The Big Gamble

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The Big Gamble Page 8

by Michael McGarrity


  Outside the personnel building, racks held a number of newspapers, some clearly antinuclear in point of view. A small, empty water fountain near the entrance was splattered with bird droppings. The lobby displayed the various presentation bowls and platters that employees would receive on completion of significant years of service.

  In the cafeteria the dress code for the patrons on their coffee breaks ran from casual to sloppy, with a lot of mismatched outfits, especially among the men, who seemed to favor top-of-the-line running shoes, plaid shirts, and light-colored Dockers. Kerney felt overdressed in his civvies, which consisted of black jeans, boots, a shirt, tie, and a sport coat.

  At the personnel office Kerney explained to three different people that his request to speak to Dr. Kent Osterman had nothing to do with either national security or Osterman’s status as an upstanding, law-abiding citizen. Finally, the last person in the hierarchy, a woman with big teeth and a frozen smile, arranged for Kerney to meet with Osterman in the cafeteria.

  Escorted by the woman with the frozen smile, Osterman made his appearance in ten minutes. Kerney introduced himself and guided him to a corner table away from chatty clusters of employees.

  Forty or so, Osterman had worry lines that creased his forehead, serious brown eyes, and blond, baby-fine hair that covered the tips of his ears.

  “You’re here to ask me about Anna Marie,” Osterman said, sliding onto a chair. “I was so shocked to learn about her disappearance, and now to know she’s been murdered.” His expression turned into an unhappy grimace.

  “How well did you know her?” Kerney kept his eyes fixed on Osterman, looking for any sign of uneasiness or deception.

  “We were undergraduates together at the university. Both of us took our degrees in psychology. That was twenty years ago.”

  “Is your specialty still psychology?” Kerney asked.

  “No, I discovered that I didn’t have the patience or personality to work with people with emotional or mental problems. I switched to hard science in graduate school and took my advanced degrees in physics.”

  “When did you last see Anna Marie?”

  “We worked as field interviewers on a research project the summer after we graduated. I left New Mexico when the job ended and spent a year taking the math and science prerequisites I needed to switch my field of study to physics.”

  “Were you romantically involved with Anna Marie?”

  “No, we were just friendly. I really didn’t get to know her very well until we worked together that summer.”

  “Tell me about the research project,” Kerney said.

  “It was a social psych study to assess the cultural causes of alcoholism among Hispanic males. Anna and I conducted interviews to gather raw data about family, employment, and educational histories, drug and alcohol use patterns, and criminal behavior. We spent a lot of time in jails and area treatment programs. It got Anna Marie interested in social work as a career.”

  “Who ran the project?”

  “The primary investigator was a professor named Jeremiah Perrett. I always wondered if he ever published the findings. I never saw it in any of the psych journals. After a while I lost interest and stopped looking.”

  “Did Anna Marie have any personal problems that summer?”

  “No, but both of us thought Perrett was a bit of a flake.”

  “Why is that?” Kerney asked.

  “He kept changing the data-gathering instruments we used in the interviews. You can’t draw any significant conclusions unless you have reliable and consistent information to work with.” Osterman forced a chuckle. “Maybe that’s why he never published.”

  Kerney smiled at Osterman’s humorous attempt. “Did you keep in touch with Perrett?”

  “No. He wasn’t one of my favorite instructors. At the time, he was thirty-something and tenured, so he may still be at the university.”

  “Was Anna Marie romantically involved with Perrett?”

  Osterman chuckled again. “That’s a laugh. He’s gay. Or at least he was then.”

  “Why did you try to contact Anna Marie?” Kerney asked.

  “Just to reconnect,” Osterman said. “I lost track of a lot of people after I left New Mexico. I thought it would be fun to catch up with old classmates.”

  “Did you reconnect with anyone else?” Kerney asked.

  “A few people,” Osterman replied, his eyes widening a bit. “Are you thinking I’m a suspect?”

