by Marcia Clark
We talked for a little while longer, and I asked about her living conditions, the food, the guards, and her new schedule—I’d managed to talk them into letting her get some exercise in the yard. She was miserable, of course, but she was basically doing okay, all things considered.
I didn’t ask Michelle what she thought until we were in the car. She searched my face before answering. “Let me put it this way: if I didn’t know she’d killed them, I’d have no reason to doubt her.”
An interesting way of putting it. “Don’t forget, she hid her bloody pajamas and lied about the skinhead guy.”
“That’s not great.” She stared out the window and fell silent for a moment. “Obviously, she wanted to get away with it if she could. But I’d buy that she lied because she didn’t want to have to tell anyone what was going on. Besides, what other reason could there be for her to kill them—especially that way?”
That’s what I intended to tell the jury. “I just don’t want to get sucked into believing her because of my own . . . issues.”
Michelle started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I get it, and that’s smart. But stop second-guessing yourself. You’re not going to turn into a pushover just because of your history. And even if she is lying, if she’s good enough to fool you—and me—then she’s definitely good enough to fool a jury.”
And that was the whole point. Wasn’t it? “But if she’s gaming us . . .”
Michelle glanced at me as she turned onto Temple Street. “Look, I don’t like the idea of a kid lying about getting molested, either. It hurts the ones who really were. But if she can sell it, what do you care?”
“I don’t care. I could give a shit if the kid is lying. All my clients lie to me. I just don’t want to get caught flat-footed.”
We were stopped at the traffic light. Michelle gave me a piercing look. “Are you sure? Because I think it’s more than that.”
Spare me. The light turned green, and she pulled through the intersection. “Whatever. How do you think she’ll do if I put her with a reporter?”
Michelle glanced at me. After a beat, she replied, “Give her one or two more sessions, and she’ll do fine. I noticed she stumbled a little about the dad. She said he didn’t touch her at all when it first started, but then later she said he’d always touched her. Get her to smooth out details like that, and you’ll be good to go.”
We watched a very pregnant young woman in a short, tight blouse and low-slung maxi-skirt that left most of her belly exposed navigate the crosswalk in front of us. She was pushing a stroller with one hand and hanging on to a toddler, who was jumping on both feet, with the other. “That just seems like too many kids.”
Michelle gave a little laugh. “And how come she’s not cold?”
“Must be a pregnant thing.” I mentally reviewed Cassie’s hiccup about her father. “I’ll smooth out the big stuff. But I don’t want Cassie to get too slick.” Truthful witnesses never tell the story exactly the same way every time. Little things always change. “And I think it’d be easier on Cassie if we bring in a female reporter. The jail won’t let a camera in, so it’s got to be print.”
Michelle tapped the steering wheel with her index finger. “I’d bet Trevor has at least one woman working for him by now.”
That was a great idea. “Can you find out? If he’s got someone good, that’d be the perfect solution.” I’d met Trevor Skotler during Dale’s case. He was smart and tough, and he knew how to play the “I’ll scratch your back” game better than most. Back then, his dot-com ’zine, Buzzworthy, was just a one-man operation. But since then, he’d broken several juicy stories, a couple of them big enough to make HuffPo and the Daily Beast consider buying him out.
I thought about my next move. “Did you tie up all of our shrinkers?”
Michelle steered onto the freeway. “Yeah, and I set up interviews with your top three for tomorrow.”
“Perfect.” I wasn’t going to use more than two. Shrinks inevitably find something to disagree about, and even if it’s minor, that can make the jury decide to toss it all out. In a case like this, that would be devastating. So I had to screen them carefully.
My cell phone quacked. That duck ringtone was starting to bug me. I checked the screen. It was Alex. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“I found them. The survivors from that truck.”
THIRTY-ONE
I wouldn’t let Alex tell me any more than that on the cell phone. Dale’s paranoia had gotten to me. It might be silly, but why take chances?
