by Don Travis
“Yeah, straight to my front door.”
“Cheeky bastards, aren’t they?”
The technicians were photographing a note spread out on my kitchen table. Unlike the last one, it had been hastily scribbled, not made from words and letters cut from magazines or newspapers. There hadn’t been time for that.
“Maybe they made a mistake with this one,” Gene observed. “You know, being in a hurry and all.”
“Maybe. But if there are fingerprints, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Do you own one?”
“Yeah, a Stetson, but it’s too expensive to grill. We’ll make it my golf cap if I’m wrong.” I bent over the table without touching anything. “What’s that?”
One of the technicians stirred a small pile of metal until it took the shape of a gold cross on a thin chain.
“A Latin cross,” Gene said.
“It’s Emilio’s. I’ve seen it around his neck.”
“Well, that ties this attempt on you into the kid’s murder.”
“I’d say the fact they were driving the murdered man’s car pretty well established that. Let’s see what the note says.”
Printed in block letters with a lead pencil, the note was short and to the point.
You shoulda listened. Now what happened to the kid is on your back. You don’t want the same, stop poking around. You cost the lawyer a bunch of money. Send $250,000 in small bills to the box number. No more stalling. We don’t have the money by the end of the week, you’re next. Or the queer lawyer is.
“Well,” Gene noted, “it’s not peanuts anymore. The stakes just went up.”
“In more ways than one.”
“No fingerprints,” one of the techs said. “We’ll have to take things to the lab to look for anything else.”
Gene agreed, and after the two men packed up and left for downtown, we got Artie Hartshorn on the wire in Santa Fe.
“Dicky Dominguez ain’t gonna be happy,” Artie said after he heard us out. His voice sounded weary over my speakerphone.
“Dicky Dominguez?”
“Owner of the Porsche. If it’s in Albuquerque, it’s in little pieces by now.”
“Who is he?” Gene asked.
“Local big shot. Richard Dominguez, executive vice president of the Cibola National Bank, a luncheon buddy of the governor and a golfing partner of the archbishop.”
“How come he’s not president of the bank?” Gene’s voice held a touch of sarcasm.
“Because his papa hasn’t retired yet.”
“Artie,” I said, “Emilio Prada had a contact in Santa Fe supposed to be a banker. Could this be the guy?”
“By contact, you mean…?”
“Yeah, a client. It was supposedly a recurring thing.”
The line went silent for a moment. “Yeah. Could be, I guess. Dominguez is a pretty macho bastard, but you gotta wonder about a grown guy answering to Dicky. Maybe I oughta go ask his two former wives and the current Mrs. Dicky.”
“So it’s possible?”
“Yeah. Dicky likes to lord it over people, and I could see him dominating a pretty queer as easily as a pretty woman. Uh… sorry, BJ.”
“That’s okay. I’m not pretty. You think Dominguez will talk to me?”
“Dominguez will talk the arm off anybody. Whether he’ll listen while you talk is anybody’s guess.”
“I’m more interested in this motorcycle club,” Gene said. “We can’t ignore the fact Dahlman represents the woman who’s a potential witness against two gang members in a double homicide case.”
“It’s not them,” Artie responded flatly.
“How do you know?”
“The Iron Cross is a small club. Half a dozen members and a couple of girlfriends. The two leaders of the gang are the ones accused of the Zellner murders, and they’re in custody. When Prada was killed, three others were locked up for public fighting on the plaza.”
“That leaves one member at large,” Gene said.
“Yeah. Up in Colorado. He was spotted in Trinidad and told friends there he was headed to Denver. Denver cops just located him for us. It wasn’t him that did Prada. He was on the road to Colorado by the time the hustler died.”
“The girlfriends?” Gene again.
“There’s only two of them—besides the Skelton girl, that is—and one was in jail for mixing up in the fight. The other one’s under the watchful eye of her grandmother, who’s as tough as any jail warden I know. Anyhow, they’re all too young and inexperienced.”
