Against the Wind (22 page)

“Well, according to this,” I say to her, moving close now, close enough to smell her cheap perfume, “his blue Honda was in the shop that day. In fact he never got it back.”

“How could he?” she says, trying to show me and the world she’s no fool. “He got dead first.”

“That’s right,” I respond. “He did. But that night, the night you say you drove to the bar with him, he didn’t have a car. His was in the shop and by your own admission he didn’t rent one.”

I’m facing the jury as I finish my sentence. Their look shifts from me to her.

She squirms again. Hoist by her own bullshit petard.

“Damn,” she says suddenly. “How could I have forgot?”

“Forgot what?” I ask.

“That Richard’s car was in the shop.” She moistens her lips, ready to take the plunge. “See, what happened was, we
had
been driving around, but then he got busted like you said, so that night we hitchhiked.”

“Did you?” I ask dryly, turning to the jury. I love it, I just caught the state’s number-one witness in a bald-faced lie.

“Yeh. I mean, how else were we supposed to get around? You ever try taking a bus around here?”

Someone in the back of the room titters. Martinez bangs his gavel.

“You hitch-hiked to the Dew Drop Inn,” I say.

“Yeh. We did. I remember now.”

That would’ve been a sight. A long-haired freak and a girl who looks like a two-dollar hooker.

“Which means that when you told the court earlier you drove there with him you were lying.”

“I forgot is all! Don’t you ever forget nothing?” She’s sweating through her pancake, her underarms are turning black.

“You’re under oath, Miss Gomez,” Martinez reminds her. “It’s important that you remember as much as you can.”

I pick up the beat. “So when you said—when you told us all, myself, the judge here, the jury sitting over there—when you told us you were left without a ride after Richard Bartless was allegedly chased off by my client and his friends that wasn’t true, was it? You never had one to begin with.” I’m right on top of her. “In fact he left before my clients ever got there, isn’t that right?” I yell unexpectedly, my voice echoing.

“No!”

“Objection!”

“They never even saw each other, did they!”

“No!”

“Objection!”

“I mean yes!” she says.

“Over-ruled,” Martinez says sharply to Moseby.

“You hitch-hiked there, probably alone, or got dropped off, and didn’t feel like hitch-hiking home alone late at night. You’d rather ride on a motorcycle with a good-looking guy who was maybe a little scary, which turned you on. Isn’t that what really happened, Rita?” I’m going a mile a minute, she’s all wrapped up, no way out.

“OBJECTION!” Moseby’s mouth is spewing spittle, his face beet-red. He looks about ready for a coronary.

“Withdrawn, your honor.” I smile up at him, an I’m-sorry-if-I-went-a-little-too-far-but-I-had-to-get-to-the-truth smile.

“Keep it in bounds, counselor,” Martinez admonishes me softly. A rap on the knuckles with a wet noodle.

“Yes, sir. Sorry.”

“Continue, please.”

I get a drink of water, walk back to Rita.

“Let’s go back to the bar,” I say. “The Dew Drop Inn. You drink there often?”

“Depends.”

“On who’s buying?”

“Something like that. If it’s payday. The usual.”

“Have you ever gone there alone?”

“Yeh,” she admits, “sometimes. But not that night,” she adds forcefully. “Me and Richard went together that night.”

“Yes, you’ve made that point. Hitch-hiked there together.”

She nods. She won’t be so quick to volunteer information from now on.

“You started drinking at seven. That’s when you’ve told us you arrived.”

“Around then.”

“And you drank until you left.”

“On and off. I mean I wasn’t chugging ’em or nothing.”

“From seven in the evening until two in the morning.”

“Yeh but not all the time. I didn’t have all that much money. I had to nurse ’em.”

“Did Richard buy you a drink? Assuming he was there?”

“He
was
there and yeh, a few.”

“Anyone else? Any other fellows?”

“A couple might’ve … yeh, a couple guys did.”

“A few drinks each.”

“Yeh.”

“What were you drinking? Tequila?” An easy guess.

“Some. Some wine coolers.”

“Tequila with wine-cooler chasers. Maybe a few beers.”

“I don’t drink beer much in bars,” she shakes her head. “My kidneys can’t handle it. Just when I’m home alone is all.”

“So you stuck pretty much to the tequila.”

She nods. “I don’t get hangovers from tequila.”

“You must be a hell of a drinker,” I say. “Tequila from seven at night until two in the morning. I’d be out cold.”

