Murder One

by Allen Kent

  “I’ve had Rocky keeping his ear to the gossip hotline,” Grace murmured from the dark. “He’s pretty well connected to the druggies and good-for-nothings around. He generally hears when someone’s breaking in to places, even if we can’t get the goods on them. There hasn’t been any of that talk. And when I called the water company people about the reservoir buyouts, they said Nettie had signed everything and hadn’t made any more fuss than most the others who are losing their land. A lot less than Greaves.”

  “Someone from outside the county?”

  Grace sniffed. “Accidently stumbling onto Nettie’s trailer way out there and down in that holler? At night, you can’t even see her house lights from the road.”

  “I hope to hell it isn’t something like that. With no ID on that one set of prints and after this long, we’ll never catch a drive-by killer.”

  “So we have to hope the motive’s either her land, the trees, or those coins.”

  I nodded in the dark. “All three pretty solid motives.”

  We had turned south on OK 69 and were approaching Wagoner. Grace’s phone blared with the Star Wars theme. She scooped it from the dash shelf, glanced at the number, and answered officially, “Chief Deputy Torres.” She listened intently, then said, “We’re twenty minutes out. Keep someone watching his room and on the exits. We’ll meet you in front of the Casino. We’d like to assist with the takedown.” The caller seemed to agree.

  “They found him,” she said when she disconnected. “He wasn’t at the Best Value Inn. The night manager told the police he’s been walking down to the Creek Nation Casino every evening for dinner and stays until about 1:00 a.m. The police are watching his room and have a plainclothes officer on him in the Casino. They’ll have a couple of officers ready to go in with us when we get there.”

  “Perfect timing,” I muttered. “Maybe we’re about to find out if this is about land, trees, or Nettie’s gold.”

  31

  The plainclothes officer with the Muskogee PD had located Verl at a quarter slot machine near the center of the playing floor. I’d never given the old boy credit for being especially bright, but he’d picked an end-of-the-row machine that positioned him to bolt quickly in any direction.

  Three officers waited beneath the MUSKOGEE in yard-high block letters that spanned the Casino’s main entrance. I introduced myself and Grace to the three, directing most of my attention to the blue-uniformed officer, a Lieutenant Jacobson. He deferred to one of the men in khaki pants and black shirts with a round patch over the left pocket that read “Muskogee (Creek) Nation Lighthorsemen.” His name tag said “Sergeant Denson.”

  “Sorry Sergeant. I wasn’t familiar with the protocols.”

  He waved off my concern. “The tribal police have jurisdiction on casino property. I’ll be coordinating this arrest. What’s your man wanted for?”

  “Assault with a deadly weapon on a state patrol officer. He’s also a suspect in another murder case.”

  The men’s faces sobered and the Lighthorseman with Denson shuffled nervously, staring into the concrete walk.

  “Did the officer survive?” Denson asked.

  “He missed her. By sheer luck she was ducking out of the way.”

  “Should we expect him to be armed?

  “What are the conceal and carry laws here?”

  “We’re a conceal and carry state, just like Missouri, but not in the casino. The law restricts weapons from places that offer pari-mutuel wagering.”

  I glanced toward the wide glass doors that opened into the casino. “The law won’t be a deterrent. It’ll be more a matter of whether he thinks someone’s looking for him, how much he wants to resist, and whether he could get a weapon. He usually has a rifle with him. What does your man inside think?”

  “Your guy has on a jacket.”

  “Then we need to approach him as if he’s armed and will resist.”

  Denson glanced at the weapons Grace and I had strapped to our hips. “You two aren’t law enforcement here so better not be carrying those inside. I suggest you take this door and your deputy the fire exit around the side. We’ll try to collar him without a fuss and bring him out. If he gets away from us for some reason, don’t shoot the sonofabitch. But you can try to detain him till we can give you some help.”

  Grace didn’t like the instruction. “If he comes my way, can I draw on him?”

  “I’m just saying ‘don’t shoot,’” Denson repeated. “For your sake. You’re just regular citizens here and this is Creek Nation land.”

