by Blake Banner
I laughed painfully. “I thought that was your grandmother.”
“It varies,” she said, gazing without humor at the smoldering wood. “It’s the collective superego of the female side of my father’s family.”
“Wow… You only say that because you know I’m too weak to defend myself.” She snorted and we sat in silence for a bit. Finally, as the whiskey began to take effect, I said, “Thanks, Dehan.”
She glanced at me and there were tears in her eyes. “I thought you were right behind me, you fuckin’ asshole.”
I smiled. “By the time I made it to the door, Greg was waiting for me with a gun. I thought you’d gone to get the Feds.”
“No.” She frowned. “When I reached the plantation, I realized you weren’t there. I thought maybe you’d been…” The muscles in her jaw bunched and she looked away. She took a slug, swallowed, and then took a deep breath. “I searched for you in the woods. When I didn’t find you, I realized you must still be back at the barn. So I went back.”
“That wasn’t smart.”
“Who gives a shit? You’d have done the same.” My face told her she was right and she went on. “When I got there, I saw they had you tied up…” She shrugged and looked sheepish. “But they weren’t torturing you or anything. Also, you wily bastard, you had them talking. So I thought, as long as they were talking and they weren’t hurting you, I’d record what they said.”
Our bison steaks arrived, along with a bottle of wine. The first mouthful was hard, but the second was easier, and aided by a couple of glasses of Napa Valley Merlot, it soon tasted like the most perfect medicine I’d ever taken.
Sleepy, comfortably numb, and with my joints slowly seizing up, Dehan supported me up to what was still our room. By now I didn’t even question it. She closed the door and helped me take off my jacket. I fell carefully on the bed and she pulled off my shoes. Then she helped me under the covers.
“You not going to brush your teeth?”
“Not tonight, Josephine.”
She went into the bathroom and prepared for bed. When she came back, she lay down next to me, leaning on her elbow and looking down at my face. She was serious.
“Stone, what happened tonight, when I thought…” She hesitated. “When I thought something had happened to you, something bad, I thought I’d…”
She was having trouble saying it, and I was exhausted and just inebriated enough to realize that life is too short. So I said, “I know. I’ve been there, remember?”
We stared at each other for a long moment. We often did when we were thinking, but this was different. I knew I should be worried, but I wasn’t. She said, “I know we’re partners. But we’re friends, too, right?”
I smiled. “More like family.”
She smiled back. “I got a lot of family. But no one quite like…” She paused again, reached out and placed her hand gently on the raw wound on my chest. “I don’t know what I would have done…”
The knock at the door made us both jump. She hesitated a moment, then sat up quickly and went to open it. It was Ned.
“I am so sorry to disturb you, Detectives. I’d thought you were still dining. I didn’t realize you had come up, and I wouldn’t bother you, only I know you were anxious…”
“What is it?”
“Well, we finally have another room for you. It’s right next door here. I’ll leave the key with you and let you sleep. Good night!”
I heard him hurry away and, after a pause, Dehan closed the door. She came and stood at the foot of the bed, holding the key, and smiled down at me.
“You going to be OK on your own?”
I shrugged. It took me a moment to answer. “Of course. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“So I guess I’ll go next door, let you sleep in peace.”
“You too. No snoring tonight.”
She laughed and grabbed her stuff. At the door, she stopped and looked back. “Sleep well, Stone.”
I grinned. “It was nice sleeping with you, princess.”
“Take a hike. Idiot.”
The door closed and I struggled out of bed and into the bathroom, where I had a long, cold shower.
EIGHTEEN
I got up late, showered, dressed, and checked my email. There was still nothing about Kathleen’s records. I went down to the dining room and found Dehan on the phone to the sheriff. She hung up as I sat down and Peaches and Cream came over to pour me some coffee.
Dehan waved the phone at me. “I called the sheriff. He was very cooperative. We can go over any time to interrogate the prisoners. How do you want to play it?”
