Michael McGarrity - The Judas judge

It was time to see Eric Langsford and have a long talk.

Eric Langsford lolled in the straight-back metal chair, head back, staring at the fluorescent lights in the interrogation room ceiling. He unzipped the top of his orange jail jumpsuit and scratched his skinny chest.

"Man, I barely remember talking to you," he said. "You busted me, right?"

"More or less," Kerney said.

"For possession, right?"

"You're in protective custody, for now. If you cooperate, I might forget about the possession charges."

Langsford sat up straight. "I can get out?"

"We'll see. You left the band in Maria, Texas."

"Yeah. I'm gonna kill that fucking drummer, if I ever see him again."

"What for?" Kerney asked.

"I don't take shit from anyone. He got on my case about my drinking and then dumped out all my booze. He was an AA freak who wanted to save me. I hate that kind of crap."

"I can see how that would make you angry."

Eric nodded. "I've got a short fuse."

"What did you do?"

"I threw an empty whiskey bottle that hit him in the head, and told him to get the fuck out of my room." Langsford touched a small bruise on his chin. "He busted me in the chops, so I quit the band. I couldn't stand playing with those assholes, anyway. They sucked."

"What day was that?"

"Last Wednesday, I think."

"Where did you go after you quit the band?"

"I drove to Del Rio and crossed the border. Got there late."

"How long did you stay?"

"Overnight."

"Remember where?"

"Some cheap hotel. I don't know the name."

"You left the next day?"

"Yeah."

"Where to?"

"I hit a bunch of Mexican border towns."

"Which ones?"

Langsford rattled off the town names.

"What about on the Texas side of the border?" Kerney asked. "I stopped in Redford and McNary."

"Did you rent rooms?"

"Not after Del Rio. I slept in the van so I could save my money for booze and pills."

"What bars did you drink at?"

"Hell, I don't know. Sometimes I'd hit the bars, other times I just drank in the van. The desert is beautiful at night, man. All those stars."

"When did you get to Juarez?"

"Friday, Saturday-I don't remember."

"You stayed at a whorehouse."

"That's where I woke up."

"Where was it

"About six blocks in from the bridge. I thought my van had been ripped off. I found it on our side of the border in a parking lot."

"Did you get a parking receipt?"

"I don't keep stuff like that."

"What was the whorehouse called?"

"It's more like a hotel where whores take their tricks."

"The name?"

"I don't know. Why are you asking me all this crap?"

"When did you leave Jurez?"

"Sunday afternoon. I drove straight to my place."

"Have you gone anywhere, seen anybody, since you arrived home?"

"Just you, and look where that got me."

"You didn't go to the tribal resort earlier this week, looking for work?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

"I understand you got a check recently from one of your father's companies."

"Party time," Eric said smiling. "I go through Daddy's money fast. When it runs out, I find work. Like playing in a piece-of-shit band that doesn't pay squat."

"Where were you Thursday night?"

"Beats me."

"Did you meet up with anyone you knew in Del Rio?"

"How about the other places you stayed?"

"I didn't see anybody I knew."

"I understand you're a gifted musician," Kerney said.

"Once I was. After high school I was accepted at every topflight music school in the country that I applied to. But I didn't go."

"Your father is dead, murdered."

"I remember that," Eric replied.

"What do you remember?"

"That you told me he was dead."

"Did you see your father much?"

"I haven't seen him since I left Roswell six years ago."

"You never visited him in Ruidoso?"

"What for?"

"Is that a no?"

"No. I don't go near the man."

Kerney rose. "We'll talk again."

Eric scrambled to his feet. "Do I get out of jail?"

"Not yet. I'm booking you on the drug possession charge."

Langsford screwed up his face in disgust. "I want to make a phone call."

"I'll tell the guard."

"You think I killed my old man, don't you?"

"And if you did?"

"It would make me happy," Eric said, sounding like a mischievous kid admitting to a prank.

"Because of the way he treated you as a child?" Kerney asked.

"That's not even the half of it."

"I'd like to hear the rest."

"That's my business."

"You're really not sure if you killed your father or not, are you?"

Eric smirked. "I don't think I did, but you never know. Sometimes dreams ome true."

Outside, Kerney took a deep breath of the cool night air. Eric Langsford had the maturity of an adolescent, a drug-addled mind, and was clearly pleased about his father's death. Kerney couldn't dismiss the possibility that Eric had iced his old man along with five other victims. Killers came in all flavors and varieties, including the hopped-up, emotionally arrested kind.

He decided to come back early in the morning and take another crack at Eric.

Kerney knocked at Sedillo's motel room door, and the lieutenant opened up. He reported that nothing of consequence had been uncovered during the search of Eric Langsford's house and van, except for a receipt from a package goods store in Maria, Texas, dated the same day Langsford had left the band.

Kerney summarized his interview with Langsford, placed the cassette of the taped conversation in Lee's hand, and asked Sedillo to put an agent on it right away.

"Have him backtrack on Langsford," Kerney said.

"That's a three-day swing."

"So far, he's our only suspect without an alibi."

"Did his sister have one?" Lee asked.

"I haven't gotten that far with her yet."

"I could use more people, Chief."

"Not possible. The way it stands now, if we don't get serious movement by the end of the week, we'll be down to just you and me. Did Mary Margaret run those employee names?"

"Yep, and you can forget about it. At the time of Mrs. Langsford's death there were no political activists, hardcore felons, convicts, or fugitives working at the resort or casino who we can connect to Langsford. There were two cases against employees that resulted in bench warrants for failure to pay child support. Both fathers made their back payments and got a stay out of jail card. One other employee did time for aggravated battery against a police officer, stemming from a DWI stop. But he got drunk two years ago, passed out on the railroad tracks, and was run over by a train."

"Eric says he hasn't seen his father in years-never once visited him. Get an agent up to Ruidoso in the morning, showing Eric'spicture around the judge's neighborhood. That beat-up van he drives would be pretty hard to miss."

"Will do. Is that it, Chief?"

"Why is Langsford so damn happy his father is dead?"

"Maybe he just didn't like him."

"I think it goes deeper than that."

"You may be right," Lee said. "We just got the information you requested from the phone company on those hang-up phone calls made to Linda Langsford's residence. All of them were made the night of the murders from pay phones along the killer's route."

"What about the anonymous calls to her office?"

"Two one-minute calls were made one right after the other from an Albuquerque number. I've got an agent making contact now."

"Let me know as soon as you hear anything. We may have caught a break."

The phone rang. Lee walked to the bedside table, picked up, listened for a minute, and then dropped the handset in the cradle with a shake of his head. "It doesn't look promising, Chief. The Albuquerque calls came from an elderly man who misdialed a grand daughter's Roswell number. He reversed two digits."