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Authors: Don Bullis

Tags: #Murderers, #General, #New Mexico, #Historical, #Fiction

Bloodville (7 page)

BOOK: Bloodville
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―What happened to the tourist?‖
―Beats hell out of me but there‘s a bunch of stories about Bud stranding people at the trading post, forcing them to leave their car and take a bus to Grants or Albuquerque to raise money enough to bail it out of his salvage yard. Sometimes he charged more for storage than the car was worth. That's how he got all them cars out back there. There must be a hundred or more. Another thing he used to do is pray for snow. Tourist gets stranded way out here in a snowstorm and he'd sell ‗em tire chains; a ten dollar set for fifty bucks. Take it or leave it.‖
Vee took another drink of coffee. ―I was in here one time, Doc, in JP Court, and this tourist pulled up to the pumps. I seen this with my own eyes. Ohio plates on the car. Bud was charging, I think, sixty-one cents a gallon for gas. It was probably thirty cents a gallon in Grants at the time, and a quarter in Albuquerque and everyone thought that was too damn much. The tourist saw how much the gas cost and he asked Bud how far it was to Albuquerque, and Bud told him. So the tourist says, ‗Just let me have three gallons then.‘ Bud says to him, ‗I sell gas by the tank full, not by the gallon.‘ So the tourist says, ‗I only got five dollars.‘ Bud says, ‗how in the hell was you gonna get to Ohio on five bucks?‘ ‗I was gonna wire for some cash in Albuquerque,‘ the tourist says. ‗Ok,‘ Bud says, ‗I'll sell you five dollars worth then.‘ And he did. Bud took the poor bastard's last dollar.‖
―Prince of a guy, huh?‖ Doc said.
―A real prince. You know, Doc, I stood there, in uniform, drinking a Coke and I watched the whole deal. Afterwards I got the feeling that Bud used me to scare that Ohio guy. You know. Intimidate the tourist so he didn‘t argue too much about the price of gas. I wonder if Bud knowingly did that. Anyway, now he's dead and Scarberry wants to canonize him.‖
―It ain't for us to reason why, my friend. Know what I mean?‖

While Spurlock and Valverde interviewed Nettie that Sunday afternoon, Captain Mat Torrez drove a mile west on the Old Road to Villa de Cubero and rented a room in Wally Gunn‘s Motel. Torrez was a widower who lived with his twenty-year-old daughter, Juanita, —she preferred Nita—whom he'd called and asked to meet him with a change of clothing and his toilet kit. He kissed her on the cheek and sent her back to Albuquerque. Mat loved his daughter and was proud that she'd grown into a beautiful woman. She was headstrong, like her mother, but that deepened his devotion to her. Two things mattered in his life: Nita and the State Police.

He showered, shaved, swallowed three fingers of vodka and drove back to Rice‘s store in Budville. Doc and Vee stood drinking Cokes and comparing notes when Torrez walked in.

―You boys look like hell,‖ the captain observed cheerfully. ―And that‘s nothin‘ compared to the way I feel, Cap,‖ Doc said. ―Tell you what,‖ Torrez said, ―the two of you have done a world

of work in past, what, fifteen, sixteen hours. Maybe too much. You get all that information in your mind and pretty soon it starts to get all mixed up and you can‘t remember who said what about anything. First thing you know, you screw it up. Go home. Both of you. Get some sleep. It‘s eighteen hundred hours now. Be back here at oh six hundred with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. 10-4?‖ ―10-4 Cap.‖ Two notebooks snapped closed in unison and the

agents were out the door and gone, with only a casual salute to the boss. Doc had an eighty mile drive to Gallup and Virgil had about the same to his home in the mountain village of San Antonito, east of Albuquerque. They were both home by nineteen thirty hours.

CHAPTER V

Nearing forty hours without sleep, rookie State Policeman Juan Posey manned a roadblock on Interstate 40 just east of Grants. District Attorney‘s investigator Jim Mitchell was there, too, along with narcotics officer Carlos Gallegos. Posey had parked Troy McGee's State Police car perpendicular to the road—red lights flashing—while Mitchell and Gallegos had positioned their cars across the road facing traffic. Posey‘s headlights illuminated the driver's side of vehicles stopped at the barricade.