“It would have been nice to have those damned records before we went in. Still, it is what it is.” I sighed and thought it through for a minute. “Greg is scared. You saw that. He thought he was onto a safe thing, but it’s spiraled out of control. He’ll be happy to give us Sly and Coy if he thinks he’s going to save his own skin.”
She frowned as though she didn’t like the idea. “So, offer him a deal?”
I shook my head. “No. I want you to take him first. Let him know I am interrogating Sly and Coy. Make him believe they’re spilling their guts and he is going down on a capital charge.”
She was nodding. “We can use the Angels, too, if we need to. Their story is they thought they were just distributing weed. Now it turns out they’re up for murder one. They’re panicking and pointing the finger at him and Sly and Coyote.”
“Yeah. Make him believe you hate his guts, and your one purpose in life is to bring him down, even if it means letting Coy and Sly walk. I’ll do the same with Sly and Coy…”
She grinned. “Then we swap. Good cop, bad cop.”
“And we don’t let Sheriff Watson within a mile of them. Also, we sell him the same line we are selling them.”
She frowned. “You think he’s bent?”
“No, I think he’s lazy and naïve, which in a cop is almost worse. He’d let those SOBs walk just to avoid the paperwork, and tell himself they’re good folk at heart, boys will be boys.”
“You’re not wrong, Sensei. You want breakfast?”
“No, let’s get this over with.”
James Town was small and cute, nestled among pine trees on a crossroads between three hills on James Canyon Drive. The sheriff’s office, which was attached to the county jail, was between the Town Hall and the Methodist church. It was a wood-paneled, open plan space with a couple of desks and computers in it. He made a real effort to look pleased to see us when we walked in and even offered us coffee, to which I shook my head.
“I’d like to get started right away and close this case, if that’s OK with you. Have you got an interrogation room?”
He smiled and shrugged. “We don’t usually have any call for interrogation rooms, but there are a couple or three vacant offices upstairs above the jail you can use.”
I stared at him a moment. “These are very dangerous men, Sheriff. I have the scars to prove it. I want deputies watching them every minute. But I do not want Greg or Sly or Coy talking to anybody except me and Detective Dehan. If that is not followed to the letter, Sheriff, there will be consequences.”
He looked resentful and drew breath to protest. I cut him short. “Consequences, Sheriff. Now, we are going to designate the offices, interrogations rooms one and two. I want Greg in room one, five minutes later I want Sly in room two. I want deputies on the doors and I’ll have that coffee upstairs. Thank you for cooperating, Sheriff.”
He scowled at me. “You’re welcome, I’m sure. This way.”
He showed us up to the second story of the jailhouse. There was a suite of offices up there and we had the deputies bring Greg up to interrogation room one, where he was cuffed to his chair. I watched Dehan sit opposite him with a look on her face I’d have loved to photograph for posterity. I left them to it.
I put my laptop in a second room and a couple of minutes later, Sly was led to interrogation room two. Like Greg, he was cuffed to his chair, a deputy handed m
e a cup of coffee, and we were left alone. I sat for a while in silence, sipping, while he tilted his head this way and that. Finally, I said, “Here is how it’s going to play out, Sly. You and Greg and Coy have been separated. The sheriff is cooperating, but I am running this operation. What we have, after last night, is video and audio evidence of the kidnap, torture, and attempted murder of a cop. We have testimony from two police officers of drugs trafficking and the attempted kidnapping and murder of those two same cops. You three have ticked all the boxes that the Colorado District Attorney needs to apply for the death penalty.” I paused to give that time to sink in. “I’d go further, Sly, I’d say it is going to be very hard for the judge not to grant the death penalty.”
He smiled up at a ceiling he could not see. “You tellin’ me this, Detective Stone, because you want to scare me into giving you something.”
“Right first time, Sly. But that doesn’t mean that what I am saying is not true. You know it is true.”
