The Rose Conspiracy

by Craig Parshall

  “Mr. Blackstone! What happened to you?” he was calling out.

  That was the last thing J.D. Blackstone remembered.

  CHAPTER 35

  When Blackstone regained consciousness, he was lying, on his back. He was in a vehicle and it was moving fast.

  “How’s Blackjack…did he…get shot?” Blackstone asked, still in a daze.

  Blackstone was lying on a gurney in the rear of a speeding EMT truck. Manny was bending over him. An EMT worker, also in the back of the vehicle, was monitoring his vital signs.

  “No, Mr. Blackstone,” Manny said. “Blackjack, he didn’t get hurt at all. Did a real good job of bringing you up to the barn.”

  “Good,” Blackstone said. “That’s good.”

  Within fifteen minutes the EMT vehicle was pulling into a regional hospital. The EMTs had already stopped the bleeding. He was given a transfusion and a surgical team took an initial look at his left shoulder. The bullet had made a clean entrance and exit, he was told by the head of the emergency room. But it looked like it might have severed a tendon.

  “You’re pretty much out of the woods,” the doctor said, “as far as blood loss is concerned. But we would feel better if you got transferred over to a hospital equipped for microsurgery. You’re going to need some exploratory intervention in that area. See what got torn or damaged, and then go right into surgical repair. You live in Georgetown?”

  Blackstone nodded.

  “Fine. We’ll get you transferred tonight.”

  Manny came in the critical care room to check on him a few minutes later.

  “Hey Manny,” Blackstone said. “Do me a favor, will you? Call Julia at my office. Tell her what happened. And let her know which hospital I’m going to tonight.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Blackstone.”

  “And tell her to be sure and watch her step. She needs to be really careful about her own safety.”

  Manny smiled and assured him that he would tell Julia.

  After Manny left, a stocky deputy sheriff strode in the room. He introduced himself and said he needed to get some details on the shooting. Blackstone rattled off the entire incident while the deputy was jotting down notes in his daybook.

  Then the deputy looked up from his memo pad.

  “We’ve got some personnel looking over the scene for evidence,” he said.

  “Make sure—” Blackstone said, trying to lean over on his side to face the deputy. But then wincing in pain, and then thinking better of it, he eased himself down again. “That they check the tire prints from the truck. And there should be several bullets in the dirt.”

  “We’ll do our job—don’t worry, Professor,” the deputy said. “I know you’re a big criminal law expert, but out here—we may be in the country, but we can do physical evidence with the best of them.”

  “Good to hear that,” Blackstone said.

  The deputy made a few more notes and then said he had all the information he needed except for one final question.

  “Know anybody who wants you dead?”

  Blackstone thought on it for a few moments.

  “Yeah. The three students I flunked in my constitutional law class last semester.”

  The deputy looked up from his memo pad.

  “And then there is my father the judge, who resents the scandalous kinds of criminal cases I’m constantly taking on.”

  “Did any of these people make threats?” the deputy started to say.

  “No. Listen, I’m just kidding,” Blackstone said. “Motive? Oh…let me think on that one and get back to you. But there is one thing more you need to know,” Blackstone said.

  “What’s that?” the deputy asked.

  “About the shooter—I think it was just one person in that truck.” Blackstone continued.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No.”

  “Then how’d you know?” the deputy asked.

  “The driver had to stop the truck each time before shooting. Couldn’t drive and shoot at the same time. That tells me it was one person.”

  The deputy thought on it for a moment then responded.

  “Could be. We’re still looking for the assailant. Unfortunately no ID on the person, just the truck. We’ve sent out a ‘want’ electronically to the other departments around the state. Your description of the truck matches the one we got from that fellow from the horse stables.”

  “Manuel Rodriguez?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. We did get a response, though, from a detective with the Capitol Police in DC from our APB.”

  “Do they know something about the suspect?”

  “Not sure. They said they’re working on a related case.”

  “Related?”

  “Yes, but that’s all I know. After you get transferred to the other hospital tonight, someone from their department will probably be interviewing you.”

  After the deputy left, a nurse came in and said they would be transferring him by ambulance in a few hours. That he could close his eyes and try to get some rest.

  “Got anything really powerful for sleep?” he asked, half jokingly.

  “Nothing beyond the pain meds you’re already getting,” she said in a monotone and then left.

  Blackstone was half-drifting off about an hour later, when another nurse came in to check on him.

  “Excuse me, Professor,” she said. “But there’s a Judge William Potter Blackstone on the telephone. I am assuming he’s a close relative?”

  “That’s debatable,” he replied with a hint of dark humor. “He’s my father.”

  “Would you like me to put him through to your room?”

  “Sure…why not?”

  A minute later the phone next to his bed rang. Blackstone picked it up.

  “J.D., is that you?”

  “Yes. I’m still alive, Dad,” he answered.

  “Julia from your office called us. Your mother and I are very concerned, of course. How are you doing?”

