Witness for the Defense (14 page)

He slid his bony frame to the edge of the chair. “Buck-fifty a dozen.”

“Don’t get up. I’m afraid I don’t have time right now.”

“Figured as much.”

I gestured at the shop next door. “I’m trying to locate a man named Otto Cosgrove.”

He sat back, rocking again. “Gotta make time. You young folks are always in such a damn hurry.”

“You’re probably right,” I said and made my way up the steps. “But as much as I would like to be doing something else, it’s important I talk to him as soon as possible.”

“Sure you don’t want no worms?”

“Sorry, not today.”

The old man scowled for a second, then rested his head on the back of his chair and closed his eyes. He looked like some old codger in the backwoods of Arkansas, napping while his bloodhound was out chasing rabbits.

“Do you know where I might find him?” I asked before he nodded off.

His eyes remained closed. “Car problems?”

“Nothing like that,” I said and walked closer. The creaking of the old wooden boards announced I was now on the porch, standing within a few feet of him. “I’m investigating the disappearance of his son.

Except for his eyes opening slightly, he acted like he didn’t hear me.

“The boy’s name is Gary,” I said.

“If you’re an investigator, you should know Otto ain’t got but one child.”

“Then you know him?”

“There ain’t too many in these parts I don’t.”

“Do you know anything about what may have happened to the boy?”

Confusion, followed by concern, crossed the old man’s face. “Nah, talked enough. If you don’t want no worms, I’m a very busy man.”

“Look,” I pushed, “I’ll bet there also isn’t much that goes on around here that you don’t know about.”

The old man grinned, exposing his naked gums. “Likely not.”

“Including what may have happened to Gary Cosgrove.”

He reached for a cigarette behind his ear and snapped off its brown filter. “There’s really not much to tell,” he said, and struck a wooden match on the side of his chair. He lit the cigarette and we both watched the plume of smoke drift past my face. “The boy was last seen getting into a red truck.”

I was relieved it wasn’t Jared’s old black Chevy.

“Things like that just don’t happen around here,” he continued, while slowly shaking his head. “How could someone hurt such a sweet, innocent child?”

“I know what you mean.”

I paused before my next question. The one I’d hoped would for sure clear Jared. “Did anyone get a good look at the driver of the truck?”

The old man shook his head. “A couple school chums that he’d been shooting marbles with were the only ones who saw anything. When they was done, Gary got in the truck. But it was too far away for them to see who was driving.”

“Too bad.”

“Even if they’d been closer, they wouldn’t have been able to see much,” he added. “The front and backseat windows were heavily tinted.”

“But,” I said, puzzled by what the old guy was saying, “I thought you said it was a truck. They don’t have backseat windows.”

“Those passenger trucks do.”

Was the old coot senile? “Passenger trucks?”

“Hell, you mean to tell me you ain’t never seen one of them Blazers before?” He scratched his near-bald head. “Or maybe it was a Bronco?”

“Are you saying it may have been a red Blazer or Bronco?”

The old man shrugged and took a long drag off his cigarette. “One or the other,” he said and spat a piece of tobacco by my foot. “And I’ll bet that pervert they arrested in Ukiah has one just like it.”

“No,” I mumbled to myself. But I knew Judge Harris did.

“Come on,” he said and pushed himself up with a cane that had been resting against the side of the chair. “If you promise you won’t drive too fast, I’ll take you to Otto’s house.”

I extended my hand. “My name is Hunter Dobbs.”

The old man jerked his head and looked me sternly in the face. His lower lip began to quiver. “You’re no cop.”

“No…I’m a lawyer.”

His eyes narrowed. “You made me think you were a detective.” His voice raised with each word. “You’re that damn faggot’s lawyer, aren’t you?”

“If you mean Jared Reineer,” I said, withdrawing my empty hand, “I am his attorney.”

“You tricked me. No wonder everyone hates you damn lawyers.”

It was obvious that any chance he’d take me to Cosgrove’s house was history. “I’m sorry if you misunderstood,” I said, backing down the steps.

“I didn’t misunderstand nothing. Now get the hell off my property!”

