Chapter 42

While the police "army" was doing what they could do much better than we could, Cecelia and I took on a couple of easy cases. I hunted down a bail skip – a petty thief I'd known for seven or eight years who'd failed to show up in court. It was dead easy, for every time he decided he didn't want to go to court he went and hid out at his sister's place. His bondsman called me in the morning, and I had him in custody by lunch.

Meanwhile, Cecelia served subpoenas. One of Albuquerque's flock of lawyers was suing a restaurant where his client had slipped and fallen – the bread and butter of small time lawyers. Probably it was the client's fault for not watching where he was going, and whatever the judgment was the lawyer would take a third right off the top, before taxes, leaving not nearly as much as the client expected. But it isn't our job to reform the legal system in the United States, and serving subpoenas is how real PIs pay the light bill, so Cecelia went out and did it.

Finding everyone took her longer than it took me to find my bail skip, so for a couple of days I helped her serve people, leaving just one name on the list. Some people just refuse to make serving them easy, and here was one – a guy who'd somehow learned that the plaintiff's attorney wanted him to testify, and was dodging the subpoena. Why on earth I didn't know – surely the case wouldn't require him to rat out a Mafia don or anything like that – but then as I told Cecelia, ours wasn't to reason why, our was just to do or die of irritation trying to find the guy. I got a poke in the ribs for that one.

Then came the third day of March. I was in my study puzzling over a point of Greek grammar – since I've never been to college in my life, I don't actually know New Testament Greek, and sometimes even the little bit I try to do with it proves difficult – when the phone rang. I ignored it, being deep in my Greek lexicon, but Cecelia knocked on the door and then came in. I looked up with some irritation – it's easy to transfer frustration with something onto the first person who comes along. "What?" I asked.

"Lt. Stubblefield reports that they have narrowed the suspects down to three people – one of whom has apparently gotten wind of the fact, and fled. The lieutenant was able, on that basis and the rest of the evidence, to obtain a search warrant. It appears that the suspect did not flee in great haste, but did flee on the spur of the moment." She stopped, not for breath, but from the look on her face to steel herself for what was coming. "They found, in the house, sufficient evidence to convince them that this is the perpetrator, and to obtain a warrant for his arrest."

I looked at her for a moment, and closed the book. "What evidence, C?" I said gently.

"Traces of copious quantities of blood in the garage, and photographs of the victims."

"Be glad," I said, "that this guy didn't torture the poor guys. Those photos would have been bad."

"From the lieutenant's description, they were bad enough. Apparently the blitz attack that you suspected was in fact how the perpetrator operated, meaning there are no photos of the victims in conscious terror, but it seems that there are multiple pictures of each victim, depicting various stages in the stabbing."

I raised my eyebrows at that. The multiple stab wounds had led me to believe that the perp attacked viciously and violently, not stopping until he was done, even though – as I'd explained to Cecelia – he was at least partly organized, but this sounded like he was more tightly organized than I'd thought. Whether he was deliberately making things look like his method showed some disorganization, or he just enjoyed putting a knife into people over and over, he'd thrown my thinking.

"Did Stubblefield mention bloody clothing, tarps, weapons, anything like that?"

"He did not, but he did indicate that the search is still in progress. His call was to alert us to the suspect's flight. He specifically wanted us to have the name and license plate number." She gave me those. "I have called Cristina and asked her to locate and set aside our information on this individual."

"Cool." I looked at my desk – however much I get frustrated trying to untangle a language in which I have no training, I'd rather do that than deal with a serial murderer. "I guess we oughta go next door."

"We should. I told the lieutenant that we would likely perform our own search, to the best of our ability."

"You're learnin', C," I told her.

"I have an excellent instructor," she said, and turned to lead the way.

A few minutes later we sat at the table in the conference room, looking at the extracts from the case file. Robert Murchison, age 35, with a mustache and dark hair ... He fit the description we had, he drove a dark green SUV which could easily appear black in certain light, and lived on Loma del Norte Road, between Louisiana and Wyoming – which was close to both the dump sites along San Antonio. My theory there had been right, it seemed. Cecelia copied down the particulars of his vehicle, and made a couple of "wanted posters" with his name, picture, and the information on them.

"Why two?" I asked her.

"Because there are two of us," she said, looking at me as though I'd asked why she had two hands.

I leaned back in my chair. "I know what I told you about serial murderers," I said, "and I believe it. But you're still ridin' with me. We probably won't find him – but you're still ridin' with me."