Snap Judgment (Samantha Brinkman Book 3)

by Marcia Clark

  She folded her arms and glared at me. “Then what do you want?”

  This was it. If I didn’t find a way to win her trust, she’d be dead meat—and so would we. “Someone close to Jorge Maldonado has asked me to find you. He wants to get Jorge off the hook for the murder.” I looked her in the eye. “And he intends to kill you in order to do that.”

  Tracy blanched. “B-but I don’t want to testify against Jorge!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love him.”

  It took me a second to wrap my head around that. This was the last thing I’d expected. “But you identified him as the killer.”

  Tracy leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “I was in shock, totally freaked out, and they threatened to charge me with helping him if I didn’t!”

  This was the opposite of everything we’d believed about the case. “Tell me what happened. And start from the very beginning. I promise everything you say is confidential.”

  She swiped away the tears with a rough gesture. After taking a deep breath and letting out a long exhale, she began to speak. “Like, seven months ago, I got thrown out of the room I was sharing with a couple of other girls, because I couldn’t pay the rent. Victor found me sleeping in a doorway and said he’d give me a place to stay.”

  I had a feeling I knew where this story was going. “Victor Mendes—the guy Jorge killed?”

  Tracy nodded, her gaze fixed on the floor. “I was afraid to keep staying on the street, so I said okay. He took me to his motel room and raped me. I wanted to run, but I had no money and nowhere to go. Victor made me”—she used air quotes—“‘work’ for him.” Her voice was flat and empty. Her gaze, as she continued to stare at the floor, was dull, lifeless. It was as though she was talking about someone else. “He got a shit-hole motel room in downtown LA. I worked from noon until four a.m., seven days a week.” She lifted her head, and now I saw anger in her eyes. But she still spoke in a monotone. “It wasn’t the first time I’d been pimped, but it was the worst. Victor would let his friends gang up on me for free. They passed me around like a goddamn blunt.”

  She paused for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and continued. “After about a month, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The next time he took me to Walmart—he’d take me there to get stuff like tampons and toothpaste—I stole a pair of scissors. When we got back to the motel, I went into the bathroom and slashed my wrists.”

  I could barely breathe. It hurt just to listen to her story. “But he caught you.” She nodded. “How?”

  Tracy’s eyes were flat. “When he moved me into the motel room, he broke the lock on the bathroom door so he could always walk in on me. So, when I didn’t come out after a while, he came in and found me. He had to take me to the emergency room because I’d passed out and he couldn’t stop the bleeding.” She looked up, and her face began to brighten. “That’s how I met Jorge. He was with a cousin who had appendicitis. She was in the bed next to mine.”

  It was a miracle Tracy had survived. And apparently also that she’d met Jorge. “How did Jorge manage to talk to you with Victor around?” Pimps didn’t usually let their women talk to anyone who wasn’t a paying customer.

  Tracy’s eyes got misty. “Victor wasn’t there. He had to go get money to pay the doctor. Jorge saw the bandages on my wrists and asked me why such a pretty girl would want to do this to herself.” Tracy wiped away a stray tear. “He was so nice, so . . . gentle. I told him I didn’t want to live anymore. And I told him why. I don’t know why I trusted him not to judge me, but I did. For probably the first time in my life, I guessed right. Jorge asked if I’d come with him. Something told me he’d treat me right. Besides, how much worse could it be?”

  I couldn’t argue with her logic. “He took you out of the emergency room?”

  Now she actually smiled. “Yeah. The minute his cousin’s boyfriend got there, Jorge just picked me up and walked out of there, put me in his car. The nurse was running after him and yelling and saying he had to pay and shit like that. Jorge didn’t care; he just kept on going. But Victor came back before we could take off, and he tried to pull me out of the car. They got in a big fight, and the nurse said she was calling the cops. Victor was on parole, so he had to back off. But he told Jorge he’d be coming for him.”

  “And you left with Jorge?” Tracy nodded. “Where’d he take you?”

