The Big Gamble (6 page)

Mrs. Montoya crossed herself. Her lips trembled slightly. “Was her body burned in the fire?”

“No,” Kerney answered. The couple was silent for a time.

“Did you see her?” George Montoya asked. The years had aged Montoya. His hair was thin, the skin under his chin above his Adam’s apple was loose, and his eyes were glazed.

“No,” Kerney said.

“How did she die?”

“A blow to the head,” Kerney answered.

“Murdered,” Mr. Montoya said hesitantly, as though the word could beget the act.

“We believe so. Can you think of any reason for her to travel with someone to Lincoln County?”

Mr. Montoya shook his head. “She had no friends or relatives there.”

“Perhaps she knew a person from the area,” Kerney said. “A classmate from graduate school, an old Santa Fe friend who’d relocated.”

“Anna Marie never mentioned anyone like that,” Lorraine Montoya said.

“Did she ever spend time there on business or vacation?” Kerney asked.

“I can’t recall that she did,” George added, looking at his wife for confirmation.

“It’s possible,” Mrs. Montoya replied. “But it may have not been important enough for her to mention.”

“So, a weekend jaunt out of town or a business meeting she’d attended might not come up in conversation.”

Mrs. Montoya nodded solemnly. “We felt blessed that she lived close by to us, and we saw her frequently. But she didn’t tell us everything about her day-to-day activities.”

“No old boyfriend from that neck of the woods?”

Mr. Montoya slowly shook his head. “She would have told us about somebody that important to her. Why are you asking these questions?”

“I know it’s hard right now. Based on the facts we have, I’m inclined to believe your daughter knew her killer. She disappeared for no apparent reason, her car was abandoned, and her body was hidden near a very busy state road a hundred and fifty miles away. If it had been a random act by a stranger, the chances are likely Anna Marie’s body would have been discovered soon after the crime, much closer to home.”

“Someone she knew killed her?” Mrs. Montoya asked, her voice shaky. “How can that be? Everybody liked Anna Marie.”

“It could have been someone she knew slightly,” Kerney said. “A casual business or social acquaintance.”

“A stalker?” Mr. Montoya asked.

Kerney nodded. “Perhaps. Or it could have been a premeditated attack carried out for some other reason.”

“What reason?” George Montoya asked.

“That I don’t know. But I’m troubled by the fact that the perpetrator took Anna Marie so far from Santa Fe. I’m wondering if it has any significance.”

“Was our daughter raped?” George Montoya asked, his body tensing in anticipation of Kerney’s answer.

To Kerney’s mind the indicators strongly suggested sexual homicide. “We don’t know that, and probably never will,” he replied.

“I saved her wedding dress to put in her casket,” Lorraine Montoya said in a whisper.

“When can we bring her home?” George Montoya asked, reaching to squeeze his wife’s hand as she cried quietly at his side, her rosary forgotten.

“In a day or two,” Kerney replied.

“What will you do now?” Montoya asked.

“Try to find your daughter’s killer.”

“Someone she knew, you said.”

“Possibly,” Kerney said.

George Montoya’s eyes clouded and his voice dropped to a whisper. “For years I hear her footsteps on the front step, hear her voice, see her in the kitchen talking with her mother and sister, thinking that when the phone rang she was calling.”

“I am so sorry to bring you this news,” Kerney said.

“It is best for us to know,” George Montoya replied. “We must tell our son and daughter.”

“I’ll need to speak to them.” Kerney rose and gave Mr. Montoya his business card. “Are they both still living in town?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll try not to make it too difficult. When would be a good time to call them?”

“Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

George Montoya searched Kerney’s face. “This never ends.” His voice cracked and he turned away to comfort his wife and hide his tears.

Kerney let himself out and closed the screen door. As he crossed the porch he heard Mr. Montoya’s heart-wrenching sob.

In Albuquerque Clayton went searching for information about Humphrey from people who knew him. Like most rural New Mexicans Clayton thought nothing about making a four-hundred-mile round trip into the city with the family to shop, take in an afternoon movie, and have a meal, so except for some detours skirting the perennial warm-weather road-and-highway construction, finding his way around town was no big deal. A meeting with Humphrey’s VA case-worker led him to a state-operated alcohol treatment center in the south valley just outside the city limits.

On about a five-acre campus, the facility consisted of a modern, single-story inpatient center with two old pitched-roof former military barracks at the back of the lot and a modular office building off to one side. Big cottonwoods that were budding out shaded an already green lawn.

In a reception and staff area inside the treatment building Clayton was directed to Austin Bodean, the supervising counselor. Bodean was a tall, skinny, middle-aged man with two tufts of hair above large ears on an otherwise bald head. His office walls were filled with plaques that proclaimed various twelve-step philosophies and framed certificates of seminars attended and continuing-education credits earned.

Clayton identified himself and told Bodean about Humphrey’s murder.

“That’s terrible,” Bodean said. “He didn’t have long to live, you know.”

“Cancer,” Clayton said. “Shouldn’t he have been hospitalized?”

“He wasn’t end-stage yet, according to our doctor. But the boozing didn’t help, especially since he was taking painkillers as needed. I was hoping he’d get himself clean and sober—get his life in order, so to speak, before it ended. But the last time he was here, he didn’t seem to give a damn. I guess that’s understandable.”

“When was that?”

Bodean consulted a day planner. “Six weeks to the day. Joe had seven admissions here during the last four or five years. A couple of times he discharged himself before completing the rehab program. About the best we could do for him was get him through detoxification. He got kicked out of every halfway house we placed him in for drinking.”

“Did he make any friends here?”

