Mother Load

by KG MacGregor

  From the Esperanzas’ history of police encounters, Lily could easily prove that Maria knew exactly what kinds of questions to expect when filing a report, and she was likely correct that the police would not have responded on the word of her children. “What happened next?”

  “I told the children to stay on the porch. Sofia did what I said, but Bobby went around to the driveway to play with his soccer ball. I could see him through the kitchen window. That’s when I heard Sofia scream. I ran back to the living room and saw Miguel pushing her into his car.”

  Lily stopped writing and scanned the police report. “Wait, how much time passed between when you called him and when he came back?”

  Maria shook her head, clearly agitated.

  She slammed her palm on the desk. “Think, Maria! This is important.”

  “I don’t know. Three or four minutes…maybe not that long.”

  The report indicated the time of the 911 call, but not the time of the call that was logged on Miguel’s cell phone. If Maria’s version of the facts bore out, it bolstered the argument that he was already in her neighborhood when she called him. That torpedoed any argument she had lured him there. “And then?”

  “Miguel slammed the door with Sofia in the backseat and yelled at her to stay there. Then he started screaming for Bobby. I went to the closet to get my gun.”

  “When did you get a gun? Is it registered?”

  She shook her head without looking up, as if bracing for Lily’s wrath.

  “Damn it! What were you thinking, Maria?” She wanted to scream about how dangerous it was to have a gun in a house with children, but if not for that gun her children might be dead at the hand of their father. “Tell me about the gun. Where did you get it and when?”

  “Sam…my sister’s husband. He gave it to me after Miguel threatened me and we went to get the restraining order. He warned me Miguel wouldn’t stay away and he was right.”

  “Is this your sister in Culver City? The one who has your kids right now?”

  She nodded.

  Lily tossed her pen on the table and slumped against the back of her chair, almost wishing she hadn’t asked the question. For the sake of Sofia and Roberto, she had to follow through. “Does Sam keep a gun in his house too?”

  Maria wouldn’t look at her.

  She opened her cell phone and held her finger over the keypad. “One call, Maria. I’ll have Sandy Henke and the police tearing that house apart looking for it. Save me the trouble. You know we won’t leave those children in a house with a gun.”

  “They don’t have anywhere else to go,” she wailed, running her hands through her hair. “He has another one. He keeps it locked in the closet. Please don’t take my kids away from them.” Sofia and Roberto had been placed a half dozen times with Maria’s sister, and probably felt secure there.

  “I don’t want to move them, but Sam will have to get rid of his gun. It’s not negotiable.” She scooted back up to the table and poised her pen to write again. “Okay, when you saw Miguel with your own eyes, why didn’t you call the police?”

  “There wasn’t time. He already had Sofia in the car and she was crying. If he had gotten Bobby he would have left and it would’ve been too late.”

  Lily scribbled furiously as Maria related the harrowing tale.

  “I went out the back door and showed Miguel the gun and told him to leave. He laughed and called me a bitch…said I didn’t have the guts to use it. So I shot at the ground just to scare him, but it jumped in my hand and the bullet almost hit his foot. He screamed and started toward me. His eyes were so wild, and he kept yelling that he was going to show me.”

  “Where was Bobby? Did he see any of this?”

  Maria shook her head. “No, he was hiding behind the garbage cans…around the corner of the house.”

  Too bad, Lily thought. No witnesses meant all the weight would be on Maria’s credibility. “What happened then?”

  “I pointed the gun right at him and started backing up. He kept coming toward me so I pulled the trigger and shot him in the neck. Then his hand came out at me like this”—she made a reaching motion—“and I shot him again.”

  As she described the particulars, her voice grew more defiant, a sure sign she felt justified in her actions. It was exactly the attitude Lily wanted a jury to see.

  “Maria, you’ll have to tell that story over and over, because I’ll need to know every single detail that pops into your head, even if you don’t think it’s important. The DA’s going to focus on three things—why you called Miguel, why you already had a gun in your house and why you shot him when he wasn’t physically threatening you. He’s going to say you planned it, that you were still angry for all the times Miguel beat you, and that you didn’t want him coming around the kids anymore. He can prove you called him and that a few minutes later he came to the house, and he’ll argue that you lured him there to shoot him. No one else can testify to what he said, so they don’t have to believe you. He’ll also argue that you were lying about Miguel having a gun, and he’ll say you didn’t feel threatened at all, that you just wanted Miguel dead once and for all. That’s what we’re up against.”

  “He was going to kill my children. I know it.”

  In her gut, she agreed.

  Chapter 8

  Anna stared at the dismal budget figures. Chamber membership was down almost a third from when she had taken the reins as president. It wasn’t only that businesses—including Premier Motors—were cutting back on discretionary spending during the recession. More than half of the losses were small businesses that had gone under.

  “We need to shift our priorities to small business needs.” Jack Stroman, who produced television commercials for local businesses, sat opposite Anna at the far end of the conference table. His placement was fitting, since his views were usually contrary as well. As chairman of the budget committee, he wasn’t without sway. “I know it’s self-serving, but the number one reason businesses join the Chamber is to network, not to support the community.”

