Runaway Witness

Chapter 1

Two months ago. Early afternoon. Twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The weather was spectacular for a hike. As is typical for mid-April, the temperature was in the low sixties, and the humidity in the high mountain desert was practically non-existent. The rolling foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, with their sparse vegetation made a nice contrast to the bright blue cloudless sky above. There was a faint scent of cedar in the air. It was truly a wonderful setting for a long walk.

But this walk hadn’t been planned. Harris and Dee Drake had visited a local deli in Santa Fe just after breakfast, purchased sandwiches, potato chips and bottled water, and had placed them in their cooler with just enough ice to keep their lunch cool until well after noon. They’d driven that damned rent car north and had visited the Sanctuary at Chimayo. While there, Dee collected some holy dirt in a plastic baggie, and purchased a plastic souvenir bottle from the gift shop to hold the holy water. At the time she’d told Harris it would bring them luck. Unfortunately, she didn’t know that the luck they were about to experience was bad luck. Very bad luck.

Thirty years ago while on a picnic at a park adjacent to the Platte River, Harris had proposed to Dee and she’d said yes. And ever since then, they went on picnics frequently, especially when on vacation. This vacation would be no exception. The concierge at the Bishop’s Lodge had suggested Santa Cruz Lake as an ideal spot for a picnic. She’d said it wasn’t a big lake, but that it was a very pretty setting, and that it would be unlikely that there’d be anyone else there on a weekday at this time of year.

But that damn rent car. Harris preferred to take road trips when on vacation, but this time they flew. Dee had discovered that Great Lakes Airlines -- headquartered in Cheyenne -- had offered a very special pricing for North Platte area residents, and that flying to Albuquerque with a connection in Denver was only four hundred dollars for two round-trip tickets. And they could leave their home and be in Santa Fe in less than two and a half hours as opposed to the eleven hours it would’ve taken had they driven their car. So it didn’t take much for Dee to convince her husband to fly rather than drive. But even with the deal they got for the air fare, Harris insisted on using a rent car from one of those companies you’ve never heard of with a name like Rent a Heap, Cheap Cars or whatever. The Japanese-manufactured subcompact they rented at the Albuquerque airport would cost only fifteen dollars a day plus gas.

The picnic had been delightful. Harris and Dee split two sandwiches. One was smoked turkey and Havarti on wheat and the other was tuna fish on seven-grain bread. They’d sat at a picnic table at the south end of the lake, high on top of a hill, and enjoyed the beautiful view. Santa Cruz Lake was created in 1929 when a 125-foot tall and almost 200-yards long dam was built across two snow-fed rivers which provided the water. The lake surface was about 120 acres with a large granite buttress on the west side, and ravines and canyons with several stands of pinon pines and cottonwood trees on the other sides. The vacationing couple talked about other picnics they’d enjoyed in the past, and talked about their daughter, Charlotte, and their grandson, Ash, who were living in South Dakota. They talked about what else they hoped to do while in New Mexico during this vacation. There were some minutes when they held hands and did no talking at all. They’d just looked at each other and at the scenery, which for them was mesmerizing. It certainly wasn’t Nebraska.

And then at about two o’clock, it was time to leave and drive back to Santa Fe.

But that damned car wouldn’t start. Harris turned the key and nothing would happen. One click and nothing more. No other sound. He tried several times with the same result.

“It must be the alternator.” Harris knew cars.

“Probably right.” Dee knew cars, too. Then she broke some more bad news. She said, “I didn’t bring our phone. I left it at the Bishop’s Lodge.”

They’d been at the lake for an hour and a half, and the only living creatures they’d seen were a few scampering squirrels and birds including jays, wrens and a pair of Cooper’s hawks who leisurely rode the thermals high above. They’d seen no other humans. Unfortunately, the concierge had been right about nobody else being there. Harris said, “I doubt anyone will be driving by any time soon. I’ll walk back to Chimayo and get some help. It’s only about three miles or so.”

“You’re not leavin’ me here by myself. Lucky I got my good walking shoes on.” Dee’s walking shoes were actually Nike running shoes. Perfect for long walks on country roads.

Harris was also wearing good shoes for walking. New Balance running shoes. He and his wife often went for walks around North Platte. Sometimes they’d jog together. They each grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, and when Harris locked the car, they laughed as they agreed that nobody would either want or be able to steal it in its current condition. As fate would have it, Dee left the lucky holy dirt and holy water in the car.

They weren’t used to hills the size they had to traverse here in New Mexico. When they went for walks back in their home town, the terrain was mostly flat. And the elevation of just over 6,000 feet was twice that of their hometown, so they proceeded slowly. They were actually enjoying their unplanned hike. The first half mile was on a narrow dirt road, and then the highway had no painted stripe designating a separation of lanes. But it was paved. And they enjoyed watching the birds as they walked.

A mile from the lake -- and at least two miles from Chimayo where they’d expected to find help -- they came across a dirt road that meandered a hundred yards up one side of a hill to their right and then disappeared down the other side. There was a gate at the entrance with a combination lock, but it would be no problem to bypass the gate, as there was a large gap in the barbed wire fence adjacent to the gate.

Dee said, “Maybe that road leads to a house that has a telephone. What do you think?” Harris asked, “Want me to jog to the top of that hill and take a look. You may be right.”

“I’ll go with you.”

They stepped through the gap in the barbed wire fence, and two minutes later, they reached the top of the hill. Fifty yards away on the other side of the gently sloping hill there was indeed a house. It was a single story, adobe structure, about 2,000 square feet in size. There was no landscaping, and there were no vehicles in sight. But maybe someone was home.

