by Don Bullis
Lt. Morris Candelaria didn‘t like the way Scarberry wanted things handled. The deputy chief issued an order late Saturday night that any suspect apprehended in the Rice/Brown case be taken to the command post at Budville before transport to jail. To Candelaria's way of thinking, suspects should be taken directly to booking and detention where police criminal agents did their work— interrogations, lineups and the like—before lawyers began turning the bent and creaky wheels of the New Mexico criminal justice system. But Lt. Candelaria always obeyed orders. His political connections in Santa Fe were good, but not good enough to take on Scarberry.
Jim Mitchell and FBI agent Dwayne Madison took Darlene Concho Bunting and her brother, Leroy Concho, to the Grants Police Department and ―interviewed‖ them. Juan Posey took the small children to Darlene‘s aunt‘s house at McCarty‘s Village.
The FBI had entered the Rice/Brown case early Sunday morning. Good form within the law enforcement community demanded that reservation Indians be interviewed by one of J. Edgar Hoover's agents because local authorities had no jurisdiction on Indian land. If legal questions should arise later, all asses would be covered.
Darlene Concho Bunting cried and carried on a good deal as she told officers that she and her husband and children had been in Albuquerque from noon on Saturday until eight o'clock on Sunday evening. Young Leroy considered his own arrest and detention a lark, but he told officers a story generally consistent with his sister‘s. Madison didn't care what Darlene and Leroy had to say. As far as he was concerned, the killer was in custody and nothing a couple of Pueblo Indians said would change anything about it. The agent released Darlene and Leroy at dawn. He told them not to leave the reservation. Jim Mitchell took them to the aunt's house in McCarty's Village.
Everyone involved in the search for the Rice/Brown killer heard via police radio that a suspect was in custody. All roadblocks were dismantled. Many officers returned to Budville and nearly twenty police cruisers lined the Old Road when Candelaria arrived with the suspect. The trading post exterior lights were off and the moon provided scant illumination in the parking lot. Candelaria‘s car hadn‘t rolled to a complete stop before Scarberry opened the right rear door, dragged Larry Bunting out and slammed him face down in the gravel. He grabbed the handcuff chain and forced the sailor's arms up into a double hammerlock and half dragged the man to the front of Candelaria‘s car where he stood him up like a prisoner before a firing squad.
―You stand right there, you son-of-a-bitch.‖ Scarberry stuck the barrel of his pistol up under the sailor‘s chin. ―You so much as wiggle and I'll kill your skinny ass dead'ern dog shit. You understand me?‖
Bunting stood still, his hands locked painfully behind him; his head dropped when the deputy chief removed the gun. Then he looked up and around with fear in his eyes, like a cottontail rabbit surrounded by a pack of hounds. All he could see in the dim moonlight were black silhouettes of police officers and deputies moving about in the parking lot. Scarberry was slightly behind the suspect, and to his right. He grabbed a handful of Bunting's hair and held the sailor's head in place while Freddy Finch aimed a big six-cell flashlight into the suspect's face. Bunting squinted his eyes against the blinding light. Candelaria looked toward the store where Flossie stood behind the closed lower half of the Dutch door, the darkened room behind her. She nodded her head, twice, in the affirmative, then turned away. Nettie closed the upper door half.
Scarberry shoved Bunting's head forward then grabbed him by the arm, slung him around and slammed him against the trading post wall like a television wrestler smashing an opponent against a ring‘s corner post. In Bunting's case the pain was real. The deputy chief grasped the sailor‘s coat lapels and held him up so that only his toes touched the gravel.
―You thank the Lord there‘s witnesses here, you son-of-a-bitch, or you wouldn't never get back in that car.‖ He unhanded the suspect, stepped back and gut-punched him. The sailor doubled-up and sagged to the ground like an empty sea bag. Scarberry landed a solid kick, just below the ribs, before he turned his back on the suspect and stepped away. ―Get him the hell out of here, Candelaria. Get him outta my sight. You got my permission to kill 'im if he gets squirrelly on you and tries to run. Hell, you got my permission to kill 'im even if he don't.‖
The officers watched Candelaria drive away with the suspect locked securely in the back seat of his police car. Sheriff Jack Elkins followed Candelaria toward the jail in Los Lunas.
