The Big Gamble (17 page)

 

 

 

 

T
he regional airport sat on a mesa outside of Ruidoso a few miles northeast of Fort Stanton, an old army fort. As a child, Clayton had toured the fort with his uncles, to see the place the white eyes had built to wage war against the Mescaleros and confine them to the reservation.

Opened in the 1850s and decommissioned as a military installation just before the turn of the twentieth century, the fort had subsequently become a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis, an internment facility for German prisoners during World War II, and a rehabilitation center for the developmentally disabled.

Situated near a river lined by ancient oak trees, the main fort consisted of beautiful old military buildings around a grassy quadrangle. Currently it served as a minimum security prison for women, and was probably one of the prettiest lockups in the entire country.

In an unusual way the fort had reverted to its original purpose, with one notable variation: women—not Apaches—were now imprisoned on the grounds. Clayton wondered if only the Mescaleros appreciated that irony.

At the airport, a facility that served mostly private planes, Clayton quickly made the rounds of everybody on-site, flashing Johnny Jackson’s likeness and the grainy photographs of the blonde, and asking questions. He got a possible make on the blonde from an airplane mechanic.

“Maybe it’s her,” the man said, “but I can’t say for certain. I only got a sideways look at her from a distance.”

“Tell me about it,” Clayton said.

The mechanic shifted his chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other. “The pilot wanted me to check the idle on his starboard engine. Said it sounded a little rough. The blonde—if that was her—stayed outside the maintenance hangar.”

“Did the blonde arrive with the pilot?”

“I’m pretty sure she did. He landed, taxied right up to the front of the hangar, and came in to talk to me. Wasn’t a minute or two before I saw her standing outside next to the plane. Nobody can get here walking from the terminal that fast.”

“Who was the pilot?”

“Luis Rojas. He was right about the engine: it needed adjustment.”

“From El Paso?”

The mechanic spit out some tobacco juice into a handkerchief. “Yeah, he flies in here pretty regular. Keeps a car in the parking lot.”

“When did Rojas arrive?”

The mechanic rubbed his nose. “A few days ago. Let me pull the invoice.”

He leafed through a folder smudged with greasy fingerprints and read off the date. “He rolled in here at about sixteen hundred hours.”

If the blonde was the right one, it all jibed. She had been caught on videotape at the casino that very same night.

“Did the woman go with him when he left for El Paso?” Clayton asked.

“Nope, he flew out alone.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely. After he paid, I walked him to his plane and showed him what I’d done. I watched him taxi and take off.”

Before leaving the airport grounds, Clayton checked the thirty or so cars in the parking lot for a late-model Lincoln, found two, and ran the plates. Both were registered to prominent, well-known Ruidoso businessmen, neither of whom matched Staggs’s description of Johnny Jackson. Jackson and his car were looking more and more like figments of Harry Staggs’s imagination.

But the blonde and Luis Rojas were very real. It was time to find Staggs and lean on him harder.

 

Ramona Piño sat at the small conference table that butted up against Chief Kerney’s desk and made her report. She finished to smiles and nods from Kerney and Lieutenant Molina.

“Good job,” Sal Molina said.

“Interesting,” Kerney said, sliding his chair back from the conference table so he could cross his legs. He dangled a foot over his knee and rubbed his leg to relieve the pain.

He’d changed out of his uniform during the day and now wore jeans, boots, and a blue shirt that matched the color of his eyes.

Piño found him rather good-looking for an older man. “Should I go back to meet with Cassie Bedlow?” she asked.

“First let’s hear what Lieutenant Molina has learned,” Kerney replied.

Sal consulted his notes. “The background checks on the people Osterman contacted after he returned to New Mexico weren’t helpful, Chief. Of course, we haven’t had a chance to dig very deep yet, but I don’t see a killer lurking in their midst.”

“What about Montoya’s college roommates?” Kerney asked.

“She had four. We talked to three of them.” Molina listed the women by name. “One lived with her for two years in a dorm until she moved off campus. During her junior and senior years, Montoya shared an apartment with two other students. None reported any love interest on Montoya’s part involving a rich kid from Albuquerque.”

