Slow Kill

Chapter 7

K im Dean was scared, but he wasn’t stupid. He asked for an attorney and immediately dummied up. Ramona took him directly to the county jail, booked him on a murder one charge, and left him with a detention officer. The officer let Dean make his phone call to a lawyer and put him in an isolation cell, the first step on the way to being processed, fingerprinted, and strip-searched.

Ramona used the time to fill out additional booking forms on Dean, charging him with drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, forgery, distribution of controlled substances, and possession with intent to distribute. Although it only counted as a misdemeanor, she threw in an evading arrest charge for good measure.

She had a detention officer bring Dean to an interrogation room where she read off the additional charges, Mirandized him again, and asked if he’d like to make a voluntary statement.

Dean shook his head and said no.

Ramona knew his refusal barred her from asking questions, but that didn’t stop her from talking.

“Just in case you’re interested,” she said, “each prescription you forged counts as a separate charge. Let’s be conservative and say you did fifty. That’s a hundred and fifty years, if a judge sentences you to consecutive terms. Throw in all the other counts and I’m guessing you’ll get about 250 years in the slam. Of course, you may get time off for good behavior.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer,” Dean said. Color had come back to his face and his rosy cheeks clashed with the orange jail jumpsuit. He sat with his feet crossed under the table and his hands hidden from view.

Chief Kerney thought that Dean might break easily under interrogation, but it wasn’t happening. Maybe he wasn’t the kind of bully who pushed people around to hide his own inadequacies. Maybe, instead, Dean was the control freak type who got off on dominating and manipulating people.

About six feet tall, Dean had light brown hair that receded over his temples and exposed his tiny ears. He had a long, slightly turned up nose that gave him a haughty look. But his rapidly blinking brown eyes signaled underlying stress.

“When the lawyer comes,” Ramona said, gathering her paperwork, “ask him about the federal sentencing laws for drug trafficking, possession, and distribution.”

“Why should I do that?” Dean asked.

Ramona stared past Dean at the dull gray concrete wall of the room. Jail was a grim place nobody ever really got used to. It always gave her the willies.

“The feds have harsher penalties,” she replied curtly. “You may want to deal with us instead of them.”

She left Dean and went to check in with Matt Chacon, who’d booked Mitch Griffin into custody. Ramona stepped into the interrogation room and found that big, buff Griffin had waived his Miranda rights and was talking.

He had a pretty face with even features. Combined with the day-old stubble on his chin, he vaguely resembled a country music singer who’d been a teenage heartthrob some years back before quickly fading into obscurity.

Ramona wondered if Mitch had ever slept with Claudia Spalding. She asked him about it, and he shook his head. Matt Chacon told her Mitch was willing to testify against Dean on the drug trafficking charge if he could cut a deal.

“You didn’t promise him anything?” Ramona asked, eyeing Griffin.

“Nada,” Matt replied.

“Let’s hold off on asking the assistant district attorney to make any offers until we search Mitch’s house. I’ll call for a warrant.”

“Why do you want to do that?” Griffin asked, his glance nervously flitting from Chacon to Ramona.

“Do you ever gamble at the Indian casinos, Mitch?” Ramona asked.

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Then you know what a punt is, right?”

“Yeah, you bet against the banker in faro and games like that.”

“Consider me the banker in this game,” Ramona said, smiling cheerfully at Griffin. “Depending on the amount of product we find, you may be facing the possibility of life without parole. If I seize enough to put you away for life, I’ll be holding all the cards. So, there will be no plea bargain until I know exactly what your maximum bet is going to be.”

Griffin slumped in his chair. “How much stash do you have to find?”

Ramona waved a finger at Griffin. “No fair asking, Mitch. That’s cheating.”

Ramona stepped into the hallway to the sounds of an opening door and footsteps down the corridor. Chief Kerney, an ADA, and Dean’s lawyer walked in her direction. The ADA peeled off into the room where Mitch Griffin was parked, and Ramona directed the defense attorney to the room where Dean waited.

“Where are we?” Kerney asked.

“Dean’s not talking,” Ramona said.

“How many charges did you lay on him?” Kerney asked.

