Free One to the Wolves, On the Trail of a Killer by Lois Duncan Page A

involved with those of this family who will be now unaware of how
     they will move. Michael will have been one to come along behind this family of warriors
     and take tally. His tally will sometimes have caused him great alarm at the power
     of this group. All in this family will have known Michael Bush as the Tally Keeper,
     and there will be now the consulting in order to have him continue to keep track of
     these past life soldiers, these warriors, who will be now led in one direction, and
     this is this mystery of the loss of one of their own.
    Kait will remember Michael as one who picked her up before out of the devastation
     and carried her to safety and continued life. It is as if he cannot accept that she
     will have now been lost in the war in this lifetime, one in which he was not there
     to carry her back to the fort to safety. This time it is all on a less tangible level
     but he will want this work and this lesson and this opportunity to assist again.
    Michael timed his trip to Albuquerque to coincide with my speaking engagement at a
     writers’ conference. When we met for breakfast it was as if I had known him forever.
    “The fraud ring is the tip of the iceberg,” he told me. “It’s a lever we can use to
     get law enforcement to take this case seriously, but Jim and I are agreed that Kait
     was killed for some other reason— probably drugs.”
    “Everyone who knew Kait has told us she didn’t use drugs.”
    “That’s what would have made her a threat to smugglers,” Michael said. “If she wasn’t
     part of the game, she’d be a danger to the players.”
    He proceeded to give me a rundown on his activities since his arrival in Albuquerque
     the previous day.
    “Schwartz refused to meet with me,” he said. “But the reporter, Mike Gallagher, did.
     Did you know the police found a Budweiser can on the curb across from where Kait was
     shot?”
    “There was something about that in the case file, but it didn’t seem important,” I
     said. “The autopsy didn’t show any alcohol in Kait’s blood.”
    “The significant thing is that there was a viable fingerprint on that can,” Michael
     said. “We need to get prints of the Vietnamese suspects from Immigration so APD can
     do a comparison.”
    “Another thing Gallagher told me was that a truck driver reported seeing a high speed
     chase involving a car like Kait’s and a low rider Camaro like Juve’s. But that chase
     occurred around nine thirty, over an hour before Kait left Susan’s house.”
    “We suspect that Kait may have been on her way to Susan’s house at that time,” I said. “The truck driver said the cars were headed west
     in the direction of Susan’s place, not east in the direction Kait was driving when
     she was shot. Susan now denies this, but Detective Gallegos quoted her as saying Kait
     got to her house at nine-thirty.”
    “That would mean Kait was chased twice that night,” Michael said, “once on her way
     to her friend’s house and once when she left. What reason did Susan give for changing
     her story about Kait’s arrival time?”
    “She said Detective Gallegos misquoted her.”
    “That’s unlikely but not impossible,” Michael said. “What was Susan’s demeanor at
     the funeral?”
    “She didn’t attend it,” I said. “Her dog bit her, and she was in the emergency room
     getting her arm stitched up.”
    “She was bitten by her own dog?”
    “That’s what she said.”
    “And that was on the day of Kait’s funeral? Isn’t that the same date Dung Nguyen tried
     to kill himself?”
    “Mike Gallagher doesn’t buy that,” I said. “He thinks Dung was stabbed as a warning
     to keep his mouth shut.”
    “If that’s so, that same person may have gotten to Susan,” Michael speculated. “I’d
     like to talk to that woman. Do you know how to reach her?”
    “Yes, but I told her I’d keep her location confidential.”
    “Then give her my number and ask her to call me,” Michael said.