by Don Travis
“Let’s see, we lost touch with Rocky last Tuesday. Any idea of the operating hours for weekdays?”
Roy didn’t, but he got on his cell and minutes later answered my question. “Last run on weekdays starts at 11:00 p.m. Reaches the end of the run at midnight.”
“And then returns.”
“You’re thinking he wasn’t killed here?” Gene asked.
“Someone drove his body here and caught a bus back to town.”
Guerra frowned. “Lodeen wasn’t a big man, but it would still take strength to move him from behind the driver’s seat and back again. That points to Spears.”
“When can we see photos?” I asked.
“Forensics will have them for us tomorrow.”
“Paul, let’s go. There’s nothing more for us here tonight.”
I don’t know about my companion, but my fanny felt a little safer with Rockwell B. Lodeen out of the picture.
BY NOON Monday we knew several significant things about Rocky Lodeen’s death. Although neither OMI nor Forensics was finished with its report, they were able to tell us the little nickel-finish Phoenix Arms .25 found in the Cougar was the murder weapon. We also knew it belonged to Rocky Lodeen. He’d been killed by his own gun. No fingerprints on the weapon, not even his. And OMI confirmed there was no GSR, gunshot residue, on the victim’s hands.
Rocky didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered. The angle of the bullet was consistent with someone sitting in the back seat and putting the pistol to the side of his head. Crime scene photos showed his body slumped against the driver’s door and forward against the steering wheel.
This caused me to reconsider the way I envisioned the murder taking place. It wasn’t someone in the passenger’s seat. Someone got the drop on Rocky from the back seat and forced him to drive to the remote area where the pop of a .25 wouldn’t be noticeable. But would Rocky have handed his murderer his handgun? And why the .25? Records show he also owned a Colt Competition 1911 .45-caliber handgun, and a couple of long guns, including an AK-47. He legally bought the .25 just over a month ago. It was possible he used the small gun as a backup, but we found no ankle harness. Of course, it was small enough to fit in a pocket.
Paul tended to agree with my conclusion but was hung up over logistics. “How did the killer manage it? We kept a close eye on Rocky virtually around the clock.”
“We took the double team off him,” I said.
“Meaning?”
“When we put an around-the-clock watch on him, that meant there was only one man watching Rocky at a time.”
Paul nodded. “So when we’re watching the back door, he goes out the front. But if his killer was in the car with him, like you figured, he didn’t have a vehicle to get away in. That’s why you asked about the city bus route.”
“Right.”
He frowned. “But buses don’t run after midnight.”
Paul’s point sent me to the computer. A check of the bus schedules showed the first run came at 5:30 a.m. with the trip taking about an hour. That would put the bus in Westgate Heights at 6:30 and back on Ninety-eighth maybe twenty minutes later.
“Possible,” I said. If Rocky left by the front door around two or three in the morning, the timetable fits.”
“But where could they be going that time of night without raising Rocky’s suspicions?” Paul pressed. “And how did Spence get Rocky’s gun away from him?”
“You’re assuming Spence was his killer? Could be. Maybe the killer jerked it out of Rocky’s waistband.”
Paul shot me a sideways look. “Or maybe Spence suggested some hanky-panky.”
“In a car in a remote field on a cold December night? Not when they had at least two comfortable beds available.”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe they needed to add some spice. We’ve had a go at it in the mountains when there was a whole house to chase one another around in.” He waved a hand in the air. “Maybe Rocky simply picked up the wrong mark and got killed for his efforts.”
“You really think Rocky went around picking up strange guys for sex?”
Paul looked sheepish. “No.”
ALTHOUGH THE police didn’t release the identity of the victim, the Journal carried the story of the shooting on the Westside. The article indicated the authorities had not determined if the death was a suicide or murder. I wanted to get to the three most likely suspects before Rocky’s name slipped out.
I ran Spence down at a grand old house in the Huning Highlands neighborhood. If the lawn clinging to a bit of green this late in the year was typical of his work, Spencer Spears was good at what he did. The winter flowers in beds flanking the stone steps to the minimansion added a welcome bit of color, although I could detect no perfume.
Spence straightened from his cart full of clippings, holding shears in his gloved hand. He frowned before smiling a halfhearted greeting.
“You don’t look happy to see me,” I said.
“Other circumstances, you’d be a pleasure to look at.”
“What circumstances?”
“You know. Asking nosy questions. Lawyer, remember.”
“I’m not here to ask questions. Today I’m the bearer of bad news.”
The frown returned.
“Rocky Lodeen is dead. Murdered.”
“R-Rocky? You must be wrong. Who could take down a guy like that?”
I held my hands palm up, as if weighing something in each. “Paratrooper… Ranger.”
“Me? Why would I do that? He was my friend. He… he was more than that.”
“You’ve been spending more nights together than before, but maybe he told you he’d decided to go back to Sarah. Maybe that was more than you could take.”
Spence’s laugh held tragedy. “Sarah? She couldn’t hold his interest for long. He always came back to me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get the picture. I’ve got you pegged as somebody who moves on after a short stay. I figure it doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, it just has to be somebody who attracts you.”
