Bloodville

by Don Bullis

  ―Who done it, Flossie?‖ McGee said gently. ―Who killed ‗em?‖

  She gripped her husband's hand tightly in both of hers. ―I never seen him before, Troy. I thought he'd kill me too. He pointed that gun right at me and he poked me with it too. Just kept poking me.‖

  ―What'd he look like?‖

  ―I don't know. Bud fought him.‖ She tilted her head and looked wistfully at her dead husband, her long face ashen and down at its corners, a look of grief in her gray, uncrying, eyes. She looked up at Troy. ―His shirt was ripped open. Bud did that, I guess. I seen a mark on his belly, like a tattoo. Like a bird, maybe. He had on a black jacket.‖

  McGee stood. ―Bobby, get on the car radio and call Gallup. Tell 'em we need ambulances and all the back-up they can find and get us some criminal agents out here. Check on them 10-72s I requested. Tell ‗em to watch for a guy in a black jacket with a torn shirt and a tattoo on his belly. Posey, you guard the crime scene. I don't want nobody to touch nothing 'til the criminal agents get here. Nobody! Got that?‖

  Posey nodded, not at all sure what McGee expected of him.

  McGee took Flossie firmly by the elbow and helped her stand. ―Let's go outside. Get some fresh air.‖ She held back, reluctant to leave. ―Come on Flossie. There isn't nothing you can do in here and we need to make sure nothing's disturbed. Maybe it'll help catch whoever done it.‖

  She stood slowly. ―Bud was a tough guy, Troy, and you know it too. He fought all his life. This time he got killed for it. But Miss Brown. Why shoot her? She never hurt a soul in her life. It don't make no sense, Troy. No sense at all.‖

  Word of the Budville murders spread quickly to law enforcement people all over northwestern New Mexico. Valencia County Sheriff Jack Elkins heard Debbie Smith‘s hysterical broadcast as he scanned radio channels and he soon hurried along State Road 6 on his way to the scene, fifty miles west of the county seat at Los Lunas.

  The Sheriff had made the same trip under similar circumstances only three months before, on the night Decillano ―Speedy‖ Montaño died in the dirt, shot to pieces from ambush near the village of Cubero. Elkins had a suspect in custody, but not much would likely come of it. A nasty business, Elkins thought, but ol‘ Speedy was the local bully and he probably had it coming. The murder rate in and around Budville seemed on the rise.

  Troy McGee‘s supervisor, Sergeant Al North, and District Attorney's investigator Jim Mitchell sat drinking coffee in the Franciscan Cafe in Grants when North got word of the murders and a request for roadblocks by way of a phone call from Debbie Smith. North took the time to call his boss, Lieutenant Morris Candelaria in Gallup, before he and Mitchell set out for Budville at a high rate of speed.

  Candelaria called Debbie Smith and ordered her to order roadblocks on major roads. Then he called his boss, the deputy chief of the State Police, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Scarberry at his home near Santa Fe. Candelaria despised the deputy chief almost as much as he hated his job as commander of the Gallup State Police district. He correctly blamed Scarberry for the assignment. Candelaria called the deputy chief ―Old Gooseberry‖ behind his back. Even so, he did his job. No one could accuse Morris Candelaria of allowing personal feelings to interfere with professional obligation.

  Chief Scarberry called the Special Operations Unit duty sergeant and ordered the State Police helicopter readied for a flight to Budville. Then he called Captain Mateo ―Mat‖ Torrez, commander of the State Police Criminal Investigations Division at his home in Albuquerque. ―Torrez,‖ he shouted into the mouthpiece, ―Bud Rice got shot a little while ago. Murdered! I want every son-of-a-bitch in the State Police workin‘ on it and I won't rest ‗til I see the bastard that done it dead or in jail. Preferably dead. You got that? And I want every swingin‘ dick agent in Criminal, Narcotics, Special Investigations and Intelligence, and every uniform in Gallup, Grants, Santa Fe and Albuquerque workin‘ on it. All leave and days off is canceled! You understand me, Torrez? And I want to see your brown ass in Budville in an hour.‖ He slammed down the phone without waiting for comment.

