by Paul Levine
He looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. “It’s hell to represent a friend, Jake. It’s so much easier to take a fat fee from a stranger and give it your best shot. You win, you lose, you go on. Hell, we’re not paid to win, right, just to force the state to prove its case. But now, with you, I care. I want to win, but I don’t know how. They’ve got us outflanked on self-defense, and there’s no way to pin this on Jo Jo or anyone else. I lie awake at night trying to come up with theories and I don’t have any. Oh, I can cross-examine until the snow melts, but once the state rests, we’ve got to put on a case, and there isn’t a thought in my head.”
“Okay, I get it. We need to brainstorm. Just tell me what can I do to help?”
His smile held more sadness than joy. “Fetch me my brown trousers, Fritz.”
***
Sergeant Kimberly Crawford was assigned to something called the Spousal Abuse Unit. She took the third statement of the night from Josefina Baroso, driving her back to the station after Sheriff s Deputy Clayton Dobson and Detective Bernie Racklin did their work. Defense lawyers love to get prosecution witnesses on the record as many times as possible to ferret out contradictions. We had copies of all three statements, and there wasn’t an inconsistency in the bunch.
Sergeant Crawford took photos of bruises on Jo Jo’s thighs and ribs, and a shot of the face revealed a black eye. Jo Jo looked appropriately distraught, helpless, victimized.
Yes, Ms. Baroso was crying and moaning.
No, not about her injuries. Poor Simmy is dead. Poor Simmy is dead. That’s what she kept repeating, rocking back and forth in a chair down in the station, right here in the basement of the courthouse.
The photos were passed out to the jurors, who appeared more upset with Josefina’s black eye than Cimarron’s gray matter splattered in the straw.
The woman cop was on and off the stand in fifteen minutes, and the judge asked the prosecutor to call his next witness. I thought McBain looked a little too smug when he sang out, “The state calls Josefina Baroso.”
The bailiff hustled into the hallway and called her name. The jurors had been waiting for this. McBain was no dummy. Most prosecutors would have started their case with her. She could tell the story chronologically, and that always makes it easier for the jury. You also want to create a good first impression, and Jo Jo could surely do that. But if you’re clever and subtle, it’s a neat trick to save your star witness. Build the jurors’ interest with hints and clues and let them wonder. Who is this woman who launched a thousand fists? What does she look like? Is she worth dying for?
Even before I saw her, I knew. “Ten to one, she’s wearing black,” I whispered to Patterson. In her own cases, Jo Jo dressed her witnesses for maximum sympathy. Pluck the jurors’ heartstrings with a grieving widow and all the kids. When her witnesses gathered for lunch in the Justice Building cafeteria, it looked like an Italian funeral.
The heavy door swung open, and Josefina Jovita Baroso walked into the courtroom. She wore a flared black wool dress with gold buttons from its high neck to its hem, which stopped halfway down her black, knee-high crushed leather boots. The dress concealed her womanly curves and, combined with the sophisticated look of hair pulled straight back and a light dusting of makeup and lip gloss, spoke volumes of who she was, or rather, who she appeared to be. Her dark eyes were bright and intelligent and avoided mine as she strode on long legs to the witness stand. She nodded to the jurors, looked the clerk in the eye as she took the oath, smoothed her dress, and sat down.
I studied her. Now, here was a total woman. Here was a woman who had been assaulted, who had witnessed a savage crime, and who was ready to do what had to be done to right those wrongs. She was attractive without being seductive. She was purposeful without being pugnacious. She was here, not because she thirsted for vengeance, but because she sought justice. She was, in short, the perfect witness, which was precisely the image she had worked so hard to create.
Jo Jo recited her name, her address, and her profession.
“So you have the same job I have?” McBain asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Bonding with the witness, telling the jury: If you like me, you’ll like her.
