by David Ellis
And then it just happened; she ran out of steam. Her eyelids fluttered and she was asleep, her head resting in the crook of my arm. She looked like her mother, the almond shape of her eyes, the tiny nose and full lips. Asleep, at peace, she had Talia’s placid expression, too.
Time passed. Her tiny, warm body rose and fell, short breaths escaping from her mouth. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
We got two hours like that, sleeping together on the couch. I was startled awake by her stirring, a moment of panic as I realized I’d been responsible for holding her while I slept, never a good idea. My head had fallen forward during sleep, and now I had a crick in my neck as a reward.
Once Emily realized who was holding her, it was back to the horror movie. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I tried to sweet-talk her, which never worked on any other female in my life, so I don’t know why I thought it would now.
“I’ll take her.” Talia was at the landing, looking in on us in the family room. “You need sleep.” Her hair was all over the place and her right cheek showed a crease line from her pillow.
“You need it more,” I noted. I had no idea how she could have awakened on her own, at her level of sleep deprivation.
Emily wailed at the sound of her mother’s voice, but as soon as Talia had expertly scooped her from my lap, the cry shut off in an instant, like an alarm clock after hitting the snooze button.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I said.
Talia kissed Emily’s forehead and tucked her into the nape of her neck. “She just doesn’t know you yet, that’s all. She will.” She put her hand on my cheek. “She will, Jase.”
8
I LEFT HOME THAT MORNING ESTIMATING THAT COURT would adjourn early on Friday, and that I’d be able to hit the road with Talia and Emily by no later than five to go to her parents. Evening rain was predicted, she’d told me, so the earlier the better.
Court actually adjourned even earlier than that. Chris Moody, re-directing Joey Espinoza, had wanted to run through the recorded conversations of Hector several times, stopping at various intervals to ask Joey, “Did it sound to you like the defendant was joking there? Did that sound like sarcasm?” That kind of thing. But I made the point that Joey had testified on cross-examination yesterday that they sometimes misunderstood each other’s sarcastic exchanges, so how could Joey really say if Hector was kidding or not? It became enough of a distraction that Chris Moody dropped it altogether, opting to make his pitch in closing argument.
When Chris Moody sat down, he looked awful. He’d had a rough night, I imagined. His star witness hadn’t done well, and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do to rehabilitate him. This case was far more important to him than it was to anyone else in the courtroom, save Hector. This, I assume, was going to be his crowning achievement before he went for the big bucks in a major law firm, not starting as a junior partner like me, but at the equity level, the really big bucks. But if this went the other way on him, it would be a pretty black mark. And at this point, I figured it was even money, at best, that Chris Moody would convict Hector Almundo.
After court recessed at two o’clock, we retreated to the law firm. Hector’s spirits were relatively high. Paul tried to dampen enthusiasm, but I could see it in his eyes, as well. The prosecution hadn’t proven Hector’s knowledge of, much less involvement in, this conspiracy. There was no concrete evidence that he had any idea what was taking place. Joey Espinoza simply was not credible, and the tapes reeked of staging—Espinoza forcing the conversation, discussing the topic when Hector was distracted or making it sound like a joke so Hector would agree, sarcastically. Though Paul didn’t want to raise expectations, he had to acknowledge the current state of affairs, because we were debating whether we should call any witnesses at all or just rest.
“I’ll be back Sunday,” I told him. “If you’re sure it’s okay I go.”
“It’s more than okay. It’s an order,” said Paul. “You did a great job, kid. Go have fun and we’ll talk Sunday afternoon.”
I looked at my watch. It was half past two. I still had time for one more errand before I hooked up with Talia and we drove downstate.
I drove to Liberty Park, where I knew I would find Ernesto Ramirez. I got out of my car and passed through a tall chain-link fence at a spot where someone had torn open a human-sized portion. Why rip into this fence when there was a gate just down the way? Because kids are stupid. It’s the kind of thing I did, too, when I was a kid.
I walked across the wide expanse, grass and concrete. A grown man, without a child in tow, feels funny these days walking among children in a park under any circumstances, and throw in that I was wearing a suit, and I had white skin, and I pretty much stuck out like oil on snow. I was headed for the basketball court, where I’d previously talked with Ernesto.
They’ll know, he’d said.
Ernesto was with two other Latino men who looked to be in their mid-twenties. One of them was wearing a ripped tank top, long shorts, and court shoes. The other was scrawnier and wore an oversized shirt and blue jeans. I’d seen enough of them in my time as a prosecutor, the posture and cocky chin. Gangbangers, or I wasn’t a south-side Irishman.
The scrawnier one saw me first and said something to Ernesto, who looked my way. When he saw me, he started to come toward me, presumably to separate the two of us from his friends. But I was so close I could almost touch him, and for this function I was performing, I literally had to make contact with him.
He managed to say, “The hell are you doing,” before I slapped the envelope against his chest.
“A subpoena,” I told him. “You’ve been served. You must appear in federal court next week to testify in the case of United States versus Hector Almundo.” It was all very formal and unnecessary. The subpoena inside would tell him all of that. But I wanted the drama. I didn’t have anything left.
