by JF Freedman
“No.”
“Never spoke to them? A friendly hello in passing?”
“No.”
“So you never, under any circumstances, had any contact with any of these women whatsoever? Not the latest victim or any of the previous ones?”
“No.”
I walk back to the podium, turn, and face him. “Mr. Salazar. Did you kill Cheryl Lynn Steinmetz?”
His face darkens. He shudders and closes his eyes for a moment. When he reopens them, he looks at me without blinking, without twitching a muscle.
“No, I did not. I have never killed anyone.”
The courtroom is quiet. I take a moment to let everything we have done over the past four hours sink in. Then I turn to the judge. “No more questions, Your Honor.”
It’s windy tonight. Santa Anas are blowing in from the desert. I sit on my tiny front porch on my weathered green Adirondack, eating butter pecan ice cream out of the container. My baby kicks, stops, kicks again. My back is sore, I squirm around, trying to find a comfortable position. There isn’t one.
After we adjourned for the day, Joe critiqued my performance. He was pleased with it, and he was pleased with Salazar’s, as well. Our boy was not furtive, nor was he slick or slimy. He sounded believable; he sounded as if he were telling the truth. It is always a calculated risk when you put the defendant on the stand. If they come across as lying, you’re doomed. Salazar came through. Tomorrow, Loomis will hammer at him. But we have done as well as we can, and having spent all these months with Salazar, I think he will stand up to the cross-examination.
There is nothing more I can do. I scrape the dregs out of the carton and lick the spoon. A pint of ice cream, down the hatch. I push myself out of my chair, and go inside.
Loomis, at the podium, holds the section of the police murder book that details everything they took out of Salazar’s truck.
“When the police searched your truck, they found a box of condoms. Contraceptives. Why would you have contraceptives in your truck?”
Salazar has a ready answer. “My wife and I cannot afford to have any more children.”
“So they are for birth control. With your wife.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have them so that if you had sexual relations with some other woman you would not get her pregnant? Or so you would not leave a trace of yourself inside this other woman? Or women?”
Man, that was a bomb! I can feel the reverberations in the room. I twist to look behind me, at Mrs. Salazar. She is staring at the floor.
A cold wash comes over me. Salazar didn’t have those condoms because he was practicing birth control with his wife. She didn’t know anything about them.
I study the audience. No one else in the courtroom, including Loomis and the jurors, seems to have come to that same conclusion, fortunately. Still, I silently curse myself. Joe and I had not paid that much attention to the rest of the contents in Salazar’s truck, because we were locked onto the panties. Now the idea has been planted: Salazar, the God-fearing married man, was getting some on the side.
Salazar maintains his self-control. “I do not have sex with other women,” he answers calmly. “I am faithful to my wife.”
“Good for you,” Loomis comments pithily.
I’m on my feet. “Objection!”
“Sustained,” Judge Suzuki says without passion. “Save the editorializing for your summation,” he tells Loomis, who shrugs the warning off—he’s made his point.
Loomis puts the murder book aside and picks up a printed sheet of paper—the names of Salazar’s clients. There are times and dates attached to the list. We have an identical list, which I place in front of me. Loomis runs his finger down the names until he comes to the one he’s earmarked. “You have a weekly routine, is that correct?” he asks. “You work for different people on different days of the week.”
“Yes.”
“Each one is scheduled for a certain time. The same time, every week?”
“Yes.”
“One of the reasons would be so that if one of your customers wanted to talk to you about some specific work they wanted you to do, they would know when you would be there.”
“Yes,” Salazar answers. “That is one reason.”
Loomis looks at the schedule again, then looks up. “The first customer whose property you were going to work on the morning you were arrested. You always worked for that client on that day, at that time?”
Salazar shifts a bit in his chair. “No.”
Loomis brandishes the schedule. “In fact, you had just changed your schedule. Normally, your first customer that day would be …” he trails his finger down the list. “The Clothiers. Who live several miles from that location. Is that correct?”
Salazar nods. “Yes.”
“But you switched them with the Brownlees,” Loomis reads. “Until that week, you did your landscaping for them on a different day, and at different time. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Loomis purses his lips, as if trying to figure out this anomaly. “Why did you do that? Isn’t keeping to the same schedule week after week important? You just said it was.”
“It is,” Salazar says. “But sometimes you have to make changes. I switched other clients that week as well.”
“Why? If maintaining routine is so important?”
“It was more convenient for me to change some of the times and locations around.”
“And it was also convenient that these changes happened the exact same week a woman was murdered a block from where the police found you, wasn’t it.”
You never saw a woman this pregnant get to her feet so fast. “Objection!” I bellow. “That is absolutely out of order!”
“Sustained.” This time Suzuki’s rebuke carries some heat.
Loomis is unruffled. “I’ll rephrase. You rearranged your schedule on the same week the murder victim was found, is that correct? Would you like me to refresh your memory as to the dates?” he asks with an undertone of sarcasm.
“I remember,” Salazar says. “Yes, it was that week.”
