Slow Kill

Chapter 9

The day’s events had forced Ellie Lowrey to focus solely on her duties as a patrol supervisor. She’d been called out to three major incidents: a domestic disturbance at a trailer park, a fatal traffic accident on a busy county road, and the pursuit and apprehension of an armed robber who’d knocked over a convenience store. At the Templeton substation, she hurried through her officers’ shift and arrest reports, daily logs, and supplemental field narratives, before starting in on her own paperwork.

She left the office late, wondering what was up with Bill Price. Much earlier, he’d reported the midmorning arrival of the evidence sent from Santa Fe by overnight air express, and had promised to walk it through the lab and get back to her with the results.

On Highway 101, heading toward San Luis Obispo, Ellie tried with no luck to reach Price by radio and cell phone. She called the detective unit main number, got put through to Lieutenant Macy, her old supervisor, and asked for Price.

“Where are you?” Macy asked.

“Halfway to headquarters,” Ellie said, wondering why her question about Price’s whereabouts hadn’t been answered.

“Good,” Macy replied. “See me when you get here.”

Located outside of San Luis Obispo on the road to Morro Bay, headquarters consisted of the main sheriff’s station, the adjacent county jail, and a separate building that housed the detective unit. Both the jail and the main station were flat-roof, brick-and-mortar structures landscaped with grass, shrubs, palm trees, and evergreens. The detective unit, on the other hand, was in a slant-roof, prefabricated building with aluminum siding. From a distance, it looked like a large industrial warehouse.

She found Macy in his office with Bill Price, who gave her a slightly woebegone glance and sank down in his chair.

“Ellie,” Lieutenant Dante Macy said heartily, flashing a big smile. “Take a load off.”

Ellie’s antenna went up. Cordiality wasn’t Macy’s strong suit. She sat and studied her old boss. A former college football player with a degree in police science, Macy had fifteen years with the department. Big, black, and bright, he’d cleared more major felony cases than any other detective in the unit, past or present. Except for the rare times when Macy lost his temper, Ellie had enjoyed working with him.

Macy’s quiet manner hid a strong-willed, compulsive nature. His passion for order, thoroughness, and adherence to rules showed in the way he dressed and the almost obsessive neatness of his office. Every day he came to work wearing a starched white dress shirt, a conservative tie knotted neatly at the collar, slacks with razor-sharp creases, highly polished shoes, and a sport coat. Ellie had never seen him with the tie loosened or his sleeves rolled up.

Macy’s work space was no less formal: family pictures on the desk arranged just so, file folders neatly stacked in labeled bins, and behind the desk, rows of books and binders perfectly aligned.

Ellie fixed her gaze on Macy. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”

“We got some results back from the lab on that evidence the Santa Fe PD sent us,” Macy said, staring back at her. “The compound recovered from Dean’s garage matches perfectly with the altered pill found in Clifford Spalding’s possession. And there were traces of it on several of the tools.”

“Was it the same potency?” Ellie asked.

“Yeah,” Price interjected, mostly to break up the locked-in eye contact between the two officers. He’d seen them clash before and didn’t want any part of it. “Way under the amount Spalding’s doctor had prescribed.”

“That’s great,” Ellie said, giving Price a glance. “I’ll call the Santa Fe PD and give them the news.”

“Already done,” Macy said softly.

“I drove down here for you to tell me that?” Ellie asked hotly, her eyes riveted on Macy’s face.

“Listen to me, Sergeant,” Macy said calmly, “you’re a patrol supervisor, not a detective anymore. You should have wrapped up the preliminary investigation at the ranch and immediately referred the case to my unit. That’s procedure. If any uniformed officer had done differently while you were serving under me, you would have been in my office bitching up a storm about it. Correct?”

Ellie flushed and nodded.

“Instead, you call out the pathologist to do a rush autopsy without getting authorization, put an out-of-town police chief on the spot as a primary suspect, and then go tearing down to Santa Barbara where you manage to piss off the victim’s widow, not once but twice.”

“Is that your version of what I’ve been doing?” Ellie asked.

Macy spoke with care, giving equal inflection to every word. “That is what the sheriff would have heard if Detective Price hadn’t been covering your ass, with my permission, I might add. Otherwise, I would have been compelled to write you up for failure to follow policy and engaging in activities outside the scope of your present assignment.”

“I did most of that work on my own time,” Ellie retorted, sending a quick smile of thanks in Price’s direction, “and you’ve been getting all my field interview and follow-up narrative reports.”

