by JF Freedman
He gives me a grudging nod of agreement. “I don’t know. But if he did, and that stopped him, all to the good.”
“Or maybe he’s finished. Like the Zodiac.”
From his expression I can tell he has considered that possibility. “Or he might have moved somewhere else, where he can start fresh.” His lips curl, showing his teeth. They are large, white, straight. Right now, they’re clenched. “It would be healing for this city if you’re right, although there would still be a cloud, for a long time.”
He takes my arm and walks me the few steps to my car. “But my gut tells me we’re not done with him.” He looks up into the predawn sky, as if looking for a sign from above. “Or him with us.”
FIFTEEN
“THE DEFENSE WILL TRY to convince you the accused was an innocent victim of his so-called criminal friend,” Wayne Dixant tells the jury as he delivers his opening statement. “Do not believe it. He was caught red-handed. They’ll also insinuate that his truck was illegally searched. That’s a bunch of baloney, too. The police did everything by the book. In fact, they bent over backward to insure all of the defendant’s rights. They’ll also trot out a sob story about his being a good father, good husband, breadwinner. That’s all fine and good, but it does not matter. What matters—the only thing that matters in this case—is that this man is an accomplice to the break-in of a federally bonded container, that he was transporting stolen goods for financial gain, and that he was caught. The fact that he doesn’t have a prior record is irrelevant. At some point in life, everyone’s record is clean. Some criminals take the wrong path early in life. Others don’t succumb to temptation until later on. But whatever their age, if they break the law, they have to pay the price.”
He’s better than I thought he would be. After his meltdown, I had wondered if he would be able to get through this with real energy and zest, or would go through the motions, take his licking, and slink off to lick his wounds. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen. He’s here to win. I have to concede that he’s off to a good start.
He steamrolls on. “Armando Gonzalez, the so-called master-mind of this enterprise, does not exist, at least not in Los Angeles County or anywhere else in Southern California. There is no record of him on the tax rolls, the DMV, any of the utilities, property rolls, welfare, nothing. He’s a phantom, a ghost, a figment of the accused’s imagination.” His eyes sparkle, as if he and the jury are in on the fix. “That’s very convenient, isn’t it? You create a fictitious character and make him the bad guy. Then you create a set of circumstances that make it plausible why he can’t be found to substantiate your defense—he’s in hiding because he’s the real criminal. That’s a nice enclosed circle.” He pauses to catch his breath and to let the jury catch up with him. “A nice vicious circle,” he continues. “You can’t prove a negative, so you set it up so that it can’t be disproved. They know that,” he continues, pointing at me and Salazar, sitting at the defense table. “They know that the burden of proof is on the state, so they create this phony world of disappearing criminals and altruistic motives and an innocent dupe …”
I tune him out for a moment, because I know where he is going. I’m concerned about my client. Sitting next to Salazar, I feel his tension. He is vibrating like a tuning fork. He is extremely distressed as he sits here and hears himself being described as both a thief and a moron.
I pat my client on the knee, under the table. “Tune him out,” I counsel. “It’s all hot air. By tomorrow, the jury won’t remember a word he says.”
Salazar nods, but I know he can’t help listening and letting Dixant’s accusations get to him.
Dupe was Dixant’s second use of the word, which I have privately thought myself about Salazar. When I thought it, it made me think he could be innocent, even back at the beginning when I didn’t know any of the background of his life, his devotion, and good works. Coming out of Dixant’s mouth, though, the portrayal makes him seem like a jerk who fell into Gonzalez’s world and went along with the program, maybe not as an enterprising instigator, but as a willing, if naive, accomplice. Unfortunately for us, should the jury agree with Dixant, naïveté is not a legal defense.
I am also worried about the Armando Gonzalez quandary, which Dixant has now telegraphed he is going to hammer home. The man has not turned up, not a trace. It is the one element of Salazar’s story that has given me pause. The best answer I have been able to figure is that Armando Gonzalez is a fictitious name, and Salazar didn’t know it. That’s not uncommon among people who have criminal records. They create new identities with phony documents to stay ahead of the law. The way I did as an underage kid, with my fake ID card.
That is going to be a thorn in our side. Hopefully, I’ll diffuse it with a barrage of character witnesses.
Dixant winds it up. “This is a simple case, ladies and gentlemen. The accused was caught with stolen goods. That is indisputable, the defense is not going to contest that. How he got them, what the circumstances were, doesn’t matter. He had them. That is a crime. And it will be your duty, your civic responsibility, to find him guilty.”
He leans into the podium to deliver his finishing argument: “Almost always in a case like this, there are smoke screens the defense will throw at you, to try to confuse you about the facts. You had to buy medicine for your sick mother, you were trying to help a neighbor who was down and out, the dog ate your homework.” He waits for the requisite chuckles, and plunges on. “These stories can bring a tear to your eye, a lump to your throat. If you were watching him on Oprah, your heart would go out to this poor victim. But this is not television, ladies and gentlemen. It is real life. Do not be influenced by what the accused has done in other parts of his life. Lots of killers, thieves, even rapists are good fathers and husbands. But they are also criminals, and when they break the law, they are sent to prison.”