“He liked to hang out with a couple of guys.”

“Can you give me names and addresses?”

“Sure. One of them is here right now, going through rehab.”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“No problem,” Bodean said.

“Was Humphrey homeless?”

“No, he was more like a transient. He always stayed at one of the motels on Central Avenue where whores take their tricks.”

“He used prostitutes?”

“Yep.”

“Any one in particular?”

“That I wouldn’t know.”

“How did Humphrey get by financially?”

Bodean opened a desk drawer, pulled out a file, and flipped some papers. “He had a VA disability pension that paid him six hundred a month. He used to get welfare until they changed the law. This isn’t the Betty Ford Clinic. We get the alcoholics who can’t pay, and if they have a few hundred bucks, they’ll hide it to avoid paying for treatment.”

“Do you think Humphrey was like that?”

“I always wondered how he was able to stay off the streets on six hundred a month. Even at twenty bucks a night, a motel room would eat up his whole check. And he always seemed to have cigarette and Coke money.”

“Did he leave any personal belongings here?”

“We don’t allow that.”

“Did he get close to any of the female patients?”

“We don’t allow that, either.”

“It never happens?”

Bodean shrugged. “We break it up when it does. But I never saw Joe put moves on any of the female patients. And believe me, I would’ve heard about it in group therapy if he had.”

“Did he have any enemies?”

“Not that I know about. He wasn’t a mean drunk, or the argumentative type. He was a quiet boozer.”

“Any personal stuff come out in treatment?”

Bodean lifted a shoulder. “The usual: an abusive father who abandoned the family, a mother who drank.”

“Personal, not family,” Clayton said.

“After a tour in Nam he went to work as a helicopter mechanic. That was his military specialty. Had a busted marriage, no kids, both parents dead, no close ties with his siblings. He started traveling about ten years ago after getting fired because of his drinking. He spent winters in Arizona.”

“Did he own a vehicle?”

“An old Mercury,” Bodean said as he consulted his file. “Any client with a car has to park it and turn over the keys while in treatment.” He read off the license plate number.

“Can you give me those names and addresses?” Clayton asked.

Bodean pulled more files, read off the information, and got up from his desk chair. “Like I said, one of Joe’s buddies, Bennie, is back in treatment. I’ll go get him. You can talk here in my office.”

“I appreciate that.”

Clayton spent twenty minutes with Bennie Olguin, a member of the Isleta Indian pueblo just south of Albuquerque. Stocky and round in the face, Olguin wore a tank-top undershirt that exposed his muscular arms. Clayton learned the name of the motel on Central Avenue where Humphrey stayed when he was in town, got a few more names of fellow drunks Humphrey hung out with, and discovered that Humphrey liked to gamble.

“Did he ever get lucky?” Clayton asked.

Olguin’s smile showed broken and missing teeth. “Once, with me, that I know of, down at the casino at Isleta. From the winnings, he paid for a
grande
binge we went on. We were
borracho perdido
for days.”

“What did he like to play?”

“Slots and blackjack. I heard he scored a week or so ago up at the new Sandia Pueblo casino. He was
estar may pesudo,
rolling in money. Couple of thousand, I heard.”

“Who did you hear it from?”

“Maybe Sparkle told me.”

“Does Sparkle have a last name?”

“I don’t know it. She’s a
puta
. Joey liked to buy her when he had the money.”

“Where do I find her?”

“She sometimes takes her tricks to the motel where Joey stayed when he was in town.”

Clayton named the motel Bodean had mentioned.

“That’s it,” Olguin said, as he studied Clayton’s face. “You’re Indian, right?”

“Mescalero Apache,” Clayton said.

Olguin grinned. “But maybe some white man snuck into your grandmother’s tepee,
que no
?”

“Apaches don’t use tepees much anymore, and I bet your mouth gets you into a lot of fights,” Clayton said.

Olguin rewarded Clayton’s observation with a smile. “Yeah, I like to brawl.”

 

Clayton got a good description of Sparkle from Olguin and staked out the motel. It was one of those old 1950s motor courts along Central Avenue that had fallen onto hard times after Route 66 had been replaced by the interstate. The exterior stucco had been painted white and was peeling badly, holes had been punched in the wall of each guest room to accommodate small air conditioners, and the neon vacancy sign above the office door spelled out either VAC or CAN depending on which letters lit up or blinked off.

The motel sign advertised low rates, free local calls, and, of course, air-conditioned comfort.

There were only two cars in the asphalt lot, both parked in front of rooms, both totally broken down. Most of the motel guests Clayton watched as they came and went seemed to be without wheels. By eight o’clock at night, not one tourist had checked in, and the lodgers still out and about on foot were either drunk, stoned, or working up to it. But within the hour business picked up. One by one, four cars parked in front of the office and Clayton watched as guys rented rooms and then went inside with their dates, none of whom matched Sparkle’s description.

Sparkle showed up at midnight with an overweight, middle-aged customer in tow who turned out to be a Mexican laborer. Clayton sent the john on his way and talked to Sparkle in front of her motel room. A junkie, she looked to be way older than her twenty-six years. About five two, she had a skinny teenager body that attracted certain men.

“Joey won fifty-six hundred at blackjack,” Sparkle told Clayton. “He told me about it the next night when we got together for some fun.”

“When was that?”

“Seven days ago.”

“Did you see him after that?”

“Yeah, two or three times before he left town,” Sparkle said.

“And?”

“He said he wanted to have a big blowout before he got too sick to enjoy himself. He was going down to Mescalero to stay at that Indian resort, gamble, drink, and order room service until the money ran out.”