True to form. “Is that when you filed for divorce?”
“Yes.” I let her vent. It’s entertaining to wash the Lopez family’s dirty laundry in public and I realize she’s building an impressive case for her divorce proceedings, but the purpose of this exercise is to provide evidence that Eduardo may have been so angry at his ex-girlfriend that he killed her. Unfortunately, there is none. Our next option involves smoke and mirrors.
“Mrs. Lopez,” I say, “where were you on the night of Monday, December first?”
“At my shop.” She says she was there until about twelve-thirty A.M. “I like to work at night because it’s quiet.”
“Did you go straight home?”
“Yes.” She says she lives within a mile of her store. “I’m still living at our house, which is at Twenty-fifth and Bryant. My husband has taken an apartment at Twenty-fifth and Folsom.”
“Did you have any contact with Ms. Concepcion that night?”
“None.”
I didn’t expect her to say that she bumped into her in the alley behind her apartment just before she went upstairs and killed her. “Did you speak to your husband that evening?”
“We had a telephone conversation around eight o’clock. We were trying to work out a time to get together with our lawyers to iron out the final details of our divorce settlement.”
McNulty stands and says, “I fail to see the relevance of this questioning.”
Judge Tsang says, “I’m inclined to agree with Mr. McNulty.”
So am I. “Just a couple more questions,” I say.
He gives me the benefit of the doubt. “Proceed.”
“You saw your husband later that night, didn’t you?”
“Briefly,” she says. “I almost drove into his car as I was heading east on Twenty-fifth at about twelve-forty-five A.M. He was pulling out of the alley between Mission and Capp. It would have been pretty ironic if we’d wrecked our cars just before we were about to finalize our divorce settlement.”
True enough. It also places both of them within a half block of Concepcion’s apartment after Ramon left. “What kind of cars do you drive?”
“Matching Lexus SUVs.”
It still doesn’t place either of them in Concepcion’s apartment. “Your husband was coming home from work, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And he drove right by the back of Ms. Concepcion’s apartment building, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible he may have gone into Ms. Concepcion’s apartment?”
“Objection,” McNulty says. “Speculative.”
“Sustained.”
I can place her husband within striking distance of Concepcion’s apartment after Ramon left, but that’s as far as I can go. I probe for another minute, but she can’t provide any additional details regarding his whereabouts that night. McNulty passes on cross-exam.
The judge looks at his watch and asks me to call my next witness.
It’s time to rock and roll. “The defense calls Eduardo Lopez,” I say.
Chapter 49
“Mutual Decisions Generally Don’t Involve Baseball Bats”
“Defense attorneys for Father Ramon Aguirre have placed Eduardo Lopez in the alley behind Maria Concepcion’s apartment on the morning she died.”
— KGO-Radio. Monday, December 15. 3:00 P.M.
Eduardo Lopez strokes his neatly-trimmed beard and nods politely to the judge after he’s sworn in. He could pass for a lawyer at Shanahan’s firm. The silk shirt and designer tie have been replaced by an executive ensemble from Brooks Brothers. He exudes a serene self confidence as he sits in the witness box and I approach him with caution. This may be akin to wrestling a rattlesnake. He’s been lurking outside and I wanted to question him before he got debriefed by his attorney, an equally-dapper man named Alex Schwartz, who is sitting in the back row of the gallery. Everybody involved in this case has a designated spy.
I try to get him to lower his guard by starting with an easy one. “You’ve operated Eduardo’s Latin Palace on Mission Street for almost thirty years, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” No elaboration. He’s been coached to keep his answers short.
“You’ve been quite successful, haven’t you?”
I catch the hint of a proud smile behind the goatee. “My competitors seem to think so.”
His attempt to sound disarming falls flat. “Mr. Lopez,” I say, “we heard testimony earlier today from Ms. Mercedes Trujillo.”
“She’s an excellent employee,” he says.
In many ways. “Is she also excellent in bed?”
“Objection,” McNulty says. “Argumentative.”
It’s also insulting, but that isn’t one of the prescribed legal grounds for an objection.
“Sustained.”
“I’ll rephrase.” I approach Lopez and say, “You and Ms. Trujillo were involved in a romantic relationship earlier this year, weren’t you?”
No response.
“Mr. Lopez,” I say, “you’ll have to answer my questions.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Daley.”
