* * *
Homicide Detective Kent Taylor must have been somewhere nearby. He arrived within ten minutes and a whole team showed up right behind him. Taylor and I have crossed paths quite a few times, and I thought a sort of friendship was beginning to form. Well, maybe it’s more like respect for my brother. By the look on his face when he recognized me, admiration was definitely not the feeling.
“Charlie Parker. Why am I not surprised?”
“Kent—uh, Detective Taylor, this is not at all what it looks like.”
Yellow tape had been strung across the road, around the Blackman property, and down the hill behind the house. A cluster of neighbors now gathered at the perimeter, craning their necks for a gander.
I heard the helicopter before I saw it, the bright yellow Bell 412 operated by Channel 7. Oh god.
“Could we …?” I tilted my head toward the news channel’s ground crew who had just shown up in their vehicle with the satellite dish on top, all ready for live-at-the-scene coverage. Obviously, word had gotten out that something horrible had happened at the home of the prominent judge.
Taylor picked up on my concern about the media. “Yeah, not good. Walk casually in front of me and we’ll go sit in my car.”
As if any amount of casual attitude would conceal the fact that my hands were cuffed behind me. At least the detective’s vehicle was inside the yellow tape and the crowd couldn’t get to us. Walking out there in my socks was bad enough; at least he allowed me the dignity of sitting in the front passenger seat instead of having to duck my head and climb into the back. I could practically hear cameras snapping away.
“Could I at least call Ron?” I asked. “It would be awful for him to see this on TV before he has any warning.”
“In a minute. First, I need you to tell me what happened.”
I opened my mouth, trying to choose where to begin. “Last night at this theater fundraiser—”
“Charlie—twenty-five words or less. What happened this morning, here in this house?”
“I don’t know.”
“You still got more than twenty words left.”
“I’d hoped to find an item that contains evidence in a case we’re working. The judge was supposed to be playing golf so I thought I’d take a little look.”
“That accounts for the screen being off the laundry room window?”
“It was loose, anyway.”
He gave me a look. “They bagged your shoes. Looks like there’s blood on them.”
“Okay, so I went in the master bedroom to see if our missing item might be there. The curtains were drawn so it was kind of dim. I didn’t see the body—”
I paused, trying to read the look on his face.
“Go on.”
“I felt my shoe slip, for some reason. I looked down. He was on the floor on the far side of the bed, out of sight from the door. I knew I had to get out of the room so I could call the police, but then it turned out they were already here.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“Ew—no! He’s naked.”
A flicker of a smile showed on Taylor’s face, but he hid it right away. “What other rooms of the house did you visit?”
“The study, or home office, or whatever you’d call it.”
“Anyplace else? When we dust the whole place for prints we’ll only find yours in the laundry room, the master bedroom, and this study?”
“I don’t think I even touched anything in the bedroom. No, wait—maybe on the way out, I might have touched the foot of the sleigh bed or the doorjamb … I don’t remember.”
A disturbing thought went through my mind. I probably shouldn’t say anything more until I had a lawyer. But Taylor hadn’t placed me under arrest or read my rights or anything. As far as I knew this was still informal questioning. So far.
“Those news people have the long lenses on their cameras,” I said, faking a casual smile for their benefit. “I need to let either Ron or Drake know what’s happening.”
He gave a huge sigh. “Look, I tend to believe your story. You’re a pain in my rear, Charlie Parker, but I’ve found you’re normally truthful with me.”
Oh, I am, I am. “Thank you.”
“I’ll need to talk to you again, once we’ve processed the scene. Don’t leave town.”
“You’re letting me go?” This time my smile was completely genuine.
“For now. Like I said, don’t leave town.” He motioned for me to turn in my seat and he unlocked the cuffs. He handed back my cell phone and car keys. “Walk directly to your vehicle, drive away, and don’t come anywhere near this house, ever again. That’s just a friendly little bit of free legal advice.”
He actually did smile this time, but I was so busy getting that car door open I didn’t take the moment to savor it.
“I don’t suppose I’m getting my shoes back.”
The smile widened. “Not on a bet.”
On that pleasant note, I scampered out. With the passenger door closed, I gave a little thumbs-up gesture to let the cameras know I was in good with the cops. Hey, nothing to see here, folks. I paused just long enough to take off my socks. I could at least pull off the illusion that it was a perfectly normal thing to walk barefoot down the road in October.
I did as directed—drove away and never looked back. Well, except in my rearview mirrors, making sure none of the media vehicles followed me. Although I hadn’t found the evidence I’d hoped to get, for the moment, I was off the hook. The moment, unfortunately, would only last until the six o’clock news came on that night.
Chapter 25
The murder of Judge Aldo Blackman was the top story on all the local stations, and my phone began ringing at 6:05 when friends spotted me talking in the car with Kent Taylor. The old folks, who live for that nightly newscast, caught it first, and the first to call me was Elsa.
“We’re all gathered in the living room here, after our early supper, and I saw you. Hon, what did you get yourself into?”