I told Michelle what he’d said. She slapped the steering wheel. “No one but Alex.”
“He is magical.” And it was a good thing he was on our side. I couldn’t even imagine the devastation and ruin he could inflict on an enemy.
I found his door closed when we got to the office, so I knocked and said, “Julian Assange called. He said to stop hacking his e-mail.”
Alex came out. “Well, that’s better than your others.”
We all convened around the coffee table in my office. “What’ve you got?” I didn’t ask him how he got it. I probably wouldn’t understand a word he said.
Alex tapped a key on his iPad mini. “Turns out the survivors are brothers. They were Louie and Hugo Trujillo. Now they’re Santiago and Patricio Gomez. Born in Honduras. Probably fled because of the gangs. Somehow, they wound up in San Bernardino.” He sat back. “Dale helped me track them down.”
That they were even alive was amazing. “Any idea how they got out of Nogales?”
“Not really. Dale’s theory is that the cops on duty that day would’ve taken them to the hospital, and they escaped from there.”
Michelle was incredulous. “And no one in the hospital sounded the alarm?”
Alex’s expression was bitter but resigned. “About a couple of broke illegals? A security guard probably looked under the beds for a few minutes and called it a blessing.”
If they had escaped from the hospital, those were some tough dudes. They had to have been near death. “Do you have an exact address?”
Alex nodded. “Dale and I are going down there as soon as he can get off work.”
“I’m going with you.” I wanted to see these brothers and hear their story for myself.
Alex looked worried. “You sure? It’s a tough ’hood.”
I stared at him. “Give me a break. Worse than Julio’s place?”
He gave a little smile. “That one is hard to beat.” He sighed. “But Dale won’t like it.”
“Since when have I ever cared about that?”
Michelle nodded at him. “She’s got a point there.”
Alex was right, of course. Dale didn’t like it. He tried to talk me out of it. “We’ll video the interview; you’ll be able to see everything. If you still need a face-to-face, we’ll bring them up here.”
I shook my head. I’d given this some thought. “I might be your only shot at getting them to talk. You look like a cop”—I jerked my head toward Alex—“and he looks like he could be your partner.” Alex shot me a dagger look. “Your very hot, much younger partner.” I glanced at Alex. “Better?” He gave a reluctant nod. “Anyway, I’m guessing they might—just might—not be fans of the cops.”
Michelle leaned toward me and spoke out of the side of her mouth. “There are female cops, you know.”
I turned to stare at her. “Really? Must you?”
She shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
I prevailed. We were on the road by three o’clock, but that still put us in rush-hour traffic when we hit Pomona. It was after seven by the time we rolled into San Bernardino, and night had fallen. The temperature drops fast in the semidesert, and it was cold enough to make all of us button up.
The neighborhood looked like it had been on the outer edges of an industrial section at some point in the past. The street the brothers lived on was just beyond some abandoned warehouses and other buildings—now crumbling and graffitied, with busted-out windows that looked like giant te
eth—that seemed big enough to have housed assembly lines. There was an eerie, postapocalyptic stillness to it all. I took in the grass growing between broken-out walls, a lone sneaker under a fallen rain gutter, the grounds around the buildings that were now just big patches of dirt and weeds. And strewn throughout the neighborhood was the random litter of a place where the residents existed, rather than lived: a shredded truck tire here, a rusty bicycle missing the seat there, a rotting piece of foam rubber, the remains of a couch pillow, fast-food wrappers floating in the breeze. It looked like the end of life as we know it.
The Gomez brothers’ place fit right in. It was a small wood-framed shack with a boarded-up window to the left of a splintered, battered door. There was a detached garage behind it that looked like it would collapse in a strong wind. The rest of the houses on the block were similar: tiny, cheaply and haphazardly built, and on the verge of ruin.
