Free Bloodville by Don Bullis

me you did a good job on the air last night. I appreciate it. If you need me, raise Officer Gutierrez on the radio and have him get me at the motel. I don't know his mannumber. No phone in my room and the store and restaurant are both closed. I'll be 10-7 for a while.‖
―10-4, three six. KLC-636.‖ She signed off.

CHAPTER VI
    The Chief Assistant District Attorney for New Mexico‘s Second Judicial District—Bernalillo and Valencia counties—Don Wilcoxson paced the floor of Sheriff Jack Elkins' office in the courthouse at Los Lunas while he waited for Morris Candelaria to arrive with the suspect. Tall, muscular and horse-faced, the ADA dressed more like a ranch hand than a lawyer: faded Levi's, scuffed high-heel boots and battered Resistol hat. He wore a Colt's .45 automatic, Model 1911, in a custom made, hand-tooled, holster on his wide belt. Wilcoxson, who considered himself a cop's kind of prosecutor, had served a few years as an Albuquerque police officer while he attended law school at the University of New Mexico. His primary goal in life involved locking up society's criminal element and he wasn't any too fussy about how he accomplished it.
    His ill humor worsened as the late evening of Sunday, November 19, became the early morning of Monday, November 20. The way he saw it, if Bunting hadn't killed Rice and Brown, Bunting wouldn‘t have been arrested and there‘d be no need for an ADA—the Chief Assistant District Attorney at that—to be standing around in the wee minutes of the morning waiting to conduct an interview in which the suspect would lie like a Judas kiss to hide his own guilt. Instead, the ADA might have been at home, in bed with his wife, asleep: not concerned with how he‘d handle the prosecution of Larry Bunting and a half dozen other cases piled up on his desk in Albuquerque.
    Candelaria led Bunting into the office. Jack Elkins followed along shortly. Elkins removed the suspect's handcuffs and directed him to sit in a straight-backed wooden chair in front of the desk. The sheriff took a position near one of the office doors while Candelaria leaned against the other. Wilcoxson, seated behind the desk, lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward Bunting.
    ―What's your name?‖
―Bunting, Larry E., 15598176, Petty Officer First Class, United States Navy, sir.‖ Like a whipped pup looking for a friendly face, the young sailor smiled nervously and his eyes darted back and forth at the officials in the room.
―You're not a prisoner of war so don't give me that name, rank and serial number shit. Where‘re you from?‖
―Yes sir, sheriff. I was stationed in Massachusetts up 'til last week. I got orders for San Diego, the Naval Air Station. That's where we was going to. My home of record is in Everett, Washington, but I was born in Maryland.‖
―I'm not the sheriff. I'm the Assistant District Attorney. You know why you're here?‖
―No sir. Not exactly. The one cop out there at Budville said I killed somebody, but I didn't, either.‖ Bunting wiped the sweat off his face with his bare hand. ―Are you like Perry Mason?‖
―I'm on the other side, but I don't loose all my cases like Hamilton Berger. It's my job to put you into the gas chamber.‖
Bunting's heart throbbed in his chest. ―But I didn't do nothing.‖ The sailor seemed on the verge of tears.
―That a fact? We got an eye witness says you did; says you shot and killed two people—one of them a little old lady—for a couple hundred bucks. What do you think of that?‖ Wilcoxson wore his hatbrim pulled down low on his forehead keeping his face in a shadow, like a mask, dark and obscure. He snarled the question. He'd practiced his interrogation technique for years and considered himself in good form with Bunting.
―Well sir, I didn't do it.‖ The sailor's voice broke as he choked back a sob. ―Where's my wife and kids?‖
Wilcoxson ground out his cigarette and stood up. He walked around and rested his butt on the front edge of the