by Ted Clifton
“Did you know the other guy in the foreign car?”
“Yeah, I did. He’s a regular customer. It was Dick Franklin, the guy who manages Ruidoso Downs.”
Ray and Tyee exchanged glances.
“What happen next?”
“Well, like I said Marino is kicking Dick really hard, so I started towards the door. I wasn’t happy about going, but wasn’t going to let the little bastard kill someone right in front of me either. But then Dick got hold of Marino’s ankle and tripped him up. Marino fell really hard and hit his head on his patrol car. Dick stood up and shoved Marino off of the hood of the patrol car onto the sidewalk. He looked around, like he was seeing if anyone had seen what had happened. He looked my way but I don’t believe he saw me. Now I’m thinking maybe he’s going to do something to Marino—but he doesn’t. He goes around and gets in his car and takes off.”
“So did you go out and help Marino?”
“Well, I was going too but just about then he gets up and gets in the car and tears out of here. I think to myself I wonder what that was all about. But I figured it didn’t have anything to do with me, so I went home. Of course the next day there was all of the excitement about Marino being shot. I knew I should tell someone what I saw, but to tell you the truth I was a little reluctant until things became clearer as to what was going to happen around here.”
“Well yeah, Bud you should’ve given us your information before—but I understand it’s been hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys for a while. I appreciate you telling me now. The current Sheriff, James—he’s a good guy and you can trust him.”
“Yeah, people are starting to say that. Guess I should call him and tell him what I saw.”
“That’d be best.”
Ray and Tyee left and went back to the hotel.
“Guess we should check out and go see Dick Franklin.”
“Sounds like the logical plan.”
Driving up to the racetrack was an odd experience. Even though Ruidoso Downs was located in a small resort community with only a few thousand full time residents, it was state-of-the-art, with a huge grandstand. It was supported by tourists and gamblers, and had always been considered one of the premier horse racing operations in the region.
“Do you think Franklin makes a lot of money as the manager of the track?” Ray was genuinely curious.
“My understanding had always been this was one of the best jobs, money-wise, in this area. I know Dick was considered a top tier student and business prospect when we were at school. I’m sure he was heavily recruited—don’t know what happened to him or how he ended up here.”
“Were you good friends at school?”
“No way. He was very friendly the other day and said all of that bullshit about me being his hero. The guy is just full of shit. He was the star. I figured he thought I had some influence over the investigation and was sucking up. I was a good student and knew my stuff, but my god—I was an Apache from the reservation. This guy Franklin was a blue blood from some wealthy family on the west coast. The story that was whispered about him was that he was involved in something illegal and his rich family sent him to New Mexico to go to school as punishment. I was shocked to see him still in New Mexico—a big bucks job in this state is peanuts on the coast.”
“The illegal stuff he’d been involved in, did you know what it was?”
“No, not really. Everybody said it was drugs, but that’s what everybody said about everything. Especially California illegal—either some kind of weird sex thing or drugs. I actually found him to be an okay guy. He worked hard to make good grades, so while he supposedly came from money he didn’t act like it all the time.”
“Seems odd that he didn’t go back to California. I mean, you and I like New Mexico, but it isn’t California.”
“There was a woman he was involved with who was from this part of New Mexico. Seems like she was from Tularosa. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—Hispanic and drop-dead gorgeous. Besides that, she was smart and had an overpowering presence about her. Her heritage supposedly traced back to Spanish royalty, and it showed. Her family wasn’t fantastically wealthy, but for that part of New Mexico they were loaded. Dick fell for her big time. I’d bet you the only reason he’s still here has something to do with her.”
“It’s such a cliché, but most things center on sex and money. Lust and greed pretty well define the underside of our society. Do you think Franklin would be capable of killing Marino?”
“I’d have thought he was more a diplomat than a fighter. My guess back when we were in school was that he’d go on to law school and end up being some kind of lobbyist. But who the hell knows what somebody might do if given sufficient reason. He’s already told us how much he hated Marino and this latest bit of news about some kind of physical confrontation sure supports the picture of him shooting the bastard. The part that doesn’t make sense is that it looks like Marino put his window down to talk to whoever shot him. He had just had a fight with Franklin—why would he just sit there and wait for him to come up to the window?”
“Yeah, that doesn’t fit the picture.”
“My Apache grandfather once said, ‘when evil dies, bury it quick, and never dig it up.’ Do you think that maybe everybody would be better off if we just forgot about Marino’s murder?”
“I have a feeling your grandfather was a very wise man. I also think that there are lots of people who’d be fine with the whole mess just going away. But in all my years in law enforcement I never thought it was my job to decide who was guilty or innocent—it was my job to follow the facts and arrest whoever the facts pointed to. It was the job of a judge and a jury to decide who was guilty. Maybe Marino deserved to be shot, but that doesn’t change my job, which is to find out who shot him and arrest them—and that’s what I’m going to do, if I can.”
