Slow Kill kk-9

by Michael McGarrity

  Ellie waved her off. “Never mind. It can wait.”

  “Another little trick, Sergeant?” Claudia asked. “Are you trying to make me anxious and curious about what brought you here? If so, you’re being much too transparent. Let me show you out.”

  Ellie followed Spalding through the sunroom, down the hallway with the walls of paintings, into the enormous living room. There would be no breakthrough moment with Spalding. She showed no tiny pang of conscience or fear of punishment that could be used as a lever. There was no gambit of conversation Ellie could use to open her up, lower her defenses.

  She was a poised, elegant, armor-plated, stone cold killer.

  At the massive front doors, Ellie cuffed Spalding, told her the charges, read her the Miranda warning, and put her in the backseat of the unmarked cruiser.

  “I’d like to call my lawyer,” Spalding said.

  “You can do that from jail,” Ellie said, looking in at her through the open car door.

  “Were you overweight as a child?” Spalding asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Ellie countered, taken aback by the question. In fact, she’d been a little chubby until puberty caught up with her and burned it permanently away.

  Spalding smirked. “Never mind.”

  “Were you?” Ellie asked, hoping at last Claudia wanted to talk.

  Spalding turned away. “Please hurry. These handcuffs are very uncomfortable.”

  Chapter 12

  W ith Claudia Spalding in custody and on her way to jail, Lieutenant Dante Macy quickly moved the team of detectives onto the estate. The long lane to the house, shaded by rows of overarching trees, cut the afternoon sun into gleaming flecks of light. On either side, thickets of brambles and tall pines created the illusion of a forest. When the Tuscan-style house and the formal tiered gardens came into view, Macy was stunned by the opulence. Ellie Lowrey’s description of the estate hadn’t done it justice. He wondered how many tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, it took to own such a place.

  Macy put his people into motion. Two men would round up the staff and take their statements. Detective Price and two officers would conduct the search for evidence. Two more detectives would do a visual sweep of the extensive grounds to determine what else might need to be searched under a new warrant.

  The five employees consisted of Clifford Spalding’s personal assistant, an estate overseer who lived on the grounds, two gardeners, and a resident housekeeper. All of them had attended the funeral services and the wake, staying behind after the last guests departed to tidy up and restore order.

  Macy wandered through the house and grounds thinking it would take a platoon of officers a day or more to do a truly comprehensive search. Hopefully, that wouldn’t be needed. He watched as the detectives working under Price examined hard drives on the household computers, then stopped by the kitchen where the personal assistant, a nervous woman in her thirties named Sheila, was giving a statement. The rest of the staff were seated silently around the table in the adjacent dining room under the watchful eye of an officer.

  Macy found Price exiting the guesthouse by the tennis courts, empty-handed. Price shook his head to signal that he’d found nothing of interest and walked toward the garage and staff quarters. Macy went back to the kitchen and waited for the detective to finish up with Sheila. Then he took her in tow and had her open every locked door on the estate so the officers could do a visual inspection. There was no good reason to waste time trying to do a thorough search of every nook and cranny. At least, not yet.

  After the doors had been unlocked, he told Sheila to wait in the dining room, and sat at the far end of the long antique tavern table that filled the center space of the kitchen. The two gardeners, both middle-aged Hispanic men with limited English language skills, were questioned one at a time by a Spanish-speaking officer. They both said they didn’t know Kim Dean or what his relationship to Claudia was. The detective probed a bit, but it was clear both men had very little personal knowledge about their employers.

  Next up was the housekeeper, a woman with a broad Nordic face and pale blue eyes named Cora Sluka. Under questioning, she was uncooperative and evasive at first, but opened up a bit when the detectives pointed out that Clifford Spalding was dead, his wife was in jail charged with murder, and Sluka might have a hard time getting another job if they had to arrest her.

  She talked about a male who’d appeared unannounced within the past year to visit Mrs. Spalding, and recalled serving them drinks on the patio. She couldn’t describe the man, but when shown Dean’s booking photograph from the Santa Fe County Jail, she identified him as the visitor.

