Slow Kill

Chapter 6

A gent Joe Valdez of the state police had grown up on the east side of Santa Fe in an adobe house a few blocks away from Canyon Road. When he was in high school, his parents had sold the house at what was then a tidy profit and moved the family into a new home in a south-side subdivision. Many neighbors followed suit, and the exodus of Hispanic families quickly transformed the area into an enclave for rich Anglos.

Now, whenever a house in the old neighborhood came on the market, it was invariably advertised as “a charming, upgraded adobe within easy walking distance of the Plaza and Canyon Road,” with asking prices in the high six-figure range and beyond.

Only a few of Joe’s old neighbors had stayed put. One family, the Sandovals, still owned two houses on East Alameda, plus a property that had once been an old motor lodge built in the 1930s.

When motels replaced motor lodges, the family converted the units into a number of small retail stores. A later transformation turned the property into a boutique hotel, the very one that, according to Kerney’s notes, Clifford Spalding had leased from the Sandoval family for ninety-nine years.

Trinidad Sandoval, the patron of the family, had rolled the dice when Spalding made his offer to lease. He mortgaged everything he owned, borrowed more money, then completely gutted the building and made major additions to it, including two-story suites with balconies, fireplaces, and hot tubs.

The risk paid off and the family became wealthy. Trinidad, now in his eighties, still lived up the street from the hotel in the unassuming house where he’d been born.

Early in the morning, Joe Valdez parked his unmarked unit under a cottonwood tree and knocked on Trinidad’s front door. He’d called the night before, asking for a few minutes of Trinidad’s time. Sandoval greeted him quickly with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.

Still arrow-straight, but an inch or two shorter than when he was in his prime, Sandoval had lost weight since Joe had last seen him. He wore a starched white shirt and pressed blue jeans pulled up high above his waist, cinched tight by a belt, and freshly polished shoes.

“What do you need to see this old man for?” Trinidad asked.

Joe smiled. “For a cup of coffee, perhaps?”

Trinidad nodded. “Come in, and tell me about your family.”

A widower for many years but doggedly self-sufficient, Sandoval had a daughter who lived next door and kept an eye on him. In the kitchen, a tidy room that reflected Trinidad’s fastidious nature, he served Joe coffee and asked about his wife and sons.

“So, everyone is healthy and well,” Trinidad said, when Joe finished bragging about his family. “That is what is most important, to be happy and well. But you didn’t come here for an old man’s philosophy of life. What brings you to see me, Mr. Policeman?”

Joe laughed. “I’d like to talk to you about Clifford Spalding.”

“For what reason?”

“Spalding has died under suspicious circumstances, and I’m looking into questions about his finances.”

Sandoval shook his head. “When you get to be my age, it seems like everyone you know dies. What are these suspicious circumstances you speak of?”

“He may have been murdered,” Joe replied.

Trinidad quickly crossed himself. “I will say a prayer for him at Mass.”

“How did Spalding come to do business with you?”

“First, he tried to buy the property through a Realtor. But I wouldn’t sell. Because of the zoning, I knew it was valuable. It was only one of a few commercial parcels close to the Plaza that could be developed into a hotel without difficulty. When he offered to lease it, I accepted, because it kept everything in the family.”

“Who were his partners?” Joe asked.

Trinidad blinked. “His partners? He didn’t have any.”

“Perhaps they were silent partners,” Joe replied. Chief Kerney’s notes had specifically mentioned that the property lease had been secured by a partnership that included Spalding.

“I don’t think he had any partners,” Trinidad said.

“Could I see the original paperwork?” Joe asked. “I’ll keep the information confidential.”

Trinidad thought a long minute before nodding in agreement. He left the kitchen and soon returned with a thick packet, which he placed on the table in front of Valdez.

Joe spent an hour reading the material, taking notes, and asking Trinidad some clarifying questions. Spalding had paid the first two-year lease up front. The agreement had a rate renegotiation clause that kicked in every twenty-four months. It was tied to current costs per square foot of similar properties, which had risen dramatically over the last three decades.

Along with the money he’d borrowed, Trinidad had used Spalding’s first payment to renovate and enlarge the building. When the initial lease came up for renewal, the monthly rate jumped significantly to take into account the expansion and improvements Sandoval had made to the property.