  Mat Torrez, half asleep, had not said a word after ―hello.‖ Scarberry brooded over the news. Tears wet his cheeks and his breath caught in his chest as he dressed in his headquarters command uniform. The Deputy Chief never in his life had a better friend than Bud Rice and it grieved him to know he‘d never talk to the man again. He‘d miss sharing mutual contempt for lesser men and tourists with old Bud, miss splitting a pint bottle of bourbon and getting drunk in the old garage out back of the trading post while Bud‘s pit bulls romped in the dirt nearby. He thought about Flossie, fondly, and wondered if she was all right. Candelaria hadn't said. The deputy chief's mind raced. Who‘d do it? And how? A hell of a lot of people didn‘t like Bud—hated his guts, truth be told—but Bud kept a gun handy and viewed strangers with a wary eye. Robbery? Bud would fight back. He wouldn't give up a nickel without a struggle. But what if it was something else? Bud, Scarberry remembered, had testified for the FBI in a narcotics trafficking trial in Texas only a week before. Or what if some Indian with a snootful of Twister went on the warpath? He remembered a time fifteen years before when State Police officer Nash Garcia died under circumstances just like that, ambushed and shot by drunk Acoma Indians. It didn't seem possible that a tough old hide like Bud Rice could be murdered, shot down like any ordinary man. As Deputy Chief, Scarberry would take personal command and bring the matter to a rapid conclusion. Nobody could kill a friend of his, and a friend of the New Mexico State Police, and get away with it. He vowed to himself that he‘d do whatever it took to avenge the untimely passing of Bud Rice.

  The State Police helicopter landed on the Cubero Elementary School playground, a mile from Budville, in a circle of light made by the headlamps of eight police cars. The pilot‘s log read 2200 hours.

  CHAPTER II

  Most local folks didn‘t consider Budville a town. A wide place in the Old Road, they said, named by Bud Rice for himself thirty years earlier. Fewer than two dozen people lived there, in ten buildings of various size, shape and purpose. A few tourists stopped each day to patronize local business houses: Rice‘s Trading Post, Scottie's Restaurant, Dixie‘s Place and Joe Garcia‘s King Cafe & Bar. Indians from the Laguna and Acoma Reservations did business with saloon keepers in Budville but they did their trading at Cubero or Los Cerritos. Few travelers or Indians paid much attention to Budville‘s two churches.

  After the Rice/Brown murders, Joe Garcia called the place Bloodville.

  By ten o‘clock on the night Bud Rice and Blanche Brown died, more than fifty police officers congregated in Budville. Assigned to various tasks, some soon left the little town, emergency lights flashing and sirens screaming as yet others arrived. Most wore the black and gray uniforms of the New Mexico State Police, but deputy sheriffs in brown uniforms and Grants city and Indian tribal police officers in blue came and went, too. Police cars lined both sides of the Old Road for a hundred yards in either direction. Most unassigned officers milled around in front of the trading post awaiting orders from someone to do something. Well supplied with coffee from Scottie's Cafe, they didn't seem to notice the chill of the clear November night as they shuffled, gossiped, muttered and spat into the gravel.

  Dr. Basil Wang, the coroner from Grants, declared Bud Rice and Blanche Brown officially dead at 10:20 p.m.

  State Police Criminal Agent Jim Bob ―Doc‖ Spurlock arrived from Gallup in time to see the bodies loaded into the back of a undertaker's hearse. Doc walked over to Captain Mat Torrez, his boss, as the black Cadillac drove away.

  ―Evenin‘, Cap. I hope them bodies is on the way to the morgue and not some embalmin‘ parlor,‖ Spurlock said.

  Torrez liked Spurlock and well knew the agent‘s record as a firstrate criminal investigator. ―They are. Indian Hospital in Albuquerque. We couldn't get an ambulance to come all the way out here just for two dead bodies.‖

  ―Figures,‖ Doc said. ―IDs?‖

  Torrez looked at his clipboard. �
��Rice, Howard Neil, AKA Bud, white male American, born January 17, 1913, age 54. Brown, Blanche, white female American, born December 22, 1885, age 82. Both shot. Motive appears to be robbery.‖

  ―What's the drill, Cap?‖

  ―You're case agent. Virgil Vee will help you with the crime scene as soon as he gets here, and I‘ll keep him on the case with you as long as I can.‖

  ―Suits me. Who already went inside there and screwed up the evidence?‖ Doc rubbed his hands to warm them against the cold which had dropped to near freezing.