“So quit trying to scare me and tell me what you want.”
“I want Kathleen’s killer.”
“Man, you still on that?”
“And I am going to stay on it until I get what I want. Who killed her, Sly?”
“What makes you think I would even know that?”
I sighed. “What do you think Detective Dehan is doing right now?”
“I don’t need to think. I know. She’s tellin’ Greg exactly the same as you are tellin’ me. And when she is through tellin’ him, she gonna go and tell Coyote. I ain’t stupid.”
I smiled and labored the irony in the words. “The jury is still out on that one, Sly.”
He made a smile that was not amused. “You’re funny.”
“Yeah, deep down funny, where it’s not like funny anymore. Now let’s stop playing games. You’re on the clock, Sly. If you want a deal, you need to get your bid in before Greg or Coy. First come, first served.”
He thought about it. “What kind of deal?”
I heaved another sigh and spread my hands. “Look at it from my point of view, Sly. I know one of you killed her. My question is, which one? And I need to know that simply so that I can offer some closure to her mother and her sister. From my point of view, personally, if you all three go down, I got my man.”
“I get it, Stone, you made your point. Stop tryin’ to sell me on the deal. Just tell me what the deal is.”
“Life, in both senses of the word.”
“Some deal… I want it in writing from the DA.”
“I’ll recommend it to the DA. We’ll see what he says.”
He shook his head and laughed, looking blindly into the air. “Man, you want somethin’ for nothin’!”
“You’re beginning to understand the situation, Sly. You’re fighting for your life. I’m only fighting to give closure to a family. Who do you think has the edge? Now let’s get real. I can go now and phone the DA, tell him that you are prepared to cooperate but you want a deal, in writing. Now, assuming that he agrees, how long do you think it’s going to take to draft it and have it sent from Denver?”
“Man…”
He was looking distressed. I pushed. “But Sly, you and me both know that even that is unrealistic. Ask yourself, if you were the DA, what would your first question be if I made that call?”
He didn’t answer. He just stared into space. So I answered for him.
“He’s going to ask me, ‘What about the other two?’ Let’s get even more real, Sly. What do you think is the first thing I am going to do when I have hung up on the DA? I am going to go straight to Greg and say, ‘Guess what, Greg, Sly just offered the DA a deal. He sells you down the river in exchange for life. But he wants it in writing. You want to talk to me while we wait for the DA to make up his mind and draft the document?’ And then there’s Coy…”
“OK, man!”
“I’ll give you my word, and I will tell the DA that I have given you my word. And right now, Sly, that is the best damned offer you are likely to get.”
“OK! OK!”
“Who killed Kathleen Olvera?”
He did a weird thing, swinging his head from side to side, like he was grooving to music. He spread his hands and made a high-pitched squeaking noise in his throat which eventually turned into, “Man! I don’t know what you want me to tell you!”
I stood, pushing the chair back noisily. “See you at the trial, Sly.”
“Wait a minute!”
“Stop wasting my time.”
He lifted a hand. “OK! I told you I am going to cooperate. Just give me a minute.”
“Minutes are what you have very few of, Sly. You better start talking or I am walking out of that door and you will not see me again until I testify against you.”
“Boy, you’re a hard son of a bitch!”
“Who killed Kathleen Olvera?”
He spread his hands and appealed to the ceiling. “It was El Coyote, man. But if he don’t get the death penalty, he is gonna cut my throat. You have to give me protection, you understand? You tellin’ me you gonna spare me the death sentence, but if he don’t go down, that is a death sentence!”
I sat down again. “I understand. I will make the DA understand that too. Talk.”
“It was like you said. Pat was sellin’ for us down in the Bronx. But she was broke all the time, you know? She’s a dope head, never got her shit together. She used to hang with Greg and he was always givin’ her money.” He laughed. “Man, she’d do anythin’—and I do mean anythin’ for fifty bucks. So we said to her, she could take the shit, sell it, then give us our cut of the money. That way she could get on her feet. We was helpin’ her. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah, you’re regular philanthropists.”
