The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [43]
Seeing Hannah out of bed so late at night worried Clayton; she was usually a sound sleeper.
“It’s just a cold and a small cough,” Grace said when she returned.
Clayton nodded and sank into the recliner.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in days,” Grace said, turning on a table lamp.
“The ways things are going, it probably would’ve been better if I had just stayed home,” Clayton said.
“Problems?”
“Mistakes,” Clayton replied. “Too many of them, and all mine.”
He told her about Tredwell’s threat to sue him for the false arrest of Harry Staggs. “Paul Hewitt even went so far as to say he thought Tredwell could probably win the suit,” he added.
“Was that the extent of his comments?” Grace asked, as she sat on Clayton’s lap and pulled his arm around her waist.
“Yeah.”
“That doesn’t sound like very harsh criticism.”
“Maybe not, but I bet he has second thoughts about hiring me.”
“Now you’re jumping to a conclusion.”
“Not only did he pull me out of the fire with Tredwell, but he showed me a thing or two about interrogating a witness. Hewitt’s sharp.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Grace said, looking into his tired eyes.
Hannah started coughing before Clayton could respond. Grace got up quickly, checked on Hannah for a few minutes, and returned to find Clayton with his boots pulled off, fast asleep in the recliner.
She covered him with a blanket, turned out the light, and went to bed, fretting about her husband. He seemed so down lately, which wasn’t like him at all.
Chapter 6
Homicides in Lincoln County were rare, so when Paul Hewitt arrived early at his office he fully expected major print coverage about the Ulibarri case. But he wasn’t prepared to have it be front page news in the morning papers from El Paso to Albuquerque, Las Cruces to Roswell. Headlines read:
MURDER SUSPECT KILLED
TOP COPS QUARREL IN LINCOLN COUNTY
ILLEGAL GAMBLING DEN UNCOVERED IN RUIDOSO
SUSPECTED KILLER SLAIN AT ILLICIT POKER PARLOR
RUIDOSO SWAT TEAM FINDS MURDERED FUGITIVE
GAMBLING DEN OPERATOR GOES FREE
There were sidebar articles about the Anna Marie Montoya and Joseph John Humphrey cases, and a story that summarized Ruidoso’s well-deserved reputation during the Prohibition era as a wide-open boot-legging, speakeasy, and gambling town.
Although the quotes were anonymous, Hewitt figured the leak about Harry Staggs and his decision to keep the city cops out of the investigation came from the Ruidoso police chief. The man had been privately denigrating the sheriff’s department for years, and resented Hewitt’s role as the county’s chief law-enforcement officer.
Fuming, he closed his office door, turned on a small portable television, and surfed the network channels for the early morning local newsbreaks. All of them featured the story at the top of the telecast, with video of the cabin where Ulibarri had been killed.
Tredwell called, pissed and wanting an explanation about how the story hit the papers. Hewitt told Tredwell he didn’t control the news media and to direct his outrage at the Ruidoso police chief. The district attorney called, pissed and wanting a meeting so Hewitt could explain why he’d cut a deal with a felony suspect’s attorney on his own authority.
Two county commissioners called to tell Hewitt the Ruidoso mayor was talking about asking for a grand jury probe of the sheriff’s department. Reporters called wanting interviews. Hewitt put them off.
The only good news was Artie Gundersen’s telephone report that the bloodstain on Ulibarri’s boot, which Clayton had fished out of the dumpster behind the western-wear store, was a match to Humphrey’s, as were the traces of blood on the knife found in cabin three. Additionally, Ulibarri’s latents were all over the blade handle, and the murder weapon conformed nicely to the entry wound in Humphrey’s chest.
Hewitt called the reporters back and issued a statement: forensic analysis of the evidence gathered by lead investigator Deputy Clayton Istee and state police crime