'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'We're talking about murder,' Jeff said.
Fowler's plucked eyebrows arched. 'That's crazy.'
'It's not even a stretch,' Ramona said. 'You were with Greer in Ruidoso. We know she told you about the john that beat her up and got iced for it.'
'What does that have to do with me?'
'That makes you a material witness.'
Fowler gave Ramona a suspicious look. 'What kind of bullshit is that?'
Ramona bluffed. 'The kind that would make a judge agree to put you in jail without bail if you refuse to cooperate. You'd stay there until you talked.'
'We can avoid all of that,' Vialpando said.
'Talking to you wouldn't be good for my health.'
'Not talking could make things worse for you,' Jeff said.
'How's that?'
'We'll spread the word that you're our snitch.'
'Jesus,' Fowler said.
'You're new in town,' Jeff said. 'Did Tully bring you here, or was it Norvell?'
'Or Rojas?' Ramona added.
The names cracked Fowler's composure a bit more. She uncrossed her arms and put her hands out as if to ward off an attack. 'What are you after?'
'The people who run the organization,' Vialpando answered.
'They'd crucify me if I talked to you,' Fowler said, her eyes searching for an escape. 'You don't know how powerful they are.'
'We know how powerful they think they are,' Ramona said. 'But unless you help us bring them down, you really don't have much of an option.'
Vialpando stepped to Fowler and touched her arm. 'Help us, and we'll help you,' he said gently. 'Sit down and talk to us.'
Fowler nodded, reconsidered her decision, put on a false smile behind a scared expression, and said, 'I do couples. Maybe…'
'Don't even go there,' Vialpando said quickly. He led Fowler to a chair and sat her down. 'You worked out of Phoenix before coming here. Tell us about the organization.'
Fowler frowned and bit her lip. 'No bust, and I get a free ride?'
'Exactly,' Jeff replied, sitting across from Fowler. 'Plus protection for as long as you need it.'
Fowler's lips twitched nervously. She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the end table and lit one. 'Okay. Rojas runs Phoenix and all the Texas services. Tully does the same in Denver and here. Each city has a manager who oversees the day-to-day stuff-bookings, screening and billing clients, paying the girls, arranging housing.'
'Who's the Albuquerque manager?' Ramona asked.
'Cassie Bedlow. She's been providing girls for the other locations through her modeling agency for years.'
'What about Norvell?' Jeff asked.
'He supplies a venue for special occasions.'
'What's that all about?' Ramona asked.
'He has a place where rich men can meet privately with a girl like for a vacation. You can't book it for less than a week, and it's expensive. Fifty grand for the cottage, and then whatever the girl costs. That can run between five and ten thousand a day, sometimes more. Some clients bring their own women with them. For that, they have to pay a hefty surcharge. It's got five or six cottages, and they're always full. I've never been there, but I've heard it brings in movie stars, politicians, celebrity jocks-men like that-from all over the country.'
'So it's a place where rich guys can play house,' Vialpando said.
Fowler smirked and blew smoke through her nose. 'Yeah, along with their favorite sex games. S and M, domination, fetishes, bondage-whatever they want, including drugs.'
'Where is this place?' Ramona asked.
'Outside Ruidoso,' Fowler replied. 'I'm not sure where. It's on a ranch.'
'How do the finances work?' Ramona asked. 'Who pays the bills? Where does the money go?'
'I don't know. We get paid in cash weekly, plus any expenses. Tips and gifts we get to keep.'
'What about drugs?' Vialpando asked.
'Whatever you want, but just for the girls and clients. There's no street selling or dealing. Mostly it's coke, crack, and pot, along with some meth. If a girl uses, the cost is deducted from her pay.'
'Are you a user, Stacy?' Ramona asked.
'Sometimes.' She stubbed out her smoke. 'It makes going to work a whole lot easier.'
'Are you strung out now?'
'A little bit.'
'We'll get you into detox,' Ramona said.
They wound up the interview and turned Fowler over to detectives who'd been waiting for their call. Jeff drove Ramona back to her unit.
'Next time we spend a night together, let's not do it in a car,' Jeff said with a smile as he wheeled in behind Ramona's vehicle.
'Don't get ahead of yourself, Sergeant,' Ramona said.
'I'm just suggesting a change in venue, nothing more.'
Ramona laughed. 'I'll see you in Santa Fe at the meeting.'
Clayton woke to an empty house and checked the bedside clock. It was after nine. Either he'd slept hard or Grace had tiptoed around, keeping the kids quiet before taking them off to day care and going to work. He put in a call to Paul Hewitt only to learn that the sheriff was out of the office until noon.
He went to the local newspaper's office and searched through back issues for anything that mentioned Tyler Norvell. There were plenty of stories on normal political activity: speeches he'd made, legislation he supported or opposed, positions he took on social problems. The guy was a right-to-work, anti-abortion, three-strikes-and- you're-out conservative. Judging from the voter sentiment discussed in the articles, he drew a lot of support from middle-class Texans who'd moved to Ruidoso looking for a less expensive Southwestern version of the Aspen lifestyle.
Clayton dug deeper and found a news item in the business section. A year before running for the state senate, Norvell had bought the Bluewater Canyon Ranch, a twenty-thousand-acre spread outside the small settlement of Arabella on the east side of the Capitan Mountains.
In his short time with the department Clayton had been to Arabella twice on routine patrols. There wasn't much to the place: a few whitewashed, shuttered adobe buildings, several old barns, a vacation cottage or two, maybe a half-dozen year-round residences, and some outlying ranches along the paved road that ended at the village.
It was a pretty spot, a good seventeen miles off the main highway to Roswell, in rolling country against the sharp backdrop of the mountains.
In his unit Clayton consulted a government reference map that highlighted all publicly and privately owned land in the state. It was a useful tool for determining the boundaries for law-enforcement jurisdictions. He found Bluewater Canyon on private land a bit south of Arabella. There wasn't time to drive up and look around before the sheriff returned to the office, so Clayton decided to see what he could learn through official records.
If Norvell had turned the Bluewater Canyon Ranch into a secret sex playground, as Clayton suspected, then he had probably spent a pile of money on the project.
In the county assessor's office at the county courthouse, he located the file for the Bluewater Canyon Ranch. Since the date of purchase, Norvell's property had increased in taxable value by over five million dollars. The old ranch headquarters had been torn down and replaced by a ten-thousand-square-foot hacienda, along with six new guest houses of three thousand square feet each, horse stables, barns, a swimming pool with a cabana and hot tubs, garages, a caretaker's cottage, a bunkhouse, and something called a meditation center, which included a small movie theater.
