Chapter 14
Charlie and his long-time girlfriend Brenda Mason had been together off and on for the past two years. Charlie’s access to drugs attracted Brenda and in that respect, he took care of her. Charlie liked Brenda because she was a good piece of ass and, next to drugs, that was high on his list. Charlie was content to just be Charlie: drinking, doing drugs, chasing women and smoking grass. That pretty much occupied his time except for an excursion to the Mine Shaft Tavern in Madrid now and then to check out the new talent. The place was always full of hot, willing chicks.
The bedroom was lit only by a small oil lamp in the corner. Brenda sat in front of the dresser mirror towel-drying her hair and working on a roach.
“I’m thinking I want out of here, Charlie.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes to see his reaction.
Charlie lay on the bed smoking a cigarette. He took another puff, blew it toward the ceiling, and watched the breeze coax it into a dance.
“Jeezus. Here we go again, Brenda. So, go.”
Brenda was surprised.
“Can’t keep you here if you don’t want to stay.” Visible frustration in Charlie’s voice caused her to give him a second look. She knew Charlie like the back of her hand. Things flowed peacefully and he didn’t particularly care for confrontation.
She had a list of viable but bogus reasons why she was fed up. She imagined he would fall to his knees begging her to stay. She was tired of watching him cultivate his precious marijuana plants. The available money was fun, but he was usually too stoned to go shopping. She missed the bar scene, especially the tavern in Madrid, and hated keeping an eye out for the narcs while he made a sale.
She was tired of working three nights a week at The Burrito Barrel. Charlie could take better care of her than she could take of herself, but the tightwad insisted she work. She was tired of sharing her tips with the busboy, who was not above grabbing himself a handful when the boss was not looking.
Before she met Charlie, Brenda wandered from town to town getting by, hooking up with strangers who let her sleep on their couch for a few weeks before she decided to move on, bored with inattentive cowboys who lacked a faithful boner.
My mother all over again, Brenda thought. She wasn’t going to be like her. No Ma’am. Her mother was crazy. Every time her father didn’t come home, Mom paced the kitchen, screamed obscenities and yanked Brenda’s hair if she uttered a sound. She’d learned to be quiet as a mouse.
Charlie recalled the couple of times he had almost been busted by the damned beaner sheriff. It was a good thing Brenda had big knockers and great legs. She was a good distraction to have around. Too bad she had the habit of taking off every few months and then dropping in out of nowhere as though she’d never been gone. What the hell, Charlie thought. Don’t have any ties to her anyway. Besides, after my next good hit, I’m out of here. He was more concerned about something happening to the bricks of marijuana he had holed up in the barn. A few more days and he would be ready to make the sale.
Brenda had a nasty alcohol and drug addiction. If Charlie wasn’t careful, she would smoke the weed as fast as he grew it. Sober, she was a lot of fun, even with a few drinks; but when she crossed the one-too-many line, she was a real pain in the ass. One more DUI and she’d be in jail for a while. Charlie didn’t want this sort of attention, so he tried to keep her supplied. First she wanted to be with him and then she didn’t. Maybe the next time she’d stay gone for good. Jealous as hell, too. Made his life miserable when she ranted about a girl who caught his eye. A couple of chicks he hooked up with a while back in Madrid hadn’t come around lately. But what the hell, Brenda was within his grasp.
“Brenda, honey,” he said in a voice dripping with sugar. “Bring your sweet ass over here and give me some loving.”
Brenda smiled. Charlie really loved her. She just knew it. He wanted her to stay. Pretty soon she could start talking about getting married.
About the time they were really into it, Charlie heard a sound from the lower level of the house. He started to get out of bed. Brenda pulled him back.
“Come on, Charlie, you’re not getting away that easy.”
“What is going on with that damned dog?” he muttered. Surely, if there was someone down there, the dog would have ripped his leg off by now. He cocked the rifle and walked to the open window.
Chapter 15
Charlie seemed to be going through girlfriends like water through a sieve. Romero had received an anonymous note in the mail with five names on it, intimating that Charlie knew them all. A couple of girls with no last names, but well known by their Christian names around the bar scene.
