Apache Country

by Frederick H. Christian

  “How long have you had him in custody?” the lawyer asked.

  Easton looked at the clock. “Call it fifteen hours.”

  “You’ve interrogated him?”

  Easton nodded.

  “Has he told you anything?”

  It was such a fundamentally naïve question Easton almost smiled. No matter how inexperienced, every attorney knew the law required the prosecution to discover whatever evidence it had to him. If Ironheel told them anything, they had to tell his attorney. So the question Weddle was really asking was, How much trouble am I in?

  “We’ve gone around the block a few times with him,” Easton said reassuringly. “But he’s refused to answer most of our questions. You can watch the interrogation videos, if you want to.”

  And good luck, he thought. Although they had spent three more hours with him following their conversation in Patti Lafferty’s office, Cochrane and Irving had gotten nothing more out of Ironheel, who had clamped his mouth shut and refused to answer any more questions.

  “Maybe later,” Weddle said, putting on a brisk air the way you put on a hat. “Can I see him now?”

  “Sure,” Easton said. “I’ll tell them we’re on our way.”

  He dialed 822 on the internal line and told duty RO Hal Sweeney they were on their way over. When they got to the jail he introduced Weddle and Hal led the way along the corridor to Ironheel’s cell. The cell door gave off its mournful clang as he slid it back and Ironheel looked up, his eyes still dark and wary.

  “Nt’é nánt’ii?” he growled. What do you want?

  “This is Jerry Weddle, Ironheel. He’s the lawyer appointed to handle your defense,” Easton told him. He watched the Apache carefully for any sign of the silent plea he thought he had seen earlier in the dark eyes. There was none.

  “Don’t need no lawyer,” Ironheel said.

  His tone was resentful, as if the sheer act of bringing in Weddle was an intrusion. Just as well nobody was expecting gratitude, Easton thought.

  “You’ve got one anyway,” he said, making his own voice as ungracious as Ironheel’s. The Apache turned his head away, staring pointedly at the wall. Easton knew what that meant now. You are no longer here.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Easton,” Weddle said, looking uncertainly at Ironheel then back. “I’d like to speak to my client alone.”

  Fly at it, Easton thought. “Where can I reach you if I need to talk to you later?” he asked the lawyer.

  “I’m at the Frontier Motel,” Weddle said.

  Easton hid another smile. The Frontier was a no-frills twenty-eight-unit motel all the hell and gone to the north of town, out by the Mall. Any decent employer would have put Weddle in La Quinta or the Sally Port Inn, which had an indoor pool, saunas, whirlpool and lighted tennis courts, but not Charlie Goodwin. He and his partner Walter Massie were celebrated penny-pinchers. Hell, even the firm’s letterhead was a front. There was no Delgado and no Oppenheimer. They had simply added the names to their shingle so they wouldn’t look too WASP and scare off minority clients.

  “Buzzer’s right there on the cell wall when you want out,” Sweeney told Weddle as he slid the door shut, locking him in. Easton walked back to the receiving area with the deputy and got coffee from the machine in the hall. It tasted about as bad as always. Above his head the CCTV cameras moved in their ceaseless, tortoise-slow survey of the corridors. A few years ago one of the custodies had smuggled in a nail file, used it to spring the lock on the holding cell, then just walked out into the street. The media had such a field day with the escape that the County installed the cameras a week later. He looked at the clock. No point hanging around here, he thought.

  “Mind if I ask you something, Dave?” Sweeney said. He looked uncomfortable, like a parent bringing up the subject of sex with a daughter.

  “Sure,” Easton said.

  “This Ironheel guy – is he nuts or what?” Sweeney asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sun-up this morning, it’s quiet as the grave in here, then bam, Ironheel starts making this racket, sounded like a goddamn banshee. Scared the guys in the drunk tank shitless. I mean, I was like, Jeez, you know, what the hell is that? Ran down there, he was standing in his cell all but buck naked, making this screechy noise.”

  Easton frowned. “Screechy?”

