The Advocate - 02 - The Advocate's Betrayal (5 page)

“
Kill the nigger, Daddy. Kill the nigger.”

Sabre was glad she hadn’t eaten, certain she would’ve thrown up if she had any food in her stomach.

Betty sat in a damp, musty holding cell containing only a pay phone, two hard benches against the wall, and the cold, gray concrete floor. As she sat down, a pain shot through her leg from her backside all the way to her ankle. She stood up, wobbly and a little dizzy. She looked around. Everything seemed to be the same color, and it all felt so cold. She shivered and started to walk around the ten-by-ten foot room in an attempt to alleviate the pain from her sciatic nerve, which hadn’t bothered her in weeks until now.

She waited there alone for about fifteen minutes, until they brought in another woman wearing a low-cut top, her breasts exposed almost to the nipples, and a skirt barely covering her crotch. Her bare midriff exposed a roll of fat hanging over her hip-hugger skirt. Her ratted, bleached hair matched her thick, poorly applied makeup. She reeked of cheap perfume and strong body odor, making Betty feel queasy. Within the hour, officers escorted three more women into the cell, all very thin from what Betty surmised was from drug use. One had open sores on her mouth and bruise marks on her throat. Each of them had missing teeth and disheveled hair.

The women spoke loudly and profanely at each other and at the guards. Their voices echoed off the cinder block walls. Betty’s head ached and her stomach hurt. When they tried to engage her in conversation, she said as little as possible. She wondered how she came to be in such a place with these women with whom she had nothing in common. Or did she? She knew that in some ways she really wasn’t that different. They basically all wanted the same things—to have food and shelter, to love and be loved, and to be safe and free—and she had broken the law, just like they had.

A female officer, not much taller than Betty, with long, manicured nails, approached the cell calling her name. Betty stood up and followed her to a desk where another officer fingerprinted her. A different officer, a male this time and young enough to be her grandson, returned her to the holding cell, where she waited for another hour before someone escorted her to a second room. Betty was handed a brown paper bag as she walked in. A dozen other women mulled around with their bags in hand. Three female officers spread themselves around the room. One of them, with a very deep, commanding voice yelled, “Quiet.” There was a slight murmuring and then silence fell over the room. “You’re here for a cavity search in case you’re wondering. You need to strip, squat, and cough. Most of you know the drill.”

Betty looked around as everyone started to remove their clothes. She stood there for a second, not moving, knowing she had no choice but to do what they said. Yet, she thought she could just as well have removed her clothes in the middle of a shopping mall. An officer walked up to her and quietly said, “You need to do this, ma’am.” Betty slowly began to unbutton her blouse, gritting her teeth and fighting back the tears. She attempted to cover herself with her hands and shelter her breasts with her arms, but she continued to expose herself as she removed her garments and placed them in the brown paper bag. By the time they did the body search on her, everyone else was done and standing around watching. She shut her eyes and pretended to be alone, but it didn’t work. She felt dizzy, her head hurt, her stomach twisted in knots. She heard the officer say, “Cough.” She coughed, vomit spewing over several inmates as they scrambled to move out of the way. Betty tumbled over in her own puke.

The officer in charge shook her head. “Damn it. Get her to the shower.”

Two officers helped Betty up. One picked up the brown paper bag with her clothes and shoved it at her. The officers led Betty to the shower. She shivered as the cold water sprayed out over her head. She reached for soap, but there was none. Less than a minute later, the officer shut the water off.

“That’s it.” The officer handed her a towel. It smelled musty as Betty put it to her face. “Make it quick,” the officer scowled.

Betty dried off as quickly as she could and then started to wrap the towel around her when the officer took it out of her hands and led her back into the room where the search took place. The other inmates were all dressed. Betty was handed some garments to wear, with little regard for their size. She put them on without complaint although the bra was too small and it cut into her back; her pants hung so low she had to roll them up twice at the waist and roll a cuff at the bottom of the leg. Humiliated, Betty walked to another cell where she waited for the bus to take her to her new home, but before her transportation arrived, another officer came in and informed her of her attorney’s presence.

