Escapes Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  The camera panned out slightly and I caught sight of Daniel Wickett, the federal marshal who had come to my office. So, apparently, this was a joint operation of some kind. The reporter asked another question, which I missed by being distracted, but Taylor dismissed it and turned away. Another camera caught a scene with a black body bag on a gurney being wheeled to the back of the medical investigator’s van.

  Jorge Balderas—the man with the scar on his lip.

  Saliva rushed into my mouth as I realized this man had confronted me less than twelve hours earlier, warning me and pointing a gun at my gut. I swallowed hard. The reality of having been in the killer’s sights—it hit me hard.

  The reporter recapped: “So, once again, in the early morning hours police attempted to arrest their lead suspect in the death of Judge Aldo Blackman two weeks ago. During the course of that confrontation, the alleged suspect opened fire and was killed by officers at the scene here near Central and Rio Grande Boulevard.

  Less than six blocks from my home.

  The news anchorman at the studio took over. “Shocking news, indeed, Pippa, perhaps all the more so because Mr. Balderas was a key campaign worker for congressional candidate Herman Quinto. We still have no word on what possible motive could have driven this man to murder a judge.”

  His co-anchor piped up. “Breaking news is coming in that there are already protests by both civil rights leaders and watchdog groups who are claiming police brutality against the Hispanic victim. Mr. Quinto is expected to make a statement in time for our noon newscast, and we will be on the scene to cover that.”

  Both wore somber expressions and tsked appropriately at all the right places. I didn’t envy Detective Taylor in the coming weeks. This thing was going to go both political and racial before it was all over, and he was stuck in the middle.

  I probably knew more than I should, and the realization prickled at me. Rory’s history with the judge, his friendship with Damian that had continued through the years, Damian’s relationship to Jorge Balderas. I debated going to the police, but what would I say? Rory, when asked about the photo of Jorge, had dodged the question about knowing him. For all I knew, they were not acquainted.

  Impatient about waiting for the coffee maker, I stirred instant coffee into a cup of microwaved hot water.

  Rory’s words came back to me. “You’re on the wrong track with this … Quinto and Blackman together orchestrated my conviction …” Were the police on the right track, or was Rory correct? I wondered where he was right now. After the funeral, he’d indicated he might stay closer to New Mexico. With Blackman dead and Quinto probably headed to Washington, DC, he was becoming more comfortable here. I wondered if he felt the same as of this morning.

  Christine phoned as I was eyeing a package of English muffins. I recognized her number and picked up.

  “There’s an Albuquerque story that’s made the national news,” she said immediately. “I think they’re talking about that judge who ruled in Rory’s case.”

  “Yes. That’s the one. Do you know where Rory is right now?”

  “I … not for sure.”

  “Christine, what’s going on? He’s mixed up in this, isn’t he?”

  “Charlie, can you promise some kind of investigator-client privilege?”

  “It doesn’t really work that way. But the more I know, the more I can help him. What has he told you?”

  I heard a ragged sigh over the line. “I haven’t slept since we got back to Denver. In Albuquerque, Rory and I talked—really talked—for the first time in years. I told him how I’d always felt, about what a spoiled kid he was, how Dad forgave him anything and everything. He actually acknowledged it and said he felt sorry about it. We mended a lot of old hurts. That part of the conversation was good.”

  A moist sniff, and she cleared her throat. “He told me other things, too. About the judge, about working near him as a young law student. The judge made advances … actually threatened both men and women who wouldn’t go along with him. He says there were photos and recordings—” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t believe it, Charlie. He was abused by this man. Others were too.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “One of the women was Helen Bannerly, Rory’s defense attorney. She was so mortified and scared by it that she went into a whole different branch of the law, one where she would never have to appear in a courtroom.”

  “My god, the damage the man did! No wonder …”

  “No wonder what?”

  A long silence went by before she spoke again. “Charlie, there’s more. Rory basically confessed to me when we were together.”