Mitchell took a nap in his car and Gallegos stood on the shoulder of the road, a pump shotgun‘s stock resting on his hip, when a light blue 1961 Mercury Comet rolled to a stop at just after 9:00 o‘clock on Sunday night. Posey, after asking a few standard questions, ordered the driver, U. S. Navy petty officer Larry Bunting, out of the car. The official report submitted by Gallegos and Posey read:

Officers immediately noticed that the driver closely resembled the description of the suspect. He was dressed in a black jacket and black pants. Officers also observed passengers in the car to be one indian female and one indian male, wife and brother-in-law of the suspect, and two small indian children. The suspect was extremely nervous and moved in jerky motions while reaching for his wallet and identification. Suspect also talked hesitantly. Officers asked subject to alight from the vehicle, which he did. Subject's identification was taken by Agent C. Gallegos, which was an Armed Services I. D. card and Leave Papers. 10-33 assistance from other officers was requested by C. Gallegos. Subject was subsequently turned over to Lt. M. Candelaria, DA Inv. J. Mitchell and Agent F. Finch who advised the subject of his rights under the new Miranda law and that he was under arrest. Subject taken to Budville by Lt. M. Candelaria for identification purposes by Mrs. Flossie Rice, per orders of Lt. Col. C. Scarberry.

Lt. Morris Candelaria didn‘t like the way Scarberry wanted things handled. The deputy chief issued an order late Saturday night that any suspect apprehended in the Rice/Brown case be taken to the command post at Budville before transport to jail. To Candelaria's way of thinking, suspects should be taken directly to booking and detention where police criminal agents did their work— interrogations, lineups and the like—before lawyers began turning the bent and creaky wheels of the New Mexico criminal justice system. But Lt. Candelaria always obeyed orders. His political connections in Santa Fe were good, but not good enough to take on Scarberry.

Jim Mitchell and FBI agent Dwayne Madison took Darlene Concho Bunting and her brother, Leroy Concho, to the Grants Police Department and ―interviewed‖ them. Juan Posey took the small children to Darlene‘s aunt‘s house at McCarty‘s Village.

The FBI had entered the Rice/Brown case early Sunday morning. Good form within the law enforcement community demanded that reservation Indians be interviewed by one of J. Edgar Hoover's agents because local authorities had no jurisdiction on Indian land. If legal questions should arise later, all asses would be covered.

Darlene Concho Bunting cried and carried on a good deal as she told officers that she and her husband and children had been in Albuquerque from noon on Saturday until eight o'clock on Sunday evening. Young Leroy considered his own arrest and detention a lark, but he told officers a story generally consistent with his sister‘s. Madison didn't care what Darlene and Leroy had to say. As far as he was concerned, the killer was in custody and nothing a couple of Pueblo Indians said would change anything about it. The agent released Darlene and Leroy at dawn. He told them not to leave the reservation. Jim Mitchell took them to the aunt's house in McCarty's Village.

Everyone involved in the search for the Rice/Brown killer heard via police radio that a suspect was in custody. All roadblocks were dismantled. Many officers returned to Budville and nearly twenty police cruisers lined the Old Road when Candelaria arrived with the suspect. The trading post exterior lights were off and the moon provided scant illumination in the parking lot. Candelaria‘s car hadn‘t rolled to a complete stop before Scarberry opened the right rear door, dragged Larry Bunting out and slammed him face down in the gravel. He grabbed the handcuff chain and forced the sailor's arms up into a double hammerlock and half dragged the man to the front of Candelaria‘s car where he stood him up like a prisoner before a firing squad.

―You stand right there, you son-of-a-bitch.‖ Scarberry stuck the barrel of his pistol up under the sailor‘s chin. ―You so much as wiggle and I'll kill your skinny ass dead'ern dog shit. You understand me?‖

Bunting stood still, his hands locked painfully behind him; his head dropped when the deputy chief removed the gun. Then he looked up and around with fear in his eyes, like a cottontail rabbit surrounded by a pack of hounds. All he could see in the dim moonlight were black silhouettes of police officers and deputies moving about in the parking lot. Scarberry was slightly behind the suspect, and to his right. He grabbed a handful of Bunting's hair and held the sailor's head in place while Freddy Finch aimed a big six-cell flashlight into the suspect's face. Bunting squinted his eyes against the blinding light. Candelaria looked toward the store where Flossie stood behind the closed lower half of the Dutch door, the darkened room behind her. She nodded her head, twice, in the affirmative, then turned away. Nettie closed the upper door half.

Scarberry shoved Bunting's head forward then grabbed him by the arm, slung him around and slammed him against the trading post wall like a television wrestler smashing an opponent against a ring‘s corner post. In Bunting's case the pain was real. The deputy chief grasped the sailor‘s coat lapels and held him up so that only his toes touched the gravel.

―You thank the Lord there‘s witnesses here, you son-of-a-bitch, or you wouldn't never get back in that car.‖ He unhanded the suspect, stepped back and gut-punched him. The sailor doubled-up and sagged to the ground like an empty sea bag. Scarberry landed a solid kick, just below the ribs, before he turned his back on the suspect and stepped away. ―Get him the hell out of here, Candelaria. Get him outta my sight. You got my permission to kill 'im if he gets squirrelly on you and tries to run. Hell, you got my permission to kill 'im even if he don't.‖

The officers watched Candelaria drive away with the suspect locked securely in the back seat of his police car. Sheriff Jack Elkins followed Candelaria toward the jail in Los Lunas.