The deputy sheriff brought Betty into the interview room and spoke to Sabre. “Don’t be too long or she’ll miss her bus to Las Colinas and have to take the late one.” Then she handcuffed Betty to the bench and walked out.

Betty’s hair lay flat against her head, still damp from the shower, and with a hint of gray growth at the roots creeping through. Her clean face, stripped of all makeup, made her look like a different person. All the spunk seemed to be drained out of her. Sabre’s chest ached from the sight of her. Under normal circumstances, her friend would never be seen without perfectly spiked hair, open-toed high heel pumps, and well-applied makeup.

“Are you okay?” Sabre asked. “Of course, you’re not okay. Why do I keep asking you that?”

Betty slowly lifted her head, the terror evident in her eyes. “They made me strip, squat, and cough while they all watched. It was so humiliating.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sabre shook her head from side to side. “I’m just so sorry you have to go through this.”

Betty lowered her eyes. “I’ll be okay. How much worse could it possibly get?”

Sabre didn’t want to tell her it could possibly be a lifetime of this humiliation. “Betty, listen to me. If you want me to represent you, I will. And Bob said he’d help. We’ll get this thing all sorted out. But you need to know that although I’ve done a lot of criminal work, most of my experience has been in juvenile court, and while the rules of evidence are the same, the system is quite different.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, for one thing, there are no jury trials in juvey, and you’ll definitely need a jury trial. And there are other things, too. I don’t know the judges, and they don’t know me. Sometimes that can be an advantage, but sometimes not. I want you to decide what you want, but know that either way, I’m going to be here for you.”

“Thanks.” Betty looked up at Sabre like a whipped puppy. “I’d feel much better if you were my attorney, but you know I don’t have any money to pay you. All I have is the trailer and it’s not worth much, but I’ll give you everything I have.”

“I know that. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want your money, but I need to tell you up front that I’ve never handled a murder case. So if you’d be more comfortable with a public defender, it’s your choice.”

“No, I want you. I trust you. And you know I didn’t kill John. They may not believe me. You do believe me.” She paused and looked at Sabre. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I know you didn’t do it. I’ve known you what, five years now? No, almost six. I know you couldn’t kill anyone and especially not John. I know how much you loved him.”

“God, I miss him so much. He’d know what to do right now. I don’t know what to think or what to say. He always handled the big stuff.” Betty put her hands over her face and cried.

“I’m so sorry. I know this is hard.” Sabre’s heartfelt words sounded empty even to her. “Listen, Betty, hopefully I’ll have the police report tomorrow or the next day. Arraignment should be set for Tuesday. Once I have the report we can see what kind of case they have. Do you have any idea why they’re charging you, other than that you were with him?”

“No,” she sobbed, “but I didn’t do it.”

“I know. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Sabre waited a moment while Betty composed herself. “Did John have any enemies?”

“No, everyone loved him.”

Sabre, in an effort to reassure Betty, said, “I’m going to talk to a private investigator I know and get him started on the case.”   

“What will a PI do?”

“Try to find out who really killed John. He’ll dig into his past and see….”

Betty sat up straighter. “Why would he do that? I told you John didn’t have any enemies,” Betty said with a hint of anger or fear in her voice. Sabre wasn’t sure which.

“We just want to find out who did this,” Sabre said softly as she touched Betty on the shoulder. “Is there anything else I should know, anything you may have forgotten to tell me?”

Betty looked up at Sabre and then she lowered her eyes. “No, I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

5

Sabre walked through the front door of Polinsky Children’s Center, a facility consisting of ninety-two thousand square feet of buildings that stretched over ten acres. It had an Olympic-sized pool, sports fields, and a library. It was a far cry from the old facility that had housed abused and neglected children for so many years in San Diego. Still, although the new accommodations were clean and comfortable, the children who had been removed from their homes, more often than not, would have preferred to stay in the squalor and pain just to be with their families. Sabre looked around at the freshly painted walls and the white tiled floor and wondered, as she always did, what this case would bring.