“Artie, you know the young ones—” I began.
“Yeah, yeah. Nothing’s more dangerous than an American teenager. But trust me, it wasn’t these guys.”
“What was the fight on the plaza about?” Gene asked.
“Rival gang. These penny-ante cycle toughs handled the meth distribution from Española north to the Colorado border for the dealers they killed, but they were trying to muscle in on the drug trade in Santa Fe. That territory’s already taken, so they ran into trouble.”
“Who handles the territory?”
“Some of your locals. Those bastards calling themselves the Santos Morenos.”
Gene and I exchanged looks.
“The Saints own Santa Fe?” I asked. “And they were up there Thursday night?”
“They were the other side of the dustup on the plaza that morning. Some of them were in our lockup. We’re a nonpartisan police force. We arrest anyone who disturbs our peace.”
Chapter 18
I TOOK the wheel of Del’s Volvo so he could study my statement to the SFPD. Driving him to Santa Fe for his interview with Artie Hartshorn reminded me of the old days when we took weekend and holiday trips as often as we could. Those had been great times. He was carefree and inquisitive and a fantastic traveling companion back then, almost as fascinated by the local lore as I was. We checked out nearly every state and national monument in New Mexico, making up names and personalities for the people we imagined once lived and worked and played there. Del, in his idealism, imbued them all with noble qualities. My Marine and police experiences led me to color them in darker tones.
To keep from racing headlong down nostalgia lane, I reminded myself this was a different Del. He had lost that charming naïveté and his unbounded enthusiasm for discovering what lay just around the corner. Absorbed by the profession he had chosen, Del tackled his workdays seemingly unworried by blackmailers and threats of mayhem. Sadly he was also less curious about adventures yet to come.
Some people consider the hour’s drive north to Santa Fe boring, but it never struck me that way. The countryside was crammed with history if a person took the time to look. Denver is not the only mile-high city in the Southwest. Albuquerque sprawls at the foot of the Sandia and Manzano Mountains at pretty much that altitude, and the road to Santa Fe climbs another fifteen hundred feet along its sixty-odd-mile stretch.
Del sighed heavily and dropped the papers he was holding into his lap. “After all that’s happened, I can’t believe these guys still expect me to pay their blackmail demand. Only now they want 250 grand. They must be crazy.”
“They probably believe they’re in a stronger position now that they’ve demonstrated a willingness to kill for what they want.”
“Jesus, Vince, could those pictures of Emilio and me really have cost the guy his life?”
His rhetorical question did not require an answer. In the silence that followed, the hum of the motor seemed loud. Outside, dark sage and rabbitbrush lined the shoulders of the road with autumn flowers adding dashes of color: scarlet Indian paintbrush, pink and orange trumpet phlox, whitish Rocky Mountain pussytoes, blue and violet gilia—and, of course, the ubiquitous sunflower. If it were a little later in the year, I would be dodging windblown tumbleweeds scurrying across the highway.
Del’s voice interrupted the comfortable, bucolic mood I’d slipped into. “Emilio wasn’t all bad, you know.”
“I know. Basically he was a good little street thug simply exploiting his l
ooks to make a living.”
“Like thousands of others around the world. We’re lucky. We never had to scratch for our existence like that. Not that it was a bed of roses for me. My folks worked hard just to make a living, but we never went hungry or wondered where we’d lay our heads at night.” Del sighed again. “I’m not going to pay the extortion demand. Damn the consequences.”
“No, you’re not, but you’re going through the motions. You know, send an envelope stuffed with paper. If they’re using the same post-office box, then they don’t know we’re onto their little mail-forwarding scheme. We’ll catch them when they show up to collect the money.”
“Do you still believe this is connected to the Zellner murders?”
“Someway, somehow. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Luther Hickey seemed to be a likely suspect, but neither Charlie nor I have been able to tie him to the ransom demand.”
“He pled out to assaulting you?”