We parked a little distance down the street, behind an old pickup truck that’d been stripped of its wheels. I saw a piece of a blanket hanging from the rear window of the cab. Someone used to live in that truck—maybe still did. There were no streetlights—in fact, no lights on anywhere that I could see. “This place looks abandoned. Are you sure this is right?”
Dale scanned the area. “I’m sure it was right.”
Alex pointed to my purse. “You brought your gun?” I nodded. “I’ll go check out the place. You guys cover me.”
Dale just stared at him. “Are you kidding? Stand down. I’m going.” He started to open the door.
Alex, who was in the backseat, grabbed his shoulder. He leaned forward and pointed to his face. “Look at me, güero. Who do you think blends better?” He’d dressed way down for the occasion, in old jeans and a ratty-looking brown sweatshirt. And of course, he was Latino. Someone who might be a friend or relative of the Gomezes’.
Dale didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with the logic. Alex got out, and Dale and I crouched behind the pickup truck, our guns in hand. We watched as Alex knocked on the front door, got no answer, then tried to peer through the sides of the boarded-up window. He shook his head and moved toward the garage. After circling all the way around it, he came back, and we all got into the car.
He pointed to the left side of the garage. “There’s a door near the back. No windows. But I think someone lives there because the doorknob works, and it isn’t dusty. The house might be occupied, but it doesn’t sound like anyone’s there right now.”
Dale looked impressed. “You noticed the doorknob wasn’t dusty?” He nodded at Alex. “Not bad.”
Alex dipped his head. “Thanks. So now what?”
Dale sighed and sank down in his seat. “We wait.”
Knowing a stakeout was a distinct possibility, we’d brought provisions. But I was afraid to drink water. Indoor plumbing is a nonnegotiable item for me. I nibbled on a turkey and Swiss sandwich and washed it down with tiny sips.
We talked about what we might or might not find here. And what to do about it if the brothers wouldn’t talk. The answer: not a whole hell of a lot. Even though we could probably prove they’d escaped from the death truck, if they wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tell us whether dirty cops were involved, there’d be no point in bringing them in. That’d just get them deported and do nothing for our investigation. We all agreed they didn’t deserve that. They’d been through enough hell.
In the meantime, the only person I saw on the street was a homeless man who was pushing a shopping cart with his black dog on a long leash tethered to the handle. I was glad to see that the dog looked well fed. They entered a shack at the end of the block.
After two hours, I was starting to think this operation was a bust. But finally, at a quarter to ten, a short, slight Hispanic man in battered combat boots with no laces and a long, army-green wool coat drove up in an ancient Pinto and parked in front of the Gomezes’ house. He moved past the house and headed to the side door of the garage. He pulled a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
Dale sat up. “That might be our guy.” He held up the photos Alex had found on the Internet. But they were just head shots, taken at a family gathering and posted on a relative’s Facebook page, so it was hard to get an idea of size or height.
Alex grabbed the door handle. “I’ll go. You guys can—”
Dale shot him a look. “No. I’m going with you. Sam, you stay here.”
I shook my head. “Fuck that. I’m going, too. This guy’s not going to be stupid enough to think he can take on both of you.”
Alex looked at Dale. “She’s probably right about that.”
Dale shook his head at me and sighed. “Fine. But stay back.”
“Fine.” I held up my gun. “But I am locked and loaded.”
Dale glared at me. “Yeah, not exactly comforting, since you’ll be behind me. Keep that thing down unless I say otherwise.” He muttered, “This is the last time we do this shit together.”
I glared back at him. But I let them get out first and kept the gun down at my side.
We quickly scanned the area to make sure no one else was coming, then headed for the garage. I stayed a few paces behind and stopped about ten feet from the door. Alex knocked and said something in Spanish. A few seconds later, the man came to the door. With his coat off, I could see he was even smaller than he’d looked. Alex and Dale were easily a foot taller. And he didn’t seem inclined to put up a fight. He stood back and held up his hands. He told them in Spanish to take whatever they wanted.
