State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller

by Flowers, R. Barri

  Natalie Pena walked steadily into the interview room. The defense attorney had been appointed by the court to represent Manuel Gonzalez, who faced multiple murder counts and related charges. She was there to tell him that the situation looked bleak at best, in spite of her best efforts to do what she could to try to at least spare his life.

  Under other circumstances the thirty-one-year-old Latina beauty might have been easily mistaken for a model. Five-ten and streamlined, her flaxen hair was smartly cut above the shoulders and contacts made her eyes seem even bluer. Though she had put on a fresh coat of plum gloss, her lips still felt dry. She wondered if it had anything to do with taking the case of a man who Natalie had little doubt was as guilty as he seemed.

  Her client was already seated at the table. He was still handcuffed and fidgeting, as if he had to use the bathroom. She often wondered why people like Manuel resorted to such violence in their lives.

  And why others like her managed to escape lower class beginnings, a dysfunctional family, and ethnic discrimination to make a life other Hispanics could be proud of.

  Maybe she would never know.

  “Hello, Manuel.” Natalie gave him a much-practiced smile that she used with all of her clients, most of whom couldn’t afford a private attorney. Often it was to keep from crying, for usually it was a depressing situation she found herself in as a public defender.

  This time was no different.

  “What’s up?” he said, as if they were just hanging out as old friends.

  At first he had sought to ridicule her as his attorney, insisting that only a man could help him. But gradually she had gained his trust, and maybe even admiration.

  Natalie sat across from her client. “I just talked to the D.A.,” she said levelly. “I’m afraid the news is not very good, Manuel. I tried to get the charges reduced to first-degree sexual assault and second-degree murder, which could have allowed you to avoid the death penalty. But he insisted that the charges stand.”

  “Meanin’ what?” Manuel kept his eyes planted on her like they had nowhere else to go.

  Natalie avoided his stare, focusing instead on the dreary wall behind him. “Meaning that unless there is something else you can give me that might influence their position, we’re looking at an almost certain death sentence...if you’re convicted—” She knew that given his confession and solid evidence, this was a more or less forgone conclusion. But she owed it to him and her profession to do whatever she could, which wasn’t much at this point.

  Manuel continued to gaze at her attentively. “Maybe I do have somethin’ else to say—”

  “I’m listening.” Natalie tried to read his mind, but couldn’t see anything that might give her a clue as to where this was headed.

  Manuel moved restlessly in the seat, as if it were vibrating. “You heard about that judge that was killed last October, right?” He paused, adding, “His old lady was raped—”

  Natalie mused. Of course she had heard of the case. Who hadn’t? She had actually been considered to represent the accused, since Hispanic public defenders were in short supply in the state of California. But the case went to another lawyer named Conrad Ortega.

  Personally, she believed they had a problem with a Latina representing a Latino male accused of killing a criminal court judge. The same judge the suspect had threatened years earlier.

  Was this case any less? Natalie wondered, while knowing the answer spoke for itself.

  She locked eyes with her client. “Yes. I’m familiar with it. The trial is underway right now.”

  Did he know something about that crime?

  Manuel gave her a deadpan look and said as though it had been weighing heavily on him, “I was responsible for it—”

  “What do you mean responsible?” Natalie separated her lips. “Were you involved in the attack?”

  A half grin formed on his mouth. “I killed the judge and raped his whore of a wife!”

  Natalie sat back, stunned. Was he trying to manipulate his way out of a really tight jam? Or was he being straight with her?

  “Manuel, there’s a man on trial for his life right now,” she said, her voice on edge. “Are you saying he’s innocent? Or did you commit the crime together?”

  Manuel did not flinch when he met her gaze. “He didn’t do it,” he responded succinctly. “I did—period!”

  Natalie swallowed, her mouth gone dry. “Assuming you’re telling the truth, what do you want me to do?”

  “Use it to cut me a deal,” he said bluntly.

