Apache Country (5 page)

Imposing rather than beautiful, the Baca
County Courthouse was a big, traditional domed stone building
erected on land where the first mercantile establishment had stood
back in the 1870s. It was a product of the days when they built
public buildings with massive marble pillars and inlaid stone
floors and Phantom of the Opera chandeliers, physical
representations of the solidity and power of local government. He
was kind of fond of the old place; it was like the large lady in
the Marx Brothers movies, simultaneously majestic and absurd.

Somehow the rabbit’s warren of modern offices
inside the building with their partitioned workstations always
struck Easton as anachronistic. In such surroundings you felt
people should be using steel-nib pens and foolscap parchment
instead of computers and laser printers. Right now the place was as
silent as a tomb. Only the spiders worked this late.

He went down the wide, ornately-balustraded
stone stairway to the basement and then along a featureless
corridor that led to the jail complex beneath the northeast corner
of the Courthouse. Capable in its heyday of holding two hundred
prisoners, CDC – officially the County Detention Center, but better
known as El Hueco, the Hole, or maybe The Emptiness, a name
Hispanic prisoners had long ago given it – was now used only as a
drunk tank on Saturdays or for holding overflow when the district
court was in session. Longer term custodies were housed in a new
state-of-the-art County Jail south of town. In spite of its looking
like something put together by a deranged Sim City nerd, the new
jail was one of the most sophisticated facilities in the Southwest,
its inmates enjoying conditions and food as good as anything
available at the best downtown motels.

Here at CDC things were less refined – no
digital locks with daily security number changes, no hi-tech
surveillance systems, just a pushbutton pad which Easton utilized
to gain entrance. He checked in with duty Receiving Officer Patti
Lafferty, whose job it was to process arrestees in and out. A
well-built blonde in her mid-thirties, Patti looked more like a
high-school tennis coach than someone whose job it was to pat down
killers, rapists and all the other varieties of garbage the system
washed her way. Looks were deceptive; Easton knew for a fact that
Patti worked out regularly at the Riverside Spa. He’d seen her
pacify and cuff fractious custodies twice her size.

“This guy Ironheel say anything when you
checked him in?” he asked her. She shook her head.

“Funny, though,” she said. “When I first see
him, I’m like, what is this guy on? He’s got these big dark eyes,
and they’re like, gone, empty, y’know what I’m sayin’? I mean, like
his body is here, but the rest of him is, y’know ... out of it.
Eerie, man.”

“He test clean for drugs?”

“As a whistle.”

“They still in the interview room?”

“Ahuh.”

The interview room was in the angle of the
L-shaped corridor. Jack Irving answered the buzzer and Easton went
in. The room was only slightly less bare than the cells all around
it. A solid square wooden table fixed to the floor by steel
brackets, four wooden chairs likewise, a single overhead light
protected by a shatterproof plastic dome, and a shelf for the
timing clock, everything screwed down so nobody could use them as
an offensive weapon. Up in one ceiling angle, the unblinking eye of
a CCTV camera recorded everything that was said and done. These
days law enforcement worked on the belt-and-suspenders principle.
Easton nodded hello to Tom Cochrane as the door clanged shut behind
him. “Eight forty-two,” Cochrane intoned for the taped record.
“Chief Deputy David Easton entered.”

Ironheel sat facing the two detectives, his
head down. He had on the mandatory orange jump suit and felt
moccasins issued to all prisoners; his hands were free but his
ankles were chained. As Easton came in he looked up. The overhead
dome light put shadows beneath his eyes and cheekbones that made
his face look like it was chiseled from stone. He was about the
same height as Easton, but heavy-set, with sloping, powerful
shoulders and straight black hair that fell forward over his face.
He had strong, well-defined features, a wide mouth, good teeth, and
dark eyes in which Easton could detect no trace of apprehension. He
regarded Easton expressionlessly.

“Your arraignment is scheduled for Monday
morning,” Easton said. “You understand what that is?”

Ironheel turned his gaze away and said
nothing. It was like he wasn’t interested. Easton looked a question
at Cochrane.

“Just the basics,” Cochrane said wearily.

“Nothing else?”

