Apache Country (4 page)

But not any more, Easton thought. That line
of Scott Fitzgerald’s about the rich being different came back to
him. No matter how often they welcomed you into it, you never
became a part of their world unless you were rich, too. The game
was too expensive. The numbers were too big.

“No way,” he said flatly.

Joe shrugged. “Then I’ll have to send someone
else. Jack Basso, maybe.”

“You’d do it, too,” Easton said. “You
bastard.”

“Knew I could count on you,” Joe smiled.

Easton was about halfway down Country Club
Road on his way to the Casey home when the radio crackled and the
dispatcher patched Joe Apodaca through. His voice was tense with
excitement.

“Get your ass back here pronto,” he rasped.
“State cops just told us, yesterday they arrested a guy who looks
good for the Casey killing.”

“What?”

“Some guy called Ironheel.”

“Ironheel?”

“Native American. Apache.”

“What?” Easton couldn’t keep the disbelief
out of his voice.

“I know, bizarre,” Joe rasped. “But this
looks like our guy, Dave. Blood on his clothes, Casey’s billfold in
his pocket. Damned near killed two State cops who tried to arrest
him. So get back down here.”

“On my way,” Easton said as he flicked on the
siren and did an illegal one-eighty at the next junction.

Avoiding the six o’clock traffic by using
Atkinson, which ran parallel to Main north and south, he was back
downtown inside ten minutes. He was still trying to get a handle on
what Joe had told him. Robert Casey and his grandson murdered by an
Apache? The word ‘impossible’ kept floating into his mind.

Pulling into his slot in the storm-fenced
parking lot behind the courthouse, he saw satellite vans parked
along Virginia and a bunch of reporters milling on the ramp leading
to the entrance to the old jail; it hadn’t taken long for the
vultures to smell blood. Or maybe McKittrick had tipped them off.
Olin loved headlines, especially when they had his name in
them.

To make sure none of the reporters saw him,
Easton walked all the way around the front of the building and
crossed the street a block up, going into the Sheriff’s Office
building by the rear entrance.

He could feel the contained tension in the
air as he hurried through to Joe’s office. Gloria Fresquez, Joe’s
secretary and Girl Friday, looked up as he appeared. Slim,
dark-haired and attractive, she usually wore a smile that could
light up the room. Right now, though, she looked dispirited and he
wondered why.

“‘sup?” he asked.

“McKittrick’s inside,” she said, gesturing
with her head toward the doorway. That explained the glum look.

“And pleased with himself, right?”

“Like a pig in a truffle farm.”

Looked like McKittrick still had a long way
to go in the hearts and minds department, Easton thought, and went
on in. Joe Apodaca’s office was faceless, a cluttered room that
always smelled of coffee. The furniture, if you could call it that,
consisted of a battered old desk, a couple of filing cabinets, a
dusty PC, a scanner and an Epson printer on a side table – Joe
wasn’t much on hi-tec – with some files stacked alongside. A window
looked out on to the parking lot. The only decoration, if you could
call it that, was a wall calendar from the Riverdale Seed Company
with a photograph of Main Street in 1898.

The sheriff was sitting at his desk drinking
coffee. Olin McKittrick swiveled around in the visitor’s chair as
Easton came in, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. Gloria had him
pegged exactly right, Easton thought. A pig in a truffle farm.
Probably already called the Governor. Just to keep him informed, of
course.

“Ah, Dave, there you are,” he said warmly, as
if they were old friends meeting after a long time. “Isn’t it great
we nailed this guy so fast?”

“Don’t know yet,” Easton said and hitched a
buttock on the corner of Joe Apodaca’s desk. “What’s the
story?”

“Yesterday about six thirty, two State cops
on patrol see this guy walking north on 286, miles from anyplace,”
Apodaca told him. “So they check him out. He has blood on his
clothes but he’s not injured. When they ask him how it got there
and he clams up, they decide to bring him in for questioning.
They’re not expecting any trouble, maybe they’re a bit sloppy.
Anyway, when they try to cuff him he grabs the nearest trooper and
rams his head against the car. Then he whacks the other one so hard
it puts him right out of it, bim-bam, both of them down. Then he
takes off into the brush like a jackrabbit.”

“The first trooper’s concussed and bleeding
like a stuck pig but he manages to get his gun out. Sees the guy
legging it, fires a shot into the air and yells halt,” McKittrick
said, taking up the story. “Guy freezes, obviously knows the next
one will be for real. Trooper herds him back to the car, cuffs him
to the rear bumper, radios for help, then passes out.”

