“I’ve been practicing for almost ten years. I’ve represented hundreds of clients. Assisted on even more cases. Don’t worry, your sister was thorough.”
“How well do you know the DA and judges?”
“I’ve been practicing here, in these courts for eight of those years. I know how these judges operate. I know the DA.”
Frank was feeling better by the second. “Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to hear the whole story. Start to finish. And we don’t have a lot of time, so I suggest you get talking.”
Right to business. That was good. Frank nodded and said, “At about 2:00 p.m. yesterday in Rock Springs, Wyoming, I and my nephew Tony returned to my house from Cowboy Donut where I had just made an application for work. I always lock my doors, but my front door was unlocked. I saw signs that the door had been forced. We entered the house and found Ed Meese waiting in my living room with a handgun.”
Frank continued. He told the story of what happened with as much significant detail as he could remember. In the military, he’d learned how to give an accurate report. Ms. Cross listened intently, interrupting him just a few times to ask questions. When he finished, she asked Sam to add his point of view. When Sam finished, Frank said, “This is self-defense, right? We did the best we knew how with the threats at hand.”
She looked up at the clock on the wall and then back down. “We have three minutes. I need you to listen to me. Here’s what you’re facing, Mr. Shaw. One count of arson, one count of felony possession of a firearm, one count of attempted kidnapping, three counts of felony murder.”
Frank blinked.
“Mr. Cartwright. You are facing one count of attempted kidnapping and three counts of felony murder. If convicted, you’re both looking at multiple life sentences.”
“Life?” Sam said in shock.
“But—” Frank said.
“Those are the charges the police are sending to the DA based on reasonable cause.” She turned to Sam. “I really wish you wouldn’t have told your life story to the officer on the scene.”
“I’m not the kind of guy to hide things.”
“We would never want to hide anything. But we do want to make sure we control the information to make sure it is accurate. I’ve already identified at least three key things that did not make it into the police report.”
Life, Frank thought. The whole rest of his life lived in a cement box. Sam’s too.
“What about Pinto and Heber?”
“Based on your testimony, they were accessories to the kidnapping, and so are facing that charge plus the felony murders.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Frank said.
“Mr. Shaw, do you want me to sugarcoat it?”
“No,” Sam said.
Ms. Cross said, “The prosecutor, when deciding whether to file charges, sometimes has a very limited perspective. He will only have the police reports and the accuser’s testimony. In this case, Ms. Goroza. I want to make sure he considers her credibility, and that of those with her. My hope is to get this thrown out in the DA’s screening process. I have a meeting with him in an hour. Maybe I can present evidence to him that the case isn’t as strong as it appears at first blush. Then I have to meet with the DA for Weld County where the arson and other shootings took place.”
“They’re not going to try them together?”
“I hope not. Our best bet is to convince them to try this as a number of separate incidents. Try this as one, and I think you’re screwed.”
“But they kidnapped Tony,” Frank said.
“I know, and I’ve got to convince them you weren’t taking the law into your own hands, that you weren’t involved with the Goroza operations, and that you weren’t trying to hide evidence with the arson. And I’ve got to do it in two counties, pulling information from police departments in two states.”
Frank slumped in his chair. Focus. “They’ve got me in with a guy sporting an MS-13 tattoo. We need that changed. And we need to make sure Tony isn’t set up with anyone affiliated with that gang or anyone with any ties to anyone potentially associated with it.” Jails could sometimes be as dangerous as prisons, sometimes more dangerous, because everyone went into the jail to await their hearings and trials and sentencing. From the hardest of the hardest killers to the moron who shoplifted a box of Twinkies. Tony needed to be with offenders who would not be tempted to do a favor for the Gorozas.
“I’ll work on that,” Ms. Cross said. “Right now they’re still thinking about whether he should be charged with anything.”
“Charged?” Frank said.
“You claim he was kidnapped. You need more than claims in court. They’re going to have to sort it out, find some evidence to suggest that’s true, that he wasn’t just part of your gang like Ms. Goroza suggests.”
Frank sat there a moment trying not to be stunned.
“What about bail?” Sam asked. “If they go forward, they’ll set a bail, right? I’ll still be able to go back home.”
“With these charges, bail is likely to be set at a million, maybe a million five for each of you. And that’s just in the El Paso court. The bail bondsman is going to want ten percent up front. Then she’s going to want collateral for the bond. Can you get $120,000 in cash for the fee? From a family member or friend? Do you have a million in assets you can put up as collateral?”
A beat passed.
“No,” Sam said.
“It’s very difficult for anyone except drug operators and the very rich to post bail in these situations. The county police, the state Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney are all conducting investigations. If this isn’t dismissed, you’re going to be in this facility for probably at least three or four months before your trial.”
“No,” Frank said. That was three or four months for the Gorozas to try to get at Sam, Tony, Pinto, or Heber. If there wasn’t someone already here, they could easily have someone commit a crime to get in. Something with only a year or two attached to it. Frank might be able to survive a hit. Pinto might as well, but Sam? Tony?
“Sam,” Frank began to apologize.
