The Mayor of Lexington Avenue (15 page)

Seventeen

As soon as H.V. gave Tracey the word that he was ready, she filed her Motion to Suppress and set it for hearing on the judge’s calendar. She made sure she reserved enough time to present all her witnesses. The motion itself was nondescript, reciting only the basic theory that she had already related to Clay. She didn’t want to give him any more notice than she had to, afraid that he might wake up to what was coming. The Fourth should have caught on, however, when she set a simple motion for an all-day evidentiary hearing. Tracey was coming loaded for bear. It was up to Judge Wentwell to determine if she had brought the right ammunition.

The Fourth was desperately trying to stir up some publicity for the case at the early stages. He called a
very
good friend of his from one of the Miami television stations, but he couldn’t convince her that it was worthwhile to send a news team up for a motion hearing.

“Don’t worry, Clay, I’ll send somebody up for the trial,” Stacey Wilson assured him. “Better yet, I’ll come myself. I haven’t done a field assignment in a while. Do you think you can find a little time for me if I make the trip?”

“You bet, honey, especially if you come for this motion hearing.” Clay wasn’t giving up so easily.

“Clay honey, I can’t do it. Listen, I’ll call a friend of mine at our affiliate in Vero. Since it’s Tracey James, she’ll be interested. I’ll get her to send somebody over. You convince the judge to let her in the courtroom.”

“Will do. Thanks, Stacey. I’ll see you in a couple of months at the trial.” Clay knew there was no way Judge Wentwell was letting cameras into his courtroom. He had commented to Clay on many occasions that he would never let the media turn his courtroom into a circus. Clay wasn’t even going to make the request—might piss the old man off. But there was no need to tell Stacey that. All he wanted was to get a news crew to show up; he’d get the publicity he was after from interviews on the courthouse steps.

It took three weeks to get an all-day hearing set before Judge Wentwell. Tracey used the time to prepare. This motion was going to be a mini-trial. It had been three years since her last trial, a misdemeanor case that lasted half a day. She needed this hearing and she needed to win it, although she wasn’t quite sure why. The uncertainty bothered her. Confusion was not her forte. She always knew what she wanted and she made a plan to get it. Maybe it was Elena and that faded connection to her mother. Maybe it was Rudy himself, or perhaps her desire to be a lawyer for once rather than a businesswoman. She just didn’t know. All she knew was that something else was driving her this time besides the money, and it was driving her hard. She hoped the feeling didn’t last long.

There were no crowds outside the courthouse on the day of the hearing or inside the courtroom either. It wasn’t that nobody cared. The people of the barrio were behind Rudy one hundred percent, but they had to go to work. Kelly McDowell from the local affiliate in Vero Beach was standing on the courthouse steps with her camera crew wondering why in God’s name she had agreed to drive over from Vero for this. Tracey James was the only reason it was even remotely worthwhile. If she could get an interview with Tracey, maybe she could salvage something from the trip.

As for Tracey, Kelly McDowell was the last person she wanted to see. She never liked media attention when she faced the possibility of losing. But she knew she couldn’t duck Kelly so she planned on making the best of it.

Clay reached the courthouse before Tracey arrived. Kelly didn’t have to hunt him down for an interview. He practically grabbed the microphone from her. He was all smiles, tall and elegant in his charcoal gray suit—cocky and confident like a quarterback before the big game. Kelly smiled right along with him.

Not long after Clay went inside, Tracey arrived with Elena. Tracey’s gray suit over a light blue blouse was stunning and the picture of professionalism, but Elena actually outdid her in a conservative but tight-fitting navy blue dress she had purchased only the day before from the local thrift shop.

Despite her concerns, Tracey struck the perfect note when Kelly got to them. “How important is this hearing today?” Kelly asked, trying to lob the softball in a perfect arc so Tracey could smash it.

