Rag and Bone

by Michael Nava

  She was laughing harder now. “I wish I’d been there.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say it’s not serious.”

  She wiped her eyes. “He’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sorry about Jesusita, Vicky.”

  All the mirth went out of her face. “You take care of Angel. Don’t let anything happen to him.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “I wish this was over,” she said.

  “All rise. Department sixty-seven is now in session, the Honorable Marie LaVille presiding.”

  Judge LaVille, a small woman wearing round, red-rimmed glasses and with a skunk streak of white through her black hair, assumed the bench with the wry, relaxed demeanor of a popular high school English teacher.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Be seated. We’re here, belatedly, for the preliminary hearing on People versus Victoria Trujillo. The complaint alleges second-degree murder. Mr. Rios, were you able to attend to your sick child?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, and thank you for putting the prelim over from this morning.”

  The judge smiled. “You should thank Mr. Pearsall, too. He graciously agreed to keep his witnesses on call until you made it in.”

  The young D.A. sat at his end of counsel table scrawling notes as furiously as if he were taking an exam.

  “Thank you, counsel,” I said. “That was decent of you.”

  He looked up, nodded. “No problemo.”

  “Is your son all right, Mr. Rios?” the judge asked.

  “He’ll be fine. He’s actually Mrs. Trujillo’s son. My grand-nephew.”

  Judge LaVille looked back and forth between us. “I see. Well, I’m glad it’s nothing serious. Mr. Pearsall, are you ready to call your first witness?”

  Pearsall gulped. “Yes, Your Honor. The People call Officer Korngold.”

  The purpose of the preliminary hearing was to compel the prosecution to demonstrate to a judge that it had sufficient evidence to bring the defendant to trial on the charge alleged in the complaint. For the defense, it served to disclose the strength of the prosecution’s case and provided an opportunity to develop impeachment material for trial by getting prosecution witnesses to commit to details they would not possibly remember months later when they testified at trial. Thus the prosecution’s objective was to put on as narrow a case as possible, while the goal of the defense was to get away with as much as it could. My plan in this prelim was a little different. I wanted to show the newbie prosecutor how easily his case could be dismantled, so as to deal him down to a lesser charge. I gave a pass to Officer Korngold, who was the first uniformed officer on the scene, and saved my fire for the homicide investigator, a slit-eyed, gray-haired veteran named Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald knew the game, and on direct gave a dry recital of only enough facts to make out the charge. Then it was my turn.

  “Detective Fitzgerald,” I began, “did you recover the murder weapon?”

  “No, not personally,” he said.

  “As far as you know, did anyone recover the murder weapon?”

  “No, not as far as I know.”

  “Did you look for it?”

  “Yes, we canvassed the area.”

  “Extensively?”

  Pearsall was on his feet. “Objection, calls for speculation.”

  A good objection, had we been in a law school evidence class. But prelims tended to be pretty casual.

  “Overruled,” said Judge LaVille. “I think the officer knows the difference between an extensive search and a perfunctory one. Right, detective?”

  He took the hint. “We conducted an extensive search of the room and the perimeter.”

  “The perimeter. That means you looked outside?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you were not able to find the weapon?”

  “Your client was able to dispose of it.”

  “She was? Detective, isn’t it true that my client had been so badly beaten by the victim that she was taken from the scene in an ambulance?”

  “That’s right,” he said warily.

  “You saw her as she was being taken away, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” He definitely suspected a trap.

  “Was she upset? Crying? Disoriented?”

  “Objection, compound question,” Pearsall said.

  “You’re right, counsel,” the judge said, “but in the interests of time, let’s hear the answer.”

  “Yeah, she was upset and she was crying,” he said. “I don’t know about disoriented. I couldn’t read her mind.”

