Escapes Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  While we talked, I pulled out the photos from back in the day and showed them to Ron. “These are from the Damian Baca trial.” I pointed out Damian, Rory McNab, and Rory’s partner Christopher Brown, who were all walking together into the courthouse. “This other shot shows afterward, and there are a couple of people I don’t recognize here.”

  Ron shrugged. “The guy with the scar … I don’t know his name, but I’ve seen his face before. I’d be willing to bet he was somehow involved with Damian in the drug bit. He must be somebody farther up the line in the organization. My guess is he was there after the trial to be sure Damian didn’t say the wrong things to the wrong people.”

  “That was my guess, too. Just wish I had a lead on him.”

  “Yeah, of course the real question is who was behind wanting to see Rory McNab take a fall.”

  No kidding, Sherlock. What did he think I’d been doing all along? “Okay, then, what about these photos from Rory’s trial—recognize anyone there? I’ve spoken with his defense attorney, Helen Bannerly. It was like talking to a closed door.”

  “Then she’s hiding something,” Ron said. “Why wouldn’t a defense lawyer want to see her client exonerated, even if it was years later?”

  “Any ideas on what she’s hiding?”

  “Something that goes way back but could still be damning today. Something that would interfere with her current career or mess up plans for her future.”

  “Such as …?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we ask.”

  “Helpful, Ron, real helpful.” I felt my temper rising again. “Can you at least pitch in here, give some ideas, or suggest different tactics?”

  He finally picked up on my frustration. “I’ll talk to Howard Ramsey.”

  “Thank you. After all, it’s you he owes the favor, not me.” I shot him a terse smile. “I’ll do some background research on Helen Bannerly and see what I can learn about her history.”

  “Hint—start with college. Before that, nobody gives a damn about what you did, but a lot of long-term relationships begin in a person’s twenties.”

  My heart softened again. “Thanks, Ron. I appreciate your help.” I shooed him out of my office and logged on my computer.

  I’ll admit I’m not into social media. I’d seen the devastating effects when a couple of teen girls in the neighborhood became caught up in following the opinions of others. But this was important and I decided to muddle around with it. I discovered Helen Bannerly everywhere.

  Her Facebook page focused on happy times with a very handsome husband and two angelic blonde kids. Disneyland, Grand Canyon, four smiling selfie-faces with San Francisco as a backdrop. There were beaches, amusement rides, romantic dinners in bars. She had more than two hundred friends—I had no idea whether that was good or not—many of them were tagged as relatives. Her Twitter and Instagram accounts seemed to revolve around school sports; both daughters were starting team softball.

  I’d heard LinkedIn was about business, so I headed over there where I was forced to create an account of my own. Getting caught up in the myriad scraps of information they wanted, I finally realized I didn’t need to tell it all. I entered some made-up basics and then began searching for contacts. And there was Helen Bannerly.

  She grew up in Albuquerque, attended Highland High School and UNM. While at UNM Law School she worked a couple of internships, one as a clerk for Judge Aldo Blackman.

  Ah-ha.

  Interesting—but what did it mean? I looked at the dates and it appeared her employment with Blackman had ended five years before Rory’s trial. Helen had graduated with honors, passed the bar exam, and been snapped up by a prestigious firm here in town. A bunch of published articles followed, awards for civic contribution, promotion to senior partner. All of this before she represented Rory McNab.

  Had she known Rory before she took his case? Maybe an old friendship—an old romance?—was the reason she’d represented him on the jury tampering charges. If she believed in his character, she might have been likely to take his case even without much favorable evidence. I mulled all of that around for a while, but something didn’t quite connect.

  For one thing, neither Rory nor Fergus had mentioned knowing Helen before the case. I’d almost had the impression that she was a name grabbed from the phone directory. But that didn’t make sense either. Rory had been a young, hotshot lawyer. He knew people, had connections. He wouldn’t have reached into thin air for the name of a lawyer to keep him out of prison. He would have chosen someone he trusted.