“It’s very important. We believe Detective Brume violated Rudy’s constitutional rights when he interrogated him. Rudy is a fine young man, but he has a mental incapacity. He’s slow. Not retarded, but slow. He was at a distinct disadvantage in this interrogation, which, by the way, was neither recorded nor videotaped. His mother, Elena, who is here with me had asked to be with her son during the interview to protect him, but her request was denied.” She hadn’t wanted the interview, but she had enough self-awareness to realize it was turning out to be a good one—like a dress rehearsal for how she wanted to present Rudy to the court. When she finished her statement, she didn’t wait for another question but took Elena by the arm and ushered her up the steps and into the courthouse.

Since witnesses were going to be providing sworn testimony and it was going to be more like a bench trial than a hearing, Judge Wentwell decided to hold the proceedings in the courtroom rather than chambers. He had another reason as well. This case was about a murder that had been reported extensively throughout the state. Even though public interest seemed to have waned in the time since the event, the judge felt that any hearing to suppress evidence in a case such as this should be held in open court with all its formalities.

Clay Evans noticed Elena as soon as she walked into the courtroom. She looked exquisite in that blue dress.
Maybe I could agree to life imprisonment for a little action.
The thought had barely flickered into consciousness before he reminded himself that his career was at stake in this case. Lust would definitely have to take a back seat for the time being. Tracey wasn’t looking too shabby herself, although he sensed the woman had a hard edge to her. Maybe he could impress her with his courtroom skills. God, he was feeling good today.

Once the lawyers were seated, the bailiff let the judge know everything was ready. At the appropriate moment, the judge knocked on the door three times, signaling the bailiff that he was ready. The bailiff then told everyone to rise and the judge entered the courtroom.

Judge Wentwell was a tall man, almost as tall as Clay, and ramrod straight, with a full head of white hair. Elena, who was seated in the spectators’ seats directly behind Tracey, felt for a moment like she was in church and the bishop had just come out to the altar. Rudy was not there. Tracey had told Elena it would be best if he were not in the courtroom. He didn’t need to hear what H.V. was going to say about him and Judge Wentwell didn’t need to see how handsome he was and how bright he appeared to be.

The Cobb County courthouse had only two courtrooms: the small one for county court cases, misdemeanors and arraignments; and the large one, Judge Wentwell’s court, which handled all the major civil trials and felony cases. It was a cavernous old room with rows of oak benches for the spectators, even a balcony. The judge ruled from an elevated mahogany dais. The witness chair was to his right and below him. The jurors’ chairs, which were empty on this day, were to the right of the witness. The lawyers’ tables were front and center where the judge could look down on them without turning a lick.

“Counsel, are we ready to proceed?” Judge Wentwell asked after everybody had been seated. Clay popped up.

“The state is ready, Your Honor,” he said briskly.

Tracey was a little more deliberate. “The defense is ready, Your Honor.”

“Ms. James, since it is your motion, you may proceed.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. The defense calls Detective Wesley Brume to the stand.” The bailiff left to retrieve Wes from the witness room.

Calling Wes was no surprise to Clay. Tracey had to lay the facts of the interview out and Wes was the only person to do it since Rudy would not be testifying. What Clay didn’t know was that Tracey would be playing a little Ping-Pong that morning using Wesley Brume as the ball.

She started politely asking him to tell the judge his name and how long he’d been a police officer and the different positions he had held in the police department. She had no idea the judge already knew Wes quite well. Many years before, Wes had pulled the judge over for speeding, something Judge Wentwell never did.

“Going to a fire or something?” Wes had asked the distinguished jurist as he walked up to the driver’s side window. “Whaddya think, the law doesn’t apply to you? A few days in the slammer will straighten you out. Come on, let’s see your license and registration.” It was the usual banter he delivered to everyone—it made him feel good and made the routine of chasing speeders more enjoyable. The judge handed Wes his license without looking up. People had been coming into his courtroom for years claiming that they hadn’t been speeding and that they had been treated quite rudely by Officer Wesley Brume, exactly what he had just experienced and exactly what Wesley Brume had denied every time. Wes read the name on the license and knew he was in deep shit. He thought about backtracking, pretending he knew it was the judge all along, but the look of guilt on his pudgy face had already betrayed him.

