The Hidden Law

by Michael Nava

  “That sounds so self-indulgent.”

  “If a man is tired and he rests, you wouldn’t call that self-indulgent,” Reynolds replied.

  “Tired,” I repeated. “You’re right about that.”

  “People versus Ruiz,” the clerk said. I moved forward from the gallery to the counsel’s table, while in the jury box a bailiff nudged Michael who slowly got to his feet. He looked bad today, unshaven and red-eyed. I nodded at him. On the bench, Judge O’Conner turned irritably to his clerk and said, “I don’t have the paperwork on him.”

  “It’s here, Your Honor,” she replied, handing him a manila folder.

  He grabbed it from her then peered out past me to the television cameras at the back of the court. This was a high-profile case. Judge O’Conner was new to the bench, having last worked as a research attorney to an appellate court judge, and he was not enjoying his moment in the limelight.

  He wagged a finger and said, “I want you people in the media to keep the disturbance down back there. This isn’t ‘LA Law.’”

  While he busied himself with the file I glanced back at the gallery. Bill and Carolina Ruiz sat toward the back. Edith Rosen was also there, but in another row. Behind the prosecutor’s table was the Peña family; mother, daughter, son. Sitting beside the son was a tightly dressed blond whose bright lipstick gleamed like a headlight. Though she looked at least a decade his senior, she leaned into Peña’s son with a proprietary air, and played with his fingers. Mrs. Peña glanced over, her face reproving. The daughter sat at rigid attention, looking at something in the corner. I followed her glance and saw that she was staring at Michael.

  “OK,” Judge O’Conner said. “People versus Ruiz. Let the record reflect that the defendant is in court. Is he represented?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Henry Rios for the defendant.”

  O’Conner smiled briefly at me. We’d been law school classmates and had lunch together whenever my work took me down to the court of appeal.

  “Good morning, Mr. Rios,” he said. “The People are also represented by Ms. Castle—”

  “No, Your Honor,” a male voice boomed out from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Deputy District Attorney Anton Pisano stride importantly up the aisle. This was bad news. Tony Pisano was not only smart and tenacious, but an ambitious headline-grabber with political aspirations. Having him in the other corner would mean that everything would be played out in front of the cameras in hand-to-hand combat. I looked up at Alex O’Conner. His face was already turning an anticipatory shade of red.

  “Anton Pisano for the People,” Pisano said.

  “Duly noted,” O’Conner said sourly.

  Pisano said good-naturedly, “You needn’t sound so happy, Your Honor.”

  O’Conner replied, “We can dispense with the asides, counsel. Mr. Rios, does your client waive a reading of the information?”

  “Yes,” I said, moving away from the podium so that I could stand beside Michael.

  “Fine. Michael Andrew Ruiz, you are charged with one count of violation of Penal Code section 187, murder in the first degree. How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty,” I whispered to him.

  “Not guilty,” he echoed wanly.

  “Furthermore, it is alleged that in the commission of this offense you used a firearm within the meaning of Penal Code section 12022. Do you admit or deny this allegation?”

  “Deny,” I whispered.

  “I deny it,” he said, a little more fervently.

  Before I could say another word, Anton Pisano was on his feet, talking. “Your Honor, anticipating a defense request for bail, the People would like to be heard.”

  O’Conner said, “Mr. Pisano, if the defense asks for bail, you will get a chance to respond.” He looked at me. “Well, Mr. Rios?”

  “The defense does request bail.”

  “Any particular amount?” O’Conner asked.

  “The defense feels that bail in the amount of $100,000 would be appropriate.”

  There was no bail schedule for a capital offense, but $100,000 was the equivalent of offering $10,000 on a Rolls-Royce. While I didn’t expect he would grant it, I thought I could at least pick the ballpark we’d be playing in.

  Tony Pisano all but snickered, “That’s ridiculous. Your Honor, this is first-degree murder, not,” he paused to think of some sufficiently caustic comparison, “not expectoration in public.”

  I said, “From my experience, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is quite capable of inflating spitting on a sidewalk to a capital offense.”

  “This defendant spits bullets,” Pisano replied.

  “Gentlemen,” O’Conner said, irritably, “I don’t find this exchange as amusing as you do. Moreover, I have a very long calendar this morning, and if this is going to be a dogfight, I’ll never get through it. I’ll set a bail hearing for three o’clock this afternoon. You want your client here, Mr. Rios?”

  “Please. And, Your Honor, the defense would like the court to study the police report in this case.”

  “OK. The matter is put over until three o’clock. Let me call the next case.”

  I whispered to Michael, “I’ll come back to lockup in a bit. Your parents want to see you. You OK?”

  “Yeah,” he said unconvincingly as the bailiff clamped his shoulder and said, “Let’s go, Mike.”

  “Let’s go outside,” I whispered to the Ruizes. We stepped out of the courtroom, reaching the doors at the same time as Mrs. Peña, her children a step behind. There was a small anteroom between the court and the corridor, where lawyers harangued their clients and cut deals with each other. The seven of us entered it at the same time. Mrs. Peña walked quickly toward the door leading out, but Carolina Ruiz laid a restraining hand on the sleeve of her lilac suit jacket.