“The prisoner is exercising his rights,” Jack
Irving said. “He refuses to answer any questions.”

“Well, well,” Easton said.

He tapped Irving on the shoulder. The
detective relinquished his chair and stood leaning against the
wall. Easton sat down facing Ironheel.

“As you heard, my name is David Easton,” he
told him. “Chief Deputy, Sheriff’s Office. Couple of things I’d
like to ask you.”

Ironheel remained silent.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Easton said
imperturbably. “Where you from, Mr. Ironheel? Where on the
reservation?”

“Already told them all this.” A jerk of the
head at ‘them.’

“Humor me.”

He shrugged. “Whitetail Canyon. Southeast of
Rio Alto.”

“You live alone?”

“Stay on my sister’s place.”

“She know you’re in here?”

He shook his head and looked away.
Interesting. Some conflict there, Easton thought, making a mental
note.

“Something’s been puzzling me, Mr. Ironheel.
Like you to clear it up for me,” he said.

Ironheel shook his head stolidly. “N’zhoo.
Already told these other guys. No more questions.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a cop, right?”

“Don’t like cops, huh?” Easton said.

“Who does?”

The contempt was open and defiant. Like a
challenge. Easton felt his hackles rising, and it put an edge on
his voice.

“You want hostile, I can do that.”

Ironheel looked at the wall.

“You were picked up walking on Highway 286.
Don’t you own a car?”

“You’re a detective, work it out,” he said
without turning his head.

“I’ll take that as a negative,” Easton said,
cooling it down, determined not to let the prisoner’s attitude get
to him. “How did you get down here from the reservation?”

Ironheel made a fist, raised a thumb. “Some
trucker.”

“Some trucker gave you a ride?”

No answer. Take it or leave it.

“You remember his name? Or the name of the
trucking firm?”

Silence.

“Okay, you got a ride to Riverside. Then
what?”

Ironheel shrugged. “The guy was delivering at
K-Mart. There was a McDonalds. Got a cheeseburger, started
walking.”

At least they had him talking again, Easton
thought. If his odd, chopped-off responses could be called talking.
Was there some reason he avoided using the first person? Was that
an Apache thing?

“What time was this?” he said. “When he
dropped you off?”

“Noon, maybe.”

Easton glanced at Jack Irving, who nodded
imperceptibly. That meant they already had a trace out on the
trucker who had given Ironheel his ride. K-Mart would have a record
of all the deliveries that had been made that day and who had made
them.

“And when you left town?”

“Say two-thirty.”

“We already checked with McDonalds,” Irving
interposed. “He was there when he says he was.”

“I understand you were going to Vaughn,”
Easton said.

Ironheel nodded.

“You can’t go on just nodding or shaking your
head, Mr. Ironheel,” Easton told him. “You need to answer yes or
no. For the tape.”

“Yeah?” he said. The hell I do.

“Let’s talk about the billfold,” Easton
said.

Ironheel turned his head to stare at the
wall. His face was about as responsive as a block of granite.

“He claims he found it in the brush,”
Cochrane said, putting scorn into his voice. “Beside the road.”

Easton picked up on his lead. “What color is
it?”

“Black,” Cochrane said, picking up the tempo.
Both of them knew where they were going. They had worked together a
long time.

“Be difficult to see,” Easton observed. “Sun
low down. A black billfold lying in shadow.”

Ironheel pointed to his right eye with his
right forefinger. “Apache got eye like eagle, white man,” he said,
hamming contemptuously. “Track bird flying, fish swimming.
Ugh!”

“Cut the comedy, Ironheel,” Cochrane rasped.
“This isn’t funny.”

He shrugged and looked away. Sue me.

“Where did you find it? Were you near a sign?
A mile marker?”

No comment.

“Casey’s wife says he had over two hundred
dollars in that billfold,” Easton said.

Again he thought he saw a flicker in
Ironheel’s eyes, as though he had been about to contradict him then
thought better of it, but it was gone before he could be sure.

“What did you do with the money, Chief?” Jack
Irving said.

Ironheel shook his head again. “No
comment.”

“Here’s the thing,” Easton said. “Our
criminalists found gypsum dust and prickly pear thorns on your
jeans. No way you could have picked those up on the road.”