Instinctively, Ernesto had accepted the envelope before I’d explained its contents. He stared at it and then looked up at me, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t—I won’t—”
“It’s your decision,” I said. “You can appear at that date and time, or federal marshals will come and escort you. And then you can explain to a federal judge why you’re different from everyone else who is subpoenaed.”
“No,” he repeated. He seemed to be in shock, only now catching up with what was happening.
“And if you lie about what you know,” I went on, “you could be charged with perjury.”
“You threatening my friend?” It was the bigger guy, the one with the torn tank. Up close, I could see the tiny tattoo of a dagger on the inside of his upper arm. He was a member of the Latin Lords. He had only a slight trace of an accent. He’d learned English and Spanish simultaneously as a child, I assumed.
Standing face-to-face, as we were now, I towered over him. I was six-three and he was five-ten at best. He had wide shoulders and some muscle tone, a scar across his forehead, a crappy goatee. He was meaner and tougher than me, but only one of us knew that for sure. I looked down at him, making eye contact for a long moment before I uttered two words with sufficient conviction that I was making it clear, I’d only say them once. “Back. Off.”
It threw him momentarily. He’d expected retreat. Now he was reassessing. In my experience with the gangs, they respect the well-dressed white man who marches onto their turf, because they assume he’s law enforcement. For all this guy knew, I was an FBI agent.
“Oye,” said Ernesto, placing a hand on his friend’s arm. “Permítame .”
“Buen consejo,” I said. Listen to Ernesto and back off.
“You can’t make me say something I don’t want to say,” Ernesto said to me.
I slowly took my eyes off Ernesto’s friend and looked at Ernesto squarely. “I can put you on the stand and ask you questions all day. I have a pretty good idea of where to start. I’ll get there sooner or later. If you lie, I’ll know. And if you refuse to answer, you
’ll go to prison for contempt.”
“No,” he said. “No, you can’t—”
“I can and I am. My card’s inside that envelope,” I told him. “Including my cell. You talk to me now or I’ll see you in court.”
It was my best pitch. I drove back to my office. I wasn’t feeling great about what I’d done, but I was out of options. I was betting that compelling his testimony would ease whatever conflict was plaguing him. I’d be making the decision for him. You can’t ignore a federal subpoena. So with his back against the wall, he’d come clean. Maybe.
My cell phone buzzed as I was exiting the highway into the commercial district. Traffic had been murder at four o’clock on a Friday night. It reminded me of our trip to see Talia’s folks tonight. But the phone call wasn’t from Talia. The call was from Ernesto Ramirez.
“Hello,” I said with as little feeling as I could muster.
“You said before—you made me an offer before. I tell you what I know and you keep me out of it.”
“Right, I said that. The longer you take to tell me, the harder it will be for me to use the information, the more I’ll need your live testimony.”
“What does that—”
“It means tell me right now, Ernesto. Right. Now.”
There was a pause. Electricity shot through me. I thought it was actually coming.
“Not over the phone,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, trying to conceal my reaction. I’d broken through. Easy and calm was now the right approach. “Where and when?”
“Later today,” he said. “I’ll have to figure out how. No phones, though. Face-to-face.”
“Then make it very soon. I’ll meet you anywhere. Don’t keep me waiting, Ernesto,” I told him. “Do not keep me waiting.”
9
I HUNG UP WITH ERNESTO AND TRIED TO KEEP MY expectations low. He seemed ready to play ball, but a promise wasn’t anything more than a promise. Still, the more he’d held out, the more valuable his information appeared to be, the more my hopes rose in the air like they were filled with helium.
Talia called my cell as I was walking back into my office building. “Hi, babe,” I said. “I’m trying to wrap everything up. I’m at the finish line.”
“Great. Okay,” she said, somewhat distractedly. I could hear Emily making a yelping sound near the phone. “Remember it’s supposed to rain tonight. It would be good to get on the road as early as possible.”
“Right. I just have to wait to hear from that guy I told you about, Ramirez. I’m on his schedule, not the other way around.” Talia and I had been over this briefly this morning, but like most disjointed conversations while caring for a newborn, there had been no real resolution.
“And this matters, even if you’re at the finish line?”
“It depends on what it is he gives me,” I said. “We haven’t formally decided to rest our case, and even if we do, if I uncover something huge, the judge would let us reopen.”
Talia tended to Emily a moment. I was used to such interruptions. I waited her out.
“Does that mean you’re planning on working this weekend, too? I mean, if this is ‘something huge,’ does that mean you aren’t coming?”
I didn’t have a good answer to that. “I don’t know. He said he’d call me soon. I don’t know ’til I know.”
“That’s not very helpful, Jason.”
“I don’t know what else to say. These are unusual circumstances.”
“Are they?” Talia’s tone sharpened.
“Yes,” I said. “They are. This guy’s life is hanging in the balance, Tal. He’s being accused of murder and I might be coming upon evidence that proves it didn’t happen the way they say. I’d put that down as unusual circumstances. Wouldn’t you?”
