The big gamble kk-6 Read online

  "It must have been a bitch to excavate the remains," Kerney said, peering into the cold-storage space from the doorway.

  "Yeah," Clayton replied. "Why would Norvell, if he is the killer, put her body here?"

  "I've thought a lot about that," Kerney said, stepping back from the doorway. "Let's say Montoya meets him at the shopping mall in Santa Fe and agrees to go someplace private where they can talk. Norvell takes her to some secluded spot and when he realizes she won't be dissuaded from unmasking him, he decides to kill her, except he doesn't have a gun, a knife, or the balls to strangle her. So he punches her, knocks her out, and uses a tire iron to kill her, hitting her not once, but twice. I asked for a forensic analysis of Montoya's skull. It showed that she suffered a hairline crack to the jaw along with two blows to the head consistent with a tire iron or similar object."

  "But that still doesn't answer my question," Clayton said.

  "I'm getting to it," Kerney said as he walked to the back of the building with Clayton following along. "So now he's got a dead body in his car, a long road trip ahead of him, and a big problem: what to do with the body. On top of that, he's probably not thinking very straight and is paranoid as hell about getting stopped by the police. He can't just dump Montoya out at the side of the road, or bury her on his own property. That would be too risky. So he thinks of places he knows where it might be safe to hide the body before he gets home."

  "Even if you can prove Norvell knew about the abandoned fruit stand, have you got probable cause?" Clayton asked.

  "That's the missing piece I need, according to the district attorney," Kerney replied, stepping back to look at the shell of the fruit stand. A parked car behind the structure wouldn't be seen from the highway.

  He swung around and looked at the mountains. There were no houses or trailers in sight. "Norvell probably passed this place often during the years it sat unused. Maybe he even knew that Tully had no plans to reopen it. Or maybe he thought he'd come back later and move the body, but decided not to when time passed and the case turned cold."

  "Have you seen enough?" Clayton asked.

  "Yeah, let's go."

  Clayton locked his gaze on Kerney's face. "One question: why did you back me as lead investigator with the sheriff?"

  "Because you're the most knowledgeable about the case and you've done one hell of a job," Kerney replied.

  The stern look on Clayton's face smoothed out slightly. "That's it? Nothing personal?"

  "Part of it's personal, I guess," Kerney said. "You might think it's silly of me to say this, but I'm proud of what you've done."

  The comment caught Clayton off guard. He swallowed hard and looked away.

  "Let's go," Kerney said, taking the pressure off Clayton to respond.

  All the phone taps, including land lines and cell phones, were up and running just before Cassie Bedlow arrived at her talent and modeling agency. In his APD uniform and driving a patrol car, Jeff Vialpando waited a few minutes before pulling up outside the building. Entering, he called out a hello and Bedlow appeared in her office doorway.

  "Yes, Officer," she said, looking somewhat startled.

  "Sorry to bother you, ma'am," Jeff said, taking off his hat. "But I need your help."

  "Regarding?"

  "A woman named Stacy Fowler died in an automobile accident last night, and the state police asked if we'd help locate next of kin. They found your business card in her wallet. Did you know her?"

  "Yes, but only slightly. I interviewed her a month or so ago for a modeling job, but it didn't pan out. How did it happen?"

  "I'm not completely sure, ma'am," Jeff replied. "But I do know it was a rollover accident outside the city limits, and Ms. Fowler was alone in the vehicle at the time."

  "Oh my goodness," Cassie said, shaking her head sadly. "I heard something about it on the radio as I was coming to work."

  "Do you know anything about her family?" Jeff asked.

  "No, I think she'd just moved here from the Midwest."

  "Her car was registered in Arizona," Jeff said. "Did she mention any family members there?"

  "We only talked once and it was purely about business."

  "Thank you for your time," Jeff said.

  "I'm so sorry I can't be of more help," Bedlow said. "I hope it won't take you long to notify her family."

  "It probably will," Vialpando said with a shrug. "We don't have much to go on."

  Once he was back in the unit, Ramona's voice came over his police radio. "She's talking to Tully right now."

