Bloodville (19 page)

―How you want to handle it, Herm?‖ Doc asked.
―I don't know if he's gonna try and get away in that junk Ford or if he's got someone comin‘ to pick him up. Tell you what, you walk on up this side of the street and see if you can get around on the right side of the truck. If he tries to get into it, arrest him. If he's got someone pickin‘ him up, I'll just cut him off and we'll grab both of 'em. And Doc, take off that hat, will ya. This ain't the OK Corral. It makes you stand out like mouse shit on grits.‖
―True, Officer Budwister, true. 'Course, I could stay here and you could do the circling around. That way I could just leave my hat where it belongs, namely on my head.‖
―That too is true, Agent Spurlock, but as we are in my car, that is to say, the city of Albuquerque's car, and I am assigned to it, and it to me, as it were, I elect to stay put while you do the necessary skulk.‖
Doc took his Stetson off and placed it carefully on the back seat. ―I know what it is, Herman,‖ Doc said. ―You think I don't understand, but I do. It's a question of you damn city boys taking advantage of us country boys. You think just because we got sheep shit on our shoes, we're good at sneaking and stalking and tracking like the red Indians.‖
―If you don't move your ass, there won't be no need for sneaking and tracking. Be careful.‖
Three minutes later Doc hunkered beside the old Ford pickup. He had a clear view of the porch, front door and yard by looking through the truck's windows. A minute passed, then two and then five. Doc was uncomfortable. His knees hurt from the crouching. Then headlights illuminated the residential street and a car stopped at the curb. The driver gave a blast on the horn and Sipe emerged from the house with a duffel bag in his hand and started across the lawn at a fast walk, limping slightly, and looking around, up and down the street. Herman quickly pulled his car into the path of the second car. Sipe recognized what was happening. He turned and dashed toward the pickup. Doc had positioned himself in the shadow of the garage when the car pulled up in front. He stepped out into the flood of light provided by the porch lamp.
―Howdy Dave. Fixin' to take a trip, are you?‖
Sipe threw the duffel at Spurlock and tried to reverse his direction of flight, but his foot slipped in the grass and he went down on one knee. The bag missed the officer and Doc pounced on Sipe like a cat on a cockroach. The altercation was brief and Sipe, face down in the grass, felt Doc's knee in the middle of his back as handcuffs clicked into place around his wrists. The suspect cussed and struggled against the steel restraints.
The driver of the car, surprised at being blocked off, stalled the engine when he jammed the transmission into reverse and popped the clutch. Herman ran to the car and stuck his gun into the driver‘s ear. Joe Cato seemed surprised. All Sipe had said on the phone was, ―Come and pick me up as soon as you can. The heat‘s on!‖
―Damn, Joe, I didn't know you were out of jail,‖ Herm said.
―The public defender let me out. She said you damn pigs can't keep me in there forever.‖
―Too bad. Get out of the car. What're you doin‘ here?‖
―None of your damn business. Just visiting.‖ Cato got out.
―Get your hands behind you!‖ The officer put handcuffs on Cato's wrists.
Sipe's mother stood on the front porch and watched as her son continued to struggle and kick as Doc half carried, half dragged him to the unmarked police car.
―Police brutality, you son-of-a-bitch,‖ Dave screamed. ―You can't come on my property and arrest me. You got to have a warrant. I'll sue! I'll own the city of Albuquerque, you pig bastard!‖
―Tell you what, Davy boy,‖ Herm said as Doc bent the suspect over the hood of the police car beside Cato, ―we've got a warrant. We had one when we saw you this afternoon. We just wanted to see how bad you wanted to talk to us. Now we know. Charges are what I said before: accessory, conspiracy, aiding and abetting murder. With any luck you'll get off with ten, fifteen years.‖ Budwister read Sipe his Miranda warnings from a little card.
Mrs. Sipe listened from the front porch and then turned and walked into the house. Deep shadows concealed a look of utter disgust on her face. She closed the door behind her and Doc heard a deadbolt snap firmly into place. She turned off the porch light. The officers deposited Dave Sipe into the back seat of the police car and closed the door. Budwister removed his handcuffs from Cato's wrists.
―You don't want nothing from me?‖
―No, Joe,‖ Budwister said. ―We got no paper on you, but we'll find you when we want you. We'll just follow the stink.‖
―Hey, Joe,‖ Doc said. ―I got a question for you.‖
―What?‖
―Has Billy Ray White got a tattoo on his belly? A big one?‖
―How in hell‘d I know. I ain't got no interest in looking at his bare belly. I'm a married guy, for Christ's sake.‖
―Just asking, Joe. Just asking.‖
The officers got into the car and Doc looked around for his hat. All he could see was a small part of the brim left visible when Sipe sat down—deliberately—on the Stetson.
―Sorry about your Roy Rogers hat, pig.‖ Sipe smiled.
David Sipe learned a lesson that night about sitting on a man's hat. His ears rang for two days from the punch to the head Doc gave him. The suspect stopped smiling.