“Old man still thinks he’s sheriff with a white hat.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to break old habits.”
They headed toward the administrative offices. The racing season wasn’t scheduled to start for another few months, and the place was quiet. When they entered the offices, no one appeared to greet them.
“Hello, anyone here?” Ray shouted toward the back rooms. The area seemed vacant, but if the front door was unlocked there must be someone close by. They went back out onto the main grounds. Off in the distance they could see a couple of people having an animated conversation and they began walking in that direction. As they got closer they could see that one was Dick Franklin, looking rather disheveled. Franklin finished his less-than-friendly conversation and started walking toward them.
“Well hello. Thought you guys had finished up your work in Ruidoso some time ago.”
Ray and Tyee shook hands with Franklin. Up close it was obvious that today he wasn’t the dapper man they’d seen last time. He wore old work clothes, and he hadn’t shaved in several days. His eyes were bloodshot and in general he didn’t look well.
“Just following up on some things so we can complete our report to the AG. Wanted to ask you about the last time you saw Marino.”
If possible, Franklin now seemed to look worse.
“Somebody saw me didn’t they?”
“Saw you when?”
“Listen I didn’t kill the bastard—I wanted to, but I didn’t. Sometime before he was killed, we got into a fight. I met him in front of that new art gallery downtown. We argued about money—I told him I wasn’t going to pay his extortion any longer. I kind of lost it and grabbed him through his window. He knocked me down with the door and then started kicking me. I was sure he was going to kill me. I grabbed his foot and he went down, hit his head on the hood of his car. But he was alive. I got out of there because I was sure he’d start shooting when he came to. I went home and didn’t go out again that night. I didn’t kill him.”
“Was there anyone with you?”
“Yes, Isabella.”
“Isabella?”
“My wife, Isabella Orteg
a Franklin.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“As a rule, wives are not real good alibis.”
“Well Isabella hates my guts so I don’t think she’d lie for me. She left me after that night. She said I was a coward for not dealing with a little shit like Marino and she wanted to be married to a real man. I said some things to her I shouldn’t have. She went to her room and locked the door, and left the next morning. I’m sure she’s gone to her parents place in Tularosa. No doubt she’d be pleased to tell you that I’m too much of a coward to have shot Marino.”
The obvious gaping hole in his alibi—the fact that his wife had been locked in her room until morning—was something to keep in mind. Ray wasn’t sure about this guy, but didn’t want to close the conversation yet by being too aggressive with him.
“It seems that besides running an extortion operation, Marino may have been involved in illegal drugs. Did you know that he was distributing drugs?”
“Sheriff, I’ve had a suspicion that there was drug smuggling going on through the racetrack for more than a year. I didn’t know who was doing it, but Marino and the old sheriff were my best guesses. I noticed that there were a lot of times that trailers would arrive with only one horse, when the trailer could easily have transported two, or sometimes even four, horses. It was sometimes the same guys bringing in two horses, using two trailers, when all they needed was one. That piece of shit I was just talking to when you showed up is somehow connected. He used to be the stable manager, but I just fired him. I’ve been going over the books since we’re in the off season, and what I found is a pattern that should have been obvious to anyone. Something was wrong. I just confronted him, and he basically told me to go to hell—it was just about then that I saw you guys.”
“Tyee, maybe you should head over to the barn and see if you can find that guy—what’s his name?”
“Lewis Esparza.”
Tyee was headed in that direction when an old pickup came fishtailing out of the barn. Lewis Esparza was driving and he was headed right for Tyee. Ray pulled out his old service revolver and was ready to stop Esparza when a shot rang out. The truck carried on under its own momentum, but Ray could see that Esparza had been shot in the side of the head and was dead. The pick-up swerved towards the paddock area and slammed into a concrete barrier. Ray, Tyee, and Dick all headed over to the barrier and got down behind it for protection.
“That shot had to have come from the grandstands. Sounded like a high powered rifle. If someone was up there, how’d they get down?” Ray directed the question at Franklin.
“There are five exits that go out the back and three that come out the front. The exits have stairs, but you can get down them pretty damn quick.”
They stayed behind the barrier and listened to the old pickup releasing steam from a broken radiator.
“Where’s the closest phone?”
“Back in the barn. There’s an office right inside the door and a phone on the wall.”
Tyee said he was going to the barn to call the Sheriff’s department. Ray wasn’t real comfortable with it, but considering the time that had passed, it was likely that whoever had taken the shot was probably long gone. Ray pulled out his service revolver and told Tyee that if there was another shot to hit the ground and Ray would cover him. Tyee gave Ray a look that said you’ve got to be kidding. Then he headed out. There was no further shooting.