  “Now, detective, you heard Officer Korngold testify that he was at the Hollywood Inn within five minutes of the shots-fired call.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, let me see if I understand this. In the five minutes between the shooting and Korngold’s arrival, my client, beaten, upset and crying, had the presence of mind to hide the weapon so well that LAPD’s finest was unable to recover it. Is that your testimony?”

  “No,” Judge LaVille said, “that’s your testimony, Mr. Rios. You want to rephrase or have you made your point?”

  “I’ll move on,” I said.

  I had to be careful in making this argument because, of course, if Vicky had had the presence of mind to successfully hide the weapon, she would look pretty cold-blooded to a jury.

  “Detective, isn’t it also true that my client’s hands were not tested for gunpowder residue?”

  “She was injured. We had to get her to a hospital.”

  “And no one thought to bag her hands?”

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t a priority.”

  “So there’s no physical evidence that she fired the shots that killed the victim, is there?”

  “She admitted it,” he said.

  “I’m talking about physical evidence.”

  He shrugged. “She was the only person in the room. It looked like he had attacked her.”

  “Let me try again, detective. Isn’t it true that there is absolutely no physical evidence that she fired the shot that killed him?”

  Fitzgerald stared at the young D.A., commanding him telepathically to object, but Pearsall shrugged.

  “No,” Fitzgerald said. “But the only explanation is he came after her and she shot him.”

  “Sounds like self-defense to me.”

  “Not when you shoot someone in the back,” he replied smugly.

  “Didn’t you dig a twenty-two-caliber bullet out of the wall on the opposite side of the room from where the victim was standing when he was shot?”

  “That was an old bullet.”

  “An old bullet? And what test did you perform that determined the age of that bullet?”

  “The victim was killed with a three-eighty semiautomatic.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. How did you decide the twenty-two was an old bullet?”

  “Your Honor,” Pearsall said, “this is, like, way beyond my direct.”

  She grinned at him. “Is that, like, an objection? If so, it’s overruled. Answer the question, detective. How did you determine the age of the twenty-two-caliber bullet?”

  “It was an assumption,” he said, with heavy sarcasm. “Based on the fact that the holes in the victim were made by a three-eighty.”

  “But, detective,” I said reasonably, “for all you know, the victim could’ve fired that twenty-two-caliber bullet at my client that very night and then she fired back at him in self-defense.”

  “We didn’t find a twenty-two-caliber weapon,” he said.

  “You didn’t find the three-eighty, either,” I reminded him. “But I’m a sport. I’ll spot you the three-eighty if you’ll give me my twenty-two.”

  He lolled his head toward the D.A. with a look of disgust. This time the kid responded. “Objection. Argumentative.”

  “Yes, Mr. Rios,” the judge said. “That one I would save for the jury.”

  “Detective Fitzgerald, isn’t it possible the victim’s back was turned to my client because he was reachi
ng for his gun?”

  “Calls for speculation,” Pearsall said.

  Judge LaVille shook her head. “I think it’ll pass as a hypothetical. Objection overruled. You may answer, detective.”

  Fitzgerald cast a contemptuous look at the young D.A. “I don’t know. I couldn’t say.”

  “Couldn’t say if it was possible?”

  “Anything’s possible,” he replied.

  “Yes,” I said, “but isn’t it specifically possible based on the physical evidence that there were two guns in the room that night?”

  He was cornered and knew it. “Sure,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “No further questions.”

  “Any other witnesses, Mr. Pearsall?” the judge asked.

  “No, Your Honor. People submit.”

  “Mr. Rios.”

  “Defense submits.”

  The judge leaned her cheek against her fist. “Well, based on the People’s case, I have to find there’s sufficient evidence to bind the defendant over for trial but I also have to tell you, Mr. Pearsall, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. You have the weakest of circumstantial cases of second-degree murder. I mean, the only real evidence that the defendant even shot the victim is her statement.” She looked at me. “By the way, counsel, why aren’t you challenging the statement?”

  “Because I’m still waiting for the prosecution to provide me with either a tape or a transcript of it, as they were ordered to do last week by Judge Kline.”

