by Joe Gores
“I sure did.” Winslett pointed at Dan Kearny. “It was him, right there, that’s who was behind the wheel.”
Hec didn’t challenge; he was conferring with Kearny as if this testimony had been a heavy blow to them. Giselle felt scared: Dan might go to jail on these trumped-up charges.
Scarbrough milked the moment. “What did you do then?”
“I knew I’d left that car in the garage with the door locked, and I knew my pregnant wife was home alone, so I rushed down the hill. The garage door was split from top to bottom, like he’d took an axe to it. Inside I found my wife laying on the cement floor. She’d been attacked and was all messed up . . .”
Scarbrough turned to the bench.“Your Honor, at this time we would like to introduce into evidence a series of Polaroid photos of the garage door and have them labeled as Prosecution Exhibit One. At the time of Mrs. Winslett’s testimony, we will introduce photos of her condition when her husband found her.”
“So ordered.”
Back to the witness. “What did you do then, Mr. Winslett?”
“I took the pictures and then me and Ellen drove up to San Francisco to confront Kearny face-to-face. But his office said he wasn’t in. He was afraid to look me in the eye—”
This time it was Scarbrough who restrained his own witness.
“Only what you know, Mr. Winslett, not what you believe.” He turned to Hec with the hint of a bow. “Your witness.”
Hec shambled up to the witness stand.
“When you drove past the Kearny Associates truck with the Corvette on the towbar, how far away from it were you?”
“He was in one lane, I was in the other. Eight, ten feet.”
“You have testified that seeing the car on the towbar was what directed your attention to the truck in the first place—”
“Well, yeah, sure, but—”
“So when you tried to see the driver, you were several car-lengths behind the truck. How can you be so sure that—”
“It was him all right! I’ll never forget his face.”
Hec seemed stymied. He turned elsewhere.
“You have testified that you found your garage door split from top to bottom, and found your wife, badly beaten, lying on the garage floor. What did you do then?”
“I already said. I took pictures of the door and of her.”
“You didn’t seek medical aid for her?”
“Objection!”
“You brought it up on direct.”
“Overruled.”
“You found Mrs. Winslett at two-thirty in the afternoon?”
“I’ve already said I did.”
“And you took your Polaroid pictures of the garage door and of your wife, and without seeking any medical aid for her you rushed off to the city, and—”
“Have it your way,” Winslett snapped angrily.
“I will. You arrived there, according to the DKA log-in records which I have right here, at five-thirty-seven P.M.. Over three hours to drive a dozen miles? During that time, what did you do apart from not take your wife to the hospital? Did you have a meeting with your brother-in-law, John Wiley, and did he suggest—”
“Objection!” Scarbrough was on his feet bouncing around as he realized his witness was in trouble. “Defense can’t introduce that company log-in sheet as evidence.”
After a long considering pause, Valenti said, “Sustained.”
Hec blew out a long breath and waved his hand in dismissal.
Judge Valenti said regretfully, “I had hoped to have this matter concluded this morning, but we have run into the hour of the lunch recess. Court will reconvene at two-thirty.”
“All rise,” said the bailiff.
twenty-seven
In the ring, involved in the ultimate mano a mano face-off, Bart Heslip always had to outthink and outmuscle the other guy. As a repoman with DKA, he had to outthink, sometimes outmuscle, and always outwit the other guy. Still you against him, still mano a mano; but it didn’t leave you with raccoon eyes and ringing ears three days later. Not often, anyway. So since repo work depended on luck, intuition, and hunches as well as physical responses, Bart often winged it as an investigator.
Thus, he picked Larry Ballard’s brains about the case, got a copy of Ephrem Poteet’s photo, and drove up to Six Flags Marine World outside Vallejo in Solano County without phoning ahead. Here, according to Dirty Harry, Poteet had been a dip during the early spring months.
Bart expected to spend the day seeking out anyone who might remember the man who had picked their pockets. Instead, he found the park closed, its swooping futuristic rides silent. Marine World ran on a weekends-only schedule until Memorial Day.
