Bloodville by Don Bullis Read Free Book Online

in his report. Maybe Bill Howard had it right. Maybe the killer ran out of ammunition. Maybe that is why he didn't kill Flossie. But what kind of armed robber wouldn't carry an extra clip of ammunition, and if he didn‘t have extra ammo, why would he shoot Bud so many times? And what kind of robber would leave six hundred bucks in his victim's pocket? Not a very smart one.
But what if the killer wasn‘t a robber?

CHAPTER IV
    Flossie Rice endured a bad night. Word of the killings at Budville spread faster than a dry prairie fire and reached every town and village from Albuquerque to Gallup, and from St. Johns, Arizona, to Farmington, New Mexico. Flossie's friends and Bud's relatives came and went from midnight to dawn, each weeping condolence and each leaving food: a macaroni casserole dish, a plate of biscuits, a pot of chile stew. When not greeting visitors, Flossie sat on the couch in her living room, her hand wrapped in Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Scarberry‘s huge paw, her head on his shoulder. State Police officers came and went, reporting bits and pieces of information to the deputy chief.
    Albuquerque Police officer Herman Budwister arrived in Budville soon after dawn. He wore his curly brown hair long enough to touch his collar and his round face and southern accent—he was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia—made him seem ever smiling and happygo-lucky. Good friends knew the lie his appearance told. His blue/gray eyes didn't smile. They peered unhappily at a cop's world of rape, robbery and murder; a world of ill-treated victims and unrepentant criminals. Herman surrendered victory to the lawbreakers in 1963. Everything worked in their favor. He considered police work a mere holding action against the bullies and bad guys of the world. He worked hard at being a policeman though he‘d never be taken for one on the street. He dressed more like a university graduate student than a cop: penny loafers, khaki pants, green corduroy jacket and gray wool sweater. Cops and criminals alike who'd dealt with Herman over the years learned not to take him lightly. Cops respected his ability with pencil and sketching pad; bad guys respected his fists and his willingness to use them.
    Budwister took Flossie into her bedroom and over the period of an hour and a half the two of them made composite drawings of the killer as she remembered him. The task wasn't easy for Flossie and the two of them soon gave up on using the composite kit. She simply could not, she said, find a chin or a nose or a brow that matched her memory of the killer's face. The detective began sketching. He made a half dozen false starts before a recognizable image began to emerge from pencil lines and thumb smudges: the face of a young man, pleasant enough looking except for eyes that gazed vacantly at nothing through narrow, but occidental, slits. The V of a widow's peak divided his wide brow and his other features were even and regular.
    Budwister showed the drawing to Nettie Buckley—who'd passed the night sitting silently in a ladder back chair in a corner of the living room—and she agreed that the picture looked a good deal like the man who bought a pack of Camel cigarettes the evening before. She offered no suggestion as to how the picture might be improved. Criminal Agent Virgil Vee accompanied Budwister to Albuquerque where the drawing could be reduced in size, duplicated, and fifty copies made and returned to Budville as quickly as possible. Vee and Budwister made one stop along the way, at an auto salvage yard on West Central Avenue in Albuquerque. Budwister said he needed to check something out. The stop took five minutes.
    Every officer at every roadblock and every plainclothes police officer working the case in western Valencia County had a copy of Budwister's drawing in his hands by early afternoon on Sunday, November 19. Narcotics officers Finch and Gallegos took a copy back to Los Cerritos Bar and Frank and Delfina Fernandez agreed the