Doc located Wally Webb at Drymaple's car lot a couple days after the interview with Cato. A short little man with an oversized head, Webb dressed himself like a drugstore cowboy; the toes of his boots, belt, hatband, and wristwatch bracelet all studded with silver and turquoise. Not comfortable in his conversation with the police officer, Webb chained smoked and scratched constantly at the sweaty armpits of his red and white western cut shirt.

―Your correct name is Wally Webb?‖ Doc began.
―Actually Walton. Walton D. Webb. The D is for Douglas.‖ ―Age?‖
―Twenty-seven.‖
―Address.‖
―Four ten Fourth Street, Northwest. Albuquerque.‖
―That's this place.‖
―Yeah, well, right, I'm kinda between places right now. Know

what I mean. I'm looking for an apartment.‖
―Whatever. You know an individual named Joe Cato?‖ ―I do. A low-life beaner greaseball, you ask me.‖
―You ever do any business with him?‖
―Not as I recall.‖

―He claims he bought a gun from you. It turns out that particular gun was used in an armed robbery and the murders of two innocent people. Now, Mr. Walton Douglas Webb, I suggest that if you know anything about this matter, you share it with me. The truth will come out sooner or later, and if you lie to me, I know a way to get you a free place to live for a good long while for accessory to murder. You get my meanin‘, Walton Douglas Webb?‖

Webb's face lost color. He dropped a cigarette butt into the gravel of the parking lot and crushed it out with the pointed toe of an Acme boot. His hand shook as he lit another one. ―Ok, ok, ok. I sold it to him, but I didn't do nothing wrong.‖

―I know,‖ Doc said. ―No body ever does anything wrong. That's why I don't have no job security. Tell me about the gun.‖
―It was about the middle of November, I think. Last year. I sold Joe a nine-millimeter pistol. I don't remember what kind it was. I'd recognize it if I saw it again. There was two nicks on the handle of it. Two boxes of bullets went with it, and a real cheapo holster.‖
―How much did you get for it?‖
―Thirty bucks. He tried to jew me down to twenty-five, but I figured the gun was worth thirty-five in the first place, so I didn't jew. Hell, the two boxes of bullets was worth ten bucks alone.‖
―So you delivered the gun, a holster, and two boxes of ninemillimeter ammunition to Joe Cato for thirty dollars?‖
―The bullets wasn't for a nine millimeter. They were for a .38 special, or a super. I don't remember which one.‖ Sweat soaked through the front of Webb‘s shirt.
Doc snapped his notebook closed. ―Now why in the hell would you sell .38 caliber ammunition with a nine-millimeter gun?‖
―Just, ah, just wanted to get rid of it was all. I don't have a .38. You know, nothing to shoot it in.‖
Doc thought about what Dr. Howard had said to him at the morgue three months before. ―Was there any nine millimeter ammunition with the gun you sold to Cato?‖
―The clip had some bullets in it. Six or eight, at least. I think.‖
―No extras?‖
―I didn‘t have any.‖
―You didn't happen to make a note of the gun's serial number, did you?‖
―No. Like I said. I don't even know what kind it was.‖
―Where'd you get it?‖
―I bought it from a guy that used to be a roommate of mine, last summer, I think it was. Him and his wife used to run a bar up in Kansas, as I understand it, and she gave him the gun for a present.‖
―You don't recall the man's name, do you?‖
―Matter of fact, no I don't. I didn't room with him very long. Never seen him since, either.‖
―I figured. Do you know a guy named Ray Stirling?‖
―I don't think so.‖
―How about Billy Ray White, or Billy Ray Stirling?‖
―Nope.‖
Doc took a picture of Billy Ray White out of his shirt pocket and showed it to Webb. ―Know him?‖
―Never seen him before.‖
―Cato says this man was with him when he visited you at this car lot on November sixteenth last year.‖
―That‘s a damn lie, officer. I never saw Cato with anyone. I don't think anyone likes him well enough to hang out with him. I sure as hell don't. Spic bastard.‖
―You know Dave Sipe and Joe Peters?‖
―Sure.‖ Webb felt better, then. It seemed as if the cop had shifted attention away from him and toward guys he knew were criminals. ―Sure. Sipe works here part-time and Peters hangs out a lot. Does odd jobs once in a while. God knows what else they do. Come to think of it, maybe Sipe and Cato are friends.‖
―You ever get your .30-30?‖
―What?‖
―Your .30-30 rifle. Cato said you wanted to buy a .30-30. You ever find one?‖
―What would I want with an old .30-30? That'd be like shooting a musket. I got me a .270 Remington I hunt with. Have for years. Killed a lot of deer with it, too.‖
―You stay handy, Walton. We may want to talk to you again.‖

