by Don Bullis
―What are the ground rules here, Officer Budwister?‖
―The District Attorney's office agreed to immunity,‖ Herman said, ―if your client speaks to us truthfully about the crimes committed at Budville, New Mexico, on November 18, 1967; that is if we believe the information he gives us has investigative value. Mr. Sipe must also agree to testify in court, truthfully, in support of what he tells us.‖
―And the alternative?‖
―We'll go to the wall. We're talking about two murders here, Miss Baca. Don Wilcoxson, as you probably know, won't tip-toe through the magnolias with anyone associated with this crime.‖
―The offer is complete immunity from prosecution on any and all charges currently pending against David Lawrence Sipe. Correct?‖
―That's what I understand from what Wilcoxson told me.‖
―And complete immunity from prosecution for my client on any charges associated with the Budville robbery and murders?‖
―That's my understanding. As long as he's truthful and forthright with us.‖
―I'll accept your word, officer Budwister, and Don Wilcoxson's. I‘ve advised my client to make himself useful to you. I told Mr. Sipe to be completely candid since nothing he says can be used against him. I also instructed him that if he is not truthful, all charges can be reinstated at any time. Unfortunately, I have another matter to attend to, so I won't be able to stay. Ta ta, David,‖ she said with a sneer in her voice. ―Don't call me again.‖ The young woman closed the door quietly behind her.
―I see you've made another convert to your warm affectionate nature and charm, there Dave. What'd you do? Offer to screw her brains out in your cell?‖
―What I offered her is eight solid inches of what every woman dreams of. Shame she‘s a cold bitch.‖
―And you as generous as you are, too.‖
―I bet I get laid more than you do, pig. What do you guys want from me?‖
―Up to you,‖ Herman said. ―You gonna cooperate with us, or do I put your ass back in a cell?‖
―I'll cooperate. You guys got me by the old scrote. But I don't have to like doin' it.‖
―Let me tell you about that,‖ Doc said, standing and rolling up his shirtsleeves. ―It cost me twenty bucks to get my hat blocked back into shape, and it still ain't like it used to be. Never will be. Now, I'm gonna be real nice to you as long as you're tellin' us what we need to know. Just as soon as that changes, I'm gonna take that twenty dollar bill out of your hide, and enough besides that to buy me a new hat.‖
Some of the cockiness went out of Sipe's tone of voice. ―Ok. What do you guys want from me?‖
―Just jump in, Davy boy. Tell us what you know about the murders of Bud Rice and Blanche Brown. Start at the beginning.‖
―I don't know too much. Can I get somethin‘ to drink? A Coke or somethin‘? I wasn't there, you know? I wasn‘t nowhere near the place. Never have been there in my whole life. Budville.‖
Doc nodded to a uniformed officer standing near the door.
―It was, like, two, maybe three days before the job went down. Over at Stirling's apartment. Joe Peters was there for a while, and so was Joe Cato. Peters left and I don't know where Cato went and I talked to Stirling. He said he paid Joe two yards for the Budville score. He said the job was good for ten large and he asked if I wanted to help him with it. I told him I didn't want nothing to do with it.‖
―Which Joe‘d he pay the two hundred to?‖ Herman asked.
―Oh. Joe Peters. He was supposed to furnish Stirling with a car, too, but I never did see any car. Later the same night Stirling drove out to Budville. I saw him the next day and he told me he couldn't find the place. He said he was goin' back. I left his apartment and went up to my mother's house for the night.‖
―You still live with your mama, full time, Davy?‖ Doc asked.
