State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller (19 page)

O’Dell drove nearly sixty miles to Folsom
State Prison. He parked in the visitor parking lot and then braved
a downpour before getting inside.

He used his identification to gain clearance
to Cell Block D, which Rafael Santiago had called home for twelve
years. O’Dell knew that the one thing that kept prisoners going
during long stretches behind bars was making grandiose plans once
free. He was betting that a vengeful minded Santiago couldn’t
resist bragging about what he planned to do to Judge Crawford and
his pretty young wife when he got out.

If he had told anyone, it would likely be the
person Santiago roomed with for more than eight years during his
stint.

Nkaki Ahmad entered the room, a curious grin
on his face. The thirty-eight year old African-American was Muslim,
brawny, and shaven bald. He was serving life for beating to death a
man in a bar fight.

“Do I know you?” he asked, scratching his
forehead while handcuffed.

“Detective O’Dell, Homicide, Eagles Landing
P.D.” O’Dell approached him tentatively. A guard was outside the
door, but O’Dell wasn’t worried that the prisoner might try to
attack him unprovoked. Not when he was in cuffs and had stayed out
of trouble behind bars.

As it was, his beef wasn’t with Ahmad. Right
now, he needed the inmate’s help.

“That don’t mean nothin’ to me, man,” Ahmad
said acerbically.

O’Dell bit his lip. “I just want to talk to
you, that’s all.”

Ahmad narrowed his bulging, black eyes.
“About what?”

“Rafael Santiago.”

Ahmad reacted. “What about him?”

“I know you were cellmates,” said O’Dell.
“And you could be cellmates again...”

Ahmad twisted his lips meditatively. “Yeah, I
heard that he offed a judge and had some fun with his old lady. So
what’s that gotta do with me?”

“I was hoping you could tell me if Santiago
ever talked about what he was going to do when he got out.”

A frown creased Ahmad’s brow. “You mean
snitch on my Latino brother?”

“I wasn’t aware he was your brother,” O’Dell
said curtly. “But I do know that you two didn’t always get along.
In fact, I heard that Santiago cost you some time in the hole on
more than one occasion.”

“So what?” growled Ahmad. “That don’t make me
want to tell you nothin’, man.”

O’Dell’s ire was definitely being tested.
Be cool. You can still reach him
. He narrowed his eyes and
moved a bit closer. “A judge is dead and his wife was sexually
assaulted. We’ve got enough to know that Santiago committed these
crimes. I could really use your help by telling me everything that
he ever told you about this.”

Ahmad stepped back and thought about it for a
moment. “If I did happen to remember an interesting conversation or
two between me and Rafael about the judge,” he offered, “what’s in
it for me, man?”

O’Dell knew he had him intrigued. Now he had
to reel him in like a big fish in the water.

“I’m not going to kid you, Nkaki,” he told
him as the setup, “there’s not going to be any reduction of your
sentence. The information isn’t
that
valuable.” He watched
the hope seem to deflate from him like hot air. “But I do know that
you’ve been trying to get conjugal visits with your girlfriend.
What if I were to help arrange that for you? It could take some of
the steam out of these cold, lonely nights—”

“Yeah, it could.” Ahmad sat down, ready to
talk.

O’Dell turned on a small recorder. “I’m
listening.”

“Santiago couldn’t stop talking about the
judge,” Ahmad said, looking the detective straight in the eye. “He
blamed Crawford and that prosecutor for sending him to prison,
claiming he never got a fair trial.”

Grant Nunez tried that case, recalled O’Dell.
Obviously he was next on Santiago’s hit list. Fortunately for the
prosecutor, Santiago was no longer in a position to carry out his
threats. Still O’Dell imagined that Nunez had been spooked by
Crawford’s death. Could he have known he would inherit the judge’s
spot on the bench once Sheldon Crawford had been removed
permanently?

O’Dell contemplated that and Beverly
Mendoza’s involvement with Nunez, and the potential for a conflict
of interest in the Santiago case.

“Did Santiago ever specifically threaten the
judge?” O’Dell peered at the inmate.

Ahmad grinned. “Yeah. He said the judge would
get what was coming to him just as soon as he was released. Said he
would see to that.” He rubbed his head. “Even said the Mrs. would
be his for the taking.”

