The Attorney

by Steve Martini

  Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting in the passenger seat as Murphy guns his beat-up Chevy Blazer past the Gaslight District and up Golden Hill. Contrary to the name, the area is anything but. The neighborhood sits above downtown, south of Balboa Park. It’s on the edges of aging light industry: Here there are mostly apartments, run-down old homes carved into flats.

  Murphy turns down one of the side streets south of Market, goes two blocks, looking for an address, a piece of paper in his hand as he steers.

  “There,” he says. He pulls over to the curb in front of a large three-story wood-framed house. In its time it might have been part of doctors’ row, but its time is long gone. The white clapboard siding is badly in need of paint. Hanging over the edge of one of the gutters on the roof, off the side, is an old television antenna, a relic from the fifties. It’s clinging to a single frayed remnant of wire that probably hasn’t carried a signal in thirty years. One of the windows in the front is punched out, the pane replaced by a piece of plywood weathered enough to look as if it’s been there at least a decade.

  There are lights on upstairs, in the front and along the side. Two naked bulbs lighting up the porch.

  Murphy’s looking out the other way, off to his left now, checking something written on the scrap of paper in his hand.

  “Little Datsun over there,” he says. “That’s Crow’s. I got the license from DMV. He bought it about a week ago, paid cash. But the seller filled out the papers. Guess he was afraid Crow’d hit somebody and he’d get sued. It’s how I got the address.”

  “Sounds like Crow’s come into some money,” I say.

  “Probably somebody else’s,” says Murph.

  We get out. Close the doors quietly and climb the wooden front steps.

  Murphy checks the gang of nameplates next to the line of bell buttons on the wall by the front door. One of them I can see is a name penned in block letters, ballpoint ink on paper a little cleaner than the rest.

  Murphy turns to me and holds up three fingers, then finds the button that corresponds and presses it. Doesn’t wait, presses it again. Punching it fast like the key on a telegraph. We can hear it buzzing somewhere upstairs.

  “Whaddaya want?” Not a friendly tone, a voice like it’s coming from a tin can on a string. It pours from a squawk box over the door, round cover with vents cut in it.

  “Some kids beat the shit out of a car across the street,” says Murphy. “Gray Datsun. Somebody said it belonged to you.”

  “What the fuck? Who is this?”

  “A neighbor,” says Murphy.

  “Gimme a second.”

  We wait, maybe ten seconds, then the sound of boots on the wooden stairs inside. Counting the cadence of steps, vision of hands on the banisters, skipping two steps at a time, sailor on a ladder. Shadow on the glass of the front door. He turns the lock and opens it up, throws the screen door out, like fuck whoever happens to be standing there.

  But Murphy’s already stepped aside. He’s standing between me and Crow, so that Crow, when he steps out the door, walks right into Murphy’s fist, shot from a cannon at crotch level.

  There’s a groan, a good octave higher than the average male’s range. Crow doubles over onto his knees on the wooden porch, both hands going for the jewels, but a beat too late.

  “Jeez! Did ya hurt yourself?” Murphy’s over him now, grabbing one arm, forcing it up behind Crow’s back, turning the fingers and wrist for maximum effect. He’s like a gnome, little man with magical powers. He lifts Crow off the floor.

  “Ohhh, shit.” Crow’s face is a shade of purple I’ve not seen on human skin before.

  “Matter of leverage,” says Murphy as he looks at me over his shoulder, pushing Crow ahead of him up the stairs. “All depends what hurts more,” he says. For the moment it’s Crow’s wrist, arm, and elbow, though his testicles aren’t doing too well either. Bent legs shuttling up the stairs, stumbling as they go, one hand twisted up nearly making it to the back of his head, the other buried between his legs. “What do they say about idle hands?” says Murphy. “Devil’s workshop.”

  Two minutes later we’re inside Crow’s apartment, the door bolted and the shades drawn.

  The place is like a rat’s nest. Part of a hamburger with fuzz growing on it sits on its gold foil wrapper on a card table. Around it I count at least six open beer cans, two of them on their sides. More on the floor. There’s a fold-out sofa for a bed, no sheets, just a blanket that looks as though it hasn’t been washed since it was purchased.

  Magazines with pictures of nude women on the covers, most of them in obscene positions with strategic private parts blacked out, are strewn over the floor. There’s a broken-down chair in one corner. Murphy plops onto this.

  “Oh shit.” It’s becoming Crow’s mantra. He’s doubled over on the mattress pulled out of the couch, lying on his side, cupping his crotch with one hand, making sure everything’s still there, trying to make his other elbow bend again in the right direction.

  His face is now regaining some of the color from the shades of deep blue I’d seen while he was on his knees on the front porch.

  “What the FUCK?”

  “I think the door got ya,” says Murph. “Gotta watch out for those knobs.”

  “My car.” It’s like Crow’s in a fog. Last thing he heard.

  “Don’t worry about it,” says Murphy. “We chased ’em off. You are Jason Crow?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “The same Jason Crow dated Jessica Hale?” says Murphy.

  “Ohhh.” Too much pain to answer.

