property was located, figured he could get there without getting back onto the pavement, and best of all the pictures on the website showed the property to be vacant.
He shut down the computer and went scavenging through the house, found a top-quality sleeping bag, an inflatable air mattress, a high-powered flashlight, a camp stove, a portable battery-operated radio, and all the other gear he would need to stay comfortable for a few days. He supplemented his foodstuffs from the kitchen cabinets, and from the gun cabinet in the living room he added a .357 Colt pistol and a 9mm Glock autoloader to his arsenal, along with a hundred rounds of ammo for each handgun.
After closing all the curtains and drapes, Larson locked up the house and left the ranch feeling upbeat. The place where he was going was remote, but not too far away from several working ranches. After settling in, he would reconnoiter the neighbors to see if he could locate a vehicle to replace Ugly’s car when it was time to move on.
Two more days of hiding out should do it, Larson thought with a smile as he fiddled with the car radio and found a country station playing an old Marty Robbins tune. Larson hummed along until he remembered he’d forgotten to chase down Ugly’s mare, unsaddle her, and put her in the stable. He slowed the Subaru to turn around but then decided to blow it off. Whoever found the mare and went looking for Ugly Nancy was in for a big surprise.
Since the day Craig Larson escaped from custody and started his rampage, Everett Dorsey, chief of the Springer Police Department, had gotten very little sleep. Along with his three officers, Dorsey had been putting in eighteen-hour days trying to turn up any shred of information from Larson’s hometown friends and acquaintances that might help get a fix on the fugitive’s whereabouts. An eyewitness had sighted Larson in and near the settlement of Gallegos, less than seventy miles from Springer as the crow flies, which had convinced Dorsey that Larson had been heading home to familiar turf to lie low for a while. But where?
Dorsey had redoubled his efforts to find out where Larson might be hiding by concentrating his attention on the twin brother, Kerry. After three intensive interview sessions he had started to break through when his efforts had been sabotaged by a contract psychologist with the state police sent up from Santa Fe to draw information out of Kerry. But what the shrink didn’t know was that while Kerry looked as normal as the next person, he had a few loose screws, wasn’t very bright, didn’t relate well to strangers, and was as stubborn as a mule when it came to protecting his brother.
Blown off by the psychologist, Dorsey had complained to the major in charge of the state police task force, but to no avail. Condescendingly, the major had advised Dorsey to leave the head stuff to the shrink.
Dorsey eased into his desk chair and rubbed his tired eyes. Housed in a separate three-office suite of the town hall building one block off the main north-south drag, the Springer Police Department headquarters was a dismal place to spend any time. Battered old desks, ancient filing cabinets, and frayed miscellaneous office furniture filled the small rooms. Clutter added to the mess.
Dorsey liked it that way; the cramped, unattractive quarters kept him and his officers from hanging out there, which meant they spent most of their time on the streets actually policing.
Dorsey opened his eyes. If the reports of his officers were to be believed—and there was no reason to doubt them—nobody in the town of Springer had heard, seen, or had any form of contact with Craig Larson since the last sighting. On a much wider scale, the sheriff’s offices in eight counties, the district state police office, area game and fish officers, the local livestock inspector, and the special state police task force out of Santa Fe were reporting the same results.
All of this meant it was possible that Larson hadn’t come home to roost, but had just passed through Colfax County on the way to his next crime. But there had been no new reports of murder or mayhem.
Dorsey’s stomach grumbled from lack of food, but he knew if he stopped to eat, the food combined with lack of sleep would put him into a stupor for the next twelve hours. He was about to go back out and talk again to all of Craig Larson’s high school classmates who still lived in the area when the telephone rang.
Dorsey picked up and a woman with what he guessed to be a German accent asked to speak to the officer in charge.
“This is Everett Dorsey, the police chief, ma’am,” he replied. “How can I help you?”
The woman explained that she was calling from Frankfurt, Germany, that she was the executive assistant to the CEO of the multinational company that owned the Lazy Z, and that she’d been trying to reach the ranch caretaker without success over the last forty-eight hours.
“A group of our corporate executives are due to arrive at the ranch from Hong Kong in three days, and various arrangements needed for their accommodations must be made,” the woman added. “It’s not like Ms. Trimble to be away or unavailable for several days without giving advance notice. I’ve left a message with the Colfax County sheriff and have not yet heard back.”
“Ms. Trimble is the ranch caretaker?” Dorsey reached for a pen and a writing tablet on his disorderly desk.
“Yes, Nancy Trimble. Could you please send an officer to see if she’s ill or has had an accident?”
“I’ll surely do that, ma’am,” Dorsey said, “but first I need to ask you some questions.”
“By all means.”
The executive assistant, Ms. Hannelore Schmidt, told Dorsey that Nancy Trimble was a divorced, older woman in her sixties who lived full-time at the Lazy Z. Schmidt didn’t know what kind of vehicle Trimble owned but said the company kept a silver Hummer on the premises. Dorsey also learned Trimble was the only employee and that no corporate executives or their guests were currently staying at the ranch. Schmidt supplied Dorsey with the name and phone number of a neighboring rancher who boarded the Lazy Z horses when the Lazy Z wasn’t in use.
Dorsey asked Schmidt how he could reach her and she rattled off a string of numbers. He wrote them down, realizing he’d never made an international telephone call before.
“I just dial these numbers you gave me to get through to you?” he asked, feeling like a total hick.
“You must dial your international access code first,” Schmidt replied.
“Okay, thanks.” Dorsey wasn’t about to ask if she knew his international access code. “I’ll call you back.”
“Thank you, Chief Dorsey,” Schmidt said. “But before you ring off, let me give you the key pad code to the ranch road gate.”
Dorsey wrote down the code, said good-bye, hung up, and headed for his unit, not even thinking about contacting the sheriff’s office, which as far as he was concerned had dropped the ball. He’d spent nine years with the Colfax County S.O. before becoming the Springer police chief, he held a cross-deputy commission that gave him full law enforcement powers outside the city limits, and he was a good half hour closer to the Lazy Z than any deputy. Besides, if there was the slightest chance that Trimble’s disappearance was in any way connected with Craig Larson, Dorsey sure as hell wanted to be in on it.
He called Ed Seward, the rancher who boarded the Lazy Z stock, and asked if he’d recently seen or talked to Nancy Trimble.
“Not since last week,” Seward answered. “We stopped and visited in town for a few minutes. Is there a problem?”
“Don’t know. I got a call from the ranch owner’s assistant asking me to make contact with Trimble. Said she couldn’t get in touch with her. Did Trimble seem like her normal self when you saw her?”
Seward laughed. “Nancy keeps to herself, so it’s hard to say what’s normal with her.”
“What kind of car does she drive?”
“A dinged-up green Subaru. One of those hatchback models.”
“What do you know about her?” Everett Dorsey asked.
“Not much. She has a grown son who lives back east. South Carolina, I think. I can go over there and check on her, if you’d like.”
“I appreciate the offer, Ed,” Dorsey replied, “but it’s best if I do that.”
“You’re the law, Everett,” Seward said. “Let me know if I can help out.”
“Will do.” Dorsey disconnected and made radio contact with one of his officers, Rick Mares, and Mitch Lowe, a local state police officer.