O’Dell groaned. “Would you testify to that in
court?”

Ahmad hesitated. “Hey, man, telling
you
is one thing. But sayin’ it in court is a whole
different story—”

“It’s the only way the information can be
useful,” O’Dell said, keeping the pressure on.

He knew an affidavit might suffice, but it
wouldn’t carry the same weight as direct testimony. And even that
would be viewed with much skepticism, considering the source.
O’Dell wasn’t sure he believed one word from Ahmad himself. Yet it
made sense. Guys like Santiago always ran off at the mouth, too
stupid to consider that it might one day come back to bite them in
the ass.

Ahmad seemed to get the picture. “Oh what the
hell,” he said. “I don’t owe Santiago a damned thing. He made his
own bed, let ‘em rot in it. I’ll testify, so long as you hold up
your end of the bargain—”

O’Dell saw this as a small concession. He
planned to call in a few markers.

Small indeed if it helped convict Rafael
Santiago.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Westside Deli was a regular hangout for
attorneys and hip young judges. Beverly agreed to meet K. Conrad
Ortega there as a courtesy and to see what type of strategy he
might employ in his defense of Rafael Santiago. She made her way
through the lunchtime crowd, finding Ortega way at the back. She
wondered if he had deliberately made her walk this far as a show of
intimidation. Or perhaps it was manipulation?

Ortega stood when he saw her. “Ms. Mendoza.
Thanks for coming.”

“Couldn’t resist,” Beverly admitted,
regarding the chubby attorney in a tight blue suit. “And please
call me Beverly.” It seemed less formal that way, which was always
strategically advantageous outside of the courtroom.

He smiled deceptively. “Call me K or Conrad,”
he said. “Take your pick.”

“I pick Conrad,” she said, shaking his clammy
hand.

“Heard a lot of good things about you,
Beverly.” He showed his whitened teeth.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,
Conrad,” she said wryly. “I don’t.”

He laughed uneasily. “I’ll try and remember
that.”

They sat, studied menus, and ordered. Beverly
went with the corned beef sandwich and grilled veggies, while
Ortega had a ham sandwich and fries.

“You know that you’ve got the wrong man,
right?” Ortega looked serious across the table.

“Right.” Beverly rolled her eyes as she
sipped her mocha. “Santiago’s about as innocent as John Wilkes
Booth was of murdering Abraham Lincoln.”

Ortega chuckled while wrinkling his nose.
“Don’t you think that’s getting a bit carried away, comparing
Santiago to Booth? Judge Crawford was hardly Abraham Lincoln,
Counselor.”

“Does that make his life any less worthy?”
Beverly challenged the attorney. “As far as I’m concerned, your
client and Booth are cut from the same cloth. Both are guilty of
heinous, cold-blooded murder. In fact,” she added for effect,
“Santiago may be even more atrocious. He added rape, sodomy, and
oral copulation to his list of bad deeds.”

Ortega’s gaze betrayed acrimony. “My client
is not guilty of the charges!” His voice boomed. “He was at home
with his mother when the crime occurred.”

Beverly laughed derisively. “You really
believe that?
Please
. Give me a break! We’ve got an
eyewitness named Maxine Crawford who has positively identified your
client as the man who sexually attacked her and shot her husband to
death.”

“But what
else
have you got?” he
questioned. “You’ve got no other witnesses to place Santiago at the
scene. No murder weapon, which means the
real
killer
probably has it. And you have no conclusive physical evidence
linking my client to the crime.”

Beverly kept her cool. She understood how the
game worked, aware that this was leading to something. Didn’t mean
she had to bite.

“The physical evidence will come,” she
promised, “just as soon as the DNA results are in. And we do have
one important piece of evidence that is irrefutable. Your client
has a lizard tattoo where his pubic hair used to be. Now I
seriously doubt that Maxine Crawford could have just conjured up
that interesting little detail about your client’s physical makeup.
Do you—?”

She watched Ortega squirm. “What kind of deal
are you willing to make?” he asked tensely.

