Death Song

by Michael McGarrity

  “So where’s the big-city nightlife?” he asked.

  “Except for the weekends, you’re looking at it,” Armijo replied with a chuckle as he pulled away from the curb. “It really gets your party juices flowing, doesn’t it?”

  “Big-time,” Clayton said.

  Armijo found a spot behind a parked pickup truck that gave them good concealment, and after the officers called to assist were in place, the two men passed the time in bursts of silence and conversation.

  Two hours into the stakeout, the detective inside the nightclub called Armijo and told him a customer had just walked in, slipped a small envelope to Stanley, and was on his way out the front door.

  “He’s six-one, about one-eighty, mid-thirties, clean-shaven, brown and brown, wearing a suede leather jacket and blue jeans,” the detective said.

  “I see him,” Armijo said as he cranked over the engine. “You couldn’t make him?”

  “Negative,” the detective replied. “He’s not one of the usual suspects.”

  “Stay on Stanley,” Armijo said. “We’ll cover the customer.”

  The man outside the nightclub walked quickly to a new silver Ford Mustang and got behind the wheel.

  “Are you going to stop and question?” Clayton asked as Armijo eased into traffic one car behind the Mustang, heading east on Central Avenue.

  “Is that want you want to do?”

  Clayton shook his head. “Let’s see where he takes us.”

  “I like your style, Sergeant.” Armijo nodded at the laptop computer that was attached by a mechanical arm to the dashboard. “Do you know how to use that thing?” he asked.

  Clayton nodded. The laptop was tied into motor vehicle records and federal and state crime information systems. He had a desktop computer at work with the same capacity, but the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office had no money to put laptops in its vehicles, which put the department further behind the pack when it came to state-of-the-art technology and equipment.

  Armijo swung the laptop so that Clayton could easily reach the keyboard. “Have at it,” he said

  By the time they had passed under the railroad tracks on Central Avenue and were climbing the hill toward the university, Clayton had the name of the registered owner and his DMV driver’s license photo on the laptop screen. They were following Morton E. Birch, age thirty-two, with a home address that Armijo said was in the opposite direction.

  As they passed by the university, where all the streets were named for elite private eastern colleges, Clayton accessed NCIC and state crime data banks for wants and warrants on Birch. He got no hits.

  “Apparently, Mort is clean,” Clayton said, glancing at the street signs, which now carried the names of dead presidents. “At least, so far.”

  “That only makes me believe that he’s guilty of something,” Armijo said as he glanced at the dashboard clock. “Our friend Minerva clocks out of work in an hour. What would you like to do about her?”

  “Let’s have her picked up and held for questioning. I want to know what’s in that envelope.”

  Armijo nodded in agreement. “No problem. If she balks, we’ll arrest her on the old pot charge and hold her incommunicado until we get tonight’s excitement sorted out.”

  “You’re having that much fun, are you?” Clayton asked, tongue in cheek.

  “You’re a bright spot in my otherwise dull, mundane existence, Sergeant,” Armijo replied.

  The traffic had thinned on Central Avenue, and Armijo stayed two cars behind the Mustang to avoid detection. “Looks like Birch is heading toward the Four Hills neighborhood,” he said as they approached the foothills. “Wasn’t there a John Birch Society that was active forty or fifty years ago? If I remember correctly from a political science class I took in college, it was an ultraconservative organization of hawks who hated communism, wanted to dismantle the United Nations, and hoped to spread capitalism and democracy throughout the world. Whatever happened to it?”

  “The society members and their clones are now running the country,” Clayton replied.

  “Don’t you want an America that’s strong, safe, and secure?” Armijo asked with passionate conviction.

  Clayton decided to avoid a political debate on the off chance he had misread the sarcasm in Armijo’s voice. “Absolutely,” he said with equal sincerity.