  Sweeney’s brow knitted. “Hell, I can’t dupe it. Like he was skinnin’ a live cat, know what I mean? So I yelled at him to knock it off, but I might as well not been there.”

  Easton grinned. “This was at sun-up, you say?”

  “Near enough. One minute not a goddamn sound, and the next all hell breakin’ loose.”

  “He’s an Apache, Hal,” Easton said. “Could be he keeps to the old ways.”

  “Howzat?”

  “In the old days Apache men used to say a prayer to the sunrise every morning.”

  “You think that’s what it was? Noisiest damn prayer I ever heard.”

  “I wouldn’t have tagged him as the praying type,” Easton said thoughtfully. “We live and learn. Don’t let it throw you, Hal.”

  He checked the clock again. “Holler if Weddle needs me for anything, okay?” he said.

  Hal put two fingers together and touched them against the point of his forehead. By the time Easton got to the door he already had his nose back between the pages of Hustler.

  Chapter Seven

  The paperwork waiting on Easton’s desk drove all thought of Jerry Weddle clear out of his mind. Only when he looked up at the clock and saw it was after eight did he remember the lawyer again. What was taking the guy so long? He dialed 822 and got Sweeney.

  “That lawyer still there, Hal?”

  “Hell, no, he left about a half hour ago,” Sweeney told him. “Took off like his ass was on fire.”

  Odd, Easton thought. He had felt certain that as soon as Weddle got through talking to Ironheel he would want to see the dossier DeAnn had put together containing copies of the arrest reports and the crime scene photographs and protocols. It wasn’t like the guy had three weeks to put his case together.

  “He say anything before he left?” he asked.

  “Something about having to make some urgent calls,” Sweeney said. “I told him he was welcome to use the office phone, but he nixed that, said it was confidential.”

  “He talk to anyone else down there?”

  “No, sir.”

  That being the case, there could only be one possible explanation for the lawyer’s abrupt departure. Ironheel had told him something that had put a very large hair up his ass. Something Weddle didn’t want a deputy to overhear. But what?

  He picked up the phone to call the Frontier Motel, then hung up without dialing. If his hunch was correct, he would need to talk to Weddle face to face. It was so much more difficult to lie one to one than it was on the phone.

  He signed out, got into his Jeep and headed north on Main. Although it was still short of full dark, the lights were on everywhere. The evening air was balmy and there was only a little traffic. About a quarter of a mile from the motel he saw flashing lights up ahead on the left side of the divided highway and foreknowledge swept over him like surf. He put on the dome light, touched the siren to stop the traffic as he made a U-turn over to the west side. A uniformed cop waved him into the motel’s parking area, where three patrol vehicles were parked askew with their radios squawking. Security arcs had been brought in and turned on full, bathing the narrow parking area in front of the motel units in hard white light.

  Off to the right he saw an RPD deputy talking to Charlie Goodwin. Even at this distance Easton could see the lawyer’s face was pasty white, like he was in shock. Clipping his badge on to his shirt pocket, he got out of the vehicle and crossed to talk to the deputy, a tall, rangy-looking guy with a long chin and gingery hair. His nameplate said CUMMINGS.

  “What have we got, Billy Charles?” he asked.

  “Homicide,” Cummings said grimly. “Looks like a robbery. Victim’
s a guy named Weddle, an attorney.”

  No point acting surprised, Easton decided. The minute he had seen the police lights he had known who the victim would be.

  “Any details yet?”

  Cummings shrugged. “Shot twice, probably a handgun,” he said. “You can check with the boys. They’re in there.”

  He pointed with his chin at the open door of one of the motel units where two deputies were unreeling yellow tape to set up a crime scene cordon.

  “Who called it in?” Easton asked. Before Cummings could answer Charlie Goodwin stepped forward, tugging at his sleeve.

  “It was me, Dave,” he said. His voice was fluty, like he couldn’t quite get it under control. “Walked in, there he was, dead.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Twenty minutes, half an hour ago. I couldn’t believe it, the guy just lying there dead, the blood. I nearly puked.”

  “What were you doing here?”