  She shifted to sit cross-legged on the bed. “Back to his place in Boyle Heights.” Another tear rolled slowly down her cheek. “I’ve been staying with him ever since. And I was finally happy. Jorge was better to me than anyone in my whole life.”

  The memory of Shelly’s careless attitude toward Tracy came back to me. “You ran away from home when you were only twelve. Why? Because of Ronnie?”

  Tracy hunched over, and the light drained from her face. “No. I mean, he knocked me around because I wouldn’t let him touch me. Gave me a black eye a couple of times. But the reason I finally ran was because of his fucking father. That rat-fuck, Benjamin.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “My first pimp—or rather, wannabe pimp. I ran because I heard that he’d told one of his asswipe buddies he was planning to sell my virginity.” Tracy gritted her teeth. “His buddy asked how much he planned to charge, and Ben asked how much he’d be willing to pay. I didn’t believe it, but I hid under the bed that night, and sure enough, Ben came to get me. I waited until he left, then packed everything I could carry and bailed out through the window.”

  My God. What this girl had been through. But it explained so much. “So all those prostitution busts when you were a juvie . . .”

  Her voice was harsh. “Were because I had no place to go and no one who’d help me except guys who wanted to use me to make money.”

  That wasn’t a life; that was hell. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive.”

  Tracy sat up, her expression fierce. “I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Jorge.”

  That brought us back to the topic at hand. “So I assume Victor finally caught up with him?” She nodded.

  She set her jaw at the mention of Victor’s name. “We’d been keeping tabs on him. When people would say they’d seen Victor around, we’d lay low. But that night, I think Victor had to have been tailing us, because we hadn’t been a public place, we’d just left Jorge’s cousin’s house. Anyway, we were walking toward our car, and when we passed an alley, Victor jumped him.”

  But Jorge had a gun, so that confrontation couldn’t have taken long. “How did the cops get there so fast?”

  Tracy heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of her feet. “At first they were screaming and cussing each other out. Then Jorge hit him, and Victor hit him back and . . .”

  Jorge shot him. Now I remembered—I’d seen that in the police report. “A neighbor called the cops while they were yelling at each other.”

  “Yeah,” she said as she shook her head. “Never saw ’em come that fast in my whole life. They pulled up just, like, seconds after Jorge fired. I grabbed the gun from him so I could hide it, but . . .”

  “They caught you before you could get rid of it.” Tracy nodded, her expression glum. That explanation filled in a lot of blanks for me.

  Her voice was filled with despair. “I was so scared. They said they’d charge me with murder if I didn’t tell them who did it. So I told them Jorge shot him. And now I’m stuck. They say if I don’t testify against him, they’ll get me for being an . . . uh . . .” She gave me a questioning look. “An accessory?”

  I nodded. They definitely could tag her for being an accessory after the fact. And Jorge would probably go down for second-degree murder—though there was a chance I could sell a jury on manslaughter. But Cabazon wasn’t interested in taking any chances with a jury—or more importantly, with Jorge having to spend any time in prison, where others—inmates as well as cops—could get to him and squeeze him for information on Cabazon and his operations. This was one sad story. “Have you been able to talk to Jorge at all?”

  Tears sp
rang to her eyes again. “I asked, but they won’t let me.” She gave me a beseeching look that wrenched my heart. “Can you help us?”

  I gave her as confidant a look as I could muster. “I’m definitely going to try. Do the feds know about you and Jorge?”

  She shook her head. “No. I told them I’d been living on the street and he was just a guy I met that day.” Tracy had a puzzled frown. “I’m not even sure why I lied about that.” She shrugged. “Just habit, I guess.”

  But that habit had come in handy. The less they knew, the better. I told her to make sure she didn’t tell them anything about Jorge. And on the off chance she was allowed to speak to anyone else, I told her not to let anyone know she’d met with me, other than the feds who obviously already knew. “And I don’t have to warn you not to tell the feds anything we talk about, do I?”

  Tracy stared at me like I’d told her not to get hit by a bus. “No, duh. Of course not. Has anyone else been looking for me—I mean, besides you?”

