My awareness kept fading in and out. When it returned he was walking away down the beach. His board turned and slipped in the foam about two hundred yards down. He stalked up to it, retrieved it, and turned angrily back toward me. A few people were standing around asking if I was okay, if I needed help. A motorcycle cop still in his helmet kept saying, “How did you end up in the water, sir? Can you tell me what happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” the surfer said, walking back up with the board under his arm. “Fucker took a swan dive from the Point Lobos cave. Try the bridge next time, asshole. It’s a sure thing.”
He sat down near the surf line, and I saw that he was fixing the leash between the board and his ankle. Before anyone could stop him he was wading back out. The cop shouted at him to wait, but the surfer had already gone prone on his board and was paddling through the surf.
“Who was that masked man?” I asked through clattering teeth, but no one laughed.
~ ~ ~
It took me the better part of an hour, sitting wrapped in blankets in the open back of the ambulance, to convince the cops and paramedics that I hadn’t tried to kill myself. I could see that they didn’t believe my version of events, which was that I’d leaned out for a picture from the cave mouth and slipped, but the surfer didn’t reappear to contradict my story or to say he’d seen a second person up there, and eventually one of the cops agreed to give me a lift back to Teddy’s car. It was still there, but the keys were gone and so was Christine. I pretended I’d lost them in the water and got the cop to drive me home.
It frightened me to think how I’d walked into danger, thinking all I would have to do was talk to him; maybe the police weren’t so far off in assuming I was suicidal. Why had I done that, kept putting one foot in front of the other when I knew where the path would lead? Simply because I didn’t want to go back to the car and face Christine, because I knew she wouldn’t be there?
My phone was waterlogged and useless. I took it apart and set it on the radiator to dry, then with difficulty stripped off my jeans and T-shirt and got into the shower.
The hot water stung my wounds. I had scrapes running the entire length of my body from the fall. My hip felt like a red-hot poker was buried in it, but nothing felt broken. Blood oozed from the worst abrasions at my hip and shoulder and elbow. I’d been in a few nasty bike crashes, though nothing quite this bad, and I knew that for weeks the slightest movement was going to be excruciating. After patting myself dry and slapping adhesive bandages on the worst places, I sucked air through my teeth and then as quickly and gently as possible dressed myself in my best suit, the one Tanya had bought at Nordstrom. The damaged skin and strained muscles had begun to tighten, making it hard to bend at the waist or reach behind my back. It was going to be a chore getting out of the suit later, but I tried not to think about that.
Luckily my face had not been injured. I was still pretty for the cameras. With my suit on, the only visible injury was an abrasion on the back of my hand, and I was able to cover that with a large bandage. I couldn’t stop shivering even after a shower and half a microwave pizza. I was so sleepy I kept having to pause and let my eyes close for a minute while I shaved, standing at the sink with the razor poised at my face. When I told myself in the mirror to get on with it the words came out thick. I should have crawled into bed and stayed there about eighteen hours.
Instead I went down to 850 Bryant to represent Ricky Santorez at his arraignment.
Chapter 23
The doors hadn’t been unlocked yet, and the hallway outside Department Twenty-Two was filled with reporters. I sidestepped my way through the bodies and nearly made the doors before they recognized me. Then it was all “Leo, do you have anything you’d like to say to Ricky Santorez? Do you have anything to say to the man who tried to kill your brother?”
When I reached the door I turned, at the center of the throng. I waited for silence, and then I said, “Since Mr. Santorez is my client, anything I might have to say to him is confidential. After the hearing I’ll have a few words for the press.” I turned and banged on the door with my fist, ignoring the reporters’ questions, trying to ignore the hands tapping me on the back and shoulders, though the contact against my grated skin brought tears to my eyes.
The bailiff opened the door a crack and peered out at me. “I’d like to go back and speak with my client,” I said, raising my voice over the din. “Santorez. He’s on the arraignments calendar.” He nodded and opened the door just wide enough for me to slip through, then closed and locked it again.
As I walked in I felt sure neither of myself nor of my purpose in the courtroom. Even after what Keith had told me, there was a good chance that I’d offered my services to the man who’d ordered my brother killed and that in doing so I was subverting the proper course of justice. Still, I wanted very much to be right. I wanted to be the one who stood in front of the cameras and told the world that the police had arrested the wrong man. I wanted to be the hero, the lone voice speaking out for justice.
I told myself that Christine had killed Marovich, had shot Teddy, and had set me up this morning: She was the guilty one. Or, if not Christine, then her father, or Keith—anyone but the obvious candidate, my client. Purging my mind of reasoned skepticism, I was intensely focused on showing as publicly and dramatically as possible that Santorez’s indictment was ridiculous and that the real shooter was still out there.
I was escorted through a reinforced door into the holding pen, which was crammed with defendants in prison orange, many wearing slip-on shoes. Someone had backed up the toilet, and the stink made me gag. I was just going to have to suck it up. At 850 Bryant, there were no cozy conference rooms for lawyers to speak with their clients.
