got the feeling that Bud used me to scare that Ohio guy. You know. Intimidate the tourist so he didn‘t argue too much about the price of gas. I wonder if Bud knowingly did that. Anyway, now he's dead and Scarberry wants to canonize him.‖
―It ain't for us to reason why, my friend. Know what I mean?‖
While Spurlock and Valverde interviewed Nettie that Sunday afternoon, Captain Mat Torrez drove a mile west on the Old Road to Villa de Cubero and rented a room in Wally Gunn‘s Motel. Torrez was a widower who lived with his twenty-year-old daughter, Juanita, —she preferred Nita—whom he'd called and asked to meet him with a change of clothing and his toilet kit. He kissed her on the cheek and sent her back to Albuquerque. Mat loved his daughter and was proud that she'd grown into a beautiful woman. She was headstrong, like her mother, but that deepened his devotion to her. Two things mattered in his life: Nita and the State Police.
He showered, shaved, swallowed three fingers of vodka and drove back to Rice‘s store in Budville. Doc and Vee stood drinking Cokes and comparing notes when Torrez walked in.
―You boys look like hell,‖ the captain observed cheerfully. ―And that‘s nothin‘ compared to the way I feel, Cap,‖ Doc said. ―Tell you what,‖ Torrez said, ―the two of you have done a world
of work in past, what, fifteen, sixteen hours. Maybe too much. You get all that information in your mind and pretty soon it starts to get all mixed up and you can‘t remember who said what about anything. First thing you know, you screw it up. Go home. Both of you. Get some sleep. It‘s eighteen hundred hours now. Be back here at oh six hundred with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. 10-4?‖ ―10-4 Cap.‖ Two notebooks snapped closed in unison and the
agents were out the door and gone, with only a casual salute to the boss. Doc had an eighty mile drive to Gallup and Virgil had about the same to his home in the mountain village of San Antonito, east of Albuquerque. They were both home by nineteen thirty hours.
CHAPTER V
Nearing forty hours without sleep, rookie State Policeman Juan Posey manned a roadblock on Interstate 40 just east of Grants. District Attorney‘s investigator Jim Mitchell was there, too, along with narcotics officer Carlos Gallegos. Posey had parked Troy McGee's State Police car perpendicular to the road—red lights flashing—while Mitchell and Gallegos had positioned their cars across the road facing traffic. Posey‘s headlights illuminated the driver's side of vehicles stopped at the barricade.
Mitchell took a nap in his car and Gallegos stood on the shoulder of the road, a pump shotgun‘s stock resting on his hip, when a light blue 1961 Mercury Comet rolled to a stop at just after 9:00 o‘clock on Sunday night. Posey, after asking a few standard questions, ordered the driver, U. S. Navy petty officer Larry Bunting, out of the car. The official report submitted by Gallegos and Posey read:
Officers immediately noticed that the driver closely resembled the description of the suspect. He was dressed in a black jacket and black pants. Officers also observed passengers in the car to be one indian female and one indian male, wife and brother-in-law of the suspect, and two small indian children. The suspect was extremely nervous and moved in jerky motions while reaching for his wallet and identification. Suspect also talked hesitantly. Officers asked subject to alight from the vehicle, which he did. Subject's identification was taken by Agent C. Gallegos, which was an Armed Services I. D. card and Leave Papers. 10-33 assistance from other officers was requested by C. Gallegos. Subject was subsequently turned over to Lt. M. Candelaria, DA Inv. J. Mitchell and Agent F. Finch who advised the subject of his rights under the new Miranda law and that he was under arrest. Subject taken to Budville by Lt. M. Candelaria for identification purposes by Mrs. Flossie Rice, per orders of
―It ain't for us to reason why, my friend. Know what I mean?‖
While Spurlock and Valverde interviewed Nettie that Sunday afternoon, Captain Mat Torrez drove a mile west on the Old Road to Villa de Cubero and rented a room in Wally Gunn‘s Motel. Torrez was a widower who lived with his twenty-year-old daughter, Juanita, —she preferred Nita—whom he'd called and asked to meet him with a change of clothing and his toilet kit. He kissed her on the cheek and sent her back to Albuquerque. Mat loved his daughter and was proud that she'd grown into a beautiful woman. She was headstrong, like her mother, but that deepened his devotion to her. Two things mattered in his life: Nita and the State Police.
He showered, shaved, swallowed three fingers of vodka and drove back to Rice‘s store in Budville. Doc and Vee stood drinking Cokes and comparing notes when Torrez walked in.
―You boys look like hell,‖ the captain observed cheerfully. ―And that‘s nothin‘ compared to the way I feel, Cap,‖ Doc said. ―Tell you what,‖ Torrez said, ―the two of you have done a world
of work in past, what, fifteen, sixteen hours. Maybe too much. You get all that information in your mind and pretty soon it starts to get all mixed up and you can‘t remember who said what about anything. First thing you know, you screw it up. Go home. Both of you. Get some sleep. It‘s eighteen hundred hours now. Be back here at oh six hundred with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. 10-4?‖ ―10-4 Cap.‖ Two notebooks snapped closed in unison and the
agents were out the door and gone, with only a casual salute to the boss. Doc had an eighty mile drive to Gallup and Virgil had about the same to his home in the mountain village of San Antonito, east of Albuquerque. They were both home by nineteen thirty hours.
CHAPTER V
Nearing forty hours without sleep, rookie State Policeman Juan Posey manned a roadblock on Interstate 40 just east of Grants. District Attorney‘s investigator Jim Mitchell was there, too, along with narcotics officer Carlos Gallegos. Posey had parked Troy McGee's State Police car perpendicular to the road—red lights flashing—while Mitchell and Gallegos had positioned their cars across the road facing traffic. Posey‘s headlights illuminated the driver's side of vehicles stopped at the barricade.
Mitchell took a nap in his car and Gallegos stood on the shoulder of the road, a pump shotgun‘s stock resting on his hip, when a light blue 1961 Mercury Comet rolled to a stop at just after 9:00 o‘clock on Sunday night. Posey, after asking a few standard questions, ordered the driver, U. S. Navy petty officer Larry Bunting, out of the car. The official report submitted by Gallegos and Posey read:
Officers immediately noticed that the driver closely resembled the description of the suspect. He was dressed in a black jacket and black pants. Officers also observed passengers in the car to be one indian female and one indian male, wife and brother-in-law of the suspect, and two small indian children. The suspect was extremely nervous and moved in jerky motions while reaching for his wallet and identification. Suspect also talked hesitantly. Officers asked subject to alight from the vehicle, which he did. Subject's identification was taken by Agent C. Gallegos, which was an Armed Services I. D. card and Leave Papers. 10-33 assistance from other officers was requested by C. Gallegos. Subject was subsequently turned over to Lt. M. Candelaria, DA Inv. J. Mitchell and Agent F. Finch who advised the subject of his rights under the new Miranda law and that he was under arrest. Subject taken to Budville by Lt. M. Candelaria for identification purposes by Mrs. Flossie Rice, per orders of
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