by Marcia Clark
She was right. I wouldn’t. “Okay, fine. I’ll do it now.” My motion to suppress that confession was a waste of time anyway. My time would be better spent trying to beat the DA into submission to give my client a deal.
Michelle put on her coat and wrapped a burgundy-fringed scarf around her neck. “Want me to have a pizza sent up?”
That sounded perfect. “Sure. Thanks.”
One minute later, Alex came in and told me that he’d checked out the guy Alicia had thought was stalking her. “We can cross him off the list. He was in San Diego that whole week.”
I hadn’t held out any real hope that the apartment manager would pan out anyway. But it was one more setback at the end of a day that had already delivered some major blows. “Great. Perfect. Any more leads you’d like to shred while you’re at it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not tonight.” He pointed a finger at the paperwork on my desk. “Whatever you’re doing, you should wrap it up and go home. You’re in a mood.”
I didn’t argue. Mainly because he was right. I gave him a bitchy smile and waggled my fingers at him. “Bye, see ya.”
He rolled his eyes and went out to pick up Michy.
They left the office, and I pulled out my time sheets and dived into the drudgery of adding numbers with decimal points. Half an hour later, the buzzer sounded at the outer door. It startled me at first, then I remembered Michelle had said she’d ordered pizza for me.
My stomach grumbling in anticipation, I went out to Michelle’s desk and hit the button to unlock the door.
And let in two of the biggest men I’d ever seen. The one on the left was white, bald, and had a multicolored tattoo of an eagle on his head. The one on the right looked Hispanic and had slicked-back black hair. Both had the kind of thick, hard muscle that bulges through even an extra-large shirt.
I swallowed the bile that was rising in my throat and tried to act calm. “Can I help you?”
The bald guy let his gaze travel casually around the office before returning to me. His voice was deep. “You need to come with us. Now.” His tone said no one had ever refused.
I pictured my Smith & Wesson .38 in the drawer of my desk. If I ran, I could probably get to it before they got to me.
But then the Hispanic guy spoke. “Javier Cabazon wants to see you.”
I stopped breathing. Any thought of resistance came to a screeching halt. I might be able to temporarily scare off these gorillas, but I’d never be able to outrun Cabazon. “I’ll get my coat.”
FOURTEEN
Their car—a blacked-out Range Rover—was parked on the street. I felt like I was moving between two buildings that’d come to life as we headed to the car. The Hispanic guy sat in the back with me. The white guy drove. He headed west on Sunset for about twenty minutes, then turned right. I saw that we were on Stone Canyon Road. Bel Air. It figured Cabazon would live there. Last I checked, so did Sebastian, the billionaire child raper.
But unlike Sebastian, my trouble with Cabazon was largely of my own making. It was a perfect example of how one stupid, impulsive act can snowball into an avalanche that buries you alive.
It all started with a court-appointed case, the type no one wanted. Which was why Judge Crowder had let me know he’d owe me big time if I took this one off his hands. “This one” was Ricardo Orozco, a shot caller for the Grape Street Boyz, and a more foul, despicable piece of human excrement would have been hard to find. He’d led the attack on the house of a shot caller from the rival gang, the Southside Creepers. He and a couple of his gang homies fired more than a hundred rounds into the place—only to discover that they had the wrong house. And managed in the process to kill a six-month-old baby and maim a twelve-year-old girl for life. Even his own gang members had posted and tweeted their shame about what had happened. Not Ricardo. He’d laughed about how the girl was a puta and how “now she was never gonna get laid with that gimp leg,” and said the baby was “pra’ly just gonna grow up to be a fuckin’ Southside Creeper piece of shit” and was “better off dead.”
It was one of the few times in my life I would’ve been okay with losing a case. Unfortunately, the case against Ricardo hinged on a single eyewitness. When that witness went belly-up (thanks to the usual—though unprovable—gang persuasion), the only charge left standing was illegal possession of a firearm by an ex-con. The cops had found a gun in Ricardo’s bedroom—not the murder weapon—when they’d served a search warrant on his place. I’d squeezed the prosecutor for a deal—the low term of sixteen months in state prison—in return for his guilty plea. It was a deal Ricardo was happy to take because, with credits for good time and work time, it was just an eight-month vacay with his homies.