“I can hold it pretty good,” she says, patting herself on the back. Like it’s an admirable trait. Actually, I’ve always thought so myself. Maybe I’d better take another look at that.

“Sounds like it,” I tell her. “Although with that much tequila in you I can understand why it might’ve been hard to remember whether you drove there that night or hitch-hiked. That much tequila in me I doubt I could remember my name, let alone anything that happened that night at all.”

“I can remember,” she says defiantly. “I can remember good enough.”

“So you’ve said,” I reply. “Before the night in question,” I ask, shifting gears again, “when was the last time you were in the Dew Drop?”

She purses her eyebrows in concentration.

“I think … I’m not sure.”

“The night before?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember everything I ever did every single day.”

“It’s possible.”

“Yeh, I guess.”

“If I were to produce witnesses that positively placed you there the night before would that help refresh your memory?”

She licks her lips again. Her lipstick’s cracking. The prosecution should request a recess, fix her up. She isn’t making a favorable impression on the jury.

“Now that I think about it,” she admits, “I’m pretty sure I was there then.”

“It’s your regular hangout, isn’t it.”

“More or less,” she answers. “I ain’t no barfly though if that’s what you’re getting at.”

I shake my head ‘no.’ “I’m just trying to establish some of your patterns, Miss Gomez. Your social behavior as it were.” I lean towards her, then almost recoil. That perfume’s hard to take, the daily effect has to be giving Martinez one hell of a headache.

“So you were there the night before,” I continue.

She nods. Martinez instructs the jury that’s a ‘yes.’

“With Richard, another friend, by yourself? What?”

“Just me. I couldn’t find nobody to go with me.”

“But you found somebody to leave with you, didn’t you?”

“Objection! This is completely irrelevant, your honor,” Moseby whines.

Martinez looks at her, pondering it. I can tell that the more he sees and hears her, the less he believes.

“Over-ruled,” he says. “I think the witness’s pattern of behavior is important here,” he tells Moseby. I like this; he’s using my language, he’s hearing me. “I’m going to allow the defense a broad field to play on,” Martinez continues. “If it turns out to be a blind alley I’ll reel you in, counselor,” he informs me.

“Thank you, your honor.” I turn back to her.

“You picked up a guy in the Dew Drop Inn the night before this alleged killing and went home with him, right?”

She looks at Moseby: do I have to answer?, she’s asking silently. He stares at her. His anger at losing the momentum is apparent.

“Answer the question, Miss Gomez,” Martinez instructs her.

Almost a whisper: “Yes.”

“Speak up so the jury can hear you,” Martinez tells her.

“Yes.” Louder, with defiance. “I went home with a guy I met in the bar.”

“Someone you knew?” I ask. “A friend?”

“I’d seen him around.”

“In the bar.”

“Yeh.”

“But you didn’t know him.”

“I’d seen him.”

“You picked up someone you’d never met before and went home with him and slept with him, isn’t that right?”

She hates my guts now, but she hates Moseby’s more. He didn’t prepare her for this. Of course, if he had, she might’ve had second thoughts about coming forward.

Too late now.

“Okay. I did. So what? They …” pointing at the defendants, “still did what I said they did. What I did or didn’t do some other time don’t make any difference about that.”

“How much did he pay you for sleeping with him?” I ask, brushing aside her qualifiers.

“
OBJECTION
!” Moseby is beside himself.

“Over-ruled.” Martinez is leaning forward in his chair, he’s definitely involved.

“How much?” I ask again. “You went to bed with this fellow you picked up in the Dew Drop Inn,” I say. “You had sex and he paid you. How much?”

She looks down at her shoes. “Fifteen,” she mumbles.

“Fifteen dollars?” I repeat. Jesus, talk about your low-rent trash.

“He bought me some drinks first,” she says lamely, by way of face-saving explanation. “He was a nice dude, I ain’t in it for the money,” she adds desperately.

The laughter rolls across the room. Jesus, somebody throw the poor bitch a life-rope. If it wasn’t my clients’ lives on the line I might muster some compassion for her.

Martinez gavels for order.

“Expenses,” I say helpfully.

“Yeh,” she says. “I lost a couple hours at work.”

“Girl’s gotta make a living,” I throw in flippantly. “Sorry, your honor,” I add quickly. Watch yourself, Will, I remind myself silently, you’ve got Martinez leaning your way, you don’t need to irritate him unnecessarily.