  “I have the tape for you,” Pearsall said in a subdued voice. “Your Honor, off the record for a minute.”

  “Actually, we’re almost done,” she said. “The defendant is bound over for trial to Judge Ryan in department forty-seven down at the CCB. Trial setting conference in two weeks, gentlemen? Good. Two weeks it is. We’re adjourned.”

  Pearsall said, “Can I talk to you, Mr. Rios?”

  I told Vicky, “Sit tight for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  I went over to Pearsall’s table. He handed me a letter-sized envelope. “There’s a tape and a transcript. Listen, you want to talk about a plea bargain? I can offer voluntary manslaughter.”

  “I’m not making any deals until I review her statement.”

  His tongue flicked the corner of his mouth nervously. “You wanna talk tomorrow?”

  I tapped the envelope. “This must really be bad.”

  “Say after lunch? I’ll be in my office.”

  “All right,” I said. “And listen, thanks again for agreeing to put the prelim over.”

  “That’s cool,” he said, gathering up his papers. “I got a kid myself.”

  I went back to Vicky. “He wants to make a deal,” I said.

  “You were great,” she said. “You made that police officer look like a fool.”

  “My specialty.”

  “I hope Angel becomes a lawyer or something.”

  “He has the brains for it. I need to get back to Angel and relieve Mrs. Kwan.”

  “Tell her I told her thank you for taking care of him.”

  “Call me when you get back to the jail. I’ll put him on the phone.”

  Impulsively, she hugged me. “Thank you, Uncle Henry.”

  I held her tight. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

  When I got home, Mrs. Kwan, my next door neighbor, reported that Angel’s fever had broken and he was asleep.

  “He’ll be fine by tomorrow,” she said.

  Just in time for his father’s funeral, I thought.

  Later, after I had listened to the tape of Vicky’s statement and read the transcript, I realized that the reason Pearsall had been so anxious to deal wasn’t my stellar performance at the prelim, but what Vicky had said to the cops who interrogated her. In her confusion and pain, she had managed to remember to say the magic words—I want my lawyer.

  16.

  PETE TRUJILLO’S FUNERAL was scheduled for 10 A.M. at a cemetery in Garden Grove. With Angel still pale from sickness sitting silently beside me, I followed the directions that Socorro Cerda had given me through residential neighborhoods and past a warehouse district until, behind a low brick wall, a flat expanse of grass appeared. Withering bouquets of flowers and motionless pin-wheels marked the rows of gravestones. A funereal border of Italian cypresses lined the drive that led to the mortuary chapel. I pulled into a parking space and cut the ignition.

  “How are you feeling, Angel?”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I didn’t go to my father’s funeral,” I said.

  “Were you sad when he died?”

  “No. I didn’t get along with my dad.”

  After a moment, he said in a tone of final assessment, “My dad was okay when he wasn’t high.”

  I waited for more, but that was all Angel had to say about his father. It occurred to me that the real tragedy here was not Pete’s death but how faint an impression he had made on his son: summarized with a single sentence. I felt a surge of tenderness for my nephew that had me smoothing his hair and straightening the knot in his tie parentally. He submitted to my fussing without complaint.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  He turned himself into the little soldier. “Yeah.”

  It was a hot, clear day, but the interior of the mortuary was chilly and gloomy in the particular horror-movie manner of such places. Heavy stained-glass windows depicting nondenominational scenes of doves and lambs filled the corridor with dense amber light, and the still air smelled cloyingly of rose incense. Outside the Chapel of Eternal Life, where Pete’s service was to be held, a handful of mourners waited. Some of them appeared to recognize Angel, though no one spoke to him. I grabbed the iron handle of the door and pulled.

  “It’s locked,” a white haired man said to me.

  I glanced at my watch; it was ten. “You’re here for Pete?”

  He nodded. “I’m Gabe, his uncle by marriage.”

