Rust-colored, ankle-high hiking boots. They so surprised him that he slowed down and stared. The close look made him notice something so alarming that he slammed on his brakes, barely registering the squeal of tires behind him as the car that followed almost hit the cruiser. Trembling, he got out, crouched, stared even more closely at the hiking boots, and rushed toward his two-way radio.
The shoes had feet in them.
* * *
As an approaching police car wailed and officers motioned for traffic to go past on the shoulder of the road, Romero stood with his sergeant, the police chief, and the medical examiner, watching the lab crew do its work. His cruiser remained where he'd stopped it next to the shoes. A waist-high screen had been put up.
" I'll know more when we get the evidence to the lab," the medical examiner said, "but judging from the straight clean lines, I think something like a power saw was used to sever the feet from the legs."
Romero bit his lower lip.
"Anything else you can tell us right away?" the police chief asked.
"There isn't any blood on the pavement, which means that the blood on the shoes and the stumps of the feet was dry before they were dropped here. The discoloration of the tissue suggests that at least twenty-four hours passed between the crime and the disposal."
"Anybody notice anything else?"
"The size of the shoes," Romero said.
They looked at him.
"Mine are tens. These look to be sevens or eights. My guess is, the victim was female."
* * *
The same police officers who'd left the pile of old shoes in front of Romero's locker now praised his instincts. Although he had long since discarded the various shoes that he'd collected, no one blamed him. After all, so much time had gone by, who could have predicted the shoes would be important? Still, he remembered what kind they'd been, just as he remembered that he'd started noticing them almost exactly a year ago, around the fifteenth of May.
But there was no guarantee that the person who'd dropped the shoes a year ago was the person who'd left the severed feet. All the investigating team could do was deal with the little evidence they had. As Romero anticipated, the medical examiner eventually determined that the victim had indeed been a woman. Was the person responsible a tourist, someone who came back to Santa Fe each May? If so, would that person have committed similar crimes somewhere else? Inquiries to the FBI revealed that over the years numerous murders by amputation had been committed throughout the U.S., but none matched the profile that the team was dealing with. What about missing persons reports? Those in New Mexico were eliminated, but as the search spread, it became clear that so many thousands of people disappeared in the U.S. each month that the investigation team would need more staff than it could ever hope to have.
Meanwhile, Romero was part of the team staking out that area of Old Pecos Trail. Each night, he used a night-vision telescope to watch from the roof of the Baptist church. After all, if the killer stayed to his pattern, other shoes would be dropped, and perhaps-God help us, Romero thought-they too would contain severed feet. If he saw anything suspicious, all he needed to do was focus on the car's license plate and then use his two-way radio to alert police cars hidden along Old Pecos Trail. But night after night, there was nothing to report.
A week later, a current model red Saturn with New Hampshire plates was found abandoned in an arroyo southeast of Albuquerque. The car was registered to a thirty-year-old woman named Susan Crowell, who had set out with her fiance on a cross-country car tour three weeks earlier. Neither she nor her fiance had contacted their friends and relatives in the past eight days.
* * *
May became June, then July. The Fourth of July pancake breakfast in the historic Plaza was its usual success. Three weeks later, Spanish Market occupied the same space, local Hispanic artisans displaying their paintings, icons, and woodwork. Tourist attendance was down, the sensationalist publicity about the severed feet having discouraged some visitors from coming. But a month after that, the similar but larger Indian Market occurred, and memories were evidently short, for now the usual thirty thousand tourists thronged the Plaza to admire Native American jewelry and pottery.
Romero was on duty for all of these events, making sure everything proceeded in an orderly fashion. Still, no matter the tasks assigned to him, his mind was always back on Old Pecos Trail. Some nights, he couldn't stay away. He drove over to East Lupita, watched the passing headlights on Old Pecos Trail, and brooded. He didn't expect anything to happen, not as fall approached, but being there made him feel on top of things, helped focus his thoughts, and in an odd way gave him a sense of being close to his son. Sometimes, the presence of the church across the street made him pray.
One night, a familiar pickup truck filled with moss rocks drove by. Romero remembered it from the night his son had been killed and from so many summer Saturdays when he'd watched baskets of vegetables being carried from it to a stand at the Farmers' Market. He had never stopped associating it with the shoes. Granted, at the time he'd been certain he'd stopped the wrong vehicle. He didn't have a reason to take the huge step of suspecting that Luke Parsons had anything to do with the murders of Susan Crowell and her fiance. Nonetheless, he'd told the investigation team about that night the previous year, and they'd checked Luke out as thoroughly as possible. He and his three brothers lived with their father on a farm in the Rio Grande gorge north of Dillon. They were hard workers, kept to themselves, and stayed out of trouble.
Seeing the truck pass, Romero didn't have a reason to make it stop, but that didn't mean he couldn't follow it. He pulled onto Old Pecos Drive and kept the truck's taillights in view as it headed into town. It turned right at the state capitol building and proceeded along Paseo de Peralta until on the other side of town it steered into an Allsup's gas station.