“Yeah. I think going back to the pen was a relief for him.”
“Weird.”
“That describes him all right. By the way, do you know a Santa Fe banker named Dominguez?”
“Yeah. He’s the principal stockholder in the Cibola National Bank. Herman Dominguez.”
“That must be the father. How about the son? You know him?”
“Dicky? I’ve served on some committees with him. Charitable stuff, mostly.”
“What’s your take on him?”
“Complicated man. Confident, but mostly because his father owns the bank he works for and has more money than even Dicky can spend in one lifetime. Uncertain of himself in some situations, probably for the same reason—his old man. He knows he’ll never be the banker Herman is, but he’s a good public relations man. When the father goes, we’ll see what kind of businessman he really is.”
“He might have been a client of Emilio’s. Did he ever make a move on you?”
“No, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he tried. Dicky’s a sexual predator. He has a reputation for chasing the ladies, but it wouldn’t be hard to see him going the other way so long as he got his ego scratched. It’s not a stretch to say he’s into domination. And under the right circumstances, Emilio was willing to play that game.” There was a catch in Del’s voice. “He used to fantasize about getting you in bed with us. He was certain you were man enough to handle us both.”
Not about to touch that one, I indulged in a sigh of my own. “Thanks for the rundown on Dominguez.”
“You’re not suggesting Dicky would be mixed up in this, are you? He sure doesn’t need the money, and he’d be a fool to risk everything he has in a game like that.”
“This has never been about the blackmail money, at least not until somebody murdered Emilio. Now the killers may need money to get out of town. This whole scheme was designed to gain some leverage over you. Somebody thought that if they demanded a paltry $5,000, it would be less trouble for you to pay than to put up a fight. They just couldn’t figure how to get past the suspicion they’d come back for more.”
“So why do they need leverage?”
“Possibly because someone wants to get to your client, Miranda Skelton.”
“Hell, all I’m doing is making sure she doesn’t get screwed over.”
“Then somebody wants her screwed over.”
Del thought for a moment. “So you no longer believe it’s connected to Harding’s fight with the union or with the Billingham takeover?”
“No, I don’t. But we have to keep an open mind.”
We fell silent again as the Volvo breezed past the San Felipe Pueblo lands and approached the Santo Domingo exits. Near the interstate, a tribal-owned service station sat on high ground boasting cheaper gas by virtue of the elimination of state fuel taxes. In the distance off to the west, the blue-hazed, pine-shrouded Jemez Mountains beckoned. Directly ahead, the towering Sangre de Cristos already sported a modest snowfield.
We completed the long climb up La Bajada, topped the rise, and saw Santa Fe sprawled before us. As usual the first thing that caught my eye was the old state penitentiary sitting ominously on the south side of the city. The place was closed now, but it was supposedly still haunted by the tortured souls of thirty-three inmates slaughtered in the unbelievably savage riot of 1980.
I’d seen pictures of some of the decapitations and torture while I was at APD, and I wished I hadn’t. The brother of one of my friends was up there in Cellblock 4 where they housed the snitches and sex offenders and the vulnerable. That’s where most of the murders and mutilations took place. I can still remember the family’s terror until they knew he was safe.
Half a mile farther down the road, my sphincter puckered. “Tighten your seat belt. There’s a car coming up behind us. Fast.”
“You think it’s them?”
“Dunno. But after last time, I’d rather be prepared than surprised.”
“How do they know we’re on the road? You think my phone’s tapped?”
“Probably not, but have you noticed anyone following you lately?”
“N-no.” His stammer let me know the thought had never occurred to him.
“Hang on, here they come.”
The black silhouette on my tail veered suddenly to the left, and a big SUV blew by, leaving the Volvo shuddering in its vortex. I caught the distinctive license plate.
Del swiveled to scan the road behind us. “Where the hell is his State Police escort?”
New Mexico’s governor-in-a-hurry disappeared down the road ahead of us.
“Probably back there somewhere trying to catch up.”
