The big gamble kk-6 Read online

  "Is he working now?" Clayton asked.

  "Maybe, pero I think he's otra vez la burra el trigo. Back to his old tricks, drinking again."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because he stole money from me like he always does when he wants to get drunk. Fifty dollars."

  "When was that?"

  She closed her eyes to think. It made her face look even more world-weary. "My memory is no bueno. Maybe three, four days ago."

  "Is that when you last saw him?"

  "Si." Ulibarri opened her eyes.

  "Does he have a girlfriend?"

  "No nice woman would have him."

  Clayton persisted. "But is there a woman he spends time with or sees regularly?"

  Ulibarri shook her head and answered in Spanish. "He knows only women who are sinful in the eyes of God."

  Clayton translated her words as best he could. "I am sorry your grandson has brought you so much pain," he replied. The comment won him a slight, approving nod. "Do you know the name of the company Felix does work for?"

  "JG Paving. He has no phone, so I take their messages."

  "Have they called for Felix in the past week?"

  "No, pero sometimes he calls them looking for work when he needs the money."

  "Did anyone else call for Felix in the last week?"

  "One man, on the day I last saw him," Mrs. Ulibarri replied. "He said for Felix to meet him at a motel on Central Avenue. I don't remember which one."

  "My apologies for having woken you," Clayton said.

  Mrs. Ulibarri forced a cheerless smile. "You did not wake me. I am old and sleep little. Soon, I will rest forever in the arms of Jesus."

  Clayton left Mrs. Ulibarri and checked with the two nearby Indian casinos to see if Humphrey really had hit it rich at blackjack. The books at the second casino confirmed a fifty-six-hundred-dollar payout. He got a room at a franchise budget motel near the interstate. In the morning, he'd check with JG Paving, and if Felix wasn't working, head back home to Lincoln County. Humphrey's casino winnings were more than enough motive for murder, and Felix Ulibarri was starting to look like a strong suspect.

  Satisfied that his time in the city had been well spent, Clayton set the alarm for an early wake up and went to bed.

  In early March, after Kerney had arranged for a tour of two sections of land for sale in the Galisteo Basin and a meeting with a local architect he'd known for some years, Sara had flown in for the weekend. By the time she'd boarded a plane back to Fort Leavenworth, they'd signed a land purchase agreement, retained the architect's services to design their house, leased a furnished guest house on Upper Canyon Road to live in until the new house was built, and rented a storage unit so Sara could have the family treasures she'd inherited from her grandmother shipped to Santa Fe from her parents' Montana sheep ranch.

  Recently made a rich man by way of an unexpected bequest from a dear old family friend, Kerney had the money to spend. With Sara's encouragement, he was slowly learning to enjoy his newfound financial freedom after living for so many years on a cop's salary.

  Behind a high wall, the adobe guest house had two bedrooms, two baths, a two-car garage, an expansive great room that served as a living and dining area, and an adjoining kitchen with high-end appliances. At three-thousand square feet, the house was the largest and most expensive place Kerney had ever lived in. It came with a tidy backyard tended by professional gardeners, and a shady portal that included an expensive natural-gas barbecue grill, a bar sink, a built-in refrigerator, and a hot tub.

  The main house, a mere seven-thousand square feet, was tucked against a hill with views of the valley below. According to the estate manager, the compound was one of ten residential properties owned by a Wall Street stockbroker.

  Raised on a working cattle ranch in southern New Mexico, Kerney had been taught by his parents to rise early and get as much work as possible done before the heat of the desert drove both man and beast to seek shade. The habit was so ingrained that unless job demands forced him to work late, he was always up by five in the morning. Recently he'd been devoting the hour or so of uninterrupted time before he had to leave for the office to various tasks that needed doing to get the house built.

  Two weekends ago Sara had flown in on a quick day trip for a Saturday closing on the land. Today he was overnighting the architect's plans to her, along with snapshots he'd taken of the property on a rare day off.