Beverly pretended to think about it. “How
about a plea of guilty in the first degree to murder, rape, sodomy,
and oral copulation?” She let that sink in. “And, oh yes, let’s not
forget breaking and entering—”

Ortega shook his head, smiling grimly. “Give
me some slack, Beverly. I like second degree murder and second
degree sexual battery, dropping the other charges. This will put
Santiago away for a good while and give him the chance for a life
afterwards.”

A laugh escaped Beverly before she could
bring it under control. “You’re really good, Ortega. Maybe Santiago
should have thought about getting a life before he took away
someone else’s and damaged another in ways he cannot imagine. To
suggest such a plea bargain with such a straight face is
outrageous.”

Ortega bristled. “Frankly, it’s the best I
would even offer the man,” he said unapologetically, “considering I
believe my client’s being railroaded.”

“By whom?” she asked peevishly. “Definitely
not me! The facts speak for themselves.” Beverly shot him a hard
look. “My advice to you, Counselor, is if you believe your client
is
truly
innocent, then prove it in court. No deals from my
office!”

Indignation spread across Ortega’s puffy face
like a rash. “If that’s the way you want to play it—”

“It’s not a game and definitely not play,”
Beverly made clear. “It’s the way the system works when someone
commits a shocking and despicable crime and there’s an airtight
case.” Now she only hoped she didn’t have to eat her words.

Their sandwiches came. But by then they both
seemed to have lost their appetites.

* * *

On Saturday, Beverly spent some quality time
with Jaime. She had resolved to make sure her career never caused
her to lose sight of the most important things in life. Jaime was
at the top of that list. Followed by her father.

And Grant was not too far behind. It seemed
that he had left quite an impression on Jaime, though her son
hadn’t come right out and admitted it. Now she hoped to build upon
it, for all their sakes.

After going to see a movie in the afternoon,
they went to a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Beverly had always
been an avid reader. She had managed to instill a love for books in
Jaime at an early age. He picked out several of his favorite
mysteries, while she chose some nonfiction hardcover titles.

On the way home, they stopped at Burger King.
It wasn’t exactly Beverly’s first choice, but it was Jaime’s turn
to decide where they ate out so she didn’t complain.

While nibbling on a salad, Beverly couldn’t
help but notice the Hispanic man seated at the table near the
window. He looked strangely familiar. When he glanced her way, she
quickly shifted her eyes elsewhere.

Now where have I seen that face?

Then it came to her with alarming clarity. He
bore a striking resemblance to Rafael Santiago! So much so that the
man could have been his brother. He may have been a trifle shorter
and a few pounds heavier, if that, but if Beverly hadn’t known
better she would have sworn that they were one and the same.

But how was that possible?

Santiago’s background file showed that he was
an only child. Could the records have been mistaken?

Beverly glanced at the man again. This time
he was already looking her way, as if he knew exactly who she was
and wanted her to know it. Uneasiness swept over Beverly like a bad
cold.

Could he possibly be the man who murdered
Judge Crawford? The same man who then viciously sexually assaulted
his wife?

Had Maxine identified the
wrong
man,
as Conrad Ortega had insinuated?

Was he mocking her as he chewed on a double
cheeseburger?

Beverly took a deep breath and turned to
Jaime. He was too preoccupied with his ketchup coated fries and
Whopper to notice much of anything else.

When she turned again to look at the man, he
was gone. Vanished like a thief in the night.

Now she wondered if he had really been
there.

And, if so, had he really looked as much like
Rafael Santiago as she had imagined? Or had she unintentionally
prejudged him as a Latino male around the same age and build?

Could Maxine have done the same thing?
Fingered an innocent man?

Stop it!
Beverly ordered herself,
wiping her lips with a napkin.
Have you lost your mind?

Of course they had the right man in jail.
Maxine had identified him
twice
. He also fit the part as an
ex-con who had once threatened the judge’s life. Even the DNA
evidence they had thus far pointed squarely to Rafael Santiago as
being at the scene of the crime. There was simply no room now for
doubts.

Was there?

She finished off the salad, washing it down
with coffee; then waited for Jaime to finish his meal.

“This is so cool,” Jaime said when they were
in the car. He was listening to a collection of Latin hip-hop
artists. “Wait till Paco hears this. He’s gonna go wild!”