Santorez sat in a corner of the bench that ran the perimeter of the room, as far from the unscreened toilet as you could get. I recognized him instantly among yesterday’s catch of the drunk and addicted and homeless. He wore an orange CDC jumpsuit, for one thing, rather than the usual county jail overalls, and he was the only inmate granted a two-foot radius of empty space.
I felt a churning in my stomach, thinking how Santorez had gunned down those cops, how someone had gunned down my brother in that restaurant right in front of me. “Just bang on the door when you want out, and keep on banging until someone comes,” the deputy told me. “Sometimes things get busy out here.” With a smile he clanged the holding-cell door closed, locking me alone with the inmates in that stinking, windowless, tile-floored space.
With the ease of a habituated prisoner Santorez stood and pumped my hand. “Man, you don’t look nothing like your brother. Or your father either, come to think of it.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
“I just want you to know, first of all, no matter what happens out there, I’m not forgetting about the money your brother owes me. And I don’t intend to forget it.”
“I understand. You’ve got to pay your phone bill.” The phone would be up his ass, or up someone’s ass. Probably a man in his position had a body cavity bitch. “We were talking pro bono, but if that’s your attitude we should probably discuss a retainer.”
“You already got my retainer. In the trust account, remember?”
“I don’t know anything about it. That’s between you and Teddy and whoever drained those funds.”
“How about you get me off and you don’t owe a thing.”
“I don’t owe you anything anyway,” I heard myself say.
He gave me a hard stare that didn’t have any trace of human feeling in it.
“I wouldn’t talk about the money in here,” I went on. “That’s supposed to be your motive, remember. You’re being charged with attempted murder. If Teddy dies, the charge will be murder.”
“I beat that charge once already. And that time I actually pulled the trigger.”
“You think tha
t means you’ve got nothing to worry about this time?”
“Not if you do your job.”
Teddy and I had never really talked about the Santorez case, but I knew it caused him more sleepless nights and stomach acid than any other he’d tried. I’d never seen him so relieved as he’d been the day the verdict came back. Now I understood why. Even Teddy could let only so many implied threats sail past before he began to sweat a little.
I meant to discuss case strategy, go over my reasons for doing what I was doing, make sure Santorez knew what he needed to know. “I’m only representing you for this hearing. I’m doing it because I think publicizing your innocence is the surest way to make the police start looking for the person who actually did this. I don’t expect them to drop the charges today, and after today you’ll have to find a different lawyer. I’m not experienced enough to handle a serious felony. Besides, there’s a conflict of interest. I think I explained all this to you over the phone.”
He held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear any bullshit. Whatever you need to say, I’ll say you said it. Just show me where I’ve got to sign to shut you up.”
I took out the forms: first, the one informing him of the conflict of interest in my serving as his lawyer; second, the limited retainer form establishing that I was acting as his lawyer for today’s hearing only, and that I would do nothing more than assert his right to a speedy trial and enter a plea of not guilty.
Making a show of not reading anything that was printed on the forms, Santorez signed his name quickly. “Get me off and you don’t owe me a penny,” he said, handing me back the forms. “That’s not written down here, but that’s our deal.”
And if you’re found guilty? I wanted to ask. “No lawyer could get you off today. But if things go well out there I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding an attorney. A good one.”
“Flies to shit, man.”
I slid the signed forms into a file folder and stood, but Santorez wasn’t done. He beckoned me closer, and like a lackey I bent to hear him. “I didn’t kill your brother, but I could have,” he said in a voice not quite low enough to be a whisper, his lips two inches from my ear. “I know you think you’re pulling a fast one on everyone, but you’re not pulling a fast one on me. You try to fuck me on this, I can hurt you, and I will. Anywhere, anytime. You remember that, Monkey Boy.”
As I straightened, my skin felt on fire, and the room tilted around me. For a moment I was back under the churning surf, being pummeled against the rocks. Then I regained the moment, though chills ran over me where the fire had been.
Without looking at Santorez I turned and walked to the door, banged on it, and waited for the deputy to open up.
Monkey Boy he’d called me. The anger didn’t come until I was safely out of that cell.
~ ~ ~
The clerk called Ricky Santorez’s case at two fifteen, after a string of short hearings scheduled for the convenience of the public defenders and DAs who had business in other courtrooms. I watched the public defenders with curiosity, wondering if I’d soon be joining their ranks.
“Counsel, please state your appearances.”
The DA had sent down one of his top prosecutors, Lou Ferrino. Beside him sat a young assistant DA and Detective Anderson.
When I stood and said, “Leo Maxwell on behalf of Mr. Santorez, Your Honor,” the courtroom was all hushed attention.
Judge Dowling looked directly at me, then turned his eyes away. A conscientious judge would have called a recess and summoned us into chambers. Dowling wanted no part of it. As curtly as if this were an ordinary case, he asked if my client would waive instruction and arraignment. I said yes, just as I’d seen every lawyer before me do.
“We’ll send the case to Department Seventeen for a trial date and put it on for a status conference there in one month.”