―I said we‘d get the son-of-a-bitch, Torrez,‖ Scarberry said, smugly. ―I told you he couldn't get past the roadblocks if you put ‗em up like I told you to.‖
―Yes, you did, Chief.‖
―Now then, I want this case wrapped up tighter than a virgin's vagina. I want so much evidence against this douche bag that he'll take the gas chamber in a plea bargain. You understand me? I want statements. I want witnesses. I want physical evidence. I want circumstantial evidence. I don't want no room for no error.‖
―I understand, Chief.‖ Torrez said through tight lips. He'd been doing, and supervising, criminal investigations for ten of the previous twenty years. He didn't need to be told what police work the DA required for a successful prosecution.
―Now where in the hell is Spurlock? He‘s case agent, ain't he?‖
―I sent him and Vee home a few hours ago to get some sleep. They had been hard at it for twenty hours or so.‖
―These kids ain't tough as old birds like you and me, huh?‖ Scarberry seemed almost friendly. ―Get 'em back out. I want Bunting‘s car searched. Gun's gotta be somewhere and we need to find it. I want a follow-up on that info Finch came up with on the witnesses at that bar down the road.‖
―I'll handle it.‖
―The helicopter‘s warmed up and waitin‘. I'm going home. I want a report from you by tomorrow afternoon. You see any problem with that?‖
―No sir.‖
―Good. If there's any screw-up here, if this guy don't suck cyanide, I'll have your ass and Spurlock‘s too. This is the most important case you ever handled. Comprendethat!‖ The deputy chief got into Al North's State Police car without another word. It sped up the Old Road and disappeared at the Cubero turn-off. Torrez raised his hand in a single fingered salute to the disappearing tail lights. Chief Sam Black might have something to say about whom got whose ass, he said to himself.
By midnight on Sunday, November 19, Budville became nearly deserted and returned to somnolence. Mat Torrez walked slowly to his own unmarked state car, one of two left in the trading post driveway. Bobby Gutierrez, assigned to guard the trading post, occupied the other vehicle—Troy McGee‘s unit. Captain Torrez found a paper cup half full of cold coffee on his car‘s dashboard. He‘d bought it earlier at the cafe in Villa de Cubero. He took a pint bottle of vodka from the glove compartment and added a generous dollop to the coffee. He started the engine and let it idle while he sipped the vile-tasting mixture. He keyed the police radio‘s microphone.
―Three-six Gallup.‖
―Go ahead three-six.‖ Two complete work shifts had come and gone. Debbie Smith was back on duty.
―Give Agent Spurlock a 10-21. Tell him to 10-87 with me in room seven of the motel in Villa de Cubero at oh-four-hundred hours. Tell him to bring coffee. Lots of it. Do a 10-5 to Albuquerque. Same 10-49 to Agent Virgil Vee, Valverde, that is. Tell him to stop by the jail in Los Lunas and pick up the mug shots of the suspect. 10-4?‖
―10-4. They get the right one, Captain?‖
―10-4, Debbie. I think so. They tell me you did a good job on the air last night. I appreciate it. If you need me, raise Officer Gutierrez on the radio and have him get me at the motel. I don't know his mannumber. No phone in my room and the store and restaurant are both closed. I'll be 10-7 for a while.‖
―10-4, three six. KLC-636.‖ She signed off.
CHAPTER VI
The Chief Assistant District Attorney for New Mexico‘s Second Judicial District—Bernalillo and Valencia counties—Don Wilcoxson paced
the floor of Sheriff Jack Elkins' office in the courthouse at Los Lunas while he waited for Morris Candelaria to arrive with the suspect. Tall, muscular and horse-faced, the ADA dressed more like a ranch hand than a lawyer: faded Levi's, scuffed high-heel boots and battered Resistol hat. He wore a Colt's .45 automatic, Model 1911, in a custom made, hand-tooled, holster on his wide belt. Wilcoxson, who considered himself a cop's kind of prosecutor, had served a few years as an Albuquerque police officer while he attended law school at the University of New Mexico. His primary goal in life involved locking up society's criminal element and he wasn't any too fussy about how he accomplished it.
