Serpent Gate kk-3

by Michael Mcgarity

  The governor rose and gestured at the couch as he came around his desk.

  "Have a seat. Chief Baca."

  Andy's antenna went up; Springer was usually much less formal with his senior staff.

  "We haven't talked in a while," Harper said as he sank into a chair and crossed his legs.

  "I know you've been busy."

  "That's true. Governor."

  "Finding the stolen art was good work. Real good work. But the museum people aren't happy that the Lady of Guadalupe bulto wasn't recovered."

  "I know that."

  "Any chances of getting it back?"

  "We'll do our best," Andy answered.

  Springer nodded.

  "I visited with your officer at the hospital. That's one brave young lady. I think she deserves a citation, don't you?"

  "It's in the works. Governor. Would you be available to present it?"

  "Set it up with my press secretary. And I want to attend Sergeant Martinez's funeral service."

  "I've given that information to your administrative assistant."

  "Good. I'm still waiting for arrests. Chief Baca. We can't let these cop killers get away."

  "I agree."

  "I want closure. Chief."

  "We'll push a little harder. Governor."

  "I know you will. Get something out to the media on it. Let them know the manhunt is continuing. Now, tell me about these charges against Bucky Watson. How solid are they?"

  "They're very substantial."

  "Do your people have their facts straight?"

  "Yes, they do."

  "He was a heavy contributor to my reelection campaign."

  Andy chose not to respond.

  "Will Watson's arrest affect anyone else?"

  "Watson has implicated your nephew and Sherman Cobb in a money laundering scheme."

  No surprise registered on Springer's face. It was clear that Vance Howell had kept the governor well informed.

  "I find that hard to believe, Chief Baca."

  "It does create an uncomfortable situation," Andy noted.

  "How are we going to handle it?" Springer asked.

  "I plan to keep working the case, Governor."

  "Let's think this through. I don't want any political fallout to occur because a member of my family may be accused of a crime."

  "The situation will get the public's attention," Andy said.

  "That's why we need a flexible strategy here. I think the investigation has to be completely separated from my administration.

  What if I asked the attorney general to step in?"

  "I'm not sure such an abrupt change in the investigation would be wise," Andy said.

  "I understand that. But the attorney general is a Democrat who holds an elective office completely removed from my administration. If he agreed to appoint a special independent prosecutor for the case, that would erase any doubts of political interference on my part."

  "I'd rather not see the investigation slowed down."

  "I'm sure the attorney general can act quickly," Springer said.

  Andy gave up arguing and got to his feet. Springer was telling him what was going to happen, not asking.

  "I'll give the attorney general my full cooperation."

  Springer flashed a winning smile.

  "That's the kind of talk I like to hear, Andy."

  "This must be hard on you. Governor."

  "It cuts deep, Andy. But we'll get through it. I've been talking to the legislative leadership about that budget expansion request you want for new equipment.

  If you can cut costs a little bit more, I'm sure we can get you that appropriation."

  "I'll work up some new figures."

  "Good." Springer stood, pumped Andy's hand, and showed him to the door.

  "Hold up any further action on this Watson mess until we've got the attorney general in the loop."

  On his way back to the office, Andy stewed over his meeting with Governor Springer. It made no sense, except as political face-saving bullshit. Springer wanted him to catch cop killers, yet he had just pulled the plug on the only investigation that could possibly lead to an arrest and conviction of the murderers. And when Springer pledged his support for new money for the department, it made Andy feel like a co-conspirator in a cover-up. He didn't like the taste of it at all.

  Two officers had given their lives and a third had been wounded.

  Turning over the case to the attorney general would be a slap in the department's face. The case belonged to the department and nowhere else.

  He swung the car out of traffic, parked at a small diner, and went in for a cup of coffee. He had some heavy thinking to do. neil ordway had left no forwarding address with the Mountainair town clerk, and there was nothing in his police officer certification file that yielded information on his current whereabouts. Kerney phoned the agency that administered the police pension fund and got lucky; Ordway had made a request to withdraw his retirement contributions. He had asked that the check be mailed to a street address in the town of Bemalillo, just north of Albuquerque.