  I thought of Herman Quinto, part of the same circle of acquaintances during those years. On a whim, I searched for his social media links. He was everywhere, yet his online presence felt contrived—created by a PR firm—unlike Bannerly’s family-centric posts. One post on his candidacy site gave a phone number where constituents could set appointments. I called it. Why not go right to the source to ask about Rory’s trial?

  What I got for my efforts was a friendly-sounding voice that firmly told me Mr. Quinto’s schedule was full. Telling the woman that a dying man’s last wishes were involved did nothing to soften her response.

  I went back to my online research but the pieces weren’t quite coming together. I was lightly drumming my fingers on my keyboard when Ron’s face appeared at my door.

  “Got your transcript for you,” he said. “Howard says you can pick it up at the courthouse anytime after four o’clock today.”

  “Wow—nice job.”

  He gave a strange little courtly bow and said he was heading out to do surveillance on another case. I glanced at the clock—it was already after three. I could kill another forty-five minutes and then head downtown to pick up the transcript.

  As to Helen Bannerly, I thought about going back to her office, trying to learn more, and probably getting stonewalled again. Whatever she didn’t tell me the last time, it was fairly certain she wouldn’t just offer it up now.

  But I did revisit her Facebook page and found a mutual friend, a girl I’d known from high school. She responded quickly to my friend request and I was in.

  Following Cathy’s conversations led me to Helen’s timeline and I picked up on the fact that these two tended to share juicy tidbits about such weighty topics as losing ten pounds before the holidays. A couple of threads led toward personal doings—who all had showed up at the class reunion and how Nancy somebody sure had let herself go. It only took a few minutes of reading to figure out that Cathy was the instigator, most of the time, when it came to the snoopy bits.

  My kind of gal. I started the conversation by responding to something she’d posted and added an ‘OMG it’s been forever!!!’ to see what she would come back with.

  It was easy enough to throw out tidbits that were generally known: everyone had loved the fries at Mac’s Drive-In, and wasn’t senior year when that haunted house movie came out. I couldn’t actually remember doing any of those things with Cathy, but they seemed like innocuous little conversation starters. Half an hour flew by—I was beginning to see how people got hooked into spending their days in these chats—and I needed to get downtown. At least I had set the hook. Tomorrow I would try reeling her in.

  Chapter 27

  I hauled the trial transcript pages home. I had expected a huge document that would require a lot of skimming, but in fact the whole thing was about the thickness of a novel. It just didn’t have any of the interesting bits. With no scenery or visual clues, it was like watching a movie with the screen turned to black or reading a book that was nothing but dialogue. Missing was the drama of the attorneys rolling their eyes at each other, the tears when witnesses became emotional, the boredom on the jurors’ faces.

  Drake brought a bake-at-home pizza and sat down to a football game on TV while I camped on the sofa beside him and launched into my evening’s fascinating read. I thought of it as a script and fit Rory McNab, Herman Quinto, Helen Bannerly, and Judge Blackman into the roles. I searched out the names of each of the jurors I’
d spoken to.

  Billie Jones came across as nervous in the courtroom as she had when I spoke with her. She stated that a man approached her in the parking lot one morning and said Damian Baca was not guilty and she should vote that way. Quinto phrased his questions to get the maximum benefit for his case against Rory; when Helen Bannerly cross-examined Billie, she didn’t even bother to ask for a description of the man or whether he expressly said he was speaking on behalf of Rory McNab. Quinto had successfully scored against her.

  When Emelia Sanchez took the stand she said much the same things. Man in parking lot, a veiled threat about how she should vote. Neither attorney asked her to describe or identify the man—her recollection to me had embellished a little there—nor did anyone specifically ask her to rule out Rory McNab as the one who approached. The details she’d given me last week were nowhere in this court document, including her impressions about the relationship between the scar-faced man and Damian Baca.