  “Another plan,” I suggested. “How about Grace and I go in there unarmed, tell Verl your people are at every door, and invite him to follow us peacefully out of the Casino. Then there won’t be cops walking through the place making people nervous. If he runs, you can stop him when he comes out.”

  Denson shook his head, frowning grimly. “If he’s armed, he’ll be likely to pull a gun in there if he thinks you’re not.”

  I persisted. “Stand where he can see you from where he is. I don’t think he’ll pull a gun if he can see armed officers.”

  “If I were in his shoes, I’d grab a hostage or two and force my way out,” Denson argued. “You two stay outside and let us do our job.”

  I shrugged. “Fine by me. If he runs, are you going to try to get a shot off in there? I don’t think so. But we’ll be ready out here.”

  Grace headed around the building toward the side exit, and I followed the three officers to the entrance to the playing floor. The plainclothes officer stood beside a row of slots near the center of the noisy room, watching for his men to enter. He turned and nodded behind him at a man who sat with his back to us, mechanically pushing a button on a brightly lit digital machine.

  The officers spread out, Denson waiting until one of his tribal police had circled Verl’s position and appeared in a back aisle. Lieutenant Jacobson was on the left flank, and the plainclothes detective had eased off to the right. Denson released the snap on his holster, walked briskly to a position beside Verl’s right shoulder, and said something only the suspect could hear. Verl stopped manipulating the machine, lifted his hands away from his hips, and stood slowly, turning toward Denson. The three other officers closed from each side.

  Verl’s hands suddenly shot forward into Denson’s chest, sending him sprawling backward into the path of the plainclothes officer. Greaves sprinted for the main door, throwing aside a waitress and sending her tray of drinks crashing to the floor behind him.

  The entrance in which I stood was wide enough for him to dodge around me in either direction, calling for an open field tackle on a bull of a man running with a full head of steam. With him still looking back to determine the degree of his pursuit, I stepped quickly onto the Casino floor and bent forward over the nearest gaming machine. As he reached the row, I swung a forearm out across his craning neck, clotheslining him just below the chin. His head shot up and knees buckled as he seemed to stretch out in mid-air for a fleeting second, then flopped onto his back with a breath-crushing thud.

  Denson and the plainclothes officer were on him in an instant, weapons drawn as they probed his sides for a firearm. Verl lay gasping for breath, eyes bulging and lips turning crimson.

  “Better check him for a crushed throat,” I said, rubbing at my bruised wrist.

  Verl coughed and spat a stream of red phlegm onto the carpet beside his face. He shook himself and pushed onto his elbows, glaring up at me with dark, angry eyes.

  “I almost bit my tongue off, Tate,” he gurgled, spitting another stream of blood onto the floor.

  “Shouldn’t have tried to run,” I said, grabbing his jacket shoulder and pulling him upward. Denson caught a wrist and snapped on a cuff, pulling the arm backward and securing the other hand.

  “We’ll take him to the station up on 3rd,” Denson growled, shoving Verl toward the outer door. “You can work with the local PD on what you want to do with him. Aside from resisting arrest, he hasn’t broken any tribal laws. I’d jus
t as soon not have to mess with him.”

  Lieutenant Jacobson took Verl by the bicep. “I’ll take him. I appreciate you men coming down to assist.” He turned to me. “You can question him at the station. If we need to, we’ll hold him while you work on extradition. Just follow me.”

  The interrogation room in the Muskogee station looked just like a CSI set: bare walls except for the cameras, an empty metal table, and three chairs: one on the suspect’s side and two for interrogators. A one-way mirror filled half of one wall, not intended to fool the perp, but letting him know he was probably being watched by more than the people in the room.

  Grace and I sat across from Verl who had been right about his tongue. We had waited almost two hours while an emergency room doctor at St. Francis Hospital stitched up the gash his teeth had created as I’d jolted his head back. It was now a few minutes before 2:00 a.m. Verl’s jaw rolled uncomfortably as he flitted the sutured tongue around the inside of his mouth.

