Home Invasion (3 page)

An ambulance and two police cars were already at the McNamara place by the time Alex got there, their flashing lights splashing garishly over the street crowded with onlookers from the neighborhood. Every light in the house seemed to be on.

Alex parked behind the ambulance. On the drive over here, she had been able to force thoughts of her problems with Jack out of her head and concentrate on the horrific crime that had taken place tonight in her town.

Several of the neighbors called out to her as she walked across the yard toward the front porch. They wanted to know what had happened, and you couldn’t blame them for that. Evidently there had been a lot of shots fired inside the McNamara house, and then the cops and the ambulance had shown up. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something really bad had gone down.

J. P. Delgado stood just inside the open front door with his thumbs hooked in his belt. His lean, handsome face was set in solemn lines as he looked at Alex and shook his head.

“It’s bad, Chief, mighty bad.”

“Inez is really dead?” Alex asked, keeping her voice pitched low.

Delgado nodded, then inclined his head toward a hallway on the other side of the living room. “She’s still in there, down the hall by the den. The M.E. isn’t here yet. Dead guy’s still in the den, too. Clint’s got Mr. McNamara in the kitchen, and the EMTs are working on the wounded perp.”

“Is he going to live?”

Delgado shrugged. “He was hit twice, shoulder and leg, but Mr. McNamara got him with an old.45 automatic. Those things can kill you sometimes, even if they just tag you.”

Alex knew that. That was why the.45 had been the standard sidearm in the army for many years.

“Eloise said it looked like Mr. McNamara interrupted a burglary in progress. That the way it looked to you?”

She valued Delgado’s opinion. Despite his relative youth—he was only thirty-five—he had been a cop for quite a while in Laredo before coming back to Home to care for his aging grandmother. Alex had been happy to hire him and add his experience to her department, although the city couldn’t afford to pay him what he’d been making in Laredo.

He said, “I don’t think there’s any question that’s what happened. The two guys are both Hispanic, no I.D.s, probably drove up from the border just to rob somebody. My guess is that they were after Mr. McNamara’s guns. There’s a constant need for weapons in the cartels.”

“You think these two are part of a cartel?”

“There’s not much free-lance crime in Mexico anymore except the really low-level stuff. The cartels are like feudal kingdoms in medieval Europe, always at war with each other. There’s no effective centralized power in the country anymore.”

Delgado came out with stuff like that that would surprise you if you didn’t know that he had a history degree from the University of Texas. The academic world didn’t really appeal to him, though. He preferred being a cop.

A couple of EMTs maneuvered a gurney out of the hall and into the living room. The man strapped onto it appeared to be unconscious. Some of his clothes had been cut away, and bloodstained bandages were wrapped around his shoulder and leg in their place.

“This one’s going to the hospital, Chief,” one of the ambulance men said to Alex.

“Is he going to make it?”

“Don’t know, but my guess is yes. He lost a lot of blood, but we’ve got him stabilized right now. Have to wait and see.”

Alex nodded and said, “Thanks,” as they wheeled out the wounded burglar. She gestured to Delgado. “Go with them. Don’t let the son of a bitch out of your sight.”

“You got it, Chief. “ Delgado followed the gurney out of the house.

Alex took a deep breath to steady herself. It didn’t help much because there was still a faint reek of gunfire in the air. Waiting wouldn’t make it any better, so she stepped over to the hall and looked down it.

She saw the bullet holes in the wall between the den and the hall, her brain automatically noting their location. When the crime scene team from the sheriff’s department got here, those holes and all the rest of the physical evidence would be documented with digital photographs and video.

Alex’s eyes were drawn to the blanket-shrouded figure lying on the floor of the hall. The EMTs had draped that blanket over Inez McNamara because there was nothing they could do for her other than protect her from the indignity of having people stare at her.

Alex walked over to the body and knelt beside it. She didn’t want to, but she forced herself to lift the blanket. Inez’s face was gray. The color of life was long gone. From the looks of it, she had been hit twice by bullets coming through the wall, Alex thought, but it could have been more than that. The autopsy would tell for sure.

After carefully replacing the blanket, Alex stood and went to the open door of the den. Since the EMTs had left with the wounded man, nobody was in here except the dead burglar. He sat propped against one of Pete McNamara’s gun cabinets, his arms hanging loose at his sides and his head lolled forward over his blood-soaked chest. The high-caliber automatic weapon, some sort of foreign make, lay on the carpet near his right hand.

Alex put the sequence of events together, replaying them in her mind’s eye as if she had witnessed them the first time around.

