“And then?”
“According to Judy Ramirez, Weddle made another call. Not from his room, mind, from a pay phone in the lobby. That’s it. Half an hour later, he’s dead.”
“Judy know who the second call was to?”
“No. But she said it was real short, probably local.”
Joe made an impatient sound. “Great,” he growled. “That cuts it down to around thirty thousand possibles, right?”
“Quit grinding your gears, Joe,” Easton said. “It’s not our case. Not yet, anyway.”
“You think it will be?”
Easton nodded. “I reckon.”
Apodaca finished his coffee and put the cup down. His face was pensive, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He ran a hand through his short cropped hair.
“So there’s no use getting our balls in an uproar till we have to, that what you’re saying?”
“Right.”
“Ab Saunders assigned anyone to it?”
“Not while I was out there. I guess he figured James Sánchez can handle whatever needs doing tonight.”
Neither of them spoke for about a minute. Easton sipped his coffee and watched the sheriff’s face but he couldn’t guess what he was thinking. so he waited, the way he had learned to wait around Joe Apodaca. After a little while the sheriff became conscious of his waiting regard and made an irritable sound.
“What?” he said irritably. “What?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that ‘nothing’ routine. I’m the one taught you this racket, remember? You and your goddam hunches. It’s written all over your face, you think there’s a connection here. You’re thinking, maybe Ironheel told Weddle something, something he hasn’t told us. And that’s what set Weddle’s pants on fire.”
Easton lifted a shoulder. “Tell me what else it could have been.”
He could see the thoughts going around in Joe’s head but still couldn’t guess what they were. Six, eight years ago, he thought, I might have been able to. They had been that close then. But somewhere along the way things had changed. There was a distance between them now that hadn’t been there before. And without a word ever having been said, both of them knew it.
“Well,” Joe said, putting his cup down with a bang. “There’s an easy way to find out. Let’s you and me go across the street and ask him.”
Easton opened his mouth to point out that so far nobody had gotten much information out of Ironheel, but the angry expression on Joe’s face told him he would be wasting his time. Outside, the traffic sounds over on Main were muted by the soft evening warmth. They crossed the street to the jail. As the sheriff banged through the door Easton saw Hal Sweeney hastily stuffing the copy of Penthouse he had been reading into a desk drawer.
“Jesus Criminy, Sheriff,” the deputy complained. “You made me jump! Something wrong?”
“You heard about the lawyer getting killed?” Joe said. “Weddle?”
“It was on the Channel Eight news,” Hal said. “I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. I mean, Jesus Criminy, the guy was just in here a couple hours ago.”
“Where’d he talk to Ironheel?” Joe said. “In the cell?”
“He did at first,” Hal said. “Then he asked to use the interview room.”
“Interesting,” Apodaca said thoughtfully.
Interesting was the right word, Easton thought. Weddle would have known the interview room was sanctum sanctorum, guaranteed free of listening devices. His asking to use it suggested whatever he and Ironheel had talked about, it had been something he didn’t want anyone in SO to know.
“Okay, Hal,” he said, “open him up.”
Sweeney got up heavily out of his chair and took the keycard out of its locked metal cabinet. As they followed him down the corridor, hollow echoes of their footsteps bounced off the walls. A drunk in the tank was snoring thunderously. The other prisoner in there with him called out something as they passed but they ignored him. The gate of Ironheel’s cell gave off a dull metallic clang as Sweeney slid it back and they went in.
Ironheel was lying on his cot with his right arm across his eyes. As the cell door noisily opened, he rolled over on to his side and onto his feet in one fluid movement that was not lost on Easton. He didn’t look like he might try to make another break for it, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. He was muscular, fit and hard, and as the State troopers had already found out, if he chose to, he could be all the trouble you could use. He stared at them unblinkingly, his face showing nothing.
“This is Sheriff Apodaca, Ironheel,” Easton said. “Afraid we’ve got some bad news for you.”
