by Don Travis
I settled down at my desk and reviewed the reports they’d left for me. After signing off on the documents, I went through the mail Hazel had left that required my attention, made a few notations, and dictated an answer or two before snapping off my desk lamp.
Still vaguely disgruntled, I swiveled my chair to the windows behind my desk and allowed the vista beyond the glass to slowly calm my nerves as I came to grips with my ill-defined sense of unease. It was not Del interrupting my pleasant afternoon with Paul—although that was a factor—as much as a sense of failure. Of leaving a job unfinished, a goal unattained. Liver Lips had outfoxed me, and that did not sit well.
A pleasant evening with Paul finally laid the thing to rest. Until the telephone rang at one fifteen in the morning.
Chapter 2
THE CALL, which interrupted a pleasant dream about finishing the afternoon’s golf game, pissed me off, and Del’s voice didn’t do anything to improve my disposition. Then I sat up and snapped on the table lamp.
“What? Say that again.”
Paul turned over and looked at me through sleepy brown eyes.
Del sounded tired. “Liver Lips Martinson is dead. Went off the road in his pickup. Apparently killed him instantly.”
“How do you know?” The words came flying out of my mouth. Still half-asleep, I guess.
“Hank Grass, a VP for Greater Southwest Ranchers, called me.”
“Where?”
“A few miles west of Las Cruces on Interstate 10.”
“He must have started for home as soon as he gave me the slip at UNM. Anyway, thanks for waking me out of a sound sleep to tell me that.”
“Come off it. I need you to get down there and be my eyes on the ground.”
“Why me? There are a couple of good investigators in Cruces.”
“I know you, and I trust you, Vince.”
“What’s so special about this? I don’t understand all the flap.”
“How about a quarter-million-dollar insurance policy.”
My reaction was similar to Liver’s. “On a duck?”
“Duck royalty, I gather.”
“What makes a royal duck worth two hundred fifty thousand dollars?”
“I don’t understand the economics either. But Hank Grass at Greater Southwest Ranchers says that’s the amount of the policy. How long will it take you to get down there?”
Las Cruces lay 250 miles or so to the south, but this time of night the traffic wouldn’t be bad. Of course, I’d have to watch out for Saturday-night drunk drivers. “Say six hours or so, so I can have a shower and breakfast.”
“The state cop in charge down there is Detective Manny Montoya.”
“Why a detective?”
“I gather there’s some question about whether it was an accident.”
After Del gave me a few more particulars, I hung up.
“What now?” Paul’s long arms thrown akimbo took up most of the bed. The small, dark dragon tattoo on his left pec glittered in the lamplight. He was amazingly tolerant of Del Dahlman, the only other man with whom I’d had a meaningful relationship, but after today he had about reached his limit.
I filled him in on the conversation.
“So why is it your problem? Let him get somebody down there to handle it for him.”
I started to deliver a stock reply: it was my job, my duty, my responsibility. Instead I gazed at his smooth tan features for a moment and gave him an honest answer.
“I agreed to do a job for Del and then let him down. I feel… obligated, I guess. I have a few contacts in that part of the state, so I have as good a chance of finding who Liver gave the duck to as anyone.”
He shook his head. “A sense of honor. Anyone tell you how old-fashioned that is?”
The question didn’t call for a response, so I reluctantly got up and headed for the shower. “Have you ever thought about learning to fly?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Nope.”
“Well, think about it. If I’m going to keep running all over the state, we might as well buy a plane and learn to fly it.”
LAS CRUCES, a city of around seventy-five thousand and the county seat of Doña Ana County, perched on the Chihuahuan desert flats of the Mesilla Valley. This floodplain of the Rio Grande boasted pecan orchards as well as onion, chili, and other vegetable fields. The city was also a rail center and the home of the state’s only land-grant school, New Mexico State University. The stark, striking Organ Mountains rose abruptly to the east.