  “As they say in the movies, ‘It’s just a flesh wound’—sort of,” Blackstone snapped back. “It went in and out. A clean hole. Nothing to worry about.”

  There was a pause in the conversation. Then his father continued.

  “So, exactly what kind of situation are you mixed up in this time?”

  “It’s a long story,” he replied.

  “Most attempted murders are,” the father shot back. “Do you know why it happened?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But Dad, I don’t really think I’m at liberty to explain.”

  “I’m not a judge anymore, remember?” his father said. “I retired. There’s no ethical or professional reason now for you to play games with me. I just want to know what kind of trouble you’ve got yourself into.”

  “No trouble. Just another strange twist in my own, very peculiar practice of law.”

  “Speaking of your…well, strange legal practice, there’s something you should know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been reading in the papers about your defending this woman in the murder of Horace Langley.”

  “Oh?” Blackstone said, closing his eyes, shaking his head, and readying himself for the onslaught.

  “Were you aware that I knew Horace Langley?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Blackstone said.

  “Not intimately,” his father continued. “But he and I were seated next to each other a few years ago at a dinner in Washington. It was a banquet for the Supreme Court Historical Society. Spent the evening talking together. Seemed like a wonderful person. Fascinating fellow. A horrible atrocity for a fine man like that to have been killed like that—shot down like a dog.”

  “Yes,” Blackstone said. “His murder was a terrible crime. But never fear, Dad, before this case is over, I intend to expose the real killer.”

  “Oh, really?” his father said with a cold air of incredulity. Then he added, “It’s a rotten sham
e you came in on the wrong side of this one. I know all about the legal advocate’s ethical duty to represent undesirables, but this one, J.D.—honestly, this really takes the cake.”

  After a few seconds of silence his father added two more final words.

  “Be well.”

  Then he hung up.

  CHAPTER 36

  Were you the one who called my father and told him?” Blackstone said in a surly tone.

  He was just out of surgery and still a little groggy. But not too groggy to miss the opportunity to spar with Julia, who was in the recovery room with him, standing next to his bed.

  “He’s your father,” Julia shot back. “Come on, J.D. How can you blame me? Besides, you’ve got no wife. No other close friends. Not even a house pet. I’m the one who has to look after those kinds of things for you.”

  He moved a few of the tubes out of the way to get a better look at his law partner.

  Blackstone managed a half-smile.

  “At least my trusty horse stuck by me,” he said.

  He could see that Julia was smiling now too.

  “Your horse and me,” she said. “Your only true friends. That says something, huh?”

  Then something happened, and her voice quivered a little.

  “I should be so angry over this whole thing,” she said, and her eyes started filling up with tears. “When I heard you were shot…” she started to say, but she couldn’t finish. Julia covered her mouth with her hand. She swiped a swath of blond hair away from her face with her other hand, and then took her horn-rimmed glasses off and wiped her eyes.

  J.D. Blackstone was watching her. His smile was fading into an open-mouthed gaze. He was amazed. Surprised at the tenderness he saw peeking out from Julia’s usual controlled exterior. But he shouldn’t have been.

  He was tempted to give a smart-aleck retort, but it left him, and so he simply lay in his bed, looking at Julia’s attractive, vulnerable face for a long time.

  “I need your help,” he finally said. “They want me to stay in the hospital for a couple of days or so, primarily for physical rehab on my shoulder. I can’t afford to do that. I’m planning on getting myself out of here tomorrow even if it is against medical advice. I’ve already shut off the painkillers they’ve got me on.”

  With that he pointed to the IV drip next to his bed.

  “That particular one,” Blackstone said, “has a tendency to cause elevated temperatures in the body. The last nurse in here took my temp, and it was ninety-nine-point-five just after they hooked me up. So I disconnected it. I don’t want them charting me as having an elevated temp and then wondering whether I’ve got a postoperative surgical infection giving me all kinds of grief about getting released tomorrow.”

  “Wonderful,” Julia said with an exasperated tone. “So, you’re fresh from surgery and you’ve already taken yourself off pain meds?”

  “I need to get out of here. I can’t afford to slow down on Vinnie’s case. Trial date is rushing up. And I’m just starting to feel the wind at my back.”

  “So,” Julia said, matter-of-factly, “what do you want me to do?”

  “First, now that we’ve got clearance from the Court of Appeals, send the Langley note to our two defense experts.”

  “And they are?”

  “There’s a professor at Harvard. Dr. Richard Cutsworth. He’s head of the history department. The guy’s the number-one scholar in the nation on nineteenth-century American history, with a particular expertise on the Civil War. Published several books on the Lincoln assassination. I spoke to him earlier and he said if I could get the Langley note released, he would agree to take a look at it. Try to figure out what it means. And then maybe we can figure out the motive behind the Smithsonian crime.”

  “The guy sounds like a real trophy fish for our side. How’d you manage to get him?”

  “Professional jealousy. I think he was peeved,” Blackstone said, “that Horace Langley had passed him over in selecting the panel of experts who were supposed to review the Booth diary pages.”