  Armijo gave him a quizzical look and said nothing more. The Mustang turned onto Four Hills Road, and they entered a subdivision that had all the trappings of an established high-end neighborhood, with big houses on large lots, quiet streets with mature trees, and expansive front lawns.

  Armijo explained that Four Hills had been the first foothills subdivision built in the city, back in the 1960s, and that it came complete with its own country club and golf course. On the empty residential streets, he killed the headlights and slowed, but kept the Mustang’s taillights in view. Up ahead the car turned into a driveway. Armijo pulled to the curb and turned off the engine.

  The houses on either side of the street were almost entirely obscured by evergreen trees and shrubs. Most of the houses were dark, with only a few showing some interior lights veiled behind drawn curtains and barely discernible through the branches of the trees.

  “What now?” Armijo asked.

  Clayton opened the passenger door. “Let me do a little sleuthing.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to trespass on private property without reasonable suspicion or probable cause?” Armijo asked.

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “I’m liking your style more all the time, Sergeant Istee,” Armijo said with a laugh. “And if Birch leaves while you’re out sleuthing?”

  “Follow him,” Clayton said, “and give me a call.” He rattled off his cell phone number.

  Armijo popped open the glove box and gave Clayton a night vision scope. “Here. You’ll need it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t get caught sleuthing.”

  Clayton stepped out of the vehicle. “Not a chance, Detective.”

  Canyon winds coursing down from the mountains had dropped the temperature considerably. Clayton quietly closed the car door, zipped up his jacket, and turned up the collar, then scooted between two houses and paused behind a tree to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. From some distance away a dog barked lethargically, paused, barked again, and fell quiet.

  The houses on either side of Clayton showed no sign of life. Moving low and slow anyway to avoid rousing any light sleepers, he passed into a backyard, staying as far away from the houses as possible. Hunched over, he took careful steps to the back end of the lot, where he found concealment behind a stand of trees that graced an empty stone pond.

  Clayton froze at the close yelp of a coyote. Lackluster barks from the dog resumed. In the dim moonlight he saw the coyote quickly lope across the lawn in the direction of the barking dog. The coyote vanished, and Clayton moved on to the house where Birch had parked the Mustang. From a safe distance he made a full three-sixty reconnaissance. The house, on a double lot of at least half an acre, sat at the edge of a hill that dropped off steeply. There were no houses behind it, and thick stands of trees on either side blocked views from the adjacent houses. A high privacy wall ran from the driveway of the attached garage across the front of the house and severely restricted Clayton’s view. No lights showed at any of the windows.

  Along with the Mustang, two other cars were parked in the driveway. From across the street, concealed behind some shrubbery, Clayton used the night scope to read the license plates. A late-model Audi coupe carried Canadian plates from British Columbia, and a domestic minivan had California tags. He called the information in to Armijo, switched his cell phone ringer off, and considered what he’d seen.

  The house was a mid-sixties modern, with a vaulted roof, an expanse of glass windows that overlooked the backyard, and a soaring stone fireplace that rose above an elevated deck positioned to take in the city views below. There were no lights burning inside and no
sign of activity.

  He decided to take another tour of the property and crept through the trees on the north side of the house to the backyard. A closer look at the rear wall of glass through the scope revealed that some kind of material had been used to cover all the windows as well as the glass doors that opened onto the raised deck and the backyard patio. He checked all the windows on both sides of the house and found the same thing. It was impossible to see inside the house.

  From the back of the lot Clayton mulled over the implications. Even though the house was almost completely secluded from prying eyes, every window had been blacked out. That meant the occupants were very serious about not wanting people to know what was going on inside. Also, the grounds at the back of the house were badly neglected, which didn’t fit with the character of the neat and tidy upscale neighborhood. But at the front of the house the grounds were well cared for, which meant that the occupants were hiding whatever they were doing in plain sight.

  Clayton was pondering the possibilities when a car engine kicked over. He stayed put until the sound of the departing vehicle faded in the distance and then made his way to the street, staying in the shadows of a big tree. The Mustang was gone, which meant that Armijo should be tailing Birch. A text message on his cell phone told him that was exactly what Armijo was doing.