  “Is that a yes?” Murphy’s up out of the chair, moving toward Crow on the couch.

  “Yesss.”

  Murphy nods toward me, like my witness. Then strolls toward the window, all five-foot-five of him, and peeks at the edge of the shade, out along the side of the house toward the street.

  “Have you seen her recently?” I ask Crow.

  “Who?”

  “Jessica Hale.”

  “No. Why do you want to know?”

  “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “I don’t know. Been a while.”

  “Try to remember,” I tell him.

  “Maybe I can help him,” says Murphy.

  “I haven’t seen her in two years. Not since I went in.”

  “Prison?” I say.

  He nods. He’s probably lying.

  “Bitch hung me out to dry. Gave the cops some of the stuff.”

  “Drugs.”

  “No. The stuff we took.” He’s talking about stolen property, the burglaries that sent him up. “She turned tail on me. When they caught her.” Slowly rolling onto his back now, trying to stretch out, one leg then the other.

  “Just stay down there,” says Murphy. “Let’s not get frisky.”

  “Do you know a man named Esteban Ontaveroz?” I ask.

  Crow looks at me, beady eyes, deep set, a face that would grow a beard if it could, a few long straggly hairs on the chin. Hair on his head looks like it’s been cut with a butcher knife.

  “Do you know him?”

  He nods. “What do you want with him?”

  “I’m told that Jessica lived with him a while back?”

  “They knew each other.”

  “When was the last time you saw Ontaveroz?”

  He makes a face. “Down in Mexico,” he says. “I don’t know. Maybe three years ago.”

  “Was he with Jessica then?”

  “Yeah. They had a place together. Outside La Paz. In the hills. She told me about it. I never saw it. They used to skip over, spend time in Mazatlán together. Fuckin’ skiing behind cigarette boats. They’d pick up some blow. Do some business,” he says.

  “Cocaine?”

  He nods. “Sh
e’d carry it for him, then take a cut.”

  “Money?”

  He shakes his head. “She’d take it in drugs. Never had a fuckin’ dime in her pocket. He had to give her tickets to get back. She’d fly in, bring the shit with her in suitcases. That’s what she told me, anyway.”

  “You never saw any of it?”

  He makes a face. “Once or twice,” he says.

  “But you saw Ontaveroz and Jessica together?”

  He nods. “Sure.”

  “You know any reason why Ontaveroz would want Jessica dead?”

  Suddenly his eyes go from me, over to Murphy and back again, all in a heartbeat. “Is she dead?”

  “Do you know why Ontaveroz might want to kill her? Why he might want to find her?”

  “I heard stories,” he says. “But I don’t know.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “That she took some money. But it may be just rumors,” he says.

  “Who did you hear this from?”

  “Some guy. Con up at Folsom,” he says. “He knew her. Told me he met her in Mexico. But I don’t know if he was tellin’ me the truth.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Eddie. Eddie something.”

  “Is he still inside?”

  “Unless they’re givin’ out passes to lifers,” he says. “He’s still there.”

  “But you can’t remember his last name?”

  He thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “If I think about it maybe.”

  “If you remember it, write it down.”

  He nods.

  “You ever work for Ontaveroz?”

  “Me? No. No way. Never dealt drugs,” he says. Like his high sense of morals wouldn’t permit it.

  “He just let you hang around, is that it?”

  “Sometimes,” he says. “I did some things for him. But never drugs.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know,” he says.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I’d sell him stuff. Cheap,” he says. He looks over at Murphy, wondering how this guy, like a bull without legs, got the better of him, not sure he wants to find out again.

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “The good stuff. Televisions. Cameras. Four-foot Sony. The big screens. He liked those.”

  “And you, of course, found these in other people’s homes?”

  He nods.

  “How long did you know Jessica?”

  “Few years,” he says. “We met down in Florida. She was workin’ a club.”

  “She ever roll over on Ontaveroz? Give him up, maybe to the feds?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about that.” He’s working his sore elbow with the other hand. His legs still propped up on the bed, bent at the knees. “All I know’s Ontaveroz had more to offer.”

  I raise an eyebrow in question.

  “Jessica was heavy into lines,” says Crow. “Face was always bent over looking in somebody else’s mirror with a straw up her nose. Mexican had more snow than a fuckin’ avalanche,” he says. “She told me bein’ with him was like bein’ in a blizzard. Anytime she wanted it, it was there,” he says. “We saw each other once in a while, but once she met Ontaveroz, got a taste of his blow, that was it.”

  “But you saw her when she came north? When she brought the drugs up?”

  Now his eyes become little slits. “I don’t know,” he says. “Like I say, I just saw her once or twice after that. But I don’t know what she was into.”

  “Apparently she was into other people’s houses with you,” I tell him.

  “That,” he says. “That was just a sideline.”

  “For her, or for you?”

  “Her. Jessie could be a fuckin’ freak. Specially when she got high. She liked being on the edge. Takin’ risks. For her it was just entertainment. Ya know what I mean?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “She wanted to do some places,” he says. “You know, cat burglar shit. Dark T-shirts and knives, break in at night, people still inside. That’s a good way to get shot,” he says. “They think it’s wetbacks crossin’ over to kill ’em in their beds.”

