State's Evidence: A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller (36 page)

“On October twenty-ninth, your husband, Judge
Sheldon Crawford, wasn’t the only crime victim. Can you tell the
court what happened to you that night?”

Maxine sighed unevenly. “I was raped and
sodomized—” Her voice broke.

“
He
raped and sodomized you?” Beverly
turned her head and glowered in the direction of the defendant.

“Objection!” Ortega shouted. “She’s leading
the witness.”

“Overruled,” Grant said equably. Nevertheless
he looked at Beverly and said firmly, “I think you’ve made your
point, Counselor. Maybe a little too much, since we know who’s on
trial here. Move on.”

Beverly nodded without protest. “Did this
person do anything else to you?”

Maxine lowered her eyes shamefully. “He
forced me to...go down on him.”

“You mean he forced you to give him an orgasm
by putting his penis in your mouth?” Beverly clarified for the
jury, though she had little doubt the implication was loud and
clear.

“Yes.”

Beverly entered into evidence photographs
that showed bruises the victim had sustained during the assault.
They were passed around to the jury.

“Were you able to see the person who did this
to you?” asked Beverly.

“Yes,” Maxine testified laconically.

Beverly paused dramatically as she faced the
jury. “Is the man who shot Judge Crawford and brutally sexually
assaulted you in this courtroom?”

Maxine riveted her eyes on the defense table.
“He’s over there!” she pointed a long finger.

“You mean
this man
?” Beverly asked
loudly, stepping towards the defendant. “Rafael Santiago?”

Maxine gulped. “Yes, he’s the one.”

The jurors reacted, some appearing visibly
shaken.

Beverly produced eleven by fourteen inch
photographs of the defendant’s pubic area for the witness to view.
“Do you recognize any of these?”

Maxine cringed. “Yes.” She honed in on the
enlargements of a lizard tattoo.

“Where have you seen this?” Beverly
asked.

Maxine raised her eyes at Santiago. “The
tattoo is on
his
body, where pubic hair normally is. Only he
shaved it...”

Beverly identified the photographs as in fact
belonging to the defendant’s anatomy, entering them into
evidence.

She handed the explicit pictures to members
of the jury, all of whom appeared mesmerized and disgusted at
once.

“When you were being assaulted,” Beverly
asked the witness while the photographs were still being
circulated, “was the defendant holding a gun on you at the same
time?”

“Yes,” slurred Maxine, her composure
breaking.

“And did you fear for your life?” Beverly
gave her a knowing look.

“Yes,” the witness uttered emotionally. “I
did. Every second he was in me...on me...in my house...it was
horrible—”

Maxine wiped at her eyes in what Beverly
considered a prize-winning performance, but real nonetheless. She
knew the courage it had taken to testify against Santiago and to
relive the brutalities he had inflicted upon her and her
husband.

For an instant Beverly wondered if Maxine had
ever been afraid of turning State’s evidence against Judge
Crawford. Would she have actually testified against her husband,
had it come down to that? The same man who, in effect, had rescued
her from a life she would no doubt have just as soon forgotten?

Fortunately Maxine had been spared such a
gut-wrenching decision.

Beverly thanked her star witness whom she
truly felt sorry for in more ways than one.

* * *

K. Conrad Ortega lifted a manila envelope
from the defense table and strode directly towards the witness box.
Beverly watched as alarm bells rang in her head.

Ortega kept the envelope at his side as he
faced the witness. “Mrs. Crawford, you have testified that the man
who raped you had a tattoo of a lizard in the area of his shaved
pubic hair. Am I right?”

Maxine nodded tentatively.

“Is that a
yes
?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice raised an
octave.

Without another word, Ortega whipped an
eleven by fourteen inch photograph from the envelope and stuck it
in her face. “Is this the lizard tattoo in the pubic hair region
that you saw, Mrs. Crawford?”

There was a buzz in the courtroom as Beverly
jumped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor!” she shrieked. “I have
no idea what he’s trying to pull here. Under discovery, that
picture was
never
made available to the D.A.’s office!”

Grant furrowed his brow. “Mr. Ortega, you’d
better have a good reason for this.”

