The Big Gamble (32 page)

“There’s no telling,” Kerney said as he handed out material on Sally Greer, Stacy Fowler, and Helen Pearson, who was described only as a confidential informant. “But discovering who their clients are will prove interesting. What I’ve just given you includes statements from three different women with personal knowledge about the operation, which has direct bearing on the Montoya case and Deputy Istee’s homicide investigation. This is fresh information, gentlemen, gathered in the last thirty-six hours. You’ll get full task-force packets as soon as they’re completed.”

Kerney watched as Hewitt and Clayton worked their way through the reports. The further Hewitt read, the more appalled he looked. Clayton seemed thoughtful and sober. He finished first.

“So Sally Greer was the woman with Ulibarri at the cabin,” Clayton said, “and Fidel Narvaiz was nearby to keep an eye on her because Ulibarri was her first trick.”

“That’s what Greer says,” Kerney replied.

“Did she witness the homicide?”

“No. Ulibarri paid in advance for twenty-four hours with Greer. When he went to the racetrack, Narvaiz checked on Greer and found her badly beaten. He got her out of there, took her to a motel room, and called Cassie Bedlow, who came and picked Greer up.”

“I don’t see that in these reports,” Clayton said, tapping the pages with a finger.

“Greer’s interviews were videotaped by APD vice officers,” Kerney said. “The transcription of the second session wasn’t completed by the time I left to come here. Greer did say, however, that Narvaiz left her with Bedlow at about eleven o’clock in the morning.”

“Ulibarri was killed several hours later,” Clayton said, “so Narvaiz had opportunity.”

“What do you know about him?” Kerney asked.

“He lives on the Rojas estate and supposedly serves as a personal assistant to Rojas. The Debbie that Greer mentioned is Deborah Shea. According to an El Paso hotel security guy, she’s a hooker. He also identified seven other prostitutes who probably work for Rojas. Initially, Shea alibied Rojas when I talked to both of them. Said she’d flown up to Ruidoso with him on his plane. Turns out that was BS.”

“Tell me about it,” Kerney said.

Clayton filled Kerney in on his inspection of Rojas’s vacation cabin, which had exposed Shea’s false statements.

Impressed with Clayton’s good work, Kerney held back any praise and moved on to another subject. “And this Fidel Narvaiz, have you questioned him?”

“I’ve never met him,” Clayton said.

“That’s good,” Kerney said.

“What’s good about that?” Clayton asked. “At this point, he’s our prime murder suspect.”

“We need to work these cases without tipping our hand,” Kerney replied. “Narvaiz was most likely ordered to kill Ulibarri by Rojas, so putting a murder charge on Rojas is a distinct possibility, if we can prove it. Did you get any hard physical evidence at the crime scene?”

“Ulibarri was strangled,” Clayton said, “and we got some partial latents off the body around his throat that are good enough to make a match once we have something to match them to. And a few blond pubic hairs probably left behind by Sally Greer.”

“Those hairs can confirm Greer’s story,” Kerney said. “Let’s ask for a DNA comparison.”

“If you get me her fingerprints,” Clayton said, “we might be able to put her in the cabin that way, also. We lifted a number of unknown latents at the crime scene.”

“You’ll have them today,” Kerney said.

“You’re sure Greer isn’t the killer?” Clayton asked.

“I believe her story,” Kerney said. “So do the detectives who interviewed her.”

Clayton nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

“What’s next?” Hewitt asked.

“The Montoya case,” Kerney replied. “I’ve got strong circumstantial evidence that Norvell killed her to keep her from exposing the racket, but I need more.”

“Two of your reports mention Adam Tully,” Paul Hewitt said, leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk.

“He and Norvell go way back,” Kerney said. “They were boyhood friends.”

“I haven’t heard Adam’s name in years,” Hewitt said. “His father, Hiram, owns the fruit stand where we found Montoya’s body.”

“What do you know about Adam?” Kerney asked, his interest rising.

“He was the baby of the family—unexpected and spoiled rotten by Hiram. His mother died giving birth.

