“Where is she?” he asks.
“In a safe place.”
“Where?” he demands.
“Someplace where your people can’t get to her,” I fire back. “Like they did last time.”
“You’d better hope so.”
I bristle. “Is that a threat, John? Are you threatening my witness?” Son of a bitch, we are really playing hardball now.
“Take it any way you want,” he answers darkly. “I don’t break the law, I uphold it, remember?”
“It’s hard to sometimes, when I hear that kind of shit.”
“Fuck it all.” He leans forward on his desk, getting in my face. I don’t back off.
“If my boys’re lying,” he says, “then so is Doc Grade. Merely one of this country’s most eminent and respected forensic pathologists. He’s lying, too, isn’t he, Will?”
I’d thought about that. “Not necessarily,” I say.
“Oh, yes, necessarily,” John says. “They support each other. Without his testimony, hers is suspect. They go hand-in-glove.”
“Not if your boys knew about his theory before they found her,” I throw back at him. “Not if they took it and incorporated it into the stuff they fed her.”
Robertson snaps his pencil in half. “You’re smoking some powerful weed, Will. What else? Maybe she didn’t even know them? How about that? Maybe that was a lie, too.”
“We know she did,” I say. “A hundred people testified to that.”
“What if they’re all lying, too?” he asks.
I stand. This is going nowhere but bad.
“See you in court, John.”
“I’ll be there.” He looks at me with the conviction of the true believer. “I almost buried you before, Will. This time I’ll finish the job.”
Or you’ll dig your own grave, asshole, I think but don’t say as I walk out on him, feeling his eyes on my back even after I close the door behind me.
“RITA. IT’S ME. Will Alexander. Open the door.”
I knock again. No answer. It’s almost ten at night, she should be here.
“Rita?”
Fuck. Why isn’t she here? I talked to her just yesterday, told her I was coming up, to make sure she was there, waiting. Our motion for a new trial is next week, I want to go over everything with her again.
It’s been four months since I took her statement, four months since I first broke the news to the boys in the slam, four months since I braced John Robertson in his office. Four nut-cutting months. I’ve had over two dozen meetings with Robertson. Moseby was in on some of them, although Robertson was careful not to do anything that could prejudice him later: his número uno lieutenant could be on the other side someday, a defendant in a perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial, if it ever came to that.
Appeals are automatic at the death-penalty level, the higher courts get involved in all of them, no big deal. Once Robertson calmed down and saw this was legitimate, that I wasn’t grandstanding, self-promoting myself into a media-circus dog-and-pony show, he and I agreed to keep it quiet, let it be judged in the courts, not the press.
It’ll be a bombshell when it hits, though. The closer we come to the hearing date the less sleep I’ve gotten; I’m not alone there, I’m sure Robertson, my fellow lawyers, his people, the bikers, everyone connected who knows it’s coming down has done his or her share of eyeballing the ceiling at 3:00 A.M.
“Come on, Rita, open up.” I knock again, harder.
From behind doors up and down the corridor I hear muffled televisions, stereos, the usual evening noises. Behind her door, though, it’s silent.
“Rita!”
I pound. Nothing.
She isn’t there. After I told her when I was coming, made her repeat my instructions back to me. Goddam it, why the fuck aren’t you here, you scuzzy bitch? Why does nine-tenths of my life revolve around this cretin, this piece of flotsam?
She’s fucking somebody: that’s it. She’s with a man behind this door that I’m at this point practically knocking down; my knuckles’ll start bleeding soon if I keep pounding this hard. She picked up some sailor (sailor? not in Denver; some cowboy), is even now spreading her legs for him, her practiced juicy snatch awaiting his pleasure. Or maybe it’s one of the detectives we’re paying to keep tabs on her. Let’s face it, the profession isn’t what it was when Sam Spade was prowling the mean streets.
Talk about your primal love-hate relationship; I need her desperately and hate her passionately at one and the same time.
