by Ted Clifton
Clayton wasn’t as forceful as Ray, but he made a good speech and only made one reference to his opponent—whom he referred to as the mayor’s son. The speech emphasized Clayton’s background, both his education and his experience as a deputy. He pledged to run the department as a community service and to treat all people equally. He received a standing ovation from the crowd. The heavy beer drinking section was almost in tears.
They had prepared new flyers telling people what they could do to support Clayton, with the number one item being getting people to register and vote. These were passed out to the crowd—which Big Jack estimated at about two hundred people, based on food consumption—right after Clayton’s speech. They distributed all of the 250 flyers they’d printed. It was approaching three when Big Jack shut down the free beer—the crowd quickly dispersed.
Once everything was cleaned up, packed away, and stored, they held a debriefing to discuss the event and next steps. Sue was standing with Ray, and they seemed very interested in each other and not so much in the debriefing. Tyee led the analysis, saying that it had been a roaring success. They had over seventy-five cards filled out by people who said they would host an event at their house. He said he would get a list together and distributed it to the team so that each one of those seventy-five could be contacted and they could start making arrangements for the smaller meetings. Tyee was wrapping up when the front door opened and in walked the Mayor and his son, Deputy Martinez.
The Mayor walked up to Ray. “You and I never got along when you were sheriff. Now here you are butting your nose into the business of T or C. Not sure what your problem is, Ray, but you are not welcome here.” The Mayor was about five foot eight and nearly spherical. To see him in a huff verged on comical.
“Sorry you feel that way, Mayor—but I don’t give a shit what you think.”
The Mayor looked around the room and realized he wasn’t amongst friends. His face turned red, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Ray, I understand you called in the report of the body on your property this morning—but the body was discovered yesterday. Also we’ve been up to the crime scene and it’s been disturbed by you or others. I believe you are in some serious trouble for interfering with a criminal investigation.”
“Deputy, the body was found late yesterday. I marked the area with police tape and covered the body with a tarp to keep the coyotes from damaging it further. I don’t have a phone, but first thing this morning I called. If you think that constitutes interfering with a criminal investigation, I guess you better charge me.”
All was quiet. The deputy gave Ray some dirty looks, then gave Clayton some dirty looks, then gave Tyee and Big Jack some dirty looks—then apparently got tired and left. The Mayor waddled after his son.
“He’s going to cause you problems, Ray. It’s how he works—he’ll want to hurt me, but he can’t do that directly until the election is over—so he’ll go after you or Big Jack or someone. I’m sorry.”
“Listen Clayton, I’m supporting you one hundred percent. So are a lot of other people. What we just saw here is one of the reasons you’ve got that support. What you have to do is win. Then we’ll all be winners.”
There was some applause after Ray’s oration. Everyone shook hands and made arrangements to follow through on the next set of meetings. Ray and Sue were huddled in the corner making their own arrangements.
“My god, this is like a little bitty Chicago. Crime and corruption everywhere you look.” Sue was smiling, but Ray could tell the Mayor’s entrance had made her nervous.
“Yeah, and there’s absolutely no need for this crap. I’ve known the Mayor for more than ten years. He’s always been a jerk. He only represents the people who suck up to him. He’s the worst kind of small town politician. Hopefully, after Clayton wins, we can help someone beat that asshole.”
“I never would have figured you for an activist.”
Ray smiled and realized that he never would have figured himself for one either.
Ray drove by the crime scene on the way to his cabin. There was no one there. The body had been removed along with the police tape. Not much of an investigation by the sheriff’s department.
Monday
First thing in the morning, Ray went down to Big Jack’s and called Mike Jackson. He told Mike about the discovery of the body and that it wasn’t Monica, but an older woman. He asked Mike if Monica had any enemies.
“Well I guess we all have people who don’t like us much. But most people found Monica easy to like. There was one exception, a Mrs. Richards, who lives in Albuquerque, was obsessed with the idea that Monica cheated her on a dog she bought. She claimed the dog Monica sold her wasn’t a purebred. She sued in small claims court and lost because Monica produced all of the breeding papers. That just seemed to make the woman more upset. She would call Monica and yell at her and also claimed that her husband’s recent death was because Monica had cheated them and he’d had a heart attack because he was so upset.”
“Sounds like quite a feud. Do you think this woman could have followed Monica when she was on her way to El Paso?”
“It’s possible. I know she followed Monica before, and once yelled at her in a pet store. Really embarrassed Monica.”
“Did Monica report her to the police?”
“No. She and I talked about it, but Monica thought the lady was just losing her mind. Mrs. Richards blamed her for everything that had gone wrong in her life for the last year or so, but Monica believed it was because Mrs. Richards was unstable, so she didn’t want to cause her any trouble. I know the woman was having mental problems. I called and talked to her son. He was very apologetic about his mother. He said that he had no idea about whether the dog was purebred or not, but that his mother’s reaction had to do with her mental health. He said he couldn’t deal with her at all and was planning on placing her in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. He was worried sick that she would do something to harm herself or someone else.”
