“I am not having this baby without you there to greet him,” Sara said peevishly.
“I’d feel better if you did.”
“No way, Kerney,” Sara said.
“Until we know what ‘everyone dies’ means, it would be the best thing to do.”
Sara shook her head fiercely. “I’m staying. It isn’t negotiable.”
“Fine. I’m sending you home with a patrol officer as soon as my people get here, with orders to sweep the house and remain with you until I return.”
“Try to get home before morning,” Sara said.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
She wrapped her arms around her belly, cradling and protecting the baby. “This is an absolutely crappy thing to have happening right now.”
He pulled her close. “We’ll get through it, I promise.”
Slowly, her arms encircled his waist and she held him tight.
The bald-headed man pulled to the shoulder of Hyde Park Road to let a line of police cars pass by. He followed and caught up in time to see the last unit turn off into the subdivision where Dora Manning lived.
He nodded approvingly. According to his timetable, if Manning’s body hadn’t been discovered by midnight, he would make an anonymous call to the police. He decided to go back to the war room and confirm it on the scanner.
Everything was working perfectly. He wondered where Kerney and his wife were. But it really didn’t matter. Part of the plan was designed to get Kerney scared and scrambling for answers, which he would then supply.
So far, so good.
After Kerney’s people arrived and were briefed, the patrol lieutenant and an officer in a second unit escorted Sara home. At the lieutenant’s request, Sara stayed in the squad car until the two men checked the grounds around the guesthouse and the main residence. She could see the beams of their flashlights as they moved back and forth through the trees and shrubs, until they disappeared behind the buildings. Finally they returned.
“It’s clear,” the lieutenant said through the open driver’s side window, holding out his hand. “Your house key please, ma’am.”
“There’s something tacked on the front door,” she said, handing him the key.
The lieutenant turned on the unit’s spotlight and aimed it at the front door. “Manny, go see what that is,” he said to the patrol officer. “But don’t touch it.”
The officer hurried to the front door and came back at a run. “It’s a typed note on white paper that says, ‘Everyone dies. Two down, two to go, and then you’re dead.’ There’s no signature, but there’s a dead rat on the portal.”
Sara bit her lip and wondered if she and her unborn son counted as two in the killer’s mind. The odds were good that they did.
The lieutenant reached in through the open window for the microphone and called Kerney’s unit number. It took him a minute to respond.
The baby moved, and Sara leaned back against the headrest wondering if she was about to give birth. She held her breath, hoping it was a false alarm. She wanted this madness over before Patrick Brannon Kerney came into the world. She listened as the lieutenant gave Kerney the news.
“Have you searched the house?” Kerney asked, his voice clear on the radio speaker.
“Not yet.”
“Bring in another officer to assist,” Kerney said. “I doubt whoever left the message is around, but play it safe anyway. Call me when you’ve finished the house search, and I’ll send a detective to fetch the note. Is everything else ten-four?”
“Affirmative.” After requesting another unit, the lieutenant dropped the microphone on the seat. “This won’t take all that long, ma’am,” he said.
“Good,” Sara replied, trying not to wiggle, “because I have to pee.”
Kerney sat in Sara’s new car with Larry Otero and watched as a group of detectives huddled in the middle of the street while Sal Molina gave them the word that the scope of the investigation now included a serious threat to the chief and his pregnant wife.
The emergency lights from the police units, an ambulance, and the crime scene van blinked lollipop colors into the night, bouncing off the trees and the front of Manning’s house. A cluster of neighbors, including the Sauls, stood behind the police line watching techs lug equipment into Dora Manning’s house.
The killer’s note and the explicit symbolism of a second dead rat on his doorstep ate like a worm in Kerney’s gut, and assigning officers to protect Sara didn’t ease his anxiety. Until he knew who the perp was and why this was happening, none of them was safe.
An unmarked unit passed through the checkpoint and pulled to the side of the street. Ramona Pino came over with a shut-down look on her face and handed Kerney the note retrieved from his front door. It was protected in a clear plastic bag.
He read it, turned it over to the back side, which was blank, and passed it along to Larry, who did the same before handing it back.
“I think the neighborhood knows that we’ve arrived in force,” Kerney said, as he returned the note to Pino. “Except for the patrol officer at the checkpoint, ask the officers and detectives to kill their emergency lights.”
Kerney knew his orders sounded picky. But it was a lot better than cursing the nameless son of a bitch who wanted to kill his family.
Ramona nodded stiffly and walked away.
“She’s not a happy camper right now,” Larry said.
“She’ll get over it,” Kerney said, not in the least interested in Pino’s emotional state. “What’s happening with the IA investigation?”
“Lieutenant Casados has personally interviewed Pino, Tafoya, Molina, all on-duty commanders in the operations division, and the SWAT supervisor. I’m next on the list. I’m meeting with him in the morning. He’ll want to see you after that.”
One by one, the emergency lights went dark. Kerney nodded. Unless directed otherwise, Casados reported to the chief and no one else.
“We’ll see what shakes out,” he said. “Have Molina put Tafoya and Pino on desk duty starting tomorrow. I want a comprehensive search made to locate every case file and court record that involved Jack Potter, Dora Manning, and me. I don’t care how many archives they have to dig through to get the information. It’s time to start connecting the dots.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Also have the ME give us his best estimate of the time of Manning’s death. To me, it looks like she’s been dead for at least twenty-four hours, perhaps longer. That would mean the perp cut her throat before he shot Jack Potter.”
“Why the different MOs?” Larry asked.
“We don’t know yet if they’re different,” Kerney replied.
“He used a knife on Manning and a pistol on Potter.”
“Because each circumstance and setting was unique. Potter was killed early in the morning on an empty street. I doubt our perp wanted to risk attacking him with a knife. It was far better to shoot him and then get the hell out of there in a hurry. On the other hand, Manning died in her bed, so I’m assuming she was killed at night. A gunshot could have alerted the neighbors. In that instance, it was better to use a blade.”
“But there’s no indication the perp played any mind games with Potter before he killed him,” Larry said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Kerney said as he started the engine.
“Going home?” Larry asked, as he opened the passenger door.
“Not yet. There are a few things I want to do first. Is the ADA on his way?”
“Yeah, Foyt should be here soon. I’ll bring him up to speed.”
On late rounds, Dr. Rand Collier read the admission report, the medication chart, and the nursing notes in Mary Beth Patterson’s chart. After an hour of observation in the ER, Patterson’s catatonic stupor had lifted, replaced by a moderate psychotic reaction stemming from the death of her boyfriend. The ER physician who’d examined Patterson cited nihilistic delusions, verbal requests to be punished, and a flat affect. An antidepressant had been prescribed and Patterson had been sent up to the psych unit for further observation and evaluation.