Too bad. I hate to break up a love-tryst but business before pleasure. I have a key to the place; I made sure of that. I take it out, unlock the door.
“Honey, I’m home.” I push the door open, like Ricky Ricardo used to do, wondering what Lucy was cooking up this time. Play it cool, ace, she’s everything to you.
Like the song says, the light’s on, but there’s no one home. Shit scattered around: a couple days’ dishes in the sink, food in the fridge, the closets half-empty, ditto the drawers, some of her toilet-articles are still in the bathroom. She threw together what she could grab fast. Not a leisurely exit; she took off running scared.
Flown the coop. Gone.
Mary Lou flies up the next morning. We scour the town: bars, hotels, motels, YWCAs, restaurants, anyplace someone on the run could be hiding out. Greyhound, Amtrak, the airlines. Nothing, which is no more than I expected. I don’t know her friends, if she has any, how much money she had, how big a jump she got on me. If she bailed right after our last conversation she could be anywhere now, including out of the country.
We spend two days looking. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, worse; because we don’t know where the haystack is, if there is one.
She could be dead.
I try to put that thought out of my mind, but I can’t help it. She could’ve been gotten to. I warned her, over and over, don’t make friends, don’t give anyone your phone number, don’t bring anyone home. Above all, don’t go to the cops for any reason. They are not your friends. They’d like to see you out of the way worse than anyone, because you’re a potential cop-killer, destroyer of their deepest, closest bonds.
And they knew she was up here; they’d sent her. They’ve had four months, four months is plenty of time for the police to find someone when they want to. The Denver cops would’ve helped them, if not actively, at least by getting out of the way.
That’s a chilling thought. Robertson wouldn’t countenance that, ever. I know Moseby doesn’t have the balls to do something that desperate, but Gomez and Sanchez; who knows? A long shot; but long shots happen sometimes.
More likely, the reality, the terrifying prospect of having to go back to Santa Fe, go to court, face the men who’d set her up, was too much for her to handle. It wasn’t her fault that she got raped, that she knew some shitheel who got himself killed by the same bunch of bad guys who’d raped her, threatened her life. She was a victim, that’s all. She doesn’t want to be a victim anymore. I can understand it. For the first time, I feel for her.
“Now what?” Mary Lou asks.
“I don’t know. You got any ideas?”
We’re in a lounge at Stapleton Airport, waiting for our flight to Albuquerque. We’ve been here less than a half-hour and I’m three Johnnie Blacks to the good. Every time I try to cut down on my drinking this kind of shit happens.
“I’ve never been to Hawaii,” she says.
“Did you pack a bathing suit?”
“I brought my American Express Gold Card. Same difference.”
We look at each other in despair. I signal the waitress for another round.
“Will …” A cautioning.
“What the fuck’s the difference?” I feel so bad I want to cry. “I’m entitled. I’m drinking for five.”
“They wouldn’t want you to. I don’t either.”
“They pay me for my advice, not the other way around,” I say, wallowing in my angry self-pity.
“I don’t.”
“Aw babe,” I wail, “come on, lighten up, please? I don’t deserve to be lectured at. Not tonight.”
“All right.” She shrugs, washing her hands of it.
Shit. I hate it when someone gives in that way. Victory through guilt-tripping.
The waitress comes over to take our order. I put my hand over my glass.
“Changed my mind,” I smile wanly. She walks away. I glare at Mary Lou. “Happy?”
“Yes,” she says. “So …”
“I don’t know.” I drain my glass, licking the last drop of Scotch off the ice-cubes.
“We’d better find her,” she says. “We can.”
She takes my hand across the table, kisses the palm.
“We can do it,” she says. “We will. We have to.”
MISS GOMEZ HAS THE FLU, your honor. She’s running a temperature and she’s unable to get out of bed. I have a note from her doctor.”
