Read Online The Exiled by Christopher Charles - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Charles
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found some meaning in his job and more outside of it, but still he felt, a little less keenly as the years passed, shrouded in defeat. This morning, he allowed himself to imagine the shroud lifting, if only for as long as it took to solve this case.
A trucker flashed his brights, the universal signal that a cop sat lurking around the bend. Raney pulled up behind Junior’s squad car, skimmed the bumper stickers advocating sobriety and offering rewards for solid information. The car appeared empty, or else Junior had fallen so deeply asleep as to have slumped all the way forward.
“Rise and shine,” Raney called.
He came up on the driver’s side of the squad car, coffee in hand. Flies darted in and out of the open window. Junior’s forehead pressed against the top of the steering wheel, his arms hanging limp, his gun in his holster. Blood spatter on the windshield, the dash. Blood soaking the floor around his feet. Raney tossed the cup, took the deputy by his shoulders and tugged him slowly back, revealing the same deep and sideways cut he’d seen twice before. Raney pulled his gun from its holster, ran across the two-lane county road, through a clutch of pampas grass and onto the Wilkins property. The front door stood wide open. There was a thick trail of blood beginning at the steps and leading across the gravel to the driveway exit. A second trail led in the opposite direction. Raney scanned the house windows, the garage windows, the sedge and scrub. He raised his gun in both hands, started forward.
There had been a hard-fought battle in the living room—glass coffee table shattered, love seat overturned, portions of the far wall caved in, blood marking every surface. In the kitchen he found Mavis lying faceup on the floor, a gash across her throat, one arm reaching, as though someone had posed her in imitation of her husband. Her blood pooled on the slate tiles, spilled across the floor.
He cleared the house room by room, found it undisturbed past the kitchen: no bloody shoe prints, no closets rifled through, nothing different from the day before save two large suitcases lying open on Mavis’s bed. One was crammed with women’s clothing. The other was empty.
Raney holstered his gun, waited for his breathing to slow, then called Bay.
He had time before the sheriff and his team arrived. He stood out front on the stone steps, eyeballing the blood trails. The shorter trail ended a few yards shy of the road, where the assailant must have climbed into a vehicle and driven off, or been driven off. The second trail exited the driveway and continued beyond Raney’s line of vision. He followed it onto the road, where the blood thinned, became more sporadic, most likely stayed by a makeshift tourniquet. It kept on around a bend, stopped abruptly in a bed of sorghum grass. Raney looked back: Junior’s squad car was hidden behind a stand of Douglas fir. There were tire tracks in the grass, solid imprints that might be used for comparison. Whoever drove this car came up on the Wilkins ranch, saw Junior, kept going, and stopped here. Sometime in the dead of night, when this part of the county was pitch-black and there would be no witnesses to begin with. And then? He snuck up on Junior and slit his throat.
Raney crossed the road, slipped through a parting in the scrub, serpentined his way through a maze of juniper until he was standing a few quick strides from Junior’s car. Junior would have been dozing with the window open. He never saw it coming. Raney doubled back, searching the dirt for prints that weren’t his own, looking for any scrap of fabric clinging to a branch or thistle. The earth here was hard and compact, but he found, in three separate places, boot prints marked by a heavy heel and faint toe.
He walked back up to the house, heard sirens bearing down.
11
W ord spread once the road was closed off. News crews came from Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Bay kept them behind the yellow tape. He was content
A trucker flashed his brights, the universal signal that a cop sat lurking around the bend. Raney pulled up behind Junior’s squad car, skimmed the bumper stickers advocating sobriety and offering rewards for solid information. The car appeared empty, or else Junior had fallen so deeply asleep as to have slumped all the way forward.
“Rise and shine,” Raney called.
He came up on the driver’s side of the squad car, coffee in hand. Flies darted in and out of the open window. Junior’s forehead pressed against the top of the steering wheel, his arms hanging limp, his gun in his holster. Blood spatter on the windshield, the dash. Blood soaking the floor around his feet. Raney tossed the cup, took the deputy by his shoulders and tugged him slowly back, revealing the same deep and sideways cut he’d seen twice before. Raney pulled his gun from its holster, ran across the two-lane county road, through a clutch of pampas grass and onto the Wilkins property. The front door stood wide open. There was a thick trail of blood beginning at the steps and leading across the gravel to the driveway exit. A second trail led in the opposite direction. Raney scanned the house windows, the garage windows, the sedge and scrub. He raised his gun in both hands, started forward.
There had been a hard-fought battle in the living room—glass coffee table shattered, love seat overturned, portions of the far wall caved in, blood marking every surface. In the kitchen he found Mavis lying faceup on the floor, a gash across her throat, one arm reaching, as though someone had posed her in imitation of her husband. Her blood pooled on the slate tiles, spilled across the floor.
He cleared the house room by room, found it undisturbed past the kitchen: no bloody shoe prints, no closets rifled through, nothing different from the day before save two large suitcases lying open on Mavis’s bed. One was crammed with women’s clothing. The other was empty.
Raney holstered his gun, waited for his breathing to slow, then called Bay.
He had time before the sheriff and his team arrived. He stood out front on the stone steps, eyeballing the blood trails. The shorter trail ended a few yards shy of the road, where the assailant must have climbed into a vehicle and driven off, or been driven off. The second trail exited the driveway and continued beyond Raney’s line of vision. He followed it onto the road, where the blood thinned, became more sporadic, most likely stayed by a makeshift tourniquet. It kept on around a bend, stopped abruptly in a bed of sorghum grass. Raney looked back: Junior’s squad car was hidden behind a stand of Douglas fir. There were tire tracks in the grass, solid imprints that might be used for comparison. Whoever drove this car came up on the Wilkins ranch, saw Junior, kept going, and stopped here. Sometime in the dead of night, when this part of the county was pitch-black and there would be no witnesses to begin with. And then? He snuck up on Junior and slit his throat.
Raney crossed the road, slipped through a parting in the scrub, serpentined his way through a maze of juniper until he was standing a few quick strides from Junior’s car. Junior would have been dozing with the window open. He never saw it coming. Raney doubled back, searching the dirt for prints that weren’t his own, looking for any scrap of fabric clinging to a branch or thistle. The earth here was hard and compact, but he found, in three separate places, boot prints marked by a heavy heel and faint toe.
He walked back up to the house, heard sirens bearing down.
11
W ord spread once the road was closed off. News crews came from Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Bay kept them behind the yellow tape. He was content
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