by Don Bullis
―Pardon me,‖ Spurlock said, ―but this is gonna all be wrote up in a report, isn‘t it?‖
Howard turned the recorder off and picked up a 35 millimeter camera. ―Yes, it will, but if you're thinking of leaving, the policy is that an officer be present throughout the procedure on murder victims. I'm surprised this is your first one.‖ He walked around the body taking pictures from various angles as he talked.
―All I want to know is what killed ‗em,‖ Spurlock said. ―I don't know one damn thing about the rest of it.‖
―Ok. Let me go to that first.‖ Howard finished photographing Bud‘s carcass and pushed the tape machine's record button. He picked up a long slender instrument that appeared to have a tiny spoon on one end and began probing around Rice's bloody and tattered neck. ―There is transection and degeneration of the spinal cord at the third cervical vertebra which is secondary to a gunshot wound. There is another gunshot wound to the neck with transection of right external and internal carotid arteries, with hemorrhage of the soft tissue and laceration of the esophagus and larynx. I note esophageal, bronchial and pulmonary hemorrhaging, secondary to a gunshot wound.‖
―So he was shot to death? Is that all you're sayin'?‖ Spurlock wanted to be anywhere but in the Indian Hospital morgue with the dead body of Bud Rice.
―That's it. I'd say he was dead when he hit the floor.‖
―What makes you so sure of that?‖
―One bullet completely severed the spinal cord. Blew it all to hell and gone. Be just like cutting his head off with a guillotine.‖
―How many times was he shot besides that?‖
―Hard to tell. Looks like more exit wounds than entry. At least twice. Maybe as many as four times. Must have all been done at a distance. I don't see any powder burns or residue.‖
―Any slugs left in him?‖
―Nope. They all went completely through the neck. Except for the one that hit the spinal column, they should be in good shape for rifling comparisons, if you can find them. That's all soft tissue.‖
―Thanks. How long‘ll it take for you to finish up with Bud?‖ ―An hour or so‖ Howard said. ―Looks pretty routine.‖ ―Good. I'll be back ‗fore you start on Miss Brown.‖
Spurlock left the morgue in search of the hospital's property room. He wanted to retrieve and examine the personal effects of the two murder victims. He found the evidence, properly tagged and secured, in a locker in the emergency room admissions office. A tired looking young nurse seemed happy to be rid of the stuff and quickly left him alone.
In the case of Blanche Brown, the only thing to claim was a brown grocery bag containing the bloody clothing she died in: a housedress with a pattern of small blue flowers; a foundation garment the like of which Spurlock had never seen before, a pair of support hose and sensible, flat-heeled, lace up shoes. Nothing else. Sad, Doc thought, that a woman lived more than eighty years on this earth and left so little behind.
A second grocery bag contained the clothing Bud Rice died in: greasy blue coveralls, red and yellow plaid flannel shirt, underwear, a blue baseball cap and a pair of flat-heeled work boots. Every piece of clothing was spattered with blood. A second, much smaller paper bag, got the agent's attention. He made a list of the following property to leave with the young nurse:
One key ring containing twenty-seven keys of various sizes and shapes;
One white wooden stub of a lead pencil (eraser worn off);
One pocket knife (single blade honed/half gone);
Three one hundred dollar bills;
Five fifty dollar bills;
Two twenty dollar bills;
Two ten dollar bills;
Four five dollar bills;
Six one dollar bills;
One wallet containing personal papers and 2 blank checks.
Finding the money puzzled the detective. Rice had six hundred and thirty-six dollars, cash, in his pocket, in a tidy roll held together with a rubber band. Why would a robber kill two people and not bother to search the body of his victim? The officer wondered how much money the killer took from the Trading Post.
Spurlock found the diminutive Dr. Howard standing in the hall, his rumpled white smock smeared with red/brown drying blood. The pathologist held a cigarette in one hand and a coffee cup in the other.