Pete or Inez or both of them hear a noise in the house. Pete gets the .45 and comes to check. Probably he tells Inez to wait in the bedroom while he takes a look around, but Inez being Inez, she follows him anyway. He surprises the burglars in the den, everybody starts shooting, the bullets go through the wall, Pete puts both of the burglars down….

Then turns to find his wife dying on the floor behind him.

Watching where she stepped to make sure she didn’t disturb any evidence, Alex moved across the den to the dead man and again hunkered on her heels to study him, as she had with Inez out in the hall.

Definitely just two wounds on this one, both to the chest. Good shooting on Pete’s part. If he had just been a little faster, he might have been able to kill the burglar before the man pulled the trigger.

Alex turned her head and looked at the way the line of bullet holes marched across the wall in a ragged but relatively straight line. Pete’s bullet had hit the man in the chest and knocked him back into the cabinet, making his arms fly out at the sides just as he pulled the trigger. That theory fit the evidence. There were no other bullet holes, so the wounded man must not have gotten off even a single shot. A similar automatic weapon lay on the carpet next to the bloodstains where the second burglar had fallen.

Forensics would determine the truth of all this, but Alex was confident that she had things right for the most part. She looked into the face of the dead man, which was hard and ugly in death as it had been in life, and wanted to ask him why he and his companion had come here tonight to ruin the lives of two good people.

But there were no answers there and never would be. Evil had invaded the McNamara home, just as evil always invaded paradise sooner or later. The psychologists and the social engineers wanted people to believe that evil didn’t really exist, that it was actually just a series of poor choices forced on individuals by a society that was indifferent at best and hostile at worst.

Alex had been a cop long enough to know what a crock
that
was. Evil existed, all right.

She was looking at it, right here, right now.

And as always, it couldn’t explain why it did the terrible things it did. It was just… evil.

The nature of the beast.

Alex sighed and came to her feet. It was just about the last thing in the world she wanted to do right now, but she had to go talk to Pete McNamara.

It was four in the morning before Alex got home. Between the lack of sleep and the emotional turmoil of dealing with what had happened, she was exhausted. She took off her gun, badge, and wind-breaker and kicked off her shoes, but other than that she was still fully dressed when she fell into her bed and went right to sleep on top of the covers.

She slept like she’d been drugged, but that didn’t last. Sometime before dawn, she woke up and realized that she should have checked on Jack when she came in. After the brief argument earlier, she didn’t think he would have snuck out again, but although she hated to admit it to herself, she wasn’t sure about that.

Jack had changed. Maybe she had, too.

She dragged herself out of bed and went down the hall to his room. No light came under the door, and she didn’t hear anything when she leaned closer to it. A lot of times he left the TV or the radio on all night. They had argued about that very thing. Alex didn’t see the point of burning the electricity if he was asleep. The fact that Jack’s bedroom was dark and quiet actually increased her worry a little.

She turned the knob quietly and eased the door open just enough to stick her head in. Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness well enough for her to be able to make out the shape sprawled on the bed. She heard his deep, regular breathing as well.

That was a relief, she thought as she closed the door as quietly as she’d opened it. She knew now that he was here, and safe, and she could go back to sleep.

If only it had been that easy.

Instead she was restless, dozing off and then waking up with a start, over and over, and when she did sleep long enough to dream, they were nightmares haunted by blood and death. It was almost a relief when the phone rang at eight o’clock, forcing her to get up.

“Hello,” she slurred into it.

“I didn’t wake you, did I, Alex?”

She recognized Ed Ruiz’s voice. Ed owned the local hardware store, which was able to survive because it was such a long drive to the county seat and one of the big box discount stores. He was also the mayor of Home.

“No, I’m fine. What’s up, Ed?”

“I heard about what happened to the McNamaras. Terrible, just terrible.”

“Yeah.” She could hear the sincerity in Ruiz’s voice and knew he really felt about Pete and Inez. At the same time, he was a politician, and so there was always something a little calculated in everything he said.

Or maybe she just felt that way because he had dragged his feet about promoting her to chief after Whit Bradford retired and the rest of the city council had had to push him into it.

“There’s no doubt about what happened, is there? The two men broke in, and McNamara was just defending himself and his wife?”

“That was Pete’s statement,” Alex said, recalling the painful ordeal of taking that statement from the sobbing, distraught old man. “That’s the way all the evidence looked to me. Pending the report from the sheriff’s crime scene team, which I don’t expect to change anything, that’s how my report will read, too.”

“Good.” Ruiz sounded relieved. “Let’s stick with that.”