“Oh, I do, Your Honor,” he responded
confidently.

Judge Nunez ordered both attorneys to
approach the bench.

“Explain, Counselor...” Grant angled his eyes
at Ortega.

Beverly was as curious as she was vehement at
the defense attorney’s attempt to put something past her.

“Your Honor,” said Ortega, “the witness has
testified about this lizard tattoo being on the lower body of the
man who assaulted her. I have very recently come into contact with
some photographs that were taken by another attorney of her client
and
his
private parts. Since Mrs. Crawford is accusing my
client of having done these terrible things to her and her husband,
I am entitled to dispute that with evidence to the contrary.”

“May I?” Grant held out a hand for the
photograph, which Ortega passed to him, along with another similar
close up photograph of a man’s genitalia.

While the judge studied the pictures, Beverly
assaulted its highly prejudicial presence. “Grant—Your Honor,” she
corrected, “you cannot allow these photographs into this trial. I
have not had a chance to study them. For all we know, they could
have been faked—”

Ortega’s nostrils grew and his brown eyes
were hard as rocks. “I can assure you, Your Honor,” he stated
tautly, “these photos are
very
real!”

Grant furrowed his brow. “Who the hell is the
man in these photos?”

Ortega removed a glossy picture from the
envelope. Handing it to Grant, he said, “His name is Manuel
Gonzalez.” Ortega met Beverly’s eyes squarely. “I believe you two
have already met—”

Beverly’s knees buckled and she might have
actually fallen had she not found support in the railing beneath
the bench. She looked up at Grant, who gave her a disbelieving
gaze.

“He’s being held in a Wilameta County jail on
multiple murder and rape charges,” said Ortega. “As you can see,
Your Honor, the man’s a
dead
ringer for Mr. Santiago. No pun
intended—”

“It doesn’t matter,” sputtered Beverly,
dismissing what she knew to be true about Santiago and Gonzalez
appearance-wise. “Any resemblance between the two men, including
their shaved pubic regions and tattoos, is totally
coincidental—”

Did she really believe that?

It seemed unlikely that Gonzalez and Santiago
would put the same lizard tattoo in the same place on their bodies
and look like twins purely by happenstance.

But it was too much to believe that both men
were active participants in the crimes committed against the
Crawfords.

“Maybe you should take a look at these,”
Grant advised Beverly.

She viewed the photographs and quivered when
studying the enlargements of the lizard tattoo. It was distinctive
because of the color patterns, which were embedded in her mind
based on Maxine Crawford’s chilling description and photos Beverly
had observed of Rafael Santiago’s tattoo.

These photographs could very well have
been taken of Santiago’s private parts.
Even the picture of
Gonzalez himself was a virtual clone of Santiago. Had she not known
better, Beverly might have thought the two men were one and the
same.

Except that she knew for a fact that Santiago
was in the courtroom at that moment; whereas Gonzalez was presently
locked up. Making it impossible that there was only one man
responsible for at least four murders and two sexual assaults.

Aside from that, facts were facts. Rafael
Santiago had been positively identified by Maxine Crawford as the
man who attacked her and Judge Crawford and the DNA evidence had
backed that up.

Or had it?

Beverly mused on the expert testimony on DNA
and identical twins. But there was no indication that Santiago had
an identical twin. And no reason to believe it was Gonzalez,
appearance aside.

“I admit,” she finally told Grant, “that
these photos do show a
strong
likeness to the defendant on
trial today—in more than one respect. But they are
not
pictures of Rafael Santiago!” Beverly glared at Ortega. “To allow
the jury to see or even hear about these would seriously jeopardize
the case against the man who was identified by the witness in
two
separate lineups.”

“I tend to agree,” Grant said waveringly.

Ortega drew his brows together. “Your Honor,
from what I understand, Manuel Gonzalez has
confessed
to
killing Judge Crawford and sexually assaulting the witness!”

Beverly’s mouth hung open with shock. “That
can’t be!” she protested. “I questioned Gonzalez myself about this
case and he denied any involvement in the crimes.”