Sabre handed her bar card and driver’s license to the young receptionist with a purple streak in her hair. “I need to see Kat and Kurt Kemp,” Sabre said. The receptionist rolled her eyes, picked up the phone, and asked someone to bring the children down to the lobby to see their attorney.

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” she said abruptly. She added in a softer tone, “They’ll be right down.”

Sabre wondered what the receptionist meant as she waited in the lobby until an attendant appeared with two beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed children. The three-year-old boy, Kurt, with his military short, almost white hair, and deep ocean-blue eyes marched in like a little soldier. Five-year-old Kat’s sandy blonde hair hung almost to her waist in soft curls. Her eyes were much lighter, and she appeared delicate and very feminine. She reached for her brother’s hand but he pulled away.

“You must be Kat,” Sabre said to the little girl.

“Yes, my name is Kat K. Kemp.”

“And this is your little brother, Kurt?”

“Yup,” Kat said. Sabre walked the children to an interview room with a sofa, two stuffed chairs, a bookshelf with children’s books, and a box of colorful toys. As they entered Kurt immediately headed for the toys.

Sabre led Kat to the sofa where they sat down. “My name is Sabre Brown and I’m your attorney. Do you know what an attorney is?”

“Nope.” Kat shrugged her shoulders.

“An attorney is someone who helps you when you have a case in court. I’m here to help you and to appear for you in court so you don’t have to. Did the social worker explain to you why you are here?”

“She said it’s not safe at home right now, but I don’t get it.”

“She’s right. There are some adult problems going on, and the judge has to decide when it is safe for you to go home. And I will appear in court for you and let the judge know what I think is best for you and what you want.”

“I want to go home,” Kat said, her eyes suddenly wet with tears.

“I know, sweetheart, but for now that’s not possible. We will sort this out as soon as we can.” Sabre’s heart ached as it always did when children were removed from their families. “But right now I need to ask you some questions. Do you think you can help me understand what’s going on?”

“I guess,” Kat responded, while Kurt found a toy truck in the corner and amused himself.

“How old are you, Kat?”

“Five, but I’ll be six next week.”

“I’m going to talk to you about a really big word. The word is ‘confidential.’ Do you know what that is?”

Kat shook her head.

“Well, when something is confidential, it’s like a secret. Do you know what a secret is?”

“Yup.”

“Attorneys can’t tell any secrets their clients tell them. Since I’m the attorney and you are my client, if you tell me a secret and you don’t want me to tell anyone, then I can’t tell.” Kat squirmed in her seat. “Do you understand?”

“I guess.”

“Do you have any secrets?”

“My mama and daddy have a secret siety?” Kat said proudly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because they talk about it and we go sometimes.”

“You go, too?”

“Yeah, but we play with the other kids. We don’t do the secret stuff.” Kat stood up and went to the toy box. Sabre followed.

“What kind of secret stuff do they do?”

Kat shrugged her shoulders, and picked up a Barbie doll. “She’s pretty.”

“Kat, can you bring your Barbie and sit and talk with me just a little longer?” Kat walked back to the sofa with Sabre and sat down, fiddling with the doll’s hair. Sabre asked, “Do you go to school?”

“I was in kindergarten, but now I’ll be a first-grader.”

“Do you like school?”

“Yup.”

Sabre looked at the report for a second, pinpointing something she had read earlier. “It says here you had some fights last year in your classroom. Can you tell me about that?”

Kat shrugged her shoulders.

“Who did you fight with?”

“Jasmine, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“Who’s Jasmine?”

“She was my friend, but she tried to hug me so I pushed her.” Kat shook the doll at Sabre like a pointer.

“Why didn’t you want her to hug you?”

“Cause she’s dirty.” Kat wrinkled her nose. “You know.”

“No, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Ahem…” Kat exhaled, “…I don’t want to be a nigger. If she touched me I would get dirty like her.”

Sabre’s mouth opened in total astonishment. Just when she thought she had seen and heard it all, she gasped with horror at the injustice done to this little girl. She cleared her throat and went on. “Kat, who told you that?”