“How old is she?”
“Not exactly sure, but she’s somewhere in her middle or late eighties.”
“Monica made some calls from the Hot Springs Inn. One was to you, and there were two calls to the hotel in El Paso where the dog show was being held. My guess is that at least one of those calls was to cancel her reservation for that night since she was staying in T or C. Do you know of anyone who she would have been calling at the hotel?”
“Let’s see. She would talk to me about some of the dog show people although I’m sure not every person she knew at the shows. The names I remember are only first names—that might not be much help. There was Betty. She had become great friends with Betty and they often had dinner together since they were both divorced mature ladies, which is the way Monica described them. She sometimes talked about a man named Nate, who, I believe, was one of the competitors that caused Monica to lose. They didn’t seem to like each other much. I can’t imagine why she would call him. Well, maybe that’s all I can remember right now. Oh, wait a minute there was another name. One of the officials of the organization that puts on the dog shows—seems like it was Nathan. She thought he did a good job and had helped her a lot.”
“Okay, thanks, Mike. That’s very helpful. As soon as I know more I’ll give you a call.”
“There’s something else you need to know. Monica doesn’t know this because I just found out yesterday. Our oldest son, Ed Jackson, who lives in Albuquerque, was arrested yesterday for selling forged documents. I went down and tried to bail him out but couldn’t get anything done on a Sunday. But I did get to see him. He says he’s innocent, that he bought some civil war collectable documents from some guy in Juarez and they turned out to be forgeries. I’m afraid my son has had a lot of problems with drinking, drugs, and money, so I don’t know what to believe. But you should know that the dog Monica sold to Mrs. Richards came through my son. He sold three dogs to his mother at a premium price because he had all of the breeding papers. Of course it crossed my mind yeste
rday that maybe those papers were forged. Monica had said before that she wasn’t sure about the dogs because they seem more flawed than you would expect based on their papers. It would be just terrible for Monica if Mrs. Richards had been right all along.”
Ray wasn’t real sure what to say. The heartache children caused their parents was a constant theme in law enforcement. He felt sorry for Mike having to deal with a deadbeat son.
“Sorry about your son, Mike. Let me know if I can help. When I get more information about Monica, I’ll give you a call.”
Ray called the Camino Real Hotel next. The first person to answer passed him along to a reservations clerk. Ray identified himself as being with the sheriff’s department, looking into a missing person, Monica Jackson. If the sheriff found out about that little misstatement he would have Ray locked up for impersonating a deputy. But it worked. The reservation clerk confirmed that Monica had called Friday and canceled her reservation for that night. She also had a reservation for Saturday, but then didn’t show up. He asked the clerk if they’d had someone staying there on Friday named Betty. She told him their system was based on last names, she couldn’t search based on first names. Pushing a little more, Ray said that this person was associated with the dog show. Could she identify people who had been booked through the show? There was a pause as she did something with the computer.
“Yes, it looks like I can call up all of the rooms reserved through the dog show association. There are about forty or so. Let me see. Yes, here’s a Betty. Betty Adams, she was in room 607. Checked out Sunday.”
“How about someone named Nate or Nathan.”
“Kind of pushing your luck deputy. Well, let me see. Yes, here is a Nathan Young—he’s the President of the Dog Shows of America organization; and here is a Nate. Nate Carter was in room 404. Is that it?”
“Yes, thank you very much.” Ray hung up.
Just as he was finishing Tyee walked in.
“Big Jack is bitching and moaning about you being on his phone all of the time.”
“Well crap. He’s got a point. Guess I should call the phone company and see what kind of monster charge it would be to get phone service out to my cabin.”
“I think mostly Big Jack just likes to blow off steam. Still, having your own phone might be handy.”
Ray made a mental note to check out the cost of a phone.
“Any luck on that partial number?”
“No. I need some way to narrow it down. As it is I’m at a standstill.”
“Okay. Don’t worry about that. How about an organization called Dog Shows of America. Don’t know where they’re located, but the president’s name is Nathan Young.”
“See what I can do.” Tyee took his seat at the computer and started typing on the keyboard. Soon the familiar screeching sound started that indicated he was connected over the phone line.
“Tying up the line with the modem is pissing Big Jack off, too.” Tyee looked up at Ray with a slight grin.
“I’ll go talk to him.”
Ray went out and found Big Jack restocking his beer cooler. The event yesterday had put a major dent in his beer supplies.
“Big Jack, we need to work some things out.”
“Yeah.” Big Jack wasn’t in a good mood.
“First, about the phone. I’ll call in just a minute and find out what it would take to get a line up to my cabin. I don’t even know if they would do that, but if the cost’s reasonable I’ll have that done. I’ll also ask them, with your permission, about putting in another line to your store. If that’s agreeable to you, I would pay for that line. I can then use that if they won’t run one to my cabin and Tyee could use that for his computer stuff. Is that okay?”