  The information pleased Macy. Claudia Spalding had told Sergeant Lowrey that Dean had never been to the Montecito estate. He wondered what else Claudia had lied about.

  Macy motioned the detectives to back off and took over the interview. “Were you present at the house the entire time Dean was here?” he asked Sluka.

  “No, Mrs. Spalding asked me to take some clothes to the dry cleaners and then gave me the afternoon off.”

  “Was that an unusual thing for her to do?”

  “Yes, it was. She liked to keep us busy.”

  “Were other employees around at the time?”

  “No, just me.”

  “Did you mention Dean’s visit to Mr. Spalding?”

  “No.”

  “Could he have learned about it some other way?”

  “Mrs. Spalding might have told him.”

  “Does Mrs. Spalding treat the staff fairly, without favoritism?”

  Sluka lowered her head. “She treats us all pretty much the same, I think.”

  Macy read the dodge. “She doesn’t play favorites?”

  “We all try to get along and work together,” Sluka hedged.

  “No one gets special treatment?” Macy asked.

  Sluka’s cheeks turned red. “That’s not for me to say.”

  “Okay, Cora, that’s all for now. But I may have to speak to you again.”

  Sluka hurried out, and Glenn Davitt, the estate manager, replaced her at the kitchen table. A man in his thirties, he had jet black hair, dark, deep-set eyes, and a lean, angular face. He looked at Macy with feigned boredom, which raised Macy’s curiosity.

  “How long is this going to take?” Davitt asked as he slouched in his chair and glanced at the three cops.

  Macy countered the question. “Tells us what you know about Mrs. Spalding’s lovers.”

  “I know nothing about any of that,” Davitt said, peering over his shoulder as the two detectives moved behind him.

  “Please pay attention to me, Mr. Davitt,” Macy said softly as he approached. “Would you say Claudia Spalding is a beautiful woman?”

  Davitt shrugged. “Sure, for someone her age.”

  “Hard to resist?” Macy asked.

  Davitt crossed his arms. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Macy chuckled. “Come on, don’t give me that. She’s a very sexy lady.”

  “If you say so. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think of her that way. She’s my employer, that’s all.”

  Macy gave Davitt a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Relax. Talking to me can only help you.”

  “Help me how? This is a waste of time.”

  “Let’s forget about Mrs. Spalding for a minute. Think about yourself, your future.”

  Davitt laughed. “Maybe I’ll write one of those tell-all books and make a pile of money.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Macy said approvingly. “But if you don’t tell us the truth, you’ll have to write that book in jail.”

  “In jail for what?”

  “Making false statements to the police,” Macy said. “Obstructing justice.”

  Davitt raised a hand. “May lightning strike me if I’m telling a lie.”

  Macy pulled a chair over and sat close to Davitt. “I don’t think you’ve lied, yet. But if you don’t tell us about your relationship with Claudia, you’ll be in a world o
f trouble. We know you’ve been sleeping with her.”

  “Who says?”

  Macy glanced at the closed door to the dining room where Cora Sluka waited. “Who changes and washes the bedsheets?” he asked.

  Davitt bought into Macy’s trickery and started talking. He copped to having sex with Spalding, and cast himself in the role of a pursued, put-upon employee who only wanted to keep his job.

  When Davitt finished, Macy stood. “Did she ever ask you to help her kill her husband?”

  “No way,” Davitt said, making good eye contact.

  “I believe you,” Macy said, “and I can’t wait to read your book, if you ever get it published.”

  Late afternoon turned golden, the clear sky so bright that the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were washed in a flood of light. On such days, Ramona Pino could still believe in the enchantment of Santa Fe.

  Good news from California earlier in the day had put her in an excellent mood. She hummed a song, off-key as always, on the drive to Claudia Spalding’s Santa Fe house, search warrant in hand.

