by Derek Blass
* * * *
Martinez and Sandra picked Cruz up along the side of a dirt road in Bellevue. They were now seated around a small dining room table at Martinez's house. Carmen came into the room and gave Cruz a hug.
“Glad to see you're doing all right, Cruz.”
“Did you hear the latest?”
“No, what now?”
“Shaver's defense attorney kidnapped me.”
“Really!?”
“Yeah, some sort of weak effort at intimidation. Although I have to say I was pretty intimidated until I knew it was Sphinx.”
“Leyton Sphinx? The lawyer who defended Antonio Viscutti?”
“Yeah, that Sphinx.”
“He's good, huh?”
“If you're willing to kidnap other attorneys, then I'd say you have a hand up on the competition.”
“Okay, I'll let you all get back to work,” Carmen said.
“Wait,” Cruz started, “How's Raul?”
Carmen paused before answering. “He's with family in Mexico. I go back there tomorrow.” It didn't answer his question, but Cruz figured that was intentional. Raul had been in a coma since they captured Shaver, almost three weeks now. Cruz wasn't sure how long they kept comatose people alive these days.
Martinez spread the photographs of the victims across the table. They shared the same calm, bluish pallor. They all looked like that, Cruz thought to himself. All the dead. They photographed the same.
“Do we have any idea who these people are, or when they died?” Sandra asked. They were men and women, young and old. All looked to be ethnic minorities.
“I recognize these two,” Martinez said, pointing to the pictures of two young, Latino men. “Gang bangers. I remember where they live but nothing else. And, there wasn't anything in the folder to indicate when any of these people died. We can go down to the city morgue though. A friend down there will help us cross-reference the photos with records.”
It was a relatively short trip down to the city morgue from Martinez's house. Martinez probed Cruz about the district attorney's request during the ride.
“It's a difficult decision, and I'm not even sure how it will work out logistically.”
“What's so difficult?” Martinez said. “You have the opportunity to put a damn monster away.”
“The hard part is that I may need to be called as a witness.”
“You didn't witness the murder, I did.”
“Sure, but I was involved in getting the video. We may need a witness to testify that the video was not tampered with or altered.”
Martinez pointed at Sandra, “She can testify. Carmen can testify.” He stopped, visibly affected by something.
“What's the matter?” Cruz asked.
“I almost said Alicia and Raul could testify. It's not real yet, the death of my closest friends in the world.” Silence fell like a shroud around them. Martinez's demeanor suddenly changed. “I lost my best friend and his wife over this. My wife may have lost her brother. Just figure something out, all right?”
Cruz didn't answer. He knew Mason would do a fine job. Mason's office had excellent attorneys and staff. Something nagged him though. Cruz analyzed whether it was a desire to fulfill some personal vendetta for what Shaver did to him and Eduardo so many years ago. While an inkling of that emotion existed, it certainly wasn't enough for him to put the case in jeopardy. The judicial system could work the case out itself. He decided any desire to help derived more from a sense of duty than vengeance.
“I still don't know,” Cruz murmured.
“What was that?” Martinez asked.
“I don't know, Martinez. The case is fragile enough as it is.”
“I don't understand how you could do it, even if you wanted to,” Sandra interjected.
“Do what?”
“You aren't even a district attorney. In fact, you used to be a public defender. How could you possibly be a part of the prosecution?”
“There is a way...” Cruz began, “...there is a way to bring co-counsel on or have a special prosecutor assist. That's usually reserved for different types of cases though.”
“Like what?”
“A small town that has a district attorney with limited resources. But the district attorney in this case has all the resources he could need.”
“Why would he have asked you to help then?”
“That's something I've been asking myself. I barely know him—just met in person a couple of times. Plus, it seems like he's adding a layer of uncertainty to the case by asking me to help.”
“Nah man,” Martinez said. “You know the case. You have a big connection with our community, so if anyone is going to help him investigate the case you're the one,” Martinez said. The car stopped in front of the city morgue. “Maybe identifying some of these people will make your decision easier,” Martinez said in an attempt to soften the edge of the moment. “You can do some good for them,” he added.
They all stepped out of the car and approached the morgue. Its morose paint job, flecking away with every wind burst, conveyed the weight of what took place inside. A long flight of steps led up to the building, giving the entrant time to change their mind. Cruz lagged behind Martinez and Sandra, who were caught up in conversation.
They entered the building and Cruz waited with Sandra while Martinez went to the reception desk. She put her hand on the middle of his back and rubbed up and down a few times.
“You'll make the right decision.” Cruz smiled back at her, his spirits somewhat lifted.
“Martinez!” a raspy voice bellowed. Cruz looked up to see a middle-aged white man, heavy set, breathing as if the matter around him was constantly pressing inward. He walked pigeon-toed, but with a certain gaiety that was willfully ignorant of his surroundings. The two men embraced.
“These two wit' you?” he asked.
“Sure are. This is Cruz, and this is Sandra.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Joseph Tallinder's the name. Go by Joe.” He shook Cruz's hand vigorously. “I 'preciate the visit, I really do Martinez, but if you're here, this ain't social s'it?” Cruz noted that Joe chopped words and sentences down to their most efficient usage of air.
