was repulsive, and if the cops found him and killed him before he could find a better-looking, young woman to play with, Ugly Nancy might wind up being his last piece of nooky. That just wouldn’t do.
“What if I let you go?” he asked.
Ugly Nancy looked at him suspiciously as she sat on the mattress and pulled on her boots. “You’d do that?”
“I’m thinking about it. But I’m keeping your Subaru, so you’ll have to walk back to the ranch.”
“Why not just take my car and leave me here?”
“That’s not what I’m thinking I want to do,” Larson hissed as he pulled her to her feet. He tied her hands behind her back, found some duct tape to cover her mouth, and hobbled her legs with rope. He yanked her to the front door and pushed her outside.
“I figure you’ve got a three-hour walk,” he said. “Get going.”
She stood rooted to the ground, shoulders hunched, glaring at him.
“Want me to make it more interesting? How about I blindfold you and make you go barefoot?”
Slowly she turned and started walking.
Larson watched her for a moment, went inside, picked up the Weatherby Mark V bolt-action rifle he’d taken from the gun cabinet at the ranch headquarters, loaded it, and walked to the open front door, expecting to see Ugly Nancy hobbling along no more than fifty feet from the lodge. Instead she was nowhere in sight.
He cursed, slipped his bare feet into his boots, and went looking for her. He found her hiding behind her Subaru.
“You’re stupid as well as ugly.” Larson kicked her feet out from under her, pulled off her boots, dragged her back to the lodge, and used more duct tape to blindfold her. He spun her around and pushed her in the direction he wanted her to go. “Now get moving,” he ordered.
He watched Ugly Nancy walk gingerly away from the lodge, zigzagging a little but keeping a fairly straight line as she hobbled slowly across the mesa. Larson giggled when she ran into an occasional cholla cactus, stumbled over some gopher mounds, and stubbed her toes on some rocks. He hollered at her to keep moving.
When she was about a hundred yards out, Larson raised the Weatherby, sighted the target through the scope, and squeezed the trigger. Ugly Nancy fell hard and didn’t move. From all appearances, it was a clean kill, and Larson congratulated himself on another fine piece of marksmanship.
He went back inside the lodge, drank some coffee, dressed in his clothes fresh from the dryer, and went to check on good old Ugly. The bullet that entered her back had pierced her heart.
He grabbed the hobble rope tied around her ankles and dragged her tiny, bony body back to the lodge, where he left it under a cottonwood tree while he fixed breakfast and figured out what to do with her. He decided to walk to the stolen truck he’d left at the edge of the mesa, drive it back, load up Ugly, and take her to an old nearby water tank where coyotes could feast on her when they came to drink. Then, when it was time to leave, he would torch the truck, burn down the lodge, and drive away in the Subaru.
He waited until the cool of evening to fetch the truck and take Ugly to the water tank. He rolled her out of the bed of the truck thinking that what the coyotes didn’t want the vultures and crows would consume. She’d be nothing more than scattered, picked-over bones in a day or two.
Back at the lodge with a bottle of Scotch at his side, Larson sipped single malt and watched TV until the local late night news came on. He was pleased to see that the manhunt for him wasn’t the top story, although after the first commercial break the news anchor did remind viewers that “escaped fugitive Craig Larson is still at large and armed and dangerous.”
He switched channels and found the other local newscasters were also giving the manhunt story less broadcast time. Somewhat reassured that things were quieting down a bit, Larson decided to stay put overnight, but not any longer than that. Although Ugly had told him nobody was due at the ranch for some days, he didn’t know if she’d been lying or not. Best not to take any chances.
In the morning, he’d work out a really good plan, maybe heading north. Since the federal government was building fences and stationing National Guard troops along the Mexican border to keep out the wetbacks, it would probably be far easier and a lot safer to sneak into Canada.
Larson had read stories about escaped convicts who’d lived normal lives for twenty years or more. They’d taken on new identities, held down jobs, and raised families. And he’d heard about guys who’d broken out of prison and never been seen or heard from again.
He had enough money and jewels to get himself set up once he got to Canada and learned his way around. But he didn’t want to make a major move until the manhunt fizzled out a bit more. He needed to find another place to stay where there wasn’t an old biddy caretaker to deal with or any nosy nearby neighbors.
He’d cogitate on it overnight, but the one thing he already knew he needed to do was stop killing people for a while until things calmed down.
He poured another double shot and switched the channel to a late night movie.
It took Grace nagging Clayton for a full day about his foolish pride before he broke down, called Kerney, and gave him the news about his impending departure from the Lincoln County S.O.
“I’m meeting with Andy Baca tomorrow morning to get sworn in as a special investigator with the New Mexico State Police,” Kerney replied without missing a beat. “How would you feel about coming on board to help catch this scumbag?”
“Sara doesn’t mind you coming out of retirement?” Clayton asked.
“Not for this. She said she doesn’t want to see hide nor hair of me until Larson is planted in the ground.”
“She actually said that?”
“When it comes to the people she loves, the woman doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. But if you’re her enemy, watch out. How about you? Will Grace and the kids put up with you being gone for a while?”
“That’s not a problem. She thinks Paul Hewitt should be inducted into a national top cop hall of fame, if one existed.”
“And she’s right. Get yourself up here tonight. You can stay with us. I’m scheduled to meet with Andy early in the morning. I’ll let him know that you’re coming on board.”
“Isn’t that his call to make?”
“Andy will jump at the chance to put a shield in your hand. I’ll even bet you a steak dinner that, before this is over, he’ll offer you a permanent position.”
“We’re not about to move away from the Rez. Not yet, anyway.”
“That’s your call to make,” Kerney replied.
“You haven’t asked for details about what went down at the S.O.”
“I don’t need to. Paul Hewitt called me, told me he’d resigned and was putting in his retirement papers, and mentioned what he thought might happen to you as a result. From what he said about the slacker the county commission appointed as the interim sheriff, I figured you’d turn in your walking papers sooner or later.”
Clayton laughed. “Tell me truthfully, did you call in a favor from Chief Baca to get him to agree to hire me?”
“If that had been necessary, I might have,” Kerney replied. “But you don’t need a leg up; your record speaks for itself. See you tonight.”
The following morning, Kevin Kerney and Clayton Istee arrived in Andy Baca’s spacious office at the Department of Public Safety building on Cerrillos Road.
After greeting his visitors, Andy perched on the edge of his big oak desk, built for a predecessor years ago by convicts at the old penitentiary before it erupted into a murderous riot, and studied his visitors.
Kerney and Clayton sat on the leather couch facing the desk and waited him out.
“We have evidence of one sort or another that links Larson to a whole slew of crime scenes,” Andy finally said. “From the attack on the corrections officer, to a kid on the schoolbus who saw him walking along the highway just north of Gallegos where the pickup truck was stolen from the Dripping Springs Ranch two days ago, we’ve got solid physical evidence, substantial eyewitness accounts, and excellent circumstantial evidence. What we don’t have is a single sighting of Larson or the stolen Dripping Springs vehicle during the last forty-eight hours.”