  "Saying?" Vialpando asked as he drove away.

  "That Fowler is dead and Greer didn't keep her date last night."

  "And?"

  "She tried calling Greer from home and got no answer. She's going to her apartment to look for her, then to Fowler's town house to make sure there's nothing incriminating for the police to find."

  "Beautiful," Vialpando said. "That's even better than we expected. What else?"

  "Tully's telling her to be careful. Bedlow's saying not to worry, the police are just investigating an accident, nothing more, and they don't know anything about Fowler. Tully just told her to act fast and call him back as soon as she's finished."

  "I'm going home to change," Vialpando said.

  "I'd like to send one of your detectives down to Fowler's town house to videotape Bedlow's comings and goings."

  "Good idea. Use Alvarado. He's great with a camera and good at surveillance. Is Ault in place?"

  "Ten-four."

  Frustrated at not finding Sally Greer at home, Cassie Bedlow went to the resident manager's apartment, where Detective Allen Ault, unshaven and dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, opened the door.

  "If you're looking for the leasing office," he said, "it's in Building One. Just take a left at the corner. You can't miss it."

  "I'm looking for Sally Greer," Bedlow said.

  "She moved out yesterday," Ault said. "Didn't even leave a forwarding address for her cleaning deposit."

  "Did you see her?"

  "Yeah, she dropped off her key." Ault waved his finger at Bedlow. "Wait a minute. Are you Carrie?"

  "Cassie," Bedlow said.

  "Yeah, that's it. She left a letter for you."

  Ault rummaged around on the coffee table and gave Bedlow an envelope.

  "Thank you," Bedlow said.

  In her car Bedlow read the letter. I figure that what you did to me and let others do to me more than pays you back the money you "lent" me. You've made me sick to my stomach about myself. But I'll never be as sick and twisted as you are. Don't worry, I won't cause you any trouble. I couldn't stand to have anyone find out what I did.

  Bedlow dropped the letter on the car seat and called Adam on her cell phone. He and Luis could decide what do about Sally Greer.

  The rehabilitation center was located on a former air force base just south of Roswell. The original building, a blocky, monotonous structure, had served as the base hospital. According to old-timers and locals, it had been built on the site where secret autopsies had allegedly been performed by military doctors on the bodies of aliens from outer space who'd crash-landed in a UFO outside of the city after World War II.

  A single-story, modern addition that had been appended to the hospital created a jarring, somewhat schizoid blend of architectural styles. A wide expanse of lawn with trees planted here and there failed to soften the impression.

  In a physical therapy suite housed in the new addition, Kerney and Clayton watched through a glass partition as Hiram Tully finished up his treatment. The stroke had affected the left side of his body, and Tully was doing a leg weight exercise to strengthen his calf muscles. The old man was working hard, and Kerney knew from his own experience that the task wasn't easy. Soon he'd get to go through the experience all over again for his new knee.

  After he completed his regimen the therapist walked Tully slowly out of the rehab room. His gaunt face glistened with perspiration, and his partially paralyzed arm dangled a bit
at his side. They met with him in an empty nearby office, where Kerney introduced himself.

  "I don't know why you're back here," Tully said haltingly to Clayton, as he lowered himself slowly onto a chair. "Couldn't tell you anything before, can't tell you anything now."

  "We'd like to ask you about a friend of your son," Clayton said.

  Tully stiffened and turned his head away as though he'd seen something despicable. "My son is dead to me."

  "We're only interested in his friend," Clayton said.

  "I don't know any of his friends," Tully said, working his mouth slowly to pronounce the words.

  "A friend from a long time ago," Clayton said.

  Tully gave him a sidelong glance. "Who?"

  "Tyler Norvell," Kerney said.

  Tully wiped a bit of drool from his lips. "I have nothing to say about him."

  "Our questions aren't personal," Kerney said. "Did Norvell ever work for you?"

  Tully nodded. "When he was in high school. I hired him as an apple picker. He worked after school and weekends in the fall."

  "Did he ever work at the fruit stand near Carrizozo?"

  "No."

  "He had nothing to do with the fruit stand?" Kerney asked.