He’d given me a sneering grin of triumph as the bailiff led him away. That finally pushed me over the edge. I lost my shit. And did something really stupid. I sidled over to the bailiff’s desk, flipped through the custody sheet that shows who’s supposed to go where, and changed Ricardo’s prison cell assignment. To the Southside Creeper tank. The guards ushered him into the wing at 1:04 p.m. By 1:05, he was dead.
The sheriff’s office launched an investigation, of course. But the sheriff’s investigation was the least of my worries. Ricardo’s father, Ernesto, and his maniacal brother, Arturo, didn’t trust the deputies to do an honest job. And because I’d gotten such a great deal for the dearly departed Ricardo, they wanted to hire me to find out what had really happened. I had no choice; I had to take the case so I could control what they learned and buy time to figure a way out of that mess.
Over the next few months, I sweated out visits with them that grew increasingly ugly as, week after week, I failed to serve up the guilty party. Ultimately, it was Dale who helped me set up an already dead sheriff’s deputy as the fall guy by cobbling together counterfeit Facebook postings that supposedly showed the deputy was affiliated with the Southside Creepers and had deliberately put Ricardo in the wrong tank as payback for the shooting.
The Orozcos had grudgingly accepted the explanation when I presented them with that “proof,” but I could tell they weren’t happy. It left them with no one to punish. The deputy was already dead. But as days went by without any further contact, I’d thought I was in the clear.
Until I came home one night to find Javier Cabazon in my living room. Ernesto and Arturo Orozco, two of the many gang leaders who worked for Cabazon, had told him they didn’t buy my story. Based on information they’d gotten from a friend of the court clerk—who’d seen me near the bailiff’s desk—they believed I’d been the one who altered the custody list. Since I was a dangerous target, i.e., someone whose death would get some attention, they had to get his permission to kill me.
Senor Cabazon told them he would have his people check out my story. A few days later, he gave the Orozcos the result of his investigation: I had not done it. I’d told them the truth; it was the sheriff’s deputy, who was indeed an affiliate of the Southside Creepers. The Orozcos accepted the verdict. Not that they had a choice. They might run the Grape Street Boyz, but Cabazon ran an international operation. Cabazon was a fleet of tanks. The Orozcos were the back wheel of a bicycle.
When Cabazon told me that he’d backed my story, I thanked him for confirming to the Orozcos that I had told the truth. He was not amused. In a voice as sharp and cold as a surgical knife, he told me that he had connections everywhere—including in the Southside Creepers—and he knew the deputy had nothing to do with Ricardo’s prison placement or the Creepers. He knew I had done it. And he had no objection. He thought Ricardo was an “embarrassment.”
But then he uttered the words that’d filled me with dread: he was sure a lawyer and her detective father would prove to be useful to him one day.
And now, that day had come.
We pulled up to a massive set of gates. The driver reached out and pressed his thumb to a glass pad set into a brick column. The gates slowly opened. As he pulled into the driveway, I noticed surveillance cameras mounted on the pillars on either
side. The driveway became a winding road that wove through a forest of trees. There were men in camouflage fatigues who were armed with assault rifles at various points. From what I could see, they encircled the property. It felt like we’d been driving for an hour by the time we emerged from the forest, though realistically, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes.
To call the building that loomed above the trees a house would be like calling Fort Knox a safe-deposit box. It was at least three stories high, the width of three city streets, had at least four medieval-looking turrets—probably more behind the building—and each of them had two armed guards.
As we parked at the foot of the dark-green stone steps, I noticed that the builder had used that same stone on the residence. The color was likely an effort to make the place blend in with the surroundings—but the choice of stone was likely an effort to make the place bulletproof, a feature that was obviously a high priority. Neither of my two escorts held onto me as we moved up the steps toward a massive set of doors. Why bother? Even if I managed to outrun them, there was an army in the trees behind me. I wouldn’t make it ten steps.
