Slow Kill Read online

  Kerney read off a name and address. The man worked as a stockbroker in a professional office building on St. Michael’s Drive.

  “Got it,” Ramona said, wondering if the chief was sending her to meet with a confidential informant or an undercover cop.

  “I’ll let him know you’re coming,” Kerney said.

  “Ten-four.”

  For the past year, DEA Special Agent Evan Winslow had masqueraded as an estate, retirement, and wealth management consultant in the Santa Fe office of a national brokerage house. Only the branch manager, a naval academy graduate and former JAG lawyer, and the local police chief, who’d arranged his cover, knew Winslow was a DEA cop.

  Winslow wasn’t interested in the low-end market that catered to the street junkies. Instead, he was in place to go after a supplier with Bogotá cartel connections who was using a new drug pipeline that stretched from California to New York. Based in Los Angeles, the man flew in a private jet to deliver his goodies to high-end customers across the country who wanted to get loaded in the privacy of their million-dollar homes while remaining under the radar of the local cops.

  Winslow was one of four agents in different cities tasked with gathering enough evidence to seize the drugs in the pipeline, bust the supplier, and provide intelligence to DEA agents in South America about the traffickers. If everything worked as planned, a major national roundup of celebrity addicts and users would go down, drawing national media attention, and victory in a battle of the war on drugs would be proclaimed.

  So far, Winslow had hard evidence to burn the supplier’s Santa Fe customers, including a fading film actor, a famous jazz musician, a world-renowned chef, a New York City fashion designer, a minor British royal, and a network television producer. But he still hadn’t been able to score directly from the source, which was key to breaking up the cartel.

  The call from Chief Kerney had surprised Winslow. But after hearing the chief out and being reassured that his cover wouldn’t be blown, he’d agreed to meet with Ramona Pino.

  The receptionist showed Pino into his office. No more than five-three, she was a looker, with perfectly round dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a shapely figure.

  “I understand you have some names of people you think I might be able to tell you something about,” Winslow said before Pino had a chance to speak.

  “Yes.” Ramona sat in front of the desk and passed Winslow the list of names taken from the forged prescriptions.

  “These aren’t people I know,” Winslow said, lying through his teeth. At least six were part of the upscale drug party scene, and one, Mitch Griffin, when he wasn’t building houses, dealt stolen pharmaceutical drugs to his trendy friends. Winslow had always wondered where Griffin got his drugs. Now he knew.

  “You’re absolutely sure?” Ramona asked.

  Winslow scanned the list again.

  “Nobody?” Ramona asked.

  “I’m sorry, no.” Winslow tapped his finger on the desk. “Unless a first name might be helpful.”

  “Which one is that?” Ramona asked.

  “Mitch,” Winslow said, waving the paper. “I don’t know his last name, but it’s down here as Griffin.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “If it’s the right Mitch, he’s a general contractor.”

  “Do you know him personally?” Ramona asked.

  “Just in passing.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  “Six-foot-three, in his forties I’d guess. He’s a big guy who likes to work out and party.”

  Ramona took back the list. “Thanks for your help.”

  Winslow smiled and stood. “I don’t think I’ve done anything helpful at all.” He ushered Pino to the door. “If you ever decide to invest in the stock market, come back and see me.”

  He waited for Pino to leave the building before calling Kerney.

  “Did Pino make you?” Kerney asked.

  “I doubt it. But let’s not make a habit of this, Chief Kerney.”

  “Not a chance. Thanks.”

  Finding where Mitch Griffin lived took one phone call to the state agency that licensed general contractors. With the chief’s blessing, Ramona assembled a team of officers, including two narcotics detectives and some uniforms, and drove to Griffin’s house in La Cienega, a few miles south of Santa Fe. The house was sited behind a hill on a private dirt lane. In among the surrounding trees were piles of lumber, beams, doors, and windows, some of them covered with clear plastic sheeting.