From day one, Trinidad had wisely retained complete control over the property, which he now owned free and clear. The hotel generated a sizable chunk of money every month, enough to support every member of the Sandoval family comfortably for the foreseeable future.

Joe left with the name of the Albuquerque law firm Spalding had used to draw up the lease agreement in his notebook. When time allowed, he’d call and see what he could learn about the source of the six-figure payment Spalding had made to secure the lease.

Other than the question of Spalding’s financing, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Mid-morning found Kerney at his desk reviewing the information that had come in on the Spalding family and Debbie Calderwood. Interestingly, Clifford Spalding had filed a bankruptcy petition three months before the death of his son in Vietnam. Before the court could act on the matter, Spalding had withdrawn the filing and paid his creditors in full.

A real estate transaction record dated six months later showed that Clifford and Alice Spalding, doing business as Sundown Properties, had paid a mall developer for a land parcel to build a motel in Albuquerque. That seemed to jibe somewhat with what Penelope Parker had told him.

He went back through his notes. Parker had said the developer had wanted to buy Spalding’s old motel, tear it down, and put up a franchise hotel next to the mall.

He thumbed through the bankruptcy paperwork. The motel Spalding had listed as an asset was several miles away from the shopping mall. Kerney wondered about the disparity. Maybe Parker’s version of how Spalding had started his hotel empire was flawed. Kerney didn’t doubt her honesty, just her knowledge of events prior to her involvement with the family.

Putting that issue aside, Kerney still wondered how Spalding had been able to bail out of his financial difficulties so quickly and come up with enough cash to pay for land next to a major shopping mall. Did he have help from a national hotel chain, as Parker reported? If so, why would any large corporation partner with a small-time operator who was about to go broke? It made no sense.

He had Helen Muiz fax copies to Joe Valdez, and took a call from the Harding County sheriff, Luciano “Lucky” Suazo, who reported that his horseback trek along the Canadian to look for Dean at his cabin had been fruitless.

“Nobody’s there,” Lucky said, “and I saw no sign of anybody coming or going.”

“What about his vehicle?” Kerney asked.

“Didn’t see it. His closest access would be at the Mills campground. He’d have to leave his vehicle there and cross the river on horseback or on foot to get to his land. From the campground, it’s two hours by horse, three on foot, to get to his cabin.”

“Are there any other jumping-off points?”

“Yeah, on private land. I’m calling all the ranchers up and down the river now,” Lucky replied. “So far, nobody has seen Dean or his vehicle, and believe me, they’re out there looking.”

“What about the cabin?” Kerney asked.

“Locked up tight, with shutters over the windows. No fresh footprints. Looks like it’s been a couple of months since anyone has been around.”

“Thanks, Sheriff,” Kerney said.

“No need for that, Chief,” Lucky replied. “Just doing my job. I’ll get back to you if anything turns up.”

Kerney hung up and went looking for Ramona Pino, who was in her cubbyhole of an office, fingers clacking away at a computer keyboard.

“I just got off the phone with the Harding County sheriff,” he said, as he sat in a straight-back chair. “Dean wasn’t at his cabin. Do you have any news?”

“Nothing yet, Chief,” Ramona replied. “We’ve got the Denver PD staking out Dean’s ex-wife’s house, and I just finished calling all the airlines. He hasn’t flown out of either the Santa Fe or Albuquerque airports.”

“Did you talk to the ex-wife?” Kerney asked.

“Yeah, and she’s not a big fan of her ex-hubby. She’s about to file against him for failure to pay child support. He’s in arrears for almost fifty thousand dollars.”

“What’s up with the evidence?” Kerney asked.

“The knives are on the way to California,” Ramona said. “Hopefully the lab out there will be able to match one of them to the tool marks on the pill. The stuff I pulled out of the trash bin at Dean’s house had traces of thyroid medication on it, and we lifted Dean’s prints off both packets the drug wholesaler shipped to him. The packet we found in the workshop contained a mixture of all the ingredients Dean used to make the pills. I guess Dean decided to keep his concoction for another attempt on Spalding’s life in case the first batch of pills didn’t kill him.”

“So, where the hell is he?” Kerney asked.