“I really don’t believe my client had anything to do with the boy’s disappearance.”

“Is that so?” He tossed what was left of his cigarette at my head. He opened the screen door and reached inside. With catlike quickness, he lifted a double-barreled shotgun and pointed it directly at my face.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

He was holding the butt of the rifle so tightly that the whites of his knuckles showed through his liver-spotted skin. “You’re worse than the dirt you represent!”

“All right, all right.” I slowly backed toward my car as he pulled the rifle tighter to his face. He looked like a sharpshooter ready to yell “Pull.” My skull his clay pigeon.

“And leave my son alone.”

“Your son?”

His voice cracked. “And Gary’s my grandson.”

The old man was obviously hurting. And that’s what made him so dangerous.

“I really am sorry,” I said.

“Bull shit! All you really care about is that your faggot client gets off. Matter of fact,” he said, squinting over the butt of the rifle, “I think I’ll do my part to make sure that doesn’t happen and blow your ass off right where you stand.”

I tried to stay calm. At least I wanted it to look that way. “A lot of people know I came here,” I lied.

“So what?” He nodded in the direction of the front door. “You shouldn’t have tried to break in.”

“From out here?”

“That’s what it will look like by the time I’m done.”

“Come on, don’t be crazy.”

“Crazy! Crazy! That was my grandson your client killed.”

“Everyone has the right to be defended—” I said, but the last thing he needed was a civics lesson.

“Animals don’t,” he screamed. “Anyone who’d do that to that young a boy is an animal, and that’s exactly how they or anyone who tries to protect them should be treated.”

His arms were trembling, the barrel of the rifle shaking violently. I thought about making a run for it, but where would I go? My car was still twenty yards behind me.

It was ominously quiet. A car hadn’t passed since I’d arrived. Even the birds were mute. I could feel my heart pounding. I hoped the old man was just trying to scare me: At that he’d already succeeded.

“I know how you must feel, but shooting me won’t help. If I don’t represent him, someone else will….What are you going to do, shoot us all?”

As he continued to look down the barrel of the rifle, his expression changed from one of rage to that of sadness. He dabbed his eye with the edge of his shoulder and slowly lowered the rifle to his waist. His face was smeared with dirt and tears.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said with a choked whimper.

Without a second thought I ran to my car. When I reached for the driver’s door, the old man shouted, “You better hope you don’t get him off. Because if you do, I can guarantee Otto won’t be so easy on either you or your damn client.”

Chapter 15

We were in Division Six of the Municipal Court for the County of San Francisco awaiting the start of my preliminary hearing. As far as we knew, Patterson would be calling only one witness. Bobby Miles was scheduled to take the stand and testify that I promised if he’d falsely testify for Martinez, I would make sure he didn’t spend another night in jail.

I was sitting at the counsel table behind a wood sign etched with the word
DEFENDANT
. I had sat on this side of the counsel table thousands of times, but never been positioned in the seat farthest from the jury—the one always reserved for the defendant. I felt like a stranger in my own home. Welcome only because I was the day’s main course. Michael Patterson was hungry for what he loosely referred to as justice. But from where I was positioned, it had all the earmarks of revenge. Revenge not only against me, but all defense attorneys who, in his paranoid little mind, were causing the failure of the criminal justice system. What separated a typical prosecutor from a defense attorney was their belief that the greatest injustice that could ever occur in a courtroom was that a guilty person be set free. To the likes of Patterson, a few “innocents” who ended up behind bars was a small price to pay for the assurance that all the guilty were convicted.

Patterson was standing, waiting for the judge to instruct him to begin. To my immediate left, Sarah was poised with pen in hand. My vision of her as a truck-stop goddess had faded. We were, I was determined, going to remain on the safe ground of attorney and client.

Seated in the first row of the gallery were four young Hispanics with clean-shaven heads. Some of Martinez’s buddies, no doubt. Three were dressed in white dress shirts with their collars buttoned tightly to the neck. The fourth, who was carrying about thirty extra pounds of chiseled muscle, was wearing a clean white tank top. He needed the extra bulk for the fanciful artwork, which, except for his face, covered every exposed area of his body. Serpents breathing fire, cobwebs, spiders, girls’ names and gang logos, all linked together from his wrists to the base of his jaw.