That wouldn’t be much of a haul. Looking over his shoulder, I could see that the room was still just a garage. The only nod to residency was a cot and a table that consisted of a slab of wood balanced on cardboard boxes.
I could also see very clearly that this guy was not one of the Gomez brothers.
Alex explained that we weren’t there to rob him, that we weren’t cops, and that we were just looking for Santiago and Patricio Gomez. Dale showed him the photos. I watched his face carefully.
He glanced at the photos and shook his head. “No, no los conozco.”
Alex pressed him. “Estas seguro?”
The man nodded vigorously. “Sí, sí. Estoy seguro.”
He was sure.
THIRTY-TWO
“Bullshit.” I folded my arms and stared at the garage through the front passenger-side window of our car. “I saw his reaction when you pulled out those photos.” His eyes had widened—for just a split second, but it was long enough to show he was lying.
Dale was watching the garage, too. “I agree. But I’m not so sure it helped to tell him we weren’t cops.”
Alex sighed. “I figured I didn’t need to tell him that we weren’t Mara Salvatrucha.”
True, none of us had MS-13 tats, but tats can be hidden. And this guy clearly wasn’t willing to take any chances. It was hard to blame him. “So what now?”
Dale drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the garage. “We keep waiting.”
We all slunk down in our seats. No one was in the mood to talk. If this didn’t pan out, it was game over. We’d be at a dead end. After another half hour of nothingness, I was bored, tired, and depressed. My eyes were closing, and I was just about to drift off when Alex hissed, “He’s coming out.”
I jerked awake to see the man leave the garage, lock the door behind him, and head down the street. When he was fifty feet away, Dale opened his door. “I bet he’s going to warn the Gomez brothers. I’m gonna follow him. I’ll call you guys and leave the line open so you can hear what’s going on.”
I opened my door. “I’m going with you.”
He gave me a stern look. “No, you’re not. Stay here.”
I waited a few seconds, then got out. Dale threw an angry look at me over his shoulder, but he kept going. The darkness was so thick I could barely see him, though he was just twenty feet away. And we had to tread carefully so the man wouldn’t hear us. I could feel my stomach muscles clenching as I navigated down the
cracked, uneven sidewalk. Dale periodically stopped and signaled for me to wait and let the guy get farther ahead of us. This was probably the worst tailing I’d ever seen. But our suspect hadn’t made us, so it was good enough.
After ten minutes of squinting in the inky darkness and tiptoeing across cratered, litter-strewn concrete, I was sweating under all my layers of clothing.
We wound up at a huge warehouse. Unlike the buildings behind us, this one was alive and humming with activity. There were big rigs in the parking lot and workers moving around on the loading docks at the back. A faded sign above the docks said this was the SONORA FRUIT PACKING COMPANY. Our man headed around the side of the building. We followed at a distance and saw him stop outside what looked like an employee entrance. Dale pointed to the stacks of wooden crates on our left. We strolled over, trying not to draw attention, and ducked behind them.
I craned my neck to one side and then the other to get a view of the entrance. I finally found a space between the crates that I could see through if I stood on tiptoe. After a few minutes, a worker came out holding an unlit cigarette. Our man spoke to him, and the worker looked at his watch, then said something in reply. We were too far away to hear what they were saying. I whispered to Dale. “Think our guy’s asking when the Gomez brothers are getting off?”
“Maybe.” Dale took his phone out of his pocket. “Alex, you there? I think we’ve got him.” He gave Alex directions to the fruit-packing plant, then told him, “I don’t see any security. You can probably get close. We’re just past the loading docks.” Dale described our hiding spot.
My calves were starting to ache from standing on tiptoe for so long. I lowered my heels to give them a rest. I was freezing in my sweat-soaked T-shirt, now that we were standing still. I pulled up the collar on my coat, wrapped my arms around my body, and swayed to try and warm up. Seconds later, Dale whispered, “I think we’ve got something.”