  “Socorro’s husband?”

  “The other sister. Mary. They been in there for a while now.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Beats me,” he said.

  I knocked, not loudly, though in that hushed atmosphere it sounded as if I’d shot off a gun. After a moment, the door was cracked open and I saw Socorro Cerda’s fretful face.

  “We’re not ready yet,” she whispered, then saw me. “Henry. Can you come in here?” Then she saw Angel. “M’ijo, I need to talk to your uncle for a minute. Wait out here, okay?”

  Gabe said, “Something going on in there?”

  “No, everything’s fine,” she said, opening the door just wide enough for me to slip in.

  The first things I noticed were the overturned baskets of flowers and then the casket. It was metal, gunpowder gray with brass fittings, and half-opened to reveal that the face and torso of the young man lying within it had been spray-painted red and the casket itself was covered with gang placas. A pudgy, white-haired man in a black suit, obviously the funeral director, was standing next to the casket, whispering fiercely to a dumpling of a woman who I guessed was Socorro’s sister, Mary.

  “What happened?” I asked Socorro.

  She gestured toward the man at the front of the room. “Mr. Sola said he found Pete this way when he came in this morning. He told us we have to take Pete someplace else. Mr. Sola, this is Mr. Rios. He’s our lawyer.”

  I tried not to look surprised.

  Sola gave me a frightened look and dug a snowy handkerchief out of his breast pocket. This room was even chillier than the corridor, but he was dripping sweat.

  “Listen, I don’t want any trouble,” he said, “but what if they come back and disrupt the service? I’ve seen it happen before and these people have guns.”

  “What people?”

  “The gangs,” he said. “That’s who did this.” He looked angrily at Socorro. “You didn’t tell me he was in a gang.”

  Mary spoke up. “He quit the gang.”

  I inspected the casket. Along with the usual serpent
ine and illegible gang graffiti was a crudely drawn rat. As if this might be too subtle, the word that had been spray-painted across Pete Trujillo’s body was ratón. There was a red “r” across the still, handsome face. Pete had been light-skinned and fair-haired—a huero, as such kids were called in my neighborhood. He looked nothing like his son.

  As I was making these irrelevant observations, Mary came up to me and said worriedly, “What should we do?”

  I turned. All three of them were watching me with various degrees of respect, fear and deference.

  “Mr. Sola’s right. Whoever did this may come back, so it’s a good idea to bury Pete as quickly as possible,” I said. “Close the casket, cover it with something and have a brief service at the grave site. Okay, Mr. Sola?”

  “Just hurry,” he said.

  “Animals,” Mary spat. “Why would they do this?”

  I looked at the rat. “He obviously made someone very angry.” I looked at Socorro Cerda, who had remained silent. “Do you know anything about this, Mrs. Cerda?”

  She bit her lip and shook her head. She was no better at lying than her mother, but this was scarcely the time or place to interrogate her.

  Pete Trujillo went into the ground beneath a canvas tarp as a priest mumbled platitudes to the small, nervous crowd gathered around the grave. Angel stood beside me with martial stolidity until the casket was lowered, and then he began to tremble. I reached for his head, and he threw his arm around my waist and clung to me as if he feared he would fall into the hole with his father. As the mourners turned away, a big, souped-up car painted metallic red screeched into the cemetery and pulled up at the curb a few feet from where we were standing. The car’s tinted windows rolled down and ear-splitting rap music flooded the hot, still air. Suddenly, an empty tequila bottle was hurled from the car toward the grave.

  “Wait here,” I told Angel. I searched for Mrs. Cerda, tossed her my cell phone and said, “Call nine-one-one, now.”

  I approached the car. A man’s face appeared at the window. He was fleshy, goateed, wearing black sunglasses and a black fedora. He had on the usual plaid shirt opened to reveal an athletic T-shirt: gang uniform. His chest and neck were covered with tattoos in the same script as the messages on Pete Trujillo’s casket.