The Hidden Law (14 page)

From the dayroom, I heard Chuck Sweeny screaming for quiet, but his cries were drowned out by boos and catcalls. Someone skidded past the door sobbing. Unanswered, a phone rang and rang.

“It didn’t help that the cops came in like an invading army,” she said.

“What’s this about being fired?”

“Chuck blamed me for everything,” she said. “And told me to get my ass out of here.” She managed a limp smile. “Under the circumstances, that doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”

“Does he have that authority?”

She looked at me raggedly. “Now is not the time to test it. Look,” she continued, “this is really bad for the house, all of it. The fact that Chuck let Gus use the house as a front, Michael’s arrest, the police. It’s going to take a long time for SafeHouse to recover from this, if it ever does.”

“What about Michael? Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

“No. I called you thinking you could get to him.”

“I don’t know, Edith. I talked to Carolina Ruiz, and she more or less fired me. I can’t really hold myself out as his lawyer at this point.”

She stood up. “You have to help him.”

“Edith, there’s a limit.”

She grabbed the phone and started dialing.

“Who are you calling?”

“Carolina Ruiz,” she said.

I took the phone from her. “Come on, Edith, right now, you need to calm down. Let’s get out of here.”

She started to reply, but then swept a couple more folders into her bag and said, “Buy me a cup of coffee.”

I got her out of the house and we drove to a restaurant down the street. I sat her at a table, ordered coffee, and then went off to call Carolina Ruiz. The news of Michael’s arrest broke through her hostility and she grudgingly agreed to allow me to find him, making sure I understood that I was not officially retained. I called around the police department until I found out where Michael was being held. I left instructions that he was not to be interviewed or moved until I arrived, then I returned to Edith.

“Michael’s being held at the Beverly station,” I told her. “I have the family’s permission to keep the cops from beating a confession out of him.”

She looked up at me gratefully. “You should go.”

“In a moment,” I said. “I could use some coffee myself.” I flagged the waitress down. After she left, I said, “How do you know Michael wanted to turn himself in?”

“That’s what he told the girl at the desk when he came in this morning.”

I gulped some coffee, burning my tongue. “That’s not good news.”

Her face sank. “Oh, my God. You think he killed Gus?”

“That’s the implication.”

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“Well,” I said, “the cops will put him on a probation hold which will allow them to keep him until a hearing can be held. If they’re going to charge him with Gus’s murder, he has to be arraigned within forty-eight hours. In other words, they’ll have plenty of time to talk to him.”

“I really think you should go,” she said.

“You’ll be all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“OK,” I said, getting up. “I’ll call you later.”

The police station on Beverly was a squat concrete building, its gray facade completely unblemished in contrast with the surfaces of its neighbors, all of which were covered with gang
placasos.
Inside, it was blue walls and wooden benches. The grim visage of the current chief of police scowled at me from a photograph mounted on the wall. The counter was glassed in with bulletproof glass. The cop who was working it sauntered over to me and slid open a panel.

“My name is Rios,” I said, laying my card on the counter. “You’re holding my client, Michael Ruiz.”

He studied the card, slid the panel shut, and stepped back toward a door. He opened it, shouted something I couldn’t quite hear and a moment later, someone shouted something back. He returned to me, slid the panel open and said, “Gone downtown.”

“I told your booking officer not to move him until I got here.”

He gave me that you-asshole-can’t-you-see-my-uniform look that they were trained in at the Academy and said, “I said he’s downtown.”

I fumed, but said nothing, planning to take it out on the next cop I got on the stand.

At Parker Center, I was kept waiting twenty minutes until the officer on duty confirmed that Michael was there. It was another ten minutes before I was taken back to the interrogation room where I found him in the company of Detectives Laverty and Merrill. Michael had a black eye and his wrists were badly bruised. There was a strong smell of piss in the room and I looked at his pants and saw they were soaked. He looked terrified.

All my rage boiled over. “You people are fucking animals.”