On the list was one Barbie Doll, who turned out to be a Barbara Dunigan. Charlie’s longtime girl friend, Brenda Mason, herself a bit of a player, had introduced them, much to her chagrin.
Janet, no last name on the list, but Romero thought she might be Janet Leyba.
Bernice, a waitress usually called Bernie.
No last name.
Linda Spottsburg, who lived part-time with that crack head Bart Wolfe.
Romero didn’t know what relevance the names had to the case. He sent an email to Detective Martinez to go through the missing person files to see if any of the women had been reported missing. Maybe it would help them start putting some of the pieces of the puzzle together.
Charlie had met Barbara at the bar in Madrid last December. She had just celebrated her twenty-second birthday. Loud, brassy, laughed a lot. Petite, shapely, wore her hair in a ponytail, liked fire-red lipstick. Had dropped about forty pounds and thought she was hot stuff, flirted with everyone. Charlie met her through his girlfriend Brenda, who hadn’t returned after her last departure.
Barbie-Doll had been browsing through the magazines at the book store in the mall when Charlie ran across her a second time. Their eyes locked. They had coffee. He invited her out to party. Drove to the ranch, the place was dark.
“Hey, where’s the party, Charlie?” she had asked.
“You’re the party, Babe.”
Missing since before Christmas.
* * *
Jan-Gran was twenty-two. Pretty, blond, small, tanned, and muscular. Liked to hike in the Ortiz Mountains. Carried on an affair with her married boss at the old hotel in Cerrillos. One afternoon he didn’t show up. She was pissed, about to be caught in a major blizzard, so she hitched a ride to the Mine Shaft Bar. Charlie was all over her, buying her drinks and telling her how pretty she was. Several hours later they ended up at the ranch. Hadn’t been seen since February.
* * *
Bernie-Bernice was twenty-eight but looked like a teenager. Waited tables at a resort in Tesuque, a few miles north of Santa Fe. Always introduced herself and added a caveat about the last customer who stiffed her on the tip. To make ends meet, she dipped in the cash register, according to the manager. He was threatening to let her go. She wasn’t above hitchhiking home after work, if she hadn’t been able to hook up with a customer who’d come in alone. Once, she told everyone she’d thumbed a ride with a guy named Charlie who had a marijuana garden in his basement. She dropped into the bar when she was too sober to face the daily grind. Missing since May 15.
* * *
Charlie met Linda at the bar in Madrid.
A tiny little thing, about twenty-three, wearing tight-fitting jeans. A tattoo of a bird on her right breast showed above her bra line. Linda lived with Wolfe in a trailer park on the outskirts of Santa Fe. Word was she stepped out on him. Dressed in revealing clothes when he wasn’t around. Liked to snuggle up as she danced. She was pretty popular with the male patrons of the bar.
Linda liked to look in the mirror. Her hair was thick and long, held with a silver clip at the neck. She told one of the other girls that she liked to apply green eye shadow and then rub it off with a piece of toilet paper. She liked the robin’s egg blue a little better. It brought out the color of her eyes.
Charlie spirited her away from Bart one nig
ht at the bar in Madrid. They made out and in the early morning he woke up to find her gone. Linda had been missing since June.
* * *
No doubt about Charlie being a party animal. Not interested in small talk. Generally picked women up and, after a few shots of Jim Beam whiskey, hustled them out to the ranch for a few more shots from his private stock. Romero figured that Charlie was living every guy’s dream.
Chapter 16
Lieutenant Romero felt the frustration building. He was going on sixteen hours of meetings, phone calls, interviews and dead-end tips. He swallowed another mouthful of bitter coffee, almost spitting it out on the case file open before him. Sheriff Bobby Medrano had assigned several auxiliary personnel to help him catch up with his case load, and it was an extra task to bring them up to date.