“Hi, Judge, how are you?” was all he could muster.

“Fine, Officer Brume. Finish with your ticket.”

“On second thought, Judge, I think I stopped the wrong car. It was the one in front of you.” There had been no car in front of Judge Wentwell and they both knew it. The old man glared at Wes and drove off.

The next day, the police chief received a hand-delivered letter from the judge detailing the whole incident and demanding that Wesley Brume be stripped of all authority to issue speeding tickets and that all his officers have explained to them the importance of ticketing people who actually were speeding. Needless to say the incident did not go over well with the chief.

The whole affair was also unknown to Clay, who sat supremely confident as he watched Tracey ask Wes one warm and fuzzy question after another. All that was about to change.

“Officer Brume, why did you pick up my client for questioning?”

That was an easy one for Wes. “He was identified by three people as a suspect.”

“Would those three people be Pilar Rodriguez, Ray Castro and José Guerrero?”

“Yes.”

“Is it accurate that you did not interview those three people?”

“Yes, that’s accurate. Officer Barbas interviewed them.” Everything seemed to be moving along quite well to Clay. The pace had a nice rhythm to it. Wes was answering the questions quickly and directly.

“I have Officer Barbas’s interview of the two men in my hands here. It says they described a tall man with black hair, is that accurate?”

“Yes.”

“So they didn’t identify my client?” Tracey said, staring intensely at Wes.

“No, but their identification was consistent with what he looked like and Ms. Rodriguez said the man who puked on her lawn looked like the boy who worked at the convenience store. She even said his name, Rudy.”

“But she didn’t see this person who looked like Rudy come from Lucy Ochoa’s trailer?”

“No.”

“And isn’t it true that she could not identify Rudy in a lineup?”

“That’s correct.” It was Clay who was glaring at Wes now.
How could you not tell me something like that, you idiot?

Wes needed to redeem himself. “If I could explain.” Tracey knew what was coming. She had tried to use the fact that
ultimately
nobody identified Rudy without placing those facts in a time sequence. Wes was about to call her on it. “At the time we picked your client up for questioning, Ms. Rodriguez had said the man who puked on her lawn looked like Rudy and he also fit the description the other two men gave us. I believe that gave us enough reasonable suspicion to question him.”

“Did you read him his rights?”

“Of course. I had him sign a document explaining his rights.”

That was important to the judge. “Did you bring that document with you?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s see it.” Wes showed the original to the judge.

“Is this your client’s signature?” he asked Tracey.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Then what are we doing here, Ms. James?”

“I want to show you how it was obtained and why it should be stricken.”

“Then get on with it, Ms. James. Stop wasting our time with these meaningless questions.” It was a definite
slap,
one Tracey was not used to receiving.

“Before you picked my client up, you talked to his high school principal, Mr. Bill Yates, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Yates told you that Rudy had an intellectual deficit, that he couldn’t keep up with the other students academically, correct?”

“Yes.”

“They passed him academically to the tenth grade, although they shouldn’t have, but after that he just received an attendance certificate, correct?”

“Pretty much.” That answer wasn’t good enough for Tracey. Too much wiggle room.

“Pretty much? Is there anything in my question you want to qualify?”

“No, it’s correct.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Yates tell you anything else about Rudy?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t tell you that Rudy was very affable, that he’d agree to everything you’d say; that in all fairness you shouldn’t question him without either his mother or a lawyer present—the principal didn’t say those things to you?” Tracey was starting to squeeze. The Grunt resisted, just as she had hoped.

“No. I don’t remember him saying anything like that.”

“You don’t remember him saying anything like that or he didn’t say anything like that: Which is it, Officer Brume?”

“Detective Brume.”

“Okay. Which is it,
Detective Brume
?” She was getting under his skin already.

“He didn’t say anything like that,” the Grunt replied defiantly. This bitch wasn’t going to push him around. At counsel table, Clay put his left hand on his forehead. He knew what was coming.