Ground Money (8 page)

“I might.”

The first person Wager saw in the echoing lobby of District One headquarters was Police Reporter Gargan. Wager pretended to be interested in a spot on the wall back by the elevators, but there weren’t many places to hide as he crossed the expanse of brown tile floor, and Gargan called to him, trotting over from the desk sergeant’s counter, a jingle of keys and coins in his pockets.

“Wager—wait a minute. I got some questions for you.”

“I’ve got to be on duty in five minutes, Gargan.”

“Won’t take that long.”

There was something different about the reporter, and it took Wager a couple of seconds to figure it out: no black turtleneck. Because of the heat, he had traded his usual uniform for a short-sleeved shirt open at the neck and bristling at the pocket with an array of ballpoint pens. It left him looking thinner and oddly nude and vulnerable, like seeing your father in his underwear.

“Remember the stabbing the other night? The Indian who got stabbed?”

“I do.”

“What can you tell me about his assailant? Was he an Indian too?”

“That’s what a witness said.”

“Molly White Horse, right? And these two brought a feud down from the reservation, right?”

“I can’t comment on that, Gargan. It’s an ongoing case.”

“Hey, I swear I’m not going to use any names. In fact, this isn’t even a police story—my editor wants me to do a special on Native Americans in Denver. You know: what’s happening to them, how they survive, how they don’t. The sad passing of the old wild west. It’s a big story.”

Wager didn’t give a damn what kind of story Gargan was working on; they had stepped on each other’s toes too often in the past to kiss and make up now. “Talk to Chief Doyle in the morning.”

“I got a deadline, Wager. And it’s a bitch getting in to see Doyle!”

“A reporter’s lot, Gargan, is not a happy one.”

“Jesus H. Christ, a literary allusion from the world’s only surviving Neanderthal. Thanks a lot, Wager. Maybe I can do you a favor sometime.”

The new administration had put out a memo reminding officers of the importance of good public relations, so Wager smiled and said thank you. The elevator closed on what sounded like a nasty word.

Max was already at his desk and shuffling papers when Wager turned in from the hallway that led to the homicide section of Crimes Against Persons. So far this year, each officer had twelve or thirteen folders in the open file to add to or check on or to just stare at and wonder when something else might turn up, something that could provide the legal evidence to nail a known killer or the clue that would point to an unknown one. Some of the files, usually the fattest, had been in the drawer for years, gradually gaining this or that slip of paper, occasionally reassigned from one detective to another as men transferred in and out of the unit. But they were never closed. The statute of limitations on homicides was forever, and these first couple of hours, particularly on the night shift, were usually spent consolidating the letters, reports, and memos that had arrived since the last tour of duty. The detectives placed the new information in the right folder, always with the vague hope that it might click something together; then they made telephone calls to those who had left home phone numbers, or to those other offices open, like this one, every day and every night.

At his desk, Axton yawned, the gap of his mouth half as large as Wager’s head, and rubbed his thumbs into bloodshot eyes.

“You’re off to a good start,” said Wager.

“It’s the Maestas case. I was in court all day.”

“I thought that finished last month.”

“Continuance—psychological evaluation. Now we’re back in session and I’m still the advisory witness.”

It wasn’t unusual for the night shift to be up twenty-four hours; a lot of things couldn’t get taken care of during their official work period when everyone else was asleep. But none of the extra chores was as wearing as sitting in a hot courtroom on a wooden bench and listening to lawyers. “It goes with the territory.”

“Don’t it, though.”

They settled back into the stack of envelopes, routing sheets, and interoffice mailers. On the gray filing cabinet, the radio in its charging unit gave its familiar crackle of the night police business in District Two, one of the most active of the city’s four districts. Occasionally a tone alert broke into Wager’s concentration and he half-listened to the all-channels broadcast. So far they had been for ambulances or fire equipment; as yet no voice had called for Union 6, the designation that had been shifted from Rape to Homicide. The new administration reasoned that victims of sexual assault might be further offended by hearing an officer use “Union 69” to call Detective Nine from the rape team. It was one of those nice touches of public sensitivity that came from new blood in high administrative levels, and that brought a slight smile to Wager’s cheek.