I hand it up. Martinez glances at it. It’s not a forgery; a real doctor in Boulder wrote and signed it. There just wasn’t a real patient, but the doctor was a friend of a friend.
“How long a postponement would you like, counselor?” he asks politely.
I look over my shoulder. Robertson and Moseby glare at me; they’re not liking this, they know I’m vamping. Robertson doesn’t know the real skinny, he thinks I’m milking this for maximum effect, but he doesn’t suspect the truth. Moseby I check out extra hard; if he’s in on her disappearance he’s doing a better job of covering than I give him credit for.
“I’m sure a week’ll be sufficient, your honor. We want to make sure she’s well enough to travel and hold up under the strain of the hearing.”
“Objection?” Martinez asks.
Robertson could bitch and moan, but he knows the judge’ll give me this one.
“No, your honor. Not if it’s one week.”
“A week from Tuesday,” Judge Martinez says, consulting his calendar. “That’s a week and a half, Mr. Alexander.”
“Thank you, your honor. We’ll be here.”
“Are you ready, Mr. Alexander?”
“We have a problem, your honor.”
“Are you telling the court you’re not ready, counselor?” he asks, harshly.
“My witness is missing.”
“Excuse me?”
Behind me, Robertson and his contingent are talking rapidly among themselves.
“We are unable to locate Rita Gomez at the present time. She has … uh … she’s vanished from sight, or at least from our best efforts to find her,” I tell him, lamely.
At this particular moment, if the earth were to open up and swallow me whole, it would be a blessing.
I’ve never worked as hard in my life as I did in this last week and a half. I flew back to Denver right after I got the postponement. Mary Lou came with me. She’s been incredible; everything you want in a partner and a woman. She took all her vacation time to do it. When, if, this is ever over, I’ll owe her a bunch, which I’ll gladly pay.
To their credit, the detective agency pitched in mightily. Three men, two hundred a day each plus expenses, all of which they waived. We’d had words when first Rita had disappeared, but as they logically stated, they couldn’t have been responsible for her every waking moment unless we’d hired a live-in, and we hadn’t; we didn’t think it was necessary, and we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. Everyone we knew in Denver, every lawyer, old friend, acquaintance, everyone we could enlist to help find her, we called on. Thousands of phone calls. Every bar, restaurant, flophouse. The hospitals and morgues. Everything in a hundred-mile radius was covered like a blanket. And she didn’t turn up; not a trace, not a faint odor to track.
“She could be anywhere,” Mary Lou said one night, late, when we’d collapsed in our hotel room. “It’s two weeks.”
“I don’t think she’s left town,” I answered, stubbornly. “At least not the general area.” I believed it; I don’t know why, but I did. “I think she’s gone to ground. She’s with a friend, slipped through a crack somewhere.” I’m convinced of that; that she was too scared to form a plan, that all she could do was bolt mindlessly for the nearest safe hole, like the rabbit she is, and hope that if she’s still enough, the hunters won’t find her.
“You want to believe that, Will.”
“That’s right.”
“So do I. But we’ve got to face what happens if we don’t find her.”
I know already. It’s not faceable.
The head of the detective agency was embarrassed.
“I’ve never run up against one this cold,” he told me.
“You did your best.”
“We’ll keep looking informally. No charge.”
I thanked him, went outside. Mary Lou was waiting for me in the cab. We rode to the airport and flew home.
Mary Lou checked in with Mercado. Dead-end there as well. Rita had wised up—no electronic trail this time. It was our last dying-gasp hope.
That was yesterday.
Martinez looks down at me from his perch on high.
“Do you have any idea where Miss Gomez is at the present time, Mr. Alexander?”
“No, sir. Not precisely.”
“In general? Anything?”
“No.”
“Are you asking for another postponement?” he says.
“Under these special circumstances, I would like one, your honor, yes.”
“Objection, your honor!” Robertson cries out, jumping up. “There’s no basis at all for another postponement. The first one was dubious but this would be completely uncalled for.”