  "Deliveries, that's all. He'd go with Julio, my foreman, to restock apples and cider, and dispose of any spoilage."

  "From the cold-storage cellar?" Kerney asked.

  "Yes."

  "How long did he work for you?" Kerney asked.

  "Three harvest seasons."

  A thought about the abandoned fruit stand clicked in Clayton's head. "Has Norvell ever offered to buy the property from you?"

  Tully nodded. "He had a realtor make an offer through his company. I turned it down. Don't ask me why."

  "When was that?"

  "Ten years ago, maybe longer."

  They thanked Tully and turned him over to a waiting aide, who walked him down the hall toward the old hospital.

  "So when are you going to arrest Norvell for murder?" Clayton asked.

  "All in due course," Kerney replied as they left the lobby.

  Clayton shook his head. "I wonder what the deal is between Tully and his son."

  "I'm glad we didn't have to find out," Kerney said.

  Clayton unlocked his unit. "Why?"

  Kerney thought about Vernon Langsford, the retired judge from Roswell who had been murdered by a deeply disturbed daughter because of a secret incestuous relationship he'd had with her decades earlier. "Because that kind of family stuff is usually pretty ugly, sometimes disgusting, and I've heard enough of it to last a lifetime."

  "But saying a son is dead to you is really harsh."

  "No harsher than a son saying it to a father," Kerney said deliberately as he strapped on his seat belt.

  Clayton sat behind the steering wheel without reacting, letting Kerney's words sink in. When they'd learned about each other's existence, Clayton had come close to telling Kerney to completely butt out of his life. Was there that much difference between Tully's denial of a son and his own rejection of a father? Tully had raised his son, but he had never known Kerney as his father until recently. Still…

  Clayton ran his forefinger over the edge of the wheel and said, "I guess that's true, in a way, isn't it?"

  Fidel waited on a side street down from the rehab center, parked in front of a row of single-family dwellings which he figured once housed military personnel. Some of them were occupied and some had for-sale signs plunked down in dead grass under dead trees. The whole area on three sides of the center was filled with identical ugly concrete block houses. Some of them looked pretty trashed out.

  He called Rojas and told him the Indian cop had done nothing, except go to work early, walk around a burned building, and take some crippled cowboy with a limp to a rehabilitation center in Roswell.

  "I guess the Indian cop runs a taxi service when he's not busy drinking coffee and eating donuts," he said.

  "What did the cop do at the fruit stand?" Rojas asked.

  "Tour the guy with the limp around. They weren't there long."

  "Did you recognize the other man?" Rojas asked.

  "Never saw him before."

  "Then nothing's happening," Rojas said. "That's good."

  "Yeah, but it's not keeping me entertained."

  "If everything stays quiet, finish out the day and come home. Don't do anything stupid."

  "I'll be cool, promise," Fidel replied.

  He saw the Indian and the cowboy walking to the police vehicle, fired up the engine, and got ready to take another boring drive in the country.

  As they left Roswell Kerney and Clayton shied away from talk about their troubled relationship and focused instead on business. Kerney got the distinct feeling that Clayton was loosening up a bit. He seemed more talkative and animated. It gave him a hopeful feeling.

  "Do me a favor," Kerney said, looking at the brown desert hills and the mountains beyond rising up on the western horizon.

  "What's that?" Clayton asked.

  Traffic had thinned. Kerney checked the side-view mirror. "When the time comes, pick up Norvell for me. It will save me a trip down here."

  "You're giving me the arrest?" Clayton asked, surprised. Kerney was offering to turn over his major felony bust to another officer outside his own department, which was almost unheard of.

  "Why not?"

  "I don't need a career boost from you," Clayton replied.

  "No, you don't. Are you being sarcastic?"

  Clayton shook his head. "I'm just saying you don't have to do me any favors."

  "You're doing me the favor, remember?" Kerney tapped his right leg. "I've been recalled by my doctor for a replacement knee. The warranty has run out on the old one. I go in for surgery next week. I doubt I'll be chasing any bad guys for a while."

  Clayton looked at Kerney's leg. "You never told how you got hurt."