“I’ll be damned.”

Wager looked up at Max, who was reading through the thick packet of an autopsy report.

“You know what Sam Walking Tall died of?”

“Three and a half inches of steel,” said Wager.

“That wasn’t the immediate cause of death.”

“What was?”

“He drowned.”

“He what?”

“The beer. The guy drowned in beer. Molly White Horse poured the beer over him and it went through the hole in his chest into his lungs. He drowned.”

Wager pushed back against the creak of his desk chair. “What the hell? We don’t have a murder charge on Robert Smith?”

“He didn’t murder him. Assault One, maybe. But the public defender’s office will probably go for Assault Two as a misdemeanor—the bartender said Sam and Robert had been picking at each other all night, so they’ll try to show provocation.”

For which the maximum sentence could be two years and a five-thousand-dollar fine. But Robert wouldn’t get that much. With time off for good behavior, he might serve six months in county jail. Moreover, the search for him would lose its intensity with other law enforcement agencies—you kept your eyes open for a murderer, but there were so many assault suspects that it became a matter of luck to catch one. And there was something else: “So now we have to pop Molly for killing him?”

“We can suggest a finding of accidental death.”

“Sure we can. A guy gets stabbed in the chest, dies outside a bar in front of witnesses, and the DA calls it an accident. I can see what Gargan and some of those other assholes will put in the paper. There goes the policy of improving press relations.” Wager’s guess was that the prosecutor would charge Molly with negligent homicide, which was also a class one misdemeanor; but she could end up serving more time than Robert Smith, who had started all this crap.

“Well, the medical fact is that he drowned—old Robert got lucky and Molly didn’t. Sam didn’t have much luck either, come to think of it.” Max yawned again. “But it’s up to the DA to sort out now.” He scribbled a note and clipped it to the file. “It looks like we just solved another homicide, partner, and Assault just got another case.”

Wager should not have been surprised—he’d seen a lot of strange things happen in the continuing attempts to place the flow and chaos of human passions into the rigid boxes of legal definition and punishment. Criminally negligent homicide—the section that would apply to Molly—was defined by the Criminal Code simply as “conduct amounting to criminal negligence,” and that gave the DA a lot of room to act. But it, too, was a box; it excluded Molly’s drunken love for Sam, her intention to wake him up rather than drown the poor bastard, her total ignorance that she had been the one to kill him. All of that could be heard as mitigation for sentencing, but it didn’t fit into the box of guilty or not guilty. She had done it, and they had her statement—which would have to be taken again after reading her the Miranda Warning—and the DA’s policy was to lay the heaviest charge on perpetrators. “I guess we have to pick her up.”

Max nodded and glanced at his watch. “Let’s wait awhile—she’s probably not hitting the bars yet. Besides, she might as well have one more good drunk before we haul her in.”

“Yep.” Law and justice were two different things. Sometimes they worked out together, and a lot of times they didn’t. Wager was a servant of the law—justice was supposed to be found in the courts. He had to remember that. Sighing, he finished filling in an inquiry out of San Diego about any unsolved murders using barbed wire for bondage. Wager had inherited an old case that fit the m.o., and he forwarded copies of pertinent documents and requested San Diego to send what they had. The next slip of paper was a telephone message received at 8:05 a.m.: Please call Tom Sanchez. Very Important, with his ranch telephone number. Wager checked his watch and decided that 10:00 at night was still early enough, but a voice croaky with sleep answered.

“Tom? This is Gabe Wager. I just got your message—sorry to wake you up.”

“Gabe? Hey,
no problema
, man; it’s OK—I’m glad you called. Yeah, I—ah—I went over to see the boys at the Walsenburg rodeo.”

“How’d they do?”

“Aw, fine. They had an open go-round, you know, for non-PRCA members, and damned if James didn’t take first place on the broncs. That boy’s got promise, Gabe. He’s a hell of a lot better than I was, his age.”

“Great. How’d John do?”

“He earned a little bit of money—a couple of fourths. That ain’t bad; he had some real good competition over there. The Mountain Circuit’s a tough circuit, and ain’t none of them easy.”

“That’s good to hear, Tommy.” Wager waited, wondering if this was the reason for the Very Important noted on the message.

