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Escapes Can Be Murder

Page 4

by Connie Shelton


  “Want to read the articles or shall I give the condensed version?”

  “Condensed.” If it was worth learning more, I could always Google it myself.

  “Okay, so, Rory McNab was a hotshot attorney—”

  “I got as far as his conviction on ten counts and nine years in prison for each.”

  “Okay … well, after that, it gets interesting. The sentencing hearing was delayed twice, first by the court calendar, then by a motion from McNab’s defense attorney. All this time, he was out on his own recognizance and, other than having been ordered to surrender his passport, he was pretty much free to come and go for a few months. The sentencing hearing was set for November first, and this time it looked as if it really would happen. With most likely less than a month of freedom left, Rory decided to take in a ball game with his dad and an uncle. He went to Phoenix and never returned.”

  “What?”

  “Simply did not show up for his sentencing hearing. His attorney was backpedaling as fast as she could, but didn’t have an explanation. The judge sentenced Rory to the full ninety years, after saying he’d been prepared to go with a much more lenient two-to-ten until the defendant pulled this little stunt.”

  Holy cow. I did some quick head-math. Rory is nearly fifty now, would have been about forty when all this happened … I could see where the full ninety years would have been a death sentence.

  “What happened? I mean, he disappeared—no doubt law enforcement was all over this, trying to find him.”

  “Right. They were. And, of course, Fergus McNab and his brother were questioned by the cops and hounded by the press. The brother was so clueless that he was almost immediately dropped as a suspect.”

  “But Fergus knew more.” I was trying to put it together in my head and not coming up with much.

  “Mr. McNab’s story was that he’d driven to Arizona to spend a little time with his brother, Rory’s uncle, and when they were able to get three tickets to a big Cardinals game Rory flew to Phoenix to join them. Guys’ weekend out, that sort of thing. On the Monday after the game, Fergus drove his son to the airport and they had breakfast there while waiting for Rory’s flight. The old man swore the last time he saw his son was as he passed through airport security and waved goodbye, saying, ‘I’ll see you in Albuquerque’.”

  “And …”

  “Fergus says he then went out to the parking garage but his car was stolen. He searched everywhere, got the airport security people to help, finally had to report it and rent a car to get home.”

  “Surely, the police checked airport security video?”

  “Surely. But that’s where the public information hits a dead end. Three days after this story was big news something bigger came along, an earthquake in Central America, and since both New Mexico and Arizona citizens were trapped by it, the media leapt on that and the McNab story began a slow decline into oblivion—at least news-wise.”

  The question came back to me again: Was Fergus McNab a sad man with a sad story, or had he manipulated things right from the start?

  Chapter 7

  I spent the afternoon at my desk, tidying, opening mail and just doing general office stuff. By three o’clock there was hardly any evidence that I had been gone a couple of weeks. I rounded up Freckles and we went out to the car. Decided to stop at a florist shop on my way to the hospital. One glance through the enormous bouquets in the fridge told me that there was no way I could compete with Victoria’s wonderful spray of flowers. So I opted for something very simple.

  Two roses in a cut glass vase—one red, one pink. I chose a card with a garden flower motif that I knew Gram would love and just wrote a simple greeting—I love you.

  By the time I arrived in the hallway outside her door, the food cart was two doors down from hers. The smell of institutional food pervaded. Gram’s bed was propped up and she had a tray in front of her with green gelatin, some sort of pudding, probably vanilla, and a glass of juice. She didn’t look as if she was any more enthused about it than I would have been.

  She brightened when she saw the roses and teared up when she read the card. When she got weepy, I did too and gave her a big hug. Finally, I suggested that maybe I could help her with her dinner. I unwrapped her flatware and handed her the spoon so she could work on the meal.

  We chatted while she finished her Jell-O and worked on the pudding, but obviously that was not a favorite thing. I promised her I would talk to the nurses about getting her something a little more substantial tomorrow, and that seemed to brighten her mood. After about ten more minutes of chitchat I could tell she was getting tired. I gave her another hug and helped crank her bed downward so she could rest.