Ray and Sheriff James had a heated conversation about Ray and Tyee being in Ruidoso investigating without having let the Sheriff know. Ray apologized, but it was halfhearted. They filled the sheriff in on what they’d learned and then discussed the shooting. The deputies had searched the grandstand area and found a spent cartridge from a .30-30 rifle, but no other evidence.
Ray and Tyee were eventually able to leave and head toward T or C. They debated about stopping in Tularosa to see Isabella Franklin. On the one hand it felt like it might be pointless. If she was in her room and didn’t come out until morning, she couldn’t say where her husband had been that night. But, of course, they only knew that from her husband. It felt like something they should cover, just in case.
On the other hand, the murder of the stable manager had introduced a whole new level of confusion, taking them back to the idea of someone trying to tie up loose ends. If the stable manager was the main contact for the drugs, he must have known who was behind the operation. Obviously Dick Franklin didn’t shoot him, so there had to be someone else.
Ray wasn’t entirely comfortable not following up to verify Franklin’s alibi, but he was also anxious to get home. He knew the investigation was a long way from being over and he was unsure what their role was going to be, if they had one at all. It was Ray’s nature to take an investigation through to its completion, but running a PI business wasn’t the same as being a sheriff. He had less authority, for one thing, and he had to keep an eye on the cash flow to make sure the bills were being paid.
“Tyee, my instincts are to push hard until something breaks, but in this case it might be best if we just headed home until we’re sure what our position is going to be in this—any objections?”
“None from me, partner.”
They headed for home without much conversation. It was going to be a long drive.
College Days
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dick Franklin had lived a charmed life in many ways. His parents had money, and Dick more or less assumed that he’d have money, too—his parents’ money. Then his parents went nuts and kicked him out with next to nothing. Well, “next to nothing” included tuition at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, plus room and board. Still it felt like nothing. They’d done it because he’d been caught selling drugs to some of his classmates in high school. Sure, it was a bad thing to have done, but it didn’t justify him being disowned—it was only pot.
But Dick adjusted. From an early age he’d had a chameleon-like way of adapting to whatever circumstances he encountered. He would use his personality and his brains to make the best of his exile to New Mexico—in a second tier school, he should be a star. As it turned out, it took all of his attention during the first year just to meet the minimum grades required to remain in school. His parents threatened to stop paying if his grades didn’t improve. He had no idea what he’d do if he couldn’t go to school, so in his second year he actually learned to be a student.
As he began to study and attend classes more diligently, he discovered that he was actually pretty good at it. He was a born salesman, and he turned his substantial charms on the professors and administrators, sucking up to anyone who could help him succeed. And he did succeed.
Part of his commitment to success at school involved abandoning almost all his social activities. He studied and then he studied some more. He knew a few people, like Tyee Chino, but mostly he remained a private, somewhat isolated person. Even his connection to Tyee was academic—Tyee had helped him with a couple of classes they shared. He had thought the guy was intimidating because he was such a huge Apache Indian, but he’d turned out to be exceptionally smart, and he’d been a big help to Dick as he took on more challenging courses.
Everything changed when he walked into the student lounge one afternoon and took a seat in a community booth with his coffee and newspaper. As he sat down, he looked into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was like a picture, a glamorous portrait—something unreal. He’d never seen anyone who literally took his breath away until that moment. She looked up at him and smiled—he thought he might faint.
“Hello, sorry to bother you, my name is Dick Franklin.” He was a little surprised that he could actually talk.
“Hello, I’m Isabella Ortega.”
Her voice was wonderful. Dick realized he was staring, but he couldn’t seem to stop. He took his seat, but forgot about his paper as he began talking to her. The conversation was mostly just meaningless chatter, giving Dick an excuse to keep his eye on the beautifu
l Isabella. She told him that her family was from Spain, but that they now lived in Tularosa in the central part of New Mexico. Dick gave a very brief synopsis of his background, hinting that his family consisted of rich Californians, which was true, but leaving out his current status as an exile. Dick asked Isabella on a date. She said no, she didn’t date. Eventually Dick did find out where she was living on campus—one of the high dollar sororities. Beautiful and maybe with family money—Dick Franklin was very interested.
Over the next few months, Dick spent considerable energy trying to impress Isabella. While maybe the most beautiful woman Dick had ever seen, he discovered that she was also one of the most aloof. She seemed most comfortable when people kept a distance. At first Dick had tried some very direct tactics, but that seemed to be the wrong approach. He’d sent her cards, and once even mounted a sign outside her sorority house asking for a date. She sent him a note saying that he should stop or she’d notify campus security.
Dick didn’t give up, but he made his approach more subtle. He had discovered that she was a philosophy major. Dick had taken a lot of philosophy courses, and he began sending Isabella letters discussing his thoughts on various philosophers. Eventually she began to write back. While they lived on the same small campus, they established their relationship entirely through these letters, never meeting face to face during this stage.