Medrano’s office was on the second floor of the Santa Fe County Adult Correctional Facility complex. The windows looked out on the exercise yard, where prisoners could spend two hours each day. The County Jail housed a garden variety of street criminals, locals convicted on DUI charges and other equally petty misdemeanors. The average stay in County Jail was thirty days, but some convicted criminals stayed as long as two years, a much better fate than being incarcerated across the highway at the state penitentiary where the horror of becoming someone’s “girlfriend” loomed. Sheriff Medrano ran the jail with an iron hand, having been taken to task one too many times for his officers’ misconduct.
He was born in Belen, New Mexico and had been in law enforcement for the past twenty-five years. After graduation from the College of Santa Fe with a degree in accounting, he spent time serving on the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s reserve program as a volunteer. For a few years he worked for the State Highway Department as their head accountant, but decided law enforcement was his calling. After a stint with the New Mexico State Police, he became a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputy and was eventually elected Sheriff in a heated election against the incumbent Sheriff, Jerry Purcell.
Medrano much preferred the old County Jail in Santa Fe. This new location was ten miles from the State Police offices and fifteen from the courthouse downtown. His deputies spent a lot of time going back and forth, delivering prisoners to District Court for arraignments and trials rather than focusing on solving crime. Yes, downtown had been more convenient, but he imagined the County would probably sell the building to some big hotel chain. Santa Fe needed another massive hotel in the downtown area, just like he needed a hole in his head, he thought as he rubbed his temples.
Medrano sprawled behind his desk in the leather swivel chair. Lieutenant Romero sat across from him. Medrano got up and walked toward the window.
“Getting a lot of heat, you know, Rick. You’ve got a full plate. Maybe we should call in the FBI.”
“FBI? Give me a little more time, huh?”
“I’ve spent the last two weeks fielding calls from the County Commissioners. All these missing women worked in and around Santa Fe.
There’s people calling all the time.” Medrano slid the file across the desk.
Romero nodded. He opened the file and pulled out a few of the papers. “We’ve got a report from the forensic psychologist. She interviewed friends and family of the women. We’ve picked up four potential suspects, people they were last seen with. They all have solid alibis. No tips on the hotline have led anywhere.”
“In addition, Lieutenant, there have been two shootings in the same area. Are we getting any closer to solving them?” the Sheriff said. “I don’t see why you don’t want more help on this. Maybe Santa Fe PD can send us some men.”
“Damn it, Sheriff, I’m working on it.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t making any headway.”
“The second shooting seems to involve a dispute over a woman. Don’t think there’s any connection to the McCabe case,” said Romero.
“You know McCabe’s a good friend of mine.
I’d like to see that one solved,” he said.
“Workin’ on it, Sheriff.”
“We’ve got fifteen missing women in our files. Recent reports point to sightings of four of them in your jurisdiction. Don’t you have a spare officer you can assign to check them out?”
“They all hung out at the Mine Shaft or one of those joints along Highway 14,” Romero said.
He didn’t understand why Medrano was on his tail like this. People weren’t just sitting around out there, waiting to spill the beans to an investigator.
Medrano gave him a hard look. “I wouldn’t say this to the media, but we’re stumped. All those missing women and one dead. We’ve pulled the records of every parolee and sex offender in the state and come up with shit.”
“I hear you,” said Romero.
“Need some action here, Rick. Bring me something I can take to the bank. Keep looking into those women last seen in your area and who shot McCabe. In a weird stretch of the imagination, there might just be a connection somewhere. Check with the crime techs again. See if anything has shown up there. Have you conferred with that new gal we put on? The profiler?”
“Hadn’t even thought about her.” Romero knew Medrano well enough to see he wasn’t buying that. He had a sly, shit-eating grin on his face. The gossiping elements must be at work. On his way out, Romero stepped into the evidence room and talked to one of the crime scene techs. Nothing new there.
Late afternoon, Romero left the complex. Cloudy skies made it appear later than it was. Maybe I’m losing my touch, he thought as he turned onto the highway. He cruised along Highway 14, the Turquoise Trail. There was little traffic as he passed the Garden of the Gods. A group of tourists stopped to pose for pictures next to the monolithic rock formations. He turned onto the county road leading to the Crawford Ranch. His vehicle shook violently as he drove on the ungraded surface. He slowed down to fifteen miles an hour and still felt all his joints rattle. Would have to have the vehicle lubed as soon as he got into town. That pounding was sure to squash the grease out of the joints.