  “What kind of deal?” She elevated a brow warily. Multiple murderers were not in much of a position to bargain. Adding more murders to his resume was hardly worthy of a commuted sentence.

  Manuel reached across the table and took her wrists, holding them tightly between his cuffed hands. Natalie’s first thought was to scream. But something made her feel that it was not his intent to hurt her. Maybe he just wanted her to listen.

  “I decided I don’t wanna die,” he muttered with trepidation. “Not till I reach the ripe old age of ninety-nine. Even a hundred. Maybe I can sell my life story and be a millionaire in prison.” He loosened his hold on her. “You can save me. And him—”

  Natalie sank back as he removed his hands from her wrists. “Can you prove this?”

  Manuel leapt up so fast, shackles and all, that for an instant Natalie thought he was attempting to escape. Or assault her before anyone could stop him.

  Instead, he yanked down his pants like they were ablaze. Staring across the table at Natalie was Manuel Gonzalez’s erect penis.

  She actually flushed at its enormity.

  “What are you doing, Manuel?” she asked for lack of more appropriate words to come to her.

  “Just showin’ you somethin’.” He crossed to her side of the table in two steps before the guard could come rushing in. He forced down his penis so she could focus instead on the area above it. “Have you ever seen anything so pretty in your life?”

  Natalie’s eyes widened with surprise. His pubic hair had been shaved. In its place was a beautiful multicolored tattooed lizard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Beverly recalled Maxine Crawford to the stand.

  She wasted little time in getting to the hardest part of her testimony, but it was the part that would most likely resonate with the jury.

  “On October twenty-ninth, your husband, Judge Sheldon Crawford, wasn’t the only crime victim. Can you tell the court what happened to you that night?”

  Maxine sighed unevenly. “I was raped and sodomized—” Her voice broke.

  “He raped and sodomized you?” Beverly turned her head and glowered in the direction of the defendant.

  “Objection!” Ortega shouted. “She’s leading the witness.”

  “Overruled,” Grant said equably. Nevertheless he looked at Beverly and said firmly, “I think you’ve made your point, Counselor. Maybe a little too much, since we know who’s on trial here. Move on.”

  Beverly nodded without protest. “Did this person do anything else to you?”

  Maxine lowered her eyes shamefully. “He forced me to...go down on him.”

  “You mean he forced you to give him an orgasm by putting his penis in your mouth?” Beverly clarified for the jury, though she had little doubt the implication was loud and clear.

  “Yes.”

  Beverly entered into evidence photographs that showed bruises the victim had sustained during the assault. They were passed around to the jury.

  “Were you able to see the person who did this to you?” asked Beverly.

  “Yes,” Maxine testified laconically.

  Beverly paused dramatically as she faced the jury. “Is the man who shot Judge Crawford and brutally sexually assaulted you in this courtroom?”

  Maxine riveted her eyes on the defense table. “He’s over there!” she pointed a long finger.

  “You mean this man?” Beverly asked loudly, stepping towards the defendant. “Rafael Santiago?”
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br />   Maxine gulped. “Yes, he’s the one.”

  The jurors reacted, some appearing visibly shaken.

  Beverly produced eleven by fourteen inch photographs of the defendant’s pubic area for the witness to view. “Do you recognize any of these?”

  Maxine cringed. “Yes.” She honed in on the enlargements of a lizard tattoo.

  “Where have you seen this?” Beverly asked.

  Maxine raised her eyes at Santiago. “The tattoo is on his body, where pubic hair normally is. Only he shaved it...”

  Beverly identified the photographs as in fact belonging to the defendant’s anatomy, entering them into evidence.

  She handed the explicit pictures to members of the jury, all of whom appeared mesmerized and disgusted at once.

  “When you were being assaulted,” Beverly asked the witness while the photographs were still being circulated, “was the defendant holding a gun on you at the same time?”

  “Yes,” slurred Maxine, her composure breaking.

  “And did you fear for your life?” Beverly gave her a knowing look.

