He’d left Jeannie a locked strongbox supposedly containing his important personal and family papers. In fact, it held over two hundred thousand dollars in jewelry Larson had stolen from Viola Bedford after he’d murdered her, a year before he’d killed her husband, Melvin.
He had erased the jewelry from the inventory of property owned by the Bedfords and destroyed the paper trail. Since Melvin and Viola had no living heirs, the jewelry was now clean as a whistle, and Larson had been counting on it to go into deep hiding.
Jeannie relaxed a bit. “After you jumped bail, a cop came to ask if I knew where you were. He said they knew you’d murdered Melvin and Viola but just couldn’t prove it.”
“Those assholes,” Larson said. “They make stuff up all the time to scare people and get them to talk. You don’t believe that crap, do you?”
“I didn’t used to,” Jeannie said, “until you came into my apartment, put your hands on me, and called me a liar.”
“I’m really sorry, Jeannie.” Larson flashed a warm smile. “But like I said, I’ve been through a meat grinder with these trumped-up charges the cops laid on me and the bullshit conviction.” He shook his head sadly. “Now you tell me they’re accusing me of murder. It all makes me a little crazy.”
Jeannie squeezed Larson’s hand. “That’s okay, I forgive you.”
“Thanks. Are you doing okay?”
“Most of the time,” Jeannie replied. “I’ve been taking vitamins, some natural supplements, eating strictly vegetarian, and not drinking alcohol. It’s helping.”
“You look great,” Larson said with conviction. He’d always liked her looks. Jeannie was tall, had a tiny waist, round, inviting hips, perky breasts, and big, blue, slightly wild-looking eyes.
She laughed and looked down at her grimy hands and dirty fingernails. “Yeah, I just bet I do. I’m tired and grubby.”
“Still digging in the dirt for a living?” Larson asked.
Jeannie’s eyes lit up. “Yep, but now I’m working for myself. I started my own landscape business this spring, and I’ve been putting in twelve-hour days ever since.”
“Really?” Larson knew Jeannie had no money. She got by on her hourly wages and the occasional small check from her father, a retired postal worker who lived somewhere back east.
That meant she must have started her new business by dipping into the jewelry he’d left with her. He gave her a hard look.
“What?” Jeannie said, flinching at the meanness in Larson’s gaze.
He grabbed her neck and squeezed. “You sold my jewelry, didn’t you, bitch?”
Jeannie choked and turned red.
Larson squeezed harder. “Didn’t you?”
Jeannie’s fingers clawed at Larson’s hand.
“Tell me or you’re dead.”
Jeannie’s eyes welled with tears as she nodded.
Larson eased off on the chokehold a little and Jeannie gasped for air.
“I only sold some of it,” she gasped. “Just what I needed to get my business started.”
“Where’s the strongbox?”
“Let go of me and I’ll get it.”
Larson squeezed Jeannie’s neck and lifted her off the couch, until her feet dangled in the air. “Let’s go get it together. Where?”
Jeannie pointed at the small, adjacent galley kitchen.
Larson marched her into the kitchen, released his grip, and pointed the semiautomatic at her. “Get it for me,” he ordered.
She opened the cupboard under the sink, reached in, and pulled out the box. “Here.”
The box had been pried open. Half the jewelry was gone, but his brother’s wallet with his driver’s license was still inside. Larson had stolen it from Kerry two years ago and it was still current.
He didn’t doubt for a minute that Jeannie had looked inside the wallet, and that was bad news for her. He’d planned to make a clean getaway by assuming his brother’s identity, and that meant nobody could know about it, at least not for a day or two.
He put the wallet in his back pocket. “How much did you get for the jewelry you sold?” he asked.
“Twenty thousand.”
“You got ripped off. Now tell me where you keep the prescription meds you hoard for those rainy days when you want to kill yourself.”
“I don’t have any,” Jeannie replied. “I’m not suicidal anymore.”
Larson had heard her rap before and knew she’d overdosed at least twice after proclaiming she was never going to try to kill herself again. “Don’t make me hurt you,” he said.
“I told you I’m using vitamins and natural supplements now.”
He forced the barrel of the handgun into her cheek and twisted it.
Jeannie blinked and started crying.
“Where are the drugs, Jeannie?”
She took a coffee canister out of the pantry and dumped a large stash of barbiturates on the kitchen counter.
Larson smiled. “Time for you to get mellow.”
Jeannie shook her head. “Don’t you do that to me.”
Larson raked the gun barrel across her nose. “Don’t you tell me what to do, bitch.”
He took her into the living room, sat with her on the couch, and started forcing pills down her throat until she was too out of it to care. He kept force-feeding her the pills, slapping her to keep her awake. Finally, she passed out.
Larson stayed with her until breathing slowed and then stopped. He checked for a pulse to make sure she was dead, found a travel bag in the bedroom closet, packed it with the strongbox, the handgun, and the money Kerry had given him, wiped his fingerprints from every surface inside the apartment he’d touched, and let himself out.
Because of the damage he had done to her face, Jeannie’s death probably wouldn’t go down as a suicide, but at this point he didn’t care one way or the other. He had almost ten grand in cash, over a hundred thousand in jewelry he could convert into a sizable amount of money, and the use of his twin brother’s identity. That would give him some running room if he could get out of Santa Fe quietly.
He decided to take the shuttle bus that ran from the downtown Santa Fe hotels to the Albuquerque airport. Once in the city, he’d find a place to crash and figure out his next step.
Lieutenant Clayton Istee of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office finished his shift and hurried home to pick up Grace and the kids, who were packed and ready to start a ten-day vacation in Santa Fe. At the house, he parked his patrol vehicle and changed into civvies while Grace, Wendell, and Hannah loaded luggage and a picnic dinner Grace had fixed into the family sedan.
They locked up the house and started out from the Mescalero Apache Reservation in high spirits. Wendell told “knock-knock” jokes that made Hannah giggle and Clayton groan, until Grace told him to save the next joke for later. After the children settled down, Grace read out loud from a travel guide about some of the interesting things to do and see in northern New Mexico.
They could afford to vacation in pricey Santa Fe because they were staying at the ranch outside of the city owned by Clayton’s father, Kevin Kerney, who had recently retired as chief of the Santa Fe Police Department. Kerney was now living in London, England, with his wife, Colonel Sara Brannon, who was a military attache at the U.S. Embassy, and their young son Patrick.
It was a three-year assignment for Sara, who planned to retire from the army at the end of her tour of duty, when the family would return to Santa Fe. Until that time, they hoped to make at least yearly trips back home. In their absence, the ranch was being looked after by Jack and Irene Burke, friends who ranched nearby, and their son, Riley, who was Kerney’s partner in a cutting horse breeding enterprise.