Ironheel waited, saying nothing, his dark eyes fixed intently on Joe Apodaca, as if he was trying to memorize every feature of his face. Apodaca stared back. There was a palpable tension in the air.
“The lawyer who came to see you earlier. He was killed a couple of hours ago. Murdered.”
Ironheel’s expression remained impassive, but Easton, who was watching his eyes, saw them register shock. He remembered Grita saying Apache don’t let their emotions show a lot at the best of times, and especially not around the pinda’ lick’ oye. Ironheel wasn’t giving anyone anything he didn’t have to.
“Murdered?” he asked gruffly. “How? Who killed him?”
“We don’t know yet. Right after he left here, somebody walked into his motel room, robbed him and shot him dead,” Apodaca said.
Ironheel sat down slowly on the metal cot, his eyes averted, brow furrowed. He raised his left hand, palm out, as if to say, wait. But Joe Apodaca wasn’t in a waiting mood.
“The RO says after he talked to you, Weddle went out of here like his ass was on fire,” he said. “You want to tell us why?”
Ironheel remained silent, but Easton detected a flicker of anger in his eyes. Apache courtesy was to respect the other man’s silences, always give him time to add an afterthought, a footnote, before responding. When Ironheel gave no indication that he was going to reply, he saw the sheriff wrestling with his impatience – and losing.
“I asked you a question, mister,” Apodaca growled.
He wasn’t handling this well, Easton thought. He stepped in quickly with what he hoped might be a softener.
“Did you maybe tell Weddle something you haven’t told us?” he asked. “Did you ask him to call someone?”
For a moment Joe Apodaca looked away and as he did Ironheel shook his head infinitesimally. Easton again thought he saw a message in his eyes, a sort of warning, and felt an odd shock of surprise. Was Ironheel trying to tell him something? And if so, what?
“He said not to talk to anyone unless he was present,” Ironheel said. “Doo k’a han. Nobody.”
“That was then,” Apodaca rasped. “This is now. Whatever it was you talked about may well turn out to be material evidence in a murder investigation. I want to know everything that was said. So start talking.”
There was a rule every interrogator knew: if you don’t have a sanction, don’t make a threat. Apodaca’s ultimatum was unenforceable bluster. He knew it, but even worse, Ironheel knew it, too. The Apache’s chin came up maybe an inch. There was no apprehension whatsoever in his expression. They were like two fighters sizing each other up, Easton thought. Then Ironheel shook his head and looked away, and Apodaca lost it.
“Look at me when I talk to you, goddamnit!” he snapped.
Ironheel’s head snapped around, his expression twisted with anger.
“Or what?” he blazed. “You gonna lock me up?”
There was something going on here Easton could not account for. The sheriff’s aggressiveness was out of character, the electricity he was generating entirely counter-productive. Joe’s usual tactic was to meet intransigence, even overt hostility, with guile. Yet here he was alienating Ironheel so completely that if the situation wasn’t defused they might never get another peep out of him. Better step in before the door was shut for good, he thought. He put his hand on the sheriff’s shoulde
r.
“Joe,” he said, very quietly.
Apodaca whirled to glare at him angrily, a vein at the side of his forehead throbbing visibly. Then after what seemed like a very long moment he let out his breath in a long sigh, and his shoulders slumped as if he had suddenly realized he was exhausted. He made a go-ahead gesture with his right hand.
“Yeah, right,” he whispered.
Easton stepped between the two men. “Nobody’s going to strongarm you, Ironheel,” he said quietly. “Nobody, I promise. Whatever you and your lawyer talked about was strictly between the two of you and you’re under no obligation to tell anybody what it was. But if anything he said, or anything you told him, will help us catch the person who killed him, it’s in your own interest to tell us.”
Ironheel turned his back on Joe Apodaca and as he faced him, Easton again thought he detected some kind of entreaty in his eyes. But what was he asking for, what was he trying to say?
