sunlight as possible into the classrooms, ran across the front of the building. A small street-side playground enclosed by a low wall served kindergarten students. It contained new, brightly colored slides and play equipment. Just beyond, steps led up to a formal portico entrance. Jutting out from the rear of the building was what Ramona guessed to be either an assembly hall or the school gym. Behind the gym was a dirt-packed playground for the older children enclosed by a chain-link fence.
Ramona climbed the low wall and inspected the street-side playground equipment before moving on to the portico, where she stood on the top step trying to remember the good times of her early school days in Albuquerque. But her mind kept going back to the face of the hysterical psych-unit nurse.
She examined the large square-beam columns and the gray plastered walls for any sign of recent damage. The initial autopsy report indicated the round had clipped Potter’s sternum before passing through his chest cavity and out his back. That could have changed the trajectory of the bullet.
Ramona also knew from the pathologist’s findings that the muzzle-to-target distance was less than three inches, which meant that the killer had made sure Jack Potter knew he was about to die. Additionally, the diameter of the entry wound suggested that the killer had used a large-caliber handgun.
She looked both high and low. Finding nothing, she reached the intersection where Griffin Street and Paseo de Peralta met just as the traffic light changed and the DON’T WALK sign started flashing. Part of the glass looked broken. She crossed the empty street, looked up, and saw a small hole at the bottom of the sign with spider-like cracks radiating out in random directions.
She keyed her handheld and told dispatch to send a tech to her location pronto. Forty minutes later, she had the partially flattened large caliber bullet in hand, secured in an evidence baggie.
She walked back to her unit wondering if Potter’s sternum had caused an upward deflection of the round, or if the killer had angled his weapon slightly to fire into Potter’s chest. Perhaps both factors had come into play. But just maybe the perp was a couple of inches shorter than Potter, no more than five-seven or five-eight in height.
The entry and exit wounds had looked to be aligned when Ramona examined Potter’s body on the sidewalk. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a variation between the two. She would call the pathologist and ask some questions. Depending on his answers, she might have the beginnings of a physical description for the perp. If not, she at least had the first piece of hard physical evidence in the Potter murder. She would drop it off at the state crime lab for analysis before her regular shift started.
A few minutes before Russell Thorpe left for work Chief Baca called to tell him the horse-shooting incident was now part of a major felony investigation that included, among other things, two homicides and a threat against Kerney’s and his family’s lives. Baca asked for an update, and Russell filled him in on the blue GMC van and his plan to canvass the few ranchers who lived close to Kerney’s property along Highway 285, starting with his nearest neighbor. Baca gave the go-ahead, adding that he wanted an in-person report when Thorpe finished.
From his apartment in town, Thorpe took the Interstate north and turned off on Highway 285, driving along a ten-mile strip of the rural residential sprawl southeast of Santa Fe. He left the highway just before the Lamy turn-off, where the sweep of the Galisteo Basin stretched to the Ortiz Mountains, closed the ranch gate behind his unit, and drove past the cutoff to Kerney’s ranch. Several miles beyond was the headquarters of the Sombrero Ranch, owned by Jack and Irene Burke, the couple who’d sold Kerney his land. The Burkes were first on Thorpe’s list of neighbors he wanted to talk to.
The ranch house, an old
Ramona climbed the low wall and inspected the street-side playground equipment before moving on to the portico, where she stood on the top step trying to remember the good times of her early school days in Albuquerque. But her mind kept going back to the face of the hysterical psych-unit nurse.
She examined the large square-beam columns and the gray plastered walls for any sign of recent damage. The initial autopsy report indicated the round had clipped Potter’s sternum before passing through his chest cavity and out his back. That could have changed the trajectory of the bullet.
Ramona also knew from the pathologist’s findings that the muzzle-to-target distance was less than three inches, which meant that the killer had made sure Jack Potter knew he was about to die. Additionally, the diameter of the entry wound suggested that the killer had used a large-caliber handgun.
She looked both high and low. Finding nothing, she reached the intersection where Griffin Street and Paseo de Peralta met just as the traffic light changed and the DON’T WALK sign started flashing. Part of the glass looked broken. She crossed the empty street, looked up, and saw a small hole at the bottom of the sign with spider-like cracks radiating out in random directions.
She keyed her handheld and told dispatch to send a tech to her location pronto. Forty minutes later, she had the partially flattened large caliber bullet in hand, secured in an evidence baggie.
She walked back to her unit wondering if Potter’s sternum had caused an upward deflection of the round, or if the killer had angled his weapon slightly to fire into Potter’s chest. Perhaps both factors had come into play. But just maybe the perp was a couple of inches shorter than Potter, no more than five-seven or five-eight in height.
The entry and exit wounds had looked to be aligned when Ramona examined Potter’s body on the sidewalk. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a variation between the two. She would call the pathologist and ask some questions. Depending on his answers, she might have the beginnings of a physical description for the perp. If not, she at least had the first piece of hard physical evidence in the Potter murder. She would drop it off at the state crime lab for analysis before her regular shift started.
A few minutes before Russell Thorpe left for work Chief Baca called to tell him the horse-shooting incident was now part of a major felony investigation that included, among other things, two homicides and a threat against Kerney’s and his family’s lives. Baca asked for an update, and Russell filled him in on the blue GMC van and his plan to canvass the few ranchers who lived close to Kerney’s property along Highway 285, starting with his nearest neighbor. Baca gave the go-ahead, adding that he wanted an in-person report when Thorpe finished.
From his apartment in town, Thorpe took the Interstate north and turned off on Highway 285, driving along a ten-mile strip of the rural residential sprawl southeast of Santa Fe. He left the highway just before the Lamy turn-off, where the sweep of the Galisteo Basin stretched to the Ortiz Mountains, closed the ranch gate behind his unit, and drove past the cutoff to Kerney’s ranch. Several miles beyond was the headquarters of the Sombrero Ranch, owned by Jack and Irene Burke, the couple who’d sold Kerney his land. The Burkes were first on Thorpe’s list of neighbors he wanted to talk to.
The ranch house, an old
Similar Books
In the Court of the Yellow King
Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris
