The Big Gamble

by Michael McGarrity

  “I was hoping Ulibarri might have done some talking with one of the dealers or the poker players about his plans. We learned nothing.”

  “You sound frustrated.”

  “I am, but not about that. It was a long shot to begin with.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “Today, the sheriff gave me a big pat on the back and told me I was making good progress.”

  “Well, you are,” Grace said. “From what you said you have a strong suspect.”

  Clayton took a bite of green beans and shook his head. “Any reasonably competent officer would have zeroed in on Ulibarri. The way I see it, Hewitt was just flattering me. Sort of a be-nice-to-the-Indian kind of thing. I hate that kind of stuff.”

  Grace cocked her head. “Really?”

  “What does that mean?” Clayton asked, pushing the empty plate to one side.

  She was silent for a long moment. “I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons you married me was because I’m full-blooded Apache.”

  Clayton gave her a startled look. “That’s crazy.”

  “In high school you never dated a mixed-blood, and when we were in college together you never went out with an Anglo or Hispanic girl.”

  “I was seeing you in college,” Clayton answered.

  “Not all the time,” Grace said.

  “We broke up a couple of times and I just didn’t date, that’s all.”

  “Once, we stopped dating for almost a year,” Grace said, “and you never had anything good to say about Anglo boys who were my friends.”

  “That was just jealousy.”

  “Was it?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Secretly, I think you resent the fact that you have an Anglo father, so you try to be two-hundred-percent Apache.”

  “I’m not like that,” Clayton said.

  “And now that you’ve met your father face-to-face, you’ve gotten worse. You think that anything an Anglo says that strikes you the wrong way has got to be prejudicial or racist.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Really? Sheriff Hewitt pays you a compliment and you can’t even accept it graciously. What is that all about?”

  Clayton lowered his eyes.

  “I’m not saying all this to hurt your feelings,” Grace said, reaching across the table for Clayton’s hand.

  “I know,” Clayton said with a sigh. “I was short with Kerney on the phone yesterday. He accused me of trying to push his buttons. Said he expected me to treat him with civility in professional matters.”

  “Well?”

  “He’s right, I guess.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  Clayton smiled. “Think about stuff.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “But you did say one thing that’s wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “I married you because you’re smart, beautiful, and I fell in love with you.”

  Grace took his hand, kissed it, and placed it against her cheek. “I know that.”

  Clayton’s pager beeped. He read the message, reached for the phone, dialed, and identified himself. As he listened, his eyes shifted away from Grace and his expression turned sour.

  “I’ll be there in a few,” he said shortly, punching the off button and dropping the phone on the table.

  “Is something wrong?” Grace asked.

  “That was Moses,” Clayton said. “One of his security officers just reported finding Humphrey’s car in the parking lot behind the towers at the resort with an expired guest permit. I have to go.”

  “That should be good news, shouldn’t it?” Grace said, responding to Clayton’s tone.

  “It would be, if I hadn’t been so stupid,” Clayton replied. “I didn’t even think to look for the vehicle when I was at the resort. I just assumed Ulibarri drove away in it when he checked out.”

  He snatched his car keys, gave Grace a quick kiss, and hurried out the door.

  Chapter 4

  While Grace and the children slept Clayton rose early, ate a quick breakfast, and went to meet the state police crime scene tech assigned to conduct an evidence search of Humphrey’s car. Clayton had made the request the night before, after having the Cougar towed from the resort to the state police impound lot in Alamogordo.

  On the drive from his house he reminded himself to try to be friendlier to people.

  The technician, Artie Gundersen, a retired San Diego police officer, was working on the Cougar when Clayton arrived. In his late forties, Gundersen was an outdoor enthusiast who had moved to New Mexico so he could hunt, fish, and camp without sharing the forests, streams, and wilderness with thirty million other Californians.

  Sandy-haired, blue-eyed, lean, tanned, and fit, Gundersen looked like an aging surfer. Clayton forced a smile as he walked up to him. It felt phony.

  “I just finished a visual inspection,” Gundersen said. “The owner was a pig. There’s gotta be ten years’ worth of fast-food garbage and trash on the floor-boards.”

  Clayton glanced at the open trunk. “What’s back there?”

  “It’s stuffed with paper sacks filled with dirty clothes, cardboard boxes of what looks like pure junk and who knows what else.”

  “What kind of junk?”

  “A broken Walkman, some trashed cassette tapes, some tools—stuff like that. We’ll take a closer look in a little while.” Gundersen pulled a pair of plastic gloves from his back pocket and gave them to Clayton. “Let’s start with the passenger compartment. I’ll take the driver’s side. Stop whenever you find something that piques your interest and tell me what you’ve got. Then bag it and tag it. And don’t smudge any surfaces with your gloves that might yield prints.”

  Although it rankled to be cautioned like some rookie cop, Clayton took Gundersen’s direction without comment. He forced another smile and nodded.

  “What do you hope to find?” Gundersen asked.

  “Anything that puts my suspect in the vehicle would help, but finding the murder weapon would be nice. The victim was killed with a knife.”

  Gundersen shrugged. “You never know. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Two hours later, the two men sat in Gundersen’s office and agreed they’d gotten fairly lucky after all. The pocket of a wadded-up threadbare windbreaker had yielded an old pay stub made out to Felix Ulibarri, and a plastic bag from a Ruidoso western-wear store, stuffed into the map holder on the driver’s door, held a cash receipt for men’s clothing and a pair of new cowboy boots dated the day after Humphrey’s murder. Ulibarri had dropped seventeen hundred dollars of the stolen money on new duds.

  The best evidence was the dried bloodstain on the rear seat cushion along with some good fingerprints that Gundersen was comparing to Ulibarri’s print record, which he’d called up on the computer.

  “It’s a match,” Gundersen said, pointing to a scar on a thumbprint. “If the DNA bloodstain test confirms it’s your victim’s, I’d say you’ve got strong evidence that links Ulibarri to the crime.”

  “The autopsy report said that Humphrey was killed with a single stab wound to the heart by a blade sharpened on one edge,” Clayton replied. “There was very heavy internal bleeding in the thoracic cavity. I’m thinking Ulibarri knifed Humphrey while he was asleep or passed out on the rear seat.”

  “That’s possible, given how small the bloodstain on the seat cushion is,” Gundersen replied. “If I were you, I’d go for an arrest affidavit that puts your suspect at the scene of the crime.”

  “I can quote you?” Clayton asked.

  “Sure thing, chief.”

  He doesn’t mean anything by chief, Clayton thought as he started to tense up. It’s just an expression. He waited a beat before responding. “Thanks for all your help.”

  Gundersen smiled. “Hey, you made it easy for me.”

  Clayton left Gundersen and on his way to the office stopped at the western-wear store in Ruidoso. It was an upscale
establishment that featured custom-made cowboy shirts, expensive boots, fringed leather jackets, high-end designer jeans, and handmade silver rodeo-style, Texas-size belt buckles.

  He showed Ulibarri’s picture and the cash receipt to the clerk, a middle-aged woman with curly blond-highlighted hair that brushed her shoulders.

  “Of course, I remember him,” the woman said.

  “When he first came in, I thought he’d wandered into the wrong store.”

  “Why was that?” Clayton asked, pushing down the thought that the clerk had profiled Ulibarri as a shoplifter because of his ethnicity.

  “He was really scruffy,” the woman replied. “But he had a wad of cash he said he’d won at the casino.”

  “He flashed money?”

  “When he paid, he peeled off hundred-dollar bills. He left wearing his new boots.”

  “Did he take his old ones with him?”

  “They were cheap work boots,” the woman said with a shake of her head. “You’ll probably find them outside in the trash bin behind the store. It gets emptied tomorrow.”

  Clayton went dumpster diving and found the boots. The right one had a dark stain on a toe that looked like dried blood.

  In his unit he made radio contact with Sonia Raney, the state police patrol officer on duty, and asked if she was heading to the district headquarters anytime soon. He got an affirmative reply, and asked if she’d carry some evidence to Gundersen.

  “Roger that,” Raney said. “Give me a twenty and I’ll meet up with you.”

  Clayton told her where he was, and within five minutes Ulibarri’s boots were in the trunk of Raney’s unit on the way to Alamogordo. He arrived at the office to find Sheriff Hewitt waiting.

  “Dispatch tells me you located Humphrey’s car last night,” Hewitt said.

  As far as Clayton could tell, there was no censure in the sheriff’s voice. “One of Moses Kaywaykla’s security people spotted it in the resort parking lot,” he said. “I didn’t even think to look for it there.”

  “The best mistakes we make are the ones we learn from,” Hewitt said with a small chuckle. “How did the vehicle search go?”

  “I’ve got more than enough to ask for a murder-one arrest warrant,” Clayton said. He quickly filled Hewitt in.

  “Very good. Do the affidavit, update your advisory bulletin, and get me a progress report when you can. I’ll call the DA and tell him you’re going to need his sign-off and a judge’s approval right away. Now that we know Ulibarri isn’t driving Humphrey’s car, how do you think he’s traveling?”

  “Don’t know.” Clayton replied. “But I’m going to call around to every car dealer and rental company in Ruidoso as soon as I get the warrant signed.”

  “Good idea,” Hewitt said. “What if Ulibarri isn’t traveling?”

  “I’ve thought about that, and I’ve asked Sergeant Quinones and Von Dillingham to start phoning area motel and hotels, ASAP.”

  “Work it hard,” Hewitt said, waving Clayton out of his office.

  Kerney started a new day still looking for the “doctor” who had called Walter Montoya asking for Anna Marie. Yesterday, he’d checked with the licensing boards for physicians, psychologists, counselors, chiropractors, optometrists, and practitioners of Chinese medicine. The few names he got wound up as dead ends.

  After making no progress at the state nursing board, he put in a quick appearance at the office and then paid a visit to the state department of education, asking about any recent appointments of a male PhD in area school districts. He scored another zero.

  He moved on to the local colleges, hoping perhaps a midyear faculty vacancy or an administrative position had been filled by someone matching the scanty information Walter Montoya had provided. That failed, so he went back to the office and expanded his search by phone, calling colleges in Albuquerque and some nearby area branch campuses, on the chance his unknown party commuted to work from Santa Fe, as more and more people did these days. The hunt fizzled out quickly.

  The more Kerney worked to find the mystery caller, the more he began to realize that he still had a lot of ground to cover. The number of specialties, professions, and disciplines offering doctoral degrees had mushroomed over the last thirty years. There seemed to be PhD programs for virtually every occupation. Academia had apparently become a head-count growth industry, much like the private prisons that were springing up all over the country.

  He called churches looking for newly installed reverend doctors, local high-tech think tanks asking about recently hired scientists, and state and local civil service personnel offices, hoping to locate any PhDs who were newly employed in the public sector. Zip, zilch, zero, nada.

  He dropped the phone in the cradle and grunted in frustration as Helen Muiz, his office manager, walked in.

  “My, my,” Helen said. “Should I warn the troops that you’ll be short-tempered and testy today?”

  “You are cursed with a wicked sense of humor, Mrs. Muiz,” Kerney said with a laugh.

  In her fifties, Helen was a grandmother who didn’t look like one. Always well dressed, today Helen wore tan slacks and a red silk top. Years ago she’d served as Kerney’s secretary when he was chief of detectives. He was delighted to have her working with him once again.

  “I like to think of it as a survival skill,” Helen said, “made necessary by working in a male-dominated, testosterone-charged environment. That issue aside, Mr. Walter Montoya is waiting to see you. He says it’s about his sister.”

  “Send him in,” Kerney said.

  Montoya entered, looking a bit sheepish. “First, I’d like to apologize about yesterday.”

  Kerney stepped from behind his desk and raised a hand to cut him off. “There’s no need. I wish the world was more perfect, Mr. Montoya, so that nobody had to go through what you and your family have experienced.”

  Montoya nodded and gave Kerney an opened envelope. “This came in yesterday’s mail at my parents’ house.”

  Kerney read the return address. He’d spent hours trying to come up with the information that had just been dropped in the palm of his hand. He waved the envelope at Montoya and smiled. “I take it this is from the man who called looking for your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  Kerney nodded. It got him one step closer to talking with someone who might have new information. “This could be very helpful.”

  Montoya shrugged, paused, and spoke slowly, the words coming with difficulty. “Or not, I suppose, given what few facts you have to work with.”

  “If this doesn’t pan out,” Kerney said, tapping the envelope with a finger, “we won’t stop looking for your sister’s killer,” Kerney said. “I promise you that.”

  “I believe you,” Montoya said. “Still, I want to apologize for our behavior yesterday.”

  “That’s not necessary. It’s perfectly natural to get frustrated when a police investigation stalls, no matter what the circumstances.”

  “Blaming you or your department serves no purpose. My sister and I talked; we won’t cause you any problems.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Montoya solemnly shook hands and departed. Kerney knew the sudden resurgence of goodwill might well be fleeting. The need to finger-point and blame could easily return. He’d seen it happen time and again with family survivors, who could go from feelings of numbing anguish to blistering outrage within a matter of minutes.

  He read the return address and the enclosed sympathy note, called information, and got a new residential listing for Kent Osterman in Los Alamos. He dialed the number, identified himself to the woman who answered, explained the reason for his call, and learned that Osterman was at work. The number she gave him at the Los Alamos National Laboratory yielded Osterman’s voice mail.

  He hung up without leaving a message. On his way out of the administrative suite he paused at Helen’s desk and told her where he was going.

  “Did you know more people with PhD degrees live in Los Alamos, per capita, t
han anywhere else in the country?” she said.

  Kerney nodded. “And most of them are pursuing peace in our time by designing new, improved weapons of mass destruction. Doesn’t that give you a warm, fuzzy feeling?”

  “That’s the other thing about working with cops,” Helen said with a laugh.

  “What?”

  “You’re all so cynical.”

  “Only about people,” Kerney replied.

  Los Alamos was coming back from a major forty-thousand-acre forest fire that had burned down hundreds of homes and scorched the adjacent national forest with heat so intense that large swaths of ground were barren of growth. On ridgelines random exclamation points of blackened timber stood as silent reminders of the catastrophe. During the summer months, monsoon rains eroded canyon slopes, buckled roads, broke sewage lines, flooded streets, and seeped into basements.

  But with the damage and destruction confined to several heavily forested residential areas, the urban core of the city still looked tidy. High in the Jemez Mountains on a narrow plateau, it was thirty-five miles from Santa Fe. For all practical purposes, it was a corporate town with one industry, a national research laboratory created by the legacy of the atomic bomb. No matter how the chamber of commerce or the town fathers tried to soften the image, Los Alamos remained a place of scientists, spies, and secrets.

  He passed through the town center and parked in Technical Area Three, a cluster of buildings including a four-story, flat-roofed, concrete structure that housed the lab’s administrative offices.

  Signs were everywhere, directing foot traffic to the J. Robert Oppenheimer Study Center, which served as a staff library, a badge office, which Kerney found to be an interesting euphemism for a guard station, and a building that contained the personnel offices and an employee cafeteria. A number of the other buildings in the complex were off-limits, but the personnel department could be visited without going through the security checkpoint.

  Halfhearted attempts had been made to landscape the complex with sloping walkways, some trees, and a few planters, but the look was purely industrial and utilitarian, and mostly dismal. Aesthetics did not seem to be a high priority to those building the modern engines of war.