  Freckles had waited patiently in the parking garage, and she was so happy to see me when I came out I couldn’t resist stopping at McDonald’s to get us both cheeseburgers. She wolfed hers down in three bites. I took a little bit more time with mine. Information Ron had given me earlier about Fergus McNab had stuck in my mind. I was eager to get home, get on the internet and find out more for myself.

  In a follow-up article after Rory’s disappearance, Albuquerque police had worked with a detective at the Phoenix Police Department named Chet Foster, a man in his late sixties, I guessed from the brief video clip. He had short grizzled hair, a neat shave, and wore jeans and a sport coat. The reporter questioning him dished out queries in an aggressive way. Foster met her with straightforward answers and not a hint of backing down.

  I jotted down Chet Foster’s name, along with that of Herman Quinto, the prosecutor in Albuquerque. What the heck, I might as well try to reach them and find out what had gone on after the story quit being top slot in the news. It only took a minute to find the phone number of the central Phoenix Police Department, and I placed the call. Within minutes, I learned that Foster had retired four years ago. A minor setback but not enough to stop me.

  A search of phone numbers gave me a listing for a Chester Foster in Mesa, Arizona. I dialed and had him on the line almost immediately. As soon as I mentioned the McNab case, Foster assumed I was a reporter and nearly hung up on me, but I stopped him quickly, explaining that I work for a private investigation firm in Albuquerque and was doing a follow-up on the original case. Even that didn’t seem to elicit a response from him. But when I dropped the fact that I had recently seen Fergus McNab, he perked up again.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you, Ms. Parker. At the time we had such limited resources we really couldn’t keep tracking Rory McNab forever. He wasn’t a violent criminal, after all. And I tell ya in a city like this we get half a dozen murder cases a day. Sorry, just don’t have the resources to track down some hotshot lawyer. One that doesn’t even live in our own state.”

  “I understand that he somehow escaped from the Phoenix airport, and it was suspected he drove away in his father’s car.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we thought at the time. It didn’t take long to find the car. It had been abandoned on the outskirts of Tucson, and we found it just a few days after. Of course, both Rory’s and Fergus’s prints were in the car; they had both driven it in recent days. The prints on the steering wheel were blurred, so it was assumed the car thief wore gloves.”

  “What about airport security? Didn’t cameras show Fergus leaving?”

  “I personally sat there watching those videos for days. We saw Rory McNab and his father moving through the airport, having breakfast at one of the restaurants. After they ate they both went into the men’s room. Fergus came out. Never did see Rory come out.”

  “So. Fergus clearly lied about seeing his son off at the security gate then?”

  “Yeah, we pretty much knew that right from the start. Didn’t take but one check of the airline manifest to see that Rory was a no-show on the plane.”

  “So, what about the parking garage? There are security cameras out there, too, aren’t there?”

  “There are. Apparently, the McNab car was parked in a blind spot. By coincidence or by design—we
never knew. We saw the vehicle leave the garage but couldn’t identify who was at the wheel.”

  I asked a couple more things, but that seemed to be the extent of what Chet Foster could tell me. I understood. Cops see a lot of cases and this one couldn’t have been one of the more important ones to a Phoenix detective. I thanked him for the information and hung up.

  An autumn chill had settled on the house and I went into the bedroom to rummage for a sweater. Freckles was begging to go outside so I followed her and walked over to Elsa’s to be sure everything was okay at her house. As always, she had a lamp on the timer in the living room so at least the place didn’t look abandoned. I checked her thermostat setting, as the evenings were getting cooler. Discovered she had it set at seventy-eight and turned it down several notches. No problem with any freezing pipes here, but there was no reason to run up her gas bill either.