“Boys in the riot squad got there, said it
was like the gunfight at the OK Corral,” Joe said angrily. “One
trooper with a ruptured spleen, they’ve got him in an ICU at
Riverdale General, the other half in, half out of the car,
four-inch gash in his head. Blood all over the place. And the guy
caused all the trouble is sitting there cuffed to the bumper, like
none of this has got anything to do with him.”

“Where exactly did all this happen?”

“About ten miles north of where Casey was
killed,” McKittrick said, emphasizing it in case Easton hadn’t
caught the significance.

“Mess like that, people must have seen it.
Didn’t anyone stop to help?” Easton said.

“Ha!” Joe said disgustedly. “When’s the last
time you heard of civilians stopping to help cops?”

“So they brought him in. And …?”

“They were going to stick him in the SP jail
unit, bring him up in tomorrow for arraignment,” McKittrick said.
“But when they searched him they found Casey’s billfold in his
pocket. Checked with the family, found out Casey was missing,
called us.”

“He still in the SP slammer?”

“You kidding?” McKittrick grinned. “Minute we
got the news I sent Jack Basso down there to haul his ass up
here.”

Jack Basso was SO’s badass deputy. All two
hundred twenty pounds of him. He was hard to like, but when it was
down to muscle rather than brain he was a useful man to have
around.

“He give Basso any trouble?”

Joe shook his head. “Came in like he wasn’t
involved.”

“Has he copped a plea?”

“Not yet,” McKittrick replied. “It doesn’t
matter much. We’ve got him cold. “Easton looked at his boss.
“Who’ve you given this to, Joe?”

“Cochrane and Irving,” he said. “They’re
questioning him right now. Here’s his stats.”

He handed over a computer printout of the
details taken when the prisoner was processed.

“Chiricahua Apache,” Easton noted. “That’s
unusual.”

The Chiricahua Apache were an Arizona tribe.
Most New Mexican Apache were Mescaleros or Jicarillas.

He leafed through the rap sheet. James
Ironheel, age thirty-three, height five ten, weight one-hundred
eighty-two, occupation firefighter. Two jail terms for burglary, a
string of convictions for petty larceny, drunk driving, parole
violation. Some firefighter.

“What was his story on the billfold?” he
asked.

“Claimed he found it on the highway.”
McKittrick gave a mirthless laugh. “You want to get me odds on that
in Vegas?”

“You don’t think this is all a tad too
easy?”

“Oh, spare me, please,” McKittrick said
impatiently. “There’s only one way this turkey could have got
Casey’s billfold. He killed him for it.”

“And Adam?”

McKittrick didn’t say ‘Don’t be stupid,’ but
it was obvious he wanted to. “The kid could ID him, Dave,” he said
patiently.

“Yeah, but why cut his throat? Why not just
shoot him, too?”

McKittrick shrugged. “He’s an Apache. Maybe
they get off on stuff like that.”

Easton didn’t answer that one. “Was he
carrying the gun? Or the knife?”

McKittrick shrugged. “He probably dumped
them. I’ll send a team out there tomorrow. Metal detectors, the
works. If they’re there, we’ll find them.”

“You sound pretty confident. That mean you’re
going to file?”

“Already have,” McKittrick said, a shade of
defiance in his voice. “I’ll get him arraigned Monday. That will
give you guys ten clear days to make our case.”

“Gosh, thanks.”

McKittrick glared at him but didn’t
reply.

“Has he got an attorney, this Ironheel?”
Easton asked.

“He waived.”

Easton frowned. He knew a little about the
Apache, their history and their culture, and one thing he knew for
certain was they didn’t trust white-man law, often with good
reason.

“I’ll call the public defender,” he said. “If
what you say is true, this guy’s going to need all the help he can
get.”

“Don’t have to break a leg on that, Dave,”
Apodaca protested. “We need time for a run at this guy before the
PD shuts him up.”

Easton shook his head. “He’s got the same
rights as anyone else, Joe.”

“Oh, for Chrissake, nobody’s asking you to
railroad the sumbitch,” McKittrick said impatiently. “Just don’t be
so over-damned zealous.”

Easton shrugged, making a mental note to put
in a call to the public defender anyway. Whether he wanted one or
not, James Ironheel was going to need an attorney.