  In the two units behind her were Matt Chacon and Chief Kerney, who’d invited himself along without explanation. The chief occasionally went out in the field with the troops, but this was the first time for Ramona. Cheerily, she decided not read anything more into it than that, and turned her thoughts to the work at hand.

  The arrest of Claudia Spalding, Dean’s confession, and the statements given by Coe Evans and Glenn Davitt were important milestones, but the investigation was far from over. Without an admission of guilt from Spalding, which Ellie Lowrey said was highly unlikely, nailing down motive remained a crucial issue.

  Without it, Ramona could visualize Spalding’s defense attorney in court, convincing a jury that the grieving widow had no reason to murder her husband, that she was a victim of lies and false accusations by Kim Dean and other men of questionable character.

  Ramona pulled into the driveway of Claudia’s Santa Fe house. It certainly wasn’t the Montecito mansion Ellie had described to her, but it was no adobe shack either. It was a long, rectangular, two-story double adobe under a high, forest-green pitched roof, with deeply recessed doors and windows. A horse stable, corral, and hay shed stood nearby under a stand of trees. Given its Arroyo Hondo location with sweeping views of the distant Sandia Mountains and the tip of Mount Taylor, it had to be a million-dollar property.

  She waited at the front door for Matt and the chief to join her, wondering why a woman who had so much would risk so much. Perhaps they’d find the answer inside.

  She smiled as the two men approached. “Ready to go hunting for secrets?” she asked.

  “Lead on,” Kerney said.

  She searched for a spare house key and found it under a rock at the base of a large bronze and stone garden sculpture of a life-size raven perched on a boulder. Inside, a great room consisting of living, dining, and kitchen areas ran the length of the first floor. It rose to a high vaulted ceiling bracketed on both ends by two second-story lofts accessed by staircases.

  Ramona went over the scope of the search warrant with Kerney and Chacon. All written or electronically stored materials pertaining to or mentioning Clifford Spalding, Kim Dean, Mitch Griffin, Coe Evans, and Glenn Davitt, including financial and legal documents, letters, journals, diaries, business correspondence, handwritten notes, lists, address books, calendars, computers, electronic organizers, and recorded telephone messages, were fair game.

  She made Matt Chacon the inventory officer, responsible for logging and tagging what was found, where, when, and by whom. Prepared for the role that always fell to junior detectives, Chacon opened his briefcase, took out a clipboard, and started organizing the forms he needed.

  “I’d better get started,” Ramona said, glancing at Kerney.

  “I came along to help, Sergeant,” Kerney replied. “Put me where you want me.”

  “We’ll start on this floor,” Ramona said, wondering if Kerney was testing her on search protocol, “and clear an area for Detective Chacon to use.”

  The sun was low on the horizon when they finished searching the ground floor and started on the lofts. One served as the master bedroom, and the other was a combination library and music room with a baby grand piano, writing desk, soft leather reading chairs with matching ottomans, and built-in bookcases.

  Kerney had just finished with the contents of the writing desk in the library/music room when Ramona came up the loft stairs.

  “Have you found anything interesting, Chief?” Ramona asked.

  Kerney fanned the stack of papers in his hand. “Not really. Closing documents on the house, property tax notifications, canceled checks, paid veterinary and feed bills for the horses. The usual stuff. How about you?”

  “The same. What about the laptop?”

  “It’s password protected,” Kerney answered as he rose with the laptop in hand to turn over to Chacon.

  “What about the books?” Ramona asked, looking at the shelves lining the walls. There had to be at least a thousand volumes, and each one had to be checked.

  “That’s next on the list,” Kerney said from the ground floor.

  Ramona glanced at some of the titles on the spines. Carl Jung’s complete works; books by Boswell, Swift, Yeats, Samuel Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Jorge Luis Borges; Shakespeare’s sonnets; Joseph Campbell’s works on mythology; a complete shelf devoted to art and architecture.

