A Killing in the Valley

by JF Freedman

  Juanita smiled as she approached. “Welcome to the family casa, our humble abode.”

  Kate looked at the old place. This woman’s humble abode would be anyone else’s dream-fantasy. An honest-to-God American ranch house, right out of an old John Wayne movie. Except this one was real.

  As she was getting her bearings, the passenger-side door of her car opened, and Sophia scampered out. She looked around, wide-eyed. “This is so cool,” she gushed.

  Kate put an arm over Sophia’s shoulder. “This is my daughter Sophia, Mrs. McCoy. I hope you don’t mind that I brought her. This is take-your-daughter-to-work week,” she joked. “Sophia, this is Mrs. McCoy, the owner.”

  “I’m delighted,” Juanita said warmly. “I’m very glad to meet you, Sophia.” She smiled. “And please call me Juanita. Both of you.”

  She led them inside. The heavy window curtains had been raised, so the light was decent. Kate looked around. “Is that the gun case where the…” She paused—she didn’t want to say “murder weapon” in front of her daughter.

  “Yes,” answered Juanita. “That’s where it was.” She pointed to a small side table next to a Queen Anne chair that was covered in a dark, heavy brocade. “And that is the table I put it on.”

  Kate walked over to the table. She stood there for a moment, her eyes closed, trying to visualize the scene. Two people. Maria and her killer. She fought not to let Steven’s image come into her mental picture, but it was difficult. Who had picked up the gun? Whichever one felt threatened. Probably Maria—she was the victim. But it could have been the person who was with her. Maybe he—again, she had to fight not to see Steven here, in her mind’s eye—had felt like he was under attack.

  Another scenario, which no one, neither Luke, the cops, or the District Attorney’s office, had yet thought of, suddenly came to her. There could have been more than two people here. The assumption was that this was a boy-girl tryst gone wrong. What if it wasn’t? What if, after Maria had left the earring shop with a boy, whoever he was, she had hooked up with a different group of people? Or maybe that boy was involved, but with some others.

  Maria Estrada was Hector Torres’ niece. Hector had been off the books for a long time, but there were always rumors. Wouldn’t that be an out-of-the-blue stunner, if this was drug-related? That it wasn’t a random killing, but part of something bigger? Which would mean Maria wouldn’t have been a passive victim, but would have been at least partially responsible for her own death.

  Kate didn’t want to think badly of anyone, particularly a girl who had been murdered. But she had a client who had been charged with murdering her, and she wanted to get him off anyway she could, as long as it was legal. She would discuss these ideas with Luke later today, after she finished up here and she and Sophia went back to town.

  She slowly made her way through the house, room by room, making notes in one of the small reporter’s notebooks she always carried. Had the police gone over this entire place? Or had they become so enraptured when they found the gun that they didn’t look for any other possibilities? Cops loved to develop a theory, have it confirmed, and then exclude any alternatives. She’d had that mind-set when she was on the Oakland PD. Most of the time, the theory held up. But not always.

  She looked out one of the living-room windows into the side-yard, where Sophia and Juanita were down on their hands and knees, their faces inches off the loamy ground, digging in the soil. The two of them were practically head to head. Juanita was talking and Sophia was listening intently, her head bobbing up and down as she took in the knowledge Juanita was dispensing. They seem so at ease with each other, Kate thought, almost with a pang of jealousy.

  She reached into her purse and took out her digital camera, another tool of the trade. The window made a perfect frame. She took the picture.

  Kate stood where the ranch foreman had found the remains. It was a good place to hide a body. The area was a massive bramble of bushes, like the Br’er Rabbit’s briar patch. Whoever had dumped the body here hadn’t been so unnerved by the killing that he couldn’t think clearly enough to get rid of the evidence. Or if one of her other theories turned out to be what really happened, he, or they, wouldn’t have been flustered at all.

  In any case, this had been a good hiding place. If the foreman hadn’t been riding by that day, the body would never have been found.

  She looked toward the house. Even though it was only half a mile away, carrying a hundred and forty pounds of dead weight to this spot wouldn’t have been easy. Whoever did it was strong.