“What a coincidence,” Loomis remarks. “An unlucky one for you.” Before I can object or Salazar can try to answer, he says, “Let’s move on. I’ll keep my opinions to myself,” he tells the judge. Changing direction, he asks, “What time did you go to bed the night before you were arrested, Mr. Salazar?”
“About eleven o’clock.”
“Was your wife awake?”
“No.”
“When did she go to bed?”
“Around nine-thirty. She goes to bed early.”
“Was she asleep when you got into bed?”
“Yes.”
“And she was still asleep when you woke up the next morning?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t hear your alarm go off?”
“I don’t use an alarm,” Salazar says. He points to his head. “My alarm clock is in here.”
Loomis fiddles with his notes again. “So let’s make sure we have this time line correct. Your wife went to bed at nine-thirty on the night before you were arrested. She was not awake when you got into bed, she still was not awake when you got out of bed, and she was still not awake when you left. Is that correct?”
Salazar nods in the affirmative. “Yes.”
“Between the time you went to bed that night and the time the police approached you the following morning, did anyone see you? How about at the McDonald’s, where you bought your coffee and Egg McMuffin? The server at the counter?”
“I did not go inside.”
“You used the drive-through window?”
“Yes.”
“So are you saying that whoever handed you your bag of food and took your money wouldn’t be able to remember that you were there then?”
“I don’t think so,” Salazar agrees.
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying attention,” Salazar answers doggedly. �
�There wasn’t much light, and you can’t see good into there.”
This line of questioning is bullshit, because it’s irrelevant, but I don’t object. Brick by brick, Loomis is building the case that Salazar has absolutely no alibi for the critical hours in question, not even a kid handing out bags through a McDonald’s take-out window. From nine-thirty the night before until six-fifteen the following morning, his whereabouts are known only to him. That is not evidence of guilt, but it’s harmful.
Loomis looks up from his notes. “How did the victim’s underpants get into your truck, Mr. Salazar?”
Salazar hangs tough. “I don’t know.”
Good on you, man, I cheer him silently. For someone who is on trial for his life, he is handling himself very well.
“Who do you think did?”
Salazar shakes his head. “How would I know? It wasn’t me, that’s all I know.”
“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, Mr. Salazar, that you were hanging around a couple of blocks from where the victim was found, isn’t it.”
“Yes.”
“And that was the week you changed your work schedule. That same week. Another coincidence.”
Salazar shrugs. “I guess it is.”
“And that when you were arrested before, you were less than two blocks away from where that victim was murdered. Another coincidence.”
That isn’t a question, so Salazar doesn’t respond. We drilled that into him—only answer questions. Don’t let them bait you into responding to anything that isn’t a direct question.
“Was that a coincidence, too?” Loomis asks the question now.
“If you say it is.”
“An awful lot of coincidences. A reasonable person could conclude there are too many of them, don’t you think?”
Joe is up before me. “Objection! Baiting the witness.” He scowls at Loomis.
“Sustained,” Judge Suzuki rules. “Questions, Mr. Loomis, not hypotheses.”
Loomis, buying time, flips through his notes again. Then he gives up. “No more questions for this witness, Your Honor.” He turns and walks back to his chair.
Suzuki looks at us. “Redirect?”
I struggle to my aching feet. Standing in place, I ask Salazar, “Do you lock your truck, Mr. Salazar? When you are at the different locations where you do your work?”
He shakes his head. “No. There is nothing valuable in it worth stealing. Only my equipment in the back. I try to keep an eye on that. Where I work mostly, I don’t worry about my stuff being stolen.”
“So anyone could get into your truck if they wanted to.”
“I guess. There’s nothing in there worth anything,” he reiterates.
That was the last point I had to make. Now we’re done. I turn to Suzuki.
“The defense rests.”
Suzuki turns to Loomis. “Do you have any more questions for this witness?” He’s already gathering his papers, prepared to adjourn for the day.
Loomis stands behind his chair. “No, Your Honor. But we do have one additional witness of our own we wish to call.”
Joe gets up and walks around to the front of our table. “What’s going on?” he demands. He’s pissed, and confused. I am too.
Judge Suzuki is upset as well. “The jury is excused,” he announces. “The court will stand in recess until tomorrow morning.”
We all wait until the jurors file out of the room. Then Suzuki asks Loomis, “Who do you have?”
“A witness who will establish that some of the victims knew each other.”
Joe and I look at each other in confusion. No such name was on the list. “We have not received any notice of this, Your Honor,” Joe protests.
“I apologize to the court. We just discovered this witness,” Loomis says. “We will be happy to share our information with defense counsel.”
Suzuki sighs. He wants this to be over. “We will discuss this in chambers.”
Before we go back to the judge’s office, Joe and I congratulate Salazar on doing a good job. He exchanges a smile with his wife, who still looks like death warmed over, and another with Amanda, who presents a more optimistic visage. Then he is led away, and we go into Judge Suzuki’s office.