  She passed in front of a cushioned banco below a large window and inspected the next stand of shelves. A book at eye level, Premier Nudes, caught Ramona’s attention. Next to it was a tome on the erotic world of wrestling, followed by a book of erotic drawings. In fact, the entire set of shelves was given over to erotica, with many of the titles in French, German, and Italian.

  She flipped through several volumes. Some were nothing more than photography books of nude men and women, not at all provocative, while others had more explicit sexual content with heavy sadomasochistic and homosexual themes.

  “Well, well,” Ramona said quietly to herself.

  “Find something?” Kerney asked as he returned to the loft.

  She turned and handed him a small softcover German book entirely devoted to photographs of a dominatrix with various men.

  Kerney opened it to the first photograph, which showed the finely sculpted buttocks of a woman wearing garter belts, stockings, and spike heels. At her feet kneeled a fat, elderly, nude man with downcast eyes.

  “Well, well, indeed,” Kerney said.

  “There’s a whole wall of this stuff, Chief.”

  “Let’s see if Claudia Spalding left any messages inside these tantalizing little volumes,” Kerney said, fanning through the pages.

  They carefully searched through every book in the library, discovering an errant bookmark or two, a forgotten postcard, an occasional cash receipt for a book purchased but never read. They emptied one shelf at a time, and soon the floor, the desk, the chairs, and the top of the baby grand piano were covered with wobbly stacks of books.

  Ramona finished first, thumping down an enormous old copy of The Oxford Universal Dictionary of Historical Principles on the last empty bit of floor space. She cleared off the piano bench, sat, and watched Kerney as he pulled a book off the lowest shelf and inspected it in the dim light of dusk that filtered through the window.

  Ramona switched on the desk lamp. Her fingers were dirty gray, the creases in her palms etched with grit. During the time they’d been searching Claudia’s library, Ramona had learned that the chief shared her love of books. They’d exchanged comments about interesting titles, the discovery of favorite authors, and some of the more valuable signed first editions.

  Kerney fanned through the last book to be checked, put it down, and rubbed his hands on his jeans. “That does it. Have we missed anything?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ramona said.

  “Have you looked inside the piano bench?”

  Ramona opened the benc
h. Inside there was a stack of sheet music, and under it a diary bound in red leather with gilt edging and a sterling silver clasp lock.

  “Is there a key for this in the desk?” she asked, holding up the diary.

  Kerney found the key and passed it over. Ramona unlocked the diary and read a random, dated entry, written in neat script.

  K has a lovely penis, medium in size, but he uses it enthusiastically. He lets me fondle it, but I haven’t yet taken him in my mouth. I wonder if he’s afraid to give up control.

  She scanned another entry.

  I’m as twitchy and horny as a broodmare in heat. Masturbated three times this morning.

  Ramona flipped back to a longer entry.

  Dinner out with K last night. The lovely blonde who arrived soon after us with her escort was enchanting. Tiny waist, long legs, perfect hips, and just a sexy hint of a round tummy. I told him she’d be perfect for us to share, and he made some inane comment that he’d have to sleep with her first before he could suggest a threesome. I’m beginning to wonder if I can take him to the next level. He’s sexually possessive and not as open-minded as he’d like to believe. But I’ll continue to hold my tongue and stroke his little-boy’s ego.

  She read aloud an entry made soon after Claudia’s move to Santa Fe.

  Putting distance between Clifford and myself hasn’t worked. It’s still bondage of a certain kind, no matter how much freedom I’ve managed to broker for myself in this marriage. It’s all an anachronism, lacking only the lordly robes of some duke or earl hanging from Clifford’s aged body in testimony of his right to possess me. Even his generosity is a two-edged sword, designed to bind me to him to do his bidding, right down to his need to have me at his side at some absurdly boring event. This cannot continue. I will not be owned.

  “I think this clears up a few things,” Ramona said as she handed the diary to Kerney.

  He scanned a few passages. One detailed how Claudia had used her erotica collection to stimulate Kim Dean’s interest in more adventuresome sex. It read like a sex manual. Another spoke directly of Claudia’s growing desire to rid herself of Clifford.