Ramona shook her head. “I wish I knew. Ellie Lowrey has the Montecito estate under observation in case he shows.”

“Okay,” Kerney said.

“I’d like to rework the arrest affidavit on Claudia Spalding and have it ready to resubmit, Chief.”

“What can you add to it?” Kerney asked.

“The only way Dean could possibly have known the specifics about Spalding’s medication and heart condition is through knowledge he gained from Claudia Spalding. Where else could he have gotten it?”

“I agree that it’s a good supposition,” Kerney said. “But a defense lawyer would argue that the information was innocently passed on to Dean by Claudia Spalding. We need something that irrefutably ties the two of them together as coconspirators.”

“We’ve also got the last phone call Claudia Spalding made to Dean at the pharmacy just before he took off.”

“Again, unless we can prove that Claudia actually warned Dean of the arrest warrant, it’s circumstantial. What’s Sergeant Lowrey up to?”

“She’s on her way to Clifford Spalding’s corporate offices in LA. He stopped there before driving to Paso Robles. She’s hoping to find the prescription bottle from the Santa Fe pharmacy. She thinks Spalding may have transferred the contents into his pill case, knowing he’d have a refill waiting for him when he got home.”

“As a pharmacist, Dean had to be fingerprinted, right?”

“And photographed,” Ramona said. “I’ve sent both his prints and picture to Lowrey by computer.”

“Hold up for now on reworking the Spalding arrest affidavit until you hear back from Lowrey. Go for another search warrant on Dean’s business instead. Focus on his finances. It’s possible that we may have multiple motives for murder. Not only does Claudia Spalding inherit a considerable estate, she frees herself to have an open relationship with Dean and bail him out of his financial woes. Use the statement you took from Nina Deacon about Claudia wanting out of the marriage to back it up.”

“But what about the amendment to the prenuptial agreement that validated her right to extramarital affairs?” Ramona asked.

“Her lies to Nina Deacon went way beyond what was necessary to adhere to that agreement,” Kerney said. “She told Deacon that she wasn’t happy in the marriage but didn’t want to get off her husband’s gravy train.”

“Should I go after Claudia Spalding’s financial records also?” Ramona asked.

Kerney stood up. “Not yet. Let’s see what kind of backdoor information we can get from Dean’s records. Has he increased his borrowing lately? Does he have large or overdue accounts payable? Are there frequent cash transactions? Has he been bouncing checks? If Dean is hurting for money, he has a ready supply of drugs he can peddle illegally. Make sure the warrant covers his pharmacy inventory and prescription records.”

“Anything else?” Ramona asked.

Kerney smiled. “Find Dean.”

“He’s either still traveling or has already gone to ground.”

Kerney nodded. “Probably some place that’s familiar enough where he can stay low and feel safe. Get people started talking to everyone who knows him. Contact the ex-wife again and get a list of the names and addresses of family members and old friends. Where does he like to vacation? Where does he go on business trips? Is there someone-a sibling, a parent, a college chum-he visits regularly?”

“Dean and Spalding may have scouted out a hiding place for him on their trips together, in case things went sour,” Ramona said. “I’ll check his credit card charges. That may give us a lead.”

“Keep me informed,” Kerney said as he stepped into the hallway.

Century City, an incorporated municipality of 176 acres, had once been the backlot of a major motion picture studio. Now its office towers, high-rise condos, and luxury hotels filled the West Los Angeles skyline. It boasted a major outdoor shopping center with trendy, high-end stores and retail businesses that drew people from all over Southern California and beyond.

In the stop-and-go traffic of the freeway, Ellie Lowrey had a view of Century City through her windshield for a good twenty minutes before she could ease onto an exit ramp and park in an underground garage. Until today, she’d been here only once, a long time ago, on a weekend shopping spree with her kid sister. She’d left suffering from sticker shock and sensory overload, wondering why all the beautiful clothing, expensive jewelry, fine art, and custom home furnishings had left her feeling so dejected. Did people really need all that stuff to be happy?

She took an elevator to street level and made her way to one of the twin office towers that rose behind a large water fountain. Inside, a security guard directed her to the floor where Spalding’s offices were located.