  He decided to stake out the front of the house to see what happened next, and hunkered down under some low branches with his back against the trunk. All stayed quiet until the sound of a squealing, frightened dog pierced the silence and abruptly stopped. Within minutes Clayton saw the coyote come into view as it padded down the middle of the street carrying the limp body of a small dog in its tightly clamped mouth. A negligent owner had provided the coyote with a tasty meal.

  Coyote, according to the Mescalero creation story, was a jokester put on the earth to remind human beings of their weaknesses and foolish ways. Almost without thinking, Clayton silently raised his chin to acknowledge the animal. The coyote glanced in his direction and passed by without pause, trotting toward the mountains that loomed above the Four Hills neighborhood and the city below.

  Among the Mescalero, if you carried out a devious trick, such as trespassing on private property without cause, which was what Clayton was doing, or if you accomplished a stellar prank, it was called “pulling a little coyote.” The fact that the jokester had caught him red-handed almost made Clayton chuckle out loud.

  The sound of an approaching car drew his attention back to the street. Headlights came into view and a vehicle passed by, continued up the road, and disappeared around a bend. Except for the canyon winds whistling through the trees and occasional traffic sounds that drifted over from Interstate 40, all was quiet for the next half hour. In spite of the growing cold and the deepening of the darkness, Clayton remained motionless, watching the darkened house for any sign of life, wondering what was inside.

  Was it a safe house for illegal immigrants smuggled across the Mexican border? Was it a drug house run by a trafficker? Or a warehouse to store product for distribution along the infamous I-25 drug corridor? Maybe Birch and his buddies were operating a meth lab inside. Or a prostitution ring could be using it as a bordello, or to house sex slaves brought in illegally from one of the Eastern European countries. And what was with the Canadian and California license plates?

  The sound of an automatic garage door opener drew Clayton’s attention back to the house. No lights went on as the door rose on its tracks, but a figure emerged from the darkness, got into the minivan, drove it into the garage, and immediately closed the door.

  His curiosity aroused, Clayton decided to get closer to see if he could learn more. He crossed the street, approached the garage at an angle, and pressed his ear against the door. He could hear some movement—maybe boxes being lifted—and muffled voices, but couldn’t make out what was being said.

  The sound of the van doors being slammed shut caused Clayton to back off quickly into the deep shadows at the side of the house and call Detective Armijo.

  “Where are you?” he asked when Armijo answered.

  “Still following Birch,” Armijo answered. “He’s made three quick stops since he left Four Hills. One at a house near the university, and two at Northeast Heights apartment complexes that cater to young singles. I’ve got addresses but no names yet. Right now I’m following him across the Rio Grande heading in the possible direction of Paradise Hills or Rio Rancho.”

  “Has our gal Minerva Stanley Robocker been questioned?” Clayton asked.

  “She’s being interrogated right now. The envelope Birch gave her contained an ounce of grass. She swears he’s just a good friend who gave her some of his stash to tide her over until she could score. She also believes in the tooth fairy, as do I.”

  “Has she said anything that’s useful?” Clayton asked.

  “That I don’t know. But she’s not going anywhere until we see what shakes out with Mort Birch tonight. You’ll get another crack at her if you need it.”

  “What about the DMV checks on the two vehicles?” Clayton asked.

  “Neither vehicle has been reported stolen,” Armijo replied. “Registrations show the owners, both male, to be of Vietnamese extraction. One is an immigrant to Canada with permanent resident papers, the other is a native-born U.S. citizen originally from Los Angeles now living in San Francisco. No rap sheets, wants, or warrants on either man. I’ve asked federal and Canadian cop shops for any intel they might have on the two subjects, but I don’t expect to hear back soon. What has all your sleuthing uncovered?”