McBain had her run through the life and times of Jo Jo Baroso, beginning with her family fleeing Castro’s Communist island when she was still an infant. Her father lost everything in Cuba and never adjusted to life in the States. He turned to liquor and gambling and eventually left her mother who raised a son and daughter by herself. She met the defendant while she was still in college, and he was a pro football player.
Yes, she became romantically involved with the defendant. “I was so young then,” Jo Jo said, almost shyly.
Making me sound like a cradle robber.
“How did the relationship end?” McBain asked.
“Rather badly,” she said. “I always pushed Jake to be better, to make something of himself.
True, true.
“He went to law school, and I like to think I had something to do with that ...”
Okay already, you saved me from a life of selling insurance.
“But I always believed in public service. I wanted to repay this country for what it gave me, a home, freedom ...”
Arroz con pollo in every pot. Talk about laying it on thick.
“And I don’t think Jake could relate to that. He had so much, and everything came so easy to him.”
Wait one gosh-darned second. I’m the one without a daddy or mommy.
“I wanted him to do something meaningful with his life, but he preferred hanging around with swindlers and con men, including, I am sorry to say, my brother, Luis, or Louis, as he preferred to call himself. They hatched schemes together, and Jake would defend him when things went bad. I was just devastated that my brother and my…my lover were involved in activities that ran counter to everything I believed in, so I cut myself off from both of them. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
“You terminated the relationship with the defendant?”
“Yes, I dropped him.”
Hey, who dropped whom?
“Did you lose touch with the defendant?”
“Yes, for several years. Oh, I’d see him in the Justice Building once in a while, walking some three-time loser out of court, but we no longer had a relationship. Then, I ran into him when he was defending my brother in a fraud case. After the trial, I learned how they ingratiated themselves into Simmy’s…Mr. Cimarron’s venture.”
“You’re talking about Rocky Mountain Treasures, Inc.?”
“Yes. It was Simmy’s dream. Buried treasure. I know it sounds foolish, but it was part of his love of the old West. He knew most of the legends were just that, but he believed some were true, and he wanted to explore. He had studied the old maps and diaries, and he would talk about it for hours. It was my brother’s idea to raise money through a public sale of stock. Unfortunately, he and Jake embezzled money from the cash Simmy put up.”
“Objection!” Patterson thundered. “There’s been no predicate laid for such a conclusion. The testimony is prejudicial and inflammatory and should be stricken.”
“Sustained. The jury will disregard the last remark of the witness.”
Sure. Just try.
“What did Mr. Cimarron tell you concerning the stock sale and Mr. Lassiter’s involvement?”
“Objection, hearsay!”
“Not at all, Your Honor,” McBain replied. “It’s not coming in for the truth of the statement. Perhaps Mr. Cimarron was wrong about Mr. Lassiter. It doesn’t matter. The statement is coming in to show what Mr. Cimarron believed, and once that belief was communicated to Mr. Lassiter, it is relevant to the issue of Mr. Lassiter’s intent to commit the homicide.”
“Respectfully, Your Honor,” Patterson said, “Mr. Cimarron’s state of mind is not at issue here. It doesn’t matter what he—”
“Overruled. I’ll give the state some leeway here.”
“Simmy said that Jake sto
le seventy-five thousand dollars from him, but even worse, he helped my brother in the stock scam. They defrauded investors and threatened the existence of the company.”
“Were you present at a conversation between Mr. Cimarron and Mr. Lassiter to that effect?”
“Yes. Last June, in my house in Miami.”
If that was a “conversation,” Ah versus Frazier was a tea party.
“And what transpired?”
“Simmy and Jake exchanged words ...”
To say nothing of fists.
“Simmy accused Jake of stealing. Jake hit Simmy, but Simmy is…that is, was…quite large and very strong. He got the best of Jake that time.”
Her voice cracked on the last words, and her eyes teared.
Judge Witherspoon was looking at his watch, and McBain was thumbing through his notes. It was a few minutes before six and had been a long day, at least for me.