Romero chose a pump near the pickup truck, got out of his Jeep, and pretended to be surprised by the man next to him.
"Luke, it's Gabe Romero. How are you?"
Then he was surprised, realizing his mistake. This wasn't Luke.
"John ?
I didn't recognize you." The tall, thin, sandy-haired, somber-eyed young man assessed him. He lowered his eyes to the holstered pistol on Romero's hip. Romero had never worn it to the Farmers' Market. "I didn't realize you were a police officer."
"Does it matter?"
"Only that it's reassuring to know my vegetables are safe when you're around." John's stern features took the humor out of the joke.
"Or your moss rocks." Romero pointed toward the back of the truck. "Been selling them over on that country road by the Interstate? That's usually Luke's job."
"Well, he has other things to do."
"Yeah, now that I think of it, I haven't seen him at the market lately."
"Excuse me. It's been a long day. It's a long drive back."
"You bet. I didn't mean to keep you."
* * *
Luke wasn't at the Farmers' Market the next Saturday or the final one the week after that.
* * *
Late October. There'd been a killing frost the night before, and in the morning, there was snow in the mountains. Since the Farmers' Market was closed for the year and Romero had his Saturday free, he thought, Why don't I take a little drive?
The sunlight was cold, crisp, and clear as Romero headed north along Highway 285. He crested the hill near the modernistic Sante Fe Opera house and descended from the juniper-and-pinon-dotted slopes of town into a multicolored desert, its draws and mesas stretching dramatically away toward white-capped mountains on each side. No wonder Hollywood made so many westerns here, he thought. He passed the Camel Rock Indian casino and the Cities of Gold Indian casino, reaching what had once been another eternal construction project, the huge interchange that led west to Los Alamos.
But instead of heading toward the atomic city, he continued north, passing through Espanola, and now the landscape changed again, the hills on each side coming closer,
the narrow highway passing between the ridges of the Rio Grande gorge. WATCH OUT FOR FALLING ROCK, a sign said. Yeah, I intend to watch out, he thought. On his left, partially screened by leafless trees, was the legendary Rio Grande, narrow, taking its time in the fall, gliding around curves, bubbling over boulders. On the far side of the river was Embudo Station, an old stagecoach stop the historic buildings of which had been converted into a microbrewery and a restaurant.
He passed it, heading farther north, and now the gorge began to widen. Farms and vineyards appeared on both sides of the road, where silt from melting during the Ice Age had made the soil rich. He stopped in Dillon, took care that his handgun was concealed by his zipped-up windbreaker, and asked at the general store if anybody knew where he could find the Parsons farm.
Fifteen minutes later, he had the directions he wanted. But instead of going directly to the farm, he drove to a scenic view outside town and waited for a state police car to pull up beside him. During the morning's drive, he'd used his cellular phone to contact the state police barracks farther north in Taos. After explaining who he was, he'd persuaded the dispatcher to send a cruiser down to meet him.
"I don't anticipate trouble," Romero told the burly trooper as they stood outside their cars and watched the Rio Grande flow through a chasm beneath them. "But you never know."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Just park at the side of the highway. Make sure I come back out of the farm."
"Your department didn't send you up here?"
"Self-initiative. I've got a hunch."
The trooper looked doubtful. "How long are you going to be in there?"
"Considering how unfriendly they are, not long. Fifteen minutes. I just want to get a sense of the place."
"If I get a call about an emergency down the road..."
"You'll have to go. But I'd appreciate it if you came back and made sure I left the property. On my way to Santa Fe, I'll stop at the general store in Dillon and leave word that I'm okay."
The state trooper still looked doubtful.
" I've been working on this case a long time," Romero said." Please, I'd really appreciate the help."
* * *
The dirt road was just after a sign that read, TAOS, 20 MILES. It was on the left of the highway and led down a slope toward fertile bottom land. To the north and west, ridges bordered the valley. Well-maintained rail fences enclosed rich, black soil. The Parsons were certainly hard workers, he had to admit. With cold weather about to arrive, the fields had been cleared, everything ready for spring.
The road headed west toward a barn and outbuildings, all of them neat looking, their white appearing freshly painted. A simple wood frame house, it white too, had a pitched metal roof that gleamed in the autumn sun. Beyond the house was the river, about thirty feet wide, with a raised foot bridge leading across to leafless aspen trees and scrub brush trailing up a slope.
As he drove closer, Romero saw movement at the barn, someone getting off a ladder, putting down a paint can. Someone else appeared at the barn's open doors. A third person came out of the house. They were waiting in front of the house as Romero pulled up and stopped.
This was the first time he'd seen three of the brothers together, their tall lean sandy-haired blue-eyed similarities even more striking. They wore the same denim coveralls with the same blue wool shirts underneath.
But Romero was well enough acquainted with them that he could tell one from another. The brother on the left, about nineteen, must be the one he'd never met.
"I assume you're Matthew." Romero got out of the car and walked toward them, extending his hand.
No one made a move to shake hands with him.
"I don't see Luke," Romero said.
"He has things to do," John said.
