J is for Judgment (6 page)

“Gracias,”
I said to her, and backed out of the room.

As I passed the cleaning cart, I caught sight of the plastic bag attached to one end, filled with newly accumulated trash. I snagged it off the hook and carried it back to my room, closing the door behind me. I moved over to the bed and dumped the contents on the spread. There was nothing of interest: yesterday’s papers, Q-Tips, used tissues, an empty can of hairspray.
I picked through with distaste, hoping my tetanus shots were up to date. As I gathered the detritus and stuffed it all back in the bag, I caught sight of the front page, which was splashed with news of a crime spree. I unfolded the section, flattened the newsprint, and studied the Spanish.

Living in Santa Teresa, I’ve learned it’s almost impossible not to pick up a smattering of the language whether you take a Spanish class or not. Many words have been borrowed, and many simply mirror their counterparts in English. Sentence construction is fairly straightforward and pronunciation is consistent. The story that was spread across page one of
La Gaceta
had something to do with a homicide
(homicidio)
in the
Estados Unidos.
I read aloud to myself in the halting style of a kindergartner, which helped me decipher some of the meaning of the text. A woman had been murdered, her body found on a deserted stretch of highway just north of Los Angeles. Four male inmates had escaped from the juvenile facility in Perdido County, California, fleeing south along the coast. Apparently, they’d flagged down the victim and commandeered her car, shooting her in the process. By the time the body was discovered, the escapees had reached the Mexican border, crossing into Mexicali, where they’d killed again. The
federales
had caught up with them, and in a wild exchange of gunfire, two youths were killed and another was severely wounded. Even in black and white, the photograph of the shooting scene seemed unnecessarily lurid, with ominous dark splotches on the shrouded bodies of the deceased. The four juveniles were pictured in a
row of sullen mug shots. Three were Hispanic. The fourth was identified as a kid named Brian Jaffe. I booked the first flight back.

O
n the plane coming home my sinuses seized up, and during our descent into Los Angeles, I thought my eardrums would burst. I arrived in Santa Teresa at 9:00, bearing with me all the symptoms of an old-fashioned cold. My throat was scratchy, my head ached, and my nasal passages stung like I’d sucked a pint of saltwater up my nose. I couldn’t help but rejoice, anticipating the use of NyQuil in fully authorized nightly doses.

Once safely home, I locked the door behind me and hauled a stack of newspapers up my spiral stairs. I emptied my duffel into the dirty clothes hamper, stripped off my travel clothes, and added them to the mix. I donned my sweat socks and flannel nightie and tucked myself into the hand-stitched quilt Henry’s sister made for my birthday, settling in with the accounts of the jailbreak in the Santa Teresa paper. The story had already been moved to the second section, page three. I got to read it all again, only this time in English. Wendell Jaffe’s younger son, Brian, along with three confederates had made a daring daylight escape from the medium-security juvenile commitment facility called Connaught. The dead inmates were identified as Julio Rodriguez, sixteen, and Earnesto Padilla, whose age was fifteen. I wasn’t sure what extradition agreements the United States had with Mexico, but it looked like Brian Jaffe
was being sent back to the States as soon as sheriff’s deputies could be dispatched. The fourth escapee, a fourteen-year-old, was still in critical condition in a hospital in Mexico. His name was being withheld from the local papers because of his age. The Spanish-language paper, as I recollected, had listed him as Ricardo Guevara. Both the murder victims had been Americans, and it was possible
the federales
were anxious to relinquish responsibility. It was also possible that a great whack of cash had been passed under the table. Whatever the circumstances, the escapees were lucky not to find themselves permanently incarcerated down
there.
According to the paper, Brian Jaffe had celebrated his eighteenth birthday shortly after his capture, which meant that once he was returned to the Perdido County Jail, he’d be kept and charged as an adult. I found a pair of scissors and clipped all the articles, setting them aside to take with me for the office files.

I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. It was only 9:45. I picked up the phone and called Mac Voorhies at home.

“H
i, it’s Kinsey,” I said when Mac picked up on his end. “You don’t sound like yourself. Where’re you calling from?”

“Here in town,” I said. “I just came down with a cold and I’m feeling like death.”