  “I can’t talk good with this, so you may as well let me go,” he mumbled like a kid with a mouthful of dry popcorn.

  “If we don’t talk to you tonight, you’re staying right down the hall,” I promised. “If you have the right things to say, you can walk out of here tonight.”

  “You got no reason to hold me. You had to let me go back in Missouri.”

  “That was before LJ and Galen Suskey told us you had been over to Nettie’s house to tell her you were cutting her trees.”

  Verl’s jaw quit moving and his eyes half disappeared into a deep frown. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  “We had a long talk with Nettie’s brother. He told us LJ was the one who’s been feeding him information about what was happening with the water buyout. According to him, LJ told him on the phone that Nettie was dead and that you’d been over to let her know Galen was letting you cut trees. So we went up to the hospital and had a visit with LJ. He said the same thing.”

  Verl had to think about that for a few awkward moments. Then he said, “Then they must have told you I found the old lady dead.”

  “Yes, they did. But they also said no one went back over there to check on your story that she’d been dead awhile.”

  Verl shook his head firmly. “I told Pa he wouldn’t want to be going on over there.”

  “And why was that, Verl? So no one would know you’d just killed her?”

  The head shake became an exaggerated wag. “Hell, no. You could almost smell the death from our place. I knew when I got close that the old lady had died. And from more than the stink. That half-dead oak beside her trailer was crawlin’ with buzzards. Maybe twenty of ‘em. All eyeing her place like it was fresh roadkill.”

  I’d seen the buzzard tree. If Verl had killed the old woman, I doubted he’d have gone back again after the vultures had gathered.

  “If you’re telling the truth, Verl, why did you try to run tonight?” Grace asked.

  He sneered around his swollen tongue. “Why’d I run? I looked up and cops was closin’ in on me from all sides. I’d just been let out of jail by you, and I figured you’d come up with some other reason to give me grief.”

  “Like that you’d taken a shot at a state patrol officer?”

  Verl’s head shake stopped abruptly and he glared hard at me. “Damn it, Tate. You’re trying to set me up for somethin’, no matter what. I shot that tree to warn you off. Didn’t even know there was no one with you.”

  “Not that shot, Verl. Just after Officer Torres here let you out of jail, you fired on the state patrol officer who was helping me with the Suskey case.”

  “That woman who shot LJ? The hell I did! Where did this happen?”

  “We were checking on some evidence along the creek behind Nettie’s house. You fired down from the ridge road. We found the casing from your Marlin in the brush up there.”

  Verl stopped rocking. “T’weren’t from my gun. Hell, the minute I got out of that cell, I hightailed it out to the house and left the gun, then came here. That Marlin’s in the house with my other guns. I ‘spect you went back and searched the place. You must have found it.”

  “We did search, and the Marlin wasn’t there.”

  Verl’s troubled frown creased more deeply. As he thought, his eyes flitted nervously beneath heavy brows, then widened suddenly, staring into the tabletop. “That little shit,” he mumbled around his thick tongue.

  “Who we talking about here, Verl?”

  He continued to glare at the table, his jaw again twitching into motion. After a moment he looked across at me and mumbled “Galen Suskey,”

  I looked at Grace who asked what I was thinking. “Why are you thinking Galen Suskey, Verl?”

  “He called me when I was about halfway over here. He’d just come into town and was at the house, wonderin’ where me and Pa was hangin’ out. I told him about you comin’ down to the house and Pa getting shot and me spendin’ the night in jail. He must have took the Marlin.”

  “How did he get to it without getting shot by one of your booby traps?” I wondered aloud.

  Verl shook his head dismissively. “He knew about them. Knew where we set them up and how to unhook the wires. And you could get to the guns without goin’ near one of them. They was right there by the back door.”

  “But why would he shoot at Tate and the state officer?” Grace asked. “He thought he might be getting the land and didn’t seem too concerned about giving you permission to cut timber.”

  Verl sneered as much as his tender mouth allowed. “There was somethin’ else Nettie had he thought he could get. Never would say what it was, but talked like some day when he got the place, it would make him rich. He must of thought you was lookin’ for it.”