  “I was just telling the deputy here. Weddle called me, said he had to see me right away, he had something extremely important to discuss. When I got here he was … all that blood, Jeez, I was, you know, it took my breath away. Then I ran over to the office and called the cops.”

  Easton looked at Cummings, who nodded. “RPD logged the call at nine oh-nine,” he confirmed.

  “Who responded?”

  “Petersen and Gale.”

  “They still here?”

  “Over in the unit. And before you ask, yeah, Petersen already called CSI, and yeah, we notified Ab Saunders. Doc Horrell, too.”

  As if on cue, Easton heard the rise and fall of a siren. CSI, he though, there’d be no rush for an ambulance. Leaving Charlie Goodwin with Cummings, he walked over toward the motel unit. The deputy guarding the door was in his mid-forties, stolid, unexcitable, an old-fashioned cop. His name was Hank Gale.

  “Hank, you keeping the log?” Easton said by way of greeting.

  “Ahuh,” Gale said.

  “Billy Charles says you and Peterson responded.”

  “Ahuh.”

  “No sign of life when you got here?”

  “Na,” Gale said. “Guy was as dead as smoked herring.”

  “Door open or closed?”

  “Open,” Gale said. “Everything’s just like we found it.”

  “Light switches?”

  “Da-ave,” he said patiently, stretching the word to make it a mild protest.

  “Just checking,” Easton smiled. “Look, I know this isn’t my jurisdiction, Hank, but it might be worth having a deputy canvass the mob by the entrance in case anyone saw somebody in the unit, a car leaving the area, anything. And get a list of the license plates of every car in the parking lot, okay?”

  “Right,” Gale said gruffly. “Thanks.”

  “Where’s Petersen?” Easton asked.

  “Inside, doing video.”

  “Okay if I go in?”

  Gale shrugged and entered Easton’s name in his log book as Easton put on the plastic shoe covers and surgical gloves. He checked his watch and jotted down the time he had arrived and the weather conditions. Force of habit.

  The room was standard motel modern, plain without being ugly, beds with carved wooden headboards and big lamps on the bedside tables that gave off just enough light so you wouldn’t fall over the furniture. An armchair and a glass-topped table stood between the air-conditioning unit beneath the window and the king-sized bed. A twenty-one-inch TV occupied a corner of the room facing the bed.

  Immediately inside the doorway a briefcase lay open on the floor, papers scattered. Head and shoulders inside the bathroom, body twisted by a hip jammed up against the door frame, Jerry Weddle lay face up, one arm thrown over his head, the other across his body. His eyes and mouth were wide open, as if death had surprised him. Which it probably had, Easton thought.

  Deputy Petersen, a burly giant with arms like tree branches, had already laid twin lines of tape from the doorway to where he was standing, establishing a single entry path to the crime scene. He nodded to acknowledge Easton’s presence, placing his feet carefully as he moved about.

  “SO got an interest in this?” he asked.

  “Will have,” Easton told him.

  The big RPD deputy shrugged and got on with what he was doing. Easton squatted down beside the body, taking care not to touch it or anything else. Jerry Weddle had been shot once in the chest and once in the head. The front of his neat white shirt was bloodstained and speckled with powder marks. Easton lifted the front of the shirt very carefully with the pushbutton end of a ballpoint. The chest entry wound was a small hole perhaps an inch to the right of the sternum. By craning over, he could see the victim’s back. There was no exit wound. The bullet was still in the body.

  The head wound was just above the right eyebrow, maybe half an inch to the right of the median. He didn’t need to look for an exit wound. An eight inch wide puddle of blood and brain matter had spread across the floor under the dead man’s head.

  He stood up. Weddle’s jacket lay on the bed. He checked the pockets. No wallet, no money. He went back to where the dead man lay, patted his side pockets, sliding his hand underneath the body to check the hip pocket. Nothing there either. Next he lay flat on the floor and checked the nap of the carpet for drag marks; there did not appear to be any.

