Hermit's Peak (33 page)

Gabe turned and looked Kerney in the eye. “Sorry, Chief. I was way out of line. I've been acting half-crazy.”

Kerney studied the mounted antelope in the store window, a centerpiece display for the chain saws arranged on tree stumps and wood logs at the animal's feet.

“You have cause,” Kerney said. “No apology necessary. Let it slide.”

“Did you jump on Thorpe for lying about how he lost Bernardo?”

“I read him out royally. He stays on the job.”

“He's a good kid.” Gabe shook his head. “Jesus, cops. We're a crazy bunch, aren't we?”

“Sometimes we are.”

Inside the store, rows of caps and hats were hung on lines that ran above the center aisle, and cattle brands burned into wood boards were nailed to the walls above the shelves.

“Yeah, Bernardo was in this morning checking on something at the order desk,” the manager said.

In his early thirties, the man looked impatient and
not at all happy to have cops in the store distracting his customers.

“Who did he speak to?” Gabe asked.

“Jessica talked to him.”

Gabe glanced at the young woman standing behind the center aisle order counter. She was blonde and very Anglo looking. “Where is Jessica now?”

“That's her at the desk.”

“Is her last name Varela?”

“You got it.”

“Can you relieve her for a few minutes and give us a place where we can talk?” Kerney asked.

“Sure. Use the break room in the back. I'll have Jessica meet you there.”

Just off the receiving dock, the break room doubled as a storage room for excess inventory. Jessica Varela entered and pushed some strands of hair away from her face.

“What's this all about?” Her voice carried a childlike quality.

“You spoke to Bernardo Barela this morning,” Kerney said.

“I don't know why he came in.” Jessica kept her head slightly lowered and gave Kerney a sidelong, timid look. “He knew the fence post driver he'd ordered wouldn't get here for another ten days. I told him that earlier in the week.”

“Did he talk to you about anything else?” Kerney asked.

“He always tries to talk to me. I don't mind it if I'm not busy.”

“What did he talk about?” Gabe asked.

“This morning?”

“Yes.”

“Silly stuff. He wanted to know if I liked to study and do homework with other students in my classes.”

“He knows you go to the university?” Kerney asked.

“Sure.”

“What else does he know about you?” Gabe asked.

“That I'm divorced and that I moved up here from Albuquerque. How old I am. That's about it.”

“Has he tried to date you?” Kerney asked.

Jessica shook her head and her long hair covered one eye. “I think he'd like to, but he hasn't asked. I'd turn him down anyway. He's too young and I'm not interested in dating. After what I've been through, men aren't very popular with me right now.”

“What, exactly, did you tell him about your study habits?”

“Just that I like to study alone, and with my job and school and all I don't have a lot of time to socialize and stuff.”

“Did you mention there was an apartment for rent in your building?” Gabe asked.

“Why would I do that?”

“He didn't ask?”

“Why should he? He doesn't know where I live.”

“Have you ever seen Bernardo away from the store?” Kerney asked.

“No, just here. Did Bernardo do something wrong?”

“What time do you get off work?” Gabe said.

“Today? At five. Then I go straight to the library and study before my classes.”

“What time do you get home from classes?” Kerney asked.

“Nine-thirty. You're scaring me with these questions. What's going on?”

“We think Bernardo is a stalker,” Kerney said.

“And he's stalking me?” Jessica's voice quivered.

“Possibly.”

“What should I do?”

“Keep to your normal routine,” Gabe said. “We'll be watching Bernardo.”

“What about me? Who'll be protecting me?”

“There will be a plainclothes officer following you when you leave work,” Kerney said. “You'll be under constant observation.”

“For how long?”

“Until the situation is resolved. I'd like to take a look inside your apartment.”

“What for?”

“To make sure Bernardo hasn't been there.”

“Do you think he may have?”

“It's possible. I'll need your key.”

“I have a spare.” Jessica reached for her purse, extracted a key chain, and gave Kerney a house key with a shaky hand. “I never should have moved here,” she said. “I hate this town.”

