Head Wounds

by Michael McGarrity

  HEAD

  WOUNDS

  MICHAEL

  McGARRITY

  HEAD WOUNDS

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER 1

  Detective Clayton Istee stood at the edge of the hotel swimming pool and stared at a nude body floating facedown in red-tinged water. A large tuft of hair had been yanked free from the man’s skull. Two semicircular knife cuts at the edges of the wound had penetrated the thin protective layer of skin and deeply scored the cranium. Clayton knelt and took a picture with his smartphone.

  “Scalped?” Sergeant Armando Perez, the night-shift commander on duty, ventured.

  Clayton rose up. “Seems so. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “You will again, amigo,” Armando replied, flashing the brilliant smile that dazzled the many ladies hoping to land a good-looking bachelor cop. He nodded at a partially ajar hotel room door with direct access to the courtyard swimming pool. “Inside you’ll find victim number two. A nude female, throat cut, with the same head wound.”

  A round-faced middle-aged man stood next to Perez, shivering in the cold, moonless March night. The name tag on his short-sleeve shirt read JOHN COSGROVE.

  “You found him like this?” Clayton asked Cosgrove.

  Cosgrove nodded.

  “And the woman also?”

  “Yes,” Cosgrove answered.

  “When?”

  “At three a.m. That’s when I deliver invoices to the rooms of guests checking out in the morning.”

  Sergeant Perez consulted his notebook. “The deceased were registered as Tony and Linda Vaughn. According to Mr. Cosgrove here, they checked in at eleven-thirty p.m. They did not have a reservation.”

  Clayton raised an eyebrow. The killer had struck no more than four hours ago. Fresh homicides frequently led to credible suspects. “What do you have in place?”

  Perez ran it down. Officers were posted at all exits to keep guests from leaving. A deputy was stationed in the hallway outside the hotel room to protect the second crime scene. Backup was rolling to seal the hotel parking lot, and the medical investigator was on his way.

  “So is your new boss,” he added.

  Clayton nodded. “I heard Rodney’s radio traffic as I arrived.” He turned to Cosgrove. “Where do you keep the swimming pool equipment?”

  Cosgrove pointed a shaky finger at a storage locker in a far corner of the courtyard. “There.”

  “Do you have a pool skimmer on a long pole?”

  “I think so. Let me get the key to the locker.”

  Cosgrove scurried away just as Captain Frank Rodney announced his arrival to dispatch by radio.

  “You need me here?” Perez asked.

  Clayton shook his head. “I’ve got three detectives en route. Stick with Cosgrove, take his statement, and hold him for further questioning. Locate the CCTV system and secure it. And thanks for keeping things tidy.”

  Perez smiled. “Anytime. Good luck with Rodney.”

  Clayton stifled a groan. Cosgrove returned with the electronic key to the storage locker in his outstretched hand. Clayton took the key and Perez led Cosgrove away.

  For a long moment Clayton stood at poolside and took a look around. The hotel was brand-new, just outside the city limits of Las Cruces. It fronted the interstate that skirted the south edge of town. A large illuminated banner hung from the rooftop parapet proclaiming the establishment’s grand opening. Clayton figured a double homicide probably wasn’t what management had in mind to mark the occasion.

  From the upper-floor windows he caught glimpses of curtains stirring, smartphones flashing, people staring down at him. The killings would have satellite TV news trucks soon rolling from El Paso and Albuquerque.

  The locker yielded a pool skimmer. Clayton put on gloves and used it to gently guide the body to the shallow end of the pool. He was about to turn it faceup when Captain Rodney appeared in the courtyard.

  “Let the MI do that,” he barked.

  Clayton backed off and waited for Rodney to approach. The captain was new to the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, hired to modernize and improve the Investigations Division. With less than a month on the job, he was still observing and fact-finding. But back-channel scuttlebutt predicted changes were coming, and soon.

  At six-four and beefy, Rodney towered over Clayton’s athletic five-ten frame. A retired commander of a detective bureau in an upstate New York police department, he’d moved to Las Cruces at the urging of his wife, a New Mexico native eager to escape the frigid Northeast and return to the embrace of warmer weather and her extended family.

  “What’s with the head wound?” Rodney asked, peering at the body.

  “Scalped, it would appear,” Clayton replied. The captain was a smoker, and the stench of tobacco clung to him. “Apparently a female victim was killed the same way.”

  Rodney snorted. “Well, that’s a new one. Only in the Wild West. I hear you’re an Apache, so I’d guess you’d know.”

  “I’ve never tried it myself,” Clayton commented, straight-faced. “But I read somewhere that scalping may have been introduced in the New World by the Europeans.”

  “Spare me the politically correct history lesson,” Rodney grumbled. “Turn him over.”

  “I thought we were waiting for the medical investigator.”

  “Do it.”

  Clayton hooked the pool skimmer under the dead man’s armpit and turned the body faceup. Whoever had cut his throat was a pro. A single swipe with a blade had severed both carotid arteries.

  “Neatly done,” Rodney commented. “You said apparently the woman had been killed the same way.”