His ill humor worsened as the late evening of Sunday, November 19, became the early morning of Monday, November 20. The way he saw it, if Bunting hadn't killed Rice and Brown, Bunting wouldn‘t have been arrested and there‘d be no need for an ADA—the Chief Assistant District Attorney at that—to be standing around in the wee minutes of the morning waiting to conduct an interview in which the suspect would lie like a Judas kiss to hide his own guilt. Instead, the ADA might have been at home, in bed with his wife, asleep: not concerned with how he‘d handle the prosecution of Larry Bunting and a half dozen other cases piled up on his desk in Albuquerque.
Candelaria led Bunting into the office. Jack Elkins followed along shortly. Elkins removed the suspect's handcuffs and directed him to sit in a straight-backed wooden chair in front of the desk. The sheriff took a position near one of the office doors while Candelaria leaned against the other. Wilcoxson, seated behind the desk, lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward Bunting.
―What's your name?‖
―Bunting, Larry E., 15598176, Petty Officer First Class, United States Navy, sir.‖ Like a whipped pup looking for a friendly face, the young sailor smiled nervously and his eyes darted back and forth at the officials in the room.
―You're not a prisoner of war so don't give me that name, rank and serial number shit. Where‘re you from?‖
―Yes sir, sheriff. I was stationed in Massachusetts up 'til last week. I got orders for San Diego, the Naval Air Station. That's where we was going to. My home of record is in Everett, Washington, but I was born in Maryland.‖
―I'm not the sheriff. I'm the Assistant District Attorney. You know why you're here?‖
―No sir. Not exactly. The one cop out there at Budville said I killed somebody, but I didn't, either.‖ Bunting wiped the sweat off his face with his bare hand. ―Are you like Perry Mason?‖
―I'm on the other side, but I don't loose all my cases like Hamilton Berger. It's my job to put you into the gas chamber.‖
Bunting's heart throbbed in his chest. ―But I didn't do nothing.‖ The sailor seemed on the verge of tears.
―That a fact? We got an eye witness says you did; says you shot and killed two people—one of them a little old lady—for a couple hundred bucks. What do you think of that?‖ Wilcoxson wore his hatbrim pulled down low on his forehead keeping his face in a shadow, like a mask, dark and obscure. He snarled the question. He'd practiced his interrogation technique for years and considered himself in good form with Bunting.
―Well sir, I didn't do it.‖ The sailor's voice broke as he choked back a sob. ―Where's my wife and kids?‖
Wilcoxson ground out his cigarette and stood up. He walked around and rested his butt on the front edge of the desk and crossed one booted foot over the other. ―Don't worry about them. They're in good hands. Too bad you didn't think about them before you shot that poor old lady. Anybody read you your rights?‖
Bunting sat with his elbows on his thighs, his head down, staring at the floor. ―I don't know. What's that?‖
―Gallegos read them to him, Don,‖ Candelaria said. ―I was a witness to it. So was Fred Finch and Jim Mitchell.‖
―If this young man doesn't remember,‖ Wilcoxson said to the lieutenant, ―I guess I'd better tell him again. We wouldn't want to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights, would we?‖ Wilcoxson leaned over and spoke in a loud whisper directly into the young sailor's ear. ―You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney....‖ ―Oh,‖ Bunting said, leaning away from Wilcoxson as if the prosecutor had bad breath. ―That one guy told me all that out there at the roadblock.‖
Wilcoxson stood up. ―So you know that you don't have to talk to us if you don't want to.‖
―Yes sir.‖
―And you know you can have a lawyer if you want one.‖
―Yes sir.‖
―Do you want to talk to us?‖ Wilcoxson softened his approach just a little bit.