―We're all set up for the second one, officer. You ready?‖ ―I damn sure ain't, but let's get to it.‖
Howard tossed his cigarette into the sink and put his coffee cup
down beside the tape recorder. ―The body is that of a well-developed elderly female measuring approximately 61 inches and weighing about 145 pounds. Postmortem rigidity is present in all extremities.…‖
―Ok, ok. I heard all that before. Can't you just tell me what killed her so I can get the hell out of here?‖
―You really don't like this, do you?‖
―Not one damn bit. How about it?‖
―A little easier here. Shot twice, by the look of it, once in the right thorax, or chest as you might say, and once in the right neck with the missile exiting at the base of the skull. The second one killed her. Punched a hole in the medulla oblongata, I'd say, and probably nicked the cerebellum. I'll be able to tell for sure once I get in there and look around. The first shot would probably have killed her, too, but it might have taken a while longer. Two or three minutes up to ten or twelve. She was out of it, anyway. Might have lived a minute after being shot. A bullet in the chest is a hell of a shock to an old body like hers.‖
―No slugs left in her, either?‖
―Nope. I wouldn't think either of these would have much value to you. Both made significant contact with bone.‖
―Anything else?‖ Doc asked.
―I understand these people were victims of an armed robber. Is that right?‖ Howard took off a rubber glove and lit a cigarette as he talked to Spurlock across Blanch Brown‘s body.
―That seems to be the case.‖
―I‘m not one to argue, but I'll tell you one thing: I‘ve cut up more than a few people shot in robberies over the years, and ninety-nine percent of the time they‘re shot in the chest or the belly. Body mass. It's natural to shoot for the body. Bigger target. I've only ever had two robbery victims shot in the head and one of them was by accident. But shots to the neck, by an armed robber: I've never seen it before, especially on two people at the same scene.‖
―You said Miss Brown was shot in the chest.‖
―Probably incidental. I'd guess it was convenient to shoot her in the chest first, then administer the coup de grâce to the neck. Seems to me this guy meant to kill these people. He placed the fatal shots flawlessly. Like a professional hit man might do it.‖
―I wonder why he left two witnesses,‖ Spurlock mused.
―Did he?‖ The pathologist registered surprise.
―Yep. The victim's wife and another old lady. I've got to interview both of them soon's I get back out there to Budville.‖
―How many shots were fired do you think?‖ Howard asked.
―We found five spent cartridges from a nine millimeter automatic and three slugs. I don‘t think we‘ll find any more because some of the cops on the scene before I got there wanted souvenirs. Maybe I‘m wrong. Automatics kick cartridges out all over the place and they bounce around a lot. We found one in a magazine rack and maybe we‘ll find more. There could have been six shots from what you said. Four in Bud, two in Miss Brown. Besides that we found a bullet hole in a file cabinet and one in the wall. Hell. I don't know. Somewhere between five and eight.‖
―Maybe you answered your own question,‖ Howard said.
―How's that?‖
―Some years ago I did some studying on the effect of various bullets on body tissue. Muscle. Bone. Different organs. You know, I wanted to see what .45 caliber, 230 grain ball ammunition did compared to, say, 158 grain .357 magnum semi wadcutter when it hit flesh. I fired a lot of different pistols into a lot of animal carcasses. If your killer fired eight shots from a nine-m
illimeter automatic pistol, depending on the make and model, it's entirely possible that he ran out of ammunition. Maybe that's why he didn't kill the witness.‖
―You could be right about that, Doc. Thanks for your help. Let me know if you find anything else interestin‘.‖
Spurlock felt tired all over as he drove back to Budville on that cool, clear and sunny November Sunday morning. He'd spent the better part of the night with Virgil Vee processing the crime scene: taking photographs, lifting fingerprints, making measurements and drawing a rough draft diagram of body positions and the locations of spent cartridges, slugs and bullet holes. Doc didn‘t consider an effort to locate and retrieve trace evidence—hairs, fibers and the like—would be of any value to the investigation. Too many people in and out. The store was like a bus station—hell, it was a bus station. Now, with the autopsies complete, all that remained immediately were statements from witnesses. He hoped the Albuquerque cops had sent officer Herman Budwister to do suspect composites. Budwister was the best around and he and Doc were old friends.
A couple of cold beers and a few hours sleep would go good, Doc thought, but he didn't expect either for long hours to come.