He turns again, faces Salazar and me, and points the accusing finger. “He broke the law. He has to pay the price for doing that.
When all the evidence is in, you will be convinced that he broke the law, and you will find him guilty as charged.”
My workload has been heavy, and as the marathon date looms closer, I’ve intensified my training. The weekend after next I’ll go for my final long run of twenty miles, then I’ll taper off. Last week I bought a new pair of running shoes, New Balance 1223s for women. They are comfortable on my feet, which, being long and narrow (11AA), can be hard to fit. They were expensive, but I don’t skimp on shoes. I’m expecting a grueling experience, and I don’t want to worry about my equipment.
I don’t want to worry about running at all. My sole concern for now is winning this trial. I think we have a decent chance, but I never allow myself to be too optimistic. The defense, whether a public defender or a six-hundred-dollar-an-hour private lawyer, loses most of the time, so optimism is an unaffordable luxury. It would actually be better if my client did have some skeletons in his closet. I could have worked out a deal for him, probably kept him out of prison. But that’s not an option.
I have to win this case. I don’t want this man to go to jail.
Neither does Amanda Burgess. She’s been indefatigable in her support, which is a thorn in my side at times, because she’s relentless. Phone calls at all hours of the day and night, endless questions. Can she hire a private detective on her own? The answer to that is no, we have our own. What about an assistant to help me? Again, not possible. After fielding these repeated questions, I asked an obvious one of my own. “Why don’t you hire a private lawyer for him if you’re not happy with the job I’m doing?”
She immediately goes on the defensive. “I’m completely confident in you, Jessica,” she assures me. “More than most of the lawyers I know. I just don’t want to leave any stones unturned.”
“Well, there always are some.” I look at the clock. It’s eleven-thirty. I should be asleep; I’m in serious training. “That’s human nature.”
“I know that,” she answers, in a tone of
voice that says she doesn’t.
“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I say. I am pushing in a direction I’m not comfortable in, because of our relative statuses, but she has been hounding me so hard I can’t help myself.
“What is it?” she asks suspiciously.
“Why are you so concerned about your gardener?”
The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Not the question, but the implication: that he is a Latino gardener rather than a white person of so-called importance. Backpedaling furiously, I stammer, “I don’t mean that in a racist way. Economic. Whatever …” Which makes the situation worse, particularly since we are talking on the phone, which is more impersonal than face-to-face. I can really step in it sometimes.
She takes a moment before answering. “I know you are not a racist, Jessica, so I am not going to take offense at your question, although I could,” she replies coolly, a put-down masquerading as a compliment. “The answer is, precisely because of that. His ethnicity, his economic status, or lack of it. As you know, I have come to know him as a good man, a good father—all that. I know he is not a thief, he couldn’t be. It’s not in his DNA, it simply isn’t.”
I could cite cases where good people do bad things, but I keep my big mouth shut.
“I’m fighting against the system as much as I can for Roberto,” she says. “All these black and Latino men locked up in jail, so disproportionate to their percentage of the population. It’s institutionalized racism. Why did I and millions of others march in all those civil rights marches back in the sixties and seventies to allow the system to fall into such perversion?”
Even over the telephone line I can feel the passion in her voice. I’ve never felt that strongly about an abstraction. One of the major differences between our generations.
“I appreciate your confidence in me, Amanda,” I say, “but if you feel that strongly about this, you should hire a private lawyer for him, someone with more resources than I have, who can turn over every rock. My office can’t do that. Our resources are very limited. That’s why we only defend people who can’t afford private lawyers. With your help, he could.”
Her answer to that question is immediate. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Think of how that would look. A wealthy white woman hiring an expensive lawyer to defend the Mexican man who trims her trees. The press would have a field day, especially those despicable right-wing radio talk shows. At best I would be ridiculed as a lightweight do-gooder, and at worst as a meddlesome manipulator trying to throw my weight around, which, let’s face it, I already have, to some small extent.”
Finally, the truth about Amanda Burgess’s reluctance to really jump in: the fear of public ridicule. And as I hear her articulate what she thinks (and fears) is a shameful weakness, I realize I knew that all along. For the first time since we met, I feel for her. Her heart is in the right place, even if she can be exasperatingly high-handed.
“I hear you,” I commiserate. “We all do our best,” I say, sounding like some inane television psychologist dispensing trivial solipsisms. “That’s all anyone can ask of us.”
“It is,” she agrees eagerly, as if grateful that I’m not putting her down for her reticence to fully engage. “We can only do what we can do. We are only human.” Then she laughs. There is no merriment in her laugh. “Especially me.”
My cross-examinations of the cop who arrested Salazar, and the other two officers who responded to his call for backup, is perfunctory. There is no denying there were stolen goods in Salazar’s truck, and I don’t want to belabor the issue of illegal search and seizure. It would be a tenuous argument, and could alienate the jury against him. My defense is going to be based on building good will for Roberto, so anything that could muck that up would be foolish, even dangerous.