Sam shook his head. “We did what we could, Frank. They would have killed him.”
Frank nodded, but knew this wasn’t over. He turned to Ms. Cross, “You tell the DA that if he puts us in here, he’s painting a huge target on our backs.” It was not at all uncommon for someone inside, who was in for the long haul, to do a job to provide for someone on the outside—a wife, a son, a mother, a daughter. “Did they bust the other slave sites?”
“There has been no news of other busts.”
Frank wondered for a moment if Carmen had been telling the truth. Was she part of a vigilante group? Or had it all been a sham? But there was no reason to disbelieve her report.
“Leave me in,” he said. “Let the others out. They had nothing to do with this.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Shaw, that’s not the way of the American justice system.”
32
Ms. Cross
FRANK AND SAM were led back to their respective cells. Frank entered his room in somber silence. The door behind him slid shut with a soft but heavy thunk. Big Fart was still asleep.
Frank prayed. Normally, he’d do a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups and a hundred air squats and a hundred squat thrusts. But that wasn’t going to happen with his side. He rinsed his head in the small metal sink behind the toilet and sat on his bunk. He made a mental list of everything he needed done on the outside. Made a list of what he needed to do in here. But that only took about five minutes, and he was staring at the ceiling and walls again.
During his previous six years inside, he’d learned to divert his mind by memorizing and reciting poems and pithy quotes. He tried to run the poetry and pith through his mind and found he couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t.
Night came, but they did not turn the light in the hallway off. The only reason he knew it was night was because they announced
it was bedtime. Frank dozed. Then his warning horns sounded. He woke with Big Fart bending down toward him.
Frank twisted, kicked him in the belly, slugged him in the groin.
Big Fart grunted.
Frank darted up and got around behind the big man. He stomped the back of one of Big Fart’s knees.
The big man went down.
A couple of kicks and Frank could kill or incapacitate him. But if Frank did, his act of self-defense would count against him. Fights while in jail tended to only add to your sentence. And right now he couldn’t afford anything that might undermine what Ms. Cross was trying to do.
Big Fart tried to climb to his feet, but Frank swept his feet out from underneath him. He fell again to the floor.
Frank drove a knee into Big Fart’s back, then grabbed his hand, twisted it hard, bringing his arm up behind his back.
Big Fart struggled, but Frank pressed, forcing the arm up higher into the pain position.
“Dude!” Big Fart said.
“What are you doing?”
“I needed some butt wipe.”
“Do I look like a toilet?”
“Toilet’s out, man. I was just going to borrow some of yours.”
Frank twisted the arm up a little higher. “And after you’d borrowed it, were you going to put it back in my pocket?”
“Get off me,” Big Fart growled.
“Show me your other hand.”
“Let me go,” Big Fart threatened.
“Show me your hand.”
Big Fart finally relented and stretched out his other hand. There was enough light from the hallway coming in through the plexiglass for Frank to see his hand was empty. Frank kept his grip on the man with one hand and patted him down with the other. It was slow going. In the end, he didn’t find a shank or garrote, but that didn’t mean anything. It only took eleven pounds of pressure on a guy’s neck to throttle him. It only took one good punch to a guy’s voice box while he was sleeping to almost incapacitate him.
Frank said, “Big boy, you and I might end up as buds, but right now I don’t know you. You come on my side of the room, and I’m going to take it as a threat and respond accordingly. You understand me?”
“Come on, man.”
“You want butt wipe, you ask. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“I’m going to let you up. And you’re going to go to your side of the room. Okay?”
“Fine,” Big Fart said.
Frank pushed up off Big Fart and stood back far enough that the man couldn’t take a swipe at him.
Big Fart stood, breathing hard, a big lug illuminated by the light from the hallway. His eyes told the whole story. If he hadn’t been planning something, he certainly was now. Soon enough he’d communicate with someone from MS-13. They’d share Frank’s story. And then Big Fart would come with a shank.
Big Fart spread his hands wide. “No hard feelings.”
“No hard feelings,” Frank agreed.
Big Fart turned like things were all okay between them and went back to his bunk. But things were definitely not okay.
You had all types in prison: morons, jerks, sociopaths, bullies, cowards. Frank’s modus operandi had been to respect the other man by following a simplified version of the golden rule—don’t mess with me, and I won’t mess with you. That worked okay man to man. But that didn’t work too well when a gang had it out for you.
Frank needed to get out of this place; and he needed to do so quickly.
* * *
Breakfast was passed through the slot in the door. It was a hard-boiled egg, toast, and an orange. When the officer came back for their trash, Frank politely asked for more toilet paper. Lunch came a number of hours later. It was gray turkey slices on white bread with a square of cheese, a squirt package of mustard and mayo, and a fruit cup. Big Fart scarfed his down in about three seconds and looked for a moment like he was going to eat the styrofoam tray.
About an hour later, two officers arrived and told Frank he was being taken to see the judge. This was the initial appearance where the judge would likely set bail. And the fact that he was going meant Ms. Cross had not convinced the DA to drop the charges.