“I’m just wondering if we’re going to have an evolving standard of ‘unusual.’ That’s all. Is there always going to be something? Am I going to be raising our children alone?”
“That’s not fair—”
“You know what? I’m tired and nauseated and cranky, and right now I’m not in the mood for you to tell me what’s ‘fair.’ I believe you told me last night that Paul told you to go with us this weekend, not to worry about anything else.”
“But that was before Ramirez agreed to—”
“Okay. Jason? Just—stay here, okay? Stay here and go the extra mile for a man who you think is guilty of just about everything they’re accusing him of doing.”
“Talia, just—just give me an hour or two, okay? Two hours,” I decided. “Two hours.”
NINETY MINUTES CAME AND WENT. No call from Ernesto Ramirez. Paul Riley called my cell with a quick question about a document. Then, sensing something, he asked, “Where are you?”
“Office,” I said.
“I thought you were going with your wife this weekend.”
“I am. I’m just waiting for somebody.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
I sighed. “Ernesto Ramirez. You remember that guy I told you about?”
“Jason, Jason. He’s waiting to talk to Ernesto Ramirez,” Paul said to someone. I heard Joel Lightner laugh and call out, “Dead end, kid!” I heard our client, Hector Almundo, say, “Tell him to go with his family.”
“Well,” Paul summarized, “the universal conclusion of your senior partner, your client, and your private investigator is that you should forget about this guy and go be with your family.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said.
“Hey kid—seriously. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. I’ve been you. But it’s late in the game, and I think your part is done. You’ve done a phenomenal job and your family has earned a day or two of your time.”
“Understood,” I said. “But if—”
“That’s an order, kid.” The last thing I heard, before Paul hung up, was the sound of Joel Lightner and Hector Almundo laughing.
Well, laugh, I thought. It will just make that rabbit all the more magical.
HALF PAST SIX. Still no call from Ramirez. I was back on the phone with Talia.
“What’s the delay?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. He—I don’t know. I tried his cell and he didn’t answer. But I think it will be soon.”
“You think it will be soon.”
“Maybe ‘hope’ is a better word. What if—”
“Jason.”
“—we waited until tomorrow morning—”
“Jason.”
I stopped. There was an icy calm to my wife’s voice.
“Emily and I are going now. You feel like you have to wait there, and I feel like I can’t wait any longer. I’ll call you when I get to my mother’s.”
I let out a long, sorrowful sigh. “Talia, baby, I swear that this won’t always be like this. I promise.”
There was a long pause. It sounded like my wife was crying. I wanted to fill the space with more promises, but I wasn’t sure they helped. A promise never made is better than a promise broken, and I’d fractured plenty of them since this trial started.
“Say good-bye to Em.” Talia’s voice had choked off; she barely got the words out with emotion filling her throat. I heard her away from the phone. “Daddy’s saying bye-bye, honey.”
“Bye, sweetheart,” I called into the phone. “Have fun with Grandma and Grandpa, Em. I love you, sweetie.”
“Okay.” Talia took the phone back. “Bye.”
“I love you,” I said, but the line had already gone dead.
And that was the last I heard from my wife. I spent the next four hours bouncing off the walls at my law office, cursing Ernesto Ramirez for the delay, making silent vows to Talia and Emily Jane, going online to investigate possible vacation spots for after the trial. Things would be better after this case. I would make it up to both of them. It wouldn’t always be like this. This trial was the exception, not the rule.
When the phone rang four hours after we spoke, I thought it might b
e Talia, safely at her parents’ house. Or I thought it might be Ramirez, finally agreeing to meet with me. In that brief flash of time as the phone rang, it didn’t occur to me that she always dialed my direct line or the cell, not the general line that was ringing, nor did it occur to me that Ramirez would have probably used the cell phone number I’d given him.
Mr. Kolarich, I’m Lieutenant Ryan with the State Troopers.
I’m afraid I have some bad news, sir.
I don’t remember with any specificity the next two hours. I remember my dumbfounded, illogical comments to the state trooper—she couldn’t be dead, I just spoke to her a few hours ago; are you sure it was my wife and child in the SUV bearing our license plate, on the route we always took to her parents’ house? I don’t remember driving until I got to the backup on that county road, at which time I pulled the car over and jogged over a mile to the scene, blocked off with cones and tape and squad cars. The story was easy enough to discern without explanation; no doubt the other drivers, sitting idle in the traffic jam behind us, could have figured out what happened, too. That tricky curve in the road, the incessant rain bringing a one-two combo of poor visibility and a slick driving surface: Some car had gone over the embankment.
Looks like they died on impact, another state trooper told me, as we stood at the curve in the road that Talia had missed, by the side railing that had a large piece torn out of it, down at the ravine out of which they had fished Talia’s SUV. I remember saying those words over and over for comfort, they died on impact, not believing them, trying to push out the image of Emily restrained in a car seat, underwater, struggling to breathe. No, they died on impact. Painless. No pain.
I remember rain, slapping unapologetically on my shoulders and hair. I don’t remember calling my brother, Pete, but I do remember him being there, gently pulling me away, smelling his damp, musty windbreaker as his arm went over my shoulder.