  Based on his conduct, Kerney didn’t think Osterman was a murderer. But he’d learned never to rely on first impressions. “Would you mind giving me their names?”

  “I’ll write them down for you,” Osterman said, a touch of coolness creeping into his voice. He reached for a pen in his shirt pocket, scribbled on a napkin, and pushed it toward Kerney. “The first three live in Albuquerque, the others in Santa Fe. I don’t have their phone numbers handy, but they’re listed in the directory.”

  Kerney looked at the five names. They were all new to him. “How many of these people knew Anna Marie?”

  “As far as I know, just Cassie,” Osterman said, pointing to the first name on the list.

  “Is Bedlow her maiden name?”

  “No, it was Norvell back in college.”

  Kerney folded the napkin and put it in his shirt pocket. “I may need to speak to you again.”

  “If you must, please call me at home,” Osterman said, rising from his chair. “I’m new here, and I’d rather not have to deal with the police at work. It doesn’t create a good impression.”

  “I assured the people in personnel that you are not under any suspicion,” Kerney replied.

  “That doesn’t stop office gossip,” Osterman replied, “and you haven’t reassured me.”

  “Thanks for taking the time to talk,” Kerney said.

  Osterman nodded curtly and left in a hurry. Kerney followed suit, not feeling overly optimistic that he was making any progress, but pleased to have some new ground to cover. He’d start with trying to locate and talk to Jeremiah Perrett.

  When Clayton struck out on picking up Ulibarri’s trail through a canvass of car dealerships and rental companies, he made the rounds of the few available public transportation services, which were limited to a shuttle service to El Paso, one taxicab company, a bus station, and the regional airport served by a small puddle-jumping airline. Ulibarri hadn’t used any of them. So he was still in the area or he’d gotten a ride out of town.

  Back at the office, Clayton worked alongside Quinones and Dillingham, calling what seemed to be an endless list of places where Ulibarri could be staying. As a tourist and vacation destination, Ruidoso boasted lodging options ranging from tent and RV campgrounds for the budget-minded to swanky resorts for the well-heeled. In between there were motels, hotels, cabins, privately owned houses and condos, bed-and-breakfast operations, and apartments available for short-term and long-term rental. Beyond the town limits but within reasonable driving distances were villages and towns with even more possibilities.

  It was drudge work that frequently meant leaving messages on answering machines at property management and realty companies, or getting no response whatsoever from the mom-and-pop cabin-rental operators who only took reservations during certain hours of the day. After lunch, Paul Hewitt jumped in to help with the calls and sent Clayton out to start making the rounds of places that couldn’t be reached by telephone.

  There were cabins off the main roads in canyons sheltered by tall pines, cabins perched above the river, hillside cabins on stilts, cabins that hadn’t yet opened for the season, and cabins sprinkled along and behind the main roads through the city. He stopped at property management firms, tracked down real estate people on their mobile phones, and met with resident condo and town-house managers.

  After several hours, with most of his list checked off, Clayton called in. Dispatch passed along more lodging establishments Hewitt, Quinones, and Dillingham had been unable to reach by phone. One of them, Casey’s
Cozy Cabins, was close by Clayton’s location.

  At the bottom of a hill two blocks behind the main tourist strip, six rental units bordered a circular gravel driveway just off a paved street. Each cabin had a stone chimney; a covered porch; a shingled, pitched roof; and weathered wood siding. Old evergreen trees shaded the structures, and barbecue grills on steel posts were planted in front of every porch. All the parking spaces in front of the cabins were empty.

  Clayton cruised by, parked on the shoulder of the road, and walked up to the compound. A hand-carved sign hanging from the porch on the cabin closest to the pavement announced the name of the business. On the porch railing were pots filled with ratty-looking artificial flowers.

  Clayton knocked at the door and an older man, probably in his early sixties, opened up. He had a pasty gray complexion, watery eyes, and a heavily veined, pudgy nose.

  “Are you Casey?” Clayton asked, showing his shield.