For all its massive size, the exterior of the Cabazon casa was fairly plain and austere. No fancy architectural details. So I expected the interior to be more of the same. But as I entered the house, I saw that it was tastefully—even artistically—decorated, in a modern Spanish style. As we moved through the foyer, a great room, and then a long hallway, I couldn’t help but admire the handmade inlays in the stone floors, the exposed wood-beam ceilings, and antique-looking brass light fixtures that gave off a soft, golden light. The intermittent Gabbeh rugs, wall tapestries, and dwarf palms in one-of-a-kind oversize pottery added nice touches of color.
The den—my ultimate destination—was more of the same: a huge, rough-hewn wooden desk with black iron moldings that looked like it’d been found in a medieval palace in Barcelona; burgundy and deep-blue Gabbeh rugs; and rich, soft-looking leather chairs and couches. And a perfect fire burned in the brick fireplace to my left. It was big enough that I could feel the heat even from where I stood almost fifteen feet away. To be honest, some of that heat probably didn’t come from the fire. I’d been sweating like a squirrel at a dog show ever since Cabazon’s death squad had walked into my office.
Cabazon sat behind the desk. As the two goons deposited me in a huge brown leather chair that made me feel like Alice in Wonderland, he relit his pipe. The familiar smell of cherry tobacco filled the room. He waved off my escorts. “You can leave us.”
They grunted and left. I fleetingly wondered what I should say. Nice to see you? It wasn’t. I’ve been thinking of you? I’d been trying not to.
Fortunately, Herr Cabazon took the question off the table. “I have a . . . situation that I believe you can help me with. I have a nephew, Jorge Maldonado, who is in a bit of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I suspected it was deportation trouble.
I was about to tell him that I didn’t practice immigration law when he continued. “He’s been arrested for murder.”
If murder charges qualified as “a bit” of trouble, I wondered what Cabazon would call “a lot” of trouble. I took a wild guess. “Gang related?”
He frowned as he took a pull on his pipe. “I doubt it. Though my sources tell me the victim belonged to the Playboy Rollin’ 60s, my nephew is not a gang member.”
I wondered who his sources were and whether any of them were cops. Probably. “Did you talk to your nephew about it?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked whether he wore Spanx under his Hugo Boss slacks. “Of course not. He is in custody.”
I tried to keep the impatient look off my face. Of course, I knew Cabazon wouldn’t want to risk showing his face at a prison, and he couldn’t talk on the phone: every word would be monitored. “I meant before he got arrested.”
Cabazon’s expression darkened. “I never had the chance. He got arrested at the scene of the crime.” His features softened. “Jorge is like a son to me. My wife and I took him in when he was only six, when his father—my brother—was deported back to Honduras.” Cabazon opened a manila folder on his desk and slid a photo over to me.
I picked it up. It showed a young girl—late teens, maybe early twenties—medium pretty with a round face; narrow blue eyes; and chin-length, shaggy, blonde, overprocessed hair with black roots. She wore heavy black eyeliner and pale-pink lip gloss. Her rosebud lips were curved up in a smile that revealed a gap between her two front teeth. “Who is this?”
Cabazon slid the folder over to me. “According to the police reports, she is Tracy Gopeck. The state’s primary eyewitness and the only one who identified Jorge as the shooter.”
I flipped open the manila folder. Sure enough, there was a police report. How Cabazon had managed to get it was a worrisome question. But it paled in comparison with what I knew he was about to ask me to do.
“My people have tried to find her on the Internet, but she does not seem to exist. And I cannot send them out to look for her, because she might be in protective custody.” His people couldn’t afford to poke around where cops were involved. “I need you to find her and tell me where she is located.” He tapped his pipe on a small gold-rimmed dish and gave me an icy smile. “I do not believe that should be too difficult for a lawyer and her detective father.”
I wanted to tell him to shove that folder up his ass. I wanted to tell him I didn’t care that he’d unleash the Orozcos on me. But even if I was willing to risk it, that didn’t mean the carnage would stop with me. What would he do to Dale? And why should this velociraptor stop at Dale? There was no reason to think he wouldn’t go after Michy—and Alex. I was boxed in. Just as he’d intended. My only move for now was to go along with it. “I’ll do what I can.”