  “Grace, you know my boy didn’t have anything to do with this,” she said urgently.

  Graciela Peña shook off the other woman’s hand. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “Tino? Angela?” Carolina wailed as the children brushed by her. “My God, you know my son.”

  Tino stopped, the sleek blond hovering behind him, looking put out. “My mother is very upset, Mrs. Ruiz,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I’m very sorry for your misfortune. Now the court must decide.”

  “Thank you, Tino,” she whispered. Bill came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulder.

  “There’s a small conference room at the end of the hall,” I said. We stepped out to the corridor. Icily coiffed TV reporters descended on us, microphones thrust out like harpoons.

  “Do you have a statement?” one of them shouted.

  “You’ve already heard our statement,” I said. “‘Not guilty.’” I hurried them down the corridor. The reporters might have pursued had Anton Pisano not also come out of the court, only too willing to have his picture taken.

  Carolina Ruiz slumped down in a chair and dug through her purse for a pack of long, thin cigarettes. Her husband lit it for her, then settled back himself, looking miserable in his nice gray suit. I leaned against the wall. This room held some history for me. Once before I had brought the parents of a client accused of murder in here, and almost ended up in a fistfight with the father. I didn’t think I’d have that problem with Bill Ruiz. I had the distinct impression that he was more puzzled than angry with Michael, as he might be with an investment that had inexplicably failed to pay off. Carolina was another story, entirely.

  “Why didn’t the judge give Mikey bail?” she demanded.

  “He wants time to hear our arguments and think about it,” I said. “We have a problem with the DA. Pisano’s out to make a name for himself on this case which means he’ll go to the mat on every issue. He’ll try to get the court to set a prohibitively high bail. The good news is that the judge is fair.”

  Carolina tapped an expensively shod toe. “What does that mean, fair? He’s an Anglo, isn’t he?”

  It was interesting to me how deeply
embittered Carolina Ruiz remained about the Anglo world, even after all these years of living in it. Her husband, on the other hand, was thoroughly assimilated, even down to the Anglo diminutive he went by, Bill, while she remained defiantly Carolina—not Carol or even Caroline. I wondered what Michael made out of this mixed message about his ethnicity, and if it had contributed to his feeling of being an outsider.

  “Technically, the only factors the judge is supposed to consider in setting bail is whether the defendant poses a threat to the community and the likelihood that he may take flight,” I told her. “Unofficially, he may consider the defendant’s past record, the severity of the crime, and so on. The reason I asked him to read the police report is to give him an idea of how weak the evidence is. I’m hoping he’ll see that because this is a highly political case the cops needed to break in a hurry, they pulled Michael in as the first likely suspect. Maybe then he’ll give us a break on bail.” I paused, and considered my words carefully, not wanting to further inflame Carolina’s suspicions. “Of course, he also knows this is the kind of case that people remember. If he releases Michael, and Michael skips, it would look very bad for Alex.”

  “Alex?” Bill asked.

  “The judge,” I replied. “We went to law school together.”

  “Good,” Bill said. Connections was something he understood.

  Carolina dropped her cigarette to the floor and crushed it with unladylike intensity. “I can’t believe that bitch wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Mrs. Peña?”

  “She should care that the bastard’s dead?” she went on angrily. “He two-timed her with every woman who would have him.”

  “Who was the blond with them?”

  She shrugged. “Tino’s girlfriend, it looked like.”

  “She seemed a little old for him,” I observed.

  “Can we see Mikey, now?”

  “Sure, but the reporters might still be out there.”

  “Screw them,” she said, rising and smoothing her dress.

  “Wait,” Bill said, holding out a restraining hand to her. To me he said, “The bail, if it’s more than $100,000…”

  “We’ll put up the house,” she snapped at him. “The apartment building. We have it.”

  “That’s our retirement,” he told her.

  “How much is Mikey’s freedom worth?” she demanded.

  The argument was unwinnable, and he let it go. I watched her and wondered at the price of guilt.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and opened the door. A pack of reporters headed toward us.

  “Are you his parents?” someone shouted.

  The Ruizes stopped, and Carolina said, “Yes, we’re his parents, and we know our boy is innocent of this terrible crime.”

  I hurried them into lockup before any further questions could be asked.

  I hung back against the wall while the Ruizes talked to Michael through a metal screen in one of four small carrels. The other three were occupied by lawyers talking to their clients. One of them glanced over his shoulder at me and winked.

  “A hundred thou for first-degree,” he said. “You’re dreaming.”

  Michael sat facing his mother, his face expressionless. Once or twice he shook his head angrily. I heard her raise her voice, and Michael looked as if he were about to walk away, but then his father muttered something and Carolina spoke more softly. They looked a lot alike, Michael and his mother. Same coloring, same thin-faced intensity. It was as if they were each looking into a mirror, and not liking what they saw there. I wondered if one of them would learn to simply walk away.

  I went up and said, “I’ll leave you alone now. Michael, I’ll talk to you this afternoon, before the bail hearing.”

  Out in the hall, the camera crews and reporters were gone and it was filled instead with the usual anxious men and women and jittery children. I was on my way to get a cup of coffee when I was intercepted by Edith Rosen.