“That’s the way it’s always been.” His eyes clouded. “Until….”
“Until Rocky.”
His nod was almost invisible.
“But surely you knew he wasn’t a stable lover. The man-on-man thing was just a diversion for him.”
He shrugged, his face long. He’d aged a couple of years in the few minutes since I’d arrived. “Maybe a diversion was enough.” He straightened his spine. “At any rate I wouldn’t kill him, jealousy or not. He is… he was what I needed right now.”
A small silence grew until he looked at me sharply, his eyes wide. “The story in the Journal? That was Rocky?”
I nodded. “Do you own a .25 semiautomatic?”
“No. I have a .38.” He gave me his patent stare again. “But Sarah does.”
“Sarah Thackerson? There’s no record of her buying a gun.”
“Rocky bought it for her. She asked him to. They met at an indoor firing range over on the Westside every once in a while.”
“She tell you this?”
“Rocky did.”
“I’ve had him under surveillance, and we never saw evidence of any firing ranges.”
I saw the rebuke forming in his mind, but he never uttered it. Then how did he get away from you and get himself killed? Instead, Spence shrugged. “Before you started watching, I guess. Sometime after you had the cops haul us down to talk to the detectives.”
I thought that one over. That fit with when Rocky bought the pistol, which meant Sarah lied to me about when their relationship began. Why was I surprised? I engaged Spence’s attention again. “I want to deliver the news about Rocky’s death to her myself. Keep it zipped.”
“You got it.”
After I got in the Impala, I glanced in Spence’s direction and saw him standing with his back to me, his shoulders shaking. Now that there was no witness, was he surrendering to grief?
Maybe I owe you an apology, Spencer Spears.
RATHER
THAN racing to confront Sarah, I dialed Paul at home and asked him to meet me at Gene’s office. A call to Gene got us an appointment. Then I parked on a side street and located the telephone number for the Super 8 Motel on West Bataan Memorial in Las Cruces to reconfirm Sarah Thackerson registered there the night Belhaven died. It took some time for them to pull up their records, but eventually a bored-sounding clerk made the confirmation. The record also showed she prepaid in order to leave whenever she wanted. By the time they phoned the next day to ask about an extended stay, Sarah had already vacated the room.
When I arrived at APD both Paul and Roy Guerra were waiting. Gene finished a phone call and invited us inside. Everyone listened carefully while I brought them up to date.
“Sarah Thackerson?” Gene asked when I finished.
“Makes sense. She needed muscle to help with Belhaven’s murder.”
“But she was in Las Cruces. You checked the motel,” Roy said. “So did I,” he added.
“Right. We knew she checked in at four thirty on the afternoon of Belhaven’s death and prepaid for one night’s stay. But we don’t know when she left. She could have started for home at any time. But as Paul noted when she gave us her alibi, it was only a three-hour drive to Albuquerque. She probably ate dinner at the motel’s café to be seen and maybe even took a short nap. She had plenty of time to arrive back in Albuquerque, meet Rocky, and enter the house through the garage. Rocky probably killed the writer while she cleaned out the office and smashed the computer hard drives to throw us off track.”
“Why?” Gene asked.
“Both she and Spence knew about the $250,000 bequest in Belhaven’s will. And she almost certainly knew about a $1,000,000 life policy in her favor. Maybe the double-indemnity clause on the policy was too tempting. Perhaps she was tired of servicing Belhaven. Or she’d just met a new man who she knew would be high maintenance. Whatever the reason, she decided to collect for her work.”
“Why kill Rocky Lodeen?” Paul asked.
“He was probably safe until we discovered a connection between them. Smart work on Tim’s and Alan’s part. When we started putting the screws to him, he tried to hide his connection to Sarah by shifting his attention to Spence.”
“Why bother?” Roy asked.
“To lead us away from his girlfriend. Spence was physically capable of doing away with Belhaven on his own, but Sarah needed Rocky’s help. If we concentrated on Spence, they thought they might get away with it, especially since Spence had already given Rocky $10,000 for his car.”
“What? Rocky thought we’d ignore DNA evidence in the Caravan that ran into me?” Paul asked. “That already connected him.”
“It’s one thing to stage a car wreck to try to warn someone off for a buddy. It’s another to murder for him… or her.”
Roy shook his head. “Something doesn’t make sense. We don’t think she could take down an old man in his sixties, so how could she handle a trained killer in the prime of life?”
“The Belhaven killing required physical strength. He was bludgeoned to death, remember? Killing Rocky merely meant putting a pistol to his head and pulling the trigger. Besides, the first killing was avarice, the second was self-preservation.”
“Rocky wanted to bail, huh?” Paul asked.
“And take his share of the loot with him. Probably half the bequest since the insurance hasn’t paid yet.”
“Why didn’t she just give it to him and let him go?” Paul asked.
“She knew we were keeping an eye on everyone’s finances. She couldn’t afford to yank half her assets and give them to him. That would alert us.”
“Okay,” Roy said. “Tell me how she got this ex-paratrooper to drive out on the Westside in the middle of the night without alerting him she was up to something?”
“You’ll have to ask Sarah that question.”