  “Confessed? To—?” My mouth went dry. Surely I hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Almost—well, not exactly—oh, god, I don’t know for sure. He has this friend, a guy named Damian. My brother told me that he’d said to Damian that he wished someone would do away with the judge. A few days later, it happened.”

  “Are you sure? Everybody reaches a point where they wish some tormentor would be gone.”

  “But the way he said it, Charlie. I think he meant for Damian to act on it. That’s solicitation of murder or … I don’t know the terms … I just hear them on TV.”

  My mind reeled. Had Rory actually paid Damian? If so, it was definitely murder for hire. “Did he say anything about money—giving money to anyone?” I sank onto a chair at the table. I’d been so wrong in my conclusions this time.

  “No—of course not. He was just furious that the judge had gotten away with making sexual advances and holding it over young lawyers that their compliance, or not, would determine the outcome of their cases.”

  Wow. The entire legal system turned on its ear because of one man who couldn’t control his urges. I turned my back on my coffee and food. My stomach wasn’t going to be able to handle anything for a while.

  Chapter 46

  I was sitting in the same chair at the kitchen table when my phone sent me a reminder notice; at first I couldn’t remember what I had wanted to be reminded of. The message said Dottie at 11.

  It was Gram’s big homecoming day. I couldn’t believe I’d spaced it out. Dottie Flowers was coming early and we would go through the house so I could make sure she could easily find things. She would stay in my old bedroom where, with her door open at night, she would hear if Gram called out for assistance.

  She drove a cute little boxy purple car and tooted the horn as she pulled into the driveway. I’d stepped out our front door at that moment and she gave a huge smile and wave as she brought the car to a stop and spotted Freckles bounding toward her.

  The clenching feeling in my gut eased. Dottie was a wonderful breath of normalcy after the past surreal twenty-four hours.

  “Hey, Miss Charlie. You’re just in time to help me carry my stuff inside.” She said as she opened the back door on her vehicle. “Hey, little Freckle-honey. Dottie brought you some yummies. Just wait ’til I unpack.”

  Out came two large suitcases, a big folded quilt (“Gotta have this—my gramma made it”), a bowling bag (“in case Miss Elsa want to knock down some pins with me on my day off”), and a box filled with picture frames (“the grandbabies in California”). She piled the quilt and cardboard box in my arms and I held out a hand for the bowling bag. She picked up the two suitcases by herself, and managed a fancy hip-bump method of closing the door.

  My eyes must have grown round because she laughed. “In this job, I gotta be what you’d call multi-talented.”

  We headed for the front door. Dottie had come over once before, long enough for a quick overview of the housing arrangement, and she remembered everything we had discussed at the time. She walked into the living room, set down the blue suitcase and carried the other toward the kitchen.

  “This bag got my cookbooks and a couple kitchen tools I like. Wasn’t sure if Miss Elsa has a juicer so I brought my own.” She left the brown suitcase near the kitchen door. “She gonna love my carrot-blueberry juice. There
’s enough healthy stuff in it to get her runnin’ around the back yard.”

  “Good for you. She’ll love that.”

  I set her personal things on the bed in her room and came back for the blue suitcase, but she had beat me to it and hefted the huge thing up on a chair. Once she’d set the bag down, she reached into a pocket, told Freckles to sit (which the pup actually did), and handed out two treats.

  “We’ll leave you to get settled,” I told her, “unless you want some help?”

  “Oh, I can put my own stuff away any old time. We ought to make a shopping list. Miss Elsa could be a mite hungry when she gets home. They never feed you anything satisfying in those places.”

  We went into the kitchen, where a quick inventory showed well-stocked cupboards but a sparse fridge. “I cleared all this out when she went in the hospital. Sour milk and mushy lettuce wouldn’t have made for a nice homecoming,” I told her.

  “Ew, you got that right.” She was jotting notes on a little notebook she’d pulled from her pocket. “I’ll just run to the store and get us some things. Was it three o’clock your brother s’posed to bring her here?”

