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Deputy Colton Keenan was still being quite careful.-He knew from his own experience that conversations could be overheard.-“Is the bird still in the cage?”-That was the code they had decided on.-With the answer in the affirmative, he knew Lester Finkley was still in intensive care.-“And is the broken leg still healing?”-That answer, also in the affirmative, indicated that the same individual was still improving.
The extensive search for evidence following the shooting of Finkley had produced some shell casings and some cigarette butts from an area on top of a nearby building.-They had traced those shell casings to a local dealer and could hopefully identify who had purchased them fairly soon.-The cigarette butts had been sent to the state crime lab in Austin to be tested for DNA.-That could take two or three weeks but if the DNA profile they pulled from the cigarettes came from someone who was in the database, they would know who their shooter had been.-That still wouldn’t tell them who was behind the whole thing but they might be able to apply a little pressure and get some answers.-The charge against him would be attempted murder since the victim was still alive.
Actually, the ex-sheriff, whom almost everyone in town believed was dead, was in considerable pain and was close to wishing he was dead.-His own admissions on tape were absolute proof of his involvement in the protection of the smuggling operation and that he had been receiving regular pay-offs for keeping his office from interfering in that illegal enterprise.-He lay in bed and tried to determine through the dense fog of pain and painkillers whether his best interests lay in disclosing the identity of the big boss or in holding out for a better deal on his own situation.-He tried unsuccessfully to weigh the pros and cons of the different alternatives.-He was pretty sure there was no point in hoping for help from his erstwhile partners in crime.-He had thought the first shots fired when he had been arrested were aimed in his defense.-However, there was little doubt that the last bullets were meant to silence him and that did not speak well as to help from ‘friends in high places.’
It was also evident that their attempts had also lacked very little being successful as was evidenced by the bulk of bandages on his head and the cast on his left arm.-He couldn’t remember the name of the man who sat in a chair near his bed, but he knew he had something to do with law enforcement.-He wondered idly if there would be any way to bribe the man into helping him escape.-Had he known Bernie Tavalerio even a shade better he would never even have entertained the smidgeon of an idea of trying that with him.-Bernie had been in law enforcement for a little over fifteen years. He had followed in his father’s footsteps.-His father had been on the force twenty-three years when a bullet from the gun of a crooked cop had ended his career and his life. Bernie had thought about joining the Internal Affairs unit to try to help weed out the few bad seeds that every profession was plagued with but then decided not to.-Bernie had applied to the detective division for a transfer to that department because it was in that direction that his primary interests lay.-And he believed that his instincts and reasoning capabilities would be best used in that venue.-However, his captain preferred to keep him where he was and flat out refused his request for a transfer.
So he had gotten his license and hung out his shingle as a private investigator.-He had been pretty successful, too, if he did say so himself.-He had saved up a nice hunk of change for retirement as a result of several lucrative cases he had closed during his three year practice in Owensboro.-Now, however, he found himself in Dallas, deputized as a federal Drug Enforcement Agent and given the task of guarding, of all things, a crooked cop.-No, he would not have looked kindly on the offer of a bribe from the ex-sheriff.- Not at all, at all.
Deputy Keenan had been working double shifts and racking his brain through restless and sleepless nights to try to discover the identity of the man the ex-sheriff had answered to and received pay-offs from.-Of course, the full responsibility of making this determination was left to him because they didn’t want anyone else to know the sheriff was still alive or that he had been involved with the protection of the dope smugglers.-He still met regularly with Charles Harrington and Harrington was conducting his own investigation but Colton still felt keenly the need to clear the remainder of his associates or to nail them for being tied to Finkley.- Harrington had asked Tavalerio to baby-sit Finkley since the absence of either Keenan or Harrington would have been locally noticed and wondered about.-The fewer questions the better until their investigation turned up the other conspirators and proved their collusion in the operation.
For the dozenth time Keenan as acting sheriff was interrogating Carl Forrester who, they were convinced was the local king pin.-They could prove he had handled the local pay-offs and had laid out the schedules, routes, etc.-But they knew he didn’t have the big money for the financing of the operation and there was nothing anywhere to show where Forrester had received money from the sale of the contraband.-He got his regular salary and that was it; so that meant there had to be deeper pockets and bigger profits going somewhere else.
“You give me immunity and a walk on all charges and I’ll tell you everything I know.”-This was the sum total of the information he seemed able to get from Forrester.
“Okay, how about this?-I charge you with smuggling heroin, possession with intent to distribute, and murder.-That should get you at least life in prison or quite possibly the electric chair.”
“Whoa.-Whoa, now.-I’ve never killed anybody.-That other stuff, I might, might, you understand, be guilty of; but murder?-No way, man.-No way.”
“Well, somebody ordered the hit on Ramon Mendez and it had to have been the ‘big boss.’-If you are as high up on the ladder as we can climb, then we have no choice but to assume it was you who gave the order.-That makes you guilty of murder just the same as the guy who pulled the trigger.-If somebody else decided he was to be taken out, then that reduces your liability exponentially.”
“It sure as hell wasn’t me who gave the order.-I might have passed it on from the big boss but I sure ain’t him.”
“Carl, the only way we can accept that is if we have a person we can prosecute for that offense.-Otherwise, it has to be you who will take the fall for it.”-Maybe, just maybe, Colton was making a little headway.
“But if I rat out the main man, my life ain’t worth a plug nickel.-I’m as dead as Mendez, don’t you see that?”-Forrester was almost to the whiny stage.-They were so brave, Colton thought, as long as they were in the driver’s seat.-But let them lose control of the reins and they were up shit creek without a paddle.-How was that for mixed metaphors?-Colton chuckled to himself and garnered a weird look from Forrester.