  Kerney stopped by Andy's office and found it empty.

  He decided not to wait for Andy to return from the governor's office before taking off. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two to round up Ordway.

  He paid a quick visit to Joe Valdez, who had his head buried in a stack of papers. Kerney cleared his throat and Valdez looked up. He had a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face.

  "I was going to call you in a few minutes. Chief."

  "To tell me what?"

  "Do you want the technical or the bonehead explanation?"

  "Keep it simple, Joe. I have trouble balancing my checkbook."

  "It's a round-robin scam. Bucky's companies are nothing but conduits for De Leon money. He pumps it through Tortuga, which lends cash to Matador, Magia, or some other front, and then it's funneled into projects like Rancho Caballo. Everything comes back to Tortuga nice and clean."

  "Does it all come back as cash?"

  "No way," Joe said.

  "Shopping malls, raw land, apartments, subdivisions, commercial and industrial developments-take your pick. De Leon has too much cash; his quandary is finding ways to convert the money that keeps pouring in."

  "How did you get to it so quickly?"

  "It's a high-tech world. Chief. Even drug lords use computers nowadays. Bucky's computer was linked to the one at Tortuga International. When our computer specialist found the link, I asked him to search the data fields in the Tortuga computer system. It's been a damn gold mine."

  "Have you seized the Tortuga computers and any hard-copy corporate records?"

  Joe looked at his watch.

  "Agents from the Las Cruces office should be at Tortuga right now. It took a while to do the paperwork and get a court order signed."

  "Have you been here all night?"

  "Yeah. Again."

  "Have you got any steam left?"

  "I'm good for a few more hours."

  "Where do we stand with Sherman Cobb and Roger Springer?"

  "Both Bucky and De Leon kept track of their payments to Rancho Caballo by computer. Plus, I've got Springer and Cobb signing off on loan applications, countersigning checks, authorizing payments, approving contracts, and accelerating repayments. Put the hard-copy evidence together with Watson's confession and we've got more than enough probable cause."

  "Arrest Cobb and Springer," Kerney said.

  "Take a couple of agents with you."

  "Now, won't that be fun," Joe said with a grin. *** andy pulled into his parking space just as Joe Valdez and two other agents hurried out the door. Valdez spotted Andy's car and walked to it. Andy opened the window and waited.

  "Chief, I left a note on your desk."

  "What does it say?"

  "Chief Kerney went down to Bernalillo. You can reach him by radio if needed."

  "Where arc you off to?"

  "To arrest Springer and Cobb."

  "Tell
me what you've got," Andy said.

  Valdez ran down the facts while the two agents waited inside their units.

  After hearing Joe out, and asking a few questions, Andy smiled. Over coffee at the diner, he'd decided to have Cobb and Springer picked up.

  Kerney had beaten him to it.

  "Chief?" Valdez said.

  Andy laughed and shook his head.

  "Do it."

  He watched Valdez and the agents drive off, and the tight feeling in his gut started to evaporate.

  In his office, he started making calls to the State Department, FBI, the Department of Justice, Customs, and the CIA. He talked to people he knew, several of whom owed him favors. He wanted to blow a bigger hole in De Leon operation, if possible. He hung up with promises from the feds to move quickly. De Leon was known throughout the criminal justice and intelligence systems, and every agency was eager to cooperate.

  He had his secretary fax key documents to federal officials in Washington, Virginia, Albuquerque, and El Paso, and told his public affairs officer to set up a press conference.

  To stay on the job in the face of his insubordination, Andy would have to play politics. Once word of his disloyalty reached the Roundhouse, Springer's people would come after him, and he wasn't about to make it easy for the governor to fire him. oncb a farming settlement along the banks of the Rio Grande, the town of Bemalillo was somewhat protected from the suburban sprawl of Albuquerque by an Indian pueblo that buffered the two cities. But the cushion of open land that cut a swath east from the river to the mountains couldn't hold back the development that filled the west mesa.