“Perhaps this would be a good place to recess,” the judge said. “Your witness can resume at nine in the morning.”
“Just one more question, Your Honor.”
A lawyer promising to ask only one question is like a kid promising to eat only one jelly bean.
The judge nodded, and McBain came closer to the witness stand. “Ms. Baroso, I seem to have quite forgotten to ask something. What was your relationship with the deceased?”
Her voice was as soft as a fluttering snowflake. “He was my hus ...”
That’s funny. For a second, I thought she said ole Kit was her…
“Please keep your voice up for the jury, ma’am.”
“Kit Carson Cimarron was my husband,” she said, in a strong, proud voice. “I am his widow.”
CHAPTER 25
YOUR MONEY AND YOUR WIFE
My brain trust couldn’t agree whether to lather the margarita glasses with salt, so how could I expect coherent advice on cross-examining Josefina Baroso? We were in the kitchenette of Granny’s double-wide, the four of us scrunched onto stools at the Formica counter.
“That girl’s lying through her teeth,” Granny said, as she squeezed limes the old-fashioned way, in her clenched fists. “She never got hitched to that cowboy, or Jake would know about it.”
“McBain showed me the marriage certificate,” Patterson said, glumly. “A civil ceremony in Nevada six years ago. Uh, no salt on mine, please. Watching my blood pressure.”
Granny growled and kept squeezing. “Six years! Criminy, Jake, you been sniffing after a married woman.” Now she poured tequila into the juice. “You like yours with a dash of Triple Sec or Cointreau?”
“The bottle of tequila will do just fine, Granny, and I broke up with her before she met him. It just beats me why she kept the marriage a secret.”
“Maybe the cowboy was already married,” Granny said conspiratorially.
“Yeah,” Kip chimed in, digging into a bowl of chocolate ice cream. “Maybe he was a bigamist, like Clifton Webb in The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker.
“Nothing so sinister,” Patterson said. “He wanted to live out west and dig for Coronado’s gold. She wanted to prosecute criminals in Miami. They tied the knot but didn’t tell anybody. She kept her name and her job. For the first couple of years, they’d fly back and forth every few weeks, but that got old. They began to see each other less. I suppose you could say they separated, except they did that right after the honeymoon. But they kept getting back together over the years. Essentially, what you had were two strong-willed people who were drawn to each other, but neither one would budge on geography or lifestyle.”
“So why’d she invite me to her bed in Miami six months ago?
“It never happened,” Patterson said.
“I need that tequila, right now, Granny.” I turned back to my lawyer. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When the widow lady testified today, did you hear anything about her exchanging bodily fluids with you?”
“No, she just said I was at her house, and Cimarron and I had a conversation. Then I hit him but lost a fistfight, something like that.”
“And you want me to get her to admit on cross that she was in bed with you when Cimarron broke in?”
“Of course I do, and for lots of reasons starting with destroying her credibility. She’s going to testify I sexually assaulted her in the barn, right?”
“About a dozen hours from now.”
“Well, why would I have to attack her if she was a willing bedmate?’’
“You wouldn’t, so she must deny the sexual interlude ever took place.”
“Well, I’ll say it did,” I said, somewhat petulantly.
“Did Josefina ever tell Socolow that Cimarron rousted you from her bed?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did you?”
“No. I don’t kiss and tell, but I figured he knew what was going on.”
“Yet, he cannot dispute her testimony, can he?”
I didn’t answer, so he asked another question. “How did Cimarron get into the house?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep at the time. There was no sign of forced entry.”
“Well then, I’ll tell you,” Patterson said. “He had a key. Always did. Had it on his key chain the night he died. As you know, he owned the house in Miami. Josefina knew he was in town. He was, after all, staying there with her. Now, you’re going to ask the jury to believe she invited you to spend the night when she knew her husband would be coming home.”
“So what the hell was I doing there?”
“According to Josefina, discussing Blinky and Rocky Mountain Treasures, waiting for Cimarron to show up for a meeting.”