  I sat back and watched Verl massage the tongue for a few moments. If he’d been a village elder in Anbar Province, I’d have judged him to be telling me the truth. “Give us a minute,” I said and nodded for Grace to follow me out of the room.

  Lieutenant Jacobson was watching from the observation room. I directed my question to both of them.

  “What’s your gut telling you about what he’s said?”

  Jacobson glanced back through the window at the man who now hunched defiantly over the table, staring at the mirrored wall in front of him.

  “Whether he’s telling the truth or not may not be your challenge,” the lieutenant said. “If two people say he came back from the victim’s house and said she was dead, and if the time he says he went over there follows your time of death by much, that’s going to be hard to pin on him. Same with the shot from the road. We can probably get a check-in time at the motel here and see what time it took him to get here after you released him. I assume you have a pretty accurate time on when the shot was taken.”

  I nodded. “That would be a great help. Can you call the motel?”

  He chuckled. “I’d better send someone. They aren’t likely to give out that kind of information over the phone.” He disappeared back toward the front of the building.

  “And you, Grace. How did he strike you?”

  Her mouth flattened into a tight line. “It’s hard for me to make an unbiased judgment. The guy’s such a troublemaker, I don’t like to give him the benefit of the doubt on anything. But Jacobson here has a point. We really don’t even have any circumstantial evidence but the shell casing. And we haven’t been able to match it to Verl’s Marlin. I don’t think we’ve got enough to ask for extradition, or even to hold him.”

  Officer Jacobson joined us again in the observation room. “I was wrong,” he grinned. “I called Best Value Inn to tell them I was sending someone over, and they just gave me the check-in time. 11:15 a.m.”

  “About two hours after we were shot at,” I muttered. “He couldn’t have made it here by 11:15.” The two looked at me questioningly as I thought out loud. “So maybe it was Galen who took the shot. Verl seems to think he knew there was value in the family property that we might discover. And Verl loaded the gun, which would explain the prints.�
��

  “But the union people and his old workmate put Galen in Bartlesville the day before and after the murder,” Grace reminded me.

  “Yes, they did,” I agreed. “And I doubt the union people were lying.” I worked my way mentally across the case board we had set up on the wall of my office. We had a set of prints from the crime scene that didn’t match anyone on the wall and no one in the federal or state print banks. But I felt certain it belonged to someone connected to one of those photos. Who was linked, but hadn’t been printed? Angela Pogue? She seemed too genuinely shaken by word of Nettie’s death to be faking her grief, but stranger things had happened. Galen’s buddy Calvin up in Bartlesville? Miguel in the back room of old Mr. Pogue’s little shop in Mazatlán? If I’d only had the sense to try to get prints on each of these unlikelies, or picked up something they’d . . . .

  It struck me like the proverbial bolt out of the blue. I pulled my wallet from my hip pocket and carefully extracted an embossed card from Mazatlán Numismatics, the one the silent Miguel had handed me from Pogue’s desk.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, holding up the card by its corner, “I could use a small evidence bag for this. And could you print off a copy of the mugshot we sent over on Verl? I’ll give you a site where you can also get one of his father, LJ Greaves. If you would, please, keep the copies print-free. We’ll swing by for them in the morning. And I think we can let our prisoner go.”

  Jacobson looked skeptical. “You don’t want to hold him for resisting arrest?”

  “I don’t. You can if you wish. But he’ll be nothing but a pain in the ass. If this goes the way I think it will, we won’t be trying to extradite him.” Jacobson left and, a moment later, appeared on the other side of the mirror window, motioning for Verl to leave.

  I pulled out my cell and dialed the office number, waited for Marti’s voicemail to activate, and recorded a message.

  “Marti, there’s an invitation on the top right-hand corner of my desk. To a CASA appreciation dinner in Springdale, Arkansas. Have Rocky take prints from it and send them up to Officer Joseph. Some will be mine. It’s the others I’m interested in. Thanks. See you tomorrow afternoon.”