I started to explain but I could tell by the background sounds that she had a crowd around her. I pictured a bevy of oldsters, plus a few nurses and orderlies, giving Elsa the celebrity treatment once she piped up and said, “Oh, I know that girl.” They come from a simpler time, when appearing on the evening news might have been a good thing.
“Everything’s fine, Gram. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“Yes, when I get home I’m having you over for tea and we’ll catch up on everything.”
“That sounds good. I love you.” We were nowhere near ready to have the conversation about whether she would be released to come home and live alone again.
The second call was Ron, who simply said, “Monday at the office, we need to talk.”
Since another call was already coming in, I merely agreed and took the other call. I assured Sally she would hear all about it at the office. My old friend Linda Casper was concerned, but once I reassured her that I was fine we fell into talking about old times, the spa vacation we’d once taken together, and renewed promises to be better about staying in touch. From that point on, I ignored the phone.
Drake was well rested after a good night’s sleep. We puttered in the garden a little Sunday afternoon, getting things ready for a change in the weather. Afterward, we decided a complete getaway would be nice, so we flew up to the tiny cabin we’d bought on the eastern slope of the Sandias. It was near the city but far from civilization, if that makes sense. Off the grid, once we turn off our cell phones there’s nothing much to do there but hike, watch the wildlife, or kick back with a book—exactly what I needed.
Right up to the moment we got back to the city late Monday evening.
Drake guided the helicopter to his usual spot in front of the hangar, and I turned on my phone to find a series of increasingly unfriendly messages from Detective Kent Taylor. Uh-oh. Well, how was I to know he would want to chat again so soon?
I was in the process of formulating a response that wouldn’t make me lo
ok like a completely irresponsible citizen when I spotted him striding toward us.
“You were under strict orders not to leave the city,” Taylor said.
I know shock and guilt registered on my face. “We—we didn’t really go anywhere.”
“Really? Don’t go with ‘it was just a joy ride around town.’ The dispatcher already told me you filed a flight plan yesterday afternoon, which said you were going up near Cerrillos. You blatantly disregarded my order, stayed away overnight, and ignored a number of attempts to reach you by phone.”
Drake apologized and explained where we’d been, using his calm and rational voice that usually works with anyone, but Taylor was having none of it.
“Can we just get to the bottom line, Kent? Whatever you were calling to ask me, just ask it now.” I felt my temper rising.
“I will. But we’re doing it downtown.”
“Am I a suspect now?”
“We have a lot of questions. Come with me.”
That’s when I spotted two vehicles outside the chain-link fence, one a black-and-white cruiser. Taylor took my arm and starting leading me in that direction. I shouted to Drake to call Ron and our lawyer. Shaking off the detective’s grip, I promised to walk quietly beside him. Still, he put me in the back seat of the cruiser for the ride to the city center.
At the downtown main police station, Taylor disappeared and I was left with two uniformed officers who showed me to an interrogation room. I felt dirty, and it wasn’t only because I hadn’t used some of our precious, limited water at the cabin to have a shower this morning. The room had the stale smell of a place with no windows, a place where fear and unsavory criminal types dwelled in equal measure. The table in the center of the room had the grime of a dozen unwashed hands, and I hated the mirrored wall across from the chair where they told me to sit.
Payback for being unavailable all day was waiting in this disgusting setting for twenty minutes until Kent Taylor showed up with a fresh, steaming cup of coffee in hand. “Oh—didn’t they offer you anything?” was his response when my gaze lingered over it.
I wanted to snap back at him but something told me this wasn’t the time. I put on a weary smile and tried to look cooperative, although I still had no clue what direction this meeting would take.
Taylor took his time shuffling through the pages of a ring-bound notebook. “You attended a theater fundraiser Friday night.”
“True.”
“Judge Aldo Blackman was also there.”
“Along with several hundred other people.”
“Tell me about the altercation between the two of you.”
I had to stretch my mind to remember the brief exchange. “It wasn’t exactly an altercation. The judge became somewhat flirtatious. I walked away.”
“But you’d been tracking him all day. Sitting in his courtroom, following him at the golf course, then the gala.”
When he said it that way, it did make me sound kind of stalker-like. Obviously, he had used the past few hours productively. If he knew that much about my movements, he’d talked with people I’d spoken to at the courthouse. I wondered if he’d also cornered Lisa Browning. “RJP has a new case and Judge Blackman is part of it.”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
How little could I get away with telling? “An old court case. The defendant wants us to see if there’s evidence that could reverse the verdict.”
“Wouldn’t this person’s lawyer handle that?”
“Lawyers charge hundreds of dollars an hour and, other than digging through documents, they’d rather have a private investigator do the legwork.”
“Fair enough.” He flipped to a new page in the notebook, but I had a sense we weren’t finished with that topic. “Saturday morning. Walk me through it again. Why were you at the judge’s house?”
“As I said yesterday, I’d gone by to see if I could find this piece of evidence. It looked like a notebook or small leather portfolio. I hadn’t planned to steal it or anything, just take a peek and see if there was anything related to our case.”