Macy nodded. “True enough.” He looked at Price. “Give us a minute.”

Price nodded, slipped out of his chair, and hurriedly left the office, closing the door behind him.

Macy leaned forward in his chair, clasped his hands together, and paused before speaking. “The question is, Sergeant, do you want to remain a patrol supervisor or voluntarily give up your stripes and return to your old job?”

“I worked hard for my promotion,” Ellie said, shaking her head.

“But you didn’t like the idea that you had to leave the detective unit to get it,” Macy said.

“It’s a dumb policy,” Ellie said, “when officers have to leave their specialty to move ahead.”

“If you want to rise through the ranks, you take the opportunities as they come,” Macy said. “That’s the name of the game.”

“So it seems,” Ellie replied.

“I am not faulting the work you’ve done on the case. In fact, I can easily understand why you were drawn to it. The complexity of the situation intrigued you. But you are a supervisor now, in a position that requires you to apply the rules to those who serve under you. Failing to do so weakens the entire command structure.”

“Duly noted,” Ellie said.

“Be glad this one-time warning comes from me and not your immediate superiors,” Macy said, his tone edgy, a stern look fixed on his face. “Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Macy relaxed and leaned back. “Do yourself a favor, Ellie,” he said, now much more friendly. “Put in two full years as a patrol sergeant and then ask for a transfer back to my unit. I’ll be looking to add another sergeant around that time.”

“You’d take me back?” Ellie asked.

“In a flash,” Macy said, breaking into a smile, “if you learn to lead by example.”

Price walked Ellie out to the parking lot and said nothing until they reached her cruiser. Before retiring as an Army nurse, he’d supervised an intensive care unit, overseeing other nurses, technicians, and support staff, coordinating services with physicians, therapists, and pharmacists, managing the day-today operations.

Price wholeheartedly supported Macy’s position. Ellie had to stop being a loose cannon for her own good and the department’s.

“You don’t look too badly chewed on,” he said as Ellie unlocked the cruiser door.

“I’m not. Is Macy going to keep you on the case?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“Because unless Claudia Spalding’s lover confirms her complicity in the murder, which he hasn’t done yet, we won’t be able to charge her. The hard evidence just isn’t there.”

“What are you saying?” Price asked.

“Right now, the only way to implicate her is by building a circumstantial case. Spalding showed me a legal document that supposedly gave her permission from her husband to engage in extramarital affairs. The lawyer who drew it up said it was valid, but is it truly?”

“Good question. I’ll get a warrant for the original and run it through questioned documents.”

Ellie began to say more, shook it off, and got into the vehicle.

“What?” Price asked, holding the door open.

“Nothing,” Ellie replied. “But if a Sergeant Ramona Pino from the Santa Fe Police Department passes along any anonymous tips, you might want to check them out.”

Ellie’s intuition, her ability to absorb details, her perseverance, and her superior intelligence put her far beyond the pack as an investigator. But she could be bull-headed, a trait that had caused her trouble in the past.

“Don’t risk your stripes, Ellie,” he said.

“I wouldn’t think of it,” she said, pulling the car door closed.

Price watched her drive off, wondering if he should share his gut feeling about her with Macy. He decided to let it ride. Maybe Ellie could keep herself from going over the line.

The six-hour interrogation of Mitch Griffin combined with other details and facts developed during the day made Ramona Pino feel overloaded with tasks to accomplish, information to sort through, and assignments to make.

First off, Kim Dean had been denied bail and remained in jail, just where Ramona wanted him. He’d fired his lawyer, hired an experienced criminal trial attorney, and still wasn’t talking.

Even if Dean continued to stay dummied up, the lab results from California added heavy weight to the evidence against him. As for the other charges, Griffin’s testimony would go a long way toward securing multiple convictions.

But that still left Claudia Spalding in her California mansion as free as a bird. Finding Coe Evans, the man Claudia Spalding had allegedly asked to help murder her husband, was critical if Ramona had any hope of turning that situation around. But Evans, who no longer worked at the horse rescue ranch, had dropped out of sight, whereabouts unknown.

Ramona had detectives on the phones, talking to Evans’s former coworkers and old acquaintances, checking with utility and phone companies and the postal service, querying banks and credit card companies. So far, he remained off the radar screen.

Locating Evans was just one of the tasks Ramona was juggling. Griffin had identified his framing subcontractor, Greg Lacy, as the man who’d left the ten pounds of grass in his garage. A detective sent out to Lacy’s house had reported no one at home. A neighbor confirmed Griffin’s statement that Lacy was camping somewhere down in the Gila National Forest.