  Staring into the face of a man Clayton recognized had partially stunned him. “What?”

  “Have you viewed the female victim in the room?” Rodney demanded.

  Clayton shook his head. “Not yet. That’s James Goggin.”

  “You know him?”

  Clayton nodded as he walked toward the hotel room door. “Unless he has an identical twin.”

  He stopped in the doorway and stared at the naked body of Lucy Nautzile, sprawled on the bed, head lolled over the edge, her throat cleanly cut. A tuft of her long dark hair had been torn from her scalp. A drying pool of blood soaked the new beige carpet.

  He’d known her all her life, and now she was finished, but where were her two young daughters? Still with their grandmother on the Mescalero homeland, he hoped, and not waiting somewhere for their mother’s return.

  For a minute he couldn’t remember their names, but they were young, not yet teens. Their natural father had been a Mescalero tribal member, now long dead from alcoholism.

  Angie and Jennie were the girl’s names. Eight and ten years old, if he remembered correctly.

  Clayton made a fast visual sweep of the room. Two travel bags sat unopened at the foot of the bed. Two neatly folded sets of clothes were draped over the arms of an easy chair angled in a corner of the room. Men’s boots and a pair of women’s sandals were tucked under the built-in desk.

  A whiff of tobacco scent told him C
aptain Rodney had closed in.

  “Do you know this victim also?” he demanded.

  “Lucy Nautzile,” Clayton answered. “Two years ago, she left her two girls with her mother and ran away with James Goggin, after they’d embezzled two hundred thousand dollars from a casino on the rez, where they worked. The crime was never reported, and nobody had seen them since, until today.”

  “Not reported?” Rodney asked incredulously.

  Clayton nodded. He wasn’t inclined to explain to Rodney tribal attitudes about dealing with the outside world of the White Eyes. “That’s what I understand, but I can’t vouch for it.”

  “We’ll need more information about the casino embezzlement from the tribal authorities,” Rodney said. “And maybe NCIC has a perp on file who likes to scalp his victims.”

  “That would be nice,” Clayton replied doubtfully.

  Rodney scratched his chin pensively. “Do you kill first and then scalp, or is it the other way around?”

  “You scalp first, I believe. Which could make it an act of revenge.”

  “Or an assassination sent to give a clear message,” Rodney suggested.

  “Yeah, but why and to whom?” Clayton said. “There’s no evidence of a struggle, and no visible defensive wounds on the bodies.”

  “The victims knew their killer,” Rodney speculated. “The male doesn’t look Indian.”

  “He wasn’t,” Clayton replied.

  “How come you know so much about these two?”

  “Mescalero is a small, tight-knit community.”

  Rodney grunted. “I’ll want a helluva lot more information about them from you later on. I’m rolling the CSI unit, the mobile command post, and putting SWAT on standby. The sheriff is on his way. I want every person in the building identified and interviewed. No one in or out except authorized personnel. No one leaves until they’re cleared. Maybe our perp is still here.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Do you think your tribe had anything to do with this?”

  Clayton shook his head. “I can’t answer that question. An individual, perhaps. If we can’t ID a perp, I’ll have to find a reason why they were targeted.”

  Rodney nodded. “Don’t start a commotion with the hotel guests.”

  “Understood. It’s still my case?” Clayton had caught the case on the normal after-hours rotation schedule, but Rodney could yank it away if he chose to do so.

  “Proceed, Detective. I’ll brief the sheriff when he arrives.”

  “Tell him the media is most likely on their way.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Rodney stepped away and Clayton started a close inspection of the room, item by item.

  Frank Rodney stood in the shadows outside the hotel entrance, lit a cigarette, and waited for the sheriff. This was the first big felony investigation for the department since his arrival, and the timing couldn’t be better. The sheriff had hired him with the understanding that he could kick some butt and jettison deadwood if need be, and Clayton Istee was on Rodney’s list as a likely expendable.

  He didn’t trust cops who had corrective or disciplinary actions in their personnel jackets, and Istee was one of them. He’d been forced to resign from the New Mexico State Police for botching a cold-case murder investigation and had almost lost his police officer certification, which would have cost him his career.

  But dumping Istee, if it came to that, wouldn’t be an easy sell. Despite his screwup, Istee had been hired soon after by the sheriff as a senior investigator. It was only after Rodney learned the two men had been friends and roommates in college that it made sense. During his twenty-six years on the job, Rodney knew that friendship and favoritism almost always influenced who got promotions, plum assignments, or a second chance to salvage a career gone bad.

  He’d come to Las Cruces fully expecting to stay retired, discovered it didn’t suit him, and was happy to be back on the job. Now all he had to do was prove his worth in order to keep it.

  In the parking lot, a patrol deputy in her unit slowly cruised past parked vehicles, running license plate information. Two other deputies in units were stationed to block access to and egress from the property. A quarter mile away, four unmarked vehicles turned onto the hotel access road, emergency lights flashing, running silent code three. The sheriff, the MI, and several more of Rodney’s detectives were about to arrive. He ground out his smoke and stepped into the bright entrance lights to greet them.

