“Not good enough. I want the officer who actually shot Larsen also kicked off SWAT.”
“Agreed.”
Sid rubbed his lips together. “And the grand jury can have complete access to whatever, with nothing held back, including the Patterson debacle?”
“Bring it on,” Kerney replied.
“This could cost you your job.”
“I think the grand jury will find much to praise by the time their investigation gets underway.”
“Don’t ask me to stall on this,” Sid said.
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
Larranaga picked up the cigar, started chewing on it, and wiped a bit of tobacco off his lower lip. Kerney wasn’t wrong about his political agenda, and a grand jury probe into department operations that weren’t perceived as anti-law enforcement could give him front-runner status for an interim appointment to the bench. Eventually, he’d have to run in an election to be retained in the position, but as the incumbent he’d have the advantage.
“Okay, I’ll go along with you on this,” Larranaga said.
“Thanks, Sid.”
Larranaga smiled. “Yeah, sure. Just remember, I can’t subpoena a dead police chief, so go catch the guy who wants to kill you.”
“That’s a great idea,” Kerney said as he left Sid’s office.
After receiving Officer Neal’s report of a dead dog in Kaplan’s car, Sal Molina pulled Ramona Pino off the records search to go and investigate, called the Albuquerque Police Department to ask for assistance, and ordered Neal to take Kaplan to the nearest police substation and wait there for Pino’s arrival.
It was a still, hot day in Albuquerque when Ramona arrived at the parking lot near the airport. A relentless sun pushed the temperature near the century mark and dust kicked up by dry, early morning canyon winds hung in the hazy air. The lane to Kaplan’s car had been blocked off with bright yellow police tape. Two local crime scene techs and a detective waited in the air-conditioned comfort of their vehicles.
With the heat from the pavement boiling through the soles of her shoes, she walked around Kaplan’s car with the detective, who’d introduced himself as Danny Roth.
Probably in his late forties, Roth was a transplant with a decidedly East Coast accent who’d gone Western. He wore boots, a bolo tie around the open collar of his cowboy shirt, and a pair of stretch cotton and polyester jeans. Tufts of dark chest hair curled above the open shirt collar.
There was no sign of forced entry. In unison, they shaded their eyes and looked through the tinted side windows and windshield. The headless dog, which had the markings and coloration of a Border collie, sat upright, resting against the back of the driver’s seat. There was a white envelope on the dashboard behind the steering wheel. They could see no discernible blood in the passenger compartment.
With a slightly leering smile, Roth held out the car key Kaplan had given him. “Want to open it up?” he asked in a cavalier, joking tone, as he sidled close to her.
“I’ll let your people do that,” Ramona said as she backed away. She didn’t need Roth wasting her time with any cute moves. She had a boyfriend, an APD vice sergeant, who wasn’t overly hairy, and didn’t leer. Besides that, the inside of the vehicle probably smelled like dead dog.
The car was a high-end, imported sedan that came with an antitheft system and keys with built-in electronic circuits coded to open the doors and start the engine.
“How did the perp get into the vehicle without setting off the alarm?” she asked.
Roth shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. “When Kaplan gave me the key, he said the system was working, and the lot manager said no car alarms have gone off since Kaplan arrived at the lot.”
“You asked him to check the records?”
“Yeah, for the eight days the vehicle has been here.”
“You’d think that somebody parked nearby would have noticed the dog,” Ramona said.
“Depends on when the perp put the pooch in the car,” Roth said.
“Good point. Okay, let’s have the techs dust the outside for prints and then open it up,” Ramona said.
Roth waved at the other police vehicle and two techs, both with surgical masks hanging around their necks, came over and started rummaging through their cases.
Ramona glanced around the lot while Roth tried to chat her up. The eager look in his eye and the absence of a wedding ring made her shut down even more. Except for the entrance and exit lanes by the attendant’s booth, a high chain-link security fence enclosed the property, and the long rows of parking spaces had light poles at each end to illuminate the lot at night. She doubted the perp had scaled the fence or walked onto the lot carrying a thirty-pound, headless dog, no matter how well concealed it might have been.
She ignored Roth and walked fifty yards to the attendant’s booth through heat waves that shimmered up from the hot pavement.
“What’s going on down there?” the female attendant asked, as she waved off a car trying to enter and pointed to a sign that read LOT FULL. “I had to close the lot and we’ve got two people waiting in the manager’s office because you cops won’t let them leave.”
“It shouldn’t be long now,” Ramona said. “I’ll speak to them. When did you start work?”
“Seven this morning.”
“Has anything out of the ordinary occurred?”
“Like what?”
“Somebody leaving without paying, or coming and going in a short period of time.”
“Everybody pays,” the blonde said. “You gotta go through this gate in order to get out. It’s the only way. And this is a long-term lot. People don’t just come and go. Some of these cars are here for three or four weeks.”
“So nobody did a fast turnaround,” Ramona said, “or failed to pay.”
“Not since I’ve been here.”
“How about earlier this week?”
“Same thing, and I’ve been here for five straight days.”
Ramona got the shift-change times from the blonde and asked for the manager. The woman pointed at a small building outside the fence next to a staging area where idling shuttle buses were parked. Inside, Ramona reassured two unhappy customers that they wouldn’t have to wait much longer, and met with the manager, a Hispanic male with nervous black eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and a mouth twisted in annoyance. His name, Leon Villa, was embroidered beneath a company patch sewn above the pocket of his short-sleeved shirt.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Villa asked, staring at Ramona’s shield. “The other policeman told me nothing. Is somebody dead?”
“No one’s dead,” Ramona replied. “I need to talk to the booth attendants who worked the afternoon and late-night shifts during the last eight days.”
“They’re not here.”
“Of course not,” Ramona said, wondering whether Villa was rattled by the presence of cops or a bit dimwitted. “Do you have their names, addresses, and phone numbers?”
Villa nodded, paged through a three-ring binder, and read off the information as Ramona wrote it down.
Back at the crime scene, the techs, their faces partially hidden behind surgical masks, were working on the inside of the car. A rancid, maggoty odor wafted out of the vehicle. The dog had been removed from the driver’s seat, bundled in a dark green garbage bag, and left on the pavement. There was no sign of blood on the seat or the floor mat.
Detective Roth handed her the blank envelope from the dashboard of Kaplan’s car and the note it contained. Both were protected by clear plastic sleeves. The note read:
KERNEY THE DOG DOESN’T COUNT STILL TWO TO GO CAN YOU GUESS WHO DIES BEFORE YOU?
“Who’s Kerney?” Roth asked.
“My chief.”
“No shit? What do you know about that? Bet he’s got to be sweating a bit.”
Ramona nodded as she studied the note. “This type looks identical to the message that was tacked to the chief’s front door.”