  Another witness reminded me that I had become sidetracked; I’d meant to get to this one and had not done so. Jack Karkakian stated that he owned a furniture store, Karkakian Imports. He began to elaborate a bit about his business when Quinto cut him short.

  “Yes, there was a threat,” Karkakian had said. “Not to me personally, but a man came in my store while I was on jury duty and scared my wife pretty bad.”

  “Tell us about that,” Quinto urged.

  “Well, it was a Tuesday so things were a little slow. He approached our employee who was dusting the lamps—”

  “We really only need to know what was said to your wife.”

  “I’m getting to that. She was working on the bookkeeping in the back, and the employee pointed this man in the right direction. My wife said he just showed up in the doorway and stood there for a minute. When she asked if she could help him, he said, ‘Yeah, deliver a message to your husband. Tell him he’d better not vote Damian Baca guilty’.”

  Surprisingly, the defense didn’t object to the testimony as hearsay.

  Quinto played up the fear factor. “That must have been very scary for your wife.”

  “It was. She couldn’t concentrate on her work, and she almost got into a wreck on her way to pick up my little boy from school. They went home and locked themselves in, and by the time I got there for dinner that night she was still shaking.”

  Helen Bannerly asked the witness if the man had said anything else. Nothing about whether he mentioned Rory McNab. If I, with no legal experience, could think of objections, why hadn’t Rory’s lawyer pressed harder? It seemed obvious Helen Bannerly could have asked much more probing questions and drawn out information that would have helped Rory.

  I set down the transcript, adding two things to my to-do list. Visit the Karkakians to see if I could jog their memories, and talk to Fergus again about bringing in a new lawyer to review the case. It seemed there might be grounds to have the verdict overturned.

  Next morning our routine began early, as Drake was off to do a photo shoot near Santa Fe. I found myself with coffee at hand, browsing social media again and landing on my old acquaintance Cathy’s Facebook page. She had responded to my last little comment with You still in ABQ? We should get together.

  How convenient. Just when I was wondering how to initiate a conversation and pump her for more information, she dropped the opportunity right in my lap.

  For sure. How great would be it be to have Mac’s fries again! When’s good?

  Cathy must have received the ping immediately because within two minutes she’d come back with It’s my day off so how about 3?

  All right. I gave her a thumbs-up emoji and it was a date.

  I closed the lid on my computer and turned away. In my head was a list of things I should try to accomplish, and there was not time to keep poking around and looking up old friends. A quick shower and I was off to the northeast heights to find Karkakian’s furniture store. I toyed with the idea of calling ahead to be sure he would be there, but have found it’s best to see a person’s face at the moment I introduce my subject. They have less time to dwell on it and shift their story to what they think I want to hear.

  The family business operated three stores around the city. Two sons had come of age since the founding of the little empire, and Pop had seen to it that each had a readymade career. Meanwhile, the original seemed to be the headquarters and my guess was the senior Karkakians would keep offices there.

  The Hoffmantown neighborhood is an eclectic mishmash of the old and the new. Some businesses have been there since the 1950s; others came and went, including a corner full of chain outlets of the type found in every strip mall center in America. Cheap haircuts, discount electronics, pet grooming, and a craft store filled that area. I knew Karkakian’s had been around long before these guys showed up, so I made a right on Wyoming and spotted it in the next block.

  It was early enough in the day that the parking lot out front held only three cars. A narrow alley ran beside the building, and my guess was the employees parked behind. I pulled in to the front lot, giving myself two spaces between me and a little red Honda sedan.

  Inside, a woman in her forties was whisking a feather duster over some knickknacks on a bookcase. I chuckled, remembering the court testimony where the store owner said an employee was dusting when the stranger had come into the store and confronted his wife. As a person who barely keeps the dirt off one houseful of furniture, I couldn’t begin to imagine what it took to keep a place this size looking fresh all the time.