  Using a pocket magnifying glass he examined the bathroom door frame; there was a smear of blood on the right hand upright. A picture of what might have happened was already forming in his mind. It looked like Weddle had taken off his jacket, thrown it on the bed, and gone into the bathroom. As he was coming out, he was shot at close range through the heart. Then whoever killed him put one through the head to make sure. Not a fight, then. An execution?

  “Anyone hear the shots?” he asked Petersen.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Petersen said. “The adjoining units are vacant. But maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  We’ll need better than that, Easton thought. Maybe and lucky were strangers to each other.

  “What you think, Dave?” Petersen said. “Walk-in?”

  “Could be,” Easton said. “Any sign of forced entry?”

  “Mostly never are anymore,” Petersen said. “Guys who pull these jobs are pros. They prefer places with proper keys, not those plastic cards. They stay over legit, have a dupe key made, take off. Couple of weeks, a month later, come back and do the business: in-out, a quick grab-and-run deal, money, credit cards, whatever’s lying around. Guy comes in expecting the room to be empty, but Weddle is in the john. He comes out, sees the guy lifting his wallet, he yells, the guy panics, bang.”

  “Why the second shot?”

  Petersen shrugged. “Why not? Some of these assholes’ll shoot you just to see if the gun works.”

  Easton wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t say so. It wasn’t his case. Yet.

  “Okay, I’m out of here,” he said. “I imagine you guys might want to run this through NCIC for anyone with that kind of MO. It’s worth a try. Keep me posted, will you?”

  “No problemo,” Petersen grunted.

  Easton logged out of the unit and headed across the parking lot to the office. When Carl and Judy Ramirez had bought the Frontier Motel about six years ago it was one inspection short of being condemned. It still wasn’t motel paradise, but it was clean and the showers worked. Carl had painstakingly rebuilt the place with his own hands, one unit at a time, while Judy charmed the customers at the reception desk. She was a handsome woman with long, lustrous black hair and eyes, dressed in a short, tightly-fitting dark blue dress that accentuated the curves of her voluptuous figure and showed off her legs. She looked up as Easton came into the lobby.

  “Hey, Dave,” she said tiredly. “How’s this for the end of a perfect day?”

  “You know what it says on the T-shirt, Judy.”

  She shrugged. “Why’d the guy have to get himself shot in my motel?” she said wearily. “I mean, shit, do I not need this.”

  “Don’t imagine th
e dead guy is enjoying it much, either,” Easton said.

  “Sorry,” she said, coloring. “I din mean to sound uncaring. He a friend of yours or somethin’?”

  Easton shook his head. “You heard about Robert Casey and his grandson getting killed?”

  “Yeah, it was on TV. Terrible thing.”

  “We arrested a suspect. The man who was killed here tonight was his lawyer. His name was Jerry Weddle.”

  “That I knew.”

  “What time did he check in?”

  “Must have been about seven forty-five, maybe a li’l bit later.”

  “Alone?” he asked, and Judy nodded. “Do you remember if he said anything?”

  “Nothing memorable. You know, nice evening, where’s the ice machine, like that.”

  “Did he make any calls?”

  She nodded. “He came back over here to use the pay phone. I remember thinkin’, cheapskate couldn’t even call from his room.”

  “How many calls did he make, do you know?”

  She frowned, concentrating. “Two, no more.”

  “Could you tell if they were local or long distance?”

  Another small frown. “I’d say local. Only a minute or two each one.”

  It was Easton’s turn to frown now. He already knew Weddle had made a call to Charlie Goodwin. But who was the other one? He made a mental note to get the numbers from the phone company records.

  “Anyone else check in this evening? This afternoon?”

  Judy shook her head. “Business has been real slow. We haven’t been full since last August. Now this.” She made a resigned face.

  “Did you hear the shots?” he asked her. “See anyone driving in or out?”

  She shook her head. “I was watching TV in back. You sit out front here all day staring at that goddamned parking lot, your brain starts to rot.”

  “Where’s Carl, by the way?” he asked.

  “Artemisia. He drove down to see his mother this morning. Listen, how long do you think it will it be before they take him, uh, the body...?”