The prosecution’s eleventh-hour witness is a trainer at a women-only health club in Brentwood. Two of the murder victims had been members of the club. The trainer had coached both of them. “It shows that they knew each other,” Loomis argues. “Which could lead to their having contact with the accused.”
“How does it show they knew each other?” Joe argues back. “When I belonged to a gym and had a coach, I didn’t know any of his other clients. This is a fishing expedition, pure and simple.”
Suzuki takes off his robes during this back and forth. He hangs them up and gets himself a beer from his refrigerator. He doesn’t offer us refreshments. He wants to get us out of here, go home, and have his dinner.
“Maybe the witness can tell us something that connects them,” Loomis says, retreating from his brash assertion, but only somewhat. He wants to push every link he can muster. Build up a body of circumstantial evidence to bolster his physical evidence.
“I’ll let your witness in,” Suzuki decides without enthusiasm. “But only this one. And stay on point. Give the defense whatever new information you have.” To us: “If you tell me tomorrow morning you need more time, I’ll give it to you.”
Loomis hands Joe and me a slim folder, and gives one to the judge. “See you tomorrow,” Suzuki says. “Be prepared to begin closing arguments after lunch.”
Joe intercedes. “If we have to spend tonight going over this, we won’t be able to prepare properly. I want another day.”
Suzuki nods in agreement. “That’s fair. Okay, then. The last witness tomorrow, then closing the following day. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I want to charge the jury by the end of the day after tomorrow.”
FORTY-ONE
THE WIND IS FIERCE tonight, gusts blowing in from the high desert at forty miles an hour. Too strong for me to enjoy my usual evening sojourn on my porch. I sit at my dining-room table munching organic baby carrots instead of sugary ice cream, like a conscientious mama to be is supposed to do, and read up on Loomis’s last-minute witness, the trainer at the women’s gym.
There is nothing on these pages that connects the victims to Salazar. But this new information implies that it is possible they might have known each other, which could lead to the assumption that if they did, they may have known their assailant. But unless the trainer is going to testify that they also knew Salazar, I don’t see how this can hurt us.
If she does, of course, it will be an awful blow to us. But a witness that critical would have come forward long ago, so I’m not too worried about it.
That the victims might have known each other does worry me, though. If the trainer confirms they did, that information will reinforce the prosecution’s theory that they also could have known their killer, and they will hammer home the idea that the killer is Salazar. Yes, their key eyewitness repudiated her identification on the stand, but only partially—she didn’t say it wasn’t him, she just could not swear that it was.
Juries are unpredictable, but most of the time they believe the authority’s story, not the defense’s. Why would someone be arrested if he is not guilty? The defense is always fighting to overcome that instinctive reaction.
My other underlying fear, besides that, is that all of this circumstantial evidence is going to sink our ship. Our main bugaboo, besides the underpants, is that Salazar was in the wrong place at the wrong time too often. Way too often. Where there is smoke there is usually fire.
The gym trainer is one of those superbuff women who strut around in their latex body-hugging workout clothes and shame the world, even those of us who are fit as marines, as I was when I was in training. Okay, your ass is tighter than a snare drum. Get over it.
Her name is Dimitra St. Clair. She looks to be in her early thirties, a few years younger than I am, but
fighting hard to stay young, like the women on Friends. Came to L.A. from wherever to be an actress—no, not really an actress, a television star. A celebrity. Didn’t make it, like the millions who came before her, so she found a new niche that had cachet. Trainer to women who have time and money to hone their bodies. Women married to guys who make money, women who have good jobs, or students who come from families that have money. The gym is in Brentwood, so it is populated with such rich women. Older ones, too, who want to keep up. They know they have to so they don’t end up on the sidelines, replaced by trophy wives.
The initiation fee at her gym is a thousand dollars, and the monthly dues are two hundred. That’s stiff, even by L.A. standards. (An acquaintance of mine who is a member gave me those figures.) So the clientele is posh, and can afford the rates Dimitra and her fellow trainers charge: a hundred dollars a session. You can live in a nice condo off Barrington and drive a Mercedes C280 racking in that kind of income.
She is dressed demurely. Loomis would have told her to. He doesn’t want her to come across as low rent, even if she can pay the bills.
I hate women like this on sight. I told Joe I had to do the cross. I can read her mind—this is her shot at fifteen minutes of prime time. Who knows? If she sparkles, maybe she could parlay this appearance into spinning the wheel on a game show, or becoming a contestant on Survivor.
Loomis leads her through a brief explanation of what she does, particularly how she relates to her clientele. Each one has a different routine, depending on what they want to accomplish and their fitness level. Nothing cookie-cutter; it’s all about that special person.
“You were Cheryl Lynn Steinmetz’s trainer?” Loomis asks.
“Yes.” The woman has been massaging a tissue. She brings it to her eyes, which are misting up. No wonder she couldn’t make it as an actress, her gesture is patently phony. “She was a doll to work with. Really worked hard to stay in shape.”
“How long were you her trainer?”
“About three months. Right up until she …” She stops and dabs at her eyes again.
“Would you like to take a short break?” Loomis asks solicitously.