We tried to sweat Baker and Calhoun but they’d been coached. They stood mute, refused to answer any questions without their lawyer, admitting nothing. The lawyer was a skinny fellow from Phoenix who drove up in an air-conditioned Corvette. He wore a sharkskin suit and aviator sunglasses. His name was William Farquhart and he had a white toothy smile —“Just call me Bill”— and I loathed him on sight.
We were obliged by the rules of disclosure to give him the outlines of our case; we had to tell him we had an eyewitness and we had to tell him the substance of the witness’ testimony. Before the trial we would have to show him a transcript of Larry’s formal statement, at which time we knew the lid would blow off because the bad guys would know the identity of our witness and they would also know we had a positive make on the car driven by the two killers: Ron Owens’ Cadillac.
We forestalled the latter problem by impounding Owens’ car on a bench warrant but this only alerted Owens & Company to their jeopardy and within 24 hours lawyer Farquhart had been reinforced by the importation of three powerhouse lawyers from Tucson and Phoenix.
And later that day Larry Stowe came into my office, scared white. “I got to talk to you. They want me to change my story.”
He’d never seen the two men before. They’d hustled him into the back seat of their car. “It was a two-tone green ’73 Chevy Suburban.” They told him to shut up and just listen.
“This guy says in the first place they’ve got five respectable witnesses to testify Bud and Sammy was over to the Sonoita rodeo grounds that morning, so they couldn’t possibly of been up here beatin’ Keam to death with a rock. Then they told me they got a witness who’ll swear he seen me throw something over the fence behind Tooner’s Bar, and this witness went and picked it up and it turned out to be Ream’s wallet.”
“They told me I’d be accused of the murder myself unless I change my testimony and say it was too dark to see the two guys that killed Keam. They say if I don’t identify Bud and Sammy in court they’ll leave me alone.”
“Thanks for coming forward, Larry. You’ve got guts.”
I said to Fete Kyber, “It’s dismally effective. At least we can see the defense tactics now. They intend to make it look as if Larry killed Keam himself — to rob him — and then tried to shift the blame onto the two cowboys.”
“It’s possible that’s what actually happened, Mike.”
“No. I know the kid. Larry’s got a feeble imagination. He could never have dreamed up that story and kept to it so faithfully. He’s not a killer — he never even goes hunting with the other kids — and I don’t believe he’s ever stolen anything in his life.”
“Dumb but honest,” the Sheriff said. “But we’re still in a bind here. If they produce a gang of witnesses to impeach his testimony, we won’t get a conviction. Reasonable doubt.”
I said, “I’m disinclined to let them get away with murder, Pete.”
“Sure, but I don’t know what we can do about it.”
I got up to leave. “Two can play at dirty pool, you know.”
“Larry, if you took that wallet off the body after they killed him, you’d better tell me now.”
“No, sir. I’d admit it if I’d done it. I didn’t do that.”
“All right.”
Bill Farquhart, the oily lawyer, agreed happily to a private meeting with me. Of course he expected me to offer a deal and I didn’t disabuse him of that misapprehension until we met over a lunch table in a poorly lit booth in Corddry’s Steak House.
Farquhart’s dark hair fluffed around his ears Hollywood style; in the sharkskin suit he was all points and sharp angles. But he was reputed to be a splendidly effective courtroom lawyer.
He ordered a dry martini and talked about the hot drought but I cut him off because I hadn’t the patience for small talk. I said, “Ron Owens thinks he’s got this thing framed up perfectly, doesn’t he? Let’s not waste each other’s time — we both understand the situation.”
“I guess we do, Mr. Valdez. Defense wins, prosecution loses. That’s the score.” He laughed gently at me, very sure of himself.
I said, “As far as I’m concerned you’re an errand boy for Ron Owens. I’ve got a message for you to carry back to him. You just listen to it and carry it to him. Understood?”
He gave me a pitying look. “Valdez, I don’t take that kind of talk from two-bit Mexican civil servants.”
That elicited my hard smile. “I’m the elected prosecuting attorney of Ocotillo County, Mr. Farquhart. As for the other, I’m not Mexican, I’m American. It’s my country here, not yours. My ancestors were right here in this county while yours were still burning witches in Scotland. But the key point on the table right now is this. I’m the County Attorney in a county where Ron Owens has eighty-three percent of his assets tied up. Does that suggest anything to you?”
He smiled slowly; he thought he understood. “Okay,” he said, “what’s the deal?”
“This time I’ll settle for Baker and Calhoun. I want their heads in a basket. And I want Ron Owens out of this county, lock, stock, and barrel. Right out.”
“I guess you know better, really.”
“No. I’ll tell you something, this isn’t Phoenix where everybody’s got his hand out for graft and things are big enough to provide anonymity for men like Ron Owens. You’re in a small town now and we tend to be unimpressed by Sy Devore suits and Hollywood sunglasses and Corvettes and big-city methods of extortion and intimidation. You don’t realize it but these are tough people out here. They have to be, to survive in this desert. They chew up clowns like Ron Owens and spit them out.”
His eyes were hooded; he feigned boredom. “What’s the message, Mr. Valdez? I’m getting tired of this small-town boosterism.”
“You’ve listed six defense witnesses who may be called during the trial to impeach Larry Stowe’s testimony and to alibi the defendants. Of course you won’t bother to call those six witnesses if Larry fails to identify Baker and Calhoun, correct?”
“You’re doing the talking.”
“Here’s the message, counselor. Commit it and pass it on. One. Larry Stowe is under police protection. You won’t find him until he appears in court, so you may as well forget any further attempts to threaten him or assault him. Two—”
“Are you accusing me of—?”
“Shut up. Larry will testify to what he saw — the deliberate and unprovoked murder of Philip Keam.”
“Three: you will fail to call the six perjuring witnesses. The trial will take its course on the basis of the truth, and we’ll take our chances on getting an honest conviction.”
“Four: should you or Ron Owens disregard my warning, and should you bring forward your six witnesses to give false testimony, then certain things will begin to happen in this county. Ron Owens will find himself up to here in property-tax auditors and land reappraisals. He will find every application for a building permit held up for months, perhaps years. He will find his heavy construction equipment impounded by the County for violations of safety and pollution regulations. He will find his car ticketed incessantly for violations of vehicular codes, and he’ll find his home, his office and other real property cited for every conceivable violation of the building codes. He will find himself and his executives subjected to an endless barrage of bureaucratic foul-ups, lost applications, misplaced documents — a nightmare of red tape, a systematic campaign of official harassment that will bring all his businesses to a total standstill and result in the across-the-board bankruptcy of every enterprise controlled by Ron Baylor Owens.”
“And one more thing,” I added in the same quiet voice. “It’s conceivable that some fatal accident just might happen to befall me if I began to put such a campaign into action. You and Owens should be aware that this is a rural county and that my family is one of the oldest here. We’ve known one another for generations around here. Some of these old boys — friends of mine, I play poker and hunt deer with them — some of these gents can shoot a flea off a coon-dog’s ear at six hundred yards. They’re not above settling their grievances in the old-fashioned frontier manner. I’d like you and Owens to understand that if anything happens to me, it happens to Owens. I doubt it’s much fun spending the hours wondering when to expect the bullet out of the darkness.”