“Something else,” he said. “Mart Horrell said
Casey was killed with a high powered pistol. A .357 Magnum or a
.45, right?”

“And?”

“Where would an Apache with a sheet like this
guy’s get hold of that kind of a gun?”

“He’s a burglar, maybe he stole it,”
McKittrick snapped. “What is this, Twenty Questions?”

“It’s what his lawyer is going to ask you in
court.”

McKittrick didn’t speak for a moment. He
looked out the window, his eyes veiled. Then he nodded.

“I forgot,” he said. “Got ambitions to be a
DA yourself one day, don’t you, Dave?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing. Go ahead, rain on my parade.”

His patronizing air was starting to get
Easton’s hackles up. “Okay, answer me this,” he said, meeting
McKittrick head on. “Why Garcia Flat? This guy lives on the
Reservation at Mescalero, eighty miles away, right? How does he
even know Garcia Flat exists, let alone where it is? I’d be willing
to bet two-thirds of the population of Riverdale don’t.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that,”
McKittrick said crossly. “He was up there, for Chrissakes. The lab
already confirmed specks of blood found on his clothes and one of
his shoes are the same type as Casey’s. It’ll take time to run DNA
tests, but even without them, we have enough. The billfold puts him
there, the blood puts him there.”

“You know what really bothers me?” Easton
said. “What the hell Casey was doing at Garcia Flat in the first
place.”

“Maybe he picked Ironheel up in town,”
McKittrick said. “Maybe he made Casey drive out there.”

Easton shook his head. “No way would Casey
have picked up a hitch-hiker. Especially not with Adam on
board.”

“Oh, come on,” McKittrick said, impatiently.
There were two small red anger spots on his cheeks. “He walked. He
flew. Who cares? The evidence says he was there, that’s all that
matters.”

“Okay,” Easton said. “Let’s say, unlikely as
it seems, Casey picks up this Ironheel guy and for reasons we can’t
figure out, drives out to Garcia Flat. When they get there Ironheel
shoots the old man, cuts the boy’s throat, takes Casey’s billfold.
Then, although there’s a sixty-thousand dollar four wheel drive
standing there with the keys in it, he elects to hike two and a
half miles to the highway, heading for – did he say where he was
going, by the way?”

“Vaughn,” Joe said. His eyes were bright and
alert, watching every nuance of the exchange between his chief
deputy and McKittrick.

“Olin,” Easton said. “This is bullshit. You’d
have trouble convicting a mangy coyote on what you’ve got
here.”

“Explain how he got the blood on him,”
McKittrick said hotly, the anger unconcealed now. “Go ahead. Tell
me how he got Bob Casey’s billfold. Make me believe it.”

“Not my job,” Easton replied. “You’re the one
who’s going to have to sell this to a jury. And if you want my
opinion, you’re going to have a hard time doing it.”

“Who the hell are you, Oliver Wendell
Holmes?” McKittrick snapped. “We’ve got a suspect and he’s good for
it. What’s your problem?”

The classic DA’s response, Easton thought,
holding onto his temper. Whenever a case looked iffy, McKittrick
would retreat behind the same barrier a lot of DA’s hid behind:
I’ve got a perp and he looks good for it. Now go out and make my
case for me. If we don’t have enough facts, get more. If the facts
don’t fit, find some that do.

Prosecutors played a lot of legal games these
days, and whether you liked it or not, they were a fact of life.
The spin doctors spun, the shrinks and the expert witnesses did
their songs and dances, the deals got cut and the law got bent, and
as a result good people went to jail and bad guys walked, and there
wasn’t a solitary damn thing anyone could do about any of it.
Easton gave up on arguing and headed for the door.

“Think I’ll go over and see what this
Ironheel guy has to say,” Easton said. You want to sit in?”

“Pass,” Apodaca said wearily. “This was my
day off, remember?”

“What about you, Olin?”

McKittrick shook his head. “Just make sure he
pleads to the sheet,” he said.

“You mean, even if he’s innocent?”

“Very funny,” McKittrick said.

It was getting along toward twilight as
Easton came out the back door of the SO building, crossed Virginia,
and went up the steps into the Courthouse. The satellite vans were
still there, as was the knot of reporters outside the old jail.
Probably hanging around hoping McKittrick would give them a juicy
soundbite for the late news. Tonight a new development. The circus
was always on parade.