Pursuit

CHAPTER 1

They parted on the front steps of the courthouse. The two attorneys, John Garcia and his co-counsel, Edmund Runyan, had defended the third man in a wrongful death action and had arranged to meet him later when the jury reached a verdict. John and Edmund began their short jaunt to the law offices of Simms, Connally, Bradley & Dunn down the street in the Hyatt Office Tower.

The afternoon was sunny and cloudless, but the cool breeze blowing steadily from the northwest left no doubt fall would soon arrive. In contrast to the stuffiness of the courtroom the two men had just left, the brisk air and bright sunshine caressed their faces.

Across the street, a man hurried into a dark-blue Ford Thunderbird. John thought it was the same man, a stranger, who had rushed out of the courtroom at the end of the trial. He wondered if the car, occupied by another person behind the wheel, was the same one he had seen parked near his home a few days ago. Not wanting to draw attention to himself, he observed the driver peripherally to see if he recognized him, but he couldn’t see his face because of the sun’s glare. A simple case of allowing his imagination to get the best of him, he concluded. So he dismissed it.

The two men slowed their pace as they cut through the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, a twin companion to their office building alongside it. Edmund left John to retrieve a case file he had left in his car in the underground garage. John took the elevator to the twenty-second floor.

At 55 years of age, he was one of Albuquerque’s most successful civil defense lawyers. His firm, of which he was a stockholder, was one of the largest in the state, with some 45 attorneys occupying plush offices not only in Albuquerque and Santa Fe but in Las Cruces to the south.

The elevator opened into the reception area. He spotted his secretary, Lynda Lopez, chatting with the receptionist at the front desk.

"Hi," she greeted him with a pleasant smile. "I heard the jury just got the case." She was a petite woman with short, dark brown hair.

"You heard already?" he asked, not surprised.

She nodded. "It’s nice when one has a friend at the clerk’s office. Marcella just called."

He grinned. "Figures."

She laughed, then glanced at a Mexican-American, middle-aged couple and a young woman seated at the far left of the large room. "That’s Mr. and Mrs. Reinaldo Soliz," she whispered, "and their daughter. They’ve been waiting for over an hour to see you."

John gave a rushed glance across the room. "Did you tell them I was in trial?" he asked. It upset him when prospective clients showed up with no appointment.

She nodded. "They insisted waiting. I’m sorry, John, but it seemed important to them to see you. I didn’t have the heart to turn them away."

"That’s fine." He sighed, then eyed the family. They were watching him. Mr. & Mrs. Soliz nodded at him and smiled. He returned the smile, then instantly felt guilty for being annoyed. Perplexed, he wondered if he knew them.

"You don’t remember Mr. Soliz, do you?" Lynda said.

"Vaguely. Who is he?"

"You handled a workers’ compensation case for him about eight years ago."

"Now I remember. What do they want?"

"They wouldn’t say—just that it was urgent."

He thought of walking over to greet them but decided against it. "Let me go into the office and take a look at my messages. Tell them I’ll see them in a few minutes but explain that we’re awaiting a call from the courthouse."

She nodded. "Okay."

During the two-week trial, he spent the evenings preparing for the next day’s testimony. So he had given some semblance of order to the disarray of papers covering his desk. He even managed to return some phone messages. Clients felt slighted when their calls weren’t returned, even when Lynda made clear he was in trial. So he usually tried returning what calls he could. Long ago, he had accepted this act as an important part of letting clients know he cared.

Several years ago, the Simms firm had lured him from a small firm he had helped form , having begun his law practice within months after he had completed a one-year clerkship for a New Mexico Supreme Court justice in Santa Fe. He had applied for the clerkship while still on active duty in Vietnam as an infantry officer with the U. S. Army.

His six-foot, broad-shouldered and medium frame hadn’t changed much, even from his high school days when he had played football and run track at Albuquerque High. Years of working out with regular exercise at the health club and tennis kept him in good form.

He possessed rugged facial features, strong bone structure, and a medium olive skin complexion. Almost always well groomed and dressed, he bought his wardrobe right off a store’s racks with little alteration, but his suits fit him as if they had been specially tailored. His good looks and intelligence had made him appealing to the opposite sex.

For the most part, his law practice had followed the plan he had set out for himself. He felt reasonably comfortable that, with few exceptions, he directed the cases he handled.

For that reason, he was a little dismayed upon hearing why the Solizes were there. They wanted him to represent their son, Bernardo, in a criminal case. He hadn’t handled one in years.

Bernardo had been indicted for the attempted murder of a young woman stabbed by an assailant who had asked to come into her house to use the telephone. John remembered the incident because it had made headline news. The victim was the mayor’s married daughter, so the story received more news coverage than usual. Albuquerque’s mayor was a colorful politician who had experienced unusual popularity with his constituents. His daughter had been stabbed several times and had miraculously survived the assault. A defense lawyer from the Public Defender’s office had been appointed to represent Bernardo. The P. D., as court-appointed counsel was often referred to, wanted Bernardo to plead guilty to a lesser offense before the jury trial, which was two weeks away.