“That was then,” Ortega said curtly. “And
this is now! Obviously the man had a change of heart, developed a
conscience, or whatever. My client is entitled to be given every
chance to prove his innocence, Your Honor. Why not let Mrs.
Crawford decide for herself if she identified the wrong man?”

“We cannot allow this trial to be turned into
a circus, Your Honor—” Beverly tried to appeal to him, desperation
in her tone.

But it had apparently fallen on deaf
ears.

“I’m sorry, Beverly,” Grant lamented, wishing
there were some other way. “But he’s right. This evidence is
potentially too strong and too damaging to simply ignore. If the
witness rejects it altogether, then we’ll move on. If not, I’d say
we have ourselves a
real
problem here—”

Beverly could hear her heart thumping madly
as she sneered at both the judge and defense attorney before
storming back to her table.

Deep down inside Beverly knew she had no
solid ground to stand on. And could not expect Grant to bail her
out, lover or not. This was the only way to be certain the right
man was on trial. Or at least a first step in getting at the truth,
assuming they weren’t already there. A victory was not nearly as
important as justice being served.

She could not really live with herself if her
prosecution caused the wrong man to be convicted, and quite
possibly executed down the line. Even if Rafael Santiago was
clearly a despicable human being who deserved little mercy for his
past sins.

But did that make him guilty of the crimes
for which he was on trial?

“The witness will answer the questions to the
best of her ability.” Grant regarded Maxine judicially. “And take
as much time as you need—”

Ortega stood before the witness. He handed
her a photograph. “Mrs. Crawford, do you recognize this? It’s a
lizard tattoo...just like what you’ve described being on your
attacker’s body, just above his penis—”

Maxine studied the picture. It took her back
to that awful night. She remembered how he had made her put his
penis in her mouth. She found herself focusing on the tattoo as a
means to not think about what he was forcing her to do.

It was the same lizard tattoo, wasn’t
it?

She wondered if this was some kind of legal
trick. She hadn’t been able to make out what the attorneys were
saying to the judge. Did this tattoo belong to the same man who
sexually assaulted her after murdering Sheldon?

How could it not?

“Mrs. Crawford—?” Ortega hissed
impatiently.

“Yes, I recognize it,” Maxine uttered
tentatively.

His eyes pinned on her. “And what is it you
recognize about the picture?”

She gazed at Beverly, but Maxine knew
instinctively that she would get no help from the attorney. After a
sigh, she responded, “It looks like the tattoo
he
had—”

“You mean the tattoo your attacker had on his
pubic hair area the night he attacked you?”

Again Maxine paused, not wanting to say the
wrong thing, but under oath to be truthful. “Yes.”

“You’re sure about that?” Ortega pushed
her.

“Objection!” Beverly stood, trying to
mitigate the damage before it got any worse. “The witness is
obviously
not
sure she’s looking at—”

“Overruled,” Grant said lowly, refraining
from looking at Beverly. “The witness will answer the
question.”

“Perhaps this will help you,” Ortega said,
and he handed her a second photograph. This one showed the tattoo
from a slightly different angle and included the man’s penis.

Maxine looked from one picture to the other.
The penis she saw was flaccid and she could not remember her
attacker’s penis when it was not hard. But the lizard tattoo was
indelibly etched in her mind like a nightmare that wouldn’t go
away.

The photographs had to be of Rafael
Santiago’s private parts.
I wish I could see the face of the
person in these photos, to be sure
.

Could she have possibly identified the wrong
man as her attacker?

But when Maxine went back to her
identification of Rafael Santiago—first in a mug shot catalog and
then a police lineup—she was certain she had picked out the right
person. She would never forget that face and those eyes for as long
as she lived.

Or the tattoo of a lizard that kept her sane
in the darkest hour, even while epitomizing what that man had put
her through.

“Yes,” Maxine said with renewed faith,
“that’s the tattoo I saw on him—” Her eyes shifted towards the
defendant, as if to leave no doubt.

Beverly’s mouth dropped. She knew that this
bombshell threatened to blow their entire case out of the water.
And who knew what effect that might have on her career as a trial
lawyer?