Head Wounds

by Michael McGarrity

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You have a serious look on your face.”

  “I’m not a fun-loving guy by nature.”

  Selena laughed. “Liar. So, are you here on official business?”

  Clayton nodded. “Two years ago Lucy Nautzile and James Goggin embezzled a lot of money from the casino and then disappeared. Tell me what you know about it.”

  Selena leaned forward. “It wasn’t casino money they took. The rumor around the rez that we hushed it up is totally false. The money belonged to a guest, who came regularly twice a year to gamble. She always deposited a large amount of cash to cover her expenses and table gaming losses. She liked poker and roulette. Whatever was in the account when she departed went with her.”

  “But why didn’t you report it?”

  “She adamantly refused to let us report it to the police.”

  “Was that legal?”

  “On our part, yes. I told her that the entire amount would be reported to regulatory and tax agencies as a personal gaming loss. She was all right with that.”

  “Has she been back since then?”

  “No.”

  Clayton’s eyes widened. “She took a personal two-hundred-thousand-dollar hit? Why?”

  Selena straightened and gave Clayton a serious look. “Why do you need to know about this?”

  “Hours ago, Goggin and Nautzile were murdered in a Las Cruces hotel. Scalped with their throats cut.”

  Selena shook her head disbelievingly. “That’s terrible.”

  “The woman’s name?”

  “The name she used was Celine Shepard.”

  “Why do you say ‘used’?”

  “A government agent said it was a phony name.”

  “What kind of government agent?”

  “A DEA special agent paid us a visit after we reported her gaming losses to the IRS and state gaming commission. He ordered us to keep everything confidential.”

  “Did you learn the woman’s real identity?”

  Selena shook her head.

  “Did you document what happened?”

  “Yes, our security chief at the time kept a file on everything pertaining to the situation.”

  “I need to see it.”

  Selena rose and headed for the door. “Of course. Wait here.”

  She soon returned unsmiling and empty-handed. “The file has been misplaced. I don’t know how that can be. I have staff looking for it.”

  “What about the business office invoice records of the woman’s previous stays at the resort?”

  She went to her desk and reached for the phone. “I’m sure we have them.”

  Her quick call resulted in another strike. Apparently the invoices of Celine Shepard’s resort charges were unavailable. A computer system crash had wiped out a number of billing records.

  Selena gave the telephone a dirty look and hung up. “I don’t know what’s happening. This isn’t right.”

  “No, it’s not,” Clayton agreed. “Was the computer crash recent?”

  “Six months ago. And the report by the security chief was kept in a locked filing cabinet accessed only by authorized personnel.”

  “What about CCTV digital footage of Celine Shepard?”

  Selena shook her head. “From two years ago? Unless there’s a reason, we don’t archive what happens on the floor.”

  “Will you ask anyway?”

  She stepped to the door. “I’ll check with personnel in the security booth. Give me a minute.”

  Clayton stared at the old map of Mescalero. He had no jurisdiction on the rez. Only Selena’s willingness to cooperate had gotten him this far. Was it a stretch to think everything had been deliberately wiped clean in advance of the double homicide, here and at the Las Cruces hotel?

  As expected, there was no video of Celine Shepard. With Selena’s permission, Clayton spent the next two hours talking with resort and casino employees who’d had direct dealings with the woman. He came away with very little other than a physical description of Shepard: five-five, slender, well toned, maybe approaching her mid-thirties, brown hair and brown eyes, light complexion, no visible birthmarks or tattoos, no accent. As one employee in the resort spa put it, “A total trophy babe without the title-holder present.”

  There was no evidence of late-night trysts with men or women in the Presidential Suite where she always stayed, and nothing suggesting heavy drug or alcohol use. She kept to herself, arrived in a different rental car each time, gambled like a pro, had meals in her suite, took full advantage of the resort gym, and made occasional daytime shopping trips to nearby Ruidoso. Win or lose, she was a big tipper. In her suite she was often found by maids or room service at her laptop or on her smartphone.