Their features were pinched.
"Why did you come here?" Mark asked.
"I was driving up to Taos. While I was in the neighborhood, I thought I'd drop by and see if you had any vegetables for sale."
"You're not welcome."
"What kind of attitude is that? For somebody who's been as good a customer as I have, I thought you might be pleased to see me."
"Leave."
"But don't you want my business?"
"Matthew, go in the house and bring me the phone. I'm going to call the state police."
The young man nodded and turned toward the house.
"That's fine," Romero said. "I'll be on my way."
* * *
The trooper was at the highway when Romero drove out.
"Thanks for the backup."
"You'd better not thank me. I just got a call about you. Whatever you did in there, you really pissed them off. The dispatcher says, if you come back, they want you arrested for trespassing."
* * *
".. .the city's attorney," the police chief said.
The man's handshake was unenthusiastic.
"And this is Mr. Daly, the attorney for Mr. Parsons," the chief said.
An even colder handshake.
"Mr. Parsons you've definitely met," the chief said.
Romero nodded to John.
"I'll get right to the point," Daly said. "You've been harassing my client, and we want it stopped."
"Harassing? Wait a minute. I haven't been harassing - "
"Detaining the family vehicle without just cause. Intimidating my client and his brothers at their various places of business. Following my client. Confronting him in public places. Invading his property and refusing to leave when asked to. You crowd him just about every where he goes, and we want it stopped, or we'll sue both you and the city. Juries don't like rogue cops."
"Rogue cop? What are you talking about?"
"I didn't come here to debate this." Daly stood, motioning for John to do the same. "My client's completely in the right. This isn't a police state. You, your department, and the city have been warned. Any more incidents, and I'll call a press conference to let every potential juror know why we're filing the lawsuit."
With a final searing gaze, Daly left the room. John followed almost immediately but not before he gave Romero a victimized look that made Romero's face turn warm with anger.
The office became silent.
The city attorney cleared his throat. "I don't suppose I have to tell you to stay away from him."
"But I haven't done anything wrong."
" Did you follow him? Did you go to his home? Did you ask the state police in Taos for backup when you entered the property?"
Romero looked away.
"You were out of your jurisdiction, acting completely on your own."
"These brothers have something to do with - "
"They were investigated and cleared."
"I can't explain. It's a feeling that keeps nagging at me."
"Well, I have a feeling," the attorney said. "If you don't stop exceeding your authority, you're going to be out of a job, not to mention in court trying to explain to a jury why you harassed a group of brothers who look like advertisements for hard work and family values. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, for God sake. If it wouldn't look like an admission of guilt, I'd recommend your dismissal right now."
* * *
Romero got the worst assignments. If a snowstorm took out power at an intersection and traffic needed to be directed by hand, he was at the top of the list to do it. Anything that involved the outdoors and bad weather, he was the man. Obviously, the police chief was inviting him to quit.
But Romero had a secret defense. The heat that had flooded his face when John gave him that victimized look hadn't gone away. It had stayed and spread, possessing his body. Directing traffic in a foot of snow, with a raging storm, and a wind chill near zero? No problem. Anger made him as warm as could be.
John Parsons had arrogantly assumed he'd won. Romero was going to pay him back. May 15. That was about the time the shoes had appeared two years ago, and the severed feet last year. The chief was planning some surveillance on that section of Ol
d Pecos Trail, but nobody believed that if the killer planned to act again, he'd be stupid enough to be that predictable. For certain, Romero wasn't going to be predictable. He wasn't going to play John's game and risk his job by hanging around Old Pecos Trail so John could drive by and claim that the harassment had started again. No, Old Pecos Trail didn't interest him anymore. On May 15, he was going to be somewhere else.
Outside Dillon. In the Rio Grande gorge.
* * *
He planned it for quite a while. First, he had to explain his absence. A vacation. He hadn't taken one last year. San Francisco. He'd never been there. It was supposed to be especially beautiful in the spring. The chief looked pleased, as if he hoped Romero would look for a job there.
Second, his quarry knew the kind of car he drove. He traded his green Jeep for a blue Ford Explorer.
Third, he needed equipment. The night-vision telescope he'd used to watch Old Pecos Trail from the top of the church had made darkness so vivid that he bought a similar model from a military surplus store. He went to a camera store and bought a powerful zoom lens for the 35 mm camera he had at home. Food and water for several days. Outdoor clothing. Something to carry everything in. Hiking shoes sturdy enough to support all the weight.
His vacation started on May 13. When he'd last driven to Dillon, autumn had made the Rio Grande calm, but now the spring snowmelt widened and deepened it, cresting it into a rage. Green trees and shrubs bordered the foaming water as white-water rafters shot through roiling channels and jounced over hidden rocks. As he drove past the entrance to the Parsons farm, he worried that one of the brothers might drive out and notice him, but then he reminded himself that they didn't know this car. He stared to his left at the rich black land, the white buildings in the distance, and the glinting metal roof of the house. At the far edge of the farm, the river raged high enough that it almost snagged the raised foot bridge.