“Okay,” I sum up. “It’s now on the record that you frequent bars alone, you sleep with men you’ve never met before, and you charge them for it. In this state, Miss Gomez, that’s called prostitution.” A beat, almost as an afterthought: “have you ever been convicted for prostitution, Miss Gomez? Convicted for it?”

I glance over at the jury; nobody’s asleep yet.

She’s mute.

“Answer the question, please,” Martinez tells her for the umpteenth time.

“Do I have to?” she whines.

“Yes, you have to,” he says, not bothering to hide his irritation. “You have to answer all the questions you’re asked, not just the ones you want to.”

She crosses and recrosses her legs, shifting in the chair, trying to avoid the inevitable; her foot’s jiggling out of control, her shoe is in danger of falling off.

“The answer, please,” I say.

“Yes.” She finally says in a low whisper.

“How many times?”

“I … I’m not sure.”

I’m already back from the defense table with her record in my hand.

“Isn’t it true,” I continue, reading from her sheet, “that twice you’ve been convicted for prostitution? And two other times for soliciting?”

“You’re the one reading it,” she says.

“I take that for a yes?”

“If that’s what it says, then yes,” she throws at me in anger. “I said so, okay? You happy now?” Whining like a kid who’s willing herself not to cry.

I look down at her sheet again. My look’s for show, I know what’s on it.

“It says here you’ve also been convicted for public drunkenness.”

“I never was …”

The record’s in her face, my finger on the appropriate line. Her head jerks back as if I’m holding a blowtorch to her.

“You were never what?”

“It wasn’t all that big a deal. Jesus, people get drunk, so what? Big deal. I just mouthed off to the wrong people that’s all.”

“I know what you mean,” I say. “I’ve done that a few times myself.”

That comes out before I realize it. Martinez looks at me quizzically; I shake my head, press on.

“Something else comes to mind, Miss Gomez,” I say, almost as an afterthought. “We’ve established that Richard’s car was in the shop on the night in question. It was out of commission. Would you agree?”

“It wasn’t running, yeh, okay. I messed up on that, I forgot is all.”

“That’s okay. But something strikes me then …”

I face the jury as I ask the next question.

“How did the defendants get Richard Bartless up on that mountain? They couldn’t have gotten up there on a motorcycle. He would have fallen off.”

The room goes silent.

“Miss Gomez?” I prompt.

“He … uh … they … uh … they stole a car,” she blurts out.

“They did
what
?”

“I forgot about that,” she says. “They took one of the cars that was in the motel parking lot and they hot-wired it and that’s how they did it. Got Richard and me up there.”

I look at Martinez, at the jury, at the prosecution table. They’re all staring at her in disbelief.

“Miss Gomez.” Judge Martinez leans down from his perch. To say he’s concerned is the understatement of the month. “How is it that in all your testimony up until now you’ve never mentioned this?”

“’Cause I forgot,” she whines. “They’d raped me, they had a knife on me, they had Richard all tied up, I thought they were going to kill me, I didn’t remember.” She’s bordering on hysteria. “What difference does it make how they got us up there? They did, ain’t that what all’s important?”

“And what happened to this quote stolen car unquote?” I ask her. “It flew away or something?”

Moseby’s fidgeting like crazy. He blew this one, and he knows it.

“They brought it back,” she says. “Left it out back, I guess.”

“Just brought it back? Miss Gomez … I hope you won’t find my saying this the least bit insensitive, but doesn’t this sound a little ridiculous to you as you hear yourself say it?”

“I don’t much
remember!
” she cries out. “I’d just watched them mutilate and kill a man. I wasn’t paying attention to no goddam car!”

Despite that sympathy-grabbing outburst, by the time I’ve finished my cross and Martinez puts us in recess until the morning, I’m feeling pretty good. She’s a shabby piece of work: a public liar, drunk, and whore. Pretty hard to send four men to Death Row on that kind of testimony.

IT’S BEEN A WONDERFUL
day, away from all the bullshit. Claudia and I were in the mountains all day, hiking when we felt like it, examining the high desert wildflowers, Claudia exclaiming on each one’s unique beauty in reverential tones, as if no one had ever seen that kind of beauty in these scrubby flowers before, the newest eye on the world. We caught our dinner in the river and cooked and ate it there, packing out our garbage, leaving as little trace of our coming and departing as we could. The sun was down by the time we drove home, the sky purple-orange across the mountains far to the west, our faces wind-burnt, sun-burnt. We played the Grateful Dead as we slowly headed down the winding roads leading back to town, “Truckin’” and “Uncle John’s Band.”