―Yeah. So what?‖
―Nothin‘. Just makes for a hell of a cover, don't it?‖
―Yeah, well, it's none of your goddamn....‖
―Let's get the days straight here,‖ Herman interrupted. ―You're sayin‘ Stirling went out to Budville on Friday and couldn't find the place. Then he went back on Saturday, the eighteenth, and did the robbery and the killings. Right?‖
―Yeah. Right. Friday and Saturday. Sunday morning I went to pick up Cato so we could go down to the Old Lib and get a beer. We heard the news on the car radio about the Budville deal. Joe wanted to go over to the apartment on Chama. I was a little bit leery about it because I didn't know what he might think after he'd approached me to help him on the job and I didn't go.‖
―This was Sunday morning, the nineteenth of November. Correct? And you are talking about Joe Cato, not Joe Peters.‖
―Cato. Yeah. We got to the apartment and I noticed some clothes that had blood on them soaking in the bathtub. There was also a big jar with a bunch of loose coins in it and blood on it. We asked Stirling what happened. He said he had to wipe out a couple people.‖
―Let's be clear on this, Dave," Budwister said. ―On the morning of November nineteenth, Billy Ray Stirling, AKA Billy Ray White, said to you that he wiped out a couple people, and it‘s your understanding that he did so during an armed robbery at Budville, New Mexico, the night before? That right?‖
―Yeah. Later on, Billy took the clothes out of the tub and cut them up with razor blades and put them in the garbage can out back. Then that afternoon, me and Cato and Stirling was riding around in broad daylight. I drove down in the South Valley and up to a pile of dirt along an irrigation ditch. Stirling and Joe got down and walked off with the gun. When they came back, they didn't have it. Then I dropped off Cato at his place and we went back to Stirling's place.‖
―So,‖ Doc said, well aware that Cato‘d already led officers to the gun, ―you can take us to where the gun was throwed into the river.‖
―I think so. I know the area. It's an irrigation ditch. Off Fourth Street. Not the river. I don't want you guys bitchin' and claiming I told you the wrong place.‖
―Ok. Then what happened?‖
―Billy said he wanted to go to Oklahoma. To Oklahoma City. So I took him. On the way over, he bought me a couple tanks of gas.‖
―You went to Oklahoma City in that damn old piece of junk pickup you got?‖ Doc asked.
―Hell no. I got me a car, too. A 1959 Ford Fairlane 500. Real nice car. I drove it. I just drive my pickup around here.‖
―Ok, go ahead.‖
―We went to a place called the Silk Hat Bar, I think it was. Later, I spent the night with some whore and then I drove back over here the next day, alone. I ain‘t seen Billy Stirling since.‖
―Did Billy seem to know anyone in particular at this bar? What'd you call it? The Top Hat?‖ Doc asked.
―The Silk Hat. Yeah, well there was one guy in a booth that Billy seemed to know. He sat down with him and they was talking real... you know, like whispering, like something was real secret. I didn't pay too much attention because the place was lousy with whores. There must of been a dozen of them. All colors and sizes, man. There was this one nigger bitch that had chichis on her like basketballs. I was a lot more interested in gettin‘ my rope yanked than payin‘ any attention to what Billy was doin‘.‖
―You're all class, Davy-boy,‖ Budwister said.
―Where was Joe Peters all this time?‖ Doc asked.
―I don't know. Billy said something about him picking up the car and not reporting it, but I never saw him that day. I guess he stayed away because he set the deal up, you know, and it went bad and all. He probably didn't want to see Billy, and besides, there wasn't any ten percent to be made on the deal.‖
―What ten percent?‖ Doc asked. ―What's that all about?‖
―Peters was gonna get ten percent of whatever Billy got. It was part of the deal. Over and above the two yards he paid for the score.‖
―You know, Davy,‖ Budwister said, ―you‘re a real sweetheart of a human bein‘. You knew about the robbery deal from
the beginning. You had the same information Billy Stirling had. How do we know you're not the one that did the crimes? How do we know you didn't dream all this up to point the finger at Stirling?‖
―You're a jerk, Budweiser. If you had any evidence that I shot anybody, you wouldn't be doin‘ this soft shoe routine.‖
―When you're right, Davy-boy, you're right, but you are none-theless a maggot. A lousy, two-bit, heist turns into two murders, one of them of an old, old, lady, and what do you do? You help the killer get rid of the gun, harbor him, and then help him get away. It don't matter. You're as guilty as the son-of-a-bitch that pulled the trigger.‖
―Yeah? So what? We got a deal. I told you the story. You cut me loose.‖