“I’m saying Ms. Trujillo admitted that you were having an affair with her and with another woman–Maria Concepcion. Your wife testified that she hired a private investigator who discovered that you were cheating on her. The PI was gracious enough to confirm it.”
Still no response.
“Mr. Lopez,” I say, “this isn’t your restaurant where you call the shots. In business, you may call it bluffing, but in court, we call it perjury–and you can go to jail for it.”
His jaws clench when he says, “It is no secret my wife and I have had our differences and we are getting divorced. The circumstances are highly regrettable and I can assure you that’s all I intend to say about it.”
And I can assure you it’s nowhere near what you’re going to say about it. “Are you denying that you had an affair with Ms. Concepcion?”
“No.”
“Are you denying that you also had an affair with Ms. Trujillo?”
“No.” Lopez tries to take the offensive. “I fail to understand how this is remotely relevant to the issue of whether your client murdered Ms. Concepcion.”
I turn to the judge and strike a patient tone. “Your Honor,” I say, “would you please instruct the witness to answer my questions?”
“Your Honor,” Lopez whines, “my personal relationships are nobody else’s business.”
“Answer the questions, Mr. Lopez.”
“I had relations with Ms. Concepcion and Ms. Trujillo.”
The negotiations in his divorce settlement just became stickier. “Mr. Lopez,” I say, “Ms. Concepcion terminated your relationship when she found out you were also seeing Ms. Trujillo, didn’t she?”
“It was a mutual decision.”
Bullshit. “Mutual decisions generally don’t involve baseball bats.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your wife’s private investigator was keeping your office under surveillance. He told us Ms. Concepcion broke up with you and she took a swing at you with your Orlando Cepeda autographed model.”
“My office has no windows,” he says. “There is no way he could have seen inside.”
“Your office was bugged, Mr. Lopez.”
He studies my face to see if I’m bluffing, but doesn’t offer a response.
I add, “And so was your phone.”
His Adam’s apple bobs up and down and he glares at me through slitted eyes. If he lies, I’ll trot out Nick Hanson and make Lopez look like a buffoon.
Now that I have his undivided attention, it’s time to rumble. “Just so we’re clear,” I say, “Ms. Concepcion broke up with you in early September after she found out you were also seeing Ms. Trujillo, didn’t she?”
“The situation was complicated.”
“Not to mention the fact that Ms. Trujillo dumped you a short time later.”
McNulty stands up and
says, “Objection. Relevance.”
“Your Honor,” I say, “we are trying to establish the circumstances surrounding a very traumatic event in Ms. Concepcion’s recent past that will have direct bearing on this case.” Especially if I want to try to pin the blame on Lopez. “I would be grateful for a little leeway.”
The judge isn’t entirely convinced, but he isn’t prepared to pull the plug. “Proceed.”
I turn back to Lopez. “You were very upset when Ms. Concepcion terminated your relationship, weren’t you?”
“It wasn’t the conclusion that I had hoped for. I was very fond of her.”
“Did you love her?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“She came into the restaurant a couple of weeks ago.”
“Was she still angry?”
“She didn’t want to talk to me.”
I’ll bet. “How did you feel when you saw her?”
“Sad.”
“Angry?”
“A little.”
“Jealous?”
“There was nothing to be jealous about, Mr. Daley.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“She didn’t mention it.”
“Were you concerned that you might be the father of her unborn child?”
“I just told you that I didn’t know she was pregnant.”
I’ve made him look like an ass, but I haven’t gotten any closer to finding a motive for murder or placing him at her apartment. I say, “You’re planning to run for office, aren’t you?”
“I have made no secret of the fact that I intend to run for the Board of Supervisors.”
“If word got out that you were having an affair or were the father of an illegitimate child, it would have been a huge setback for your political aspirations, not to mention your marriage.”
“My personal life is not a public issue and it has nothing to do with this case. A lot of people get divorced.”
Tell me about it. “Did Ms. Concepcion know any deep, dark secrets that could have adversely impacted your political ambitions?”
“No.”
“Was she trying to blackmail you?”
“Absolutely not.”
It’s as far as I can go. “What time did you leave work last Tuesday morning?”
“Approximately twelve-thirty A.M.”
“Why didn’t you stay until closing time?”
“I had an appointment at the planning commission early the next morning.”
“Did you drive home?”
