“So it seems,” Ellie replied.
“I am not faulting the work you’ve done on the case. In fact, I can easily understand why you were drawn to it. The complexity of the situation intrigued you. But you are a supervisor now, in a position that requires you to apply the rules to those who serve under you. Failing to do so weakens the entire command structure.”
“Duly noted,” Ellie said.
“Be glad this one-time warning comes from me and not your immediate superiors,” Macy said, his tone edgy, a stern look fixed on his face. “Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Macy relaxed and leaned back. “Do yourself a favor, Ellie,” he said, now much more friendly. “Put in two full years as a patrol sergeant and then ask for a transfer back to my unit. I’ll be looking to add another sergeant around that time.”
“You’d take me back?” Ellie asked.
“In a flash,” Macy said, breaking into a smile, “if you learn to lead by example.”
Price walked Ellie out to the parking lot and said nothing until they reached her cruiser. Before retiring as an Army nurse, he’d supervised an intensive care unit, overseeing other nurses, technicians, and support staff, coordinating services with physicians, therapists, and pharmacists, managing the day-today operations.
Price wholeheartedly supported Macy’s position. Ellie had to stop being a loose cannon for her own good and the department’s.
“You don’t look too badly chewed on,” he said as Ellie unlocked the cruiser door.
“I’m not. Is Macy going to keep you on the case?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“Because unless Claudia Spalding’s lover confirms her complicity in the murder, which he hasn’t done yet, we won’t be able to charge her. The hard evidence just isn’t there.”
“What are you saying?” Price asked.
“Right now, the only way to implicate her is by building a circumstantial case. Spalding showed me a legal document that supposedly gave her permission from her husband to engage in extramarital affairs. The lawyer who drew it up said it was valid, but is it truly?”
“Good question. I’ll get a warrant for the original and run it through questioned documents.”
Ellie began to say more, shook it off, and got into the vehicle.
“What?” Price asked, holding the door open.
“Nothing,” Ellie replied. “But if a Sergeant Ramona Pino from the Santa Fe Police Department passes along any anonymous tips, you might want to check them out.”
Ellie’s intuition, her ability to absorb details, her perseverance, and her superior intelligence put her far beyond the pack as an investigator. But she could be bull-headed, a trait that had caused her trouble in the past.
“Don’t risk your stripes, Ellie,” he said.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she said, pulling the car door closed.
Price watched her drive off, wondering if he should share his gut feeling about her with Macy. He decided to let it ride. Maybe Ellie could keep herself from going over the line.
The six-hour interrogation of Mitch Griffin combined with other details and facts developed during the day made Ramona Pino feel overloaded with tasks to accomplish, information to sort through, and assignments to make.
First off, Kim Dean had been denied bail and remained in jail, just where Ramona wanted him. He’d fired his lawyer, hired an experienced criminal trial attorney, and still wasn’t talking.
Even if Dean continued to stay dummied up, the lab results from California added heavy weight to the evidence against him. As for the other charges, Griffin’s testimony would go a long way toward securing multiple convictions.
But that still left Claudia Spalding in her California mansion as free as a bird. Finding Coe Evans, the man Claudia Spalding had allegedly asked to help murder her husband, was critical if Ramona had any hope of turning that situation around. But Evans, who no longer worked at the horse rescue ranch, had dropped out of sight, whereabouts unknown.
Ramona had detectives on the phones, talking to Evans’s former coworkers and old acquaintances, checking with utility and phone companies and the postal service, querying banks and credit card companies. So far, he remained off the radar screen.
Locating Evans was just one of the tasks Ramona was juggling. Griffin had identified his framing subcontractor, Greg Lacy, as the man who’d left the ten pounds of grass in his garage. A detective sent out to Lacy’s house had reported no one at home. A neighbor confirmed Griffin’s statement that Lacy was camping somewhere down in the Gila National Forest.
Ramona had questioned Griffin closely about why Lacy’s toolbox had been stored in his garage, and his response had sounded plausible. Many of the subs he hired used his garage and land to store tools and excess materials. They would often come to pick things up or drop things off even when he wasn’t home. Besides, his current building projects were just a few miles away from his house, which made it all the more convenient as a storage site.
Still, Ramona hadn’t bought it. Was the grass really Lacy’s, or was it all a big lie on Griffin’s part? Until they found Lacy and talked to him, that question remained unanswered.
Through her open office door, Ramona could hear her team at work. All of them were well into their second shifts, clacking away at keyboards, talking quietly on phones, stapling reports and shuffling papers, compiling information. Before she turned out the lights and called it a day, she would screen every bit of it.
Two narcotics officers, with the assistance of a member of the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force, were working to verify the identities of the users, dealers, and suppliers Griffin had named. Detective Matt Chacon was on the horn calling around to learn more about Greg Lacy’s personal life, business dealings, employees, and friends. Other team members were working up evidence sheets, doing field reports, writing narratives.
Her phone rang and she picked up.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to arrest Griffin on harboring a fugitive charges?” Barry Foyt asked, his voice sputtering with anger.
“Did you really want to let him completely off the hook?” Ramona replied calmly.
“You blindsided me.”
“No, I upheld my sworn duty,” Ramona said.
“Don’t give me that technical bullshit. You were there when I struck the deal with Delgado.”
“Nothing pertaining to dropping any future charges was agreed to, as I recall.”
“I can recommend to the DA that we decline to prosecute.”
“I’m sure Delgado and Griffin would appreciate that,” Ramona said, trying to bite back on the heavy sarcasm without success. “Is there anything else you wish to say to me?”
“Griffin made bail thirty minutes ago.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
Foyt grunted in reply and disconnected.
The phone in Ramona’s hand brought to mind Ellie Lowrey. Earlier, she had left Lowrey a brief voice mail message summarizing the events of the day, particularly the news that Claudia Spalding might have tried to mastermind her husband’s murder with another lover long before Kim Dean took up the gauntlet and actually did it. Surely, that should have sparked Ellie’s interest enough to return her call.
She shrugged Lowrey off for the moment, put the phone down, and turned her attention back to matters at hand, only to be interrupted by Matt Chacon, who swooped into the office waving a piece of paper.
“This came in from Lacy’s credit card company,” he said as he settled into the straight-back office chair. “In the last four years, he’s taken five international trips, one to Haiti, two to Amsterdam, and two to Bangkok, all sex tourist destinations.”
Ramona looked at the faxed report. “Okay, so he likes whores. What else have you learned about him?”
“He’s a bachelor with no current girlfriend,” Matt replied. “Like Griffin, he lives alone and runs his business out of his house. Hires mostly locals and a few Mexicans, pays them decent wages, and has a good credit rating. He has several close friends, but according to Lacy’s foreman, Griffin isn’t one of them. Their relationship is strictly business.”