―I said we‘d get the son-of-a-bitch, Torrez,‖ Scarberry said, smugly. ―I told you he couldn't get past the roadblocks if you put ‗em up like I told you to.‖
―Yes, you did, Chief.‖
―Now then, I want this case wrapped up tighter than a virgin's vagina. I want so much evidence against this douche bag that he'll take the gas chamber in a plea bargain. You understand me? I want statements. I want witnesses. I want physical evidence. I want circumstantial evidence. I don't want no room for no error.‖

―I understand, Chief.‖ Torrez said through tight lips. He'd been doing, and supervising, criminal investigations for ten of the previous twenty years. He didn't need to be told what police work the DA required for a successful prosecution.

―Now where in the hell is Spurlock? He‘s case agent, ain't he?‖

―I sent him and Vee home a few hours ago to get some sleep. They had been hard at it for twenty hours or so.‖
―These kids ain't tough as old birds like you and me, huh?‖ Scarberry seemed almost friendly. ―Get 'em back out. I want Bunting‘s car searched. Gun's gotta be somewhere and we need to find it. I want a follow-up on that info Finch came up with on the witnesses at that bar down the road.‖
―I'll handle it.‖
―The helicopter‘s warmed up and waitin‘. I'm going home. I want a report from you by tomorrow afternoon. You see any problem with that?‖
―No sir.‖
―Good. If there's any screw-up here, if this guy don't suck cyanide, I'll have your ass and Spurlock‘s too. This is the most important case you ever handled.
Comprende
that!‖ The deputy chief got into Al North's State Police car without another word. It sped up the Old Road and disappeared at the Cubero turn-off. Torrez raised his hand in a single fingered salute to the disappearing tail lights. Chief Sam Black might have something to say about whom got whose ass, he said to himself.

By midnight on Sunday, November 19, Budville became nearly deserted and returned to somnolence. Mat Torrez walked slowly to his own unmarked state car, one of two left in the trading post driveway. Bobby Gutierrez, assigned to guard the trading post, occupied the other vehicle—Troy McGee‘s unit. Captain Torrez found a paper cup half full of cold coffee on his car‘s dashboard. He‘d bought it earlier at the cafe in Villa de Cubero. He took a pint bottle of vodka from the glove compartment and added a generous dollop to the coffee. He started the engine and let it idle while he sipped the vile-tasting mixture. He keyed the police radio‘s microphone.

―Three-six Gallup.‖

―Go ahead three-six.‖ Two complete work shifts had come and gone. Debbie Smith was back on duty.
―Give Agent Spurlock a 10-21. Tell him to 10-87 with me in room seven of the motel in Villa de Cubero at oh-four-hundred hours. Tell him to bring coffee. Lots of it. Do a 10-5 to Albuquerque. Same 10-49 to Agent Virgil Vee, Valverde, that is. Tell him to stop by the jail in Los Lunas and pick up the mug shots of the suspect. 10-4?‖
―10-4. They get the right one, Captain?‖

―10-4, Debbie. I think so. They tell me you did a good job on the air last night. I appreciate it. If you need me, raise Officer Gutierrez on the radio and have him get me at the motel. I don't know his mannumber. No phone in my room and the store and restaurant are both closed. I'll be 10-7 for a while.‖

―10-4, three six. KLC-636.‖ She signed off.
CHAPTER VI

The Chief Assistant District Attorney for New Mexico‘s Second Judicial District—Bernalillo and Valencia counties—Don Wilcoxson paced the floor of Sheriff Jack Elkins' office in the courthouse at Los Lunas while he waited for Morris Candelaria to arrive with the suspect. Tall, muscular and horse-faced, the ADA dressed more like a ranch hand than a lawyer: faded Levi's, scuffed high-heel boots and battered Resistol hat. He wore a Colt's .45 automatic, Model 1911, in a custom made, hand-tooled, holster on his wide belt. Wilcoxson, who considered himself a cop's kind of prosecutor, had served a few years as an Albuquerque police officer while he attended law school at the University of New Mexico. His primary goal in life involved locking up society's criminal element and he wasn't any too fussy about how he accomplished it.

His ill humor worsened as the late evening of Sunday, November 19, became the early morning of Monday, November 20. The way he saw it, if Bunting hadn't killed Rice and Brown, Bunting wouldn‘t have been arrested and there‘d be no need for an ADA—the Chief Assistant District Attorney at that—to be standing around in the wee minutes of the morning waiting to conduct an interview in which the suspect would lie like a Judas kiss to hide his own guilt. Instead, the ADA might have been at home, in bed with his wife, asleep: not concerned with how he‘d handle the prosecution of Larry Bunting and a half dozen other cases piled up on his desk in Albuquerque.

BOOK: Bloodville
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