On the top floor, Ellie explained to a receptionist the reason for her visit and was asked to wait. While the woman whispered into a telephone, Ellie gazed out the plate glass windows at the barely visible Santa Monica Mountains, veiled by brown smog. Far below, she could see traffic flowing on the streets. Except for a package delivery man rolling a dolly into a store there was nobody else on the sidewalks.

She turned back to the receptionist, who gave Ellie a nervous smile as she quickly dialed another extension. On the wall behind the woman’s desk were three rows of framed, enlarged color photographs, eighteen in all, displaying Spalding’s hotel properties. One of them showed the high-rise hotel Ellie had just been looking at out the window.

After a few minutes, a man in a suit came down a hallway, introduced himself as the corporate counsel, and took Ellie to his office, where he questioned her closely about the investigation.

She told him what she was looking for and why. Satisfied that her visit was tied to a murder investigation and had nothing to do with corporate matters, he accompanied her to Spalding’s corner office, and watched while she searched.

Light flooded the big room through two window walls. It was sparsely furnished with two angular leather couches separated by a low coffee table, and a large, highly polished writing table with steel legs and a matching desk chair.

Ellie looked through the drawers of a built-in cabinet behind the desk and glanced at the framed photographs on the shelves above. There were several of Claudia Spalding, but most were of Clifford Spalding posing with movie stars and politicians.

There were no drawers in the desk and the wastebasket was empty. In Spalding’s private bathroom, Ellie found some personal toiletries in a travel kit and another empty wastebasket, but no prescription bottle.

“Was anyone here when Mr. Spalding returned to his office from his business trip?” she asked the lawyer.

“I doubt it,” the lawyer said. “We were closed for the weekend.”

“Where does he park his car?”

“In the underground garage,” the lawyer said. “But when he travels on business, he leaves his car at our hotel here and takes the VIP limo to the airport.”

Ellie thanked the lawyer for his cooperation, went back to the garage, found Spalding’s reserved parking space, and searched the area. There was the usual accumulation of trash under and around the nearby cars, but no prescription bottle.

She drove to the hotel and spoke to a bell captain, who called inside for the limo driver. An older, skinny man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie hurried out the lobby doors.

“Did you pick up Mr. Spalding at the airport last weekend?” Ellie asked.

The man nodded. “Yes.”

“Did he leave anything behind in the limo?”

“Yes, he left an empty prescription bottle on the backseat. It had refill information on the label, so I kept it in case he needed it.”

Ellie broke into a big smile. “Where’s the bottle?”

Ramona Pino wanted her next case to be a cake-walk. Maybe a gang member who popped a round into somebody’s ear in front of ten witnesses, or a body dump case with enough physical evidence at the crime scene to lead her right to the perp, drinking a beer and watching the tube at home, just waiting to be arrested. Even a good old-fashioned domestic disturbance that had escalated into a murder of passion would be a welcome change of pace.

Santa Fe averaged only two homicides annually, but last year had been a real bitch, in terms of numbers and complexity. A lone, smart killer with a bad attitude had chalked up seven victims. One of them, the perp’s mother, had been killed years ago and buried under some backyard shrubbery. The rest were all fresh kills done within a matter of days. The perp had been stopped just short of adding Chief Kerney, his wife, and their newborn son to his tally.

Since Spalding had died in California, Ramona wondered if the case even technically qualified as a local homicide. Maybe an argument could be made that murder was committed the instant Spalding’s medication had been switched. That made it a slow kill, Ramona thought.

With a new search warrant in hand and three detectives to assist her, Ramona walked into Dean’s pharmacy to find Tilly Gilmore, the clerk, and a pharmacist talking in low voices behind the counter. The pharmacist wore a name tag on his white smock that read GRADY BALDRIDGE.

She showed them the warrant and explained what the detectives were about to do.

“Where is Kim?” Baldridge asked. “He should be here for this.”

“I wish he was here,” Ramona said as she motioned to the officers to get started. Matt Chacon steered Tilly to a back office, while the other two men began looking through the filing cabinet and desk behind the pharmacy counter.

“Do you work for him full-time?” she asked Baldridge.

He shook his head and the folds below his chin jiggled. Ramona put him in his late sixties. The smock he wore bulged at his hefty waistline. His pasty skin almost perfectly matched his gray hair.