  Steven McCoy was a tall, rangy boy. He could have carried the dead girl here, especially if he had to.

  She took some more pictures.

  Sophia and Juanita were sitting on an old wooden swing under the gazebo when Kate came back to the house. They were laughing about something. Juanita put a grandmotherly hand on Sophia’s. They looked as if they had known each other forever.

  They looked up as Kate approached. “Did you get everything you needed?” Juanita asked.

  “For this time. I might want to come back later. Thank you for being so gracious.”

  “Anything I can do to help Steven, of course I will.”

  “We have to get going, kiddo,” Kate said to Sophia. “Did you have fun?”

  “Lots. Juanita has a stable at her house, Mom. She keeps horses in it. Can we go see them?”

  She had a ton of work overflowing her desk. “We’ve already taken a lot of Mrs. McCoy’s time. I’m sure she has other things to do.”

  “The one thing I have plenty of is time,” Juanita said. Her eyes were almost twinkling as she and Sophia exchanged a conspiratorial glance.

  Kate looked at her daughter. She hadn’t seen her this happy since she had moved to Santa Barbara. “Okay,” she agreed cheerfully.

  The stable was dark and cool. Sophia and Juanita were in front of the stall that quartered Juanita’s mare. The mare nuzzled Sophia’s hand.

  Kate stood apart from Juanita and her daughter. She didn’t need to be here, but she was glad she was.

  Juanita handed Sophia a quarter of an apple. “Give her this. She loves them. You’ll be her new best friend.”

  Sophia held the apple in the palm of her hand. The mare slurped it up, sucking on Sophia’s fingers. Sophia giggled.

  “Have you ridden?” Juanita asked her.

  “At camp, one summer,” Sophia responded. She made a face. “It wasn’t really riding. We sat on horses and walked around a ring in a circle, with a counselor leading us.”

  “That’s the way you start.” Juanita said. “Would you like a riding lesson?”

  “Sure,” Sophia answered eagerly. “When?”

  Juanita reached for a bridle. “No time like the present.”

  Sophia and Juanita stood in the riding ring. Sophia had exchanged her flops for a pair of worn boots. A riding helmet, covered with brown felt, sat atop her head. The horse she was going to ride, a large roan, already saddled and bridled, stood by docilely as Juanita held the reins. Kate was outside the ring, watching. She had her camera ready.

  “This old boy is named Pecos,” Juanita said, rubbing the horse’s nose. “He’s about twenty now, and he’s the perfect horse to start on, nice and mellow. Go ahead, make friends with him.”

  Sophia put a tentative hand on the horse’s shoulder.

  “Nice and firm,” Juanita instructed her. “Tell him he’s a good horsey.”

  “Good horsey,” Sophia said, rubbing the old horse’s flank. “Good boy.”

  Juanita took one of Sophia’s hands in hers. “You don’t need gloves for now, but let’s see how you and I match. Put your hand on mine.”

  Sophia touched her palm to Juanita’s.

  “Close enough,” Juanita said. She reached into her back pocket and dug out a pair of worn leather gloves. “Try these on.”

  Sophia pulled the gloves onto her hands. They felt like silk. She flexed the fingers.

  “How’s the fit? Nice and snug, but not to
o tight?”

  “They feel good,” Sophia said. “These are really nice gloves.”

  “These were mine, when I was your age.” Juanita ran a hand over them. “You can use them whenever you come here.”

  There was a low mounting block in the center of the ring. Juanita led the horse to it. Sophia hugged her shoulder.

  “Get up on the block,” Juanita told her. “I’ll hand you the reins. Take them in your hand and grab the saddle horn. Stick the ball of your left foot in the stirrup and help yourself up by pulling on the horn, then swing over. Pecos will stand nice and steady for you. Watch me.”

  As if she were a jockey, Juanita mounted the old horse. Then she swung her right leg over and slid off. “Now you do it,” she told Sophia.

  Sophia climbed up onto the block. She took the reins in her hand as Juanita had told her. She grabbed hold of the saddle, slipped her left foot into the stirrup, pushed herself up, and was sitting pretty.