The man was notorious for rushing from one function to another. Several citizens had complained publicly about his penchant for air-lane speeds on roadways. He’d promised to slow down—and probably had—but that still left mere mortals eating his dust.
ARTIE HARTSHORN didn’t much like the idea of me sitting in on the interview, but finally agreed. He led Del through his association with Emilio Prada from beginning to end, and Del didn’t flinch, answering each question head-on. After Artie had approached things from about three different angles, the detective sat back in his chair and relaxed.
“That’s it. I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Dahlman. I’ll have to check out a couple of facts, but I believe you’re in the clear.”
“Thank you, Detective. May I ask a couple of questions now?”
“Answer what I can, but you understand it’s an ongoing investigation.”
“Clearly. Vince… uh, BJ is convinced this whole blackmail scheme is connected to the Zellner murders in some manner. Do you share that conviction?”
“I try to keep an open mind, Mr. Dahlman. At this point, I’m not married to any theory. But I can’t honestly see how they’re involved.”
“I’m intrigued by the relationship of the Santos Morenos to the Zellners,” I said. “The last couple of times I saw Emilio, he was with some of the Saints.”
“Well, there you go,” Artie said. “The Saints were archrivals of the Iron Cross bunch, and if Prada was a Saint, the Crosses might have taken him out.”
“He wasn’t a gang member, but he was on the fringe. Besides, you’re talking out of the other side of your mouth. You claim the Crosses were out of business.”
Artie flushed. “Okay, maybe the Saints caught him with the Crosses and took him out. You know, because of the rivalry. The Saints control the drug business from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and the Iron Crosses were trying to slice out a piece of it. It wasn’t in the Saints’ interest to want the Zellners dead and out of business.”
“What if they wanted to take over the manufacturing end of the trade?” I asked.
“Why? Making the stuff is physically dangerous, and it’s the high-risk end of the business. Both of the Zellners had already taken a couple of falls. No, it doesn’t make sense.”
“How strong is the case against Whiznant and Rodrigo?” Del asked.
“Pretty decent, I’d say.”
“You ha
ve the weapons?” I asked. Artie frowned, so I pressed him. “Any forensic evidence at all?”
“Some,” the detective admitted slowly. “Enough so the district attorney figures he has a case.”
Del shook his head. “He needs my client’s testimony to make it stick.”
“Puts the lid on the jar, I guess.”
“So an attempt to intimidate me—her lawyer—could be the motive for the blackmail.”
“Intimidate you into what? You can’t make her disappear, make her lie. Nothing like that.”
“No, but I could scare the hell out of her. Screw her down so tight she might not sound credible on the stand. I can probably terrify the woman so much she’d refuse to even take the stand.”
“That merits a hard look at an Iron Cross-Santos connection,” I argued.
“Shit, BJ, when the Prada kid was killed and somebody tried to run you off the road, the Iron Crosses were outa commission. When you got the last demand for payment, they were all behind bars or up in Colorado. I’m telling you it wasn’t them.”
“Well, who does that leave?”
“Nobody connected to the Crosses.”
“Unless there’s someone you don’t know about,” I suggested. “Like somebody who finances the whole deal. Underwrites the cost of manufacturing the meth and its distribution.”
“You talking about a banker?” Artie’s eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. “Damn, a real banker. You’re talking about Dicky Dominguez.”
“I don’t know who it might be, but since you brought up his name, don’t you think it’s suspicious his car was involved in the attempt on me?”
“I checked, and he was in a loan committee meeting when that happened. His car got boosted off the street right in front of the bank.”
I sat up straighter. “Off the street? You know any other bank executive who hunts up a parking spot on a street crowded with tourists?”
“Aw, you’re grasping at straws. Dicky has an assigned spot in the bank’s lot, but he was running late for his meeting and found a space on the street right in front of the bank. He told his secretary to move the car before the parking meter ran out. When she went to do it later, the Porsche was gone.”