“We didn’t talk long.” Ironheel spoke slowly, as if he was choosing each word carefully. “He just asked what happened. About finding the billfold. About the arrest and what happened with the State Police. He explained about the arraignment. Said he’d ask for bail but he didn’t think he’d get it. Asked me if there was anyone he should call.”
“And was there?”
Ironheel nodded. “My sister.”
Joe Apodaca impatiently brushed past Easton and confronted Ironheel again, his jaw thrust forward as he spoke.
“You asked him to call your sister? Is that what you’re saying?”
There was something almost like jubilation in his voice. When Ironheel nodded in reply, the sheriff looked at Easton triumphantly. There you are, his expression said. They already knew Weddle had spoken to Charlie Goodwin. If the other call had been to Ironheel’s sister, that was the end of the mystery. It wouldn’t be hard to check.
“What’s your sister’s name?” Easton asked.
“Joanna.”
“That’s Joanna Ironheel, yes?” Joe said. “Where does she live?”
“Whitetail Canyon, up near Highcroft on the Mescalero Reservation.”
“She in the book?”
Ironheel nodded. “What happens now? What about the arraignment?” he said.
“You’ll still appear,” Easton said. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Will the court appoint another lawyer?”
“You’ll get your lawyer,” Apodaca told him, testily. “First, though, you need to tell us why Weddle went out of here in such a hurry?”
Ironheel shrugged, his face immobile. “I told you. He said something about having a lot of work to do.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. Why don’t you believe me?”
“Make a guess,” Joe gritted.
The sneer made Ironheel’s brows knit in anger. He turned slowly to face the sheriff, his whole body tense, the dark eyes flashing anger. His voice was held-in tight when he spoke.
“Is that right, prisoners don’t have to talk to anybody if they don’t want to?”
Apodaca glared back at him. “That’s right,” he rasped.
“Then you’re done here,” Ironheel snarled. “Aal bengon yáá!”
He threw himself back on his cot, put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, stolidly ignoring their presence. Easton had seen that stony face before; it meant there would be no more talking.
He looked at the sheriff. In all the years they had worked together he had never seen Joe lose control like this. But there it was, as blown as a fuse. He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head toward the buzzer on the wall. The sheriff got the message and nodded curtly.
Easton pushed the buzzer and they stood in a fraught silence until Hal Sweeney came hurrying along the corridor and let them out. As the deputy slid the cell gate shut Easton glanced back over his shoulder. Ironheel was looking right at him, and once again he saw something unsaid in the Apache’s dark eyes. This time there was no mistaking what it was. Please. Then the door clanged shut.
Apodaca marched angrily down the corridor ahead of Easton and Sweeney, his arms pressed tight against his body, his face dark with inwardly-directed anger. He knew he’d lost the plot and he was mad with himself. He didn’t speak until they were back in the receiving office. Then he put both hands flat on Sweeney’s desk and leaned forward.
“All right, Hal,” he said, without preamble. “I want you to go over everything that happened here last night. Don’t leave anything out.”
Sweeney nodded, watching the sheriff’s eyes anxiously.
“You mean about that Weddle guy, right?”
“Right. How long did they talk?”
Sweeney thought mightily. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Then he asked to use the interview room.”
“Right.”
“When they were through you took Ironheel back to his cell, then let Weddle out. That how it went?”
“Ahuh, right.”
“Okay, how did he look?”
Sweeney looked puzzled. “How do you mean?”
“Was he calm? Excited?”
Sweeney gulped. “Jesus Criminy, Joe I just let him out is all. I didn’t look to see how he felt.”
Apodaca made an exasperated sound. “But you said he left in a hell of a rush, right?”
“Like I told you. Couldn’t get out fast enough,” Hal said with an anxious-to-please smile.
“And that’s it?” Joe sneered, laying the contempt on with a trowel. “You’re supposed to be a goddamn cop, for Chrissake!”
Hal Sweeney stared at him, his face flushed with humiliation.
“What did he say?” Apodaca rasped impatiently. “What were his exact words?”