  “Do you think the judge will give him bail, Henry?”

  “I’m going for coffee,” I replied. “Come with me.”

  Downstairs, in the bleak cafeteria, a crazy woman sat at a table carrying on an animated conversation with someone who wasn’t there. A hung-over lawyer downed an immense breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, potatoes and retried beans. I paid for our coffee and joined Edith at a table by the window that looked out on Temple Street. It was hot and gray outside; only mid-May, but the summer had already set in.

  “I don’t know whether he’ll grant bail. The problem’s not Michael’s criminal record, it’s his habit of skipping out of places he’s been put into by the court.”

  “I have an idea,” she said, blowing on her coffee. “Have you heard of home surveillance?”

  “I’ve read about it,” I said, remembering an article in one of the bar association magazines, “but it’s only used in misdemeanors.”

  “Drunk driving cases,” she said, “to relieve overcrowding in the jails. People serve their time at home.” She sipped her coffee. “They wear electronic ankle straps that send signals to monitoring devices in their houses that are connected to the probation office. We’ve had people at SafeHouse who wore them,” she continued. “If they leave the house, a signal goes off and the probation office calls. If they don’t get an immediate response, they send the sheriffs.”

  “I might be able to sell this to O’Conner,” I said. “It’s worth a try. What’s going on with your job status at the house?”

  “I’m not going to fight it,” she said. “The reason I came downtown was to tell you that, and to tell you that I’m backing off from Michael’s case. I’ve done everything I could for him.”

  “You’ve done more than that.”

  “I’ve done things I shouldn’t have,” she said. “I don’t want to compromise myself further. I’m leaving him in your hands, now, Henry.”

  We sat and drank our coffee. I watched Edith, her kind face tired and drawn. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Michael had confessed to me. I hadn’t told anyone, because I wasn’t certain yet what to do with his confession.

  The crazy woman got up and shook hands with the air. Edith watched her, then turned back to me, “Michael didn’t look very good.”

  “A couple of nights in county jail will do that to you.”

  “I saw Mrs. Peña in the courtroom.”

  “Pisano likes to have the victim’s family near at hand,” I said.

  “Attractive woman,” she said. “Good-looking kids.”

  “Tino seems to have hooked himself up with a live one,” I said. “The blond in the gold lamé halter.”

  “I noticed the mother didn’t approve,” Edith replied. “The girl seems very sweet.”

  “Yes, Angela.” I had my coffee halfway to my mouth when I said this, and then a picture flashed through my head of Angela looking at Michael. Angela. “Angie?”

  “What?” Edith asked.

  “The girl’s name. Angela. Angie. Edith, have you ever seen that girl around SafeHouse?”

  She put her cup down. “She and her brother used to pick Gus up sometimes. He couldn’t drive. His license was suspended.”

  “Did you ever see her talking to Michael?”

  “No, as far as I know, they never met.”

  “They must have, though,” I said. “Michael said he’d been to the Peña’s house with his father, and he went to school with the son. Edith, do you remember what kind of car Angela Peña drove?”

  “Oh, Henry, I don’t notice things like that.”

  “Please, try to remember.”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It could have been, something like a sports car. It was small. White, I think.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AFTER LUNCH, I WENT back into lockup. Michael was sitting by himself in a holding cell smoking a cigarette. His hand shook badly as he raised the cigarette to his mouth. After watching him for a moment, I realized the shaking wasn’t the result of nerves; he was detoxing. At county, he was locked up
in high power, away from the rest of the population, eliminating any chance for him to get in on the drug traffic that ran rampant in the jail house. He’d been completely clean now for almost four days. No wonder he was hurting.

  The bailiff let me into the cell. “How are you doing?” I asked him.

  He looked at me blankly, then said, “When is this going to be over?”

  “Which part?”

  “Everything.”

  I sat down beside him on the metal bench. “That’s up to you, Michael.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he whined.

  “Why don’t you tell me about Angela Peña.”

  “I hardly know her.”

  “Michael, you were seen with her,” I told him. “She dropped you off at the house in her little white sports car. You kissed her. I saw the way she looked at you this morning.”

  “Bullshit, bullshit,” he muttered, but his head quaked. I touched his face. It was ice cold. He jerked away from me. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  “I’m going to have them take you back to county hospital.”

  “This isn’t shit,” he said. “I been through a lot worse.”

  “What about Angela?”

  “What about her?” he said, slumping against the wall. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “But you know her,” I said.

  He nodded. “She came to a party my dad gave,” he said. “My mom made me go to talk to her. She’s all right.” He came back to the bench. “She came to SafeHouse to pick her dad up one day and we talked. That’s all.”

  “The ride? The kiss?”

  “She saw me walking and she gave me a ride. You think a bitch like that would let me touch her?”

  “Lonnie Davis told me you talked to her on the phone,” I said. “You told him she was your girlfriend.”

  He snickered. “I just told him that so he’d keep his hands off of me, that faggot. You’re crazy if you think she wants me.”

  “Did you want her?”

  “All I want is to get high,” he said. “That’s my sex.”

  “You sticking to your story about shooting Peña?”