“Who are we missing?” Kerney asked.

“Belinda Louise Nieto. She roomed with Anna Marie during a summer session.”

“When was that?” Kerney asked.

“After Montoya’s junior year,” Molina replied.

“What do we know about her?”

“Now it gets interesting, Chief. Nieto was Anna Marie’s cousin. She attended junior college in California for a year and then transferred to the university in Albuquerque. She was supposed to continue living with Montoya, but she never enrolled in the fall semester. When Montoya’s old roommates returned, Nieto had already split.”

“Where to?”

“Denver, supposedly, but nobody knows for sure.”

“There’s been no contact between Nieto and her family for over twenty years?” Kerney asked.

“There really isn’t any immediate family left,” Molina said. “Nieto was born and raised in California. Her father was the younger brother of Montoya’s mother. He enlisted in the navy, pulled a tour in San Diego, and stayed there after his discharge. He married an Anglo girl and got a civilian job as a cargo specialist on the base. The marriage broke up when he caught the wife sleeping with a sailor. Guess she couldn’t resist a man in uniform. The father got custody and the mother dropped out of sight.”

Molina flipped a page. “Allegedly, Nieto had a wild streak, so she was sent to New Mexico by her father in an attempt to settle her down. Everybody thought Anna Marie would be a good influence on her. Three months after Nieto split, her father was killed on the docks while loading supplies on an aircraft carrier. The last time anyone saw her was at her father’s funeral in San Diego. Anna Marie’s mother said she showed up looking like a floozy.”

“Mrs. Montoya is your informant?” Kerney asked.

Molina nodded.

“Tell me what she knew about the girl’s wild streak.”

“The usual stuff: boys, parties, drinking, staying out late, being rebellious,” Molina said, passing Kerney a photograph. “She was quite a looker. That snapshot was taken right after she came to New Mexico. She was nineteen years old.”

Kerney agreed with Molina’s assessment. The photo showed a slender, very attractive young woman with high cheekbones, long curly dark hair and a well-proportioned figure. He passed it on to Detective Piño.

Piño rolled her eyes. “Five eight at least. God, I hate tall women.”

“Why’s that?” Molina asked.

“Because I’m not one of them,” Piño said, dropping the photo on the tabletop.

“Hang on a minute,” Kerney said as he searched his desk for Jeremiah Perrett’s office phone number. He found it, dialed, then hit the speaker button, asked for Perrett, and the secretary rang him through.

“One question, Dr. Perrett,” he said, “when exactly during Anna Marie’s senior year did she talk to you about the young man we discussed?”

“Early in the first semester, as I recall,” Perrett answered.

“Could it have been during the summer session?”

“That would depend on whether or not I was teaching that summer.”

“Can you check on that?”

The three officers heard a sigh, followed by the sound of a squeaking chair.

“Let me look in my records,” Perrett said.

The officers stared at the phone, listening to file drawers opening and papers being turned, before Perrett came back on the line.

“Yes, I did teach that summer,” he said, “and Anna Marie was one of my students. We very well could have talked about the boy during that time.”

“Thanks,” Kerney said.

“Is there anything else, Chief Kerney?”

“That’ll do it.” He disconnected and looked at Piño and Molina. “Do we have a coincidence here?”

“Maybe more than that,” Molina replied.

Kerney nodded. “Let’s assume that Nieto arrives as Anna Marie’s new roommate, gets right into the party scene, and pulls Anna Marie into it with her.”

“Which leads to the appearance of a young man with money who puts the moves on our victim,” Detective Piño said.

“A young man none of Anna Marie’s friends or roommates know anything about because they were away for the summer,” Molina noted.

“We should try to find Belinda Louise Nieto,” Kerney said.

“I’ll do a public-records search in Colorado,” Molina said.

“What about the mysterious rich boy?” Piño asked.

Molina smiled. “Actually, I’ve got one identified—Cassie Bedlow’s older brother. His name is Tyler Norvell. He lived in Albuquerque and went to law school at the same time his sister and Anna Marie were undergraduates. According to several people who knew him, he always had money to burn—not your average struggling grad student.

