a killer? Not even close.

Chapter
Thirteen

Old Route 15

Faith, New Mexico

Cameron passed through the front door, careful not to touch or disturb anything while trying to absorb his surroundings.

He stopped at the bottom of the staircase and took a deep, steady breath.

Climbing the steps, he looked down and scrutinized every inch he traveled, knowing even the smallest bit of evidence could turn out to be a big break. But when he reached the top, he got far more than he’d expected: stamped across the floor were small, bloody footprints that went past him, then vanished down the dimly lit hall. A
child’s footprints
, he thought, knowing they probably belonged to Ben. A sudden wave of nausea began to arc through him while thinking about the eleven-year-old boy, walking through the house, tracking his slain family’s blood on his feet.