  The man eyed Clayton suspiciously, stepped outside, and quickly closed his front door. “He died five years ago. I bought the place from his widow and never got around to changing the name. What can I do for you?”

  Before the door closed, Clayton caught a glimpse of several poker tables in the front room. Tribal gaming operations had wiped out a lot of the illegal poker parlors in Ruidoso, but not all of them. Some players still preferred private big stakes games, where none of the winnings went to the tax man.

  “Who are you?” Clayton asked.

  “Do we have a problem?” the man responded with a tinge of an East Coast accent.

  “Let’s see some ID.”

  “Name’s Harry Staggs,” the man said, reaching for his wallet. He held it out to Clayton. “I run a quiet, family place here, deputy.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Clayton said. “Take your driver’s license out of the wallet and hand it to me, please.”

  Staggs did as he was told. Clayton copied down the information and handed back the license.

  “What’s this about?” Staggs asked.

  “Do you have any guests?”

  Staggs shrugged. “Three cabins are rented, but I don’t think anyone is here right now.”

  “How about this man?” Clayton asked, holding up Ulibarri’s photograph.

  Staggs nodded in the direction of the cabins on the right side of the porch. “Yeah, he’s in cabin three, but like I said, nobody’s here right now.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Clayton asked, stepping to one side so he could keep the cabin in view.

  “Well, I haven’t seen him all day, so I’m guessing he’s out.”

  “Did he check in alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nobody was with him?”

  “A man and a woman dropped him off, but they stayed in the car.”

  “Are you sure he doesn’t have company?”

  “No, I’m not. I rent cabins. As long as my guests don’t cause trouble or do damage, it doesn’t much matter to me what they do or who visits them.”

  “Did you get the names of the companions who dropped him off?”

  “There was no need,” Staggs said. “They waited while he registered, then he got his bag out of the car, and the people left.”

  “Do you know either of them?”

  “It was dark and I didn’t get a good look,” Staggs replied. “I just saw them sitting in the front seat.”

  “But you could tell it was a man and a woman.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Describe the vehicle.”

  “Late model Lincoln. Dark color. Maybe blue or black. I didn’t pay any attention to the license plate.”

  “Let’s step inside,” Clayton said.

  “You got no business in my home,” Staggs said, a worried look crossing his face.

  “The guest in cabin three is a murder suspect,” Clayton said, “and I need to use your phone. Either let me inside or I’ll arrest you for refusing to assist an officer.”

  Grudgingly Staggs opened the front door. Inside Clayton asked Staggs a few questions about cabin three and found out all the rental units were identical in layout. Standing at the side of the window with cabin three in view, he called Hewitt, gave him the news, and asked him to request SWAT assistance from the Ruidoso Police Department.

  “You’ve got it,” Hewitt said. “Give me specifics for deployment.”

  “Cabin three is the target. It’s in the center of the circular driveway, backed up against a hill. There’s good cover if SWAT comes in from the rear. The only windows are one on each side of the cabin and a living-room window near the front door. There’s a raised front porch that’s high enough to conceal a crouching man.”

  “No other exits?” Hewitt asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Are you under cover?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “I’m rolling. So are Quinones and Dillingham. Stay put and don’t take action until SWAT arrives and sets up, unless you have to.”

  “Ten-four,” Clayton said. “I’ll be on my handheld.” He hung up and looked around the room. It contained a fully stocked, built-in bar, two large poker tables, an assortment of straight-back chairs, a sagging daybed, and a sideboard that contained boxes of poker chips and stacks of unopened playing cards. “Are all the cabins furnished like this one?” he asked.

  Staggs said he liked to have his pals over once in a while for a friendly card game.

  Clayton pointed at the poker table that gave a clear view out the window. “Sit down.”

  Staggs sat. Clayton read him his rights as he pushed him forward in the chair and handcuffed him behind the back.

  “I want to call my lawyer,” Staggs said.

  “That will have to wait. What time did the game break up last night?”

  “I want to call my lawyer now.”