“Seven felonies, including multiple counts of forgery,” Ramona said, “plus one misdemeanor.”

“That should get him talking eventually,” Kerney said with an approving nod. “A DEA team is at the pharmacy. I told our people to stay and assist.”

The ADA poked his head out the door of the interrogation room. “You’ve got Griffin’s voluntary permission to search his house,” he said. “His drug stash is in a cabinet above the refrigerator.” He handed Ramona a signed search release form.

“What did you promise him?” Ramona asked.

“Nothing,” the ADA replied in a voice loud enough for Griffin to hear. “He wants immunity from prosecution. He isn’t going to get it. At least, not yet. Maybe not ever.”

The ADA retreated into the room and closed the door.

“I want Griffin to do time,” Ramona said. “Lots of it.”

“He probably will,” Kerney said. “I asked the ADA to play him for a while to see if he knows anything about the Spalding murder. If that doesn’t pan out, we can use what he tells us to nail down the drug charges on Dean and round up his customers.”

“We’re not backing off on the murder charges against Dean, are we, Chief?” Ramona asked.

Ramona’s tight voice gave away her apprehension. Kerney smiled reassuringly. “Not at all. I want him to roll over on Claudia Spalding. We can go to trial without Dean testifying against her, but we’ll have a much better chance at a conviction if we have him in our pocket.”

“What will the DA offer Dean?”

“He’ll drop all but the murder one and drug trafficking charges if he cops a plea and gives us Claudia.”

“Has Dean’s lawyer been advised?” Ramona asked.

“No, and he won’t be until after the preliminary hearing and bail has been set. Since Dean’s a flight risk, Sid will request that he be held without bond.”

Ramona flashed a pleased smile.

“One more thing, Sergeant,” Kerney said. “Remember, the DEA can file against Dean in federal court on the drug and forgery charges that we drop, and I fully expect that they will. His lawyer should snap to that immediately, and listen hard to any plea bargain offer.”

“That won’t happen until a couple of days from now,” Ramona said.

“Exactly. Use the time wisely, Sergeant. If Dean doesn’t play ball, you’ll need as much as you can get on Claudia Spalding to make a strong case.”

“Will do, Chief.”

As Kerney turned and walked away, Ramona wondered what else she could possibly do to link Claudia Spalding directly to the murder of her husband. She paused in front of the door to the interrogation room where Mitch and the ADA were meeting. After she finished up at the jail and did the search for drugs at Griffin’s house, she would give Ellie Lowrey a call.

Maybe between the two of them they could brainstorm something.

Kim Dean had been cutting legal corners for a long time, but up to now he’d never needed the services of a criminal trial lawyer. He’d used his one phone call from the jail to contact the only attorney he knew, a woman who specialized in real-estate law. She was unable to clear her schedule, but promised to send a junior member of the firm to see him as soon as possible.

Stubbs was the lawyer’s name, Howard Alan Stubbs, and he was talking to Dean about all the things he needed to do to get a clear picture of the situation.

Stubbs called it a “situation,” but Kim knew better; he was in a pile of shit ten feet deep. He also knew he needed a sharper, more experienced lawyer who could dig him out of a hole.

Stubbs looked like his name: short arms and short legs with a Humpty Dumpty body. He wore a brown suit, brown shoes, and a paisley tie that stopped just below his belly button. His pale young face was round as a beach ball.

Dean interrupted Stubbs’s ramblings and asked him when he could get out of jail.

“We won’t know that,” Stubbs replied, “until your arraignment.”

Dean nodded. His right foot tapped a staccato beat on the floor. He pushed down hard on his leg with a hand to make it stop.

“But from what you’ve told me,” Stubbs said, “you may not be released. The DA will ask that you be held without bond, and of course I’ll argue against it. Perhaps I can get the judge to agree to a large cash bond. If not, you’re here until the preliminary hearing. That’s when I’ll get a first look at the evidence against you.”

“Not until then?” Dean asked.

Stubbs shook his head. “And we won’t see everything right away.”

“I want out of this place,” Dean said.

“I can’t guarantee that,” Stubbs said.

“The cop who arrested me said something about federal drug laws. She said I should talk to you about it.”