  Griffin’s extended-cab pickup truck sat in front of a detached garage, and parked next to it was Kim Dean’s SUV. Ramona laughed out loud. Maybe the gods had heard her plea for an easy bust after all.

  She spread her troops around the building and used a bullhorn to call out Dean and Griffin. After checking the firepower in his front yard through a window, Mitch came out first, totally stoned and shirtless in his six-foot-three, buff glory. Dean followed behind, rumpled and scared, pumping his hands up and down in the air.

  She ordered them facedown on the ground with their hands clasped behind their heads and watched as they were cuffed and frisked. Then she had her officers stand them up while she told them the charges and read them their rights.

  She looked Dean over carefully. He wasn’t anything to write home about. Maybe the fear in his eyes and his trembling chin made him seem insignificant and ordinary.

  “We need to have a nice long talk about Claudia,” she said as a uniform led him away.

  “Claudia Spalding?” Griffin mumbled lethargically, his eyes blinking rapidly in the harsh afternoon light. “Man, I built her house.”

  “It’s such a small world, isn’t it?” Ramona replied cheerily.

  Chapter 7

  Kim Dean was scared, but he wasn’t stupid. He asked for an attorney and immediately dummied up. Ramona took him directly to the county jail, booked him on a murder one charge, and left him with a detention officer. The officer let Dean make his phone call to a lawyer and put him in an isolation cell, the first step on the way to being processed, fingerprinted, and strip-searched.

  Ramona used the time to fill out additional booking forms on Dean, charging him with drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, forgery, distribution of controlled substances, and possession with intent to distribute. Although it only counted as a misdemeanor, she threw in an evading arrest charge for good measure.

  She had a detention officer bring Dean to an interrogation room where she read off the additional charges, Mirandized him again, and asked if he’d like to make a voluntary statement.

  Dean shook his head and said no.

  Ramona knew his refusal barred her from asking questions, but that didn’t stop her from talking.

  “Just in case you’re interested,” she said, “each prescription you forged counts as a separate charge. Let’s be conservative and say you did fifty. That’s a hundred and fifty years, if a judge sentences you to consecutive terms. Throw in all the other counts and I’m guessing you’ll get about 250 years in the slam. Of course, you may get time off for good behavior.”

  “I want to talk to my lawyer,” Dean said. Color had come back to his face and his rosy cheeks clashed with the orange jail jumpsuit. He sat with his feet crossed under the table and his hands hidden from view.

  Chief Kerney thought that Dean might break easily under interrogation, but it wasn’t happening. Maybe he wasn’t the kind of bully who pushed people around to hide his own inadequacies. Maybe, instead, Dean was the control freak type who got off on dominating and manipulating people.

  About six feet tall, Dean had light brown hair that receded over his temples and exposed his tiny ears. He had a long, slightly turned up nose that gave him a haughty look. But his rapidly blinking brown eyes signaled underlying stress.

  “When the lawyer comes,” Ramona said, gathering her paperwork, “ask him about the federal sentencing laws for drug trafficking, possession, and distribution.”

  “W
hy should I do that?” Dean asked.

  Ramona stared past Dean at the dull gray concrete wall of the room. Jail was a grim place nobody ever really got used to. It always gave her the willies.

  “The feds have harsher penalties,” she replied curtly. “You may want to deal with us instead of them.”

  She left Dean and went to check in with Matt Chacon, who’d booked Mitch Griffin into custody. Ramona stepped into the interrogation room and found that big, buff Griffin had waived his Miranda rights and was talking.

  He had a pretty face with even features. Combined with the day-old stubble on his chin, he vaguely resembled a country music singer who’d been a teenage heartthrob some years back before quickly fading into obscurity.

  Ramona wondered if Mitch had ever slept with Claudia Spalding. She asked him about it, and he shook his head. Matt Chacon told her Mitch was willing to testify against Dean on the drug trafficking charge if he could cut a deal.

  “You didn’t promise him anything?” Ramona asked, eyeing Griffin.

  “Nada,” Matt replied.

