Slow Kill kk-9

by Michael McGarrity

  Sometimes she wondered why she liked her job so damn much.

  Chapter 8

  K erney woke up stiff and sore. He’d worked on the garden wall until dusk, removing stones from the trench and expanding it so he could lay in a wider foundation as Joe Valdez had suggested. After a good hot soak in the shower, he dressed and drank a cup of tea at the breakfast table. Before he’d been gut shot by a drug dealer, Kerney had been a heavy coffee drinker, and sometimes he still missed the aroma and taste of it.

  Always an early riser, Kerney watched dawn break through the French doors that opened onto the pergola. A thin layer of clouds on the horizon, washed pink by the first light, faded into pale ribbons as the sun bleached color from the dark blue morning sky, foretelling a still, dry day.

  Across the pasture, peppered with dull green rabbitbrush and bunches of bluestem grass withered by drought, he could see the horse barn, sunlight now reflecting off the slant of the metal roof. It had stood empty since a day last summer when he’d found Soldier, a mustang he’d bought and gentled some years back, brutally slaughtered by a man who’d then tried to kill Kerney’s family.

  Behind the barn at the top of the hill stood an ancient pinon tree. He’d buried Soldier in its shade and placed a boulder on top of the grave.

  The tree was dead now, a victim of drought and bark beetles, the bare branches rising and jutting at odd angles against the skyline. He’d lost a lot of trees on his 1,240 acres and had cut most of them down, especially the dead thickets that dotted the land and posed the greatest fire danger. But the tree on the hilltop he’d let stand in Soldier ’s memory.

  After rinsing out his cup, he walked into the living room and gathered up his keys, handheld radio, and cell phone. He took his sidearm from the locked gun cabinet, put it in a clip-on holster, and attached it to his belt. Today, he wore civvies, jeans, boots, and a white western-cut shirt, for his trip to Taos. But that would come later. First he’d stop by the office to see where things stood with Griffin and Dean, and make a call to the Taos PD to let them know he was coming and what he was looking for.

  He glanced around the room. Sara’s sense of style was everywhere. The matching soft Italian leather couch and love seat were arranged to give a view through the picture window to the canyon below. Cherrywood end tables held handsome pottery reading lamps, and under the glass coffee table a Tibetan area rug picked up the warm color of the Mexican tile floor. On the walls Sara had hung two western landscapes, the larger one an oil painting of his parents’ ranch on the Tularosa Basin done by Erma Fergurson, his mother’s lifelong friend and a renowned artist. Upon her death, Erma had bequeathed it to Kerney along with a parcel of northern New Mexico ranchland that had made him a rich man.

  Right now, having money was the furthest thing from Kerney’s mind. He was lonely for his wife and son and weary of seeing them so infrequently. He counted the days until he left for Arlington. He’d be with Sara and Patrick for two solid weeks, commuting to the FBI Academy at Quantico to attend an executive development seminar and teach several classes.

  He would fly east on Friday, and the time couldn’t pass quickly enough.

  Day shift started at 6:30 in the morning and radio traffic on his handheld picked up as officers began broadcasting their call signs and reporting in. As he left the house he heard Sergeant Pino announce her arrival at headquarters. He’d ask her for a briefing as soon as he’d finished scanning the reports and paperwork.

  It was midmorning before Ramona Pino found the time to call other cop shops to ask if Mitch Griffin might be the target of a probe or a person of interest in an ongoing case. She came up empty, which wasn’t surprising. Queries about suspects ate up time and often resulted in dead ends. But going through the exercise narrowed the focus and usually enhanced the investigation.

  Unwilling to let her suspicions about Griffin’s motives drop, Pino put in requests to federal, state, county, and municipal agencies asking for a records search of his name in all appropriate databases. The bureaucrats she spoke to warned that it would probably be several days before she heard anything back.

  She pulled into the public parking lot at the county jail just in time to see Barry Foyt, the ADA who’d secured Griffin’s voluntary permission to search, get out of his car. She honked the horn to get Foyt’s attention, and he waved and waited for her at the front entrance.