“As I understand it,” Stubbs said, “the federal laws are more severe. You could find yourself facing trial in both state and federal courts.”

“As you understand it?” Dean snapped.

Stubbs flushed. “I’ll research the statutes.”

That sealed it, Dean thought. Stubbs was in way over his head. “I want you to call someone for me.”

“Sure,” Stubbs answered agreeably.

Dean gave him Claudia’s cell phone number. “Tell the woman who answers where I am and that I need help, lots of it, right away,” he said.

“Who is this woman?” Stubbs asked.

“Just a friend.”

“What’s her name?”

“Just call her and tell her about my situation. She’ll know what to do.”

Stubbs frowned and packed his notebook in his briefcase. “Don’t talk to anyone unless I’m present,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Dean didn’t move after Stubbs left the room. He sat with the fingers of his hands interlaced, hidden from view under the table. If he eased up and stopped squeezing his hands together his whole body would start shaking.

None of this was supposed to happen. He wanted to push it aside, smash it to bits, stomp it into oblivion. He could feel sweat under his armpits dripping down his rib cage, taste it on his upper lip.

Dean knew he had to stay in control and not do any talking to the cops. And he had to replace Stubbs with somebody sharp. A good prosecutor would push Stubbs around as easily as he had. He needed a crusading defense lawyer with a high profile who knew how to work the media. He had to stay calm and wait for Claudia to come through for him.

A jailer stepped into the room and took him down the hall. Doors slammed closed behind him, glaring light bounced off the polished tile floors, buzzers sounded as electronic locks opened, eyes followed him. The jailer took him back to the isolation cell, locked him in, and peeked at him through the small window.

There was an elevated concrete slab built into one wall to sit or lie on, a steel sink with one cold water tap, three shielded, recessed lights in the ceiling, a steel toilet with a flush valve. Just that, nothing more.

He sat on the concrete slab, stared at the floor, and told himself over and over again to say nothing and wait. It didn’t erase the fear he felt, but it helped.

There were enough pharmaceuticals in Mitch Griffin’s house to keep dozens of dopers, pillheads, and speed freaks happy for weeks-and that was just from the stash Ramona and the officers found in the kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator. Further searching turned up ten pounds of marijuana Griffin had hidden in a locked contractor’s truck box that sat on a shelf in the garage. Additionally, seventeen thousand dollars in cash was found in a trombone case under Mitch’s bed.

While detectives continued searching the house, Ramona stood outside and looked down the lane. Although the hill hid the small village of La Cienega from view, she could see the tops of the old willow trees that lined the valley. A few puffy white clouds drifted overhead in a washed-out, pale blue sky.

Unless Dean talked, she had two days at best to gather enough evidence against Claudia Spalding to arrest her. If Dean didn’t implicate Spalding, and no physical evidence tied her to the crime, what would it take?

Ramona had worked circumstantial evidence cases before, and knew that sometimes they were successful in court and sometimes not. She flipped open her cell phone and dialed Sergeant Ellie Lowrey’s number in California, hoping for some good news.

“Have you got anything?” she asked when Ellie answered.

“Yeah, and it’s all bad,” Lowrey replied. “We got partials off the medicine bottle. They belong to Clifford Spalding and the limo driver. That’s it.”

“Dammit,” Ramona said.

“Tell me about it. What’s up on your end?”

“Dean’s in custody. I booked him on a half dozen felony counts, including drug trafficking and murder. He’s got a lawyer and he isn’t talking.”

“Well, at least you’ve got him,” Ellie said. “That’s half a victory.”

“Not even, if we can’t make a case against Claudia,” Ramona replied. “Any ideas?”

“Just one,” Ellie replied. “Chief Kerney told me that the ranch manager in Paso Robles characterized Claudia as a big flirt.”

“Do you think Claudia has other lovers besides Dean?” Ramona asked.

“I think anything is possible with that woman,” Ellie replied. “What if she wanted out of the marriage in spite of the sexual freedom she had?”

“Or maybe she violated the terms of her agreement with Clifford and he found out about it,” Ramona said.

“Exactly,” Ellie said. “If we could prove that, we’d have a solid motive for murder.”