Laverty bridled. “Watch your mouth.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I said. “You beat my client, force him to sit here in his own piss, and you object to my manners.” I took a step toward Laverty. He remained motionless, staring me down. “‘To protect and serve,’ isn’t that what your badge says? Who do you protect? Who are you serving? Your testosterone?”

“I don’t take that shit in court and I don’t take it here,” he said.

“What are you going to do, throw me out?”

His face reddened and he balled his hands into fists. I was dimly aware of Merrill moving against the far wall. Laverty threw him a sharp look, then said, in a tight voice, “You want to talk to your client, or what?”

“I’ll talk to him. Alone.”

After they left, I turned back to Michael, my pulse still racing from rage. He looked almost as afraid of me as he had of the cops.

“What did you tell them?”

“I didn’t tell them nothing,” he squeaked.

I sat down and drew a long breath. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little worked up. Look, are you OK? I mean, is anything broken?”

“No, man. I’m OK.”

“Good. I don’t think either one of us is in any shape to talk right now. I’m going to have them take you to the jail ward at county hospital to have someone look you over and I’ll come find you later. In the meantime, don’t say a word to anyone about anything. And don’t give them any excuse to hit you. You understand?”

“I understand,” he mumbled.

“Good.” I patted his arm. “Just do as I say and you’ll be fine.”

“You gonna leave now?” he asked in a scared voice.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just hold tight.”

“Yeah,” he said skeptically.

Laverty was out in the hall. I told him that I had to make a couple of calls, but would be back and to keep Michael there. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded. I found a pay phone and dialed a number that I had promised the man at the end never to use except in an extreme emergency.

“Chiefs office,” a male voice said.

“Let me speak to Captain O’dell.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Tell him it’s Henry Rios.”

“Hold.”

When the chief of police had been asked why the LAPD refused to hire gay officers he sniffed, “Who would want to work with them?” unaware that he rubbed elbows daily with a gay man, a deeply-closeted captain in his own office. I had been introduced to Cliff O’dell by my friend Terry Ormes, the highest-ranking woman in the San Francisco police department, when O’dell and I had both been up in the city over a long weekend a couple of years earlier. Since then, he and I would have a discreet lunch somewhere. I had become the sounding board for all the frustrations he felt over his split life. I had never asked any favor in return, until now.

“Henry,” he said gruffly. “This better be important.”

“It is,” I said. “You’re holding a client of mine in an interrogation room on the fourth floor, room number 418. He’s a suspect in Gus Peña’s murder.”

“I know all about it,” he said. “We’re preparing a press release. Jesus, how the hell did you get involved?”

“That’s not important. Listen, he was man-handled by the arresting officers, and he’s sitting up there in his own piss. I don’t exactly trust the investigating officer to respect his constitutional rights.”

There was a long, tense pause. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want him transferred to county hospital so a doctor can take a look at him, and I don’t want him fucked with in the process.”

“You must think we’re Nazis,” he said disbelievingly.

“Let’s not get into that,” I said. “All I want right now is for my client’s rights to be respected.”

“What’s the officer’s name?”

“Laverty, and there’s another one, Merrill.”

“Yeah, OK. Where are you calling from?”

“Downstairs, and I’m about to go back up. And Cliff, I want the murder book, and I don’t want any trouble getting it.”

“Don’t ever call me here again,” he said, and hung up.

When I returned upstairs, Laverty was still in the hall, talking to a good-looking man in a business suit who barely acknowledged me as I approached.

“Mr. Rios?” Cliff asked. “You the attorney?”

“Yeah, who are you?”

“Cliff O’dell, from the chief’s office. Is Michael Ruiz your client?”

“That’s right.”

“I took a look at him,” he said. “I think we need to get him checked out by a doctor.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ve instructed him not to answer any questions. I assume he won’t be asked any.”

“We’re all aware of the exclusionary rule, counsel,” he said sharply.

“I’d like the investigation reports.”

O’dell glanced at Laverty. “Make copies for the man.”

Laverty tightened his jaw. “Yeah, sure.”

“We’ll take your man down, now,” O’dell said.

