The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [40]
“Have you ever been to this private place where Jackson’s girls entertain special clients?”
“Nope, that’s way out of my class.”
“What do you know about it?” Hewitt asked.
“Just that it’s like a swanky mountain resort or lodge somewhere in the area. Very secluded. Look, Ulibarri’s winnings would be like chump change to Jackson. He’d have no reason to kill him.”
“Tell me about these special clients he entertains.”
“Rich guys, guys with important jobs, guys in the public eye, guys looking for a little fun away from the wife, where they won’t be recognized,” Staggs said with a furtive glance at the door, as if he were expecting thugs to bust in and break his legs.
“Do you know any of these rich guys?” Hewitt asked.
Staggs snorted in reply, puffed, and blew smoke through his nose. “Those kind of people don’t socialize with me.”
Hewitt stopped the recorder and pushed himself out of the chair. “Okay, we’ll take a short break.” He looked down at Staggs speculatively. “Why are you scared of Jackson?”
Staggs bit his lip. “Who says I’m scared?”
Outside, Sergeant Quinones showed Hewitt and Clayton a bagged-and-tagged plastic bottle of prescription pain killers with Humphrey’s name typed on the pharmacy label. The prescription had been filled two days before Humphrey’s murder.
“This was in Ulibarri’s shirt pocket,” Quinones said.
Clayton almost smiled. The bottle was the best possible kind of evidence: it linked killer to victim. Instead, he nodded. “Did you and Dillingham get anything from your interviews?”
“Yeah,” Quinones answered. “Now we’re going to check the stories out.”
Kerney’s ten-minute appointment with his orthopedic surgeon lasted half an hour. After examining his knee, asking a lot of questions about his exercise regime, and making Kerney hop, squat, and duck-walk, the doctor announced that the plastic that served as cartilage in the artificial joint had most likely failed, causing increased muscle pain and Kerney’s pronounced limp. He gave Kerney a script to make an appointment for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging test, known as an MRI, to confirm the diagnosis, and then showed him the model of a new, FDA-approved, longer-lasting artificial knee that would give him greater flexibility.
It would mean another surgery to implant the artificial joint, and another round of postoperative physical therapy and rehabilitation. But it would mean no more pain, no more limp, and greater mobility.
The only question in Kerney’s mind was when to do it, before or after the baby arrived? Before might be better, if he had any reasonable expectation of ever playing on the floor with his child.
The doctor strongly suggested that Kerney take up swimming in lieu of jogging, which would lessen damage to the plastic that served to cushion movement of the steel implant. He wasn’t much of a water person. His swimming experiences consisted of hot-weather dips in stock tanks when he was a kid growing up on a ranch, and occasional teenage forays in swimming pools where he could splash around safely without publicly embarrassing himself.
On a weekend outing, Sara had coaxed him into a hotel pool and then laughed and teased him after he’d awkwardly plowed his way through two short laps. She swam fluidly, dove gracefully, floated effortlessly, and loved the water. Perhaps he should call the architect and tell him to add plans for a swimming pool in the courtyard area behind the house.
He resisted the idea. In the high deserts of New Mexico, which included Santa Fe, water was a precious commodity. As a boy growing up in the arid Tularosa Basin, he’d watched his father constantly worry about drought, and had worked by his side replacing buried pipelines, rebuilding catchment basins, and mending windmills to insure the stock stayed watered. The idea of using thousands of gallons of water a year for a swimming pool went against the grain.
Kerney switched mental gears. The doctor had told him a new knee could wear out just as quickly if he kept jogging on it, and that