Dee and Harris walked down the hill and approached the front door. Harris said, “The shades on all of the windows are down. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”

“I don’t know,” Dee replied. “I wonder who lives here.”

Harris knocked on the door and smiled at his wife. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

They waited.

He knocked again.

Still nothing.

Dee asked, “What do you wanna do?”

Harris shrugged. Then he reached for the door knob and gave it a turn. It was unlocked.

“You think we should?” Dee asked.

Harris nodded, and opened the door. He said, “Let’s see if they have a phone.”

He stepped aside to let his wife enter -- always the gentleman -- and he called out, “Hello. Anyone home?”

As Dee entered the house he heard her say, “Oh my God.” She stopped just inside the doorway.

Harris quickly stepped to her side and saw what had startled his wife.

The front room of the house -- the combination living and dining room -- extended across the entire structure. At the back of the room was an arched entry on the right that led to a kitchen, and in the middle was another arched entry leading to a hallway that led to the rooms in the back of the house. The house had nine-foot ceilings and because the window shades were drawn, it was dark inside, but light enough that one could see clearly what was inside. On the left side of the room were a stuffed couch and two upholstered chairs. They were old and looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in years. On the right was a square, wooden dining room table, but with only one wooden chair. The walls were bare. No pictures. No mirror.

There was a man sitting at the table. He was blindfolded with a blue bandana. He was gagged, as his mouth was sealed with silver duct tape. His torso was wrapped to the back of the wooden chair with the same silver duct tape. Sort of like a mummy. And duct tape had been used to secure his wrists to the arms of the wooden chair. The man’s left hand was heavily bandaged, and that bandage was soaked in blood.

Stuck in the table top was a twelve-inch meat cleaver, with a wooden handle. Lying next to the cleaver were two severed fingers. Obviously once attached to the man’s left hand.

At first it wasn’t certain that the man at the table was alive. But a moment after Dee had expressed her shock, he made a sound and shook his head.

Dee didn’t move as Harris approached the man and untied the blue bandana. The eyes were dark. They showed fear, and then hope as he glanced first into Harris’s eyes, and then at the woman at the door. Gently, Harris pulled the tape from the man’s mouth. Behind the tape, someone had placed another bandana, partially in the man’s mouth. Harris removed that.

The man gasped for a breath of air and said, “Gracias, señor. Gracias.”

Harris asked, “What’s your name, son?”

The man was a young Latino. He was perhaps in his early twenties. About five feet, six inches in height. Lean body. His face had been beaten. There were blood stains on his tee shirt. And because there were those fingers on the table, it was clear to Harris and Dee that this young man had been tortured. It was also evident that this man was grateful that the couple from Nebraska had found him.

The young man answered, “Hector.”

Harris nodded and said, “Okay, Hector, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

Dee fought back the wave of nausea that had overcome her when she’d seen the fingers and the meat cleaver, and she stepped to the back of the young man’s chair and began pulling at the duct tape. Harris began working on the left arm that had been taped to the chair arm.

Again, Hector said, “Gracias.”

Then suddenly, the three people in that darkened adobe house heard the same thing. It was coming from outside. It was the sound of a car engine approaching.

Quickly Harris went to one of the front windows and pulled the shade back just a small way. Dee went to a second window and did the same. They peeked outside while the vehicle came to a stop. It was a beautifully restored pale blue 1963 Chevrolet Impala, with chrome spinner hubcaps and modified to be a classic low rider. Then they saw two Latinos get out of the front seat, and a third exit the back. Harris and Dee could see that two of the men had an identical tattoo of some kind of animal on their necks. The third man had his back to the house, but they assumed that man had a similar tattoo. Fortunately, the three men didn’t seem to be in a hurry. They moved slowly. They stretched, and looked up at the surrounding hills before heading toward the front door.

Harris turned to the young man at the table -- still bound to the chair by the duct tape -- and whispered, “Three men. They have tattoos on their necks.”

The young Latino said, “Scorpions. They will kill you, señor. You must hide.” He glanced toward the hallway, jerked his head in that direction, and added, “In the back. Go now, señor.”

Harris and Dee Drake did as they were told.

Chapter 2
Monday. Before Sunrise. A Houston parking garage.

Ten minutes ago, he’d quietly grabbed the suitcase that he’d packed and hidden in the hall closet yesterday afternoon when his wife was out shopping for groceries. Then, without arousing his sleeping wife, he stepped out of the front door and locked it.

Now in the large parking garage, he found what he was looking for. It was a late model Cadillac with dust on it. A car that hadn’t been used in weeks -- maybe months. He’d seen it in the same parking space every day he’d been living there, and it belonged to one of the older residents who didn’t drive much, if at all, any more. Her name was Florence Miller. He looked around and, as he expected, there were no people around at that hour. Silently and quickly he removed the license plates from the Cadillac and replaced them with the ones from his own Chevrolet Malibu. Even though he hadn’t thought out a specific plan yet, he knew he had to be smart. He thought changing his license plates was smart.

He’d only owned the Malibu for a few weeks, and when it had arrived, he was disappointed that it was white. Not very imaginative he’d thought at the time, but the price had been right. It was free. As he drove out of the garage, he wondered when, if ever, the woman who owned the Cadillac would notice that the license plates on her car were different. He hoped that if any person in a law enforcement agency in Texas looking for him would notice that the license plate on the car he was driving was not registered in his name. He also wondered what his wife would think when she awoke and found the note he’d left for her. He hoped she’d understand.