A Killing in the Valley (53 page)

Tina’s citizenship status had been rendered a nonissue. When Luke had turned over his witness list he’d told Alex and Elise that one of his potentials was undocumented. If that was going to be a problem, they should let him know now and he’d drop her, even at the risk of weakening his case—he didn’t want to put her at jeopardy. Alex, to his credit, had given his word that the matter wouldn’t come up as long as she wasn’t on the Justice Department’s watch list, and as long as she was truthful. Luke assured him she was clean, had no gang ties, no vendettas to settle.

Even with this reassurance, convincing Tina to come forward publicly had been a hard sell. Luke explained to her and her parents that she could be subpoenaed as a hostile witness and compelled to testify, but that would make things worse for them. He would have to tell the judge why she was a hostile witness, and then the INS might find out. If she came forward voluntarily, she would be protected.

They had no choice, and besides, her father wanted her to testify. It was what a real American would do.

Still, she was painfully nervous. She had never been in a courtroom, much less testified in a trial. All her fears of the police roiled in her mind.

Calmly, Luke led her through the sequence of her time together with Maria Estrada: how Maria had met two college boys over lunch, had asked Tina to be the fourth, so they’d be matched up, boy-girl, how Maria had snuck off so she wouldn’t be seen with the boys, who were unknown to her friends.

“We drove up to Franceschi Park, on the Riviera,” Tina recalled. “I was paired off with one of the boys. Maria went ahead of us with the other one.”

Luke crossed the front of the room to the evidence table, picked up two eight-by-ten photographs, and brought them over to Tina.

“Defense exhibits eleven and twelve,” he stated.

Judge Martindale nodded and looked through his evidence book. Alex and Elise, at their table, did the same.

Luke handed the pictures to Tina. “Do you recognize either of these men?” he asked.

She looked at them. “Yes.”

“Are these the two boys you were with?”

Another “Yes.”

“You have no doubts about that.”

“No,” she said without hesitation. “It’s them.”

Luke stepped back. “I want you to look over at the defense table,” he told Tina. Turning to Steven, he called, “Would you please rise, Mr. McCoy?”

Steven got up, buttoning the middle button of his new suit coat. He looked toward Tina. Luke paused momentarily, so the room could feel the weight of witness and defendant looking at each other. Then he asked Tina, “Is the defendant in this case either of the two men who were with you and Maria Estrada that day?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes,” she answered firmly. “He wasn’t with us.”

“Until this morning, had you ever seen this man before?”

“I saw his picture in the paper,” Tina said.

“Have you ever seen him in person?”

“No,” she told him. “I haven’t.”

“Thank you.” Luke looked at Steven. “You may be seated, Mr. McCoy.”

Steven sat down. Luke handed the photographs up to Martindale. “The names of these two men are Jeremy Musgrove and Peter Baumgartner, as noted on the record. They’re on our witness list.”

He had given his witness list to the prosecution a month ago, the latest he could turn it in. He assumed Alex’s office had done background checks, but he didn’t think they had known of the specific connection between the boys and Maria Estrada. Although Peter and Angela Baumgartner would have to be subpoenaed as hostile witnesses, Jeremy was testifying voluntarily, and Luke had had numerous sessions with him. Jeremy hadn’t been formally approached by anyone from the prosecution side, so Luke hoped that was the case with Peter and Angela as well.

He turned back to Tina. “At any time when you were with Maria Estrada, did she indicate that she was willing to engage in sexual activity with either of the men who drove with you to Franceschi Park?”

Alex jumped up. “Objection, your honor. Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained,” Martindale agreed. “Rephrase your question, counselor.”

Luke looked at the jurors, then back at Tina again. “Did you
hear
her say that she was willing to have sex with both or either of these men you identified in the photos, and if she did, what was it she said, as best as you can recall.”

Tina flushed red. “She said…” She stopped.

“Finish your answer,” Martindale instructed her. “Use the exact words that were said, no matter how graphic. We understand they won’t be your words, that you’re repeating what you heard.”

She swallowed and licked her lips, which were bone-dry. In a small voice, she quoted, “‘If the shit is as good as you say it is, I’ll give you the best blow job you’ve ever had.’” Her face turned a darker shade of red. She ducked her head.