Ironheel looked into Easton’s eyes for a long
moment. Like he was trying to tell him something without speaking,
Easton thought. But what? And why?

“Tell us about the blood,” Cochrane said.
“How did you get blood on your clothes? Under your
fingernails?”

“No comment.”

“What about your shoes?” Jack Irving chimed
in. “Come on, Chief, are you telling us you trod on the billfold as
well?”

“No comment,” he said doggedly. “I got the
right to remain silent.”

“That’s true,” Easton said, keeping his voice
mild, his manner almost helpful. He was the nice guy. The other two
were the heavies. It was an old, old scenario but more often than
not it was effective. “But if you do, it’s going to make us think
you’ve got something to hide.”

“That it, Chief?” Tom said. “Something you
know about all this you’d rather we don’t find out?”

Ironheel turned his head away again but not
before Easton saw that same strange look in his eyes. He sighed and
started over.

“Okay, let’s take it from the top,” he said.
“Where did you find the billfold?”

“Aal bengonyáá!” Ironheel rasped in Apache.
“It’s over.”

“You wish,” Cochrane said.

They did the whole thing again. An hour
dragged past, two hours. Again and again the same questions. Over
and over Ironheel stubbornly refusing to say anything more than the
same two words. No comment, no comment. Easton’s throat was
beginning to feel as if someone had taken a metal rasp to it and
his clothes felt sweaty and itchy. Time to end this, he
thought.

“Okay, enough,” he said. “Listen up,
Ironheel. I’m going to make you an offer and it’s the only one
you’re going to get. You cooperate with us, tell us what we want to
know, we’ll do what we can for you in the prosecution process.
Stick to this ‘no comment’ routine and I’ll personally see to it
that every charge is processed separately. You understand? That’s
two murders, armed robbery, resisting arrest, vehicular larceny and
anything else I can think of.”

Cochrane and Irving knew what he was doing.
There is a point in interrogations where you have to break the
circle. This was it.

“This goes down, you’re looking at two
consecutive life sentences, Ironheel,” Easton said, leaning forward
until their faces were only inches apart. “You’ll be an old man by
the time you get out.”

“You hear him, Chief?” Jack Irving said
harshly, going into full Hostile Cop mode. “Time to piss or get off
it. Quit jerking us around.”

“Come on, Ironheel,” Easton said, still Mr.
Reasonable. “Help us, then maybe we can help you.”

Ironheel remained silent.

“What did you do with the gun, Chief?” Jack
rasped.

“What did you do with the knife?” Cochrane
followed up. Ironheel shook his head like a taunted bull.

“Talk to us, Ironheel. Give us some answers,”
Easton said.

“Dah,” Ironheel said, staring sullenly at the
floor. “Negative. No comment.”

“We’ve got you, Chief,” Jack said, Hostile
Cop pressing hard now. “And you know it. We’ve got you at the
scene, we’ve got you with the billfold, we’ve got you with the
blood. Do yourself a favor, tell us the truth.”

Ironheel looked at Easton again. There was
anger in the dark eyes now and, Easton thought, a kind of
desperation.

“Doo nt’é da!” he said, his voice rising, his
face sullen and hostile. “Nothing more!”

This was going nowhere, Easton thought. He
gave it a final shot.

“Last call, Ironheel,” he said. “Talk, or
take your chances with the judge.”

“Wouldn’t make any difference if I did!”
Ironheel burst out, his voice bitter. “You already got your minds
made up.”

“Tell me something I want to hear,” Easton
said, softly. “And I promise I’ll listen.”

Ironheel’s head came up very slowly and again
Easton thought he saw something in the dark eyes– could it have
been entreaty? – but again the Apache turned away before Easton
could be sure he’d seen it. Again he softened his voice.

“Anything?”

Ironheel looked at Irving and Cochrane and
then looked away.

“That’s it then,” Easton said, and stood up.
“You got till tomorrow to change your mind.”

Jack Irving recorded the time and switched
off the recording machine. They buzzed Patti to let them out and
then walked Ironheel back to his cell where Patti locked him in. As
the cage clanged shut he looked at Easton again and this time the
message in the dark eyes came through loud and clear: help me.