A half hour later he stood at the gate of the Indian ruins and unlocked it with the keys McCabe provided. He sat down in Medicine Rock cave, stretching out his legs. He needed a cigarette or a drink, or both. Something here that we’re missing, he mused, but what the hell is it?
According to his last conversation with McCabe, the Indians who occupied this property hundreds of years ago were prehistoric primitive tribes. It was unlikely that McCabe would find anything other than historically important relics. Yet he couldn’t come up with a viable reason for someone taking a shot at McCabe. Did they want to scare him off or did they want him dead?
He looked toward the Crawford Ranch. Was the answer over there? Why had Bart Wolfe also been shot in this location? How did Charlie Cooper fit into the equation? Did he have to be on the ruins to check them out or couldn’t he just stand at the fence between the two properties? He would have been able to see a vehicle or even someone walking around the ruins. Knowing Charlie, his idea of ‘checking something out’ would be to stick his head out the door, crane his neck and look toward the sky.
It was getting dark. Romero felt a creepy feeling run up his spine. Freaky. He had the sensation of being watched, as though a crowd of people were sitting in the bleachers waiting for him to make a play. A burst of wind erupted from nowhere, stirring up a dust storm.
Chapter 17
The phone rang as Romero unlocked the door. He threw the keys on the desk, put the breakfast burrito he picked up at the café in Cerrillos next to it, and reached for the phone. The call had already gone to message. He’d let Clarissa retrieve it when she came in. As he filled the coffee pot, Detective Clyde Martinez and Clarissa drove up. Martinez went into the bathroom.
“Yum. You smell nice today, Lieutenant. Trying out a new cologne?” Clarissa mimicked a fake swoon.
“Shhh, this is serious business here. Did you bring the donuts?” Romero said, smiling.
“What’s up, boss?” Martinez asked, still zipping up as he walked into the
room, not realizing Clarissa was still there.
Romero motioned Martinez to sit down, offered him a cup of coffee, and pushed the box of donuts his way. Martinez shook his head and patted his stomach, which was flat as a tortilla. He evidently intended to keep it that way.
Romero handed Martinez a package. “Photos of the women reported missing in Santa Fe County the past year. Show these pictures to local businesses along Highway 14. Start at the Allsup’s and work your way up to Madrid. Maybe we can get something going on this investigation. See if you can get addresses on any of them, and in a couple of cases, their last names.
“The Sheriff’s taking a crapload of heat about nothing turning up on any of these women, and he’s passing it down to us. Media’s coming down hard. The families are accusing him of not giving a damn.”
“Yeah, I heard a lot of palaver about that,” Martinez said. He reached for a donut, cut it in half and swirled it in his coffee.
“We’re expected to pull a rabbit out of a hat, I guess,” Romero said. “If it ain’t there, it ain’t there. So we need to turn over a few rocks and see who crawls out from under.”
“Will do, Boss,” said Martinez. “I’ll get right on it.”
Later that morning, Martinez started at the northern end of Highway 14, where it intersected with Highway 599, and parked his cruiser at Allsup’s convenience store and fuel station. The windows of the one-story building were covered with posters advertising beer specials and a seventy million dollar lottery jackpot. He walked through the door past the tall beer and soda coolers against the wall, and the dozen or so bags of various brands of potato chips, candy, mixed nuts and pumpkin seeds. A few customers waited in line to pay for gas.
Martinez asked the clerk at the register for the manager, and she directed him to a gentleman working at the rear of the store. The radio was tuned to a country western station, the announcer hawking an upcoming appearance at one of the nearby casinos by some long-forgotten ’50s recording star. Martinez walked back to the manager—a short, fat and suspicious man in his forties with a thick Latino accent, probably Guatemalan. He introduced himself and showed him pictures of the missing women.
Shadows among the Ruins Page 5