  In spite of an exhaustive record search, none of the missing or erased documents could be found or retrieved. No one could remember the name of the DEA agent who’d appeared to put a lid on the case.

  With Selena observing, Clayton interviewed the accounting manager who’d supervised Lucy and James Goggin. Although policies had since changed, it had been simple for them to issue a chit for the money in Shepard’s account. The one bit of good information was that the manager had entered into his daily journal the name of the DEA special agent who’d met with him, Bernard Harjo. That gave Clayton his first glimpse at a worthwhile lead. Finding Harjo was critical.

  He finished up in the human resources office, entering basic information on his tablet from Goggin’s and Nautzile’s personnel files.

  In the casino parking lot, he pulled up the phone number for the El Paso DEA Division on his smartphone, called, and asked to have Special Agent Bernard Harjo located. Advised that there was no such agent in the district, Clayton made a polite, persistent request that Harjo be found wherever he was stationed, since he had information possibly vital to a double homicide investigation. The agent who took the call promised to get back with contact information ASAP.

  Clayton left the parking lot headed for the office and the paperwork that awaited him. He told dispatch he was mobile and checked the time. With luck, he might get off-duty in just under fourteen hours. It made him yearn for a job more conducive to family life. But what kind of work would that be?

  His radio crackled. Captain Rodney asked for his ETA and said he’d meet him at headquarters. Clayton responded he was about two hours out if he pushed it a little. As he accelerated, he kissed the idea of a fourteen-hour workday goodbye.

  Frank Rodney was waiting outside, smoking a cigarette, when Clayton pulled to a stop in the secure SO parking lot behind the building.

  “Have you got anything?” he asked as Clayton approached.

  Clayton told him about Celine Shepard, how her two hundred K had been stolen by Goggin and Nautzile, why the money was never reported as a crime, and the DEA agent who’d shown up soon after.

  Rodney grunted. “So that’s why Samantha Hodges wants me to call her. She’s the special agent in charge of the DEA El Paso Division.”

  “Whatever Agent Harjo knows about the casino job and Celine Shepard, we also need to know,” Clayton said.

  Rodney snorted as he ground out his cigarette and put the butt in the designated container by the door. “If only the Feds cooperated that way. Don’t worry, I’ll push it.”

  Rodney’s office was still half moved into, with several books on a mostly empty bookshelf that displayed a few of the awards he’d won in his career, and some unpacked boxes on the floor next to a brand-new filing cabinet. He settled in his desk chair and told Clayton that Cosgrove and his vehicle remained missing and nothing of significance had been found during the search at his single-wide trailer, nor at the homicide crime scenes. Deep computer background checks on all hotel guests and staff had turned up several DUI convictions, some unpaid parking fines, but nothing that would flag a potential murder suspect.

  “What did you learn about the victims?” Rodney asked.

  Clayton summarized from his notes. Goggin had been forty-eight, never ma
rried, and worked in two casinos in Oklahoma prior to getting his job as a senior account specialist at Mescalero. He’d had no wants or warrants and a clean slate at his former jobs. Nautzile, thirty-six, a tribal member and widowed mother of two young girls, had been with the casino for eight years, earning several promotions in the accounting department. She’d never been arrested or charged with a crime. NCIC background checks were under way.

  “So far, nothing about either of them jumps out as being ingenious crooks,” Clayton concluded. “I think their mistake was picking the wrong person to rob.”

  “That’s your working motive for the murders?”

  “As yet, I don’t have a better one.”

  “There might be one,” Rodney countered. “Drugs.”

  He went on to explain the detectives assigned to intelligence-gathering had harvested some interesting tidbits. ICE reported Nautzile and Goggin made frequent crossings from Eagle Pass into Piedras Negras. So many that upon their return from Mexico their vehicle had been occasionally inspected for contraband and drugs. Nothing had been found.

  Due to their frequent cross-border travels, the special agent in charge of the DEA Resident Office in Eagle Pass had them on a watch list. A reliable confidential informant had reported both were drug users who’d been dealing cocaine and speed on the side to customers at the casino.