“'Fraid not. We've been through a lot in the last few weeks...to say the least.”
“Uh-know! Saw some of yer reports there, darlin',” he said while flashing a toothy smile at Sandra.
“I got a hold of some pictures, some shots of corpses. We need some help identifying them.”
Joe laughed and Cruz watched as his gelatinous stomach rolled along. “That ain't no easy task, Martinez. Ya know how many bodies come tru' hir?”
“I know, I know. But, even if you could set us up to do the research ourselves, we'd be happy to.”
Joe laughed again, “Ya think I was gonna d'it?!” He slapped Martinez on the back and pulled him past the receptionist's desk. A wall blocked off the public view behind the desk. They walked around it and came to a set of two elevators. The elevators took them down a floor to a long hall with evenly spaced doors on each side, all the way down.
“Y'all ever bin down hir?” Cruz and Sandra shook their heads. “Welp, the firs' three doors on each side are autopsy rums. After tha', two admin offices and then a storage rum and a research rum. Thas where y'all be spendin' yer time.” Cruz couldn't help but stare into each autopsy room as they passed. They were all empty, no bodies out, no blood and guts. Not that there would be, Cruz chastised himself.
They got to the research room and Joe fumbled with some keys. He opened the door and held it open for them. Four computers hummed in the room, all as archaic and governmental looking as the morgue itself.
Joe must have caught the look on Cruz's face, “Welp, they ain't exactly fassst, but they'll work for y'alls purpose.” Joe moved the mouse at each computer and then came back down the row to type in a password. “Hey Martinez, lemme see them photos, maybe I'll 'member one of 'em.”
Cruz sat down and adjusted the computer in fro
nt of him. “What's the best way to search your database?” Cruz asked.
“Nope, nope. Dun recognize any of 'em, Martinez. Like I's said, jus' too many come tru' here, ya'know?”
“I do, Joe. What about Cruz's question? I've never been down here myself.”
“Seems like these ar' all blacks or Mexicans, huh? Y'all can search the database by etnicity.” Joe's speech entranced Cruz. So utilitarian and nearly indecipherable.
“Okay,” Martinez said, taking back the pictures. There were ten pictures of Latino people, five of blacks. He handed the ten to Sandra and Cruz, “How about we split them this way. Let's each start with a search back ten years. Hopefully we'll get some hits in that time frame.”
“Y'all can also add identifyin' marks like tattoos or scars, if those people hav'em. That shud cut the time down.”
“All right, looks we're set here then Joe,” Martinez said.
“If y'all need anything, jus' dial extension 102 from tha' phone. We got water and such.” He slapped his hands together and rubbed them fast, signaling his work was done. Sandra and Martinez settled into their respective work stations with five pictures each.
Cruz picked up his pictures to see if any of the people had identifying marks. Unfortunately, none of them did.
“By the way, we may not be able to find all of these people in this database. Not everyone who dies in the state comes through here, obviously. I don't even know if all of these people died in this state, could have been from who-knows-where-else. Wish we had more info to go along with the photos, but...” Martinez trailed off.
Cruz grabbed his first picture and looked at it closely. He entered “Latina,” “Brown hair.” She had green eyes, possibly helpful. The search yielded five hundred and ninety-four results. “Damn!”
“What?”
“Almost six hundred results from this first search, and she's got green eyes,” Cruz said despondently.
“It's gonna be a pain-in-the-ass, no doubt.”
Sandra lifted one of her pictures and held it next to the computer screen. She leaned toward the screen. “Look guys.” Both of them moved over to her computer. “Looks like a match, huh?”
Martinez read the statistics out loud, “Isabella Cordoba, born May 17, 1978, five-foot-two, one hundred eighteen pounds, last known residence...”
“Near where I grew up,” Cruz finished.
“Where we grew up,” Sandra added.
“Print that out—that's one match. Let's keep searching,” Martinez said. They searched fruitlessly with picture after picture until Martinez came to his last one.
“This may be another match. Take a look. Jerome Miller. Born August 4, 1983. Last known residence was on the east side of town.”
“Is that all the pictures?”
“That's my last one, you guys done too?”
“Yep.”
“I think it's time to split up then,” Cruz said. “Martinez and I can go follow up regarding Jerome. Sandra you go investigate what you can find out about Isabella.”
“Sounds good to me,” she answered.
“You'll get to go stomp around the old haunt anyways,” Cruz said. She smiled at him, leaving Martinez to notice the less and less hidden undercurrents.
T H I R T Y-F O U R
__________________________________________________
Several weeks passed in the jail. No visitors, none that Shaver expected. The only people he could possibly hope for would be from the force, and none of them wanted near his stink right now.
He had no family. Shortly after his incident in the fields a group of Mexican men attacked his family's farm, killing all the livestock, fatally wounding his father. His mother had no skills or work experience to fall back on and the family fell into desolate poverty. Shaver, the oldest of three children, tried his hand at odd jobs around the town, mainly provided by people who pitied his family.