  Clayton finished a short meeting with the three detectives who got the interviews of hotel guests and employees quickly under way. After briefing the CSI team, he walked to the hotel reception area mulling over questions. Who was the killer’s first victim, James Goggin or Lucy Nautzile? Did it matter? There was one bath towel missing. Did the killer take it? If so, why?

  No luggage had been unpacked. Did James and Lucy plan to stay the night or were they here solely to meet someone? Had they been waiting for their killer? Or for someone else? Nothing about the crime scenes suggested the victims were expecting any trouble. They’d been deliberately made to suffer before being executed. Whatever their transgression, it had to be a major fuckup. Was the perp a hired assassin?

  They’d registered under the names of Tony and Melinda Vaughn, yet there was nothing in the room connected to any identity, real or fake. No wallet, purse, cash, credit cards, or driver’s licenses were in the room. Their car, a Ford Explorer with Texas plates, was missing from the hotel parking lot. Why erase all evidence of their identities? Perhaps the plan had been to remove the bodies, and something went wrong. If they’d paid for their room in cash, proof of identity still would have been required.

  John Cosgrove was at the front desk assisting the recently arrived general manager, an overweight man in his mid-thirties with a somewhat frantic smile stamped on his face. They were issuing refund vouchers to a long line of unhappy guests anxious to leave.

  Cosgrove told Clayton the woman had paid cash and provided a valid driver’s license that matched her name. He handed Clayton the registration form. It listed a home address and phone number in Eagle Pass, Texas, pertinent vehicle information, and a check-in time of eleven-thirty p.m.

  “Did you see the Explorer?” Clayton asked.

  “I saw a vehicle idling outside the entrance when the woman came in to register, but I couldn’t swear it was an Explorer. I told all this to Sergeant Perez, who wrote it down. Now that my boss is here, I’d like to go home. He’ll let me, if you will.”

  Clayton shook his head. “Not yet, Mr. Cosgrove. I may have a few more questions for you in a little while. I know it’s been a tough night for you but hang in there.”

  Cosgrove grimaced. “Yeah.”

  Sergeant Perez had formed a queue of restless hotel guests waiting to be interviewed in a corridor that fronted a series of large conference rooms where detectives where taking statements. Captain Rodney had brought in more help and the process was moving smoothly.

  “All present and accounted for?” Clayton asked as he pulled Perez aside.

  “Only Elvis has left the building,” Perez answered with a grin. “Seriously, no one has tried to bolt, and all exits remain secure.”

  “Good. Has anybody piqued our interest?”

  “Not yet, but killers come in all flavors.”

  Clayton groaned at the cop cliché. “Tell me about it. Cosgrove said he gave you a statement. Fill me in.”

  “He didn’t see the male victim, couldn’t positively ID the vehicle, and said there was nothing unusual about the woman’s behavior. She paid for the room with cash and took the luggage directly from reception to the room.”

  “That pretty much jibes with what he told me. What about the CCTV?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” Perez replied. “It’s not operational. According to Cosgrove, the system malfunctioned. Special parts are on order.”

  “Did you get any specifics about the system failure?”

  Perez shrugged. “Just what I told you. Cos
grove was vague about it. Do you think it’s too coincidental?”

  “I’ll talk to Cosgrove.”

  “I put a BOLO out on the victims’ vehicle,” Perez added.

  At the front desk, the general manager was still processing free lodging vouchers for frustrated guests. Clayton asked for Cosgrove.

  “He went home,” the manager replied. “Said he’d cleared it with you.”

  “Do you know what kind of vehicle he drives?”

  The man shook his head.

  The young deputy guarding the front entrance confirmed Cosgrove’s departure.

  Clayton stifled an impulse to give the kid a well-deserved butt-chewing. Instead, he leaned close and said, “No one leaves these premises unless permission comes directly to you from a senior officer. Is that understood?”

  Deputy Eddie Paxton’s face flushed red. “Yes, sir.”

  Clayton called Perez on his cell phone and asked if he had Cosgrove’s home address.

  “Affirmative. What’s up?”

  “He lied that he’d been cleared to leave and left.”

  “Day shift got called in early. I’ll have them send a unit to bring him back.”

  “If he’s not home, I want surveillance planted outside.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Find out what kind of vehicle he owns.”

  “Affirmative.”

  A new text message from Captain Rodney appeared on the screen. Clayton was wanted at the mobile command center ASAP to brief Sheriff Vasquez.

  The mobile command center was a tricked-out recreational vehicle the size of a commercial bus that contained secure communication systems, uplink computer capacities, video surveillance capability, a gun locker, a bathroom, and a small conference room carved out of space at the rear of the bus. An officer at a computer station was running quick background checks on hotel guests who’d been interviewed by Clayton’s small team of detectives and the additional personnel Rodney had called out.

  Ramon Vasquez and Frank Rodney sat in the conference room behind a round table, the sheriff paging through a folder, the captain scribbling notes on a yellow pad. Clayton stepped into the room and both men looked up. Neither smiled.