Colonel Sam Black entered St. Vincent's Hospital in Santa Fe on February 29, 1968 suffering from a respiratory ailment. Chairman Tom Fetter of the State Police Board told the
Albuquerque Journal
that doctors expected the chief to be away from work for six or eight weeks. He said he had appointed Lieutenant Colonel Charles Scarberry to act as chief in the interim. Governor David F. Cargo approved and so did a majority of Board members.

―Chief Scarberry,‖ Fetter said to a poorly attended press conference, ―has more seniority, more experience, than any other officer in the department. I, as Chairman of the Board, based the appointment primarily on that important and salient fact, in addition to which he is one of the most respected men to ever wear a State Police uniform.‖

On Friday, March first, late in the afternoon, Sergeant Finch arrived at State Police Headquarters in Santa Fe carrying a thick sheaf of papers. Chere Ortiz ushered him directly into Scarberry's office.

―I got a wheelbarrow full of shit, Chief.‖ He put a stack of papers on Scarberry's desk.
―I don't have time to read all that, Freddy. Just tell me about it.‖
Quietly annoyed that Scarberry didn't want to at least thumb through the files he'd worked so diligently to amass, Finch selected a manila folder and opened it.
―Torrez got his brain in the end of his dick. Since that time you nailed him right after the Rice killing, he‘s made at least a half dozen trips out to Budville, in his department vehicle, for no other reason than to fuck that blond babe with the big tits. He shacks up with her at Gunn‘s Motel in Villa de Cubero. Room seven. He's been late for duty because he stayed in bed with her too long, too.‖
―You got dates and times on that?‖
―Yes sir.
―What else?‖
―Not too much on Torrez. He seems to be pretty close to Marty Vigil, and he spends a lot of time up in Tierra Amarilla or here in Santa Fe. He pretty much turned the Budville deal over to Spurlock.‖
―What about that dipstick?‖
―A bunch. Ain't turned in a mileage or fuel report since the first of the year, and I know for a fact he‘s been all over the state— Farmington, Hobbs, Taos—not to mention all the trips he makes back and forth to Gallup. 'Course, he seems to spend more and more time in Albuquerque and less and less in Gallup. I hear his old lady has a real case of the ass with him. Word is she wants to move back to Roswell in the worst way. They say it ain't a happy marriage.‖ He turned a page. ―We could make a pretty good case that the only reason Doc went to Hobbs was so he could visit his mama and daddy on the way back. They live on a ranch south of Roswell, toward Artesia. His old man used to be sheriff or some kind of stud-duck down there.‖
―I don‘t give a goddamn if his daddy is Robert O. Anderson, Spurlock will by-god stay stationed where he is long's I got anything to say about it! Take that to the bank. What else?‖
―Spurlock seems to spend a lot of time hangin' around with the Albuquerque cops, that Budwister guy, and the radio logs don't show half of it. But the best of all is that I saw him drinking beer in an Albuquerque bar, the Wine Cellar, twice, with Budwister, after which he entered, and operated a state owned vehicle. Saw it with my own eyes. I can even tell you how many beers he had, what kind, and over what period of time.‖
―That's good shit, Freddy. I want you to stay on Torrez and Spurlock. Like mange scabs on a mutt.‖
―You mean we're not gonna do nothing with what I got so far?‖ ―Timing's real bad. If I do anything now, it'll look like I'm takin‘ advantage of Sam bein‘ out sick. We'll wait. But you watch and see. One of these guys will step on his own foreskin real bad, and when he does, wham/bang, and thank you ma'am, we'll have the makings of a complete reorganization of the Criminal Bureau, from captain to clerk typist, and there won't be nothing Black or Fetter, or even the governor can do to stop it. You're doin' good, Freddy. Keep it up. These guys are your first priority. Hell, you could be a lieutenant in the Criminal Bureau by the end of the year. Think about that when you get bored.‖

In February 1968, the weather warmed to an early spring and the mountain air at Budville was clear and clean and the sky a bright, intense, blue. The desert earth was warm and dry on the day Clarence Mumfee chose to begin wrecking out some of the late Bud Rice's junk cars. He arrived in the little town driving an ancient International pickup truck, salmon pink in color, with a homemade, hand operated, crane mounted in the bed. A battered and bent tandem-wheeled trailer with high wooden sideboards bounced along behind the old truck. Max Atkins occupied the truck's passenger seat. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and another one rode behind his right ear.