Spurlock turned off the Interstate and on to Route 66 at Laguna Pueblo. As the Old Road curved around Paraje Mesa and began its gradual half-mile descent into Budville, Mt. Taylor, rising to more than 11,000 feet, dominated the western horizon beyond the village. Autumn snow left the upper reaches of the mountain white against the bright blue New Mexico sky. The majesty of Mt. Taylor awed Doc every time he saw it; every time he drove from Albuquerque to Gallup in daylight. He knew the mountain was sacred to the Indians. The Navajo called it tso dzil, or big, tall mountain. No arguing with that, he thought.
Spurlock also thought about what he'd include in his report. Maybe Bill Howard had it right. Maybe the killer ran out of ammunition. Maybe that is why he didn't kill Flossie. But what kind of armed robber wouldn't carry an extra clip of ammunition, and if he didn‘t have extra ammo, why would he shoot Bud so many times? And what kind of robber would leave six hundred bucks in his victim's pocket? Not a very smart one.
But what if the killer wasn‘t a robber?
CHAPTER IV
Flossie Rice endured a bad night. Word of the killings at Budville spread faster than a dry prairie fire and reached every town and village from Albuquerque to Gallup, and from St. Johns, Arizona, to Farmington, New Mexico. Flossie's friends and Bud's relatives came and went from midnight to dawn, each weeping condolence and each leaving food: a macaroni casserole dish, a plate of biscuits, a pot of chile stew. When not greeting visitors, Flossie sat on the couch in her living room, her hand wrapped in Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Scarberry‘s huge paw, her head on his shoulder. State Police officers came and went, reporting bits and pieces of information to the deputy chief.
Albuquerque Police officer Herman Budwister arrived in Budville soon after dawn. He wore his curly brown hair long enough to touch his collar and his round face and southern accent—he was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia—made him seem ever smiling and happygo-lucky. Good friends knew the lie his appearance told. His blue/gray eyes didn't smile. They peered unhappily at a cop's world of rape, robbery and murder; a world of ill-treated victims and unrepentant criminals. Herman surrendered victory to the lawbreakers in 1963. Everything worked in their favor. He considered police work a mere holding action against the bullies and bad guys of the world. He worked hard at being a policeman though he‘d never be taken for one on the street. He dressed more like a university graduate student than a cop: penny loafers, khaki pants, green corduroy jacket and gray wool sweater. Cops and criminals alike who'd dealt with Herman over the years learned not to take him lightly. Cops respected his ability with pencil and sketching pad; bad guys respected his fists and his willingness to use them.
Budwister took Flossie into her bedroom and over the period of an hour and a half the two of them made composite drawings of the killer as she remembered him. The task wasn't easy for Flossie and the two of them soon gave up on using the composite kit. She simply could not, she said, find a chin or a nose or a brow that matched her memory of the killer's face. The detective began sketching. He made a half dozen false starts before a recognizable image began to emerge from pencil lines and thumb smudges: the face of a young man, pleasant enough looking except for eyes that gazed vacantly at nothing through narrow, but occidental, slits. The V of a widow's peak divided his wide brow and his other features were even and regular.
Budwister showed the drawing to Nettie Buckley—who'd passed the night sitting silently in a ladder back chair in a corner of the living room—and she agreed that the picture looked a good deal like the man who bought a pack of Camel cigarettes the evening before. She offered no suggestion as to how the picture might be improved. Criminal Agent Virgil Vee accompanied Budwister to Albuquerque where the drawing could be reduced in size, duplicated, and fifty copies made and returned to Budville as quickly as possible. Vee and Budwister made one stop along the way, at an auto salvage yard on West Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Budwister said he needed to check something out. The stop took five minutes.
Every officer at every roadblock and every plainclothes police officer working the case in western Valencia County had a copy of Budwister's drawing in his hands by early afternoon on Sunday, November 19. Narcotics officers Finch and Gallegos took a copy back to Los Cerritos Bar and Frank and Delfina Fernandez agreed the drawing looked a lot like Darlene Concho's husband. Mat Torrez relayed word to the roadblocks that the subject in the drawing might be traveling with an Indian woman, believed to be his wife, two small children and an Indian male, age uncertain.