“By shit, did she mean marijuana?”

“Yes,” Tina peeped.

“She said this to the boy she was with? The one who called himself Tom?”

Tina nodded. She kept her head down. Judge Martindale leaned toward her. “You’ll have to speak your answer,” he told her sympathetically. “I know it’s difficult, but you have to say these things, for the record.”

Tina, looking miserable, nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “That boy.”

“Was there anything else?”

Another tortured nod. “Later, when we got up there, they were going to have sex. She told him to put on a rubber, so she wouldn’t have a baby.”

“That was her reason?” Luke asked. “So she wouldn’t have a baby?”

“Yes. She said she’d already had to get rid of one, she didn’t want to have to do that again. That they had to use protection, because it was the wrong time of the month for her to have unprotected sex.”

A low buzz hummed in the courtroom. Luke let it build for a moment before he continued. “Then what happened?”

“He had left them in his car, so he went to get one. That’s when I decided I had to get out of there.”

“Because you were too embarrassed?”

“Yes, and because I couldn’t do that with the one I was with.”

“The other man whose picture I showed you.”

“Yes.” She looked up at the judge. “I didn’t want to do anything, your honor. Not just the sex part, but the drugs, too. I don’t do those things.”

“That’s good to hear,” Martindale told her. “Keep going,” he instructed Luke as he stared at Tina.

“Then what happened?” Luke asked.

“They drove us back into town.”

“They drove you straight back into town? No stops along the way?”

“No,” she answered. “Straight back.”

“What was Maria’s mood? How did she take having her sexual encounter stopped because of you?”

Again, Alex was on his feet. “This is speculative. The witness isn’t a mind reader, your honor.”

“Hold on,” Luke said sharply. “This witness was right there. That’s a question she can answer.”

“Agreed,” Martindale ruled. “Please answer the question,” he directed Tina.

Tina was rigid in the witness chair. “She was angry. She cursed me out. Told me I wouldn’t have a friend in school. She called me a bitch,” she said with surprising strength and candor.

Luke suppressed a smile. Good for you, he thought. He’d been worried that Tina might fall apart and blow it, but she was coming through like a champ.

“When you got back to town, where did they drop you off?”

“Across the street from Paseo Nuevo, on De La Guerra Plaza.”

“What did you do?”

“I got out of the car and walked away. I wanted to get away from them as fast as I could.”

“Which direction? Toward the mall, or away from it?”

“Away. Toward Milpas Street.”

“Was Maria still with them when you left?”

“For a minute. She and the boy called Tom talked for a short time.”

“Did they exchange anything? Cell numbers, anything like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“But they could have. You just didn’t see it.”

“Objection!” Alex bellowed.

This time, Martindale sustained him. Luke didn’t rephrase his question. Instead, he asked, “Did Maria leave in the same direction you did?”

Tina shook her head. “No. She went the other way.”

“Into the mall?”

“Yes.”

“You saw her go into the Paseo Nuevo mall. You’re sure of that.”

She nodded emphatically. “I saw her cross State Street and go in.”

Alex stood at the podium, staring at Tina. She averted his look, her eyes on her shoes. After letting her hang uncomfortably for a moment, Alex leaned forward. “What time did the four of you return to the mall?” he asked her.

“About one o’clock,” she answered. “Or maybe one-thirty. I didn’t have a watch.”

“No later?”

“No.”

“So by one-thirty in the afternoon, you and Maria Estrada and these two men parted company. You went one way, Maria went the other. Did the men follow her?”

“I don’t know,” Tina answered.

“You saw Maria walk into the mall.”

“Yes.”

“At any time when you saw her, did either or both of these men follow her?”

“No,” Tina answered. “Not when I saw her.”

“That’s all, your honor,” Alex said curtly. He walked back to the prosecution table.

Judge Martindale smiled at Tina. “You’re excused. Thank you for coming forward.”

Tina got up and left the courtroom without looking at anyone. Luke heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind her. His fingers had been crossed against Alex thinking of the golden question: “Did you ever see either of those men again?” She would have had to answer “Yes, she had seen Billy (Jeremy) later in the year,” and that would have opened a Pandora’s box that could have derailed the body of his defense. Thank God Alex had been too angry and off-balance to think outside the box.