“No,” Baldridge said. “I’m basically retired. Kim uses me as his relief pharmacist. This is the last day I can be here for three weeks. The wife and I are leaving tomorrow on vacation.”

“Were you supposed to work yesterday?” Ramona asked.

“No, Kim called me at home early in the morning and asked me to come in.”

“Did he say why?”

“Just that he needed coverage,” Baldridge replied.

“Was that unusual?”

“I’d say so,” Baldridge said. “In fact, Tilly and I were just talking about it. He’s only called me to come in on short notice before when he’s been sick. We don’t know what to do if he doesn’t come back tomorrow, except refer his customers to other pharmacies. I only came in today because people were waiting to have their prescriptions filled.”

“What a nice thing to do before your vacation,” Ramona said. Baldridge smiled at the compliment.

“Do you know Dean’s customers well?” she asked.

“Most of them. I’ve filled in here for the past five years.”

“How about Claudia Spalding?” Ramona asked.

“Oh yes, she has several current prescriptions on file.”

“For what?”

“Unless your warrant specifically permits you to gather prescription information about our customers, I can’t tell you that.”

“It does,” Ramona said, showing Baldridge the appropriate paragraph in the search warrant.

“I’d have to look it up,” Baldridge said.

“Please do,” Ramona replied.

Baldridge spent a few minutes at a computer, then returned and rattled off Claudia Spalding’s current prescription information. Ramona had him translate it into language she could understand. Baldridge told her one script was for a mild muscle relaxant and the other was for a narcotic painkiller. She asked Baldridge to pull the hard copies, and while he went off to do so, she called the doctor who’d prescribed the medications and asked him to verify the information.

“The muscle relaxant, yes,” the doctor said. “But I never gave her any painkillers.”

“What did she need the muscle relaxant for?” Ramona asked.

“You know I can’t tell you that, Sergeant.”

“If you talk around the subject a little bit, Doctor,” Ramona said, “I might not have to pay you a visit.”

“Do you ride horses, Sergeant?”

“Not since I was a little kid,” Ramona replied.

“Let’s say you did, and you took a bad fall from a horse and strained the muscles in your back. Not severely, but enough to cause discomfort. The muscle relaxant, in a very low dosage, provides relief.”

“That helps,” Ramona said. “What about the narcotic painkiller?”

“It had to be forged,” the doctor said. “Mrs. Spalding has no medical condition I’m aware of that requires it.”

“Your records confirm that?”

“Absolutely,” the doctor said before hanging up.

Baldridge hovered next to her with the hard copy scripts in hand. Both looked real, but who better to forge a doctor ’s prescription than a pharmacist?

“Tell me about this painkiller,” Ramona asked.

“It’s hydrocodone acetaminophen, a Class III controlled substance,” Baldridge said, “which means it doesn’t have to be as strictly inventoried and accounted for as Class II drugs under federal regulations.”

“How is it accounted for?” Ramona asked.

“We do an annual report and give an estimate of how much was dispensed and what’s on hand. It doesn’t have to be absolutely accurate.”

“Would the painkiller give the user a high? Make them nod out?”

“It’s a downer, so I’d imagine so,” Baldridge said. “In normal dosages, other than relieving pain, it tends to cause drowsiness, dull the senses, and flatten the affect.”

“Can you find out how many other people have had this medicine dispensed to them at this pharmacy?”

“Easily,” Baldridge said, returning to the computer. He came back with the names of twelve individuals, all with scripts written by Claudia Spalding’s doctor.

“Did you fill any of these?” Ramona asked.

Baldridge shook his head and pointed to a line on one of the scripts. “Each prescription must be numbered and initialed by the pharmacist who filled it. All of these were filled by Kim.”

“What about phone-in prescriptions?”

“That’s in a different computer file,” he said, stepping back to the monitor. He printed out another ten names of persons receiving the medication, all supposedly phoned in from the same doctor who’d treated Claudia Spalding.

Ramona called the doctor again and asked about the names on both lists Baldridge had provided.

“I’ve never treated any of those people,” the doctor said.

“You’re certain of that?”