Ramona had questioned Griffin closely about why Lacy’s toolbox had been stored in his garage, and his response had sounded plausible. Many of the subs he hired used his garage and land to store tools and excess materials. They would often come to pick things up or drop things off even when he wasn’t home. Besides, his current building projects were just a few miles away from his house, which made it all the more convenient as a storage site.

Still, Ramona hadn’t bought it. Was the grass really Lacy’s, or was it all a big lie on Griffin’s part? Until they found Lacy and talked to him, that question remained unanswered.

Through her open office door, Ramona could hear her team at work. All of them were well into their second shifts, clacking away at keyboards, talking quietly on phones, stapling reports and shuffling papers, compiling information. Before she turned out the lights and called it a day, she would screen every bit of it.

Two narcotics officers, with the assistance of a member of the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force, were working to verify the identities of the users, dealers, and suppliers Griffin had named. Detective Matt Chacon was on the horn calling around to learn more about Greg Lacy’s personal life, business dealings, employees, and friends. Other team members were working up evidence sheets, doing field reports, writing narratives.

Her phone rang and she picked up.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to arrest Griffin on harboring a fugitive charges?” Barry Foyt asked, his voice sputtering with anger.

“Did you really want to let him completely off the hook?” Ramona replied calmly.

“You blindsided me.”

“No, I upheld my sworn duty,” Ramona said.

“Don’t give me that technical bullshit. You were there when I struck the deal with Delgado.”

“Nothing pertaining to dropping any future charges was agreed to, as I recall.”

“I can recommend to the DA that we decline to prosecute.”

“I’m sure Delgado and Griffin would appreciate that,” Ramona said, trying to bite back on the heavy sarcasm without success. “Is there anything else you wish to say to me?”

“Griffin made bail thirty minutes ago.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

Foyt grunted in reply and disconnected.

The phone in Ramona’s hand brought to mind Ellie Lowrey. Earlier, she had left Lowrey a brief voice mail message summarizing the events of the day, particularly the news that Claudia Spalding might have tried to mastermind her husband’s murder with another lover long before Kim Dean took up the gauntlet and actually did it. Surely, that should have sparked Ellie’s interest enough to return her call.

She shrugged Lowrey off for the moment, put the phone down, and turned her attention back to matters at hand, only to be interrupted by Matt Chacon, who swooped into the office waving a piece of paper.

“This came in from Lacy’s credit card company,” he said as he settled into the straight-back office chair. “In the last four years, he’s taken five international trips, one to Haiti, two to Amsterdam, and two to Bangkok, all sex tourist destinations.”

Ramona looked at the faxed report. “Okay, so he likes whores. What else have you learned about him?”

“He’s a bachelor with no current girlfriend,” Matt replied. “Like Griffin, he lives alone and runs his business out of his house. Hires mostly locals and a few Mexicans, pays them decent wages, and has a good credit rating. He has several close friends, but according to Lacy’s foreman, Griffin isn’t one of them. Their relationship is strictly business.”

“No wants or warrants?”

Chacon shook his head. “He’s got a clean sheet, a good reputation with other contractors who use him, and requires all his employees to undergo periodic drug screening. I think Griffin made a bogus accusation.”

“What kind of vehicles does Lacy own?” Ramona asked.

“Just one, according to motor vehicles: a late model, midsize, four-wheel-drive pickup truck.”

Ramona pushed back her chair and stood. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Matt asked.

“Griffin lied. The toolbox that held the grass fits a full-size truck bed. He just made bail on the harboring charge. We’ve got to find him before he runs.”

To keep himself informed of activities in the field, Kerney often listened to radio traffic while working. He was in his office about to call Alice Spalding and Penelope Parker when a be-on-the-lookout advisory for Mitch Griffin went out, followed by a secure channel broadcast from Ramona Pino alerting dispatch that she and Detective Chacon were on their way to Griffin’s house.

Kerney was certain that Pino and Chacon didn’t know what he’d put into play with Griffin. Did they have fresh information they’d gathered from some other source? Or were they just looking to find him for another round of questioning?

He had half a notion to call Pino for an update, or order her back to headquarters. He passed on both ideas. He thought about tagging along to get a firsthand look at the action, and decided against it, although it certainly wouldn’t be out of character. Instead, he dialed a cell phone number and told the man who answered that Pino and Chacon might be coming his way.