“Ah, fuck, Ray. I’m just in a bad mood. I’ve got more money than sense—it really isn’t a money issue. Don’t know. All of this new activity has kind of got me wondering about what I want to do. You know I was just sort of hiding out and had no plans for anything. Then you come along and suddenly I’m involved in things and I guess I miss the action. Maybe I’m just tired of sitting on my fat ass all of the time.”
For some reason Ray had thought that Big Jack would be the last person to have mood swings—not so. The guy was human after all.
“Big Jack, I’ve been thinking about some things myself. I have an idea I’d like to run by you and Tyee. Just a sec, I’ll go get Tyee—do you have a minute?”
“Hell, yes. Just got to get this beer cooled down before my afternoon beer break.”
Ray asked Tyee to join them out front, then went into his pitch. He wanted to start a private investigation firm. Said it would be a regional company based out of T or C. He wanted Big Jack and Tyee to be equal partners. He thought it might make a little money, and if there were profits they would split them equally. Also, there should be almost no cost to start—just their time.
“How would you get paying clients?” Big Jack didn’t seem interested.
“I know every sheriff in New Mexico, most of Arizona and a big chunk of Texas. I would use those contacts to get the firm name out into the law enforcement community. So we would be looking for referrals. Often relatives of victims or even the accused are looking for someone to help them find answers and help communicate with law enforcement people.”
“What would each of us do?” Tyee wanted details.
“To some extent whatever’s necessary. I would concentrate on field investigation, Tyee you would concentrate on computer research, and Big Jack you would focus on any legal issues we encounter.”
“What would we call this company?”
“Not sure.”
“First my name can’t be on anything. Ray, I have not told you everything about me—let’s just say it would be best if I was a silent partner. I like the idea of doing something other than running this store, and I also kind of like the idea of helping people get through the law enforcement bullshit. If I can remain silent, I’m in.”
“Big Jack, I would like to know your story—but I don’t have to know it—you can be silent, if that’s what you want. I value your opinion and think we can make a good team. Tyee what about you?”
“Guess I’m not sure. You know I’ve cut down on my drinking since we’ve been doing stuff. I feel better about myself. I don’t want to go back to just being a drunk. Also, I think the three of us make a good team. So I guess I’m in too.”
“How about Pacheco and Chino, Private Investigations?”
“Ray, are you sure you want an Indian name included?”
“Hell yes. You’ll be our star attraction. We’ll claim you are a long lost tribal Chief who can read minds, track animals or humans over hard rock, predict the future, and other mystical Indian stuff.”
Ray didn’t even get a chuckle out of Tyee—he thought he might have even offended him.
“Look, I was just kidding. I won’t do this without you and Big Jack. If you prefer your name isn’t included in the company name that’s fine—but I would prefer that it’s in there. If you want it to be Chino and Pacheco Private Investigations, that’s fine too. What do you think?”
Tyee smiled at Ray and Big Jack. “Pacheco and Chino—done.” They all shook hands and helped Big Jack stock his beer coolers.
Ray called the phone company and was pleasantly surprised that the price for all the services he wanted was very reasonable. He ordered a phone line to his cabin and an additional two lines to Big Jack’s store. He decided that they needed the extra line to allow Tyee to be on the computer while he was on the phone. He asked the person taking his order to bill the phones to his cabin address in the name of Pacheco and Chino, Private Investigations. His days of hiding in the woods hadn’t lasted long—he was glad.
Tuesday
Around noon, Ray and Happy were headed toward the Lone Post Café. He thought he would have lunch and talk to Sue some and then go by the sheriff’s office to see if they had identified the body. The Café was busy as usual. Ray took a seat at the counter and was quick
ly served sweet iced tea by Sue, along with a wink. Ray was still adjusting to this new relationship.
“How is Mr. Pacheco today?”
“Not so bad, Sue. How’s your day going?”
“Busy. Which is both good and bad. I like being busy in that the time goes quicker, but we’ve been shorthanded today so it’s been just a little too hectic.”
She took his order and headed in the other direction. Didn’t look like they would have much time to chat today.
“I thought I might find you here.” It was Deputy Clayton with a conspiratorial grin. Ray was sure he didn’t like everybody knowing about his relationship with Sue. He wasn’t real sure he wanted to hide it either—mostly it just felt strange.
“Hello, deputy. I was planning on coming by your office in a little bit. Has the body been identified yet?”
“Another good reason I caught you. Might be best to just avoid the sheriff and the office for a while. Martinez was on the warpath this morning, aimed mostly at you. I actually think part of this is the election and the fact that he might lose—don’t believe he thought that was possible until the barbeque.”
“Well, I don’t really give a damn if he’s on the warpath or not.”
“Calm down, Ray. I have the info you want. The woman’s been identified as a Mrs. Opal Richards, age eighty-six, address is in Albuquerque. Her husband died about a year ago. Her son, who lives in Albuquerque, was notified as next of kin. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Yep. She had a running feud with Ms. Jackson over the sale of a dog. My guess is she’s the one who wrote the note and probably was the one who slashed the tires.”
