"Stay put, Sergeant. Clasp your hands together at the back of your head, and we'll stay nice and calm until Duran gets here."
"Whatever you say, Chief." Shockley said, without complying.
"Hands at the back of your head."
Shockley gauged the distance. Kerney was twelve, maybe fourteen feet away. His vest would stop Kerney's rounds, and if he moved quickly, the chief might miss him completely. He heard the sound of Duran's siren closing fast.
"Don't be stupid, Shockley. Do it now."
"I think I'll just wait for Duran," Shockley said, visualizing the moves he would make. He would have to draw and fire in one smooth motion. He practiced the sequence mentally: a quick step to the left, hand to his holster, draw, fire twice, drop, and roll.
"Hands behind your head," Kerney repeated.
"How come you don't wear a uniform, Chief?" Shockley asked, eyeing Kerney's boots, jeans, and cowboy shirt as he inched his hand closer to his weapon. "You're a deputy chief, for chrissake. You should be wearing a spit-and-polish uniform with three stars on your collar. Make the troops proud."
"Don't try to goad me."
"Hell, I thought you were some sort of cowboy wannabe when you showed up this morning. I almost laughed in your face."
Shockley locked his eyes on Kerney's face and in one fluid motion he spun sideways, drew, braced his weapon as he came up on target, and fired. He caught a fleeting image of Kerney's weapon pointed at his head before white light exploded inside his brain.
Kerney walked to Shockley's body and kicked the weapon out of his hand.
The gun skidded twenty feet across the parking lot. His two rounds had torn holes in the sergeant's neck and eye, and blood was pumping out of a carotid artery, spraying over Shockley's uniform shirt.
Kerney had seen a lot of dead bodies over the years, but never one of a cop he'd shot. His gaze traveled down to the gold shield on Shockley's chest, the stripes on the sleeves, the hash marks above the cuff, the gray piping on the black trousers, the highly polished shoes, covered with a sheen of dust. The blood splatter on Shockley's face was dark brown. The sight made Kerney want to puke.
"Jesus Christ," Robert Duran said. "What happened?"
Kerney turned and found Duran at his shoulder. He held out his weapon. "Take this."
Duran obliged and Kerney walked away. "Where are you going, Chief?"
"Give me a minute."
At the side of the apartment building, Kerney quickly lost the food in his stomach. He stood up, leaned against the wall, and didn't move until his heart stopped thudding against his chest.
The helicopter lifted off from the pavement and two Otero County deputy sheriffs moved their units to let traffic back on the side street behind the parking lot to the district office. A semi-truck pulling the mobile command center Chief Baca had ordered sent over from Las Cruces made a tight turn into the parking lot.
At least half the workers at the nearby Otero County courthouse were either hanging out windows or watching the action from the sidewalk.
The crews of six television-station vans parked in a side lot were busy filming the chopper's departure, and the only thing that kept the assembled reporters from blitzing the district office were the barriers and uniformed officers the P.I.O. lieutenant had put in place to hold the media back.
Three passengers from the helicopter-Chief Andy Baca, Deputy Chief Elias Giron, and Maj. Kurt Hagerman-converged on Nate Hutchinson. Giron ran uniform operations for the department, and Hagerman was his zone commander for the eastern sector, which included Alamogordo.
"Where is Chief Kerney now, Hutch?" Andy asked, barely glancing at the captain and lieutenant from the Alamogordo office, who waited nearby.
"Detained by the city police. The district attorney is taking his statement." "Who let the city butt in on this?" Andy asked sharply, his normally low-key temperament worn thin from the events of the day.
"By the time we got to Shockley's apartment, the city cops had secured the area and wouldn't let us in. I couldn't even talk to Agent Duran until they'd finished with him. That took two hours."
"Has the dispatcher admitted to tipping off Shockley about the IA investigation?"
"She admits only to telling Shockley that Duran was waiting for him at the office, and that Chief Kerney had left the premises."
"Fire her ass. I want her gone within the next ten minutes."
"We can't fire her without taking progressive discipline, Chief," Capt. Willie Catanach, the district commander, said.
"I wasn't speaking to you, Captain," Andy said. "But since you've chosen to enter into this conversation, let me make a couple of things clear. I've got lawyers up in Santa Fe who will gladly defend the department against any wrongful termination suit. I'm going to let them do their jobs.
Speaking of which, let me say something about your job. What Sergeant Shockley was allowed to get away with goes way beyond misplaced trust or sloppy supervision. Chief Giron and Major Hagerman are now in charge of this district. You and Lieutenant Vanhorn are relieved of duty. My office will inform you when and if you can return to work."
Catanach flinched as though he'd been slapped in the face, and Vanhorn's expression turned to stunned disbelief. Neither man moved.
"You heard the chief," said Elias Giron, who'd been chewed out privately by Andy for not having adequate evidence policies in place.
"Lieutenant, give the captain a ride home. Captain, I need your car keys."
Catanach fished the keys out of his pocket and gave them over. As the men moved away, Andy swung his attention to Hagerman.
"Major, get a relief dispatcher in here now, and fire that woman."
"Yes, sir."
Andy put his hand on Nate Hutchinson's shoulder. "I want internal affairs to review all district evidence inventories. If this shit can happen in Alamogordo, it can happen anywhere."
"I'll get it started, Chief."
"Elias, I want you with the city police chief, right now. Hold his hand or sit in his lap if you have to, but don't let him out of your sight until Kerney is turned loose. If you get the slightest hint that he's planning to play political football with Kerney, call me right away. Tell the DA the minute he's finished with Kerney, I want a meeting with him before he does another damn thing. Be diplomatic." "I'm on it," Giron said, as he walked to Catanach's unit.
Some of the tension left Andy's face. "You can brief me inside," he said to Hutch, as he glanced at the midday sun in a cloudless sky. "I keep forgetting how damn hot it gets down here in the fall. It feels like summer in Santa Fe."
He shook his head as he moved toward the door. "Six murders and a dead dirty cop, all in one day. Unbelievable. Did Agent Duran see the shooting go down?"
"He got there after the fact."
"How is Kerney handling it?"
"According to Duran, he's hammered."
"Jesus, who wouldn't be?" Andy said.
Kerney placed his shield and commission card on the table. His blue eyes, usually so intense, were expressionless. "I'm not doing this anymore," he said flatly.
"Did you know that you're the only deputy chief in the history of the department who wasn't appointed from within the ranks?" Andy Baca replied.
"You're not listening to me."
"I caught a lot of flak for that," Andy said.
"Am I supposed to thank you for the opportunity to be a cop again?"
Kerney had been chief of detectives for the Santa Fe Police Department before a gun battle forced him into medical retirement. Andy had brought him back into harness a year ago.
His stinging tone made Andy repress a smile. "Quitting now will make a lot of people happy."
"I couldn't care less."