―I'm a man of my word, Davy-boy, and I'll cut you loose, but you best remember that deal. You have to be available to corroborate the information you gave us. Besides that, you agreed to testify, and that means preliminary hearing and grand jury as well as district court. If, at any time, we can't find you, for any reason at all, we'll assume that you are no longer a cooperating witness and no longer willing to live up to your end of the bargain. In that case, we'll just get a warrant and reinstate the previous charges, and the next time there won't be a deal. I doubt Sharon Baca will have much interest in helpin‘ you out.‖
―Are you sayin'...?‖
―What I'm sayin', Davy-boy, is that if you try and screw with me, I'll turn the whole thing over to old Doc here. You haven't had your ass kicked until you've had it done by a state cop. They're professionals at it. They even teach it in their academy. Then I‘ll throw your sorry ass back in jail. For a long time.‖
―OK, Budweiser. Don't worry. I'll be around.‖
―My name is Budwister. The next time you make a mistake with it, I‘ll personally put some big lumps on your head. Then I'll turn you over to Doc.‖
CHAPTER XI
Mat Torrez and Karen McBride met for margaritas at Sadie's on North Fourth Street in Albuquerque on Valentine's day, February 14. They hadn't been together for more than a month. Mat could not avoid spending most of his time in Española, Tierra Amarilla and northern New Mexico working on both the courthouse raid and Eulogio Salazar murder cases.
―So, my captain, how goes the war against society's criminal element. You locking up the bad guys?‖
―My dear gringa, crime and criminals are not something I wanted to talk about tonight, but I must say the last few months have been about as frustrating as any time since I joined the State Police.‖
―I thought you said things would be a little better when you got that one deputy chief off your back.‖
―Oh, that part's true. I get along with Marty Vigil, but Scarberry is still after one of my agents, and that gets to be a pain in the behind. But Chief Black made a mistake when he announced to the press that we would catch Eulogio Salazar's killer. Maybe you saw the headline in the Journal.‖
―I saw it.‖
―Well, we do not have the killers, and we probably will not ever have them, either. That‘s the frustrating part. Those people up there in the north just will not talk to us about the murder. They know. Every man, woman, and child who's family has lived in Rio Arriba County for more than one generation knows exactly who beat Eulogio Salazar to death with a gun butt.‖
―I don't understand. I mean, it's not like you're some Anglo outsider interfering in their business. You're one of them, and the police, too. Don't they want the crime solved?‖
―I am not one of them. Those people have lived in those mountain villages for generations, some of them going back to the seventeenth century. I can trace my family back only to the administration of Gubernador Fernando Chacón in Nuevo Méjico, which would coincide roughly with the administration of George Washington in the English colonies. Besides, my family roots are right here in Albuquerque. As far as solving the crime is concerned, they believe everything will eventually be taken care of, and justice will be served, and they do not need the New Mexico State Police to be involved.‖
―What about the murders of Bud and Miss Brown?‖
―You are making me look bad, my love. Two major cases and I can't seem to solve either one of them. What must you think of me as a policeman?‖
―It's not as a policeman that I most often think of you, but I am curious about two killings that took place a hundred yards from my bedroom window.‖
―I have an agent working on the case full time. A good officer. The problem is that we wasted too much time with Larry Bunting. The rule in homicide investigations is that an arrest be made in twentyfour to forty-eight hours, and the longer it goes after that, the better the chances it will never be solved. Witnesses disappear and those that don‘t tend to forget specific details. The victims are in the ground, out of sight and out of mind. Cases like that take a lower and lower priority as time goes by. Doc is working the case, but it's difficult. I personally don‘t have much hope of success.‖
―Do you remember grandma telling you about the sailor being in the bar on the afternoon of the murders? With his wife?‖
―I remember.‖
―She didn't lie, but it was much earlier in the day than she said. Closer to noon. They ate a junk food lunch: potato chips, beef jerky, pastrami sticks, beer and orange soda.‖ Karen selected her words carefully. ―I guess everyone, grandma included, wants to be involved in the real case, with the real killer. That's why she wanted to tell you about the sailor. But there was another stranger in the bar. Later in the day. In fact, it was close to seven thirty, from what she told me.‖