  Rodney handed Clayton an email from the casino stating the victims were regulars at the blackjack tables, small-time gamblers who never bet more than a couple hundred dollars each visit. Furthermore, management had no knowledge of illegal drug sales on the premises by any person or persons.

  Clayton rolled his eyes at the disclaimer.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” Rodney agreed. “It’s gotta be the only drug-free casino in the country.”

  Clayton laughed, surprised the captain had a sense of humor.

  Rodney pushed back from his desk and stood. “Do your reports and go home. You need sleep.”

  Clayton left thinking maybe Rodney wasn’t all bad as a boss. At his desk, he called Grace and let her know he would be home after he finished his paperwork.

  “I’m making meat loaf sandwiches and potato salad for dinner,” she replied. “Will that be enough?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Your mother called and told me who was murdered at the hotel.”

  “I knew she would.”

  “Is there anything you need me to do?”

  It was her way of asking if he was all right. “Just be there when I get home,” he replied.

  “Always, my love.”

  He finished up and read through everything again, making sure he’d sequenced events correctly, proofing for typos and misspellings, and ensuring all the salient points in his supplementals had been covered.

  Before logging off, he couldn’t resist taking a quick run through the reports filed by other personnel working the case. Rodney had given him the pertinent details. Yet in spite of the plodding, solid investigative work, Clayton somehow felt the case was stuck in suspended animation. Aside from finding out who in the hell Celine Shepard really was and what role she might have played in the murders, Cosgrove’s disappearance nagged him. It seemed so untidy compared to everything Clayton had seen at the hotel.

  He was convinced Cosgrove had been complicit in the crime. Paid to disable the CCTV system, falsify the hotel registration, perhaps even delay the 911 report of the homicides. If so, he was a loose end any professional hit man wouldn’t leave dangling. Not for long, anyway.

  Where was Cosgrove? On his way to some remote Mexican village to live off the money the killer had paid him for his services? The BOLO should have stopped him at a border crossing. Supposedly he hadn’t returned home after leaving the hotel, although there was evidence of a hasty departure. Where did he go in such a hurry?

  The hotel was part of a cluster of mid-price inns intermingled with family-style chain restaurants, gas stations, and convenience stores on the edge of the city. The uniformed division logs didn’t show any patrols made searching for Cosgrove’s vehicle at the nearby commercial properties. Was it sloppy shift reporting or an actual oversight?

  He skimmed the reports entered by the investigators. There were no notations that a canvass for Cosgrove or his vehicle had been made in the immediate area. Clayton decided to take a look for himself.

  In the fast-fading light of a nippy March evening, the spires of the Organ Mountains tinged gold from the sun low on the western horizon, Clayton slowly cruised the area. He circled buildings, checked all the parking lots, and eyeballed the curbside vehicles. On the periphery of the commercial zone, early dinner take-out business had picked up at a franchise fried chicken joint. At the rear of the property, Clayton found Cosgrove’s Toyota Corolla parked inconspicuously next to a large trash dumpster, partially hidden from view.

  He turned on the unit’s emergency flashers and lit up the Toyota with the driver-side spotlight. He could see Cosgrove behind the steering wheel, head bowed against his chest. He drew his sidearm and approached cautiously. The sight of dried blood covering the front of Cosgrove’s lightweight jacket told him the man was dead.

  He cleared the exterior of the vehicle, put on disposable gloves, and tugged at the door handles. All four doors were locked. He used his flashlight to get a better look inside. It was impossible to tell how Cosgrove had died. Clayton guessed his throat had been cut, but he hadn’t been scalped.

  He called it in from his unit. With his phone he took photos of the car and several more of Cosgrove’s upper body through the windshield, before smashing a rear door window with a safety hammer. Carefully he unlocked and opened the driver-side door and gently lifted Cosgrove’s head. His mouth was twisted in agony, his throat cleanly cut.