  “That’s right. When I talked with her yesterday she said she wanted Drake and me to come over this evening to watch the election returns with her. Do you think she’ll be up to it?”

  “Well, let’s give it a try. If she’s too tired, she’ll prob’ly just doze off in her chair.” Dottie was gathering her purse and keys. “I’m planning a nice warm soup for dinner and y’all welcome to come.”

  “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble to cook for three more. She’s always been interested in the elections, so I bet she’ll sit up.” It was a midterm year, so I didn’t expect things to get terribly exciting, but I was interested to see how it turned out in the Congressional race. Quinto had been ahead in the early polls so I doubted there would be any real surprise there. The thought made me feel a heavy sadness.

  We parted, and Freckles and I ran a few errands ourselves, then settled back at home. An hour later, I saw Ron’s car pull into Elsa’s driveway next door. Gram at home! I instantly felt better.

  Freckles and I raced out our front door at the same time Dottie came from Elsa’s. We all ended up beside the car door Ron was opening for our sweet patient. Dottie gave Freckles a stern look and put her hand in her pocket. The dog immediately sat and received a little treat. I needed to take lessons from this lady.

  Ron and Dottie offered elbows for Gram to use as they walked her up the two steps to her porch. I carried the tote bag I’d packed with a few essentials, what seemed like ages ago. It was overflowing now with cards and little packages, and I was happy other people had gone to visit her while I’d been so distracted these past few weeks.

  By five o’clock, Dottie’s chicken noodle soup began to send a fantastic scent throughout the house. Even Elsa, who had settled into her favorite chair for a little nap, perked up and eagerly joined all of us, where she reigned at the head of the dining table. I felt a huge flow of relief to see her here, glowing again and happy her little brood was together.

  Drake and I cleared the table and did the dishes while Dottie tended to Gram and Ron organized seating around the old TV set in the living room. Election night coverage had begun hours ago with national stories. It didn’t take long to realize that all the predictions about Herman Quinto’s victory were coming true. He was to be our next U.S. Congressman. My heart was somewhat heavy, but I felt certain Washington and the political machine would welcome him with open arms.

  Chapter 47

  Never make promises to a dying man, unless you love him deeply. You just end up feeling negligent and once he’s gone you can’t even sit down with him and explain why you couldn’t fulfill the promise.

  I thought of Fergus all morning, of a father’s blind love for his son and how he tried every possible avenue to clear Rory’s name. The old man had been willing to die violently, to go down in a blaze of glory, as he called it, to get rid of the man he perceived as guilty—how wrong he’d been about Quinto. The man was no saint; he’d been friends with a real villain. But in prosecuting Rory McNab, it seemed he’d simply been doing his job. And now, it looked as if Rory wasn’t so innocent after all.

  I felt that my obligation to Fergus had come to an end. I would not be able to prove Rory innocent, after all. Even if the jury tampering case were to magically go away, a murder charge would be far worse. Murder of a district judge—surely there was a death sentence attached to that.

  On the other hand, what’s the obligation to seek justice when the so-called victim of the murder was a heinous person to begin with? Would society have prosecuted and hanged someone who’d managed to kill Hitler?

  When my phone rang just before noon and showed “Unknown Caller” on the screen, I had a feeling. I took the call and heard Rory’s voice.

  “Charlie, can we talk?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Meet me at the Isleta exit off I-25. Fifteen minutes.”

  “It’ll take me twenty to get there.”

  “Don’t alert the police. Please. At least not until you hear me out.”

  Out of curiosity, I agreed to the meeting. Twenty-one minutes later I exited the interstate and looked around for my client. He’d switched vehicles again—this time to a black SUV parked at the edge of a bare dirt half-acre of space. He signaled from the driver’s window and I pulled alongside, driver-to-driver so we could talk without getting out of our vehicles.

  He looked older than his forty-nine years, older than just a few days ago, with bags under his eyes and hard lines etched on each side of his mouth.

  “Chrissy called me,” he said. “She told me about talking to you yesterday.”