“I don’t like your implication, Sergeant,” the doctor snapped. “I do not supply narcotics to drug users. You can come here any time you want and look at the master chart log and my patient appointment calender.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Ramona replied. “We may have to do that.” She disconnected and turned to speak to Baldridge, who was pulling hard copy files and printing information from the computer. He brought everything to her, and she scanned them quickly one by one. On the hard copies, she noticed that although the doctor’s signature and prescription information looked real, the patients’ names seemed to have been written with a slightly different slant. The printouts from the phone-in scripts showed Kim Dean’s initials as the dispensing pharmacist.

“Do you have a sample of Dean’s handwriting?” she asked Baldridge.

He nodded, stepped into the back office, and brought out a large, leather-bound address book.

Ramona paged through it and noted the same slight backward slant. She wrote out a list of all the scripts, added Dean’s address book to it, gave a copy of the list to Baldridge, and told him that he needed to keep it as part of the inventory of seized evidence.

“Show me the narcotic medication,” she said.

Baldridge took her to rows of freestanding medication shelves and handed her a large, almost empty white plastic bottle.

She looked at the pills, snapped the lid back on, and shook the bottle. “How frequently does Dean reorder this?”

It took Baldridge a while to dig out the invoices. He finished with a distraught look on his face, and asked Ramona to give him back the hard copy prescriptions and printouts.

One by one, Baldridge tallied up the total number of narcotic pills Dean had dispensed, including refills. He shook his head sharply, mouth tight with disapproval. “Kim’s been ordering three times the amount he needs,” he said.

“Anything else?” Ramona asked.

“There should be two unopened bottles of five hundred pills each in inventory,” Baldridge replied as he peeled off his pharmacist’s smock and stuffed it under his arm. “They’re not on the shelf.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home. I can’t work here anymore.”

Ramona gave Baldridge a sympathetic smile and touched him on the arm. “You’ll need to stay for a while longer, Mr. Baldridge. Lock the front door, arrange for another pharmacy to handle any prescriptions that still need to be filled, and work with me. It might mean the difference between leaving tomorrow on that vacation with your wife or being delayed.”

Baldridge sighed and looked glum. “Very well, if you insist.”

Three hours into the record search at the pharmacy, the detectives had uncovered enough evidence with Baldridge’s help to prove that Kim Dean had been moving large quantities of drugs containing narcotic painkillers, barbiturates, morphine, and amphetamines onto the streets of Santa Fe. Forged and phony call-in prescriptions from a number of local physicians had been used to falsify the records. To hide inventory shortfalls, Dean had altered invoices from suppliers and lied on required reports to the state pharmacy board.

Although they were only halfway through the prescription and inventory records, Ramona decided to call a halt and bring in the Drug Enforcement Administration, which by law had jurisdiction. She told her team to switch their attention to Dean’s financial records, and gave Grady Baldridge the news that he would have to delay his vacation trip with his wife. Clearly disgusted by what had been unearthed, Baldridge made no complaint.

Sitting in her unit outside the pharmacy, Ramona reported in to Chief Kerney. “When we stopped tallying, the street value of the drugs was at least a hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “Who knows how high it will go once the final count is in. I need DEA here, Chief.”

“I’ll get them on it,” Kerney said. “Do you know if Dean was selling the drugs directly or supplying a dealer?”

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Ramona replied.

“What about the forged prescriptions? Are the patients’ names real?”

“Except for Claudia Spalding, we don’t know.”

“I doubt that they are,” Kerney said. “But I know a man who might be able to tell us quickly if any of those people on the list are part of Spalding’s or Dean’s social circle. He knows just about everyone with money in Santa Fe. He’s been helpful to me in the past.”

Kerney read off a name and address. The man worked as a stockbroker in a professional office building on St. Michael’s Drive.

“Got it,” Ramona said, wondering if the chief was sending her to meet with a confidential informant or an undercover cop.

“I’ll let him know you’re coming,” Kerney said.

“Ten-four.”

For the past year, DEA Special Agent Evan Winslow had masqueraded as an estate, retirement, and wealth management consultant in the Santa Fe office of a national brokerage house. Only the branch manager, a naval academy graduate and former JAG lawyer, and the local police chief, who’d arranged his cover, knew Winslow was a DEA cop.