  The inside of the car was a trash pit. Old fast-food containers, plastic coffee cups, soft-drink cans, newspapers, and junk mail littered the floorboards and seats. A suitcase tucked behind the driver’s bucket seat caught Clayton’s eye. He pulled it out. Inside was one set of clean clothes, and a valid U.S. passport and current Texas driver’s license made out for one John Chandler, with Cosgrove’s photograph. High-quality forgeries.

  An envelope with the return address of a bank in Juárez, Mexico, yielded a two-day-old deposit slip. A hundred thousand dollars had been credited to a John Chandler’s new checking account.

  Clayton figured the money in the Mexican bank was probably as bogus as the fake surname. Cosgrove had been reeled in on the promise of starting a new life.

  Clayton put the suitcase on the hood of the Toyota. An unmarked vehicle with emergency lights flashing punched through a line of startled drivers waiting for their orders at the drive-up window.

  “Who is it?” Rodney demanded as he dismounted his unit.

  “John Cosgrove,” Clayton replied. “Killed with the same MO, minus being scalped.”

  “Who tipped you to this?”

  “Not who but what,” Clayton replied. “Nobody thought to canvass the surrounding neighborhood for Cosgrove’s car. I decided to take a look.”

  Rodney’s jaw tightened. The responsibility for the screwup fell on him. He waited for a snide look or comment. Clayton said nothing.

  “That was smart thinking,” Rodney noted. “What else did you find?”

  Clayton showed him the contents of Cosgrove’s suitcase.

  Rodney waved the deposit slip in the air. “Promised a hundred grand and a new identity? Unbelievable.”

  “He was never going to live to collect the money.”

  “I don’t believe this case has anything to do with the Mescalero casino job,” Rodney speculated.

  “Not the theft,” Clayton agreed. “It’s all about the woman, Celine Shepard. Either they didn’t know who she was, were too stupid to find out, or didn’t care.”

  “Well, who in the hell is she?”

  “I’m hoping Special Agent Harjo can answer that question.”

  Rodney shook his head. “I spoke to Samantha Hodges at
the El Paso Division. She put the kibosh on your request. Harjo’s out of the area on a high-priority undercover assignment.”

  “Surely he’s got time to make a phone call,” Clayton groused.

  “I’ll ask again.”

  “One more thing, Captain. The hotel registration for Nautzile and Goggin listed a black Explorer with Texas plates. That tallies with the vehicle Eagle Pass PD reported the couple drove. Yet Cosgrove said he couldn’t definitely ID the vehicle. Neither could Blossom Magoosh when I asked her about Lucy’s visit to the rez. Perhaps the Explorer was never here in the first place.”

  Rodney nodded. “I’ll have the detective on duty start checking car rental agencies from here to Eagle Pass.”

  Patrol units, CSI vehicles, and two unmarked vehicles had converged at the scene. Several civilians had left their vehicles in the drive-up window queue to watch the excitement. Two burly deputies held them back. It was going to be a miserable night for the fast-food chicken franchise.

  “Am I done here?” Clayton asked, his stomach grumbling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

  “Yeah, you’re done.” Rodney paused. “I like the way you used your head, Detective.”

  Clayton smiled. “That’s kind of you to say. If you can find a way to get me in touch with Agent Harjo, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Clayton drove home and parked in the driveway. He typed a quick supplemental report on his onboard computer about finding Cosgrove’s body and sent it off. As he got out of his unit, Grace appeared at the front door, arms crossed.

  “I’ve put our dinner on the table,” she called out to him.

  Slender, with tawny, flawless skin and thick eyebrows above dark eyes, his beautiful Grace always made him smile. “Coming.”

  It was just the two of them for dinner. Their daughter, Hannah, a student at New Mexico State University, was researching a term paper at the library on campus, and their son, Wendell, was living in Albuquerque, enrolled in medical school.

  The thick meat loaf sandwich and chunky potato salad were plentiful and satisfying. Clayton ate without saying much while Grace studied him, a small smile on her face.