before gunning down the cop at the roadblock with a perfect head shot. He checked the kid for a pulse, couldn’t find one, and glared at the body in disappointment. The KO’d Kid had up and died on him, spoiling all the fun.
Larson hauled the kid’s muscular body out of the truck, started to drag it into some tall weeds, changed his mind, and instead propped it against a nearby utility pole where it wouldn’t be missed come daylight. He hoped when the cops arrived they would concentrate their search to the east, but if not, so be it.
He turned the truck around, drove back to Plains, and headed north on a state road that would get him a good distance away from Kid Cuddy before Larson crossed back into New Mexico. The two-lane highway was empty, and except for some oil pump-jacks casting shadows from a dim quarter moon on a flat prairie, and a few pieces of farm machinery sitting in irrigated fields, the land was empty as well. In the several small villages Larson passed through, there was absolutely nobody out on the streets and no sign of life in the houses fronting the main drag.
He let his mind wander back to those tasty-looking teenage Christian girls he’d seen at the Bible camp, bouncing and jiggling on their horses. It got him hungry for a woman, and he decided that he’d be really pissed off at himself if he let the cops shoot and kill him before he got some girly action. He grinned at the anticipation of some good sex and a running gunfight with the cops.
At three in the morning, just south of Muleshoe, Texas, the dial to the gas gauge quivered at the empty line. Larson slowed way down, hoping he could make it to town and find a twenty-four-hour convenience store or a gas station where he could fill up. In town, on a tacky-looking street named West American Boulevard, he drove past an open stop-and-rob twice before he spotted the exterior surveillance cameras pointed at the parking spaces in front of the entrance and at the gas pumps. He made a turn onto a side street, pulled to the curb, and considered what to do next.
The pickup truck had two pine trees and the name of the Bible camp painted on both doors, which was going to make it far too easy to spot once the cops started seriously looking for it. Better to ditch the pickup now and get new wheels. An older model Toyota sedan at the side of the convenience store probably belonged to the clerk on duty. He decided to make an even trade, the Ford pickup for the Toyota, whether the clerk liked it or not.
He sat and watched traffic on West American Boulevard for five minutes and only two cars passed by. If the trend held, that would give him adequate time to do what he had in mind. If not, he would just have to deal with whatever came along. He drove to the store, parked at one of the pumps, stuck the semiautomatic in his waistband at the small of his back, went inside, smiled at an overweight Mexican man behind the counter, and handed him some money.
“Fill up on pump one,” he said genially.
The bored clerk grunted, put the money next to the cash register, and turned on the gas pump.
“Is that your Toyota outside?” Larson asked.
“It’s my sister’s car,” the clerk answered in a thick Mexican accent, looking at Larson with a bit more interest.
“But you’re driving it, right?”
“Yeah.”
Larson pointed the semiautomatic at the Mexican’s head. “Give me the car keys,” he said.
With a shaking hand, the clerk hastily fished the keys out of his pocket and dropped them on the counter. “Take it,” he said. “Take anything you want.”
“Thanks.” Larson scooped up the keys. “Is there gas in it?”
“I just filled the tank.”
“That’s great,” Larson replied as he squeezed off a round. The Mexican’s head snapped back from the impact of the bullet as blood speckled the packs of cigarettes in the rack on the wall.
Larson jumped the counter, pushed the Mexican out of the way, grabbed a pack of smokes from the rack, a disposable lighter from the counter, and the cash he’d given the Mexican. He went outside to the Toyota and fired up the engine; the gas gauge read full. He left the motor running, hurried to the gas pump, got his stuff out of the cab, and hosed down the pickup with gasoline. As the vapor fumes filled the air, he spewed a full stream of regular unleaded toward the store entrance and watched it seep under the glass doors. He dropped the hose on the ground, went to the Toyota, backed away from the store, and lit a cigarette. When the gasoline oozed within range, he flicked the cigarette through the open window, floored the Toyota, and pushed it to the limit down the street.
The fireball explosion that followed rocked the small car, lit up the night sky, and threw debris onto the roadway. Larson smiled in satisfaction. It was just like in the movies. He made a U-turn so he could get a better look at the fire. The pickup truck and store were masked by a wall of flames.
It was gonna be a hell of a mess once the fire was extinguished. It would probably take the cops days before they could piece any evidence together. By then, he would be settled in someplace where he could hunker down for a while and find a woman to party with.
Larson hadn’t felt so good since the day he decided to murder Melvin and Viola Bedford. Back then, he thought he was doing it for the money, but now he realized that he just flat-out enjoyed killing people.
The New Mexico State Police helicopter carrying Captain Steve Ramsey and Clayton Istee touched down on the highway east of Plains, Texas, just as the sun on the eastern horizon began to light up the prairie. Yellow crime scene tape enclosed a body resting against an electric utility pole, roadblocks had been set up in both directions of the highway, and a small team of police officers was searching the area.
Ducking under the chopper’s rotors, Clayton and Steve Ramsey hurried over to a thin man wearing a ten- gallon cowboy hat and a Western-cut sport coat, with a sheriff’s badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck, and introduced themselves.
“Brownlow Clauson, Yoakum County Sheriff. Folks call me Brownie,” the man said, shaking hands with each of them. He pointed at the dead young man. “Got the photo y’all sent and it looks to me that there’s your missing boy. An oil field crew getting an early start spotted the body about four this morning.”
“What else can you tell us?” Steve Ramsey asked.
“Cause of death appears to have been blunt trauma to the head. The boy got bashed at least three times. There are no other visible wounds on the body. Time of death is probably no more than four to six hours. ’Course, we won’t have anything definitive until the autopsy.”
“Have you found any hard evidence?” Clayton asked.
“Just footprints and tire tracks so far.” Clauson led them to some evidence cones placed on the soft shoulder of the highway.
Clayton bent down for a look. “That’s our man,” he said as he recognized both the footprints and tire treads, “and he’s still driving the Twin Pines pickup truck.”
“Not any more he ain’t,” Sheriff Clauson said. “I got a report out of Muleshoe just before you landed. A gasoline explosion and fire at a convenience store burned up a truck parked at the pumps, and probably killed the store clerk and maybe a customer or two inside the place. The VIN off the engine block matches that of the stolen Ford 150 four-by-four from that Bible ranch.”
“Are you sure the vehicle ID numbers are the same?” Clayton asked.
Clauson took a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Clayton. “I had the Muleshoe police chief read the VIN off to me twice to make sure I got it right. Could well be your cop killer is now nothing more than some crispy critter body parts strewn around the wreckage of that stop-and-rob.”
“We should be so lucky,” Steve Ramsey replied. “Were you told the cause of the explosion?”
Clauson rubbed the tip of his nose with a forefinger and shook his head. “‘To be determined’ was what was said. The fire chief has an arson investigator on-scene.”
Clauson glanced from Ramsey to Clayton to the chopper sitting in the middle of the highway. “I guess you boys will want to take that whirlybird of yours up to Muleshoe. I’d sure appreciate it if you did so pronto. Traffic is starting to back up and I’d like to get a lane open for those vehicles.”
“Sure thing,” Clayton said as he looked down the highway in both directions. At one roadblock there were three pickups, one semi, and two cars waiting. At the other, two empty yellow school buses, delayed from making the morning run to pick up students, idled behind the barrier.
Clayton handed Clauson his card. “You might want to have your people look for a .22 Marlin rifle.”