  Back through the break in the hedge, I checked a couple of things in our backyard. All looked well. Freckles did her business and we were soon back inside where I heated water in the kettle for a warming cup of chai. Mug in hand, I went back to the computer and re-read the story Ron had showed me earlier.

  It kept bugging me that Herman Quinto was the prosecutor on the case. Quinto was a familiar name, as he had since become a state senator and this year was running for Congress. I made a note to contact him and ask about the prosecution of Rory McNab, wondering if he would even remember a case from so far back in his career.

  If I couldn’t reach Quinto, I could always call Tyler Carson, a guy I know in the current prosecutor’s office. I debated that idea for a good eight minutes while I finished my chai, but still I hesitated. Tyler wouldn’t know the case from all those years ago and would have to be brought up to speed. And there was something that kept me from making the call. Some hesitation over Rory’s situation? I didn’t think so. More likely, my hesitation was because I really didn’t want to bring more trouble on Fergus McNabb in his present condition. I hate these moral dilemmas.

  The poor dog was sitting near the living room window, pining for Drake. If I had come home, he should too. She didn’t understand that it would be a few more days. I picked her up for a cuddle on the couch. An episode of Grace & Frankie helped take my mind off the cares of the day here at home, and the half hour gave enough of a break before we both decided it was time to hit the sack.

  Chapter 8

  The next couple of days passed in much the same way—me spending time at the hospital with Elsa, and Ron handling duties at the office. Elsa was starting to become a little cranky with the situation. She was feeling better but the doctor wouldn’t clear her to be home. Ron and I needed to talk about what would happen when she was released. Would she actually get to go home or would the doctor insist that she go into nursing care? Each time the words nursing home came up in conversation, Elsa became grumpier than ever.

  Victoria decided it by inviting me to dinner. She would make a nice roast and the three of us would talk about the future over the meal. I went straight to their house, a small bungalow in an older section of town, just off of Lomas Boulevard and arrived about five o’clock. The aroma of roasted beef filled the air. Victoria was working on a salad and assigned me the task of opening cans of green beans. I could handle that.

  “You can’t really blame her,” Victoria said. “Elsa has been an independent lady for so many years now. She’ll not want to leave her home.”

  “I know, I know. I can’t disagree with any of that but, gosh, it’s so hard. How are we going to explain it to her? She’s not happy about this idea at all.”

  “No one would be, Charlie. We just have to face the fact. None of us wants to hear those words—nursing home. But it might be the reality of it. We just don’t know yet.”

  She handed me knives and forks and some plates, which I carried to the dining table and set places for the three of us. The boys were with their mother this week.

  I have to admit that we feasted on succulent roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and green beans for a full ten minutes before any of us brought up the main subject again. “So, Ron, what do you think if she refuses to go? There’s always the option of home care, but is there money for that? We don’t know yet whether she has a good insurance policy.”

  “Well, little sis,” he said, “I’m putting you in charge of that. When you go back home tonight go through her papers and see if you can find anything about such a policy. Maybe that will end up being our answer.”

  And so that’s what I did. It felt horribly like prying, looking through Elsa’s papers, but what choice did I have? Midway through the search my phone rang and I saw it was Drake.

  “Hey, hon, guess what? I finished the job a little early and I’m going to be able to head home day after tomorrow.”

  “Did you get Fergus? I hope he and his son had a good visit.”

  “I got him, and yeah, sounds like everything went okay.”

  “That’s great news! I still have my hands full here with Elsa’s situation, but I really would love coming home in the evenings to you, and Freckles misses you like crazy.” At the sound of her name, the dog started dancing around me in a frenzy of excitement.

  Drake laughed, hearing the dog’s happy yips over the line.

  “See? We’re both excited about your homecoming.”

  “Don’t fix my welcome home drink just yet. It will take me several days to get across country. I’ll give you a call each night and let you know when I get to the airport.”

  Knowing Drake would be coming home soon brightened my outlook.