  Geri Morgan, a longtime friend and ally, spoke up. “We had an election on those issues last year, Jack. The members were seeing positive results from our community investment.”

  “With all due respect, that was last year. Members want to see their dues coming back to them, not going to a bunch of social enrichment programs.”

  Anna bristled at his sarcastic intonation, but held her temper in check. She wasn’t on the budget committee, but as president was here as their guest. She said evenly, “Those objectives need not be mutually exclusive. What we saw in seeding the community with job training and development grants was that people had more money to spend. The model that Dave developed is solid.” She gestured to Dave Cahill, the owner of an office supply chain who had tapped her as his vice president two years ago so she could carry on his youth-oriented programs. “If we allow these community initiatives to fail, we’ll forfeit not only our investment, but our future customer base as well. This is not the time to abandon our goals.”

  “If I may…” Dave was seated at the corner next to Jack, and had been silent throughout the contentious meeting. He seemed leaner than the last time she had seen him, and his handsome face was red and lined with worry. “Eighteen months ago, every single store in our chain posted record profits. Last Friday, I’m sad to say…Cahill Office Supply filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.”

  An awkward silence followed for several seconds. They had lost dozens of big-name companies in the past year, but none from someone so high in their organization.

  Dave went on, “Our business was dependent on other businesses thriving, not on whether or not we have afterschool programs and little league baseball. I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself if things would have been different had I pushed more of the Chamber’s resources into the kinds of things Jack’s advocating we do now.”

  Delores Gottleib, an investment banker sitting next to Geri, checked her watch. “I call the question,” she said
, invoking the parliamentary procedure for voting on the motion. It was no doubt clear to her—and to everyone else in the room—the balance had shifted and there was no more need for debate.

  When the meeting adjourned, Anna and Dave remained in their chairs as the room emptied.

  “Sorry about the blindside,” he said grimly. “I tried to call you with a heads-up this morning but you were on another call.”

  “I’m not worried about the blindside. I’m worried about you.”

  “I wish I could tell you it wasn’t as bad as it looks, but it’s actually worse. I did the stupidest thing a business person can do. When the slide started I tried to prop things up with my own money, which means Maureen and I will be filing personal bankruptcy too,” he said, his voice cracking. “We took a second mortgage, so we’ll probably lose the house…Michael will have to get student loans.” He snorted. “Good luck with that.”

  “I don’t know what to say. You don’t deserve this.”

  “None of us do, but that’s hardly the point. Bad luck finds us all.”

  “Maybe so, but I also believe you did everything right to build your business, and you can do everything right again. Re-file under Chapter 11 so you can reorganize. Downsize if you have to, whatever it takes to ride this out.”

  “That’s the problem, Anna. I don’t have what it takes anymore. I’m fifty-six years old with high blood pressure and cholesterol off the chart. Maureen wants to head to Arizona and start over with something on a smaller scale. I used to like keeping my own shop. Maybe I’ll try my hand at that again.”

  After what she had just gone through with her own company’s downsizing, Anna understood the appeal of scaling back. It would have been the easiest solution—selling off a couple of the dealerships to erase her company’s massive debt—and it’s exactly what she would have done had her staff reductions not resulted in a return to profit. At least she hadn’t dipped into her personal wealth to float her company along, as Dave had.

  Before parting they shared a warm hug, and she offered the best she could—the gift of confidence. “You’ll land on your feet, my friend. I have no doubt about it.”

  Fellow attorney Lauren Miller leaned against the doorjamb where Lily sat alone in the conference room at the Braxton Street Legal Aid Clinic. “So how are you holding up?”

  She heaved a sigh and slumped back in her armchair, folding her hands across her prominent stomach. “I have one more deposition this afternoon. That gives me two weeks to plan the defense.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still here working and not home already. Just the thought of having twins sends a shudder all the way through me.”

  Lily found that hard to believe. The way she saw it, Lauren was the epitome of a supermom. She had worked all the way to her due date with both of her children—not complaining for an instant about hormones, back pain or discomfort—and returned to a full caseload after only two months of maternity leave looking as beautiful and rested as ever. She made it all look easy, and Lily was determined to follow her lead.

  “You feeling okay about your case?”

  “Between you and me, this Samuels guy is a prick. He just transferred over to felonies last fall and he’s trying to impress his bosses by turning this into a capital case. I like our chances against Murder One, but it makes me nervous as hell to roll the dice on Maria Esperanza’s life.”

  “How’s his case?”

  “I think I can chip away at it enough to get reasonable doubt, but I’m not sure I can keep Maria out of prison if the judge comes back with instructions on a lesser offense. They’re going to argue that she set him up, going all the way back to when she first reported that he had a gun.”

  “Because no one ever found a gun.”

  “Right, so it casts doubt on her story that she shot him because she was afraid he would hurt the children.”