  I nodded. “I suppose you’ve seen the news, about Jorge Balderas.”

  “Yeah. I really didn’t think it would go that way. I never asked anyone to get rid of the judge.”

  “How did you think it would go?”

  He stared straight ahead and let out a long, pent-up breath. “Damian had a recording, Judge Blackman saying he would get me off, free me of the jury tampering charges, in exchange for the blackmail photos.”

  “Helen assumed it was someone within the judge’s sphere who snapped the photos, that he was the one behind keeping her silent because he wanted to keep seeing her.”

  “Different photos. These were more graphic and showed Blackman with young men—and I mean young—as well as women. Law school students and interns, all so eager to please and ready to advance their careers. We were such a pitiful bunch.”

  “Wow. The man had no scruples at all, did he?”

  “Not on that subject. Predators seldom do.”

  “But, if you had this proof, why didn’t you come forward with it back then? Why let everything go so far now?”

  “By the time I saw the photos and knew they existed, I’d already been convicted of jury tampering. I was mentally in a fog, awaiting sentence, and it was Blackman who would have determined my fate. The sentence would have been a long one, and I would have been sent out of state so I had no contact with anyone in New Mexico. I know this—it happened to someone else, and that guy committed suicide in a California prison a few months after he went.”

  “How does Damian fit into all this?”

  “Initially, he was just a client of mine. He was young and had got mixed up with the Mexican cartel. His mother was such a good woman and he came from a basically strong family. Mrs. Baca pleaded with me to work hard to get her son acquitted, swore he’d learned his lesson and would stay clean if he got another chance. I believed her. The whole family was so thrilled when Damian got off, they welcomed me like another son and we’ve all remained friends. They were shocked at the whole jury-tampering case. Damian, in particular, vowed to help me if he could. That’s when he got the recordings of Blackman saying he would let me off.”

  “I was curious about that. If a jury found you guilty, how was the judge going to get you out of it?
”

  “There are situations where a judge can override a jury verdict. It’s uncommon. More often, the judge can go hard or easy during the sentencing phase, and that’s what Blackman was holding over me.”

  “Okay, that was then—this is now.” I felt my anger rising again. “You told your sister you wanted the judge dead. Did Damian kill him?”

  “No, Charlie. It really was Jorge. I don’t know what was said … Damian won’t give me any specifics. I assume he told Jorge what I’d said. Whether Jorge took it as a request, a command, a job … I have no idea.”

  “They’ll trace your connection to Damian and, because they’re cousins, to Jorge. Can anyone prove you uttered that statement—about the judge dying? Would Damian have recorded you saying it?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t believe he would.”

  Believing something and knowing it, however, can be two different things. I had been convinced Quinto was the authority behind Jorge Balderas and his actions. I still wasn’t certain.

  A sad look came over his face. “I’m not sure where I’ll go. Eventually, maybe Colorado. I’d like to be closer to Chrissy, get to know her daughters better, and her grandkids, before they’re all grown up. But there’s something I definitely plan to do first.”

  He held up a packet of photographs. “The judge’s crimes can’t be used to convict him of anything now, obviously, but I have a friend who writes a blog about predators. He posts warnings of the signs which kids, young people, and parents should look for. He names people, especially the powerful or wealthy who’ve gotten away with it. He tells the stories so other innocents can avoid them and law enforcement can watch for them.”

  Perhaps something good would come from Rory’s actions, after all. “Why not just come forward, here and now? Bring these to light, yourself.”

  “I still have that conviction hanging over my head. And being a fugitive from justice for so many years, the law could come down hard on me, before I have a chance to accomplish anything.” For the first time, he smiled a crooked little smile. “But we’re working on it. Damian and I are putting together all the evidence we can muster. And I talked to Helen Bannerly. She apologized for the way things went back then. She wants to reopen my case and get me absolved. Quinto was the one who sent Balderas to intimidate the jurors. He had plans all along to discredit me and put me in prison—we know this but we need proof.”