  The garage door opened to the squeaky sound of metal wheels on the steel track. “Hold on,” Clayton replied. “How fast can you get a unit to the Four Hills Road?”

  “A couple of minutes. What’s up?”

  Through the scope Clayton watched the minivan back out of the garage and drive away. “The minivan with California tags just left the house headed east with two occupants, both male.”

  “Perhaps our Vietnamese friends,” Armijo said. “I’ll put a tail on them.”

  “Be advised they loaded something in the vehicle before leaving.”

  “Like what?”

  “Unknown,” Clayton replied. “They moved the minivan into the garage and closed the door before loading it, so I was unable to see.”

  “How devious,” Armijo said. “What else can you tell me?”

  “All the windows have been covered over, so whatever is going on inside the house the occupants don’t want anyone to know about. There’s more evidence to suggest that something isn’t kosher, but I won’t go into it right now.”

  “I sense cunning criminal minds at work here,” Armijo said. “I’m sending detectives and my lieutenant to your location. ETA ten minutes or less.”

  “Roger that. No lights, no sirens, and tell them to park away from the house and come in on foot. I’ll meet them at the bottom of the street.”

  “Affirmative. You do good sleuthing, Sergeant Istee.”

  The first to arrive at Clayton’s location was Lee Armijo’s lieutenant, Doug Bromilow, a tall man with a narrow face and a protruding lower lip that gave him a perpetually disgruntled look. Clayton filled Bromilow in on what he’d observed, walked him up the quiet street to take a look at the front of the house, and suggested where to deploy the officers for the stakeout. After everyone was in place, Clayton and Bromilow stationed themselves across from the house under the tree. An hour later Detective Armijo joined the party.

  “Under watchful eyes, Mort Birch has tucked himself in for the night at his North Valley condo,” he said, “and the two gentlemen in the minivan are indeed our Vietnamese friends from British Columbia and California. Apparently, they were unloading—not loading—items from the minivan in the garage. I know this to be so because while the gentlemen where having a leisurely late night meal at a restaurant, I took a peek inside the van. It was empty. Right now our suspects are at an all-night supermarket stocking up on groceries and household products. I
expect they’ll be arriving here in the next ten minutes or less.”

  Bromilow snorted. “You’d better have more to tell us than that.”

  “I do, LT,” Armijo replied. “Facing jail time, Minerva decided to tell the truth. Mort is her new dealer. For the past month, he’s been selling high-quality grass to her and her party animal friends. According to the county clerk’s computer records, Mort owns this house. He inherited it by way of a special warranty deed from a bachelor uncle who died in a nursing home last year.”

  “Is there any connection between Riley and Birch?” Clayton asked.

  Armijo nodded. “You bet there is. When his money ran out, Riley went to work for Mort, making drug deliveries on his Harley. According to Minerva, Mort advanced Riley the cash for his trip back to North Carolina, and he’s way overdue returning to Albuquerque. She said Mort told her Riley had called him and said he wasn’t coming back to Albuquerque until summer, and that she should just keep using the Harley until she heard from him directly.”

  Armijo stopped talking as the minivan approached and turned into the driveway. Two men got out and hurried inside the house carrying a number of plastic grocery bags.

  “Now that the pantry is stocked, do we go in without a warrant, LT?” Armijo asked. “Or do we wake up the DA and a judge and wait for the wheels of justice to grind on ever so slowly?”

  Bromilow stomped his feet against the cold that had settled into his bones. “Why don’t we ask Mr. Birch nicely if we can search his house?” Without waiting for a response, he flipped open his cell phone and speed-dialed a number. “Arrest Morton Birch and bring him to my twenty, pronto. Lights and sirens if you please.”

  He disconnected and smiled at Armijo. “I want the people Birch visited while you had him under surveillance picked up and questioned right now. Send two detectives to each address.”

  “And if they won’t let us in?”

  “Arrest them.”

  “On what charges?”

  Bromilow looked thoughtful. “Make something up.”