I parked in front of the East University Avenue headquarters of State Police District Four around 8:00 a.m. I wanted to follow protocol and have dispatch let the officers on the scene know I was on the way.
Twenty minutes later I pulled in behind a swarm of activity. Emergency flares blocked the westbound lanes of the highway. The fact they were still diverting traffic on a major freeway this long after Liver’s wreck told me the state police felt this might not be an accident scene. I pulled up to the uniformed patrolman diverting traffic to the eastbound lanes and identified myself. He used his shoulder unit to announce my arrival and then waved me over onto the side of the road. It looked as if the crime unit had about finished with their work. In the distance I could see a banged-up black Dodge Ram pickup lying upside down, snug against the corridor fence. A man in civilian attire detached himself from a small group and started for me as soon as I got out of the car.
“Mr. Vinson?” I nodded. “Dispatch told me a PI from Albuquerque was on the way.”
“Detective Montoya? Good to meet you. I suppose the medical investigator’s already taken Martinson away.”
“Yeah, OMI’s come and gone. They took him a couple of hours ago. Forensics is wrapping things up now.”
“Why are they here? I thought this was an accident.”
“In my opinion it’s a crime scene. The investigating patrol unit spotted a second set of tires and what they thought might be foreign paint on the pickup.”
“Forced off the road? Are you thinking homicide?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking, but I don’t know if it was negligent or intentional. The stray paint’s hard to spot because it’s black too. But it was enough for the patrol division to call us in on it.”
The detective was a small, neat man with swarthy skin and piercing black eyes who looked as if he’d be more at home in a uniform. I judged him to be a couple of years older than my thirty-five. I’d be willing to wager he’d spent his entire adult life in the service—probably the military before going over to the state police.
“What’s your interest in Martinson?” he asked.
“He was suspected of grand theft. I questioned him briefly in Albuquerque yesterday afternoon. When my client called me last night and told me about the wreck, I came down to see for myself. Uh… did you find anything unusual in the pickup?”
That got his interest. “Like what?”
“This is going to sound nuts, but he’s accused of stealing a duck. A very valuable duck, as it happens.”
“Quacky? He’s the one who swiped Mud’s bird?” He didn’t crack a smile. Apparently they took ducknapping down here a little more seriously than I did. Of course, a homicide tended to wring the humor out of it—whether or not Liver’s death was connected to the duck.
“You know about that? I thought it took place over in Hidalgo County.”
“Yep, but the news is all over this part of the state.” The radio unit in his left hand blared. He spoke into the thing and then turned to me. “They’re removing Martinson’s vehicle now. They’ll be releasing the crime scene after that. You can walk it with me if you want.”
Black rubber on the shoulder marked where Liver’s vehicle had left the interstate. It appeared to have gone airborne for a short distance before landing hard and rolling a couple of times, coming to rest against the fence. The detective pointed out a second set of less noticeable skid marks on the shoulder.
“I figure this is the vehicle that forced him off
the road. Either that or some heartless SOB stopped after the accident and didn’t have the decency to call for help or try to render assistance. Of course, it wouldn’t have done any good. Martinson died before the pickup stopped rolling.”
Montoya led me over the verge and halted at a dark spot in the grass. “Martinson was ejected and landed here. Probably traveling at a pretty good rate of speed. I noticed his right forearm was bandaged.”
“Yeah. The duck scratched him up pretty good—gave him a blood infection. I interviewed him at the UNM hospital yesterday. What time did the accident happen?”
“Probably sometime after dark, but nobody spotted the wreckage until around midnight. Nobody mentioned a duck with a broken neck, but I’ll check with the forensics people.”
Montoya got on the radio and determined the criminalists had found no sign of a duck or a feather or anything else indicating a bird had been in the pickup. When he finished the conversation, he asked me to go back to Cruces and make a formal statement.