―Tell me more.‖
―You know how if you sit at the end of the bar you can see the trading post out the window? Well, he sat there, and he had a shot of whiskey and a beer, and he stared out the window. Grandma said she had other customers and didn‘t pay too much attention, but she glanced out the window and saw a police car go by, going towards Grants. Then this guy just got up and left.‖
―Grandma McBride told me that the sailor looked like the picture one of my agents showed her the day after the murders,‖ Mat said. ―Did this guy look like the picture?‖
―She said he didn‘t. That‘s another reason she never mentioned him to you.‖
―That‘s very interesting. Did grandma see where he went, or what he was driving?‖
―I guess not.‖
―Thank you, mi querida. I‘ll pass it along. Every little bit helps us, but there are other things I would like for us to talk about.‖
―Is sex a part of it?‖
―Of course it is.‖
―Ok. Then I'll listen.‖
―But first, we should talk about Nita. We need to get over that hurdle. She is my daughter and I don't want to ignore the problem. But I am going to be busy up north for at least another month. When is grandma McBride moving back to Albuquerque?‖
―Two weeks. Three at the most.‖
―Ok. Let's put off the hard decisions until then. Maybe things will be clearer to all of us. In the meantime, would you, Miss McBride, care to join me in a room at the Beach Motel on Central Avenue, adjacent to Tingley Park?‖
―Tingley Park is so gauche, especially when compared to Villa de Cubero and Gunn's Motel, but yes, my captain, I would.‖
CHAPTER XII
Wilcoxson approved affidavits prepared by Spurlock and Budwister. On March 6, 1968, Judge Paul Tackett signed warrants for the arrests of Billy Ray White and Joe Peters.
―What I need to know,‖ Wilcoxson said to Spurlock and Budwister, ―is if you guys can provide me with solid information that White and Peters have fled this jurisdiction. If you can, I'll hand-carry this warrant over to the Federal Building and personally give it to Dwayne Madison at the FBI. We'll get these assholes on illegal flight to avoid prosecution.‖
―Sipe says he personally took White to Oklahoma City on the night of the 19th of November,‖ Doc said. ―No one's seen him since. Cato said Peters ain't around and he heard he went to New Orleans. The bartender at the Liberty
Bar hasn't seen Peters for a month or more. That good enough?‖
―I think it'll do, especially the bartender‘s observation. One of you guys check with Peters' parole officer and see who he lists for relatives, and where they are. Maybe we can get a lead on him that way. Check with the Feds on White, too. There may be something in his file.‖
The hunt for Joe Peters turned out to be short and successful. Doc learned from prison records that Joe had an uncle in Santa Monica, California, and Dwayne Madison quickly forwarded a copy of the warrant to the FBI field office in Los Angeles. Agents arrested Joe at the uncle‘s house on Friday, March 15th. Joe offered no resistance.
Phone lines between Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and points west, were busy on Monday morning, March 18th. Wilcoxson, anxious to get Peters back to New Mexico, called his counterpart in Los Angeles and learned that Peters would not fight extradition. Wilcoxson then called Torrez and apprised him of the situation. Torrez called Deputy Chief Marty Vigil to tell him Doc would be taking his state car to California to extradite Peters. Torrez then called Spurlock and advised him of his new assignment, the trip to California. Doc suggested that Virgil Vee accompany him, but the Captain suggested, in the interest of spreading manpower costs around, that Budwister make the trip. Doc called Herm, who then called his boss, Chief Paul Shaver, who called Vigil to confirm the arrangements. Shaver then called Budwister back, and he in turn called Doc, and Doc called Torrez to let him know the arrangements were complete. Doc also called Wilcoxson and arranged to pick up the paperwork necessary to get Peters out of the Los Angeles County jail. Wilcoxson called the Los Angeles ADA back and told him New Mexico officers would take custody of Peters within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Doc and Herm were westbound on I-40 by early afternoon, headed toward Los Angeles, eight hundred and twenty miles away.
A joy of police work is professional courtesy. Spurlock and Budwister cruised along at eighty-five miles per hour without a care in the world. They spent the night at a motel in Williams, Arizona, and continued on toward Los Angeles at mid-morning Tuesday.