  ―Let me see,‖ the captain said as he flipped over several pages on his clipboard, ―McGee, Gutierrez and Posey were here first. Colonel Scarberry. Sergeant Al North. D. A. investigator Jim Mitchell. Basil Wang. Hearse driver and his helper. Me. Flossie Rice. The housekeeper. Maybe a half-dozen other uniforms. Fifteen. Maybe twenty.‖

  ―Mighty well protected crime scene, ain't it?‖

  The captain rolled his eyes toward heaven. ―You know how it goes, Doc. Everybody wanted a look. Do the best you can. Colonel Scarberry‘s here. He‘s being a real cabróne. He‘s running around here somewhere with tears in his eyes and ranting like un loco. You‘d think Bud Rice was his first born son.‖

  Charles Scarberry, at age forty-four, had more than twenty years behind him in a New Mexico State Police uniform. He'd played the politics and done department dirty tricks necessary to move up through the ranks at a steady pace. Mat Torrez well remembered the deal Scarberry worked with former Chief John Bradford five years before to get himself transferred to headquarters and promoted to captain over several lieutenants with more seniority and better training. The deal was simple: as a captain in Santa Fe, Scarberry'd be in a position to pressure several subordinate officers Bradford considered enemies—Lieutenants Mat Torrez and Mo Candelaria among them— into leaving the department, without Bradford soiling his hands. Bradford also knew that if he didn't promote Scarberry, he‘d create a formidable political enemy, one who seemed to move well in both major parties. As a captain, Scarberry made the professional lives of Torrez and Candelaria miserable. He couldn't make them quit but a half dozen other officers found new employment. As a reward, Bradford, just before he retired, promoted Scarberry to deputy chief.

  Scarberry‘d hoped for the chief's slot when the new governor, Dave Cargo, took his oath of office in January of 1967. His personal support for the Republican candidate was obvious to all. The deputy chief openly handled special errands for Cargo during the campaign and no high-ranking State Police commander minded that he used state owned cars and police personnel to do it. But Captain Sam Black, a bespectacled, cigar-smoking veteran of twenty-five years service, got the job instead and Scarberry got the consolation prize: he kept his position as deputy chief. It was better, Scarberry reasoned, than a bullet in the ass, but not much, especially since Black's new organization plan included the promotion of Mateo Torrez to captain.

  One year older than Scarberry, Mat Torrez looked ten years younger. No gray streaked the captain‘s ample head of jet-black hair. His well-cut conservative suits fit his lean body comfortably and the captain carried about him an air of quiet authority and confidence. Consistently fair and even-handed, his subordinates in the Criminal Division liked and respected him. Scarberry would have put Torrez in uniform and sent him to the Tucumcari District but Sam Black wouldn‘t allow it and Scarberry knew better than to take on the chief—and the governor by extension—over a personnel matter.

  Lt. Morris Candelaria and Criminal Agent Doc Spurlock weren't so lucky. Scarberry assigned them to Gallup, considered by many officers the Siberia of the New Mexico State Police. In Candelaria's case, Scarberry considered the transfer a matter of self-preservation. The ambitious young lieutenant had a large family and good political connections in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and the deputy chief wanted him out of sight and out of mind.

  With Doc Spurlock it was a matter of personalities. Scarberry didn't like Doc, didn't like the way the agent dressed in western attire, high-heeled boots and Stetson hat. It annoyed the deputy chief that he couldn't find a regulation that forbade such clothing. ―Phony-baloney cowboy shit,‖ Scarberry called it one day in conversation with Chief Sam Black. ―He wants to dress like that, he should get in the movies.‖

  ―It ain't phony with Doc,‖ Black said. ―The boy‘s for real. Born and raised on a ranch down by Roswell. Rodeo bull rider.‖

  ―Bull rider. Bullshit. There ain‘t no real cowboys left.‖ Scarberry, born and raised in New York City, believed what he said. He tried to put Spurlock, a ten-year veteran back into uniform in Gallup but Captain Mat Torrez, by way of Chief Sam Black, was able to keep Spurlock assigned to the Criminal Division. It still amounted to half a victory for Scarberry. Spurlock—and his wife Patsy—very much craved assignment to a duty station closer to home: Roswell, Hobbs or Carlsbad. Gallup was about as far away from home as the deputy chief could assign him. The three-hundred and fifty odd road miles between Gallup and Roswell were enough to require that Doc take annual leave when he visited his parents or in-laws. Department rules forbade officers being more than two-hundred miles from duty stations on days off.

  At about ten-thirty on the night of the murders, Scarberry stepped out the front door of the Budville Trading Post and looked around the parking lot as he pulled on his gray trimmed black uniform coat. All conversation stopped as police officers of all kinds waited to hear what he‘d say. The deputy chief's eyes fell on the captain in charge of the Criminal Division.

  ―Torrez! Front and center!‖

  Captain Torrez clapped Spurlock on the shoulder and took ten steps to face the deputy chief. ―Yes, Chief.‖

  ―Roadblocks up?‖ Scarberry demanded.