“So let’s find out if there have been any other lovers in Claudia’s life during the past four years,” Ramona said.

“It’s a deal,” Ellie said. “Keep in touch.”

“Talk to you later,” Ramona said.

She disconnected, turned the house search over to a senior detective, and headed back to the jail. Although Mitch Griffin had denied any sexual involvement with Claudia, Ramona decided it was time to push the subject a bit harder with him to see where it led.

Kerney’s house was built on a shallow depression along a gently sloping ridgeline above a red sandstone canyon. From the portal that ran the length of the south-facing house, he could look down on the meadow below. Cut by a wandering, sandy arroyo and bordered by a stand of old cottonwood trees, the meadow was frequently visited by a small herd of antelope that grazed on the native bunch grasses that grew in the poor soil.

Beyond the canyon, the Galisteo Basin stretched out to meet the Ortiz Mountains, which tumbled against the higher peaks of the Sandias, a good fifty miles distant. Behind the house, a swath of pine-studded pastureland rose up a hill, framed in the background by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Santa Fe.

In Spanish, Sangre de Cristo meant “blood of Christ.” Tradition had it that the mountains were so named by the Spanish settlers because of the deep red color that washed over the peaks at sunset. To the native people who had lived at the foot of the mountains for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived, they were “the place where the sun danced.”

To Kerney, both names perfectly described the mountains. At times, he’d seen a deep mahogany-red color tint the peaks, and on certain monsoon days had watched shafts of sunlight flit like nimble waves across the rain-darkened range. One night he’d stood in awe as the full moon rose, backlighting a bank of clouds behind the mountains, creating a creamy white mantle that draped down to the foothills.

With Sara and Patrick on the other side of the country, Kerney filled his free time with home improvement projects that kept his hands busy and his mind occupied. His latest undertaking was a rock wall that, when finished, would enclose a long planting bed on the east side of the house. He’d bought a truckload of flat landscaping rock from a quarry and was teaching himself how to cut, fit, and dry stack the stone to create a three-foot-high wall. So far, he’d trenched the foundation and leveled the grade. Now it was time to start laying in the largest, widest stones as the base course.

He arrived home, changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and started working up a sweat in the late afternoon sun. He’d planned the wall to curve and join up with the end of the south-facing portal, and he found that cutting the stones to make the bend was no easy matter.

He stood up to get another rock and saw a car enter the ranch road through the meadow and move up the hill. Even from a distance Kerney could see it was an unmarked police unit. The make of the vehicle, the spotlight mounted on the driver-side door, and the two trunk-mounted antennas were dead giveaways. But he didn’t have any idea who the driver might be.

At a hose bib, he splashed water on his face, wiped a sleeve over his damp, matted hair, put his cap back on, and walked to the car as it slowed to a stop in the driveway.

Agent Joe Valdez got out and walked to him. “Building a wall?” he asked as he shook Kerney’s hand.

“Trying to,” Kerney asked. “What brings you out to the boonies?”

“I’m driving down to Carlsbad for an early morning meeting,” Joe said as he walked over to the line of rocks Kerney had laid. “Since you’re on my way, I thought I’d stop by to tell you what I’ve learned about Clifford Spalding.”

Valdez knelt down and studied the partial line of rock Kerney had placed in the trench. “Are you planning to dry stack or use mortar?”

“I plan to dry stack,” Kerney said.

“How high is the wall going to be?” Joe asked as he jiggled a stone to test its stability. It was firmly placed.

“Three feet,” Kerney replied.

Joe shook his head and rose. “Your foundation is too narrow. You’ll need to double the size of it.”

“You know about this stuff?” Kerney asked.

“My grandfather was a stone mason,” Joe said, with a nod of his head. “I used to work for him in the summertime. Will it be a free-standing or a retaining wall?”

“Retaining,” Kerney said. “I’ll backfill it with topsoil and eventually put in a flowerbed and a flag-stone path.”

“You’ll need to slope it for drainage, otherwise it will give way over time,” Joe said as he walked along the empty part of the trench. “That’s one of the reasons your foundation has to be wider, so you can step it back a bit and still have support at the base.”