―I don't mind. I didn't do nothing wrong. I just want to get out of here, to see my wife.‖
―How long you been in the navy? Is that the United States Navy?‖
Bunting missed the sarcasm. ―Yes sir. The United States Navy. Little over five years. It's my career?‖
―Some career. What's your rank?‖
―Petty officer first class.‖
―Is that a pretty good rank?‖
―I've been in the navy for five years. It ain't too bad for only five years of service,‖ he said proudly. ―Some guys don't make it beyond seaman.‖
―But you're not an admiral, or anything like that, are you?‖
―No. I ain't even an officer.‖
―What're you doing around here?‖
―Mostly just passing through. My wife's from Acoma. Like I said: I got transferred from Massachusetts to San Diego. I'm supposed to report in on Tuesday. We stopped to visit Darlene's aunts and her brother and sister in Albuquerque. That's all.‖
―You're a squaw man, then. Isn't that right?‖
―A what, sir?‖
―White man married to an Indian woman. A squaw.‖
―Well, yeah, Darlene, she's a....‖
―And you got two half-breed kids. Isn't that right?‖
Bunting sat up a little straighter in his chair. ―Wait just a minute, sir. You can't....‖
―Uh, Don,‖ Jack Elkins said. ―You sure you want to go ahead on that point?‖
The ADA stepped back behind the desk and sat down. He lit another cigarette and pushed his hat to the back of his head. ―Forget I said anything about it.‖ He put his feet up on the desk. ―Now then, Petty Officer Bunting, you say you didn't kill anyone. Why don't you go ahead and tell us where you were, say, from noon Friday ‗til the police caught up with you a few hours ago.‖
―That's easy. We stayed at Darlene's aunt‘s house in McCarty's Village and then we went to Albuquerque in the afternoon.‖
―When was that?‖
―Friday. Darlene's brother works at a car wash by Old Town and we stopped there but he wasn't working so we went to his house. He was home. I took him to cash a check and pick up some beer.‖
―What's your Indian brother's name?‖
―Austin Concho.‖
―What'd you do then?‖
―We stayed around his place for a while, and then in the evening we went to the Indian Hospital to visit Charlotte. That's Austin's wife. Then we took Austin home and we went back to McCarty's Village for the night.‖
―Where in the hell is McCarty's Village?‖ Wilcoxson asked.
―West of Budville on the main railroad line,‖ Candelaria said. ―Eight, ten miles. On the Acoma Reservation. There's a BIA school over there and an old railroad station. Fifteen, twenty houses.‖
Wilcoxson nodded. ―So,‖ he said to Bunting, ―you were in the area of Budville last Saturday—the day before yesterday—November eighteenth. Isn't that a fact?‖
―Yes sir, I was. We went back to Albuquerque about noon.‖
―Why?‖
―Well, we was about ready to go on to California. Darlene told her aunts good-bye. She wanted to tell Austin and Charlotte good-bye, too. Darlene's got another sister at the Albuquerque Indian School she wanted to see. So we went to the car wash, but Austin wasn't there, and he wasn't at his house either. We drove around for a w
hile then went back to the house. He was back from getting Charlotte out of the hospital. We stayed there last night. I watched the football game this morning and Darlene and Charlotte washed some clothes. About eight o'clock, or so we left for California. Then those cops grabbed us out by Grants.‖
―What football game?‖
―There were a couple on. Dallas was in one of them and San Diego was in one. Houston too, I think.‖
―Who won?‖
―I didn't pay that much attention. I think Dallas won and San Diego lost, but I wouldn't swear to it.‖
―Dallas lost to Washington. Upset. Twenty-seven to twenty.
I watched the game. San Diego beat Kansas City seventeen sixteen. The Houston game wasn‘t televised in Albuquerque. Help yourself out here, Larry. Name any one of the quarterbacks in the two games.‖
―I don‘t know. Like I said, I didn‘t pay too much attention.
I think it was John Meredith for the Cowboys.‖
―Don Meredith started but Craig Morton played most of the game. I don‘t think you saw any football games.‖
―But I did, I just like baseball better‘n football. That all.‖
―Sure. When‘d you get to New Mexico?‖
―Last Tuesday. In the afternoon.‖ The sailor's mouth and throat were dry. ―Can I have a drink of water?‖
―When we're finished. Where‘d you go?‖
―When?‖
―When you first got to New Mexico.‖