  A gently rising plateau with eroded cones of extinct volcanoes, sandy arroyos, black lava rock, and bunch grass the mesa had been transformed into a series of bedroom communities that filled the skyline.

  It vanished from sight when Kerney got off the interstate and dipped into the shallow river valley that sheltered the town. He drove the four-lane main street to city hall, where he stopped and asked for directions.

  Ordway lived one block off the main drag in an old two-story adobe farmhouse that had been carved into small apartments. Under the porch were two entry doors, and on either side of the building staircases led to second-story living units. There were lace curtains in the front window of a first-floor apartment, along with a picture of the Virgin Mary that had been taped to a glass pane. The name Abeyta was stenciled on the mailbox next to the door.

  Kerney knocked on the door and a heavyset, elderly Hispanic woman wearing a drab gray dress opened it partway.

  "Seftora Abeyta," Kerney said, speaking in Spanish.

  "I hope I am not disturbing you." In the background he heard the loud chatter of a television talk show.

  "Not at all, but I have no vacancies," Mrs. Abeyta replied in English.

  "All my apartments are rented."

  "I'm looking for a friend of mine," he explained.

  "NeilOrdway."

  "Oh yes, he just moved in, but he is not here now."

  "Do you know how I can reach him?"

  "He said that he had a job working for a carpet installer."

  "Do you know which one?"

  Mrs. Abeyta shook her head.

  "No, but I think he might be working in Rio Rancho, putting carpets in all those new houses they are building up there."

  "He told you that?"

  "Yes, when he rented the apartment."

  "Gratias, selfora."

  "You're welcome, senor."

  Kerney stopped at a cafe on the main street, and used a pay phone and directory to whittle down an interminable number of carpet installers until he located Ordway's new employer. Mrs. Abeyta had heard Ordway correctly, the company was doing subcontract installations for a builder in the Rio Rancho area. Kerney got the address where Ordway was working.

  He left Bemalillo and drove up the mesa. The view east toward the mountains showed a sweep of pale hills that climbed from the bosque.

  The Rio Grande ran brown and languid around fingerlike sandbars Kerney glimpsed through the breaks in the thick cottonwood stands. But the drive into Rio Rancho took him into a different world altogether. High privacy walls bordered the wide thoroughfare, masking all but the second story of houses squeezed together on tiny lots. At major intersections, strip malls, convenience stores, and gas stations abounded. The stark, beautiful New Mexico landscape had been transformed into a place no different from the oozing Los Angeles megalopolis.

  West of the main road, behind an established residential tract, was a checkerboard development of empty lots and high-density housing units under construction.

  Along the newly paved streets, stick houses and apartment buildings were going up in assembly-line fashion. While cement crews poured footings and pads at freshly prepped building sites, down the line carpenters framed walls and hung roof joists. The pattern repeated itself until Kerney rolled to a stop in front of three model homes in the final stages of completion.

  Little flagpoles with triangular pennants stood in front of the houses, and large signs planted in the yards blazoned the name of each model. A panel truck with rolls of carpet sticking out of the open rear doors was parked in a driveway.

  Kerney called for backup before walking through the garage, past a laundry alcove, and into the kitchen. In the adjacent dining nook two men were unrolling a carpet pad. Both froze when they saw Kerney with his semiautomatic in one hand and his shield in the other.

  "Ordway?" Kerney asked softly.

  "Back bedroom, on the left," one of the men replied.

  Kerney stepped into the room.

  "Wait outside," he ordered in a whisper.

  The men scurried past him into the garage.

  He found Ordway in the bedroom on his hands and knees with his back to the door, trimming carpet.

  Ordway heard him coming, rose to a kneeling position, and turned. He had a knife in his hand.