“Should I start over?” Kerney asked.

“I would,” Joe said, glancing at Kerney’s rock pile. “And you might want to order more rock. You’ve only got half of what you’ll need.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Kerney said.

“That’s about all the help I can give you,” Joe replied with a smile, “because this thing with Clifford Spalding is a washout. There’s no way I can track down the source of the money Spalding used to buy the leasehold for the Santa Fe hotel or pay his way out of bankruptcy. Nobody keeps financial records for thirty years, unless there are potential litigation issues, and there weren’t any with Spalding.”

“How much money are we talking about?” Kerney asked.

“All together, a little over three hundred thousand,” Joe said, “and none of it came from the life insurance policy on Spalding’s son. That was for ten grand, and the beneficiary was Debbie Calderwood, who cashed it in, according to the insurance company records.”

“Where do you think Clifford Spalding got that kind of money?” Kerney asked.

Valdez shrugged. “One source told me Spalding had no partners. Another, the lawyer who handled the lease agreement for the Santa Fe property, said he had an investor. The state has no record of a partnership contract, so I’m assuming it was an informal, handshake arrangement.”

“Did the lawyer give you the name of the investor?” Kerney asked.

“Nope,” Joe replied. “He didn’t handle that part of it, and Spalding made the first payment on the lease through his personal checking account. Even if I could have found the bank account he’d used, the record wouldn’t be there. Banks only keep checking account information for six years.”

“What about state and federal tax records?”

“You’d need to make a strong case for tax evasion first, before we could access that information,” Joe replied. “Same with bank deposit reports to the feds when the amount is in excess of ten thousand dollars.”

“Did the insurance company have a record of where they sent the policy proceeds to Debbie Calderwood?” Kerney asked.

“Yeah,” Joe replied, stepping off toward his unit. “I’ll get my notes.” He came back and opened a file. “It was sent to general delivery in Taos.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Kerney said.

“Sorry I couldn’t have been more helpful,” Valdez replied. “Good luck with the wall.”

Kerney glanced at his project. He’d put a lot of hours into doing it wrong, and now he’d have to start over again from scratch. “I might as well get it right,” he said.

Valdez laughed and nodded in agreement.

Kerney waved as Joe drove away, thinking maybe his research hadn’t been a complete waste of time. According to Lou Ferry, the PI Clifford Spalding had hired and then fired for failing to continue falsifying his investigative reports, Debbie Calderwood had spent some time in Taos living on a commune before disappearing into southern Colorado.

While the communes around Taos were long gone, many of the old hippies from the sixties and early seventies remained. They formed an alternative lifestyle community of fringe artists, environmental activists, ski bums, building contractors, and reconstructed small business owners.

Kerney decided to pay the Taos police a call in the morning. Given the small size of the town, surely the local cops had to know someone with connections to the old communes who remembered Debbie Calderwood.

It was worth a shot.

He turned to the rock work, and started lifting out the stones he’d so carefully leveled at the bottom of the trench.

Ramona Pino had left Mitch Griffin’s house weighing a question that had troubled her all afternoon. Why had Griffin waived his rights and given carte blanche permission for the search without demanding a deal from the ADA? It made no sense. Surely, Griffin had to know what the cops would find. Was he just plain stupid, or protecting someone or something? If so, who or what?

Pino knew that a successful interrogation never happened unless you had enough information to pursue the facts by asking the right questions. Was Griffin afraid of somebody? His marijuana supplier perhaps? Or was there another, larger issue at stake that had caused Griffin to cave in so readily?

Ramona didn’t think Griffin was stupid, which meant she had to try to get a handle on his motivation before questioning him again. She stopped her unit near the on-ramp to the interstate and thought about what he might be hiding. Nothing came to mind. She decided to make some phone calls to other law enforcement agencies in the morning to see if Griffin’s name rang any bells.

Commuter traffic on the interstate had eased up. Ramona glanced at the dashboard clock, sighed, put her car in gear, and headed toward the office. Her shift had been over for hours and there was still reams of paperwork that had to be done for submission to the DA in the morning.

Sometimes she wondered why she liked her job so damn much.