“Call Bobby Miles to the stand,” Patterson announced, and the short, skinny kid I remembered from lockup was escorted into the courtroom. He had the same pitiful look. After he was sworn and seated, he glanced around nervously, unsure of what was going to happen next.

Patterson helped the young man adjust the mike and then began. Question after question, he patiently led Bobby through everything I supposedly said to him.

“He promised he’d get me out of jail,” Bobby said, concluding his direct testimony.

Judge Paul Brown, a diminutive black man in his early sixties, peered down at Sarah. With his long, spidery hands, he waved her forward to start her cross.

As Sarah approached, Bobby looked at Patterson for guidance. But the D.A. was busy arranging his file, gloating over what I’m sure he thought was an excellent job of questioning.

“Bobby,” Sarah began in a soft, congenial tone, “why do you think Mr. Dobbs picked you out of all the other inmates?”

He quickly glanced at me for a reaction. I was reclining in my chair, trying to appear confident, hoping it would somehow rattle the kid. “I don’t know,” he replied meekly.

“And if you had never seen Mr. Dobbs before, why did you agree to talk to him?”

“I thought he was my public defender.” He looked up at the judge. “I hadn’t talked to anyone since I’d been arrested.”

“Does that include Sal Martinez?”

Miles scrunched his face and gave Sarah a bewildered look. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do know Salvador Martinez, don’t you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I see.” Sarah walked to the counsel table and rummaged through several documents. Bobby was squirming in his chair, adjusting himself from one cheek to the other.

“Mr. Miles, how old are you?” she asked and walked back to the witness stand while reading what she’d been looking for.

Bobby acted like he hadn’t heard the question. Or, maybe it was just that no one had ever called him “mister” before.

“How old are you?” she repeated.

“Eighteen.”

“How many times have you been in custody?”

“Never, ma’am.”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“I’m a little nervous,” he said, still fidgeting. “I never had to testify before.”

“What I mean is,” Sarah said, as she placed her hand on the witness box, “you were afraid of the other inmates when you were first taken into custody.”

“A bit.”

“You had a lot of problems with them, isn’t that correct?”

He feigned a smile. “They like picking on the new fish.”

“Did they threaten you?”

The boy didn’t answer. He shrugged his shoulders instead.

“They stole your shoes, didn’t they?”

Bobby’s eyes lowered to the floor. He appeared visibly shaken just thinking about it.

“Answer me, Bobby,” she pushed. “They stole your shoes, didn’t they?”

The young man slowly raised his head and nodded. “They took my food, too.”

“And you would have done anything to get them to stop?”

“What do you mean by anything?”

“You needed protection,” she said with a sense of urgency. “You were afraid they would physically harm you, and you needed someone to protect you. Isn’t that correct?”

“No one can protect you.” He waved his hand at the back door. “In lockup, you’re on your own.”

“And the population in lockup is segregated into certain ethnic groups, isn’t it?”

With a flustered look, he asked, “Ethnic?”

“Browns, blacks, Asians, and whites, etc.”

“If you’re asking if they hang out together,” he said, “I guess some of that goes on.”

“You guess?” she said incredulously. “You are white, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And in county jail whites are the minority, aren’t they?”

“There is less of us,” he said and lowered his voice. “There’s hardly any my age.”

Sarah paused. She was doing a good job of leading the kid. “Sometimes you are the only white in a particular cell?”

“It happens.”

“And when it does, you’re the first person the others pick on?”

The boy could see where Sarah was heading, but he was either too scared or not smart enough to avoid it. That was the one thing I believed was on my side. Sooner or later, Bobby would crack. But it wasn’t likely to happen until he was out from underneath Martinez’s control.

“Well?” Sarah pushed.

“Yes,” he said, sighing deeply. “They know they can get away with it because it’s just me against all of them.”

“And your only hope of not being harmed is if one of the non-white groups helps you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Like the Hispanics?”

“Sometimes,” he said again.