The Judas judge kk-5 Page 13

  "The thought crossed my mind."

  "Do you think everyone is capable of such evil?" Censure crept into her voice.

  "I think under certain circumstances people can and will do anything imaginable. Did you know Arthur at all?"

  "No. That's not to say I didn't know who he was. Why is he important to you?"

  "Three members of one family are dead. That raises my interest."

  "All died years apart under different circumstances. You won't let this drop, will you?"

  "Did you come here to probe my intentions?" Kerney asked.

  "You think I have a conniving purpose," she said slowly, watching for a reaction.

  Kerney smiled broadly. "Do you?"

  The softness on Kay's face vanished, replaced by a icy, shutdown stare.

  She opened her purse and dropped some bills on the table. "I've made a serious mistake. I thought you were someone who could understand."

  "I'd like to."

  "You play word games, Mr. Kerney," she said, as she stood up. "I think you're a cold man."

  Kerney couldn't resist. "Not at all what a single woman needs." Her eyes ate into him, venomous. "Screw you."

  Kerney stayed at the table after Kay Murray left and ordered a chicken salad sandwich from the bar menu. Only the mayonnaise made it palatable, but he ate it anyway.

  What had brought Kay Murray down to Alamogordo to see him? He didn't think for a minute her motives were spurred by genuine attraction, although she tried to play it that way until the tactic broke down. Did she just need to confirm that she wasn't under suspicion? Kerney doubted it.

  He was no moralist when it came to other people's lives. Experience had taught him never to trust the shibboleths of conventional morals and ethics. They often sugar-coated unpleasant truths.

  He could buy the idea that Murray was a lusty woman, but why was it important for her to make him aware of that fact? It went way beyond a causal come-on, Kerney decided, or a simple need to be understood. Which meant she was either protecting herself or hiding something she didn't want uncovered.

  The more he learned about the people in the judge's life, the more it seemed that Langsford's personal relationships went way beyond unconventional. Where that might take him, Kerney couldn't begin to guess.

  He put some bills on the table to cover the tip, and a hand touched him on the shoulder. He looked up as Barbara Jennings leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

  "I hope that isn't your supper, Kerney," Barbara said.

  Dale, Kerney, and Barbara had been best friends in high school, and Dale like to tell the story of how he fell in love with her the first time he saw her barrel racing at a county fair rodeo.

  No more than five foot three, Barbara's light brown hair framed her widely spaced eyes and full mouth. Her face, now creased with the fine lines of middle age, held a perpetual look of curiosity about life, which she matched with a wide range of personal interests.

  Years of ranching hadn't erased her sweet features, and in some ways she was prettier than ever.

  Kerney smiled broadly and stood up to hug her. "It's good to see a friendly face for a change. How are you?"

  "Just fine," Barbara said, as she motioned Kerney back to his chair and joined him at the table. "I'm in town for a daylong seminar on bull fertility tomorrow. Dale has me doing all the breeding stock buying. He says I'm better at it than he is, and he's right."

  "Where is Dale?"

  "Tending to the ranch."

  "And the girls?"

  "They're staying at our apartment in Truth or Consequences, and going to school."

  "Are you still living in town with them during the school year?"

  Barbara nodded. "I'm there most weeknights. But we're all at the ranch on the weekends. I was hoping to buy you dinner, Kerney, but not here. Can you stand to pick your way through another meal while you keep a woman company?"

  "It would be my pleasure," Kerney said, gesturing for the bartender.

  "But first let me buy you a drink."

  Barbara told him a glass of wine would do nicely, and Kerney placed their order.

  "Are you really going back to ranching?" Barbara asked, after toasting Kerney with her glass.

  "That's the current plan."

  "Dale would like that."

  "And what do you think?" Kerney asked.

  "I love the ranching life, but I could do with a little more security. It's an iffy business at best, especially for us small producers. But you'll have a fair chance at success since you'll own your land outright."

  "What would you do in my shoes?"

  "Ten years ago, I would have said get into breeding stock. But now even that niche is crowded. Some ranchers have switched to elk ranching."