  The intercom beeped and Pauline announced the arrival of the last witness, Miguel’s brother Eduardo, and the assistant district attorney.

  “Show them back, please.” She smiled as Lauren crossed her fingers for luck, and closed the folder with all her notes. The last thing she wanted was for Samuels to preview her defense strategy.

  As Pauline led the visitors in, Lily took a long pull on her water bottle, regretting that she hadn’t remembered to run to the restroom. Once the trial began, sitting for hours in court would be sheer torture.

  She welcomed Eduardo and asked him to sit directly across from her in a stiff wooden chair. Samuels she directed to a chair in the corner, where he could observe but not participate unless invited.

  Lily went through the formalities of introductions, and turned on her recorder so Eduardo could give his personal information for the record.

  “Mr. Esperanza, you are the brother of Miguel Esperanza, the deceased in this case. Is that correct?”

  “The victim,” he answered, his hostile tone a stark reminder that he was the opposition’s witness.

  “And what is your line of work?” she asked dryly, showing no hint of intimidation.

  “I own an auto body shop.”

  Through a series of routine questions, Lily easily ascertained the testimony Eduardo was likely to give for the prosecution—that after serving time in jail, Miguel had turned his life around and become a devoted father who loved his children.

  “When was the last time you saw your brother?”

  “Two days before she murdered him,” he spat.

  “Mr. Samuels, you may want to advise Mr. Esperanza to check his attitude, or I’ll be forced to treat him as a hostile witness. You know how juries feel when they think you’re having to force a witness to tell the truth.”

  Samuels got up and mumbled into Eduardo’s ear, after which Eduardo sat up straight and folded his hands on the table in an act of apparent contrition. “It was the Friday before he died.”

  “And what were the circumstances?”

  “He came by the shop.”

  “Did he come to your shop often?”

  “At least once a week. That piece of crap he drove, it was always breaking down.”

  “Breaking down? Yours is an auto body shop, right? You don’t work on engines.”

  “It was falling apart. Like his mirrors fell off, his windshield cracked. That kind of stuff. The cops like to write up Latinos for little shit like that. They call it Driving While Brown,” he added with a sneer. “And then it was his window. It was always coming off the track. He’d bring it in for us to take the door panel off. I showed him how to do it, and how we fixed glass and stuff. He liked it, working with his hands. I was thinking about giving him a job.”

  “So why didn’t you?” She wanted to establish that even Eduardo had doubts about Miguel turning his life around.

  “Business was slow. I barely had enough work for my crew.”

  “Did he ever bring his son Roberto to the shop?”

  Eduardo nodded. “Yeah, he said he wanted him to hang around guys. Maria never let him do anything but school stuff, and play with Sofia and her girlfriends. So Miguel and Bobby would come and shoot the shit…I mean, talk with the crew. He wanted Bobby to get interested in cars or something.”

  “Mr. Esperanza, do you own a gun?”

  The question seemed to surprise him. “It’s not your business. I’m not accused of anything.”

  She looked again at Samuels, who directed him to answer.

  “I have one. I keep it in the safe at the shop in case of robberies. I have a permit.”

  Lily already knew about the permit, but that wasn’t the burning question as far as she was concerned. “Did Miguel have access to your gun?”

  “No, absolutely not.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I’m certain what ‘absolutely not’ means. Are you?”

  “Can you describe the gun?” she asked, ignoring his petulance.

  “It’s a twenty-two.”

  “Revolver or semiautomatic?”

  “Revolver.”
>
  The handgun Maria had described in the possession of Miguel was a semiautomatic. “Do you have any unregistered guns?”

  “No.”

  “Have you had any in the past?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever see Miguel with a gun?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t live together. Did you ever go to Miguel’s house?”

  “No, he was always moving around to different apartments.”

  “So if you never went to his house, how do you know he didn’t have a gun?”

  “Because he would’ve told me.” He seemed satisfied with his answers and pressed to make his point. “My brother was a good man. He had one weakness and that was Maria. I tried to get him to move on, to go out with other girls, but he wouldn’t have anyone else. I would’ve tried harder if I’d known she was going to murder him.”

  “Did you know your brother was driving by Maria’s house?”

  He paused, as if contemplating how to word his answer.

  “Yes or no?”

  He nodded, and she reminded him to answer aloud for the recorder. “He couldn’t stay away from her. He was so hung up on that girl. I said to him, ‘This girl’s bad for you, man.’ But it was her or nobody. I don’t know why but he loved her, and he believed they’d get back together just like they always did.”

  In court, Lily would point out that such beliefs made stalkers out of men, and she would cite a dozen cases where spurned husbands killed their children to get back at their wives. Miguel had always exerted physical power to control what Maria did or whom she saw. Her two attempts to leave him had been met with force, and it was her success at living on her own with the children that made him finally snap.

  “Did you know Maria had a restraining order?”

  “Yes,” he answered quietly.

  “Did you ever consider reporting your brother to the police when you knew he was driving by her house?”

  “They would have arrested him.”