DESPITE THE paucity of information I had to offer, Montoya’s interview lasted over an hour and a half. The first part of the questioning was sort of arm’s length, but midway through it someone walked in and handed him a slip of paper. After that, Detective Montoya—or Manny, as he prompted me to call him—began sharing information as well as gathering it. Apparently his check with APD let him know I was cop friendly. I’d been a law enforcement officer for almost thirteen years, if you counted my four with the US Marine Provost Marshal’s Office as an MP. I likely would still be an Albuquerque policeman if I hadn’t caught a bullet in the right thigh in May of 2004.
Apparently well known to several southwestern New Mexico jurisdictions, Liver Lips had been in scrapes over domestic violence, on the receiving end as often as not. A few DWI arrests and petty thefts… and carried the reputation of a pothead. Manny suspected he’d occasionally helped smuggle some of it into the area, although there was never any proof of it. But he’d made the big time with the theft of a domesticated duck. Even Montoya acknowledged the irony of that.
Just before we broke up, a technician came in to confirm foreign black paint had been found on the driver’s-side door panel of the wrecked Dodge Ram. It would take a little more time and effort to learn anything from the scrapings. It was enough, however, to fuel suspicions of foul play.
“Tell me, Manny. Why did you wake up an insurance honcho in the middle of the night to tell him about Martinson’s accident?”
“Fellow by the name of Grass apparently has some pull. We got an all-points bulletin late yesterday afternoon. When I discovered whose truck it was, I called Santa Fe. Somebody above my pay grade woke up the honcho.”
I CONTACTED Del, who said he needed to consult with Hank Grass in El Paso, the friend calling in a favor. I asked him to find out if they had a copy of the police report on the theft. If they did, that would save me a trip to Lordsburg. As I finished a cappuccino at a local Starbucks, he got back to me on my cell and asked me to continue on the case and said he’d e-mailed a copy of the incident report. My assignment now? To interview the owner of the stolen property and locate the missing duck. This was a case that would never be posted on my website, even in the unlikely event I managed to successfully rescue Her Royal Duckness.
I headed for Deming, hoping to locate some of the dead man’s family or familiars who might be able to give me a lead, before driving to the M Lazy M Ranch. The sixty-mile stretch between Las Cruces and Deming was relatively flat and dominated by creosote, honey mesquite, and yucca. An ungodly amount of cacti and spiked plants of every size and description lived among these anchors. Except, of course, the tall, stately saguaros the entire world associated with the American Southwest. To the best of my knowledge, those grew only in Arizona.
Roadkill revealed the makeup of the local fauna: jackrabbits, desert terrapins, kangaroo rats, and the occasional rattlesnake. Reminded me of trips Del and I used to take—which reminded me of Paul and set off a longing I tried to ignore. The desiccated carcass of a coyote hanging over the fence bordering the interstate diverted me from that line of thought. Of course, in the Cooke’s Range to the north, there would be cougar and black bear and mule deer. The nearby Florida Mountains boasted ibex and mountain sheep with occasional unconfirmed sightings of the Mexican jaguar. I know this because I’m a confirmed history buff, especially the history of my native state. God, I love this place!
On a hot day beneath a blue-flame sky, the temperature probably hovered around a hundred degrees. But like we’re fond of saying down here, it’s a dry heat, so it doesn’t hurt much, especially at an altitude of three-quarters of a mile above sea level. Dark, menacing thunderheads hovered south over Mexico, but the monsoon hadn’t yet taken hold.
Deming, with a population of around fifteen thousand, was the county seat and principal town of Luna County. It is also located in rock hound country. A good part of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona is a paradise for rock and mineral collecting. Most of the old mines are closed now, but on public land it’s legal to collect bits and pieces of once treasured rock. Geodes. Fire agate. Jasper. Quartz. Azurite. Even turquoise chips can often be found in old dumps.