“That’s too bad. Welcome home. I wasn’t sure when to expect you back.”

“I walked in the door forty-five minutes ago,” I said. “I’ve been reading the papers, and I see you had some excitement while I was gone.”

“Can you believe it? I don’t know what the hell is going on. I haven’t heard a word about this family for the last two, three years. Now all the sudden the name’s cropping up everywhere.”

“Yeah, well, here it comes again. We hit pay dirt on Wendell. I spotted him right where Dick Mills said he’d be.”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“Of course, I’m not
sure
, Mac. I never laid eyes on the man before, but judging from the photographs, this fellow comes damn close. For one thing, he’s American and he’s in the right age group. He’s not using the name Jaffe. It’s Dean DeWitt Huff, but the height’s on the money, and the weight seemed close enough. He’s somewhat heavier, but he probably would be in any event. He’s traveling with a woman, and the two kept themselves very isolated.”

“Sounds pretty sketchy.”

“Of course it’s sketchy. I could hardly walk up to him and introduce myself.”

“How sure are you on a scale of one to ten?”

“Let’s put it this way: adjusting for age and some surgical tampering, I’d say a nine. I tried to get some pictures, but he was very paranoid about attention. I had to maintain a very low profile,” I said. “By the way, what was Brian Jaffe in jail for, has anybody said?”

“As I understand it, some kind of burglary. Probably nothing sophisticated or he wouldn’t have been caught,” Mac said. “What about Wendell. Where is he at this point?”

“That’s a very good question.”

“He got away,” Mac said flatly.

“More or less. He and the woman took off in the dead of night, but don’t start screaming yet. You want to know what I found? This was in their room after they checked out. A Mexican newspaper featuring Brian Jaffe’s capture. Wendell must have spotted it in the late edition because the two of them went off to dinner at the regular
time. Next thing I know, they’re hightailing it back, and they’re both upset. By this morning, they were gone. I found the newspaper in the trash.” Even as I played out my recital of the facts, I realized something about the situation was bothering me. It was too coincidental—Wendell Jaffe ensconced in that obscure Mexican resort …Brian breaking out of jail and heading straight for the border. I could feel a spark of insight connect the two events. “Oh, wait a minute, Mac. I got a little flash here, catch this. You know what just occurred to me? From the moment I spotted Wendell, he was skimming through the papers, five or six altogether, and he was checking every page. What if he
knew
Brian would be making that escape? He could have been waiting for him. It’s possible Wendell even helped set it up.”

Mac cleared his throat with a skeptical hum. “That’s pretty far-fetched. Let’s don’t jump to conclusions until we know what’s what.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re right, but it adds up in a way. I’ll table it for now, but I may check it out later.”

“Any idea where Jaffe went?”

“I talked to the desk clerk in my rudimentary Spanish, but it didn’t produce much except a half-concealed smirk. If you want my opinion, I think there’s a good chance he’s heading back in this direction.”

I could practically hear Mac squinting through the telephone lines. “I don’t believe it. You really think he’d step a foot in this state? He wouldn’t have the
nerve.
The man would have to be nuts.”

“I know it sounds risky, but his kid’s in trouble. Put yourself in his place. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

There was silence. Mac’s kids were grown, but I knew he was still protective. “How could he have known what was going on?”

“I don’t know, Mac. It’s always possible he kept in touch. We don’t have a clue where he’s been all these years. Maybe he still has contacts in the area. It’s probably worth pursuing if we’re trying to get a line on his current whereabouts.”

Mac cut in. “What’s the game plan here? You have a scheme in the works?”

“Well, I think we should find out how soon the kid’s being brought back from Mexicali. I can’t believe much will happen over the weekend. Monday, I can talk with one of the deputies at the county jail. Maybe we can pick up Wendell’s trail from there.”

“Sounds like a long shot.”

“The long shot was Dick Mills’s spotting him in the first place.”

“True enough,” he conceded, though he wasn’t happy about it.

“I’ve also been thinking we should talk to the local cops. They have the kind of resources I can’t touch.”

I could hear him hesitate. “Seems early to bring the police into it, but I’ll let you use your own judgment. I wouldn’t mind the help, but I’d hate to scare him off.
If
he shows, that is.”

