“First Marines. You remember? No, you’re not old enough.”
“I know what you guys did. I was Army, the Balkans.” He left it at that. He had his war stories. But nothing like what this man faced on that frozen Korean lake. “I’m looking for the family of Tasha Gonzalez.”
“Come in. I hear better out of the wind.”
The living room was a battered sofa with a television on a milk crate, aluminum foil wrapped around a rabbit-ear antenna. Bronkowski was glad to see it was off so they could talk. But he wondered what the old man had been doing before the knock at the door. No newspaper, magazines, or books he could see. No sign of other activity. Maybe he had been napping. Maybe he had been thinking about Korea.
His name was Narciso Roybal. “Take a seat,” he said.
Cigarette ashes spilled out of saucers on the floor. Empty fast-food bags covered a card table. Bronkowski saw nowhere to sit except next to the old man on sofa cushions leaking chunks of foam. He decided to ask his questions standing.
Yes, he had known the Gonzalez family, Roybal said. He remembered Tasha; she had been pretty but was getting fat. Then she disappeared. One night, two white vehicles, “those fancy Cadillac Suburbans,” came for the family. Their place went up for sale the next day. That was ten years ago.
The old man’s left hand lay lifeless in his lap, though the middle finger twitched as he spoke. He lit a cigarette and said, “Escalades, that’s what they were. Not Suburbans. I had a Chevy once. I don’t drive no more. Can’t hardly see you except you’re so big.”
“What’s wrong with your hand?”
“The damn thing don’t work, that’s what’s wrong. But God gave me two. So I can’t complain.”
“Is anyone caring for you?”
“That boy down the street brings me something now and then. I think he’s keeping most of my money for himself. Says gas is really expensive. Drives all the way into town for take-out. I told him bring me Dinty Moore or Campbell’s. Not Taco Bell again, please. But I don’t know.”
Bronkowski nodded at a black dial telephone on the counter. “That work?”
“Better than my hand. My daughter calls from California. She’s a teacher. Three kids. Smart enough to dump her no-good husband. Smart enough to get out of this place.”
Bronkowski wrote the number for the VA outreach team on one of the fast food bags.
“They’ll come to your home to help, if you want. The guy in charge was a jarhead like you. The next war after yours.”
The old man took the piece of paper bag in his only good hand while the cigarette burned between his lips. It was hard to believe this frail, withered human being had been with the Marines when the Chinese poured out of the hills. He had seen some things.
“Thank you,” Bronkowski said and let himself out.
He made one more stop before checking in with Fager. He swung by the assessor’s office to see tax records for the mobile home where the Gonzalez family had lived. The annual bill was being sent to Thornton’s law office. He needed to call Fager, share the ideas coming into his head.
“Maybe Marcy’s cleaning out Geronimo by blackmailing him, stashing the Gonzalez family somewhere, reminding Geronimo every time she wants something, like an Aston-Martin or a big house above Santa Fe.”
“Get in here,” Fager said over the phone to Bronkowski, still at the Assessor’s Office, but outside now where he could talk.
“You want me to bring food to the house? Burritos from Tomasita’s? When’s the last time you ate anything?”
“I’m at the office,” Fager said and hung up.
Bronkowski drove across town and parked in the lot, next to Fager’s Mercedes. He climbed the steps and entered the waiting area. Empty chairs, no prospective clients hoping to see a lawyer. He stopped to give Roberta Weldon a hug and heard about Fager telling her to make
arrangements for Linda’s funeral, like ordering up exhibits for trial or telling her to get out subpoenas. What will he be like without Linda? He didn’t have an answer for her.
He stuck his head into Kate Morrow’s office. She was on the telephone begging a prosecutor for more time to provide the defense’s discovery. She blinked, her eyes tiny beads behind thick glasses, and waved. Bronkowski continued down the hall to Fager’s office. He heard typing before he got there.
Fager was dressed in the same suit he had worn to the opening at Geronimo’s gallery. Roberta had not been able to keep up with the empty coffee cups topping the room’s furniture. Pages overflowed his printer tray.
“Robbie told me about the funeral. Anything I can do?” Bronkowski took the chair in front of Fager’s desk.
“Barela’s is handling everything,” Fager said without turning around. He pounded out a paragraph then added, “I want it simple.”
“Berardinelli.”
“What?”
“Jesus. Don’t you remember who’s doing your wife’s funeral? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Fager stopped attacking his keyboard and spun in his chair.
“So I mixed up the name of the funeral director.” He had not shaved. Coffee dribbles stained his shirt. “When Cody Geronimo is wearing an orange jumpsuit I’ll slow down to mourn. Now, what’s this about Marcy blackmailing him?”
He wanted to lift Fager again, really crush him to make him cry, shed just one tear.
“Bronk?”
He told Fager about the ranch, Geronimo’s house, the Gonzalez family being driven out of town in style, and Thornton picking up the taxes on their place. “Marcy got rich too fast for the kinds of cases we’ve seen her handling in court. All of Geronimo’s assets coming her way, it’s got me thinking she’s doing more than lawyering.”
Fager sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s had some big settlements, women raped by prison guards.”
