Michael Mcgarrity - Slow Kill

Foyt used his cell phone to clear his calendar for the remainder of the day so he could supervise the interrogation, and joined Ramona at the door.

“I’m hungry,” Griffin said, grinning and patting his stomach.

“We’ll have your lunch brought in,” Ramona said. She walked with Foyt to the lobby and used her cell phone to arrange for a narcotics officer and detective to meet her at the jail pronto.

“You’re not disappointed with the plea bargain, are you?” Foyt asked.

“A little bit,” Ramona said, slipping the phone on her belt. “But I understand your reasoning.”

What she didn’t mention was her plan to have Griffin arrested for harboring a fugitive as soon as the interrogation was over and the current charges were dropped. She had the unshakable feeling that Griffin was still hiding something.

Marched into the courtroom by a uniformed officer, Kim Dean looked around for Stubbs, the moon-faced young lawyer, and didn’t see him. Except for a judge, bailiff, court stenographer, a guy in a suit talking to the judge, and the cop who’d escorted him, the room was empty.

Dean had spent a miserable, sleepless night and an anxious morning at the jail. He’d almost abandoned any hope that Stubbs had gotten through to Claudia. But maybe he had, and Claudia was in the process of lining things up and getting him a good criminal attorney.

The cop put Dean in a seat and hovered behind him. What if the guy in the suit was his new attorney? Kim watched the man eagerly, waiting for him to turn from the judge and make a sign of recognition in his direction. Instead, he picked up his briefcase and left the courtroom just as Stubbs rushed in.

“Did you call my friend?” Dean whispered.

Stubbs scrunched into the seat next to Dean, and looked at the cop, who moved out of earshot.

“I did.”

“And?”

“She thanked me for the call,” Stubbs replied.

“That’s it?” Dean hissed. “What did you say to her?”

“I told her where you were and what the pending charges are.”

Kim took a deep breath. “Have you been contacted by another attorney?”

“Listen,” Stubbs said in a terse whisper, the color rising on his cheeks. “You made it clear yesterday that I am not the lawyer you want. That’s fine with me. Let’s just get you through the arraignment. You’ll be formally charged, given copies of the criminal complaints, and informed of your constitutional rights. I’ll enter no plea on your behalf and you won’t have to say anything. In fact, I don’t want you to. The DA will ask for bail to be denied, and I’ll argue against it. Don’t get your hopes up. The charges are serious.”

Feeling sorry for himself, Dean sighed with resignation.

“Have the police tried to talk to you since yesterday?” Stubbs asked.

Kim shook his head.

“Good. Keep it that way. If you want, I’ll call around to several good criminal trial attorneys. You’re going to need one.”

Kim had waited long enough for Claudia to come through for him. “Why don’t you do that?” he said brusquely

The judge shuffled papers and called Dean’s case.

“Gladly,” Stubbs said, getting to his feet.

The drive from Santa Fe to Taos was always a hassle, especially along the section of the two-lane twisting highway that paralleled the Rio Grande, where Kerney got stuck between two slow-moving motor homes.

In town, summer tourist traffic clogged the narrow main street, and it was stop-and-go all the way until Kerney reached the turnoff to the police station a few blocks north of the old plaza.

Inside, he met with Victor Pontsler, the police chief, who’d held the top cop position on three separate occasions over the span of his thirty-five-year career with the department. Twice in the past, Pontsler had been given the boot after a change in city administration, reverting back to his permanent rank of captain. Now he was back in the chief’s chair again, this time to clean up the mess left behind by a heavy-handed predecessor who had driven officer morale into the ground and alienated the city fathers.

No more than five or six years older than Kerney, Pontsler kept himself in good shape. He weighed in at about a hundred and sixty pounds on a five-ten frame. He had a full head of hair and a crooked nose with a thin pink surgical scar that ran down to his nostrils. It had been badly broken years ago when Vic had responded to a fight in progress that turned into a bar brawl between cops and drunks.

Pontsler sat behind his cluttered desk and twirled a rubber band around his fingers. “I spent time after you called thinking about who you should talk to,” he said. “Michael Winger would be your best bet. Back in the old hippie days he called himself Montana. He grew up in Manhattan and dropped out of college to come west and be part of the love generation. Moved here from San Francisco in the early seventies. He knew just about everybody who lived in the local communes.”

“What else can you tell me about him?” Kerney asked.

“He’s part of the establishment now, a successful businessman. Chamber of Commerce member, museum foundation patron, and all that. Owns the Blue Mountain Restaurant on the Paseo and the Blue Moon Gallery just off the plaza.”

“He likes the color blue, I take it,” Kerney said.

“You’ve got that right. He lives in a primo old hacienda on a ten-acre parcel off Kit Carson Road. He likes to play the cowboy role. Wears his hair pulled back in a ponytail and dresses in jeans and boots. He’s divorced and has a Scandinavian girlfriend who teaches writing workshops and makes documentary films about oppressed women.”

“Is he into anything shady?” Kerney asked.

“As far as I know, Winger is a solid, upstanding citizen.”

“No trouble during his early days in town?”

“I know he smoked pot, but he never was busted.”

“How did he get started in business?” Kerney asked.

Pontsler rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “He likes to say he started out buying southwestern art for himself before the market for it took off. But it was really family money that bankrolled him. His father was a big-time New York City architect.”

Before leaving, Kerney got a rundown on a few more people Pontsler thought might be helpful. He locked his sidearm in the glove box of his unit, stuck his shield in his back pocket, and walked to Winger ’s restaurant.

Although it was touted as a mecca of Native American culture and had a long history as a famous art colony, Taos had never appealed much to Kerney. Parts of it were charming and the surrounding landscape was majestic. But the city was also a magnet for modern-day rogues and ruffians, frauds and fugitives, many of whom could be belligerent and nasty. Pontsler’s sterling character reference aside, Kerney wondered if Winger fit into any of those categories.

The Blue Mountain Restaurant occupied an old adobe house with a lovely tree-shaded outdoor dining patio and two small separate dining rooms with low ceilings, light blue walls with framed photographs of early Taos scenes, and Mexican tile tables. The hostess, a tall, rather aloof woman with a clipped English accent, told Kerney that Winger was never at the restaurant until late in the afternoon and could most probably be found at his gallery. He half-expected her to say “ta-ta” or “cheerio” when he thanked her and left.

He walked down the Paseo toward the plaza. Slow-moving road traffic with its incessant noise lurched in both directions as groups of shoppers wandered in and out of the retail stores lining the street. Many establishments had sale signs in the windows; others displayed rugs, apparel, and hand-crafted furniture in the front yards of old houses that had been converted to shops. Here and there a bored store clerk stood in a doorway watching the foot traffic pass by.