  I asked if the boss was in and the woman pointed me toward the back. Behind a long sales counter, I could see a door marked Office. A second employee responded to my query by tapping at the door, opening it, and announcing, “Some lady here to see you.”

  Jack Karkakian was shorter and rounder than I’d expected. He used to do his own TV commercials and I remembered a blustering, dark-haired man with an oily smile and a lot of action with wide-spread hands and excited intonation in his voice—have we got the deals for you! He was grayer now and I caught only the faintest trace of the wide smile when he greeted me.

  “Can I help you? Did you already have a look around the store?” He shot a look across the big showroom, ready to chastise the employee for not having sold me something yet.

  “Actually, I’m not here about furniture. This is something only you can help with.” Some stroke of genius at the last second told me to play up to the ego.

  He preened a little. “My office?”

  I followed him to the small room behind the counter, where two desks sat facing each other. One held neatly stacked invoices in the center. Around the edges were a stapler, page-a-day calendar, telephone, and a computer that was at least a decade out of date. The other desktop was a mass of paperwork—brochures and large poster board with clippings of furniture pictures pasted on. No doubt the art department at the newspaper would have to redo the whole thing, but I supposed the older man’s tendency was to stick with a system that had worked well in the past.

  “Don’t mind all this,” he said as he pulled a chair from a corner and set it near the messy desk. “It’s ad layout day and I like to do it myself.”

  I tried for an encouraging smile. “I won’t take much of your time. Here’s my card. We’re looking into the trial and conviction of Rory McNab, the lawyer in a case where you were a witness about ten years ago.”

  His forehead wrinkled in thought.

  “You were a juror in a case against a Damian Baca, who was acquitted on drug trafficking charges. Rory McNab was his defense attorney, and later McNab was accused of jury tampering. I’ve read the transcript. You testified that someone had threatened you, through your wife …”

  “Ah, now I remember. I remember it well. Poor Shirley was terrified. The guy had a scar on his face, and she said he was real rough-looking and scary. I had been at the courthouse for two days, and when I got to the store that second afternoon she wasn’t here. My Shirley, she’s always here. She and I—we’re the
backbone of this business. Well, my sons grew up in the business and they each have a store now, too. We’re a close family.” He pressed his fingers together to prove it. “Those boys have turned out to be excellent businessmen.”

  I could see this digressing fast. “So, back to the time of the trial, Mr. Karkakian—”

  “Jack.”

  “Yes. Jack, did you ever find out who the man was, the one who made the threat?”

  “I don’t know his name, but I kept a keen watch out for him. If I’d caught him hanging around my store, watching my family … I’d have …”

  “Did you ever spot him at all? During the rest of the trial or after?”

  “I caught sight of him once. It was the day the jury came back with the verdict. He was outside the courthouse. He made eye contact and gave me a little nod. I knew it was him. He looked really satisfied with the way things turned out. And after the news reporters were done interviewing the lawyers and all, I saw this guy get in the same car as Damian Baca.”

  “Have you ever seen him again, after Damian’s trial?”

  He shook his head, then paused. “Wait. I did. He was at the back of the courtroom the day I had to go and testify—when they put that Damian’s lawyer on trial.”

  Hmm. I took a moment to get the picture in my head. “Did the scarred man do or say anything that day?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not that I saw.”

  “When you were asked about your vote on the Baca trial, none of the lawyers asked whether the man who threatened your wife said the message came from Rory McNab. So I’ll ask it now—did he say or do anything to make her think McNab was the one who was pressing for the vote of innocent?”

  A voice came from behind me. “I can answer that.”

  I turned to see an older woman who walked to the second desk and set her purse down.

  “I’m the one he spoke to,” said Shirley Karkakian. “He said ‘deliver a message to your husband. Tell him he’d better not vote Damian Baca guilty’ and that was it. He shook his finger at me and he had this ugly, scary look on his face. But those were his only words.”