  “Yes,” the witness uttered emotionally. “I did. Every second he was in me...on me...in my house...it was horrible—”

  Maxine wiped at her eyes in what Beverly considered a prize-winning performance, but real nonetheless. She knew the courage it had taken to testify against Santiago and to relive the brutalities he had inflicted upon her and her husband.

  For an instant Beverly wondered if Maxine had ever been afraid of turning State’s evidence against Judge Crawford. Would she have actually testified against her husband, had it come down to that? The same man who, in effect, had rescued her from a life she would no doubt have just as soon forgotten?

  Fortunately Maxine had been spared such a gut-wrenching decision.

  Beverly thanked her star witness whom she truly felt sorry for in more ways than one.

  * * *

  K. Conrad Ortega lifted a manila envelope from the defense table and strode directly towards the witness box. Beverly watched as alarm bells rang in her head.

  Ortega kept the envelope at his side as he faced the witness. “Mrs. Crawford, you have testified that the man who raped you had a tattoo of a lizard in the area of his shaved pubic hair. Am I right?”

  Maxine nodded tentatively.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice raised an octave.

  Without another word, Ortega whipped an eleven by fourteen inch photograph from the envelope and stuck it in her face. “Is this the lizard tattoo in the pubic hair region that you saw, Mrs. Crawford?”

  There was a buzz in the courtroom as Beverly jumped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor!” she shrieked. “I have no idea what he’s trying to pull here. Under discovery, that picture was never made available to the D.A.’s office!”

  Grant furrowed his brow. “Mr. Ortega, you’d better have a good reason for this.”

  “Oh, I do, Your Honor,” he responded confidently.

  Judge Nunez ordered both attorneys to approach the bench.

  “Explain, Counselor...” Grant angled his eyes at Ortega.

  Beverly was as curious as she was vehement at the defense attorney’s attempt to put something past her.

  “Your Honor,” said Ortega, “the witness has testified about this lizard tattoo being on the lower body of the man who assaulted her. I have very recently come into contact with some photographs that were taken by another attorney of her client and his private parts. Since Mrs. Crawford is accusing my client of having done these terrible things to her and her husband, I am entitled to dispute that with evidence to the contrary.”

  “May I?” Grant held out a hand for the photograph, which Ortega passed to him, along with another similar close up photograph of a man’s genitalia.

  While the judge studied the pictures, Beverly assaulted its highly prejudicial presence. “Grant—Your Honor,” she corrected, “you cannot allow these photographs into this trial. I have not had a chance to study them. For all we know, they could have been faked—”

  Ortega’s nostrils grew and his brown eyes were hard as rocks. “I can assure you, Your Honor,” he stated tautly, “these photos are very real!”

  Grant furrowed his brow. “Who the hell is the man in these photos?”

  Ortega removed a glossy picture from the envelope. Handing it to Grant, he said, “His name is Manuel Gonzalez.” Ortega met Beverly’s eyes squarely. “I believe you two have already met—”

  Beverly’s knees buckled and she might have actually fallen had she not found support in the railing beneath the bench. She looked up at Grant, who gave her a disbelieving gaze.

  “He’s being held in a Wilameta County jail on multiple murder and rape charges,” said Ortega. “As you can see, Your Honor, the man’s a dead ringer for Mr. Santiago. No pun intended—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” sputtered Beverly, dismissing what she knew to be true about Santiago and Gonzalez appearance-wise. “Any resemblance between the two men, including their shaved pubic regions and tattoos, is totally coincidental—”

  Did she really believe that?

  It seemed unlikely that Gonzalez and Santiago would put the same lizard tattoo in the same place on their bodies and look like twins purely by happenstance.

  But it was too much to believe that both men were active participants in the crimes committed against the Crawfords.

  “Maybe you should take a look at these,” Grant advised Beverly.