  Forty-five minutes later, when Sophia’s first riding lesson was over, she had not only walked her horse by herself, but had stopped, started, and turned him in a circle. Before they were halfway done, Kate had shot an entire roll of film.

  Sophia followed Juanita’s instructions for taking off the horse’s saddle, blanket, and bridle. She watched as Juanita coiled the bridle and mounted it on a hook on the wall. Then she did it herself, getting it perfect the first time. She brushed the old horse down, cleaned his hooves as Juanita showed her, and filled his water bucket.

  “Good job,” Juanita said as they left the stable and walked over to Kate, who was waiting outside in the shade. “Any time your mother can bring you out here I’ll give you more lessons. You’ll be a good rider lickety-split.”

  “I have my own car,” Sophia said with proud authority.

  Juanita smiled. “Then you don’t have to wait on mom. Call to make sure I’m here, so you don’t waste your time. Tomorrow, if you want.”

  “I have play practice tomorrow,” Sophia said, almost apologetically. “But I can come on Saturday.”

  “Saturday it is, then.” She looked over at Kate. “If that’s all right with your mother.”

  Kate’s smile was so broad it almost hurt. “That’s fine with me,” she said. “Perfectly fine.”

  16

  “YOU’RE LOOKING PARTICULARLY SHARP this morning,” Riva told Luke, as he stood at the island in the kitchen. He was reading the L.A. Times Sports section and drinking a cup of coffee. “The great Luke Garrison must be nervous,” she teased him. It was barely sunup, but Luke had been awake for almost an hour. After a hard run through the hills around his house, he’d shaved, showered, and put on his number-one court outfit, a dark gray Oxford suit with a subtle blue pinstripe. It was a holdover from his D.A. days. He wanted to look extra-sharp this morning, and solidly pro-establishment.

  “I’m concerned,” he admitted. “We drew Judge Yberra for the bail hearing. He’s tough on bail. And he’s been hearing footsteps.”

  “Because the victim was a Latina, and so is he.”

  Luke nodded. Riva had good instincts, and she was tough. She had lived with a drug dealer before they’d gotten together; she’d had to be strong to survive in that world.

  “Yberra’s up for re-election next year,” he told her. “He doesn’t want to piss off a big chunk of the electorate, particularly his core. And Alex is fighting it like a demon.”

  “For the same reason?”

  “Partly. He wants to look tough on crime, and he wants to make a statement. You’ve got these poor Latino and black kids in jail waiting on their trials because they can’t make bail, even if it’s only a few grand. Along comes a privileged white one who can write a big check. So you decide he’s going to play the game with the same equipment.” He tried his coffee. It was hot—he blew on the rim. “I can’t fault Alex. I don’t like the way the field is tilted, either. And if Steven McCoy really is guilty…”

  “Is he?” she interjected.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, at least not yet. But if he is, or if he thinks he’s going to get convicted, he might take off. You can wrap electronic bracelets on every limb of his body, but if he wants to bolt, he’ll figure out how to do it.”

  He tried his coffee. It was drinkable now. “And if he did manage to get out of the county,” he said, “it would be hell to pay getting him back. When you have a potential death case, which this could be, most countries won’t extradite. Neither Yberra or Alex Gordon wants to be the dumb ass who let a murder suspect get away. Hasta la vista career, baby.”

  “You’ll figure something out,” she told him supportively. “If you can’t pull it off, ain’t nobody can.”

  As they sat at the defense table waiting for Judge Yberra’s appearance, Luke looked around the courtroom. On the prosecution side of the aisle, Maria’s family had taken up their posts in the first two rows. Behind them were several girls and a few boys, Maria’s age. Friends who had come in support of the family, Luke assumed. Hector Torres was also among the spectators. Maria’s uncle sat apart from the others, his eyes locked onto Steven’s back. Luke could almost feel the heat from Hector’s intensity.

  On their side, the representation was sparse. Kate Blanchard, a few reporters, and the McCoys, Juanita and Steven’s parents. They sat in a tight cluster behind the railing that separated the actors from the audience.