  “Let’s hold off on asking the assistant district attorney to make any offers until we search Mitch’s house. I’ll call for a warrant.”

  “Why do you want to do that?” Griffin asked, his glance nervously flitting from Chacon to Ramona.

  “Do you ever gamble at the Indian casinos, Mitch?” Ramona asked.

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “Then you know what a punt is, right?”

  “Yeah, you bet against the banker in faro and games like that.”

  “Consider me the banker in this game,” Ramona said, smiling cheerfully at Griffin. “Depending on the amount of product we find, you may be facing the possibility of life without parole. If I seize enough to put you away for life, I’ll be holding all the cards. So, there will be no plea bargain until I know exactly what your maximum bet is going to be.”

  Griffin slumped in his chair. “How much stash do you have to find?”

  Ramona waved a finger at Griffin. “No fair asking, Mitch. That’s cheating.”

  Ramona stepped into the hallway to the sounds of an opening door and footsteps down the corridor. Chief Kerney, an ADA, and Dean’s lawyer walked in her direction. The ADA peeled off into the room where Mitch Griffin was parked, and Ramona directed the defense attorney to the room where Dean waited.

  “Where are we?” Kerney asked.

  “Dean’s not talking,” Ramona said.

  “How many charges did you lay on him?” Kerney asked.

  “Seven felonies, including multiple counts of forgery,” Ramona said, “plus one misdemeanor.”

  “That should get him talking eventually,” Kerney said with an approving nod. “A DEA team is at the pharmacy. I told our people to stay and assist.”

  The ADA poked his head out the door of the interrogation room. “You’ve got Griffin’s voluntary permission to search his house,” he said. “His drug stash is in a cabinet above the refrigerator.” He handed Ramona a signed search release form.

  “What did you promise him?” Ramona asked.

  “Nothing,” the ADA replied in a voice loud enough for Griffin to hear. “He wants immunity from prosecution. He isn’t going to get it. At least, not yet. Maybe not ever.”

  The ADA retreated into the room and closed the door.

  “I want Griffin to do time,” Ramona said. “Lots of it.”

  “He probably will,” Kerney said. “I asked the ADA to play him for a while to see if he knows anything about the Spalding murder. If that doesn’t pan out, we can use what he tells us to nail down the drug charges on Dean and round up his customers.”

  “We’re not backing off on the murder charges against Dean, are we, Chief?” Ramona asked.

  Ramona’s tight voice gave away her apprehension. Kerney smiled reassuringly. “Not at all. I want him to roll over on Claudia Spalding. We can go to trial without Dean testifying against her, but we’ll have a much better chance at a conviction if we have him in our pocket.”

  “What will the DA offer Dean?”

  “He’ll drop all but the murder one and drug trafficking charges if he cops a plea and gives us Claudia.”

  “Has Dean’s lawyer been advised?” Ramona asked.

  “No, and he won’t be until after the preliminary hearing and bail has been set. Since Dean’s a flight risk, Sid will request that he be held without bond.”

  Ramona flashed a pleased smile.

  “One more thing, Sergeant,” Kerney said. “Remember, the DEA can file against Dean in federal court on the drug and forgery charges that we drop, and I fully expect that they will. His lawyer should snap to that immediately, and listen hard to any plea bargain offer.”

  “That won’t happen until a couple of days from now,” Ramona said.

  “Exactly. Use the time wisely, Sergeant. If Dean doesn’t play ball, you’ll need as much as you can get on Claudia Spalding to make a strong case.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  As Kerney turned and walked away, Ramona wondered what else she could possibly do to link Claudia Spalding directly to the murder of her husband. She paused in front of the door to the interrogation room where Mitch and the ADA were meeting. After she finished up at the jail and did the search for drugs at Griffin’s house, she would give Ellie Lowrey a call.

  Maybe between the two of them they could brainstorm something.