He sat back, wondering what he might have to deal with when Pino and Chacon returned. Because he didn’t run his department by flying a desk in an office, Kerney had built a reputation as a hands-on chief. When time allowed, he liked to get out into the field and watch his officers in action. It reduced the bureaucratic filter between himself and his people.

Occasionally he’d work a patrol or detective shift, pull duty on the Plaza during a major community event, oversee a crime scene investigation, or assist at a DWI checkpoint on a holiday weekend.

He thought back to the event that had established his reputation. During his second week on the job, he’d been driving back to headquarters after a meeting with city hall honchos when a lowered, raked, two-tone ’57 Chevy traveling at a high rate of speed cut him off in heavy traffic on Cerrillos Road. Driving an unmarked unit and wearing civvies because his uniforms weren’t ready, he’d given chase. He forced the driver into a parking lot and put the young Hispanic male facedown on the pavement.

When he approached to do a pat down for weapons, the kid told him he was a city undercover narcotics officer on assignment with the Tri-Country Drug Enforcement Task Force. He carried no credentials, and was dressed like a gangbanger in baggy jeans, an oversized baseball shirt, and expensive athletic shoes.

Kerney questioned the kid, who rattled off the name of his supervisor and said he was on his way to a drug buy at a city park. Unconvinced, Kerney asked dispatch to send a patrol supervisor to his location ASAP, and left the young man spread-eagled with his hands clasped at the back of his head in full view of traffic on Cerrillos Road.

A patrol supervisor rolled up within minutes. The sergeant took one look at the kid on the pavement, killed his emergency lights, and approached Kerney, trying hard not to smile.

“Chief,” the sergeant said, “I see you’ve met Officer Aragon. What was he doing?”

“Speeding, reckless driving, and public endangerment,” Kerney said.

“Okay,” the sergeant said slowly in a voice loud enough for Aragon to hear. “Then I think I’d better pretend to arrest him, otherwise we might blow his cover. He’s an undercover narcotics officer, you know.”

Kerney tried to keep a straight face. “So he said.” He watched the sergeant cuff Aragon, pull him upright, and put him in the backseat of his unit. After a brief exchange of words, the sergeant closed the door and returned.

“Thanks for your help,” Kerney said, trying not to look sheepish.

“Sure thing, Chief,” the sergeant said cautiously. “You do know that only uniformed officers in marked units are authorized under state law to enforce the motor vehicle code and write traffic citations.”

“I do know that,” Kerney said flatly. “What did Officer Aragon have to say for himself?”

“Except for being worried that he started out on the wrong foot with the new chief, Officer Aragon said he doesn’t mind that you busted him. He thinks it will give him credibility with the gang-bangers he’s infiltrated.”

“Tell him I was glad to be of help,” Kerney said, “and to slow it down.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll give him the word.” The sergeant eyed Kerney cautiously. “Technically, I should record this incident in my log and dailies.”

“Write it up, Sergeant,” Kerney replied. “There’s no reason for both of us to be rule breakers.”

The sergeant smiled with relief.

“Don’t embellish the story too much, Sergeant.”

The sergeant’s smile changed to a grin. “There’s no need for that, Chief.”

As Kerney expected, news of the incident had spread like wildfire throughout the department, creating a lot of amused head shaking among the troops about their new chief.

Kerney returned his thoughts to Sergeant Pino. It was quite likely she’d come looking for him with blood in her eye if she happened to encounter DEA Special Agent Evan Winslow.

He called Penelope Parker, hedged a bit on the details, and told her he had some indication that George Spalding might not have died in Vietnam.

“Oh, Alice will be so happy to hear that,” Parker replied, a pleased lilt to her voice. “Will you be coming out here to do more investigating?”

“I doubt it,” Kerney said. “I need to know where George is buried.”

“At the Fort Bayard National Cemetery in New Mexico,” Parker said. “At least what could be found of him.”

“Meaning what?”

“The bodies had basically been incinerated in the crash. Identification was made primarily by dog tags, remnants of uniforms, and dental records.”

“Who supplied the dental records? The military or the family?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were all the victims’ identities verified?” Kerney asked.

“You’re asking me for information I don’t have,” Parker replied. “Remember, this happened long before my time. I do know that after the divorce, Alice wanted George’s remains disinterred so that a DNA test could be made. She wanted to use the latest technology to prove that he was still alive. But Clifford stopped it by getting a judge to rule that both parents would have to agree to the exhumation.”

“Who was the judge?”

“I don’t remember his name, but he was located in Silver City, New Mexico, near the cemetery where George was buried. I typed all the original correspondence. Alice’s lawyer should have the particulars.”