  “So, who is the second expert you want me to send the Langley note to?”

  Blackstone paused for a moment, then rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, my uncle, I suppose.”

  Julia smiled.

  “Good choice,” she said.

  “Now you’re being sentimental.”

  “No, just logical,” she said. “Cutsworth is the natural first choice. He can dissect the note from a purely historical standpoint. But Reverend Lamb will be coming from a totally different perspective. He’s like Blackjack—in other words, the dark horse—or should I say, the wild card…excusing the double pun.”

  Blackstone smiled.

  “Yeah. That’s exactly why I decided on dear old Uncle as my second choice,” he said. “It really won’t matter what crazy conclusions he arrives at. The fact that he’s using a contrary paradigm totally out of left field for his evaluation, all that Freemason-Gnostic-mumbo-jumbo, will put some pressure on Cutsworth to really sharpen his game—he’ll want to make sure that his scholarly, historical approach is the theory that we end up going with.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Check with Tully to see how his investigation is going into the two security guards who were on duty at the Smithsonian that night.”

  “Will do.”

  “Also, there’s an issue with one of the FBI’s 302 reports.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been rolling this around in my head,” Blackstone said. “According to the FBI investigation at the scene, there was a drinking glass on Langley’s desk at the scene of the crime.”

  “So?”

  “But when I looked at the physical evidence inventory sheet in the records that Henry Hartz turned over to me—there was no mention of the glass being bagged and tagged and put into the evidence closet. As you know, Hartz eventually did produce a copy of the crime lab report on the glass—it showed no fingerprints. But why is the glass not mentioned on the evidence inventory? Find out what the deal is with that.”

  “Okay. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Finally,” Blackstone said, “bring the files on Vinnie’s case into my room here. I can’t afford to waste time.”

  Julia nodded, and then came closer to his bed. She bent over Blackstone and planted a single kiss on his forehead, then turned to leave.

  As she left she said over her shoulder, “Glad to see you’re still alive, Professor Blackstone.”

  “Thanks, Julia,” he said. “Thanks for everything. Really. Oh, and Julia—”

  She stopped and cocked her head a little.

  “Please be very careful. Whoever came after me—it may have something to do with Vinnie’s case. So, just be very cautious about your own safety. I’m thinking about having Tully hire a bodyguard for you, just in case.”

  “First, someone tries to crush you with a two-ton block of marble—then you take a bullet—and I’m the one who needs security?” she said laughing. “No, thanks. I can take care of myself.”

  After Julia was gone, a nurse hustled into the room and took his temperature.

  Then she looked at the little white thermometer.

  “Huh. Ninety-eight-point-seven. Your temperature is right as rain now,” the nurse said.

  Blackstone smiled.

  “Of course it is,” he said with a measure of satisfaction.

  “A detective with the DC police is on his way in to talk with you,” the nurse announced. “I guess about your shooting.”

  “Yeah, I was told about that,” Blackstone said.

  “Are you up to it?” the nurse asked.

  “Sure. Send him in. What’s his name?”

  The nurse glanced down at the chart in her hand.

  “Ah…here it is…Cheski…Detective Cheski.”

  Blackstone’s eyes widened.

  “Detective Victor Cheski?”

  “Yes. That’s him.”

  As the nurse scurried out of the room
, Blackstone was left to ponder that one—why the chief investigator in the Smithsonian murder was now investigating the attempt on J.D. Blackstone’s life.

  CHAPTER 37

  Detective Cheski strode into the hospital room with a smile.

  “May I shake your good hand?” he said, and reached out.

  The men shook hands. Blackstone managed a courteous smile.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering,” the detective began, “why I’m here.”

  “That, among other things, yes.”

  “This is a little unusual, I admit,” Cheski continued. “So, maybe I can dive right in.”

  “Be my guest,” Blackstone said, eyeing the detective carefully.

  This was a good opportunity, the lawyer thought, to size up one of the chief players on the opposing team. He took in everything about the detective. He was good-looking and in good shape. Had an air of overconfidence about him. Wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Looked Blackstone right in the eye as he talked. Almost aggressively so.

  “I had been called in to investigate your incident at that construction site,” Detective Cheski began, “involving the elevator and the block of marble. That must have given you quite a scare that day.”

  “It elevated my blood pressure a little bit,” Blackstone said. “I never heard the results of the police investigation.”

  “Some dead ends, I’m afraid. No question that the construction crane had been tampered with. We did check out a hopeful lead on a former, disgruntled crane operator, who had just been fired a week before the incident for stealing some construction materials and tools. But he had a solid alibi. So, we were back to square one.”

  “Thus the question,” Blackstone replied, “where, exactly, is square one?”

  “I had the initial suspicion, Professor, that you might have been targeted in that elevator incident, but there wasn’t a lot to go on. Just an idea. On the other hand, perhaps it was just a random act of vandalism. Now, with this shooting, it sure raises the stakes. Which is why I am involved.”

  “Yes, explain that for me,” Blackstone said.