A cold hardness settled along his bones. It was like a darkness had found his room swept clean and come back to say hello.
The officers asked Frank to put his hands through the slot. He did, and they cuffed him. Then they opened the door and asked him to come out. One officer watched Frank while the other cuffed Frank’s legs. Then they put on the chain belt and cuffed his hands to it.
They led him down the hall and through an electric door out into the sunshine. They led him to a bus with four others cuffed up in seats like he was. He passed an officer with a shotgun and took a seat. They waited for two more. One of them was Sam, who wasn’t saying much. Then they shut the front door and drove out. It took them about ten minutes to arrive at the courthouse.
Frank and the others were led in a line out of the bus to the side of the courthouse. They moved along in their orange jumpsuits and orange Crocs. Somewhere a restaurant was grilling meat. Frank’s mouth began to water. Then he was shuffling through a side door into the air-conditioned building, and the smell of meat faded behind. They filed down a hallway and into a court room.
The judge and the recorder sat up front. There was a US flag and one for the state of Colorado to one side. There were two tables up front about fifteen feet from the bench, one for the defense, one for the prosecution. Behind them were maybe thirty chairs set up in two groups facing the judge. Ten were occupied. Frank and Sam were led to the jury seats along with the other prisoners and told to sit.
The prisoner next to Frank sighed. “Oh, great. Judge Ellis. We’re all screwed.”
Frank looked at Sam. “You get a hold of Kim?”
“I did,” Sam whispered.
Frank nodded. Not much else to say, and you didn’t want to draw a judge’s reprimand for disturbing the proceedings with a lot of chatter.
The judge processed a woman in an orange jump suit who was being charged with burglary. The judge had seen her before. He gave her a lecture and set bail. He processed a thin bald man charged with assault. He processed three more. Each one was led out a side door when the judge finished with them. Ms. Cross stepped into the room just before the judge called Frank and Sam forward.
Frank looked at her expectantly.
She shrugged.
The judge tapped on his screen and looked at his court schedule. He finally looked up. “Ms. Cross,” he said. “You’re representing Misters Shaw and Cartwright?”
“I am, your Honor.”
“Bailiff, please escort Mr. Shaw.”
The bailiff escorted Frank in his chains to a pulpit that stood between the tables for the prosecution and defense. Ms. Cross came to stand with him.
“Mr. Shaw,” the judge said. “This is not your first offense. I see here that you spent time in California for manslaughter.”
“That is correct.”
“Mr. Shaw, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney present now and during any future questioning. If you cannot afford Ms. Cross or any other attorney, one will be appointed to you free of charge if you wish. Do you understand these rights?”
Frank’s heart sank. They were charging him. “Yes, I do, your Honor.”
He looked over at Sam. So sorry my friend.
The judge turned to the bench for the prosecution. “Mr. Andrews, you may proceed.”
Mr. Andrews said, “The District Attorney will be pursuing a charge of felony possession of a firearm. It carries a sentence up to two years in prison.”
Frank waited for the list to continue.
Judge Ellis said to Frank, “You know the law concerning felons and guns?”
“I do, your honor.”
“And yet you still, as it says here, retrieved the P90 from the pond up in Weld County.”
“I did, your Honor.”
; The judge nodded. “This is only an initial hearing to make sure you hear what charges are being pursued, understand your rights, and be given the opportunity to post bail. You will have a chance to formally enter a plea of guilty or not guilty at your arraignment.”
“Yes,” Frank said. He again waited for the list of charges to continue.
Mr. Andrews shuffled a few papers and said, “There were other charges the police recommended, but based on the reports and evidence obtains thus far, the DA feels Mr. Shaw acted in great part in self-defense and the defense of others in immediate danger. Those charges will not be pursued at this time.”
The DA’s words hung in the air.
“I’m not being charged?” Frank asked.
Ms. Cross smiled.
Judge Ellis said, “You should know that last night the police located and searched twelve other Goroza properties where there was reasonable cause to suspect slaves were being held and prostituted. Mr. Andrews has informed me the state will be pursuing many charges in conjunction with those operations. I believe this was a hornet’s nest you walked into, Mr. Shaw.”
“Yes, your honor,” Frank said.
The judge nodded. “Mr. Shaw, illegal possession of a firearm by a felon is itself a felony. I’m setting bail at thirty-five thousands dollars.” The judge asked a clerk for some information. When the clerk replied, the judge turned back to Frank. “Your arraignment is set for September 30th. You will make your plea at that time.”
“Thank you, your Honor.”
“Mr. Cartwright,” the judge said. “We’ll take care of the two of you together.”
The bailiff escorted Sam down to the pulpit.
“Mr. Andrews,” the judge said.
“With regards to Mr. Cartwright, the prosecution has reviewed the police reports and testimonies of the witnesses. We find insufficient evidence to pursue any charges at this time. We recommend Mr. Cartwright be released.”
For a moment Frank couldn’t believe his ears.
The judge looked down at Sam. “I would admonish you to be careful in the future. We are a nation of law. We rule by law, not by mob. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your honor,” Sam said.
Bad Penny Page 34
