The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [51]
Ramona wanted to jump into her clothes, but held back. She put a hand on her hip. “We’re done?”
“Yeah,” Deacon said.
“How did I do?”
“Okay,” Deacon replied, walking toward a darkroom in a corner of the studio. “You’ve got a tight little body. But you gotta learn to relax. You’ll get used to it. I’ll have the proof sheets ready in a few.”
Ramona dressed and looked around the studio. A long table held a dozen or so neatly arranged manila folders. She flipped through them and found eight-by-ten glossies of young women, some rather so-so looking, dressed in trendy western-wear outfits—lots of fringe leather jackets, long skirts or designer jeans, Indian jewelry, and custom cowboy boots.
There was a folder featuring Sally, the girl with the bruises. Buxom, blond, tall, and unbattered, she was the most striking model in the group. Her photographs were exterior shots, taken on a patio of what appeared to be either a resort or an expensive private residence. The patio had a Santa Fe feel to it, although the pictures could’ve been taken at any number of locations throughout the Southwest.
She heard the darkroom door open, turned to see Deacon, and smiled charmingly at him. “These are wonderful photographs. You’re very talented. I hope you don’t mind my looking at them.”
“That’s cool,” Deacon said.
“Are they recent?” Ramona asked, placing Sally’s folder on the table.
“Yeah, I shot them several days ago.”
“Where?”
“Down at the lodge on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.”
Ramona nodded. “It’s so beautiful down there.”
“Yeah,” Deacon said, handing her a manila envelope. “Here you go. Take these to Cassie. You owe me a hundred bucks.”
Ramona paid Deacon with five twenties. “Thanks for doing this on such short notice,” she said.
“Yeah,” Deacon said as he stuffed the bills in his pocket and opened the studio door. “Later.”
Before returning to the Bedlow Modeling and Talent Agency, Detective Piño ran the plates on Sally’s car and the full-size van that had been parked in front of Deacon’s house. The car was registered to Sally Greer and the van to Thomas Deacon.
Piño drove by Sally’s place of residence, which turned out to be an apartment complex in the northeast heights. A “Now Renting” banner hanging from the roof of the building fronting the street advertised move-in special rates with a phone number to call.
She dialed up the leasing agent, who gave her a pitch on the special rates and the available amenities, and some information about the tenants. Most were young professionals, consisting of a mix of single persons with roommates, and married couples without children.
Characterizing herself as a single woman planning to live alone, she asked about safety and security, and was told that the tenants were quiet and peaceful.
Piño swung by the nearest city police district office and found no record of recent domestic disturbance calls at Sally Greer’s apartment. In fact, according to the patrol supervisor on duty, there had been no problems or crimes reported at the apartment complex in the six months it had been open.
She ran Greer and Deacon through the APD computer system and got no hits on wants, warrants, outstanding traffic violations, or prior arrests.
A few minutes past the lunch hour, Piño arrived at the Bedlow Modeling and Talent Agency to find it locked up tight. She hung around for a half hour and then blew it off. She’d done all that Lieutenant Molina had asked. She decided to go back to Santa Fe, report in, and let the brass decide if they wanted her to take the investigation any farther.
Chapter 7
The regional airport sat on a mesa outside of Ruidoso a few miles northeast of Fort Stanton, an old army fort. As a child, Clayton had toured the fort with his uncles, to see the place the white eyes had built to wage war against the Mescaleros and confine them to the reservation.
Opened in the 1850s and decommissioned as a military installation just before the turn of the twentieth century, the fort had subsequently become