  ―Roadblocks backing up roadblocks.‖

  ―Where are they?‖ At six feet two inches tall, two hundred twenty pounds and uniformed with gold braid on his cap‘s black visor and silver oak leaves on both his gray shirt collars and coat epaulets, Scarberry made an imposing figure. His puffy cheeks and eyes were noticeable even in the shadow cast over his face by the visored cap he wore in the military manner: two fingers off the nose. The cap covered a mostly bald head. His coat remained open because he couldn't close and button it over his ample belly and holstered gun.

  The captain looked at his clipboard and ticked off roadblock locations as if reading a laundry list:

  ―Route 66 west at the Chief Rancho Motel; I-40 a mile east of Grants;

  I-40 a mile east of Gallup at Rehoboth; I-40 at Nine Mile Hill west of Albuquerque;

  U. S. 85 just north of Socorro at Escondido;

  State Road 6 between Wild Horse Mesa and Los Lunas; State Road 117 at Paso Angostura;

  The Zuñi tribal cops are set up on Route 53 at the Fence Lake Road turnoff. If we got them up in time, the killer can‘t get out of the area in an automobile.‖

  ―Tribal cops,‖ Scarberry said scornfully. ―It's a damn good thing the killer‘d have to get past a couple of our roadblocks first. Tribal cops'd never grab the guy. What about up north?‖ Scarberry had served nearly seven years on patrol in the Budville area. He knew the answer to the question before he asked it.

  Torrez spread a map on the hood of a police car. ―There is no road north that goes anywhere except up on Mt. Taylor or into Indian land. None of them runs through to anywhere except for the old dirt road to Moquino northeast from the Seboyetta-Laguna Road and it‘s in bad shape, washed out in a couple of places. Jack Elkins said so. The sheriff has a car up there at Bibo watching anyway. We have notified District Ten in Farmington and the San Juan County Sheriff's office. Rio Arriba and McKinley County sheriffs have been notified, too.‖

  ―Sheriffs!‖ Scarberry nearly shouted and then looked around until he spotted Jack Elkins talking to the DA‘s investigator, Jim Mitchell. The deputy chief turned his back toward Sheriff Elkins and took Torrez by the arm and led him in the opposite direction. ―What the hell‘s the matter with you? I don't want no beer-guzzlin', dumb-ass deputy like Lupe Soto
watchin‘ that Moquino Road. We ain't countin' on sheriffs or Indians for nothin‘. You understand me? You get one of our units up there to watch the Moquino Road and one down to Zuñi, too. I want this guy caught.‖

  ―Yes sir.‖

  ―What about south? What about that road from Acoma down to Pie Town?‖

  Torrez looked through some notes on the clipboard. ―That's a Forest Service road but it‘s maintained by the Acoma Tribe. It's washed out between the Brushy Mountain fire tower and Little Cibolla Springs, right at the bottom of the escarpment.‖

  ―How do you know?‖

  ―Indian cops said so.‖

  ―How the hell do they know?‖

  ―Damn, Chief. It‘s their territory. They should know.‖ ―Don't get smart with me, Captain. They‘re Indians. Get one of our

  cars down there. You got anyone canvassing the bars up and down the Old Road yet?‖

  ―I'm waiting for more criminal agents.‖

  ―Hell with that. You get these uniformed guys movin‘. They ain't doin‘ nobody no good standing around scratching their balls, fartin‘ and suckin‘ on cigarettes. I want a license plate number off every car in every bar parking lot between Albuquerque and Gallup. I want a statement from every drunk in every bar, and every bartender, too. What about airplanes?‖

  ―Troy McGee‘s got a couple of buddies in Grants with planes. They‘ll be up at first light.‖

  ―Who's gonna handle the case?‖

  ―Spurlock will be case agent. Virgil Vee will help him out.‖ ―You handle it. Personally.‖

  ―Chief, there is still the matter of Reyes López Tijerina and the

  Tierra Amarillo raid. I have my hands full. We‘ve got witnesses to locate and interview. The DA in Santa Fe wants a better case than we‘ve built so far.‖

  Chief Black had personally assigned Torrez to investigate the Tierra Amarillo courthouse raid, an incident in which State Police officer Nick Saiz and jailer Eulogio Salazar were shot and wounded when twenty members of the so-called Alianza Federal de los Mercedes, led by Reyes Tijerina, attempted to take over the Rio Arriba County court house the previous June. No one was killed but hundreds of shots were fired and a newsman kidnapped. Governor Dave Cargo had activated the National Guard. The governor and the press would both love to hear that the courthouse raid investigation had been dropped in favor of the Bud Rice killing.