  “Did you get my evidence report on the Griffin house search?” Ramona asked as she approached Foyt. At five-three, she could almost look Foyt directly in the eye. He stood no more than five-six and was seriously balding, which made him look much older than his thirty-something years.

  Foyt nodded. “It was a good haul,” he said. “Congratulations. Let’s hope we can use it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Griffin lawyered up after we talked to him. He hired Patricia Delgado as counsel. Last night she got a court order to take a urine sample from Griffin for drug and alcohol screening by a private laboratory. The results should be in anytime.”

  “What does that do to us?” Ramona asked.

  “If it tests positive, Delgado will likely argue that Griffin’s permission to search should be excluded because he was under the influence and therefore not coherent at the time to make a rational decision. The same applies to Griffin’s waiver of his Miranda rights.”

  Ramona shook her head. “He was coherent, dammit. Did you argue against Delgado’s request?”

  Foyt scowled humorously. “No, I let Delgado walk all over me. Of course I did. But the judge saw no reason not to sign the order. Under Miranda, any waiver must be knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. The judge would’ve been foolish to disallow it.”

  Foyt shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other. “If Delgado can make a strong case that both the Miranda warning waiver and the voluntary permission to search occurred while Griffin was mentally debilitated due to drugs or alcohol use, we could lose all the evidence you seized.”

  “The fruit of the poisoned tree,” Romana said.

  “Exactly. But we’re not there yet. Pretrial discovery will require Delgado to show the results of the test and provide an expert opinion about the findings before asking the judge to exclude Griffin’s confession and the evidence.”

  “I think Griffin rolled over on himself because he’s hiding something or protecting someone.”

  “Like who or what?” Foyt asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, get a handle on it, Sergeant,” Foyt said, “because this case might need all the ammunition we can muster.”

  “Are you here to make a deal?”

  Foyt shook his head. “No, to listen to one. Want to come along?”

  “You bet I do,” Ramona replied, pushing open the door. “What’s up with Dean?”

  Foyt followed her into the public reception area where three female citizens were waiting to speak to their incarcerated loved ones. “He’s in a holding cell at the courthouse awaiting arraignment.”

  “No problem with him, I hope,” Ramona asked.

  “Not so far.”

  They signed in and got buzzed through to the corridor that led to the interview rooms. Patricia Delgado stood in the hallway by an open door. At five-nine, she towered over both Pino and Foyt.

  A former basketball star at one of the smaller state universities, Delgado kept in shape by running marathons, usually finishing in the top five for her age group. Single, still in her thirties, and attractive, she was romantically linked to a state senator rumored to have his eye on the governorship in the next election.

  Ramona thought of Delgado as an ice princess, who hid her self-absorbed personality behind a veneer of charm. Today she wore a tailored tan pantsuit that accentuated her long legs. The smile on her face held all the false enthusiasm of a media spokesperson peddling a beauty aid.

  “I’d almost given up on you,” Delgado said, nodding at Foyt and giving Ramona a quizzical look. “I didn’t realize you were bringing Sergeant Pi
no along.”

  “Is that a problem?” Foyt asked.

  Delgado shrugged and gestured at the table inside the room where Griffin waited. “Not at all. I just hope you don’t have any more little surprises for me.”

  “If your client has told you everything,” Foyt said as he sat down, “there won’t be. What’s on your mind, counselor?”

  Ramona slid into the seat next to Foyt and studied Griffin. He’d shaved and combed his hair back so that it stood up at his forehead like strands of wispy wire. He no longer looked like a faded country music star. The stress and anxiety of yesterday were gone, replaced by a blase, untroubled expression.

  “If you give him a pass on the drug dealing charges in exchange for his testimony against Mr. Dean,” Delgado said, “he’s agreed to cooperate.”

  “Mr. Griffin made that same offer to us yesterday,” Foyt said huffily. “I didn’t take it then. Why should I take it now when I’ve got more than enough evidence collected at the pharmacy to nail Dean on drug trafficking without the help of your client?”