The judge looks at him, at me.
“If I were to grant you another postponement could you give the court any reassurances whatsoever that you could find this witness? That there is a reasonable chance that she could be brought into this courtroom in a reasonable time?”
“No, your honor. I can’t make such reassurances.”
“Then we’ll have to proceed without her,” he so informs me.
Martinez has looked at Rita’s video.
“Do you have anything further to add?” he asks. “Any other witnesses or anything in corroboration, in addition?”
“No, your honor,” I say. “The deposition stands on its own.”
Robertson tears it to shreds. His job isn’t difficult; any reasonably competent first-year law student could do it. She claims she was lying then and telling the truth now; why not the opposite? One statement’s as acceptable as the other.
He puts Gomez on the stand.
“Did you do any of this stuff that she says you did?”
“No.”
Sanchez: “No. A pack of lies from beginning to end.”
Moseby turns to Martinez, to me, to Robertson. He’s wearing a clean, pressed shirt. A first.
“Not only didn’t I do any of these things,” he says, “I bent over backwards to make sure that what she was telling us then was true, because of the kind of person she is. I checked and double-checked every aspect of her story. I have never treated a witness this way; I have never broken the law this way, or bent it even a little. I feel like I’m on trial here,” he says, very aggrieved, “and I’m not. And I resent Mr. Alexander here bringing these kind of trumped-up charges against me and these policemen. You try to do your job for the community and this is the thanks you get.”
I stand in front of the bench.
“If it may please the court: I move for a new trial, based on the new evidence presented in this motion and the video statement,” I say.
“I am against a new trial,” Robertson tells them. “Vehemently against one. We should nail this case shut, right here, right now. This is nothing but a desperate attempt at overturning a fair and just trial. A pitiable, desperate attempt that anyone can see right through. It’s beneath the dignity of this court to even consider such a mockery of justice, of our system of laws.”
He piles it on nice and thick, in case Martinez doesn’t get it.
Without
elaboration, Martinez denies our motion. He spends less than twenty minutes deliberating; he had nothing to deliberate.
Slam fucking dunk.
I’VE NEVER FELT SO SHITTY and impotent in my life as I do at this moment, and I’ve been practically making a career of feeling that way the last couple of years. Even when Holly left me, or when Andy and Fred gave me the boot, or when Patricia moved; even at the end of the trial, when the ground collapsed under us. These men have put their lives in my hands and I’ve failed them, utterly failed them again, and worse than that, I raised their hopes and now I have to bury them.
The warden, a decent man, does me a big favor; he lets me meet with all four of them at the same time. Technically, it’s against the rules, but it’s his prison, he can run it pretty much the way he sees fit, as long as things are cool, which they are.
It’s the first time the four of them have laid eyes on each other since they were put away, almost a year ago. There’s an impulse to grab each other and hug, squeeze as hard as they can, but they know better: touching is strictly verboten, one high-five could stop this meeting before it starts, buy them additional penalties besides the standard ones they’re already enduring; complete lockdowns or worse. So they hug psychically, their eyes bright with love.
These four men, the four toughest, scariest human beings I’ve ever known, are desperate for love; the way they are here, now, in front of me, is proof that the meanest animal can be tamed if he’s in prison long enough. I am a cynical man, I have always been a cynic, with good reason, but a moment like this reinforces the belief that there is such a thing as rehabilitation, that even the blackest sinner can turn to the light. (I sound like one of those jive-ass TV evangelists, Jim Bakker or one of those scuzzballs, but it is true.)
We’re in one large room; no Plexiglas separating us this time. They’d heard the news, even before I called and told them, a jailhouse grapevine’s faster than AT&T, but they don’t know what it really means. So she didn’t show; sooner or later she’ll have to, and then we can press ahead again. She’s the state’s key witness, if she’s turned they have to grant a new trial, isn’t that the way it is? It’s a matter of time; isn’t it?
Against the Wind Page 31