  Kerney looked through the photographs. The two sections, a little over twelve hundred acres, were located on a ranch southeast of town that was being sold in large parcels zoned for agricultural use only. The property appealed to them from the moment they first saw it, and learning that the surrounding tracts couldn't be developed for residential use cinched the deal. Additionally, the owners, a couple Kerney knew and liked from his days managing a small gentleman's spread in the basin, would continue to ranch a large swath of land that abutted Kerney's two sections, providing added protection from the urban sprawl that kept creeping south of the city limits.

  Four miles in off the highway, Kerney's sections consisted of a combination of canyon land and open pastures. Two wells produced good water, and a ranch road ran past the building site Kerney and Sara had selected for the house. When built, the house would be sheltered by a ridge and face south, overlooking a canyon that opened onto a wide meadow with views of the Ortiz and Sandia Mountains. The ridge behind the house, treed with juniper and pinon, rose gently to the north, exposing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but hiding the city from view. The panorama of the Jemez Mountains stretched across the horizon to the west, where at night the lights of Los Alamos and the nearby commuter town of White Rock glistened.

  He packed the photos and the house plans in a mailing tube, sealed it, and turned his attention to the old Montoya case file. He had a lot of ground to cover, not much to go on, and a gut feeling that he'd missed something the first time around.

  The thought made him grumpy. He forced himself out the front door, thinking maybe his heart wasn't in the job anymore. He would much rather spend his time building the house, putting together a small ranching operation, and establishing something positive for himself, Sara, and their unborn child. Soon Sara would have an ultrasound test, and with any luck they'd know if she was carrying a boy or a girl. The thought made Kerney smile. Either way, he was ready to be a dad.

  After striking out on his attempt to locate Ulibarri through his employer in Albuquerque, Clayton arrived at the Mescalero Apache resort and casino, hoping he would find him there gambling with Humphrey's money, which, not surprisingly, hadn't turned up in the ruins of the fire.

  Situated in a high valley a few miles outside the city of Ruidoso, the tribal enterprise was a cash cow that drew year-round vacationers and gamblers from all parts of New Mexico and surrounding states. It offered skiing in the winter and all the usual summer recreation activities, such as golf, boating, trail rides, tennis, and swimming, along with twenty-four-hour gaming at the casino, which was within easy walking distance from the lodge and guest rooms.

  The lodge had cedar-shingle siding, a high-pitched roof, and an expansive deck that overlooked the lake and the mountains beyond. Small streams, some coursing over man-made rock beds, others cutting through carefully tended lawns, flowed down the hill in front of the lodge into the lake. Small stands of pine and aspen trees and winding walkways gave the grounds a parklike feel.

  Most of the permanent employees were tribal members, and the woman at the reception desk was no exception. Barbara Chato, an old classmate from high school, smiled as Clayton approached.

  "You never come here anymore, stranger, now that you've left us," she said.

  "I haven't left," Clayton replied. "I just work off the rez."

  Barbara shrugged. "That's too bad. Billy Naiche made sergeant last week. I heard you would've gotten the promotion if you hadn't quit the department."

  "Good for Billy," Clayton said as he put Felix Ulibarri's photo on the counter. "Hav
e you seen this man?"

  Barbara shook her head.

  "Can you check and see if a Felix Ulibarri is registered?"

  Barbara's fingers clicked away at the computer keyboard while her eyes scanned the monitor. "We don't having anybody by that name staying here."

  "Maybe he already checked out."

  Barbara punched a few keys. "There's no guest record under that name."

  "How about somebody with the same initials?" Clayton asked.

  "No."

  "Can you check on people who paid in cash when they registered?"

  "Give me a minute," Barbara replied as she opened another computer file. "We had two in the last week. A Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Weber from Lubbock, Texas, and a Fred Villanueva from Albuquerque."

  "Is Villanueva still here?"

  "He left yesterday."

  "Does his registration form show any vehicle information?"

  "I'll have to get that from the business office," Barbara said, picking up a telephone.

  She dialed a number, made her request, and after a few minutes handed a scribbled note to Clayton. He read it and smiled. The vehicle make and license plate number matched that of Humphrey's car.

  "Thanks, Barbara."

  "Well, at least now you're smiling," Barbara said as Clayton stepped toward the administration wing.