“Isn’t there anyone around today who could help me?”
The red-faced porcine guard not only knew nothing, but was hostile in his ignorance. “Can’t bother nobody ’thout the head of security’s okay.”
“Where do I find the head of security?”
“He’s at lunch. But I got no authority for you to—”
“I’ll be back.”
* * *
Judge Valenti’s court reconvened at 2:30 P.M.. Looking over Dan’s shoulder at the Polaroids of Ellen Winslett, Giselle thought that if it had been anybody but Larry, she might have halfway believed . . .
Judge Valenti’s expression as he looked at the photos said he did believe. Even if Hec managed to get Kearny probation rather than actual jail time, Dan’s detective license would be gone. The damage award at the civil trial sure to follow would shut DKA down for good. Big John Wiley was getting his revenge.
Ellen spoke with lowered eyes, her hands twisting together like snakes in front of the big rounded tummy under her maternity dress. A sympathetic Valenti had to ask her to speak louder.
While collecting laundry for the washer, she heard noises in the garage and found a man “fooling around with” the Corvette her sister had left there the day before. Surprised, she dropped her laundry. The man, surprised in turn, knocked her down. She came to on the oil-stained floor with her husband standing over her. Her low, halting voice made the assault very vivid. The courtroom was deathly silent.
Scarbrough’s voice dripped sympathy. “Mrs. Winslett, I know this is very difficult for you, but could you point out the man who attacked you for the court?”
Ellen slowly extended her right forefinger at Kearny.
“That man sitting there. The one they call Daniel Kearny.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Winslett. That is all.” He turned to the judge. “Your Honor, that is the prosecution case. I am sure you will agree that—”
“I have a few questions on cross-examination,” said Hec.
Didn’t this little idiot know when he was beaten? For the press, Scarbrough gave a long-suffering sigh.
“Your Honor, Mrs. Winslett has undergone a terrible ordeal and it seems almost inhuman to subject her to—”
“I sympathize, Mr. Prosecutor, but the law is the law.” Judge Valenti looked at Hec Tranquillini with ill-concealed distaste. “Proceed, sir, if you have the stomach for it.”
Hec bowed slightly. “I do.” He turned to Ellen. “I will be brief, Mrs. Winslett. I just want to take you back to your garage at two-thirty on the afternoon of that fateful day . . .”
Fateful day? Giselle was almost as disgusted with Hec as the judge was. Couldn’t he see he was just making it worse?
“Is there any chance, any chance at all, that you are mistaken in your identification of Mr. Kearny as your attacker?”
“There is no chance at all,” Ellen Winslett said clearly.
Hec seemed to deflate. He shook his head in apparent sorrow. “Then I have no further questions of the witness.”
“Now, Your Honor, I’m sure you will agree there is more than enough evidence to bind the defendant over for trial—”
“But, Your Honor, I have a question of the court.”
Without waiting, Hec was hauling two sheafs of legal-looking papers from his briefcase. Something in h
is voice made Valenti’s eyes fix on those sheafs of paper with sudden interest.
“You have the right to be heard, counselor, but I can’t conceive of anything that could alter this court’s opinion.”
“I just want to know why, Your Honor, if these two are so totally unshakable in their sworn testimony that Mr. Kearny and only Mr. Kearny was in the garage that afternoon . . .”
He had thrown one sheaf down on the prosecution table in front of Scarbrough, was advancing on the bench with the other.
“. . . that these fifty-two people whose sworn and notarized depositions I herewith hand to you . . .”
He was thrusting the second sheaf into Valenti’s hands.
“. . . are equally sure that they were watching Mr. Kearny deliver the keynote speech to five hundred people at a convention in Chicago, Illinois, at the exact hour and minute these witnesses say he was attacking Mrs. Winslett here in Pacifica?”
Scarbrough was on his feet, screaming.
“Your Honor, this is an attempt to present evidence—”
Hec thundered, “This isn’t evidence, you fool! These are papers of impeachment proving that the prosecution doesn’t have a case. Never had a case.” He flung a dramatic arm at Kearny. “That man was not in Pacifica that day. Nothing anyone can say or do will make him have been there. He was in Chicago.”
