The telephone rings. It isn’t Jeremy; he knows not to call tonight. I’m tempted to let the service get it, but it might be Lorraine Tong calling to offer Reggie a last-minute reprieve.
“This is Jessica,” I say into the receiver.
“I’m glad I reached you,” Amanda Burgess announces. She sounds a bit, I don’t know, impatient? My number’s unlisted, and I don’t recall giving it to her, but for a woman with her connections, getting an unlisted number wouldn’t be hard.
“I phoned earlier, but I didn’t want to leave a message, in case you don’t always check them,” she informs me.
“I do. So in the future, you can.” I look at the pile of papers on my table, which seems to be growing like mushrooms around a rock. “What can I do for you, Ms …” I catch myself. “Amanda.”
“I want to talk to you about Roberto Salazar.”
Shit. Not now. “What about?” I ask, trying not to sound curt.
“His case, of course.” She sounds surprised that I haven’t read her mind. “That man who gave him the televisions is still missing. The police procedures that led to his arrest. Shouldn’t you …”
I need to stop her before she builds up a head of steam. “We’ll deal with all of that in due course,” I say, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “But I can’t discuss it with you now. I’m in the middle of a trial and I’m putting my main witness on the stand tomorrow morning. I still have hours of preparation to do tonight. I’ll call you in a few days, when this trial is over, and we can discuss everything in detail.”
Can you feel a chill wind over a telephone line? “I hope you are taking Roberto’s situation seriously,” she says, after too long a silence from her end.
“Of course I am,” I reply, trying not to reveal my annoyance. “I take all my clients’ cases seriously.”
Another uncomfortable silence. Is she playing games with my head? “I’m sure you do. Good night, then. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
Her hanging up on me sounds like a church bell ringing in
Day of the Dead.
“You’re welcome,” I say to the air, as I drop my phone back into its cradle.
R
EGGIE MORTON IS AN
unmitigated disaster on the stand. All the prep, all the coaching, goes right out the window. He can’t give a simple yes or no answer, he has to explain everything, at length. And not only explain, but complain. And preach. And rail. And admonish. And most damaging, everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie, which everyone—judge, jury, and prosecutor—sees through. He’s like a boxer who, knowing he’s hopelessly behind on points, tries to knock his opponent out in the last round with one wild haymaker. But all he’s connecting with is air.
I steal a glance at Lorraine, who’s laughing in my face, not even doing me the courtesy of covering her mouth. The jurors are slack-jawed at this freak show I’m so not orchestrating.
I don’t mind losing a case; most of my clients go to jail. But I hate being humiliated. “I would like a five-minute recess,” I ask the judge abruptly, cutting Reggie off in middeclaration.
“Granted.” Judge Hodgkins’s gavel resounds like a rifle shot in the high-ceilinged courtroom. “Attorneys in my chambers.”
He storms out of the room. As I’m following Lorraine out, Reggie rises up in the witness chair. “What’s going on?” he asks me, his face a rictus of panic.
I point a threatening finger at him like a schoolmarm facing down the class bully. “Sit,” I hiss at him. “Don’t move. Not one muscle.”
“Exactly what are you doing, Ms. Thompson?” Hodgkins asks me in an angry rasp as he drops into his desk chair, which bounces under his weight. “Your client’s destroying himself, not that he has much left to destroy. Can’t you control him?”
I just want this to be over. “Apparently not.” I remain standing; sitting would be presumptuous. “This is not what I expected, believe me.”
“I hope you’re not angling for a mistrial,” Hodgkins warns me. “Don’t think you can play me for a sucker.”
“I’m not, Your Honor,” I promise him in alarm. That’s all I need: to be on the wrong side of a judge whose courtroom I’m in every week. “I have no intention of doing that.”
“I can’t allow this man to continue to sabotage himself like this. It’s inhumane, and mocks the system.” He cracks his gnarled knuckles in frustration. “What are we going to do about this, Counselor?” he queries impatiently. He is really pissed off at Reggie, and he’s taking his anger out on me. I’m Reggie’s lawyer; I deserve it.
I’m totally abashed. Not for Reggie—that cretin can hang from the gallows as far as I’m concerned. My embarrassment is for me, for my pride as a professional. “I’ll wrap it up fast, Your Honor,” I promise.