  Delgado leaned forward in her chair and smiled winningly. “Because he might be able to help you with the murder charges you’ve filed against Dean.”

  “I’m listening,” Foyt said.

  “Before we get into that, let me tell you that the lab report on Mr. Griffin’s urinalysis came back positive for both alcohol and barbiturates. In fact, he was barely below the legal limit for intoxication hours after his arrest, and the thin layer chromatography and infrared spectrophotometer analysis shows that Mr. Griffin had ingested a significant amount of Seconal prior to being taken into custody.

  “You’ll get the details at the preliminary hearing when I move to have the evidence suppressed, the confession thrown out, and the charges dismissed. I also plan to bring along expert witnesses who will testify that my client was in no condition to intelligently understand his rights or give an informed consent to search his premises.”

  Clearly irritated, Foyt rolled his tongue around his lips before speaking. “I’m not going to bargain with you based on a report I haven’t seen.”

  Delgado flipped slowly through a leather-bound notecase with her long fingers and perfectly manicured nails. She extracted the report and gave it to Foyt. He read through it quickly and passed it to Ramona.

  Delgado hadn’t exaggerated. Ramona pushed the report across the table to Delgado. “Exactly what evidence will you ask to have suppressed?” she asked.

  “The pharmaceuticals, of course,” Delgado replied.

  Ramona smiled. “But not the ten pounds of marijuana we found in the locked contractor ’s truck box on a garage shelf?”

  The expression on Griffin’s face turned from smug to stunned. “What?”

  “All neatly wrapped in plastic bundles.”

  “That’s not mine,” Griffin said. “I don’t know anything about that shit.”

  “Regardless of who it belongs to,” Delgado said, putting a hand on Griffin’s shoulder to shut him up, “it’s still part of an illegal search.”

  “That’s yet to be determined,” Foyt said, switching his gaze from Delgado to Griffin. “Whose grass is it?”

  “Not mine,” Griffin repeated hotly.

  “Let me do the talking, Mitch,” Delgado said.

  Griffin shook his head and the swept-back hairs on his forehead flopped and waved. “That’s not my toolbox. It was left there by one of my subcontractors last week.”

  “Does this person have a name?” Ramona asked.

  Delgado held up a hand. “Stop right there. This goes no further unless we have a deal.”

  Ramona watched Foyt think it through. If he went for Delgado’s deal, he’d earn bragging rights for nailing three bad guys in one fell swoop and have one less case to prosecute. Faced with the possibility that the judge would rule in favor of Delgado’s motions, Ramona didn’t think Foyt would turn her down.

  “Griffin gives us the marijuana dealer,” Foyt said, “tells us what he knows about the Spalding homicide, and pleads out to intent to distribute.”

  “Unacceptable,” Delgado replied. “This is his first offense.”

  “No, it’s just the first time he’s been caught,” Ramona said.

  Delgado sighed as she reached for her notecase. “I’m sorry we couldn’t reach an agreement. We’ll see you in court.”

  “But,” Foyt said, “if Mr. Griffin would show some good faith and tell us what he knows about the Spalding murder case, I’ll consider dropping the current charges.”

  “Agreed.” Delgado nodded at Griffin.

  He looked directly at Pino. “Like I told you, I never slept with Claudia Spalding, but I know this guy who said he did. He works as a wrangler at a horse rescue ranch down by Stanley, in the southern part of the county, or at least he used to. I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Go on,” Ramona said.

  “Anyway, Claudia was like a big supporter of the program, gave it money and volunteered to tour the schoolkids around who’d come out to the ranch on field trips. This guy tells me that he got pussy action from her, but cut it off when she asked him to help her arrange a little accident for her husband.”

  “What kind of accident?” Ramona asked.

  “She wanted to bring Spalding down to the ranch, have the guy take them both out on a horseback ride, and then fake a bad fall. You know, the horse spooks, throws Spalding, and he dies in front of two witnesses.”

  “When was this?”