 • • • 

Kerney sent Gabe off on a door-to-door canvas of one part of Jessica's neighborhood while he covered the other. He worked the street behind Jessica's apartment, half expecting to find Gabe gone when he returned.

The last place he stopped was a one-story adobe
with a deep portal and territorial moldings around the windows. An old hacienda that had somehow survived the neighborhood's late-nineteenth-century conversion to Victorian architecture, it had been transformed into apartments with a series of doors that opened on to the portal.

At the last apartment, a young man, no more than five four, answered Kerney's knock. Kerney showed him Bernardo's picture.

“I saw him sitting in a pickup truck,” the young man said, pointing to a spot across the street.

“When was that?”

“On my way to my one o'clock.”

“He was just sitting in the truck?”

“That's all I saw.”

“How long was he there?”

“I don't know.”

Gabe was waiting on the sidewalk in front of Jessica's apartment when Kerney turned the corner.

“Did you get anything?” Gabe asked as Kerney approached.

“Bernardo was parked a block over at about one o'clock. Did you?”

“Nothing.”

With Gabe at his heels, Kerney checked the front door, found it locked, walked to the backyard, and tried the rear door to the empty apartment. The doorknob turned and he stepped inside the kitchen of the empty apartment.

Gabe moved to the sink. “This window is unlatched,” he said.

“I think Bernardo is ready to make his move,” Kerney said.

“I hope you're right, Chief,” Gabe said as he stared out the window. “What's Orlando got to do with this?” he asked softly, almost to himself.

It wasn't Kerney's question to answer. By now, Gabe had to suspect Orlando and Bernardo were somehow linked together in the Luiza San Miguel slaying. Maybe Orlando had been just a witness to the rape and murder, or maybe he was an equal partner in the crime. Whatever fell out, it was impossible to dismiss Orlando's disappearance as a coincidence.

“Let's see what pans out,” Kerney replied.

They took a quick tour of Jessica's apartment to check the layout.

 • • • 

Bernardo threw the empty beer can out the truck window and popped open another one. There were only a few old dudes fishing along the shore of the lake at the Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge. The wintering waterfowl were gone for the season and without the birds as an attraction nobody but fishermen, a few curious tourists, and occasional picnickers came to the place during the spring and summer.

Situated on the high plains a few miles outside of Las Vegas, there wasn't much to the refuge—just marshes, the lake, cornfields planted to lure and feed migrating birds, and a view of the mountains.

Bernardo swallowed some beer, thought about Jessica Varela, and got a warm feeling in his groin. Everything he knew about her told him she was going to do
exactly what he wanted, the way he wanted. Which meant he'd be able to save the best for last. That made Bernardo smile. He was going to have a real good time.

He finished the beer, flipped the can out the window, and fired up the truck. Everything was set to go. The cops were off his case, Orlando was dead and buried, and Jessica would be all alone in her apartment with no downstairs tenants for him to worry about. It couldn't be better.

On the highway into town, a state police cruiser passed him going in the opposite direction. He smiled and waved, and the cop waved back. He watched in his rearview mirror. The cop kept heading south without slowing. Cops, including Orlando's old man and that gringo with the limp, were stupid fuckers.

He checked the time. He had a couple of hours of work to do at home in the horse barn. Then he'd eat supper, clean up real good, and get ready for his date with Jessica.

 • • • 

Beasly and his prospective renters showed up late and didn't leave until eight o'clock. Kerney and Gabe waited until they drove away before approaching the house. Ben Morfin, who'd been glued to Barela since he'd been sighted on the highway, came on Kerney's handheld as they crossed the street.

“He's moving toward town.”

“Shit,” Kerney said as he unlocked the front door. “ETA?”

“Traffic is light,” Ben said. “Five minutes, max.”

“Talk him in to me.”

“Copy that,” Ben said.

With Gabe behind him, Kerney hurried up the stairs. He opened the door and used his flashlight to scan the front room. It was crammed with furniture. In the middle of the room, a Victorian loveseat faced a bentwood rocker and two walls of books sat on shelves made out of bricks and boards. Under the front window, an arrangement of plants in ceramic pots filled the top of an occasional table. Magazines and newspapers littered a glass-top coffee table and spilled over onto the floor.

