Sky High Stakes (Pacheco & Chino Mysteries Book 2)

by Ted Clifton

  The chief gave Ray a dirty look and told him he didn’t really give a fuck what Ray did and he didn’t give a fuck what the Governor or the moron AG did either—then he walked off.

  Ray pulled Tyee aside. “We need some help up here. Call the Sheriff of Dona Ana and ask him if he can send some men. Also, do you think the Apache police would spare a couple of officers and vehicles, just until we can get the state police involved?”

  “I can sure call. I know the guy who runs the police department—he’s a good man and I think he’ll want to help. I’ll call him and the sheriff in Las Cruces.”

  “Good. Also, I want you to call Sue and Big Jack. Ask them both to come up here as soon as they can. We are going to need some help and we need people we can trust.”

  “I’m on it.” Tyee left to find a phone.

  Ray instructed two of the deputies from the sheriff’s department to cordon off the area with yellow police tape. He had them cover the windshield of the patrol car, partially concealing Marino’s body. They had one side of the street completely blocked, which was creating a traffic problem and contributing to the sense of chaos. Ray grabbed one of the sheriff’s deputies.

  “My name is Pacheco and I’ve taken charge of this crime scene under the authority—”

  “Yeah, we’ve all heard you’re in charge, Sheriff Pacheco. Every man here will do what you ask. We’re all embarrassed about what’s happened to the department since Marino took over. We’ll cooperate fully and do whatever you tell us.”

  “Great. We need to get this car removed to a secure location. I don’t want the body moved from the car yet. But if we could get a careful tow truck driver in here and move the whole mess somewhere else, it will help restore order.”

  “I know who to call—he’ll be here in minutes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Deputy Samson, sir.” Samson left to make his call.

  Another possible suspect making crime scene arrangements. Ray needed his own crew as soon as possible. Before he could do much more, the tow truck showed up. The driver was neat and articulate—obviously a tow truck driver imposter—and within a very short time he had the patrol car secured and was ready to head out. The driver said they had enough space at his shop to put everything inside for the night. Ray agreed and followed the driver down the street about three blocks, and then turned off of Main and traveled about four more blocks to a large junk yard and shop building. The driver skillfully maneuvered the car with the body inside into the shop and detached it. Ray had brought one of the police officers from the scene and told him to stay with the car until someone came to relieve him. Then he went back to find Tyee.

  “Thought you’d run off with some young female police officer never to be seen again.”

  “Young female police officers could do a whole hell of a lot worse—but I was dealing with the car. It’s in storage—just need to arrange to have someone watch it to make sure it isn’t tampered with.”

  “Oh, shit. This sounds like cheap labor—in other words Indian work.”

  “Bingo!”

  “I talked to Big Jack and Sue. They’re planning on leaving first thing in the morning. Should be here before noon tomorrow.”

  “Great. I’m going back to the Inn and get Happy. We’ll both stay here tonight and then decide on what to do tomorrow morning. Be back in about thirty minutes or so.”

  Ray returned with Happy without incident. Tyee reported that the towing company owner had come by and said it was fine to stay there with the patrol car and body and that they could use the phone if they needed to. Happy seemed less than pleased to be so near a dead body, but he settled into a corner in the office and went to sleep.

  Somewhere around three in the morning two state patrol cars with three officers each showed up at the tow company building.

  “We were instructed to report to you, Mr. Pacheco, and do what you say.”

  “Two of you should stay here and make sure no one messes with any evidence. We’ll have forensic people in here by the morning. The rest of you should go to the sheriff’s department building and take charge. You’ll be acting on my authority to give out assignments and keep the department functioning. I hope that by tomorrow afternoon we’ll have a more developed plan about how to proceed, but our first duty is to make sure the citizens are assured that someone’s in charge.” Ray provided his contact information at the Inn and then he, Tyee, and Happy headed back to their rooms.

  When Ray got to his room he saw he had a message. “Ray, this is Tony. I flew up this evening. I know you’re busy, but I’d like to meet first thing in the morning for breakfast. I’m also staying at the Inn. If you can, let’s meet at about seven thirty in the main dining room. See you then.”

  Great, that was only a few hours away. Ray decided to lie down and try to get a couple hours sleep. He had been used to this kind of schedule once upon a time—it had happened a lot when he was Sheriff—but he was getting a little old to pull all-nighters.

  “Wow, Ray, you look like shit.”

  “Good morning to you too, Tony.”

  “Sorry, guess you had a long night?”

  “Yeah, there’s a real mess here. Martin Marino was acting out some mobster fantasy or something. The guy seemed to think he could run roughshod over almost everybody in the county and no one would do anything. And now he’s dead.”

  “I know Ray. I should have acted quicker. This is partially my fault—or fuck maybe it’s all my fault. I’m sorry.”

  “What’s going on, Tony?”

  “First, fill me in on what you think happened yesterday.”

