Larson patted the rifle, silently thanked Kid Cuddy for his Christian generosity in providing him with such a fine weapon, brought the stock to his shoulder, held his breath, sighted down the barrel, and gently squeezed the trigger, thinking this was
Out of the corner of his eye from his hospital bed in the partially darkened room, Paul Hewitt could see his wife sleeping in the chair, her head resting against a pillow supplied by the night nurse. He’d married Linda almost twenty-five years ago and she was still his girl.
Small-boned and only five-foot-three, she managed to seem taller. Paul attributed it to her slender legs, narrow waist, and long neck, which gave the appearance of height. She wore her dark brown hair long, and he loved it when she wrapped it in a French twist and used her grandmother’s hairpins to hold it in place.
Soon after they married, Paul had asked Linda to agree to an end-of-life power of attorney stipulating that in case of a catastrophic injury or terminal illness he was not to be placed on life support. At the time, he’d joked about having “do not resuscitate” tattooed across his chest. Linda had countered his power of attorney with one of her own, stipulating the same conditions.
A man who loved life, Paul longed for death. Below the neck he felt nothing, not even the sensation of his diaphragm moving as he took a breath and slowly exhaled. He was angry at Craig Larson for not killing him and for inflicting a cruel and horrible burden on Linda. He closed his eyes.
Because he was a cop, and a good one at that, Paul knew how to ask questions and get people talking. Fortunately, the spinal cord injury had not caused aphasia, so over the past two days he’d chatted with doctors, nurses, physical therapists, nursing aides, and medical students about his condition. What he’d learned was depressing and disheartening. Physical therapy would consist of someone else moving his arms and legs to keep his muscles from atrophying. He would have to be turned in his bed to avoid sores. He would require laxatives and enemas in order to have bowel movements, would be forced to wear a bag to defecate into and a urinary device to piss into. He would have to be wiped and cleaned, washed and dressed, hoisted and lifted, fed and shaved. Because of his injury, he would now and forever be susceptible to bouts of pneumonia, bone fractures, urinary tract infections, cardiovascular disease, pulmonary embolisms, and a host of other complications.
Linda, as his primary caregiver, would require support, possibly therapy, certainly some regular relief from the stress of looking after her husband. Couples counseling was considered essential to deal with the initial and ongoing trauma of both living as a quadriplegic
The miracle of modern medicine that had kept Paul Hewitt alive was a crock of shit.
He opened his eyes. Linda was standing over him, smiling.
“Kill me,” he said.
Her eyes widened in shock. “Don’t say that.”
“Find someone who will.”
“Never.”
“Get me a lawyer.”
“What for?” Linda asked.
“I want a divorce,” Paul said, shutting his eyes to block out the sight of his wife’s face.
Chapter Five
Officer Leroy Alfred Ordonez’s body sat upright behind the steering wheel of the state police black-and-white, his head resting against the seat back. His right eye and mouth were open and there was a hole where his left eye used to be. A gooey blood stream from the wound had trickled down his cheek, coagulated on his uniform shirt, and dribbled on the clipboard lying in his lap. The size of the entry wound and apparent absence of an exit hole indicated that the killer had used a small-caliber weapon, probably a .22, most likely a rifle.
Clayton swallowed hard and stepped away from the black-and-white. Flashing emergency lights hurled brilliant colors into a midnight sky. Behind him, Gene Walcott, the only Lincoln County deputy on roving patrol duty, walked up the highway with a flashlight looking for evidence the killer might have left. In front of him, Captain Steve Ramsey, the district state police commander, stood with another officer viewing a laptop computer monitor Ramsey had placed on the hood of his unit.
Clayton glanced back at Ordonez’s body. Some time back, after four seasons playing minor league baseball, Leroy had returned home to Ruidoso. He’d worked construction for a time before attending the state police academy and graduating first in his class. Leroy liked to joke that he could have made the big leagues if he had only learned to hit sliders, field grounders cleanly, and run the bases without being thrown out.
When their shifts coincided and time allowed, Clayton and Leroy met for coffee or a meal break. Although they never socialized much away from the job, Clayton considered Leroy a friend. At home on his refrigerator was an invitation to attend Leroy’s upcoming marriage to Kathleen Ann Pennington. Grace had circled the date on their calendar and begun searching for a wedding gift. Now a gift wouldn’t be necessary.
Clayton looked away from Leroy. He’d bottled up the image of a paralyzed Paul Hewitt staring at him from his hospital bed, and now he had to clear his mind of Leroy Ordonez. He walked over to see what Steve Ramsey had discovered on the video taken by the camera in Leroy’s unit. Ramsey shifted his large frame to one side so Clayton could look at the laptop monitor, and pointed at the frozen image of a blurry, washed-out pickup truck.
“The killer was driving this truck,” he said, looking down at Clayton from his six-foot-six height. “It’s the only vehicle that passed through the roadblock around the time of the shooting. The driver blasted through the orange cones without stopping. We can’t make out anything inside of the cab.”
Clayton leaned forward for a closer look. What appeared as a blob on the passenger side door might be a magnetic business sign or a logo. “Can you zoom in on the passenger-side door?”
“Until the lab can enhance the video, this is the best picture quality we have right now,” Ramsey replied.
“Go back a few frames,” Clayton said.
The officer operating the laptop did as Clayton asked and froze the image again. The passenger door showed two slightly distinct but very wavy horizontal lines.
“Those lines could be nothing more than shadows,” Ramsey said.
“Can you zoom out?” Clayton asked.
“It’s a late-model Ford,” Ramsey offered as his officer made the adjustment. “Probably a four-wheel-drive F- 150.”
“That’s a Twin Pines Bible Camp pickup truck,” Clayton said, flipping open his cell phone.
“Are you sure?” Ramsey asked.
“Let’s make sure,” Clayton said as he pulled up Gaylord Wardle’s phone number from the recently dialed list of calls on his cell phone and pressed send. After twelve long rings, Wardle picked up.
“Where are the camp’s pickup trucks usually parked?” Clayton asked Wardle after he’d quickly identified himself.
“At the maintenance building. Why?”
“What are the makes and models?”
“We have three Ford F-150s, four-by-fours. They’re a couple years old. Why?”
“One may have been stolen. Go to the maintenance building right now, find out if a vehicle is missing, and call me back immediately.” Clayton rattled off his cell phone number.
Five minutes later a very upset Wardle called back to say a truck was gone and the camp’s youth minister, Greg Cuddy, who was supposed to be on security patrol, was nowhere to be found.
Clayton calmed Wardle down enough to get a description of Gregory Cuddy and a license plate number for the truck. “Wake up everyone at the camp and do a head count,” he ordered Wardle. “We need to know if anyone else is missing. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
“Is a head count at this time of night absolutely necessary?” Wardle demanded.
“Either you do it, or I will,” Clayton replied.
“All right,” Wardle replied without enthusiasm.
Clayton disconnected, filled in Ramsey on what he’d learned, corralled Deputy Walcott, and told him to stop searching for evidence and follow him to the Bible camp. He got in his unit, switched on his emergency lights, and drove away. As the crime scene faded in Clayton’s rearview mirror, a dispatcher issued a five-state regional BOLO