“I’ll need those,” Kerney said. “Would Alice be willing to resubmit a request to disinter the body and also provide a DNA sample for comparison purposes? A simple cotton swab for saliva inside her mouth should be all that’s required.”

“I’m sure she’ll want to cooperate.”

“Give me her lawyer’s name and phone number and I’ll get the ball rolling.”

“How quickly do you plan to act?” Parker asked, after reading off the information.

“I’d like to move fast and get the skeletal remains tested and compared to Alice’s DNA as soon as possible,” Kerney replied. “We can use a private lab in Albuquerque to do the analysis. How soon can you get Alice in for a mouth swab?”

“Her doctor makes house calls,” Parker said, excitement rising in her voice. “I’ll see if he can come out right away. Otherwise, I’ll make an appointment and take her to his office as soon as possible.”

“Tell him exactly what the swab is for and ask him to handle it like evidence. He’s to wear gloves and seal the swab in a clear plastic bag. Have him send it to me by overnight air express.”

“Should I tell Captain Chase about this?” Parker asked, after Kerney gave her his mailing address. “He called a day ago asking if I’ve spoken to you again.”

“Please don’t tell him anything.”

“You make it sound like a conspiracy,” Parker whispered delightedly.

Kerney sidestepped the remark. “You’ll get a call later today from a New Mexico judge who will want to verify Alice’s willingness to have the body exhumed. Make sure she’s prepared to give consent.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“If you have a fax machine at the house, give me the number and I’ll send you an exhumation request form. Fax it back as soon as Alice signs it.”

“What are you planning to do to the body?”

“We’ll take a bone sample from the skeleton and have it compared to Alice’s DNA. Also, I’ll ask for fresh X-rays of the teeth.”

“Who will do the examination?” Parker asked.

“A forensic anthropologist,” Kerney replied.

“How long will this take to accomplish?”

“Disinterring the body can be done quickly,” Kerney said. “Using a private lab for the testing will cut the turnaround time significantly. We should have results and some answers within a matter of a few weeks, if not sooner.”

“I’d better go get Alice ready for all of this,” Parker said.

“Thank you, Ms. Parker.”

“Please, it’s Penelope,” Parker replied with a girlish, teasing tone. “Although I must say I like a gentleman with good manners.”

Kerney laughed politely, got the fax number, disconnected, and called Alice Spalding’s lawyer.

Ramona Pino and Matt Chacon rolled up to Griffin’s house to find the front door ajar and nobody home. They did a quick visual room check, and found clothes missing from the master bedroom closet and a laptop computer gone from a desk in the home office.

Ramona stood in the middle of the living room and gazed out the open front door. “Okay, he’s running,” she said. “But why? What for? And where?”

Chacon wandered around the room pulling furniture away from the walls, kicking over scatter rugs, pummeling the pillows on the eight-foot-long couch. “Drugs,” he said. “It’s gotta be drugs.”

Ramona walked to the telephone, punched in the code to connect to the number of the last incoming call, listened to a clerk answer at a local building supplier, and disconnected. “He’s dealing pharmaceuticals and weed,” she said. “What else?”

“Harder stuff,” Chacon suggested, “or maybe a heavy volume of grass.”

“Ten pounds isn’t exactly lightweight.” Ramona listened to the messages on the answering machine. One from a slightly pissed-off homeowner, demanding to know why Griffin hadn’t yet fixed the tile caulking on the kitchen backsplash, caught her attention.

“But let’s assume,” she said, “he has a really big stash warehoused somewhere. Do we know where Griffin is building houses? Supposedly, it’s nearby.”

Chacon shook his head. “There are new houses going up all around La Cienega.”

Ramona played back the message again, wrote down the irate homeowner’s number, called, and got a busy tone. “Think upscale houses,” she said as she flipped through a phone book. The homeowner wasn’t listed.

“Willow Creek Estates,” Chacon said, “near the interstate.”

Ramona dropped the phone in the cradle. “No listing.” She pawed through a file drawer in the desk and pulled out a copy of the construction contract for the homeowner. “The guy who called Griffin lives on La Jara Way.”

“Which means scrub willow in Spanish,” Chacon said.

Ramona headed for the door. “Let’s take a tour of Willow Creek Estates.”