“That’s the first intelligent statement I’ve heard this morning.” He hoists his considerable bulk out of his chair. “Let’s get this over with.”
As we walk back into the courtroom, Lorraine pipes up. “The people will waive cross-examination,” she offers, as if she’s compromising for the sake of justice. She knows she won’t need to. The fat lady has sung, loud and clear.
Reggie Morton is crazy, but he isn’t stupid. He knows he’s down the tubes. But he still doesn’t realize it’s his fault. He broke the law, he turned down a generous offer from the District Attorney’s office, and finally, despite all our preparation, he made a fool of himself on the stand. He was going to be found guilty—that was never in question—but by being such a public buffoon, he lost any chance of sympathy from the jury.
After we resume, I wrap up my questioning in less than ten minutes. True to her word, Lorraine doesn’t question him. I have no other witnesses, so by lunchtime, closing statements have been given, Judge Hodgkins has charged the jury, and after lunch they go into deliberation.
At four-fifteen in the afternoon, while I’m at my desk trying to make a dent on my backlog, the phone call comes that the jury has arrived at a verdict. Now I’m back in the courtroom. My client is sitting next to me. He’s a bundle of twitches: knees dancing, shoulders rolling, fingers tapping.
“This is good, ain’t it?” he whispers as we wait for the jurors to be brought in. “Quick verdict usually means not guilty, don’t it?” He’s still hoping against hope.
“Sometimes,” I whisper back. Actually, the reverse is true, but I’m not going to tell him that now. He’s too fragile. “No matter what, keep your feelings to yourself. This judge doesn’t like shows of emotion.” I should tell him it could affect the length of his sentence, but I don’t have the heart.
“That’s the problem with this damn system,” he wails. “They don’t want you to be human.”
Those are the first rational words I’ve heard from him in all the time we’ve been together. Too bad they came so late.
Judge Hodgkins emerges from his chambers and nods to the bailiff to bring the jury in. They enter single file, like circus elephants entering the ring trunk to tail. None of them make eye contact with Reggie. Hodgkins asks them if they’ve reached a verdict.
“We have, Your Honor,” the foreman, a black retired postal worker, calls out as he stands up. He hands the slip of paper to the clerk, who passes it to the judge. Hodgkins glances at it, hands it back. There’s no surprise on his face.
“The defendant will rise.”
Reggie and I stand. He’s shaking. “No matter what, stay cool,” I remind him again.
“Read your verdict, please,” Hodgkins instructs the foreman, who says the seven words no defense lawyer wants to hear: “We find the defendant guilty as charged.”
Everything moves fast now, herky-jerky, like a speeded-up film projector. Hodgkins thanks the jury for their service and dismisses them. He announces he’ll formally sentence Reggie the day after tomorrow. He makes a note on his calendar and brings his gavel down. “Court is adjourned,” he states, as he gets up and disappears through the back door.
I turn to offer Reggie some hollow words of encouragement. He’s slumped over, crying. I keep my mouth shut.
The court deputy takes Reggie by the elbow and pulls him to his feet. As the poor sap is being led out, he turns to me.
“Would it have killed you to wear a skirt?”
A
S PREDICTED, THE POLICE
were flooded with phone calls from hundreds of nutcases, along with as many from earnest but misguided do-gooders, each of whom claimed to have information that would lead to the arrest of the Full Moon Killer, or a theory that would bring about the same result. The scam artists threw in their ante, too. The money was there, someone is going to get it, why not me? As is always the case in this kind of overheated and frantic situation, all the so-called leads turned out to be bogus, but they all had to be checked out. Luis Cordova, who was running the operation, personally read the transcripts of every conversation between his detectives and the callers, no matter how preposterous. If there was a needle buried in that haystack, he didn’t want to miss it.
A week went by. Nothing tangible emerged.
This latest caller seems saner than most; he is elderly, a retired accountant. Accountants don’t believe in fairy tales, and they’re pretty good about knowing what’s real and what’s bullshit, because their clients try to blur the line; it’s human nature. So when this man tells one of Cordova’s detectives that he had seen something the night of the latest killing that might be a clue, he isn’t dismissed out of hand. He is picked up at his home and driven down to Parker Center, where he is escorted into Cordova’s office so the task force leader can hear the story firsthand.