Budwister showed Flossie a mug shot he‘d pulled from Albuquerque police files while he waited for his sketch to be copied. ―Yes,‖ she said. ―That's the man.‖ Budwister smiled to himself and put the picture in his shirt pocket. He went in search of Doc.
Scarberry found Budwister first. ―You the APD guy that did the drawing of the suspect?‖ He asked, a heavy scowl on his puffy face.
―Yes sir, I am.‖
―We won't be needin' any more of your services. You're dismissed.‖ Scarberry started to turn away.
―You might want to know, Chief, that Mrs. Rice just identified a mug shot of...."
―Look,‖ Scarberry said loudly and condescendingly as he turned back toward Budwister, ―this is a State Police investigation. We don't need anything else you got to offer so just haul your hillbilly ass on outta here!‖
―And you're welcome all to hell, too, asshole!‖ Budwister didn‘t feel obliged to take insult from an officer in another department, even a high ranking one.
Scarberry ignored Budwister as the Albuquerque officer got into his car and left in a cloud of dust.
Doc Spurlock interviewed Flossie Rice early on the afternoon of November 19. Captain Mat Torrez served as witness.
―Ok, Miz Rice, I know this is mighty tough on you, but we need to know just exactly what happened last night, ah, specifically. We'll just make this painless as we can. So let's get started. Please say your name, age, address, and so forth, and talk in a normal voice right into that microphone there. Ok?‖
Flossie seemed composed and in control. She nodded at Doc and folded her hands in her lap. Her voice flat and unemotional, she began. ―My name is Aurora Rice, but my nickname is Flossie. I am forty-five years old and I live in Budville, New Mexico.‖
―How‘re you related to Bud Rice and Blanche Brown?‖ ―Bud was my husband. Miss Brown was my good friend for many, many years.‖
―Ok. Good. Now. Can you just give us a statement as to what happened here yesterday evenin‘, which would be November 18th, 1967?‖ Spurlock leaned forward and spoke slowly into the microphone as if afraid his voice wouldn't be recorded.
Flossie took a deep breath and began. ―I was in the bathroom curling my hair. It was about seven-thirty, I guess. Nettie and Miss Brown was in the store watching things and Bud was outside so
mewhere, I thought, but then I heard him say pretty loud, ‗I don't give a damn.‘ And then, ‗Go ahead.‘ I heard three bangs, close together. Then I heard Miss Brown say, ‗Don't do that! Don't do that!‘ And there was three more bangs, loud ones, like big firecrackers. I ran out of the bathroom and Nettie came arunning into the kitchen and she said, ‗Bud's been shot‘ and she ran past me and hid in the bathroom.
―When I stepped into the store, this man poked that gun in my stomach and he said, ‗Don't get excited.‘ Then he said, ‗Turn out the lights‘ and I told him the switches was right beside the door and I pointed to them. He told me to turn them out and he pushed me ahead of him around the counter and past Miss Brown and Bud. I wanted to stop by where Bud was but he poked me with that gun and made me go to the light switches and turn them off and I did but the lights on the gas pumps was still on. That's a different switch. I tried to see if there was a car outside and there was this light colored sedan pulled up to the far side of the gas pumps, headed toward the west. I thought it was a Chevy. I couldn't see the license plate because of the pump being in the way. He shoved me and poked me with that gun, back to the kitchen.
―I asked him what he wanted and he said, ‗I want your money.‘ I told him ‗ok‘ and I went behind the counter and pulled out the drawer and showed him the cash tray and I told him to help himself. Then he wanted to know what was in the other drawer and I opened it too, and there wasn't nothing in there except some rolls of coins, pennies and nickels, quarters, and some old coins. The old ones was marked with an X on the wrapper. A Grants National Bank bag was in there, too, and he made me put the money in it while he held it open.
―Then he said, ‗That's not all of it! I'll kill you!‘ I told him to wait a minute and I went to the Motor Vehicle Office and he followed me and I got out the cigar box with some money from license plates and driver's licenses and there was some paperwork in there, and some brake & light windshield stickers and a couple of rubber stamps, and I just dumped it all into the money bag.