  “All rise.”

  Judge Yberra, a stocky man in his fifties, sporting a luxurious salt-and-pepper mustache, strode into the court and up to the bench. He nodded to both sets of attorneys, first Alex and Elise, then Luke. Sitting down, he looked at the open folder in front of him.

  “People v. McCoy,” he read aloud. He set the file aside. “Since both parties have agreed to waive the preliminary hearing and bind the defendant over for trial, this hearing is about request for bail. Are you prepared to proceed?” he asked the prosecution.

  “We are, your honor.” Elise was going to do the honors today.

  Luke stood at the defense table. “Request defendant be released on his own recognizance, pending arraignment and trial.”

  Elise popped up like Carl Lewis leaving the starting blocks. “That’s preposterous, your honor! This defendant shouldn’t be granted bail under any circumstances, particularly not on a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “I see that’s your position,” Yberra said, glancing again at the material on his podium. “I should warn you that if bail is granted, it’s going to be high,” he told Luke sternly.

  That’s encouraging, Luke thought. At least the door was open now. “How much, your honor?”

  “Well, Michael Jackson’s bail was three million dollars, and he was charged with a lesser offense in this county,” Yberra said.

  Luke’s jaw almost dropped. He had thrown that number at Steven’s parents to make them understand how serious this was, but he would never have expected an amount remotely that high. Michael Jackson was one of the most famous people on the planet, and a multimillionaire. His Santa Barbara County ranch alone was worth over forty million dollars. Luke had been out of the local loop for awhile, but he didn’t think that bail for over a million dollars had ever been set for a regular person in the county.

  “That’s if I grant it,” Yberra said. He turned back to Elise. “Make your case for denial.”

  So I can agree with it, Luke thought with anger, his earlier optimism fading away. This was a prime example of why judges should be appointed, not elected. All those aggrieved people sitting behind the prosecution’s table were potential voters.

  Elise ticked off the reasons why Steven McCoy should not be granted bail. The flight risk, first and foremost. Steven was a poster boy for that. He had money and motive. And there was another factor, she added mysteriously. An extenuating circumstance that might be added to the murder charge, which could elevate the charge from life without parole to execution.

  “We aren’t prepared to add that charge yet, your honor,” Elise said, standing tal
l in her four-inch heels. “But it’s going to be one of the first things we will get into once the trial date is set and all the charges are formally filed. You can certainly deny bail until then.”

  It has to be rape, Luke thought. He had been worried about that—now, even though it wasn’t yet stated, it hung over their heads like a huge, menacing thundercloud.

  In California, murder by itself isn’t enough to warrant the death penalty. Another crime has to have been committed along with the murder. Armed robbery is often the case. Kidnapping. Killing a police officer also qualifies, which Luke had never agreed with, even though he was a former prosecutor. Why was a cop’s life more important than a civilian’s? A policeman knew that being in harm’s way was part of the job.

  It was all about politics, and an institution that was way too sensitive and insular. A kid gets gunned down in south-central L.A., his mother cries. A cop gets killed, the funeral parade of uniformed policemen is five miles long.

  If Steven had raped Maria Estrada, his DNA would show up. DNA was the gold standard now. If Steven’s DNA was found in the victim, Luke wouldn’t be trying to win an acquittal; he would be fighting for a sentence of life without parole, rather than the death penalty. It would be an uphill battle.

  Yberra seemed to be in agreement with Elise. “Your argument sounds reasonable.” He turned to Luke. “Another week or two shouldn’t be that much of a hardship, should it, Mr. Garrison?”

  Luke was still standing. “It isn’t about time, your honor,” he said. He walked a few steps closer to the bench. “Let me remind the court, and my colleagues across the aisle as well, that Mr. McCoy voluntarily returned to Santa Barbara when he was requested to do so by Mr. Gordon. Would a flight risk have done that? If he was going to run, your honor, he would have done it then. But he didn’t, and he won’t now.”

  Yberra sat back. “There’s a point there,” he conceded. Back to the prosecutors: “What about that?”