“ETA two minutes,” Ben said. “He's coming your way.”

“Check the bedroom,” Kerney said to Gabe as he opened the entry closet. It was small and stuffed with coats, jackets, boots, mops, brooms, and an upright vacuum cleaner.

“Clear,” Gabe said as he came out of the bedroom.

Kerney threw an armload of coats in Gabe's arms. “Put this stuff on the bed.” He grabbed the vacuum cleaner, mop, broom, and a few more coats, followed Gabe into the bedroom, and dumped the load on the floor.

“He parked three blocks away,” Ben said. “He's on foot and carrying a small bag.”

“Roger that,” Kerney said, turning to Gabe. “I'll take the bedroom. You take the closet.”

“I want first crack at him, Chief,” Gabe said.

“Do it by the book, Lieutenant.”

Gabe didn't answer.

Kerney shined his flashlight in Gabe's face. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“Two blocks,” Ben said.

Kerney clicked his send button to acknowledge Ben's transmission. “I want Barela all the way inside, understand? We don't move until we see what he does.”

Gabe nodded, switched off his flashlight, and got inside the closet.

In the bedroom, Kerney fanned his flashlight quickly over the room before killing it. The beam illuminated a row of teddy bears on a dresser top, a desk that held a lamp, clock radio, and laptop computer, and a mattress and box springs that sat on the floor covered by a comforter. The apartment felt like a hideout from the world. Kerney doubted that another human being had been invited to the apartment since the day Jessica moved in.

“He's in the garage at the back of the house,” Ben said.

“We're going off the air,” Kerney said. “Two radio clicks mean you move, Gabe.”

“Ten-four.”

Kerney left the bedroom door slightly ajar so he could see into the living room. With Gabe positioned in the closet, once Bernardo gained entry, he'd be boxed in.

Kerney glanced out the bedroom window. A gusting wind buffeted branches of an elm tree against the glass. He wondered what Gabe would do once he got his hands on Bernardo. Kerney wanted answers as badly as Gabe. Should he let Gabe step over the line, or hold him back?

The sound of footsteps on the stairs made Kerney stop thinking about Gabe. He heard the rattling of tools, followed by the sound of a hammer striking metal. It made no sense until Kerney realized Bernardo was taking
the door off the hinges. The first pin popped free and clanged against the wood floor of the landing.

Two more pins fell and Kerney heard the scrape of metal against metal as Bernardo pulled the locked door free. It thudded against the threshold. A brief silence was followed by the sound of the hammer striking metal again as Bernardo rehung the door. Then the door closed and the deadbolt clicked into place.

Through the crack of the door, Kerney could see the beam of Bernardo's flashlight sweep across the living room. Bernardo put the flashlight on the coffee table, dropped to his knees, took a blanket out of the bag, and spread it on the floor. He reached into the bag again, removed a long-handled butcher knife, and placed it on the blanket. He brought out two candles, placed them on the coffee table, and lit them. Then he sat on the blanket, stripped to the waist, and started sharpening the knife with a whetstone. Finished, he put the knife down, stood up, and walked to the bedroom door.

Kerney took a step back, clicked the transmit button twice to signal Gabe, and tossed the handheld on the bed. When the door opened, he stepped forward and slapped the barrel of his semiautomatic against Bernardo's mouth. Barela reeled back into Gabe's arms.

Gabe spun him quickly, slammed him against the wall, and stuck his weapon into Bernardo's bloodied mouth, breaking teeth as he did it.

Kerney hit the light switch and Bernardo blinked in the glare.

“Where's Orlando?” Gabe asked, forcing the barrel deep into Bernardo's mouth.

“He can't talk with a gun in his mouth, Gabe,” Kerney said.

“He can move his fucking head,” Gabe said. “Is my son alive?”

Bernardo didn't react. Gabe cocked his weapon.

Bernardo gurgled, choking on the barrel.