rock climber or hiker would find an unidentified body in the wilderness, leading Mateo to do a mental head count, trying to remember when he had last seen each of the half dozen or so mountain men who visited his store. A few years ago, he decided to start a list of their names, and would note every time one came in the store. He glanced over at the clipboard hanging on the wall near the cash register. It wasn’t a long list. About half the names were now crossed out. With the winter as cold as it had been so far, he would likely be crossing out more in a few months.
* * *
Gil and Joe sat in the conference room at the police station both working on their laptops writing up interview and incident reports from the day. In front of Gil were the pictures of Dr. Price that Chip Davis had given them, plus crime scene photos e-mailed to them from Liz. Joe stopped typing and stood up to stretch. Gil decided he needed a break from staring at the computer. He leaned back in his chair and said, “Okay, let’s go over it. We both think this is a home invasion.”
“Correct,” Joe said.
“Our two victims Price and Jacobson were killed during a burglary.”
“Right.”
“Then we have Mr. Burns, who is local and, as far as we can tell, doesn’t know our victims.”
“Yeah and, no offense, Gil, but rich white people in Santa Fe hang out with other rich white people. They don’t pal around with the locals.”
“Agreed,” Gil said. “So who is Mr. Burns?”
“I think the better question is how does he end up at the victims’ house?”
“He had to either be invited or a stranger. We can’t find any evidence that he was invited, so that…”
“… makes him a stranger who just happens to show up on the one night Price and Jacobson are getting killed? He’s either the unluckiest bastard…”
“… or was there on purpose. That means he came with the suspects. He was one of them.”
“So Mr. Burns was one of the home invaders,” Gil said. He went up to the white Dry Erase board that covered most of one wall of the conference room. On it he wrote: “forced entry; three to four suspects; strong leader, weak followers; strangers to the victims; use extreme force; use weapons; often kill; target more than one home.” Detailed demographic information about group dynamics in home invasions was sparse; most states didn’t even recognize home invasion as a crime different from regular burglary, so data from one-person robberies mucked up the statistics on home invaders. “Okay,” Gil said. “This is the typical profile of home invaders. They work as a group and there is usually one dominant leader.”
“And we know two more things about them: at least one of the suspects was local, and they will kill one of their own,” Joe said.
“That brings us back to Mr. Burns,” Gil said. “If we find out who he is, we find his accomplices.”
“That’s the good thing about this town,” Joe said, “You have family members up in your business all the time. There is nowhere to hide from your relatives. Someone is going to notice that Mr. Burns is missing.”
Joe went to his computer and pulled up the missing-persons database. They had already searched for any local missing-person reports, but they decided to expand it nationwide, thinking that Mr. Burns might have been living elsewhere but had come home to commit this crime, as unlikely as that might be. There were a couple of possible matches, but without more identifying information, they might never know who Mr. Burns was.
“His family probably doesn’t even know he’s gone yet,” Joe said.
“The most likely scenario is that Mr. Burns lived in Santa Fe,” Gil said. “Our best bet would probably be to put a notice in the newspaper.”
“Well, it just so happens we know someone at the newspaper.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
December 21
Natalie Martin closed the bedroom door behind her quietly. She’d finally gotten the boys down for the night,
* * *
Gil and Joe sat in the conference room at the police station both working on their laptops writing up interview and incident reports from the day. In front of Gil were the pictures of Dr. Price that Chip Davis had given them, plus crime scene photos e-mailed to them from Liz. Joe stopped typing and stood up to stretch. Gil decided he needed a break from staring at the computer. He leaned back in his chair and said, “Okay, let’s go over it. We both think this is a home invasion.”
“Correct,” Joe said.
“Our two victims Price and Jacobson were killed during a burglary.”
“Right.”
“Then we have Mr. Burns, who is local and, as far as we can tell, doesn’t know our victims.”
“Yeah and, no offense, Gil, but rich white people in Santa Fe hang out with other rich white people. They don’t pal around with the locals.”
“Agreed,” Gil said. “So who is Mr. Burns?”
“I think the better question is how does he end up at the victims’ house?”
“He had to either be invited or a stranger. We can’t find any evidence that he was invited, so that…”
“… makes him a stranger who just happens to show up on the one night Price and Jacobson are getting killed? He’s either the unluckiest bastard…”
“… or was there on purpose. That means he came with the suspects. He was one of them.”
“So Mr. Burns was one of the home invaders,” Gil said. He went up to the white Dry Erase board that covered most of one wall of the conference room. On it he wrote: “forced entry; three to four suspects; strong leader, weak followers; strangers to the victims; use extreme force; use weapons; often kill; target more than one home.” Detailed demographic information about group dynamics in home invasions was sparse; most states didn’t even recognize home invasion as a crime different from regular burglary, so data from one-person robberies mucked up the statistics on home invaders. “Okay,” Gil said. “This is the typical profile of home invaders. They work as a group and there is usually one dominant leader.”
“And we know two more things about them: at least one of the suspects was local, and they will kill one of their own,” Joe said.
“That brings us back to Mr. Burns,” Gil said. “If we find out who he is, we find his accomplices.”
“That’s the good thing about this town,” Joe said, “You have family members up in your business all the time. There is nowhere to hide from your relatives. Someone is going to notice that Mr. Burns is missing.”
Joe went to his computer and pulled up the missing-persons database. They had already searched for any local missing-person reports, but they decided to expand it nationwide, thinking that Mr. Burns might have been living elsewhere but had come home to commit this crime, as unlikely as that might be. There were a couple of possible matches, but without more identifying information, they might never know who Mr. Burns was.
“His family probably doesn’t even know he’s gone yet,” Joe said.
“The most likely scenario is that Mr. Burns lived in Santa Fe,” Gil said. “Our best bet would probably be to put a notice in the newspaper.”
“Well, it just so happens we know someone at the newspaper.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
December 21
Natalie Martin closed the bedroom door behind her quietly. She’d finally gotten the boys down for the night,
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