He looked across the aisle to Elise, who was frowning. No doubt wondering why her boss had let this shaky witness off so easily. She knew Alex was shaken by Tyler’s destructive about-face, but they had a long way to go. She’d have to give him a bracing during the next break. She glanced over at Luke, who was flipping through some notes. Now there was a boss you could depend on, she thought, almost wistfully. The fastest lawyer on his feet that she had ever known. He would have figured out a way to break Tyler down and gotten him to recant, or at least would have made him look foolish and duplicitous.

Steven tapped Luke on the forearm. “Good job,” he whispered. “Where did you find her? She was dynamite.”

“Basic detective work,” Luke answered obliquely. He wasn’t going to inform Steven that Sophia Blanchard had been the catalyst of his defense, that without her connection to Tina, and from Tina to Jeremy Musgrove and Peter Baumgartner, the odds of them winning would have been much slimmer.

To some degree, Maria Estrada was still on trial—witness Katrina’s condemnatory outburst—but the trial wasn’t going to be as balls-out ugly as he’d been afraid it might be, back when they first started. When he had shaved this morning he hadn’t had to flinch from the face that looked back at him in the mirror.

After the lunch break, Juanita was sworn in. She acknowledged Martindale warmly, and he broke protocol to extend his personal welcome in return. She sat up in the witness stand like an alert bird on a wire, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. McCoy,” Luke greeted her.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted him back.

“I want to go back to last September 14,” he began. “Do you remember the events of that day?”

“Clearly.”

“Would you describe your morning? From the time you arrived at the old house on your property.”

Juanita sat up even straighter. “I went there around eleven o’clock. I rode my horse. It’s a pleasant ride, and the easiest way to get there from my own residence. My dog accompanied me. On the way, I stopped to pick some wild sage.”

She adjusted her position. “I had gone there to catalog some old photo albums that had gotten disorganized over the years. We have pictures that were taken on the ranch that date back to the Civil War. I had been putting off getting them in order. I had resolved to start on that job the night before, and once I get an idea in my head I have to take care of it. As you get older, you become more fastidious. At least I have,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.

“Go on,” he prompted her.

“I don’t recall how long I’d been working,” she continued. “Not very long. Then I heard a vehicle approaching on the road, so I stopped what I was doing.”

“Were you expecting someone?” Luke asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“What did you do then?” he asked. “What was your reaction?”

“I was concerned.” She glanced up at Martindale for a moment, as if doing so would confirm what she was saying.

“Why was that?” Luke asked.

“No one should have been there. Our private road that leads to that section of property from the county road has a security gate at the road head. We keep it locked, to keep intruders out. Over the years we’ve had hunters trespassing on the property; others, too. We don’t want anyone coming onto our private property who doesn’t belong,” she said, almost defiantly. “Who hasn’t been invited.”

“This locked gate. Who knows how to open it?”

“Normally, only me, my foreman, and his wife.”

Luke nodded. “Why didn’t you think it was one of them?”

“Because I know the sound of their vehicles,” she said with surety. “And it wasn’t one of theirs.”

“Okay,” Luke said. “Then what did you do?”

“Like I said, I was worried. Either the gate had been left open by accident, which almost never happens, or someone had broken in. Whichever it was, I didn’t feel right about it. I assumed it had to be an intruder.” She paused for a moment. “It’s isolated out there. I was by myself. I’m very capable of taking care of myself, but I am seventy-six years old. At my age, you worry about some weirdo coming around your property and doing something bad.”

She continued. “I opened one of the gun cases in the living room, and took out a pistol, an old revolver.” She looked toward the jurors. “We have an extensive gun collection, going back over a century,” she told them. “It’s mostly for show, although some of the pieces, the rifles and shotguns, are fired occasionally.” She came back on point. “I wasn’t going to actually use the pistol, of course. I didn’t think it was loaded, to tell you the truth. Most of the weapons aren’t. But when you live on a ranch all your life you learn early that a gun is a handy and necessary tool.” She grinned. “Like Al Capone said, much can be accomplished with a smile, but more can be accomplished with a smile and a gun.”