Cordova’s small office is strictly functional. Desk, chairs, filing cabinets, shelves overflowing with files and directives. Nothing on the walls, no family photos on the desk, no plants, no personal mementos. There is a window to the outside world, but the blinds are kept closed. The window looking out to the bullpen also has blinds, but they are open so Cordova can maintain visual contact with his troops, and they with him. Except when he is having a private interview, the door is open as well; there are no secrets in Cordova’s squad, no hidden agendas. Cordova hates secrets. That’s how cops get into trouble, by not being transparent. Secrecy leads to temptation, which leads to crossing the line. A rogue cop is worse than a civilian criminal, because upholding and enforcing the law is his job, what he is paid to do. Cordova is outspoken in his contempt and hatred for cops who go over to the dark side. They violate a sacred trust.
Which is not the same thing as using your instincts, even if that means technically violating a statute, like going into a house where someone’s life might be in danger without waiting for a proper warrant, or searching a suspicious car for drugs or weapons. A cop without good instincts is worthless; worse, he’s dangerous, not only to himself and his brothers and sisters on the force, but to all of society.
Luis Cordova has great instincts. Steve Lopez of the
LA. Times,
a crusading columnist who doesn’t lob softballs, once wrote a glowing story about Cordova’s gift for the instinctive. Those instincts, honed and nurtured over two decades as carefully as a botanist grows and nurtures a rare orchid, were the reason he was chosen to run this task force. Those same instincts tell him, within a minute after meeting this possible witness, that this nice old man might be for real.
“Can I get you anything?” he asks solicitously. “Water, coffee, a soda? Please, sit down.”
The witness, whose name is Aaron Lazarus, lowers himself into one of the battered wooden chairs that face Cordova’s desk. Although he is retired, he is dressed smartly, including a tie, as if for work. “No, thank you,” he answers. “I’m not thirsty.”
Cordova sits opposite him. He shows his digital recorder to Lazarus. “Do you mind?” he asks.
“Not at all. Accuracy is important.”
Cordova smiles to himself as he turns on the recorder. Accountants, unless they’re crooks, deal with facts. This man isn’t a crook, and he’s too old to be looking for his fifteen minutes of fame. He’s simply a good citizen trying to do his civic duty. The odds are slim to none that, like all the other leads they’ve been chasing, nothing will come of this, but nice Mr. Lazarus isn’t a bullshitter. Cordova’s instincts tell him so.
Cordova recites his name, the time, date, and location of the interview into the recorder. “Please state your name for the record, please,” he instructs Lazarus, which Lazarus does, slowly and clearly, spelling out his last name letter by letter.
The formalities out of the way, Cordova asks, “What do you think you know that can help us, Mr. Lazarus? Try to be as complete and precise as possible.” He hopes this witness’s statement will flow easily, without much prompting. When you have to keep suggesting, you’re on a dead-end road.
The elderly accountant tells his story straightforwardly, without embellishment. On the night the latest victim was murdered, he had been out walking his dog. After she did her business, and they were heading back to his house, a truck came around the corner and drove down the street, in the opposite direction from where he was headed. The motion of the truck had caught his eye, and for a second he instinctively turned and watched it. That’s when he saw the woman. She was walking on the sidewalk, in the same direction the truck was heading.
Cordova listens carefully. The other detective in the room, the one who brought Lazarus down here, stands in the corner, also listening. Cordova has a pad and pen in front of him, but he hasn’t made any notes yet.
Lazarus continues. “The truck pulled over to the curb.”
Cordova perks up. “Where?” he asks. “Which side of the street?”
“At the far end of the block,” Lazarus replies. “On the same side of the street the woman was walking on.”
Cordova and the other detective exchange a look. Maybe this won’t go anywhere, but it’s better than nothing. “Go ahead,” he tells Lazarus. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he adds deferentially. “Just go on as you were. So then …?
Lazarus nods pleasantly. He appreciates Cordova’s politeness. Most people are afraid of the police, but they do their best.
“A man got out of the truck,” he continues.
Cordova can’t help but interject. “Was he looking at the woman?”
“I don’t think so,” Lazarus answers. “At least, not at first.” He hesitates momentarily. “You have to understand,” he says, sounding a bit sheepish. “I was at the other end of the block, so I can’t say for sure, but it appeared that he was looking at his truck. Like he thought he had a flat tire.”