by JF Freedman
“No,” she answered. “Straight back.”
“What was Maria’s mood? How did she take having her sexual encounter stopped because of you?”
Again, Alex was on his feet. “This is speculative. The witness isn’t a mind reader, your honor.”
“Hold on,” Luke said sharply. “This witness was right there. That’s a question she can answer.”
“Agreed,” Martindale ruled. “Please answer the question,” he directed Tina.
Tina was rigid in the witness chair. “She was angry. She cursed me out. Told me I wouldn’t have a friend in school. She called me a bitch,” she said with surprising strength and candor.
Luke suppressed a smile. Good for you, he thought. He’d been worried that Tina might fall apart and blow it, but she was coming through like a champ.
“When you got back to town, where did they drop you off?”
“Across the street from Paseo Nuevo, on De La Guerra Plaza.”
“What did you do?”
“I got out of the car and walked away. I wanted to get away from them as fast as I could.”
“Which direction? Toward the mall, or away from it?”
“Away. Toward Milpas Street.”
“Was Maria still with them when you left?”
“For a minute. She and the boy called Tom talked for a short time.”
“Did they exchange anything? Cell numbers, anything like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“But they could have. You just didn’t see it.”
“Objection!” Alex bellowed.
This time, Martindale sustained him. Luke didn’t rephrase his question. Instead, he asked, “Did Maria leave in the same direction you did?”
Tina shook her head. “No. She went the other way.”
“Into the mall?”
“Yes.”
“You saw her go into the Paseo Nuevo mall. You’re sure of that.”
She nodded emphatically. “I saw her cross State Street and go in.”
Alex stood at the podium, staring at Tina. She averted his look, her eyes on her shoes. After letting her hang uncomfortably for a moment, Alex leaned forward. “What time did the four of you return to the mall?” he asked her.
“About one o’clock,” she answered. “Or maybe one-thirty. I didn’t have a watch.”
“No later?”
“No.”
“So by one-thirty in the afternoon, you and Maria Estrada and these two men parted company. You went one way, Maria went the other. Did the men follow her?”
“I don’t know,” Tina answered.
“You saw Maria walk into the mall.”
“Yes.”
“At any time when you saw her, did either or both of these men follow her?”
“No,” Tina answered. “Not when I saw her.”
“That’s all, your honor,” Alex said curtly. He walked back to the prosecution table.
Judge Martindale smiled at Tina. “You’re excused. Thank you for coming forward.”
Tina got up and left the courtroom without looking at anyone. Luke heaved a sigh of relief when the door closed behind her. His fingers had been crossed against Alex thinking of the golden question: “Did you ever see either of those men again?” She would have had to answer “Yes, she had seen Billy (Jeremy) later in the year,” and that would have opened a Pandora’s box that could have derailed the body of his defense. Thank God Alex had been too angry and off-balance to think outside the box.
He looked across the aisle to Elise, who was frowning. No doubt wondering why her boss had let this shaky witness off so easily. She knew Alex was shaken by Tyler’s destructive about-face, but they had a long way to go. She’d have to give him a bracing during the next break. She glanced over at Luke, who was flipping through some notes. Now there was a boss you could depend on, she thought, almost wistfully. The fastest lawyer on his feet that she had ever known. He would have figured out a way to break Tyler down and gotten him to recant, or at least would have made him look foolish and duplicitous.
Steven tapped Luke on the forearm. “Good job,” he whispered. “Where did you find her? She was dynamite.”
“Basic detective work,” Luke answered obliquely. He wasn’t going to inform Steven that Sophia Blanchard had been the catalyst of his defense, that without her connection to Tina, and from Tina to Jeremy Musgrove and Peter Baumgartner, the odds of them winning would have been much slimmer.
To some degree, Maria Estrada was still on trial—witness Katrina’s condemnatory outburst—but the trial wasn’t going to be as balls-out ugly as he’d been afraid it might be, back when they first started. When he had shaved this morning he hadn’t had to flinch from the face that looked back at him in the mirror.
After the lunch break, Juanita was sworn in. She acknowledged Martindale warmly, and he broke protocol to extend his personal welcome in return. She sat up in the witness stand like an alert bird on a wire, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. McCoy,” Luke greeted her.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted him back.
“I want to go back to last September 14,” he began. “Do you remember the events of that day?”
“Clearly.”
“Would you describe your morning? From the time you arrived at the old house on your property.”
Juanita sat up even straighter. “I went there around eleven o’clock. I rode my horse. It’s a pleasant ride, and the easiest way to get there from my own residence. My dog accompanied me. On the way, I stopped to pick some wild sage.”
She adjusted her position. “I had gone there to catalog some old photo albums that had gotten disorganized over the years. We have pictures that were taken on the ranch that date back to the Civil War. I had been putting off getting them in order. I had resolved to start on that job the night before, and once I get an idea in my head I have to take care of it. As you get older, you become more fastidious. At least I have,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.