Cabazon’s look said he didn’t like that answer. “You have two weeks to get me that address.”
Shit! Two weeks? To find someone who’d managed to fly under the Internet radar? Who might be in protective custody?
And even if I could, I knew what would happen next.
Tracy Gopeck would be dead.
FIFTEEN
It was past ten o’clock by the time Cabazon’s baboons dropped me back at the office. I needed to tell Dale what we were facing, but I was so drained after the constant ebb and flow of adrenaline that I couldn’t muster the strength to call him. I drove home, got into the shower, and scrubbed my skin till it burned to get the stink of Cabazon’s evil off me. Then I fell into bed and passed out.
By the time I woke up it was almost seven a.m. For a change, I’d had a dreamless sleep. I guessed the antidote for nightmares about one monster was the waking reality of another one.
I flipped through the calendar on my phone to see what I had planned for the day. I had an appearance downtown on a burglary case at nine a.m. Jail overcrowding had persuaded the judge to release my client, Earl Haggar, on his own recognizance. This naturally meant that Earl, a major-league doper, was in no big hurry to resolve his case. So when the DA offered a midterm sentence of four years—not bad considering Earl had been caught inside the victim’s house holding a fistful of watches (not even Rolexes or Piagets, just a couple of Invictas and Timexes)—he’d said he wanted to “ponder” the deal. I’d gotten him a continuance until today’s date. But I’d warned him that if he blew his appearance, the deal would be gone, and we’d have to go to trial, which would very likely mean he’d wind up with six years.
This appearance was perfect timing. Dale worked just a few blocks away in the Police Administration Building, AKA the PAB (a name so banal it bordered on the ironic), and I needed to talk to him in person about our Cabazon problem. I might be paranoid, but I didn’t want to risk texting, e-mailing, or talking about this on the phone. Better paranoid than arrested.
I drove to court, inwardly chanting for Earl to: (a) show up on time, (b) be sober, and (c) take the deal. Of course (a) was a nonstarter. Nine a.m. was the equivalent of four a.m. for Earl. He
didn’t show up until almost ten thirty. At which time his red eyes, cotton mouth, and sloppy smile told me that (b) was also a nonstarter. Could my wish for (c) possibly, against all odds, come true?
Before I could ask him, the judge called our case and asked whether “Mr. Haggar is planning to accept the prosecutor’s most generous offer?”
I was about to ask for more time to discuss the matter with my client, but Earl had other ideas. He spoke in a slow, sleepy rumble. “I been thinking about it, Your Honor, and I just . . . I don’t think the offer’s all that generous. ’Specially since the guy ripped me off for an ounce of Kush.”
The victim was a customer? That was news to me, but the DA didn’t look surprised, and he wasn’t jumping up to claim it was a lie. Time to capitalize. “Your Honor, we believe we have an argument that this was a claim of right. The so-called victim owed my client money. He didn’t have it, so he said he’d pay in property like . . . watches.”
The DA, a young one, looked perplexed. “I . . . uh, I don’t think that qualifies as a claim of right defense, Your Honor.”
He was right. It didn’t. But the judge looked a little confused, too. This was delightful. Full speed ahead. “Actually, it does. And in any case, I certainly intend to extensively cross-examine the victim about his dealings with my client.” The judge was nodding. Excellent. I decided to go for broke. “So in good conscience, I can’t urge my client to take the deal, because I don’t think this is a winnable case for the People. But I might be able to recommend my client take a deal for straight probation.” I glanced at the prosecutor to see if I’d pushed too far.
He still looked confused, but the confusion seemed to be giving way to resignation. The judge looked at the daunting stack of files on the bench that showed he still had a full calendar to get through. “Mr. Prosecutor, what’s your position? I don’t see this as a crime of the century if what I’m hearing is true.”
The DA snuck a look at me, then turned to the judge. He nervously licked his lips. After a moment, he said, “I guess I’m okay with probation.”