“Yes.”
“You drive a Lexus SUV, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Daley. It was parked in the alley behind my restaurant.”
“The same alley that runs behind the back of Ms. Concepcion’s apartment building?”
“Yes.”
“So you drove by her building after you left work, didn’t you?”
“It’s on my way home.”
“Did you stop at her place?”
His tone is a bit too emphatic when he says, “Of course not.”
“Did you see anybody in her apartment?”
“I wasn’t looking.”
“Were the lights on?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Was anybody else in the alley?”
“Just the guy down the block who restores cars in his garage.”
That would be Preston Fuentes. “Did you see anybody else that night?”
The corner of his mouth turns up slightly. “Ironically,” he says, “as I was preparing to turn onto Twenty-fifth Street, I came within a foot of barreling into my wife’s car.”
Ordinarily, I would be skeptical when the testimony of a husband and wife match up so perfectly–one might suspect they compared notes to provide alibis for each other. In this case, I find it unlikely that he and Vicky got together to swap stories. Moreover, the fact that they almost collided doesn’t place either of them inside Concepcion’s apartment. “Mr. Lopez,” I say, “did you kill Maria Concepcion in the early morning hours of Tuesday, December second?”
“No, Mr. Daley.”
There’s nothing else that I can do. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
# # #
“What now?” Ramon asks. The air of resignation in his tone has been replaced by the sound of abject fear as we’re meeting during the afternoon break.
“It’s only a preliminary hearing,” I say, “and we’re still in the game.”
“Barely,” he replies.
“We have two options,” I say. “Plan A is that we shut down now and put on a full defense at the trial.” I explain to him that delay is frequently a defense attorney’s best friend. “The upside is that this will allow us to interview witnesses and gather additional evidence in an orderly way. The downside is that nothing will be resolved for a year or two, perhaps longer.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“We’ll put the San Francisco archdiocese on trial right now.”
Chapter 50
“You Thought You Were Going to Win”
“Trials never go as planned. The best trial lawyers are masters of improvisational theater.”
— Legal Analyst Mort Goldberg. Channel 4 News. Monday, December 15. 4:05 P.M.
Dennis Peterson is wearing his Big-Firm-Hardass-Trial-Lawyer costume as he eyes me from the stand at four o’clock on Monday afternoon. The ace litigator from Shanahan’s law firm isn’t used to being on the receiving end of this drill and his demeanor suggests that he isn’t going to be especially pleasant about it.
I go right after him. “Your marriage broke up three years ago, didn’t it?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“My ex-wife and I found it was extremely difficult to live and work together.”
There was a little more to it. “Was infidelity involved?”
McNulty pops up. “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance.”
“Your Honor,” I say, “the circumstances surrounding Ms. Concepcion’s divorce are essential to an analysis of her psyche at the time of her death.”
“It was three years ago,” McNulty whines.
“I was divorced eleven years ago and I can assure you the psychological scars take a long time to heal.” Just ask Rosie.
Judge Tsang agrees with me. “Overruled.”
Peterson responds immediately. “My ex-wife erroneously believed that infidelity was involved,” he says, “but I can assure you it was not.”
Right. “Can anybody corroborate your claim?” It’s an unfair question–he can’t prove a negative.
“You know there is no way I can do that. You’ll have to take my word for it.”
It’s the right answer. “Your ex-wife had psychological and emotional problems that included depression, didn’t she?”
“Correct.”
“And she sought the help of a therapist, who prescribed antidepressants, right?”
“Correct.”
McNulty invokes a respectful tone. “Your Honor,” he says, “we covered this territory with Ms. Concepcion’s therapist. Unless Mr. Daley is prepared to offer some new information, I would suggest that he move on.”
“Mr. Daley,” the judge says to me, “you need to get to the point now.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” I turn back to Peterson and say, “You and your ex-wife were opposing counsel on a high profile case that was about to go to trial, weren’t you?”
“It would be a violation of the attorney-client privilege to discuss it.”
“I’m not going to ask you about any substantive legal or evidentiary issues, but I would like to know about your ex-wife’s mood. You were communicating with her frequently in the weeks leading up to her death, weren’t you?”
“That’s always true before a significant trial is about to start.”
“And the days leading up a high profile trial are very stressful, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
I w
alk up to Peterson and say, “In general terms, how was the case going?”
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