I checked in at the police department to let them know I intended to poke around in their jurisdiction and to see what they knew about the late Liver Lips Martinson. Officer Bill Garza, a heavy, mustachioed man, gave me the same story Manny Montoya had with a little more emphasis on pot smoking. He suspected Liver Lips of a tenuous connection with a marijuana gang across the border but could never find enough evidence to nail him. Garza did not seem seriously distressed by Martinson’s passing. He showed neither mirth nor curiosity when I told him my interest centered around investigating the theft of the M Lazy M property.
LIVER’S SHACK in a dilapidated neighborhood of wood shanties and bare-earth yards on the south side of town looked about ready to give up the ghost and simply collapse. More buildings in the area looked abandoned than occupied, but then so did Liver’s from the outside. Although Officer Garza had told me Martinson lived alone, a woman opened the paint-starved door when I knocked.
“Yes?”
Probably around twenty-five, she had a pretty face and a voluptuous body now thickening around the waist. Pregnant?
“I’m looking for Richard Martinson.”
“Not here.” The brevity of her answer and the slight accent told me she was probably Mexican. Not too surprising. The border lay only a few miles to the south. Even with a slightly bloated belly, she still looked a couple of cuts above Liver Lips.
“Mrs. Martinson?”
She shook her head, making the multiple metal hoops strung through her earlobes jingle. “No. Not wife. Friend.”
“Are you aware he had an accident?”
She nodded. “Yes. Last night. Who are you? What you want?”
“I wonder if I could come in and talk to you for a few minutes? My name is B. J. Vinson. I’m a confidential investigator.” The stoop had no porch or overhang, and I needed to get out of our benevolent dry heat before my collar wilted.
“Don’t know nothing. Can’t tell you nothing.”
“You don’t know what I want,” I pointed out in a reasonable tone.
“Don’t know nothing.” She started to close the door, but I blocked it with my foot.
“All right, just tell me who his friends were so I can go talk to them. Otherwise I’ll have to come back with a policeman named Bill Garza.”
“Lopez,” she said. “Go see Elizondo Lopez.”
“Where do I find him?” I asked the question even though Garza had already provided me with Lopez’s name and address.
She shrugged and managed to get the door closed.
I sat in my car for a few minutes to see if she left or showed her face again, but she didn’t. So I started the Impala, turned on the air conditioner, and headed off to find Lopez’s place, which turned out to be only a couple of blocks to the west. His shack was as weather-beaten
as Martinson’s. I eyed a big clump of ocotillo in the corner of the dirt yard and wondered how many rattlesnakes lurked in the shade of those meandering, spiny tendrils.
A Latin clone of Liver Lips jerked open the door to my knock. Well, not a clone, really, but the general impression was the same. Skinny, a good four inches shorter than me. Thick black hair that hadn’t seen a comb in a while and actually appeared to be dusty. His lips, however, were normal—thin but normal.
“Elizondo Lopez?”
“Who wanna know?”
“My name’s B. J. Vinson. I talked to Robert Martinson up in Albuquerque, and we agreed to meet down here and talk some more. But he got himself killed before we could do that.”
Lopez must have heard about the accident because he showed no surprise. “Who are you, Mr. B. J. Vinson?”
“I’m a confidential investigator.”
“How come you talking to me?”
“Thought you could answer the questions I didn’t get to ask Liver Lips.”
I’m not certain how he managed to swagger while standing stock-still, but an excessive amount of machismo leaked through the tattered screen door. “Liver Lips ain’t gonna talk to no PI. He run the other direction.” He gave a half smile, stretching a faint, black smear of a mustache even thinner. “That’s what he done up in Albuquerque. He run off, no?”
“Why would he do that, Elizondo? I offered to get him out of trouble in exchange for some information.”
“Name’s Lopez. We ain’t on no first name basis. Lopez.”
“Okay, Lopez, but answer my question. Why would he run away when I tried to help?”
The man’s shrug emphasized the hollowness of his chest. Although the rest of him looked soiled, the bright sleeveless undershirt he wore was spotless. “He don’t like cops.”