Sweeney thought hard. “He said, I have to go, make some calls. I said he could use my phone, but he—”
“You’re sure he just said ‘some calls’? He didn’t use the word ‘important’ or ‘urgent’ or anything like that?”
“Well, hell, I can’t swear he didn’t, Joe. But—”
“All right, all right,” Joe said impatiently. “So tell me this. If he was in such a goddamned hurry to make his calls, why did he wait till he got all the way over to the Frontier Motel to make them?”
Sweeney stared at him open mouthed. “Jesus Criminy, Joe, how would I know?” he said.
Joe Apodaca shook his head impatiently and turned to face Easton, as if Sweeney was no longer there. Then all at once the tension went out of the sheriff’s body and his shoulders drooped.
“Oh, shit,” he said, wearily. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Easton said nothing, just waited.
“It’s all right,” the sheriff said after a while. “Hal, I’m sorry. I blew that big-time.”
“Sure, Joe,” Sweeney said. His face wore the sulky expression of a child who has been unfairly punished. Apodaca shook his head again, more slowly this time.
“Shouldn’t have let that damn In’din get to me like that,” he said.
“If it’s any consolation, Tom Cochrane felt the same way,” Easton said. “He said trying to get information out of that guy was like shoveling wind.”
“Goddamn it, he has to have told Weddle something,” Joe said, taking off his hat and running a hand through his cropped hair. “It’s the only thing makes any sense.”
“You want to go back and talk to him some more?” Easton said.
“Don’t schmooze me, Dave,” Joe said flatly. “I clammed him up real good.”
He was right about that, Easton thought. They left Sweeney to lock up and walked out into the cool night air. Across Virginia, SO was a brightly lit island in the surrounding darkness. Joe Apodaca stretched, and rubbed the back of his neck. All at once he looked tired and very old.
“Dave,” he said. “I feel lower than what the dog did on the kitchen floor.”
“Know what you mean,” Easton put on a smile he didn’t feel.
“Go home, get some sleep,” the sheriff said gruffl
y. “That’s an order. Give my love to Jessye.”
“Yes, sir.”
Easton stood and watched as Apodaca walked across to where his car was parked in its numbered slot, and waited till he saw him pull out and head for home. He wondered if things there were any better there these days. It was an open secret that Alice Apodaca had a drinking problem. A picture of her popped up in his mind, peering from behind the curtains of the house on North Lea when he picked Joe up to go to the Casey crime scene, her eyes bleary and unfocussed, as if the world outside was an alien landscape she had no interest in exploring. Maybe that had something to do with Joe’s anger, like referred pain.
Easton thought about Ironheel in his cell and remembered Grita telling him how Apache hated confinement. Then he went back to his office and sat down, staring without enthusiasm at the jumble of paperwork on the desk.
Was it too late to call Joanna Ironheel? He decided to take a chance on it. To his surprise she answered after two rings. He told her who he was and apologized for calling so late.
“Is this about my brother?” she said, brusquely ignoring both Easton’s identity and apology.
“We have him in jail here in Riverside, ma’am,” Easton said. “He—”
“Someone from the Police Department already called me,” she said. Although her voice was soft and well-modulated, he detected impatience, as if even discussing the matter was an annoyance.
“Will you be coming down here?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“He’s in a lot of trouble, ma’am.”
“He got there by himself. He can get out of it the same way.”
Easton frowned. Family ties were usually a very important part of Apache life. Hostility, not.
“I take it you know your brother is being held for murder.”
She was silent for a moment. “They told me that. Now you tell me something. Is there anything I could do about it, one way or the other?” she said.
“He’s your brother,” Easton reminded her.
“And aren’t I the lucky one?” she said, the weight of her irony palpable. “Drunk driving, car theft, burglaries, brawls in bars, knife fights. You name it, my brother has done it. I don’t know how many times I’ve put up bail for him, how much it’s all cost. Your people said he killed an old man and a boy.”
Apache Country Page 8