  "You really want to hear the story?" Kerney asked, glancing at the side-view mirror.

  "Yeah, I do."

  Kerney told him how another cop-his best friend in the department and a secret boozer-had let him down when they were on a stakeout waiting for an arrest warrant to bust a drug dealer; how the perp had caught Kerney off guard because his friend had left his post to sneak a drink; how Kerney had taken one round to the stomach and one to the knee before he could put the perp down for good.

  "Some friend," Clayton said.

  "Well, he was. A good one, until the booze caught up with him," Kerney replied. He glanced at the side-view mirror once again and stretched his leg to ease the ache in his knee. "He's on the straight and narrow, now. In some ways, I think he's in more pain about what happened than I am. Although today I wouldn't bet on it. Did you know we're being followed?"

  Clayton looked in the rearview mirror. "Which car?"

  "Third one back," Kerney said. "The blue Camaro with Texas plates."

  "Where did you pick it up?" Clayton asked.

  "In Roswell, just outside the old air force base."

  "Were you able to read the plate?"

  "Not with these tired old eyes," Kerney replied.

  "What do you want to do?" Clayton asked.

  "Find out who our friend is," Kerney said.

  They talked it over. Kerney suggested a traffic stop, using a state police patrol officer, who could ID the driver. Clayton agreed, adding that he thought it best to wait until they were back in Lincoln County. Kerney brought up the idea that their "friend" might not be very friendly at all. Clayton conceded the point and imagined that it might be best to use two uniforms to make the stop, doing it casually but treating it as high risk. Kerney felt that would work if they had the state police come up behind the Camaro while a second unit, preferably from a different department, passed by in the opposite direction, and then stopped to render assistance.

  They crossed the county line with the blue Camaro still hanging back behind them. Clayton got on the horn to a state police officer and a patrol deputy, exp
lained the situation, told them what he wanted to do, and where he wanted it to go down. They gave him a twenty-minute ETA.

  "What do I write the driver for?" New Mexico State Police Officer Sonia Raney asked.

  "I'll speed up when you're in position," Clayton said. "That should get you a legal stop."

  "You said high risk but casual, right?"

  "Ten-four, whatever that is," Clayton replied.

  Officer Raney laughed.

  "I'll do a thirty-second count after you pull him over," Deputy Dillingham said to Raney by radio. "Then I'll come into view and swing around behind you."

  "Don't run Code Three," Clayton cautioned.

  "Wouldn't think of it," Dillingham replied. "I can't act casual with my emergency lights on."

  "Let me know when you're in position," Clayton said.

  There were very few cars on the two-lane highway that ran from the Hondo turnoff to Carrizozo. Fidel kept his distance, letting the cop's police vehicle become a speck on the pavement up ahead. On the curves he sped up to regain visual contact. Through the village of Lincoln, the cop slowed, but tourist traffic on the road allowed Fidel to remain inconspicuous. He looked at the old buildings fronting the highway, wondering why anybody would want to stop and look at them. The place had nothing to offer: no bar, no gas station, not even a roadside diner or a convenience store.

  In the hills past Lincoln the road curved and rose. The cop picked up speed, traveling well above the posted limit. Fidel hit the accelerator, and topped out on a plateau to find the cop nowhere in sight. He heard a siren behind him and saw flashing emergency lights in his rearview mirror. Had he been made?

  He dropped down to the speed limit and watched the vehicle come up fast, hoping it would pass him. It was a black-and-white state police car. It slowed and flashed its lights in a signal for him to pull over.

  He thought about taking off, decided not to, eased to the shoulder, and watched the squad car roll to a stop behind him. The cop, a woman, was talking on her radio, probably running his plate. He rolled down his window, killed the engine, took his semiautomatic out of the shoulder holster, stuck it under the seat, and waited.

  He froze when a sheriff's vehicle came around a bend toward him, thinking it was the Indian cop. But it wasn't running with emergency lights or traveling very fast, and the only occupant was an Anglo uniformed deputy. The vehicle slowed, made a U-turn and pulled in behind the patrol vehicle.