“Go on,” he prompted her.
“I don’t recall how long I’d been working,” she continued. “Not very long. Then I heard a vehicle approaching on the road, so I stopped what I was doing.”
“Were you expecting someone?” Luke asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“What did you do then?” he asked. “What was your reaction?”
“I was concerned.” She glanced up at Martindale for a moment, as if doing so would confirm what she was saying.
“Why was that?” Luke asked.
“No one should have been there. Our private road that leads to that section of property from the county road has a security gate at the road head. We keep it locked, to keep intruders out. Over the years we’ve had hunters trespassing on the property; others, too. We don’t want anyone coming onto our private property who doesn’t belong,” she said, almost defiantly. “Who hasn’t been invited.”
“This locked gate. Who knows how to open it?”
“Normally, only me, my foreman, and his wife.”
Luke nodded. “Why didn’t you think it was one of them?”
“Because I know the sound of their vehicles,” she said with surety. “And it wasn’t one of theirs.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “Then what did you do?”
“Like I said, I was worried. Either the gate had been left open by accident, which almost never happens, or someone had broken in. Whichever it was, I didn’t feel right about it. I assumed it had to be an intruder.” She paused for a moment. “It’s isolated out there. I was by myself. I’m very capable of taking care of myself, but I am seventy-six years old. At my age, you worry about some weirdo coming around your property and doing something bad.”
She continued. “I opened one of the gun cases in the living room, and took out a pistol, an old revolver.” She looked toward the jurors. “We have an extensive gun collection, going back over a century,” she told them. “It’s mostly for show, although some of the pieces,
the rifles and shotguns, are fired occasionally.” She came back on point. “I wasn’t going to actually use the pistol, of course. I didn’t think it was loaded, to tell you the truth. Most of the weapons aren’t. But when you live on a ranch all your life you learn early that a gun is a handy and necessary tool.” She grinned. “Like Al Capone said, much can be accomplished with a smile, but more can be accomplished with a smile and a gun.”
Some nervous laughter broke out. Martindale gaveled for silence.
“And of course, I know about guns,” Juanita went on. “I’ve been shooting since I was a girl. In fact, I had killed a feral boar earlier that very morning,” she said proudly. “He was tearing my garden up something fierce, and I wasn’t going to tolerate that.”
Luke smiled. What a character, he thought. He looked at the jurors. They were eating out of her hand. “What happened then?” he prompted her.
“A car drove up.”
“Did you recognize it?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So what did you do?”
“I watched from inside the house to see who it was. I must confess, I was a tad scared.”
“And who was it?”
“My grandson. Steven McCoy.” She pointed to the defense table and smiled broadly. “Him. And his friend, Tyler Woodruff.”
Steven smiled back at her.
“Aha,” Luke exclaimed, watching this touching display of familial love. “So then what did you do?”
“I threw the gun down and ran outside.”
“You just tossed it aside.”
“I put it down,” she corrected him primly. “I didn’t actually throw it.”
This was going well. He waited a few seconds for the good feeling to sink in, then began again. “Were you expecting him?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I was totally surprised. And delighted. He’s a wonderful young man.” She grinned, almost shyly. “Don’t tell my other grandchildren, but he’s my favorite,” she confided.
Now she was starting to lay it on too thick. Better rein her in. “Did you ask him how he had gotten in through a locked gate? I assume it was locked, and not left open accidentally.”
She nodded in agreement. “Yes, I asked him. He told me his father had given him the combination when they had been out the previous Christmas holiday, and he’d remembered it.”
“You were satisfied with that explanation?”
“Of course,” she answered staunchly. “He’s family.”
One issue down. “What happened then?”
“We talked for a few minutes. They told me what they’d been doing that summer. They were going to spend the day and evening in Santa Barbara, and return later that night. They wanted to spend the night camping outside the old house, for nostalgic reasons, which was fine with me. We made plans to have breakfast together the following morning.”
“Then they left? Before you did?”
“Yes. I stayed there and worked on my photography project.”
“Before they left, did you remind Steven to lock the security gate behind him?” Luke asked.
He glimpsed toward the jury. They were listening carefully.
“Yes.”
“And he told you he would?”
A nod. “Yes, he did.”
Luke paused again for a second. “Now when you left there and returned to your own house at another section of your property, did you leave by that road? The one that has the security gate?”
“No,” she answered. “I went back the way I came.”
“So you never saw if Steven had locked the gate, or not.”
“No, I didn’t.”
So far so great. “You were in the old ranch house by yourself for a spell before you went home.” It was a statement, not a question. He wanted that detail to be firmly lodged in the jury’s collective mind.
“Yes. I was by myself.”
“Did you remember to put the revolver back in the gun case? The one you took out when you thought Steven might be an intruder?”
“No. I forgot to,” she told him.
“Did you also forget to lock the gun case back up?”
“Yes,” she answered again. “I completely forgot about all that.”