  “Well, we’re a long way from knowing anything for sure. I’ll need the forensics and we’ll need to question witnesses and anyone we believe wanted Marino dead—which by the way is a very long list. At this point we know for sure that he was shot multiple times late last night while he was in his patrol car. Looks like he was shot through an open driver’s side window eight times in the head and neck with a small caliber hand gun—my guess would be a .22. We have yet to find anyone who heard a shot—the gun could have had a silencer, or with all of the noise inside the club I’m not sure that anyone could have heard a small caliber gun like a .22. Probably he was dead from the first shot. The other seven looked like someone with a lot of hate for Marino.”

  “If you hated him that much it’d seem like a shotgun would make more sense.”

  “Yeah, in a way. I’d guess the small gun was easy to hide. Also that size gun is often a woman’s weapon of choice. And of course, the smaller caliber makes a lot less noise than a 44 magnum or a shotgun, which probably would have alerted the whole town. I would also guess it was someone he knew. The window was down like he was talking to someone or getting ready to—there were no defensive wounds to his hands or arms from a struggle. We could speculate at this point that he was meeting someone at that location and rolled the window down as they walked up. Maybe they exchanged words or maybe not, but at some point the assailant pulled out the weapon and shot him in the face. Once again, I only had a brief look at the body, but my guess is that he was shot at very close range—almost point blank. Then the assailant quickly discharged the additional bullets and left. The whole exchange could have been only a few seconds.”

  “You said you had a long list of suspects.”

  “In a way almost everybody in town is a suspect. This guy was terrorizing the town—mostly the businesspeople, but he was making new enemies every day. Now, you tell me why this is your fault.”

  “I delayed taking action because of my wife. There’s a family connection with this bastard Marino. Her half-sister used to be married to him. I know we’ll need to talk about that at length—for right now let me say that it was a mistake for me to have delayed taking more decisive action to stop Marino. My wife can be difficult for me to deal with at times, and I guess I let her push me in the wrong direction. The governor has asked me to appoint you the special authority for Lincoln County with all
of the power and responsibility as you’d have as a sheriff. You’d have the title of sheriff, too, with an appointment for one month. After that the Governor would name someone for a longer term until a special election can be held. That’s legal, and I’ll have the papers filed in court in Santa Fe this morning. Ray, I know this isn’t what you signed up to do, but we need your help.”

  “Tony, I’ll do this because someone needs to be in charge immediately. I’ll only do it for one month, and it’ll be at my regular hourly rates including all of my support people. Also, I’ll only do this if I’m working directly for the Governor. Not sure what you’re trying to tell me about your wife, but there’s an issue here related to the slow response and I don’t want to be in the middle. I’ll follow the facts wherever they lead me. You and I have been friends for a lot of years and I want to stay friends, but if someone wasn’t doing what they should have done I won’t cover that up.”

  “Understood and agreed.”

  Tony seemed distant, like he was thinking about something else. Ray was concerned that his friend was involved in something that could cause him big problems. Ray said he had to go to start getting the department reorganized so that the normal operations of the sheriff’s office could resume. They said their goodbyes.

  Ray, Tyee, and Happy headed out to the Sheriff’s office. It was a quick drive. They pulled into a parking spot in front of the office and went in. Ray asked the young woman at the front desk to have everyone gather at the office as soon as possible. She told Ray that about half the deputies weren’t on duty due to the late night the night before. Ray thought about it, but decided that he needed everyone there. He told her to call them and have them show up, but they could be in civilian clothes and it’d only be for a meeting that’d probably last about thirty minutes. She began calling.

  It took a few hours to get everyone into the office. Ray could tell there were a lot of nervous people waiting to find out what was going to happen.

  “I know this isn’t what you want to be doing right now, but I think it’s important that you should be the first people who know what’s going on. As of this morning the governor has enacted, under his authority, a provision in state law that allows him to name a temporary sheriff for this county. That person is me. Some of you may know me, some not. I used to be the sheriff of Dona Ana County, so I have some idea about what needs to happen operationally. We’re hoping that Sheriff Rodriguez will recover quickly and return to duty. If that hasn’t happened within a month, the governor will call a special election to fill the sheriff’s position. We have joining us today state patrol officers, who will remain on duty here for a few days until we can get back to normal, and we have two patrol cars and officers from the Apache tribe here to also assist as well. I’ll be your boss for the next month. What has happened in the past will not affect your employment with this department unless you’re subject to an investigation based on your actions. I’m not sure what that means, but if there’s any sign that you participated in illegal activity, you’ll be relieved of duty. I know this could be difficult in that you’d feel you were only following orders, but no one will remain active on this force if there’s reason to believe they could be charged with a crime.”

  Ray paused to let them absorb what he was saying and how it might affect them. There was some murmuring, but nobody said a word.