She was in her forties at the time. His two sisters are a good twenty years older. Something happened when Adam was a teenager. The family doesn’t talk about it, but Hiram kicked him out of the house, sent him to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, then up to Albuquerque to the university. I don’t think he’s ever been back here since.”

“What did folks think happened between Tully and his father?” Kerney asked.

“Oh, there were rumors that Adam had gotten some girl in trouble, stolen money from his father, was using drugs—stuff like that. But they were just rumors and there was no evidence anyone could point to. The family stayed tight-lipped, of course.”

“Was Tyler Norvell mentioned in those rumors?” Kerney asked.

“Not as I recall,” Hewitt replied. “But Deputy Istee saw Senator Norvell’s car leave Rojas’s house two nights ago.”

Kerney turned to Clayton.

“And I know where the ranch is,” Clayton said.

“Excellent. Have you had any contact with the Tully family?”

“Yeah. I interviewed Hiram, one of his daughters, and her husband, and a granddaughter.” He passed his field notes to Kerney.

Kerney scanned through the papers. “I’d like to talk to these people.”

“I’ll take you around to see them,” Clayton said. With a resigned look he retrieved his notes from Kerney’s hand and held out his casebook. “I guess this is your investigation, now.”

Kerney shook his head. With few resources, and virtually no help, Clayton had done an amazingly good job. “You don’t get to bow out, Deputy,” Kerney said. “The state police officers assigned to investigate Senator Norvell have been advised that the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office is in charge of this piece of the task force. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the lead investigator, unless your boss says otherwise.”

Clayton’s look of resignation lightened into a smile that he couldn’t completely contain.

“I’m fine with that,” Hewitt said. “How many agents and what’s their ETA?”

“Four. They’ll be briefed at noon. They should be here soon after that.”

“I’d better get cracking,” Hewitt said, rising from his chair. “Leave the casebook with me, Deputy. I’ll free up some space in the building we can use as a command center, take care of the details, and have everything we’ve got ready to go.”

Kerney stood. “You’ll have the task-force packet in hand before the agents arrive. Thanks, Paul.”

Hewitt hitched up his blue jeans and smiled. “No thanks are necessary, Kerney. Hell, this is one party I wouldn’t want to miss.”

 

Fidel, who had followed the cop from the highway turnoff to his house back to the county courthouse, waited for something to happen. It seemed like the Indian deputy and the cowboy sheriff went to work early so they could spend
more
time doing nothing. Ten minutes after parking, Fidel watched
another
cowboy—this one with a limp—park and go inside. Soon after that a few civilians and uniformed deputies arrived.

Fidel had hoped that the day would prove more interesting, but it wasn’t turning out that way. It was, he decided, way beyond boring to be a cop in Lincoln County.

 

From his hallway desk Clayton put in calls to the people Kerney wanted to talk to while Kerney used his cell phone to ask to have Greer fingerprinted and provide some hair samples to be sent down for comparison to the evidence collected at the Ulibarri crime scene.

Page Seton, Hiram Tully’s granddaughter, and her parents, Morris and Lily, were traveling out of state to attend a wedding in West Texas. Hiram Tully had been moved from the hospital to a state-run rehabilitation center in Roswell.

While Clayton called the rehab center to confirm that Tully could see them, Kerney stood with his back against the hallway wall thinking that the working conditions at the sheriff’s department were abysmal. Clayton had no privacy, and the staffers from other county offices passing by had to step sideways behind Clayton’s chair in order to get around him.

He didn’t fault Paul Hewitt; sheriffs in rural counties pretty much always got the short end of the stick when it came to divvying up tax dollars.

The trip to Roswell with Clayton started out in silence. They passed the city park on the outskirts of town, a rather bleak-looking place bordering the highway that consisted of a poorly landscaped nine-hole golf course, some ball fields, picnic tables, and a scattering of trees. Soon after, Clayton slowed and pointed at the burned-out fruit stand up ahead.

“Want to take a look at the crime scene?” he asked.

“I would,” Kerney replied.

Clayton pulled off the highway and together they walked to the building.

“At least the mud has dried up,” Clayton said as he turned on his flashlight to show Kerney where Montoya’s body had been found.