“So you never put the gun back, and you never relocked the case.”
“No, I didn’t,” she confirmed. Her voice started quivering. “It was a terrible mistake. That poor girl might be alive today if I hadn’t forgotten.”
“It’s not your fault,” he assured her. “Nobody thinks that.” Another look at the jury. They were totally sympathetic to this poor old woman. Just the way he wanted it.
“The house itself,” he said. “Do you keep it locked up?”
“Of course we do. We have many valuable collections in it. Not just the guns,” she said, with another look at the jurors, then up to Martindale. “Art. Books. Furniture. It’s irreplaceable, much of it. Not only our family’s history, but that of the county, and the state. It goes back almost two hundred and fifty years,” she added proudly.
“I’ve been there. It’s a beautiful and unique place,” Luke agreed. “So when you left later that day, you locked the house up behind you, I assume.”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
He feigned surprise. “You didn’t? Why not?”
“Because Steven was coming back that night. I wanted him to be able to go inside, if he wanted to.”
“You weren’t worried about it being left open, with all that valuable stuff inside?”
She stared at him as if he were the slowest kid in the class. “Of course not.”
“Why?”
“Because I had reminded Steven to lock the gate behind him when he left,” she explained patiently. “Nobody would be able to get in, because they wouldn’t have access to the property.”
“Of course,” he agreed. He shuffled through some notes to let that permeate. Then he asked her, “When did you next go there?”
“The morning after. To make Steven and Tyler breakfast, as we had planned.”
“And then?”
“We talked for a little while. They didn’t have much time, they had to get on the road. They were driving straight through to Tucson, to register for their fall classes at the university.”
“You returned to your house then.”
“Yes.”
“You locked the old house up.”
“Most definitely I did.”
Luke waited a moment before introducing his next topic. “At any time when he was there, did Steven tell you he had forgotten to lock the security gate behind him when he went to Santa Barbara earlier?”
A strong head-shake. “He certainly did not,” she said reproachfully.
“He was afraid you’d be mad?”
“He knew I’d be mad.”
Luke chuckled. He looked over at Steven, who was hanging his head with just the right amount of sheepishness. “I want to get back to the historic nature of that house for a moment,” he told her. “Do you always keep it closed to the public?”
“No,” she answered.
“When do you open it? How often?”
“A few times a year. I’m on several boards—art, music, nonprofits, the university. We also have some open houses for our valley neighbors, other ranchers. The county rodeo association.”
“How many people attend these events?”
“It varies,” she replied. “Sometimes a dozen or less, sometimes as many as a hundred or more.”
“So every year, a couple or three hundred outsiders come onto your property. Do those numbers sound right?”
“About right,” she agreed.
“Do you know all these people?”
“No, I don’t. In many cases, I hardly know any of them.”
“There have been hundreds of people you don’t know and have never met, except for on whatever particular occasion they’re there for?”
“Yes. I know the organizers, of course. And we have someone in the
house during those times, to keep an eye on things.”
“When you host these events, Mrs. McCoy, do you leave the security gate open and unlocked?” he asked.
“Yes, we do,” she answered, “because it’s the only way in. We used to post one of our ranch people there to open it as guests arrived, but that was too cumbersome. So now we leave it open.”
“For the duration of the event only?” he led her.
She nodded forcefully. “Absolutely. As soon as they’re out…” She clapped her hands together in a dismissive motion, “…it’s locked back up.”
“Any other occasions when the gate would be opened?” Luke asked.
“During spring roundup, friends come to the ranch to help out. It’s a valley thing, neighbors helping neighbors.” She smiled. “And it’s fun. You get to be a cowboy for a day. We leave the gate open then, for convenience.”
“How many people participate in that?” Luke asked.
“It depends on how large a herd we have in any particular year,” she told him. “But dozens. We often have more help than we need. Afterwards, I cook for them, a big barbeque. It’s one of my favorite events of the year,” she said, looking over at the jurors and smiling.
“Of those neighbors,” Luke continued, “how many are men?”
“Most of them,” she replied. “More women now than in the old days, but it’s still a man’s thing. Although that’s changing, like everything in society.”
Luke gathered up his notes. He was almost finished; only a couple more questions. “What was your reaction when you were told a body had been found on your property?” he asked.
Juanita shuddered. “I was horrified.”
“How did you think it had gotten there?”
She shook her head. “I had no idea.”
“Weren’t you surprised, since you keep the ranch locked up and off-limits from intruders?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I was very surprised.”
Elise handled Juanita’s cross-examination. There wasn’t much she could do to poke holes in it. Juanita hadn’t said anything that could be turned around against the defense. More importantly, a blind man could see that the old lady had won the jury over about thirty seconds after she sat down in the witness chair. Anybody dumb enough to screw around with a seventy-six-year-old grandmotherly icon should never have been admitted to the bar. Elise wasn’t nearly that stupid.