“Think of what your clients tell you. Not only what they did, but where the gun’s buried, where the money’s hidden, where they slipped up, and you’d better know before you learn it at trial. I’ve seen them come in with documents that would send them to prison if they couldn’t trust you to keep them locked in your safe. Somebody else, Marcy, might see an opportunity instead of an obligation.”
“There’s easier ways than blackmail to steal from a client,” Fager said. “But I agree to some extent. Marcy’s been milking this guy since she stole him away from this office.”
“Explain that.”
“Roberta found the phone message from Geronimo when he was shopping for a lawyer. Probably the Tasha Gonzalez matter. Marcy sized him up and went solo with a career client in her purse. If she had processed the intake straight and called me in, I probably would have been representing him.”
“And Linda would be alive. He wouldn’t have killed his own lawyer’s wife.”
Fager stood up to stretch, move his neck, roll his shoulders.
“Concentrate on the Gonzalez family,” he said. “Let’s find out where they went and how they’ve been living. Marcy got them out of Dodge for a reason. She might be paying them to stay away.”
“Should I keep running down Geronimo’s assets? You could sue him, take everything he has. The Gonzalez’s might get homesick when the money stops coming. Other families might come forward. The way he handled Linda, he’s got experience.”
Fager shook his head.
“Going civil, collecting would take a decade. He’d run to bankruptcy again when we’d cornered him. But see if you can find any pattern connecting Geronimo’s financial transactions, like unloading real estate or mortgaging property, with women disappearing from Santa Fe or turning up dead. Those would be times he might have needed lots of cash if he was buying silence.”
“SFPD won’t give me their missing and unsolved lists.”
“Goff can get it through Aragon.”
Fager turned backed to his
computer. Bronkowski wondered what he was writing so intently. Fager cursed and deleted his screen. Bronkowski left him alone and went to start a skip trace on the Gonzalez family.
As he was unlocking the door to his Camry, Thornton and Montclaire passed on their way to Thornton’s Aston.
“Of all the people you could work for,” he said. “And on Linda’s case. Why?”
Thornton pushed sunglasses off her face.
“I don’t remember Walter turning down any case, as long as it paid. I’m in the same business, Bronco.”
“Reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee.”
“Not this lawyer. My fees are never reasonable.”
Thornton and Montclaire slid onto the Aston’s leather seats while Bronkowski squeezed into his Toyota. They watched him struggle to pull the shoulder strap across his chest, unable to turn in the space between the seat and steering wheel.
“There’s your competition, Lily. He may look like a lunkhead, but he gets the job done.”
“He has terrible posture.”
“He’ll do anything for Walter, and he really liked Linda. You could see it when he was around her. Other people in the room, she’d be the one he always talked to. Dinner at her house, he’d be helping with dishes, getting up from the table to bring out food, pour wine, until she had to tell him to sit down. We need to know what he’s doing. It will tell us what Walter’s doing.”
“They had something going, Bronkowski and Linda?”
“For her it was like petting a guy’s dog to show you liked him. Her guy was Walter.”
Montclaire snapped her fingers and said, “Andrew. That’s his name.”
“Who?” Thornton pressed the ignition and the Aston responded with a low rumble. She backed out fast, just as Bronkowski was pulling from his space. He had to brake to avoid hitting her.
“That hot guy you shooed away when Cody called. Just when it was getting fun. That kid would have gone all night.”
“So glad your mind’s on work,” Thornton said. “I bet Bronkowski thinks about nothing but work.”
“He looks like that, there is nothing else.”
Sixteen
Joe Mascarenas was working late, assembling jury instructions on his own because the DA had pulled money out of the paralegal budget. He told Aragon he would meet her at the coffee shop across from the Rail Runner station.
She arrived first and watched her cousin labor as he carried his obese body on its small feet. His face was flushed when he stepped in the door. She had his usual waiting, a twenty-ounce French Roast with whipped cream.
“Did you walk the whole way?” The DA’s office was half a mile down the street.
“Trying to lose some pounds. I take the stairs. Park a block from the office. Carry my files instead of rolling them into court.”
The loose flesh under his chin quivered. It would be a long time before his program showed results.
“I’m always sweaty.” They took seats by a window. “How are you handling Judy Diaz’s vendetta?”
“What’s with her? This is about more than me taping Geronimo talking to his lawyer.”
“We see stuff like this whenever Thornton’s defending. This is the worst I’ve seen.”
“Why didn’t you strike her?” Under New Mexico criminal procedure, each side gets one chance to disqualify a judge for no reason at all. The DA’s failure to use its peremptory challenge had been bothering Aragon.
“Diaz has been wising up. If it’s a Thornton client, she’s making discretionary rulings immediately. That closes the door to our challenge and she’s along for the rest of the ride. We could appeal, fight her up the line. But she’s Chief Judge. She’d involve other judges she got elected and make us pay.” He slurped the whipped cream from the top of his coffee and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve made a friend in Diaz’s office. This person saw what happened on the Fager case and came to us. She’ll let me know next time there’s a whiff of Thornton’s perfume in chambers.”
“Explain the connection there.”