  "I've heard about that."

  "They harvest bull antler velvet, sell private hunting permits, slaughter for the market, or breed for other producers."

  "Is it profitable?" Kerney asked.

  "It can be. One bull elk hunting permit costs on average nine thousand dollars, and on the private game parks there's no state restriction on the number of permits."

  "It sure can't be the same as raising cows," Kerney said.

  "It's not. A few other ranchers have switched to buffalo. The Livestock Board treats them as domestic animals, if they're not from a wild herd," Barbara said. "Several large outfits here and in Montana are trying to develop a national market for buffalo meat."

  "Sounds like folks are looking for a way to get by."

  "As long as beef consumption and slaughter prices stay down, they've got to do something."

  "Not a rosy picture."

  Barbara laughed. "And you want to put yourself into it. I swear, Kerney, you haven't changed: still bullheaded stubborn."

  "Maybe not so much anymore."

  "That would be different." Barbara scooted her chair closer. "Now, enough of this ranch talk. How is Sara?"

  "Stunned by the recent revelation that I'm a grandfather." "Say that again," Barbara said, lowering the glass from her lips.

  "It's true," Kerney said, launching into the story of Isabel and Clayton.

  About the only thing Robert Duran felt good about after a day of pounding the Juarez streets was the overtime pay he was earning. Night along the Jurez tourist strip made the city look even more dirty and vulgar. After hoofing around the city from one sleazy hotel to the other, Robert crossed the Rio Grande into El Paso. Technically back in the States, he saw little difference between Jurez and the dilapidated neighborhood that bordered the river. Like Juarez, the area smelled of stale booze, urine, automobile fumes, and garbage All the retail businesses sold the same cut-rate crap featured in the Juarez tourist traps.

  He walked toward the old downtown El Paso plaza, noting an absence of whores on the street, fewer gaudy neon signs, almost no street vendors, more vacant commercial buildings, and a number of cheap hotels.

  Canvassing the Juarez strip hotels had yielded no confirmation of Eric Langsford's supposed stay in the city. But that didn't mean any thing; most of the hotel clerks had been totally disinterested in assisting a norteamericano cop, even if he looked like one and a gente and spoke good Spanish-of the northern New Mexico variety.

  To reduce the possibility of vandalism to his unmarked unit, Robert had parked in the underground lot of the one decent hotel near the El Paso plaza. He was halfway there when he stopped and looked up at a flickering, humming neon hotel sign. Maybe Langsford had stayed on the Texas side of the border, and not in Jurez at all.

  He looked back down the dingy street. There were at least six more hotels within sight and another half dozen up ahead. He ducked into the nearest one, flashed his ID and a photo of Langsford, asked his question, and checked the guest register. Nada, but at least he got cooperation from the clerk. He worked each hotel down the block, changed direction, and finished up at the new high-rise hotel near the plaza where his unit was parked.

  He stood in front of the lit-up building with its Spanish acce
nt decor and glass front lobby and decided to make one more inquiry before calling it a night.

  Robert showed the woman at the registration desk Langsford's photograph and she recognized him immediately.

  "When did he check in?" Robert asked.

  The woman clicked away at her computer keyboard. "Last Wednesday."

  "When did he check out?"

  "Late Saturday morning."

  "Method of payment?" Robert asked.

  "Cash."

  "Did he make any phone calls?"

  "Only one, on Wednesday night, to an escort service called California Coeds."

  "Let me have the phone number," Robert said, "and a copy of his room bill, if it's no bother."

  "Certainly, Officer," the clerk said, returning her attention to the computer.

  The printer cranked out the bill. Eric Langsford had rented a suite for two hundred dollars a night-pricey for El Paso, where wages were low, unemployment high, and not too many high rollers had any reason to stay.

  On top of that, he'd booked the room before arriving.

  Supposedly Langsford had been too drunk to remember what he'd done after leaving the band in Maria, Texas. The room bill proved otherwise. Plus, it was solid evidence that put Langsford within easy striking distance of the crime scenes just prior to the murders.