Chapter 30
THE SARAH Thackerson who opened her door to Roy, Paul, and me appeared to be another woman. The severe look was gone. Her brown hair now sported chestnut highlights and flowed generously around her cheeks. Her big doe eyes, no longer framed by black-rimmed glasses, widened briefly at the sight of us. She recovered quickly and invited us inside her small apartment. The books I had come to expect were open on the kitchen table. She had been studying.
“Ms. Thackerson—” Roy began.
“Miss. Miss Thackerson,” she interrupted.
“Miss Thackerson, we need to discuss your relationship with a man named Rocky Lodeen.”
She waved a hand in my direction. “Ask Mr. Vinson. He set some people to watching us. He knows Rocky visits me occasionally at night.”
“Not so much anymore,” I said. “He seems to have switched his attention to Spencer Spears lately.”
“Mutual decision. Things were getting too intense. Getting in the way of finishing my education.” She gave an obligatory glance toward the table in the kitchen area. “But I remained fond of him.” Her words seemed to be a mere formality.
“You make a habit of sharing all your partners with Spence Spears?” Paul asked.
Sarah looked down her nose at him. “I should probably broaden my horizons.”
“I’d say so,” Roy put in. “Since your horizon has been cut in half.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rocky Lodeen was found dead Sunday night.”
Her legs seemed to go limp, dumping her on a settee. “Rocky? H-how?”
“Shot to death in his car out on the Westside.”
“Th-that was Rocky?”
“What do you mean?” Roy asked.
“The murder in the paper. That was Rocky?”
“How do you know it was murder?” Paul asked.
“That’s what the paper said.”
“The article made it clear it wasn’t known if the death was suicide or murder,” Roy said. “How did you know it was murder?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I knew Rocky. He wouldn’t kill himself. And don’t try to tell me he would. Who killed him?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Roy said.
Her voice went shrill. “You think I killed him? Why on earth would I do that? How would I do that?”
“Do you own a handgun, Miss Thackerson?” Roy asked in his most official voice.
“No.”
“We understand Mr. Lodeen bought a .25 semiautomatic for you at your request.”
“Then you understand wrong.” She faltered. “That’s not exactly true. He owned a small gun he loaned me when we went shooting at the range. But it was his, not mine.”
“You never brought it home with you?”
“He took it with him.”
“So the gun was never in this apartment?”
“Well… I can’t say it was never here. He brought it over to show me after he purchased it.”
“When was that?”
Sarah shrugged. “A few weeks ago.”
Roy questioned her about the gun range they visited. He finished by asking when they last went shooting.
“We only went three times, and the last time was a month ago. A Thursday. My light day at school.”
“Why did you stop going?”
“I found I don’t like being around guns,” she answered.
“Do we have your permission to test you for GSR?”
“For what?”
“Gunshot residue,” he answered.
She nodded. “Of course. If it will help.”
His bluff called, Roy turned gruff. “Can you explain why they found your DNA in Rocky Lodeen’s Cougar?”
“I don’t know much about that, but I was in his car several times over the past few weeks.”
I saw her realize her mistake.
“Besides, how do you know it was my DNA? I’ve never given any samples, unless you took it without my permission.”
“We can argue over that in court,” I said. “Answer Detective Guerra’s question.”
“Were you ever in the back seat of his car?” Roy asked.<
br />
“Once. When Rocky gave a ride to two of his friends from CNM. But just once. Would that account for it?”
“Miss Thackerson, you need to come to the station with me. They’ll do the GSR test, and you can give a formal statement about your relationship with the victim.”
“Victim? So it was murder.”
As she went for her coat, Paul whispered. “Nice try, Roy.”
Paul went with Roy to witness the gunshot residue test and sit in on her interview while I headed straight for Gene’s office. His digs as head of CID were a bit grander than that of a mere lieutenant, but he was the same old boy I rode with as a detective all those years ago… merely a bit more grizzled and a smidgeon wiser. I explained how the interview with Sarah Thackerson went.
He thumbed his nose. “So she didn’t balk at the GSR test, huh?”
“Perhaps she knows it doesn’t linger long on a living person. She’s a computer person, and research on such subjects would be second nature.” I paused. “She might know it only hangs around for six hours or so, but maybe she doesn’t know it transfers easily. It might still be on clothing or handkerchiefs if they haven’t been laundered. Can you get a search warrant for her place?”
“Why? She’s probably done laundry multiple times since then. Besides, if we found some, she’d claim it was from one of the range sessions.”
“Let’s see what we find anyway. I’ll visit the shooting range they used to see if anyone remembers them.”
“And what they wore? You’re reaching, my man.”
“I’m open to better ideas,” I said as I paused in the doorway. “I know there were no fingerprints on the gun used to murder Rocky, but how about the bullets?”
“Only his fingerprints.”
“Damn.”
THE PEOPLE at the Westside Indoor Shooting Range remembered the couple vividly, even though they’d only used the facilities three times. Rocky, with his brash military demeanor, tended to show off, and everyone remembered the intimate lessons he gave the woman, standing behind her and cupping her arms in his as she pulled off shots. He was a marksman; she was an amateur. The rangemaster, as he called himself, said one thing that caught my attention.