“He’s now a four-term state senator from Lincoln County. Just got reelected last fall. Owns the biggest real estate agency in Ruidoso, a ranch, and he’s a partner in a bank.”

Kerney’s expression brightened. As a state senator, Norvell would routinely come to Santa Fe for legislative sessions and other state business. “When was Norvell first elected?” he asked.

“The November before Montoya disappeared,” Molina answered.

“I like that connection. Does his family have money?”

“Unknown,” Molina replied. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“What do you have on Cassie Bedlow?” Kerney asked.

“She seems clean,” Molina said.

“Let’s stay on her for a while.” Kerney swung his gaze to Detective Piño. “Ask APD vice to assist. Maybe they can give you a heads up on what to look for, and how to go about it. Continue to play the eager student with Bedlow, and see what more you can find out about the blonde who got beaten up. She might be a source of information.”

Piño nodded and scribbled herself a note. “What about Norvell?”

“I’ll take the politician,” Kerney said, holding out his hand to Molina. “Give me your fact sheet on him.”

Molina passed it over. “On paper, he’s a boy scout.”

Kerney laughed. “So is every New Mexico politician, on paper.”

 

Clayton joined up with Quinones and Dillingham to compare notes. They sat in a nearly empty diner by the racetrack and talked over coffee as long-haul trucks rattled by on the highway, the engine noise vibrating the plate-glass window.

Dillingham gave his brief report first, which consisted of nothing but goose eggs when it came to finding anything out about Johnny Jackson, then sat back to watch Istee and Quinones follow suit. After Quinones admitted to coming up empty, Clayton trumped them both with the thing about the blonde at the airport with Luis Rojas.

“Well, at least one of us got something,” Quinones said.

“It’s only a possible ID on the blonde,” Clayton said, sliding the freeze-frame photos of the woman across the Formica tabletop. “I still have to confirm it.”

“So how come Jackson’s so hard to find, and this blonde pops up on the radar screen?” Quinones asked.

“Because Staggs fed me a line of bullshit about Jackson,” Clayton answered.

“You’re thinking Jackson is Rojas disguised?” Dillingham said.

Clayton nodded. “It’s possible, and since the blonde didn’t matter to Staggs, he didn’t try to cover for her.”

“Just another whore,” Quinones said.

“Something like that.”

“Let’s go talk to Staggs,” Quinones said suddenly.

“All three of us?” Dillingham asked.

“Why not?” Quinones answered, his eyes on Clayton. “We can overwhelm him with our collective charm.”

Clayton wasn’t sure if Quinones was simply making a suggestion or pulling rank and taking charge. Was he saying it’s time to step aside, boy, you’ve fucked it up? Or was he just putting out a good idea?

With patient detachment, Quinones waited for a reaction. Since the sergeant hadn’t jacked him around for stupidly falling for Staggs’s fabrication, Clayton decided it wasn’t a slam.

“Me and Dillingham will hold Staggs’s hand while you take a crack at him,” he said.

Quinones stood up and dropped some change on the table as a tip. “So, off we go to Casey’s Cozy Cabins. Since you called this little meeting, you get to buy the coffee.”

Clayton peeled off some singles, stuck them under the tab, and followed Quinones and Dillingham out the door.

For two hours they waited vainly for Staggs to show. Dillingham stayed in his unit concealed nearby to block off any retreat in case Staggs drove up and decided to bolt. Clayton and Quinones, who had checked each cabin carefully to make sure no one was about, passed the time in Clayton’s unit doing paperwork.

Finished, Quinones dropped his clipboard on the floorboard, put his pen in his shirt pocket and said, “Let’s take a look inside.”

“That’s illegal entry,” Clayton replied.

“I’m concerned about Staggs’s welfare,” Quinones said.

“His car isn’t here, the cabin is locked up, and nobody’s around.”

“All the more reason to worry. Could be that Staggs is a victim of a crime. Maybe somebody beat him up, ripped him off, and stole his car. Maybe he’s lying inside badly hurt, in need of our assistance.”