Alex frowned. Even in her grogginess, she sensed that something else was going on.

“What is it, Ed?” she asked. “Why would anybody even doubt what Pete McNamara said?”

The silence on the other end of the phone told her that the mayor didn’t want to answer. When Ruiz finally spoke, his voice was edgy with nervousness. “Mr. Navarre has regained consciousness.”

“Who?”

“Emilio Navarre. The man who was wounded by McNamara.”

“How do you know his name? He didn’t have any I.D. on him. Did Delgado question him? He should’ve known better than that.”

“No, as far as I’m aware, Officer Delgado didn’t question the man. Mr. Navarre told his lawyer who he is.”

Alex’s stomach gave a lurch at the word “lawyer.” In her work as a cop, she had run into plenty of attorneys who were decent people, but there was always a core of truth to any cliché, and the sleazy lawyer stereotype was no exception.

“He has a lawyer already?” Alex asked, trying not to clench her teeth in distaste. “Who?”

“I don’t recall his name. He’s from San Antonio, evidently a partner in a large firm there.”

Alex closed her eyes and gave her head a shake. “Wait a minute. How did a lawyer get all the way out here from San Antonio already?”

Home was a drive of several hours from the Alamo City.

“Private jet,” Ruiz said. “Mr. Navarre regained consciousness a couple of hours ago and demanded a phone. Since he hasn’t been formally arrested, Officer Delgado couldn’t stop the hospital personnel from providing one. Navarre dialed a number he evidently knew by heart.”

“And less than two hours later he’s got a high-powered lawyer with a private jet. Ed, this isn’t good.”

“I know.” Ruiz sounded miserable. “I know. The only bright spot I can think of is that the city can’t be held liable in any way. The county contracts with the ambulance service, and they’re the only ones who touched him except the doctors and nurses at the hospital.”

Alex swallowed her irritation. As mayor, it was Ruiz’s job to look out for the city’s best interests, even if in doing it he sometimes came across as a little callous.

“He’s not going to sue the city or anybody else,” Alex said. “He’s the one in the wrong here. He’s just lawyering up because he knows that he can be convicted of first-degree murder, even though he didn’t pull the trigger on Inez McNamara. Accident or not, she was killed in the commission of a felony that he was a party to.”

“Are you certain that he didn’t fire?”

“Well, no. But the sheriff’s people have his gun. I’m sure they’ll test it and see if it was fired recently. They may be able to test Navarre’s hands for residue, too, although it may be too late for that.”

“It would be better if he fired his weapon.”

“Better for who?”

“Pete McNamara.”

Alex felt sick again. “Oh, no, Ed. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“Navarre’s lawyer has already put out a statement calling for McNamara’s arrest on charges of murder and attempted murder.”

“That’s crazy!
They
broke into
his
house. They shot at him.”

“Only the dead man. That’s why murder charges probably wouldn’t stick. But if Navarre didn’t fire his gun …”

Wearily, Alex scrubbed a hand over her face. She couldn’t believe this was happening. How could a man be attacked by intruders in his own home, see his wife killed practically before his eyes, and then have scum like this Emilio Navarre portray
him
as the bad guy? It was completely insane.

But in a world where elitist politicians just did whatever they wanted to and ignored the will of the people they had been elected to represent, insanity was the new sanity, Alex supposed.

“What do you want me to do, Ed?” She felt like she was a hundred years old as she asked the question.

“Turn on the TV first and take a look at that lawyer’s press conference. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding a station running it. Then get down to the hospital and formally place Navarre under arrest. We’re going to try to get out in front on this, but it may be too late.”

“Delgado or one of my other officers can make the arrest.”

“No, I want you to do it. I think it’ll be better if it looks like the chief is in charge.”

“I
am
in charge of the department, Ed,” she reminded him, not bothering to keep the edge out of her voice.

“I know, I know. But this isn’t just a legal matter anymore. It’s all public relations now, Alex. It’s all perception.”

Instead of reality, she thought. That was it in a nutshell. The reason she disliked politics and politicians.

“All right. I’ll take care of it.”

“Then come by my office. We’ve got to strategize.”

“Sure,” she said, although the idea of “strategizing” with Ed Ruiz didn’t appeal to her at all. “I’ll see you later.”

She broke the connection before he could come up with anything else.

She took off the clothes she had slept in and pulled on a robe. No sounds came from Jack’s room as she walked past it. There was a little TV in the kitchen, so she turned it on and then turned to get the coffeemaker going.