“That’s crap! We were fastened onto each other like—”
“Jake!” Granny gave me her steely stare, “There’s tender ears on the premises.”
“Where?” Kip asked. “Hey, Granny, I saw Basic Instinct where Sharon Stone crosses her legs and puckers up--”
“Hush!” Granny commanded.
Patterson drained his margarita. “Jake, it doesn’t matter what the two of you did because I can’t prove it. You want to testify that you bedded her down in Miami, you’ll come off as a boorish lout who’s accusing the grieving widow of infidelity.”
“Infidelity? Who gives a flying fandango? She’s accused me of murder!”
“And I’m trying to keep you from proving her case.”
I took a hit on the tequila straight out of the bottle. It was intended to make me think more clearly, but it made my lips feel like rubber worms. Still, the outline of a thought was forming. “H.T., maybe it’s starting to make sense, now.”
“What is?”
“What you were saying the other day. She set me up, all right, starting with that night in the cottage.”
“Keep talking,” he said.
“At the time, I thought she craved my body. Desire under the mangoes.”
“Elms,” Kip corrected me. “Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins.”
“Boy am I stupid!”
“Don’t state the obvious,” Patterson said. “Get on with it.”
“Just like you said, she knew Cimarron was coming over. Coming home, in fact. She wanted me in her bed when he showed up. She wanted me to fight him. Who knows, maybe
Cimarron would be carrying a gun and one of us would buy the farm right there. If not, there’s always a second chance after she got me to chase her to Colorado. H.T., you’ve been right all along.”
“I have been, as surely as God makes little brown babies, but what am I to do with it? I can’t prove a word of it. I guarantee you that no member of the jury will buy it.”
Here I was getting pumped up, and my lawyer’s defeatist attitude rankled me. “Hey, Counselor, whose side are you on?”
Patterson looked hurt.
And must have been.
He didn’t ask for a refill. He just grabbed his wool ski cap, put on his orange parka, and headed for the door. “We’re all a little tired, Jake. I’ll see you in court.”
I d
idn’t tell him good night.
Now Granny was scowling at me. “You know, Jake, you’re a fine specimen of a man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you got about an acre of shoulders, a bushy head of hair, all your own teeth, and a by-God full allotment of mouth.”
“Okay, okay, I was a little tough on H.T., but I’m getting so frustrated, I feel like hitting someone.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Jake,” Kip said, his upper lip coated with a chocolate stripe. “If that woman’s saying bad things about you, no one will believe her. No one could believe you did anything bad.”
“Kip, I love you, do you know that?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to spend much time with you.”
“It’s okay. I like it here. The snow and all, it’s like Dr. Zhivago.”
“You been making any movies?”
“Can’t.” He looked into his bowl of melting ice cream.
Granny said, “He’s been afraid to tell you. In all the commotion, moving around and all, he lost the camera.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle Jake. I just don’t know where—”
“Hey, it’s okay. When’s the last time you had it?”
“That night in the barn. Maybe the cops took it.”
“I don’t remember it on the inventory,” I said, consigning the information to the repository in my brain where I store odds and ends that don’t fit anywhere else.
***
“I know this sounds ridiculous,” Josefina Baroso said, “but to this day, I don’t know if it was rape. It’s so difficult to explain. Jake forced himself on me, but ...I didn’t fight back. He hit me. He had before, so that was nothing new. He tore at my clothes. He told me he would have me whether I wanted it or not. He used to get like that, so full of anger, so violent. He just wore me down, and I let him. I just let him.”
With that, a tear tracked down a sculpted cheekbone. I felt my face heat up. The jurors were riveted to their chairs. No darting eyes, no coughs, no fidgeting. They just watched Josefina Baroso with empathy and concern for this brave woman. She was so damn good. She gave the appearance of trying to be fair. No, she can’t call it rape. Of course not, she never told the cops she’d been raped. A physical exam would have disproved that lie.