“It must have been a bitch to excavate the remains,” Kerney said, peering into the cold-storage space from the doorway.

“Yeah,” Clayton replied. “Why would Norvell, if he is the killer, put her body here?”

“I’ve thought a lot about that,” Kerney said, stepping back from the doorway. “Let’s say Montoya meets him at the shopping mall in Santa Fe and agrees to go someplace private where they can talk. Norvell takes her to some secluded spot and when he realizes she won’t be dissuaded from unmasking him, he decides to kill her, except he doesn’t have a gun, a knife, or the balls to strangle her. So he punches her, knocks her out, and uses a tire iron to kill her, hitting her not once, but twice. I asked for a forensic analysis of Montoya’s skull. It showed that she suffered a hairline crack to the jaw along with two blows to the head consistent with a tire iron or similar object.”

“But that still doesn’t answer my question,” Clayton said.

“I’m getting to it,” Kerney said as he walked to the back of the building with Clayton following along. “So now he’s got a dead body in his car, a long road trip ahead of him, and a big problem: what to do with the body. On top of that, he’s probably not thinking very straight and is paranoid as hell about getting stopped by the police. He can’t just dump Montoya out at the side of the road, or bury her on his own property. That would be too risky. So he thinks of places he knows where it might be safe to hide the body before he gets home.”

“Even if you can prove Norvell knew about the abandoned fruit stand, have you got probable cause?” Clayton asked.

“That’s the missing piece I need, according to the district attorney,” Kerney replied, stepping back to look at the shell of the fruit stand. A parked car behind the structure wouldn’t be seen from the highway.

He swung around and looked at the mountains. There were no houses or trailers in sight. “Norvell probably passed this place often during the years it sat unused. Maybe he even knew that Tully had no plans to reopen it. Or maybe he thought he’d come back later and move the body, but decided not to when time passed and the case turned cold.”

“Have you seen enough?” Clayton asked.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Clayton locked his gaze on Kerney’s face. “One question: why did you back me as lead investigator with the sheriff?”

“Because you’re the most knowledgeable about the case and you’ve done one hell of a job,” Kerney replied.

The stern look on Clayton’s face smoothed out slightly. “That’s it? Nothing personal?”

“Part of it’s personal, I guess,” Kerney said. “You might think it’s silly of me to say this, but I’m proud of what you’ve done.”

The comment caught Clayton off guard. He swallowed hard and looked away.

“Let’s go,” Kerney said, taking the pressure off Clayton to respond.

 

All the phone taps, including land lines and cell phones, were up and running just before Cassie Bedlow arrived at her talent and modeling agency. In his APD uniform and driving a patrol car, Jeff Vialpando waited a few minutes before pulling up outside the building. Entering, he called out a hello and Bedlow appeared in her office doorway.

“Yes, Officer,” she said, looking somewhat startled.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Jeff said, taking off his hat. “But I need your help.”

“Regarding?”

“A woman named Stacy Fowler died in an automobile accident last night, and the state police asked if we’d help locate next of kin. They found your business card in her wallet. Did you know her?”

“Yes, but only slightly. I interviewed her a month or so ago for a modeling job, but it didn’t pan out. How did it happen?”

“I’m not completely sure, ma’am,” Jeff replied. “But I do know it was a rollover accident outside the city limits, and Ms. Fowler was alone in the vehicle at the time.”

“Oh my goodness,” Cassie said, shaking her head sadly. “I heard something about it on the radio as I was coming to work.”

“Do you know anything about her family?” Jeff asked.

“No, I think she’d just moved here from the Midwest.”

“Her car was registered in Arizona,” Jeff said. “Did she mention any family members there?”

“We only talked once and it was purely about business.”

“Thank you for your time,” Jeff said.

“I’m so sorry I can’t be of more help,” Bedlow said. “I hope it won’t take you long to notify her family.”

“It probably will,” Vialpando said with a shrug. “We don’t have much to go on.”

 

Once he was back in the unit, Ramona’s voice came over his police radio. “She’s talking to Tully right now.”

“Saying?” Vialpando asked as he drove away.

“That Fowler is dead and Greer didn’t keep her date last night.”