The judge looked up at Hec from the affidavits with a very different expression on his face than he’d worn a few moments earlier. He said in subdued tones, “One of these appears to be a sworn statement by the senior United States senator from the state of Illinois. And another is by Mayor Daley of Chicago?”
“Yes, Your Honor. They both enjoyed the speech very much. Mr. Kearny was given a standing ovation.”
Scarbrough began, “Your Honor, I demand that—”
“Shut. Up.” Valenti spoke without raising his head from the affidavits. But after a few more pages, he did, to stare at Scarbrough with heavy brows drawn down over angry eyes.
“Mr. Prosecutor, subject to verification of these papers, it appears that Mr. Tranquillini is right. You have no case. Your only direct evidence is from eyewitnesses who have sworn repeatedly that the assault was committed by a man who could not possibly have done it. The most charitable view is one of mistaken identification. But I am not a fool, so I strongly suggest that your office look into the very real possibility that perjury for personal gain has been committed.”
“But Mrs. Winslett was severely beaten—”
“When? Where? By whom? Did you even ask Mr. Kearny or Mr. Tranquillini if the defendant was in Pacifica that day?”
Scarbrough cleared his throat. “In light of what these witnesses told me, Your Honor, I saw no need to—”
“Case dismissed,” said Valenti coldly. “With prejudice. Prosecution will bear all legal costs of the defense. You can only hope Mr. Kearny does not bring suit against this county for false arrest and you personally for criminal persecution.”
“I’ll appeal,” said Scarbrough intensely. “I’ll—”
“I also hold you, personally, Mr. Scarbrough, in contempt of this court. During my twenty years on the bench I have never had the court’s time wasted in such an egregious manner. Your fine is one thousand dollars cash. And I don’t want to hear another word out of you on this subject.”
“Your Honor, defense counsel led on my witnesses—”
“Two thousand dollars. If I hear another word out of you on any subject, any subject at all, the fine will be five thousand dollars and I will remand you to your own jail until it is paid in cash from your own pocket.” He slammed down his gavel. “This court is adjourned.”
But it wasn’t, not quite. Garth Winslett brayed, “Case dismissed? Court adjourned? We don’t get nothing?” He whirled on his wife, face contorted with rage and yelled, “You stupid bitch!” Then he smacked her in the eye with his big right fist.
Dan Kearny was on him from behind, wrestling him to the floor. Big John Wiley was sliding from the courtroom with a terrified look on his face. His wife was down on one knee beside her sister’s chair, holding the battered woman in her arms. They both were crying. Tardily, the bailiffs were taking over from Kearny. Giselle stood up, thinking complacently that Larry Ballard could come to the office again like a proper P.I.
But even then it wasn’t quite over. Because as Eloise was helping her sister to her feet, Ellen’s tear-filled eyes met Giselle’s for just one fleeting moment.
And, despite her battered face, she winked.
Then it was over.
twenty-eight
A huge Tyrannosaurus rex, teeth gleaming, roared at them from thick, ferny-looking foliage approximating the primitive angiosperms of the Cretaceous period. A startled Bart Heslip leaped sideways in his motion-simulator seat like a scalded cat.
“Nice reflexes,” said Bruckner.
Bruckner was a medium-size man with very direct eyes in a deceptively placid face, and pale down on the backs of his fingers and sprouting up above the collar of a uniform shirt open at the throat on this day of rest at the theme park.
They exited the 3D DinoSphere TurboRide to walk through a small wooded area to a looming mountain of fake stone. Bruckner stopped. Real-looking lianas hung down in front of a camouflaged door set into the rock wall. He used a key on it.
“We go in here.”
He led the way to a room at the end of a brightly lit cream-colored corridor. Inside, he sat down in a wooden swivel chair behind an elderly oak desk that had a brass HEAD OF SECURITY plaque on it. Facing the desk on a swivel above the door was a big-screen monitor, dark and silent now. Bruckner waved Bart to a white plastic armchair.