The subdivision covered a lot of territory and was so new none of their maps included it. They divided it up into halves, and cruised the paved streets. Once a ranch owned by a former governor, it was slowly being transformed into a gated residential community. There were large faux adobe houses on five- and ten-acre lots. Some were nestled along a tree windbreak that shielded the highway from view, while others were tucked out of sight behind low hills. Occupied homes were scattered here and there between houses in various stages of construction. All of them were typical Santa Fe style, with flat roofs, enclosed courtyards, portals, earth-tone stucco finishes, two or more fireplaces, and attached garages. Although not as expensive as the more exclusive foothills houses favored by the very rich, Ramona figured they had to be selling in the mid-to-high six-figure range.

She topped out on a hill and saw four unmarked vehicles, all with emergency lights flashing, parked in front of an unfinished house covered in a plaster scratch coat. Griffin’s pickup truck stood next to a small construction trailer. Men wearing Windbreakers were going in and out of the house and trailer.

By radio, she gave Matt Chacon the word, gave dispatch her twenty, and asked what was up at her location.

“We have no reported activity in your area,” dispatch replied.

“Well, get ready for some.” Ramona hit her emergency lights and drove toward the house. The man who stopped her at the driveway had a DEA ID attached to a lanyard around his neck.

“This is as far as you go, Sergeant Pino,” Special Agent Evan Winslow said.

“What a surprise,” Ramona said. “Shouldn’t you be at the brokerage office managing wealth for your clients? I need Mitch Griffin.”

“You can’t have him,” Winslow said as he opened the car door and gestured for Ramona to get out.

“Why not?” Ramona asked, refusing to budge. In the rearview mirror she could see Matt Chacon’s unit coming down the road.

Winslow gauged the angry look on Pino’s face. “Well, I suppose you deserve some explanation.”

“Damn right I do,” Ramona said, picking up her radio microphone, “and if I don’t get one, I’m calling in this little undercover DEA raid so that every citizen with a police scanner can hear what’s going on. It will be in tomorrow’s paper, along with your name.”

Winslow considered the threat and nodded slowly. “Ask your partner to stay back and I’ll tell you what I can, if you promise to discuss it only with your chief.”

Ramona pulled her car door closed, radioed Chacon to hold his position, and told Winslow to get in.

Winslow settled into the passenger seat and turned to face her. “I need your promise, Sergeant Pino.”

“Yeah, you got it,” Ramona said, still steamed.

“Griffin may be able to give me a major drug supplier we’ve been trying to bust and flip for the past year, so we can shut down a Colombian pipeline.”

“How does Griffin figure into your plan?” Ramona asked.

“The supplier offers one-stop shopping to wealthy clients in the privacy of their homes-coke, heroin, speed, grass, designer drugs. He imports the hard stuff and buys whatever else he needs from independent wholesalers here in the States. That ten pounds of grass you found in Griffin’s garage put us on to him. We knew the supplier was buying weed locally, but we didn’t know from whom.”

“Who in the hell told you about the ten pounds of grass?” Ramona demanded. “That’s confidential information. Nothing has been released about it.”

“Think it through, Sergeant,” Winslow said.

Ramona leaned back against the headrest and let out a frustrated sigh. It all made sense; the chain went from Chief Kerney to Special Agent Winslow to Griffin. “What’s in the construction trailer?”

“About three-quarters of a million dollars of high-quality marijuana freshly imported from Mexico. According to Griffin, it arrived right after you busted him. He was planning to hitch the trailer to his truck and tow it away when we got here.”

“So you bailed Griffin out of jail and put a tail on him,” Ramona said. “Where is he?”

“Inside the house,” Winslow answered.

“I need to speak to him now.”

“Not yet,” Winslow replied, opening the passenger door. “Maybe never.”

“You can’t be serious,” Ramona snapped. “He’s a major witness in a homicide case. I need his testimony.”

Winslow got out of the car, bent down to look at Pino, and nodded in the direction of Matt Chacon’s unit parked on the road at the top of the hill. “Talk to your chief, Sergeant, and tell your partner nothing about me or this conversation.”

“What in the hell do I say to him?”

“You’re a sergeant. Pull rank, if you have to. Tell him he has no need to know. If that doesn’t work, I suggest you tell him to ask for a sit-down with Chief Kerney.”

Winslow closed the door and walked away just as dispatch asked Ramona for a status update. She cleared herself from the twenty, and told dispatch she and Chacon were returning to headquarters.

Matt came on the air, asking for information. Ramona had him switch to the secure channel, gave him the ten code for an undercover operation, and told him they’d talk more back at headquarters. Frustrated by Chief Kerney’s actions, she squealed rubber backing out of the driveway.