  Moses Kaywaykla, chief of security, wasn't in his office, but his secretary called for him on the radio and he arrived within a few minutes. Just an inch shorter than Clayton's five-ten frame, Kaywaykla was dark skinned, and had deep creases on either side of his mouth and deep-set eyes that gave him a crabby, somewhat wary appearance. In fact, Kaywaykla had a reputation in the tribe as a good storyteller. Moses was also particularly admired among the men for his bawdy jokes.

  Kaywaykla, Clayton's uncle by marriage, dropped his handheld radio on his desk and nodded a greeting at Clayton. In his late forties, Moses always wore a business suit to work with a pair of expensive cowboy boots. Today the suit was dark brown, the shirt blue with a regimental striped tie, the boots a pair of black alligator Larry Mahans.

  "So, are you tired of working for the sheriff yet?" Moses asked.

  "Not yet," Clayton replied.

  "When you are, come and see me. I'll make you my assistant, pay you good money."

  "Maybe after I qualify for a pension," Clayton said.

  Moses laughed. "That's a long time for me to wait, nephew."

  "If I make you wait long enough, maybe I can have your job," Clayton said with a smile, handing over a photograph. "I'm looking for this man. He was registered as Fred Villanueva. Checked out yesterday. His real name is Felix Ulibarri."

  "What did he do?" Moses asked, studying the photograph.

  "Maybe murder."

  Kaywaykla's eyes narrowed. "I don't like murderers in my casino. It happened in your jurisdiction?"

  "Yeah, that burned body we found in the fire outside Carrizozo," Clayton replied. "The victim's name was Humphrey. Ulibarri was one of his drinking buddies and supposedly came down here with him. Humphrey had just won a lot of money up at one of the pueblo casinos near Albuquerque. I'm thinking Ulibarri killed him for the money and went on a gambling spree here."

  "You say he left yesterday?" Moses asked, handing back the photograph.

  Clayton nodded.

  "Let's look at some security videotapes," Moses said, "and then we'll talk to some people."

  They viewed videos and found Ulibarri playing poker intermittently over a two-day span and mostly losing. In between long sessions at the card tables he drank in an upstairs cafe and broke even playing a row of quarter slots. In the last video, which Moses fast-forwarded, he won heavily at poker.

  The sight of Ulibarri raking in a hefty stack of chips discouraged Clayton. His suspect was bankrolled again and possibly on the move. Was he heading back to Albuquerque or to one of the other Indian casinos in the state? Was he in Juarez drinking in a brothel?

  Moses froze the tape. "Want to know what he cashed out?"

  "Yeah," Clayton said. "He seemed to be doing a lot of talking in the last tape. Do you know any of the people at his table?"

  "Two of them," Moses replied, pointing out two players on the frame. "Gus Hogan is a serious player. We comp him his room and meals. He comes up from El Paso about once a month. Sometimes he plays at the high-stakes tables, sometimes not. Jasper Nava is local. Everyone calls him JJ. He owns an appliance repair shop in Ruidoso. He's here once a week usually. Comes in with a couple hundred in his pocket and plays until he either loses it or wins. He does pretty well most of the time, but won't move up to any of the high-stakes games."

  "What does Hogan do for a living?" Clayton asked.

  "Nothing. He's a rich guy. I'll get you his home address and phone number, if you want to talk to him."

  "Good deal," Clayton said. "I'd sure like to know who else was at the table when Ulibarri won big."

  Moses shrugged. "Maybe the dealers know who they are."

  They walked from the lodge to the casino on a pathway that led them past the swimming pool, tennis courts, boathouse, and the restaurant that overlooked the golf course. It was too cool and early in the year for swimming, and the tennis courts were empty, but several foursomes were out on the greens.

  At the casino Clayton learned that Ulibarri had walked away from his last poker game with seventeen thousand dollars. Two of the dealers who had had Ulibarri at their tables were on duty. They remembered Ulibarri when Clayton showed them his photograph, but didn't know any of the other players by name. None had been regulars.