  "Where is the El Paso Police Department located?" Robert asked.

  The registration clerk spread out a tourist map on the counter and circled the location.

  According to the phone book advertisement, California Coeds offered a discreet dating service and accepted all major credit cards. Robert ran down his investigation to Oscar Olivares, the El Paso PD vice detective on desk duty, and learned that California Coeds provided in-room lap dancing, erotic massages, lingerie modeling, and whatever else the client privately negotiated with his date.

  "For El Paso, it's a high-class operation," Olivares said. "The girls are mostly Anglo babes-fair-skinned blondes. They cater to businessmen up from Chihuahua and Mexico City who stay at the hotel. It's owned by a Mexican consortium."

  "The hotel or the call service?" Robert asked.

  "The hotel."

  "Any prostitution or racketeering busts on the call service?" Robert asked, eyeing the vice cop, who looked like a kid trying to pass for a grown-up. His dark curly hair covered his shirt collar, and a pencil-thin mustache adorned his upper lip.

  "Not yet."

  "How do I make contact with the owner or whoever runs the operation.

  "I'll take you to him."

  "It's your turf, detective," Robert said with a smile.

  Mario Lopez Humberto operated the California Coeds Escort Service out of an expensive foothills residence with excellent views of the El Paso city lights. A white stretch limousine and several luxury cars were parked in the well-lit semicircular driveway.

  Humberto opened the front door talking Spanish into a cordless phone, promising that Bambi would be somewhere at ten o'clock. He nodded nonchalantly when Olivares flashed his shield and kept talking.

  Humberto looked like retired Mexican mafia muscle. Stocky, with a body slightly gone to seed, he wore three gold chains around his neck, fully revealed by his mostly unbuttoned white linen shirt.

  He punched the phone button and smiled at Olivares. "Are you looking for a date?" he asked in Spanish.

  "We need to talk to the girl you sent out to Eric Langsford's hotel room last Wednesday night," Robert said, speaking in English.

  "What about?"

  "Langsford is a murder suspect," Robert said.

  "Here?" Humberto asked.

  "In New Mexico."

  "This has nothing to do with me?"

  "Nothing."

  "Brandy was his escort. She's in the green room," Humberto said, motioning the men inside.

  "What's that?" Robert asked.

  "It's a room where my girls check in before going out on a date. I gotta make sure they look good."

  "And you call it the green room," Robert said, following Humberto through the house.

  "Yeah, and it's not even green. I heard that actors stay in green rooms before a performance. I don't know why. Since my girls are like actors, I call it the same thing."

  In a den filled with comfortable easy chairs and a big-screen television, Humberto took them through a side door to where Brandy stood in front of a full-length mirror adjusting the straps on a skimpy mini dress that barely covered her butt. In her early twenties, Brandy had long blond hair, baby-blue eyes, and a drop-dead body that would fulfill any man's fantasy of a California coed.

  "Cops need to talk to you, babe," Humberto said.

  "About?" Brandy said, turning around. Whatever she wore under the dress pushed her breasts up like round melons.

  "Eric Langsford," Robert said.

  "What a flake," Brandy said.

  "He was your date last Wednesday night."

  "Yeah."

  "Did you go anywhere?"

  "No, it was a room date. Lingerie modeling and lotion massage only."

  "Did he do any talking about himself?"

  "Not really."

  "Or his immediate plans?"

  "No."

  "Why do you say he was a flake?"

  "He liked the fact that I looked like his sister. Called me Linda. Wanted me to call him "Daddy." That's all. It wasn't scary or anything like that. Just flaky."

  "Did he get physical with you?" Robert asked.

  "No."

  "Did you see him again, after Wednesday night?"

  "No."

  "How did he pay?"

  "Cash," Brandy replied. "Did he give you any gifts?"

  Brandy hesitated and cast a furtive glance at Humberto before answering "Why are you asking me about him?"

  "He's a possible murder suspect," Robert replied, reading her uneasiness. "Six people were killed and robbed. What did he give you, Brandy?"