  Kerney moved quickly before Ordway could react; he slammed the barrel of his gun against Ordway's cheek and kicked at Ordway's knife hand with his good leg. The blade went flying.

  Neil came off the floor in a rush, diving for Kerney's midsection.

  Kerney sidestepped and used Ordway's momentum to drive him, face first, into a wall.

  "Hands to the small of your back," Kerney ordered as he leaned hard against the man to keep him secure, and kicked his feet apart.

  Ordway grunted and complied.

  After cuffing Ordway, Kerney patted him down and spun him around.

  "Hello, Neil," he said affably.

  Ordway's nose looked broken.

  Ordway seemed dazed. Blood flowed from his nose, dripping on the tan carpet. He swallowed hard and spat at Kerney.

  "Puck you, Kerney."

  Kerney wiped the spit off his face.

  "You're under arrest for aggravated battery. Beating up Robert was a stupid idea."

  "I'll be out on bail in twenty-four hours," Ordway said.

  "But unemployed once again, I would imagine," Kerney replied.

  "Let me read you your rights."

  A state police officer arrived as Kerney brought Ordway out of the house. He explained the charges to the officer, who agreed to drive Ordway to Torrance County, book him into jail, and deliver Kerney's criminal complaint to the district attorney.

  Kerney watched the patrol car drive away. Busting Ordway felt good, but it didn't relieve the anger that gnawed at him about Gilbert Mamnez's murder. He wondered if he would get a chance to even things up with Enrique De Leon and Carlos Ruiz.

  Antonio Vallaverde turned off the main highway south ofjuarez onto a blacktop road that cut through the saddle of two hills along the Rio Grande. He stopped at the security gate and announced himself. A high-ranking official in the Mexican Ministry of Justice, Vallaverde coordinated all cooperative borderland investigations with North American law enforcement agendes, including the New Mexico State Police.

  Two miles in from the highway, a sprawling hacienda sat at the ba
se of a hill with a lovely view of the bosque and the low-lying west Texas mountains across the river. The old rancho had been restored to its original splendor. The main hacienda, a private chapel, rock stables, a stone granary, and several other out buildings had been rebuilt from the ground up. Old stone fences divided the grazing and farm land that bordered the basque, and some of the melting adobe walls of the original peasant quarters still remained visible in the distance.

  During the Mexican Revolution, the site had served as a government jail and execution grounds before being sacked and burned by Pancho Villa's troops.

  A houseboy in white linen stood outside the arched hacienda doorway.

  Antonio parked in the circular cobblestone driveway and followed the servant into the courtyard, with its charming brick lattice balustrade and central fountain. They passed through the vast living room and into the billiard parlor. De Leon had a guest: A young woman bent over the billiard table with a cue stick in her hands. She had strawberry blond hair that fell against creamy white shoulders, long legs, and a small waist. The woman made her shot as Enrique looked on.

  Antonio had spent a number of pleasant evenings in the parlor with Enrique and various industrialists, senior military officers, and prominent politicians who were De Leon friends. It was a long room with a high ceiling and an arrangement of comfortable chairs in front of a fireplace at one end, where a well-stocked liquor cabinet stood close at hand. Above the fireplace hung an antique cavalry officer's sword in a scabbard.

  In the center of the room, chairs for spectators and players lined the walls facing the billiard table. A door along the back wall provided passage to Enrique's richly appointed library, where key arrangements in the last national election had been brokered.

  Antonio coughed and De Leon looked in his direction.

  "Go now," De Leon said to the woman, taking the cue stick from her hand.

  The woman left without saying a word, passing by Antonio with a look and a smile. She had a soft, sensual step, a long, elegant neck, and lustrous green eyes.

  Antonio could smell her scent in the air.

  "I hope I find you well, Enrique," Vallaverde said.

  "Indeed, I am," Enrique replied. Antonio was one of the few paid informants he truly liked.