This case that’s years old. I could see the thought run through his mind.
“I rang the doorbell. The night before, I had overheard the judge say he was playing golf, but thought maybe his wife would be home and, frankly, hoped I could talk her into showing me this little notebook.”
He tapped his pen on the notepad. “And when no one answered you just thought you’d get inside and help yourself.”
“I walked around back. Mrs. Blackman might have been outside. She wasn’t, so I circled the house and noticed the loose window screen.”
“You do realize you’ve admitted to breaking and entering?”
“I didn’t break anything—I just entered.”
“Unlawfully.”
Yeah, there was that. No way was I going to admit I’ve done it dozens of times. I sat quietly with my hands in my lap.
“And then you just happened into the room where a murdered man lay on the floor. Tell me about that part of it.”
“Kent—Detective Taylor—it’s just like I told you yesterday. I thought I might find the black notebook in the bedroom, I went in to check …” I tried to repeat verbatim what I’d said in his car Saturday morning. “I didn’t have any weapon with me. Hell, I don’t actually know how he died, except that it produced a lot of blood.”
“Shot at close range, precisely in the heart. You own a gun, don’t you? And Ron says you’ve gotten pretty good at the firing range.”
“Seriously? I was searched, and I didn’t have a gun with me. Did you find my gun at the scene?” Thank goodness mine had been in the safe at home that day. I have a carry permit and might very well have had it with me.
Taylor rubbed a hand across his few remaining strands of hair. “Okay, no. We did not find your gun at the scene.”
“Has the medical investigator determined the time of death yet? Surely, it was awhile before I got there. And you do have the neighbor who reported seeing me go through the window, right? So you know I wasn’t in the house more than ten or fifteen minutes.”
He let my questions hang in the air. He didn’t want to concede, I could tell, but he wasn’t feeding me any information either.
“Some people who attended the same social fundraiser Friday night said the judge was flirting with you. You sure you didn’t want to get back at him?”
“We’ve been over this and you know my answer. I think we’re going in circles, but if you want me to keep going, I’ll want a lawyer present.”
That appeared to be the magic key to my release. The sun had been setting when we landed at the airport; it was now close to midnight. No wonder I felt exhausted and short of temper. I’d been brought downtown with only the clothes on my back—no purse, no phone—so I used one on a desk and called Drake. He sounded worried and said he was on the way.
Chapter 26
My happy homecoming was marked by tension until I had the chance to explain fully to Drake. As soon as he realized how close I had come to being railroaded, he had a whole new appreciation for what I was trying to do for the McNabs. We sat up talking and it was nearly three a.m. by the time we went to bed.
When I woke at eleven o’clock I had a momentary sense of panic. I couldn’t remember sleeping this late, ever. I pulled on pajama bottoms with my tank top and straggled through the house. Drake had left me a note in his neat printing on the kitchen table:
Took Freckles with me to airport. Called Ron and said you were taking the day off (he knows about the police visit). Unplugged phone. Rest up! Love you!!
I sighed and reached for the coffee pot. Cold. The idea of following his instructions and going back to bed sounded so appealing, I nearly did it. But the clock was ticking for Fergus McNab and I would never forgive myself if I was one day late in getting Rory back for him.
I went to the bedroom where I dumped yesterday’s smelly clothing into the hamper and chose a fresh change for today. The shower felt hot and good, an
d my brain was much more coherent afterward. By the time I made a run through the drive-up at a fast food place and downed half the coffee and most of the ham and egg sandwich, I was ready to face the office.
Sally greeted me with a freckled face full of concern. Was I okay? What happened? All the usual.
“Come up to my office,” I suggested. “I’ll get Ron so I only have to say it all once.”
So that’s what we did. I went over the Saturday morning debacle that led to my conversation with the police in front of the judge’s residence, my mistake in going up to the cabin with Drake for the night, and the fallout that sent me downtown to talk with Kent Taylor a second time. Sally gave me a hug and a lot of there-there stuff she probably uses with her kids when one gets a boo-boo.
Ron doesn’t have quite the same gentle manner. Once Sally had gone back downstairs to her desk, he basically reiterated that most of my actions had been stupid—always a way to make a person feel better—and suggested we get back to work. I bristled for a moment but couldn’t actually disagree with him. Plus, it felt better to take action than to sit around and dwell on my mistakes.
I decided to throw my brother a bone by asking his assistance. “So, what do you think our next move should be?” Not that I was finished checking out the people involved in the trial, even though that hadn’t netted anything useful.
He’d been listening while I rattled off the names. “What about someone else in the prosecutor’s office? Maybe now that Quinto has moved on to Santa Fe, someone else would talk to us.”
At least he said us. It meant we weren’t completely on the outs.
He scrolled through contacts on his phone. “Try Howard Ramsey.” He read off a number. “He’s a good guy, he’s been there a while, and he owes me a favor.”
“Will he remember the McNab case?”
“No idea. All you can do is ask. If nothing else, he might have the pull to get you a copy of the trial transcript quicker.”
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