A few minutes later, Michael was being gently led to a waiting car to be taken to county hospital.

B
ACK IN MY OFFICE
, I made a quick call to Carolina Ruiz. The news about Michael’s arrest had broken and the Ruizes were deluged by the press. I advised her to say nothing and told her to come to my office with her husband at four that afternoon. Afterwards, I phoned Edith Rosen and told her to come as well. Finally, I called a friend to cover for me at a court appearance I had in Pasadena after lunch, ordered a sandwich from a nearby deli, and settled in to read the murder book I’d obtained from the cops. It included the initial reports and follow-ups, witness statements, the autopsy, ballistics, and related reports.

The initial report contained a brief account of the crime scene with photograph and diagrams. Peña had been shot in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant on First Street. The lot was behind the restaurant, accessible from a side street by an alley. From a photograph, I made out a fenced lot reached by a staircase from the restaurant’s exit on the second floor of a brick building. The lot was shadowy, illuminated only by porch lights on the landing of the stairs and lights from the surrounding businesses. There was a big tree growing in the corner and a Dumpster pushed up against it. The lot was empty in the picture, but according to the report, there had been a number of cars in it when the shooting occurred. The police theorized from tire tracks in the alley that the killer had driven up, stopped in the alley beneath the tree, got out of the car, shot Peña, and then skidded out.

This was significant information. In a drive-by shooting, the shooter never gets out of the car. Under the cops’ scenario, the shooter had actually been waiting for Peña or someone to come into the lot and had hidden himself while he waited. I turned to the autopsy report, my eye falling briefly on the diagram that showed where the bullets had hit. Gus had been shot five times; whoever had killed him wanted to be sure he was dead. All in all, the killing suggested a degree of planning and premeditation not usually associated with gang shootings.

I kept reading. Despite the gang sweeps in East LA, there had never been a serious suspect other than Michael Ruiz. Included in the book was Chuck Sweeny’s statement, recounting Michael’s threat on Gus’s life, and his absence from SafeHouse the night of the murder. There was a list of people to be interviewed, including the Ruizes and Lonnie Davis. Also briefly noted was Edith Rosen’s consistent refusal to discuss either Peña or Michael Ruiz. Still, the case against Michael had been weak until the police got a break, an eyewitness.

He had surfaced over the weekend, a young man named Pablo Saenz who had been working as a busboy at the restaurant the night Peña was killed. Just before the shooting, Saenz had come into the lot to empty some trash into the Dumpster. He had seen a big, beat-up car parked in the alley, and a man leaning against it. He couldn’t make out the man’s face clearly, but he could tell that he was Latino, about five-seven, thin, and dressed like a gangbanger. Saenz had been in the neighborhood long enough to recognize potential trouble, so he had quickly dumped the trash and started back to the restaurant.

At the foot of the stairs, he saw Peña coming down, and he stepped back to let him pass. He heard the man at the car call out Peña’s name. Fearing violence, Saenz scooted into the shadows. From there, he saw Peña approach the man, and then heard the sound of a gun going off. He flattened himself against the ground and when the shooting stopped, he ran.

Saenz was an illegal, an immigrant from El Salvador. He had not come forward to the police because he was afraid that he would be deported. Eventually, the police tracked him down anyway and got his statement. From it, they prepared a photo lineup that included Michael’s booking picture from his previous arrest. The result: a tentative make on Michael. I looked in vain for the photo lineup. Laverty had neglected to include it.

The tentative identification was the most damaging evidence but also the most fragile. Saenz had told the cops he hadn’t gotten a clear look at the shooter. Despite that, he had identified Michael. It didn’t take much imagination to guess at the pressure that had been brought to bear on the man. Faced with the prospect of deportation, Pablo Saenz would have been more susceptible than most witnesses to the suggestion that it was Michael he had seen. Burdened by the need to make a quick arrest, the cops would have been none-too-subtle in making the suggestion. Perry Mason notwithstanding, it’s the rare case in which a defense lawyer can conclude that the police have arrested the wrong man. This was that case.