  I didn’t want to tell her about Diego Ferrara, but I had to be honest. “I think so. My advice is to let these agents do their job.”

  I told her I’d figure this out as fast as I could and that I’d be in touch very soon. Then I went out to the living room and thanked Liam. “I’ll be back to take a complete statement after I’ve spoken to Tammy.” I delivered the lie pretty smoothly, I thought.

  Dale thanked him, too, and we headed for the car. The moment we got in, he asked me, “So? How’d it go?”

  “Great. She’s on board.” He heaved a sigh of relief, and I joined him. But when I told him Tracy’s story, he looked as sad as I’d felt.

  He sighed as he pulled away from the curb. “I’ve been hearing about the human trafficking epidemic, but jeez . . . twelve? And that monster was going to sell her virginity?”

  It was hard to believe. “I’d love to find a way to nail him for it. But Tracy didn’t hear him say it herself. Someone else told her about it. I didn’t get a chance to ask, but I’d bet it was someone in the family, and given who they are, I have zero hope any of them would come forward.”

  Dale’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “We can’t do anything about it right now anyway. We’ve got to focus on saving Tracy. But if I do find a way to nail either of those assholes . . .”

  “We’ll find a way.” Or at least, I knew I would. I turned my thoughts back to our immediate problem. “Did you get Liam to tell you why they’re so hot to trot to nail Jorge?”

  He nodded. “Like we thought, they want to squeeze him for information on Cabazon.”

  “Did they offer Jorge a deal?”

  Dale barked a grim laugh. “Try a complete dismissal.”

  I’d never heard of a deal that sweet in a murder case. “They must really think he can deliver Cabazon.”

  He turned right on Sunset and headed for my apartment. “And probably with good reason. The fact that Jorge hasn’t taken the deal tells me he knows exactly who Cabazon is.”

  That sounded about right. We discussed our rescue plan again. “But I don’t think we can risk telling Tracy.”

  Dale nodded. “No, she might let something slip.”

  Now that I knew the whole story, I thought I might have another angle I could work. “I’d like to talk to Jorge.”

  Dale gave me a look of alarm. “Don’t you think that’s risky? Cabazon will find out for sure, and I doubt he’ll like it.”

  “That’s why I’m going to ask his permission.”

  Dale pulled into the driveway of my building. “And how do you plan to get in touch with him?”

  That was the easy part—unfortunately. “I don’t. All I have to do is wait.”

  Cabazon was due to come knocking any day now.

  FORTY-FOUR

  It was after five o’clock when Dale dropped me off, but I’d left Alex with a lot to do on Graham’s case, and I wanted to see what he’d found out.

  When I got in, I blew Michy a kiss and headed straight for his office. I knocked on his door. “Your high school gym coach called. He—”

  The door opened, and an annoyed Alex held up a hand. “Stop. No more. Or I won’t tell you what I’ve got.”

  I hesitated. “You sure? It’s a good one.”

  He put a hand on his hip. “I don’t believe you. Quit while you’re behind.”

  “Fine. What’ve you got?”

  He went back to his desk, and I sat down across from him. He tapped a key on his computer. “I’ve got the list of tenants in Davey’s building. Found six girls between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one. And I couldn’t find any logical connection Graham might have to the rest of the tenants.”

  More than I’d expected. “So Graham really might be hooking up with someone there.”

  Alex shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  We’d have to go talk to them. Because there was no way Graham would admit it. He’d made it clear by now that he wasn’t going to level with me. “How about tomorrow?”

  Alex looked up from the monitor. “We’ve got a better chance of catching them tonight. It’s a Wednesday night. They’re probably studying for midterms.”

  I was tired, and driving downtown was about the last thing I felt like doing. But Alex was right. I told him he’d have to drive.

  I went out to see Michy. I had a very strong feeling I’d be hearing from Cabazon soon. I didn’t think his goon squad would come to the office without making sure I was there, but mistakes happen, and I didn’t want Michy to be on the receiving end of theirs. I told her to pack up. “There’s nothing you need to do that can’t be done tomorrow.”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “I’m almost done. I just need to finish a couple of things. What’s the rush?”