The town itself chilled to Shaver after his attack. Something he had not surmised, most likely an error of youth, was the undrawn line that people were not supposed to cross. The town's attack on the Mexican farmers was supposed to intimidate, strike fear, but not kill. The county never prosecuted Shaver, but his act cast a somber mist over the town that never quite lifted.
Counterattacks from the Mexicans came more frequently. As they did, more and more townsfolk shut their doors to Shaver. The blame for bad times shifted from the Mexicans to him. At least before Shaver killed that Mexican man the two groups co-existed. Now a veritable civil war raged.
Shaver's mother died three years after his father. His brother and sister went to live with his aunt. Shaver was alone, tired, and eventually homeless. He spent days panhandling, while early afternoons involved finding somewhere to camp out. Sometimes that was under a bridge, other days he could find a cot in a shelter. It was there that Shaver found out about the Police Explorers.
A local church ran the shelter, and one of the priests was especially adamant about helping the young homeless. This priest approached Shaver, who was a physically fit, able-bodied young man of nineteen, and asked him if he knew about the Police Explorers. Shaver recoiled at the thought of becoming a police officer. They were the enemies of a homeless kid, kicking them out of camp areas, turning them into state offices and foster care. The priest wouldn't give up though and the persistence worked to whittle down Shaver's guard until one day he agreed to talk to a recruiter.
Shaver graduated about average in his Police Explorer class, and got a job at a rural county jail. His instructor explained that Shaver would have to work his way up before applying to the police academy, since he had no high school diploma. Shaver got to spend a year watching drunks at the county jail before moving to a higher security facility in the southern part of the state.
The time in corrections definitively set Shaver's mind against minorities. All he saw in those facilities was some shade of nonwhite. The car thieves, the drug dealers, the pimps, the murdering gang members. They hurled feces at him and spit in his eyes while screaming they had AIDS. Hatred grew. He took liberties with certain prisoners, leaning down extra hard on a pressure point, making holds tighter. This escalated until one day he beat a mouthy black inmate nearly to death. Shaver claimed self-defense, the other correctional officers with him backed his story, and the warden eventually dropped the investigation.
It was also at this point that Shaver learned where the blue, or gray, or whatever color line existed. You never crossed or betrayed one of your fellow officers. This principle developed from the constant stress the officers were under, a necessary sense of team in the face of threat. It also developed from the power that came with the position. Without a rat, a traitor, the officers were untouchable. Shaver found that this principle applied just as readily to the police force once he made it to the academy.
Keys rattled, perking Shaver's ears.
“Shaver...visitor.” He stood up and put his hands through the open hatch in the door. The officer cuffed him and then opened his cell door to let Shaver out. They walked with another officer in a line to the visitor's center. It was his lawyer, Sphinx.
Sphinx picked up the phone on the other side of the glass partition, “Shaver, good to see you.” Shaver nodded. He wasn't sure about Sphinx yet. Sphinx had a celebrity reputation, having gotten Viscutti off so many years before. He was skeptical of celebrity. It implied individuality, and one of the rules behind the blue line, something imbued in Shaver, was that there is no individual. Plus, things hadn't gone well so far. At his first advisement hearing, Sphinx lost his plea to have Shaver let out on his own recognizance. The second advisement hearing wasn't better. Shaver found out that he was being charged with second degree murder of that old man. Sphinx promised Shaver that he'd be able to plea that down, that there was no way the District Attorney would maintain that charge. Nothing had come of the promise yet.
Shaver's case before the Civil Service Commission wasn't going well either. He was suspended without pay, a rare measure. The rest of th
e Commission's investigation was stayed pending the resolution of his criminal case. The Commission did not want to prejudice the criminal case with their own investigation. Based on all of that, Shaver greeted the visit skeptically.
“How they treating you in there?” Shaver shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, are they harassing you? The guards or the inmates?”
“The guards? Those are my people. I know half of them from my time in corrections. Besides, what do you care?”
“Your health is critical to our case. If they're mistreating you, we can make special requests of the court.”
“Like I said, the guards are fine. Four fucking stars.”
“The inmates?”
“They're treating me like a cop, what do you expect? I get death threats on a daily basis, especially from the pricks that I've locked up before. The officers set me up in my own cell though, because of the threats. I'm in a pussy section of the place, with the rapists and peds, so I doubt anything's gonna happen to me. You never know though, and I don't give a shit.”
The jail was medium-security, meant mainly to be a holding area until inmates knew where they would be going. It was an old design—probably sometime in the late sixties—a telephone layout prison. There was a main corridor from which cells and program rooms branched out. The seats in the waiting room were teal, gum-laden and cracked. The jail reeked of use, the worst bodily functions and odors collected in a tight, enclosed space. Blood caked the floors of some cells, left there until the understaffed facility could get around to cleaning them. Some inmates refused to bathe, others ate their own feces, while others pissed themselves and didn't tell anyone. This return to primitive nature was inevitable when all of life's hope and freedom was stripped away. A chime sounded in their phones, five minutes.