  The next day I stepped into Elsa’s room, happy to see her sitting up in bed with a magazine in front of her. She tossed it onto the nightstand and eased her thin legs over the edge of the bed. “Charlie, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been wanting out of this bed all morning.”

  “If the doctor says it’s okay, I don’t see why we couldn’t take a little walk down the hall.”

  “Well it darn well better be okay,” Elsa said. “They’ve been bugging me to get up and moving so I’m going to do it.”

  The monitors had been reduced to a couple of small devices that sat on a wheeled dolly, so after helping Elsa into her robe I tied the sash for her, took her arm, and steered the little rig with my other hand.

  “So, tell me what’s new,” Elsa said. “I’m bored with this place. I’m used to being around you and keeping up with your exciting life.” She was probably thinking about this past summer when there was quite a ruckus involving a family across the street. Sweet old Elsa had been my neighborhood spy for a few weeks.

  I laughed, not sure what new excitement she thought I’d be involved with, but certain I provided more action than she’d seen here. I told her about the man we had met in Maine but didn’t go into details about his son or the legal case. I still wasn’t sure what to do with the information I’d gathered. Meanwhile, she still seemed a bit peevish.

  As Elsa and I turned around, three doors down from her room, I said, “I’ll talk it over with your doctor and see what he says about releasing you. For now, they said you will probably go to a rehab center until you’re really back on your feet again.”

  “Well, I’m going to be back on my feet before anybody knows it. And there will be no putting me away in some old folks’ home.”

  I chuckled as I helped her take off her robe and settled her back into bed. With that kind of determination, I totally believed her. There’s no way one hospital and a dozen doctors were going to keep this ninety-two-year-old down.

  I tucked the covers around her shoulders and said goodnight. Ron called as I was getting into my car, saying he’d promised to pick up his three sons and take them out for pizza. I could join them if I wanted to. With nothing else to fill the empty evening hours, I did.

  By Saturday morning when I got the call from Drake that he had landed at Double Eagle, the small airport on the west side, things at home were nearly back to normal. I drove out to meet him, expecting that we would cle
an up the aircraft and then have a nice lunch out somewhere before settling in and enjoying an evening together in our own bedroom.

  I had parked my Jeep, clipping a leash to Freckles’ collar and taking her with me to greet Drake after the long separation. We walked through the FBO and out on the tarmac toward our blue and white Jet Ranger. It took a moment for me to realize two people were getting out, but it only took a second longer to figure out who the second one was. Fergus McNab.

  Chapter 9

  Fergus looked like a badly faded image of himself when I helped him down from the aircraft. And that faded image surely was a faded version of his prior self before all this had happened. I sent a puzzled look toward Drake with a shoulder shrug, and he sent one back to me. Fergus excused himself to visit the men’s room and I asked Drake what the heck.

  “He wanted to ride along, I couldn’t convince him that the ride would take quite a lot longer by helicopter than his commercial flight, but it seemed like he wanted my company so I agreed to bring him,” Drake told me.

  “So you guys had a couple of days together … did he say anything about his son’s case?”

  “A little. I suppose he’d better tell you about that himself. I offered him a ride from the airport—hope that’s okay with you.”

  “Well of course it’s not a problem.” I glanced toward the car. “As long as he doesn’t mind riding with the dog.”

  “I’m sure he won’t,” Drake said. “He’s pretty tired, so the quicker we can get him home the better.”

  By the time Drake had pulled baggage from the cargo compartment I spotted Fergus inside the FBO’s office. We were on the road five minutes later, heading for Albuquerque’s southeast heights. Fergus gave directions and we ended up at a small trailer park of about three dozen single-wide homes. Most were neatly maintained, some with gardens and little picket fences, but Fergus’s place was definitely in need of some TLC. The poor man obviously had not been able to tend to his yard over the summer months. The small patch of grass was much overgrown and some lanky, straggly cosmos had long since finished blooming.

 

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