“I’m going to have to get in touch with old friends of his. We’ll just have to run the risk of somebody warning him off.”

“You think his pals will cooperate?”

“I have no idea. I gather he ripped off a lot of folks
back then. Surely there are some who’d like to see him land in jail.”

“You’d think so,” he said.

“Anyway, we’ll talk Monday morning, and in the meantime, don’t fret.”

Mac’s laugh was bleak. “Let’s hope Gordon Titus doesn’t get wind of this.”

“I thought you said you’d take care of him.”

“I was picturing an arrest. Lots of public glory for you.”

“Hold on to the thought. We may get there yet.”

I
spent the next two days in bed, my vacation extending into a lazy, unproductive weekend by virtue of my affliction. I love the solitude of illness, the luxury of hot tea with honey, the canned tomato soup with gooey grilled-cheese sandwiches. I kept a box of Kleenex on my nightstand, and the wastebasket by the bed was soon filled to the rim with a puffy soufflé of used tissues. One of the few concrete memories I have of my mother was her salving my chest with Vicks VapoRub, then covering it with a square of pink rose-sprigged flannel, secured to my pajama top with safety pins. The heat of my body would envelop my nasal passages in a cloud of heady fumes while the ointment on my skin conveyed a mentholated contradiction of searing heat and biting cold.

I dozed fitfully during the day, my body aching with inactivity. For two hours each afternoon, I staggered down my spiral stairs, dragging my quilt behind me
like a wedding train. I curled up on my sofa bed and flipped on the television set, watching mindless reruns of “Dobie Gillis” and “I Love Lucy.” At bedtime I stood in my bathroom at the sink and filled my little plastic cup with the vile, dark green syrup that would ensure a good night’s sleep. I’ve never once downed a hit of NyQuil without shuddering violently afterward. Nonetheless, I’m aware that I harbor all the incipient characteristics of an over-the-counter cold medication addict.

Monday morning I woke at 6:00
A.M.
only moments before the alarm was set to go off. Once I opened my eyes, I lay in my rumpled nest and stared up at the domed Plexiglas skylight above my bed, trying to gauge the day ahead. The morning sky was thickly overcast, bright, white clouds forming a dense ceiling probably half a mile thick. At the airport, the commuter flights to San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles would be stalled out on the runways, waiting for the fog to lift.

July in Santa Teresa is an unsettling affair. Morning dawns behind a cloud bank that lingers just off the coast. Sometimes the marine layer clears by afternoon. Other times the sky remains overcast and the day stretches on in a nebulous gloom, creating the illusion of storm clouds hovering. The local citizens complain and the
Santa Teresa Dispatch
reports the temperatures in a chiding tone as if the summer season weren’t always this way. Tourists, who arrive in search of rumored California sunshine, spread their paraphernalia on the beach—umbrellas and sunscreen, portable radios and swim fins—waiting patiently for a break in the
monotonous gray skies. I see their little children hunkered in the surf with toy buckets and shovels. Even from a distance I can sense their goose bumps and pale blue lips, teeth beginning to chatter as the icy water surges around their bare feet. This year the weather had been very strange, varying wildly from one day to the next.

I rolled out of bed, pulled on my sweats, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, avoiding the sight of my sleep-smudged face. I was determined to run, but my body thought otherwise, and after half a mile I was beset by a coughing fit that sounded like the mating call of some wild beast. I abandoned the notion of a three-mile jog and contented myself with a brisk walk instead. My cold, by then, had settled in my chest, and my voice had dropped into that wonderful, husky FM disc jockey range. By the time I reached home, I was chilled but invigorated.

I took a steaming hot shower to loosen my bronchial passages and emerged from the bathroom feeling somewhat restored. I changed my sheets, emptied trash, ate a breakfast of fruit and yogurt, and went into the office with a file folder full of clippings. I found a parking space down the street, hoofed the block and a half, then hit the stairs. My usual pace is two stairs at a time, but today I had to pause at every landing on the way up. The downside of fitness, which takes years to achieve, is how quickly it vanishes—almost instantly. After three days of inactivity I was back to square one, huffing and puffing like a rank amateur. The shortness of breath inspired a renewed round of coughs. I entered through the side door and paused to blow my nose.