Ed had been right about one thing: The story was all over the news. It had even made the cable news networks, and after an unctuous, prematurely white-haired anchor made some snarky comments about Texans and guns, the station Alex was watching went to video of a small news conference. A tall, slender man in an expensive suit and sunglasses stood on a sidewalk just outside a building Alex recognized as Home Community Hospital. It was a small, eight-bed facility, and Alex figured Emilio Navarre would be transferred to the county hospital later on, when his condition had stabilized more.

A graphic along the bottom of the screen identified the man in sunglasses as Clayton Cochrum. He was saying, “—terrible injustice inflicted on my client by a trigger-happy, age-impaired vigilante who may well be suffering from dementia. Such a dangerous individual never should have been allowed to possess even one firearm, let alone a veritable arsenal such as the one police discovered inside his house.”

“Nobody
discovered
Pete McNamara’s guns,” Alex muttered. “Everybody in town knew he had ’em.”

Clearly playing to the cameras, Clayton Cochrum went on, “This is just one more instance of lax gun laws and even sloppier enforcement leading to a gun-related tragedy in Texas. An innocent woman lies dead, and a blameless bystander is in the hospital behind me, gravely injured because a man who is a danger to himself and the community was allowed to possess a gun. Not just one gun, but many guns!” Cochrum took his sunglasses off so he could peer soulfully into the camera. “Even though as a lifelong resident of the Lone Star State it pains me to admit it … this morning I am ashamed to be a citizen of a state that would allow such a tragedy to occur. This morning I am ashamed to be a Texan.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex said to the TV, “we’re not that happy about having to claim a weasel like you, either.”

She shut off the TV and went to take a shower while the coffee brewed. She wished she had the time to really soak under the hot water, but unfortunately, she had to get down to the hospital and place Emilio Navarre under arrest.

She had a feeling that after watching Clayton Cochrum, a regular shower just wasn’t going to be enough to make her feel clean.

Washington, D. C.

Even after five months in office, there were still times when he looked around the Oval Office and had a hard time believing that he was really here, that he was really the most powerful man in the world.

Of course, he had known all along that it would come to this. Even as a boy, he had known that it was his destiny to be president. He’d always been the smartest one in school, and not just book smarts, either. He was handsome and charming and had a knack for getting people to believe him and to do what he wanted them to do.

All for their own good, of course.

Now he was in a position to remake this country the way it ought to be, to show people who didn’t agree with him the error of their ways, to patiently explain to them why he was right and they were wrong and if they would just go along with what he wanted their lives would be so much better.

And if they didn’t want to go along for their own good … well, the President of the United States wasn’t known as the most powerful man in the free world for no reason, now was he?

He would
make
them go along. Stupid, racist rednecks.

But he had learned from the mistakes of his predecessors. Over the past dozen years, it had become impossible for anyone to be elected to the highest office in the land without the fawning approval of the media, and each victor in turn had tried to push the country farther to the left, convinced that it was his or her mandate to do so.

Unfortunately, there were large segments of the populace who didn’t agree with that, mostly from those damned flyover states that nobody who mattered really cared about anyway, and they had made it difficult to get any truly progressive policies implemented. The last two people who had held this office before him hadn’t been bold enough. They had clung to some foolish notion that people should be happy with change, even massive change.

This President knew better than that. That was what he had based his entire life on.

He knew best.

And even though he had been biding his time, he knew that when the moment arrived, he would make them all see that he was right.

Maybe today.

He thought that every day when he sat down behind the big desk in the Oval Office.

And today just might be the day, because his Chief of Staff looked very excited when he hurried into the room.

“Have you heard the news, boss?”

“You mean about what the Vice-President said at that dinner last night?” The woman had a positive genius for putting her foot in her mouth.

“No, this,” the Chief of Staff said as he picked up a remote from the President’s desk and pushed some buttons.

A wall panel slid aside to reveal a giant-screen TV, which lit up as the Chief of Staff turned it on.

“Damn it, who left it on
that
channel?” the President exploded as he saw which of the cable news networks the set was tuned to.

“Sorry, sir,” the Chief of Staff said as he hastily switched the channel. “Maybe some of the cleaning crew had it on while they were in here last night, even though they know it’s against the rules. I’ll find out and deal with it, you can be sure of that.”

“Fire whoever was responsible.”

“Of course, sir. “ The Chief of Staff raised the volume. “Just listen to this, if you don’t mind.”

A man with slicked-back hair and sunglasses was saying, “I am ashamed to be a Texan.”

“Well, of course, he is, whoever he is,” the President said. “Any sane person would be ashamed to be a Texan. They haven’t voted correctly in … how many elections in a row is it now?”