Winslow wasn’t interested in the low-end market that catered to the street junkies. Instead, he was in place to go after a supplier with Bogota cartel connections who was using a new drug pipeline that stretched from California to New York. Based in Los Angeles, the man flew in a private jet to deliver his goodies to high-end customers across the country who wanted to get loaded in the privacy of their million-dollar homes while remaining under the radar of the local cops.

Winslow was one of four agents in different cities tasked with gathering enough evidence to seize the drugs in the pipeline, bust the supplier, and provide intelligence to DEA agents in South America about the traffickers. If everything worked as planned, a major national roundup of celebrity addicts and users would go down, drawing national media attention, and victory in a battle of the war on drugs would be proclaimed.

So far, Winslow had hard evidence to burn the supplier’s Santa Fe customers, including a fading film actor, a famous jazz musician, a world-renowned chef, a New York City fashion designer, a minor British royal, and a network television producer. But he still hadn’t been able to score directly from the source, which was key to breaking up the cartel.

The call from Chief Kerney had surprised Winslow. But after hearing the chief out and being reassured that his cover wouldn’t be blown, he’d agreed to meet with Ramona Pino.

The receptionist showed Pino into his office. No more than five-three, she was a looker, with perfectly round dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a shapely figure.

“I understand you have some names of people you think I might be able to tell you something about,” Winslow said before Pino had a chance to speak.

“Yes.” Ramona sat in front of the desk and passed Winslow the list of names taken from the forged prescriptions.

“These aren’t people I know,” Winslow said, lying through his teeth. At least six were part of the upscale drug party scene, and one, Mitch Griffin, when he wasn’t building houses, dealt stolen pharmaceutical drugs to his trendy friends. Winslow had always wondered where Griffin got his drugs. Now he knew.

“You’re absolutely sure?” Ramona asked.

Winslow scanned the list again.

“Nobody?” Ramona asked.

“I’m sorry, no.” Winslow tapped his finger on the desk. “Unless a first name might be helpful.”

“Which one is that?” Ramona asked.

“Mitch,” Winslow said, waving the paper. “I don’t know his last name, but it’s down here as Griffin.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“If it’s the right Mitch, he’s a general contractor.”

“Do you know him personally?” Ramona asked.

“Just in passing.”

“Describe him to me.”

“Six-foot-three, in his forties I’d guess. He’s a big guy who likes to work out and party.”

Ramona took back the list. “Thanks for your help.”

Winslow smiled and stood. “I don’t think I’ve done anything helpful at all.” He ushered Pino to the door. “If you ever decide to invest in the stock market, come back and see me.”

He waited for Pino to leave the building before calling Kerney.

“Did Pino make you?” Kerney asked.

“I doubt it. But let’s not make a habit of this, Chief Kerney.”

“Not a chance. Thanks.”

Finding where Mitch Griffin lived took one phone call to the state agency that licensed general contractors. With the chief’s blessing, Ramona assembled a team of officers, including two narcotics detectives and some uniforms, and drove to Griffin’s house in La Cienega, a few miles south of Santa Fe. The house was sited behind a hill on a private dirt lane. In among the surrounding trees were piles of lumber, beams, doors, and windows, some of them covered with clear plastic sheeting.

Griffin’s extended-cab pickup truck sat in front of a detached garage, and parked next to it was Kim Dean’s SUV. Ramona laughed out loud. Maybe the gods had heard her plea for an easy bust after all.

She spread her troops around the building and used a bullhorn to call out Dean and Griffin. After checking the firepower in his front yard through a window, Mitch came out first, totally stoned and shirtless in his six-foot-three, buff glory. Dean followed behind, rumpled and scared, pumping his hands up and down in the air.

She ordered them facedown on the ground with their hands clasped behind their heads and watched as they were cuffed and frisked. Then she had her officers stand them up while she told them the charges and read them their rights.

She looked Dean over carefully. He wasn’t anything to write home about. Maybe the fear in his eyes and his trembling chin made him seem insignificant and ordinary.

“We need to have a nice long talk about Claudia,” she said as a uniform led him away.

“Claudia Spalding?” Griffin mumbled lethargically, his eyes blinking rapidly in the harsh afternoon light. “Man, I built her house.”

“It’s such a small world, isn’t it?” Ramona replied cheerily.