“Listen, Gabe, why I wanted to talk with you … ah, what I asked you about, you remember?”

“Sure. But I haven’t run across anything new yet.”

“I see. Any idea how long it’s gonna take to find out if there is anything?”

“It just takes time, Tommy. Why?”

“Well, I told them I’d come out and visit the ranch in a week or two. I sort of invited myself out, but they said OK. But I thought if you knew something I could talk to them about—you know, show them that I’m interested and all …”

“Have you said anything about it?”

“No, not yet. Hell’s bells, it was enough just saying hello after all this time. But it went well. I mean, they really were glad to see their old man. So I figured I’d go out and visit the ranch. Look around and see what kind of setup Johnny’s got for him and Jimmy.”

“That sounds fine, Tom. Go ahead and do it.”

“Right, I am. It’s just that maybe there’s something about the ranch—maybe you could find out if there’s some information there, you know?”

“All right, Tom. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks, Gabe. And I just wanted to let you know that things look pretty good with me and the boys.”

“I’m glad to hear that. And if anything comes up on Jerry Latta, I’ll let you know.”

“Right—yeah—I forgot all about him. OK, Gabe. Thanks again.”

Wager hung up and wondered briefly if Tom’s sons really had been that pleased to see their father. Tom himself seemed too eager to convince both of them it was so. But that part of the problem wasn’t his, and in fact, if he had been Tom, he’d simply hire a lawyer from Ute County to go through public records and see what turned up about the ranch. But he wasn’t Tommy, and the man probably didn’t have that kind of money, anyway. That’s why he had come to Wager. That, and the deep-seated feeling that if you had to deal with the law, it was best to seek out a cop who was a friend because there were a lot of them who weren’t. He took a mouthful of coffee and dialed the WATS operator and told her what number he wanted.

“Ute County Sheriff”s Office, Deputy Schrantz speaking.”

“This is Detective Sergeant Wager, Denver Police. I’m trying to get some information about some people who live out your way.”

“What kind of information, Sergeant Wager?”

“Any kind of contacts you’ve had with them. It’s a problem of witness credibility.”

It wasn’t an unfamiliar request. “Who’re you asking about?”

“Sanchez.” Wager spelled it. “John or James.”

“Got a Herman Sanchez who gets drunk and gives us some trouble now and then. Runs sheep up on the Uncompahgre.”

“These two work on the T Bar M ranch.”

The line was silent. “That’s over near the Dolores, isn’t it? In Old Woman Canyon?”

“I don’t know.”

“I haven’t heard anything about them. What’ve you heard?”

“It’s something that came up in an investigation. I’m just making a routine check.”

“What kind of investigation? What are they supposed to be doing?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Deputy Schrantz.”

“Well, now, Sergeant Wager—this here’s our jurisdiction. If you got some kind of information bearing on our jurisdiction, we’d appreciate knowing about it.”

“The names came up in relation to an occurrence here in Denver, Deputy. The men aren’t suspects, and this is just a routine inquiry.”

“Uh huh. Well, as far as I know neither one of them’s in any criminal activity of any kind. You want me to investigate further, Sergeant?”

“No thanks.”

Wager had lived up to his promise, and that was enough.

He hung up and finished his coffee and turned back to the paperwork that was his official worry.

“You ready to go arrest that vicious killer, Gabe?”

“Let’s do it—let’s get out of here.” He stretched and lifted his coat off the hanger. “Denver will sleep safer tonight.”

W
AGER HAD JUST
finished shaving and washing down a Marine Corps omelet with half a pitcher of orange juice and was checking the contents of his gym bag before his afternoon workout when the telephone rang. He flicked off the answering machine and said, “Hello.”

“Gabe? This is Tom. Listen, can I see you right away,
amigo
? I’m in town, but I won’t be here too long.” An urgency made his voice tense.

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Same place as last time? That’s where I am now. Thanks, Gabe.”

Wager found him sitting behind a glass of beer near the doorway of the almost empty bar. Tom stretched the crease of his mouth into a smile. “Sorry to keep pestering you, Gabe. I know you got a hell of a lot better things to do than mess around with me.”