“The real show’s outside,” I told Santorez as I gathered up my folders. “Catch it on the news.”
He didn’t take his eyes off me as the deputies led him away, back to the bullpen and San Quentin. I couldn’t tell what his scrutiny signified. It was menacing, but there was vulnerability in it, as well. I wondered if he regretted threatening me. Then the door closed and he was gone.
Before I could move away from the defense table Detective Anderson came up. “You ought to join me outside,” I told him. “You’d make the perfect prop. They’d probably even put your picture in the paper.”
“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded. “You know we’ve got the right man.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then tell me who we should look at. Tell me who, if not Santorez. Jesus, Leo, your brother stole the man’s money. You don’t steal a hundred thousand dollars from someone like that and expect to walk away without consequences.”
Another attorney had approached the defense table. The court clerk called the next case. “I can’t help you,” I said. I was thinking of Christine again, of our night together, of what Keith had said.
Anderson walked with me toward the exit. “Can’t or won’t? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all along. Because it seems that if anyone knows what’s going on, you do. The question is whether you’ve got the guts to bring justice for your brother.”
“This conversation is over,” I told him as I pushed through the doors.
His words had stung me, though, and the sting would linger longer than the sting of the wounds on my legs and back.
~ ~ ~
The reporters were waiting for me in the hallway, milling around. I could tell they were thinking they must have missed me. As I came out, they converged, cameras held aloft, a dozen questions at once. I ignored them and stuck to my script.
“I have appeared on behalf of Ricky Santorez today because I’m one hundred percent confident that he is innocent of these charges. I would be dishonoring everything my brother stood for if I failed to speak out on Mr. Santorez’s behalf. This is not the time for the police department and the DA’s office to be settling old scores. The person who shot Teddy Maxwell remains at large, and I urge the police and the district attorney’s office to abandon their farcical prosecution of Mr. Santorez and focus their efforts on finding the person who actually pulled that trigger, just as they would do in any other case of attempted murder.”
It was considerably less than I’d meant to say, and my voice lacked the stridency I’d intended it to have. I wanted Santorez to be guilty and I didn’t. I wanted Christine tonight and every night; I wanted her behind bars. If only I could know whether she’d set me up, whether she’d waited for me to return from my walk down to the baths.
I walked two blocks blindly back toward my apartment, thinking that I would go to the hospital next and spend the rest of the day with Teddy, when an obstacle appeared in my path, a person standing rooted in the center of the sidewalk. I veered around him, and it wasn’t until he grabbed me by both arms that I recognized Car. “Let’s go for a ride, Leo.”
I saw Jeanie driving slowly along the line of parked cars at the curb beside me, hunched over the steering wheel. Something in Car’s face made me break free and run.
He caught me in five steps and wrapped me in a bear hug, killing our shared momentum with a few heavy-heeled steps. The Volvo was there. Jeanie came around to open the back door.
I let them him shove me into the car.
Chapter 24
“Consider this an intervention,” Jeanie said from the driver’s seat. “No more press conferences, no more court appearances, no more bodies, no more breaking into people’s houses and digging through their garbage. You’re going to spend the next few days lying low.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. We were on the Bay Bridge crossing toward Oakland. I stretched out across the backseat and promptly fell asleep.
When I awakened after a drea
mless interval we were on Pinehurst winding down through the oaks and madrone from Skyline Boulevard. We rounded the last switchback and were beneath the redwoods on the valley floor beside the creek. The afternoon light hung like a golden haze within the darkness of the trees.
The undercarriage of the Volvo scraped against ruts as we made our way up the steep gravel road. The plastic sheeting still clattered on the roof, and the Contra Costa sheriff’s notice was still stapled to the door, the paper wrinkled from the dew.
“God, what a dump.” Jeanie dropped her keys on the kitchen table.
It was cold in the house. Jeanie was in the kitchen making coffee. Car had gone through the bedroom to the deck and was smoking, staring broodily at the trees. “I offered a dozen times to finish it for him,” he said. “No sweat, couple weeks work.”
“You called this an intervention.” I waited a beat. “So intervene.”
Car stabbed out his cigarette. He went to the car and came back with a camera case. It was the one I’d found in Jeanie’s garbage. I’d left it on Teddy’s desk. He bent over the TV and plugged the camera into it. He was evidently going to show me what was on the missing disk, the one Christine wanted.
Jeanie handed me a cup of coffee, and set one on the floor for Car. “Leo, I can’t even begin to tell you what a huge violation that was, breaking into my apartment. I’m so angry with you about it I can hardly look at you. I was tempted to go to the police.”
“Call them up now if you want. I’ll admit it. Of course then you’ll have to tell them how you got the camera, and the disks might turn up, and they might look at them and ask difficult questions. Like what were you planning to do with them?”
“Enough BS, okay? Nobody’s calling the police, nobody’s blackmailing anybody. We brought you here to have a serious conversation.”
“Isn’t it funny how people use that word, have? Have sex, have a baby, have a fight, have a conversation, as if it’s just something that happens by itself?”
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