Michael McGarrity - The big gamble

"Don't even go there," Vialpando said quickly. He led Fowler to a chair and sat her down. "You worked out of Phoenix before coming here. Tell us about the organization."

Fowler frowned and bit her lip. "No bust, and I get a free ride?"

"Exactly," Jeff replied, sitting across from Fowler. "Plus protection for as long as you need it."

Fowler's lips twitched nervously. She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the end table and lit one. "Okay. Rojas runs Phoenix and all the Texas services. Tully does the same in Denver and here. Each city has a manager who oversees the day-to-day stuff-bookings, screening and billing clients, paying the girls, arranging housing."

"Who's the Albuquerque manager?" Ramona asked.

"Cassie Bedlow. She's been providing girls for the other locations through her modeling agency for years."

"What about Norvell?" Jeff asked.

"He supplies a venue for special occasions."

"What's that all about?" Ramona asked.

"He has a place where rich men can meet privately with a girl like for a vacation. You can't book it for less than a week, and it's expensive. Fifty grand for the cottage, and then whatever the girl costs. That can run between five and ten thousand a day, sometimes more. Some clients bring their own women with them. For that, they have to pay a hefty surcharge. It's got five or six cottages, and they're always full. I've never been there, but I've heard it brings in movie stars, politicians, celebrity jocks-men like that-from all over the country."

"So it's a place where rich guys can play house," Vialpando said.

Fowler smirked and blew smoke through her nose. "Yeah, along with their favorite sex games. S and M, domination, fetishes, bondage-whatever they want, including drugs."

"Where is this place?" Ramona asked.

"Outside Ruidoso," Fowler replied. "I'm not sure where. It's on a ranch."

"How do the finances work?" Ramona asked. "Who pays the bills? Where does the money go?"

"I don't know. We get paid in cash weekly, plus any expenses. Tips and gifts we get to keep."

"What about drugs?" Vialpando asked.

"Whatever you want, but just for the girls and clients. There's no street selling or dealing. Mostly it's coke, crack, and pot, along with some meth. If a girl uses, the cost is deducted from her pay."

"Are you a user, Stacy?" Ramona asked.

"Sometimes." She stubbed out her smoke. "It makes going to work a whole lot easier."

"Are you strung out now?"

"A little bit."

"We'll get you into detox," Ramona said.

They wound up the interview and turned Fowler over to detectives who'd been waiting for their call. Jeff drove Ramona back to her unit.

"Next time we spend a night together, let's not do it in a car," Jeff said with a smile as he wheeled in behind Ramona's vehicle.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Sergeant," Ramona said.

"I'm just suggesting a change in venue, nothing more."

Ramona laughed. "I'll see you in Santa Fe at the meeting."

Clayton woke to an empty house and checked the bedside clock. It was after nine. Either he'd slept hard or Grace had tiptoed around, keeping the kids quiet before taking them off to day care and going to work. He put in a call to Paul Hewitt only to learn that the sheriff was out of the office until noon.

He went to the local newspaper's office and searched through back issues for anything that mentioned Tyler Norvell. There were plenty of stories on normal political activity: speeches he'd made, legislation he supported or opposed, positions he took on social problems. The guy was a right-to-work, anti-abortion, three-strikes-and-you're-out conservative. Judging from the voter sentiment discussed in the articles, he drew a lot of support from middle-class Texans who'd moved to Ruidoso looking for a less expensive Southwestern version of the Aspen lifestyle.

Clayton dug deeper and found a news item in the business section. A year before running for the state senate, Norvell had bought the Bluewater Canyon Ranch, a twenty-thousand-acre spread outside the small settlement of Arabella on the east side of the Capitan Mountains.

In his short time with the department Clayton had been to Arabella twice on routine patrols. There wasn't much to the place: a few whitewashed, shuttered adobe buildings, several old barns, a vacation cottage or two, maybe a half-dozen year-round residences, and some outlying ranches along the paved road that ended at the village.

It was a pretty spot, a good seventeen miles off the main highway to Roswell, in rolling country against the sharp backdrop of the mountains.

In his unit Clayton consulted a government reference map that highlighted all publicly and privately owned land in the state. It was a useful tool for determining the boundaries for law-enforcement jurisdictions. He found Bluewater Canyon on private land a bit south of Arabella. There wasn't time to drive up and look around before the sheriff returned to the office, so Clayton decided to see what he could learn through official records.

If Norvell had turned the Bluewater Canyon Ranch into a secret sex playground, as Clayton suspected, then he had probably spent a pile of money on the project.

In the county assessor's office at the county courthouse, he located the file for the Bluewater Canyon Ranch. Since the date of purchase, Norvell's property had increased in taxable value by over five million dollars. The old ranch headquarters had been torn down and replaced by a ten-thousand-square-foot hacienda, along with six new guest houses of three thousand square feet each, horse stables, barns, a swimming pool with a cabana and hot tubs, garages, a caretaker's cottage, a bunkhouse, and something called a meditation center, which included a small movie theater.

Clayton went looking for the deputy county assessor, Marvin Rickland, and bumped into him in the hallway.

"Have you got a minute to tell me about the Bluewater Canyon Ranch?" he asked.

Rickland nodded. "What a place. It's amazing what money can buy. The senator sure hasn't spared any expense. I bet the landscaping alone set him back a half million or more."

"What does he use it for?"

"Right now, just for friends, family, business associates, clients, and his political pals. He caters to a lot of rich people who are looking to buy property through his real estate company and who want anonymity while they're here. The last time I talked to him he said eventually it was going to be a resort-type dude ranch. Why he doesn't open it up right now beats me."

"You've done all the property assessments," Clayton said. "Describe it to me."

"It's really spread out," Rickland replied. "Each guest house is at least a mile from the main residence and very private. The style is Santa Fe adobe, with portals, patios, courtyards and all those Southwest touches like corner fireplaces and beamed ceilings. Around the headquarters you've got the meditation center, the swimming pool, staff housing, and a horse barn and stables about a quarter mile away. He's even got an airstrip on the property, along with all-weather gravel roads, and a grader to keep them in good repair."

"Do you have any trouble getting in?"

Rickland laughed. "I was just talking to Ray Kelsey about that the other day. He's the general construction inspector for the state, who works out of Ruidoso. He was telling me the senator has submitted plans to build a sweat lodge and a pond along a creek bed and put in a Japanese-style garden. We were laughing about how we always have to call ahead and make an appointment to get on the property. It's completely fenced-the whole twenty thousand acres-and he has it patrolled regularly. Everybody who works there has to sign a confidentiality agreement not to talk about the guests or the ranch. Those rich people really like their privacy."