“Now, Mr. Heslip, what can I do for you?”
Bart told his story straight through. When he was finished, Bruckner said, “And this Poteet character was murdered.”
“In Los Angeles. His wife may or may not have made herself a widow, but we want to beat the cops to her if we can.”
Bruckner nodded his understanding. “Well, the good news is that you’re right, we did have a pickpocket working the park in March and early April. Took us a month to realize what was going on, but we finally got an identification of him. The bad news is, the I.D. did us no good. It won’t help you, either.”
“Try me.”
“He was a gorilla. At least, a guy in a gorilla suit. Great hit with the kids, so it took us two of those weeks just to figure out he wasn’t employed by the park. By then he was gone.” Bruckner raised his shoulders in resignation. “So if you’ve got a description of this Poteet, it won’t do any good.”
“How about the cops? What do they say?”
“Since we could never give them anyone to arrest, we handled it internally to avoid publicity.”
“The Vallejo police were never involved at all?”
“Never.”
So much for Dirty Harry’s supposed buddy on the Vallejo P.D. Bart sighed, but to be thorough he put Larry’s photo of Ephrem Poteet on the blotter. Bruckner gave it a cursory glance, then paused, frowning. “Hell, I do know that face! He showed up after the gorilla disappeared. But . . .” The animation left his features. “He can’t have been our pickpocket.”
“Why not?”
“Family man. He and his wife brought her father to the park a few times because the old gentleman liked all the goings-on. One visit they lost him and got in a panic, we finally found him at the petting zoo for the kids. He was Basque, he liked the goats. The wife told me he had Alzheimer’s and it was getting worse, that’s why they were so scared when he wandered off.”
“When was all of this?”
“Probably Easter. I remember holiday crowds.” Bruckner tapped computer keys. “We log in all this stuff . . . Yeah, here it is. Easter Sunday.”
“What’d the wife look like?”
“Beautiful woman. Flashing eyes, I remember that. Strong features. Sexy mouth. Very animated face. Black hair almost to her waist. Golden brown skin. Great figure. Long legs.”
So Ephrem and Yana were together this spring, running some scam or other with some old guy. Staley Zlachi, maybe?
“The father—can you describe him?”
“Short, frail, white-haired. Handlebar mustache yellowed from chewing tobacco. Name of Eduardo Moneo.”
Not Zlachi. “Was he maybe faking the disorientation?” “How do you fake that lost look in the eyes? They came once more after Easter, and Moneo looked even more frail than before. Just skin and bones.” He shrugged. “Why don’t you go talk to him yourself, make up your own mind?”
“You have his address?”
“I told you we log all incidents.”
Bart was waggling greedy fingers. “Gimme,” he said.
After the dismissal of all charges against Kearny, the three of them stopped on their way up to San Francisco for either a very late lunch or a very early dinner. They were in the Porker, a ribs joint in Brisbane, that tough little town leaning back against the eastern slope of San Bruno Mountain with a cigarette in its mouth and a sneer on its unshaven face.
“Looking at it now,” Giselle said, “how did they ever think they could get away with it? The husband never saw Larry’s face, and Ellen knew Dan wasn’t the one who’d repo’d the Corvette.”
“Who was she going to tell? She couldn’t stand up in court and say it wasn’t Dan. So she did the next best thing—just what they told her to. Only she deliberately did it too well.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘deliberately,’ ” said Kearny.
“Beat up as she was, she winked at me,” said Giselle. “I readthat as letting me know that she was getting back at her husband.”
Hec shrugged and said, “Since Winslett belted her right there in court, they won’t even call Ellen to the stand.” Then he asked, “So do I file against San Mateo County for false arrest? And against the prosecutor for criminal persecution?”
“We file suit,” said Dan, “but then at some point we let them talk us into withdrawing the charges. Leaving them owing DKA a great big favor.” He tipped Tranquillini a secret wink. “But we can go after the Winsletts full bore.”