  Kim Dean had been cutting legal corners for a long time, but up to now he’d never needed the services of a criminal trial lawyer. He’d used his one phone call from the jail to contact the only attorney he knew, a woman who specialized in real-estate law. She was unable to clear her schedule, but promised to send a junior member of the firm to see him as soon as possible.

  Stubbs was the lawyer’s name, Howard Alan Stubbs, and he was talking to Dean about all the things he needed to do to get a clear picture of the situation.

  Stubbs called it a “situation,” but Kim knew better; he was in a pile of shit ten feet deep. He also knew he needed a sharper, more experienced lawyer who could dig him out of a hole.

  Stubbs looked like his name: short arms and short legs with a Humpty Dumpty body. He wore a brown suit, brown shoes, and a paisley tie that stopped just below his belly button. His pale young face was round as a beach ball.

  Dean interrupted Stubbs’s ramblings and asked him when he could get out of jail.

  “We won’t know that,” Stubbs replied, “until your arraignment.”

  Dean nodded. His right foot tapped a staccato beat on the floor. He pushed down hard on his leg with a hand to make it stop.

  “But from what you’ve told me,” Stubbs said, “you may not be released. The DA will ask that you be held without bond, and of course I’ll argue against it. Perhaps I can get the judge to agree to a large cash bond. If not, you’re here until the preliminary hearing. That’s when I’ll get a first look at the evidence against you.”

  “Not until then?” Dean asked.

  Stubbs shook his head. “And we won’t see everything right away.”

  “I want out of this place,” Dean said.

  “I can’t guarantee that,” Stubbs said.

  “The cop who arrested me said something about federal drug laws. She said I should talk to you about it.”

  “As I understand it,” Stubbs said, “the federal laws are more severe. You could find yourself facing trial in both state and federal courts.”

  “As you understand it?” Dean snapped.

  Stubbs flushed. “I’ll research the statutes.”

  That sealed it, Dean thought. Stubbs was in way over his head. “I want you to call someone for me.”

  “Sure,” Stubbs answered agreeably.

  Dean gave him Claudia’s cell phone number. “Tell the woman who answers where I am and that I need help, lots of it, right away,” he said.

  “Who is this woman?” Stubbs asked.

  “Just a friend.”

  “What’s her name?”


  “Just call her and tell her about my situation. She’ll know what to do.”

  Stubbs frowned and packed his notebook in his briefcase. “Don’t talk to anyone unless I’m present,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

  Dean didn’t move after Stubbs left the room. He sat with the fingers of his hands interlaced, hidden from view under the table. If he eased up and stopped squeezing his hands together his whole body would start shaking.

  None of this was supposed to happen. He wanted to push it aside, smash it to bits, stomp it into oblivion. He could feel sweat under his armpits dripping down his rib cage, taste it on his upper lip.

  Dean knew he had to stay in control and not do any talking to the cops. And he had to replace Stubbs with somebody sharp. A good prosecutor would push Stubbs around as easily as he had. He needed a crusading defense lawyer with a high profile who knew how to work the media. He had to stay calm and wait for Claudia to come through for him.

  A jailer stepped into the room and took him down the hall. Doors slammed closed behind him, glaring light bounced off the polished tile floors, buzzers sounded as electronic locks opened, eyes followed him. The jailer took him back to the isolation cell, locked him in, and peeked at him through the small window.

  There was an elevated concrete slab built into one wall to sit or lie on, a steel sink with one cold water tap, three shielded, recessed lights in the ceiling, a steel toilet with a flush valve. Just that, nothing more.

  He sat on the concrete slab, stared at the floor, and told himself over and over again to say nothing and wait. It didn’t erase the fear he felt, but it helped.

  There were enough pharmaceuticals in Mitch Griffin’s house to keep dozens of dopers, pillheads, and speed freaks happy for weeks—and that was just from the stash Ramona and the officers found in the kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator. Further searching turned up ten pounds of marijuana Griffin had hidden in a locked contractor’s truck box that sat on a shelf in the garage. Additionally, seventeen thousand dollars in cash was found in a trombone case under Mitch’s bed.