  “Did the people who dropped Ulibarri off sit in on last night’s game?”

  “I’m not talking,” Staggs answered.

  Clayton resumed his position at the window, switched his handheld radio to the Ruidoso PD frequency, waited, and listened. In twenty minutes SWAT arrived. He made contact with the SWAT commander and talked the team down the hill and into position. There was no discernible movement in cabin three.

  Hewitt made contact by radio, reported his arrival, and gave his location. Quinones and Dillingham followed suit.

  “SWAT goes in first,” Hewitt said. “Sheriff personnel hold your positions.”

  From their units, Dillingham and Quinones acknowledged the order.

  “Roger that,” Clayton replied.

  The SWAT commander cut in. “We’re ready.”

  “It’s your move,” Hewitt said.

  Clayton watched it go down. Sharpshooters covered the windows. Three men hit the front door, two on either side, as one smashed it open at the lock set with a battering ram. They went in high and low, automatic weapons at the ready, while Clayton held his breath. Finally the radio hissed.

  “Clear,” the SWAT commander said, “but you might want to come and take a look-see.”

  “What have you got?” Clayton asked.

  “Looks like one very dead murder suspect,” the SWAT commander replied.

  Clayton left Staggs in the company of Deputy Dillingham and joined up with Paul Hewitt outside cabin three. Together with Sergeant Quinones they inspected the crime scene. Naked to the waist and bare-foot, Ulibarri was on the floor in a sitting position propped against one of two unmade double beds. The new belt with the sterling silver rodeo-style buckle was undone at his waist, his jeans were unzipped, and his feet were bare. His fancy new boots were next to his body with a pair of socks draped over the toes. There were visible bruise marks at his throat suggesting death by strangulation.

  “Dammit,” Clayton said.

  Hewitt stopped scanning the room, glanced at Clayton, and noted the disappointed look on his face. “Let’s see what evidence the crime scene techs turn up before you start grousing.”

  “I wanted an arrest and conv
iction out of this,” Clayton said.

  “Like the sheriff said, maybe we can still clear the Humphrey murder,” Quinones replied.

  “That’s not the same thing,” Clayton said.

  “We can worry about that later,” Hewitt said, with a nod at the corpse. “Right now we’ve got another fresh homicide to work.”

  “You’re not turning it over to the city cops?” Quinones asked.

  “Nope,” Hewitt said. “The police chief won’t like it, but screw him. I’m the chief law enforcement officer in this county and this is in my jurisdiction.”

  “How do you want the team to operate?” Quinones asked.

  Given his mistakes and Quinones’s rank, Clayton fully expected Hewitt to bounce him and put the sergeant in charge.

  “Let’s leave things as they are,” Hewitt answered. “Deputy Istee will continue as lead investigator.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Quinones said.

  Clayton hid his relief by staring at the corpse and avoiding eye contact with the sheriff. “We need to talk to Harry Staggs,” he said. “Maybe he knows what got Ulibarri killed.”

  “Let’s do that,” Hewitt said to Clayton as he turned to leave the crime scene. “By the way, the stain on Ulibarri’s boot is the same type found in Humphrey’s car. If the DNA confirms a match to Humphrey, as far as I’m concerned you’ve cleared a homicide.”

  Before leaving Los Alamos, Kerney made phone calls from his unit. Several years ago Professor Perrett had transferred from his teaching position to administer a chemical and alcohol dependency research project affiliated with the university. Kerney made an appointment with Perrett’s secretary and then dialed the orthopedic surgeon in Albuquerque who had reconstructed his shattered right knee after it had been blown apart in a shootout with a drug dealer. He persuaded the office receptionist to slot him in for a ten-minute doctor’s visit late in the afternoon.

  In spite of weight work to keep his legs muscles strong and his daily routine of slow jogging, the knee had been hurting like hell over the past month, and Kerney’s limp was getting more pronounced with each passing day. It was time to see what could be done, if anything, to fix it.

 

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