He wheezed a laugh. “No man, I never had no interest in stamps. It worked, for a while, know what I’m sayin’? I can’t remember how many times, but it was a few. She took the stuff, sold it, kept her share and brought us our dough.” He creased up his face, like it distressed him. “But she weren’t savin’ it. She was spendin’ everythin’ she made on shit, coke and meth and bad stuff. It was Greg asked us to help her, ’cause he liked her. But I told him it weren’t gonna work. You can’t rely on a dope head like that. It ain’t never gonna pay off. But he said them girls was like family to him. So we had to help her.”
“So what happened?”
“What was always gonna happen, man. She calls and talks to Greg. She sold the shit, five K—it was a lot of cash, man—and she blew it all on coke. I was real mad. Greg says he’s gonna make good on the bread and we won’t be out’a pocket. But I told him we ain’t gonna use her no more. We don’t need that kind of problem. He says OK, but Coyote ain’t happy.” He shook his head again. “Greg, he’s a cowboy, me, I’m cool. If I have my money, I’m happy. But Coyote, he’s a hard son of a bitch, and where he comes from, man, reputation is everything. He’s sayin’ this bitch has pissed on his reputation and he has got to cut her.”
“OK, so how do we get from there to Kathleen?”
“Get me a cigarette, man. I’m stressed. I’m shakin’, man. You fucked me up.”
I stuck my head out the door and got a cigarette from one of the deputies. I lit it and handed it to Sly. His hand was trembling as he smoked.
“It was like you said. Greg must have warned her that Coyote was after her blood, ’cause instead of comin’ up to the Shack, she sends her sister to talk to us, plead for mercy, kind’a thing. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“How’d she get to the Shack from Boulder?”
He shrugged. “How should I know? I guess Greg picked her up.”
“How did Coy kill her?”
“Don’t call him ‘Coy’, man. He ain’t coy. That really offends and disrespects the man. His name is El Coyote. Don’t you know that?”
“Fuck him. How did he kill her?”
“I wasn’t there. I don’t like violence. I’m a man of peace. And in any case, I can’t see. I know he took her out in the w
oods, and there I guess he stuck her with a knife and cut off her head. That’s his style. It’s his thing, man.”
“It’s his thing?”
He grinned. “Yeah man. He told me, in Mexico, when they see a body with the head missin’, they say, ‘El Coyote has been this way.’”
NINETEEN
I met Dehan in the corridor and we moved down to the coffee machine. We stood looking out the window at Main Street and the gabled roofs that poked out from among the pines on the slope above it. There were a few wafts of wood smoke trailing out of the chimneys. It was kind of idyllic, and for a moment I understood Watson, and why he didn’t want to believe that his people could be like Sly, and Coy, and Greg.
I asked her, “How’s Cowboy Carson?”
She shrugged. “He’s scared, but he says he hasn’t got anything to tell us. How about you?”
“Sly says Coy did it. His story more or less matches what we thought. Only trouble is, he’s not much of a witness, being blind. In any case, he says he wasn’t there at the killing, and the rest of it is mostly hearsay.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, listen, you take Sly now. Get him to go over his story a couple of times, see if there are any inconsistencies. Have a deputy draft it, then have him sign the statement. If I’m not finished with Greg by then, have Sly taken down and get Coy up here.”
“Got it.”
She went into interrogation room two and I went to check my laptop for the records. There was still nothing. I went in to Greg. He looked scared. I sat opposite him and said, “I suppose Detective Dehan has made you aware of the situation.”
“Yeah, she’s made me aware of the situation. But I am going to say to you what I said to her. You are making a big mistake.”
“How’s that?”
He leaned forward. “I don’t know what Sly and Coy got up to in New York and Mexico, but that don’t have nothin’ to do with me. I ain’t no goddamn killer!”