  I picked up her coat and draped it over her shoulders. “You’ve been working too hard. Come on. Out you go.”

  Michy grumbled about being bossed around, but she shut down her computer and picked up her purse. She started to take a file with her, but I snatched it out of her hand and dropped it back on the desk. “I’m giving you the night off. Take it.”

  She huffed, “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

  Alex came out of his office, and we all left together.

  Alex had called one of the girls before we left. She’d agreed to talk to us, and she was sure the other two girls who shared the apartment would, too. That took care of three of the six girls in that building.

  On the ride over, I made calls and set us up to talk to two more of the girls. I tried calling the sixth but got no answer. I told Alex, “Hopefully she’ll come home before we’re done.”

  It was almost seven o’clock when we got there. I told Alex to park around the corner. As we got out, I asked, “What if we run into Davey? What’s our story?”

  Alex pursed his lips. “We’re working on another case?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure. That’s totally believable.” But I was too tired to think of anything better. “Let’s just hope we don’t see him.”

  We hit the party of three first. I showed them the photo of Graham that I’d uploaded on my cell phone. “Do you know this man?”

  The girls passed my phone around. Each of them shook their heads. The girl with one long braid said, “But I think I’ve seen him around here a couple of times. Why?”

  I studied the group. They were average-looking girls, and none of them seemed the type to hook up with an older married guy. But you never know. “Just wondering if he’s seeing someone in the building.” Knowing it was too much to hope for, I asked the girl with the long braid, “Did you happen to see who he was visiting?”

  She shook her head. “I only saw him coming into the building as I was going out.”

  Why couldn’t anything in this case come easy?

  The girl wearing fingerless mittens made a face. “Kind of old, isn’t he?”

  The third girl, who was wearing footie pajamas, studied the photo again and said, “Wait, I’ll bet he’s rich.” She looked at me. “I’m r
ight, aren’t I? Is he looking for someone?”

  The other two yelled, “Ew! You’re so gross, Marnie!”

  She shrugged. “Just saying. He’s not bad—for an old guy.”

  Alex and I thanked them for their time. Three down, three to go.

  The next two roommates seemed a bit more likely. Wendy, a brown-haired, green-eyed beauty, had a sultry voice. When I showed her the photo of Graham, her eyebrows lifted. “Interesting. No, he’s never visited me.” She passed the phone to the other girl, named Kendra. “You know him?”

  Kendra was a mixed-race beauty with long, shiny black hair. She studied the photo for a long beat, then shook her head. “Don’t recognize him.”

  So much for girls four and five.

  Alex asked about the sixth girl. “Do you happen to know Nancy Moulin?”

  Wendy said, “Sure. She lives on the third floor. Why?”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?” Alex asked.

  Kendra’s lips twitched. “If you’re thinking Nancy might be seeing that guy, I can save you some time. Her girlfriend’s pretty possessive.”

  We were zero for six.

  Alex and I regrouped when we got back in the car. As I put on my seat belt, I said, “Do you think anyone was lying?”

  He started the car. “Not that I could tell. But it wouldn’t surprise me. After all, you’re talking about a cheating situation.”

  Unless we wanted to put a tail on Graham—which I wouldn’t mind but really couldn’t afford; Alex couldn’t do it, since Graham would recognize him—we wouldn’t be able to bust the liar unless we wanted to take more drastic, i.e., hacking-style measures.

  Though it wasn’t a foolproof gauge, my gut told me these girls hadn’t been lying. For now, I was going to let the mistress angle go. “If none of the girls is lying, then he must have been visiting Davey.”

  Alex nodded. “But why would he have gone to see Davey before Roan died? To talk about Alicia?”

  I stared out at the sky. The wind had swept it clean, and the stars sparkled like crystals. “Probably. But why would Davey and Graham lie about seeing each other?” Both had said they’d only spoken after Roan died.