By the end of the first day, Dixant has finished putting on his case. Besides his star witnesses, the first officer who arrested my client and the two cops who backed him up, Dixant trots out the inspector who discovered the break-in down at the port and the customs official who verified the contents. Since the D.A.’s office has already dropped the theft charges, these witnesses were merely presented to establish that the televisions really were stolen. My quick questioning of them clears up any possible residue that Salazar himself broke into the container, or was even there. So now I have to convince the jury that he wasn’t part of an organized criminal ring, but was an unlucky victim of circumstances.
Court is adjourned at quarter to five. I’ll begin my defense in the morning. Salazar and I have a brief meeting before we part company. He is going to be my first witness, and the impression he makes will be crucial. He is nervous, of course, but I have convinced him that if he tells the truth, we will be all right.
“Why would I lie?” he asks. “What would I lie about?”
Nothing that I can think of, so we’re in synch. The only fly still in the ointment is Armando Gonzalez, the phantom thief. Why has this man not shown up? I don’t mean in the physical sense—he has good reason to lie low. But the fact that there is no paper trail, that his very existence is in question, is vexing. I can’t avoid bringing up his name, because he is a critical element in our defense. I know Dixant will home in on that when he cross-examines Salazar. All I can do is mitigate his absence, as best I can.
“See you tomorrow,” I tell Salazar, giving him a reassuring pat on the arm. “Make sure all of your witnesses show up,” I remind him. “That’s real important.”
“They will be there,” he promises me. “They are my friends.”
That is reassuring. With friends like his, I think we can overcome the absence of Gonzalez. I wish I had such good friends.
It’s seven-fifteen; the sun is slowly dropping down toward the horizon. I stand at the edge of the bike path, stretching before I start my evening run.
Tonight is the beginning of the last full moon of this cycle. So far, there has not been a murder this month that fits the pattern. If the next twenty-four hours pass without one, it will be two months since the Full Moon Killer last struck. Maybe I was right, back when I had my early morning encounter with Lieutenant Cordova outside that coffee shop, about my theory that he had either quit or moved on. I wouldn’t wish this scourge on another city, but if he is finished here, the women who live on the Westside of Los Angeles will breathe a lot easier. I know I will.
Roberto Salazar is sworn in and takes his seat in the witness chair. He is dressed in a navy blazer, tan slacks, pressed, white Oxford shirt, dark dress shoes, shined but not glossy. No tie, that’s too slick for his image. We went shopping for his wardrobe last week at a Men’s Wearhouse in Glendale, since he didn’t have any suitable clothes for court. Amanda Burgess paid for the new clothes. They agreed it was a loan that he will pay back with sweat equity.
He looks good. Appealing, but not threatening. A couple of the woman jurors, middle-aged Latinas, eyeball him appreciatively. If he weren’t already married and a potential felon, he would be desirable son-in-law material. I file their gut-empathetic response toward him in my memory bank, to be cashed in at the end of the trial, when I will tug at their heartstrings.
As promised, all the character witnesses I’m going to call have shown up. They sit behind us, on our side of the aisle. Amanda Burgess is among them, but I’m hoping I don’t have to use her. She asked me to leave her out unless I think her appearance could tilt the scales. If we were conducting this trial without a jury, I would definitely use her, because Judge Rosen is clearly starstruck with her. But I doubt that any of the jurors know who she is, of her importance in the rarified world they are not part of. The participation of this high-bred Anglo could boomerang on us, causing resentment that would negate the good feelings I want them to have about Roberto.
Salazar recounts the events that led to his arrest. He talks freely about how he had helped deliver stuff for Gonzalez before, with never a problem. I bring out this information because I know
Dixant will seize upon it on cross, so I want to blunt the disclosure, my point being that this was nothing unusual, and Salazar had no reason to believe that he was part of an illegal enterprise. He was helping a friend, and making a little extra money. He answers all of my questions calmly and clearly, without any glitches or fumbling. When I’m finished, I feel the jury can justify believing his story, thus providing them the necessary cover to find him not guilty.
Dixant immediately rips into my client. “Didn’t you think it strange that this so-called Mr. Gonzalez was making his delivery at three o’clock in the morning?” he rants. Before Salazar can answer, he adds pugnaciously, “What warehouse have you ever heard of that is open at that time of night?”
I smile—I’ve been waiting for this. Salazar does his job, answering the question precisely as we rehearsed it. “I did not know the televisions were stolen,” he says. “Armando told me he had bought them in Mexico. Legally. So his being in Los Angeles at that time of night seemed reasonable to me.”
Dixant scowls. He was hoping to trip up Salazar, to confuse him into admitting that he knew the televisions came from a warehouse in San Pedro, rather than from Mexico. He’s still smarting from getting his ears pinned back two months ago, and is swinging wildly, trying for a knockout, instead of staying cool and piling up points. Now he will have to do damage control, which is never a situation you want to be in. A lawyer needs to be aggressive, not defensive—not only for real, but also in appearance, which is often the more important of the two. Jurors, like sharks, can smell blood, and a lawyer who is wounded is vulnerable. So is his case.
Dixant regains some traction when he switches his questioning to “the so-called mastermind Armando Gonzalez,” as he derisively terms Salazar’s Achilles’ heel. I think about objecting to the derogatory expression “so-called mastermind,” but I let it ride.