  She viewed the photographs and quivered when studying the enlargements of the lizard tattoo. It was distinctive because of the color patterns, which were embedded in her mind based on Maxine Crawford’s chilling description and photos Beverly had observed of Rafael Santiago’s tattoo.

  These photographs could very well have been taken of Santiago’s private parts. Even the picture of Gonzalez himself was a virtual clone of Santiago. Had she not known better, Beverly might have thought the two men were one and the same.

  Except that she knew for a fact that Santiago was in the courtroom at that moment; whereas Gonzalez was presently locked up. Making it impossible that there was only one man responsible for at least four murders and two sexual assaults.

  Aside from that, facts were facts. Rafael Santiago had been positively identified by Maxine Crawford as the man who attacked her and Judge Crawford and the DNA evidence had backed that up.

  Or had it?

  Beverly mused on the expert testimony on DNA and identical twins. But there was no indication that Santiago had an identical twin. And no reason to believe it was Gonzalez, appearance aside.

  “I admit,” she finally told Grant, “that these photos do show a strong likeness to the defendant on trial today—in more than one respect. But they are not pictures of Rafael Santiago!” Beverly glared at Ortega. “To allow the jury to see or even hear about these would seriously jeopardize the case against the man who was identified by the witness in two separate lineups.”

  “I tend to agree,” Grant said waveringly.

  Ortega drew his brows together. “Your Honor, from what I understand, Manuel Gonzalez has confessed to killing Judge Crawford and sexually assaulting the witness!”

  Beverly’s mouth hung open with shock. “That can’t be!” she protested. “I questioned Gonzalez myself about this case and he denied any involvement in the crimes.”

  “That was then,” Ortega said curtly. “And this is now! Obviously the man had a change of heart, developed a conscience, or whatever. My client is entitled to be given every chance to prove his innocence, Your Honor. Why not let Mrs. Crawford decide for herself if she identified the wrong man?”

  “We cannot allow this trial to be turned into a circus, Your Honor—” Beverly tried to appeal to him, desperation in her tone.

  But it had apparently fallen on deaf ears.

  “I’m sorry, Beverly,” Grant lamented, wishing there were some other way. “But he’s right. This evidence is potentially too strong
and too damaging to simply ignore. If the witness rejects it altogether, then we’ll move on. If not, I’d say we have ourselves a real problem here—”

  Beverly could hear her heart thumping madly as she sneered at both the judge and defense attorney before storming back to her table.

  Deep down inside Beverly knew she had no solid ground to stand on. And could not expect Grant to bail her out, lover or not. This was the only way to be certain the right man was on trial. Or at least a first step in getting at the truth, assuming they weren’t already there. A victory was not nearly as important as justice being served.

  She could not really live with herself if her prosecution caused the wrong man to be convicted, and quite possibly executed down the line. Even if Rafael Santiago was clearly a despicable human being who deserved little mercy for his past sins.

  But did that make him guilty of the crimes for which he was on trial?

  “The witness will answer the questions to the best of her ability.” Grant regarded Maxine judicially. “And take as much time as you need—”

  Ortega stood before the witness. He handed her a photograph. “Mrs. Crawford, do you recognize this? It’s a lizard tattoo...just like what you’ve described being on your attacker’s body, just above his penis—”

  Maxine studied the picture. It took her back to that awful night. She remembered how he had made her put his penis in her mouth. She found herself focusing on the tattoo as a means to not think about what he was forcing her to do.

  It was the same lizard tattoo, wasn’t it?

  She wondered if this was some kind of legal trick. She hadn’t been able to make out what the attorneys were saying to the judge. Did this tattoo belong to the same man who sexually assaulted her after murdering Sheldon?

  How could it not?

  “Mrs. Crawford—?” Ortega hissed impatiently.

  “Yes, I recognize it,” Maxine uttered tentatively.

  His eyes pinned on her. “And what is it you recognize about the picture?”

  She gazed at Beverly, but Maxine knew instinctively that she would get no help from the attorney. After a sigh, she responded, “It looks like the tattoo he had—”