  He got the names, phone numbers, and shift schedules for the three other dealers, said good-bye to Moses, and drove to the sheriff's department in Carrizozo, where he put together an advisory bulletin. It read:

  WANTED FOR QUESTIONING FELIX ULIBARRI FOR THE MURDER OF JOSEPH J. HUMPREY

  Subject is Hispanic male, age 43, DOB 3/03/59, height 5'8", weight 148 lbs, brown eyes, brown hair, clean shaven, with a knife scar on right forearm approximately 2 inches below the elbow, approximately 3 inches in length. Recent photograph attached. Subject is known to frequent casinos and is likely to be driving victim's vehicle, a 1979 Mercury Cougar, two-door coupe, dark blue in color bearing New Mexico license 782 KCG. Subject's driver's license has been revoked for repeated DWI convictions. See attached arrest record. Subject's permanent address is 4 Camino Azul, Albuquerque, NM. Ulibarri is an alcoholic and is known to associate with prostitutes. Subject last seen yesterday at the casino on the Mescalero Apache reservation, is presumably traveling alone, and may be currently using the alias of Fred Villanueva. Subject is known to have gambling winnings of $17,000 and could possibly be at or planning to visit other casinos in the region. Victim was killed with a knife, type unknown. If located, detain Ulibarri for questioning, secure all evidence, and immediately contact the officer below at the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department, Carrizozo, NM.

  Clayton spent the next hour faxing the documents to every law-enforcement agency, casino, and gaming establishment in New Mexico, West Texas, and Arizona. As he finished up, Paul Hewitt came into the room and read the advisory.

  "You're making some progress," Hewitt said.

  "Some," Clayton replied.

  "Is Ulibarri a solid suspect?"

  "I think so."

  "What's your next move?"

  "Ulibarri mostly played poker while he was at the casino and won big," Clayton replied. "We need to talk to a few more off-duty poker dealers to learn if he got friendly or talkative with any other customers. Sergeant Quinones and Deputy Dillingham are following up that angle, plus trying to contact two possible informants. I wanted to get the advisory out ASAP in case Ulibarri has already hit the road."

  "Makes sense," Hewitt said. "Have you got reports ready for me to read?"

  "Not yet," Clayton said. "I'll leave them on your desk before I go home tonight."

  Hewitt clapped Clayton on the shoulder. "That'll be soon enough. Good job, Deputy."


  Clayton shrugged off the compliment. "I haven't made an arrest yet, Sheriff. Is anything happening with the Montoya case?"

  "Not as far as I know. Just stay focused on what you're doing. I'll keep you informed if I hear from Chief Kerney."

  Clayton nodded, gave the dispatcher a copy of the bulletin to enter in the national and state crime information data banks, and started in on his reports.

  Kerney picked up the paper on his way out the front door and glanced at the front page, which featured the discovery of Montoya's body. The headline read:

  MURDERED BODY OF LOCAL WOMAN FOUND

  The body of Anna Marie Montoya, reported missing from Santa Fe over eleven years ago, was discovered in the basement of a burned-out building after a recent fire in Lincoln County. According to Deputy Police Chief Larry Otero, autopsy results of the remains indicate a strong possibility that Montoya was murdered. "We're treating it as a homicide," Otero said, "and cooperating with Lincoln County law-enforcement officials in a joint investigation."

  He quickly read through the rest of the story, which gave the facts of Montoya's disappearance, and glanced at the sidebar articles. One summarized information about six other women who'd been reported missing from the Santa Fe area over the last decade and never found, and the other quoted the spokesperson of a women's criminal justice coalition, who took the department to task for "not caring enough to provide sufficient resources and personnel to locate these missing women and end the unnecessary suffering of families and friends."

  Yeah, right, Kerney grumped silently as he closed the door of his unmarked unit and tossed the paper on the passenger seat. He forced down his irritation. Unsolved missing-person cases, especially those involving women and children, always sparked criticism of law enforcement. Kerney understood people's fears that they would never see their loved ones again, fears that were all too frequently and tragically realized. But it irked him when civilians thought that cops didn't care about the mothers, wives, and children who'd gone missing, never to be found.

  At the office, he shut his door and started working the list of Anna Marie Montoya's old friends, colleagues, ex-employers, and graduate student classmates. As he'd suspected, many had moved on, changed jobs or residences, or were no longer living in Sante Fe. He spoke to a few, left phone messages for others, and got leads on a couple of the people who'd moved out of state.