Aragon sipped at her own coffee. Mascarenas took a long drink before answering. She could see him wrestling with something. He spoke with a foamy mustache.
“They’ve been at it since law school. Their study group met in Judy’s bedroom.”
“You know this?” Aragon leaned forward and used a napkin to wipe her cousin’s face. “Take it to Judicial Standards. A judge banging a lawyer appearing before her. That’s gotta break some rule.”
“It does, but try proving it. We take a shot like that against Diaz and don’t put her down, it’s the DA and every at-will employee in our shop who’s out next election. That’s why you’re getting a paid vacation. Diaz wants a sacrifice to appease the angry girlfriend god. You’re the paschal lamb.”
“What bullshit. The union will back them down. Rick is getting us representation.”
“The union needs Diaz more than they need you or any rank-and-file. Who do you think appoints the mediator when collective bargaining stalls? Who’s been granted power to give union officers administrative leave to run the union? Two little clauses in the contract say it’s the Chief Judge of the First Judicial District. Enjoy your time off and come back ready for the next battle. Fager’s gearing up, something will break loose. I got three motions from him today, a research memo, and a case-strategy outline. He has some good ideas. Diaz and Thornton can’t bar the doors forever.”
Aragon looked through the window at the Rail Runner. It was painted red and orange, with a road runner down its side. Doors opened to commuters heading home. Aragon recognized two police officers boarding for the run south to Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, where cops could afford houses.
“I gotta get back.” Mascarenas pushed himself to his feet, groaning a little as he straightened his back.
“You’re welcome to join Rick and me in the gym. We could help you put a routine together. Hard as you work, the nights you’re at your desk after a full day in court, you need to take care of yourself, cuz.”
“I’m doing what I can.” He smoothed his tie over his stomach. She could see little threads at the bottom where the silk was fraying. “One hour with you, I’ll be so sore I’ll give up completely.”
She watched him waddle out the door and take the steps one at a time. At the bottom he caught his breath then faced his body north and put his legs into motion. He walked half a block then stopped for air. She felt sorry for him and proud at the same time.
Aragon called her brother to borrow his hunting truck. He promised to have it at his place in Pecos, ready to go, with beer iced in a cooler. He was always riding her about not taking time off. Anything to get her away from the job—and out of Santa Fe—he was there for his little sister.
She took I-25 east into the mountains, below the slopes where Cynthia Fremont bled to death by a hidden lake. She exited at Glorieta and wound her way along dirt roads to her brother’s place in the pines. Javier lived in a manufactured house with two wings constructed of repo’d single-wides he’d added for the kids. A hundred yards from the main house sat two more manufactured homes where Lobo Loco Outfitters boarded hunters before Javier and Serena led them into the Pecos Wilderness after trophy elk. His wife was his match in finding the big bulls.
The company’s mules resided in barns below the main house. Javier was inside the pipe coral dragging a wire brush through the coat of a tan jack. He wore a shirt from the Saints and Sinners bar in Espanola, once a biker’s hangout, now a package store on a highway where cops disrupted heroin deals. Javier had washed out of two state agencies but found a living doing what he loved, roaming the mountains and shooting things. Outfitting had paid for a hundred acres in the pines and was building his children’s college funds.
Add a few prison tats and Javier could fit in with the Saints and Sinners crowd, except his drugs of choice stopped at
beer and hot peppers. Woolly black beard, long hair as wild as a tumbleweed, big arms like Lewis. Denise always wondered where he got his genes. She’d stopped growing in eighth grade. Javier could wrestle the mule he was grooming.
Serena waved from the porch on the house, her hand slicing smoke from a barbecue grill.
“Detective Aragon.” Javier dropped the wire brush in a bucket of water and climbed out of the corral. He lifted her into the air. His fingers found her ribs.
“You’re assaulting a police officer.”
White teeth gleamed against his dark black beard. She thrashed, but it was pointless.
He swung around and sat her on the corral’s top post.
“I hosed it down good,” he said and tossed the keys to his F-350, four-wheel drive, Super Duty XLT Supercab, with Ruger mud flaps and an I-beam and winch replacing the original front bumper. “You don’t want to sleep in what I’ve been hauling. We can put the shell on before you go.”
“I’ll sleep in the cab if it rains. An entire family could live in there.”
“You wanted a spotting scope and my camera with the telephoto. In the console. You want my Mini-14? Thirty-round clip. Any coyotes within two hundred yards are fucked.”
“It’s not exactly coyotes I’m after.”
“You want my Weatherby?”
Serena called from the porch. “I hope you’re staying for dinner.”
“What’s cooking?” Aragon yelled back. “Smells incredible.”
“Cat,” Javier said.
Aragon wasn’t sure she heard him right.
“A lion won’t be sniffing my mules anymore.”
“What the hell.” She could brag about it to other cops. None of them had brothers who butchered a mountain lion for dinner. “I have to ask. Does it taste like chicken?”
“Not even close,” Javier said, and lifted her off the fence to carry her to the house.
Over beers before dinner, Aragon mentioned how her old friend Buff, now Roshi Larson, said Javier’s place in the woods was his monastery. Serena started calling him “Monk.” He reminded her monks took vows of chastity and silence. How would she like that?
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