  “Acting as my second in command will be Tyee Chino. You’ll obey orders from Mr. Chino as if they came from me. Our primary focus will be to investigate the death of Martin Marino and the claims that he was running a rogue operation out of the sheriff’s office, which included some kind of protection racket. This means that we will be talking to you about those activities. Some of you may feel you’ll need legal counsel—we encourage you to do that if you’re concerned. At some point we will have a better idea if any of you’d be subject to charges for what has happened—at that point you’ll be placed on paid leave until a special prosecutor can determine if you were complicit, or if you were forced into your actions. This is going to be very trying for everyone. I’ll start on a work schedule this morning that will incorporate the state patrol, and one unit each from the Dona Ana Sheriff’s Department and the Apache Tribe Police, so we can give many of you some time away from the job to be able to assess where you are and what you want to do. Please contact me or Mr. Chino if you have special requests or private concerns that you think we need to hear. For the time being we’ll try as best we can to return to some kind of normal operation. Thank you. For anyone not currently on duty, you may leave and we will contact you sometime today with a new schedule.”

  Most of the deputies left quickly. It was apparent that many of them were eager to get out of the building rather than discuss any matters related to the past.

  “What’s the second in command to the sheriff called?” Tyee seemed unfazed by his new duties.

  “Chief deputy.”

  “I think we may be approaching destiny territory.”

  “Yeah, I guess we could all see that coming—chief deputy.”

  “Does this mean I get a gun?”

  “No.”

  Visiting Kate

  A Month Prior—Miami, Florida

  “What do you mean the little shit stole from you? When? What the fuck did he steal? Jeez, I’m going to kill the bastard no matter what you say—you understand me?”

  “Dad, please, calm down. I don’t know when he took it—must have been before he ran off. The stuff isn’t worth anything, he just took it because he was pissed. I hadn’t even looked in that lock box since he left.”

  “What a bastard.”

  “I didn’t tell you this to make you mad. I’m over the guy. I was the one who made a mistake—you don’t need to be involved. I’ve grown up a lot since my insanity with Martin. It’s just that I know where he is and I want to contact my half-sister and see if she can help me get my stuff back.”

  “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “Dad, Martin is working as a deputy sheriff in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and Kate’s husband is the Attorney General for New Mexico.”

  “New Mexico? I thought the bastard had gone to Mexico—the country.”

  “No, not Mexico. Look, dad, I want you to agree to not interfere with this, okay? What he took has no value, except to me. It’s some things grandma left to me, and he took it just to be a shit. He may not even have them any longer—who knows? But if I can get them back without starting World War III, then I want to. The reason I’m telling you this is that I want to go to Santa Fe and ask Kate for her help—and I didn’t want you to go ballistic.”

  Lisa Collins loved her father. He was loud. And without question he was violent, although never with her. And was probably involved in the mob. She didn’t care—he was a great father. Her mother was a slut who married Ricardo Collins because he was rich and could provide the life she wanted. She didn’t believe her mother had ever loved her father, and on most days probably didn’t even like him. But Rick doted on his daughter. He was always kind, generous, and thoughtful to her, from the first time she could remember. Her mother was usually drunk from morning to night—yelling and demanding to be noticed. When Lisa was only four years old her mother drove her car into a bridge in a drunken stupor and ended her painful existence. From that moment on her father became her whole universe.

  It was about five years before that Lisa, in a teenage fit of rebellion, had started seeing Martin Marino. She did this to let her dad know that she was now a grown woman. She knew Martin worked for her dad and that that would drive her dad nuts. One thing led to another, and the more her father demanded that she stop seeing the little shit the more Lisa was attracted to the little shit. Reflecting back on that time now made Lisa a little sick—to think that she was ever involved with Martin Marino, the little shit. Teenage hormones have led to worse things, but her father seemed sure that this was the worst. In a fit of mindless rage at him she had run off with Martin and married him. Her father had go
ne completely berserk. It was clear that her dad was going to kill Martin and spread his parts from Miami to Jersey. Martin decided to leave town, so he stole money from Ricardo’s trucking business and left.

  Lisa reacted calmly, telling her dad that she now hated Martin and wanted a divorce or an annulment. She told her father that she must have been going through some kind of chemical imbalance to ever believe that she’d loved the creep. Rick made a strategic decision. All he cared about was having his daughter back. He put out word that as long as Martin stayed far away, he wouldn’t kill him. Both Lisa and her dad then forgot about the evil little man named Martin Marino.

  Then, about six months ago, Liza had been reminded that she and Martin had opened a private lock box at a storefront operation. Martin told her he’d inherited some money and needed a place to keep it, and he wasn’t sure he could arrange it himself because his driver’s license wasn’t valid due to some issue that he was in the process of straightening out. Most of the things Martin told her during their time together were bullshit—no doubt the money was some that he’d stolen from her dad. But at the time she’d been enamored of Martin’s rough ways, so she’d opened the lock box with his name added as a co-owner. She had some things her paternal grandmother had given her just before she died that she kept in a shoe box, so to show her faith in her new boyfriend she’d taken her stuff and put it in the shared lock box. When Martin left, she’d forgotten everything connected with him. The lock box fee was covered by a credit card that her dad paid for, so she never saw the bill. Then one day her dad’s bookkeeper had asked her if the charge was for her. She’d gone to the lock box store and found the box empty. The little bastard had not only taken the money, but also her worthless-but-priceless keepsakes. In that moment, all she’d wanted was to kill Martin Marino so he couldn’t continue to hurt people—but at that point she hadn’t known where he was.