  “While I was building her house, before she met Kim.”

  “Give me a name,” Ramona said.

  “Coe Evans,” Griffin said. “I haven’t seen him in two, three years.”

  Ramona got a physical description of Coe Evans and the location of the ranch before Delgado stopped the questioning, gave Foyt a toothy smile, and asked him to affirm the agreement.

  Foyt met her smile with a cool look. “Only if your client is willing to give us the names of everyone he’s sold to, every dealer and supplier he knows, precise information about this subcontractor he says stored the marijuana in his garage, and agrees to testify against Dean on both the murder and drug charges, if needed.”

  Griffin nodded. “That’s cool with me. When can I get out?”

  “As soon as you deliver,” Ramona said, getting to her feet. “I’ll have detectives here within the hour. How long it takes is completely up to you.”

  Foyt used his cell phone to clear his calendar for the remainder of the day so he could supervise the interrogation, and joined Ramona at the door.

  “I’m hungry,” Griffin said, grinning and patting his stomach.

  “We’ll have your lunch brought in,” Ramona said. She walked with Foyt to the lobby and used her cell phone to arrange for a narcotics officer and detective to meet her at the jail pronto.

  “You’re not disappointed with the plea bargain, are you?” Foyt asked.

  “A little bit,” Ramona said, slipping the phone on her belt. “But I understand your reasoning.”

  What she didn’t mention was her plan to have Griffin arrested for harboring a fugitive as soon as the interrogation was over and the current charges were dropped. She had the unshakable feeling that Griffin was still hiding something.

  Marched into the courtroom by a uniformed officer, Kim Dean looked around for Stubbs, the moon-faced young lawyer, and didn’t see him. Except for a judge, bailiff, court stenographer, a guy in a suit talking to the judge, and the cop who’d escorted him, the room was empty.

  Dean had spent a miserable, sleepless night and an anxious morning at the jail. He’d almost abandoned any hope that Stubbs had gotten through to Claudia. But maybe he had, and Claudia was in the process of lining things up and getting him a good criminal attorney.

  The cop put Dean in a seat and hovered behind him. What if the guy in the suit was his new attorney? Kim watched the man eagerly, waiting for him to turn from the judge and make a sign of recognition in his direction. Instead, he picked up his briefcase and l
eft the courtroom just as Stubbs rushed in.

  “Did you call my friend?” Dean whispered.

  Stubbs scrunched into the seat next to Dean, and looked at the cop, who moved out of earshot.

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “She thanked me for the call,” Stubbs replied.

  “That’s it?” Dean hissed. “What did you say to her?”

  “I told her where you were and what the pending charges are.”

  Kim took a deep breath. “Have you been contacted by another attorney?”

  “Listen,” Stubbs said in a terse whisper, the color rising on his cheeks. “You made it clear yesterday that I am not the lawyer you want. That’s fine with me. Let’s just get you through the arraignment. You’ll be formally charged, given copies of the criminal complaints, and informed of your constitutional rights. I’ll enter no plea on your behalf and you won’t have to say anything. In fact, I don’t want you to. The DA will ask for bail to be denied, and I’ll argue against it. Don’t get your hopes up. The charges are serious.”

  Feeling sorry for himself, Dean sighed with resignation.

  “Have the police tried to talk to you since yesterday?” Stubbs asked.

  Kim shook his head.

  “Good. Keep it that way. If you want, I’ll call around to several good criminal trial attorneys. You’re going to need one.”

  Kim had waited long enough for Claudia to come through for him. “Why don’t you do that?” he said brusquely

  The judge shuffled papers and called Dean’s case.

  “Gladly,” Stubbs said, getting to his feet.

  The drive from Santa Fe to Taos was always a hassle, especially along the section of the two-lane twisting highway that paralleled the Rio Grande, where Kerney got stuck between two slow-moving motor homes.

  In town, summer tourist traffic clogged the narrow main street, and it was stop-and-go all the way until Kerney reached the turnoff to the police station a few blocks north of the old plaza.