“What’s so damn funny?” he wanted to know.
“I’m just thinking about all those thousands of watts of electricity pulsing through your body, turning your blood into jelly and singeing your flesh like a Christmas turkey.”
Forrester was sweating, now, and Colton thought he was close to breaking.-“I guess it comes down to whether you’d rather get strapped down in the hot seat for being the big boss or take a chance on being killed by the main man, if there is a main man.-I think you are the main man, Forrester, and you belong on death row.”
“No! No!-It’s not me.-It’s not me, man.-You gotta believe me.-It’s the sheriff; Sheriff Finkley.-He’s been giving me orders for years, now.- I swear it’s him.”
“Oh, come now, Carl, don’t speak ill of the dead.- Didn’t you know that the sheriff was shot just outside his office a few days ago?-Now you’re trying to blame all this stuff on a dead man; someone who can’t even defend his good name.-Besides that, after his death, we checked his finances to see if he had enough money to pay for a funeral.-And he doesn’t have the money to finance a turkey shoot much less a big operation like you all were carrying on.-Try again, Carl.-You’ve got to come up with somebody other than the sheriff.”
“But I swear, man, it was him.-I think he may have been taking orders from somebody higher but I don’t have any way to
know who that might have been.-If you check on the sheriff, you might find a connection to somebody higher; but, I swear, I swear, I don’t know who it is.-You’ve got to believe me.-I don’t want to go to death row.-I just can’t!”
Colton raised his voice.-“Deputy, would you come get this guy and take him back to his cell, please?-He’s spouting off about our poor dead sheriff being a crook and him not here to defend himself.-We’ll just let him think about it for a while and maybe he’ll come up with something a little more believable.”
When the deputy returned from his task, he stood, shuffling from one foot to the other with his head hung down.-He opened his mouth twice to say something but no sound came out.-Acting Sheriff Keenan just looked at him quizzically.-Finally, Keenan looked him in the eye.-“You’ve got something on your mind, Deputy.-Let’s hear it.”
“Sir, I know it’s shameful to speak ill of the dead and I don’t like to cast suspicion on a superior officer.-Sheriff Finkley’s funeral is today so I hate to say anything—“
“It’s never wrong to tell the truth, Deputy.-And there’s never a wrong time to tell the truth.-Spit it out.”
“I came into the office one day from the back and overheard the sheriff on the telephone.-From hearing his end of the conversation, I knew he was involved in something illegal.-He talked about misdirecting his men and ‘looking the other way.’-Then he said something like, “No, I don’t like that at all.-That’s just plain murder, man.’-It sounded like he was trying to talk somebody out of putting out a contract on someone.-Then he said, ‘You don’t pay me enough to become a candidate for the electric chair.’-Finally, though, it was obvious that the person he was talking to had managed to persuade him some way or other.-After the sheriff hung up, he said something about not taking the fall alone if he got caught.-I didn’t know what to do and I had no proof so I did nothing.-I did see him on the street later, though, arguing heatedly with the County Judge, Hank Belliden.- I had been debating telling you all this, but then I didn’t know but what—well, anyway, that’s what was on my mind, sir.”
Colton debated with himself about confiding in this young man but then decided against it for the time being.-It would have been nice to have help in his investigation and someone to talk things over with, but he would do a little more thinking about it before he decided on a course of action.
“Thank you, Deputy Storms.-I appreciate your confidence in telling me about this.-I don’t, however, believe I’d say too much about it to anyone else right now.-This matter is of grave concern to me and be assured the proper steps will be taken at the proper time.-No one is above the law.-If you think of anything else, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with me.-Dismissed.”-Evidently the sheriff sure had been sloppy in his shady dealings.-Having been overheard incriminating himself once would be bad enough; but any security he purported to have had apparently been breached not once but twice.-It was no wonder his superiors had decided the sheriff was expendable.-Now, if it was just possible to point positively at those specific political pricks.-He was still thinking that his man was going to be either the county judge, Hank Belliden; the state senator, Darrell Kirkland; or Texas governor, Dan Anderson.-He sure did need more than a hunch to go on, though.
He tried to arrange things logically.-Judge Belliden was more local, maybe more likely to know the local status of things and more apt to draft nearby personnel to help in this specific area.-On the other hand, Senator Kirkland was much closer in age to Finkley, could have more common age-related goals such as retirement and they came from similar eras and backgrounds.-As to Governor Anderson, most likely he hadn’t risen to the highest office in the state without cutting a few corners, breaking a few rules and greasing a few palms.-He also could easily have become addicted to power and the feeling of entitlement in getting what he wanted.-He made notations of all these assumptions and suppositions and felt no closer to the truth than when he started.
All three of these men had been accused of misuse of campaign funds.-But what successful public official hadn’t been pointed at, at least by the news media, on that score?-Misuse of power was also a common accusation and few powerful men avoided that stigma.-Bribery or the taking of bribes in the political arena was often a matter of definition and usually labeled, ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ or ‘one hand washes the other.’-The line between legal and illegal activity was often very blurred.-Colton remembered a poem he had been forced to memorize in high school.-He wasn’t sure who wrote it.
Vice is a monster of such horrible mien
As to be hated, needs but to be seen.
But seen too oft—familiar with her face—
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
If a person became too accustomed to skating too close to the line, sooner or later, he was apt to forget there was a line.
Keenan was sure he had made some definite headway with Carl Forrester today.-As soon as he could get away without causing comment locally, he was thinking he might try the same line of questioning on Finkley in Dallas.- Of course, it might not work on a law enforcement veteran like Lester Finkley.-Quite possibly, he would recognize the ploy which he, himself, had probably used a few times in his career.