  Her voice lowered to a whisper as Humberto scowled at her.

  "Nothing."

  "Let's go down to the police station."

  "You can't do that," Humberto said. "She's working."

  "Why do I have to go with you?" Brandy asked, keeping her gaze on Humberto.

  "Because I think you're lying, and we need to get this straightened out."

  Brandy's pretty face lost color. "He didn't give me anything the night I was with him. But he sent me something in the mail. It came two days ago."

  She got her purse from the makeup table and handed Robert a ruby ring surrounded by a cluster of diamonds in a gold setting. Humberto's scowl turned mean.

  "I have to take this into evidence," Robert said. "If it was stolen, you won't get it back."

  "Give her a receipt," Humberto said, eyeing the treasure.

  "Sure thing. Did a note come with the ring?"

  "Yeah," Brandy said. "Do you have it?"

  "What did it say?"

  Brandy thought about her answer before replying. "Something like thanks for a nice time."

  Doubting Langsford's note had been so prosaic, Robert scribbled a receipt for the ring. The two cops left Humberto and Brandy in the green room-which was really soft peach in color-and walked outside.

  "Brandy's in some deep shit with Humberto," Olivares said.

  "It's not smart to hold goodies back from your boss," Robert said. "No sympathy?"

  "I doubt Humberto is going to damage his merchandise."

  "Not so it shows, anyway," Olivares said. "You think the ring is real?"

  "It sure looks it to me. Can I use your office phone?"

  "You bet," Olivares said.

  When Robert Duran reached him by phone in his Alamogordo motel room, Lee Sedillo immediately started taking notes.

  "Get up here as soon as you can with that ring," Lee said. "I need to get it photographed and faxed to all the victims' families for an ID. You may have busted this case wide open."

  "We can drive a tank through the holes in Langsford's alibi," Robert noted. "Tell Chief Kerney h
e's got probable cause to book him on multiple murder-one counts."

  "I'm sure the chief will do that, as soon as we find Eric Langsford," Lee replied.

  "Langsford's not in jail?"

  "He got bailed out by his sister and ran off," Lee explained. "That sucks," Robert said.

  "Did Langsford use a credit card to book his hotel room?" Sedillo asked.

  "Nope."

  "Too bad. We would have a tighter case if he'd used one of the victims' charge cards."

  "I'll see you in a little while, LT," Robert said.

  "Good job, Bobby."

  Lee walked down the corridor and knocked on Kerney's door. "We've got some good news, Chief," he said, when Kerney opened up.

  Kerney heard Sedillo out and shook his head. "I'm losing my touch, Lee. I didn't think Eric Langsford had the chutzpah to pull off the murders, let alone the capacity to do it."

  "It's looking more likely all the time," Lee said.

  "Did Duran tell you everything he learned?"

  "Just the highlights. I told him to get back here fast."

  "Do you have a good description of the ruby ring?"

  "Yep. It's an oval ruby lady's ring, about a carat in size, surrounded by diamonds, with a gold band."

  "That will do. Let's call the victims' families. You take three, and I'll do the others."

  Lee went back to his room to make his calls while Kerney pulled out a list of phone numbers and started dialing. He struck out on the first two and punched in Linda Langsford's number.

  "Did you find Eric?" she asked, after he identified himself.

  "No, but we may have recovered a piece of jewelry taken during the crime spree."

  He described the ring and listened to Linda's sudden intake of breath.

  "My father gave my mother a ring just like that on their twentieth wedding anniversary."

  "Do you have a fax machine at home?"

  "I do." She gave Kerney the number.

  "I'll fax a photo of the ring to you for confirmation."

  On the way to Lee Sedillo's room, Kerney thought about Eric's rip-off of his father four years ago. He wondered if Kay Murray would be able to ID the ring as one of the items Vernon had turned over to Eric. If not, a reasonable assumption would be that Eric had taken the ring from the motor coach after the murder.

  That would simplify Kerney's life, let him pull the pin on his shield, and finally get out of the cop game for good. He stopped at Lee's door. He was good at his job and he liked the work.