  “And instead it’s just you and some hophead with butcher knives,” I tell him.

  “Yeah. She wanted to crawl around in the dark with the fuckin’ owner snorin’ in the sack. She got off on that kinda crap.”

  “She took some of the stuff, didn’t she?”

  He looks at me as if he’s not sure what I’m talking about.

  “The stuff you stole.”

  “Sure. Some of it. Mostly the stuff hard to unload,” he says. “Clothes. Few computers. She liked the kinky shit. Give her a thong bikini with sequins, ya’d think she died and went to heaven. Be giddy for an hour.”

  “I’m hearing that some of the things she took had a high value,” I say.

  “Cops always overvalue that shit,” he says. “So they can jam ya in the joint forever, piss off the judge when they catch ya. She got crap,” he says.

  “Then you went down on the burglaries?”

  He nods.

  “She went away for drugs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you haven’t seen her since?”

  “I told you. No.”

  “And you haven’t seen Ontaveroz?”

  “Why do you keep asking?”

  “Just want to make sure you got your story straight,” I tell him.

  I look at Murphy and nod.

  He reaches into the inside pocket of his sport coat, pulls out a folded piece of paper, walks over and slaps Crow on the shoulder with it. “You’ve been served,” says Murphy.

  “With what?” Crow recoils from the folded paper, doesn’t want to touch it.

  “With a subpoena to appear in court, day after tomorrow,” I tell him. “Nine o’clock in the morning. Location’s on the subpoena.”

  “What for?”

  “Just be there,” I tell him. “If you’re not, we’ll report it to your parole officer. It’s a summons to appear. You don’t show up, you’ll get your ass picked up, thrown in the slammer. Do you understand?”

  He nods.

  “It’s a lawful order of the court,” I tell him. “You don’t show up, your parole could be violated. And believe me, I’ll make every effort.”

  Murphy flips a business card onto him on the bed. “You have any problems, you call me at that number,” he says.

  He picks it up, looks at it, then at me. “Who are you?”

  “You don’t need to know who I am. You just report to the courthouse every day, same time, nine o’clock, until you’re called to testify. You understand?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about the drugs,” he says.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.” Beady eyes filled with resentment, but scared.

  Crow’s testimony may not be worth much, a convicted felon. Ryan may have him for lunch. But he can make my case in an offer of proof, to put Jessica and Ontaveroz together, the first link in the chain that I need to build the Mexican into my defense.

  TWENTY

  * * *

  Having laid the medical basis for Suade’s murder, and been burned in the process, Ryan now turns his attention to more solid ground, the evidence tending to tie Jonah to the killing. The state seems to have regrouped, and learned a lesson: keep it simple and direct.

  “Could you state your name for the record?” says Ryan.

  “John Brower.”

  “And what is it you do for a living, Mr. Brower?”

  “I’m an Investigator Three with the county of San Diego, Department of Children’s Protective Services.”

  “And in that capacity could
you describe generally your duties?”

  “I supervise, or did until recently.” He looks at me as he says this. “I do mostly fieldwork now. Cases involving crimes against children. Injury cases, some deaths. We respond to complaints of child abuse and neglect.”

  “So you’re a sworn law enforcement officer with powers to arrest?”

  “That’s right.” Brower puffs out his chest a little, looks over at the jury.

  “Officer Brower . . .”

  “Investigator’s my title,” he says.

  “Sorry. Investigator Brower, I want you to direct your attention to earlier this summer, late April, around the seventeenth. Did you have occasion on or about that date to visit the law offices of Paul Madriani, the defense attorney in this case?”

  “Objection.” I’m on my feet. “Anything this witness heard or saw in my office when I was consulting with my client is privileged.”

  “Not so,” says Ryan. “The witness was invited to the office by Mr. Madriani. Counsel made no objection to Mr. Brower’s presence, nor did the defendant, Mr. Hale. In fact they wanted him there.”

  “Enough,” says Peltro. “Not another word.” The judge is shaking his head, angry at Ryan for getting into the details before the court’s had a chance to determine whether it’s something the jury should hear. He beckons us toward the bench. We have a brief conference, whispers off to the side at the edge of the bench farthest from the jury box. Finally he lifts his head, swivels toward the jury in his chair.

  “I’m gonna excuse the jury,” says Peltro. “Let you get some coffee.”

  They’ve been in the box a total of an hour, and now they’re heading out for coffee. The second break this morning because of arguments and sessions in the judge’s chambers with counsel. By the time we get to a verdict, they’ll all have the jitters from caffeine, and the ones who smoke will be climbing the walls with nicotine withdrawal.

  The bailiff clears the box. The door leading to the jury room closes.

  “Now what’s this all about?”

  “What Mr. Ryan says is not true. I did not specifically ask for him or invite Mr. Brower to my office. I asked his boss to attend a meeting to pursue official matters pertaining to child-protective services. She brought him along.”